As part of Channel 4’s ‘Alternative Election’ they have devised an online interactive application called ‘Chop or Not’ which allows members of the public to say what service areas of the budget they would ‘chop’ or ‘not’. http://chopornot.channel4.com/ No sign up is required and it’s designed so that it’s fun, quick and in the style of the popular ‘hot or not’ site. Everybody’s submissions are totalled and compared with your own results and you’re shown results ‘as you go’. The wider story is that through people playing the app, Channel 4 is building a picture of what the British people

I suppose it deserves a mention as there is no doubt it will have an impact on the finances of the country. I do however believe that politics and religion are two subjects which need to be discussed with care and it does not pay to take sides if it’s a quiet life you’re after. So, I’m not going to take sides but when diplomacy fails… The main reason for writing about the forthcoming election is not to mock the process or the candidates (ow! I’ve bitten my tongue already..) but instead to mention the effect that televising the debates for

Every now and again I receive news and articles about new products and offers people would like me to mention in my blog. This one’s actually a pretty good idea and will do it’s bit towards keeping the economy going and saving people money at the same time, bonus! An app that sends you vouchers to your phone that you can redeem in stores just by showing your phone. Vouchercloud is a new iPhone app available for free from the iPhone app store. Sadly however, I can’t rate it because I went for a windows phone instead of an iPhone

I don’t have an iPhone. I know people who do but I am used to having a half decent camera with a flash on my phone and I couldn’t convince myself that all the other features of the iPhone outweighed the lack of a decent camera. So I went for the HTC HD2 which some people have dubbed an ‘iPhone Killer’ but mostly by people who don’t like the thought of any one product being so popular. And now the news of the launch of Apple’s iPad. There’s a really good review and demo here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8484823.stm Personally I don’t really see

And so it is that the world we live in has reached an historic turning point. This is a matter of such Global proportions that no living soul can ignore it and maintain a clean conscience. Consumerism and capitalism have failed us all and so as a RACE we must make a decision. Do we wait for our governments to tell us we have to take action? If we look back over history many of the problems of the present have been caused by government legislation and twisted politics that have been all about power and not about wellbeing. For

The Bank of England recently warned that economic recovery could be slow. That much is not in dispute. The banks and government of the UK have seen to that (thanks by the way). But when and how a recovery will take place is still very uncertain and I’m not an expert on the subject so I can’t answer the question of why it is uncertain. B of E thinking behind future economic growth is saying: GDP growth could be anywhere between -1% and 5.5% by the end of 2012. The UK economy could still be declining in 3 years time?

I’ve been given a copy of a new book entitled 1000 CEOs from DK Publishing (Dorling Kindersley) I have also been allocated 5 copies to give away! (image links to DK.com page about the book)   The book features reviews of 1000 CEOs (as you might expect!) detailing their success, a snippet of how they achieved great fame, fortune and wealth plus insightful and inspirational quotes. Among the reviews are some of the worlds best known entrepreneurs, ‘start up titans’ , strategists & visionaries including Stelios Haji-Ioanou, Richard Branson, Giorgio Armani, Warren Buffet, David Packard, Charles E Merril, Bill Gates and 993

Something that is becoming increasingly more frequent and I’m sure annoys the hell out of plenty of people, including me are ‘automated’ cold calls. Recorded messages offering to write off all my debt are the most frequent but to be honest I don’t listen to more than a couple of words before putting the phone down so I couldn’t say what all of them are trying to sell me. I’m one of the lucky ones who works from home with a telephone on my desk and although annoying and a waste of time I’m not elderly, disabled or unwell, so it’s

‘The recession is over, according to one of the nation’s most respected economic think-tanks.’ http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/analysts-the-recession-has-ended-1702147.html Phew! Thank goodness for that! And there was everyone thinking it was going to be deep, nasty and a long slow recovery! The first paragraph of the Independent story reads: ‘The UK’s surprising resilience is confirmed by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR), an independent body with an enviable record for accuracy. It says that the economy hit rock bottom in as early as March and returned to growth, albeit modestly, in April and May’ Here is a link to the NIESR

There are varying predictions about the direction house prices will go in the coming months and years. Predictions range from up by 25% over the next 5 years (according to the National Housing Federation) to down 50% by 2011 (according to Houepricecrash.co.uk) It’s possible to approximate the anticipated extent of the house price crash by analysing graphs of previous housing crashes. Provided the crash is comparable to previous crashes in terms of market conditions and contributing factors it may be a reasonable way to predict one possible outcome. Let’s look at a graph! http://www.housepricecrash.co.uk/graphs-average-house-price.php The most recent crash in 1989 took