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I seem to collect these. Why can't I find a few that pay though! I have just been elected a director of the SE² Partnership Limited (Social Enterprise South East) which takes over from a SEEDA funded project supporting and promoting social enterprise in the South East region.

I caught this on the BBC:

It is this last part that really gets me riled:

What utter bollocks, to use the technical turn of phrase, when applied to a parent. In the public gaze, there will be a parent taking a taxi with their child, acting as parent and under their authority alone as parent. The whole purpose of the CRB type legislation is to reassure those with primary caring responsibilities for vulnerable people, usually parents and other guardians, that others, when put in positions of contact or responsibility for their wards, children and relatives, have been checked out.

Do parents living in council housing have to be "CRBed"? Does a parent waiting with their child in an NHS medical facility waiting room have to be "CRBed"? Or even a parent stepping onto school property to deliver their child right to the door? In what way are those different from this case?

It has been estimated that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac between them underwrite debt of some $5,000,000,000,000 and that US losses from the current credit crunch could amount to $1,600,000,000,000.

The entire external debt obligations of the world's 40 odd Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPCs) is some $300,000,000,000 - that's about 6% of Fannie and Freddie's problems. So any bailout of the US mortgage system is going to amount almost certainly to more money than would write off all that, mainly African, debt (were that the best way to proceed, which I believe it is, with conditions).

By contrast the EU has today decided to support the idea of giving the surplus it has made on the Common Agricultural Policy as a result of rising food crop prices (so it has been subsidising less) to "African farmers". That's about €1,000,000,000 - or one three-thousandth of Fannie and Freddie's problems and two hundredths of Africa's problems.

But where did they get that money from, how did it arise? Robbing those very African farmers by denying them access to our markets and subsidising dumping on theirs. Tariffs are pure evil, aren't they?

So, whenever anyone says to you that it's difficult to find the finance for debt relief in the poorest countries, you'll now know that is total bollocks.  Just think of the scale of the US mortgage debt and what such sums could do for the 600 million or so poorest on the planet.

Excellent news - the big broadcasters will soon be wasting less money bidding up for coverage of "premium sport". Now don't give me all that guff about how the money does wonderful things. It skews sport in favour of a few superteams in each sport, making it much harder for lower order teams to bridge the gap successfully. The broadcasters are paying far more than the costs of recovering their technical outlay - they are paying an economic rent on top simply to outbid the next guy.

So the fact that it is harder and harder to stop such broadcasts being available free, and by all reports live, on the internet, would suggest to me that the value of that economic rent is going to fall rapidly. And we, the consumer, will have a freer and more competitive market for sports viewing. And hopefully an American billionnaire will not feel the desire to buy my dear Liverpool FC.

Illegal net sport faces crackdown:
By Ian Youngs

Sports authorities are taking action to stop illegal live coverage of football and other events over the internet.

Almost all English Premiership matches are available to watch live and for free, as are other leagues and sports.

The coverage, mainly from Chinese sport channels, is put on peer-to-peer applications and can be watched anywhere in the world.

As well as football, some sites are also claiming to offer live cricket action from The Ashes in Australia.