Travelodge, which runs more than 300 budget business hotels in the UK, is training its staff on how to respond to the This month marks the 50th year of The Trans-Atlantic deregulation agreement known as "Open Skies" has airlines chomping at the bit—even though the start date is still 11 months away, according to USAToday. The agreement will allow any US airline to fly anywhere in the EU and any EU airline to fly anywhere in the US. So, will you be flying Aer Lingus from Cleveland to Dallas? Maybe. Will it be cheaper?

The experts only agree on one thing, it probably won't be any more expensive than it is now. Much of the excitement surrounds London's Heathrow Airport, or as USA Today puts it:
"Heathrow is the cash cow," Ash says. In the 12 months ended in February, the average fare from the USA to Heathrow was 29% higher than that from the USA to Gatwick, another main London airport, according to consultant Sabre Aviation Solutions. For the airlines, stakes in the coming rules change are high. Trans-Atlantic air traffic between Europe and the USA is expected to increase by 55% over the next five years. Currently, American Airlines and United are the only US airlines permitted to provide service to Healthrow.—MEGHANN MARCO

This is the Amazon UK warehouse a week before Christmas. Click to enlarge. That is a lot of freaking merchandise. How do they handle it all? Answer: Get the small things right, then scale huge. — BEN POPKEN

The befuddled geezer, the diaper wearing octogenarian — these are great marks. Myopically peering through laser-concentrating spectacles, they never can see the fine print. Heck, you can get them to pretty much get granny to sign her entire life away, just by making soothing noises in response to her pigeon-like cooing about her monthly budget and maybe flashing her a flirtatious smile.

So why wouldn't Carphone Warehouse, a UK company, want the business of the elderly? That's what Shirley Greening-Jackson, a 75 year old woman who spends her time confidently strutting atop the ledge of China's Great Wall, wants to know.

When she went into Carphone Warehouse to sign up for this crazy Internet thing her grandkids were talking about, a representative told her she couldn't sign up. They don't allow grannies to make purchases, apparently, because they can't read the fine print. Hey, Carphone Warehouse! Make everyone happy and make that print bigger, then surround it in skulls and crossbones!

As Mrs. Greening-Jackson says, "Somebody has decided when you turn 70 you lose a lot of your mind. I find this is ridiculous." Well, we don't, but we're smug punks throbbing with mid-20's vim.

Well, at the very least, the UK seems to have come to their senses, ratcheting down their terror level: British travelers can now carry-on one piece of luggage, including laptops and iPods, with the only stipulation that it can't be a liquid or a case full of dynamite.

One odd qualification is this:

To help their progress through search points, passengers are encouraged not to include items capable of containing liquids (e.g. bottles, flasks, tubes, cans, plastic containers etc.) in their cabin baggage.

So an empty bottle in your luggage (say, to fill up from the airplane's tap to keep yourself hydrated when the stewardesses aren't rattling the refreshment cart up the aisle) will subject you to the double pat down and possibly a deep anal rooting.

The empty plastic bottle: terrorism's scimitar!

...and, of course, it's not just AOL who instructs their customer service reps to exhort, pressure, extol even bully canceling customers into staying with the service. The entire industry of cancellation call centers seems to work upon customer retention quotas. And it's not just in the U.S.

For example, this amazing account of someone trying to cancel their Sky cable television subscription in the UK. In this case, a fast-talking CS huckster named Eddie actually started a discussion on inflation and economics when t