I just opened a bottle of Porcupine Ridge Cabernet Sauvignon 2006 which I purchased from Sainsbury for £6.99. The wine is from Boekenhoutskloof in South Africa. I was browsing the South African wine section at Sainsbury and I must admit my attention was caught initially by the bottle because it has a picture of a porcupine on it. The blurb on the back of the bottle says very little about the wine and more about porcupines, making me wonder exactly how this is relevant to the wine. Apparently the only connection is that porcupines live in the area where the wine is produced. This said, the wine itself is really good and even my husband who is not that keen on red wine loved it. It is quite full bodied and fruity, tasting a little of blackcurrants. At 14.5% it’s a rather strong wine but good value for the price and very drinkable. I give it a rather respectable 4 out of 5 stars.

Banana Republic have opened a three storey store in Regent Street. The chain which is owned by Gap is a success in America and Japan and is now expanding into Europe. However, the opening of the store was overshadowed by claims that they pay their Indian workers just 15p an hour. The chain plans to open a further four shops in the UK.

I have been aware of payday loans for some time but until now I thought they were only available in the United States. It appears that there are now companies such as Payday UK offering the service within the UK. For those that haven’t heard of the term a payday loan is basically a short term loan that is designed to help you though the month until you get paid, hence the name. The idea is that you can get immediate access to cash and the amount is fully repayable on your next pay day.

To get a payday loan all you need to do is fill in an online application form detailing your income, how long you have been with your company and how often you are paid and within a few minutes you will know whether or not your application has been approved. Then you just enter your bank details and you should receive your money within 48 hours. You can borrow anything from £80 up to £750 for a small charge, just £25 based on a £100 loan. On the agreed pay day your bank account is then debited for the balance of the loan. If you do need to defer the loan then you can also do this but you need to repay the charges on the original loan.

Eight buffalo herds in the Naples area have been quarantined on the suspicion that their milk could be contaminated. The animals have been grazing on land where toxic industrial waste has been dumped illegally by criminals. The milk produced by the buffalo herds is now being tested for dangerous levels of dioxin. Although only a fraction of the herds in the region have been affected sales of Neapolitan mozzarella have declined by nearly 50% following the scare. The Government says consumers would need to eat large quantities of mozzarella over a period of several months for their health to be affected.

Scottish and Southern Energy will raise its domestic energy prices by an average of 14.2% for electricity and 15.8% for gas. The company is the last of the big energy suppliers to announce a price increase, following announcements by Npower, EDF Energy, Scottish Power, British Gas and E.On. They blame the increases on the rise in wholesale energy prices. The increases mean an average electricity bill will rise by £50 whilst a gas bill will increase by around £85.

The Sat Nav trolley could soon be coming to Britain. The device will help shoppers by guiding them around the store to the items they want to buy. It will also suggest recipe ideas based on the food that you put into them. The trolley is made by Media Cart in conjunction with Microsoft and could be in UK supermarkets by 2009. It will also be able to download your shopping list and plot the quickest route around the store, depending on what you want to purchase. The trolleys are fitted with a location device so they know where in the store, they can they work out what the best route is from the current location to the product the customer requires. It seems like an interesting idea, I wonder how well they work in practice.

If you play a lot of golf you might want to consider getting some golf insurance especially as there are around 12,400 golf related injuries every year. Golf Care offers a package that covers you against damage to property, personal injury and personal liability. It also covers you against the theft, loss or damage of you equipment. The prices start from only £29.99 a year for their bronze package which includes cover for equipment of up to £1,250 and personal accident cover of up to £50,000 as well as cover for third party equipment and dental treatment.

Woolworths will introduce charges for plastic bags from May. They will charge 1p per bag in all of their high street stores and if the trial is a success it will be rolled out nationally. All the money raised from the bags will go to the charity Woolworths Kids First.

BA shares have fallen after they issued a warning on profits. They have said that its profits could fall by 25% over the next year because of rising oil prices. The price of crude has hit an all time high of $105.97 a barrel meaning that the airline will have to abandon its target of making profit margins of 10%.

Backgammon Masters the home of online backgammon is now available in Bulgarian. Previously the website was already available 13 different languages including French, German, English, Spanish, Portuguese, Danish, Arabic, Hebrew, Turkish, Greek, Chinese, Italian, Japanese with the addition of Bulgarian making the 14th language. Users are able to switch between languages in the game lobby by clicking on their countries flag to select their chosen language.

Backgammon Masters currently offers a number of online games including backgammon , poker, blackjack and perudo. The nice thing about this particular website is that because it is available in so many different languages, they have one the largest online gaming communities allowing you to play with people all over the world. The site also supports several different currencies including US Dollars, British Pounds, Euros and Canadian Dollars with the cashier converting your transaction into US Dollars at no extra charge and based on the best exchange rate. There are currently plans to expand the community further with the future addition of other languages including Dutch and Russian so it looks like they will soon be able to accommodate most nationalities. There are also plans to expand their live online help facility which is currently only available in English to include multi language operators. At this rate it looks like Backgammon Masters will soon achieve world domination.