[hewlett packard] how nice are patricia dunn’s tactics

It’s gradually emerging how Patricia Dunn actually operates and what HP actually have on their hands in their CEO. Anyone who has skimmed through this blog knows I prefer the direct assault to the mudslinging and yet this woman seems to be crying out for a bit of the slushy stuff over the mush. The Slashdot [theodp] report is here.

[from the blogger] some puzzling trends

The Most Viewed section to the left is genuine and is changed daily, as all things should be. The surprises are the stories which won't go away, like the Asset Swapping, Russian Oil and French Dressing. Big mover is the 25 Minutes with the Russian Girl. Niagara has done well too. I'd hoped the Khodorkovski and the Daniel Ellsberg/Mordecai Vanunu stories might have 'taken' more. Actually, I'm redoing the Russian girl on Monday because she wasn't satisfied with the last interview.

بعد انقلاب أنصاره عليه.. بلير يتنحى خلال عام

أعلن رئيس الوزراء البريطاني توني بلير، الذي يواجه معارضة متزايدة من البريطانيين وحتى من داخل قاعدته في حزب العمال، أنه سيتنحى عن السلطة خلال عام
واكد بلير يوم الخميس خلال زيارته لمدرسة في لندن انه سيغادر السلطة في غضون سنة

I don't know - I just felt that Tony Blair's departure needed a more original setting.

[oil and gas] significance of the chevron gulf tap

So what’s with the oil find in the gulf? What it basically means is soft demand in the nearest future and perceived steady supplies in the long term should shift the power balance away from the middle-east a little. Seems to me Saudi and other Arab nations playing with a “full house” won’t exactly find themselves bidding on a “pair of knaves” but if the gulf find checks out, it must shore up falling US cred or at least give it room to move in its negotiating position. More here.

[colour schemes] the culture of green

Ah, green, eternal green - life, abundant in nature, signifying growth, renewal, health, and environment but against that, green is also jealousy or envy and inexperience. With the calming attributes of blue but without blue’s association with cold, clinical evil, time moves faster in a green room. Strongly associated with Ireland and Islam, reminiscent of spring, coupled with red it's a Christmas colour. More on green here.

[global warming] now the threat is from below

There appears to be growing evidence that there is a perpetuating, renewable global threat beginning to be released from below the earth’s surface – methane – trapped under the permafrost, which is now melting; the results are beginning to appear which oil and gas people have been aware of for decades. Is this the earth finally striking back? Here are the essentials from the AP report.

[technology] today blackberry; tomorrow the world

Jesse D'Aguanno, director of research at Praetorian Global, has created an attack program called BBProxy, which can penetrate computers behind a corporate firewall and attack systems worldwide once it is installed on a BlackBerry device. He has released his source code - BlackBerry Attack Toolkit - to the public. Research in Motion, makers of BlackBerry say the threat can be prevented by using the correct settings built into its BlackBerry Enterprise Server. Hmmmm. Anyone with a BlackBerry out there? [Globe and Mail]

[hewlett packard] has patricia dunn for hp

Further to the earlier story about the trouble at Hewlett Packard, Vox Day made a reference to it in the course of his misogynist rant and I decried it in a comment. Now it appears he’s right and all the people resigning, storming out, leaking to the press and general unhappiness all centres around one woman – chairwoman Patricia Dunn. Perfect example of how not to run a company. More here.

[corrective services] hamburglar goes to prison

The Department of Correction is serving up a plan to put a fast-food restaurant in New York City's Rikers Island jail system, giving thousands of workers there greater meal options. Currently, the jail guards eat the same food as the crims. More of this gripping tale here.

[writing] the secret to getting yourself published

Whether you're an incarcerated ex-tycoon or just a bog-standard blogger like the rest of us, once that urge to scribble gets into the psyche, Mr. Gibbon, we just have to produce another damned square book, don't we and get it published. But how to break into the literary world? Perhaps Vancouver has the answer. Story here.

[mid-week blogwatch] scoop fever

Is it just my imagination or do the posts on other blogs get more interesting towards mid-week? Do bloggers save up their best material for Wednesday? A glance around the blogs this evening reveals four more than interesting stories indeed. Story continues here.

[russia] putin's approval rating high

Despite appearances and concerns in the west about Vladimir Putin’s ‘return to the old Russia’, over half the people would vote for him if there were an election now and a substantial number trust him as well. His current visit to South Africa is a sign of what Russia is now up to. Article here ...

[oil and gas] ‘poor’ geophysique buys ‘poorer’ veritas

As you might know, French oil and gas field surveyor Geophysique is buying U.S. rival Veritas in cash and stock, establishing a major new global player in the oil exploration industry. Associated Press says that companies offering seismic surveys and other oil exploration services are doing strong business around the world, amid the broadly rising demand for oil and pressure on reserves.

So why are the seismic companies unhappy with the oil companies? Article here...

[james bond] eva reluctant bond girl

New Bond girl Eva Green has revealed that she never wanted to be a Bond girl for fear of being typecast - reports Entertainment Wise. But after reading the script for ‘Casino Royale’ she changed her mind and will be appearing as Vesper Lynd in the forthcoming film. Article continues here.

[global obesity] get off your backsides and exercise

You know where this came from ? Al Jazeera. And from where did they get it? From AP. Everything’s syndicated these days.

Exploding numbers of overweight children could make today's generation the first to die before its parents, say health experts. Article continues here ...

[toilet talk] for the hypersensitive

The thing to decide throughout this entire piece by Anne McIlroy is whether the woman is for real or not.

You open the door of the gas station washroom, scanning and sniffing for biohazards. It seems safe. No overflowing urinals or toilets. No sewer stench and your shoes don't stick to the floor. Article continues here ...

[vale steve irwin] killed in stingray attack

This story is now 23 hours old but it wouldn’t be right to let it go any further without comment. I plan to do a longer piece on him later today after my day job. Why should we worry about someone the bulk of the world has never heard of? Because of the nature of his death. More here.

[film & television] 3 of my favourite comic moments

Rev Mervyn Noote

What are your favourite comic moments? These are three of mine:

1. when Derek, having taken tablets for his headache, discovers that he has, in fact, imbibed relax-a-cat tabs, prescribed for unblocking the episcopal feline plumbing.

2. when Bernard, castigated by Jim Hacker for not attending to the ministerial needs, quietly answers, 'CBE, Minister, CBE.' To Hacker's dumbstruck expression, he adds, 'Can't be everywhere.' More here.

[in brief] message for the small blogger

When elements of doubt creep into your resolve; when you feel that only a significant handful are heeding your message, it’s as well to remember the words of a quite significant writer, whose observations still echo today:

Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm. Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities, because it is the quality that guarantees all others.

[afghanistan] opium might be the solution

As if the Afghan pipeline wasn't in enough trouble, Chris Dillow writes further of Afghanistan's seeming hope for the future:

Afghanistan clearly has a comparative advantage in the production of opium; given its meagre land, labour and capital endowments, it can do little else. Opium production is, then, it's best hope of developing the economy. Read the full piece.

[petron-solar 1] disaster around the corner, surmise japanese

A minisubmarine inspecting the wreck of the Solar 1 on Friday found an open oil compartment and another one leaking small quantities of oil. They reported that not only had the oil spill not ceased but that the rest of it was waiting to rupture. Deafening silence greeted this around the world. Article continues here ...

[far-east] bankruptcy law change signals cultural change

The new Chinese law regarding the bankruptcies of state owned enterprises is a major move. Effectively, creditors now have top priority in liquidation moves, as distinct from the old ‘state nanny’ which was committed to paying off the workers first and then the creditors. This is not just a legal change, nor even a work practice change - it means a radically different mindset and a commitment to vigorously compete within the world economy. Story here.

[dress and fashion] to tie or not to tie

BBC Magazine ran this in February but today, as I discarded the tie in scorching twenty degree temperatures, the mind went back to the topic:

Doctors should stop wearing ‘functionless’ ties which could pose a hygiene risk, says the British Medical Association - as part of the drive to stop the spread of hospital superbugs. So what is the point of a tie? Full text here.

[health] you might have wilson’s syndrome

Do you suffer from cold the way I do? Possibly not - because I think I might have a nodding acquaintance with Wilson’s Syndrome. Chronic low body temperature, also known as Wilson's Syndrome, is related to many other syndromes.

Whenever I’m feeling poorly, the first question, the standard question over here is always, ‘Do you have a temperature?’ ‘No.’ ‘Oh well then,’ they reply, meaning that I’m just a malingering n’er-do-well. But is it so? Story here.

[middle-east] hezbollah seeking out lebanese defectors

You may have seen this one already:

Next to a UN jeep, the Hezbollah intelligence men had parked their aging white Mercedes. One of them had flattened himself behind the chassis and was watching a Lebanese man on the Israeli side through binoculars.

"If you come with me, we'll go in and get that m*********r back," another Hezbollah man told a member of the international press. "They won't shoot at a journalist," he whispered in an aside in Arabic to his colleague.

With Hezbollah and the UN men having overheard the Lebanese man conversing with the Israelis in Hebrew, they were almost certain that he was an agent of the Jewish state trying to escape the wrath of a victorious Shi'ite political party that claims to have routed Israel over 34 days of conflict.

Analysts say Israel used Lebanese collaborators who remained in the south after its forces' withdrawal in 2000 as human intelligence to identify Hezbollah cadres in each village.

A Shi'ite source with good connections to Hezbollah and local knowledge said that only the houses of Hezbollah members were destroyed in his southeastern village of Blaat. The Hezbollah center of Khiam - formerly a base for Israel's proxy South Lebanon Army - was also largely wrecked from shelling, air strikes and pitched battles between Hezbollah and Israeli soldiers.

Since the latest war, Hezbollah has been particularly anxious to dismantle Mossad networks inside Lebanon that have used everyone from a Druze villager in the southern village of Hasbaya to Sudanese doormen in Beirut's Shi'ite al-Daahiah suburbs to pinpoint buildings affiliated with Hezbollah or that house its cadres.

Israeli intelligence has reportedly equipped collaborators inside Lebanon with radios and sophisticated satellite equipment to stay in contact and receive sensitive information on Hezbollah's movements. In one case, it was discovered that Israeli spies in south Beirut were marking buildings with crosses that were invisible to the naked eye but could be detected by sensors inside Israeli fighter jets.

In addition, an Israeli website specializing on intelligence affairs (www.debka.com) revealed that Hezbollah's security service has begun, in the northern Bekaa Valley, Baalbek and southern Lebanon, rounding up people suspected of tipping off Israeli intelligence on the location of the storehouse holding long-range, Iranian-supplied Zelzal missiles.

Iason Athanasiadis is an Iran-based correspondent with Asia Times.

[oil and gas] afghanistan stymied by uprising

Stay with this one. This is how a nation’s fortunes can be dashed by local issues.

Anti-government violence in Pakistan has followed the killing of a tribal leader by the military. On Tuesday, explosions and gunfire were reported after more than 10,000 people attended memorial prayers for Nawab Akbar Bugti, who was fighting for greater autonomy for his gas-rich but underdeveloped province of Balochistan. Pakistani government helicopter gunships and ground troops attacked his mountain cave hide-out.

With about 6 million people, Balochistan's population is almost half that of Pakistan's biggest city, Karachi. But in terms of mineral wealth it is the country's richest region. Islamabad has been planning a deep-sea port at Gwadar and a road link through Afghanistan to Central Asia from the province.

The TAP, which would carry natural gas from Turkmenistan to India through western Afghanistan, would pass through Balochistan. An alternative route through Pakistan's North West has been threatened by the resurgence of the Taliban.

The 2,000km pipeline deal was in the final stages of approval with the Asian Development Bank (ADB), and without the huge India market, the project, which is estimated to cost US$2-3 billion [one estimate pitches the final cost at $7 billion], may not be profitable.

But domestic security concerns in Afghanistan and Pakistan and an armed uprising led to the setting up of a force of trained and semi-trained tribesmen known as the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA). Pakistani authorities have maintained that Bugti tacitly supported both these forces and the unrest.

Pakistan's Human Rights Commission has documented widespread violations by security forces but Islamabad says they were required to secure domestic gas installations.

Last week, a top Indian official in Delhi confirmed the participation of a high-level team in the TAP meeting next month as a partner-in-the-project and yet India seems to have got cold feet over the violence; political commentators speculate that it may be strong opposition from the United States that has made India put the deal on the back-burner.

Due to its location between the oil and natural gas reserves of the Caspian Basin and the Indian Ocean, Afghanistan has long been a potential energy transit corridor. During the mid-1990s, US-based Unocal had pursued a possible natural gas pipeline from Turkmenistan's Dauletabad-Donmez gas basin via Afghanistan to Pakistan, but pulled out after the US missile strikes against Afghanistan in August 1998.

Thus, the stirring up of local unrest threatens the prosperity of three nations and maybe even four.

- based on the Inter Press Service, Pajhwok Afghan News report

[proche-orient] mahmoud et kofi

Kofi Annan ne croit pas à l'efficacité de sanctions contre Téhéran. Pourquoi pas? Suivez:

تأكيد رئيس جمهور برلزوم تلاش بيشتر دبيركل سازمان ملل متحد براى اجراى آتش بس در جنوب لبنان

[poll] results on the topic of seasons

The last poll is closed. Results for the question: During which season do you feel most comfortable? were:

38% spring - predictable
0% summer - big surprise
12% autumn - nice
50% winter - I'm not alone

One reader wrote: Tempest. The new poll is open, if you'd care to vote.

[algeria] the western veil of silence

I’ve been accused of writing slanted articles about Muslims but of never attacking the Jews.

I think if you look at the comments section of stephenpollard.com you’ll see ample evidence of digs at the Jews. In case that’s not enough, I invite you to send me researched material on Jewish atrocities and I’ll gladly run it.

More than once I’ve looked at the actions of the Irgun, the Lehi/Stern gang, Lord Moyne, Martin and Paice, to name but a few.

I’m not Jewish, I hold no candle for the Jews and I’m as critical as anyone has a right to be. On the other hand, articles such as the following from Gary Brecher are interesting, if only because no one else seems to be addressing this issue. There is a wall of silence from Nizhni Novgorod to New York.

Why? Brecher’s article offers one explanation. Warning – though it is written in a jaunty, readable style, the content is fairly unpalatable if you have a queasy tummy:

Some wars make it onto the TV news, and some don't. It's got nothing to do with how bloody or big they are. There are lots of pathetic little "wars" that get more press than they deserve.

Full text here.

[celestial regions] do you know your angels

Most of us would have to admit we wouldn’t recognize an angel if it bit us on the bottom. So how does one recognize that it’s – er – an angel we’re dealing with? I mean - do you know your order of angels and their hierarchies?

On the grounds of better-be-safe-than-sorry, maybe it’s time you got the whole angel thing down pat in your mind … just in case, you understand.

Firstly, the Angels are organized into several orders, or Angelic Choirs. There are three Hierarchies, Spheres or Triads of angels, with each Hierarchy containing three Orders or Choirs. In descending order of power, these were:

First Hierarchy: Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones [or Ophanim]
Second Hierarchy: Principalities, Virtues, Powers
Third Hierarchy: Dominions, Archangels, Angels

During the Middle Ages, many other schema were proposed, some drawing on and expanding on Pseudo-Dionysius, others suggesting completely different classifications but don’t heed them, the revisionists.

We’re all familiar with the lower orders because these are the ones certain people come into contact with but what of the ones you never see up there? The angels of the first sphere were thought to serve as heavenly counsellors.

Seraphim: There are four of them surrounding G-d's throne, where they shine eternally from love and zeal.

Cherubim: The Cherubim (singular "Cherub") are beyond the throne of G-d; they are the guardians of light and of the stars. They have four wings. They also have four faces, one of man, ox, lion and eagle. Cherubim are considered the elect beings, for the purpose of protection.

Thrones: The Ophanim are the companion angels of the planets. Also, they have been described as a wheel intersected by another wheel. One to move forward and back, the other to move side to side. These wheels are then dotted with innumerable eyes.

Now, I can’t see why it can't be so. In fact, I can believe anything, however improbable it might seem, just as Sherlock Holmes could plus the other side also believes in these things. Ask any 32nd degree Mason about it or failing that, ask Osiris.

For the atheists and rationalists out there – you can’t prove beyond doubt they don’t exist, can you; and proof is very important to you guys, isn’t it? On the other hand, there are ample indicators which keep coming back from time to time, that something's going on up there.

Perhaps we should just take the classic atheistic position, put the head in the sand and say angels don’t exist. Period.

Art work by Cal

[economy] deep in debt but still saving

Debt consultants One Advice report that almost two million people in the UK owe more than £10,000 on credit cards, overdrafts or other unsecured loans. About 500,000 owe more than £20,000. About half of those owing £10,000 had taken out loans, about 350,000 had used credit cards, and 83,000 overdrafts. Others owed family and friends money.

Most personal borrowing in the UK is in the form of mortgages, where the loan is secured on the property. But this survey found many people are running up big unsecured debts too. People aged between 35 and 44 were most likely to have run up significant debts, with around 650,000 people in this age group owing more than £10,000.

Chris Holmes, chief executive of One Advice. But more than 200,000 18 to 24-year-olds also owed at least £10,000 - about one out of 20 people in that age group. "With many unsecured borrowing products having high interest rates, many people are entrapped in debt, often only paying off the interest accrued every month as opposed to the capital they have borrowed," said Chris Holmes, chief executive of One Advice. "Those caught in this situation need to take action otherwise it is likely that they will fall further into debt."

Last year, about 70,000 people in England and Wales became insolvent - for most, this means being declared bankrupt which can make it difficult to borrow money in future. However, an increasing number of people are reaching deals with their creditors called individual voluntary arrangements, which involves a partial repayment.

Earlier this month, the government announced it was providing £45m to employ 500 independent debt advisers over the next two years. The money will be used to help people in England and Wales gain personal advice on how to cope with their debts. Through the government's Financial Inclusion Fund, it is being channelled to a number of organisations such as the Citizens Advice Bureaux.

The good news is that regular savings are on the increase. Average monthly savings were 87.85 pounds in the three months to end-July, up 8 percent on the year. This savings rate -- equal to 6.8 percent of average income -- is second only to a high of 89.11 pounds recorded in autumn last year. Around 54 percent of the population put money away each month. They are saving 174.50 pounds a month -- a 10.3 percent increase on this time last year.

[health] canadian breakthrough on birth defects

New research shows that ensuring an adequate intake of vitamins and minerals by taking a single, cheap pill on a daily basis sharply cuts the likelihood of a wide range of severe birth defects, including neural-tube defects such as spina bifida, brain-damaging hydrocephalus, heart malformations, truncated or missing limbs, urinary-tract abnormalities and cleft palate.

"The data are really very striking. It seems almost too good to be true that a prenatal multivitamin can have such an impact. But it is true," Gideon Koren, director of the Motherisk Program at the Toronto Hospital for Sick Children, said in an interview.

Based on the study, he said all women of childbearing age should be taking a prenatal vitamin daily. Dr. Koren said the recommendation should apply to all women but he stressed that they should take a specific prenatal multivitamin. These differ from standard multivitamins in three important respects: More folic acid, more iron and less vitamin A -- high levels of which can harm the fetus.

This results in a:

# 48 per cent reduction in neural-tube defects;

# 39 per cent drop in cardiovascular defects;

# 47 per cent lower rate of limb deformities;

# 58 per cent reduction in cases of cleft palate;

# 52 per cent decrease in urinary-tract defects;

# 63 per cent drop in hydrocephalus (a dangerous accumulation of cerebrospinal fluid on the brain).

The research did not show any decrease in the number of cases of Down syndrome, pyloric stenosis (which causes chronic vomiting), undescended testis or hypospadias (a malformation of the penis).

summary of the article by Andre Picard, Globe and Mail

[muslim anger] howard refuses to apologize

John Howard has done it again by refusing to back down on his call for some sections of Australia's Muslim community to conform to Australian values by learning English and by treating women with respect.

The chairman of the Government's Islamic advisory committee has warned of more Cronulla-style riots unless the Prime Minister tones down his rhetoric on Muslim migrants. Dr Ameer Ali warned of trouble unless the Prime Minister backed down.

'When you antagonise the younger [Muslim] generation, the younger group, they are bound to react,' Dr Ali told Macquarie Radio. 'They're bound not to like these comments. Then you're going to have trouble.'

But Mr Howard today stood by his comments.

'I don't apologise,' he told reporters. 'I think they are missing the point and the point is that there's a small section of the Islamic population which is unwilling to integrate and I have said generally all migrants ... they have to integrate.

They must integrate and that means speaking English as quickly as possible, it means embracing Australian values and it also means making sure that no matter what the culture of the country from which they come might have been, Australia requires women to be treated fairly and equally and in the same fashion as men.

And if any migrants that come into this country have a different view, they better get rid of that view very quickly. I don't retreat in any way from that. It doesn't involve singling out a group.'

[interview] samantha brett and the city

Did you catch the e-interview with Samantha Brett?

Economist, journalist, television presenter, blogger, agony aunt, heart-throb?

You decide.

[proche-orient] l’ue veut éviter des sanctions contre l’iran

Iranians hold capsules of uranium aloft to demonstrate their peaceful purposes

Regrettant le rejet iranien de l'ultimatum des Nations unies, les Européens souhaitent tout de même poursuivre les discussions avec Téhéran. Mais Washington prône la fermeté.

L'Union européenne (UE) veut encore croire à la solution diplomatique dans le dossier nucléaire iranien. Bien que Téhéran ait de nouveau refusé jeudi de suspendre ses activités d'enrichissement d'uranium, le chef de la diplomatie européenne, Javier Solana, a estimé qu'il n'était « pas raisonnable d'avancer » vers des sanctions alors que les discussions se poursuivent.

Commentaire d' un anglais au sujet du Iran: prévisible, arrogant, fanatique, déplacé, avec un ordre évident

le figaro

[blogwatch] clive davis, melanie phillips, black quill

Clive Davis quotes Rod Liddle on Michael Vestey:

The BBC had very few right-wing journalists when I joined it in 1989. It has scarcely more now. I have no objection to left-wing points of view and still consider myself of the Left, sort of; but it is that suffocating, moronic, politically-correct, anti-liberal leftism at the BBC which both revolted Michael and, in the end, did for him.

The standpoint which insists not that alternative views may be mistaken, even though held in good faith, but are clearly, objectively wrong — no argument — and therefore cannot possibly be countenanced.

Melanie Phillips comments on the rebirth of truth:

While western ‘liberals’ become ever more morally degenerate in their approach to the Middle East and Islamic terror, signs of frankness and honesty are starting to emerge from even the most unlikely quarters within the Arab and Muslim world.

What has happened to Black Quill? I seriously think Abe has got to him.

[economy] for and against the free market [2]

If you read my rant about free marketeers, you’d be au fait with the arguments. Though I believed in what I wrote, still, it needed to be bounced off an economist or two and so I sent the link to two of the best going just now, mentally preparing to be torn into strips. One replied and as he says:

There are several things to quibble with. I'll pick three:

1 Do free markets really tend towards monopoly? I'm not sure. They do, if increasing returns to scale are widespread. But in practice, monopolies often get lazy and inefficient, or fail to attend to niche markets, thus providing opportunties for smaller firms. Or monopolies can disappear with technical change; Polaroid had a monopoly on instant photography, that got wiped out with the growth of digital cameras.
And how bad are monopolies anyway? If there's the threat of competition, a monopoly can be kept efficient. Everyone talks about Wal-Mart - but this is an exception.

2. You say "I still support a market society for the reason that I can’t see the obligation to help those who won’t help themselves." This is a different thing. You can have free markets with redistribution, as long as the redistribution doesn't affect prices. The economists' ideal here is lump-sum taxation. And you can have no redistribution but no free markets - think of feudalism.

3. "The market becomes a goal in itself, replacing spirituality as the summum bonum." I'll grant this has happened in many places. But it's an argument against the crass materialism of much of human nature (which politicians encourage). It's no argument against the market. The market is just a tool for allocating goods. How much we use that tool is up to us. In theory, markets can coincide with spirituality - imagine monasteries trading with each other.

Interestingly, Chris Dillow is also running a piece on the Beeb just now.

[women] just the cash please

This in Reuters today merely adds statistical weight to what we already knew anyway.

It’s perhaps a little unfair to the ladies - society raises them to find good partners and to be acquisitive and then when they do, we turn around and accuse them of gold-digging. No wonder many women today are going out and doing it for themselves.

Women regard healthy finances as more important than good looks in a man, according to a London survey published on Friday. Almost half (45 percent) said a healthy bank balance is more significant than physical attractiveness in a potential partner, according to National Savings & Investments' (NS&I) latest quarterly savings survey.

Just 22 percent of men, however, rate finances above looks in women. A salary of almost 50,000 pounds a year is required before women consider a man successful and wealthy. More than one in 10 women would only consider a partner to be successful if they were earning 100,000 pounds or more.

Women expect their men to have an average of 24,281 pounds in savings, while men are happy with savings of 15,143 pounds among women.

Dax Harkins, senior savings strategist at NS&I, said: "Maybe people do believe they can buy happiness after all."

Kate Maycock, from Relate, said: "Feeling financially insecure will put some strains on a relationship. These latest figures bear out that two people are unlikely to exactly agree on what is a healthy nest-egg and what is a financial crisis."

I’m interested in the 22% of men [above]. I don’t know about you but I’ve never ever looked at how much money a woman’s got. Surely we’re the main providers?

[colour schemes] the culture of blue

A natural color, from the blue of the sky, blue is a universal color. The cool, calming effect of blue makes time pass more quickly and it can help you sleep. Blue is a good color for bedrooms.

However, too much blue could dampen spirits. In many diverse cultures blue is significant in religious beliefs, brings peace, or is believed to keep the bad spirits away.

Blue conveys importance and confidence without being somber or sinister, hence the blue power suit of the corporate world and the blue uniforms of police officers. Long considered a corporate color, blue, especially darker blue, is associated with intelligence, stability, unity, and conservatism.

Just as seeing red alludes to the strong emotions invoked by the color red, feeling blue or getting the blues represents the extremes of the calm feelings associated with blue, i.e. sadness or depression, lack of strong (violent) emotion. Dark blue is sometimes seen as staid or stodgy — old-fashioned.

In Iran, blue is the color of mourning while in the West the something blue bridal tradition represents love.

A deep royal blue or azure conveys richness and perhaps even a touch of superiority. Navy blue is almost black and is a bit warmer than lighter blues. Combine a light and dark blue to convey trust and truthfulness — banker's colors.

Although blue is a year-round color, pastel blues, especially along with pinks and pale yellows suggest Springtime while deep blue is a colder weather color. Create a conservative but sophisticated look with subtle contrast by combining light and dark shades of blue.

Mix the color of blue with green for a natural, watery palette. Add gray for understated elegance. Sky blue and robin's egg blue, especially when combined with neutral light brown, tans, or beige are environmentally friendly color combinations. Throw in a dash of blue to cool down a hot red or orange scheme. Grab attention with the contrast of blue and yellow.

Dark blue with white is fresh, crisp, and nautical. Red, white, and blue is a patriotic color trio for many countries, including the United States. Use dark blue with metallic silver accents for an elegantly rich appearance.

From About

[modern living] are we becoming less patient

This situation happened to me some years back and then, some days later, I read this article in the newspaper. As it was before the time of this blog, I didn't keep the paper and can't attribute but it's too good not to run. Anyone know who wrote it?

At a pedestrian crossing near Victoria Station in London, a man and a woman, walking towards each other on the footpath, did that old urban dance of both dodging to the right, then to the left, in an effort to avoid one another.

I was crossing the road at the same time and heard them. Normally people laugh it off and say "sorry". Not this time.

The man, well-dressed and holding a briefcase, scowled. He tutted. And then he swore: "Oh for God's sake! Get out of the *%^&$* way!" It was not even as though he was hurrying for a train - he was walking away from the rail terminus.

Anger bubbles just below the surface in modern British life. We have become peevish, testy, edgy. You see it on the roads, at the supermarket, and, as I discovered, even on the street in the middle of a sunny morning.

People are fractious. Strangers simmer, motorists thump their steering wheels and Tube passengers groan as yet another goon steps into an already crowded carriage.

Research commissioned by the BBC suggests that tempers are fraying as never before. So what is happening?

Full text here.