My jaw just hit the floor. I read on the BBC website that some complete retards in government sent out by post the personal data of 25 million families receiving child benefit on two discs, which were subsequently lost. The article reports that the data contains: “parents’ and children’s names, addresses, dates of birth, child benefit and national insurance numbers and in some cases, bank or building society details”. Oh. Great! So, some form of secure, recorded post didn’t seem sensible then?

Alistair Darling insists that we are not all in danger of identity fraud.

Are you a complete moron Alistair?

With a name, date of birth, NI number, address and some bank details it’s ludicrously easy to commit identity fraud. Frankly, with that kind of information, your average household pet could get a few credit cards and loans.

What is the point in having a Data Protection Act if the government responsible for policing it is completely incapable of following their own rules? Perhaps you should have just flogged all the data Alistair – then maybe you could recoup some of the £24 billion of tax payers’ money you’ve given to Northern Rock in the past 3 months.

Went to the retail park yesterday. Sat in the usual bumper to bumper traffic due to some morons who lacked the cognitive ability to drive their cars without invading another car’s personal space. Of course there were about 3 ambulances parked up clogging the traffic even more, despite it being a rather tame looking “fender bender”. Once I’d fought my way past that, and the brain washed Christmas shoppers worshipping at the church of retail, I managed to get into Comet to pick up the joystick I’d ventured out to buy. Parked outside is a Mini convertible… with the roof down.

I just don’t understand the British mentality to A: buy a convertible in the first place (they cost more, handle poorly, are noisy, invite vandalism, make one look pretentious etc.), and to B: insist on having the roof down whatever the weather. This is Britain. It is November. By no stretch of the most imaginative person’s imagination is it warm enough to drive around with no roof. Convertible owners that do this are the type of people that will never admit they’re wrong or that they made a mistake. Yep, you bought the convertible. The model which delivers the least driving pleasure so that you can, on the few occasions that the sun dares to rear it’s head in this country, put the roof down and let the pollution belch through your hair, ensuring you arrive at your destination with a messed up, smelly and dirty barnet. No. You never got to drive down that imaginary empty B-road pictured on the brochure, with the sun on your back and the wind in your hair. The reality is that convertible ownership is crap, so instead you resort to putting the roof down at every possible moment regardless of the temperature, because you imagine other drivers will be looking at you with envy.

Er… nope.