The demise of Waterford Wedgwood is a sorry tale. There is red ink everywhere, the Stoke pottery operation is pointing fingers at the Irish glassmaking side, while there's much brouhaha about moving the whole manufacturing process to Indonesia. How different it all was just four-and-a-bit years ago when the company held a massive Moscow launch party — ice sculptures, free-flowing vodka and champagne, models, Russian football stars — to celebrate a big push into the
Russian market.

Back then, the company's management boasted: “Thirty years ago, we went to Japan with Wedgwood, and are now the number one brand in Japan. There's great universal aspiration here, fertilised by international television. There's a common ambition. We aim to satisfy some of that.” Hmmm...

* Charles Darwin's grandfather was Josiah Wedgwood. Much irony then that his old firm should go into administration on the day when Darwin's bicentennial celebrations begin and the 150th anniversary of publication of On The Origin of Species.

Sunday Times' hall of shame

Reviewing its share tips for 2008, The Sunday Times strains to find excuses. And then gives up. “It is with great regret that the reporters on the Sunday Times business section must admit that they were not up to the task,” says an un-bylined piece. However, the paper does try to distance itself from the carnage, blaming “former colleagues” wherever possible. Of the eight share tips given, three were from people — Louise Armitstead, Ben Laurance and Grant Ringshaw — who have since left. The roll of honour: Ringshaw (Aviva) down 42%, Armitstead (Hammerson) off 47% and Laurance (Galiform) adrift 83%. The year's best performer was business editor John Waples. His tip, Filtronic, was up 5.4%. “Point scoring is a futile exercise,” he writes in his comment piece in the same section...

* Rupert Murdoch and Robert Thomson, respectively owner and editor of The Wall Street Journal, won't be pleased. Dean Starkman, media sage and fellow of the Columbia Journalism Review, has penned a stinging review of the Journal after its first year with Murdoch in charge.

“In the crisis the Journal falls short,” wrote Starkman. “The newspaper is missing the moment.” He claims the problem is the WSJ following the agenda set by rivals such as Bloomberg and even The New York Times – with the result it “has lost sight of the big picture”. Starkman cites a string of examples to show that, even though the Journal has come up with some decent scoops,
it is rival news outlets that have seen the breadth of the crisis — and the fact it is a scandal.

“Absent has been an effort to explain in a coherent way what just happened — how a few publicly traded companies managed to siphon a trillion dollars from the US Treasury and tip the world into recession — and who is to blame.” Starkman doesn't just blame the new paper's management, saying the WSJ is also stuck in old stuffy ways. But in a dig at the recent Michael Wolff biography that hailed Murdoch as The Man Who Owns The News, Starkman concludes: “If Murdoch wants to be a great newsman, it is getting late.” Ouch!

Deloitte man profits from doom

Corporate governance rules have tried to limit the number of top posts bosses hold — on the simple basis they simply cannot have enough time to do more than one job properly.
So in the world of crashing companies what to make of Deloitte's morticians Nick Dargan and Neville Kahn, who are now running (down) both Woolworths and Waterford Wedgwood at the same time?

More to the point for these high fee-earners: by taking these insolvencies, have Deloitte's dynamic duo ruled themselves out of juicier assignments as more insolvencies emerge in the days and weeks to come?

* Ebay sellers are showing little sentimentality towards Woolworths, and are hoping to make a fast buck from its demise. A pick 'n' mix carton can be yours for a fiver (plus a hefty £6 postage charge) while staff discount cards, employee contracts and store closing posters are also up for grabs. One auctioneer writes: “I would expect memorabilia from Woolworths will be sought-after quite soon.” Pity its goods weren't.

Can't Voda spare a phone for their man?

Amid tales of derring-do from Vodafone non-executive director and all-round action man Simon Murray on this week's Desert Island Discs — he once had to carry two severed heads in his backpack in the Foreign Legion — came news of the 68-year-old's latest challenge: he wants to climb Kilimanjaro in September. Two years ago, Murray led a bunch of chums up Mount Everest, including Sir John Bond, 67, Vodafone chairman and HSBC's former taipan, and Simon Robertson, 67, Rolls-Royce chairman. Bond is likely to join the new African adventure. In 2004, Murray became the oldest man to walk to the South Pole unsupported.
His request for a satellite phone as his desert-island luxury was rejected by presenter Kirsty Young. Couldn't Vodafone oblige?

* With the prospect of savers facing zero interest payments, Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling is considering helping pensioners with a tax cut on the income earned from their savings. Er, what income?

* The Irish way of coping with the crunch. Property developer Sean Dunne, on the lookout for €600 million to complete a massive luxury scheme in south Dublin, tells The New York Times: “The Celtic Tiger may be dead, and if the banking crisis continues I could be considered insolvent. But the one thing that I have is my wife and children — that they can't take away from me.” Records the paper: “He is on perhaps his fifth pint of Guinness, capping a rollicking night of champagne cocktails, followed by a wine-soaked dinner — yet his thick brogue is clear of even the faintest slurring.”

* Newsnight's economics editor Paul Mason was clearly keen to live up to his reputation
as a hardline socialist when interviewed for Radio 4's Correspondents' Look Ahead. Asked by host Stephen Sackur to give one reason to be cheerful about 2009, Mason said that seeing bankers go to jail is likely to be one of his high points of the year...