According to this article credit card rates are the highest they have been for two years despite the fact that interest rates are at a historic low. According to the article a borrower now pays £26.40 more in interest on a £3,000 balance than they would have done two years ago. Although the Government has promised to clamp down on credit card companies which have failed to pass on the interest rate cuts it appears that banks are still able to charge their customers high rates and that charges continue to rise. In some ways you can see why in the current economic situation banks are reluctant to lend and with lending becoming more risky might charge a higher rate. However, that isn’t going to work in the long run if their customers simply can’t afford to pay the charges and the bank does not get their money back.

I came across another big cat story today, a man in East Anglia has found what he claims are claw marks in a tree. Shaun Baxter says that he saw a large animal making the marks whilst he was out shooting rabbits between North Walsham and Edingthorpe. He says “I was standing next to a tree in my camouflage gear and about 70 yards away was a big black panther-like cat.” and “It was scratching on a tree, like a normal household cat would do at its scratching post.”  According to the story the gouges reach about 4ft off the ground and cut half an inch into the wood of the tree. Once again I remain unconvinced. What do you think are there big cats in the UK?

Like many people I had a punt on the Grand National last weekend without success. My tried and tested method of picking horses with funny names evidently failed again and none of them came anywhere. It appears that some people are more lucky then me, however. James Darmody from Swindon selected three horses to finish in the top four of the race and put down a £30 bet. At odds at 11,848 to one it seems to have little or no chance of coming in but he ended up winning £65,000. Perhaps I need to work on my technique or give up gambling. 

In a rather bizarre attempt to sell more pollack Sainsbury’s have renamed it Colin. Apparently people do not want to ask for pollack when they are shopping and many find the name rather ugly. Colin is what the French call the fish once it has been cooked. It is hoped that the name change will make British shoppers choose pollack as an alternative to cod or haddock. Personally I love pollack and often find that it is nicer than cod. It also has the advantage of being slightly cheaper.

This article should serve as a cautionary tale, its about a woman who mistook a bottle of nail glue for eyedrops and glued her eye shut. Luckily the glue simply glued her eyelashes together and doctors were able to cut her lashes off and prise the eye open. I hate to think what would have happened had she squirted the glue into the centre of here eye, I think she is very lucky that she didn’t have any permanent damage but it goes to show you should double check the bottle before putting anything in your eye.

If you have a lot of Easter eggs to buy then it appears you will be able to get them much cheaper this year. According to this article prices are the cheapest they have been in ten years. It appears that the collapse of Woolworths has led to a glut of Easter eggs flooding the market and driving down prices. Some supermarkets are offering full sized eggs for only 68p with even premium ranges cutting as much as a £1 off of their prices. Looking at this I feel I should do my bit to help reduce this mountain and eat as many Easter eggs as possible.

If this picture is genuine then it could be the best evidence yet that large cats are roaming the countryside. The picture was taken in New Denham near Uxbridge by Paul Keehn and appears to show a large black cat sitting by a fence near some homes which back onto fields. Britain’s leading big cat expert said of the photo "If this photo is genuine it is the best ever photo of a British Big Cat taken in Britain.” and "It's a photograph that would be hard to disprove. I would prefer to have seen another photo of it to see that there's some movement to be sure.” I’m not entirely convinced. What do you think?

This article claims that three quarters of Playstation 3 owners would rather have a night of video games that have sex. The survey was carried out on 1130 British men who have a PS3 with 32% of those questioned saying they would rather play games than have sex with their partner. Many of those questioned also said that sex was not as interesting as playing games. The survey does not appear to have questioned any female PS3 owners but it would be interesting to see those results. Which would you rather do, play games or have sex?

If you have a bit of spare cash and are not sure what to spend it on then you might be interested in this £1,000 Easter egg from Selfridges. It contains a Gold Bullion Britannia coin set into the shell. The coin is no longer produced by the Royal Mint and is worth about £900 and the egg itself is made by one of London’s finest chocolate companies and is decorated with gold leaf. It looks nice but its a little bit more than I would want to spend on Easter egg.

This article suggests that high street opticians often underplay the risks of laser eye surgery. I find the claims the interesting, having has the procedure over three years ago. When I first considered having the surgery I first went for a consultation with Boots Opticians, back in the year 2000 when I went to see if I could have Lasik. After the usual tests they told me that as I had extensive scars on my eyes caused by my contact lenses, laser surgery was unsuitable and could potentially be damaging. Although I was upset to hear this, I felt that I was evaluated on an individual basis and that the optician had my best interests at heart rather than simply making a profit and resigned myself to the fact I would always need to wear glasses.

I went for second consultation in 2005 when I learnt that there was new technology that might mean I could now have the procedure. This time I went for a consultation with Ultralase to see whether I could have Wavefront surgery, the latest procedure which maps the contours of your eyeball for the most accurate treatment for you. This time after going through the consultation I was told I could have the procedure and the optician once again clearly went through the risks with me. At this point I also mentioned that I had previously been refused for surgery and was reassured to hear that the advantages in technology in the past few years meant that the risks were small and that there was a high probability of success. At no point in either of my two consultations was I pressured to make a decision and after my second consultation I went away to think about the situation before deciding to go ahead. You can read my full account of what was involved here, and I happy to say that four years on I still have perfect vision. I am however, aware that as I age I may still require reading glasses, but for me my vision was so bad that it was all worth it.

I took my car for its MOT yesterday and was pleasantly surprised when once again it sailed through with no problems. I have had the G registration Ford Fiesta for ten years now and at 20 years old I expect every year to be its last. I was slightly offended by the guy at the MOT testing station who said to me “I recognised your car from last year and realised it probably wasn’t as bad as it looks”  and I must admit the comment made me wonder if perhaps it might be time to buy a new car. Saying that having just paid for a years MOT, perhaps I should get my moneys worth first and look for a newer car this time next year.

This article suggests that British people are concentrating on paying off the outstanding debt on their mortgages. In fact mortgage debt is being reduced at the highest rate since records began in 1970. During the final quarter of the year Britons reduced their mortgage debt by £8 billion, a contrast to the previous year when people were instead unlocking equity from their properties to fund large purchases. It appears that despite the low interest rates people are still opting to pay as much off of their mortgages as possible. Whilst this is good news for those who want to pay off their mortgages sooner, it signals that government measures to try and stimulate the economy are not working all that well. It seems people would rather play safe and reduce their debts rather than spend any extra money they might have, all of which is bad news for retailers and makes me think that this economic downturn could continue for quite a while longer.