Dizzy: Answer the Bloody Question!

Newsnight's David Grossman quizzes Dizzy (aka Phil Hendren) about his FOI request about the Number Ten Downing Street gift shop. He displays an unnatural interest in oven gloves. Can't think why.

Watch the clip HERE.

Dizzy Asks if Nick Clegg Passes the Smell Test

We've heard a lot about Conservative MPs having to pass the "smell test". What would you think about an MEP who flew to Brussels each week on budget airlines, but then claimed the full cost per trip (est £900), as he was fully entitled to under the rules? What would you think if he then put all that money aside to run his office? Does that pass the "smell" test? It's what Nick Clegg admitted to doing on 5 Live this morning, and it's no doubt what MEPs from all parties do. Thankfully the rules change next month so they will only be able to claim the actual cost in future, after a long fight by Dan Hannan among others. Dizzy has the full story HERE.

Trust No-one

Dizzy has an article in today's Times about computer security. He says we have become 'infantilised' by technology and that because of our ignorance we put blind trust in computer security systems.

We should not only be angry with government departments or businesses that fail to protect our data from fraudsters and criminals, but also at ourselves for the blind confidence we have put in technology's ability to provide that mythical thing called “total security”. It is a cliché to say that we as a society have sleepwalked into something, but when it comes to the security of our data we have not just walked, we've rushed headlong into an online world where we instinctively trust everything....

We have become infantilised by technology. Instead of trying to get to grips with information technology, we simply defer to the experts, and then we wonder why we are annoyed when things fail. The truth is that there is no system that cannot be hacked. If a human being can create a security system, then another human being will be ingenious enough to find a way in, or around it. That's why Jeff Richards, the security expert, made his two laws of data security so simple: (1) Don't buy a computer; (2) If you do buy a computer, don't turn it on.

Wouldn't life be duller if we followed that bit of advice! Safer, but duller.

Dizzy Goes Mainstream

Eleven days ago I asked a question about Phil Hendren, aka Dizzy Thinks. I said "Why hasn't a newspaper signed him up yet?" Less than a fortnight later, Phil makes his debut in The Times comment section tomorrow with an excellent piece on the government's latest big brother plans. Dear oh dear, another blogger signed up by the MSM. Will it ever end?

Dizzy's Big Story

Just as a follow up to the last post and Suzanne Moore's inane comments at the EI event about blogs not breaking any stories... Perhaps she should read THIS post from Dizzy which uncovers yet more data security breaches in the Department for Work & Pensions. A day later the MSM in the form of Sky News are catching up with it HERE. I wonder if this could be Dizzy's big breakthrough. He deserves it to be. No blogger is better at this sort of forensic analysis. Why on earth hasn't a newspaper signed him up yet?

From West Ham to Worricker

Oh what fun it is to see, West Ham win away... or indeed at home. And this afternoon Dizzy, my 18 Doughty Street colleague Mike Rouse and I did just that. Oh and Home Office Minister Tony McNulty did too - he even waved at me (with all five fingers) from the Director's Box.

My match report can be read HERE on my West Ham Blog for those who are interested - Dizzy has his take on the afternoon HERE - and I deny absolutely all his allegations about my accent. Mike Rouse had never been to a football match before and he has written it up on his blog HERE. He seemed surprised that I became boisterous. Funny, I always thought I was like that at work...

After the match I went for a meal at an excellent Mexican Restaurant in Islington called Desperado's (a reader informs me this used to be Granita!) with my fellow Hammer Jo Phillips. Jo used to be my broadcasting agent and was the producer of 5 Live's much missed Sunday Service, which I occasionally used to co-present with Fi Glover and Charlie Whelan. She's a good mate and it was good to catch up on her news. She now works for Bob Geldof's Ten Alps Broadcasting.

FYI: I'm doing the papers on News 24 at 11.45pm tonight, and I'll be on Radio 5's Worricker Programme from 10am till 1pm tomorrow.

Dizzy Uncovers Proof of Home Office Break-Up

Dizzy Thinks has uncovered evidence that a new Ministry of Justice is about to be formed HERE. Apparently Tony's bezzie mate Lord Falconer's Department of Constitutional Affairs registered www.justice.gov.uk last week. Obviously Falconer will want to progress this pretty quickly, because he's unlikely to be in the Cabinet once regime change has happened. I wonder what the good Doctor Reid will make of it... I think I can guess.