Daily Telegraph

UK has the largest online economy in the world By Laura Roberts Published: 10:00AM BST 28 Oct 2010 Online business is worth £100bn a year with internet revenue making up 7.2 per cent of our gross domes- tic product (GDP). The UK also has the second largest online advertis- ing market world wide, after the United States. If the internet was an economic sector it would be the fifth largest - outweighing the UK's construction, transport and utilities industries. Around 60 per cent of the £100bn figure is due to internet consumption according to the report com- piled by Boston Consulting Group which was com- missioned by Google. The remainder of the money is from the UK's inter- net infrastructure, government IT spending and net exports. For every £1 spent online to import goods, £2.80 is exported helping to make the UK the world's leading nation for e-commerce, according to the report The Connected Kingdom: how the internet is transform- ing the UK. This compares to the economy offline which exports 90p for every £1 imported. Researchers pointed out that online purchasing could be higher because many people research products online and then buy them offline saving about £18bn a year. Analysts said the amount by which the internet contributes to GDP is expected to increase by 10 per cent each year and will make up 10 per cent of GDP by 2015 - mainly due to an increase of consumption online. A quarter of a million people are employed by internet companies with small businesses that make full use of the internet likely to report up to four times more growth than those that don't. Despite this the UK was found to have poor infrastructure compared to other countries. When ranked amongst countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) according to internet infrastructure and availability, as well as online consumption Denmark was given the highest ranking with the UK in sixth place above Germany, the US and France - after . "The internet is pervasive in the UK economy today, more so than in most advanced countries," said Paul Zwillenberg, partner with BCG, told the BBC. "Several industries - including media, travel, insurance and fashion - are being transformed by it." Matt Brittin, managing director of Google UK, said: "The UK internet economy will be vital to the UK's future prosperity." The UK has the most developed internet economy in the world with the largest online e-commerce market per person, researchers have found. Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution (ABC): review ABC’s new reality show Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution stars a determined and loveable British chef who genuinely seems to care about improving nutrition for American children. By Rachel Ray, Washington Published: 10:59AM BST 29 Mar 2010 Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution, ABC’s new reality show, has an edu- cational agenda. But its British star isn’t a Professor Higgins who’s come to ridicule the way the locals speak in West Virginia, locale of the show’s premiere. Not at all. Jamie Oliver, English chef, cooking show star, and cookbook author, projects nothing if not sincerity in his mis- sion to help American children want to eat healthy food to stave off an increasing epidemic of obesity and diabetes. But Oliver picks a tough row to hoe in the town of Huntington, billed as America’s unhealthiest city. The pre-show buzz had been definitely anti-Jamie as fears of being on a life- long diet of salad circulated via talk radio. Oliver retorts that he has “no problem being a pain in the backside” and sets out to conquer schools, churches, talk show hosts, and families. The son of pub owners and the equivalent of a high school drop-out, this driven foodie has one obsessive aim---to get young Americans to actually care about what they eat. For Oliver, the younger the pupil is, the better his chances for conversion will be. And he’s willing to do what it takes---even running through a field dressed as a giant green pea pod with pre-schoolers. Later, on the theory that the kids won’t eat good food unless they know what it is, Oliver, still dressed as an unrecognizable pea to the students, holds a class to see if they can identify actual vegetables. None could name an eggplant, cauliflower or even a tomato. Undaunted, Oliver sets out to prepare a nutritious, cooked-from-scratch lunch to replace fries, sloppy joes, and chocolate milk. But the scepticism of the real school cooks is confirmed as a lovely meal of tuna bake, fresh salad, and homemade focaccia bread is largely dumped in the trash. In order to stay in the game (and the show), Oliver must satisfy the school district’s two requirements: the students must eat the food and the cost of the meals must stay within a budget. He pushes on, con- structing a new menu of hand-rolled burritos with a seven-spice sauce and cole slaw. But this time he talks to the youngsters at their lunch tables, encouraging their teachers and principal to do the same, and affixes “I Tried Something New” stickers to their shirts if they sample some of the meal. The gambit works and Oliver is told that if he can bring meal costs within budget, the school district will continue with the experiment. In one tense scene with the cafeteria staff, Oliver insists that the five-year-olds be allowed to use knives to cut the burritos. The staff can’t believe that Oliver is serious until the principal backs him up and in- structs them to take the cutlery out of storage. But far from a putdown regarding American manners, the down-to-earth Oliver seems genuinely concerned that children in the U.S. are not being taught to treat mealtime seriously at a young enough age. Oliver also takes on a heart-warming mentoring role with a morbidly obese eleven year old, explaining to him during cooking lessons that learning to prepare healthy food might just be one route to becoming a babe magnet. Perhaps the tousle-haired chef speaks from experience. Regardless of its star’s interloper status, it would be hard for anyone who cares about the health of chil- dren not to be rooting for this show’s success. And as for Oliver, any such outsider perception is irrele- vant. As this loveable revolutionary puts it, “I’m not here as an English person, I’m here as a human.”