Archives for April 2008

In response to our map asking what's hurting you most about the credit crunch, we've received a number emails from listeners on the huge price increases of domestic oil.

Around 1.5 million household use home heating oil in the UK. They generally live in rural areas, off the gas main, leaving them at the mercy of global oil prices.

A year ago domestic oil cost 33p per litre, today it costs 55p per litre. The average oil tank costs £1000 to fill, most people fill up their tank 2-3 times a year, leading to a bill far in excess of their gas-paying counterparts.

Also, there isn't an equivalent Ofgem body to monitor suppliers and help protect consumers.

This chart on the Boilerjuice website, a UK domestic oil supplier, is plotting the rise of home heating oil prices. They say their average order has dropped from 1000 litres to 500 litres in the last few months as people struggle to pay their bills.

So far -

• we've arranged for a reporter to meet one of the listeners who emailed iPM about his situation.


• we've been ringing round energy analysts and consultants to explain why the price has jumped more substantially than petrol/diesel over the same time period.


• we're looking for MPs who're concerned about their constituents and fuel poverty.

Is there someone in particular you'd like to hear from on this? All ideas/comments welcome.

UPDATE: When we first looked at this, there didn't appear to be any alternatives for people not on the main gas network, but to heat their homes with oil.

Then we found out about Chris Leek's not-for-profit company. He runs Community Energy Solutions, who work in areas considered to be in fuel poverty in Yorkshire and the North East. They try to connect people to mains gas or find ways to reduce their bills through renewable energy.

This is an extended interview of the one we broadcast on Saturday's iPM.

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A few of you emailed asking us to talk about Twitter, the microblogging site that urges you to reveal "What are you doing?" in posts of 140 characters or less. Well we did - we've even started twittering. Not that twitter is anything new (I've been using it on this BBC blog since April 2007) but it is growing rapidly. And the press, and politicians have got in on the act (although whether the latter is genuine engagement or a PR exercise I leave for you to decide)

Twitters ever extending reach provides a wealth of quotidian detail about life around the world that's fascinating to explore. For global eavesdroppersTwitterlocal, lets you find posts from a particular part of the world: Iraq for example. We spoke to four "global" twitterers for iPM, Kamla Bhatt, Kevin Toomer in Afghanistan, James Buck and Deborah Bonello. You can listen to them talk about how they use twitter below:

As well as looking for the geographical location of Tweets you can also search their content, with sites like Twitterment or trend the content with sites like Twist. Here for example is a graph of the frequency of certain internet acronyms in tweets. It seems Twitterers like a laugh:

There are more Twitter tools to be found here and here. There's a world of detail to explore

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Our next show is on May 3 and this is the space to submit your ideas on what we should cover and who you'd like to hear from.

You don't have to leave a fully formed an idea. Just a suggestion for something we should look at is enough.

You can add your ideas in the comments below, or send us an email. We do read all the emails we get sent.

We discuss all our ideas at a meeting on Tuesday and update the blog throughout the week with stories we're looking at. Again we welcome constructive criticism on the decisions we make and the stories we feature in the final programme - thanks.

Tuesday evening uodate:

Here are some of our early thoughts about this coming Saturday's iPM. Your thoughts on the following are most welcome.

Not a Laughing Policeman: Police officers have a new priority: "to change people's perception and make them feel as if they are safe".

Extreme Pornography: Those with a harmless taste for unconventional sex could find themselves criminalised once a bill outlawing "extreme pornography" is made law next week. There's controversy over a new wider definition of what might be outlawed.

Voices from abroad - We're looking for some powerful blogging testimony from overseas.

Digital Refuseniks - Saturday has been branded "Shut down Day" when people are being urged to give up using their PC for 24 hours. We're trying to find people who shun technology.

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We like this idea of crowdsourcing - where we recruit you in an act of journalism to help us create a picture of an aspect of UK life.

On the blog last week we mentioned that we wanted to experiment with mood maps. We're working with CASA (Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis) based at the University College London, who've developed MapTube, a map-sharing website.

In a totally unscientific study that makes no claims to be anything other than a (potentially) interesting experiment, we want to create a mood map of the credit crunch. And we hope to use it to inform our journalism.

We're asking you what single factor is hurting you most about the credit crunch?

Follow this link to the MapTube website to take part

Already done it? View the map as it grows

UPDATE: View the Northern Ireland map. Apologies not to have this sooner. We explain why here.

You can choose from six options and will be asked for the first part of your postcode - that's it. It should take less than a minute to complete and the map is updated every 30 minutes.

You won't be asked for any personal information and what you do submit won't be used for any other purpose.

As ever, let us know what you think or suggest questions you'd like us to ask in the future. Leave comments below or email us.

And for those of you who want to know a bit more -

• The map will obviously be blank at first and take a little time to populate.


• As the online form takes only the first part of your postcode, a number of streets/larger area than just your house will be shaded when you submit your answer.


• It works on a first past the post system so if 800 people select mortgage and 799 select food - mortgage will display on the map. But, depending on the numbers taking part, we might try and break this down further and represent in more detail at a later date.


• The MapTube website also allows you to take other information and lay the maps on top of each other - try it out in this section of the MapTube website.

If you have questions, drop us a line.

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Every week we ask an interesting person to tell us their favourite websites. This week, our first live favourites guest: Armando Iannucci, co-creator of Alan Partridge and The Thick Of It.

Armando's selections were Spencer Ackerman's Attackerman blog, Stephen Fry's podgram, Arts & Letters Daily and Martian FM.

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Thanks for all your contributions to Saturday's programme - our stories that featured in the programme.

Photography and the Terrorism Act
We looked at how the Act is being used to prevent people from taking photographs in public. More on the blog.

Housing benefit changes
An investigation into changes to the housing benefit system.

Credit crunch map
Take part in our totally unscientific study as we create a mood map of the credit crunch.

Favourites
Scottish comedian and satirist of The Thick of It fame, Armando Iannucci, told us his favourite websites.

Twitter mix
Chris (AKA Mr Blog) was tweeting about Twitter. You can follow iPM's Twittering if you're interested.

3G Families
We featured a family who decided to club together and move three generations under one roof - saving on childcare and ensuring elderly relatives don't have to go into a home. One response to the credit crunch?

If there's a story you think we should look at for next week's programme, or if you have ideas on the stories we currently have in production, let us know. You can suggest a story on the blog or email: ipm { at } bbc.co.uk

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A work in progress...

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The picture above comes from a Metropolitan Police ad campaign on the London Underground published nationally. 'Thousands' of people is an understatement; over 2 billion pictures have been posted to to photo-sharing website Flickr alone. Given the ubiquity of camera phones, it's doubtful that there's a square inch of public space in the UK not documented somewhere on someone's hard drive, website or memory stick.

So is this a golden age for British street photography? Not according to the amateur photographers and bloggers who have been setting the, er, photogosphere alight with stories of detentions, cautions and forced deletions of their pictures by police officers, PCSOs and wardens. Labour MP Austin Mitchell filed an Early Day Motion last month condemning police actions that prevent lawful street photography and calling for clarification of the law. It's attracted over 150 signatures in the Commons.

Photography in public places is perfectly legal, but anti-terrorism and child protection legislation have muddied the waters somewhat and according to Mitchell, may have given those enforcing the law a misleading impression of what is and isn't allowed.

The video below has been making the rounds online this week. It shows a Middlesbrough man apparently being detained by security guards outside a shopping centre, after taking pictures in the street. As the photographer describes the event:

A policewomen was radioed and came over to question the two suspects ( the total detaining us had risen to seven, a large crowd had now gathered) The detaining guard released me, i asked the policewoman if my friend and i could be taken away from the six guards, she motioned us to a nearby seat and told all the security people to go. She took our details, name, address, date of birth etc. She wanted to check my camera saying it was unlawful to photograph people in public, i told her this was rubbish.

The video only shows the initial confrontation with a shopping centre security guard, but does give a sense of the misunderstandings many street photographers face.

We're keen to do something on this issue - but I wonder if there's a good iPM treatment that wouldn't simply retread old ground. The claim that these incidents are on the increase is so far anecdotal and untested, so we briefly considered crowdsourcing it (like our broadband story in the previous run). But whilst a Google map of arrested iPM listeners might be compelling to look at, it's not quite what we're after...

So we're throwing it open to you. Any ideas that could shed some light on the phenomenon? Is there some way we could verify the apparent increase in incidents like these?

Or do you have experiences of your own to share? Are you a Police Officer, Community Support Officer or security guard with your own take on the issue? Let us know in the comments, or email us at ipm {at} bbc.co.uk.

UPDATE: Mark Whitaker emails to tell us about the Manchester Flickr group he runs, on which numerous photographers are sharing stories of being moved on, "politely or otherwise."

UPDATE: Here's a long version of the interview we did with Austin Mitchell MP. We also spoke to Mark Whitaker and to Peter Smythe, who chairs the Metropolitan Police Federation.

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There are few certainties in life: birth, death, taxes and egg yolks being yellow.

Only they aren't always.

Philip Robinson emailed iPM (you can as well by clicking here ), alerting us to something intriguing he'd found on this blog.

John Conners' blog entry relates how he was tucking into a poached egg and saw that the egg yolk was WHITE. And he's not alone. Comments on his blog have come from across the UK and even America, all from people who have also found white egg yolks. But no-one seems to know why or how it happens. In fact, if you turn to Google (other search engines are available) and search "white egg yolk", the only relevant entry...is John Conners' blog!

So iPM is stepping in to help. We've contacted those in the know, and we'll try to have the answer for Saturday.

But we're also turning this over to you. If you have any thoughts about how an egg yolk ends up white, or if you've ever found one yourself, share what you know in the comments section below.

UPDATE FROM JEN: So here we are, all is revealed...sort of. We spoke to Andrew Joret, chairman of the Technical Committee of the British Egg Industry Council. He's never seen a white egg yolk in all his years as chairman and, just for iPM, he explains why that is -

*The options for some poor egg-related pun were many, and the above was the best I could come up with. Alternative suggestions are also welcome in the comments section...

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We're now busy working towards this Saturday's programme - but we're always open to your ideas for what we should be covering.

Bubbling away at the moment:

+ Is housing benefit keeping pace with rising rents?;

+ The influence of micro-blogging applications like Twitter;

+ Man and machine - but which is which?

You can add your suggestions in the comments section below, or you can email us.

We read all the emails we receive and you don't have to have a fully-formed idea, just a suggestion for something you think we ought to look at is enough!

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Here's a longer version of the interview with Steve Vander Ark of the Harry Potter Lexicon. The publishers of a planned print version of the Lexicon, RDR Books are currently being sued in the US by JK Rowling and Warner Brothers Entertainment. More background on that here, here and here

We did ask for an interview from Rowling's publishers. They declined our request to speak, but the essence of their position is contained in the statement J.K. Rowling made outside the court Monday excerpted below:

If books that plagiarise other works are permitted, authors, fans and readers stand to lose. There are lots of books in many languages that comment on or criticize Harry Potter, and that's fine. But the book in this case is different. It provides no analysis and virtually no commentary. It takes far too much and it offers precious little in return.

Views reiterated in a subsequent statement Wednesday in which she said, "The book at the heart of this case has overstepped a boundary so unreasonably that I have been forced, regretfully, to take legal action. Authors have a right to protect their works from misuse. Do I have fewer rights because many people read my books? If this book is published" While legal process continues, the Judge hearing the case, has encouraged both sides to attempt to reach a settlement.

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Thanks to everyone who contributed to Saturday's programme - the stories we covered:

'Ash cash'
We looked at the issues around the cash fee that's required for doctors to release a body for cremation. Interviews with listener Pauline Levey who first emailed in, Dr George Fernie who chairs the British Medical Association's forensic medicine committee and blogging junior doctor, Rohin Francis, are all on the blog. 

Harry Potter court case
We interviewed Steve Vander Ark of the Harry Potter Lexicon website.

Favourites
Author and filmmaker William Boyd speaks about his favourite websites.

House of Commons parliamentary archive
Professor Eric Ringmar is angry that much of the House of Commons online archive can only be accessed for a fee.

On the blog you can listen to extended interviews with Prof Ringmar and Publishing Director Dan Burnstone from Proquest, the company given permission to digitise the parliamentary records.

If there's a story you think we should look at for next week's programme, or if you have ideas on the stories we currently have in production, let us know. You can suggest a story on the blog or email: ipm { at } bbc.co.uk

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Our next show is on April 26 and this is the space to submit your ideas on what we should cover and who you'd like to hear from.

You don't have to leave a fully formed an idea. Just a suggestion for something we should look at is enough.

You can add your ideas in the comments below, or send us an email. We do read all the emails we get sent.

We discuss all our ideas at a meeting on Tuesday and update the blog throughout the week with stories we're looking at. Again we welcome constructive criticism on the decisions we make and the stories we feature in the final programme - thanks.

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Looking for actors, antique books or help for back pain? Helpfully, William Boyd has the answers.

Each week we ask an interesting individual to share their favourite websites with us - Saturday's programme featured Boyd's

IMBd.com
The Internet Movie Database - Boyd is using the Pro version which you pay to subscribe to.

AbeBooks.com
New, used, rare and out of print books.

ChiroGeek.com
Advice, help and support for people who suffer from back pain.

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Gone, surely, are the days when the British Parliament was considered secretive and closed. Sound recordings of the House started thirty years ago - John Sargeant recently presented a programme all about this on Radio 4.

Odd then that so much of the online archive is only available either for a fee or if you are on the books of a British university.

If you're outraged by this, you're not alone. Erik Ringmar is a professor in Taiwan who thinks everyone should have free online access to the parliamentary record. Its got people talking.

You can hear Eddie's interview with Erik Ringmar here:

The firm Proquest were given permission to digitise the parliamentary record. Eddie has been speaking its Publishing Director - Dan Burnstone:

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Our main story this week came to us via listener Pauline Levey. She emailed to suggest we take a look at 'ash cash'. This is a fee that's required in order for doctors to release a body for cremation. It's currently set at a level of £71 each for two doctors, paid in cash on top of the doctors' NHS salaries. Pauline - whose mother was cremated a year ago - says the charge is unfair and cruel. Here she explains why.

Since the Shipman Inquiry the Department of Health and Ministry of Justice have been jointly working on overhauling the system of death certification. No ministers were available for interview, but the Department of Health did issue us an interesting statement promising that their planned reforms would:

...introduce a single system of effective medical scrutiny ... and replace the existing cremation certification process.

The British Medical Association negotiates the level of cremation fees on behalf of doctors. Dr George Fernie chairs the BMA's forensic medicine committee, which might be expected to defend the system. In fact, he's keen to see change:

Finally, we spoke to Rohin Francis, a blogging junior doctor at St. George's Hospital in London. As a first year House Officer in 2006, he wrote the following:

Ash cash. The sixty two pounds a doctor pockets every time a patient they have certified pops their clogs and is burnt to a crisp is nothing short of infamous. Known as the house officer's privilege, it is the fund for Thursday night drinks all over the country.

A colleague working on care of the elderly has effectively gone up a banding due to the vast amounts of ash cash he rakes in. No comment on his quality as a doctor, of course. Ahem.

Yet when we are filling in the form, we all answer 'no' to the question 'Do you have any pecuniary interest in the patient's death?'

Despite some noble souls donating their cheques to charity, the rest of us catch ourselves secretly hoping that families opt for cremation.

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We like this idea of crowdsourcing - where we recruit you in an act of journalism to help us create a picture of an aspect of UK life. And the massive response to testing your broadband speed, got us thinking.

So we've teamed up with CASA (Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis) based at the University College London, who've developed MapTube, a map-sharing website. It allows us to create and compare maps on different topics.

We want to create a credit crunch map on MapTube. We'll pose a simple question or two and ask for your postcode - but that's all.

We've been brainstorming questions along the lines of

*How worried are you about your finances?
1. Not in the least
2. Concerned but comfortable
3. Worried, but hoping I can make it through
4. Very concerned, touch and go
5. I'm heading for bankrupcy

*What's hurting you most about the credit crunch?
1. Mortgage/rent
2. Bills
3. Food prices
4. Fuel
5. Holidays

*How much do you put away in savings each month?
1. 2. £100-200
3. £200-300
4. £300-500
5. £500+

We're veering toward the second question, but in the true, transparent-spirit of iPM - we thought you might have some better ideas.

Something in particular you'd be interested in seeing represented on a map? Any credit crunch suggestions or would you rather hear about something totally different? All comments welcome.
Jen

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The shape of this Saturday's show so far. Comments welcome or suggest a story you think we should be following up on.

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Is the scale of e-crime against business being under-reported? If you run a small business affected by e-crime we'd like to hear from you.

A survey by The British Chambers of Commerce covering e-crime and businesses in the UK arguably deserves more media attention. The survey of 3,900 businesses found that 19 percent of businesses had suffered data loss because of a virus and 8 percent reported having laptops stolen.

Part of the problem is that businesses which do suffer from Cybercrime and cyber-attack are often reluctant to come forward. That was certainly the view of Steve Santorelli, former Met police officer and member of the security group Team Cymru. In his view this makes judging the scale of the problem and policing it effectively difficult (you can hear more of what he has to say below)

An honourable exception to this are the Royal Institute of British Architects. They were targeted by a Chinese spam attack. They worried it may have compromised member records, and went public, alerting their 40,000 members.

In the interview below we hear from RIBA about what happened, and from Steve Santorelli. We'd like you to share what you know too. Is this an issue you've encountered? Drop us a line.

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Each week we ask an interesting person to divulge the contents of their favourite internet bookmarks. This week's folder belongs to the screenwriter, film director, actor and Python - Terry Jones.

Terry's favourites were Truthout, Dahr Jamail's Mideast Dispatch, ZNet, Tom Paine and the BBC iPlayer.

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Wikileaks is a controversial website that allows whistleblowers to anonymously upload corporate and government documents. Since its launch last year, it has leaked several high-profile documents, including the Guantanamo Bay Standard Operating Procedures (covered by Chris Vallance here).

The site recently published a huge amount of material which it claims comes from the Church of Scientology, including the 'Operating Thetan' levels that purportedly set out the philosophy of the Church. A request from the Church's lawyer to take the material down on grounds of copyright violation was met with the following response last Monday:

Wikileaks will not comply with legally abusive requests from Scientology any more than Wikileaks has complied with similar demands from Swiss banks, London Banks, Russian off-shore stem cell centers, former African Kleptocrats, or the Pentagon. Wikileaks will remain a place where people of the world may safely expose injustice and corruption. Indeed, in response to the attempted suppression, Wikileaks will release several thousand pages of additional Scientology materials next week.

Their threat was made good, with a flood of new material being published daily over the course of the week. So, what will the Church of Scientology do in response? Here's a long version of the interview we broadcast on Saturday with their copyright attorney, Bill Hart.

We also planned to interview someone from Wikileaks on the programme, but this fell through at the last minute. That interview will - fingers crossed - take place on today's PM programme.

UPDATE: Here's the interview with Julian Assange of Wikileaks as aired yesterday.

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We're now starting work on our next show on April 19th. This is the space to submit your ideas on what we should cover. You can add your ideas in the comments, or you can send us an email. We do read all the emails we get sent. You don't have to leave a fully formed an idea. Just a suggestion for something we should look at is enough.

We discuss all our ideas at a meeting on Tuesday. After that we'll update this post with our thoughts. Again we'd welcome constructive criticism on what we decide.

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Some of the stories we covered in the programme this week:

Trauma

If you're involved in a serious road accident and the paramedics can't move you, an NHS doctor wouldn't automatically attend the scene. If you live anywhere in the UK outside London, the chances are the doctor will be a volunteer, who will get to you only if he or she isn't already busy with their day job. We spoke to listener Phil Hyde, a volunteering doctor who originally emailed us with his concerns. GP Peter Holden told us about the training of volunteers and we took the issue to Sir George Alberti, the NHS's National Director for Emergency Access.

Favourites

Ex-Python Terry Jones shared his favourite websites

Scientology and Wikileaks

The Church of Scientology's attorney Bill Hart gave us his reaction to the leaking of key Scientology texts on whistleblower site Wikileaks.

Lord of the Blog

We spoke to Lord Soley, who along with nine other Peers is blogging from the Upper Chamber.

Dr Blog

Chris Vallance investigated the phenomenon of the Rickroll.
UPDATE: (Chris adds) We also briefly mentioned the Churner Prize celebrating the best in "Churnalism".

If there's a story you think we should look at for next week's programme, or if you have ideas on the stories we currently have in production, let us know. You can suggest a story on the blog or email: ipm { at } bbc.co.uk

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Here's my very, very, very badly shot and edited footage of the RickRolling Flashmob in Liverpool St Station

As you'll see there's a tangential connection in the video to another iPM story this week: Scientology. Some background on that here.

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Our plans, so far, for this week's show.

And it's never too late to suggest a story that you think should be aired. Get in touch with your thoughts and, in particular, who you'd like to hear from.

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UPDATED 10/04/08:: You've been involved in a major car accident. The emergency services have been called and the Fire and Ambulance service arrive. The paramedics work quickly, using their expertise to keep you alive. But they need a doctor on the scene to put you under an anaesthetic. Would you..

a) Expect a doctor employed by the NHS to get there as soon as possible?

Or

b) Hope a volunteer doctor can be found, who can get there in time, with the right kit?

If you live outside of London, it's b.

We know this thanks to an email from Phil Hyde. He is a doctor and is concerned that lives are being lost because, outside London, the NHS chiefly relies on volunteers like him - being available and more often than not, he's not.

His concerns are shared by others and have been highlighted by earlier reports - one published last year - and another published fifteen years ago. One of those leading the campaign for a change in the current situation is Dr.Peter Holden, you might remember some of his work in the wake of the 7/7 bombings in London ( as reported here and here)

You can hear the interview Chris did with Peter Holden, in which he sets out his concerns, in the player below:

On Saturday we'll hear from the Department of Health. In the meantime our BBC colleagues in Southampton have also recently looked at this, but it's not been reported nationally. Shocked? Surprised? Expect more here soon. But please do let us know, if you'd like to know more, particularly if you are a doctor or have a story to tell.

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We're gearing up for our next show on April 12th. This is the space to submit your ideas on what we should cover. You can add your ideas in the comments, or you can send us an email. We do read all the emails we get sent. You don't have to leave a fully formed an idea. Just a suggestion for something we should look at is enough.

We discuss all our ideas at a meeting on Tuesday. After that we'll update this post with our thoughts. Again we'd welcome constructive criticism on what we decide.

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Sharing his favourite websites with us this week is a man who, for his high school science fair project, built a 2.3-million-electron-volt particle accelerator in his parents' garage. He went on to co-found string field theory, a leading contender in the search for a scientific 'Theory of Everything'. Mark one for Wikipedia, then, which Michio Kaku says he uses to research his books.

Michio Kaku's choices were Science Daily, Wikipedia, and the research library of the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

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I've a short feature Sunday morning on Broadcasting House (fingers crossed) which sidles up to the issue of the effect of the web on quizzing. Vast storehouses of knowledge are contained within every web enabled mobile phone, and yet we still pride ourselves on knowing large amounts of mostly useless information, stored, rather inefficiently in the "wet-ware" in our heads.
Ease of access to information is also changing the way questions are set. When Bernice Coupe started work on Round Britain Quiz she had to rely on a library full of reference books such as the animal Who's Who and the Who's Who of murderers and forgers (why both together?). In this rough edit of the interview which Bernice kindly granted to me we talk about research, the web and the meandering journey from ignorance to knowledge:

I'll post a longer interview with the producer of QI here soon too.

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As promised here are the two interviews about Phorm: Richard Clayton of FIPR and Kent Ertugrul CEO of Phorm. Richard Clayton's Report is here. Richard in his interview makes an interesting point about the security of the system (thanks to one of our emailers for raising that) and in his interview Kent makes an interesting announcement about a new meeting with privacy advocates.

Here's the interview with Dr Richard Clayton:

Here's the interview with Kent Ertugrul CEO of Phorm:

You may also wish to listen to an earlier interview with Kent Ertugrul here

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The stories we looked at this week:

Missing Millions

Where has the £34 million earmarked for Scottish families with disabled children been spent? In England and Wales this money is ring-fenced, but in Scotland it's given to all the different local councils who can spend it as they like. Listener Zoe Picton-Howell shared her concern over the money, which we followed up with the SNP's Alex Neil and the Labour MP Tom Clarke, a long term campaigner on disabled rights.

Dr Blog

Chris Vallance looked at Phorm, the controversial internet advertising platform, and spoke to computer security expert Richard Clayton and to Kent Ertugrul, Phorm's CEO.

Credit Crunch

We spoke to Pauline Brocklehurst and Martin Campbell, lender and borrower on 'peer-to-peer finance' website Zopa.

Favourites

String theorist Michio Kaku shared his favourite websites.

If there's a story you think we should look at for next week's programme, or if you have ideas on the stories we currently have in production, let us know. You can suggest a story on the blog or email: ipm { at } bbc.co.uk

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If you want to know more about what we've done on the show this week, click on Show Notes in the column on the right.

But MOST importantly we want YOU to help create next week's programme. Do you know something other people should know? Is there something worthy of investigation? Please click on Suggest A Story in the column on the right.

Please bookmark us. Chris and the team refresh the Blog all the time. And if you don't have a story idea right now, do keep us in mind in future.

Eddie

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'Neither a borrower, nor a lender be' is being taken perhaps a little too literally by the financial sector right now. As credit continues to crunch, high street banks have been tightening their belts amid the fastest rates of consumer borrowing in five years.

When Martin Campbell needed £1200 to repair the guitar he built as a teenager, he decided to bypass the banks altogether, and instead pitched for a loan online. Zopa is an online marketplace that allows people to lend and borrow money with each other. It's one of a number of websites that aim to bring social, eBay-like principles to personal finance. Here's how Martin made his plea.

When I was 19 (I am now 47) I made a beautiful electric guitar. I couldn't play and knew nothing about guitars but sheer hard work and tenacity paid off and she was lovely by the time I finished her. Like an idiot, as soon as I finished it I sold it for £170 in 1981, and immediately lost touch with the chap I sold it to.

20 years later the midlife crisis kicked in and I decided I should learn to play the guitar after all. After buying a couple I realised the right thing to do was track down the one I made and buy her back.

This took me years - especially as the chap I sold it to had long since lived in LA in the States! He had given it to a friend years earlier. Tracked him down, made an offer he couldn't refuse and he sent it back over to the UK. When I opened the package I almost cried. Hadn't seen her for 23 years but I remembered every twist of the grain...

The years had taken their toll - and the neck in particular was pretty knackered. But the sound was wonderful!

I have since tracked down the guitar builder who rebuilt Brian May's (yes, THAT Brian May) very first guitar for him and has since built replicas of the famous electric Brian himself made. This chap has been taken with my story and has agreed to rebuild my baby for me, including making a new neck and doing some further work on the body.

I need the money to pay for this project, as although I am lucky enough to enjoy a well paid job as a self-employed consultant, cash flow at this time of year is always a little tight.

Pauline Brocklehurst is a self-described 'Zopaholic' who noticed Martin's listing and lent him £120 towards the project. She and Martin told iPM why they chose to go online with their money.

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In September 2007, the UK government proposed plans to phase out traditional, incandescent lightbulbs by 2011. The bulbs will be replaced by energy-saving, compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs).

Chas_Newport suggested we take a look at 'the sloppy science of the ban' which led to a discussion on whether CFLs cause migraines. You can read the comments under suggest a story where there's a mix of views.

So we followed it up with an interview with Chris Smith, The Naked Scientist, who has a background in neurology,

He talks to iPM's Chris Vallance about what evidence we have to suggest there's a connection...

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You'll hear from Zoe Picton Howell on the programme/podcast. Zoe drew our attention back to this. Last year, the government announced new money to help families with disabled children.

As a parent of a disabled child, she has been trying to find out where the money has gone, others too have been asking questions.

We've been talking to her and the group Every Disabled Child Matters. And, as you'd expect, we've also been trying to find out more from those responsible. So far, so silent. Here is Zoe Piction Howell & Steve Broach from Every Disabled Child Matters. And in the Channel Guide - an interview with Alex Neil from the SNP.

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Each week we post up a draft running order of stories that we're planning to feature in Saturday's programme based on the story suggestions we've had for that week.

Think they're rubbish? Got a better idea? Yeah, well - leave us a comment, backing up your reasons for any change you think we should make.

On Saturday, we'll post the final running order and we can discuss what changes were made and why.

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A blog reader emailed us with a story about her father's experiences of palliative care and his eventual death in hospital as nutrition was withdrawn. It's very kind of her to have shared this experience with us in the interview below

While her father was ready to die after a prolonged illness, she clearly describes the distress patients suffer when nutrition is not provided; in her words, "you don't do this to animals".

I have a feeling that many other people may have concerns about palliative care. Are patients getting the care they deserve? Are we doing our best to make sure the end of life is a pain free as possible? Is the decision to not to provide nutrition always in the best interests of the patient? Is it taken at the right time, and do families feel that they have enough say in that process?

If you have experience and/or concerns about this I'd be interested in hearing from you.

Tags: bbc radio health palliative ipmradio4

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