On the front of Wednesday’s Financial Times was a picture of Kate Middleton smiling adoringly at the future king of England and giving every impression of delight over her new job as the nation’s foremost corporate wife.

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Wearing socks on the outside of your shoes makes you less likely to slip on icy paths.Promoting people at random makes companies more efficient.These two hypotheses were among the winners of this year’s Ig Nobel prizes – handed out by Improbable Research, an organisation set up to promote academic work that makes you laugh, then think.

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There is a teenage boy I know who worries me quite a lot. He was born to a good family with plenty of money. He is extroverted and optimistic; people appear to like him. He’s relatively easy on the eye and reasonably bright. His health is good and he can kick, hit and catch balls of various shapes and sizes. He does not smoke, or take drugs, or do any more binge drinking than the next person.

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The only problem with losing stuff is not that harm is done, it is that people fear that harm will be done and the loss does not look pretty in the papers, says Lucy Kellaway

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It is usually men who talk more management nonsense, but Lucy Kellaway finds they are no longer the only ones capable of talking guff

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Management accepting humiliation in order to satisfy customers seems like a good thing but Gap’s climbdown on its new logo is feeble, says Lucy Kellaway

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Everyone lives in mortal dread of getting into trouble – CEOs are all shacked up together in a glass house in which no stones ever get thrown, says Lucy Kellaway

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To make it, you simply have to fake it, according to Lucy Kellaway

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The exchange between Steve Jobs and Chelsea Isaacs prompts Lucy Kellaway to congratulate him on his clarity, tetchiness and for being completely in the right

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Like most Brits, I find success in others pretty hard to cope with. When that success is  combined with good looks, I can’t tolerate it at all.Apple’s continued glory eats away at me like a maggot at my core.

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