Information Research Weblog

For a different perspective on information systems I recommend an article in this week's New Statesman (immediate access if you are a subscriber, otherwise £1.00 for 24 hours access). It's not about information systems directly, but about the problems of a shortly-tob-be-released prisoner. To get accommodation, he needs his National Insurance Number, but to get that - yes, you've guessed it - he needs an address. As he points out - he's in prison, under his real name, his fingerprints and DNA on file - why can't the prison authorities simply confirm his existence and allow his number to be delivered to the prison? The prisons are run by the Home Office, the National Insurance system by a branch of the Treasury - joined up government? Given the regular failure of IT projects in government, I guess we'll have to wait a long time before anything is joined up.

Of course, joined up action is problematical when we have politicians who can't do joined up thinking. Comedy show of the week was Tony Blair trying to justify his actions on Iraq - he seems to have a very selective memory. It seems that the famous "WMD" and the "immediate threat" to Britain that convinced the credulous MPs in the House of Commons (but no one else that I've ever met) were not the real cause - for Tony the real cause is now the removal of the oppressor. If this was his main attempt to regain voter trust, I don't think he's made it. It's positively embarassing to have such a hypocrite at the helm - and one who seems to think that the electorate is made up of unthinking idiots.

And now for something completely different: anyone interested in words will enjoy the Collect Britain site's feature on dialects. People are often astonished by the variation in accent in the UK, but remember the waves of invaders - Celts, Romans, Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Vikings, Norman French - all leaving traces behind. Plus internal migration, of course - the Scots who moved to Ireland ended up with an accent that is neither Irish nor Scots, but Ulster!