If you are one of the many that is confused by the best before dates on food packaging, you will not be on your own. There has been a multitude of opinion regarding these and most people would agree that they are a good thing. However one has got to ask, how realistic are they? The best before date on a tin or package is not to be confused with a use by date, which should always be strictly adhered to and usually relates to fresh dairy products.

The advice that I have been given concerning beast before dates is that they are advisory only and if used within a realistic period beyond the date should be perfectly ok, as with any product the quality may deteriorate. Tinned food for example will keep for years, which is what it was designed to do. One prime example, and by the way I am not advocating that you should follow suit here or eat anything that has gone way beyond the date, came to light in an article I was reading today.

A German pensioner who received a tin of American lard 64 years ago in an aid package has only just tasted it, after discovering that it is still edible. Food safety experts in Rostock, his home town on Germany’s Baltic coast, said the pig fat was still safe to eat. Mr Feldmeier was a student in 1948 when the US was running a huge aid programme to rebuild war-ravaged Germany. He kept the tin of lard for emergencies. A food expert, Frerk Feldhusen, said the lard was rather gritty and tasteless and hard to dissolve, though quite edible. Mr Feldmeier provided some black bread to go with it. Mr Feldhusen said the test result might make some consumers think twice before discarding food immediately after the expiry date.

I’ll just go and check a few dates in my cupboard I think!

If you tried to look something up on Wikipedia on Wednesday (18th Jan) you would have been unlucky as the site had closed its English language version for 24 hours. Instead of a database of more than 3.8 million articles, visitors were greeted with an open letter encouraging them to contact Congress in protest. So what was it all about?

Well it would seem that there are two bills being considered by the US legislature, the House of Representatives is considering the Stop Online Piracy Act (Sopa) and the Protect Intellectual Property Act (Pipa) is the parallel bill being considered by the Senate. The proposed legislation is designed to tackle online piracy, with particular emphasis on illegal copies of films and other forms of media hosted on foreign servers. The bills propose that anyone found guilty of streaming copyrighted content without permission 10 or more times within six months should face up to five years in jail.

Everyone will have their own opinions about this of course, but do you really need Wikipedia which has tons of information and I do use it but, I do not understand how this protest will achieve anything. It has just proved to me how little I need Wikipedia and how much info is available on other sites. It is always necessary to check what it says against other sites, anyway, because it is free and anyone can say anything on it so there is no guaranteed accuracy.

Supporters of the bills include television networks, music publishers, movie industry bodies, book publishers and manufacturers. Critics include Google, Facebook, Twitter, Wikipedia, Yahoo, eBay, LinkedIn, AOL and Zynga.

It is one of those names that when you think of photography the name of Kodak has to crop up in the conversation. I remember not that many years ago when I went to photographic classes the debate about which film was the best one to use and if you did your own developing and printing, which papers did you prefer. In those days there was always a lively debate about whether Kodak was better than Agfa or Ilford; it became even hotter if you favoured transparencies against printed pictures. Then along came digital photography and using film simply faded away. No longer then did we experience the excitement, or disappointment, when you opened up the packet of pictures at the chemist or photographic shop. Why did I take a picture of just Sally’s feet!

Although Kodak did manufacture cameras and other photographic products it made all its money from selling film, then the digital camera came along and now no-one’s buying film. I have managed to find some interesting facts about Kodak and I’m sure that everyone has at least one Kodak product in their home, even if it’s an old black and white print.

Kodak founder George Eastman produced the first camera film in rolls in 1883. The firm Kodak is set up in 1888 and launches the first consumer camera in 1888 with the slogan: “You press the button, we do the rest”. In 1900 Kodak introduces a consumer camera for $1 called the Brownie, which goes on to become a best-seller in America and I had one of those, so did most people I imagine. This I found very interesting, in 1969 a Kodak camera is used by astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong to record the first Moon landing. Farewell Kodak!

As you all may know I love to go on a cruise, I find it relaxing and a pretty luxurious holiday which is fantastic value for money. Along with many others I was shocked to hear that the Costa Concordia ran aground and capsized soon after leaving the Italian port of Civitavecchia at the start of her Mediterranean cruise. It has puzzled shipping experts as to why such a modern and well-equipped vessel should have run aground in well-charted waters. The Costa Concordia, which cost around £300m and entered service just 6 years ago, is very familiar with the voyage which it makes weekly. There are a large number of possibilities ranging from human error, to technical failure, to a combination of the two. How it came to deviate from its course by 3-4 nautical miles, and why it capsized so quickly, will be central for investigators trying to establish the cause of the accident.

What is certain is that it will not put me off cruising, just in the same way as when a motoring accident is reported I do not stop driving my car. The investigation is beginning and the ships “black box” has been taken off which will no doubt focus on why a modern ship, with the latest safety equipment, travelling on the same route it travels 52 times every year, seemingly veered off course and hit what the cruise company has described as “a big rock”.

I don’t know if you have had a text message telling you that “following your recent accident you could be due” this is then followed by a four figure sum you could clam from an insurer. Well let me say that I have had a couple of these and I cannot remember when I last had a car accident as it is so long ago! Hearing the BBC news this morning that an MP is demanding action to stop insurers paying out on these claims was music to my ears. As these claims, many of which are bogus, add substantially to all our car insurance premiums, the sooner it is stopped the better. I am not suggesting that someone who has been injured in a car accident should not receive financial recompense, but it is widely understood that some people are professionals at claiming.

Good news to hear was that the Transport Select Committee says claimants should provide much more proof that they have suffered a whiplash injury. Also MPs want insurers to be banned from selling any customer information. The government intends to ban them from receiving referral fees for this data, but only for personal injury claims. It seems incredible that practices that push up premiums such as passing drivers’ personal data to other parties or taking secretive referral fees from solicitors, garages and car hire firms, is allowed.

There has been a 70% rise in motor insurance injury claims in the past six years, despite a 23% drop in the number of casualties actually caused by road accidents, whiplash apparently accounted for 70% of all these injury claims, amounting to roughly 554,000 whiplash claims in 2010-11. Bring on some legislation I say.

More shops will collapse into administration or announce store closures in the next couple of weeks, after suffering from profits which can only be described as being squeezed to extinction. Add to this a general fall in sales over Christmas, all of which can only add to the problems which are facing our High Street retailers.

Last week saw some more famous names go to the wall including Barratts Priceless, the shoe chain, Hawkin’s Bazaar, the toy shop and D2 Jeans. I have been reading comments made by Stephen Robertson, the director general of the British Retail Consortium, who has said that they expect another clutch of names to go to the wall in the coming weeks and months. According to Robertson, he has said conditions were worse than at the end of 2008, a period acknowledged to be the worst in a generation for the high street and which saw the collapse of Woolworths, Zavvi and MFI.

So I have to ask where the High Street is going, because without it our towns and cities will not be the same. The internet revolution has of course had an effect on the way that we shop, but top retailers have learned not just to live with it but to embrace it. Tesco have a very good home delivery service and on the London underground it is possible to visit a “virtual supermarket” as you commute back to home. John Lewis is yet another example of a top class store that has an excellent online facility but they offer so much more as well.  However the biggest complaint that retailers, particularly smaller ones have is the business rate which increases year on year, they are going up by another record 5.6% next year. As far as I can see the rates in England are the highest in the world.

There had been talk about it for a long time, but when you are not expecting it, these announcements always take your breath away slightly. Airline giant British Airways, which is now part of the combined group IAG along with Iberia, has bought out the loss making operation BMI from Lufthansa. Employees of BMI had always hoped that the sale to current owners Lufthansa would turn the company round as it has been making a loss for some time now.

There will be many people, and that includes me and other colleagues that have used BMI for business, particularly when we used our company’s Diamond Club card, which is one of the world’s most generous frequent flyer programmes. Of course there are tremendous benefits no doubt for BA which will gain a lot of extra slots at Heathrow, but my thoughts at this time of year will go out to the many people at BMI who are going to lose their jobs in the takeover. BMI employs more than 3,600 staff, but it was pretty clear to most people that following a loss in 2010 of £153m something had to give.

However Virgin is not going to take this lying down and has said it will oppose the tie-up, which is still subject to clearance by competition bodies. The world continues to be in turmoil and we can only hope for better things in the coming year.

The recent strike by public sector workers concerning their fears about changes to pension arrangements for new and current state employees, set me thinking about how much money one would need on retirement.  Having served in the RAF I will receive a pension but it is not likely to be enough for me on retirement so I joined the company pension scheme when I was eligible. It is difficult for me to understand why some of my colleagues and some friends that I know turned down the chance. Of course not every company has a pension scheme, which is often expensive to administer and to fund, but from 2012, the government wants all firms to offer a pension to their workers and they will be enrolled automatically unless staff opt out.

So if you do opt out, or your company does not currently offer a pension scheme, what should you do? A lack of awareness about saving for retirement is among the reasons for millions of people not saving enough to pay for the lifestyle they expect when they grow old. The alternative private, or personal pension, is offered by a provider such as an insurance company, High Street bank, building society or most typically, a pension company. Naturally you have to fund this yourself as you do not get any contribution into this from your employer, but it may offer more flexibility over how and where the money is invested. You will not be able to spend the money you put in now until you retire. However you do not have to pay much tax on this investment. When you retire, the pot of money that you have built up can be used to buy a regular income in retirement, called an annuity. The sooner you start to think about a pension, the better it will be for you in the long run.

The Christmas slowdown has begun in the housing market, but sales made to first-time buyers have recovered slightly from a previous three-year low, figures from estate agents showed today. So is this the time for first time buyers to get onto the housing ladder I wonder. The Government recently announced a raft of measures to inject life back into the market, including underwriting mortgages for first-time buyers wanting to purchase new build homes. There have also been calls for the Government to extend the current stamp duty holiday for first-time buyers which is due to end in the spring, amid fears this could disrupt the fragile market.

However, it really is not that easy is it? According to the National Association of Estate Agents, despite the uplift in the first-time buyer market, lenders were still demanding “impractical” deposits from the squeezed section of the market. A friend of mine’s son recently married and has found it impossible to get a mortgage unless he is able to put down a deposit in the in the region of 25% and even small apartments around where he lives are selling for around £250,000. This means that he will have to have saved about £62,000 and add to that the solicitor’s fees, furnishing, and other incidentals so you are looking at a figure of probably £75-80,000. There is no wonder that they are having to pay exorbitant rents for their accommodation, leaving them little hope of saving for a deposit!

The crisis in the Euro has not been resolved it would seem, and we have to ask the question just where is the Euro going and how will it affect us in the UK? Few would doubt that the single currency, whilst a good idea, it was always going to be difficult to ensure that without a single government the currency didn’t collapse, which looks likely. If you are in doubt about anything you can bet that a bookmaker will have the answer! You have to say that given the amount of noise which has accompanied the latest EU crisis summit that it’s easy to miss the main point. Is a Eurozone break-up now more or less likely?

Well looking at the odds prior to the bad-tempered Brussels meeting, William Hill had priced up the collapse of the Eurozone before 2013 at 3/1. The odds post the summit? Also 3/1. According to a William Hill spokesman Graham Sharpe, his verdict was “we can’t see it’s really changed anything,”  and following the ill tempered confab that produced a more isolationist Britain and a potential two-tier EU, but has failed to convince anyone, least of all the markets, that monetary union at last had some durable political oomph behind it.

According to the financial and political experts, the collapse of the Euro would be a disaster for the UK and from a personal point of view, do you really want to go back to getting several currencies when you take a trip abroad or visit a number of countries when on a Mediterranean cruise? No, I thought so.