Grammar Whore of the day, from a letter we had the misfortune to receive at work.

How can increased computer access help you improve quality of life, work and leisure for everybody you are responsible for?

You know it's a thin week when you can read the entirety of computing comic in less time than it takes The Beatles to play "Hey Jude."

Well, Mr Blair continues to peddle a lawyer's inconsistency. Even if we accept that a war to remove viable chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons were legal, this would be predicated on the existence of said viable CBNs. In turn, there's a need to gather evidence to support that supposition, evidence that provides a clear balance of probabilities. At the moment, we have no evidence that any CBNs ever existed. None. Nada. Zip. Jemini.

Nor is the UK making any effort to find these CBNs. Instead, Mr B is concentrating his efforts on humanitarian aid to the Iraqi people. A fine aim, but that tends to suggest that the reason for going in was to remove the lawful, legitimate regime of Mr Hussein. Unfortunately, that aim runs in direct contradiction to Mr Blair's 2000 Terrorism Act, which criminalises any attempt to overthrow a government, no matter how repressive. If Mr Sadaam's regime fell by happenstance during a war to remove CBNs, that's life. If it was a war object, that's in breach of UK domestic law.

Mr Blair is in a pickle. No CBNs, he's (at best) mislead or (at worst) deliberately lied to parliament and the country. Who wants to be a premier?

The Royal Fail is mailing to meet 80% of its targets, according to a report published today. It was due to be published yesterday, but got held up in the post. First class post is late. Second class post is late. Special delivery post is late. And they've got the gall to put the price of stamps up again. Why do we bother paying a red cent for these failures?

Interesting days on the medium wave band. Radio 10 FM closes down tonight; in the recent Dutch bidding round, the company lost its frequency allocation of 675 AM to a country music station, who promptly sold it to a classic rock station. Yay! Proper rock music on the radio, 675 AM.

Elsewhere, Radlon Communications has won the 1008 AM frequency, and will be broadcasting a programme to Benelux and South and East England. In English, or a fair approximation thereof.

Elsewhere, news that Steve Madden has left BBC in Eastern England. Any chance of bagging him to replace the tedious Alex Trelinski for BBC Midlands? Mr Madden is wowfabgroovycool.

Locally, Adrian Goldberg joins BBC WM next month for breakfast; Ed Do'o'lan to 10, the amazingly rubbish Malcolm Boring at 1, Paul Franks at 4, with Tony & Julie back where they belong in the 10p graveyard shift, after the sports coverage.

And Fi Glover's off from 5 Live. Mornings never suited her.

What's on those pictures of tortured Iraqis? This might gross out some readers, so move your mouse over the (going nowhere) links. One was apparently taken in a warehouse. Another picture. A third picture The fourth snap. This is going to be a huge scandal, if there's any justice.

It'll be the antepenultimate Buffy popup, not that you'll see all the good bits.

Though we may never have posted in the same threads, JON001 and myself were both active on Usenet in late 95 / early 96. Turns out he's another Blockbusters alumnus. So yes, it's go JON001. Even though that means I'm following the same path as C4's much-derided and little-viewed Big Brother At Breakfast programme, where the push is for JON001 to stay. Even KATELA and JONYRE are backing him over ANOUSK.

Realistically, we need the terminally tedious SCOTT1 to come out, or just leave the house and get back to snogging TFLOCT.

But wait, that'll be JON001's girlf on BBLB. Holy feckin' nightlife, that's only the Mary Jephcott with whom I used to work. About five years ago, purchasing clerk, shacked up in The Mouse House, helpdesk trainee, stuck up two fingers to The Big Boss's sellout and went off to follow her masters' degree. Thence (according to DERMOT) to Venice, and smoochies with JON001, and national television exposure, and getting an email address to write: Whatever next?

Further developments in the Terrible Tale of Terrorist Trainspotters. Apparently, the whole flap started following a meeting of US security officials in Washington in March. That group of luminaries reportedly classified "people sitting on train platforms who appear to be monitoring the timing of arrivals and departures" behaving in a suspicious manner. This might be applicable for most stations in the US, where there's an average of one departure per day; but surely doesn't hold in the UK, where train movements number in the thousands.

Do they think that potential terrorists are so thick as to not read timetables, though in both the UK and US, they may as well not bother, with the atrocious punctuality record of Amtrak and Notwork Fail.

Or are the pointy-heads worried that frustrated commuters will blow something up every time a train is late, thus laying waste to the entire railway infrastructure only slightly slower than Failtrack.

Or is the railway's inability to run anything like correctly the Weapon of Mass Disruption that the UK claims Iraq has been unleashing within 45 minutes. Charter discounts trigger if your WMD isn't ready for launch 90 minutes after the order.

And what about this perfectly commonplace situation: "I was booked on the 11.13 to Bristol, but it was cancelled, so now I'm hoping to catch the 11.42, but it has been delayed by 45 minutes, and I'm not quite sure which platform it will be on as it was to be on 11b, but then it was moved to 8b, then 8a and now back to 12b. I'm now just thinking of catching a Central Train to Cardiff and changing at Gloucester! So yes I am bloody well monitoring the timings of arrivals and departures, because I want to get home some time today!"

Meanwhile, Notwork Fail sneaks out an announcement that delays due to its infrastructure failings - broken rails, signals stuck on red, that kind of thing - rose by 9% last year. A profit of £290m in 2001-2 turned into a loss of £295m last year.

During the last half century, both Republican and Democrat administrations enthusiastically supported the process of EU integration. Initially it was seen as an essential bulwark against the Soviet threat. Then it was viewed as a necessary component of a strong transatlantic partnership. Now it is increasingly seen as a possible impediment to the exercise of "US strategic interests." No wonder the military junta's partisans of despise Chirac. The French aspiration to create an alternative "pole" to US influence represents a direct challenge to the new foreign policy orthodoxy in Washington.

Nick Clegg, het graun

So Failtrack, the company responsible for running Britain's railways down into the ground, has decided to ban trainspotters from its large London stations. How exactly does the incompetent company expect to police this? Do all trainspotters wear a uniform or carry identification - hang on, silly question, we know the answer to this.

But what's the reason for the ban. Are Customers frightened of the anorak-and-clipboard brigade? Is Failtrack scared that there's someone on the station who is able to give sensible and accurate answers to people's questions? No, it's the great shibboleth of the millennium: Fear Of (Some) Terrorists. For many years, there have been no litter bins at mainline stations, as an extremist Irish group once planted a bomb in one. The bill for cleaning up garbage and warding off rats is now estimated at twice the loss from that attack. Now, according to the plonkers at Failtrack Towers, having great numbers of people milling about large stations is a security risk, and all trainspotters will now have to seek written permission from Failtrack to gain admission to these hallowed halls.

Meanwhile, the two or three thousand people an hour who actually use the trains will be allowed to continue their business without any form of security check whatsoever. And surely any self-respecting terrorist would sneak their explosives on as a passenger...

On the same track (sorry!) Eurostar wants its passengers to upgrade themselves. Designer Philippe Starck is refashioning the trains, and told today's Muck how he wants more elegance. "There is a tendency today for people to travel wearing purple jogging bottoms, green fluorescent sweaters and orange Nike trainers. I can understand that people want to be comfortable, but it is possible to be elegant as well." We look forward to the reintroduction of a modest dress code on international trains, though would caution against the mandatory wearing of ties in cattle class. At present, anyone so attired is clearly on the lookout for an upgrade, and will annoy the heck out of the unfortunate person next to them.

On Metafilter, some TLD fun. Whee.ee, as Claire's Birthday would put it.

And positively the final comment on Eurovision (at least until RTE put out the real results): I thought it was a magnificent performance of a lovely (if somewhat derivative) song, and Father Ted's stage presence was positively magnetic, but Dougall was a bit of a waste of space.

Oh wait, that was the Irish entry.

Whenever I click on a Blogspot site, I am reminded of the old days, when my primary connection to the internet was a 14.4 modem.

Though there's an important difference between a 14.4 modem and waiting for Blogspot to load: at least with the 14.4 modem, you knew you'll get the page eventually.

Not that I'm moaning, or suggesting there are better alternatives. Just an observation.

Those quality Eurovision links in full: Not included - those responsible for crap songs, or those without an official(ish) artist site.

Birgitta - the Icelandic songstrel
Alf Poier - the totally sane Austrian
Sertab Erener - the Turk who won on the night
Lynn Chircop - the entertainingly named Maltese
Lou - the flame-haired German
t.A.T.u. - the Russians who should have performed in black jeans
Lior Narkis - the Israeli going on about sagapo (it's the code word)
Esther Hart - the Dutchwoman who dropped the UK
Mando - the Greek who inspired Our Vic
Ich Troje - the Poles without borders
F.L.Y. - the Latvian supergroup
Urban Trad - the Belgians who talk gibberish (That doesn't help)
Ruffus - the Estonians who were once Claire's Birthday
Nicola - the entertaining Romanian

"If anything, it is worse than expected." So opines the Daily Torygraph today, wittering on the Draft European Constitution. And so opines this commentator, wittering on about press coverage of this minuscule event in the life of the continent. This is a tentative, first public draft document. It's not the done deal, and those parts that are unacceptable to any of the 25 members will be quietly shown the door before negotiations finish.

The text is not as easy to read as - say - the American constitution. Instead, it's a dense document, slightly less penetrable than the rules to the Eurovision Song Contest. It's certainly more important than the tie-breaker rules, even though they favour Russia over Turkey over Belgium when the Irish votes come in. The Times says the document has "all the literary charm of an unhelpful set of instructions accompanying flatpack furniture." A bit mean of the thunderer; it's more exciting than the Swedish Eurosong-by-numbers entry.

"A European foreign minister," trumpets the Daily Tabloid, "would instruct us on our relations with other countries," which is piffle and poppycock. The Daily Moron has it more accurately: "There were no plans to harmonise tax rates in the draft published yesterday and Britain will keep its veto over foreign policy. We will also retain our seat on the UN security council ... If a play were written about the constitution, it would surely be called Much Ado About Nothing."

Back to the Daily Tabloid, where we're misled into reading "Britain would have to dish out generous benefits to millions of migrants from eastern Europe. They would be allowed to flock here after 10 new nations join the EU next year," which is technically true, though quite how many people from forward-looking countries like Estonia and Latvia would want to join a repressive backwater like the UK is yet to be known. This is all water under the bridge, and the Tab's claim that "two million jobs would be lost if Britain signed the treaty," is nonsense: eastern expansion is a done deal, and it's far more likely to increase exports than cost jobs.

The Financial Times observes that "it can be legitimately asked how far the draft constitution brings the EU closer to its citizens" before concluding: "The final outcome is bound, to some extent, to be a messy compromise that fails to satisfy everyone."

Right, we have next year's UK entry sorted out. Step forward Mr Jason Mraz, who couldn't sing for toffee on Leno last week, and is still a step forward from Gemini.

The complete Eurovision recap is over at SITS2. Further reaction will follow here tomorrow, I expect, once I've calmed down sufficiently, and regained some objectivity.