31st December 2006 Last chance to enter the competition: ADVENT CALENDAR 2006
22nd December Tales of the Playground: Part 5 Year 7 students at Royston High School in Barnsley, South Yorkshire, caused mass hysteria after the entire class began feeling faint and nauseous watching a science video. All students and staff were assembled in the hall and sports hall before it was decided, on the advice of paramedics, that everyone at the 627-pupil school should be removed. Eventually 32 pupils were taken by ambulance and patient transfer vehicles to Barnsley District Hospital for check-ups. A hospital spokesman said: "I have never come across anything like this before." The head teacher said that no gas leak had been found and that there were no experiments taking place in the science laboratory at the time. "We are still unsure about what happened, but a group of 30 students were watching a human biology video which is regularly shown in a science class," she said. "It is about the human body and how it works and no blood is shown on the screen." The incident was the latest of several ascribed to mass hysteria. Almost 300 children in Holinwell, Nottinghamshire, collapsed and were taken to hospital while competing in a brass band competition in a field in 1980. But the biggest outbreak was in 1955 when 300 nurses at the Royal Free Hospital in London complained of paralysis. Psychiatrists wrote a description of events for the British Medical Journal and described it as mass hysteria. Adam says: As with the 'hugging' story a few weeks ago, one can easily imagine that the students would milk the situation. There was a similar story in September 2004: read it here.
22nd November Our local Action Group (a vociferous band of protestors who want to park on green land and string up perverts) are holding a public meeting tonight. Prizes from the raffle include: cordless mouse (& energy-saving light bulbs), bottle of Baileys, bottle of whisky, bottle of brandy, pot plant, tin of Quality Street, and shopping trolley. Presumably this is the trolley on the green land that someone half-inched from outside Sainsbury's. Suffice to say, Sarah and I will spend the evening in instead discussing liberal politics and knitting some muesli.
21st November After months of having no time, we set aside an evening to see some escapist nonsense. Read our Bond review.
20th November Adam's sixth appearance on Teachers' TV, this time gesturing wildly and nodding frantically at a graphic calculator, a CD-ROM and a numberline. Watch it here.
4th November Tales of the Playground: Part 4 Youngsters at a Cornish school have been told to stop hugging each other. The headteacher of Callington Community College claims excessive hugging is making youngsters late for lessons and, in some cases, leading to "inappropriate" embraces. Pupils claimed yesterday that some had received detentions for hugging while others had been "named and shamed" in assembly. In his explanation on the school website Steve Kenning wrote: "Hugging has become very acceptable amongst students and this has led to some students believing that it is okay to go up to anyone and hug them, sometimes inappropriately. This is very serious not only for the victim but also for anyone accused of acting inappropriately. To avoid putting anyone at risk please avoid hugging. During the changing of lessons girls were hugging each other and taking too much time to get to lessons. We also had complaints from other students about inappropriate hugging. It was going on too often and people were abusing it." Adam says: I know exactly what the headteacher is on about. Once something becomes a craze at school, whether it's Spliffy jackets or coin-throwing, students can take it too far. They would be going up to strangers or people they wanted to upset, and invading their space. And when told to stop or go to lessons, would say to teachers "They're my friend. Can't I hug my friend?" etc. It's more typical of local councillors and press that they would feel the need to get involved, complain and not bother thinking about the facts. They're the adults here - they should be the ones acting more responsibly.
21st September We both got a goody bag from work today. Sarah was at a Debenhams conference in Birmingham and got a Jamie Oliver flavour-shaker and a Denby plate. I went to a Maths meeting and got a pen, balloon and poster about Fibonacci. Shock statistic of the day: 50,000 kids truant from school! Sounds dreadful, doesn't it? Until you work out there are 7 million kids at school every day, so it's less than 1 percent. And it's all parents who just wanted a cheap holiday anyway. Probably.
22nd July Sarah has been voted 'Employee Of The Year' at Debenhams Head Office, for all the work she's done managing her team in Distribution. Her award was presented at a residential weekend in Birmingham with lots of other star employees from all the different stores around the country.

17th April
We're back from our holiday in Berlin and have a whole load of stuff to show you.
Here's our souvenirs.

16th April
We've updated the collections, with new dice, coinholders and keyboards. Look at them here.

13th February
I've said it before and I'll say it again, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. In 1998 I designed the Tesco Value Christmas Card and now, eight years later, other people are using the idea. A Valentine's idea is currently doing the rounds and now Asda launches an 8p Valentine's card. Asda says the "economy" card - in the retailer's Smart Price range colours of black, white and red - is the cheapest on the market. Who knows which of my Christmas card designs will be ripped off next?

11th February:
Question: Whereabouts would you find the following items together? Mathematics, Magic, Merchants, Middle Class, Milk, Morality, Mortgages, Music
Answer: They were all things "what happened in history" (excuse my grammar). Find out more about Vera Gordon Childe.

10th February
Most visitors seem to be coming to our site to find the lyrics and chords for 'Is This The Way To Amarillo'. So to make life easier for you, here's our Amarillo page.

21st January
We now have two winners for our Advent Calendar competition! Well done to Sue Wontroba and Peter Tisi. Each win a Christmas gift and limited edition Christmas card.

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