BBC NEWS | UK | McCanns mark Madeleine’s birthday
McCanns mark Madeleine’s birthday
Madeleine McCann has been missing for just over a year
The parents of Madeleine McCann have been marking the fifth birthday of their missing daughter with a low-key party at their family home.
Today is the fifth birthday of this little girl who went missing in The Algarve last year.
Let’s pray for her family and trust that she may yet be found.
A year ago this little girl disappeared in Portugal. Abducted from her holiday home while her parents enjoyed a meal a short distance away. Since then Madeleine McCann’s picture has never been far from the front pages of British Newspapers. Soon it will be her fifth birthday.
On her last birthday I blogged that we should light a candle for each year of her life and use it as a focus to pray for her return in the hope that this year she would blow out the candles at home with her parents. Sadly there’ll be an extra candle but still no Madeleine unless something amazing happens in the mean time. Never give up praying.
In an obvious challenge to Wikipedia, Encyclopedia Britannica is offering free subscriptions to bona fide publishers and bloggers. So I applied and was approved. Hence I can offer you all sorts of factual accuracies alongside my much opinionated scribblings.
What’s more if you, my dear reader, click on one of the links I post to the learned tome, you too can read the whole Britannica article for nothing. So take a look at this widget and click for more ….
I have owned the many volumes of Encyclopedia Britannica since 1986 and collected every year book until last year when it seemed that the internet has superceded the hard bound volumes on the shelf.
A brief look at the online version reveals a much slicker delivery compared to the free Wiki entries. So if you love bells and whistles, Java and Flash, authority and formality – you’ll love EB. But if you prefer the more geeky and folksy Wikipedia – well it’s still there and will remain forever free.
George Monbiot: The most potent weapon wielded by the empires of Murdoch and China | Comment is free | The Guardian
If you want to know how powerful Rupert Murdoch is, read the reviews of Bruce Dover’s book, Rupert’s Adventures in China. Well, go on, read them. You can’t find any? I rest my case.
As lucid and alarming as ever George Monbiot puts Murdoch in his sights and provokes an intelligent discussion on the Guardian’s Comment is Free blog.
The Times used to be the final authority in British Newspapers. No longer. I’d rather read The Telegraph. At least I know what it’s bias is. I have to work hard to discern which part of Murdoch’s empire The Times is championing on any one day, but I know it’ll be in there somewhere.
Do I have Sky? Yes, but only for the football. And if wanted to rant on I could whip up a good argument for the way pay TV has ruined the beautiful game too.
The article may be long but it’s worth reading, including the comments from readers.
The most ill-natured interview ever on CD after 55 years | guardian.co.uk
He was a novelist known for his quick and cruel wit, his wide-eyed opinions and his indifference about saying the shocking. So a BBC Home Service programme called Frankly Speaking in which Evelyn Waugh is quizzed by three abrasive questioners was never going to be a walk in the country. Today what was later described as the most ill-natured interview ever broadcast can be heard for the first time since 1953.
This is more like an inquisition than a radio interview. I have no idea why three professional broadcasters should subject him to such an inane line of questioning. It reminds me of some disastrous job interviews I’ve endured. Perhaps Waugh was unwittingly being lined up for a job at the Beeb rather than for a broadcast. At least his sense of humour didn’t desert him.
Asked what failings in others he could most readily excuse Waugh replies quickly: “Drunkenness.” Any others? “Em [long pause] … anger. Lust. Dishonouring their father and mother. Coveting their neighbours ox, ass, wife. Killing. I think there’s almost nothing I can’t excuse except perhaps worshipping graven images. That seems to be idiotic.”