Should we get our privacy back?

8:29am Monday 12th May 2008

So real life isn't like The Bill after all! In that TV programme (and several others, in fact) CCTV is an invaluable aid to catching the criminals. When something dastardly has occurred, one or other of the senior officers involved will cry "Let's have a look at any CCTV from the area" and off dashes a constable, to return shortly with pin-sharp images of the crime taking place.

Tailor-made way to keep moving

8:34am Tuesday 6th May 2008

It says a lot about our attachment to the private car that this week the buses appear to have been no busier than usual.

There’s trouble on those cards

11:03am Monday 28th April 2008

A report this week claiming that thousands of credit card applications are currently being rejected every day as the debt crisis bites will be seen as bad news by a lot of people.

Will biofuel trend be a big mistake?

3:45pm Friday 18th April 2008

It's a thought-provoking coincidence that the week when oil companies were told to aim for all forecourt petrol to include 2.5 per cent derived from biofuel (ie from plants) was also the week that the heads of both the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank warned about a world food shortage.

Hand the blighted Games to France

4:24pm Friday 11th April 2008

There was something deeply disturbing about seeing British athlete Denise Lewis running with the Olympic torch through the streets of London surrounded by blue-clad Chinese heavies clearly prepared to brush aside all protest if the British police hadn't already been doing that job for them. So much for the purity of sport.

March all of them out of classrooms

3:54pm Friday 28th March 2008

At the National Union of Teachers' conference this week there was a call for the Ministry of Defence to be barred from going into schools to talk to youngsters about military life.

Paying the price for others’ follies

3:49pm Thursday 20th March 2008

What a cruel twist of fate that those of us now in our 60s, who spent our childhood years in post-war households where money was scarce, could after a lifetime of work find ourselves growing old in similar financial circumstances.

Rehab the place for these villains

12:19pm Monday 17th March 2008

With Britain's prisons full to bursting, the Government of this near-bankrupt country of ours has wheeled out another phase of its cunning plan to ease overcrowding without spending money that it hasn't got on building the new establishments that are desperately needed.

Service I could do with opting out of

8:27am Monday 10th March 2008

If your telephone company approaches you bearing gifts, keep a careful eye on what it's doing with its other hand. I read through a communication from BT apparently bearing good news. Here's the first paragraph: "From the beginning of February our BT Together Option 1 customers will have Free UK Weekend calls, automatically. In addition, the cost of our BT Together Option 2 and BT Together Option 3 inclusive Calling Plans are being reduced from April, 2008."

Plan has rooms for improvement

10:16am Monday 3rd March 2008

It would be a comforting thought that, if you so wanted, you could buy a house and live in it all your life, even if you became infirm and needed to use a wheelchair to get about and a stairlift to take you up to bed.

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