This morning, a gentleman was reading a copy of The Times on my South West Trains service bound for London Waterloo. Nothing too surprising about that. However, this man continued to intently consume the day’s important news stories as he left the train and made his way down to the Underground network. This chap wasn’t reading a newspaper though. He was an early adopter so he was reading the electronic version of The Times on an Apple iPad. Clearly, the content is so captivating, the display is so sharp and the font is so crystal clear that he simply has to continue reading the news as he descends the staircase at platform 4, tightly packed in a mass of humanity, down to the Waterloo and City line. ...

I believe it was Tommy Docherty who christened the phrase ‘the innocence of youth’ when he described the joyful, attacking football of the newly promoted Manchester United team during the 1975–1976 season. One of my favourite bloggers, Jonathan Beckett, also reminded me of ‘the innocence of youth’ recently when he recounted how he dare not tell one of his three daughters that the family was getting three new kittens imminently lest she responded by ‘jumping up and down uncontrollably'. ...

‘When you land at Heathrow you think at times you have landed in a Third World country’ - Cardinal Walter Kasper. I guess the Papal entourage must have landed at Terminal 3 and endured the inevitable 20 minute wait for a bus to be brought up to the aircraft. If only the Italian check-in staff had put those red ‘Priority’ tags on their suitcases. Still, it’s a bit rich coming from a man who wears a pointy hat and attaches the same importance to the ordination of women as to the sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests.

The Brightside family holiday in Spain was a very relaxing affair. For a period of 10 days, I didn’t watch a television, read a newspaper, stare at a computer screen or even turn my mobile phone on. In fact, I sat by the pool, listened to music, swam, ate fantastic seafood, thought a lot and ploughed my way through the Millennium trilogy by Stieg Larsson. One hot, sunny afternoon, my relaxation was disturbed by the most awful, horrible, blood curdling screams. I consulted my iTouch; ‘D-7’ by that popular 90’s beat combo - Nirvana. Ah that explains it. I returned to ‘The Girl Who Played With Fire’ and the exciting adventures of Lisbeth Salander. ...

‘Burns - I guess this means I can book the hotel for four nights and cancel the flights to OpenWorld then ?' It was 10:30 am on a dull, grey overcast Monday morning in Manchester. Sherlock Burns and Doctor Timothy Hall had just emerged from a fractious, tense kick-off meeting at Tiger Telecom. Sherlock Burns and Dr. Timothy Hall had been called by the IT director at short notice to investigate a sudden and marked degradation in the performance of the production database ...