How do you stop a Christmas tree shedding needles?

I love this time of year... short days and thick jumpers mean it’s time to choose a Christmas tree.

It wasn’t always, childhood Christmases brought decorations down from the loft with an artificial tree; familiar and good, base wobbly but fine for another year.

With my wife, came real trees (people who chose this also bought…) and I love it (them).

Is there a way to stop needles falling off your Christmas tree?

While even in a Lapland forest needles are shed, there are ways to avoid a skeletal relic come Boxing Day.

Firstly store your tree outside until the last minute – the colder the better. You need a base that fills with water then, the minute you bring your beauty in, bathe her. Cut or potted Christmas trees need about a pint of water a day (no way?).

Yes way, the most important factor is water.

There are sprays on the market too, which coat needles in resin helping them hang on in there. But my advice is enjoy; like a rose losing petals, your Christmas tree is destined to slowly give her plentiful load... while not a creature is stirring (not even a mouse), enjoy her beautiful fragrance and magnificent silhouette.

Then, fire up a Gtech SW20 and break free. A wondrous 30-seconds, needles pepper the tray - a pine-fresh litre of swag a day. Drop ‘em I say, satisfaction like no other.

It’s not that I’m suggesting I designed the Gtech sweeper with Christmas in mind (It was Labrador hair actually), it just happens to be the gift that keeps on giving...

Merry Christmas!

When times are tough the smart move is usually the safe one. Trouble is to get Britain’s economy going we need some of its best performers with comfortable careers to step forward and start a new business.

Ironically, with 2 in 3 new businesses failing, having a crack at a new venture appeals most if you’ve just been made redundant, don’t like your co-workers or believe ‘only fools and horses work’.

Let’s be honest, the experienced and successful won’t be treated like an out-of-school amateur, won’t want to talk a young ‘bank manager’ through a business plan, fill in forms for advice or move to a poor part of the country for a rent subsidy.

With these potential pioneers safely scaling corporate ladders distanced from risk, are we missing a trick?

I applaud everyone who starts a business, it’s difficult to make any money at all, but what government needs is to prise the big guns out.

How about offering 100 start-up shells to encourage those with the best career and the most to lose? Include a proprietors tax credit up to current net salary, an interest free loan for prototypes, testing or science, a subsidised feeder office or lab in a block with comm’s and shared facilities right amongst the strongest growth areas where contacts are made and business done.

Put the right people in the right place with the right contacts and things happen.

‘Twas ever thus.

The budget, 5 steps to make Britain great

It's budget time and the big question is 'how do we grow Britain’s economy in a global recession?' Wonder no more, I have a plan. Simple visions are best and mine is for Britain to rule the design world, the way China rules manufacturing.

China are best at manufacturing. Their huge, well-educated workforce, with modern global communications manufacture everything for everyone. How did it happen? Financial incentives and time; when a China factory exports a product, their government pay them another 17% of the selling price. It’s like VAT in reverse so their businessmen rush around looking for ways to sell more to foreign customers. Their massive economy now grows another 10% each year and billionaires spring up like Himalayan Balsam. Money is rolling into China like giant tsunamis.

In case nobody noticed, British designers are the best in the world. Whether we are designing Spitfire airplanes to defend our land, building Formula 1 cars more advanced than spaceships or guiding super-brands like Apple, British designers are top dogs. Eccentric, individual and confident, we’re made for it.

It works too, take Gtech; we start with an idea and a clean sheet of paper and create new products to enrich people’s lives. Most of them are exported so it’s real growth and the advantages are legion; jobs are created, support industries grow and the government gets half of everything to run the country and support the needy.

So Mr. Chancellor, a simple strategy; set conditions to grow design, then leave them alone. Young designers will emerge confident, hungry and capable. Small companies are key, they drop like flies when the economy is bad, but are most creative and grow fastest when watered:
1. Reward export of British designed goods with cold cash – 10% of gross profit export rebate straight away, regardless of where they're made.
2. Grow before you harvest; reverse all the silly European tax increases.
3. Help the credit crunch, cap domestic payment terms to small business at 30 days.
4. Creatives hate bureaucracy and being told what to do, cut the red tape and forget about enterprise zones, they only line crony pockets.
5. R&D Tax credits work fine, don’t even dream of reducing them.