Van Morrison’s website hacked. World’s press yet again fail to check the story “Van Morrison to be a father again at 64″ trumpeted the headlines earlier this week, surprising many. The most surprised of all was Van Morrison himself. The story resulted from an announcement on his website: “Gigi (Lee) and Van Morrison are proud [...]
Despite his promise to cut government propaganda, spin has soared under Gordon Brown When Gordon Brown became Prime Minister in 2007, he promised a different kind of politics and an “end of spin”. Presenting government actions in the best possible light had mushroomed out of control during Tony Blair’s premiership and was roundly ridiculed by [...]
“Is that the police? Help! I’m trapped in my duvet”Two days ago Greater Manchester Police revealed that one of the many 999 calls they’d had which weren’t real emergencies came from a woman, possibly drunk, who called because her cat was playing with a ball of string and it was “doing her head in”. Now [...]
90% of “pints” of beer are giving short measure, according to Trading Standards Officers Trading Standards Officers conducting a survey of licensed premises in Birmingham found that almost nine in ten pints weren’t pints at all. In the worst case, 11.8% of the beer was missing, effectively overcharging drinkers 40 pence per pint. Ordering 88 [...]
The millions of people who take ginkgo biloba to keep their memory sharp are wasting their money, according to a new study. Holland and Barrett claim that, “Gingko biloba is one of the oldest living tree species, dating back to over 300 million years. Ginkgo helps to maintain memory with age decline and to preserve [...]
American celebrity website left red-faced after photo showing Senator John F. Kennedy on yacht surrounded by naked women turns out to be a forgery. TMZ.com is an American celebrity news website whose many scoops include breaking news of the deaths of Michael Jackson and Brittany Murphy. One of the world’s busiest and most successful websites, [...]
“Honesty on the economy,” trumpets the political leaflet from Jacob Rees-Mogg, Tory Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for North East Somerset. “Jacob Rees-Mogg believes it is time to be honest with North East Somerset residents,” we are told. Somewhat embarrassing, therefore, that there’s an accompanying picture of him talking to a blonde woman that is captioned: “Jacob [...]
With train fares due to rise yet again, it is no surprise if commuters find rail travel expensive. What’s more surprising is that Network Rail clearly thinks so too. 200 Network Rail staff had to travel to Coventry from Reading for a conference, a distance of 90 miles. As a senior executive noted in a [...]
Sir John Baker, ex-chairman of the Senior Salaries Review Body, revealed on BBC Radio this lunchtime that The Fees Office had been forbidden to co-operate with an investigation into expenses. In an extraordinarily revealing interview on Radio 4′s The World At One, Sir John Baker shed light into a hitherto dark corner of the MPs’ [...]
What is the point of regulation? It’s a question that is not asked often enough. Ignoring the obvious, sceptical response, surely the answer must be that regulations are intended to improve the lives and conditions of the citizens in whose names they are being enacted. Open Europe is, according to The Guardian, an independent thinktank [...]
After we wrote about the inaccuracy of facial recognition systems, we received such a detailed comment on it from David Moss that we asked if we could make it a blog entry. David, a former IT consultant, writes widely on the subject, most recently for The Guardian. Biometrics based on face recognition do not work. [...]
It isn’t just in Europe that snow is creating havoc with travel plans. Snowstorms on the Eastern seaboard of the United States mean that many flights have been cancelled. Delta Airlines customers, however, were particularly incensed to find that, when they rang the airline to try to find out whether they could fly or not, [...]
We were furious when we wrote about a CCTV camera that was pointing into somebody’s home. It seemed an appalling invasion of privacy but, while we felt sympathy for whoever lived behind the net curtains, at least we had no idea who lived there or what the CCTV operator actually saw. And then somebody sent [...]
We wrote the other day about how the oft-quoted figure of 4.2m CCTV cameras in Britain is utter Zebu and explained the less than scientific way the number arose. We’re glad to say that somebody is trying to find out how many cameras there spying on us. Big Brother Watch put in Freedom of Information [...]
This surely comes under the “you couldn’t make it up” heading. Despite the Chancellor giving the impression of back-pedalling on ID cards last weekend, the rollout continues. After the launch in Manchester, where citizens greeted their arrival with utter indifference, the cards are now being introduced across the whole North-West of England. Except, that is, [...]
Andy Rennison, the Forensic Science Regulator, is to be given the job of overseeing Britain’s CCTV network and implementing a national CCTV strategy. About bloody time, though why we are spied on by so many of the hideous things when the Home Office’s own studies say they are virtually useless for cutting any crime other [...]
Hats off to Which? magazine, which is launching a new campaign to encourage customers to give the heave-ho to companies that offer bad customer service. They will run the campaign throughout 2010 and will apparently be offering help and advice to consumers who are keen to switch services, apparently suggesting they move to companies who [...]
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