Sneak was recently invited to a party hosted by the lovely folks at Research in Motion (RIM) at which the musical songstress and all round good-egg Jessie J was set to perform.

Despite warnings from his mother that parties with alcohol can be dangerous places, Sneak donned his glad-rags and sprayed on some Brut and was already for his big, annual, night out, but was sadly stopped from going when the engine in his car was run down having left the lights on overnight.

However, it turned out to be a blessing in disguise (like a vicar in a tutu) when revellers turned violent, and one bottled another in the neck, leaving a pool of blood everywhere, a man in hospital and RIM left wondering why it can't stop generating negative publicity.

Obviously, it's not the firm's fault this incident occurred, but it seems symptomatic of its endless run of bad decisions, poor investments, confusing messages to the media and just plain bad luck that even a fun, social, event ends in yet another PR disaster.

Sneak is just glad he wasn't there to witness the event, and can't help by wonder if his mother wasn't right after all, the wide world is no place for him - back to the internet, it's much safer there.

Google may have lost the Nortel auction patent battle with Apple, Microsoft, RIM and a host of other tech firms, but Sneak can't help applauding the way the search firm went about the bidding process, demonstrating its corporate personality as smart, funny and creative.

According to sources who talked to Reuters, all of Google's bids during the auction for some 9,000 odd patents referred to famous mathematical numbers.

The company bid $1,902,160,540 and $2,614,972,128 during the early round, which maths wizzes may recognise as Brun's constant and the Meissel-Mertens constant. Once bidding passed $3bn, Google offered $3,141,592.65, representing the first nine digits of Pi.

The eventual winning bid was $4.5bn at which point Google dropped out, which is strange as it could have bid $6.66bn to really confuse those who argue that the company has lost its way from the 'Don't Be Evil' mantra.

Other companies involved in the bidding were apparently utterly confused by the bids coming from Google, and the source told Reuters that the company was "either supremely confident or bored".

However, Google has a track record of these kinds of shenanigans. When the firm went public in 2004 it looked to raise $2,718,281,828, the value of e multiplied by a billion. Sneak doesn't know what this means, but it sounds jolly smart.

Other details emerged from the source, including the fact that Apple named its consortium Rockstar and went by the name Ranger, which sound like team names made up by the wallies that appear on The Apprentice.

In a bizarre development, the delightful city of Birmingham has been chosen as the first place in the entire country where BlackBerry fans can get their hands on the eagerly-awaited PlayBook tablet from Research In Motion.

Whether it was RIM or Dixons Retail that made the decision, Brum can now boast this wondrous accolade alongside that wonder of the modern world Spaghetti Junction, a relegated football team, and the NEC, home, of course, to the Gladiators.

The tablet, which has had mixed reviews in the US since its launch there last September, but a decent four stars from V3.co.uk, will be available from today at the aptly-named Black store in the city.

Black? The Black Country? BlackBerry? Sneak senses a theme and the hand of some cunning PR-ery here, although for that matter RIM could just as easily have launched the product in Blackburn.

Sneak wonders whether Currys was forced to enlist the help of former Gladiators Jet, Hunter and, of course, the Wolf man to hold back the crowds at the store. That's assuming, of course, that anyone turned up.

Gladiators, rrrrrready?!!! PlayBook fanatics, rrrrrrrrready?!!! 3...2....1......