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Elsewhere the agency has been named; since I don't know the person who named them and I have no evidence either way I can't repeat it because it would be hearsay and I could libel someone very seriously indeed by suggesting they'd behave in such a way.

But if you happen to know who it is, and you have any PR budget, I'd suggest avoiding using him at all costs. The man appears to be some sort of nut and as a professional communicator his approach is, ahem, interesting.

Well as it happens there are a lot of us criticising Blair at the moment. Nobody has asked me for any quotes and I don't blame them; I'm underqualified and underexperienced as any sort of political commentator. You might as well ask someone in the street, you'd have as good a chance of getting an eloquent and informed quote.

Which is what brings me to Mr. Gallagher. Why does someone assume that a by-now-ageing rocker is going to be any more enlightening than someone who's examined the issues and considered them dispassionately? It's not just Gallagher of course; ever since Harold Wilson feted the Beatles in the 1960s people have been assuming that musicians will have some sort of channel into meaningful, insightful conclusions.

Personally I think it's bunk. These are entertainers and they do a solid job of it. For some reason since the 1960s entertainers have also become spokespeople for causes, whether it's actors speaking out about Vietnam or Gallagher being pestered for views on the Prime Minister. Personally I think it's time to let them start entertaining again and leave specialist matters to the specialists - or get some comment from non-rich non-stars with whom the rest of us can identify. It won't happen of course, but wouldn't it be nice.

I'm not usually one for political correctness but there's a case for saying they went too far. The set-up was simple - they decided that, instead of hiring a car, they'd buy one and try to sell it on at the end of their holiday.

Eventually they got some beaten-up old motors, with Jeremy Clarkson at one stage offering a fat car salesman a hamburger. It was done with style and in spite of yourself you couldn't help laughing.

Then they daubed slogans on the side - "Hillary for President", something derogatory about country and western music (derogatory comments about c&w are always justified of course) and a pro-homosexuality comment. Understandably they had some hoots from other motorists in the deep south.

Then they stopped for petrol and the garage owner said she was going to 'get the boys'. A chase ensued with some hints that there was violence involved. Later on they reached New Orleans and found it was still a wreck; they offered to give their cars away and one woman from a mission - we were told, after the cameras were switched off - claimed they'd misrepresented the years of one of the vehicles they were offering for nothing, and tried to take $20K off them to stop her suing.

With this and an artificially-fattened Stig, there was a lot of anti-Americanism in there/ It was certainly entertaining but I was left with a bit of an uncomfortable feeling. I could, I'm sure, make a good documentary about how perverted the British are if I were to film exclusively in licenced sex shops and pick up cards left in phone boxes (if there are any around these days). It might even be a laugh, but you could still be excused for wondering why I was doing it. I could walk into a gay bar with anti-gay slogans on my tee-shirt and provoke a fight for another article ot film if I wanted to. I'm reasonably certain you could achieve the result you wanted if you provided the right provocation.

I'd still query the motivation for doing any of those things and I'd query why they chose to pick a fight on Top Gear as well. It's repeated on Wednesday, 8.00pm, BBC2 - I'd be interested to hear what other people think.

Anyone who enjoyed yesterday's entry with its reference to the new ad campaign from Apple might be interested to read some of the reaction there's been from His Billness.

You'd have thought a simple ad would have been either a giggle or not and that would have been it. But no, apparently Bill Gates is taking it all terribly personally.

I'll be honest, I'm writing this on a Mac and enjoying doing so, but I'd been a PC user before this and happy enough. They're boxes, they work, the Mac looks a bit better in my home so that's what I use, the end and they all lived happily ever after. But I do enjoy these occasional spats between people who think the damned things actually matter to most of us other than as a means to an end.

I'll keep you posted.

I don't normally highlight ads that people should watch but Apple's answer to the Microsoft Vista operating system is inspired:

http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/getamac/apple-getamac-security_480x376.mov

I'm indebted to Andrew Taylor for pointing this out.

Just seen BBC economics correspondent Evan Davis' new blog. As you'd expect from a professional journalist it's well-written although his brief is so far-reaching I wonder how thorough he'll be able to make it over the coming weeks?

The best entry and the most commented-upon so far, inevitably, is the one about the price of wine. Davis applies simple economics to buying - if it's expensive then it's bound to be good, in other words.

Well, up to a point. The duty on wine is fixed so if you buy one bottle at £4 and another at £8 then the £8 bottle actually has well over twice the value of wine in it compared to the £4 version.

It's not that straightforward, however. I might understand that a sweet Sauterne is superbly crafted, for example, but I still wouldn't touch it because I can't stand the stuff. Then there are the so-called bargains. A lot of my friends have been buying wines at 50 per cent less than their RRP lately and have been surprised that they're not that great. It's not until someone points out that something that wouldn't shift for the original price is likely to have been overinflated in the first place that the penny drops.

My own instinct is to try something and then decide whether you like it or not, and if you really like it, keep a note somewhere. Call me old-fashioned but it seems to work.