‘Course the problem with the fat cats losing money is the tightening of the belt trickles down to affect the earning of everyone from the motorcycle courier, the florist, the restaurateur, and the prostitute. That’s right. A survey of 649 high class escorts (I know 648 of them) has shown that times are hard for those that relied on bedding wealthy City boys. One 24-year-old said: “These fancy City boys used to pay me £5000 a night. Now they are haggling at £1000.” That’s the spirit lads! Don’t go down without a fight! Er…there’s got to be a better way of phrasing that..!

Don’t you love websites that don’t carry pop ups, ad reels and advertising? If, like our own investors, you’re wondering how those sites make money; they don’t. Hence Wikipedia asking users to cover the $6m needed to cover its running costs for 2009 and save them from having to carry banner ads. The campaing launched on November 3rd and money was coming in at the rate of about $30,000 a day – not enough. So Wikipedia’s founder, Jimmy Wales, took the unusual step of publishing a personal appeal for donations, or users would face ads or even subscription fees. In the following 24 hours the site received 8,186 donations, compared to just 800 the previous day. Before his appeal the site, which attracts about 254 million visitors a month, was receiving about $30,000 a day, but that rose to more than $215,000 after the letter was published. And, on 1 January, the total crept past the crucial $6m mark. Happy New Year indeed. Here’s to another 365 days of untrustworthy clap-trap.

Another great start to the week: the CBI say the recession will last longer than we thought; the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors are calling on the government to bring forward some construction projects to save 300,000 jobs; and Jaguar Land Rover have asked Browne for a £1bn loan so it can continue to make cars no one can afford anymore. Hooray then for McDonalds: diners Philip and Tina Sherman left their mobile phone in a restaurant in Askansas and staff said they’d keep the phone safe until Phil could swing by and collect it. However staff went into the phone to find nude photos of Mrs Sherman which they thoughtfully posted on a website alongside her name, address and phone number. The Sherman’s are suing McDonald’s for £2m. McTasty.

Those work day team building exercises ought to be as easy as falling off a log (literally). The trouble is, human pyramid with your clothes on can be a bit predictable. Hooray then for early contender for my company of the year: Converso Contact Lens Centres Ltd. of Southend, Essex. An internal team building exercise at the company’s head office involved two members of staff inexplicably wielding replica hand guns. Its not unheard of to look into the windows of an Essex company and see men with guns, and so members of the public did what they always do, and called the police. Within minutes the building was surrounded by armed officers, thinking they were halting a siege situation. Cue David Brent style managers, with hands above their heads, having to explain to police that it was “just a game�. Trigger fingers and contact lenses could have made for a highly motivating experience!

Get a job with Tesco and this is the sort of thing you could spend hours in meetings debating: the supermarket is change the wording of signs on its fast-track checkouts from the current “10 items or less” to say “Up to 10 items”. Apparently there has been uncertainty over whether the current notices should use “fewer” instead of “less”. The new wording, to be phased in across it 2,106 stores, was suggested by language watchdog The Plain English Campaign. Tesco said the change would be phased in across its stores.  Here’s the rub: “Fewer” should be used when you are talking about items that can be counted individually, for example, “fewer than 10 apples”. “Less” is correct when quantities cannot be individually counted in that case, e.g. “I would like less water”.  If anyone you meet uses this story as an amusing point of conversation in an social or interview interaction, ask them to lay on the floor and put your knee heavily on their throat until they pass out.