news
Here’s a brief diversion. On Twitter, I learn that Rhondda Cynon Taf County Borough Council in South Wales have spent £190,000 on a set of three dormice bridges designed to allow the rodents to cross a new major bypass [...]
Martin Belam has written an interesting series of posts on internal vs external linking on the Guardian’s website. His latest one summarises some of the comments and discussion that have taken place around the topic…
The Guardian editorial this morning (“In praise of … the rule of three”) reminded me of a memorable lesson I had at school about linguistic devices used in political speeches. (It was probably this kind of lesson which prompted me to later do a degree in Linguistics.) Here’s a quick list of the patterns I [...]
If there’s one thing that’s starting to annoy me in this election build-up, it’s the constant speculation over who-would-do-what if there’s a hung parliament. If you watch the press conferences of any of the three main political parties, you’ll see journalist after journalist asking more-or-less the same question [...]
Phil Gyford is doing a news project. He’s just written up day one. The project’s aim, in his words, is to: spend the week writing an online news website … I’ll probably spend the week reading a lot of existing news and re-writing, quoting, linking, summarising it all … all being well I’ll publish the [...]
Today marks the start of the London’s Low Emission Zone. This basically means that, within the zone, which pretty much encompasses the whole of Greater London administrative area, lorries and Heavy Goods Vehicles have got to meet certain standards for minimising exhaust pollution (mostly concerning NOx – Nitrogen Oxides – and ‘particulate matter‘). Lorries that [...]
Wikinews: Heavy rain causes flooding across the UK.
Woke up this morning to read that Cutty Sark has burnt down! I was going to go to a talk at the National Maritime Museum this morning, but that has understandably been postponed. The Cutty Sark was mid-way through a big restoration project, and so half of the timbers (and the masts) had been removed [...]
A post on the BBC Editors blog announces some developments on the BBC News’s Have Your Say forums. With each story they are now publishing the numbers of rejected comments and the number of comments in the moderation queue. If you sign in, it also tells you the status of all of your comments. The [...]