There is an organisation with the snappy name Broadcast Advertising Clearance Centre who have informed the equally snappily named British Egg Information Service that their proposed marketing campaign featuring today's title as its slogan should not run. Read the story here. In essence, the watchdog is concerned that the campaign does not promote adequately the concept of a varied diet. What a load of nonsense but it does give me the opportunity to link to these wonderful original egg commercials by Tony Hancock - brilliant. I hope this blog doesn't count as broadcast advertising. If it does, I could be in big trouble now.

I spent yesterday with the senior management team from our Latin American companies. We were reviewing performance and working on three-year plans. As you can imagine, given that there are some forty business units spread across a dozen countries publishing more than a thousand new titles a year, there were plenty of numbers - sales, stock, overheads, cash collection etc. But one line stood out. Our total number of full-time employees (excluding temporary sales staff etc) has risen in five years from 273 to 772 and we plan to grow more. That's real investment. Here's wishing all our Grupo Macmillan employees (including of course the ones in Spain) mucho suerte.