While we're in a silly mood, ever wondered how pasta shells  - officially known as Conchiglie - are made? Wonder no more:

It's Friday, so some fun is most certainly in order. And we are happy to oblige with Business Cat, external. Yes, imagine if your company was run by a cat... You'll never see your boss in the same light again. Many thanks to Business Cat creator Tom Fonder.

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BBC economics correspondent Andrew Verity tweets:

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SSI UK says that iron and steelmaking operations at its Teesside plant will be "paused" due to “ongoing issues with the supply of raw materials and services”, putting about 2,000 jobs at risk. The company says preparations are being made to cut production and keep the plant ready to restart production "at an appropriate point”. Earlier this week unions called on the government to do more to support the UK's steel industry.

Payment processing firm Worldpay has announced plans for a £4bn stock market float next month, which could see it entering the FTSE 100. The group says it will offer shares in London in a move that will reportedly give the company an overall value of about £6bn, although this includes £2.2bn of debt. It means Worldpay has decided to go ahead with an IPO rather than accept a reported £6.6bn takeover approach by French rival Ingenico. The float will also provide a healthy return on investment for Worldpay's private equity owners Advent and Bain, who bought it for £1.7bn in 2010 following the rescue of Royal Bank of Scotland.

Today's figures get somewhat more depressing when you dig a little deeper into the ONS productivity figures for last year. They show that only Japan had lower output per hour worked than the UK. And that German productivity on the same basis is a frightening 33 percentage points ahead of the UK.  

It turns out Lidl's wage rise does not apply to the whole of the UK. Lidl, which has 38 stores in Northern Ireland, says it increased wages in August "in line with the proposed living wage for Northern Ireland". But it has not yet disclosed the minimum rate it pays there.

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The scale of the UK's productivity problem has been revealed by the Office for National Statistics, external (ONS) and it makes for grim reading. The ONS first estimates for 2014 suggest that output per hour in the UK was 20 percentage points below the average for the rest of the major G7 advanced economies. That makes for the widest productivity gap since comparable estimates began in 1991. What on earth will the Bank of England governor Mark Carney make of that?

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A nice case of putting your money where your mouth is today from David Potts, the Morrisons boss. He's spent a cool half a million quid on buying shares in the troubled supermarket, taking his total holding to 822,881 shares that are worth about £1.3m. Last week finance chief Trevor Strain spent about £100,000 on 58,453 shares, taking his holding to 97,794 shares. Shares in Morrisons, which are down more than 13% this year, have fallen 0.4% to 157.8p, valuing the company at £3.7bn. 

RBS Economics tweets:

BBC economics editor Robert Peston tweets from Shanghai:

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Quite liking today'sGoogle doodle, externalmarking the start of the Rugby World Cup, of course...

And now we've received a statement from Tesco regarding Lidl's wage rise: 

BBC Breakfast

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Lidl UK managing director Ronny Gottschlich tells BBC Breakfast there is potential for a Lidl store “in almost every single town” in the UK. “We’ve recently announced we could see another 280 stores in London alone. We can see between 1,200 to 1,500 stores for our portfolio. There aren’t any patches where we could say this is where we don’t expand any more,”  he says. Lidl’s “economies of scale” work best with medium-sized stores, Mr Gottschlich adds, making a push into the convenience sector unlikely. He also downplays the prospects of Lidl offering online deliveries but quips: “Never say never.”

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A Sainsbury's spokesman has hit back over the news that Lidl will match the Living Wage (not to be confused with the National Living Wage). The supermarket tells the BBC a full-time employee who works a 39 hour week and is paid £7.36 an hour makes £287.04 a week. That's because Sainsbury's staff get paid 30 minute breaks.It says Lidl does not pay for breaks, so even at £8.20 an hour its workers would earn just over £299 for a comparable working week, or about £12 per week more. 

BBC Breakfast's business presenter Ben Thompson tweets:

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HSBC chairman Douglas Flint has hinted the bank could keep its headquarters in the UK following a strategic review begun earlier this year, according to the Daily Telegraph, external. Having previously complained about the bank levy, which the Chancellor scrapped in his July Budget, and the burden of regulation, Mr Flint seems to have been spooked by market volatility in China. He aslo thinks the UK’s regulatory system is better suited to a global bank like HSBC after all.

The Rugby World Cup gets underway tonight as England plays Fiji. It's estimated that the event could benefit the UK economy by up to £1bn. But more importantly, the Today programme's intrepid presenter Justin Webb risked life and limb to experience a rugby scrum. Rather him than us.

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Japanese financial regulators are investigating an Ernst & Young affiliate over its audit of Toshiba in the wake of the $1.3bn accounting scandal at the electronics conglomerate. Ernst & Young ShinNihon said the Financial Services Agency has been investigating staff involved with the Toshiba audit. The scandal ranks is one of Japan's biggest corporate embarrassments along with the fraud discovered in 2011 at Olympus, which was also an Ernst & Young ShinNihon client. 

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NME - the magazine formerly known as New Musical Express - is reborn today as a free title. Rihanna is the cover star for the first edition under its new guise. While music purists in BBC Towers may not be too impressed, you can't deny that she is one of the world's biggest pop stars. More than 300,000 copies will be distributed nationally each week at 500 outlets including stations, music venues and retailers such as HMV and Topshop.Click here, externalto find one.