I just find it incredible how many companies are going down the toilet, it makes me wonder how these business have stayed afloat for so long when they can all collapse so soon into an economic downturn.

When you have been selling a product for 250 years, you have pretty much determined that there is a demand for it, so what decisions have been made in, say the last three years, to put Wedgwood skirting on the brink and finally tumbling?

As a layman, the only think I can think of is the reliance on cheap debt and that if things looked troublesome, the company could always get its hands on some money relatively cheaply but as the cheapness of that money was removed from the equation (or even the availability of that money) then the company could not continue.

But can it be true that companies have been run like this for years, and if it is, how many are still dancing along the edge of the cliff?

So much intrusion, inconvenience and restriction is done in the name of “security”, including the decision by US auto executives to travel to Washington by private jets. It is a get out clause that is washed across attempts to intrude into our lives by governments and their agencies in the belief that no further questions will be asked after the security card has been played.

It seems the government has learned nothing from the several incidents where governmental departments and their third party suppliers have misplaced or lost private data, even sending CDs containing data by regular mail. Storing the details of pretty much every piece of communication you have had with anyone would be impossible to manage securely.

Why would the government be so happy to put such data in the hands of agency staff, always open to being bought by criminals looking for sensitive information in phone calls and emails? Because it will never impact the people who make the decisions. They think it is fine to expose the voters to the risk of having their data sold or lost but you can guarantee that the politicians will work some immunity for themselves.

He has been knighted in the UK New Year honours, a decision I cannot make any sense of at all.

The team GB cyclists did very well in the Beijing Olympics after receiving seriously increased funding and although Chris Hoy won three gold medals, how can the government justify making him a Knight?

Sir Alex Ferguson got a knighthood after winning a Champions League yet Bob Paisley died with only an OBE to his name despite winning three European Cups.

The UK honours system is now a joke. Elton John, Tom Jones and Terry Wogan have all received knighthoods for a range of wonderful achievements ranging from drug abuse to laughing at foreign musicians so perhaps Hoy should be a bit embarrassed by his award.

The culture of wanting something for nothing and creating celebrity and fame for people who have done nothing or have no talent is underlined when knighthoods are handed out to people whose achievements cannot be considered to be extraordinary. Winning three Olympic golds is certainly not a simple task but it is certainly made easier when your training is fully funded and you are paid to dedicate your entire life to preparing for it.

Fair play to Chris Hoy for his sporting achievements but making him a Knight is ridiculous.

If either of these applies to you - and you are an idiot - then you can simply dial the UK emergency services to get some justice.

A BBC report shows some of the reasons that have been given for calling the emergency services. One person also called because they could not get through to vote on a reality TV show.

The person who called the police after being denied access to a staff toilet was a priest. A priest. So what was his angle? That as a priest he is not a normal person and should have access to any toilet he wishes to use?

My only hope is that these people actually did get a knock on the door from the police, to explain what idiots they are and how their unbelievable stupidity could have cost lives. Their names should be publicised rather than being referred to with anonymity.

The guy managed to get both shoes lobbed at the President, who dodged them expertly without the help of his Secret Service suits.

Throwing shoes, must be an Iraqi thing.

One guest on the programme referred to the situation in Mumbai as “America’s 9/11″ and, of course, made several references to Al Qaida. I am not sure if news organisations are allowed to cover terrorism without reminding us of the perennial threat from Al Qaida even when the terrorists are some ragbag bunch who fail to carry out their evil plans through sheer incompetence.

How can someone calling these attacks “India’s 9/11″ be taken seriously? It is a ridiculous notion and an embarrassing suggestion.

The attacks on New York were years in the making involving men using commercial airplanes as missiles. These Mumbai attacks seem to be a group of stupid students with guns. There is a priceless clip from Indian TV of one of the terrorists on the phone to a TV station and having to ask someone else what their demands are.

Comments like “India’s 9/11″ only serve to deflect from a more worrying truth, that it does not take much for a group of young men with guns to get past slack security, shoot up the place, kill anyone on sight and get blanket news coverage across the world.

The more it happens, the more it will happen because disenfranchised youth will see all the notoriety that can be gained and see it as attractive in some way. It is the same argument that kids who go on shooting sprees in schools should never be named or have their photos shown.

The case revolved around The Mail accusing Matrix of calling Zinedine Zidane the son of a terrorist whore during the World Cup final in 2006.

At the time I had some discussion with an Algerian friend of mine who said that Zidane should have killed Materazzi for that comment as this is the worst kind of insult you could direct at an Algerian.

It all came about from so-called lip reading experts who claimed to have deduced the insult from TV pictures. For a couple of days, the Press went mental. I think in part to seek some justification for Zidane’s amazing headbutt and subsequent dismissal.

So it turns out that Materazzi did not say anything of the sort, instead saying that he preferred Zidane’s sister to the French captain’s offer of his shirt, which Materazzi was pulling at a corner.

Of course, the Mail’s apology will not appear o such large headlines as their original libellous claim.

How much time have you wasted on this feature? Some of the themes are pretty nice, even the Terminal theme, but none of them were as good as the default.

It could just be that I am used to it but I didn’t see that the alternatives were any more usable.

These guys were promising rates of return of up to 150% in the short term, numbers that surely have to fall into the category of “Too Good To Be True”, but not for a large number of Colombians.

Those involved in the scam are now in custody, after Colombian police amazingly turned down the offer of a suitcase full of cash to release them before the angry mob ripped them to shreds.

So, people grabbing the promise of something they know is too good to be true, sound familiar? It’s the exact same as people taking out loans of thousands of dollars when they knew they had no chance of paying them off or even making payments.

The Colombians now think they should get a refund of their money from the government, just the same as those with “No Income, No Assets” loans.

One voice of sense is Colombian Vice President Francisco Santos who said “Nothing is free in this world and that is not going to change.”

The latest crisis sees Nancy Pelosordi calling for a financial bailout of US car makers. i think that’s ridiculous. Why reward companies for training a nation to use products that are so entirely wasteful, so cruelly inefficient that it led to a dependence on a product supplied by countries that include their enemies?

The gas guzzling SUV has become a symbol of American consumerism and over consumption and yet Pelosi thinks that these companies should be bailed out.

If you give them the carrot of 10 billion dollars for the companies when they each produce a car that runs on water, or one that produces zero emissions, we would see those companies change. Now they will only carry on churning out the same heavy, wasteful machines.

By the way, so much for my £10 bet on McCain. Worth it though.