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You've been using one of the newest forms of communication to comment on one of the oldest.

The man who runs the Royal Mail - Allan Leighton - was our big guest on Wednesday's programme.

And some Working Lunch viewers have been - er - stamping their feet in frustration over some of the things he said.

What really annoyed you was his suggestion that the delivery of mail hasn't suffered too much since the first and second deliveries were replaced by one single drop-off.

Robert Sharp was still waiting for his post to arrive while watching Working Lunch (and remember we're on an hour later on Wednesday!). Unfortunately, it's not a novel experience. He wrote, "my post turns up at any time of the day, sometimes as late as 6 pm."

Dick Thomas thought Mr Leighton was glossing over the issue a little. "Allan Leighton states that the mail is a little later to arrive; a few years ago the cut off time for town deliveries was 0930, it is now 1400, how can that be classed as a little later?" he asked.

Marilyn and Derek Spicer emailed, "we could hardly believe what we were hearing from Allan Leighton today. To hear him trying to sell the idea of an improved service is ludicrous. For ordinary postal users it is far from improved."

We had an interesting discussion in the Working Lunch office about the time your post arrives, and if you were really that bothered about it.

Some of the team argued that as the first post hardly ever arrived before people left for work anyway, a further delay would make no practical difference. You would still pick it up when you came back home in the evening.

And if you were not going to work and were likely to be at home for much of the day, the time the post arrived wasn't critical.

But others disagreed. Those of us who live in London or the south east of England might leave home at silly o'clock, but everywhere else the post used to arrive before you drove off to work. That doesn't happen any more, and your emails show it really annoys you.

It all boils down to economics - and value for money.

The early first delivery and later second post costs millions of pounds more each year than just one single delivery. That one change helped drag the Royal Mail from loss to profit.

And the second post wasn't just expensive; the Royal Mail argues it was also ineffective, delivering just a small proportion of the millions of cards and letters we send every week.

So we might feel an emotional attachment to it. We might resent the disruption to our old routines.

But do we really want things to go back to how they were? If we do - we might have to put our money where our mouths are, and pay more for it.

UPDATE: No karaoke. We're not allowed to put the words of the song up on the TV screen - and if you can't sing along at home, there's not much point in doing it. I think this is what they call a narrow escape.

Advance warning.

There may be singing ahead.

And it won't all be about moonlight or music. Or even love or romance.

It's Strictly Business.

Our guest today is . You'll remember her as one half of the most glamorous couple in e-commerce; co-founder (with previous Working Lunch guest ) of , the online travel company.

It was one of those businesses that caught the spirit of the times - made possible by technology, underpinned by our growing wealth, and driven by our growing long-hours culture of working hard and playing hard.

And - in media terms - it helped that the two of them together were impossibly glamorous.

Life has taken an unexpected turn for her since then.

Martha was in a car crash that came close to killing her. Recovery was long and painful.

But - to the great joy of everyone who admires her - she's back in business.

And that's where the singing comes in.

Because her new business is karaoke.

Thorough as ever, she spent six hours a day singing in Tokyo bars to research the market. So now she has high-class karaoke bars, and a .

We'll ask her where the idea came from. And with any luck we'll get a tune out of her that you can sing along to at home.

I'll lead the singing in the studio. And Naga will weep, silently, on the sofa.

This isn't just a slowdown. This is an M&S-frightening slowdown.

Oh OK, the - "this isn't just" - word plays are a bit tired now. (Though their ubiquity is quite a tribute to the power of M&S's slogan.)

But the point is serious.

Marks & Spencer - which still sells more than one-tenth of all the clothes we buy - has confirmed it's holding a one-day sale tomorrow. With a big 20% discount.

For M&S, this is a shock tactic. It last tried it in 2004, when its business was really struggling.

Back then it said it was cutting prices to clear unwanted stock, after a long period of sluggish sales. It was fixing a home-grown problem.

This time, the problem is up and down the high street. We're jamming our hands back into our pockets at a time when we're usually planning to spend big. Christmas is when many retailers make the profits that keep them going for the rest of the year.

Other shops are certain to follow. Debenhams has already launched a three-day-long "spectacular" sale.

The retailers' thinking is that they can protect their profits better by having a few cut-price days now, rather than a whole month of even bigger discounts in January to shift the stuff they couldn't sell for Christmas.

But it's a risk. It might make shoppers think they can get even biggest discounts before Christmas if they just hold out a bit longer.

Forget turkey; this is a big game of chicken.

We've already seen some high profile retailers go out of business this year. Friends of mine in the trade say they won't be surprised if we see a lot more go to the wall in the New Year, once they've taken the cash from Christmas shoppers and realised it's not enough to keep going. Watch this space.

Meanwhile - and for completely different reasons - we've had some grim news from one of the best known names on the high street today.

Woolworths has confirmed its in talks to sell its stores. It won't say who, but the likely buyer's thought to be a restructuring specialist called .

This doesn't automatically mean the shutters will come down. Hilco oversaw the winding down of the old Littlewoods stores, selling some and closing others. But it also masterminded the transfer of Allders department stores, which kept 30 of them open under new ownership and retained over 3,500 jobs.

But it's the latest chapter in Woollies' long, slow decline.

It's been at the heart of the high street for 99 years. Its pic'n'mix is part of the language. Its Ladybird clothes were part of growing-up. , sitting beside me, won't shut up about sherbet fountains.

For many of you, it is still a much loved name, even if we don't shop there as much as we once did.

One of my followers on says it sold too many things, but didn't do any of them well. It mistook nostalgia for a brand.

What do you remember about it? And what do you think went wrong?

More importantly - if you were in charge for a week, how would you try to fix it? Let me know in the comments.

And don't forget to tune in - we're at 1.30pm today as the Mother of Parliaments does its stuff.

Hello again.

Sorry I've been away from the site for a bit. Is there such a thing as bloggers' block? No, thought not. That's just me being pathetic ...

Anyway, I'm back to tell you that my colleague Simon Gompertz is working on a great story that's really going to grab your attention.

He's heard from a couple who've found themselves £20,000 short after their mortgage company changed the rules of their home loan. I don't want to give too much away now, as I'd much rather you tuned in at 1230 today, or watched later on the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ iPlayer - but after we got in touch, they got their money back.

We think other Working Lunch viewers might be in the same position - without knowing about it. So if you are able to watch it and you think afterwards - "that's me!" - then get in touch.

And there's another great guest today talking about enterprise and starting up in business.

This is - so we're spending even more time than usual this week talking to entrepreneurs about what gets them going and keeps them going.

But today we've got the company they all want to be - .

It only started as a company in 1998. But it didn't take long to overtake the world's then-biggest search engine, - a company that was seen as invincible.

The speed and destructive potential of change in technology-based businesses is just terrifying. And it means innovation is life-critical.

That's why Google is now a lot more than just a search engine - it's a web browser, moving maps, email and video sharing.

And let's not forget its clout in Internet advertising, which is where the money is. You might think it's just annoying little pop-up screens and boxes, but it's giving longer established forms of advertising a run for their money. There are claims that companies are spending more now on web adverts than they are on TV adverts.

So - we'll hear from the man who runs Google in the UK. He's Dennis Woodside.

I'm going to ask him how a small, fast, nimble start-up has to change when it grows up. And if that blunts its go-getting, innovative, swashbuckling style.

I'm sure you've got other questions of your own - drop us an email, or look me up on or . Sorry - haven't quite made it round to Google Chat yet!

Blimey! That was a bit of a shocker, wasn't it?

The has cut its official interest rate by 1.5 percentage points.

It's the biggest cut in borrowing costs since the recession of the early 1980s.

And it brings the official lending rate down to 3% - the lowest since the 1950s.

Yet borrowers - either homeowners or businesses - may not benefit as much as you might expect.

It's all down to where the high street banks actually get their money - and where they keep it.

If you think about a bank, the image that comes to mind is big, secure vaults and huge piles of notes kept under lock and key. Your money and mine kept safe and sound.

Of course the banks don't leave money lying around in their vaults. They only earn their profits if our money has been put to work and loaned out to borrowers.

But they do have to keep substantial sums of money to hand - amounts known as reserves. And those reserves don't earn anything if they're kept in the banks' own vaults.

So they deposit them with the Bank of England.

The amount the high street banks keep at the Bank of England is up to them. But they have to agree a target every month, and stick very closely to it - no more than 1% above the target, and no less than 1% below it. ()

If they do that, and don't go overdrawn on their reserves account, the Bank of England pays interest. The rate is called the .

And that's the rate that the Bank of England cut today.

So from tonight, the high street banks are earning just 3% on their reserves.

It's the reference point for the rest of the banking industry.

When the Bank rate changes - the amount the Bank of England charges for its day-to-day dealings with the high street banks also changes in step with it.

So in theory - a cut in the Bank rate (set by the Bank of England) eventually cuts the cost of borrowing across the banking system. And reduces the rate paid to savers.

But the high street banks don't just rely on the money they get from savers when they make their loans. They don't limit themselves to the money stored in their vaults.

They borrow money themselves - from other banks.

Some mortgage lenders borrowed more than half of the money they gave out as home loans.

And the high street banks use a different interest rate for the loans they make to each other.

It's known as the LIBOR rate - the London Interbank Offered Rate. It's every morning, based on the trading activity of at least 8 major banks. ()

And throughout the credit crunch, that rate has been much higher than the Bank rate set by the Bank of England. The banks have been nervous about lending to each other, and so charged more for it.

On many occasions, LIBOR has stayed stubbornly high, even when official interest rates have been cut.

And when they're working out the cost of our mortgages, credit cards or overdrafts - they've been looking at that LIBOR rate, not the Bank of England's official rate.

So when you hear that borrowers did not get a full reduction in the cost of their loans after the Bank of England cut official interest rates, it doesn't automatically mean the high street banks are ripping us off.

It's simply that the cost of the money on the high street is higher than it is at the Bank of England's vaults on Threadneedle Street.

It's again for the cost of our mortgages, overdrafts and credit cards.

At first glance, it could mean further bad news for all those viewers who've saved hard and rely on the interest they earn at the bank.

The at the will tell us at midday if they're going to cut the official lending rate again.

They slashed borrowing costs just last month, by 0.5 percentage points. That was part of a world-wide attempt to make credit cheaper and boost spending in our biggest economies - from the United States to China and at points in between.

But even after that surprise cut, the rate controllers are under intense pressure to slash borrowing costs again.

The , which speaks for Britain's biggest companies, wants another 1 percentage point reduction.

The trade unions, represented by the , are demanding a reduction of 1.5 percentage points.

But here's the dirty little secret of the banking world.

Any cut in interest rates may not make that much of a difference - because we're not feeling the benefit in our pockets.

Mortgage costs are coming down, but not by much.

The official interest rate, set by the Bank of England, has been cut by 1.25 percentage points over the last 12 months ().

But, according to the independent financial website the average rate on a base rate tracker mortgage today stands at 6.34%. A year ago it was 6.40%.

Earlier this week, another website - - said thirty (yes, 30 !) of the UK's mortgage lenders have yet to tell customers if they're going to pass on LAST month's cut in interest rates.

Some lenders - including , and - have actually put some of their rates UP.

Others - like and - have withdrawn some of their cheaper tracker mortgage deals, which are supposed to follow the official rate of interest up or down. That's usually followed by the announcement of a whole new rate of tracker loans, at a different price.

And - in the meantime - mortgage lenders have been tightening their own rules about who they will lend to, and how much. Moneyfacts says the average deposit you need for a mortgage is now 24%. A year ago, it was just 11%.

It's why we've been keeping a close eye on the banks and building societies this week.

We want you to know which lenders are passing on interest rate cuts - and which ones are not.

And we'd like you to tell us what your bank or building society is doing - so don't be shy about sending us an email and grassing them up.

One last thought - don't think savers are doing well because mortgage borrowers are getting less than they expect.

The amount you earn on your cash piles is also falling. Moneyfact's headline figure shows the average savings rate is now 3.4%, down from 3.85% a year ago.

Given the fall in the official interest rate, that doesn't look so bad.

But the devil is in the detail. Nearly all banks and building societies copied last month's cut in official rates in full.

The only reason savings rates haven't fallen by more over the last year is that banks were desperate for cash earlier this year - and kept rates high to attract our money. That secret bonus for savers now appears to be ebbing.