Hard News by Russell Brown

Conquering dictatorship with bad spelling

Was it something I wrote? The mysterious "capital T" exception for searches on Google China, as noted yesterday, no longer applies. A search on "Tiananmen" will now get you the same set of bland, regime-approved results as a search on "tiananmen", although bad spelling still does the trick. I'm not sure whether to feel smug or slightly guilty.

No Right Turn has a useful take on the fascinating (and occasionally alarming) storm over the Danish cartoons. As I've said in comments elsewhere, a cartoon of The Prophet with a bomb for a turban is perhaps not the best use of free speech, but banal speech is free too.

Media Guardian notes that a Jordanian paper has published a selection of the cartoons (registration required), and the Guardian's Organ Grinder blog notes that the first British media organisation to air the cartoons was the BBC.

Christchurch comedy troupe Outwits have a video for you.

The Daily Show looks at truth and lies.

And I'm really delighted to have the first of the 2006 Fairburn series online today. Rex's daughter, Dinah Holman, has been very helpful with this, and Sound Archives' decision to let me have the audio of the original broadcast of My Imaginary Journey was very welcome. Do take some time to read and listen to it: I'm sure you'll enjoy it.

And, er, I'm off to lunch …