Clearly, a public who have given £300m to help this disaster have been deeply affected by it, and overcome with the urge to aid their fellow human beings. This is one of those extraordinary events which demonstrates that true humanity and care still exists in this country, no matter what the media might have us believe.

They claim that Skype is free Internet telephony that just works. It is, and it does. I’ve just downloaded it to try calling phone lines, and the quality is just as it would be over a normal phone. And, even more surprisingly, it really does just work. No messing with sound settings, it just works.

The only problem with it at the moment is that it’s not widespread enough, so there’s no-one for me to call via internet telephony. But it could be very useful if people I knew did download it, as we’d be able to call each other for nothing. Extremely highly recommended.

Which of Abbey’s new looks do you prefer? I can certainly see why, in this modern age, someone would rebrand from the first to the second, but why would anyone in the right mind go from the second to the first?

The first logo looks staid, old-fashioned, and boring – very samey. The second looks funky, fresh, and something a bit different. Why, oh why, rebrand when you’ve just spent eighteen months making your brand a success, and turning around your failing business?

I don’t get it!

Choose your favourite breakfast, and download it as a wallpaper. And intriguing idea, but sadly useless to me as there isn’t a Honey Loops with Semi-skimmed milk option.

This is the kind of area in which Labour shine. If only they had Gordon Brown at the helm, they could easily storm the next general election, where the latest FT Poll put them at a two-figure majority – very good in most circumstances, but a big drop for Mr Blair. The Conservatives are doing some serious catch-up work – only a two point difference now – which is obviously good for my wish of a close-run thing, with no party having a very large majority.

At only a few weeks of age, a kitten’s bones have not yet hardened and become osseous. They are extremely soft and springy. In fact, if you take a week-old kitten and throw it to the floor, it will actually bounce! We do not recommend that you try this at home. The kitten may bounce under the furniture and be difficult to retrieve, as well as covered in unsightly household dust.

I came across bonsaikitten.com after a friend emailed me a petition against it. It’s an absolutely hilarious little site, and the fact that 443 people had signed the aforementioned petition worries me greatly. In case you don’t appreciate the humour, it is a joke, and no kittens were harmed in the making of it. So just enjoy it.

A woman who has attempted suicide four times has been banned from jumping into rivers, canals or onto railway lines.

Doesn’t a woman who’s tried to commit suicide four times need some psychological help – not an ABSO? And I don’t suppose that legally preventing her form jumping in rivers will stop her trying to kill herself, since I don’t expect that she think’s she’ll survive to be prosecuted.

This would appear to be good news, though it’s noticeable that the North-East still has a much higher rate than the rest of the country:

These rates are clearly still high, but at least they’re moving in the right direction. Clearly, someone’s forgotten to point that out to the Daily Mail, who are reporting that

The number of teenage girls getting pregnant has risen, new statistics show.

The difference is that the Times take the logical approach of reporting the pregnancy rate, whereas The Daily Mail choose to report using the raw figures, which it is clearly absurd to compare year-on-year. But they have done. So either they’re bottom of the maths class, or they just want to scaremonger. You decide.

More controversial is the bit tagged on to the Times article:

Abortions are at an all-time high, reaching 18.6 per 1,000 women in March last year. The number aged 30-34 having abortions doubled between 1976 and 2003, to 14,600. The total number of all ages having abortions in 2003 was 190,700.

I don’t have a problem with this, but I’m fairly sure someone will have. And to think, the Daily Mail wouldn’t have needed to fiddle the figures if it had just gotten its knickers in a twist about this.

The Pope has had a tracheostomy, which suggests his condition is rather more serious than I had previously anticipated. Given his already weak condition, and the severely detrimental effect this will have on his ability to talk properly, can he really continue as Pontiff? If, of course, he recovers and survives, which is now looking less likely than it did a few weeks ago.

This may have been reported as ‘minor’ surgery, but it’s worth noting that it has a 5% risk of death and will leave the Pope with permanent speech difficulties (to add to the considerable difficulty he already has), so it’s being rather more downplayed than is the reality. The fact that he’s had one at all suggests that he’s in a bad way, and the next few days will most likely be fairly touch-and-go.

As something of a side-note: Why the media are insisting on reporting the operation using the relatively uncommon spelling tracheotomy as opposed to the widely used term tracheostomy (they mean exactly the same thing, but the latter is easier to say), I’m not entirely sure. But given that the term is somewhat widespread, I guess it’s something to do with the original press release. But you really think one of the outlet’s science correspondents would have commented by now.

Transcripts of evidence given in private by the attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, to an official inquiry suggest that the crucial advice on the legality of war, presented to parliament in his name, was written for him by two of Tony Blair’s closest allies.

The document, seen by the Guardian, reveals the attorney general’s private exchanges with Lord Butler during the course of his inquiry into the use of intelligence in the run-up to war against Iraq.
In them, the attorney general suggests his parliamentary statement giving legal backing to Britain’s participation in the invasion was “set out” by Charles Falconer, then Home Office minister, and Baroness Morgan, the prime minister’s director of political-government relations.

In apparent contradiction to his Butler evidence, the attorney general yesterday sought to deny that 10 Downing Street had any influence over his decisive statement.

“It is nonsense to suggest that No 10 wrote the statement,” he said.

So was he lying under oath or to the public? And doesn’t either mean that he should resign?

Shouldn’t Blair apologise for interfering where no politican should? And do we really want to re-elect somebody who encourages and partakes in this sort of behaviour?