Penny Shares

Feeling lonely? Depressed? Is life a cage? If so, then perhaps you are a parrot. Parrot owners are coming home to find their favorite pet has been plucking out his feathers or even pecking his legs to the bone in a fit of frustration.

Last time I ventured into this world I managed to upset pet-lovers. But at risk of upsetting them for a second time, dare I suggest that parrots may be feeling a bit fed up because they would rather be roaming the jungles of the Amazon than stuck in somebody’s living room?

Anyway owners are increasingly calming their parrots by administering a version of the same Prozac anti-depressant drug that, according to the latest research, is no more effective than a sugar pill. TV vet Romain Pizzi tells us that tropical birds are by far the most likely to be treated for psychological difficulties. And it is not just parrots. Research for Sainsbury’s Bank reveals that 632,000 cats and dogs in this county suffer from depression ... Read More

In his famous half-hour comedy sketch The Blood Donor, Tony Hancock suggests that he should get a badge for doing this noble deed. “We should have something for people to pick us out by, he argues. Nothing grand, just a little enamel thing with a motto. Nothing pretentious, something like 'He gaveth to others so that others may live'.

I am wondering whether I should ask my bank for a little badge or some other token of appreciation. Because, when I come to think about it, I don’t receive much for my loyalty. All I get is an annual call from my ‘customer services representative’ who asks me if I am happy with the service, or would like something more. Always stumped by this question, I meekly reply that I am quite happy, and my customer services representative no doubts ticks the box on the computer screen and moves on to the next one. A year later I get the same call, from a different customer services representative. We go through the same charade, and having put the phone down, I think of all sorts of things that I might usefully have said. ... Read More

London taxi drivers, I read, are now being paid to promote the attractions of a holiday in Thailand as we are ferried around the capital. A good reason to buy an iPod, I would think. But this does highlight one contemporary fact of media life. There aren’t too many places where an advertiser can count upon your personal immobility. They used to trap you on the sofa, watching ITV. Next they figured that they could get you while you sat at your PC. These days they want to catch your attention via your mobile.

But none of these are quite satisfactory. You might not look at the screen. You might simply click away to something more interesting. You might actually find these intrusions more of an irritant than anything else. But there is one thing that we do 2.7 billion times each year that involves us standing still and looking intently at a screen. This happens when we withdraw money from a cash-point. So what better chance to capture our undivided attention than during those few seconds while we are waiting for our cash to appear? ... Read More

Not many employees of small UK software companies get to work for businesses that are rampaging through the US market. Not many of them get marriage proposals from women they have never met either. But that is the happy combination for the staff of Craneware, which listed on AIM last September at a price of 128p and saw its shares top 150p last week after an encouraging first set of interim results.

Craneware is serving the US hospital market. Most of the administrators with whom it deals are females. When they ring Craneware’s office in Livingstone, Scotland, they think they are talking to Sean Connery. Who can blame them? When I phone a call centre and hear a Scottish voice, it is always Claire Grogan. ... Read More