Johan Dippenaar took the precaution of sitting down before picking up the phone in his office on 24 September last year. It was a public holiday in South Africa and the man on the other end of the line, the manager of Petra Diamonds' biggest mine, was supposed to be on holiday with his family.

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Retailers returning to work yesterday after the bank holiday were buoyed by the news that the GfK NoP consumer confidence index rose for the first time last month since February. But after putting away their buckets and spades, life now gets serious for shopkeepers ahead of the so-called crucial golden quarter, when most retailers make the bulk of their profits.

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Warren Buffett has never revealed when he had his ego surgically removed, but it must have been at a very young age. As he turns 80 today, the billionaire investment guru remains as cheerfully good-hearted, funny and self-deprecating as ever ? so much so, in fact, that it is easy to miss just how significant a figure he is in the history of American business. He has been lucky beyond his dreams, he said in his more recent letter to shareholders in his conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway. He and his business partner, Charlie Munger, were born with "a 'business' gene that allows us to prosper in a manner hugely disproportionate to that experienced by many people who contribute as much or more to our society's well-being". Indeed. His net worth of $47bn (£30bn) makes him the third-most wealthy person on the planet, according to Forbes magazine.

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Lipitor is one of the biggest-selling prescription drugs in the world.

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Britain could find itself in the dark by the end of the decade.

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So, why is he in the news?

Well, Mr Lansdown is relinquishing his role as an executive director of Hargreaves Lansdown after 29 years.

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Barely a week goes by without another "new" banking group setting up, boldly proclaiming a back-to-basics policy of serving customers with loans and savings while avoiding the casino-style gambling that brought the existing industry to its knees.

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With Ginsters' Cornish pasties and Melton Mowbray pork pies on his plate, Brian Stein, the chief executive of Samworth Brothers, could easily lay claim to being Britain's favourite pieman. Mention Samworth Brothers to shoppers in any of the big supermakets, though, and few will have heard of the group, even though it is one of biggest makers of chilled foods in the UK, and most shoppers will have its goods in their baskets.

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Barnes & Noble, the world's largest chain of bookshops, posted a quarterly loss of $63m... Sorry? What's that? You no longer want to be called the world's largest chain of bookshops? Let's start again...

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A devastating earthquake in Chile, wind storms across Europe, and the disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico have contributed to one of the worst first halves for the insurance industry in a decade. This has led to questions over whether the shine has finally come off the catastrophe insurance industry, after an unprecedented purple patch.

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The mid-afternoon sun burns fiercely on the four tables outside the Ludo Lounge, where families and couples are soaking up the rays while enjoying fresh tapas and large glasses of red wine. Residents in Southbourne, a sleepy suburb of Bournemouth, have never before seen anything as trendy as this café-bar in their high street.

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Is that old smoothie Stuart Rose off at last?

Sir Stuart to you. But yes, Marks & Spencer will shortly have to cope without him. Having been replaced as chief executive by Marc Bolland earlier this year, Sir Stuart is to give up the chairmanship early in 2011 and Mr Swannell is to replace him.

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Just as the financial crisis starts to recede, an old problem for Britain's banks has come back to haunt Royal Bank of Scotland.

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When the film Minority Report was in cinemas in 2002, they called it science fiction. As Tom Cruise's character walks through a shopping mall, he is assailed by talking billboards that recognise him and target him with personalised advertisements. "John Anderton, you could use a Guinness right about now," one calls out.

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Justin Gover does not look like a drug dealer. But he is, albeit a legal one. Neither does he look much like a hero. But he could well become one to the 100,000 people who suffer from multiple sclerosis in the UK after producing a medicine that has been shown to relieve the pain associated with the disease. The discovery may also put an end to MS sufferers' widespread dependence on cannabis, which many have used for decades to alleviate symptoms of the disorder.

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Functioning TV screens printed into the wallpaper? Touch-sensitive shop displays that update automatically or scroll reviews from the internet? Food packaging that monitors the temperature of its contents and shifts the sell-by date accordingly?

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Could you say, these days, where exactly is the line between the television and the internet? Even if you haven't worked out quite how to hook your computer to your television set yet, perhaps you have found yourself watching some of your favourite shows on the laptop. The BBC's wildly popular iPlayer has collapsed the divide between telly and the web in the UK. In the US, broadcasters routinely put their hit shows up on their websites for viewers to catch up on the latest episodes, and the major networks have also collaborated on a joint venture called Hulu, which acts as a one-stop-shop for all their latest shows.

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