The Scots trudged off the Netherdale pitch for the last time as Reivers players, their team a victim of cost-cutting, and Townsend for the last time as a professional.

BBC: SPORT | Rugby Union | My Club | Borders | Border Reivers 16-24 Ospreys

It's been a long time since we've thought of our cordless landline phone as cutting-edge the last time we upgraded was to get a phone with a headset jack, hardly something at the forefront of technology.

ENGADGET: Israeli developer working on next-gen landline features

Last time I checked, even cutting and pasting in the grown up world used computers, not glue and paper.

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Despite a tax-cutting package last year, which made time worked over the legal 35-hour week tax-free, voters have not felt the benefit in their household budgets.

ECONOMIST: France

Since last year, when companies began cutting back full-time employees and replacing them with cheaper part-time and temporary workers, it has been the middle-aged workers who have been especially hit.

ECONOMIST: The sarariman��s mid-life crisis

The company is also cutting costs, trimming 4, 500 full-time positions from its payroll in the last four months of 2003, and planning to cut headcount by 2, 900 (5% of its workforce) this quarter.

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However, despite all the offical acclaim of the last couple of years, Sir Terence is taking on Paris at a time when his reputation as London's cutting-edge restaurateur is looking increasingly shaky.

ECONOMIST: Terence Conran: A man for all seasons | The