Here’s an almost unbelievable story in Wired about corporate stupidity at National Public Radio in the US. It seems NPR wants webmasters to apply for permission before linking to NPR’s website. Having not applied, I shouldn’t put a hyperlink on this page, but I can still cite the address:

So, just type that into your web browser and you’ll get there anyway. What a stupid policy!

BBC2 recently started broadcasting the American television drama “24” staring Kiefer Sutherland. The central idea of this timely thriller is that each hour-long episode portrays one hour in the same day. So the twenty four programmes will form a full day-in-the-life of the characters. Viewers are regularly reminded of this conceit by the appearance of a digital clock displaying the current time in this virtual 24-hour day. In another 22 weeks (5

So, the women’s curling team from Great Britain has won the gold medal at the Winter Olympics. That doesn’t surprise me as much as does the media coverage of the event. BBC Radio was incredibly apologetic about the sport, introducing several reports by stating something to the effect that “Although it may be unglamorous and dull…” and one sports reporter who was uncertain how to describe playing the game even asked the ubiquitous expert “How do you say it? Do you curl?”.

On the one hand, the Canadian in me doesn’t understand what all the fuss is about. Curling is a winter sport like any other, except that millions of ordinary mortals play it recreationally every year. Someone has to win the gold medal. Why not the British?

But it seems that despite winning the gold medal, the British (or more correctly the English) know nothing about curling. The women’s team are all Scots, and it turns out that whereas 20,000 people play curling in Scotland, only 300 play it in England and they all play it at England’s one and only rink somewhere near Chester!

The coverage on the web hasn’t been as bad (for an example see Conversion of the curling kind), but I imagine the Scots must be getting ready to break away from this not-so-United Kingdom.