Sadly, Mr Duncan has been taking his summer break this year in Florida, and has been trapped there by Hurricane Ivan. Whether he returns at all depends to some extent on the views of the managing editor, John Duncan. Take the time to rethink the model and bring innovation to the way you produce, brand and deliver into these markets.”Julian Turner, relationship director, manufacturing, Barclays Bank”Breaking into overseas markets is a tremendous achievement but it brings challenges. Maintaining quality and meeting expectations are vital for future orders, and the company needs to ask itself some questions.”How do we fulfil customers’ objectives? Which orders are new or repeat and are there patterns? Could we subcontract, with Omega focusing on higher-margin products? Where do we really make money?”Omega’s sensible flexible overheads strategy affects short-term profitability but could be sustained while establishing views on the future and attracting new customers. for the spoilt, self-obsessed young football millionaires derives from being constantly in the spotlight, thanks to the media.Peter Cole is professor of journalism at the University of SheffieldDIARYTo lose one editor’s carelessHas The Observer lost the services of its one-time news editor, Andy Malone, or not? Malone walked out of his job in protest at what he felt was interference by the former political editor, Kamal Ahmed, who now has an undefined role but goes to an awful lot of meetings.Staff were told that Malone had taken time off to dampcourse his house, but it is official that he won’t be returning in his former capacity. Sky, Radio 5, BBC TV, ITV, talkSPORT, as well as all those sports pages in all those newspapers, turn it from 90 minutes a week into 24/7 Every Ferrari, every cocktail, every bet, every .. no, I shouldn’t say that …

This petulant foot-stamping (they should put their feet to better use) by the £40,000-a-week brigade underlines once again how comprehensively they don’t get it.Football is maintained as the huge entertainment industry it is today by being talked about, argued about, read about, listened to and watched. I had hoped we would be spared the inarticulate clich?of the post-match interview for a longer period. Bad news that it seems to be only a one-off protest against some football writers saying some rude things about England players who had played badly in Vienna and achieved only a messy draw. And Alan Milburn was going to replace Ian McCartney in the Cabinet as chairman of the Labour Party, whereas in fact he became Chancellor (not a word Gordon Brown will enjoy seeing associated with Milburn) of the Duchy of Lancaster.Good news that England footballers are refusing to talk to the press. You report a match like you report a debate, describing the action.

And when it comes to the deep sources and the informed speculation, usually presented as more factual than that, the two disciplines often get it wrong, and are seldom embarrassed by post mortems.So it is that for day after day Steve Bruce or Terry Venables was going to manage Newcastle United, but the unmentioned Graeme Souness got the job. Somehow they were able to put across the excruciating ordeal of those inside and outside the school in a way the continuous pictures could not.There are times when the reporting of sport and politics has much in common. I watched the live TV pictures of the horrific denouement for two hours or so. No one could fault the courage of the camera operators and reporters, but as events unfolded they could not know what was happening.

And back in the studio they ran the same pictures again and again, because there were no new ones that developed the story.By contrast, I found the long – descriptive narratives, particularly in the Guardian and Independent as moving, and gruelling, as anything I have read in newspapers for a long while. August, for obvious reasons, is not seen as a good time to sell newspapers, but this year sales have held up, with only two titles losing more than 1 per cent of sale (The Guardian and the Financial Times) and five actually selling more in August than July. The circulation figures provide a basis for such stock-taking.The August figures are just out. They show that in the daily market the situation is grim for the major red-tops, steady for mid-market, and divided in the quality sector. It is also a time when editors, and proprietors, take stock, look at overall performance, and decide what needs to be done.