Unlike my colleage Andrew Neather - who admittedly does know a lot more about the subject than me, I am shedding a little winey tear for poor old Oddbins today. You have to be of a certain age - definitely over 45 - to remember the tragically inadequate wine landscape of Britain before this quirky retailer rocked up the High Street in the Eighties.

Affordable wine came generally from dreary "offys" or corner shops - the supermarkets were not really terribly interested then - and was invariable French, Spanish or Italian and awful. Plonk really was plonk, often only just drinkable. In the pubs, if you got a choice of badly kept generic red and white you were doing well.

Oddbins, with its warehouse-style stripped pine interiors, dramatic Ralph Steadman designed graphics, irreverent yet knowledgable staff, and most importantly, immensely wider choice of wine, changed everything. They opened the British consumers' eyes to the previously derided New World producers, particularly Australia, ushering in a new era of those oakey yellow chardonnays that were the taste of the Eighties. Things have moved on a bit now and the chardonnay age has been and gone. But it was the first time that ordinary wine drinkers started talking in terms of a grape variety rather than just a colour. And that is largely thanks to Oddbins. It is a measure of the revolution in tastes since then that France is now only the fourth biggest supplier of wine to Britain.

It never made much money but was probably doomed from the moment the chain was taken over by French wine giant Castel in 2001. The French decided they "knew best" about what the British punter wanted. Wrong. The acquisition was a disaster and destroyed much that was loved about Oddbins.

I have to admit my visits to Oddbins are few and far between now. But there are few retailers that can claim to have single handedly changed Britain substantially for the better. Oddbins is one of them. It will be missed.

I reckon we've done 20 birthday parties since our two boys were born. Over the years we've had cinema parties, making pizzas parties, a Harry Potter themed party, a bowling party or two, a trampoline party, several trips to the theatre, not to mention the traditional "slightly dodgy entertainer in a draughty church hall" routine in the early days. All of them have involved significant, to put it mildly, levels of parental stress.

So I feel after this weekend's latest celebrations, for my youngest's 10th, it is time to pat myself on the back, say "job done" and move on. This was perhaps the most ambitious of them all. The task? To transport a dozen manic nine and ten year olds half way across London to a laser tagging venue in a minibus, extract by now hyperventilating infants, get them back in the van and deliver them to waiting parents without injury or loss. All to a tight schedule.

Perhaps the low point - one of many contenders - came when we arrived in Sutton, half an hour late for our first booked session. Instead of waiting patiently by the side of the minibus as instructed, they flooded out to inspect the carcass of a crushed pigeon they had spotted on the ramp of the multi-storey. "Have you read Lord of the Flies?" I asked one of them grimly. Talk about herding cats.

Anyway, we survived. The traffic meant that we were an hour late getting back. More stress. But not for the parents waiting patiently for their beloveds. They had quite wisely adjourned to the pub and were having a bit of a party of their own so far as I could tell.

So kids, I hope you enjoyed the years of pressies, party bags, expensive treats, insane sugar rushes, because from now on it's going to be a few mates at Pizza Express.

The number of people who could no longer cope with their debts rose to an all-time high last year, official figures show today.

Next week the Bank of England's interest rate setting committee meets with the real possibility that they will order an increase in the cost of borrowing. If it is not this month, it seems inevitable that the first rise in rates for two years is getting very close.

It could be April, which is nicely shaping up to be, as TS Eliot famously put it, the "cruellest month" for people already strugging with their debts. We already know that April will bring higher National Insurance, hundreds of thousands dragged into higher rate tax, tough housing benefit caps, more expensive petrol because of the fuel escalator, the list goes on and on. That is before taking into account inflation, which is likely to be running at close to 5 per cent by then, higher heating bills and the start in earnest of the great public spending squeeze.

As if all that is not bad enough, the era of ultra low interest rates will start to come to an end around the same time. The City is now convinced that the Bank will bow to the inevitable before the summer, probably with a 0.25 per cent rise in April or May.
Normally that would be a cause for grumbling but not in itself a disaster. But it is the incredible fall in mortgage costs that kept the recession survivable for the vast majority in work. Any increase for those already struggling to cope is grim news indeed. The recession may be over but for many, the worst is yet to come.

Truly hideous. The general verdict on the extraordinary GDP figures this morning. But paradoxically they could be good news for London.

Of two things it seems we can be fairly certain following today's bombshell. Interest rates will stay lower longer and the pound will stay weaker longer than might otherwise have been the case.

The former will encourage investment in the property market - due to cheaper borrowing and poor savings returns - and mostly in London and the south east. The latter means that the incredible flow of foreign tourist and investment money into the London economy will be maintained. Agents say that there are more foreign buyers sniffing around London than ever, many from the Eurozone looking for a bricks and mortar hedge against a collapse in the European currency.

London is also less exposed than most parts of the country - although far from immune - to the coming squeeze on public spending. There seems little doubt now that large parts of Britain are facing the real prospect of regional "double dip" recessions, even if the country as a whole avoids it. But not London. Its role as the economic powerhouse of the nation is more entrenched than ever.

This paper predicted last summer that London was about to be overrun by American flavoured restaurant concepts. And so it has come to pass. Last night Richard Caring got the all clear from Westminster to bring Balthazar, the ludicrously popular Keith McNally bistro, to Covent Garden. Ideally, Soho would have been neater as the original is sited in Manhattan’s SoHo.

Neverthless the symbolism of the announcement is immense. Caring, who describes himself as half American (his father was a GI) beat off the other interested party, the quintessentially English restaurateurs Chris Corbin and Jeremy King for the site.

It is easy to see the appeal of what the best of American restaurants have to offer. Decent uncomplicated food, super slick service, lively, buzzy informal settings and a decent price. It is far from the hushed and intimidating reverence of the grand French tradition that was in the ascendant a few years ago.

But top notch, right-on-the-money service is absolutely key and that is where London still so often lets itself down. Another American import, Jamie Oliver and Adam Perry Lang’s meat temple Barbacoa suffered badly in its early weeks because it just could not nail the service side of things.

If Caring and his new best friend McNally can replicate the very best of New York’s service culture - and it’s a big if - then yessirree they’re on to a winner.

The owners of The Wolseley on Piccadilly are to open a new brasserie in London’s “midtown”.

Restaurateurs Chris Corbin and Jeremy King, who previously ran The Ivy, Le Caprice and J Sheekey, as well as the now closed St Alban, hope to launch the unnamed outlet next autumn.

It will take the space previously occupied by Bank restaurant on the corner of Kingsway and Aldwych.

The restaurant forms part of a 130,000 sq ft block of offices, homes and leisure facilities developed by property company UK & European Investments, a sister company of high street fashion chain River Island.

Computer games have never really done it for me.

As a boy I enjoyed the early Ataris with a single mesmerising dot traversing the screen from paddle to paddle.

Space Invaders and Asteroid were fun in their way.

But from somewhere around the mid-Eighties Pacman era games left me behind.

To be plunged back in some quarter of a century later was like introducing a member of a primitive tribe to modern life.

The technology of the Kinect is truly remarkable, the “swish away” screens of the Tom Cruise movie Minority Report brought to reality.

It takes a bit of getting used to, all the arm waving, leaning and crouching needed to control your digital alter ego on the screen.

Needless to say, my Wii obsessed nine year old son Joey caught on in minutes, finishing first in his debut circuit of car racing game Joy Ride (I was eighth out of eight in mine) and swatting me 11-4 at virtual table tennis.

But my greatest humiliation came in the Dance Central when I had to follow the dance moves performed to Lady Gaga’s Pokerface. I thought I had nailed it but the jeering on-screen crowd decided I had been “an embarrassment,” getting only 31 per cent of the moves right, despite being on the easiest level.

The games have the much of the cartoon look and sound of those on the Wii. Take away the controller and nunchuck and you do feel a bit of a self conscious charley to start with but that fades remarkably quickly.
Joey needless to say loved the whole experience. Our au pair Lauren was also a fan, scoring 85 per cent on her first go at Dance Central. “I could do that all day,” was her verdict.

As for me, well it was diverting experience but once a Luddite…However jaw dropping the technology, that nagging feeling that “life’s too short” for basically repetitive games won’t go away.

But I know I am the minority. These things will sell in their millions. It is difficult to see where the technology goes after this. Wheel me back in front of a screen once the boffins have perfected mind controlled games.

There has been little mourning for the death of the M4 bus lane, announced this week at the Tory party conference. But I have a personal reason to be grateful for that infuriatingly empty three and a half mile stretch of tarmac - it saved my marriage almost before it had begun.

When I pitched up with my newly wed at Heathrow airport one sweet morning in May 2002 for our honeymoon in Marrakech, I really felt I was able to start relaxing after months of stressful build up to our wedding.

But when I flourished my passport at Terminal Two check-in everything started to go wrong. "Is that your only passport, sir?" was the unexpected response. The BA functionary was looking down bemusedly at the sweet but useless passport picture of my 18 month old toddler son.

I was given an hour to get home to Hammersmith, grab the right passport, get back to Heathrow and get on that plane to Morocco. I hoped for sympathy and understanding but none was forthcoming. Sonia made it chillingly clear that if I missed the deadline she would be starting her honeymoon, quite happily, on her own at the gorgeous Riad we were booked into.

The cabbie I grabbed seemed delighted to be involved in such a comically cliched adventure. Why, then, I thought to myself, did his cab appear to be speed limited at 30mph. But at least we were moving. Thanks to "Prescott's folly" we were able to progress into London reasonably quickly, unlike the lines of stationary traffic on our left.

Still in keeping with the traditional plot lines of such capers, I made it, literally, with seconds to spare. Sonia was checking in and about to head off for the departure lounge - newly wed but alone. It was not the greatest start to married life but as we had already been living together for some years, I suspect it did not come as a surprise. That seemed to make it worse. Incompetence in the first flush of romantic love can be forgiven as an endearing failing. When it forms part of a wearingly familar pattern of behaviour it is just plain hopeless.

She got over it. Champagne in the air and a stunning room in our Riad put the "Heathrow cock-up" behind us. But it could have been so much worse. Lord Prescott of Kingston-Upon-Hull, it may have been a disastrous use of taxpayer funds, but I salute you and your condemned bus lane.