Oliver Kamm has an interesting post about Wikipedia. Regular readers will know that I disagree with him on the merits of blogging, but when it comes to Wikipedia I am with him 100 per cent.

I cannot understand how anyone with the least interest in factual accuracy gives Wikipedia the time of day. I have yet to read an entry on a subject about which I know something that has not been marred by glaring errors. The entry on me, for instance - probably the only subject about which I can claim to the the world's leading expert - has so many basic errors of fact that it is laughable.

I have made a point of never correcting it because once I start, there will be no end to it, as it is forever altered with new errors.

But here is just one sentence:

He is the official biographer for David Blunkett and is an occasional guest on the BBC's flagship Question Time discussion show.

Both statements are wrong. My biography was not official. Nor was it ever stated, anywhere or at any time, by me, my publishers or David Blunkett that it was. I started it off my own back, wrote it to my own schedule and editing criteria and published it as I saw fit. Mr Blunkett gave me interviews for it, but that in no way made it official, since I chose what to report and how. But because someone wholly ignorant of the facts about which they have chosen to write makes that claim on Wikipedia, it will now be repeated elswhere as fact.

As for my being "an occasional guest on the BBC's flagship Question Time discussion show"; I have never appeared on it. Not once. And I think I should know.

I could go through the rest of my entry and point to the similar inaccuracies which litter it, but what would be the point?. Wikipedia is a pernicious tool, and no one should rely on it. Ever.

(No doubt someone will read this and change the entry to reflect my corrections, but that will merely prove my point. If I hadn't happened to be vain enough to look at my entry, and then to write about it here, the errors would stay.)

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Plus ça change.

(From Iain Dale.)

I don't think I've ever read a piece by Bryan Appleyard that hasn't made me think. Typically, his piece in last Sunday's Sunday Times on blogging is full of insights and stimulation. Do have a read. (And I recommend a look at his excellent blog.)

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This Wall Street Journal report shows what lengths the enemies of Paul Wolfowitz will go to smear him - and show that his current difficutlies are entirely manufactured by his opponents. It's a salutary lesson in the need to know all the facts before jumping on a 'scandal' bandwagon.

(via Daniel Finkelstein)

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The following column of mine appears in today's Times:

I’m glad I kept up with yesterday’s news. Had I not, I’d have remained ignorant of two important pieces of research. According to analysis of the names used to identify the days of the week, it seems that, since today is called Wednesday, tomorrow will be Thursday.

Even more interestingly, researchers have used a complicated computer program to trawl through more than a million books and have found that there is a consistent pattern in the Roman alphabet. The letter M always follows L, which in turn follows K. I was intrigued to discover that these are preceded by H, I and J.

No less obvious were the two genuine pieces of research that were revealed yesterday. David Willetts, the Shadow Education Secretary, has used official figures to show that . . . well, a look at the headline above the story in yesterday’s Times tells you all you need to know: “Discipline crumbles in large schools.”

Expulsions from schools with more than 1,500 pupils have risen by 28 per cent since Labour took office. That date matters because the number of such schools has more than doubled since then. The figures also show that 10 per cent of pupils in schools with more than 1,000 children are temporarily excluded, compared with 3 per cent in schools with fewer than 1,000 pupils.

It comes as a shock, I know. Who would ever have thought that large, anonymous comprehensives would have discipline problems? Not the Department for Education, that’s for sure, which responded to the figures thus: “Large schools can, of course, face additional challenges, but with strong leadership and good staff they can also use their size to benefit their pupils and the wider community by offering out-of-hours clubs and community facilities.”

Well, yes. Big can indeed be an advantage in some circumstances. But although the fact I weigh too much could come in useful if I ever have to sit on someone to restrain them, in the real world it simply means I am more prone to ill health, as one look at me would make obvious. And large schools are, as is equally obvious to most of us, more likely to have discipline problems.

The problem is not that research is otiose. It’s always important to have facts behind any argument. The problem is that what should, without any need for research, be obvious is all too often either ignored or disputed by the people who take our money and spend it on our behalf.

As for my weight: yesterday we learnt that researchers at the University of California have made an astonishing discovery. In what is described as “the world’s largest study of weight loss”, they analysed the results of more than 30 studies of dieters and discovered that, after an initial loss, most dieters regain even more weight. Who would ever have believed that?

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I was planning to write a post taking issue with my friend Oliver Kamm's piece in yesterday's Guardian, which he concluded thus:

The blogosphere, in short, is a reliable vehicle for the coagulation of opinion and the poisoning of debate. It is a fact of civic life that is changing how politics is conducted - overwhelmingly for the worse, and with no one accountable for the decline.

I disagree with Oliver's view of blogs. In my view, blogging is not in itself a good or a bad thing, just as TV news is not a good or a bad thing in itself. TV news can educate and it can mislead (the same holds, of course, for newspapers and other media). What matters is the quality of a blog (which has nothing to do with its political standpoint), just as what matters with broadcast news is the quality of the output.

To contradict myself, I do think the fact that without blogging we would not have beeen able to access the opinions of writers from Oliver himself through to the writers on Harry's Place, Tim Worstall and Scott Burgess (my favourite non-professional writers' sites) is a strong positive in favour of the medium itself.

But when I read the stupid, abusive and illogical comments which dominate the responses to Oliver's piece on the Guardian site, I have to wonder if perhaps Oliver has a point, albeit a misdirected one. Until I made commenters register on my site I spent a ridiculous amount of time having to delete abusive, libellous and bigoted comments. Although the sheer number of such comments is now reduced, I am still shocked at the level of personal abuse which some commenters think appropriate in response to a post with which they happen to disagree. Perhaps it is not bloggers who are, as Oliver puts it, responsible for the poisoning of debate. Is it not (some) commenters?

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I read this interview with Julian Baggini, author of Welcome to Everytown: a journey into the English mind, with a mix of anger, puzzlement and humour:

He stands out because he has done what very few of his contemporaries are prepared to do and confronted England. Not by denouncing its government or letting out long sighs about its lack of sophistication, but by living among people he wouldn't ordinarily notice, in an attempt to understand the core beliefs of the England which doesn't listen to the Today programme.

...Baggini expected to find sexism, racism, homophobia, celebrity worship, provincialism and unreasonable fears about crime.

...After he had finished his breakfast, I asked if he felt more comfortable with his country. "I think I've learned that most people here are fine with you as long as you treat them fairly."

I haven't read his book. but on this evidence I have no interest in doing so. The gist of it seems to be the amazing discovery by the author that normal people are alright, that not eating pasta, olives and drinking wine whilst listening to the opera does not mean you are a cretin, and that people are not racist, just stuck in their ways.

Doesn't that say everything you need to know about the London liberal elite?

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Hillel Neuer, Executive Director of UN Watch, gives the UN Human Rights Council a dose of the truth:

Six decades ago, in the aftermath of the Nazi horrors, Eleanor Roosevelt, Réné Cassin and other eminent figures gathered here, on the banks of Lake Geneva, to reaffirm the principle of human dignity. They created the Commission on Human Rights. Today, we ask: What has become of their noble dream?

In this session we see the answer. Faced with compelling reports from around the world of torture, persecution, and violence against women, what has the Council pronounced, and what has it decided?

Nothing. Its response has been silence. Its response has been indifference. Its response has been criminal.

One might say, in Harry Truman’s words, that this has become a Do-Nothing, Good-for-Nothing Council.

But that would be inaccurate. This Council has, after all, done something.

It has enacted one resolution after another condemning one single state: Israel. In eight pronouncements—and there will be three more this session—Hamas and Hezbollah have been granted impunity. The entire rest of the world—millions upon millions of victims, in 191 countries—continue to go ignored.

So yes, this Council is doing something. And the Middle East dictators who orchestrate this campaign will tell you it is a very good thing. That they seek to protect human rights, Palestinian rights.

So too, the racist murderers and rapists of Darfur women tell us they care about the rights of Palestinian women; the occupiers of Tibet care about the occupied; and the butchers of Muslims in Chechnya care about Muslims.

But do these self-proclaimed defenders truly care about Palestinian rights?

Let us consider the past few months. More than 130 Palestinians were killed by Palestinian forces. This is three times the combined total that were the pretext for calling special sessions in July and November. Yet the champions of Palestinian rights—Ahmadinejad, Assad, Khaddafi, John Dugard—they say nothing. Little 3-year-old boy Salam Balousha and his two brothers were murdered in their car by Prime Minister Haniyeh’s troops. Why has this Council chosen silence?

Because Israel could not be blamed. Because, in truth, the dictators who run this Council couldn’t care less about Palestinians, or about any human rights.

They seek to demonize Israeli democracy, to delegitimize the Jewish state, to scapegoat the Jewish people. They also seek something else: to distort and pervert the very language and idea of human rights.

You ask: What has become of the founders’ dream? With terrible lies, it is being turned into a nightmare.

Thank you, Mr. President.

For the first time in this session I will not express thanks for that statement...I am sorry that I'm not in a position to thank you for your statement. I should mention that I will not tolerate any similar statements in the Council. The way in which members of this Council were referred to, and indeed the way in which the council itself was referred to, all of this is inadmissible.

A Human Rights Commission which does not believe in free speech. Doesn't that say it all?

(UPDATE: Melanie Phillips has the same reaction.)

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This piece of mine appears in this week's So London magazine:

I’ve lived in Zone 1 for all my adult life. Indeed, for much of that time I’ve been in the middle of the city, in W1.

I’ve not just enjoyed living there myself. I’ve also, I have to admit, looked at down at those unfortunates who, rather than being able to walk to any number of wonderful restaurants or the wonderful array of cultural lures, have had to get the…I can barely bring myself to write it…the…ugh…the…Tube.

So it is with a large dollop of humility that I write what follows: I have been happily ensconced out of Zone 1 for the past year, and I am about to move even further out, when I get hitched. And do you know what? Not only am I relishing the prospect of leaving; I can’t understand how I could have been so blinkered in my Zone 1 ways and so, well, plain wrong.

I’ve always believed that the point of living in a city is to live in a city – to take full advantage of the summation of human achievement which cities represent. Not for me the countryside or green land. Land is for building on, for turning into the adventure playgrounds of advanced humankind which urban life is about. Cities have everything the human soul needs, from the physical sustenance of the food available in the eye-blinking array of specialist shops or restaurants, to the mental and emotional sustenance of culture, the like of which is, in London, unrivalled on the planet.

Few things are more annoying than Londoners who don’t take advantage of our theatres, our cinemas or our concert halls. If you want to spend your evenings doing nothing, go and live where there’s nothing to do. Try Norfolk.

Where I’ve been quite wrong, however, is in dismissing Londoners who live outside Zone 1 - or, let’s be generous, even Zone 2.

I had things entirely back to front in thinking that to enjoy London properly one needed to live in proximity to its heart. In fact, I now see from my own experience, the only way one can properly enjoy London is to treat the centre – the area within Zone 1 – as a facility to be utilized as often as possible but from which one can retreat – or, perhaps more accurately, escape – when the need arises.

Because the plain fact is that, today, living in central London is not a pleasure but a penance. After 7 years in Fitzrovia, it suddenly dawned on me that I didn’t have to be woken up at least once a night by a fight in the street outside. I didn’t have to walk home at night through a urine-drenched Soho. I didn’t have to fear being attacked by drunken louts if I set off home after chucking out time. And I didn’t have to walk in streets with dirt as a sort of perpetual motion that forced the street cleaners to start again before they’d even finished.

There was a solution: leave.

Now I have the best of all worlds. I go into the centre for what only the amenities of the centre can provide. But instead of fighting a daily losing battle against my surrounding environment, I have discovered that London living can be a pleasant experience. I know the names of the shopkeepers in the parade near me. I have made friends with other coffee-hounds in the local café. Passers-by smile at me and I do not immediately think that it’s a distraction before they mug me.

I’ve recently been scouting out all sorts of areas for when my fiancée and I get married. And my zonal prejudices have melted away. Because it turns out that even in the wilds of Zones 3 and 4 one can live the full, enriched London experience. Call it gentrification, call it yuppification, call it what you will. The phenomenon is nothing new. But it’s been given a new impetus by the ever-growing unpleasantness of living in the middle. Areas which were once the death-knell of vibrant living are now beacons of life and prosperity, each with their own micro-economy of cafes, shops and services, all proof that it is indeed possible to have full access to London life but to live without the aggravation.

When I think how much time I spent in the middle, pretending to myself that I liked the dirt, and that the hassle was all part of the urban lifestyle, I have only one reaction: what an idiot. I should have moved out years ago.

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The following piece of mine appears in today's Times:

So now I know. It’s taken me until this weekend to discover the real reason that I’m two stones heavier than I should be. There I was, thinking it was because for most of my adult life I ate too much and took no exercise.

What a relief to discover — from the Public Health Minister, no less — that it’s not my responsibility. When I stuffed that extra piece of rye bread in my mouth this morning, I wasn’t to blame. The man with whom I need to remonstrate is the chap who sold me the loaf and didn’t point out that if I eat too much of it I’ll get fat. As for the waiter who let me eat two pieces of cheesecake when I went out for my 14th birthday and never once told me to be careful; there’s a 28-year grudge I ought to bear.

According to reports yesterday, Caroline Flint, the aforementioned Minister, has threatened the drinks industry that if it does not agree to put a warning label on every bottle of wine saying “Know your limits”, and then demanding that women should “Avoid alcohol if you are pregnant or trying to conceive”, then she will consider legislating to force them.

We have, of course, been here before. Cigarette packets now contain the message “Smoking kills”. And quite so, just as excessive drinking is dangerous.

But danger is inherent in almost every aspect of human existence. Running out into the middle of the road without looking, talking into a mobile phone in the street, having valuables in view; all can be dangerous if a car suddenly appears, if a mugger is following or if a thief is on the lookout. No one, surely, suggests that we need messages to warn us against such behaviour.

Have you been to the cinema recently? Alongside the glossy multimillion-pound ads for cars, for mobile phones and for all sorts of valuables are glossy multimillion-pound ad campaigns warning us against . . . running out into the middle of the road without looking, talking into a mobile phone in the street, having valuables in view. Ads we pay for as taxpayers, the sole purpose of which is to instruct idiots not to behave like idiots.

Ms Flint is merely carrying on in the same vein. If she really expects drinkers who are unaware of the deleterious consequences of their excessive drinking to pick up a bottle, notice the warning label and see the error of their ways, then she has a touching, albeit deeply misguided, view of idiots and their idiotic behaviour.

To function properly, a society requires its members to be responsible for their actions. For all the apparently frivolous stupidity of this latest proposal, its implications are profound, emanating in a philosophy that holds not only that government knows best but that it can — indeed, must — take responsibility for the behaviour of its citizens.

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We're from the government. We're here to help.

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David T has an interesting post about the notion of giving Nick Griffin a piece in the Guardian. It's thought provoking stuff. My instinctive reaction is to recoil at the idea, but David T makes some persuasive points in support of his argument. I especially like his response to one argument:

So, what is the objection to running a Comment piece by Nick Griffin in the Guardian.

...It cannot be that the Guardian would not publish a piece by a supporter of totalitarian politics, as it regularly hosts pieces by the Communist Party of Britain's Kate Hudson and Andrew Murray. Andrew Murray, you remember, is the man who stressed his Party's "basic position of solidarity with Peoples Korea". I assume that the Communist Party of Britain is still in favour of revolution, followed by the establishing of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

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Daniel, be careful. One of the first lessons I was taught by my old boss, Peter Shore, was that sarcasm and irony don't work in print.

How about a spread bet on the hours before your post is cited on a conspiracy site?

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This is not The Onion. It's all too real:

China treats Internet ‘addicts’ sternly Leaders see ‘a grave social problem’; treatment includes electric shocks

Greg Baker / Associated Press

DAXING, China - Sun Jiting spends his days locked behind metal bars in this military-run installation, put there by his parents. The 17-year-old high school student is not allowed to communicate with friends back home, and his only companions are psychologists, nurses and other patients. Each morning at 6:30, he is jolted awake by a soldier in fatigues shouting, "This is for your own good!"

Sun's offense: Internet addiction.

Alarmed by a survey that found that nearly 14 percent of teens in China are vulnerable to becoming addicted to the Internet, the Chinese government has launched a nationwide campaign to stamp out what the Communist Youth League calls "a grave social problem" that threatens the nation.

Read the rest. Horrific.

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This Notebook of mine appears in today's Times:

One might wonder why a biography first published ten years ago, that tells the story of a Cold War espionage case from the 1940s, is so searingly relevant today. But it is. A British edition of Sam Tanenhaus’s masterful biography of Whittaker Chambers is published next week with a new introduction that shows why the story is still so important.

Chambers was a Communist spy in the US who, realising the true nature of the Soviet Union, became a key witness in the House UnAmerican Activities Committee’s investigation into Communist infiltration. Chambers named a senior State Department official, Alger Hiss, as a member of the Communist Party. Hiss then sued Chambers for libel, forcing him to reveal evidence that Hiss had been a spy and leading to Hiss’s conviction for perjury.

The relevance of the case today lies in what happened afterwards. For decades, Hiss’s innocence became an idée fixe among left-liberals. The notion that Hiss was innocent and the victim of a witch-hunt was almost impossible to shift. Even when the Soviet intelligence archives were opened up and proved that Hiss had indeed been a spy, there were — are — still those who maintained that he was the victim, not the culprit.

The Hiss case is a classic example of the psychology that leads to people holding to an idea so firmly in their mind that, even when it is destroyed by the evidence of reality, they refuse to accept it.

Take those who argue that the threat of Islamist terrorism is somehow exaggerated. The evidence of such terror, and the real threats of the terrorists, are simply ignored as if they did not exist because they do not fit in with the worldview of “US bad, antiUS good”. The denial of the threat posed by an Iranian nuclear bomb is in a similar vein. Existing Iranian terror, and the words of President Ahmadinejad, are simply brushed aside. If the West is always the guilty party then his words and deeds do not fit.

George Santayana famously said: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” The lesson from the Hiss case is that evidence only persuades those who are willing to be persuaded by evidence.

********************

Tomasz Schafernaker, a BBC weatherman, has had to apologise after referring, in a broadcast, to the Western Isles as “Nowheresville”. For goodness’ sake, it is Nowheresville. Its population (22,000) is a third smaller than an average gate at Bramall Lane. It is at the far end of the country. Why should its residents be offended by a perfectly accurate description?

**********************

I got engaged a fortnight ago. Everything my married friends told me about being engaged has proved accurate. But no one told me the most immediate impact: almost every day has involved at least one celebratory meal or drink and it is impossible not to put on weight.

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The following piece of mine appears in today's Times:

I’m mad as hell and I'm not gonna take it anymore. If I hear another person refer to me as a “ Times contributor”, I am going to explode with anger. When Matthew Parris writes, he does not write for me. When Alice Miles writes, she does not write for me. I am Stephen Pollard. No one else speaks for me.

The last straw was walking into a restaurant and being greeted as Mr Finkelstein. So what if we are both fortysomething ginger-haired Jews who write for The Times? Do I not have an identity of my own?

They get the chance to write every week. I have to make do with occasional appearances. I call that crude censorship, just because I hold different views. Surely I should be given the chance to write whenever they do, so that I can make clear to you, dear reader, that we do not all have the same opinions. But the powers that be at The Times won’t let me. They are, clearly, waging a campaign to silence me, by only allowing me to write every other week.

It seems I’m not the only one who is censored in this way. According to a new organisation, Independent Jewish Voices (IJV), those Jews who disagree with the policies of the Israeli Government are silenced by the rest of the Jewish community. As Brian Klug, one of the founders of IJV, writes: “Individual dissenting voices get lost or drowned out when weighty bodies (like the Board of Deputies or the Chief Rabbi) appear to speak on behalf of all Jews in Britain. It is the combination of these two factors that closes down a debate that should be open.”

Looking at the signatories to IJV’s founding statement, one can see what he means about voices being drowned out. There’s a bloke called Harold Pinter. No idea who he is or what he thinks about anything. There’s another one called Stephen Fry. Who is he? He seems to be wholly absent from the TV and newspapers. And there’s a Professor called Eric Hobsbawm. Some kind of historian, apparently. Never heard of him. Never read a word of his in the newspapers.

Anyway, Googling the Pinter chap, it turns out that he’s a playwright. Some of his plays have titles such as Old Times and The Homecoming, so he appears to be some kind of nostalgic Tory.

Forgive me for labouring the point, but really! There has never been a shortage of preposterous arguments emanating from intelligent minds, but few match the idea that Jewish opponents of the Israeli Government are somehow denied access to the media to put their point across.

IJV are far from the only people whose viewpoint somehow manages both to dominate the media but who also complain that their voices are squeezed out of it. Pinter barely has to think an anti Western thought and it’s splashed across every newspaper. Indeed, I do not recall a shortage of coverage when he wished it to be known that he was joining the International Committee to Defend Slobodan Milosevic. Should there be other genocidal butchers he wishes to defend, I have no doubt it will be duly, and prominently, reported.

IJV’s complaint is simply a variation on the recurring theme of those whose shtick is that they are somehow brave dissenters against an overwhelming consensus. Whenever one reads the words “political correctness” it’s now more often than not in the context of a lamentation that it is impossible to stand up to the growing dominance of political correctness. That such a complaint is made in a weekly 1,000 word column in the national press usually escapes the notice of the writer. I think the correct term is “unintentional irony”.

In The Wicked Son, David Mamet’s new book on anti-Semitism, he describes a version of this trick as the Hot Hen’s Kiss – when proof is manufactured to buttress a belief that flies in the face of objective reality. Take the supposed evidence of those who claim that Shakespeare did not write “his” plays. He had little formal education, little exposure to the court and had not travelled. So he could not have written with the breadth and scope that the plays necessitate. To prove this, they cite a secret code devised by Francis Bacon, which is comprised of As and Bs. Examining Shakespeare’s works, they claim to find a similar code, which reveals the hidden word SASSOHHKINTE – an anagram for SHAKS IS NOT HE. Bingo!

The same letters, however, also read A HOT HEN’S KISS – proving nothing other than the willingness of those who wish to prove a point to distort objective reality to further their cause.

Those whose views dominate the media – that Israel is a criminal state, that Western foreign policy is the cause of terrorism, you know the sort of thing – but then complain their voices are never heard are classic Hot Hen Kissers. Their version of the “Shakespeare didn’t write his plays” trope is “we are silenced”. And their equivalent of the “evidence” of the Francis Bacon code is to point out the number of pieces written by those who take a different view from them. Neither proves anything.

Far from being silenced, the likes of IJV get, if anything, a disproportionate amount of space – just as do those such as Harold Pinter who believe that Slobodan Milosevic was a peace-loving leader concerned only with the material betterment of his people, rather than a genocidal butcher.

The truth, as any successful editor will tell, is that diversity sells. Yes, people like to have their prejudices confirmed. But they also like to be challenged, and to have a different take on the usual roster of subjects. Dull conformity is, well . . . dull.

Stephen Pollard is chairman of the European Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism, a new think-tank that will be launched soon

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Quote of the day, from an International Herald Tribune piece on the rise of Viagra in Spain:

"Now, she added, "I have sex six times a day, but I do miss going to the opera."

At last, someone has put in words what I have long felt: I hate Macs:

I hate Macs. I have always hated Macs. I hate people who use Macs. I even hate people who don't use Macs but sometimes wish they did. Macs are glorified Fisher-Price activity centres for adults; computers for scaredy cats too nervous to learn how proper computers work; computers for people who earnestly believe in feng shui.

UPDATE: Lord above. When one links to a jolly piece and endorses it, a reasonable assumption might be that one shares its jolly sentiments. I don't hate Macs in the sense that I hate antisemites or racists. I don't actually care that much.

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Well that's my March ruined:

Channel 4 has postponed transmission of its "wank week" programming in a bid to avoid further controversy in the aftermath of the Celebrity Big Brother racism row. The network's short season of three late night documentaries about masturbation was to have been broadcast next month, but has now been taken out of the schedule.

Looks like I'll have to find another way of entertaining myself.

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My day has been something like this.

The latest thing has been putting £40 cash on my Oystercard last night, getting on a bus this morning and having it record that I have only 90 pence on it. And when I then go back to the station where I put the money on, being told that it is not possible that I added £40 as the system cannot fail. In other words, I am a liar.

It's only the second time I have used cash to top it up. Usually I use a credit card online, but I couldn't log in when I tried last night. Why do I never use cash? Because the last time I did, some 18 months ago, I stuck a fiver in, the machine said it was recorded and...when I went to use it, it had no record of the fiver.

Have other Londoners had a similar experience using cash to top up their Oyster?

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This piece of mine appears in today's Times:

When it comes to self-advancement, there is no interest group that comes close to the British Medical Association. When trade union officials speak, we know what they are up to. They are trying to increase their influence and power. And we judge the sense of what they say accordingly.

The BMA is, except in one crucial respect, no different. It is like any other trade union, with the same overriding motivation: to increase its influence and power. The crucial difference, however, is that when the prefix “Doctor” is attached to a name, we lose our critical faculties. We assume that anything emanating from the BMA is disinterested and motivated only by the desire to increase the sum of human good.

Often, this is obfuscated by our lack of medical knowledge. We have to take on trust the recommendations of experts. But just occasionally, the transfer of money into doctors’ hands — which the BMA exists to pursue — is made blatant.

There is no clearer example of this than the report it issued on Tuesday. Problem gambling, it said, should be treated on the NHS like any other “illness”.

You can safely ignore the bulk of the report, designed to put the fear of God into us about gambling and the horrific prospect — in the BMA’s eyes — of the Gambling Act giving human beings the ability to decide for themselves how to spend their own money.

The real purpose of the report was revealed in the words of Vivienne Nathanson, the BMA’s head of science and ethics: “The BMA is concerned that there are insufficient treatment facilities available.”

So £10 million should be spent through the NHS, and another £10 million on campaigns against gambling. To translate: hand over your money to us now.

The BMA is only able to make this demand with a straight face because we have been hoodwinked into the idea that it our duty to make good other people’s character flaws.

I gamble. At least once a week, I log in to one of the 15 bookmakers sites with which I have an account and place a sum varying from £5 to £50 on the horses. I have no idea if I am an addict. I know only that I have enjoyed it since — horror! — childhood, and it does me no harm at all.

Maybe one day I will go crazy and put £5,000 on a horse. Maybe I’ll put £50,000 on and lose. Maybe I’ll bet another £50,000 to recoup my losses, take out a second mortgage and lose again. Maybe I’ll lose everything. And — there’s no maybe about this — it’ll be no one else’s fault, and no one else’s duty to help me but my own.

Life is full of choices about how to behave and, as Anna Karenina learnt, actions have consequences. If you can’t gamble safely, don’t. Or suffer the effects. It’s that simple.

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I'm back from a week in the US. And what a week to be there. The week when, of course, David Beckham signed for LA Galaxy.

You think I'm joking? I was astonished by the level of coverage in a country where 'soccer' is a minority pursuit. Not only was it splashed across the front page of the New York Times, it was high up on the network TV bulletins, the local TV stations (this in New York!) and the breakfast shows.

There could be no further proof that Beckham is no longer a footballer, but is a free-standing brand.

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This Notebook of mine appears in today's Times:

How ignorant are you? Not how stupid; that’s something very different. I doubt that you’re stupid, since you have the discernment to read The Times. But you are definitely ignorant.

We are all ignorant. Even Oliver Kamm, my colleague on these pages, who appears to be able to recall with total accuracy the contents of every book ever published, has his blind spots. You will wait forever for a column by him on the influence of Rinus Michels’s Dutch “total football”.

Ignorance is not always something to be ashamed of. I am, for instance, almost wholly ignorant of any pop music composed since the 1970s. I am not proud of this; but I am certainly not ashamed, since it makes no difference whatsoever to my life.

There are, however, some aspects of my ignorance of which I am deeply ashamed: science, for instance, is a closed book. The older I get, the more I realise the necessity of a grounding in science for even a basic understanding of the world. And the more I regret not having paid attention at school and having, as an accurate biology report, D for quality, E for effort, “simply not interested”.

But it’s quite another thing to revel in ignorance. Jade Goody, a former Big Brother contestant, has made a multimillion-pound fortune as a result of her one recognisable characteristic — ignorance. Ms Goody established her credentials by asking: “Where is East Angular, is it abroad?” Yes, her fans were laughing at, not with, her. But Ms Goody has had the last laugh. She is back, this time as a millionaire, in the latest series of Celebrity Big Brother.

She has competition now, however. In the words of one newspaper, she is “set to clash in a battle of the bimbos” with glamour model Danielle Lloyd. Asked if Winston Churchill was a rapper, a US president, a prime minister or a king, Ms Lloyd replied: “Wasn’t he the first black president of America? There’s a statue of him near me — that’s black.”

But not everything Ms Goody says should be laughed at. She is capable, albeit unintentionally, of profound utterances. Last week, she said: “I’m the 25th most influ-inflin-inf-influential person in the world. I don’t even know what the word means.”

I stopped laughing at Ms Goody when I realised that, in a society in which Ms Goody is a millionaire icon, she is frighteningly right.

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Talking of ignorance, where would we be without Guardian columnists? My old boss, Peter Shore, the late Labour Cabinet minister, used to read the Daily Express every morning just to get angry. I prefer The Guardian. Yesterday Zoe Williams informed us that “there is no precedent for a country to be diamond (or petroleum) rich and not spend the rest of its history bogged down in civil and/or external war.” I suppose that she has never heard of those two obscure countries, the US and the UK.

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This site - www.katemiddletonfans.com - is simply beyond wonderful:

Kate Middleton, born with her real name Catherine Middleton, is the current girlfriend of the prestigious Prince William of Wales. She was born and raised in the small town of Buckleberry in the county of Berkshire in the southern area of the country of England. Her father is Michael Middleton who is a business man in England. Along with her mother Carole, both parents own the company “Party Pieces” which as the name suggests, sell party supplies. She also has a younger sister named Pippa and a brother named James.

As for her education, she attended Marlborough College which is a public British boarding school nearby Berkshire County in the county of Wiltshire. She was a very good student in college. She got eleven General Certificate of Secondary Education! These certificates certify various courses a student has passed very strenuous tests in. Not only did she do that, but of these eleven certificates, three of them were at the A level.

In 2001, she was a student at the University of St. Andrews in the Fife, Scotland. It was here at St. Andrews where she met her sweetheart Prince William of Wales. At first they were just friends. Then in 2003, she broke up with her then boyfriend and befriended William. They have been a couple ever since. They were seen as a couple for the first time on a ski trip to Switzerland. Although she was originally a small time girl, she knows, because of her relationship with William she has had a lot of attention from the media. She aspires to one day make a clothing company and design the clothing herself.

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Do read this Richard Cohen column about Monica Lewinsky, which is indeed thoughtful and humane, as Daniel Finkelstein puts it.

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How's this for some public sector 'sod the public' attitude:

I have a couple of tickets for Peter Grimes at Sadler's Wells tonight. It turns out that I am now unable to go. The performance is long since sold out and there is certain to be a queue for returns. So I rang the box office to ask if they would accept them as that. Yes, providing you bring them to us. Well, I said, that's why I can't come - I am physically unable to get to Sadler's Wells theatre today or tonight.

No, I was told, we need them back. 'Sometimes we accept faxes, I'll check with my manager.' She did. He said no, for whatever arbitrary reason.

I don't even care about the money, I said. It just seems stupid that a performance which has had rave reviews when it premiered, which is sold out, and which will have lots of people disappointed in the returns queue, will have at least two empty seats. You can have them back for free, and make twice the money on the seats.

'No, I've told you our policy', she said. Except of course that it isn't, since 30 seconds before she had told me they sometimes accept a fax in lieu of physically taking the tickets back.

In itself it's a minor story. I will lose my money and, more importantly, two people who have queued for returns will miss the chance to see a wonderful performance of a great opera. But it says so much about the 'sod the public' attitide of the so-called public sector.

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Just heard a spokesman for First Direct say they are going to charge some customers because they want them "to deepen their relationship with us".

I love corporate speak.

Mind you, I don't get the fuss. First Direct is a business. Anyone who banks with First Direct is free to leave them if they don't like their terms. And do you know what? Forget all the worries about changing banks being an enormous hassle. It's so easy. I used to be with First Direct. They were so astonishingly incompetent that I did just what I've suggested above other people should do if they don't like their new terms. I left. It was a doddle. My new bank handled everything, and did it flawlessly.

So if you don't like being charged by First Direct, either keep your balance over £1500, or leave.

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In the great scheme of things, this ranks somewhere close to bottom, but...

Sometimes you read a piece and you wonder why the writer couldn't even be bothered to do a Google search. This Guardian piece is based on David Walliams (of the dreadfully unfunny Little Britain fame) taking a role in a new Stephen Poliakoff film. And its premise is entirely, 100 per cent, wrong. "David Walliams is to take his first serious dramatic role in a film by Stephen Poliakoff". From that observation the writer goes on to warn of previous comedians who have had the urge to go straight.

Except for just one thing. It's not Walliams' first straight role. In fact, it's entirely the wrong way round. Walliams is a straight actor who has gone into comedy (well, he previously did both).

As I say, in the scheme of errors by the Guardian it's entirely trivial. But oh so typical in being based on an entirely false premise.

This is good. But I have an even better name story.

One of my best friends was once referred to the leading specialist in his (medical) field. His name was Dr Klingon. He was, my friend tells me, astoundingly ugly.

That alone would be amusing. What lifts it into the realms of the too-good-to-be-true - but nonetheless completely true - is that he was not just a Klingon but the Klingon. Dr Klingon, you see, had been a classmate of Gene Roddenberry. The Star Trek creator disliked him intensely, and when it came to naming the Federation's loathsome enemy, he knew exactly where to turn.

So my friend has been treated by both a real and a fictional Klingon.

Never let it be said that I don't give you the information which really matters.

Here's a good sign of the times. I was standing by the lifts in John Lewis this afternoon, and there was an elderly couple in front of me. They were guessing which lift would come first, and the husband said: "Eeny, meeny, miny, moe, catch a nigger by his toe. If he hollers let him go, eeny, meeny, miny, moe" and pointed to the centre lift.

There must have been half a dozen of us there. We all looked at each in breathtaken horror, and then at the chap who had said it. He looked utterly baffled as to why people were looking at him with such disgust.

A woman said to him: "Don't you know that's incredibly offensive?".

"I beg your pardon", he replied with anger, not humility. "Mind your own business".

"It is my business. It's the business of everyone here. Every one here is disgusted. If you are going to go around using words like nigger, you can expect people to take you up on it".

To which he replied "Bugger off", and walked away with his wife.

I repeat the story simply because, for all the gloomy news about racial tensions and race relations, an ordinary, random group of people (who were, I should add, all white) now find the use of the word nigger disgusting. It may not signal much, but it is progress of a kind.

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Gordon Brown says that carbon trading could lead to 100,000 new jobs. Don't you just hate those entirely spurious figures that get bandied about? Why not 98,000? Why not 102,000? Truth is it's a guess, and no more than that. He might as well have said 100,876 new jobs, for all the idea he or anyone can have.

One has to hope - I say this not yet having seen the Stern report - that the basis of the rest of this morning's figures isn't equally spurious.

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I think this has to be close to the top of the list of most boring news stories ever published:

TV star taken ill

Trinny Woodall, the TV presenter, has been told to rest after being taken ill. Woodall, 41, was flying back to Britain from a promotional trip to New York with screen partner Susannah Constantine when she complained of dizziness and nausea. Woodall had suffered from bronchitis before the trip, a spokeswoman said.

Yes, that's the sum of it. D-list TV person has bronchitis.

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I would say this is beyond belief, were it not entirely believable.

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This piece of mine appears in today's Daily Mail:

When Ted Rogers offered a booby prize to contestants on his Saturday night game show, 3-2-1, I’m sure he didn’t think that in a few years time the Dusty Bin – which losers took home with them – would mark another stage in the encroachment into privacy and freedom in Great Britain.

But yesterday it was revealed that some 500,000 wheelie bins across the country have been fitted with electronic ‘spy bugs’. The gadgets – which have mainly been installed in secret, and with no consultation – record information about the contents of each bin, and the waste habits of individual addresses. The devices have a unique serial number which can be scanned when the bin is tipped into a refuse lorry. That information is then transmitted to a central database.

The plan is that within two or three years this technology will be used across the country.

The official explanation is that such information will boost ‘efficiency’. Preposterously, one explanation given for its implementation is that it will settle disputes between neighbours about the ownership of wheelie bins – hardly, one would think, an issue of such scale that it necessitates such a major erosion of individual privacy.

The reality, however, is very different. Yesterday, the Institute for Public Policy Research - a think tank which provides many of the ideas adopted by the Labour government – proposed that rubbish collection should move to a "pay as you throw" system. According to the IPPR’s Director, Nick Pearce, "The government should give local authorities powers to charge for collecting non-recyclable waste”.

It does not take a psychic to realise what is happening here. Whenever the justification of ‘efficiency’ is used in justifying a policy, make no mistake that there is always a hidden agenda. To government, all individual behaviour is a hindrance to the smooth running of bureaucracy. Things would run far more ‘efficiently’ if we acted precisely as we were instructed by officials who know best.

In this case, it is obvious what is going on. The government is preparing to take refuse collection outside of the normal council tax and to impose extra charges – a new rubbish tax.

But in some ways that is the least of it. When one looks across the whole range of government activity, a pattern is clearly emerging. Our privacy – and thus, inevitably, our freedom – is increasingly under attack.

Take driving. Britain has become the first country on the planet which is to record the movement of every car on the road. Even North Korea does not hold such records. Using a national network of cameras, a huge database is to be built up to enable to the police and security services to trace the journeys of every car – and, of course, every person who drives. Held on a central database alongside the Police National Computer in Hendon, north London, the computer will hold details of 35 million daily number-plate "reads".

Add that o the existing behaviour of the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency and the worrying potential becomes clear. We already know that the DVLA sells the names and home addresses of motorists on its drivers' database to all sorts of people – including, as was revealed last year, to convicted criminals.

The justification given for the number-plate database is – of course - that it will aid ‘efficiency’ in the fight against terror and other crime. No-one wants to jeopardise that. But those who have lived under the tyranny of totalitarian regimes will recognise the usual words, and the usual justifications. All encroachments on privacy and freedom are justified on the grounds that they are part of a fight against crime.

Taken together, the information which government agencies already hold on us amounts to the most detailed and personal records of our behaviour ever maintained. Our innocence or guilt has nothing to do with it. Our lives are now recorded, with ever increasing detail, by government agencies. And the scope and scale of such records are growing.

The monster of all such databases will be the National Identity Register, set up under the Identity Cards Act which was passed earlier this year, to enable the introduction of ID cards.

There is already almost no part of lives which is not part of a government database – even supposedly private consultations. The computerisation of the NHS may, so far, have been a chaotic – and hugely expensive - farce, but when it finally comes together then our medical records will be maintained online. And in October 2004, the then Home Office minister, Hazel Blears, said that there would be a biometric scanner in every doctor's surgery.

That is not all. Last week, a small pilot database scheme in Manchester was hailed as a terrific success. The UK Biobank project is intended to be a DNA database which includes health information and all sorts of lifestyle factors. It has been welcomed as a tool for helping to find cures for killer illnesses such as heart disease, diabetes and cancer. Pooling all relevant information was, we were told, far more ‘efficient’ – that tell-tale word again.

But there is a more worrying way of looking at it. There is already another national DNA database: the Police National DNA Database. That one contains DNA fingerprints and human tissue samples not merely of convicted criminals, but also of innocent people - and even of innocent children.

On their own, almost all of these databases appear to have a justification in terms of ‘efficiency’. The worry, however, is when the information which they contain is combined – an awesomely frightening prospect of the state’s power and knowledge of every part of our lives.

The government argues that this sort of fear is nonsense. Legislation, it says, stops this sort of cross-fertilisation of information.

But anyone who has faith in such self-denying powers must have a very naïve view of the state. Take such apparently benign databases as the UK Biobank. Can anyone seriously believe that, in time, its operators will not start to suggest that it makes sense for them to have access to the National Indentity Register, or even the Police National DNA Database – so that they can do their job, as they will put it, more ‘efficiently’?

And, even if it is not done legally, there is simply no such thing as a totally secure database. When I was researching my biography of the former Home Secretary, David Blunkett, a very senior member of the security services told me that there was some critical security information about ensuring Home Secretaries’ and Prime Ministers’ safety which was not put on computer anywhere. The information needed to be as near 100 per cent secure as possible, and in the last resort all information on a computer was vulnerable.

Each time we allow the state to keep a further record of our movements, our habits, or our health, we get nearer to the day when, one day, we will wake up and realise that the state is no longer our servant. Instead, it will be our master. And, knowing everything there is to know about us, there will be no escape.

This piece of mine appears in today's Daily Telegraph:

There is a useful rule of thumb in life that has yet to let me down: almost anything suggested by a management academic is best consigned to the bin.

It's a good job the rule is so reliable, because otherwise I would have been admitted to the Priory Clinic long ago. Gayle Porter, a professor of management at Rutgers University business school in the US, says use of a BlackBerry can be as "damaging to the mental health of the worker" as "chemical or substance addictions".

Employees, she argues, will soon be able to sue their bosses for causing them to become dependent on their BlackBerry - a gadget nicknamed the "crackberry" because it is so addictive - by making them stay in touch with the office.

I have a rather straightforward view of technology: if it makes my life easier, I use it. That's why I'm typing this on a laptop keyboard, rather than scratching at parchment with a quill.

And that's how I see my BlackBerry. In the dark days before this miracle of technology - mobile phone, e-mail and internet all in one - was invented, I was indeed something of an addict. If I was in an office, I was a man possessed. I could barely walk past someone else's computer without asking them if I could quickly check my e-mail. Now I am calmness personified. I can go for a walk or indulge in a matinee, safe in the knowledge that should work beckon, I can respond immediately via my BlackBerry. I am always contactable. And all the more relaxed.

Rarely have I read a more wrong-headed sentence than Prof Porter's: "The fast and relentless pace of technology-enhanced work environments creates a source of stimulation that may become addictive." No! To have a Blackberry about one's person is to be tranquil, serene, unflustered. That, perhaps, is the difference between management academics and people who manage their work in the real world.

Far from being stressed by my BlackBerry, the problems start only when I don't have it on me. Last year I went away for three weeks with my then girlfriend. At the outset, she made clear her prime rule: my BlackBerry was to remain at home. By her reasoning, the point of a holiday is to relax, and since my BlackBerry was my main tool connecting me with work, it was inimical to that purpose.

This, of course, is the same fundamental mistake made by Prof Porter. When I am parted from my BlackBerry, I twitch. I fret. All I can think about is what I might be missing; what disaster I will discover when I am finally reunited with it. And that is how I react when I am without it for a few hours. For three weeks? That's what I call stress. So we compromised. I could bring it with me, but not turn it on.

Any of the 5.5 million BlackBerry users would know, of course, that having an unconnected BlackBerry would have been even more traumatic than not having one at all. So I cheated. First thing in the morning, I would sneak into the bathroom and press the "on" button. And every morning I was reassured. The result? A relaxed me, an unsuspecting girlfriend, a holiday success. I may be a BlackBerry addict, but it's a habit I've got under control.

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I loved this delicious story:

A 21-year-old US man ended up in hospital after spending two hours trapped in a vat of chocolate, police in Wisconsin said on Friday.

The man said he had climbed into the tank before becoming trapped waist-deep in chocolate, police chief Randy Berner told AP news agency.

However, other reports suggest he was stirring the chocolate when he fell in.

Rescue workers and staff at the Debelis Corporation used cocoa-butter to thin out the chocolate and pull him free.

"It was pretty thick. It was virtually like quicksand," Captain Berner said.

"It's the first time I've ever heard of anything like this," he added.

The worker said his ankles were sore after the incident, and he was taken to a local hospital where he is recovering.

The accident involved dark chocolate.

Nowhere does it answer the one question I want answered: why? The man said he had climbed into the tank before becoming trapped waist-deep in chocolate... OK. But why did he climb in? And did no one watching think it, ahem, odd?

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And this is truly inspired:

July 17, 2006 -- Hans Peter Niesward, from the Department of Gravitationsphysik at the ISA in Munich, says we can stop global warming in one fell swoop — or, more accurately, in one big jump.

The slightly disheveled professor states his case on WorldJumpDay.org, an Internet site created to recruit 600,000,000 people to jump simultaneously on July 20 at 11:39:13 GMT in an effort to shift Earth's position.

Niesward claims that on this day "Earth occupies one of the most fragile positions in its orbits for the last 100 years." According to the site, the shift in orbit will "stop global warming, extend daytime hours and create a more homogeneous climate."

The Man Who Wasn't There

Niesward's theory has at least one major flaw: Niesward doesn't really exist. He is a character created by Torsten Lauschmann, a German-born artist living in Scotland. Lauschmann — a live performer, filmmaker, DJ and photographer — may be best known for his work "Misshapen Pearl," described as a "phenomenological investigation of the streetlamp's function in our consumer society."

A friend's just emailed me this, from Holy Moly:

My friend lives two doors down from Patricia Hewitt. On Saturday night, my friend had a little party that involved a jar of liquid LSD, a lot of tree-climbing in the back garden and raucous laughter.

Eventually, at 8am, after hours of hilarity in the garden, Mrs Hewitt threw open her bedroom window and bawled, `I think, we've been very patient, we haven't phoned the council yet. Now can you please all fucking shut up?'

She's gone up quite a few hundred percent in my estimation.

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Sorry for the sporadic posting. Too much work, too little time! Things should be a bit easier for the next few weeks.

In line with my statement on the left, that this blog is for all the things which need to be said, I point you to Euan Ferguson in this week's Observer:

Worst, of course, of all: horrid three-quarter length horrid khaki horrid shorts designed (presumably) to be worn by men who can't be bothered to carry around all the time a big placard saying 'Don't touch me because I have nasty twig-legs and no sense whatsoever of style or decorum or courtesy or humour and will bore you for hours about my caring feminist side while sliding surreptitious glances at your nice brown tummy and all the time pretending to be clever despite that being patent nonsense because I am wearing these giveaway horrid twig-leg shorts.'

Hear, hear. Such things (it is an insult to all that is decent in this world to refer to them as trousers) are truly horrendous. On women, they can look incredibly sexy. On men, they are shorthand for: I am a prat.

I have a number of golden rules, such as never trust a man with a beard. Never give the time of day to a man in three-quarter length shorts is right at the top of the list.

PS Apologies for the comments being overrun with spam. I can't cope with deleting them all - there were over 50 left yesterday alone.

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Today's bank holiday is the most honest day of the year. It is not a pretend religious holiday, such as Easter. It is not a supposedly political holiday, such as May Day. It is simply what it is: a day off work. The truth is that national holidays are now fundamentally dishonest. Only a minority of the population regards Christmas as anything other than a gorge-fest. An even smaller number treats Easter as something beyond a four-day break.

I write this in New York, where today is Memorial Day, ostensibly the day when the nation pays its respects to soldiers who have given their lives to defend the freedoms embodied in the US. There could be no worthier cause for such a commemoration.

In most respects the US has a far greater sense of the respect owed to the fallen than do we. Our Remembrance Day is patchily observed and, other than in formal ceremonies, only by the generation old enough to have direct memory of the Second World War. There has been a modest resurgence of the two-minute silence, but stand on any street at 11am and the modesty of that resurgence will be all too apparent.

Even in the US, where veterans carry political weight and patriotism is regarded not with shame but pride, Memorial Day is now little more than another holiday. It is more widely recognised as the semi-official start of summer than as the day of remembrance for the fallen. Even more, it is the start of the summer sales.

It might be that there are few more appropriate ways to celebrate the sacrifices made in defence of our freedom than exercising that very freedom through shopping. But I would be surprised if that was the motivation behind the scrums at Bloomingdales this weekend.

Just as the occurrence of national holidays on days of Christian religious significance is now little more than tradition, so even secular commemorations are merely excuses, rather than reasons, for holidays. We do such occasions a disservice by pretending that they matter to us as anything more than days off work. We should give up the pretence, take holidays for their own sake, and restore some dignity to the nominal purpose of existing national holidays.

Instead of paying them little more than lip service, we should leave it to individuals, families and communities to celebrate them as they see fit — holiday or not.

UPDATE: Yes, I know. Bad phraseology on my part. I should have written that no one even bothers pretending that today's Whitsun holiday is anything other than a day off work.

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(via Harry's Place.)

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If