But then a greedy outsourcing company called SERCO and (giving them the benefit of the doubt) incompetent civil servants conspire to give the Tories an example of staggering waste and the excuse they need to continue to cut away like mad axemen.

The waste in question is £105 million spent over three years on a website. Yes, I really did write £105 million. And yes, on a website. And no, not a website like google or facebook or twitter - the website in question is the one for Business Link. Yes, Business Link.

I already thought Business Link was a box ticking waste of time and money having had to endure a three hour meeting with one of their “consultants” (the word consultant should have raised a red flag but we live and learn…) discussing how the way ahead for our business was to write out environmental policies and the like, but the revelation about their website is the icing on the cake.

Read about it on the BBC blog I read about it on by clicking > here  <

I could go on and on in an outraged of Mortimer Street style, but the comments on the original blog have got that covered ( with some interesting cost analysis from web professionals ). Suffice to say, we’d be happy to do the job for half the price… very happy indeed

As a special bonus, while it’s not strictly a spelling mistake, I saw this sign in Bude recently. It made me laugh because whichever way you read it, it gives entirely the wrong idea about visitors to Bude.

Now if I was the most famous fish chef in the country, I’d make sure that the specials board in my chip shop didn’t contain any spelling mistakes - but then I’m a copywriter
More importantly, if I were the most famous fish chef in the country, I wouldn’t serve cod in greasy batter.

On our previous visit, the fish was absolutely sublime, so come on Rick - sort it out!

I went to the Carling Cup Final at Wembley last Sunday and found myself sitting next to these two guys. What you can’t see in the picture was the rest of their outfits under their Villa shirts - they had big penguin bums and orange flipper feet - very funny. When I asked “Why the Pingu outfits?”, they just replied “Why not?” and laughed.

Apart from the score it was a great day out (particularly those beautiful, glorious 8 minutes when we were 1-0 up), and the new Wembley stadium (my first visit) is so much better than the old one, which other than the twin towers was really awful.

Now I’m not generally very well disposed towards Man Utd, but I have to take my Villa hat off to the Man Utd fans. Most (and I mean 95%) of them were not wearing the red colours that they are famous for, but were wearing green and yellow as a protest against the Glazers, their American owners who strapped the club in debt to buy it. Yellow and green were the club colours of Newton Heath, the original club formed in 1878 that became Man Utd. It’s the fans way of saying that you may have bought Man Utd Plc, but it’s still is and always has been our club. When they celebrated winning the cup (by the skin of their teeth) their end was a sea of swirling green and yellow scarves. Their line is “Love United. Hate Glazers.” My response would be “Hate United. Love the Protest.” Football clubs really are so much more than just a business and a balance sheet, so I hope it works for them.

There was an article in the Guardian last Saturday, reviewing the Gillette TV ad where a mechanic looks at a razor. You can read it here. All very amusing - why we don’t need a blue strip to turn white to tell us when we need to change our razor, because a blunt and clogged blade will lacerate your skin to ribbons waaay before the strip changes colour - but then the writer went too far, suggesting that the reason there are so many beards about these days is because razor blades are too expensive.

So I’d just like to make it clear that the reason I’ve joined the beardies is not because I can’t afford the blades (although my wife does describe my beard as “looking a bit homeless” when it gets too long), but is because I am too lazy to shave. I just wanted to make that very clear.

Chalky

Batman! On the balcony!

I saw him on Saturday morning and Sunday afternoon and he didn’t move a muscle either time. Either he’s keeping guard over the Hampstead Heath Extension, or the Joker lives there, has captured Batman and is displaying his frozen form as some kind of evil trophy. I prefer the first option and now feel much safer when walking my dog or running there.

It’ll be interesting to see what happens on the AndyMurrayOMeter this weekend. It will certainly be more interesting than the tennis, that’s for sure. As I write this, it stands at him being 88% British. You’d assume that if he wins the Australian Open in Melbourne, his Britishness score will rise, but I’m not sure. We do like a plucky loser, so it would be more British for him to fail (remember Tiger Tim?). But then again, if he loses, we can all disown him as a sulky Scot…

Whatever your problem, the answer, as you can see below, lies on Long Lane between Addiscombe and Beckenham, just south of Penge. Which makes a lot of sense to anyone who works in advertising, because whenever we talk about market research we say, “Let’s see what the housewives in Penge think”