www.southamptonmatters.com

The city represents the core of the Greater Southampton region, with a population of 228,600. The city's name is sometimes abbreviated in writing to "So'ton" or "Soton", and a resident of Southampton is called a Sotonian.

Southampton is noted for being the home of the RMS Titanic, the Spitfire and more recently a number of the largest cruise liners in the world.

Subdivisions of the city include:

Bassett, Bassett Green, Bevois Valley, Bitterne, Bitterne Park, Bitterne Manor
City Centre, Chartwell Green, Chilworth, Coxford Freemantle Harefield, Highfield
Lordshill, Lordswood Mansbridge, Maybush, Midanbury, Millbrook Northam, Nursling, New Town, Ocean Village, Old Town Polygon, Portswood Redbridge, Rownhams Shirley, Sholing, St Denys, St. Mary's, Swaythling Thornhill, Townhill Park Weston, Woolston

The Ocean Village marinaAs befits Southampton's role as a major port, the city has good transport links with the rest of the country. The M27 motorway, linking places along the south coast of England, runs just to the north of the city. The M3 motorway links the city to London and also, by linking to the A34 road at Winchester with the Midlands and North. The M271 motorway is a spur of the M27, linking it with the Western Docks and city centre.

Southampton is also well served by the rail network, which is used by both freight services to and from the docks and passenger services as part of the national rail system. The main station in the city is Southampton Central. Rail routes run east towards Portsmouth, north to Winchester, the Midlands and London, and westwards to Salisbury, Bristol and Bournemouth.

Local train services operate in the central, Southern and Eastern sections of the city, with stations at Swaythling, St Denys, Millbrook, Redbridge, Bitterne, Sholing and Woolston.

Southampton Coach Station, which is located near the West Quay Shopping Centre, was refurbished recently and the range and frequency of services offered by National Express services make use of the new facilities.


Southampton Airport Control TowerSouthampton Airport is a regional airport located in the town of Eastleigh, just north of Southampton. It hosts flights to UK and near European destinations, and is connected to the city by a frequent rail service from Southampton Airport (Parkway) railway station, and a number of bus services.

Whilst Southampton is no longer the base for any cross-channel ferries, it is the terminus for three internal ferry services, all of which operate from terminals at Town Quay. Two of these, a car ferry service and a fast catamaran passenger ferry service, provide links to East Cowes and Cowes respectively on the Isle of Wight and are operated by Red Funnel. The third ferry is the Hythe Ferry, providing a passenger service to the town of Hythe on the other side of Southampton Water.

Buses make up the majority of local public transport, with significant peak hour congestion in the city. The main bus operators are First Southampton, Uni-link and Solent Blue Line who operate the bluestar services. Other operators include Brijan Tours, Stagecoach and Wilts and Dorset. Free buses are provided by City-link and City Loop. City-link runs from town quay to Southampton Central Station and is operated by Uni-link. The Uni-link bus service was commissioned by the University of Southampton to provide access to students who are studying at the university to all parts of the city. The buses run from early in the morning to midnight meeting demands of students who wish to get to the city during the day and leisure places in the evening. There is also a door to door minibus service called Southampton Dial a Ride, for residents who cannot access public transport. This is funded by the council and operated by SCA Support Services.

There are two main termini for bus services. As the biggest operator, First uses stops around Pound Tree Road, and occupy a lot of space there. This leaves the other terminal of West Quay available for other operators. Uni-link passes West Quay in both directions, and Wilts and Dorset drop passengers off and pick them up there, terminating at a series of bus stands along the road. Certain Solent Blue Line services also do this, while others stop at Bargate and some loop round West Quay, stopping between Bargate and Pound tree Road.

Southampton used to be home to a number of ferry services to the continent, with destinations such as San Sebastian, Lisbon, Tangier and Casablanca. A ferry port was built during the 1960s. However a number of these relocated to Portsmouth and by 1996, there were no longer any car ferries operating from Southampton with the exception of services to the Isle of Wight. The land used for Southampton Ferry Port was sold off and a retail and housing development was built on the site. The Princess Alexandra Dock was converted into a non-tidal Marina. Now new car reception areas now fill the Eastern Docks where passengers, dry docks and trains used to be.


Areas and suburbs

Southampton is named the 'Green City' as it is graced with many green spaces and parks. The largest green space is the 148 hectare Southampton Common, parts of which are used to host the annual summer festivals, circuses and fun fairs. The Common includes a wildlife centre on the former site of Southampton Zoo, a swimming pool and several lakes and ponds.

As with most cities there are several council estates such as those in the Weston, Thornhill and Townhill Park districts. Overall, the city is ranked 96th most deprived out of all 354 Local Authorities in England.

The city has a strong higher education sector. The University of Southampton and Southampton Solent University together have a student population of almost 40,000.

The University of Southampton - which was founded in 1862 - is one of the top 10 research-led universities in the UK, and caters for 20,000 students. It is also considered to be one of the top 200 (141th) universities in the world. It also provides a wide range of services for the business community. The university has a global reputation for leading-edge research into oceanography, cancer sciences, sound and vibration research, computer science and electronics, optoelectronics and textile conservation. It is also home to the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton, the focus of Natural Environment Research Council-funded marine research.

Southampton Solent University has 17,000students and its strengths are in the training, consultancy, research and other services undertaken for business and industry.

Over 40 per cent of school pupils in the city that responded to a survey claimed to have been the victim of bullying. More than 2,000 took part and said that verbal bullying was the most common form, although physical bullying was a close second for boys.

Tudor House, SouthamptonThe city is home to the second longest medieval walls in England that are still standing, as well as a number of museums such as Tudor House, The Maritime Museum and Solent Sky, which focuses on aviation. The annual Southampton Boat Show is held in September each year, with over 600 exhibitors present. It runs for just over a week at Mayflower Park on the city's waterfront, where it has been held since 1968. The Boat Show itself is the climax of Sea City, which runs from April to September each year to celebrate Southampton's links with the sea. Southampton has a vibrant nightlife, and has been voted one of the best places to live in the UK for single people aged 18 to 30, owing to its low cost of living, wide array of bars and club and cheap transport. Women voted it second best behind London, while men rated it as seventh. Music is an important aspect of the city and there are several music venues. The city is home to R'n'B soulstar Craig David, Coldplay drummer Will Champion, and was the birthplace of comedian Benny Hill.


The Mayflower TheatreThe main theatre in the city is the 2,300 capacity Mayflower Theatre, which hosts a number of West End shows, such as Les Miserables, The Rocky Horror Show and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. The city is home to several art galleries, including the council run gallery at the Civic Centre.


Media

Local media include the Southern Daily Echo newspaper based in Redbridge and BBC South, which has its regional headquarters in the city centre. From there the BBC broadcasts South Today, the local television news bulletin and BBC Radio Solent. The local ITV franchise is Meridian, which has its headquarters in Whiteley, around nine miles (14 km) from the city. Until recently, the station's studios were located in the Northam area of the city. Commercial radio stations include Radio Hampshire - which until 2007 was run by Southampton F.C. and known as The Saint - Power FM, Ocean FM and Original 106.


Sport

St. Mary's StadiumSouthampton is home to Southampton Football Club - nicknamed "The Saints" - who play in the Football League Championship at St Mary's Stadium. At grass roots level, the two local Sunday Leagues in the Southampton area are the City of Southampton Sunday Football League and the Southampton and District Sunday Football League. Hampshire County Cricket Club play close to the city, at the Rose Bowl in West End, after previously playing at the County Cricket Ground, near to the city centre.

The city is famous for yachting and water sports, with a number of marinas dotted around. From 1977 to 2001 the Whitbread Around the World Yacht Race, which is now known as the Volvo Ocean Race was based in Southampton.

The city also boasts the Southampton Sports Centre which is the focal point for the public's sporting and outdoor activities and includes an Alpine Centre, theme park and athletics centre which is used by professional athletes.

Southampton was named "fittest city in the UK" in 2006 by Men's Fitness magazine. The results were based on the incidence of heart disease, the amount of junk food and alcohol consumed, and the level of gym membership. In 2007, it had slipped one place behind London, but was still ranked first when it came to the parks and green spaces available for exercise and the amount of television watched by Sotonians was the lowest in the country. Speedway racing took place at Bannister Court Stadium in the pre-war era. It returned the 1940s after WW2 and the Saints operated until the stadium closed down at the end of 1963. A training track operated in the 1950s in the Hamble area. Southampton is also home to one of the most successful College American Football teams in the U.K the Southampton Stags, a joint team between Southampton Solent and Southampton University, that boasts 3 college bowl wins and access to some of the best facilities in the sport at the Wide Lane Sports Facility.

Notable people

See also: Category:People from Southampton
There have been a number of notable people who either hail from Southampton or who have lived in the city over the years. In the sphere of music, the city is the home of Coldplay drummer, Will Champion, whose father and late mother taught at the university. R&B singer Craig David was brought up on the Holy Rood estate in the city centre, and BBC Radio One DJ Scott Mills comes from the city too. In the past, the city was home to Isaac Watts, a famous hymn writer, who notably composed O God Our Help In Ages Past which is the school hymn of the King Edward VI school in the city and the peal of the Civic Centre clock tower. In other arts, Sir John Everett Millais, who now has a museum named after him in the city came from Southampton as did Benny Hill, the internationally renowned comedian, who had a milk round in nearby Eastleigh - the inspiration for his song Ernie (The Fastest Milkman In The West). SKY, & International Radio Presenter Andy Collins and naturalist TV presenter Chris Packham are natives too.

Admiral John Jellicoe, commander of the British fleet at the Battle of Jutland was a Sotonian and Argentinian dictator Juan Manuel de Rosas spent his last years in exile in the city.

Former England and Southampton F.C. footballer Matthew Le Tissier lives in the city, as he has done since the mid 1980s, and Olympic athlete Iwan Thomas lives there as did former tennis player Wally Masur.

Crime

According to government figures Southampton has a higher crime rate than the national average. In the Violence against the person category, the national average is 16.7 per 1000 population while Southampton is 38.4 per 1000 population and in the Theft from a vehicle category, the national average is 7.6 per 1000 compared to Southampton's 17.4 per 1000. Overall, for every 1,000 people in the city, 102 crimes are recorded, meaning that around 10 per cent of the population have been victims of crime in the last 12 months.

Containers being loaded at the docksThere are currently 120,305 jobs in Southampton, and 3,570 people claiming job seekers allowance, approximately 2.4 per cent of the city's population, as of March 2007. This compares with an average of 2.5 per cent for England as a whole.

As of June 2006, 74.7 per cent of the city's population are classed as economically active.

Just over a quarter of the jobs available in the city are in the health and education sector. A further 19 per cent are property and other business and the third largest sector is wholesale and retail, which accounts for 16.2 per cent. Between 1995 and 2004, the number of jobs in Southampton has increased by 18.5 per cent.

As of January 2007, the average annual salary in the city was £22,267. This was £1,700 lower than the national average and £3,800 less than the average for the South East.

Southampton has always been strongly connected with maritime history and developments, and the docks have long been a major employer in the city. In particular, it is a primary port for cruise ships, its heyday being the first half of the 20th century, and in particular the inter-war years, when it handled almost half the passenger traffic of the UK. Today it remains home to many luxury liners, as well as being the largest freight port on the Channel coast, with several container terminals. Unlike many other ports, such as Liverpool, London, and Bristol, where industry and docks have largely moved out of the city centres leaving room for redevelopment, Southampton retains much of its inner-city industry. Part of the docks have been redeveloped, however as the Ocean Village development, a local marina and entertainment complex.

During the latter half of the 20th century, a more diverse range of industry also came to the city, including aircraft and automobile manufacture, cables, electrical-engineering products, and petrochemicals. These now sit alongside the city's traditional industries of the docks, grain milling, and tobacco processing.

Southampton University Hospitals NHS Trust is one of the city's largest employers. It provides local hospital services to half a million people in the Southampton area and specialist regional services to more than three million people across the South of England. The Trust owns and manages Southampton General Hospital, the Princess Anne Hospital and a palliative care service at Countess Mountbatten House.

Other major employers in the city include Ordnance Survey, the UK's national mapping agency, whose headquarters are in the city. The Lloyd's Register Group has announced plans to move its London marine operations to a specially developed site at the University of Southampton. The area of Swaythling is home to Ford's Southampton Assembly Plant, where the majority of their Transit models are manufactured.


West Quay Shopping CentreSouthampton's largest retail centre is the West Quay Shopping Centre. Opened in September 2000 and hosting major High Street brands it is one of the largest in the country. The centre itself was phase two of the West Quay development. The first was the West Quay Retail park, while the third phase has been planned for a number of years with the latest target of work starting being 2007. The plans include building more shops, housing, offices including the headquarters for Carnival Cruises and additional leisure facilities. A decision as to what leisure facilities is still to be decided, however Southampton has been granted a large casino licence and so can now add to its collection of casinos in the city.

Swedish low-cost home products retailer IKEA has been given permission to open a store in the city centre near to West Quay. Other major shopping areas in the city centre include The Mall Marlands, The Bargate Centre and the East Street area, which has been designated for speciality shopping, with the aim of promoting smaller retailers. Overall, Southampton is ranked 13th for shopping in the UK.


The dockyards on the River TestLike many cities in the UK, Southampton's strong economy is promoting redevelopment, and major projects are proposed, including the city's first skyscrapers on the waterfront. The three towers proposed will each stand 23 stories high and will be surrounded by smaller apartment blocks, office blocks and shops. There are also plans for a 15 storey Hotel at the Ocean Village marina, and a 21 storey hotel on the north eastern corner of the city centre, as part of a £100m development.

Another project would have been the permanent docking of the Queen Elizabeth 2 in Southampton (her home port since 1969) as a floating hotel and tourist attraction when she is retired; however, Cunard Line announced on June 18, 2007, that the ship will be sold to Dubai for those purposes.

Southampton is unique in being the only city in the UK with a geothermal power station. The station provides hot water to a city centre district heating scheme. In a recent survey of carbon emissions in major UK cities conducted by British Gas, Southampton was ranked as being one of the lowest carbon emitting cities in the United Kingdom.

According to figures from 2004, Southampton contributes around £4.2bn to the regional economy annually. The vast majority of this is from the service sector, with the remainder coming from industry in the city. This figure has almost doubled since 1995.

The geography of Southampton is very much influenced by the sea and rivers. The city sits at the northern tip of the Southampton Water, a deepwater estuary, which is a ria formed at the end of the last Ice Age. Here, the rivers Test and Itchen converge. The Test - which has saltmarsh that make it ideal for Salmon fishing - runs along the Western edge of the city, while the Itchen splits Southampton in two - east and west. The city centre is located on the peninsula between the two rivers.

Much of the Waterfront has been reclaimed over the years, mainly for use as the Western Docks. Most of the land used for reclamation came from dredging of Southampton Water, to ensure that the port can continue to handle some of the largest ships in the world. The shape of the coastline gives rise to a natural phenomena in Southampton, known as the double tide. This gives the port a much longer high tide period than other ports, making the movement of large ships easier.

The city itself lies in the Hampshire Basin, which sits atop large amounts of chalk beds.

Demographics

As is the case with most large towns in the UK, Southampton has a diverse range of cultures and ethnic groups, which make up the estimated 228,600 people living within the city boundary. There is a large Polish population in the city, with estimates as high as 20,000, or 1 in every 10 of the total population. Southampton also has large Asian and Irish communities. At the 2001 Census, 92.4 per cent of the city's populace were white - including one per cent white Irish, 3.8 per cent were South Asian, 1.0 per cent Black, 1.3 per cent Chinese or other ethnic groups, and 1.5 per cent were of mixed race.

In total, there are 112,400 males within the city and 109,500 females. The 20-24 age range is the most populous, with an estimated 28,100 people falling in this age range. Next largest is the 25-29 range with 20,500 people and then 30-34 years with 17,000. By population, Southampton is the largest monocentric city in the South East England region and the second largest on the South Coast after Plymouth.

Between 1996 and 2004, the population of the city increased by 4.9 per cent - the tenth biggest increase in England. In 2005 the Government Statistics stated that Southampton was the third most densely populated city in the country after London and Portsmouth respectively. Hampshire County Council expects the city's population to grow by around a further two per cent between 2006 and 2013, adding around another 4,200 to the total number of residents.The highest increases are expected among the elderly.

Although Stone Age, Bronze Age and Iron Age settlements are known to have existed in the area, the first permanent settlement was established by the Romans shortly after their invasion of Britain in AD43. Known as Clausentum, it was an important trading port for the large Roman towns of Winchester and Salisbury. The Romans abandoned the settlement circa AD410, and the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons eventually saw the formation of a new settlement circa AD700 across the Itchen centred around what is now the St Mary's area. The settlement was known as Hamwic, which evolved into Hamtun and then Hampton.

The Viking King Canute the Great is supposed to have defeated the Anglo-Saxon King Ethelred the Unready here in 1014 and been crowned here, and his fabled attempt to "command" the tide to halt may have taken place in Southampton. Excavations have uncovered one of the best collections of Saxon artifacts in Europe.

Hamwic fell into decline in the 9th century, but there is evidence that by the 10th century, a new settlement, which became Medieval Southampton had already been established following the Norman Conquest in 1066. Southampton became the major port of transit between Winchester (then the capital of England) and Normandy. By the 13th century, Southampton had become a leading port, and was particularly involved in the trade of French Wine in exchange for English cloth and wool. The Wool House was built in 1417 as a warehouse for the medieval wool trade with Flanders and Italy, the building surviving today as the Maritime Museum. During the Middle Ages, shipbuilding became an increasingly important industry, which was to remain for centuries to come.

The town was sacked in 1338 by the French, including the pirate Grimaldi, who used the plunder to help found the principality of Monaco. After this attack, the city's walls - part of which dates from 1175 - were extensively added to and reinforced. A large part of the town's walls remain today. Lacking proper finance for the construction of a full defensive wall, the townsfolk reached a compromise solution, which involved joining the existing exterior walls of existing merchant houses together to form part of the defensive structure. The city walls include God's House Tower, built in 1417, the first purpose-built artillery fortification in England. Over the years it has been used as home to the city's gunner, the Town Gaol and even as storage for the Southampton Harbour Board. Today, it is open as the Museum of Archaeology. The walls were finally completed in the 15th century.

The 12th century Red Lion pub on the High Street, within the old walls, is where in 1415, immediately prior to King Henry V of England's departure from Southampton to the Battle of Agincourt, the ringleaders of the "Southampton Plot", Richard, Earl of Cambridge, Henry Scrope, 3rd Baron Scrope of Masham and Sir Thomas Grey of Heton, were tried and found guilty of high treason, before being summarily executed outside the Bargate.

The port was the original point of departure for the Pilgrim Fathers aboard the Mayflower in 1620. A memorial can be found on Town Quay. Since that time it has been the last port of call for millions of emigrants who left the Old World to start a new life in the USA, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa and other parts of the world.


The memorial to the engineers of the RMS Titanic.In 1838, the docks were rebuilt and Southampton became known as The Gateway to the Empire. As was common with most of the luxury liners of the time, in 1912 the RMS Titanic sailed from here. The city contains several memorials and museum exhibitions related to the Titanic, most of crew having come from Southampton; 549 Sotonians died in the sinking.


The city is home to Sir Edwin Lutyens' first permanent cenotaph, which was the basis for his design of the memorial in Whitehall, London, a memorial to the city's dead of World War I. When it was unveiled on 6 November 1920, it was 1800 names, later raised to 2008. The Second World War hit Southampton particularly hard because of its strategic importance as the major industrial area on the South Coast. In particular, the Supermarine Spitfire fighter aircraft was invented and manufactured in Southampton, a result of 1930s experimentation in the city. Bombing in two days in September 1940 killed 130 workers at the Woolston aircraft factory. There were many aircraft companies based around Hamble, to the east of the city, from the 1930s to 1950s, including Folland Aviation, now part of British Aerospace, which built the Hawk and Harrier. BOAC had a flying boat base in the docks serving British colonial possessions in Africa and Asia in the 1930s and 1940s. It closed in 1950 when land based aircraft became dominant. Nearby, Calshot Spit was a base for the military flying boat services.

Pockets of Georgian architecture survived the war, but much of the city was levelled. The accuracy of the locally-based Ordnance Survey's maps did not go unrecognised by the Luftwaffe: the German bomber pilots used them to bomb Southampton. One notable building to survive the bombings was Southampton's oldest, St. Michaels Church. Thought to have been commenced in 1070, the building has been added to many times over the centuries but its central tower dates from Norman times. The spire was an important navigation aid for the German pilots and consequently they were ordered to avoid bombing it.

Southampton became a county corporate in 1447. It was one of the boroughs reformed by the Municipal Corporations Act 1835. The town became a county borough under the Local Government Act 1888, being expanded by the addition of several parishes in 1894, 1920, 1925 and 1967. Southampton was awarded city status in 1964 by Letters Patent. The boundaries have been largely unchanged since then, despite the loss of county borough status in 1974, and subsequent regaining of unitary authority status in 1996.


Government

Civic Centre, SouthamptonSouthampton used to be a County Borough within the county of Hampshire, which in the past was known as the County of Southampton or Southamptonshire. This was officially changed to Hampshire in 1959 although the county had been commonly known as Hampshire or Hantscire for centuries. Southampton became a non-metropolitan district in 1974. However, the city became independent administratively from that county as it was made into a unitary authority in a local government re-organisation on 1 April 1997 - a result of the 1992 Local Government Act. The district remains part of the Hampshire ceremonial county.

Southampton City Council consists of 48 councillors elected by thirds. After the 2007 local council elections on 3 May 2007 the Council is split with 18 seats each to the Labour and the Conservative Party, each having gained two, and 12 to the Liberal Democrats. The Conservatives took control in May 2007, after a Liberal Democrat resigned from her group to become an independent and voted for the Conservative leader Alec Samuels. During the budget setting meeting on 20th February 2008, a no confidence motion was passed and Labour and the Liberal Democrats formed a coalition.

There are three members of parliament for the city: Rt Hon John Denham (Labour) for Southampton Itchen, the constituency for the east of the city, Dr Alan Whitehead (Labour) for Southampton Test which covers the west of the city, and Sandra Gidley (Liberal Democrat) for Romsey, which includes a northern portion of the city. The Boundary Commission for England has created the new constituency of Romsey and Southampton North, by enlarging the current Romsey one. The new boundaries encompass the unitary authority wards of Bassett and Swaythling. It will be in place in time for the 2009 or 2010 General Election.

Southampton's police service is provided by Hampshire Constabulary, its fire service by Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service and the ambulance service by the South Central Ambulance Service. Police stations within the city boundaries can be found in Portswood, Bitterne, and Shirley, as well as at the Civic Centre in the city centre. Fire stations are located in St Mary's, Sholing and Redbridge.

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The FTSE climbed within striking distance of an 18-month high.

Nationwide reported the first fall in UK house prices for ten months.

Revised figures for the last quarter of 2009 showed that the UK economy grew by 0.3% rather than the 0.1% previously recorded.

Three more Japanese vehicle-makers – Nissan, Suzuki and Daihatsu – recalled half a million cars because of reported problems with electronics.

Santander has moved into pole position to take over the 320 branches in England being sold by Royal Bank of Scotland.

The supertax on bank bonuses will reap more than £2.5bn for the Treasury, giving the UK government an unexpectedly large windfall to spend ahead of the general election.

In September a new video was uploaded to Google Video in Italy. It showed an autistic schoolboy in Turin being abused, physically and verbally, by his classmates.

On Wednesday, three executives from Google who had never worked in Italy, or had any idea of the video's existence before it was deleted two months later , were found guilty (in absentia) of invading the teenager's privacy, and given six-month suspended sentences by an Italian court, after charges were brought by a local Down's syndrome charity.

David Drummond, Google’s chief legal officer, and one of those convicted, claimed the ruling "poses a grave danger to the continued freedom and operation of the many internet services that users around the world, including many Italians have come to rely on".

 

The prosecutors argued that Google had a duty to ensure that such videos complied with privacy law before they were made public, that comments beneath the video suggesting that it was inappropriate were ignored, and that it should have been spotted when it made the "most viewed" list on the site.

 

Google countered that it took the video down within three hours of being alerted by the authorities, that European (and Italian) law states that responsibility for such videos lies with those who post them, and that taking a random set of executives from its hierarchy to court was hardly the way to resolve the issue.

 

This ruling implies that Google, or indeed who operates a website is responsible for every offensive video, photo or comment that appears there.  So why does this cause a problem and why it can't material just be blocked before it is uploaded, as the Italian court wants?

 

There are two objections, one philosophical and one practical. The first is whether it is desirable for Internet companies to have the power to decide what is tasteful or ethical.

 

The practical implications are also critical. YouTube, the video service bought by Google in 2006, receives 20 hours of video every single minute, so much information that no human being could reasonably pre-screen.

 

Bill Eggers, the global director of Deloitte Research, points out that it took the Library of Congress more than 200 years to amass a collection of 29 million books and periodicals, 2.4 million audio recordings, 12 million photographs, 4.8 million maps and 57 million manuscripts. The same amount of data is now being added to the Internet every five minutes.

 

Spam Comes to Twitter

The Social Media world was attacked twice last week by spammers. Twitter users were warned not to click links in some tweets, after the microblogging service fell victim to its second phishing attack in a week.

 

Users have received Direct Messages with links that when clicked, direct users to a malicious website, which looks just like the Twitter home page, where they are prompted to enter their login details.

 

As soon as they hit enter, the malicious message is sent to everyone on their Twitter friends list, helping the scam to spread across the internet. Security experts fear that cyber criminals could use this login information to hack in to other accounts, or gain remote access to a computer.

 

Twitter users were receiving direct messages that said: "This you????" and contained a link. Now another phishing message, reading "hi, i'm 24/female/horny ... i have to get off here but message me on my windows live messenger name", is also spreading across the service.

 

"It's bad enough if hackers gain control of your Twitter account, but if you also use that same password on other websites and our research shows that 33 per cent of people do that all the time then they could access your Gmail, Hotmail, Facebook, eBay and PayPal accounts too," said Graham Cluley, a security expert with Sophos.

 

"Our advice is to be cautious about the links you click on, choose a strong password, and, if you find that you're spreading suspicious messages from your Twitter account, change your passwords immediately.

 

"You should also check the Settings/Connections area of your Twitter account. If there are any third-party applications you don't recognise listed there, revoke their permission to access your account."  

 

Twitter said that it was aware of the problem, and was working hard to secure the site against similar future attacks.

 

Libraries Struggles to Achieve Web.

The UK's online heritage could be lost forever if the government does not grant a "right to archive", a group of leading libraries has said.  The British Library, along with other institutions, has been archiving UK websites since 2004 but has only been able to cover 6,000 of an estimated 8m.

 

Currently, it must ask permission from website owners before archiving them.  We've got the know-how but we need the rules to say we don't need to ask permission," said a spokesman for the British Library.  "We're archiving for the nation rather than commercial gain."

 

The British Library believes the UK Web Archive could prove as useful to historians as ancient pamphlets and other ephemeral material in its archive.  The consortium, which also includes the National Library of Wales and the Wellcome Library, is lobbying the government to clarify elements of the Legal Deposit Libraries Act.

 

The act, which among other things means that every UK print publication is automatically deposited by publishers in the British Library, was extended in 2003 to cover online material. But the British Library says it never clarified what steps had to be taken before electronic material was recorded.

 

"We're in the ridiculous position where we have to ask permission of each webmaster before we archive a site," the spokesman said.  The Department of Culture Media and Sport is currently consulting on the act.

 

"We can't make a judgement about what people in the future will find useful," said the British Library spokesman.  The British Library said research showed that the average life expectancy of a website was just 44 to 75 days, and suggested that at least 10% of all UK websites were either lost or replaced by new material every six months.

 

There are other achieves, including the WayBack Machine http://www.archive.org which aim to catalogue and record websites as they change over the years.

 

Broadband Tax Condemned by MPs

A government proposal to charge people with fixed phone lines 50p per month to help fund ultra-fast broadband has been condemned as "unfair" by MPs.

 

The cross-party Business Innovation and Skills Committee said most of those who would pay the tax would not benefit from the faster broadband service.  The focus should be on providing basic broadband for all and allowing markets to deliver higher speeds, it said.

 

The government said the plan was the "best way to drive further investment".  It maintains that faster speeds are "vital to the UK's growth".  However, the committee argued: "We believe that a 50p levy placed on fixed telecommunication lines is an ill-directed charge.  "It will place a disproportionate cost on a majority who will not, or are unable to, reap the benefits of that charge."

 

The government's broadband plans outlined in its Digital Economy Bill, have two main concepts.  It wants to ensure a minimum speed of 2Mbps to all parts of Britain by 2012, and then deliver ultra-fast broadband to most of the country by 2017.  

 

The committee agreed that the government should help deliver 2Mbps to all by 2012 but said that it was "concerned" that the government had not defined what it guaranteed.  Broadband speeds rarely meet the advertised speeds, depending on the number of users online and distance from an exchange.

 

The committee believes that the government should commit to delivering a minimum of 2Mbps "under normal circumstances, to all users at all times".  But the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills said that the government wanted everyone to "access the huge social, economic and health benefits" that high speeds offer.

 

“We are currently consulting on the most effective way to deploy this investment with public and commercial benefits in mind, and will consider the Committee's report in our final response," said the spokesman.

 

When Gordon Brown and the Cabinet visited Exeter recently, Nigel Wilkinson from WNW Design took the opportunity to raise this matter with Justice Minister Jack Straw. With the government wanting to promote a high-skills, low carbon economy in the south west it is vital that ultra fast broadband is available outside the main urban areas. Nigel was able to highlight this point to Mr Straw, who promised to feedback these concerns to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.

 

 

Regards

 

Nigel Wilkinson, Managing Director, WNW Design

 

Visit our regularly updated blog www.wnwdesign.co.uk/wordpress

 

Stock markets rallied around the world as fears that Greece’s sovereign debt crisis eased.

In the UK, unemployment in the last quarter fell by 3,000 to 2.46 million, with the jobless rate remaining at 7.8%.

Readers Digest’s UK arm went into administration.

The Toyota saga rumbled on with the possible recall of the Corolla.

John Stumpf, the chairman of Wells Fargo, earned $18m last year to become America’s highest-paid banker.

The chief executive of Lloyds Banking Group was under intense pressure to give up his £2.25m bonus after the head of rival Royal Bank of Scotland rejected a £1.6m reward.

BUSINESSES AND exhibitors alike are busy preparing for the remaining two expowest events, which are now in their 30th year.

 

The expowest Cornwall event, to be held at the Royal Cornwall Showground, Wadebridge on March 2,3 and 4 will be the next opportunity for businesses to help plan and prepare for the forthcoming season. As ever the event will feature a comprehensive range of exhibitors offering everything to meet the needs of anyone in the hospitality and catering industry and now also the care and health sector.

 

The expowest South Wales event, will follow on March 23 and 24 2010 at the United Counties Showground, Carmarthen and will feature a similar range of suppliers.

 

The expowest events have, over the last three decades, become firmly established as a crucial trading time for businesses as they look to plan for the coming season. People attending expowest will include owners and managers of hotels, guest houses, pubs, clubs, restaurants, cafes and convenience food outlets as well as people from the care and nursing home sector and educational establishments.

 

Peter Sugden, Managing Director of Truro-based organisers Exhibitions South West said '' We are delighted to be celebrating our 30th year in Cornwall and to once again be bringing forward the single biggest opportunity for businesses across the hospitality, catering and care sectors to find all the goods and services they need.

''Following a successful expowest Westcountry event, we're once again looking forward to bringing together under one roof, a massive range of local and national suppliers at both the Cornwall and South Wales events''

 

Expowest exhibitions are specialist shows for trade only. Businesses that would like to exhibit at the shows should call 01872 245220

 

Trade visitors can register for a free ticket at www.expowestexhibitions.com

Times change and technology moves on and it was time to change the layout of the WNW Design newsletter. With more people choosing to read their email on smart phones or notebooks a cleaner, more simplified layout was needed to fit the way people work.

The basic format, where we seek to highlight important trends within the technology industry and changes that may affect you, will stay the same. Only the template and delivery method will be different.

We hope you will continue to enjoy our newsletter and that 2010 has started in a positive manner for you and your business.

Technology Wars
It seems like something from a sci-fi political thriller but the activities of hackers and international government interests meant that Hollywood was behind reality for a change.

Hackers in China managed to exploit a hole in Internet Explorer that enabled them to attack Google’s infrastructure to target the email activities of Chinese political activists. Google promptly threatened to withdraw from China, expecting Microsoft, its fiercest rival, and others to back its stance. Only to be met with a deafening silence from the technology giant.

Next Germany and France, never big fans of the ubiquitous Microsoft, decided to recommend to their citizens that they change browsers to prevent them becoming victims to the potential security hole. Meanwhile the UK government downplayed the threat and said there was "no evidence that moving from the latest fully patched versions of Internet Explorer to other browsers will make users more secure".

Microsoft has now taken the unusual step of patching the hole nearly three weeks ahead of its regular security update. The new patch is available via the Microsoft Update site and will also be fed out to those who have their machines set to update automatically. All versions of Internet Explorer will receive the update.

"It addresses the vulnerability related to recent attacks against Google and small subset of corporations, as well as several other vulnerabilities," the firm said.
"Once applied, customers are protected against the known attacks that have been widely publicised." Microsoft has admitted that it has known about the vulnerability since "since early September" 2009 and had planned to patch it in February.

The bad publicity Microsoft received has allowed rivals such as Firefox to gain market share. According to web analytics company StatCounter, Firefox is now a close second to Internet Explorer (IE) in Europe, with 40% of the market compared to Microsoft's 45% share. In Germany and Austria, Firefox has overtaken IE, the firm said, whilst Google’s Chrome browser has also gained market share.

BT Launches 40Mbps Broadband
Based around fibre optic cables, BT has launched a broadband service that offers speeds of up to 40 megabits per second (Mbps), calling their service Infinity.

Trials have been held in London's Muswell Hill, Whitchurch and Glasgow, where BT said it will give some customers an upload speed of up to 10 Mbps. Often broadband even in areas close to exchanges has remarkably slow upload times, not a problem for general home viewing but a real challenge for businesses or individuals wanting to send or share information.

BT said that four million homes and businesses would be able to get it by 2011.
The current highest speed service from BT available to homes is 20 megabits per second (Mbps), though not all homes can get this headline speed. BT Retail said the basic 40Mbps service will be offered for £19.99 per month on an 18 month contract. It will also charge an installation fee of £50 for those on the lowest tariff.

Only those who opt for BT's most expensive tariff, £24.99 per month, will get the 10Mbps upload speed. With the basic package upload speed is up to 2Mbps.
BT said the higher speed would make it easier to share broadband among multiple computers and improve video streaming and net TV services.

Of course there is a problem in that only those closest to the street cabinets that the fibre connects to are likely to get the full 40Mbps. And of course how much of the country has fibre cables anyway?

A spokesman for Virgin Media wondered why anyone would buy a service from BT that has yet to launch when it could get higher speeds via cable already. He said Virgin was already trialling future technology that could see cable speeds reach 200Mbps.

With increasing demands placed on the existing infrastructure and the rapidly changing pace of technology, speeds in excess of 100Mbps are widely seen as the only realistic way to avoid a bandwidth meltdown.

Bill Gates Joins Twitter
A new “verified” account went live last week when ex-Microsoft boss Bill Gates joined the growing number of people on Twitter. Within seven hours he passed 50,000 followers and ended the day on 142,000 people reading his comments.

Six months ago he ceased his Facebook account as he was inundated with “friend requests” but this too has returned, now in the guise of a fan page, where readers can follow his musings without becoming actual friends.

This is all backed up by the launch of http://www.thegatesnotes.com/ Bill’s own website, where you can follow his thoughts and activities in more detail than allowed by Twitter's 140 character rule.

With Gates these days focusing on his charitable foundation, rather than running Mircosoft, much of the Tweeting has been about Haiti and the relief effort, not that subjects from appearing with Jon Stewart on the Daily Show to visiting the Sundance Film Festival have escaped attention.

Follow Bill Gates at http://twitter.com/billgates

What about the iPad?
So rumours of Apple’s new product being called the iTablet or iSlate, were wide of the mark. The iPad is the next must-have gadget for the geek about town, with prices starting at $499 in the USA.

This product is likely to either revolutionise the world or be a big over-hyped “so what!” Or maybe just be useful to some people in a certain way. The reviews are so based on opinion and speculation it is hard to know what to believe.

James McQuivey, principal analyst at Forrester Research says, "That’s the challenge for Apple. They have to create a new category, and it can’t just be like the last time — in 2001, 2002 — when tablets were created and were viewed as productivity devices."

Those early tablets "were going to make us really effective at work," he said. "Heaven knows that’s not something we all care about when we wake up in the morning. What we do care about is, how are we going to spend our idle time? How are we going to keep our busy minds occupied with interesting and fun things, such as movies, TV, music and reading newspapers and magazines. That’s where the Apple tablet is going to forge new ground."

With a screen of 9.7 inches measured diagonally and weighing in at 1.5 pounds and 0.5 inch thin, Apple claim it has a 10 hour battery life, allowing you to connect by WiFi or 3G, much like an iPhone, to browse the Internet or watch video. For more detail visit http://www.apple.com/ipad/design/

WNW Design Celebrate Ten Years by Linking with West of England School
On 1st January 2010 WNW Design celebrated our 10th birthday and to mark this landmark, we have linked up with local children’s charity The West of England School and College for Children and Young People with Little or No Sight.

We will be donating £100 to the School for each new web hosting client during the whole of 2010. So if you know anyone who is looking either to start a new website or is looking to change their website hosting provider, help us help the School and contact us for a quotation.

If you would like more information about this offer or the work of the School, please visit www.wnwdesign.co.uk/WESchool and follow the link to their website.


And Finally
We would like to welcome Glenn Dalley to the WNW Design team. Working directly with new clients Glenn’s role as Business Development Manager is to help them analyse the best options and explain how WNW Design can assist them in the long term.

If you need help with your website, e-commerce or getting found on the search engines, contact Glenn at glenn@wnwdesign.co.uk


Regards


Nigel Wilkinson, Managing Director, WNW Design

Follow us www.twitter.com/nigelwnw

Visit our regularly updated blog www.wnwdesign.co.uk/wordpress

Dear 2day Reader

Below is a photo of myself tearing up a cheque for hundreds of pounds at our Chillaton bonfire party.You may remember that we have to do this in order to comply with current (manic) government event regulations. But for the regulations, which would have required us to have prohibitively expensive insurance plus a Temporary Events Licence etc… the event would have raised £529 for the local church. However compliance with all the government regulations and licenses would have cost more than we would have made. The only way to make the event legal was to ensure that no charity benefited from it.

 

I have been running bonfire parties safely for 30 years - and nobody has been injured yet. The only contribution the current regulations make is to ensure that charities don’t get any of the money. Charities are estimated to lose tens of million pounds a year as a direct results of events ‘not’ being held for them – due to government regulations.

 

This is all part of an ongoing campaign to run useless events around the country. The first was launched this summer by our MP, Geoffrey Cox, in a vintage Tiger Mother plane when he tore up a £500 cheque – necessary or the organizers would have faced a £20,000 fine or 6 months in prison. The only way the event could proceed legally was to ensure that no charity benefited – by tearing up the cheque.

 

Please see www.communityevents.2day.ws for full details and to sign our petition on the 10 Downing Street website. Our objective is to get our legislation into the Conservative Parties election manifesto

 

Please feel free to ring me any time for more information.

 

All good wishes,

Richard

 

Richard Searight

East Quither Farm

Milton Abbot

Tavistock

Devon PL19 0PZ

 

Telephone 01822 860148 or 01822 600001

www.2day.ws or www.mycommunity.2day.ws

Right now if a charity or community holds an event, it risks breaking the law, getting fined up to £20,000 or jail – just because of the enormity of paperwork and red tape!

Imagine how many charities and communities just give up? How many feel it's not worthwhile, or are fearful of the penalties they may face if they get the forms wrong???

We want to see all this replaced with a simple license as follows.

• ‘universal license’, for simple, low risk, and relatively small events.

• not limited to a single event but a general permission for small groups to operate within certain restrictions and parameters.

• Ideally, such a license would be:
1. Available for free, or at a low cost;
2. Permanent or cover a generous time period;
3. For up to 1500 people - to cover normal community sized events;
4. Linked to the organisation such as church, club, WI or community group, as opposed to an individual;
5. Flexible, allowing multiple small events at short notice, not just for a specific event.

• Enforcement would simply involve the license being immediately withdrawn were it misused.

Lets *encourage* people to hold community events rather than put them off through fear of law-breaking, fines and/or jail!

For more information and to SIGN THE PETITION please CLICK HERE


Saturday 04-Jul-2009

Press release issued 4th July 2009 for immediate use

Charities lose £thousands unless people break the law

A Devon man is to challenge the event licensing processes that he claims are stifling charities and community group fundraising.

Richard Searight of Tavistock wants to see an end to the crippling legal regulations that people face when putting on a fundraising event. He proposes replacing the myriad of forms and fines that usually put people off holding events, with a simple permanent license.

Richard claims that paperwork and forms are now are required for everything from charging for glass of wine in church, to running the village dog show.

To illustrate the issue, his plan is to run legal protest events run all over the UK when charity cheques will to be torn up. He said: “If the money goes to any good causes the organisers could face fines up to £20,000 or 6 months in prison! Basic premise ‘If it’s useless it’s legal’”

The first of these mass-cheque-tear-up events will be held in Devon on 5th, 6th and 7th July to demonstrate how the back-breaking legislation process is preventing a simple fundraising activity.

Richard Searight of Tavistock, organiser of the first event said: “Last summer we tried to create a fantastic community building event but it was destroyed by the regulations, licenses and miles of red tape. It was then that I realised the same legislation is killing thousands perhaps tens of thousands of other community events every year. For example, organisations like Christian Aid have to create specific legislation every year in order just to run Christian Aid week legally.”

“Local communities don’t have that privilege. If they want to sell a glass of wine at the back of church, play ‘My Way’ over the sound system, put on a panto, have a firework party with refreshments … they have to get multiple licenses – or dodge around them – or simply break the law. An example of what communities do NOT want to apply for is the ten page Temporary Events Notice license form (http://www.hart.gov.uk/tens_form.pdf ) - and / or be subject to a £20,000 fine or 6 months in prison if they fill it in wrong!”

Speaking about the event in July, Richard said: “It became clear that the only way to hold our event and stay legal was to exclude the community and not raise money – in other words hold a completely useless event. Hence this year we are Tearing Up Cheques for charity. It is legal because it is useless.”

According to Richard it is crucial that a simple, permanent, community events licence be created which is designed to encourage community events - not regulate them out of existence.

Richard’s event is designed to underline the stupidity of the current burgeoning law: “Our MP Geoffrey Cox is attending; we have a vintage plane providing rides on a strictly invitation only, expenses only basis. However people will be encouraged to bring along cheques which they would have donated to their favourite charities. Every single one will be torn up otherwise we will break the regulations”. The event has to be useless to be legal

Geoffrey Cox MP, QC “While health and safety restrictions and other regulations are often well-intentioned and may even be sensible enough on their own, the cumulative impact of them is to stifle and render impractical the very events that they are meant to ensure the safety for.

It is a tragedy that so many charitable and community events , often ones which have been taking place for many years, have to be cancelled because of the slightest hint of risk. If local authorities and health and safety officers always exercised as much common sense as the event organisers, it would be far better for all concerned”

Richard continues: “I don’t think many people realise the implications of this. Charity events go on every day, and frankly the vast majority of them are simply breaking the law because they have not complied with the one or other the licences that they should have lodged. We need a simple permanent licence which allows communities to carry on being community.”

For more information and to SIGN THE PETITION please CLICK HERE








For more information see: Richard Searight's Community Events Website


Release issued by: Sue Haswell, BFM, 01626 864458 or sue.h@big-future.com


Links/Background on Geoffrey Cox QC MP

• A Labour victory would be bad news for sterling

• Recommended article: Two steps towards solving the housing 'crisis'

• Friday's close: FTSE 100 up 0.2% at 5,625… Gold down 0.68% to $1,101.90 an ounce… £/$ - 1.5204

It’s the waiting I can’t stand.

I can’t be the only one. Britain is in an awful limbo state just now. We have an election coming up, and a Budget to get through before that. And none of our potential leaders will tell us what they intend to do.

So it’s good news that you can be sure of what you’ll get with Gordon Brown. Utter fiscal incontinence.

Despite the best efforts of his loyal(-ish) chancellor, Alistair Darling, to pretend that everything is under control, he just can’t stop his boss from running around promising the earth to all and sundry.

Take his latest efforts to win the votes of “wimmin”…

How is Brown going to pay for his latest set of promises?

Gordon Brown was interviewed on Netmums at the weekend. Going on a social website for mums and mums-to-be seems to be the modern political equivalent of running around pecking infants on the cheek. And it’s just as pathetically transparent.

Gordon was in grand giveaway mode. Apparently, over the next few years, women will get the “legal right to choose where they give birth, including home births for anyone who wants one. And we want to see services changed so that not just mums but dads can be given a bed if they need to stay in hospital overnight after the birth of their baby. We have also set a goal to recruit an extra 4,000 midwives by 2012.”

What if mothers are denied the hospital / home birth of their choice? Why, “they could be allowed to go private, with the cost met by the NHS,” reports The Independent. “No price tag was announced, but Labour said it would implement the plan ‘as quickly as possible’ after the election.”

And there’ll be free jelly beans for all!

You have to laugh. There’s Alistair Darling, putting his serious face on, and telling us that he’s going to reduce the deficit in the next four years, but he can’t tell us how. And there’s his boss just doling out promises that Darling’s somehow supposed to incorporate into his plans.

Where’s all the money for this going to come from? Public spending needs to fall. So who’s going to pay for that extra guest bed? For the extra cleaners to clean that extra bed? Who’s going to pay for those extra midwives?

And is an extra bed really that important to an attendant father? A plastic chair or one of those big beanbags they seem to favour in maternity wards these days is pretty adequate, as I recall. If he needs a bed that much, then why not make him pay for it?

This might seem like a petty thing to pick on. But it cuts to the heart of the problem with Labour, and with Brown’s approach specifically. The public sector, like it or not, does not have a bottomless pit of money to draw on. That means you have to make choices, to discriminate, to prioritise. But that doesn’t seem to occur to Brown.

The problem with trusting pre-election promises

He used to pretend that he understood this. He had his golden rule and his sustainable investment rule. The first was a pretty meaningless rule about balancing the budget over the course of an economic ‘cycle’. It was meaningless because the length of said cycle was up to Mr Brown. The latter meanwhile, said that the government’s share of GDP shouldn’t rise above 40%. It’s now closer to 50%.

So much for the rules. But the recession seems to have given Brown a new purpose. Now he’s decided that all spending is good, so he wants to do as much of it as possible. And note that we won’t get a commitment on spending cuts until after the election. As David Smith points out in The Sunday Times, “a comprehensive spending review will not take place until after the election… as things stand, spending departments have no budgets from April 2011. Some of those budgets, when they are settled, will contain big real-term cuts in spending. For now, however, they have to be taken on trust.”

It’s that word ‘trust’ that worries me. Because Darling is also likely to come out and say that the economy will grow by 3.25-3.75% in 2011. The more rapid the growth, the easier it is to justify smaller cuts. The trouble is, those forecasts are on the optimistic side – the consensus expectation is for 2.1% growth.

Judging from the past decade, and from the way the Budget is currently being sold to us (no tax rises, no proper spending cuts), I don’t think that Labour is serious about dealing with the deficit. And I suspect that the real reason that sterling has tanked so badly recently, is through genuine fear of an outright election win for Labour.

How to protect yourself from a weaker pound

What does this have to do with your investments? Well, I realise that some readers don’t like it when we talk politics. But politics and economics are of course, closely entwined. And now that the government is up to its neck in the markets, pulling strings here and there and fiddling with interest rates, they’ve never been more closely linked.

So like it or not, the election result matters. And if there’s one thing the markets want to see, it’s a strategy to tackle the deficit. But Brown has no credibility on this score. And every time he opens his mouth, he confirms that. It’s as if he still believes that he really did abolish “boom and bust”.

Voters are in danger of falling for the idea that, as Allister Heath puts it in City AM, “public spending and the size of the state are choices that can be made by politicians, rather than constraints about to be imposed by the financial markets on a hapless and powerless Westminster.”

Unless we get change at the next election, or a miracle U-turn at the March 24th Budget, you can expect a weaker pound and higher interest rates. It might happen anyway. So be prepared. If you have a home loan, plan your finances so that you can afford for your payments to rise. If you don’t have any gold in your portfolio, get some – it’s the best currency hedge and always worth having some in your portfolio as insurance. And make sure you have an emergency savings stash – saving up six months’ worth of living expenses is always wise, but even more when times are uncertain.

Got a comment on this article? Leave a comment on the MoneyWeek website, here.

Until tomorrow,

John Stepek

Editor, MoneyWeek
New Business Editor of the Year, BSME Awards 2009

Our recommended article for today...

Two steps towards solving the housing 'crisis'
- The British public are so desperate to own their own home that house prices are inflated beyond affordability, says Merryn Somerest Webb. Here, she suggests two practical steps that would make housing more affordable to those on average incomes and less attractive to the get-rich-quick crowd: Two steps towards solving the housing 'crisis'.

And for Friday’s market update, see below...

 

Market update

Click here for the latest stock market news and charts.

The FTSE 100 gained 0.2% on Friday to close at 5,265. The index added 0.5% for the week.

Miners were back in favour as gold and copper prices firmed up, with ENRC, Antofagasta, Rio Tinto and Anglo American adding between 4.6% and 0.2%.

Most banks saw gains, with RBS, Lloyds and Barclays all seeing rises. But HSBC lost 1.5%.

Retailers saw falls as Sainsbury's lost 0.9%, Wm Morrison shed 0.4%, and Tesco was 0.3% lower.

And drugmakers also weighed on the index, with AstraZeneca, Shire and GSK all closing lower.

In Europe, the Paris CAC 40 fell just one point to end at 3,927; while the German Xetra Dax was 17 points higher at 5,945.

In the US, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.1% to 10,624; the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite were both flat at 1,150 and 2,368 respectively.

In Japan, the Nikkei 225 was unchanged at 10,751 and the broader Topix index gained 0.3% to 938. And in China, the Shanghai Composite fell 1.2% to 2,976 while the CSI 300 slid 1.5% to 3,183.

Brent spot was trading at $79.03 early today, and in New York, crude oil was at $81.22. Spot gold was trading at $1,105 an ounce, silver was at $17.00 and platinum was at $1,605.

In the forex markets this morning, sterling was trading against the US dollar at 1.5083 and against the euro at 1.0996. The dollar was trading at 0.7291 against the euro and 90.72 against the Japanese yen.

And in the UK, house prices gained just 0.1% in March, according to property website Rightmove's latest survey. The small gain was a result of an increased number of sellers in the market, with 17.5% more homes on sale than the previous month, and 34% more than the same time last year. Miles Shipside, Rightmove's commercial director, said: "As usual we’ve seen a winter price lull followed by a New Year bounce, though at a national level it's never previously fizzled out before spring has really sprung. So in some areas more restrained pricing is required as a direct consequence of buyers having more choice."

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The past is not a reliable indicator of future performance. Shares are by their nature are speculative and can be volatile and you should never invest more than you can safely afford to lose. Information in Money Morning is for general information only and is not intended to be relied upon by individual readers in making (or not making) specific investment decisions. Appropriate independent advice should be obtained before making any such decision. MoneyWeek do not accept liability for any loss suffered by readers as a result of any such decision.

• Three high-yielding European stocks to buy

• Recommended article: Three signals to watch for safer investing

• Yesterday's close: FTSE 100 up 0.7% at 5,640… Gold down 1.2% to $1,108.41 an ounce… £/$ - 1.4978

With the pound falling so far, Britain is fast becoming poor value for money, for its inhabitants at least.

If you live here, you’re probably fed up with it. Overseas holidays are more expensive. Imported goods are more costly. You’re seeing prices being pushed up both in the shops and at the petrol pump.

Even the people who should be cashing in, the exporters, aren’t. The UK’s last trade figures were rubbish, as we note below.

So, everyone’s a loser? No, not at all - you could gain from the plunging pound. Not only would you protect your money – you can also collect a decent income stream while you’re doing it.

We spotlighted one way of doing this last week by investing in the US. Here’s another – this time in Europe...

The current outlook for sterling is grim

You won’t need reminding that we’re not too keen on our nation’s currency right now. We don’t want to see the pound drop – we just reckon that under current government policy (if that’s the right word for it), it will. For our spendthrift politicians it’s just a case of spend and overspend – then getting the Bank of England to print plenty more money to fuel their habit.

The trouble is that the plunging pound doesn’t seem to be doing anyone in Britain much good. With a few notable exceptions, the country’s exporters – the ones who are meant to save us from perpetual stagnation – aren’t benefiting. Although their goods are now much cheaper for global customers to buy, they’re selling fewer of them. January export goods volumes dropped by 8%. Excluding some data distortions three years ago, that was the worst monthly drop since 2002.

Sterling fell yet further on this news. Even against the much-maligned euro, it’s now dropped below €1.10 to its lowest level since last November. Maybe that’s no great surprise.

The countries that have dragged the euro down, such as Ireland, Greece and Portugal, are now starting to plug the holes in their public finances. They may well fail to do so, but at least they’re showing the right attitude.

Not so in the UK. Electioneering and austerity don’t go well together. And the longer our government delays before cutting – or being forced by the markets to slash – our budget deficit, the grimmer the outlook gets for sterling.

In the meantime, the UK’s bank base rate remains at just 0.5%. So while the pound is falling, the interest rates paid on savings accounts, which are broadly linked to the base rate, are still desperately poor.

How to beat the falling pound

However, as long as you’re content to take some risk with your capital – and do understand that investing in the stock market is risky – then you can beat both negligible interest rates and the falling pound.

That’s because there are still some high-yielding shares around that provide a decent income. Even better, there are four reasons why buying such shares – in Europe – could, over time, make you good capital profits as well.

First, if sterling falls further, you could make money on the currency front as well as in the stock market. Although the reverse is clearly true, too, so you need more reason to like these stocks than simply because they trade in euros or another European currency.

Second, a healthy dividend yield means that a share price is low compared with the level of its payouts to shareholders. That suggests it’s also good value relative to the underlying company's profits and assets. And in the long run, you’ll make more money buying cheap shares than expensive ones.

Third, and this is a very long-term view, increasing numbers of ‘baby boomers’ – those born within 20 years of WWII – will be retiring over the next two decades. This will mean steadily more investors looking for better income returns than the bank is currently paying. In turn, as they buy high-yielding shares, they’ll push up prices.

Fourth, as the European equity strategy team at Morgan Stanley points out, when stock markets are roaring ahead, they don’t worry too much about dividends. Traders are more excited in ‘churning and burning’ – buying and then selling out fast for quick profits. But when those markets become more ‘range-bound’, i.e. there’s much less scope for big share price rises overall, income becomes a much larger part of investors’ thinking.

Indeed – and this statistic is fascinating – since 1926, European shares have risen in real, i.e. inflation-adjusted, terms by just 1.3% a year. But add in dividends which are reinvested in more shares, and the annual total real return jumps up to 5.6% over that same period.

Three top European stocks to buy now

So what are the top dividend paying stocks in Europe right now?

Well, if you’ve been reading Money Morning regularly over the last few months, you’ll have seen quite a few high-yield tips appearing. So I’ll stick to three of those we haven’t yet mentioned.

Top of Morgan Stanley’s list of stocks “with a high and secure dividend yield” is Italian utility A2A (IM: A2A). It produces and distributes electricity, sells gas and collects rubbish in the North of Italy. It’s on a p/e of 12 and prospective yield of 7.4%. If there’s a slight caveat for me, it’s that the payout is only covered 1.1 times by earnings. But that’s probably being picky, as the company’s cash flow is 2.5 times the dividend – so there’s plenty of cash coming in to cover it.

Dividend cover is certainly not an issue at Zurich Financial Services (VX: ZURN), where the payment is almost twice covered. Yet Zurich is on a forecast multiple for this year of just 8.6, with a prospective 6% yield. Meanwhile, across the border in Germany, energy supplier RWE (GY: RWE) looks just as solid. A 2010 forecast p/e of 9.2, and a prospective yield of 5.8%, mark this stock down as very good value.

We wouldn’t advise putting all of your investment money into any one currency, be it sterling, euros, dollars or yen. But at times like these in particular, it’s not a bad idea to be diversified. And more to the point, these are solid stocks – so even if the currency moves against you, you know the underlying asset remains solid. And look on the bright side. If you buy shares like these, the next time you hear about another slide in sterling, you’ll know at least someone who’s managed to get on to a winner.

 Until tomorrow,

David Stevenson

Associate editor, MoneyWeek

PS If you’re interested in high-yielding, blue-chip stocks, you should take a look at Stephen Bland’s Dividend Letter. Stephen aims to produce a solid, steadily growing income by investing in large companies – you can learn more about his strategy here.

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- When you've been investing for a while, you come to notice certain signals that the stock market throws up, says Tom Bulford. Here, he outlines three that should keep you one step ahead of the market's movements: Three signals to watch for safer investing.

And for yesterday’s market update, see below...

Market update

Click here for the latest stock market news and charts.

The FTSE 100 was back on the rise again yesterday as commodity and banking stocks lifted the market to its highest since June 2008. The index closed up 0.7% at 5,640.

Miners were in demand, with precious metals miner Fresnillo heading the sector with a 3.2% rise. ENRC and Xstrata both gained 2.7%, Kazakhmys rose 1.4% and BHP Billiton added 1.1%.

Energy stocks were boosted by a rise in the crude oil price. BG Group gained 0.8%, BP 0.9%, Royal Dutch Shell 1.1%, and Cairn Energy 1.1%. But Tullow Oil shed 0.3%.

And financials fared well too. Among banks, Lloyds led the way, closing 3.9% higher, RBS rose 3.6% and HSBC added 0.7%. Barclays added 0.6%, and Standard Chartered gained 0.5%. Insurers Prudential, Resolution and Old Mutual climbed between 2.9% and 1.6%.

In Europe, the Paris CAC 40 rose 33 points to end at 3,943; while the German Xetra Dax was 51 points higher at 5,936.

In the US, the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.03% to close at 10,567; the wider S&P 500 gained 0.5% to 1,145; while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite closed up 0.8% at 2,358.

In Japan, the Nikkei 225 rose 1% to 10,664 and the broader Topix index gained 0.9% to 930. And in China, the Shanghai Composite rose 0.1% to 3,051 while the CSI 300 slid 0.1% to 3,276.

Brent spot was trading at $79.60 early today, and in New York, crude oil was at $81.63. Spot gold was trading at $1,108 an ounce, silver was at $17.00 and platinum was at $1,583.

In the forex markets this morning, sterling was trading against the US dollar at 1.4981 and against the euro at 1.0970. The dollar was trading at 0.7326 against the euro and 90.40 against the Japanese yen.

And in the UK, supermarket group Wm Morrison saw a 21% rise in annual profits to £767m. Like-for-like sales were up 6% in the year to 31 January, down from 8.2% the previous year. The company raised its dividend from 5.7p to 8.2p. Morrison's chairman, Ian Gibson, said: "We expect the economic environment to remain challenging, disposable incomes to be under pressure and value to remain a high priority for consumers."

 

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The past is not a reliable indicator of future performance. Shares are by their nature are speculative and can be volatile and you should never invest more than you can safely afford to lose. Information in Money Morning is for general information only and is not intended to be relied upon by individual readers in making (or not making) specific investment decisions. Appropriate independent advice should be obtained before making any such decision. MoneyWeek do not accept liability for any loss suffered by readers as a result of any such decision.

In recent months I have been taken to areas where there are badgers and shown their signs of activity. I refer to these rural guides as ‘the badger men’. What the badger men have learned, over many years, could be of major benefit to badgers and to cattle.

The badger men literally read the ground and it is impressive to observe. Typically badgers thrive where there are hedges, streams, woodland and pasture. Baby rabbits, nesting birds, eggs, poultry and cattle feed complement the traditional earthworm diet of a badger. At a field gateway, next to a ditch, there was a clear muddy entrance where badgers were exiting a field and marking their territory with dung. Roads and streams are typical sett boundaries. These boundary markings are different from badger latrines, where many badgers from one sett will be dunging. A great deal about badger activity can be seen from a vehicle and the various tracks through hedges are easy to spot. Badgers are low to the ground and often rub the track giving it a different appearance to deer, foxes and rabbits. What concerns the badger men is when a regular track becomes disused.

Well worn badger tracks, followed on foot, lead to setts. Plenty of digging out of entrances and a clean sett area are signs of healthy badger activity. Setts that are not kept clean, have little used tracks, elongated claw marks in the mud and dung near to the sett, are all signs of an unhealthy sett and are a cause for concern. Close to historic setts will be satellite setts where females will go to have their cubs in peace. These setts will have light use but the signs of occupation are healthy and can be distinguished from unhealthy setts by those with the necessary abilities to read the signs.

The badger men indicate that healthy badgers patrol their territory and deter other badgers from entering the boundary of a sett. Anything that disturbs the social structure of a sett can allow other badgers to move in and increase disease in a sett. It is the strong patrolling badgers that are killed by cars. Every dead roadside badger, together with flooding and drought, can cause ‘natural’ disruption to a sett.

Overcrowding encourages badgers to occupy vacant setts. If the population becomes too great for the available food there will be fights. The badger men have noticed that, within a sett, any badger that becomes unhealthy will be driven out by the other badgers. The fights can be fierce and major wounds inflicted. Around farmyards badgers have been seen with a runted appearance, wounds to the forelegs, rump and head, and with elongated claws because they have been unable to dig for food.

For cattle farmers the badger men recognise that the way to keep cattle healthy is for the farm to have a strong population of healthy badgers. These badgers will patrol their boundaries and keep out unhealthy badgers. There may be several setts within a typical westcountry farm, each with their own territory. An unhealthy option is for the farm to have few or no badgers, so allowing entry to diseased badgers ejected from neighbouring setts.

It is believed that many badgers carry disease from soon after birth but it is their ability to transfer disease to cattle that appears important. The stress, of declining health, inability to forage and feed normally and loss of social structure, is believed to increase individual disease levels.

An important way forward is for each cattle farm to accurately have badger setts and badger activity accessed in November and March each year. On one local farm before assessment, within a TB hotspot area, a farmer believed that there were ‘masses of badgers’ on the farm but there was in fact only one healthy active sett, three abandoned setts and one unhealthy sett. This was a very low level of badger occupation and unhealthy badgers could be expected to enter the farm to visit feed stores, feed from cattle troughs, urinate where cattle graze and transfer disease.

The badger men have found that some farmers do not have the detailed awareness to assess setts. Active tracks have also been found near to farmhouses, gardens and buildings of which the farmer was unaware.

Assessors could each move from farm to farm and mark unhealthy setts on a map. It is the recommendation of the badger men that unhealthy setts should be treated with carbon monoxide each winter from an old smoky tractor. Following on the next day two controllers could manage the unhealthy setts on each farm. By applying a team of six assessors and twelve controllers from November this year, up to one hundred farms each week could have a healthy badger population with whole areas controlled rapidly. The setts would be reassessed the following winter and the process repeated as necessary. TB hotspot farms are expected to have the largest number of unhealthy setts.

The clear aim is to improve the health of the badger population and the health of cattle. The stress of TB in cattle for farming families is well known but the disease also stresses the badgers, who in turn suffer from disease and then back to the cattle and on and on. The badger men hope that their awareness will be seriously considered for the benefit of all involved.

Richard Gard - 16th June 2008
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First Published by the Western Daily Press