I foolishly decided to play football up in Edinburgh this weekend and if the 10 hour return journey wasn’t bad enough, we also lost! However this morning while on the bus, it was the very same city that put a smile on my face. Today the Edinburgh festival announced what the funniest jokes of the festival had been as well as naming and shaming those comedians who had flopped with jokes that were more suited to Christmas crackers. With it being Monday, I thought we could all do with a chuckle to lighten up our blues, so here are just a few of the highly praised one-liners:

1) Tim Vine “I’ve just been on a once-in-a-lifetime holiday. I’ll tell you what, never again.”

2) David Gibson “I’m currently dating a couple of anorexics. Two birds, one stone.”

3) Emo Philips “I picked up a hitch hiker. You’ve got to when you hit them.”

4) Jack Whitehall “I bought one of those anti-bullying wristbands when they first came out. I say ‘bought’, I actually stole it off a short, fat ginger kid.”

5) Gary Delaney “As a kid I was made to walk the plank. We couldn’t afford a dog.”

It seems a shame for such great gags to not be shared, so why not choose your favourite and help spread some Monday cheer for once!  I’ve done a couple of example T-shirts for you below, see which one is your favourite or make your own via the website. 

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From the largest to the smallest, companies are having to tell their employees that there won’t be any pay rises this year. The pay freeze isn’t popular, even where people understand that it’s necessary, and as ‘jollies’ like big conferences, away-days and big incentive rewards all fade into the distant horizon of ‘when the recession is over’, staff can feel unvalued and put upon.

Here’s a cost-effective way to offer them some recognition for their services even when you can’t give them a bonus or pay rise to reflect their contribution to your company. Have a Workplace Award ceremony.

Holding an event at work is cheaper than hiring a venue, and people don’t have to dress up in formal clothes, so you’re not adding to their expenditure for new shirts and ties, or dresses for the women, or even dry cleaning costs.

To plan your event:

•    Pick a date far enough in the future that everyone can make it
•    Decide which ‘awards’ you will make: most efficient, most fun to work with, most conscientious, best dressed, funniest, most productive, Ms or Mr Congeniality, Mr or Ms Customer Service Hero etc
•    Send out requests to nominate colleagues at least a month before
•    List the nominations a fortnight before and set up a ballot box and voting slips
•    A week before, organise catering. Make it food everybody can eat easily like pizza and sandwiches and be careful about alcohol. A glass of wine each is fine, more than that can cause problems
•    3 days before the awards, remind nominees to prepare acceptance speeches and that partners are welcome to attend
•    48 hours before the award, tally the votes and get cheap plaques or cups engraved and T-shirts with the appropriate slogans printed
•    Set the scene – use your largest space to hold the event, be ready with your microphone and, if possible, get key customers or even minor celebrities to come along and make some of the presentations, to add some ‘Hollywood Glamour’ to the occasion – your customers will love to be invited and will think even more of you for organising such a clever, cost-effective event for your employees
•    Make a real fuss: as each winner is announced, whip up the crowd to applaud, clap wildly during the acceptance speech and make each person pull on their ‘Most Whatever’ T-shirt and be photographed holding their trophy or engraved plaque.
•    Put all the photos up in a prominent place so that next year’s award ceremony will be even more exciting and hotly contested.

For the price of a few T-shirts and some simple trophies, you will have motivated your workforce and given recognition to your outstanding staff.

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it’s official:  Stella McCartney is the Designer Of The Year, according to the British Fashion Awards.  She beat both Luella Bartley and Anya Hindmarch to pick up the award and it’s a vindication of what has been something of a contested career, during which her famous name and father have brought her the kind of attention nobody wants, and some disapproval from other big names in the fashion world.

Right at the beginning, there were complaints that her graduation show was catwalked by Naomi Campbell and Kate Moss – models who are somewhat out of the price range of the average student!

Then in 1997, when she followed Karl Lagerfeld as creative director at Chloé, the man himself said, ‘They should have taken a big name. They did – but in music, not fashion.’ 

But she’s outlived the doubts and her own label, backed by Gucci has been a huge success.  In 2005 she designed for H&M, and her clothes sold out again and again in High Street shops,  and this year, the McCartney label turned a profit for the first time – it’s worth noting that despite her backer, Gucci, using fur and leather, McCartney uses no animal products in her collections.

Kate Moss photograph by Tauben, used under a creative commons attribution licence

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