Huw J Williams

A strong customer base has insulated the business, but the future may hold far less innovation and originality Playtime … games customers defy the recession. Photograph: Graeme Robertson Everyone’s talking about recession – except gamers. A trawl of the game retailers in Brighton recently revealed plenty of customers, long queues waiting to pay and sales assistants saying […]

New research shows that feelings of injustice are enough to cause stress and heart attacks. Huw J Williams reveals the tell-tale signs and recommends ways to keep your cool.  You are on your way to work but you really don’t want to go. Exhausted, you’d give anything to be able to crawl back into bed. […]

Geldof, musician and political activist, dons his business suit A day in the life: The ex-Boomtown Rat and founder of Ten Alps has no fixed job – and no e-mail. 7.30am Today hasn’t started well for Bob Geldof. He’s up early; well before 9am, when he usually peels himself out of bed. The boiler has […]

Rupert is back on our screens but he has his eye on more than TV revenue, says Huw J. Williams. Rupert the Bear is 86 years old on 8 November. The anniversary of his first appearance as a Daily Express cartoon will see a remodelled Rupert in a new television show as part of Five’s […]

Serenity is not a word that springs to mind when mention is made of Rwanda, where nearly 1m people were slaughtered in 1994, mostly Tutsis killed by their Hutu compatriots. Yet the serenity—of its countryside and people—is what the Rwandan government is marketing in an effort to woo tourists. It also hopes that tourism can […]

The industry is facing a skills shortage, explains Huw J. Williams. A wind- and rain-swept platform perched high above a raging North Sea is not many people’s idea of an ideal working environment, but Britain’s oil and gas industry urgently needs recruits. There is a shortage of skilled workers, and with exploration under way for […]

The videogame icon once thought past her sell-by date is proving profitable for her new owners, writes Huw J. Williams. She is beautiful, highly intelligent, athletic and of independent means – a countess who has graced the covers of hundreds of magazines, appeared on stage with U2 and starred in two Hollywood movies. Yet despite […]

Young people today, eh? Spending all their time on computer games. When will they get a job? Huw J. Williams on games fanatics who do both. Playing the latest computer games months before anyone else gets their hands on them, and getting paid for the pleasure, is a dream job for many avid gamers. But […]

The US Army’s recruitment efforts have come a long way from the iconic Uncle Sam “I Want You” posters of the first world war. America’s Army, an online video game that gives potential recruits a taste of military training, missions and a dose of American military philosophy, is one of the top five PC online […]

Medium is new home for message England are playing Brazil in the World Cup. It’s one-all, and then in the dying minutes England surge forward and score a spectacular goal. As the players celebrate an advertising banner comes into view and the victory is suddenly synonymous with that lucky company’s product; the type of opportunity […]

Sun, sand and sea are losing their allure for British holidaymakers. A traditional beach holiday is still the favourite, but a rapidly growing number of Britons are choosing activity holidays. These range from sports holidays such as skiing, sailing or diving to yoga retreats, cookery courses, needlepoint lessons, painting in Provence, trekking in the Himalayas […]

Hollywood and the games industry are getting closer than ever. Soon you may not be able to tell the difference. Audiences are flocking to watch Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers this Christmas, but computer gamers have been immersing themselves in the latest Middle Earth saga, The Fellowship of the Ring, since late October. […]

Tony Hawk’s mother says he was a “challenging” kid. He was scrawny, a nerd, and a social outcast. He wasn’t particularly good at team sports, he didn’t like being told what to do by the coach, didn’t mix with the jocks. He preferred to play on his own. Tony spent hours and hours, days, alone […]