Pupils sitting a GCSE in music at schools in Herefordshire and Worcestershire must have thought Christmas had come early - it emerged today that the answers were printed on the back of the exam papers!

An OCR spokeswoman said: "OCR regrets that a printing error may have affected a small number of marks on the GCSE music question paper.

"We are putting procedures in place to identify the effect, if any, this had on candidates and to make allowances accordingly to ensure that no candidate is disadvantaged."

Surely someone checks these papers before they are issued to the schools?

I hope those students do not have to re-sit this exam. I remember how nervous I was sitting my GCSEs and I hope these pupils are not made to go through it again because of some shoddy work from the exam board.

Perhaps we have found the answer as to why an increasing amount of pupils are getting A*- C grades in their GCSEs!

A hectic and exciting start to the week: Kevin and I were down in Plymouth on Tuesday organising and attending a National Lottery press conference for a recently married couple who had scooped £1,477,059. Martin and Hannah Adamson got married on 4th May and won the Lottery on 10th May. Not a bad way to start married life!


Martin played the same number for years - 3, 14, 18, 24, 32 and 40 - but after getting married he changed the number 3 to a number 4 to mark their special day and scooped the jackpot. They plan to spend the money on a new house, a honeymoon in Las Vegas and prepare for the arrival of their first child in November.

We secured some great coverage regionally and nationally – see ITV Westcountry, Plymouth Herald, The Sun and Daily Mirror.

The 2008 Shaftas took place last night in London. The Shaftas, opposite of the Baftas, celebrates the finest inventions to have graced the pages of the nation's tabloid press and gossip magazines.

The awards categories are amusing in themselves with awards such as the best apology, worst Mucca Macca divorce coverage, the Michael Fish award and the sold a pup award.

The Star daily tabloid won the best apology award for a story headlined: "It's Sven giggle Eriksson. Laughing boss still a hit with the ladies."   The story said the former England manager "put on an irresistible charm show" as ladies queued to meet him. "Sven got so carried away with one ... that his hand appeared to stray towards her bum."

An apology on page six in the Star a week later revealed: "We wrongly assumed that the lady was an admirer and suggested that he was fondling her. In fact the lady was Lina, Mr Eriksson's daughter with whom he was having a normal fatherly embrace."

It seems the Star scooped most of the titles at the Shaftas as they also won an award for its three day campaign to save the Coronation Street's Rovers' Return from being axed.

Unfortunately, the Coronation Street press office said the soap's famous pub was never under threat: "It is frustrating when false stories like this appear and it does cause concern for our viewers but we would like to reassure them there is no truth to this story at all."

Co-founder and Daily Mirror feature writer Kevin O'Sullivan said: "It's all about having a sense of humour about yourself. It's the one event where the whole of the media comes together to take the p*ss out of themselves. And that's got to be a good thing."

I think I am inclined to agree. As long as people don’t take headlines like "Jacko's chimp to testify" seriously then sometimes it is good to have some light-hearted relief from the more pressing daily news.

Matt keeps our Twitter site up to date and I noticed a blog on prblogger.com about the Innocent brand and their lack of efforts to maintain its Twitter updates for its Annual General Meeting 2008.

Although Innocent seems to have got to grips with the wonders of web 2.0 (Facebook, Flickr, blog, etc) they appeared to forget about its Twitter site for the AGM. Perhaps Innocent thought Twitter was not as important as other social media outlets or perhaps people would simply not notice their lack of Twittering activity. They were wrong.

Since prblogger.com posed the blog on 22nd April, the number of updates on the Innocent Twitter site has risen from 29 to 293! This is a prime example of the power of  blogs and Twitter and how people do notice every move, or lack of movement, a brand makes.

I think people like to feel part of a brand, and Twitter allows people to follow the brand quickly and simply. Innocent do a very good job of keeping its consumers in the loop through social networking mediums, even when it feels the news may trigger a negative reaction. Surely this is a sign of a confident brand that is using the power of web 2.0 to its greatest advantage.