A sad day for comedy: Its sayonara to one of big businesses loose cannons, Jerry Yang, the co-founder of Yahoo, who is stepping down at big boss. He’s been entertainingly under fire from his staff and board after cocking-up a sale to Microsoft earlier this year and then waving goodbye to Google in a proposed internet advertising tie-up. He wrote to employees to say he would find another buyer, and never did. Yahoo is surprisingly popular outside of the UK, where Google is king, and a new boss might just be the shot in the arm the company needs, so definitely put them on your “possible employer” list. Yang’s e-mail to employees ended with the words: “All of you know that I have always and will always bleed purple” - in reference to the predominant colour on the company’s logo. Er…which is red.

It’s fair to say that a push down the stairs may be the best present some retailers get this Christmas. Nevertheless, next week sees the opening of Europe’s largest shopping centre: Westfield in Shepherds Bush, West London. It will be fascinating to see whether the opulence and ideas of the £1.6bn site will be enough to make the stores within it keep afloat while the high street struggles to tread water. There’s one slightly obscure winner already: advertising placement company Ocean Outdoor has been given the £70 million contract to supply advertisements for the next 10 years. Among the ideas being touted by Ocean Outdoor are three electronic digital screens that will sit in the middle of the Holland Park roundabout. I could have some better ideas than that for £70m, could you? Then now’s the time to get in touch with them!

Who’d have thunk it: the retailers that seem to be selling napkins for the credit crunch as those online (no nasty rents) and those selling cheap (8 chickens for a quid!). Blow me (please) but eBay that meets both those criteria, is feeling the pinch – and is axing 10%, or 1,000, of its staff. Odd then that while announcing this sad news, the firm told us all to cheer up as it was to embark on a $1.3bn spending spree of other companies - it is paying cash for Danish online classifieds site dba and vehicles website bilbasen for approximately $390m. It is also buying – for $820m cash - internet payments company, Bill Me Later. This firm takes on your shopping debts and lumps them into monthly payments you pay off with cheques or cash. Of course, you need cash to pay it off…has everyone really forgotten about sub prime mortgages so soon?!!

You wait all year for Pizza Hut to put a video up and when we finally track them down at the Retail Career Forums, they go and change their name to Pasta Hut. So the video is back in the dungeon! The new name means it’s time to take the brand away from its fast-food like image and make it the healthy and popular choice with UK families. The US brand has been over here for 35 years, and the firm are about the only people spending £100m on the high street right now as part of the re-branding campaign of their 700 stores. However, it could be just the right time for consumers to look for cheap but healthy family eats out. Salt levels in the food have been dropped to mean Food Standard Agency guidelines and all traces of hydrogenated vegetable oils have been removed from the menu, and there is also an ongoing saturated fat removal programme. Just like with Russell Grant.  One think that’s marginally cheaper to re-brand is the company’s online presence: in June this year it took its one millionth online order and online sales now contribute towards 18% of its entire delivery sales.

KPMG: they resigned the fated XL account in 2006 citing dangerous accounting irregularities – er…BDO Stoy Hayward took over the account… Aberystwyth freshers: after it is named as UK’s favourite university town, new students have been housed in hotels as record numbers turn up for the new term… Online advertising: Four out of five advertisers have increased their online ad spend and predict it will continue to grow in the next two years… The West Virginian law student who is suing his college, after they refused his demands for 4 days instead of 2 in order to complete his law exam because he has trouble concentrating…