I doff my hat to Patrick Muir, the marketing director for the Morgan Stanley credit card, for today's coup on page 7 of the Daily Mail, headline: Sold On Shopping.

A great idea this one ... a survey which found that a woman will spend the greatest length of time shopping when in the company of their best girlfriend (3hrs:18mins), and the least (2hrs:15 minutes) when on their own. The most amount of money (£71) is spent by thirty-something women in the company of their partner; the least by women on their own, or with their mothers (£42).

There's a lesson here for the more tightfisted of us men: trawling round the shops proclaiming: "no, we can't afford that" clearly doesn't work. You'll be better off saying: "OK dear, why don't you go and have a nice day's shopping on your own."

As a PR story, it's a good example of getting something as prosaic as a credit card into the news.

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