The Lexicon: Decembuary:2013 is but days old, but we are already well into the season that is Decembuary, a portmanteau of December and January. Decembuary isn't quite winter with poor old November left out though – the standard definition excludes most of December too, applying it to this strange otherworldly time between December 27th and that black day in January when everyone has to go back to school. It's also used by retailers as a more accurate descriptor than "January sales" for the period in which unsold snowflake-patterned woollies and other rapidly-dating items are flogged off at an ostensible discount. This year, mobile operator Meteor has gone overground by advertising its "Decembuary" sale. Next year everyone will be at it.
Image of the week: Pizza cliff
Planet Business has stumbled across the real motivation for the late-night brinkmanship in the fiscal cliff “negotiations” in Washington – it was all just a ruse for calorie-deprived politicians, legislators and assorted hangers-on to get in a pizza or two.
The unidentified aides delivering what looks like about 40 12-inch boxes are heading into a conference room stuffed to the crust with Democrats near the office of House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer at the US Capitol in Washington on January 1st.
The Democrats’ pizzeria of choice is We, The Pizza, based on Pennsylvania Avenue, which, according to its website, offers “a delivery special” to House and Senate office buildings “in some good news for congressional staffers”. Pizza is never not good news. PHOTOGRAPH: MARY F CALVERT/REUTERS
The List: Celebrity tax exiles
Of all the messages that might be posted on the Kremlin website, could anything be scarier for the good people of Russia than this? “Vladimir Putin has signed a decree granting Russian citizenship to Gerard Depardieu,” the message reads. The actor has gone east after the French government criticised his decision to move abroad to avoid higher taxes. But who else has gone abroad to avoid tax?
1Sean Connery: Most famous for playing James Bond, the Scottish actor is no fool, choosing to exile himself in the sunny Bahamas. Not that this undermined his support for Scottish independence – oh no.
2 Lewis Hamilton: The 2008 Formula 1 champion is from Hertfordshire, but prefers Switzerland and Monaco. He still pops home for the odd torch relay.
3 Sting: In 1980, Sting relocated to Galway for tax purposes despite singing on Dead End Job: “I don’t wanna be no tax exile / and I don’t mind being skint.”
4 Jim Davidson: The former game show host, arrested this week after sex abuse allegations by two women, was a tax exile in Dubai for six years.
5 Mick Jagger: The Rolling Stones decamped to the south of France in 1972, started banking in U2-favourite the Netherlands and recorded Exile on Main Street.
Getting to know Joel Hyatt
The terms of this week’s purchase by Al-Jazeera of Current TV, the “non-fiction” cable channel chaired by Al Gore, were undisclosed but estimated by analysts to be worth as high as $500 million.
It all points to a good day for the former US vice-president. But he’s not the only one in on the deal. Current TV’s co-founder and chief executive is fellow politician Joel Hyatt, a former national finance chairman for the Democratic Party in 2000, the year of Gore’s ill-fated battle with hanging chads. Hyatt started out by establishing Hyatt Legal Services, which offered low-cost legal services to middle and lower-income families, though the firm’s own legal judgment was questioned in 1990 when a court ruled it had illegally removed the head of its Philadelphia office after discovering he had Aids. The case resembled the plot of the fictional film Philadelphia, bringing more bad publicity for Hyatt.
In later, happier times, Hyatt lectured in entrepreneurship at Stanford University, with his corporate bio claiming his classes were “among the most popular at the school”. They’ll be on the phone now he’s free then.
In Numbers
Out with the old, in with the OLED
$10,300
Price of a new 55-inch television set from LG Electronics that uses organic light-emitting diode (OLED) technology. The model, thinner than an iPad, is only available in LG’s domestic market of South Korea for now, but will be on sale worldwide soon.
4 %
Decline in global shipments of all types of TV set in 2012, according to research firm DisplaySearch. LG and Samsung hope their race to market with OLED will widen the sales gap between them and the screen-laggard partnership of Sony and Panasonic, which are both losing money in their TV units.
2.1 million
Estimated shipments of OLED TV sets in 2015, up from 34,000 in 2012, market researchers iSuppli have forecast. OLED technology uses less power than current liquid-crystal display (LCD) TVs and shows more vivid images. The price should come down too.
