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Home Office minister Damian Green has announced that the power to detain terror suspects for 28 days without charge will be allowed to lapse next week, reverting to 14 days.
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The 2010 Games were plagued by claims of shoddy construction and dubious payments to contractors An Australian firm has threatened to sue the Delhi Commonwealth Games organising committee for non-payment of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The company said it had not been paid for the opening and closing ceremonies, which were held on 3 and 14 October.
Indian Foreign Minister SM Krishna, who is visiting Australia, has pledged to take up the issue when he returns home.
Firms from Europe are also reportedly chasing millions of dollars in unpaid bills from Delhi.
Ric Birch – whose Sydney-based firm, Spectak, helped plan the opening and closing ceremonies – says it is owed A$350,000 ($350,000; £220,000) in unpaid bills.
He told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that he had instructed lawyers to launch a class action against the Games organisers. And he said that his was not the only firm chasing unpaid bills from Delhi.
“There were up to 15 other companies involved with the opening ceremony and many more companies involved with the Commonwealth Games overall.
“It has been brought to my notice and I would go back to India and take it up with the ministry of sports”
SM Krishna Foreign Minister
“None of the companies have received their payments, which were due under contract by the end of October.”
Firms from Britain, France and Germany are also owed millions of dollars in unpaid bills, unnamed officials have told AFP news agency.
They said that Belgian, Dutch and South-East Asian companies were also affected.
UK diplomats told AFP that a broadcasting company, SIS Live, was lobbying the British High Commission to help it collect 30% of unpaid fees it says it is owed for transmitting the Games’ TV coverage.
It is believed that some companies have, over a period of several months, been lobbying the organising committee to pay up and that about 250 containers of games equipment remain stuck in Delhi.
Experts say that there are two categories of companies: those who have fulfilled their contractual obligations and will eventually be paid and those whose contractual obligations are in dispute and who have, as a result, launched legal action.
India’s foreign minister said he would deal with the matter as soon as possible after his return to India.
“It has been brought to my notice and I would go back to India and take it up with the ministry of sports,” news agency Press Trust of India quoted Mr Krishna as telling a news conference in the Australian city of Melbourne.
Lalit Bhanot, secretary general of the organising committee, told AFP in Delhi on Thursday: “Last time we told [the Games accountants] to pay everything in full that is due under all agreements.
“Now we will check what is the position and what is the problem if there is one.”
The Delhi Commonwealth Games was overshadowed by revelations of sleaze, incompetence and missed construction deadlines.
The budget for the event ballooned to an estimated $6bn – with the Central Vigilance Commission receiving complaints alleging that up to $1.8bn of Games money was misappropriated.
Earlier this month, India’s top investigative agency questioned the organising committee chief Suresh Kalmadi. He denies any wrongdoing.
He quit a Congress party position in November, weeks after the government ordered a probe into the alleged scam.
Two other senior officials from the organising committee were arrested on charges of forgery and cheating over the awarding of contracts before the event.
Last month, Mr Kalmadi’s homes in the capital, Delhi, and in the western town of Pune, were raided by investigators.
Investigators also raided about a dozen locations, including the homes of organising committee secretary general, and the director general VK Verma.
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An operation to control her epilepsy left Karen Byrne with no control of her left hand
Imagine being attacked by one of your own hands, which repeatedly tries to slap and punch you. Or you go into a shop and when you try to turn right, one of your legs decides it wants to go left, leaving you walking round in circles.
Last summer I met 55-year-old Karen Byrne in New Jersey, who suffers from Alien Hand Syndrome.
Her left hand, and occasionally her left leg, behaves as if it was under the control of an alien intelligence.
Karen’s condition is fascinating, not just because it is so strange but because it tells us something surprising about how our own brains work.
It started after Karen had surgery at 27 to control her epilepsy, which had dominated her life since she was 10.
Surgery to cure epilepsy usually involves identifying and then cutting out a small section of the brain, where the abnormal electrical signals originate.
When this does not work, or when the damaged area cannot be identified, patients may be offered something more radical. In Karen’s case her surgeon cut her corpus callosum, a band of nervous fibres which keeps the two halves of the brain in constant contact.
“ It would take things out of my handbag and I wouldn’t realise so I would walk away; I lost a lot of things before I realised what was going on”
Karen Byrne
Cutting the corpus callosum cured Karen’s epilepsy, but left her with a completely different problem. Karen told me that initially everything seemed to be fine. Then her doctors noticed some extremely odd behaviour.
“Dr O’Connor said ‘Karen what are you doing? Your hand’s undressing you’. Until he said that I had no idea that my left hand was opening up the buttons of my shirt.
“So I start rebuttoning with the right hand and, as soon as I stopped, the left hand started unbuttoning them. So he put an emergency call through to one of the other doctors and said, ‘Mike you’ve got to get here right away, we’ve got a problem’.”
Karen had emerged from the operation with a left hand that was out of control.
“I’d light a cigarette, balance it on an ashtray, and then my left hand would reach forward and stub it out. It would take things out of my handbag and I wouldn’t realise so I would walk away. I lost a lot of things before I realised what was going on.”
Karen said the condition had been bought under control with medication Karen’s problem was caused by a power struggle going on inside her head. A normal brain consists of two hemispheres which communicate with each other via the corpus callosum.
The left hemisphere, which controls the right arm and leg, tends to be where language skills reside. The right hemisphere, which controls the left arm and leg, is largely responsible for spatial awareness and recognising patterns.
Usually the more analytical left hemisphere dominates, having the final say in the actions we perform.
The discovery of hemispherical dominance has its roots in the 1940s, when surgeons first decided to treat epilepsy by cutting the corpus callosum. After they had recovered, the patients appeared normal. But in psychology circles they became legends.
That is because these patients would, in time, reveal something that to me is truly astonishing – the two halves of our brains each contain a kind of separate consciousness. Each hemisphere is capable of its own independent will.
The man who did many of the experiments that first proved this was neurobiologist, Roger Sperry.
In a particularly striking experiment, which he filmed, we can watch one of the split brain patients trying to solve a puzzle. The puzzle required rearranging blocks so they matched the pattern on a picture.
First the man tried solving it with his left hand (controlled by the right hemisphere), and that hand was pretty good at it.
Then Sperry asked the patient to use his right hand (controlled by the left hemisphere). And this hand clearly did not have a clue what to do. So the left hand tried to help, but the right hand did not want help, so they ended up fighting like two young children.
Experiments like this led Sperry to conclude that “each hemisphere is a conscious system in its own right, perceiving, thinking, remembering, reasoning, willing, and emoting”.
In 1981 Sperry received a Nobel prize for his work. But in a cruel twist of fate, by then he was suffering from a fatal degenerative brain disease, called kuru, probably picked up in the early days of his research while splitting brains.
Most people who have had their corpus collosum cut appear normal afterwards. You could cross them in the street and you would not know anything had happened.
Karen was unlucky. After the operation, the right side of her brain refused to be dominated by the left.
She has suffered from Alien Hand Syndrome for 18 years, but fortunately for Karen her doctors have now found a medication that seems to have brought the right side of her brain back under some form of control.
Even so I felt it was tactful, when I said goodbye, to give both hands a firm “thank you” shake.
Karen’s story features in The Brain: A Secret History – Broken Brains BBC Four 20 January 2100 GMT.
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Lovefilm, which began with postal subscriptions, has moved into online streaming Amazon has agreed to buy online movie rental service Lovefilm.
The American internet retailer, which already had a significant stake in the London company, said Lovefilm had a “productive and innovative” future.
The move is largely seen as a defensive ploy against a planned international expansion by US video-streaming giant Netflix.
Lovefilm chief executive Simon Calver said the deal would help the company improve its online services.
He told BBC News that it did not matter that it was an American firm that had bought the company:
“It’s not about location. The big question is who is going to be the best partner to work with. There are few that offer the expertise that Amazon do, which is why it is perfect for Lovefilm.”
The service, which began as a pure DVD rental company in 2002, has more than 1.4 million members around the UK as well as significant interests in Germany and Scandinavia.
Is this a good or bad day for the UK tech scene?
Lovefilm is one of the most impressive new media businesses to have come out of the UK in the last ten years.
Starting with a very simple idea – send DVDs in the post to people who watch them and then send them back – it has attracted 1.25 million paying customers across Europe.
It is now transforming itself into a digital delivery service, following the example set by Netflix in the United States – and it will be better placed to do that as part of a giant business like Amazon.
But some in the UK tech scene will be disappointed that Lovefilm could not carry on growing as an independent business.
They will point to the rumoured price tag – £200m – and contrast that with Netflix which is now valued at about $10 billion.
And they will ask the old question – why can’t we in Britain grow our own world-beating technology businesses?
For a monthly fee, subscribers can receive movies and TV shows through the post or watch them over a broadband internet connection.
Over the years the company has grown rapidly and increased its reach by acquiring rival services such as Screenselect and Video Island. In 2008, it bought Amazon’s fledgling DVD service; in return, the US retailer gained a significant stake in Lovefilm’s business.
The company has been adding more services, including games rental and, more recently, online streaming – but it has also run into trouble. A dispute with Universal Pictures blocked access to major films such as Bruno and Public Enemies.
In recent months insiders have made it known that senior executives and investors were agitating for a sale, with reports suggesting that negotiations between the two companies have been under way since last autumn.
The move could help guard against the possibility that US rival Netflix, which has more than 16 million subscribers, could invade the British market.
Last year Netflix – which has pioneered online video subscription – suggested that it was looking to expand internationally, and is believed to be targeting Europe.
“We’re now talking about other regions in the world,” a spokesman told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in December.
“Based on the early success of Netflix Canada, we’re going to continue our international expansion next year and we’re going to allocate significant dollars to it.”
Investors in Lovefilm said the deal should be seen as a European success story.
“This is a great deal for Lovefilm and Amazon,” said Dharmash Mistry, a partner at Balderton Capital, one of the company’s backers.
“Lovefilm is the Netflix of Europe and it will be central to Amazon’s European and global strategy.”
It was a sentiment echoed by Mr Calver.
“It’s an exciting day,” he told BBC News. “We’ve demonstrated that you can take a business model, take an idea and grow a successful business and attract the attention of a truly global company like Amazon.”
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Britain’s Andy Murray is clinical in beating Ukrainian Illya Marchenko in straight sets to reach the third round of the Australian Open.
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By Michael Blastland
As many public sector workers, and plenty of people elsewhere, experience a “freeze” on pay, Michael Blastland explains in his regular column why that does not necessarily prevent wages rising.
Here’s a headline from some time in 2011: “Now public sector busts pay-freeze”
First the bankers, next state employees?
Will it be true, as some will be tempted to say, that cosseted public sector workers outsmart the government, again, despite the rhetoric?
When it happens, if it happens, don’t be fooled. It might mean what it appears to mean – or it might not.
Why the doubt? Because public sector pay can be frozen exactly as the coalition government says it should be, and will be, while average public sector pay goes up.
Take a moment to ponder that apparent nonsense – then read on to find out why.
Public sector pay seems to have outpaced private sector pay during the recession and that’s caused resentment. Chancellor George Osborne announced a two-year pay freeze for the public sector. So – up, down or flat – it will be big news. Will the chancellor be frustrated?
First, there will be some real increases. Mr Osborne allowed a flat-rate rise of £250 a year for those on less than £21,000. This benefits about a third of public sector employees by at least 1.2%. There’ll also be some multi-year pay deals that have to be honoured.
But some effects are not about the level of any individual’s pay. It would be possible for every last employee’s pay to fall, but for average (mean) pay to rise. This is the riddle of the average.
For average pay is about not just the level of individual pay, but who those individuals are: the composition of the workforce. If the staff mix changes, even though no one has a pay rise, the average can go up. It shows why comparisons of pay between public and private sectors can be naïve and misleading.
To see how this works, see what happens in the example below.
There are various ways in which the changing composition of a workforce can make average pay rise.
1. The first people out the door when jobs go are likely to be casual or on fixed-term contracts. They tend to be on lower pay than the average, often junior. Take them out of the mix and the average of the remainder rises.
2. Health – on average – has more people on higher pay than education. If overall cuts in education lead to more job losses than in “protected” health, the composition might shift towards higher-paid staff.
3. Geographical composition might also change. Big central government departments tend to be based where wage rates are lower, outside London and the South East. Cuts in low-paid staff outside London would, again, increase the average pay of those left.
4. A pay freeze alongside cuts in staff numbers might mean increases in the number of hours worked – and more pay – for part-time staff who remain, even if total hours fall for all employees put together.
“Working out average pay is like watching a stormy sea”
None of this is to argue that these things should happen, simply that they might. In short, average pay might rise, but public sector workers might not see it that way, and the chancellor might still have been successful. The lesson is: beware averages.
These explanations come from a tasty piece of analysis by a statistician at the Office for National Statistics. You can read it – with more detail – here.
ONS staff are sometimes shy of commenting on newsworthy issues. It’s a shame. A good statistician with good imagination can shed more light on the what and the why than any number of the usual talking heads.
In this case, the point about composition illustrates a general problem with averages as a measure of change. The average sea level at your seaside holiday destination is easy to observe on a calm day at a given hour. Now try when it’s stormy.
Working out average pay is like watching a stormy sea where you switch your gaze from one spot to another, trying to determine how it would look if flat.
The concept of average (mean) pay encourages us to imagine John or Jane somewhere in the middle and somehow representative of the rest. But the average might be a perpetually changing individual nowhere near the middle. See Go Figure here.
So will we ever know what happens to public sector pay during the freeze? There is a survey that measures the pay of the same individuals and avoids the composition problem. It comes out once a year. Like watching the tide, we might have to wait.
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6. Gary
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5. claratwigg
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4. Wolfiesmith
That is incorrect I work for the Department for Work and Pensions and we have pay scales/grades. Our current pay deal ended last year so I and my colleagues are subject to the freeze. We were told that a pay scale increase was not allowed under the Treasury Guidelines. I’m a manager and earn just over the magic £21k. I have received no extra pay increase this year, scale, grade or otherwise
3. Megan
When times are hard and prices are rising, any signs that employers – public or private – are showing their appreciation of the hard work and effort of their employees is welcome! So don’t let jealousy get in the way: if your employer is not meeting his obligations as well, demand more rather than whine that someone elsewhere is being better cared for and needs dragging down!
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The software was seen as the firm’s first credible challenge to other phone systems Microsoft has confirmed that some handsets running its Windows Phone 7 software are sending and receiving “phantom data”.
Earlier this year, users complained on net forums that their phones were automatically eating into their monthly data plans without their knowledge.
Microsoft said its investigation found that most problems were caused by a unnamed “third party” service.
However, it said it was still looking into other potential faults.
“We are in contact with the third party to assist them in making the necessary fixes,” a spokesperson said.
The firm also said that it was looking into “potential workarounds” until the issue was solved.
“At this point in our investigation, we believe this is responsible for most of the reported incidents.
It said that the problem seemed to only affect “a small (low single-digit) percentage of Windows Phone customers”.
The problem surfaced in early January with some owners of phones running Windows Phone 7, claiming that their phone was sending “between 30 and 50MB of data” every day; an amount that would eat into a 1GB allowance in 20 days.
Most complainants were based in the US.
“I received an e-mail from AT&T saying that I was close to my 2GB data limit which truly shocked me as I feel I do not use data that much,” a phone owner called Julie told Paul Thurrott’s supersite for Windows.
“I went and looked at my AT&T account online and noticed that my phone was sending huge chunks of data seemingly in patterns.”
Another, writing on Howard Forums, said that they had noticed that the phone’s “idle data usage is around 2-5MB per hour”.
Microsoft has admitted that not all problems may have the same root cause and has said it was still “investigating” other potential reasons for the fault.
“We are continuing to investigate this issue and will update with additional information and guidance as it becomes available,” the spokesperson said.
Windows Phone 7 was launched in October 2010 to acclaim by manufacturers and users.
It is considered the company’s first credible challenge to rival operating systems from Apple, Google, Research in Motion and Nokia.
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About 2,000 people in the UK die from skin cancer each year A new drug for skin cancer can slow the spread of the disease in half of patients, thereby extending their lives, a study says.
A trial of 680 patients at the Royal Marsden Hospital, London tested a drug that attacks a genetic mutation found in half of all skin cancer cases.
The drug was effective on patients with advanced malignant melanoma.
The study has been welcomed by Cancer Research UK, but not yet published for review by other cancer specialists.
Dr Lesley Walker from Cancer Research UK, said she hoped that the drug would become available to patients quickly:
“There are very few options for patients with advanced melanoma, so these results are really encouraging. The drug is not yet licensed and unavailable to patients not on a clinical trial, but we hope that these results will change this situation very rapidly.”
Malignant melanoma is now the second most common cancer in young adults – aged 15-34 – in the UK. Rates of melanoma are rising faster than any other common cancer.
The cancer is treatable if caught early, but survival rates are low once the cancer spreads.
The new drug targets a specific faulty gene – the mutated BRAF protein. This is present in around half of all melanoma cases.
The drug, called RG7204 seeks out and blocks the mutated gene. It caused tumours to shink in 70% of cases.
The study has not yet been fully published for other cancer experts to review and researchers have not disclosed how much longer patients taking the new drug lived.
However, they said it was significantly longer than those taking standard chemotherapy.
Dr James Larkin, from the Royal Marsden Hospital said it was an “incredibly exciting” development, adding:
“These results will be applicable to about 1,000 patients a year in Britain”.
The drug has not yet been licenced so is availble only to patients enrolled in a clinical trial.
Discussions on licensing the drug will begin after the results from the trial have been presented at a conference later this year.
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Days of talks involving foreign mediation have failed to achieve a breakthrough Ministers from Turkey and Qatar have suspended efforts to mediate in the political crisis in Lebanon.
Two days of talks with rival political groups have not made progress.
Last week, the Lebanese government collapsed because of a dispute over the UN backed tribunal investigating the murder of former PM Rafiq Hariri.
Sealed indictments have been issued. It is believed these point to the involvement of Hezbollah in the killing.
Earlier in the week the Saudi foreign minister pulled out of his mediation effort, warning of a dangerous situation in Lebanon.
Now the Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jasim al-Thani and the Turkish foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu have also left Lebanon.
Though they did issue a statement that suggested they had made some progress.
“[Our] efforts resulted in a working draft that takes into account political and legal demands to resolve the current crisis in Lebanon based on the Syrian-Saudi initiative,” the statement said, according to AFP.
The 2005 assassination of Rafik Hariri cast a long shadow over Lebanese politics and society “But given certain reservations, we decided to suspend efforts in Lebanon for the time being and to leave Beirut in order to consult with our leadership,” the statement went on.
According to reports, the Syrian-Saudi initiative calls for Lebanon to disavow a UN tribunal investigating the Hariri assassination. In return Hezbollah would offer unspecified guarantees about its weapons.
Hezbollah has vowed to retaliate if, as expected, its members are implicated.
Last week, the powerful Shia movement brought down the government of Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri – Rafik Hariri’s son – over his refusal to denounce the tribunal and cut off part of its funding.
Hezbollah has denounced the UN-backed probe, calling it a US-Israeli plot, and denies any involvement in the killing. But supporters of the tribunal say it is a landmark step towards justice in the country.
On Monday, the prosecutor of the Hague-based Special Tribunal for Lebanon submitted its first indictment in the case, but the names of the suspects will not be revealed unless charges are laid.
Correspondents say a protracted crisis is likely to follow, and there are widespread fears that it could lead to the type of sectarian violence last seen in May 2008, which left 100 people dead and brought the country close to civil war.
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CCTV has proliferated for 25 years For the last 25 years CCTV has proliferated into public spaces across the UK, but is it going too far to use cameras to give parking tickets and enforce bus lane rules?
When most people think of CCTV being used in law enforcement they think of a string of high-profile crimes that have been solved or publicised with the help of footage.
The video of James Bulger being led away to his death or of the 7 July suicide bombers on their way to London stick in the mind.
But CCTV has grown far beyond this. No-one knows precisely how many cameras there are in the UK, but the estimates go as high as 4.5 million, making Britons among the world’s most watched people.
Now the issue of CCTV is to be taken up by the government in its upcoming Freedom Bill. At the Queen’s Speech it was promised the measures would be aimed at “protecting privacy by introducing new legislation to regulate the use of CCTV”.
The CCTV User Group, representing all the public bodies which have cameras, reckons there are 1.5 million overlooking public spaces in the UK. But it is a surprising fact that there are very few regulations over how CCTV is set up and run. Everyone has to comply with the Data Protection Act, but apart from that it is often a matter of guidelines rather than law.
I was caught by a CCTV camera as I pulled into a bus stop for a few seconds to let a friend out. A week later a £100 fine arrived.
The London Borough of Wandsworth has led the field in CCTV and uses 71 cameras to enforce parking and traffic infringements.
Camera 722, outside Clapham South underground station, has caught an average of 23 drivers a day straying into the bus stop. This single camera was on course to rake in a million pounds a year for the council.
Ignoring official guidelines on the use of CCTV cameras, Wandsworth Council had not put up signs warning people that the camera was operating there.
“Drivers who are being caught know they shouldn’t be parking in these places,” said a Wandsworth council spokesman.
“But they do not seem willing to park 50 yards further up the road. They won’t get a ticket if they park properly.”
Camera 722 was one of hundreds paid for by the Home Office to cut crime. It was never meant to be used against motorists.
I resolved to go down every possible avenue of appeal – the Parking and Traffic Adjudicator, the Information Commissioner, and finally the Local Government Ombudsman.
All listened politely, but it seemed that Wandsworth Council had stuck to the letter of the law.
I did score a moral victory when they eventually put up a warning sign. But I didn’t get my £100 fine back.
One area that irks many is the use of cameras against drivers committing minor infractions. By 2003 cameras started to be trained on places where motorists were stopping illegally, driving in bus lanes or straying into box junctions at busy road intersections. Today, they bring millions of pounds into councils’ coffers.
In March 2008, councils effectively got powers to use CCTV for parking enforcement. But should it be used in this way? For many people, the original intent of CCTV proliferation was to improve security and reduce crime in public places.
“They are used for the most minor infringements – people who have gone into a bus lane in order to pass someone turning right,” says Hugh Bladon, a founder member of the Association for British Drivers pressure group. “That sort of thing is plainly absurd. Whatever you do, you are going to get fined.”
The proliferation of the cameras has prompted small, dedicated pressure groups to take action. Big Brother Watch and No CCTV are the most notable.
“It is another way of policing by remote control. We are using blanket surveillance for strict liability offences,” says Charles Farrier of No CCTV. “We get people saying they parked a car with a disabled badge in the window and they incurred a fine because the camera couldn’t see the badge. A real person on the street can talk to people and engage with people.”
CCTV is everywhere, both public and private-run. It is in hospitals, universities, car parks, buses, trains, shopping centres and pubs. It is even mobile, with many councils in London, and a handful outside the capital, using CCTV cars to film traffic offences, such as driving while using a mobile phone. There are 54 CCTV cars patrolling 31 local council areas, according to Big Brother Watch.
But could CCTV “creep”, including the use of them to punish people who drop litter or fail to clean up after their dogs, threaten public support for a vital crime fighting tool?
“Public support for CCTV is vital and using them to target things like parking infringements does not help,” says Chief Inspector Mick Neville, the Metropolitan Police’s expert in catching criminals using CCTV.
“We lead the world at catching robbers, burglars and other offenders with CCTV images, so I am keen that as many cameras as possible are focused on protecting the public by watching criminals, not targeting motorists.”
Controversial
Of course, there are plenty of people who believe it’s fair enough to enforce bus lanes in this way.
“People are right to be concerned about the overuse of CCTV, but in this case it serves a useful purpose,” says Richard Bourn, Campaign for Better Transport’s London campaigner.
“Bus lanes are important to keep traffic moving and encourage people to take the bus or cycle instead of driving. If you observe the law you have nothing to worry about. People who obstruct the flow of traffic by driving or parking in bus lanes are being anti-social and disrupting everyone’s journey.”
And the CCTV User Group is convinced the general public still like CCTV. Its director Peter Fry points out: “Our most recent survey shows that 90% of the public support local council cameras and 80% said they didn’t feel their privacy was infringed by CCTV. Most people feel reassured by the presence of cameras, especially when they see news reports about how they have contributed to convicting criminals.”
An analysis by the Campbell Collaboration group of 44 studies on CCTV found that cameras have a modest effect on preventing crime, with the most marked impact on vehicle crime, and a much less significant effect on violent offences.
A Home Office study in 2005 found huge support for CCTV generally with 82% backing its introduction in their area. But there are underlying assumptions that it should be for certain things. And even as far back as 1992, over a third of people in a survey thought that CCTV cameras do invade people’s privacy.
And their use in some circumstances will always be controversial.
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23. Brian M
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22. Megan
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21. Edd
“If you observe the law you have nothing to worry about” sounds like the pro-ID card argument “If you haven’t done anything wrong, then you don’t have anything to worry about”. It’s good to know the people in charge and the law is infallible.
20. Graphis
Our car broke down in a busy London street, a broken radiator. We just about managed to pull to the side of the road before it gave out completely. Thanks to CCTV, we got a ticket, yet we had no choice in our actions: it would have been dangerous to do anything else. Cameras can’t judge circumstances: they just show a car where it shouldn’t be. They shouldn’t be used for parking offences.
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Explorer Bruce Parry has recently travelled to the Arctic and tells Today that it could become a new environmental battleground.
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The British version of The Office ended in 2003 Comedian Ricky Gervais is to reprise his David Brent character from The Office on the US version of the show.
Gervais, who attracted controversy on Sunday as host of the Golden Globes, will make a brief appearance as Brent on 27 January.
Co-created by Gervais and Stephen Merchant, The Office was a hit in the UK before it was remade in the US by NBC.
Steve Carell plays Brent’s counterpart in the US version, Michael Scott.
Gervais, 49, is an executive producer on The Office, now in its seventh series.
The British original ran for two series before signing off with two Christmas specials.
Charlie Sheen, Bruce Willis and Robert Downey Jr were among the celebrities Gervais poked fun at during his controversial second stint as Golden Globes host.
Yet in an interview on Piers Morgan’s CNN chat show, to be shown in the US on Thursday, Gervais is unrepentant.
“It’s not my job to worry about what people think of me,” he will be heard saying. “That’s the job of a politician.
“They hired me for a job,” he continues. “If they didn’t want me, they shouldn’t have hired me.”
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Will the Campbell and Galloway debate be one of the best battles?
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Paper phone books not yet a thing of the past‎ says BT
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Parliament is discussing the idea of so-called ‘Dog Asbos’ which aim to put more responsibility on owners for the actions of their pets.
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