General business

Until a rival changes its offering and starts to compete on price, Ryan Air can continue annoying people and courting profits, not friends. For now, that includes the media. The media knows O'Leary and his motley crew will always guarantee a headline when news is slow and so does Ryan Air.

What a start to the weekend! Vishal from Blak Pearl and I headed over to the BBC studios in Nottingham at 8am today to do an interview on the Breakfast Show - an exhilerating feeling as we walked up the steps and signed in at the front desk.

It is these sort of people that we need to lead us out of this recession. They embrace the new, they are eager to learn, they want to be a part of things.

It was great to see their enthusiasm in supporting Vishal in his business venture and I hope that once we get this show on the road we will be able to demonstrate that Nottingham has a heck of a lot going for it, especially with regards to innovative businesses and student enterprise.

Michael O'Leary's gift for getting media attention (or one of his very smart colleague's gift) is incredible. There was the mooted "Fat Tax" which was met with extreme hostilty and a plot to remove the number of toilets and now we have them floating the idea of a standing room only seat. These will be cheaper and maybe even free.