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• If your newspaper didn't mention "Winners and losers" this weekend, you were deprived. The 1.5% base rate cut last Thursday gave everyone the chance to examine who would gain: borrowers with tracker mortgages and some on their lender's standard variable rate and who would be worse off: savers and people who are about to retire.
• The government's decision that cancer patients can top up their treatment without jeopardising the rest of their NHS care led to speculation in the Sunday Telegraph that insurance companies would soon be launching top-up private medical insurance policies. WPA offers such a policy now, and although the cover is quite limited, so are the premiums. Definitely one to consider.
• Also on a medical theme, the Mail on Sunday's Jo Thornhill highlighted the battle of a widow of an army major to be awarded a war widow's pension. Marie's husband John died after years of suffering pulmonary fibrosis, which he believed was caused by inhaling DDT while stationed in Egypt in 1954 and 1955. On the day that Britain commemorated those who died to protect their country, Marie said: "It is devastating to think that my husband served all those years, yet the government refuses to recognise his health was damaged and his death hastened as a result of his service."
• The one person who seems to be immune from the effect of the credit crunch and recession is Bob Flowerdew of Radio 4's Gardeners' Question Time. Interviewed in the FT's Money section on Saturday he declared that he has no pension provision and thinks pension schemes are a rip off. Worryingly for his family (he has a wife and three-year-old twins) he has made no will so far. But as he is "spending almost every penny I earn, almost more than I earn", and has invested thousands on trials of tropical plants in a double-plastic polytunnel, maybe they shouldn't bother worrying after all.
• Finally, I know we are only six weeks away from Christmas (gulp!), but it is still dispiriting to see a feature in Telegraph Money on how to do your Christmas shopping (not least because I know we must start running ours soon). However the piece gives details of a great sounding website - www.quaffersoffers.com - that allows you to search the current offers in UK supermarkets and specialist wine merchants. Useful if you are hoping to serve fizz at Christmas - be it champagne or alcopops - without bankrupting the family finances.
• If you are still intent on spending a lot on presents, The Independent on Sunday analyses cashback credit cards to work out which can save you the most money on your shopping.
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