Its all very well BAA being told to sell 3 of their major airports, but what you should be really interested in is “whose going to buy them?” Here are the runners and riders, ripe for a CV in the post: Manchester Airports Group – majority owned by Manchester City Council, and said to have chased US and UK private equity cash to grow their empire; Changi Airports – the Singapore Government that owns nearly 50% of Virgin Atlantic; Fraport – German. ‘Nuff said. Hotchtief – Germany’s biggest construction firm with an eye on Gatwick to add to investments in Athens, Hamburg and Sydney airports; Global Infrastructure Partners – joint owned by Credit Suisse and General Electric they already own the majority of London’s City airport; and Macquarie – Australian bank that already owns Bristol airport. My work here is done. Over to you.

In the music industry, if someone illegally downloads a track, you roll over and sack a few staff. Fittingly, when it happens in the computer gaming industry, you go to war. 25,000 people in the UK can expect a knock at the door from Atari, Topware Interactive, Reality Pump, Techland and Codemasters demanding a £300 out of court settlement, and a court summons if they refuse to pay. The firms have appointed Davenport Lyons to deal with the individuals for breach of copyright, having identified them by asking internet service providers for personal-details of file-sharing website users (hmmm…that sounds like one for the lawyers in itself…). Its estimated that 6m people in Britain alone share games illegally. This week Isabela Barwinska became the first person the download vigilantes caught up with. She has been ordered to pay £16k to Topware for downloading Dream Pinball. Nightmare.

47-year-old Shaun Pulfrey went on Dragon’s Den with his Tangle Tweezers and was laughed off set. The London hairdresser’s device is designer to smooth knotted hair retails for £9.99 but the Dragons weren’t interested in 15% of his business for an £85k investment. More fool them; since the show was aired internet sales have rocketed and now Boots have signed a lucrative deal to sell the product in store. This has pushed the firm to a £800k turnover, giving Pulfrey a £200k profit. If a Dragon had invested they would have made £33k this year and £60k next, ending up in profit within 24 months (I done the maths). Its been a long time coming for the scissor twiddler; he came up with the idea for the life saving product 15 years ago and had been working on the prototype since 2004.

Despite the dark clouds of recession, we’ve still got to keep the Hun from our door. No wonder then that our defence companies seem immune to the gloom. Just so for little Dorset-based, Cobham, who has announced a deal worth £14m to acquire US-based intelligence and surveillance company,  GMS. Getting a Stateside presence, (where paranoia is listed as a positive in lonely hearts ads) gives it access to a huge customer base on the West Coast. Not bad for yokel spies.