You’d might expect people who can afford a Porsche on any given day of the week, to still have the cash to afford one in a recession. Seemingly not, because sales have dropped by 27 per cent over the past six months. The filthy rich are now only lightly soiled and it’s forcing Porsche to cut around 19 production days over the next three months.

Of course the Germans aren’t the only manufacturers affected by the economy’s ill health. Just about now, around 2,500 workers will be walking out of Honda’s plant in Swindon, and not returning for the next four months. The BBC reports they’ll receive their full basic pay for the first two months, then just 60 per cent for the final two.

It’s not quite as rosy as a long holiday in which there’ll be no excuse not to re-decorate the dining room, though. While staff will be paid during the four month closure, they’ll have to work unpaid overtime to pay off their wages received. “Sorry, we’re can’t let you work, but then we’re going to make you pay for not working”. Umm, hello McFly?

[BBC]

Kids, we’re on the cusp of the weekend, and you can put your alarm clock into temporary hibernation for a couple of days. But come Monday morning, it’ll be back and that hate/hate relationship you’ve got with the instrument of your waking will begin again.

Maybe you should invest in a Smash Clock. It does everything that an alarm clock does, but it’s just begging for you to give it a good pummelling into the process.

Emanating from the clever brain of designer Matthias Lange, the whole idea is for you to punch the living billy-o out of its dome head when it’s time for you to pour yourself out of your bed and into the day.

It’s just a prototype at the moment but someone has to make this thing. Before Monday morning preferably.

As the wheels start to come off Liverpool’s Premier League title charge, it looks as though striker Fernando Torres has forgotten that multi-million pound players are only supposed to star in slick ad campaigns.

Here’s Torres plugging a Spanish hair salon that we believe belongs to a friend of his. That can be the only explanation for fronting one of the shabbiest celeb ads we’ve ever seen. Nice haircut though mate.

If we had a penny for every ill-conceived website design that wasted photons on our retinas, we’d have exactly £937. That’s a lot of rubbish websites and a highly improbable amount of penny pieces, but we’re sticklers for accuracy at Bitterwallet, as well you know*.

If we had $300 million for every website that had us scratching our collective heads, we’d glance once and gladly denounce technology as we lolloped about naked on a panda-stuffed mattress, having gold-encrusted pizza fed to us by Nigella Lawson and Kate Winslet. Unfortunately for one such website, that’s exactly how much money they probably missed out on a year – all because of a badly designed button.

Fast Company reports the incredible story of a major retailer’s website that underwent rigorous usability studies. The site (which remains anonymous) was designed just like many other online stores; you add items to your shopping cart, after which you pressed “checkout”. You were then prompted to either log-in or register to complete your purchase.

Nothing too remarkable about such a set-up, except the usability studies showed that plenty of new users couldn’t be bothered to register, and even registered users were put off from completing the purchase, because they couldn’t always remember their registration details. Again, so what? It’s something we’ve all experienced ourselves; if there are any obstacles in our way to buying an item, we sometimes feel the additional effort required to overcome them simply isn’t worth it.

You’d even argue that the suggested remedy wasn’t even worth implementing…

[The consultants] redesigned the site, replacing the “register” button with “continue”. They also added a message, saying that registering wasn’t required to checkout, but was optional and might be helpful if you returned.

…until you see the results. A teeny, tiny change to the wording and procedure made a staggering difference to the retailer; sales went up 45 per cent, or $15 million in the first month, and $300 million in the first year. Crikey. The people who build websites aren’t always their most savvy users.

* no, really

[Fast Company]

I know what you’re thinking. It’s the weekend, you want to get out, meet some people, throw some shapes, dance like a nutter. But even with clubs staying open into the early hours, don’t you find that your evening still ends too early? If only there was some sort of establishment that combined the delicious garlicy goodness of the late night kebab with the ear-battering techo-bollocks you’ve been braying your brain with for the previous four hours.

Your quest to discover such a mythical place has ended. Not surprisingly, it’s in Newcastle:

Bitterwallet reader Mike sent us proof of the dance hall / rotisserie combo; through in-depth investigations, we think its Munchies opposite the Civic Centre. It’s unlikely to still be playing techno techno techno techno, but let us know if it is. Or don’t.

Here’s our pick from the best deals on the… oh you know the rest. HotUKDeals etc…

Don’t know if you saw ‘Piers Morgan On… Dubai’ last night – we didn’t, as the only thing we want to see Morgan on is a torture rack. Anyhoo, there’s some awesomely cheap flights to the place that looks to us like an exact blend of heaven and hell.

More info on Dubai and a few scare stories on the HUKD forum as well. Don’t carry drugs inside an Amy Winehouse-esque beehive wig, don’t have sex with your socks on and if you’re planning on getting ridiculously drunk, take a carrier bag to be sick in – 500 punches to the solar plexus if you hurl on the pavement.
(deal found by everylittlehelps)

Next up, a hand blender for an eye-wateringly cheap £3.39. We say ‘eye-wateringly’ as we just tried it out on our work experience boy Dustin and it brought a tear or 75 straight to the front of his face.

Hold on – just read the small print and it seems that it’s not to be used for the blending of hands, human or otherwise. Sorry Dustin, just run it under the cold tap for a minute son; and put the kettle on while you’re there.
(deal found by nNaVn)

Bringing this frantic flurry of bargains to an end is the Nokia 5800 Touch Screen Phone on an o2 contract. The HUKD poster (Monkeyballs) claims that you can expect to bag yourself a free phone and 8GB micro SD Card, with £15 per Month getting you unlimited texts and 100 free minutes.

There’s other deals available for the same handset but it all sounds rather ace and stuff – so let’s raise a toast to Monkeyballs everyone. TO MONKEYBALLS! And Dustin’s now-gnarled hand.
(deal found by MONKEYBALLS!)

Yesterday we reported on emergency meetings arranged by DSGi, to restructure the management of its PC World stores. We mentioned that regional and store managers faced heavy redundancies, and that the prospect of PC World and Currys being merged into one store looked ever more likely.

We’ve now heard from sources that a second meeting for general managers of PC World is occurring today. It’s thought the outcome of that meeting could see assistant managers reapplying for their own jobs and significant reductions in business centre staff and management. It’s also rumoured that the number of staff working at PC World could be reduced by up to a third.

Staff spending is also thought to have been frozen for the moment, with no additional expenses allowed for stationary, personal phone calls or stock collection. As always, if you can add provide any further detail, get in touch with us at bitterwallet@gmail.com.

We all have hopes and dreams for our children, but how many will grow up to become alcoholic, drug-addled gambling addicts, pouring quarters into Vegas slots and betting their kidneys against the house on the Blackjack tables? It’s a frightening, if not an entirely made-up thought, but one made all the more probable by Walmart.

Yes, why not start them young by teaching them about craps while they’re having one? Alright so it’s a slot machine. It’s the Jack Potty, which “triggers lights and sounds for fun and encouragement” when it detects “a deposit”:

Now there’s no need whatsoever to interact with your child; simply let them develop their near-fetal social abilities with a slot machine. The product reviews are also a little worrying, with parents going a step too far to prevent bathroom accidents:

“Although my son has yet to go to the bathroom in this, I say it’s just ok. The guard always falls off. So if you have a boy, I’d still shop around. I’m considering super gluing the thing on.”

Permanently fixing your child to a toilet seat does seem a little excessive, but at least it’d free up a bedroom in the house.

[The Consumerist]

Following the publication of ‘The World’s Greatest Complaint Letter’, we’re feeling a bit icky having learned that the author of the letter is a creative with top ad agency WCRS.

Meanwhile, it has emerged that Sir Richard Branson has replied in person to Oli Beale’s stinging criticism of the cuisine he was served up on a Virgin flight to Mumbai. Oli has even been offered the chance to work as a food-tester for the company, although it has not been confirmed if he will be taking Branson up on the offer.

Although everyone concerned has stressed that the letter was genuine, because of Beales’ involvement with an ad agency, we’re now adopting a cynical stance and are writing the whole thing off as a PR stunt. Everyone knows that anyone in advertising and marketing should kill themselves – Bill Hicks said so (see below – CONTAINS VERY STRONG LANGUAGE INDEED, OH YES.)

To quote Donald Rumsfeld, who recently speculated on the future of the iPhone*:

There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don’t know we don’t know.

How true. When it comes to Apple, we only know what we think we know. Which is to say, not very much at all. For example, we know that Apple aren’t interested in launching an iPhone Nano, because despite the fact they’d rip through the high-volume, low-cost handset market like cabbage through a cow’s gut, they’re not interested in fighting volume wars.

What we know we don’t know is how Apple will move the iPhone product line forward. It’s likely that a new version of the handset will be launched; the recent Spring Keynote at Macworld was hardly a gadgetfest, so it’d be reasonable to expect something shiny in the Summer. But what? MacRumours think they’ve found the answer buried in the code of the latest iPhone firmware update:

Looks like a lot of geek porn, but it’s that topline causing all the interest. According to MacRumours, it’s a strong indicator that a new iPhone handset is on the way:

Apple uses these models numbers to distinguish between different hardware models. The original iPhone carries the model number of “iPhone 1,1″ while the 3G iPhone is labeled “iPhone 1,2″. These numbers do not change for simple storage increases and instead represent functionally different devices. Similarly, the iPod Touch was originally introduced as the “iPod 1,1″ and the most recent hardware revision was labeled “iPod2,1″. The 2,1 iPod Touch added a speaker, volume controls, microphone support and a much faster processor than the first generation model.

Last year the iphone 3G launched in June, so if you’re planning on buying into the Apple experience (or you’d like a mobile with lots of cool apps that occasionally connects to the number you dialled) it may be worth hanging on a few more weeks.

* obviously not a quote concerning Apple, fact fans

[MacRumours]

Alan Greenspan yesterday

This one passed us by earlier in the week, but Guardian’s City Editor Julia Finch has put together the ultimate credit crunch countdown – the 25 people we should be pointing the finger at for getting us all in this horrific mess.

There’s plenty of the names you’d expect in there – Alan Greenspan, George W Bush, Gordon Brown, but a few others that are somewhat more surprising. Step forward and be scolded Woody Allen, Fatboy Slim and Inch High Private High.

Think we’re kidding? You’ll have to read the whole list to find out…

We’re pretty sure that no one else has broken this story yet, so remember where you saw it first.

Major leaps have been made in the technology that can provide up-to-date information to your home and this US news report shows it in all its staggering glory.

Without wishing to sound too bold, we confidently predict that, thanks to this breakthrough, the humble newspaper will be completely outmoded by October this year. At the very latest.

Don’t watch this report if you are of a sensitive disposition or if you’ve been drinking heavily – the vision of the future that it contains may send you over the edge into some kind of emotional abyss.

[TechCrunch]

Bags of joy

Members of Which? have voted Waitrose as Britain’s favourite store in the consumer gurus’ high street shops survey, the supermarket retaining the crown it snaffled in the same poll last year.

Although Waitrose’s prices are higher than those of its rivals, the survey showed that excellent customer service is the key to a rewarding shopping experience. Personally, any supermarket where grown-ups let their kids push the frigging trolley around gets a thumbs-down from us and we’ve probably seen less of this in Waitrose than anywhere else.

Waitrose’s sister company John Lewis bagged second spot in the poll and both stores scored highly on environment, helpful staff and quality of products from the 14,000 Which? members that took part in the survey.

We’re almost embarrassed to report this because it’s starting to look as though we’ve got a vendetta against DSGi (we don’t) but Currys, Currys Digital and PC World all found themselves in the bottom ten.

Sports chains JJB and JD Sports were the bottom two stores in the poll, which is fitting as we’ve got absolutely no idea what the difference is between the pair of them.

Thanks to Daniel Austin.

As sure as eggs is eggs, you’ll find your daily round-up of the hottest of all the deals at HotUKDeals right here. We personally peruse every single one of the hundreds of offers, individually putting them under a special bargain-finding microscope and then writing a couple of paragraphs of bollocks about them.

This is the news – today’s deals won’t cost you a penny* – they’re all FREE!

First up, we’re receiving reports from HUKD member liesbet8023 that there is Christmas wrapping paper being given away to customers at his/her/its local Asda store. Find out more here.

We don’t know if it’s a nationwide giveaway so we’re not looking to start a huge pilgrimage to Asdas across the nation but… last one there’s a paper-less stinker!
(deal found by liesbet8023)

Next, another freebie. If you’re an Audi driver, you’re in line to get a free MOT. Oh yes, ‘tis true. We can’t guarantee that the tester won’t find 1001 things wrong with it, leading to a four-figure repair bill to get it through the re-test, but what do you want from us – blood?

If you DO want blood, drop us a line at bitterwallet@gmail.com and let us know which of the BW team you’d like the blood from and we’ll see what we can do for you.
(deal found by Ladsbroke)

Finally, if you’re familiar with of Sigur Ros, you’re probably already a big fan of theirs – they’re that kind of group. Glacial, majestic music topped off with nonsensical lyrics (a made-up language called Hopelandic in case you were wondering.)

There’ll be a free compilation CD of some of their best stuff free with the Independent newspaper this weekend. Below is one of their most recognisable tracks, Hoppipolla. If you can’t wait till the weekend, get your hands on Spotify and stream yourself a sizey dose of more Sigur Ros.
(deal found by WorKid)

*Except the ones where you’ve got to buy things first in order to get the free stuff.

'Lookin' forward to another day sellin' PPI to idiots...'

We’ve had a lot of silliness on Bitterwallet so far today but there’s a time and a place for real consumer news. That time is NOW so strap yourselves in folks.

The Competition Commission have announced new restrictions on the selling of payment protection insurance to be implemented from 2010.  The selling of PPI alongside credit such as loans and credit cards will be banned as it gives the loan provider an unfair advantage.

Research has shown that many consumers don’t realise that PPI can be purchased elsewhere independently and feel pressured into forking out for it as they sign up for their credit agreement.

The report suggested that credit companies are cashing in by being able to offer PPI cover at the point of sale and that competition suffered as a result, leading to higher prices for the consumer.

Additionally, the sale of single premium PPI policies will also be banned. That’s when the whole cost for the entire term of the policy is paid upfront, usually added on to the debt itself.

More info and background at This Is Money, who have been campaigning against the mis-selling of PPI since 2002.

Right, that feels better. There’ll be some fresh silliness along shortly…