It may be in poor taste to point out how low sub-editing standards have fallen in the British quality press, but this is the headline from one account of the trial of a couple accused of killing their own 6 children in a beyond-stupid attempt to implicate the husband's mistress in a house fire - Michael Philpott is ‘my guardian angle’, says wife Mairead.

Innovation in the supermarket: Today's example – Sweet chilli and sour cream crisps(potato chips). I rather doubt I'll be seeing these in Mercadona any day soon.

When Tony Blair announced he was scrapping the age-old restrictions on pub drinking and both ushering in a new age of 'continental' drinking habits and sounding the death-knell of binge drinking, some of us were profoundly sceptical. Rightly so, it would seem, as it appears the worst has happened; said binge drinking now goes on until much later at night. The Law of Unintended Consequences once again

Talking of pubs, I finally managed to find a picture of The Wellington Hotel in Birkenhead where my grandparents were the licensees. Sort of. I actually tracked down a picture of its predecessor on the site, which was apparently also known as The Iron Duke. Being of the same vintage as The Stork Hotel I mentioned last week, I wasn't surprised to see they both had a “News Room”. I like to think this served the same function as modern Spanish cafes, providing newspapers for customers to read. Incidentally, Google throws up nothing in respect of the brewer named on the window – SALTAC Pale Ale.

Someone has come up with a new stratification of British society. Instead of the traditional 3 classes - upper, middle and lower – there are now said to be 7. If I've got it right, these are:-

1. An elite of very wealthy people.
   
2. The established middle class.
   
3. The technical middle class, a small, prosperous new class group which scores low for social and cultural capital.
   
4. The new affluent workers, a young class group which is socially and culturally active, with middling levels of economic capital.
   
5. The traditional working class, who score low on capital but are not "completely deprived"
   
6. The emergent service workers, a new, young, urban group which is relatively poor but has high social and cultural capital.
   
7. The poor, with very little social and cultural engagement.
   

Click here if you want to check this out.

The youngest daughter of the Spanish monarchs has finally been summoned to testify before the judge investigating the multi-million fraud said to have been perpetrated by her husband. This is a first in Spanish history and it won't do much for the already-battered image of the Bourbon y Bourbon family. I'm guessing the odds on abdication of the king have shortened somewhat.

Finally . . . Europe's fiscal strategy – Is it working? It seems not. Where next? Who the hell knows? Further social unrest in Spain? Probably. Click here for more.