Citizens interviewed on the streets of Newcastle have warmed the microphones of TV and radio reporters with heartfelt effusions. Tyneside is in a state of euphoric meltdown. The rest of the nation looks on with bemusement. Exactly where is this event...

The credit crunch shows no signs of abating. Large US banks have been writing down billions in bad debts since the financial markets locked up last summer. And one of the largest, Merrill Lynch, this week announced that it made an outright loss, to t...

I don't get it. After months of resisting the Scrabulous craze, I eventually gave in, but I'm not sure why. I had resisted because it is so boring: playing Scrabble on the internet takes an age. You take your turn and then wait for the other person t...

Plagiarism used to mean students copying out of encyclopaedias or textbooks in longhand. Now the hugely increased access to the web and the demand for work to be word-processed has made the process much easier. Some websites even offer custom-made an...

Ooh, er. Carla Bruni, lissom consort of the President of France, can be seen disporting herself in her scanties while strumming a guitar in a new advertisement for Lancia that was, ahem, unveiled at the European Motor Show in Brussels on Thursday. Th...

A panel attached to last Saturday's news story referred to "a hitherto unknown think-tank, the Progressive Policies Forum". By Monday, Andreas Whittam Smith's column was talking about the Progressive Policy Forum, but a sub-heading on his piece had i...