Give a man a fish...

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day.

Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. (Lao Tzu)

Give a man a fish and he'll come back for another tomorrow;

Try to sell a man a fish after giving him one free and he may laugh in your face (unless he's hooked...)

Give a man free online news and he’ll be happy until it’s taken away.

Try to teach him to register and pay and he’ll head to the BBC. (NEJ)

But then again, perhaps not: read how Rupert is right

...and Stevie Spring's interesting take in the Guardian on News International's faith in the concept of paywalls.

Crete - Mamma Mia!

Mamma Mia, we're off to Crete in August... Gap-year touring and GCSEs over, a true family holiday.

Rosemary beetle

Thanks to The Sunday Times (newspaper, available at all good newsagents, just £2), in whose Home>Gardening Reader's Question section I found out about this little critter today. Not surprisingly, it is no longer resident on my rosemary bush...

RIP Egon Ronay

My former employer (but in name only, as he sold his famous Hotel and Restaurant Guides some years before I edited the Pubs & Inns, Ireland plus ...and Baby Comes Too guides) died today at his home in Yattendon, Berkshire. Story in Times Online here.

Cantilever staircase

The Bank of England leaves interest rates the same, for the 15 month running, but the economy is still going round in circles. BBC story here.

Top pic: the cantilever staircase in the Bank of England building is said to be the longest in Europe. Bottom pic: St Paul's Cathedral's cantilevered staircase, used in the Harry Potter films.

That's a lot of iPads...

Crusties expected to pay for news?

Shock horror! UK crusties and knobs expected to pay for news... Warning - you will have to register to view the above page. So, if you don't want Mr Murdoch and the News International marketeers to start gathering your personal data, don't bother reading it. (Actually, you CAN read the article for free here on the 'old' Times Online site, but only until Murdoch closes down the 'old' combined Times and Sunday Times site sometime soon - but you don't get the wonderful pic above). As for whether you can read the article on an iPad app or an iPhone app I couldn't really care less about something. How about an Android app for those of us in the 'Google gang'?

The ampersand

The joy of typography and the ampersand: 365, For Haiti, Mesmerising curves, Half & Half or not: Shitampersand