ONE down and eleven to go and, rather predictably, we're Costa heavy this month. And, as Chinese New Year celebrations come to an end and we enter the Year of the Dragon, special events are on our minds...

SPINNAKER'S phone lines are open from 7am to 6pm GMT.

NOBODY in the shipping industry wants to be reporting on a tragedy like that which overtook the Costa Concordia on Friday the 13th and it is sad irony that only two days previously a Maritime London seminar on the salvage issues relating to large containerships warned that shipping would sooner or later face its Deepwater Horizon moment...

THE lessons learned from the Titanic - enshrined notably in the Safety of Life at Sea Convention - form the theme for World Maritime Day this year, and sadly the Costa Concordia has proved a sad reminder of what can go wrong.

AT the height of their musical powers, R.E.M. wrote some of the loveliest songs in rock music. In 'Everybody Hurts' the singer gives comfort to some poor soul who's life isn't going too well. The lyrics of that song spring to mind when thinking about the tough times being endured by our friends in Greece...

NO shouting matches this year at the Piraeus Marine Club's annual P&I seminar, admirably organised by Evmar Marine Service's Maria Prevezanou. Instead, a good deal of sobre consensus in light of current news. Casualty management was already on the agenda, the MV Rena having seen to that.

NOW, if you think we're biased in our love of all things P&I, you'd be right. Since Spinnaker was established in 1997, P&I recruitment has been a core part of what we do. Our professional services team have the insurance and legal industry to thank for their very existence no less!

SHIPPING'S OSCAR campaign for Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children received a further boost due to the generosity of the London Tanker Operations Party last month at which a rumoured 900 shipping bods gathered at the HQ of the Honourable Artillery Company to pretend that the tanker market was still in good shape.

WHILE it needs to be said that not all ex-pats are getting housing allowances these days, and a lot of companies have been phasing them out, they remain common in the Middle East, far more so than in, say, Singapore.

Don't forget that if you refer a friend to us for a job and they succeed in getting it, we'll send you GBP400 as a token of our appreciation.

NOBODY wants to talk about insolvency during the current climate but it's definitely worth getting some free advice on the legal aspects. Issues on Insolvency Law is the topic for discussion at the next London Shipping Law Centre seminar, due to take place at Moore Stephens' London office on February 22 at 18.00hrs.

THE importance of email and web access for seafarers was once again underlined in a survey carried out for the ITF last year: Among the major findings were...

UNLAWFUL competition and what you can or can't do when it comes to team moves can land you in court.

DO school leavers make better employees than university graduates? One fifth of UK employers believe they do according to the UK's largest recruiter Adecco.