Biz-o-meter

When we weren’t partying like it’s 2012 at Notting Hill Carnival this weekend, the Startups team was kicking back, enjoying the bank holiday, and gorging itself on weekend papers and their associated supplements.

It’s a confusing world, the weekend glossies – and particularly the advice dispensed in the ‘hot or not’ columns. Our particular favourites came from The Guardian, which recommended a very...

By admin2 27/08/08 11:32

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Daley grind

The fall out between precocious diving impresario Tom Daley and his long-suffering partner, Blake Aldridge, is not, as The Guardian pointed out today, the first time a sporting partnership has ended in tears.

In fact, after Aldridge’s outburst against Daley – and I’m not going to go into exactly what was said, because his comments have been so well reported that it’s difficult to find a newspaper a...

By admin2 13/08/08 16:56

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It’s a wrap

Hell hath no fury like a bride scorned, and this morning has seen at least 20 of them protesting outside HSBC’s Canary Wharf headquarters after the bank decided to, excuse the pun but it’s just too delicious to pass up, wrap up online wedding list company Wrapit.

As the credit crunch claims its latest victim in the form of the company’s founder, Pepita Diamand; ‘sources close to the company’ have ...

By admin2 07/08/08 14:23

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Boris: I was wrong

This week, while giving a speech on the new, higher London Living Wage, our fair city’s great leader made an admission so unprecedented, it made the assembled company gasp. One woman fainted. Someone exclaimed. But there it was, out in the open.

Boris Johnson said he had once been wrong.

I know, I felt it too – that little flutter of hope, an indication there may actually be a politician out there w...

By admin2 01/08/08 09:18

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99 problems?

One of my earliest memories is standing in a shop at the age of about four or five, smiling coyly as my mother heaped praise upon me because I had just pointed out that the owners of Toymaster in Taunton were trying to deceive us by selling a My Little Pony for £2.99 instead of £3.

It didn’t change much: I still bought Starry Wings or Moon Jumper or whichever whimsical little piece of equine deligh...

By admin2 24/07/08 11:52

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Don't worry, be happy

Another week, another onslaught of doom and gloom. Property prices have dropped again, jobs are disappearing by the thousand, and the government’s coffers are empty.

Thanks to the price of oil, only the very wealthy have enough money to fill their petrol tanks – and even then, they can just about afford to get their BMW Behemoth to the end of the drive before running out of fuel, pounding their fi...

By admin2 09/07/08 14:35

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Every little helps

By admin2 26/06/08 09:14

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The grass is always greener

Greenwashing, the practice of misleading your customers about the ethical advantages of your product, looks set to become a thing of the past following the launch of the Carbon Trust’s new ‘Carbon Trust Standard’ certification programme.

The standard will only be awarded to businesses who ‘have made genuine reductions in their carbon emissions’.

Unfortunately, the Trust fails to quantify exactly wha...

By admin2 25/06/08 16:56

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Ain’t that a kick in the teeth?

Since the ban on fox hunting, it seems the Lords have been making fairly good use of their time.

In fact, they’ve managed to form a committee to look at how Darling did on his first Budget – or should that be, ‘to look at how Brown, who sat behind Darling and mimed the words all the way through, did on his last Budget’?

And their conclusion?

The whole thing is shambolic.

In particular – and we knew ...

By admin2 12/06/08 10:14

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Come fly with me

Kudos to the MOD. At least they tried. They really did have the intention of taking the eight Chinooks which, after seven years of ‘languishing in climate-controlled hangars’, have now racked up costs of more than £500m, to Afghanistan. It’s just that they didn’t have the instruction manual.

As a result of a succession of what Commons Public Accounts Committee chairman Edward Leigh has described as...

By admin2 05/06/08 10:03

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