It was the perfect end to a near perfect week for third seed Djokovic, who lost only one set throughout the tournament. The set dropped was a tie break in the second round against Ivan Dodig of Croatia.

The straight sets victory in the semi final against Roger Federer really made tennis fans sit up and notice the Serbian’s performance. Sure enough he carried that fine form into the final against last year’s runner up Andy Murray.

The Scot kept pace with Djokovic as games went with serve in the first set until serving at 4-5 Murray was broken after just an hour’s gruelling tennis. Losing that first set seemed to deflate Murray and inspire Djokovic as the Serb raced into a 5-0 lead in the second set, before taking it 6-2.

The start of the third set signalled the tiniest glimmer of a fight back from Murray, who was now facing the prospect of winning three straight sets to win his first Grand slam title. He broke Djokovic’s serve in the opening game of the third set only to be broken straight back in the next game.

The Serbian’s relentless pressure began to take its toll on Murray as Djokovic broke again in the eighth game to take a 5-3 lead. Djokovic duly served out the match to repeat his win here back in 2008 and claim the Norman Brookes trophy.

Murray was dignified in defeat after the match saying of his victorious opponent: “He had an unbelievable tournament and deserved to win.” Djokovic dedicated his win to his family and country. He said: “It has been a tough period for our people in Serbia. We are trying every single day to present our country in the best possible way, so this is for my country Serbia.”

This is just one of the austerity measures initially announced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne last year. It is hoped that the increase to 20 percent will raise more than £13billion per year by the end of parliament in 2015.

In anticipation of the tax rise, consumers headed to the shops in their droves before January 4th in order to purchase goods at the 17.5 percent rate. For example, Oxford Street in London was crowded with shoppers on January 3^rd as people stocked up on electrical goods and clothing to beat the tax rise. This was reflected right across the country.

The Labour Party has been critical of the coalition government’s actions, suggesting that the VAT rise will hit families hard when they are already under pressure from government spending cuts.  Labour leader Ed Milliband commented it was “the wrong tax at the wrong time.”

It is not just consumers who are worried by the tax rise. Some retailers fear that they will see a sharp drop in sales over the coming months as consumers tighten their belts. Research by the Centre for Retail Research and online shopping group Kelkoo suggests that the VAT rise will result in a fall of approximately £2.2bn in retail sales over the first three months of the year.

Others though believe that the drop in retail sales will be short lived as people revert back to their old spending habits. Bob Darke, commercial director at Comet said: “There is no reason to believe that consumer spending can’t continue at pretty similar levels that we saw in 2010.”

The views of Bernanke were delivered to the Senate Budget Committee as the country’s jobless figures showed the largest one month fall since April 1998. There were 103,000 jobs created in December, which was lower than the forecast of 145,000 to 175,000.

Bernanke told the committee: “We have seen increased evidence that a self-sustaining recovery in consumer and business spending may be taking hold.” He also warned that the labour market had only improved modestly at best.

Whilst on the face of it the creation of jobs can be seen as a sign of improvement in the economy, there were underlying reasons for the fall in jobless numbers. One of these is that 260,000 people had given up looking for work, which means they are no longer counted as being unemployed.

Another issue is that the number of adults in the United States has risen by nearly two million in the past year. However, in that same period only 1.1 million new jobs have been created.

President Obama sees great encouragement from these latest sets of figures and has urged businesses to press ahead with recruitment. He said: “If you are planning on making investments in the future, make them now and that will help us grow the economy.”

Obama believes that tax cuts will help businesses to grow and add to their payroll resulting in more opportunities for the unemployed to find work. Some experts believe that the president needs to urgently address the country’s huge trade deficit. They believe that this is holding back job creation with the country importing a lot more than it is producing.

The union fears the cuts will be hurried through before the end of the financial year in March, claiming that the speed and size of the cuts will be unprecedented. However, Grant Shapps, the local government minister dismissed the union’s claims as reckless scaremongering.

Reduced budgets mean that councils are being forced to make difficult decisions on spending and Mr Shapps has urged them to save money whilst protecting front line services. He suggests that they do this by cutting executive pay and pooling services. In fact several councils have already stated they will be sharing services with neighbouring local authorities.

Streamlining of public sector workers has been on the cards since the general election given the Conservatives pledge to cut waste. Now the effects are being felt by council workers with thousands of notices already issued saying their positions are at risk.

GMB national officer Brian Strutton claimed that half the councils in England had yet to announce how they will deal with the cuts. However, he believes that when they do announce their decisions, they will want to get staff off the payroll as soon as possible.

The Local Government Association has estimated that 140,000 jobs will go from councils in England and Wales this year. However, this was dismissed as nonsense by the Communities Secretary Eric Pickles. Questioning how the association calculated their numbers Pickles said: “I have seen better figures put together on the back of a fag packet.”

One security firm noted that there were about 200 billion spam messages being sent each day in August last year. However, this had fallen quite substantially to around 50 billion by December, yet nobody really knows why.

Paul Wood, a senior analyst at Symantec told the BBC that three of the largest producers of spam curtailed their activity over the festive period. For example one of the biggest spam producers is known as Rustock, which according to Mr Wood is responsible for 47 to 48 percent of all spam sent globally. In December Rustock was responsible for a paltry half a percent of global spam.

Some experts claim that the reduction in junk e-mail being sent is just a temporary lull and that producers may have something nasty up their sleeves. Carl Leonard, a researcher at security firm Websense believes this could the case. He said: “If a campaign is not getting the returns they want, they can stop, regroup and try something else.”

Spammers are driven by profit and it may be that anti-spam campaigns have enjoyed some success in stopping them. There are warnings though that some spammers may be turning their attentions away from e-mail and looking at utilising popular social networks such as Facebook and Twitter.

E-mail and social network users will need to keep on guard as history suggests that new campaigns do emerge after a lull. Whilst there is a profit to be made spammers will continue and experts believe there is no evidence yet to suggest that this is a bad business to be in.

Few people had predicted a Lewis versus Anderson final when the tournament started just before Christmas. However, the pair of them more than justified their right to be in the final with a deluge of 180s in an extraordinary first set.

Anderson took the first leg of the match against the throw to put early pressure on his opponent, only for Lewis to break straight back. What was to follow in the third leg of the match was truly magnificent though.

Both players started the leg with a 180 as the huge crowd at the ‘Ally Pally’ roared their approval. However, when Lewis followed this up with another 180, huge anticipation and excitement spread across the arena. Surely he couldn’t hit a 9-dart finish in a world final.

As he stepped up to the oche for his seventh throw, Lewis buried the dart in the treble 20. Another 81 needed and the crowd fell silent. He aimed for treble 19 next and hit it as gasps could be heard all around.

Then the magic moment came as Lewis threw his ninth dart straight in the bed of the double 12. The crowd cheered and Anderson sportingly raised his glass in appreciation.

It was the first 9-dart finish in a PDC World Final and a great way to begin the match. Lewis went on to win that first set and from then on was always ahead of his Scottish opponent. Anderson played well but couldn’t quite do enough to catch Lewis.

The new world champion said after the match: “It’s an unbelievable feeling. I’m in dreamland to be honest.” Lewis is £200,000 richer after his victory and many feel this could be the first of many titles for the 25 year old Englishman.

As a result of the flu threat, which seems to be worse in England, health officials are advising people to be vaccinated as soon as possible. In particular children in high risk groups should be vaccinated to prevent any serious illness occurring.

Children aged under five were offered free flu jabs by GPs during last year’s flu pandemic, but the policy this winter was revised. Vaccines were limited to those in at risk groups. These include children and adults with long-term illnesses such as asthma.

However, the very high numbers of cases this winter has prompted some to call for all children to be vaccinated. Professor John Oxford, an expert in virology, says that the return to school of children has prompted a surge in flu cases.

The professor said: “You tend to get a surge…I would anticipate a surge, but how long that will last is difficult to say.” While advising to get their children vaccinated as soon as possible he also suggested that parents curb the spread of flu by keeping their children away from school if they show signs of flu.

Whilst there is no need for any panic there have been 30 reported deaths across the UK as a result of influenza. The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health is concerned about the rising number of flu cases in the UK. They are advising that all children with reduced immunity, breathing difficulties and diabetes should get vaccinated.

Meanwhile parents taking their children to some pharmacies for vaccinations are being turned away. Companies such as Boots, Superdrug, Tesco and Lloyds say they are unable to vaccinate children as it would breach company policy or regulatory rules.

Jackson died in June 2009 aged 50 in spite of reported attempts by Dr Murray to revive the singer as his children looked on. However, prosecutors claim that Dr Murray’s negligent treatment actually contributed to Jackson’s death.

The Los Angeles County coroner’s office ruled that Jackson died from an overdose of the surgical anaesthetic propofol, which was found in his body along with several other types of sedatives. Two paramedics and an emergency room doctor have now told the hearing that Dr Murray did not mention that he gave the singer propofol.

Paramedics Martin Blount and Richard Senneff arrived on the scene four minutes after the emergency call was received. Blount said that Jackson appeared to have been dead for at least 20 minutes, despite claims by Dr Murray that the singer stopped breathing only a minute before he called them.

Giving evidence also was emergency room Dr Richelle Cooper, who explained to the hearing that Dr Murray had told her only that he had given Jackson the sedative lorazepam. Defence lawyers contend that Dr Murray didn’t give Jackson anything that would have killed him.

The preliminary hearing is expected to last two weeks but after just the first week it has already attracted massive media attention. Members of the Jackson family have been sitting in court all week as the evidence has unfurled.

Michael’s father Joe Jackson has stated that there is no way his son would have taken his own life. He feels he had too much to live for and that there is more to the tragedy than just a simple case of a doctor making a mistake.

As the banking sector sat on the verge of collapse in 2008, members of the public were outraged at the huge bonuses being paid to some bank workers. The feeling being banks should not be rewarding staff for failure. In addition to this many blame the banks for the recession that followed not just in the UK, but many other countries around the world.

The coalition government and indeed their predecessors in the Labour Party promised to tackle the problem given the state had paid billions to bail out the likes of The Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds. Only last month, Business Secretary Vince Cable said he was “fully signed up” to “robust action” in curbing bonuses.

However, ministers are resigned to the fact there is little they can do to stop bank rewarding their staff as they see fit. It seems the best they can hope for is reassurances from the banks that they will pay out less than they would have without government intervention.

There are indications that banks such as RBS and Barclays will pay out less in bonuses in 2011 compared to last year. However, this trend may be offset by significant salary increases, which in some cases are as high as 40 percent.

Last year did see some bonus related rules agreed in Europe, which means that banks will have to defer between 40 and 60 percent of bonuses for between three and five years. Whether these measures will be enough to nullify public outrage remains to be seen.

This could be a very important breakthrough for the millions of men around the world with receding hairlines. Those looking to grow back their hair will take heart that the team of scientists from the University of Pennsylvania believe it may be possible to cure male baldness.

Baldness is essentially caused not by a lack of hair but by a problem with new hair that is made. For some men this hair is so small that it is invisible to the naked eye giving the impression of a receding hairline or bald spot.

The fault here lies with the stem cells that make new hair, so by restoring the normal function of these cells it may be possible to cure baldness, or so the US team of scientists hope. Their vision is to produce a cream that can be rubbed on to the scalp, which will then hopefully help the cells to grow normal hair again.

The team of experts believe this should be possible because bald men still have the same number of stem cells in the scalp as those with a full head of hair. The difference in bald men is that the cells do not mature in the same way, hence the lack of apparent hair growth.

It is thought that the male hormone testosterone is an important part of the issue and experts say that baldness is also a hereditary problem. Whilst a cure is sought, wig manufacturers can rest easy that their products will still be needed by some men.