The Apprentice fails to stay on message

In the run up to the new series of the £100,000 ugly business beauty contest that is The Apprentice, the programme-makers were keen to stress the “greed is good” mentality of previous years would not be repeated.
Even Sir Alan Sugar, top dog in the showcase of mongrels, made it clear that in these recessionary times the [...]

Will The Apprentice be credit-crunched?

Its back!
The Apprentice makes a welcome return to our screens in a week’s time.
So at least I know what I’ll be doing with my Wednesday nights for the next couple of months.
And at first glance, it looks like we won’t be disappointed. We will be exposed to the now familiar selection of caricatures, lined up to [...]

Manic Christians, Google catches cold, crunched celebs and dead parrots

Its been a hell of a week in many respects (more on that soon), so here’s a mixed bag of a round-up to usher in the weekend:
A poetry reading at a Cardiff bookshop was cancelled amid rumours that fundamentalist Christians were planning to stage a protest.
“Are we living in Iran?” asked poet Patrick Jones, brother of [...]

Power of positive thinking and genetic utopia

After Meltdown Mayhem Monday, I was determined that today should be Tantalisingly Tempting Tuesday.
The financial markets and pundits might disagree, but it has remained TTT in our house all day. So here’s a round-up to reflect the air of optimism that pervades this small corner of the West Midlands:
At the risk of sounding too much [...]

How much stuff do you need?

In these increasingly uncertain days of rampant consumerism colliding head on with the credit crunch, everyone seems to be telling us ways to tighten our belts and downsize our lifestyle.
So the 100 Thing Challenge offers an interesting twist for those looking to live a little more frugally.
I’m all for cutting out the unnecessary stuff and nonsense that [...]

The sums don’t add up

I’ve always been a words kind of person.
Numbers have never really floated my boat.
I can get by when it comes to maths and the self-employed life has certainly seen me using the number-crunching part of my brain far more in the last two and a bit years than in the previous two decades.
But the reason I’ve [...]

Will Beeny, Allsopp, Spencer et al feel the credit crunch?

As the big finance institutions get twitchy enough to meet with the Chancellor to discuss the credit crunch, many will be focusing on how it impacts on the property market.
We’ve already seen some of the ridiculous 100% and even 125% mortgages withdrawn as lenders begin to realise the folly of such deals now that they [...]

Digby’s gruff view of US business

The most belligerent Goat drafted into the Government by Gordon Brown has launched a scathing attack on US business.
Lord Digby Jones of Birmingham, trade and investment minister in the Government Of All Talents, has warned that the US is lagging years behind the rest of the business world.
He criticises the outdated belief that many within [...]

Credit craziness

How did you pay for Christmas?
A whopping £2bn was put on credit cards to pay for basics like food and drink last December, according to the latest figures. Total credit card debt increased by £300 million last year to £56.1 billion.
The Association of Payment Clearing Services (Apacs) reveals that the UK’s 31.5 million credit card holders spent £32.3 [...]

Egg’s scrambled message to “high risk” customers

At first glance the decision of Egg to withdraw the credit facility of 161,000 “high risk” customers seems a sensible course of action.
For a number of years financial services companies have been more than happy to extend credit limits, offer all sizes of loans and provide massive mortgages as we embarked on a spend, spend, spend [...]