Premier Foods owns some of the best known food brands in the UK, and is one of Britain’s largest branded food producers. In 2013 Premier food’s sales were £849 million, with a trading profit of £138.9 million. Seemingly a Great British success story. So why are they asking suppliers for investment payments from their suppliers? […]
Data Driven Deals – A Personalised Black Friday?
Christmas-time capitalism keeps many retailers going for another year, but squeezing deals into such a narrow time frame can have social consequences. There is no doubt that the people literally fighting to take advantage of Black Friday deals are increasingly likely to be amongst the most disadvantaged within our community. But it doesn’t have to be a mad […]
On Julien Blanc, I agree with Lynne
The issue of Julien Blanc is being framed in some circles as a civil liberties issue. It’s not. It’s a protection of civil society – in particular women – issue. In 2010 Theresa May excluded Zakir Naik from entry in the UK because he had made comments that we’re evidence of “unacceptable behaviour”. Note. Theresa […]
Lifting the Veil on this old debate
Another debate about covering faces? Have we not already been through this before? Conservative MP Philip Hollobone in 2010, and before him in 2006, Labour stalwart Jack Straw both made a point of preferring not to have to endure the apparent horror of speaking to a Muslim woman whose face they can not see. The […]
Derek Nash at the 606 Club
As you mature you begin to want – and expect – different things from a night out. As a thirty-something dad I don’t particularly want to go to a club where I can barely hear myself think anymore, and neither do the bunch of guys who I went to the 606 Club with. We wanted […]
What’s the problem with public sector IT projects?
In times of austerity, as government budgets effect public services, it’s only right to expect that the public money that is being spent is being spent efficiently. But is this happening? Our police force, health service and benefits system have all recently been shown to be failing to manage IT projects properly. Following a review […]
Elysium – review
There is something familiar about Elysium. In fact, there are a lot of things familiar about Elysium, drawing, as it undoubtedly does on the usual sci-fi tropes. The dystopia of the future. Hi-tech droids. Unfeeling conglomerates that operate beyond the law, and so on, and so forth. Anybody with a passing interest in sci-fi has seen […]
TechNet and Xbox One : Microsoft Mistakes?
Microsoft is a huge corporation. It has products spanning video games consoles and enterprise level software. Usually you would expect these divisions to be quite separate, but lately they have been united by gaffes on an epic scale. Lets take the launch of the new Xbox One console. As a replacement for Xbox 360 much […]
Undercover Embarrassing Bodies
A new series of Undercover Boss has started recently. I’d stopped watching it ages ago but thought I’d give the new series a go. It wasn’t disappointing in that it was at once utterly predictable, yet still surprising. It was intriguing to follow Phil Couchman, the Chief Executive of DHL in the UK. It’s likely the show was […]
What are coders worth?
You know something has nailed the zeitgeist when 2 different people send you a link to it, and James Somers really attracted some attention with his article: Are coders worth it? The article is a distillation of Somers’ experience in the web development industry. From the UK perspective he makes the development job market in the US seem […]