Disc-Happy

I subscribe to the Channel 4 News daily email. It arrives each day about two hours before the programme comes on. Today they've come out with an introduction that simply has to be read in the voice of Chris Morris:

What's in a computer disc? Just a sheet of plastic with a hole in it,
or a politically explosive time bomb? Alas, for the government it is
the latter tonight.

The investigation is into the missing computer discs from revenue and
customs that have never been recovered. The report suggests a
disc-happy culture in government and a failure to comprehend the scale
of the citizen's interest in keeping his and her taxation details
private. Tonight the report and the very red faces.

Ah, "disc-happy culture". When will we have a czar against or war on disc-happiness?

Brain Scans for Eyewitnesses

Our memory plays tricks on us when we try to recall witnessing a crime [BBC]. So to circumvent that they're suggesting scanning people's brains to see if they actually recall something or whether they've just been addled by suggestion from other people, the police in particular.

Trouble is, I'm a jaded old beast. If they scanned my brain whilst trying to determine whether I remembered a murderer's coat when shown, they'd probably find I was thinking about Barbara Flynn in the nude or whether I would be leaving the station before the pubs close.

Strangely Chilling Headline of the Week

Courtesy of the BBC:

Many children 'brush teeth alone'

Dog Fights

The number of dog fights being reported has risen 15-fold in four years, according to figures from the RSPCA.

But shouldn't those figures come from the RAF?

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Two/Three Word Definitions

It is excellent, is it not, to have a paedophile called "Swirly Face".

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O Brother

Dawn, a little remembered contestant from Big Brother has been officially upheld as being smelly. She complained to Ofcom that she had been mistreated by the programme makers but Ofcom weren't having any of it.

Bizarrely she complained:

that footage that made reference to her "medical conditions including asthma, eczema, urticaria and skin allergies" had not been included in final footage.

Yes, I'm sure - at the time - she would have been absolutely delighted for this panoply of unsightliness to have been reported in great depth on prime time television. It's clearly disgraceful that Russel Brand wasn't set free to do a three minute monologue on dermatological abnormalities.

And one feels compelled to say: it was 2006 dear. Get over it.

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Wogan's Anger At Eurovision Voting

Terry Wogan is threatening to quit commentating the Eurovision song contest because of the overwhelmingly political bias in the voting.

I suggest they listen to him or there'll be hell toupée.

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The Painters Are In

The fumes from paint can turn your sperm mutant, we're told.

"Men such as painters and decorators, who work with glycol solvents, are two-and-a-half times more likely to produce fewer 'normal' sperm."

Think on that the next time the wife's left looking like a plasterer's radio.

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Diagnosis Death

In recent years five living people have been wrongly diagnosed as dead.

That's the most comforting news Gordon Brown has heard all week.

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