Why exactly is it so expensive for us to own a home?

An average three-bed house cost £2,000 in 1952. In 2012 it costs £162,000. That’s an inflation of 8,000%. Have you ever wondered – I mean really wondered – why this is the case?

By Lee Williams | Econoblog, Notebook, Opinion | Tuesday, 28 August 2012 at 10:00 am

Annoying work emails: Would you wink at/kiss a colleague in person?

Any plans for the weekend? Or are you keeping them under cover? LOL
Could you get those audits over to Geoff in Accounts by 2 this afternoon?
Cheers honey bun!!! xxx

By Lee Williams | Notebook, Opinion | Wednesday, 22 August 2012 at 6:00 am

Carry on comedy: Product reviews are the place for unsigned talent

Sites like eBay, Amazon and Gumtree are taking over the retail world but they are also home to a growing phenomenon that no one could have predicted – they may just be the breeding ground for the next generation of comic talent.

By Lee Williams | Notebook, Opinion | Friday, 17 August 2012 at 12:00 am

I want my kidney back! When break-ups go bad

Last week the story of a man from Staffordshire was reported, who took revenge on his ex-wife by sawing in half all the furniture in the family home.

By Lee Williams | Notebook | Wednesday, 1 August 2012 at 4:00 am

No television since 1988: what would you have missed?

On Tuesday a report appeared on a local news website in Kent about an electronics engineer from Southborough who hasn’t watched a TV programme since 1988. What has he missed?

By Lee Williams | Arts, Notebook | Friday, 27 July 2012 at 1:00 am

Omnishambles, smirting and amazeballs: we should embrace new words, even if they are ridiculous

With Collins inviting the public to submit entries for its latest dictionary last week, new words – or neologisms – are a hot topic at the moment. This year has been a particularly fertile one for them, starting in April with Ed Milliband’s use of omnishambles in Prime Minister’s Question Time. Since then there seems to have been an unstoppable barrage of newly-minted and mostly annoying items of vocabulary.

By Lee Williams | Notebook, Opinion | Tuesday, 24 July 2012 at 1:00 am

Britain and banking: Back to the 1830s

Unparalleled levels of imprudent lending; corrupt banking practices; soaring inflation and rising unemployment; government bank bailouts and an economy dependent on increasing levels of debt to sustain growth. Sound familiar? It would have done to Briton’s in the 1830s.

By Lee Williams | Econoblog, Notebook, Opinion | Thursday, 12 July 2012 at 9:58 am

If in doubt, GET IT OUT! The English culture of pressure play

“If in doubt, GET IT OUT!”

This is the catchphrase that constantly rang in my ears and haunted my thoughts as a young lad playing Sunday-league football in the late eighties and early nineties.

By Lee Williams | Football, Sport | Thursday, 28 June 2012 at 2:00 am

The age old classic of a drunken rant – immortalised on the internet

We’ve all been there at some point in our lives. You wake up on the morning after with a big black hole in your memory. As you come slowly and painfully to life you desperately search your memory banks for a spark of recollection, in a way that resembles an antiquated appliance wheezing through its byzantine start-up procedure.

By Lee Williams | Notebook, Opinion | Friday, 18 May 2012 at 2:29 pm

Vegetarians: We’re not just feckless hippies

I love meat. I love nothing better than sinking my teeth into a big juicy steak or burger or sausage or just about anything meaty for that matter. In fact, now that I come to think of it, eating a big piece of flesh would be right up there in the top five things I’d like to be doing at this moment.

But I can’t. Because I’m vegetarian.

By Lee Williams | Health, Notebook, Opinion | Monday, 14 May 2012 at 4:00 am