Mon, 18 May 2009 12:00a.m.
During rush hour at the tube stations in London you'll find hundreds of commuters grabbing a copy of the small free news papers available to read on the journey home.
The other day, I picked up one of these papers and in leafing through it I came across an ad for Country Life butter.
What caught my eye were the words 'New Zealand' splashed across the page (as well as the beady eyed glare of former Sex Pistol John Lyndon).
This British butter brand had conducted some research and found out that 39% of people in Britain who buy Anchor butter think that it's British. Anchor butter has been shipped from New Zealand to the UK for such a long time now that people assume it's a local brand.
So will this put a dent in New Zealand's butter exports? I doubt it. As one Brit put it "so this ad informs me that I can choose butter from a lush green countryside like Hobbiton's, or butter from a company that associates itself with Johnny Rotten? Ooh, tough one."
In other news the parliamentary expense claim scandal continues to unfold.
It has certainly got people talking. With many people here losing their jobs and suffering from cutbacks as a result of the current economic climate, on top of a shortage of hospital beds and funding for schools, the news that the politicians had all been getting a little extra has been hard to swallow.
There is of course the argument that a politician's salary tends to be considerably more modest than what they could earn by putting their skills and expertise to work in the commercial sector.
I mean, it takes a certain calibre of person to make laws and run a country, the kind of person to have a moat surrounding their home as MP Douglas Hogg does ...and a moat's not going to clean itself now is it?
Surely the tax payer can front up the £2,000 it cost to clear his moat so as those fearsome alligators can more effectively swim around and defend Mr Hogg in his home!
Read the related 3 News article
here.