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Posted by Nicole
A day after the Bank of England surprised everyone with an unprecedented 1.5 percentage point cut in interest rates there is little optimism being shown for the move.
UK Media Coverage:
FT Columnist Martin Wolf congratulates the MPC on the bold move but sees no sudden resurgence of lending between banks on the horizon:
Many commentators are looking at the role banks now have to play following the cut:
The Mail has also chosen to take a look at what was going on around the world the last time interest rates were this low.
Also on the Web:
On MSN:
My thoughts:
Financial matters are not my strong point – I tend to take a bury- my-head-in-the-sand approach to our finances. My husband is an accountant and we always say that we’ll let me handle the words and he can do the numbers. However, we have our own home and we also have three buy-to-let properties, so anything that could bring our monthly mortgage payments down is a relief for us. It’s not good news for savers though, I know. It feels like this is the beginning of a very long haul and I’m very glad that I’m off to live in the Middle East from the end of year!
Others’ thoughts:
Savers and borrowers are debating the cut on our message boards. sort_it says: “I have only recently become a pensioner, and since the kids left home many years ago I have never borrowed money, purely because I know in the end I would be in a mess when the time came for me to retire. I have no mortgage or owe anything on credit cards. Where has it got me now? My savings which I have been putting away for my retirement are now attracting very low interest, my shares I bought with my employer are practically worthless. So much for keeping yourself out of debt.”
While this from sulleejeebaby sums up the feelings of many others: “It's all well and good bringing the interest rates down but when will this be reflected with my mortgage lender?? I'm on a high interest rate and am fed up to the ears of paying over 7.5% in interest repayments....when will Libor rates be reflected with the same fall in rates??? This is key and nothing else matters.”
Your thoughts:
What's your view on the issue? How low should rates go? What do the banks have to do now? Have your say on our message boards or leave a comment below.
http://boards.msn.com/UKMoneyboards/thread.aspx?threadid=838561
Posted by Nicole
The story that’s just getting bigger and bigger is the furore surrounding the on-air prank calls to actor Andrew Sachs by Russell Brand & Jonathon Ross on Brand's pre-recorded Radio 2 show. According to reports, the BBC has received an unprecedented 10,000 calls from angry members of the public calling for action to be taken. The topic has even been discussed in the Commons and the BBC has now suspended the pair pending further investigation.
UK Media Coverage:
The BBC News website is leading with the story alongside a feature on how the Corporation vets its programmes – one of the key questions raised by the whole sorry affair.
The Daily Mail's homepage has no fewer than 4 stories on the subject including Sach’s granddaughter, Georgina Baille's response to the messages and an opinion piece from Piers Morgan who says that Ross, but not Brand, should be sacked by the BBC.
The Times asks how Radio 2 has gone from a station with a pipe & slippers image to a venue for obscene phone calls from a former heroin-using comic.
And both The Independent and the Telegraph feature opinion pieces on how the whole affair is evidence of deeper problems at the BBC.
Sky News asked ‘Was the Ross-Brand prank funny?’ in their lunchtime live debate.
Also on the Web:
On MSN:
My thoughts:
I listened to the calls yesterday on Brand's podcast and it wasn't a pleasant experience. It reminded me of school kids making prank calls from their home phone while their parents were out and it was deeply unfunny and juvenile. The thing I'm most surprised about however is how the whole segment was allowed to air in the first place. The show was pre-recorded and surely there was a chain of editorial sign-off?
Others’ thoughts:
Of course, commercial media companies (particularly those with broadcast or radio subsidiaries) that compete with the BBC are always likely to make the most of this story. Others believe that the whole affair is a storm in a teacup. On our message boards Zoey73 says: “The whole thing with Ross and Brand has been blown way out of proportion. I suspect that many of these people asking them to resign did not hear the show, especially those people who hate them so much ( I mean why would you sit down to listen for an hour to someone you dislike?) I think they are being made into scapegoats. There are so many worse things going on in the world, why do we have to walk on eggshells all the time. I heard the show and it just seemed to me like a bit of silly schoolboy type fun. The best thing Andrew Sachs can do is just ignore it.”
Your thoughts:
What's your view on the issue? Should the BBC take disciplinary action? Have your say on our message boards or leave a comment below.
http://boards.msn.com/UKEntertainmentboards/thread.aspx?threadid=829893
The era of American dominance is over (or is it?) – great article and user comments
Poverty very much the mother of invention
Radiohead's 'Nude' radically remixed (quite astonishing and beautiful)
At last, you can build yourself a circus freak and trade it with your friends
I love typography and so should you
Freestyle rap battle translated
Obligatory Sarah Palin viral funny
TEI encoding of Dylan's Subterranean Homesick Blues
MSN Video Top 5
1) Paris Motor Show launch of the sexy new Lamborghini
2) MSN Life & Style interviews Dita Von Teese
3) Official James Bond theme revealed
Posted by Matt Ball, MSN UK editor-in-chief
MSN UK is on the shortlist for an award: The Association of Online Publishers 2008 award for Best Online Consumer Publisher.
The result will be revealed on the evening of Wednesday October 1.
We’re in good company. The other publishers shortlisted are:
Associated Northcliffe Digital
BSkyB
Hearst Digital
IPC Media
Sun Online
Telegraph Media Group
You can find out more on the Association of Online Publishers website.
We’re delighted to have the made the shortlist as it reflects how we feel our site has progressed over the past 12 months but the purpose of this post is not to look back at what we’ve done, it is to look forward and ask you, our users, what you would like from MSN over the next year.
The fun thing about running a website is that you could do almost anything, such are the lack of constraints when it comes to technology development these days. However, what we cannot do is everything. Like every other business we have to decide which areas we are going to focus our resources on. So what would you like us to deliver on the site?
Should we provide even more video content?
Should we be offering more ways for users to upload and share their content?
We have a good range of channels these days – News, Money, Cars, Shopping, Life&Style, Entertainment, Tech, Travel etc – but are there other subjects you’d like us to provide more information on?
Which new tools or services would make the web work better for you?
Whatever you’d like from MSN we’d be interested to hear your views.
Click the Add a Comment link below.
...and where they stole the idea from
“Reverse” graffiti; man fined for cleaning walls
Prehistoric to early modern computers (pretty fascinating)
Virtual sheep market (cute piece of UGC)
Or, alternatively, Drunk Mars Rover Twitter
Banana-eating pig holds woman hostage
Posted by Nicole
Today we launched a page which brings you the best of our content in a whole new way.
MSN Viewer is an experimental entry point into the MSN portal built using Microsoft's Silverlight technology. We wanted to break-away from the familiar homepage look and feel and combine design and technology to give a fresh perspective on the range of content, tools and services we have across the site.
Of course, the page isn't meant to replace the regular homepage which you all know and love, but we want you to try out Viewer and tell us what you think: good and bad. We'll use Viewer and your feedback to design future generations of MSN and new ways to offer you great news, entertainment and useful tools and services.
Posted by Ian
I was more excited than I thought I'd be by the news that someone has been commissioned to write the sixth book in the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy 'trilogy'.
The thought had never occurred to me that anybody would a) be asked and b) agree to do it. To attempt to pick up where Douglas Adams left off would test surely even the most creative of authors. Not least because where he left off was pretty terminal (as you'll know if you read the fifth book, Mostly Harmless).
Yet someone has signed on for the project, due to be published next autumn. And the more I've thought about it, the more I'm keen to see what he comes up with. Adams's books are notoriously inconsistent anyway, so it's not as if Eoin Colfer - the man assigned the task - will be following in the footsteps of a Tolstoy or a Dickens.
Yet there's so much that's possible with the Hitchhiker 'franchise'. It's the ultimate blank canvas. No rules apply - not even trivial matters like planets blowing up. For anybody who likes intelligent fun and inspired imagination, this is a project to relish.
Posted by Dom
1127568[1] Dennis the Menace: image (c) PA Archive/PA Photos
Shocking news in the papers today; Dennis the Menace's harmless brand of anarchy in The Beano has been toned down since the late 1980s, over fears that his treatment of Walter the Softie could be classified as 'gay-bashing'.
'It's political correctness gone mad!' is now a massively clichéd and over-used phrase, but it does seem apt here. John Midgeley, co-founder of The Campaign Against Political Correctness, sums up the anger: 'It's a great shame that in recent years this national institution has been watered-down to placate a tiny minority of humourless, do-gooding adults'.
The censoring of Dennis prompts another question: what other popular classics have been watered down and altered without our knowledge over the years?
Posted by Ian
A year or so ago I discovered a peculiar green staining on the back of most of my teeth. It wasn't particularly visible to anybody else (or so I assumed, seeing as nobody had mentioned it) and the full extent of the discolouring was only evident when I peered inside my mouth with a mirror.
I'd no idea how long the staining had been there. I was shaken by the fact it had spread all over my jaws and I'd only just noticed. Previously, whenever I'd cleaned my teeth, all had seemed fine. But then I'd only been looking at the front, not the back.
Anyway I went to the dentist who referred me to the hygienist who spent a good half hour cleaning everything up. Her diagnosis: tea. Green tea, to be precise. That supposed source of goodness and nourishment. I confessed I drank a lot of it at work. She recommended I stop.
It had never occurred to me that tea could wreak such havoc. Tea: one of the nicest things in the world! The balm of life! I was furious. But I gave it up - green tea, that is, not tea altogether.
I've been back to the hygienist twice since then, and much of the staining has gone. In retrospect I'm sure the quality of the green tea I was gulping down every day had something to do with it. It had the consistency of drain water and the colour of bile. But I persisted in the belief it was doing me some good - because I'd read something to that effect. More fool me.
Meanwhile the Guardian is wondering whether brushing your teeth could save your life. It's probably somewhat more practical than a nice cup of tea.
Posted by Ian
The replacement of Manchester City's previous owner, "a human rights abuser of the worst kind"*, with the royal family of the United Arab Emirates, is about a big a demonstration you can get of how unpopular leading British football clubs are to British millionaires.
Why is there so little interest among the rich and powerful of this country? Why does no-one seem to think it worthwhile owning a Premier League team from their homeland?
Clearly something has to be done, before all these teams become mere units of collateral in foreign bank accounts.
Step forward the British government. Just like important art treasures are "saved for the nation" thanks to generous grants from the Treasury, so important teams should be "saved" the same way. And because they would be financed out of government expenditure (or even Lottery funding), in theory we would all own them and therefore all be entitled to have a say over match selection and transfers.
Now that would make the beautiful game truly beautiful.
*Amnesty International
Posted by Dom
Here's a quick look at what you thought of the site in August.
The tragic plane crash in Madrid and Kerry Katona's bankruptcy were two of the biggest news stories in our slides during August.
On a lifestyle front, a piece from Encarta on useless body parts really got you clicking (why do men have nipples?!), as did an interesting piece on what your sleeping position says about the state of your relationship.
And, of course, we can't forget the Olympics, where Britain's staggering gold medal success kept us busy putting up some memorable images in the slideshow.
Issues which got you irked this month included: an out-of-date photo of Kilimanjaro, some misleading or overly sensationalist headlines in our News module, inaccurate weather forecasts ('Your weather forecasting is the worst I have ever seen, its so far out its embarrassing, do you use a pine cone and a piece of seaweed ?') and an unfortunately wrongly programmed news link ('Why is Barry George considered to be a speed camera cash cow on your news link. I'm sorry but I don't understand that').
Bad spelling and grammar also upset you:
'When you write 'the position in which we lay down ...' do you mean the position we use to lie down in, or are you confusing the transitive and intransitive forms of the verb, 'to lie'?'
'WHAT is an Olympic 'gold MEAL'???? If cannot spell, RESIGN!!'
'Can you not spell? IT'S ISAAC HAYES NOT ISSAC'
'I have to write on behalf of all of us who are actually literate. Please employ some proof readers! In the decline of the honeybee article Varroa is named as both the mite AND the virus it carries. Also, this is the wrong 'prey/pray' - unless bee mites do have an organised religion :)'
The old issue of linking to stories about Madeleine McCann also prompted one user to write: 'A war has broken out between Russia and Georgia, the Olympics have just started....but MSN will lead with the story that Maddie - an MSN headline fave - MIGHT have been seen in a bank in Belgium'.
Thanks for all your comments and opinions, and rest assured they were all taken note of and passed to the relevant editors.
On the bright side, we did get some positive feedback from one user: 'The world's weirdest animals and sea beasts article was brilliant. My sister and me loved it. They certainly are horrible, especially the one that eats its victims from the inside out. Educational, fun, very funny and insightful indeed.'
We'll be back in a month to review September's goings-on.
Posted by Ian
We're apparently facing the biggest economic slump for 60 years, looters are preparing to terrorise our towns and cities, and Mr Burns and Rev. Lovejoy's wife are hoping to win the US election for the Republican party.
But it's not all bad. It's the start of a new month, always a time for beginning anew and thinking fresh thoughts. Here are six reasons to be cheerful this September:
1) Autumn is coming, with its rich colours, wistful horizons and mellow moods. Already you can see the dew in fields and on lawns first thing in the morning, and there's a wonderful softness to the sky that you don't get in the middle of summer. It's nature kicking back and preparing to put its feet up, and it's beautiful.
2) TV gets good again. Traditionally this is the time for channels to unveil their new season of programmes, and while we don't get wall-to-wall new series like we used to, there's still enough to get excited by: Strictly Come Dancing, Merlin, Heroes, God On Trial, Survivors and Little Dorritt on the BBC alone, plus that bizarre remake of The Family on Channel 4.
3) Big Brother ends. The show is a joke that lost all humour ages ago. Rules don't apply anymore (housemates seemingly able to come and go as they please) and anybody who is likeable always get kicked out during the first few weeks. The fact so few people cared about it this year, however, is a promising sign.
4) The awards season begins. For fans of ludicrous outfits, breathtakingly pompous speeches, shocking miscarriages of justice and British people doing well in America, there's plenty to satisfy: the MTV video awards, the Emmys, the Mobos, the Mercury Music Prize and, if you're really desperate, the TV Quick & TV Choice and Inside Soap awards.
5) Formula One goes after hours. Depending on your point of view, Grand Prix races are either thrilling exhibitions of peerless skill or a bunch of show-offs driving round and round the same bit of road for three hours. On 28th September the first ever night-time F1 is being staged in Singapore, which will at the very least make the thing seem a bit more unpredictable. Sport fans can also look forward to World Cup football qualifiers and the Ryder Cup.
6) The secret of the universe will be discovered. Well, in theory. The world's largest scientific experiment begins on 10th September when a particle accelerator the shape of a giant hula hoop buried deep underground in Switzerland is switched on. It's hoped that it will be able to recreate the Big Bang and hence disclose some truths about the meaning of life. If it does, we won't ever have to think about the price of eggs or Big Brother again. Hooray!
And if you're still feeling down...
Biggest belly laugh of the day at MSN Towers came with news that an elderly woman misread instructions while checking in at Sweden's main Stockholm airport and was whisked down a baggage chute after she placed herself instead of her luggage on the belt.
Fortunately, the old dear sustained no injuries and made it out in time to catch her flight to Germany.
There was widespread astonishment north of the border today when Edinburgh was named the most miserable place to live in the United Kingdom.
In a new study by university researchers, the capital occupies bottom spot out of 273 locations across the country, today's Scotsman reports.
"This may come as a surprise to festival-goers, or tourists who only see Princes Street and the Georgian splendours of the New Town. But not to anyone acquainted with the drug-fuelled deprivation of the 1970s housing schemes built around the city's outskirts when the old tenement buildings were cleared", says Michael McCarthy in the Independent.
What do you think of the report? Is Edinburgh the most miserable place in the country? Post your thoughts.
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