A quote from a recent Apple job advert for an engineer to work on Mail:

We prefer to have engineers who can handle both the UI and lower level implementation details.

Hmm… well… that explains why the user interface stuff coming out of Apple has been steadily declining over the last few years.

I know that there are engineers who can handle both, but they are few and far between, and frankly I doubt that Apple has hired that many of them recently.

I guess this would be the tie for me…

As various sources have reported, Ian Holloway seems to be on his way out of QPR.

Ollie has been an absolute star since he returned to QPR. Things have been a bit wobbly, though, in the last few weeks, and I was beginning to get the sense that the fans were turning against him.

So if he is off to Leicester, then in a strange way it gets everyone out of spot. He can move on to bigger and better things, and the fans can genuinely say “So long mate, thanks for everything you’ve done for the club, and good luck!”. That’s got to be better than an ignominious exit in a month or two.

As for what he leaves behind, the weird thing is that the main problem - the defence - seems to have had some sort of bizarre transfer-deadline swap-shop makeover. If it works, and Shittu returns to the sort of form that he apparently showed at Leeds on Saturday, then things may not be too bad for us.

The only scary bit is exactly who Paladinni decides to bring in as a replacement. The talk is of Jim Smith as a director of football. That’s all very well, but what we need is a coach (or two), not a wheeler-dealer.

The idea that we have a right not to be offended by others, and in particular that people with a religious belief hold some sort of privileged position and should be treated differently, is a dangerous nonsense which needs to be refuted.

I’ve heard lots of sensible comment about the current “cartoon-gate”, mostly from liberal folks like myself who believe in the importance of free speech.

I’ve been surprised and worried though, by the number of them who have qualified or modified what they have said - adding something along the lines of “of course, we must respect religious people’s beliefs”.

Respect your beliefs? No, I don’t respect your beliefs. As it happens, I find many of your beliefs deeply offensive.

I respect your right to hold those beliefs, and even to express them to me, but that in no way obliges me to modify my behaviour to fit in with the way you think I should live my life.

Howard Jacobson wrote a irrational and ranting load of old cobblers in the Independent, in response to Richard Dawkins’ programs on religion.

He seemed to have completely missed the point. Luckily, Brian Eno appears to have spotted the many flaws in his argument too!