The Sun has got its Cob On...

How funny. The Sun stamping its little feet because the courts won't let them print loads of salacious nonsense about footballers affairs that no one gives a 'monkey's' about. You can tell they're peeved because they even promoted this non-story to the front page with a monumental editorial whinge about press censorship and the 'public's right to know'. Come off it! The only reason they want to print these stories is to sell more papers - it's in no one's best interests to read about some overpaid numpty having a threesome with a couple of borderline prozzies. It's not edifying. It's not interesting. And it's such a cliche that it's no longer entertainment either.

In fact, the Sun seem to have a very strange agenda at the moment. They managed to blow the whole Keys/Gray episode out of all proportion taking it from a minor story on page 9 to a front page witch hunt and moral crusade for women's rights. Could any of this have anything to do with Murdoch's all encompassing desire to take control of B Sky B? Oddly, it doesn't occur to him that anyone wishing to manipulate the news in the way he does with the old 'current bun', is the same reason they should be barred from having more access to its outlets.

Black ink on your hospital chart... what's the story?

The problem with commuting as much as I do is that you are constantly hearing snippets of conversations that leave one's over active imagination whirring away like a nuclear powered vacuum cleaner.

Last night on my way home from London, I heard three people discussing hospitals. It was all pretty mundane stuff about bed pans and arse-revealing gowns until, just as they were getting off, the man of the trio said to his two female companions "I didn't know about the black ink until my mother was terminally ill...". One of the others asked, "How do you mean? His reply left me craning to hear more, "They put a line on your hospital chart in black ink when you've been diagnosed with a terminal illness...to warn the nurses and other medical staff...". And then they got off.

Now I'm worried.

What if I have to go into hospital for, say, my sinus problem (I've been a martyr for years, you know) and then after my tests, there's a black line on my chart. What aren't they telling me? How long have I got? Will it be a slow and painful death or one of those when you never know it's coming? One minute you're in McDonald's getting 3 happy meals and a quarter pounder with cheese and the next...you're on a stretcher staring at the underside of a blanket.

If anyone knows the true story on this, please add a comment. The stress could kill me.

Strange...but true (although not particularly interesting)

One of them strange number quirks that Johnny Ball used to do so well (showing my age a bit) is that if you take the last two digits of the year you were born and add it to your age at your next birthday it will add up to 111. Of course, doesn't seem to work if your 11 or under.

On a similar note, read the following text and don't look at the reveal below. How many 'f's do you see.

FINISHED FILES ARE THE RE-
SULT OF YEARS OF SCIENTIF-
IC STUDY COMBINED WITH THE
EXPERIENCE OF YEARS

If you saw 6, congratulations! Any other number is incorrect. If you know of any other interesting facts like these, why don't you...keep them to yourself.

The Rise of the TLA

The Three Letter Acronym has become the modern equivalent of the masonic handshake. Whether we work for a MNC or a SME our DTD 121s are littered with these melanomas of obscurity and exclusivity - ensuring the uninitiated stay that way. What's wrong with spelling it out so we can all understand? From the CEOs with their CDOs, KPIs and YOYs to the WVM tweeting OMGs and WTFs, a whole new language is emerging which soon only teenagers and city brokers will be able to decode. Combine the rise of the TLA with people's inability to distinguish between texting and writing and we're all USCWAP. The new school texts for Shakespeare should make for interesting reading;

Macbeth: Q4U " Is this a blade ic b4 me?"

Romeo and Juliet: ORMO, RMO, whr 4 R U RMO?

However, my personal favourites are the TLAs that are actually longer than the words they replace. WWW takes 3x as long to say as worldwide web. WWF for the World Wildlife Fund is equally inefficient.

However, I like the Japanese use of wwwww to infer laughter in a text message. It refers to the verb 'warau' - to laugh - and can be used to indicate how funny a reader finds a comment. So, WwwwwwwwW is much funnier than WwwwW and infinitely more expressive than the tedious LOL.

TTFN

One in The I

I am so suggestible. In recent years, while the price has been a steady 20p, The Sun has been my daily paper of choice (a financially inspired purchase rather than a literary one). It fitted with my world view, a bit right wing proclaiming to be left wing, a bit geezer, a bit tits, pubs and football. And the europeans could go take a good long look at themselves too.

However, for the last two days I have switched my reading to The I. Again, the reason was financial rather than literary. The Sun put it's price up to 25p - a rise of 25% without even a mention or an apology to its readers - or not that I saw anyway. Having spent so much space 'biggin' up' its commitment to pursue the cause of Joe Soap in Austerity Britain, it then proceeded to add to his burden by sticking up it's own price. Hypocrisy of the highest order.

The I was 20p. So to register my disapproval, I've changed camps and thown in my lot with the middle class, polenta eating, right on thinking brigade of the Independently minded. 48 hours in and I'm taking a balanced view of Health Care Reform, the unemployment rate of 16-24 year olds and whether astrology is a good thing or a load of old 'pony', and I haven't thought about Jordan and Alex's break-up once. Bonus!

And we're just two days in. By the end of the week, I could be wearing an inuit hat, carrying a man bag, or worst of all, riding a bike to work. Anyone fancy a latte?

Thought for the day.

Do inuits suffer from ennui?