Despite what I said last week, I'm actually a big believer in people not working all the time.

I've been feeling a bit chastened this week after reading Marge's comment on last week's blog: basically I'd been suggesting (in light of the ash cloud) that holidays were over-rated, and she (very politely) pointed out that not everyone was likely to share my enthusiasm for the job; that some people actually live for the weekend and their holidays.

This depressed me for two reasons. One, it makes me sound like an absolute loser who only cares about work. Whereas in fact I'm an exceptionally well-rounded individual. Well, sort of. I have friends, and wider interests, and all that kind of stuff. Admittedly I don't really see said friends as often as I probably should, and I don't really find time to indulge in said interests as much as I'd like to. But they do at least exist. I admit I probably spent more time thinking about work than the average person. But it's not like I'm obsessed about it to the exclusion of all else (except when I'm in the office, maybe).

Second, I don't actually really believe that it's healthy for my staff to work every hour God sends and never take holiday. You may recall me mentioning the girl who runs my delivery function. Well she's very conscientious, and there was a time a couple of years back when I suddenly realised she'd been working herself into the ground to such an extent that she looked like death warmed up. So I actually sat down with her and forced her to book a week away, even though she insisted she didn't have time.

In fact, I'd go so far as to say that I actively encourage people to take holiday. I must admit, I don't really do it because I think they come back refreshed and reinvigorated - in most cases, they get back and spend the first few days being miserable because they're not on holiday any more. But I think going on holiday makes people feel happier about life generally - and by extension, happier about work, since that's ultimately what gives them the wherewithal to jet off to foreign climes.

I also love travelling. I haven't done much of it, because I couldn't afford to after university and I haven't really had time since. But one of my biggest ambitions, if I ever make any money out of this business - in fact, it's one of the reasons why I want to make money out of this business - is to take a year out or something, and spend some time meandering around the globe.

To summarise and conclude: I'm not a work-obsessed small-minded loser, honest. I just do a passable impression of one a lot of the time.

I've always said going on holiday is more trouble than it's worth.

I was almost away myself this week. A friend of mine was going for a long weekend in Barcelona and asked me if I wanted to tag along; I probably would have said yes, if there hadn't been a meeting I couldn't move. A good call, as it turns out. Although (presumably in common with most business owners) I've been suffering by proxy: one of my team was supposed to be coming back from a holiday in the US last weekend, but at time of writing, he still hasn't managed to get on a flight.

This throws up all sorts of practical problems, of course. Obviously you have to arrange cover and so on. But how do you treat this week, as far as the people affected are concerned? If they're on holiday and they can't get back, do you insist they have to take the extra days as holiday too, even though it's clearly not their fault?

My policy has always been that if you're not there, for whatever reason (act of God or otherwise) you have to take it as holiday or unpaid leave. If you didn't want to take the extra time, and it wasn't your fault, then I'll probably be sympathetic to your plight - but at the end of the day, I'm still the one who loses out if you're not there doing your job.

Obviously in some instances people can just work remotely, as long as they've got a laptop and/ or an internet connection. But then there's the managerial hassle of making sure you agree some outputs, so you know you're getting your money's worth. But in this guy's case, I just didn't think he could do enough of his job to make it a reasonable substitute, however good his intentions (it's not like there's anyone he can usefully meet in the US, more's the pity). So I had to say no to that one. Didn't go down well, and I can't say I blame him. But them's the breaks.

Most of all though, it reminded me of just how powerless you are in situations like this. I remember one time I was trying to get back from Milan to London, and our flight got inexplicably cancelled. As an entrepreneur, you kind of get used to having a degree of control over your own destiny; of people listening and acting when you tell them to do stuff. But in this case, as I tried unsuccessfully to get us onto a different flight, I might as well have been talking to a wall. If there's one thing in life that's guaranteed to remind you of your true impotence and pointlessness in this world, it's Italian officialdom.

All things considered, there's only one thing for it: let's not bother with foreign travel any more. In fact, if you work for me, don't bother with holidays full stop - just stay at home and work. It'll do your carbon footprint the power of good. And who needs their mind broadening anyway.

How you can judge someone's leadership credentials from a three-way TV bunfight?

Lots of Election talk in my office this week, and as you'd expect, most of it has been about these leaders' debates. Now I don't know about you, but it seems to me that a three-way live TV debate is a pretty idiotic way to pick a Prime Minister. In a televised bunfight like that, the whole thing just gets reduced to a soundbite-off, and people end up electing the guy who looks best on the telly. I know that's an important skill these days, but surely it's not the only one that matters? Surely you want the guy who's going to run the country to get a better examination than that?

I've been on TV a couple of times, and it was a pretty odd experience: since you know you're only going to get a very short time slot, it encourages you to talk in pre-prepared soundbites, as opposed to actually conversing like a human being. And these leaders debates will be even worse, because all three of them will have spent the previous night being prepped to the eyeballs by their eager minions, who spend their lives boiling policies down into catchy slogans. Besides, when have you ever seen a three-way row actually get anywhere? If I wanted to see three men shouting at each other for an hour, I could just go to my local on a Friday night.

Personally, it just seems a weird way of assessing people. I hate the idea that someone might have decided how good an entrepreneur I was just by watching me on the telly (though I'm sure some did). All sorts of the stuff that makes good businesspeople good just doesn't come across on TV - like your assessment of risk, or how good you are at working out what makes people tick. I know being Prime Minister isn't quite the same, but surely the same principle holds?

Put it this way: if you had three job candidates at final round, you'd hardly decide who was best by putting them in a room and letting them argue the toss with each other, would you? No - you'd set them various challenges to test the different bits of their skill-set, and then you'd personally grill them afterwards on their strengths and weaknesses. So why aren't we doing the same with the people who want to run the country? If people are willing to watch the Apprentice, I'm sure they'd watch that.

Although to be honest, I'm not convinced that knowing more about our potential future leaders would give us greater respect for them. Probably the reverse, if anything.

Entrepreneurs are wasting so much time and money thinking about their tax bills at the moment.

With no blog to post (thank God for Good Friday - though I suppose it was rather a mixed bag for Him) I found myself unusually blessed with evening leisure time last week. So to celebrate my new-found freedom, I actually went to a party on Thursday night. This is not an indulgence I allow myself very often; if they're any good, they usually scupper Friday.

Anyway, as it turns out it was a really great do: the room was full of entrepreneurs, and we spent most of the night talking about tax. Now I know that probably doesn't sound like most people's idea of a brilliant bash. But entrepreneurs are a funny bunch at the best of times. And just at the moment, tax - or more specifically, how to pay less of it - seems to be top of mind for everyone.

Now I don't want to get all political on you here, because it's not really my thing. Don't tell my mother, but I've actually never voted in an Election in my life (partly because I think all politicians are as bad as each other, and partly because I can never be bothered). However, when I talk to entrepreneurs these days, there's definitely a general sense that the Government seems keen to take an ever larger slice of the money we take out of our business - what with the capital gains hike, the higher income tax band, and so on. And I don't really approve of that.

Obviously this is partly just naked self-interest. But it also seems genuinely unfair. If I go to the trouble (and take the risk) of starting a business, creating jobs and paying corporation tax and NI into the Treasury coffers, the least I deserve is to reap most of the rewards when I come to sell the business or take a juicy dividend. More than most people, I've earned that money - and I've paid tax on it once already. So why should the Government - of whatever hue - take a great big chunk for itself, and then try to justify it on the grounds that it couldn't balance the books?

As you'd expect, I was rather preaching to the choir on this point last Thursday. But rather than just standing around moaning about it, quite a few of them have actually done something about it: they've spent the last few weeks plotting away with their accountants, trying to work out how they can take some cash out before the new tax year started.

To be honest, the concept of tax planning hadn't really occurred to me. I figured I was unlikely to take enough money out of the business within the next year or so to push me into that top tax band - and more importantly, I know the business needs the cash more than I do (what would I spend it on?). But maybe I've missed a trick here. One guy told me that he and his business partners had just shared out a £500k dividend - but rather than leave it festering in their bank account making 0.000001% interest, they were loaning it back to the business (at commercial rates). So they get to pay tax on it at last year's rates, without having to leave the business short of cash. Now I'm not sure I'd ever actually do this myself, because I'm too much of a fraidy-cat when it comes to this kind of thing (they assure me that it's perfectly legal, though I wouldn't be surprised if some tax lawyer tells me otherwise). But in this case, I'd feel like right was on my side.

Here's the thing that I was left wondering afterwards though. How much time had the people in that room wasted on all this tax planning? How much money had they spent on accountants? We'd all be a lot better off if whoever wins the Election focuses on making our ridiculous tax system less complicated.