If there is something that architects love, it is criticising the work of their peers, in private.

Few months ago I've received an email from the blogger Ghost of Nairn, author of Bad British Architecture, who gave me his critical opinion about a project that received an award. When I've looked at his blog, with his humorous and venomous language, I could not stop laughing for a good 10 minutes. He made my day that day.

Of course design is subjective and not all of us will agree on what is attractive or not, but we have to admit there are many strange buildings out there, and yet some manage to receive awards. The Ghost of Nairn is there to remind us!

If you are having a bad day and want to put a smile on your face, have a look:
http://badbritisharchitecture.blogspot.com/

Land ownership is (literally) part of the bedrock of any nation and certainly its economy; and yet very little attention (beyond that of the domestic residential market) is given to it by politicians in this country .

Politicians and think-tanks simply don't understand it (land law is for lawyers) or take the view that if there was 'anything in it' it would have been 'done' by now. Alternatively, 'land policy', such as bringing land into public ownership, is regarded as something from a state socialist past or is the domain of Zimbabwe's Mugabe.

Of course those who do own the land surface (and below) of the UK are very much delighted by this approach and have no interest in the issue moving up the agenda.

The media lectures us incessantly about what's good for our health. Or rather, what's bad for us. And what's bad today, is good tomorrow and vice versa. It seems there are armies of researchers busy surveying our lifestyles, our eating, our drinking, working, playing or even sleeping, ever eager to shock us with the results of their findings.

Sustainability, climate change, CSR...since the 1970s Greenpeace and other environmental organisations have been challenging the oil industry for the damages it causes to the environment.

In this 21st century where most Western governments aim to reduce carbon emissions, environmental activists should look at the other face of the house: To reduce CO2 emissions, businesses should not only be encouraged to reduce their carbon footprint while manufacturing their products, but also the environmental impact of the use of their products by the end user.

Whereas transport is responsible for 28% of UK CO2 emissions, housing accounts for around 30% of all energy consumed in the UK and 45% of CO2 emissions come from energy used in the homes and buildings according to the UK Green Building Council

What it means is that the construction industry - e.g. Balfour Beatty and Lafarge - pollutes more than the oil-car industries - e.g. Shell and Toyota.

Are environmental activists doing the right thing by focusing their criticism on Shell and BP just because they are the most visible and/or the most profitable? In the name of climate change, would it not be more efficient to focus on the worst polluters - the houses and buildings manufacturers?

But with the top 20 construction companies having less than 20% of the market, the industry is very fragmented, so who to target? The main contractors because...? The clients because...? The architects because...? It is a difficult open-ended question.

Most chief executives in the industry complain about the lack of visibility of the sector and not being taken seriously by government officials. They are right, but they should see the good side of it: Until then, they won't be victim of personal attacks like their peers in the oil industry by environmental activists.

Kraft today look set to take control of Cadbury if - as expected - a majority of shareholders agree to the 850p a share takeover bid for the firm.

But where next? Its Chief Executive Irene Rosenfeld stated a few weeks ago (on the day the Cadbury Board put the white flag up and agreed to a revised offer), that they had identified 'additional synergies' which justified its raised bid for Cadbury, all of which makes me wonder how these savings will be made and new jobs created.

This evening Lord Mandelson is due to meet Rosenfeld in London to ask for 'assurances' that Cadbury chocolate will continue to be made in Britain after the takeover. Mandelson will make a statement after the meeting this evening.

Gordon Brown has just announced that mutualism and co-ops (like the John Lewis Partnership) will be at the centre of Labour's forthcoming election manifesto. Brown apparently wants to draw on the manifesto of Co-op Party, an affiliate of the Labour Party, in preparing the forthcoming manifesto.

Post credit crunch, co-operatives have found support from different wings of the Labour party, with cabinet ministers such as Tessa Jowell and Ed Balls backing them as well as influential backbenchers such as John McFall.

And leading public intellectuals such as Jonathan Michie (formerly Head of the Birmingham Business School and now at Oxford) have made a strong case for re-mutualising Northern Rock so as to provide both econo-diversity and a bulwark against financial contagion.

Considering it is the largest media owner in the world, Google is very bad at communicating with its users - which, lets face it, is most of us.

Back in December Google slipped Personalised Search into our lives, but few peopled noticed.

Google is always fiddling, or 'refining' as it calls it, with its algorithm, the one that determined which sites we see at the top of our search results pages.

Usually you need to be a search engine optimisation (SEO) expert or a real geek to spot the changes, or follow Google's official blog.

But now even normal people are noticing that their search engine results are becoming very different to those of other people - even when they search with the same words!

The Conservatives are now undertaking a last-minute rethink on its plans to scrap Regional Development Agencies (labelled a "complete waste" by David Cameron last year) after a fierce backlash from regional and national business groups.

As noted in earlier blogs, Tory shadow minister Geoffrey Clifton-Brown sparked much incredulity in Birmingham last December when he said the Tories would scrap RDAs except in London; "by and large they are going to be abolished... it is quite unnecessary to have an RDA structure. It is a tier of government which is not needed."

And in the North West business groups have reacted angrily to Tory plans, as recently highlighted in the local press. More generally, the CBI and British Chambers of Commerce have pointed out that scrapping RDAs would fail to deliver the "strategic infrastructure which business thinks is so important".

With perhaps just 11 or 12 weeks before a General Election, Ken Clarke, Tory Shadow Business Secretary, has ordered a review of policy on the issue after admitting Tory current policy was "not clear".

There is considerable confusion over what Tory Party policy now is on RDAs. Different statements by different Shadow Ministers have given either the impression of no joined up thinking on the matter, or alternatively the impression of an underlying desire to scrap RDAs outside London, without actually wanting to be seen to say this publically.

I suggested a number of regional economic needs and why the regional scale is important in delivering them, in my blog yesterday. It also needs to be recognised that the current situation with RDAs is actually the accumulation of over twenty years of experience, experiment and change, many initiated originally by one of favourite 'interventionist' Tories, Michael Heseltine.

It seems rather perverse to just discard all that knowledge and infrastructure without very serious examination. So, before the Tories rush into scrap them, let's highlight the some of the arguments and what's at stake. Why even think of scrapping RDAs anyway? Various arguments have been put forward on this front:

Last week Lord Bhattacharyya suggested that the Tories may keep RDAs after all. The well-connected peer said that the Conservative Party has not yet decided on the fate of RDAs (including Advantage West Midlands) should they win the next General Election.

He suggested that despite the Tories making it clear that they are not convinced by RDAs, their abolition under a Conservative government is not a done deal; "that's not what they are telling me," he said.

"There might be change, but this is a party that wants a small central government so the regions will have more power. I have not heard them articulate that will get rid of the RDAs".