Flopp

No sign of a revival of Fopp then, the independent record chain, with the news that megagiant HMV has bought the name and a few of the most profitable stores.

Don't know how it thinks it can do any better, given that HMV itself is in trouble. We'll see. But i have noticed that HMV has become a bit more competitive on price lately - I got a 10 disc Hitchcock box set in there for £25.

Starbucks in Africa

Starbucks is planning to buy more coffee from East Africa and set up a Farmers Support Centre.

Nothing of course to do with their ongoing battle with Ethiopa which is trying to trademark the names of several of their varieties to protect its income. And that's going to be one hell of a support centre to serve all of East Africa!

Immigrunts

How many immigrants are there in the UK? The results of a MORI poll out today shows the number depends on what you read.

Express newspaper readers think that 21% of the UK population is immigrants, while Daily Mail readers think it's 19%. Guardian readers think the figure is 11%.

The actual figure is 7%.

The poll was part of a joint committee into human rights at the Houses of Parliament. The press watchdog also wrote to 14 national newspaper editors advising them against using the phrase "illegal assylum seekers". Meanwhile, The Sun ran a false story about asylum seekers cooking and eating swans before retracting it.

Out of interest, I've just searched for the phrase "illegal asylum seeker" on the Daily Mail's own site, and they have used in 8 times in articles. It has also used the word 'immigrant' 2154 times. By contrast, the word climate appears 574 times.