With the exception of blatant self-publicists like The Big Borkowski and Max Clifford (a man who graces the pages of the UK tabloids so often that his company has no need of a website) it's not often you see PR or marketing companies working on their own account. In fact, it's positively frowned upon in some quarters.

I've never quite understood why. After all, it's a PR's job to champion their clients, and as Messrs Clifford and Borkowski have shown, becoming famous in one's own right can be a very effective platform. Granted, it's a risky strategy (ask Mandelson or Campbell), but the same could be said of many of the most effective tactics used to get the media's attention.

Anyway, good to see Jo Parker, head of Teamspirit, shamelessly promoting her agency with the story in the Daily Mail that Britons are now suffering PIN blindness. Not to be confused with the condition which causes millions to stab themselves in the thumb as they fasten their child's nappy. Rather, a result of the modern age, when we all have so many credit and debit cards, and so many website usernames and passwords, that we have to write them all down, creating a security risk. A quarter of us have 4 PIN numbers and 16 usernames and passwords; some have a staggering 45 passwords.

No word from Miss Parker as to a cure for PIN blindness. Secretly though, I hope they don't find one. My wife suffers a particularly advanced form of the condition in which she forgets the PIN numbers and then where she hid the piece of paper she wrote them on. If I'm going to keep up with the mortgage payments, I've got to hope she's not cured any time in the next twenty five years.

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