Words About Things

We have all had to make changes in order to minimize the effects of the economic downturn. Whatever your financial background it is worth making changes to your lifestyle. That might mean not buying a takeaway coffee on the way to work, going to the cinema less or just spending less on yourself.

Spare a thought for the other women of the world. When unfaithful men don’t feel that their job is secure and their income is stretched it’s the mistresses who suffer. A report has shown that three quarters of multi-millionaire cheats planned to spend less on their on-the-side girlfriends. Perhaps they are saving up for a gift for their wives.

So if you are having a relationship with a rich older man who(‘s money) you really love best not get your hopes up for Christmas this year.

“Rich people are getting hit, and they’re all expressing the need to curtail unnecessary spending. Lovers are part of the same calculation.”

Russ Alan Prince, president of a wealth-research firm Prince & Associates

It was also discovered that women are more likely to focus more on their extra marital affairs during difficult times.

“For the women, lovers matter more than ever now because the rest of life is so dreary,”

gender academic Susan Shapiro Barash.

Whilst most of us like our chocolate plain or with nuts and fruit over the years it has been combined with a variety of ingredients. The Aztecs used to add chilli to enhance theirs and mint, orange and a range of liquors are also popular additions. Now the king of all foods, the vegetarian converting delight, bacon is available combined with chocolate.

Mo’s Bacon Bar which contains chunks of applewood smoked bacon combined with smoked salt and milk chocolate is proving to be very popular. The bar which costs £5.99 per 3oz at Selfridges sold out within 48 hours.

“There has been a real revolution in luxury chocolate, as there was with wine a few years ago. People are much more knowledgeable about it and there is a growing demand for these high quality, exotic products instead of a box of Milk Tray.”

Ewan Venters, food director of Selfridges.

The bar is available to buy online from Vosges Chocolate.

New figures show that women now gamble almost as much as men. Traditionally gambling was a male pastime but a gradual change has occurred. Now 88% of men have placed a bet and so have 83% of women.

The rise of less traditional forms of online betting such as online bingo has played a big part. The fact that horse betting is more mainstream than ever before is also important. Horse betting is seen as a family day out and is massively popular around the time of the Grand National.

Even games which have been traditionally seen as aimed at men such as online poker and online roulette are being enjoyed by more women than ever before. Sport betting and football betting are even seeing increasing numbers of female betters.

Any idea which country has the highest broadband penetration rate? If you are thinking of the US or the UK then you are way off. In fact they do not even feature within the top 10. The US is actually lagging well behind at 19th place. They might have an awful lot of internet users but a larger percentage are yet to get online.

The top 20 countries are:
01 Bermuda
02 Netherlands
03 Denmark
04 Iceland
05 Switzerland
06 Liechtenstein
07 Monaco
08 Finland
09 South Korea
10 Norway
11 Sweden
12 Hong Kong
13 Luxembourg
14 Canada
15 United Kingdom
16 Belgium
17 France
18 Singapore
19 United States
20 The Faroe Islands

The one place I really didn’t expect to see was Liechtenstein. In fact I have to admit that I had forgotten that it even existed! In fact 10,000 Liechtensteiners have broadband or wifi giving them a broadband penetration rate of 28.1%.

76.9 percent of people in the United Kingdom don’t have wireless broadband or even wired broadband. Makes you wonder what percentage of people have a phone line. In these days of mobile phone some people only have a landline in order to get access to the internet. Perhaps as mobile broadband improves we will start to see the end of the telephone line.