littorally

After the derby game, the Derby game

Well, that was rubbish. Like watching two blind men playing darts. But still, no matter how dire the preceeding ninety-one minutes, there’s nothing quite like a last minute of injury time winner. And watching Sunderland, you get to see a lot of them. I think it’s about half the points this season have come from goals scored in the last five minutes of the match. And last season, the game against Derby was won in exactly the same way. They deserve to lose, if not for any other reason than they ought to have learned by now.

Oh, speaking of people who really ought to learn by now: you people who leave five minutes before time: hope the slightly quicker journey was worth it.

Sunday trifecta

As all writers know, getting point of view right is fraught with danger.

Merlin Mann’s 5ives.

Richard Thompson does Britney Spears. No, not like that.

Have they tried looking down the back of the couch?

Don’t get me wrong, the biggest privacy breach in British history is a total screw-up, but there’s an awful lot of hysteria to accompany it.

OHMYGODTHEYKNOWOURDETAILSANDWILLBEDEFRAUDINGUSFOREVERANDEVERUNTILTHEEARTHIS SWALLOWEDBYTHESUN just about captures the kind of reaction that some people seem to be having. There’s three main strands of thought that I’ve seen.

1) Quick, take all the money out and put it under the mattress.

A woman texted FiveLive to say she’d just changed her secure login details at her bank. Uh, jolly good. And that’s going to make what difference, exactly? I shudder to think what her reaction would be if she realised that she’d given the same financial details that were on the missing discs away to strangers every time she had written a cheque.

2) Nonce alert! Nonce alert!

A common meme appears to be the dangers of this data falling into the hands of paedophiles. Because, then they’ll know where all the children live. Because, you know, they wouldn’t be able to find them otherwise.

3) It will help terrorists.

Well, that one was pretty much inevitable, wasn’t it.

Still, it’s not just the media cashing in. The credit agencies are doing their best vulture impersonation:

“Children whose personal data has gone missing could be at risk of identity fraud for many years, credit reference agency Experian has warned…the agency said people should monitor their credit reports to ensure no unauthorised checks were being carried out, something which would indicate someone was applying for credit in their name.”

Hmmm. That would be the same credit reference agency Experian who are offering a seven quid a month check your credit rating service.

Perhaps the most unbelievable part of the whole affair is the government’s blithe insistence that this doesn’t spell the end for their lunatic, illiberal ID card scheme, because apparently that will be a nice new system with special magical security done by gnomes and wizards and maybe even Dumbledore and as a result will be so safe that bad things could never happen. You have to give them points for audacity, if not for sanity or competence.

Elizabeth Bathory’s Women’s Refuge

“The envoy of the Quartet of Middle East peace negotiators, Tony Blair.”

“We welcome our new crime prevention officer, Mr Fagin.”

Flushed out

Happy World Toilet Day.

Derby day

Don’t have much of a voice left. Sunderland should have won. The goal conceded was a bit of a farce. Kenwyne Jones is a gem. The referee was poor. Emre is a dirty little player. Barton is worse. But it was a good day out.

A long life, lived well

Chad Varah has died.

I say Jeeves, why are you putting that dashed pillow over my face?

The Bedside Crow spots an interesting suggestion from Amazon.

(I like this blog of bookshop-running life: read this entry to find out whether 19.99 is closer to ten, or to twenty.)