I find it very easy to dream of living and working in France. Paris ideally.

It’s not quite as fanciful as it sounds. Michael Thomas is teaching me French as I travel to and from work each morning, I am working my way through a primary school’s reading list ( Le Petit Nicolas et les Copains is my current book of choice) and to really get in the spirit of things I have also bought a book called How To Shrug Like The French. I have yet to reach the shrugging lessons but am now well versed in the importance of opening my shutters and shaking my bedding.

My French is perfect in my little dream, I have a job where I switch seamlessly from English to Francais, and I proudly say “I live in Paris now”. I am able to use the free bikes which are scattered around the city but sadly not for tourist use. (As an aside Boris Johnson’s idea was based on the success of the Paris scheme.)

Just to keep up my stereotype I’d specifically meet friends of the Eurostar at Le Gare de Nord complete with said velo, and a baguette in my front basket.  I’d be wearing the latest outfit I picked up at Galleries Lafayette, and talking about a crazy artist I’d seen in Montmartre.  Bliss.

Now I find that Parisians are losing kudos in their own city and shunning the 75 car number plates which indicate where  a car is registered. Parisians no longer want to be known as Parisians.

Pah!

Times correspondent Charles Bremner, explains residents of the Seine-Saint-Denis, the rough north-east suburbs which make the headlines for riots, want to ditch the 93 associated with their address.  While this is understandable to hide an anti-des res I have yet to imagine why one would like to hide their Parisian address.

How do I now learn the art of shrugging like the French if the very art of that means almost turning up my nose at a city which I have placed on a (rather tall) pedestal.

My task just got a little more difficult. It is yet to be impossible.

Now where is Nicholas and his friends, we have work to do.

Statement from AC Yates from the Met.

I have been asked by the Commissioner today to establish the facts around our inquiry into the alleged unlawful tapping of mobile phones by Clive Goodman and Glen Mulcaire. I was not involved in the original case and clearly come at this with an independent mind.

Just by way of background. In December 2005, the MPS received complaints that mobile phones had been illegally tapped.

We identified that Goodman and Mulcaire were engaged in a sophisticated and wide ranging conspiracy to gather private and personal data, principally about high profile public figures. Clearly they benefited financially from these matters.

Our inquiries found that these two men had the ability to illegally intercept mobile phone voice mails. This is commonly known as phone tapping.

Their potential targets may have run into hundreds of people, but our inquiries showed that they only used the tactic against a far smaller number of individuals.

In January 2007, Goodman and Mulcaire were jailed for four and six months. They pleaded guilty to conspiring to unlawfully intercept communications.

Mulcaire also pleaded guilty to an additional five charges relating to similar matters.

Sentencing the two men, Mr Justice Gross at the Old Bailey said the case was “not about press freedom, it was about a grave, inexcusable and illegal invasion of privacy.”

The police investigation was complex and was carried out in close liaison with the Crown Prosecution Service, Senior Counsel and the telephone companies concerned.

The technical challenges posed to the service providers to establish that there had in fact been interception were significant.

It is important to recognise that our enquiries showed that in the vast majority of cases there was insufficient evidence to show that tapping had actually been achieved.

Where there was clear evidence that people had potentially been the subject of tapping, they were all contacted by the police.

These people were made aware of the potential compromise to their phones and were offered preventative advice.

However, after extensive consultation with the CPS and Counsel, only a few were subsequently identified as witnesses in the proceedings that followed.

I said earlier in this statement that these two men were engaged in a sophisticated and wide ranging conspiracy to gather personal data about high profile figures. One was a private detective and one was a journalist. It is reasonable therefore to expect them to be in possession of data about such matters as this is part and parcel of their job.

I emphasise that our enquiries were solely concerned with phone tapping. This, as far as we are aware, affected a much smaller pool of people.

There has been a lot of media comment today about the then Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott. This investigation has not uncovered any evidence to suggest that John Prescott’s phone had been tapped.

****

This case has been subject of the most careful investigation by very experienced detectives. It has also been scrutinised in detail by both the CPS and leading Counsel. They have carefully examined all the evidence and prepared the indictments that they considered appropriate.

No additional evidence has come to light since this case has concluded.

I therefore consider that no further investigation is required.

However, I recognise the very real concerns, expressed today by a number of people, who believe that their privacy may have been intruded upon.

I therefore need to ensure that we have been diligent, reasonable and sensible, and taken all proper steps to ensure that where we have evidence that people have been the subject of any form of phone tapping, or that there is any suspicion that they might have been, that they have been informed.

Initially I was going to tweet this idea but I realised it needed slightly more than 140 characters to do the job justice.

Remember Google whack? You put two random unconnected words into Google search in the vague hope you can find something which returns just one result. Dave Gorman led the field and even wrote a book about it.

Well my new idea is shortner whacking. I like to use http://ow.ly as a shortner and I know it creates a four-letter redirect. For example http://ow.ly/dZjg so I decided to have a whack and just type some random ones into my URL bar.

It is quite fun and you know you’re going to find stuff that is midly amusing, rude, newsy or just plain odd because someone went to the effort of setting up a shorty in the first place. You can try it with Tiny Bitly. is.gd etc. Anyone dudes have fun. I ended up here http://ow.ly/dZjg

About this film: Not Yet Rain
It is difficult to convey the real-life impact of unsafe abortion in a way that does justice to women facing impossible reproductive choices in places where abortion is restricted and poverty determines health care options. How much more powerful and informative if these women were given a forum to speak for themselves?

Not Yet Rain, a short film by Lisa Russell in association with Ipas, addresses the issue of unsafe abortion through the voices of women who have faced these difficult choices.

How sick is the New York Times?

I read the headline and I’m thinking, strweth what did it do? Publish a picture of a dead kitten? Stand-by while innocent children died? What exactly?

But ah, no, the writer is merely asking is the NYT in the same boat as every other newspaper. Falling advertising, lower pagination, that type of thing. How bad are things at the NYT? Well, writer Mark Potts asks if Rupert Murdoch, Bill Gates or A.N. Other should be brought in to save it. Wow. I guess it is really sick.

I think similar things will happen in a lot of newsrooms. As long as the quality of copy is not compromised there is no reason why reporters can’t help prepare a story for the web in the way they prepare it for print.

And more than that, reporters need to get to know their websites to understand where their stories are positioned on homepages and in topic channels.

Reporters should care just as much about being having the best read story online as they should having a page 1 byline.

Originally posted as a comment by nci1 on Press Gazette using Disqus.

I think similar things will happen in a lot of newsrooms. As long as the quality of copy is not compromised there is no reason why reporters can’t help prepare a story for the web in the way they prepare it for print.

And more than that, reporters need to get to know their websites to understand where there stories are positioned on homepages and in topic channels.

Reporters should care just as much about being the best read story online as they should having a page 1 byline.

Originally posted as a comment by nci1 on Press Gazette using Disqus.

I think similar things will happen in a lot of newsrooms. As long as the quality of copy is not compromised there is no reason why reporters can’t help prepare a story for the web in the way they prepare it for print.

And more than that, reporters need to get to know their websites to understand where there stories are positioned on homepages and in topic channels.

Reporters should care just as much about being the best read story online as they should having a page 1 byline.

Originally posted as a comment by nci1 on Press Gazette using Disqus.

The fire service came to my house the other week. No, I wasn’t rescued in dramatic firemen lift style-e.
Cheshire Fire And Rescue Service were going door-to-door fitting smoke alarms.
The idea is that fire services should be proactive not reactive – they should do more to safeguard against a fire than rescue people in the event of one.
So one fireman put up two smoke alarms in my house. One went at the top of the stairs and one went at the bottom. All free of charge, no batteries to change and quite-importantly not likely to go off if I overcook my tea.

The other fireman helped me plan an emergency exit route. I will only have to break out of my bedroom window and shimmy down the drainpipe IF there’s a fire AND it’s on the stairs AND i start to feel hot. Each door in my house buys me 30 minutes apparently. But we all know the TV adverts and roles, Get out, stay out ring the fire brigade out.
How sad it is then that in Cheshire and Staffordshire recently there has been so many fires.

In Eccleshall an elderly man died in his cottage.
In Cheddleton, an elderly sister died after her clothing caught light from the open fire in the home she shared with her sister.

Last night, there was a fire in Walthall Street, Crewe and the road by my house was cordoned off.
The corner shop – the blue one – was so badly damaged that firefighters – were not allowed to go into the building for fear of it coming down on top of them.
I’ll go home that way tonight and have a look at what’s happening. And see if I can add a picture.

Today, I also learned of the terrible story of Ghazala Yasin who set fire to herself because she thought her husband was having an affair.

Then , I turn to the front page of the local rag and found that a man is standing trial at Stafford Crown Court for murder of his wife by setting their home on fire with her in it.
The Alan Stead trial is expected to last a long time.

When I moved to Crewe, I have to admit, I didn’t immediately search for a new dentist.  My ‘old’ one was very near to my then job, and it wasn’t a priority when I was suddenly thinking about paying bills, coughing up for a tv licence, and the dreaded mortgage.
I bought a property because I thought it would be foolish to pay for rental – now I think my personal finances would be in a better state if I had rented.
But, as always, I digress.
The point I was trying to make was that it wasn’t a priority. Eventually, however, I switched jobs, traveling 40 minutes to a dentist appointment, even if it was only once every six months, seemed daft in the extreme.

So I registered with relative ease, at a dentist in Crewe on Edleston Road. There was no waiting list, no real issue.

But what would I have done if that NHS service wasn’t there?

Today, it was revealed that kids are losing their teeth in North Staffs at a shocking rate.
Five-year-old children in the county have an average of 1.3 decayed teeth compared to an average of one tooth in the West Midlands.
Maybe Staffs youngsters are budding entrepreneus – chomping their way through out-of-date Woolies pick’n'mix at an astounding rate so as to put their personal finances in order by cashing in out the tooth fairy.

One idea is to give kids, or rather their parents, free toothpaste in a “blitz on tooth decay”.

Toothbrushes and toothpaste will arrive in the post.

Meanwhile, a team of dentists has opened a new practice at Moorland Road, Burslem much to the delight of patients I imagine.

But the question remains why is dental health so much worse in Stoke-on-Trent / Staffordshire than it is in other places. And it’s not just dental health, but lung disease, smoking, obesity, on and on, we’re at the top of these health lists for all of the wrong reasons.

Sigh.