Hi Everyone This week, a teenager was asked which item cost the most, a first class postage stamp or five chocolate creme eggs. Back in 1914, just before WW1, a letter cost one penny in old money, less than half a penny in today's money. If you apply inflation to that one penny stamp from 1914 to now, a letter or greetings card should cost about twenty five pence to send anywhere in the UK. The answer to that question was predictably the postage stamp at £ 1-80. If  you lived

Hi Everyone I expect that when you were at school, there was always a class bully eager to make your life uncomfortable. He - very rarely a girl - would usually have a couple of cronies who would enjoy bullying as much as he did, or maybe just playing up to him so that they could avoid being one of his targets. The usual tactic was to try to avoid them as much as possible, and if you had to engage them in conversation, then attempt to humour them. Almost eighty years on, I ca

Hi Everyone Something that you hear from young people today as they try to enter the job market is that if they are competing for a job, someone with experience will have a better chance. Then I read this week that where there are many applicants for a job, employers are using AI as part of the vetting process. Back in my day, before the days of computers, etc., if you advertised a job in the local newspaper, you expected an application letter. If, for example, you got fiftee

Hi Everyone The good news this week is that Trump does not like Prime Minister Starmer. He thinks that he is “a nice man” and that he has “a nice family”, but he cannot understand why he will not join his war. “He is the Prime Minister he can do anything he wants”. Well no, he has to consult his colleagues, the military experts, and his European friends. What Trump fails to recognise is that NATO is a defence alliance with no obligation to join America and Israel in a war tha