Mary Portas On 19 June 2009, in a ceremony at Galashiels, Heriot-Watt University awarded Portas a Doctorate of Letters in recognition of her career and her contribution to the advancement of marketing and brand communications within the retail sector In December 2009, Portas opened her first permanent 'Living & Giving Shop' in support of charity Save the Children. There are now 16 shops open across London and Edinburgh. She was also named as the charity's Global Retail Ambassador. In 2011, Portas moved from BBC to Channel 4. Her first series for the channel was "Mary Portas: Secret Shopper" which aired in January
RMS Queen Mary 2 documentary TV series "Mighty Ships". The Rolls-Royce Mermaid propulsor pods fitted to "QM2" have proven to be prone to failure. The failures had been so frequent and extensive that Carnival Corp. (USA), by way of its Cunard Line division, took Rolls-Royce Corp. (UK) to court in the United States in January 2009. The line alleged that the Mermaid pod propulsion systems fitted to Cunard Line's flagship "Queen Mary 2" are inherently defective in design. Cunard contends that Rolls Royce knew about the design deficiencies and deliberately conspired to mislead, deceive and defraud in the course of winning the contract. The