City People

COMPUTER HACKERS around the world hoping to wheedle their way into the latest cyber secrets are being disappointed when all they discover are the latest tax tips and audit advice.

The British firm of chartered accountants Hacker Young has been staggered by the number of hits that its web site has received since the site was set up a year ago.

Delighted but slightly bemused, the accountants finally discovered the reason for its popularity when a young man recently attended their Manchester office for a job interview.

It turned out that the youth had first come across Hacker Young when surfing the net trying to find tips about computer hacking. Howard Spencer, the firm's chairman, says: "We knew our site was good but not that good."

The bean counters have redesigned their site to make sure all visitors realise that its offering accountancy advice rather than how to, say, penetrate America's nuclear launch codes or whatever.

Even the new site is still being deluged with hits. More than 800 people contacted www.hackeryoung.co.uk between 20 July and 1 August alone. It's a pity hackers don't require auditing.

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OFGEM, the utilities regulator which was created by the merger of Ofgas and Offer a couple of months ago, has already showed its teeth by slashing electricity prices by around a quarter. Now it has appointed a director specifically to monitor how these price cuts will affect the 14 regional electricity companies.

Joanna Whittington started as a director of Ofgem yesterday. She was previously with the Office of the Rail Regulator where she was responsible for reviews of Railtrack and City affairs. (That particular watchdog is not called Ofrail - for obvious reasons).

Ms Whittington, 32, will be working at Ofgas's existing premises near Victoria in London for the moment, although the merged regulator is looking for new premises. Ofgem currently has nearly 300 staff dotted around the country, and plans to bring all of Offer's Birmingham staff to the capital by the spring. Ogem's head Callum McCarthy took over as director general of gas last November, and electricity in January.

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IS THERE anything specifically German about the way German multinationals operate? Or have they embraced Anglo- Saxon work practices following the globalisation of business?

The answer should be with us this week. On Friday the Anglo-German Foundation will publish an in-depth study on "The German Way" by Anthony Ferner of the School of Business at De Montfort University, Leicester, and Matthias Z Varul of the University of Tubingen.

The report's overall conclusion is that "German firms are reacting to the pressures of internationalisation by adopting a distinctive `hybrid' style of international operation, with elements of both the Anglo-Saxon and German approaches in a sometimes uneasy co-existence."

Sounds familiar.

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GET YOUR supplies of Alka Seltzer ready. Robert Neame, chairman of one of Britain's last remaining independent brewers, Shepherd Neame, is about to hold a reception for his Royal Highness Prince Philippe of Belgium.

On 8 September at Brewers Hall in the City, Mr Neame will give the Freedom of the Worshipful Company to the Prince. At the same lunchtime ceremony the Prince, whose country produces hundreds of different beers (most of which seem to be made by monks) will invest Mr Neame as a "Chevalier du Fourquet des Brasseurs" - a knight of the Belgian Brewers' Guild.

The cream of Britain's brewers will attend, says the Worshipful Company, adding: "Liquid refreshments will be provided." You have been warned.

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THE WHOLE area of the Internet and nascent e-commerce has been something of a graveyard for plain english from the start.

"The Journal of Customer Loyalty: A quarterly publication of vision and leadership", published by American web consultancy eLoyalty, doesn't offer any encouragement.

The latest issue is devoted to call centres, and the readers' glossary of terms provided at the front left me none the wiser.

For instance, the definition of a "screen pop" is: "A CTI capability. Callers' records are automatically retrieved (based on ANI or digits entered into the VRU and delivered to agents, along with the call."

Hmm. More depressing still, however, comes an article on electronic speech recognition, which asks: "Isn't `natural language' redundant?".

John Willcock j.willcock@independent.co.uk