According to a study by Oxford University Press - this phrase tops the list of the most annoying phrases in the UK.

This is followed swiftly by a range of others including: 'Fairly unique', 'I personally', 'At this moment in time', 'With all due respect', 'Absolutely', 'It's a nightmare', 'Shouldn't of' (was anyone who admits to using this phrase actually paying attention in their English classes?), '24/7' and 'It's not rocket science'.

However I have personal gripe which I think, although not a phrase, beats all of the above hands down.

Anyone who thinks 'their' should be spelt 'there' should, in my opinion, be made to go back to school and retake a series of English exams until it sticks in THEIR brain.

After all, at the end of the day, and with all due respect, spelling words correctly is not exactly rocket science is it?

What a nightmare.

According to the research a total of 56 per cent had visited political web sites as well, which shows there is an interest in politics online.

The current system of voting is pretty outdated - meaning people have to risk missing working hours to get to their nearest voting station and there is also the fact that it uses far too much paper and is not a very green solution.

In this day and age - surely online voting is a viable option for people to have?

Yes, there will be cries that it is inviting vote rigging and cheating, but to be honest - that goes on already.

This way - more of the population might actually bother to vote, providing a much fairer result for the country as a whole.

Personally I will do anything to ensure I use my right to vote - but I have to admit - voting online would be a lot less hassle.

I was in a cab on my way to a meeting this morning and I basically was given a potted history of my cabbie's political viewpoints and what he would do if he ran the country.

No stereotypes here thank you very much!

It all started when I made an innocent remark about the fact that most of Oxford Street was closed off or severely affected by roadworks due to the building of Crossrail.

This led to a rant about the Olympics (a huge driver for Crossrail), Ken Livingstone and eventually the Labour party and all its many failings.

He had even had Tony Blair in the back of his cab before he became Prime Minister.

"I didn't like him then either," my cabbie said.

By the time I reached my destination I was almost ready to give him my vote!

Its particular targets are the older generation and the less well-off (that actually includes most of the UK population at the moment!!)

Included in this scheme is the Home Access Plan - which is costing the taxpayer £300m by suppling over 270,000 families with school age children with a PC or laptop.

How is it going to achieve these targets?

I've always believed in a live-and-let-live approach to life. If you are desperate to access a computer, and cannot - then of course you should get help.

But forcing people to get online is not really the answer. What will happen next -an internet police force? Anyone spending less than three hours online by 2014 will be thrown in jail?

Although this is great news for IT suppliers in general - I just don't see what business this is of the government's in the first place.

A total of 34 per cent of firms questioned by the FSB said income tax was the most difficult to deal with, with 52 per cent citing taxable allowances as difficult to comprehend. However 52 per cent said VAT was the easiest type of tax to understand.

What I find most amazing is that only 66 per cent of firms questioned employed professional help - what did the remaining 34 per cent do? Bury it under the carpet? Or try and muddle through it, earning countless fines in the process no doubt?

The FSB laments that one in 10 businesses spend up to six hours a week sorting out their tax issues.

But forgive me for being a little slow here and seeing this as a slight non story. Isn't that what accountants are for?

As much as I dislike this present government and all that they have done to this country - tax is a fact of life if you are a business and there is no way around it (unless you up sticks to a tax-free economy like the big boys have). SMEs are caught between a rock and a hard place and they have to pay up.

Simples.

However these were not just a boring little box - these looked stylish and come in a range of funky designs and colours.

The ones we were shown had the Michael Jackson 'This is It' film preloaded, but the vendor also offered versions with the Terminator Salvation and Dan Brown's Angels and Demons preloaded.

For those of us who are not geeks and don't get excited about the latest Aluminium casings, this is sure to encourage them to spend.

Michael Jackson fan or not - it definitely made me want one!

His defence is that in the 30s and 40s during the war, meat was very scarce and they did what they could to survive. He didn't actually say he grabs the nearest family cat and sticks it on a spit nowadays.

Now I am a cat lover and could no more eat a cat than fly to the moon. I would rather starve.

Unless of course he was talking about the tinned variety and enjoys a can of Whiskers or Felix every now and again.

Nothing wrong with that, although it is not that great for the breath.

Not only do I have to catch a train at 5.40am tomorrow to ensure I will get there in time, but I am going to be made to feel like a criminal just because I have chosen a profession they don't like very much.

I only cover IT conferences - nothing sinister about that I don't think!

But I will duly go and have my fingerprints done and be interrogated if it means I can travel without any hassle.

Wish me luck!

Is there an actual, official definition of an SME, a mid-market company and an Enterprise?

My thoughts is that SME is 250 employees max, mid-market is up to 1,000 employees and enterprise is anything above and beyond that.

If anyone could shed some light on this for me and point me in the direction of an official definition - I would be most grateful.

It is actually driving me MAD!

Have a great weekend and see you next week.

Or rather I have tried to bury it away in a little box at the back of my mind.

The day when all of us single people are made to feel that we have somehow failed in life.

I'm quite glad that it is on a Sunday this year so any of us going out for a social event at the weekend don't feel quite so useless.

Still, I shall enjoy watching I'm Strictly an Ice Dancer Get me Out of Here, or whatever reality TV drivel there is on the box on Sunday nights.

Happy Valentines Day everyone!

Kraft has announced that it will be axing 500 jobs at Cadbury's Somerdale plant near Bristol in 2011 and moving production to Poland - just as expected.

What amazes me reading through some of the comments on the various news sites - is that people are surprised by this move. What else did they expect in such a hostile takeover? Flowers and hearts? It is all about the money.

More job losses to come I fear as the company best known for its hideous plastic cheese products (as well as Terry's chocolate and Philadelphia cream cheese) starts shipping production to the US or South America, cutting costs and corners to produce a product that looks the same, but tastes nothing like it used to.

However, in Kraft's defence Cadbury had already been building this factory in Poland long before the takeover, so it was always going to happen, despite empty promises by Kraft when it was trying to seal the deal.

However to soften the blow I have been telling myself that the Cadbury quality had already started to go downhill.

Over Christmas I sampled a few Roses and Heroes and they tasted rank. Absolutely vile. Looking deeper into the problem it transpires Cadbury has started to replace its 'glass and a half of milk' content with vile-tasting Soya......yuck!

Why on earth would you do that?

It is hard to believe it has been going that long, but the first .com domain name was apparently registered in March 1985.

How things have changed.

I remember starting my first job on a local newspaper - we had one computer that was connected to the internet and you had to pay for a hotmail account - therefore nobody actually had one. We relied on fax machines and if you wanted to do any research you had to use a thing called a library.

Going back even further to when I was at university (1993-1996) we had some computers in the library that allowed you to look up books, but some clever IT students I knew had managed to link up Doom at the IT department - a group of us used to sneak over there at 10pm and play for hours!

This of course was when a PlayStation 1 would set you back over £500 and its graphics were thought of as cutting edge.

The pace of change is quite frightening and is pretty difficult to keep up with at times. I wonder where on earth we will be in the next 25 years?

That is if the world doesn't end in 2012.

The papers are screaming today about how the wealthy people who fall into this government 's punitive 50p tax bracket are looking at tax avoidance schemes.

Crikey - really?

I thought they would all roll over and happily give away half their earnings without so much as a murmur.

Having to give half your wages away each month in tax is hardly an incentive to aspire to a higher level is it? Or even stay in this country.

What the politicians don't seem to realise is that there is always going to be an unfair distribution of wealth in this country - taxing people to the hilt is not the answer as ultimately the money they spend will benefit the poorer population at some point - failing that it will end up in the politician's back pockets.

There has to be a better policy out there that finds some common ground somewhere along the way.

This is such a short sighted policy and so badly thought out - it is bound to all end in tears.

In the meantime it is the people on average and lower incomes that suffer the most.

According to a Sky News article the Gates Foundation will spend the money over the next 10 years to help save the lives of over seven million children.

Contrast this with these so called 'celebrities' - who just look for more and more ways to make money, and grab freebies left, right and centre, giving very little back. They are a selfish, self-obsessed breed that think they have the God-given right to everything on a silver plate. Most of them are talentless nobodies who have had a huge run of luck and were in the right place at the right time.

It is so refreshing to see someone with this amount of money, willing to share their wealth and actually make a difference in the world.

Whatever anyone thinks of Microsoft, Bill Gates is someone to admire.