Thumbs up:It may have a silly name but Nintendo's Wii is on top in the console wars and is outselling both the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3 in the US by a margin of almost two to one.
The Wii was launched last November and sold 436,000 machines in January compared with 294,000 for the Xbox 360. Sony's new PlayStation, which has yet to be released in Ireland, sold only 244,000 in January.
Piglet in a poke
Thumbs down:Spare a thought for Hong Kong shoppers who splashed out in excess of €1,000 on lucky charm piglets to mark the dawning of the Chinese year of the pig last week, only to discover that what they'd actually been sold were small, hairless rodents. Suspicions were raised when the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in Hong Kong was repeatedly contacted by people asking how to look after their newly acquired mini-piglets.
"But when we went to the shops we couldn't find any such piglets for sale," said SPCA spokeswoman Rebecca Ngan. "We think that what they bought instead was a type of hairless rodent that looks like a pig."
Coke still it
Thumbs up:Coca-Cola has held onto its position as Britain's best-selling grocery brand. The soft drinks giant enjoyed a 5 per cent sales increase which pushed sales of Coke, Diet Coke and Coke Zero to almost €1.5 billion last year. A PriceWatch favourite, Innocent drinks saw the biggest popularity surge last year with sales climbing nearly 140 per cent to €143 million.
Clear as mud
Thumbs down:Most people in Northern Ireland struggle to decipher food labels.
The Food Standards Agency Northern Ireland (FSANI) 2006 survey shows that over half the 712 adults polled had difficulty in working out whether a product was healthy from its label. The FSANI says the study shows how important it is for food such as ready meals, pies and pizzas to be clearly labelled.