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Do you remember the white dot? It used to appear on the TV every night, a signal that programmes had ended and it was time to switch off so we could rest before the start of a new day.

Of course, the white dot is long gone. These days TV never switches off - even if you still turn off the box at night. It's especially true in our main newsroom, where our radio, tv and Internet services all make sure the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ really is a 24 hour-365 day a year operation. For the last decade and a half, when I've been working on radio and TV news, the idea of a Christmas break was just that - an idea; it was something other people enjoyed.

Which is why I'm a bit shell-shocked today. We've just completed our last Working Lunch programme of the year. Yes, really. I checked the schedule. I asked the editor. And even though December's nowhere near done yet, we've packed our bags and won't be back on your screens until January 5th.

To be honest, we're all glad of the break. As you'll know, the programme has changed a lot in recent months. There was an astonishing amount of work analysing your views before we unveiled our new look. But that was just the start. We kept listening to you as you told us what to tweak and bend. Not everyone liked everything on Day 1 - but that happens with relaunches. They're a long work-in-progress. If your emails are any guide, you like it better now - and more people are tuning in to watch. We know you have a lot of choice, so we're grateful to all of you for choosing us.

And we know how lucky the Working Lunch team is to have such a long break. Many people can't stay away from work for so long - either because the job won't let them, or they can't afford to. And many of our entrepreneurs and small business owners will have to work throughout the holiday - perhaps on Christmas Day itself. When you're your own boss, you're always on the clock.

So we'll be back at the start of January, full of energy and determined to help you survive this economic crunch. Amid all the gloom, remember that business still carries on and there are opportunities for anyone sharp enough to spot them and optimistic enough to take the risk. As always, we're keen to hear your stories.

And - however much time off you have - I wish you a peaceful and contented Christmas, and a more prosperous New Year. Don't forget to !

Programme warning: I may remove some items of clothing during today's show. And show a little bit of leg.

The reason? We're looking at computer games.

You might think it's all about spotty teenage boys playing "shoot-'em up" war games in their bedrooms.

You'd be wrong.

The industry has been trying for years to widen their appeal. Nintendo - our big guest today - has a suite of games to help the middle-aged fight the flab (hence today's beauty show ...)

And the elderly are also a key market.

In Japan, - using computer games to do puzzles, drawing and catch up on their reading.

It's no surprise that companies in Japan are going after senior citizens - according to that Guardian report linked above, about 20% of Japan's 127 million-strong population are aged 65 or older; that's expected to rise to almost 30% by the year 2025.

These games are being marketed here in the UK as well.

And there are claims that computer games - rather than rotting your brain, as grumpies might mutter under their breath - can keep it ticking over.

suggest older people who play computer games have sharper memories and are better at doing several tasks at once.

That's why one major insurance company in the United States - Allstate - is - to see if it makes them better drivers.

And it's why and have installed computer games consoles - to keep their residents fit - both mentally and physically.

If you're an older person who's a regular gamer - get in touch. What got you into it? Has it made your mind sharper? Email us or add a comment.

Why does any of this matter in business terms? It's a decent sized money-spinner for UK plc - and it's one of those creative industries we're told will be the basis of our economic future.

According to its trade association, games made in the UK in the last two years will generate global revenues of £4bn. And it reckons that - credit crunch or no credit crunch.

PS Working Lunch viewers Brian Smith and Stuart Stokes have both emailed already, to ask why some games are not available in stores - and can only be found online, through re-sellers and collectors who are charging up to 3 times the price. This is all about stock control. Every year the games companies warn they may "run out" ahead of Christmas, and it always makes us a bit suspicious. Are they really swamped by customer demand, year after year - or do they ration the stock to whip up a bit of excitement and hype. We'll ask Nintendo's UK boss at 1230.

Your emails and comments keep coming in about Premium Bonds.

Some of you have given a fairly unsympathetic response to my post about the cut in prizes for Premium Bond owners.

Instead of paying interest directly to investors, the money is turned into a range of prizes for lucky bond holders.

But the total to be paid in January works out at an interest rate of just 1.8 percent - much less than other savings products around.

Sadbloke writes in the blog comments, "anyone who invested in premium bonds for a steady return (is) in the wrong product ... I don't see the point in moaning that the return has reduced ... The whole point of premium bonds is that you have the chance to win big."

Ah - but that's the point. Just what are the chances of winning?

It's not just that the prize pot is less valuable.

It's also - as reported on Working Lunch yesterday - that the odds of winning anything at all have also been reduced. (If you missed it, you can catch yesterday's programme on the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ iPlayer).

Some of you think those odds could be improved if the Premium Bonds people got rid of one of its two £1 million prizes, and spread the money around by giving out a greater number of smaller prizes.

Chris emails that with his purchase of Premium Bonds, he "could hope to win a prize every 3 months on average"; giving him "some sort of return plus the ... opportunity of a 'big win'." But he says the big prizes "take too much of the pot. I would prefer to have more chances of winning (smaller prizes) by only having one £1m prize."

But if you ask them, the Premium Bonds people say re-jigging the pot wouldn't necessarily lead to additional pay-outs.

Working Lunch viewer Roy Mason has copied us the emails he has exchanged with the Premium Bond customer enquiry desk.

He suggested exactly that change to them.

I'm not going to quote directly from their reply, but they think removing a top prize would not make significant difference to the odds.

Most people, they say, own just a small number of bonds rather than investing the full permitted amount. They assume this means bond holders are hoping for a jackpot - rather than a regular stream of small winnings.

They add that Premium Bonds may never be the right investment choice if your aim is a guaranteed return.

Snap! That's pretty much what Sadbloke wrote in his blog comments.

But - they are keeping it under review, and if interest rates keep falling they might consider removing one of the jackpot prizes.

Which might give a little bit of hope to viewer Mr S.A.; he's had Premium Bonds for the last 51 years. His number has yet to come up.

The name's Bond. .

And - just like - it's always had a whiff of glamour.

The machine that picked the winning numbers - - became the most famous computer in the land.

For a lucky few, the top prize opened the door to a life of champagne and fast cars - at least for a short period of time.

And, unlike the pools or the National Lottery, you got your money back afterwards whether you won or not - minus, of course, the effects of inflation.

It's an investment that many of you have stuck by, year after year. 40% of the population holds at least one.

But now some of you are shaken and stirred by premium bonds.

You've been emailing over the last few days, to complain about a cut in the prize pot.

If you've never bought them, premium bonds don't pay you any interest directly - instead, the interest is collected in a pot and given out as prizes.

But the total amount to be paid in January works out at an interest rate of just . That compares with rates of more than 5 percent, available this morning on some .

For some of you, that's just not enough.

You're also unhappy about how the prizes are distributed.

Some Working Lunch viewers think there aren't enough smaller prizes, to spread the winnings around. Others think the big prizes aren't big enough (even though the odds of winning are greater than for the National Lottery).

And you're not convinced by the argument that you earn less from National Savings overall in return for the security it offers. The money is, of course, guaranteed by the Government. But the also guarantees the first £50,000 in any financial institution - which is more than you're allowed to invest in Premium Bonds.

The question you've put to us is roughly summarised like this - with such a low rate, what is the point of Premium Bonds?

We'll try to get you an answer at 1230 (or a time of your choosing on the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ iPlayer).

But you might want to supply your own in the comments.

It's not every day that we get an email from John Prescott.

No, not that John Prescott.

From Working Lunch viewer John Prescott (who modestly adds below his own surname "no, not him").

He's not happy about the expected cut in interest rates later today (the news will be out at 12 noon).

He doesn't see why he - someone who has worked hard and saved hard - should earn less from his nest egg so that people with piles of debt should enjoy cheaper bills.

"Many savers are facing large reductions in income whereas the less thrifty are being assisted at our expense for their credit based lifestyle," he writes.

He's not the only Working Lunch viewer who feels this way.

"Please, please stop referring to a fall in interest rate as benefiting homeowners," emails Gavin in East Sussex. "Only homebuyers and others who have accrued debts beyond their means benefit from such falls."

My hunch is that most of you who tune in to this programme are also in tune with those views.

Across the country, there are many more savers than there are borrowers.

And I know from your emails and comments over the years that you're fed up with what you see as the media's obsession with borrowers and homeowners, with apparently not a moment's thought given to savers.

Brian in Harrow emails, "there are a lot of pensioners in the UK, many brought up in and around the war years, who have never had debts. Our generation was brought up with the belief that if you cannot afford it, you do not buy it. (But) nobody listens to us."

I don't agree that the coverage of the story is unbalanced, by the way.

When the whole basis of the Bank of England's policy is to get people and companies spending again by reducing their borrowing bills, the spotlight must shine on those in debt - they are the people at the tipping point of the policy.

But we've always done things differently on this programme. We know savers are at the heart of our audience. And we know you want more from us than you get elsewhere.

We spent some time on Tuesday finding out where the best savings rates are - and how you can maximise the amount you earn on the money you've stored away. As financial adviser David Braithwaite pointed out, it's not just the headline interest rate that matters; you also need to make the most of what few tax breaks are available to you.

And yesterday, we heard from the Working Lunch "People's Panel" - and in particular, pensioner Bryan Boardman and saver David Roots. Both of them argued strongly for a rise in interest rates today, without thinking they would actually get it.

Their worry - and it's shared by some of you - is that your savings will be eaten up by rising prices if you're locked into an account that pays less in interest than the rate of inflation.

Bryan told us this morning that his one hope is that lower interest rates will also be accompanied by lower inflation, to keep things in balance.

But some of you want more.

Roy Bond suggests, "interest rates should be linked to mortgage rates not base rates."

Ian Jeffrey has a completely different suggestion - a "tax holiday on savings interest for a least the whole of 2009. That would have the effect of giving savers a further 20% return on their NET interest earnings (and) would encourage more people to save."

We shall see.

But this time we need to watch the high street banks' response carefully. We can't assume automatically that a cut in interest rates will lead to lower mortgage costs - even for those with home loans that track the Bank of England's rate. Some high profile lenders have floors which prevent their mortgage interest rate falling below 3 percent.

So - it's possible that savers could end up suffering yet again - without borrowers enjoying the benefit.

So, do you think I'm a letch?

Working Lunch viewer Len has emailed, and his dander is well and truly up on Naga's behalf.

He writes, "Please ask Declan to stop leaning in to his co-presenter when sitting next to her ... She nearly fell off the couch today in fright at his invasion of her space ... I am sure he does not mean to look like a letch."

Well, Naga did nearly fall off her chair, but with laughter at the thought that I might be lecherous towards her (and that she would let me away with it without a good slap if I was).

But we're both grateful to Len for getting in touch. We welcome all your thoughts - as emails to the programme, comments on this blog or good old-fashioned letters.

I'm not going to insult you by trotting out the usual 'customer service' soft-soap. We are not always going to agree with you. Most of what we do on the programme is done deliberately, based on our experience as journalists and our knowledge of the existing audience and potential viewers. And sometimes, you're not going to like it. But we think other people will.

And all your comments increase our knowledge of what you want from what is still your programme. We know you have a choice of viewing, and I'm grateful that so many of you choose us on a regular basis. Your opinion of it matters - even about things like 'do our knees touch too much?', 'do we pat each other on the shoulder too many times?' or 'do we make you sick with our devoted gazing at each other?'

Note I said 'most of what we do" ... It's live television. Some things don't go according to plan. Some things just aren't as clever on the air as they sounded in our programme meeting. And sometimes we just make mistakes. Where we spot them, we'll fix them as fast as we can. But if you see it first - I'd be very grateful if you could please haul us over the coals. We deserve it.

It's a wonder we don't all have splitting headaches.

For the last week, the Working Lunch office has been a cacophony of squeaks, squeals, songs and the occasional thud.

Someone - and we're withholding his name to protect his dignity (you owe me, Nigel) - decided that we'd use the Tech Shed this week to look this Christmas's must-have gadgets.

So Naga has been tottering around in "anti-gravity boots", Nigel has been playing with wind-up racing cars in the shape of members of the Royal Family, and Hannah and Polly have been making a mechanical Elmo chuckle, yell and burp.

Those "anti-gravity" boots are a bit of a menace. We can't use them in the studio as the safety officers think there's too high a risk of me tipping over. (They should see me after a night with Naga in the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Club.) With all that high tech equipment around - not to mention all the glassware - they want us to be safe not sorry.

So I've used another of our gadgets to give you a sneak peak. It's a tiny camcorder that's the size of a cigarette box and it comes complete with a built-in USB, so once you've recorded your film you plug it straight into your computer, edit it around a bit and upload it to YouTube or your social network site. You might call it 'How to Bore Your Friends and Influence No-one in 10 Easy Movies".

If you like, go to my to see my video of one of our senior editorial figures make an idiot of himself. For once, quite intentionally.

What on earth has any of this to do with business?

Well, if you think about it - quite a lot.

For starters, there's the importance of innovation; in an economic world where countries like China do all the low-skills stuff and get smarter constantly, we'll only thrive though creativity and constant product development.

That's a whole other theme, for a whole other blog. If not a book or two.

Closer to our pockets, we all know that spending in the shops is a core part of the national wealth.

And the most important time of the year for the high street is Christmas.

Many retailers make the bulk of their yearly profits over the festive season. A good Christmas will make them; but for some this year, it will be a poor Christmas - and it will break them. Retail watchers say hundreds of companies are on their endangered species list this year.

So all those lists of "must-have" items that you'll see in your newspapers and magazines will become quite important to the retailers. They are sharply-honed marketing devices, with just one aim - to extract our cash from our purses and wallets.

Will it work? We usually splash out a bit more at Christmas, so the fall in shop sales last month doesn't automatically mean it's going to be gloomy on the high street.

And - as our friends at Capital Economics have pointed out - we had a minor spending spree in Christmas 1990 and 1991, despite the sharp slowdown in the economy then.

But the days of borrow and spend are long gone - credit is still hard to get for many. The interest rates we pay have been higher than the official lending rates for a prolonged period. Some retailers are not passing on that cut in VAT. Unemployment is rising. House prices are still sliding.

It all comes down to you. Will you carry on spending? Or is it time to cut back, and have a more restrained Christmas? Use the comments to tell me your plans.