Ah, bless them. The BBC have commented on the fact that it appears Internet Explorer 8 may contain new privacy features in the browser, to make it easier to clear your browsing history, to reduce the amount of data you leave behind on sites you visit, and so on. Why could anyone possibly want to [...]

My Newcastle season ticket has arrived (and so, fortunately, has BTP’s). This season, season tickets at the club are different to what has gone before. Previously you’d be issued with what was effectively a book of vouchers: you’d tear out the relevant ticket as you approach the ground/ bar area and then either hand it [...]

Tom Shakespeare is an academic based in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. He is also a person of restricted growth. He was travelling on the city’s metro recently when he was verbally humiliated and intimidated by a group of schoolgirls. Was he a victim of a disability hate crime? BBC News Magazine It might seem obvious that the answer [...]

Hilary Mantel’s highly original and very odd novel received much praise when it was published in 2005. Somehow it has managed to escape my attention until nowStephen Lang: Booked Out My fellow blogger Stephen Lang wrote the above in March of this year. At the time, I commented that I’d picked the book up a [...]

I read with interest that the BBC news site was trialling… linking from within the body of news stories to related background materialBBC Editors Blog: New ways of linking Well, that’s nice, I thought. The BBC have finally worked out how everyone else has been using the internet since 1995. You know, when you find [...]

Sorry, too busy for that post today. Hopefully tomorrow night…

In about October 2001, I wrote into Newcastle United at St James’ Park and asked to be put on the waiting list for a season ticket. In July 2002, I received a letter saying that the club had some season tickets remaining for sale and would be allocated to people on the waiting list on [...]

We’ve booked our holidays for 2009. For the first time since our honeymoon, myself and the GLW will be heading for pastures abroad. We’re taking the kids to the location of our 2002 honeymoon — we’re off to Corfu again. In many ways, it’s an ideal holiday location for us. It’s small, and while parts [...]

Haven’t got anything to say. Haven’t read any new books recently (although I am currently reading Ian Rankin’s Exit Music). Haven’t seen any new films. Well, apart from the X-Files: I Want To Believe, which as far as I can tell is only the first part of the title. It should really be I want [...]

Here’s a puzzle for you: when a “think tank” stops thinking, does it just get called a “tank”? Or a “thunk-tank”? And when they start talking nonsense, does that make them a “drunk tank”? Or do they just “think wank”? I find myself in the unusual position today of wanting to say something positive about [...]