nb Worrier

I, presumably along with seven million other people, have received a personal apology - it must be personal, he says so twice - from one 'Dave Hartnett', 'Acting Chairman' of HM Revenue and Customs. So that's all right then. I'm really reassured to know that the 'copy of the data is likely still to be on Government property' (love that reassuringly authoritative capital G), or at least, that 'there is no evidence that it is in the possession of anyone else'.

Actually I'm a lot more reassured by the idea of there being safety in numbers. I'd be more worried if my details were among seven hundred stolen, or even seven thousand - but seven million - surely it'll take them a while to get around to me. I take the same probability-based approach to the Terrorist Threat (TM); the chances of something happening on any given day and time and place that I happen to be are, if you think about it, minuscule. And the same goes for everyone else. (Disclaimer: yes, it is self evidently horrid that anyone, anywhere gets killed or hurt at all, ever. But thousands of times as many people are killed, injured, maimed, widowed, orphaned etc etc in road accidents and I don't see much breast beating about that. This is a plea for less breast beating, by the way, not more.)

This is also why I don't waste money doing the lottery.

Now, this is a more horrifying statistic (from today's Guardian). Thirty seven percent of ten year olds play computer games for three hours or more a day.

Thirty seven percent (37%) - not just the deprived, the neglected, the fecklessly-parented; more than a third of all of them

Ten year olds. Not teenagers. Not people over whom their parents have no control. Primary school children. Children who should be playing with dolls and action men, and Lego and Meccano, and running around outside climbing trees, and using their imagination. Oh, and going boating, of course.

Three hours or more. Not just a little while. Not one hour, or two hours (how much would that 37% go up if they were included?). Three hours. Or more. One eighth of the day. Or more. A fifth of their waking hours. Or maybe a quarter, or a third. All their leisure time plus some.

And we wonder why they can't bloody read. Or interact with other human beings. We wonder why they're overweight and unhealthy.

I note that the Playstation 3 is being advertised with the slogan 'This is Living.' Either someone, somewhere, in an advertising agency a million miles from reality is laughing their socks off, or irony is not only dead, but buried, and having its grave danced upon.