Its a busy time for students as they receive their A Level results this week and there has been lots in the news about record pass rates and those students that have received all A grades. With headlines like this is easy to forget that not all students are lucky enough to get enough points for their chosen course. Whilst it might seem like the end of the world if you can’t get on your chosen course there is lots of help available when looking into alternative. That’s where the UCAS Clearing system can help. The University of Bedfordshire has already opened up their Clearing 2009 vacancies and have a variety of different courses available. If you need help you can contact the University of Bedfordshire Clearing 2009 hotline on 0800 013 0925 and see how they can help you.

It appears its all change for the Oxo cube as the traditional cube gets a new shape. Rather than being a simple cube it will now have grooves cut into it making it into a X shape. The reason for the change is that the new shape is supposed to be easier to crumble than the traditional cube alternative.

According to this article the average British family throw away £610 of food every year. The figure is based on a household with children and amounts to 6.5 million tonnes of rubbish. Based on this ministers want supermarkets to replace buy one get one free offers in favour of half price deals as well as introducing a larger range of pack sizes. They also want supermarkets to use clearer labels so that customers are sure of the difference between the use by date and the best before date. The article made me wonder how much of our household waste is food waste. I am certainly getting better at reducing the amount of rubbish we produce and try to make as much use of leftovers as possible mainly to try and save a bit of money but we still seem to have several sacks of rubbish every week.

Several major shoe brands have demanded a moratorium on the destruction of the Amazon rainforest. Clark, Adidas, Nike and Timberland are among the brands that are putting pressure on suppliers to make changes. According to this article around 65 to 75% of deforestation is linked to the growth of ranching. As well as the moratorium on leather from newly deforested areas the footwear makers want suppliers to bring in a traceability system which will guarantee the source of all leather. Currently some Brazilian companies linked to rainforest destruction export products to blue chip companies across the world. The three major processors Bertin, JBS and Marfrig have now agreed to reject cattle from illegally deforested land. The footwear companies will also refuse to buy leather which is sourced from farms on both legally and illegally deforested land.

According to this article Asda has actually increased the price of one one in five of its products despite its pledge to roll back prices. Trade magazine The Grocer has found that in many cases the supermarket has been rounding price up rather than down. It checked 969 products and found that 173 actually cost more in July than they did in March. A third of the products were the same price that they had been in March and 477 products were cheaper in July than in March. The Grocer found that one in five of the round pound lines which are heavily publicised has been sold for less than pound in recent months. Often customers often see the items priced at a £1.00 and fail to realise that they were actually previously on sale at a cheaper price.

According to this article a report has concluded that organic food is no better for you. The report which was commissioned by the Food Standards Agency found that organic food contained no more nutritional value than factory farmed meat or fruit and vegetables grown using chemical fertilisers. I think the report might be missing the point. I don’t necessarily buy organic produce because I think its better for me but I do like to know that what I am eating has been farmed in a responsible way and I do like to know where my food comes from. I don’t necessarily purchase organic produce but I am aware that organic farming has stricter animal welfare rules and that it bans artificial chemical fertilisers so am more likely to choose it if the price is not a consideration.

According to this article chocolate bars could be made smaller in a bid to try and fight obesity. The food standards agency wants the average chocolate bar to be reduced by a fifth to reduce the calorie intake and is trying to get chocolate makers to make voluntary changes to the size of their snacks. By 2012 the watchdog wants all confectionary to weigh no more than 50g. Manufacturers are also being asked to sell bite size bars as single items instead as part of a multipack. Under the plans fizzy drinks would also be sold in smaller containers. I’m guessing the pack size will go down and the price will not, meaning you get less for your money.

If you fancy driving something a little unusual, then you might be interested in purchasing this van. It is one of the six yellow Reliants which was used in the filming of Only Fools and Horses. The van is for sale on autotrader for £6,995 and it comes with a sheepskin coat, a flat cap, a market keepers suitcase and a bottle of Peckham spring water.

Coca Cola are trialling a new drink that contains fizzy milk. Called Vio it comes in several flavours including cherry, lime and lemon and costs £1.50. It is made from skimmed milk mixed with sparkling water and is flavoured with fruit and cane sugar. The drinks have gone on sale in New York but there are currently no plans to launch it in Europe.