21March
G****e is to erase personal data on millions of people. The story here is not that the information behemoth is deleting the data, but that it was prepared to store it in the first place. And that the advertising brokerage will still retain a huge corpus of data.
Information such as who made what search and when is kept for as long as useful but under the new policy, all identifying data will be erased after 18-24 months.
Yet again, Het Granuiad has lost the news. Look down at the ground, Het.
The revision thing continues: Mr. Major took more risks over Northern Ireland than did Mister Blair, says Robin Butler. Next thing, we'll find out that Mr. Major and his chancellors kept the economy on a more stable footing than did Mr. Brown. Oh.
Diamond Geezer goes through the cost of the Crass Spectacle. £1.25 per person per week for the next five and a half years. Mr. Geezer writes, Investment in the future doesn't come for free. And, believe me, those of us who live around the spot where London's three most deprived boroughs meet, we'll be eternally grateful. Be that as it may, is it really necessary to destroy so many of the social amenities - the allotments, the cycle paths, the open spaces - in order to create something that has all the makings of a huge white elephant?
Miles Kington pays tribute to Humphrey Lyttelton's Best of Jazz
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In the week to 11 March, this website carried news that the man who killed a president sought political asylum in the UK, and the early death of Chris Lightfoot. Both stories were picked up by the leaden-footed clod-hoppers of the Universal Daily Registertab on Friday the 16th. Do keep up at the back, there.
Martin Belam has an entertaining post on bad comment spam.
Barbara Ellen profiles Lauren Laverne, Britain's best breakfast music presenter.
Separated by a Common Language looks at math(s) hystera. We have no doubt that the presence of the s at the end of mathematics is to differentiate the (mass) noun form from the adjective form. Ultimately, though, this strikes us as a simple point of difference between the English and American languages, and an early footnote in the growing divergence.
Counting the vampires, or why the world isn't entirely over-run with the blood-suckers.
Language Log tries to do some calendar conversions. Not a task for the faint of heart. And they're having trouble understanding perfectly simple English. What's confusing about this perfectly sensible passage?
Yousuf drove a wide ball from Johnston straight to point before Inzamam edged his third ball to the solitary slip. Given obvious confidence by that strike, Botha (2-5 from eight overs) began to extract huge inswing.
Johann Hari promotes a new manifesto for Europe.
The well-known indigestion-to-ulcers firm McDougals is trying to persuade lexicographers to change the definition of McJob. McDougals is not only unaware of how to make healthy and nutritious food, but it is unaware of the role of dictionaries: to record language as it changes, not to determine the correct usage of the language. No, the latter is the job of the Academy of English, a body that, like a decent meal at McDougals, does not actually exist. Language Log reminds us that the McJobs matter is a self-inflicted wound.
