From today’s paper, “Vicar quits as school governor in kiss row”:
The Rev Alan Barrett, vicar of Tamworth, Staffordshire, kissed the girl in front of fellow pupils and a maths teacher as he presented her with a certificate. But the girl’s mother claimed the kiss was an assault and complained after the incident in May. Mr [...]

After yesterday’s fun with what the Tories are saying, there’s more fascination with what New Labour is doing. Lord Levy has been released on bail as part of a police investigation into the cash for honours scandal. Fascinating that you need to fill in an application form to become a lord. (It reminds me of [...]

Leaked e-mails from within the Conservative party provide some intriguing insight. MP Desmond Swayne reports to David Cameron how backbenchers are unhappy with some of their leader’s actions. Apparently Mr Cameron has “jazzed people off”, and Mr Swayne hopes that regarding one off-message frontbencher, “the colonels will be taking a stroll over to him shortly”.
People [...]

The Sun launches a free classifieds website.
The Times offers free print advertising.

I said yesterday that newspapers need to keep innovating, and these are two good examples of that. But I can’t help being a sceptic, and I do wonder where this takes News International (owners of both The Sun and The Times) in the long [...]

(I’ve picked this up a week late, via the apostrophe-free Editors Weblog.) Patience Wheatcoft, editor of The Sunday Telegraph, has said that newspapers will survive online thanks to brand loyalty:
Increasingly important in the multichannel world is the brand. People have to know who to trust. Old established brands equal strong relationships and that is what [...]

Is tightening up the strings on your guitar too time-consuming? On Saturday our friend Silas demonstrated a peg winder — pop it on a guitar peg and wind it round without releasing your grip.
I said I’d never seen such a thing before. “Oh, that’s nothing,” he replied, and described a friend’s electric peg winder, which [...]

I’m sorry it’s been so quiet here recently, but here’s something sensational: a double-jointed elastic band!

“What use is that?” I hear you cry (I’ve got very good hearing). Well behold — instant fastening with no unsightly bumps (or “visible bandy line” as those in the know call it):

I saw that and I thought if that’s [...]