In the realm of the senseless

Clock running out of time, space

More fool you - more fool me. Some months back I planted a fake event in my calender (see left) and when the alert came from Yahoo I was, in my forgetfulness, taken aback. Like the previous post (filed at midnight, UK Time) it was of course a hoax for April Fool's day. Convention has it that such pranks expire at midday, so it's all over on this side of the Atlantic.

I wasn't alone in my jesting. The radio news is now revealing a more than usual profusion of jokes. Whether this headline link is one of them I'm unsure. It seems the New York clock that monitors US debt is rapidly running out of digits.

Over here, a very red-faced foreign secretary must be wishing the last 24 hours were a light-hearted prank too. Getting Condi over for a quiet weekend up north has gone somewhat less than according to plan. Topping it all, the performers at last night's concert suddenly changed the tune. At least Condi had the decency to admit to "tactical errors" - a few thousand of them actually!

It's not over yet, but last week's ping-pong game between the houses of Lords and Commons over the ID cards bill seems to have fizzled out with only a few compromises by the Blair administration. Richard Sheperd MP said: "One day, this Government will experience the wrath and indignation of a country that understands that this is not a small social measure; it is in fact a declaration by Government that the centralised state is more important and greater than the sum of every individual free citizen of the country that we were sent to represent." Would that that were a joke!

Talking of ID details, the US government has managed to mislay 94,000 of them in a Los Angeles garage.

For a whole host of recent links, check "latest clicks" at left. For the most part, it contains real news!

Later.