Longrider

One of the things I like about my mobile phone is that it doesn’t ring that much. I use it primarily for work and the occasional personal call, but otherwise, it remains silent and that suits me just fine. However…

A company will begin offering a directory service from next week that allows people to find the mobile phone numbers of people they don’t know.

Run by 118800, it will cost £1 and use databases of numbers it said are freely available for purchase and in the public domain.

Anyone searching for a number can type the name and location of the person into the 118800 website.

It claims to have some 15m numbers in its database.

Oh, bugger. I managed to silence the unsolicited calls on the landline and now it looks as if it will start up all over again on the mobile.

118800 gets numbers from three sources. First, market research companies who contact individuals and ask if they would be prepared to allow their numbers to be used for commercial purposes.

Second, from online businesses who often ask customers to tick boxes during the normal course of online transactions.

Thirdly, 118800 gets them from brokers who buy and sell lists of phone numbers.

I never talk to market research companies. However, I cannot be 100% sure that I have not ticked a box somewhere and let my number leak out at some point in the past. I do occasionally give my number to people I do business with just in case they need to contact me regarding the order. I will be extremely annoyed if I find that a number given in confidence is now being traded on the open market.

The first unsolicited caller will be treated to a short sharp response.

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Update: I just checked their database and it seems that I am not on it. Jolly good.

I recall the Anti-Nazi League from way back in the seventies. I didn’t like them then and I don’t like them now. My abhorrence of this nasty bunch has nothing to do with thinking that Nazis are good eggs – they aren’t. However, the Anti-Nazi League works on a principle of not allowing their political opponents a platform from which to speak.

BNP leader Nick Griffin has been pelted with eggs and forced to abandon a press conference outside Parliament.

Dozens of protesters disrupted the event, which follows the British National Party winning its first two seats in the European Parliament.

Chanting anti-Nazi slogans and holding placards they surrounded Mr Griffin as he was bundled into a car.

Apparently they also kicked his car and scuffles broke out. Be clear here, these people are not democrats, they do not believe in free speech. They are as much an enemy of liberal democracy as the people they are protesting about. A pox on both their houses.

Members of Unite Against Fascism, a new group supported by trade unions and MPs from all parties including Tory leader David Cameron and veteran left wing campaigner Tony Benn, said they wanted to “defend democracy” against what they regard as the “fascist” and “racist” policies of the BNP.

Fine. Then let him speak and be condemned by his own words.

I hold no brief for Nick Griffin and the BNP, but I defend absolutely his right to lay out his stall and be judged accordingly. The Anti-Nazis would deny us that freedom – they believe that they are the ones to make that decision on our behalf. Freedom of speech means allowing people to express opinons that you find repugnant. Unite Against Fascism in preventing Griffin from speaking today behaved just like the fascists they are.

According to a survey, Twitter is over hyped:

Micro-blogging service Twitter remains the preserve of a few, despite the hype surrounding it, according to research.

Just 10% of Twitter users generate more than 90% of the content, a Harvard study of 300,000 users found.

Estimates suggest it now has more than 10 million users and is growing faster than any other social network.

However, the Harvard team found that more than half of all people using Twitter update their page less than once every 74 days.

And most people only ever “tweet” once during their lifetime, the researchers found.

I have never tweeted and am not likely to. It has always struck me as somewhat pointless. Nothing I have seen changes that opinion. But, then, I have never bothered with Facebook or LinkedIn either and feel no particular compunction to do so. Perhaps I am not a social animal.