Heaven knows we’ve got to broaden the mind to get a career off the ground right now, so it’s not so surprising that Scotland’s Abertay University (who?) are offering postgraduates a masters in (ethical) computer hacking. Students can learn how to test systems for vulnerabilities and come up with ways to protect them. It is predicted that a couple of years after completing the course graduates could be earning about £55,000. The faculty believes that big businesses and organisations should not be afraid of students turning “rogue” and using their skills for evil. Says the boss, “We have a strong vetting procedure - in the UK we use things like Disclosure Scotland to ensure that people that we’re taking on aren’t coming from a criminal background” (or susceptible to radicalisation, Prof?) Rumours have it there’s to be a City and Guilds in welding two different cars together, and Bournemouth are offering a BA in how to lay a patio when your partner’s body is underneath it.

Another day, and another spate of stories from the airlines: first is news that Canadian low cost long hauler Zoom has suspended all flights as its cash dries up in the face of horrible fuel costs. The firm employs 260 people here in the UK. The thousands of people due to fly with Zoom in the coming weeks have been told to rebook with other carriers. Cheers. So that’s Zoom, Oasis, Eos, Maxjet and Silverjet all gone in the last few months. Will a name we recognise be next? Not if TUI Travel, Lufthansa and Thomas Cook have anything to do with it. They are looking at lumping together TUI Fly Germany, Condor (owned by Thomas Cook) and Lufthansa’s Germanwings in a deal aimed at securing cost savings. There’s no certainty the deal will go ahead and it will be funny peculiar to catch arch rivals TUI and Thomas Cook in bed together, but the group hug response to the troubles in the industry may well be the only way to survive. A bit like facing the sharks on board the Indianapolis…”I’ll catch it for 30, but I’ll eat it for 15.”

Some kind of good news at last: our old pals at LV or  Liverpool Victoria insurance to you and me, are to pay £150m to swallow the Highway Insurance Group. The move is hoped to make the green hearted scallies a “top five insurer” by 2012. So, more customers, bigger resources, more security, broader opportunities. Not many are shouting about that right now.

Earlier this year Toyota was about three cars away from overtaking GM to be the world’s biggest car maker, and given their concerted efforts to make the ugly but ethical Prius the roller of choice, we were quite happy with that. Black hats on then as the firm has announced it is cutting production at its British car factory in Derbyshire. With an output of 277,000 cars last year, it was Britain’s second-biggest car producer after the Nissan plant in Sunderland. But the firm is reducing the number of daily shifts on the plant’s Auris production line from two to one, cutting production by 15,000 vehicles, over the next five months, when Toyota will review the market and hopefully get things back on track. None of the 3,800 permanent staff will go. They’re a smart bunch, Toyotans, and the industry will no doubt take note of their rightly cautious strategy.

The people behind the Kaiser Chiefs and Primal Scream are backing a new website that allows music fans to invest financially as well as emotionally in hotly tipped new acts. You mean slicethepie.com? Why, n o. This “new” venture dreamed up by a music business lawyer (brilliant) and backed by the founder of Friends Reunited. Bandstocks lets you buy a stake in an artist in £10 slices. Once funding reaches a certain level, for example £100,000, the money will be released for the act to record an album – and you even get a credit in the sleeve notes. So what? Those of you considering a career in the music business will have already watched our incomprehensible advice videos from the head of marketing at Warner International. The fragrant Matthieu says you have to show some kind of interest in the biz to get a job inside – if you haven’t got the time to manage a band or set up a fanzine (his suggestions) do this. Hell, you’ll be putting your money where your mouth is and that’s a rarity in today’s music industry. Right, kids?!