The Weekly Round-Up: 11.03.05

"Selling political policies is not like selling Viagra substitutes..."

You don't say!

You might think that's pretty obvious but it appears Tony Blair and his people would have done well to heed this advice before hitting 'send' on a recent marketing email.

silicon.com has heard from a number of unhappy voters this week who received an unsolicited email from the Labour Party. The emails purport to come from Tony Blair – yeah, right - and include the subject line 'Help stop the Tories attacking our NHS'.

(Perhaps the Viagra comparison is not totally unrelated – after all this was yet another email containing implausible and unfounded claims of a medical nature...)

The email begins 'Dear Labour supporter' but a number of recipients have told silicon.com they have never signed up for email alerts from Labour and are most certainly not Labour supporters.

Perhaps most notable among those recipients protesting the suggestion they are a 'Dear Labour supporter' was Richard Allan, Liberal Democrat MP for Sheffield Hallam, who also received the email and branded it as "spam".

(However, we should point out the Labour Party categorically denies sending spam - more on which later.)

Allan, also a member of the All Party Internet Group which campaigns against spam (too... much...irony...), told silicon.com: "If political parties resort to mass emails of this sort during the forthcoming General Election campaign, they are likely to find the activity counter-productive."

But he would, wouldn't he – though the Round-Up thinks he does have a point.

"It appears to be based on the spammer's principle that it is so cheap to send email that issuing millions of them for the odd positive response is worth it," he added. "But selling political policies is not like selling Viagra substitutes.

"A political party that annoys people by spamming will pay a price for that."

...Not that Allan will lose too much sleep over that, of course. And it would appear Labour has indeed angered a fair few people.

Another recipient of this email told silicon.com: "I've already replied to my email from Tony with some fairly terse comments..."

Strike one off for the reds.

And another: "I only got on this list because I wrote an email to Tony Blair complaining about his Government. He obviously hasn't read it because he now regards me as a Labour supporter! That explains a lot!"

And there were similar tactics reported from a voter in London: "This doesn't surprise me. After I wrote to my Labour MP I was put down on the local branch's database as a Labour supporter despite never voting for them."

Many other readers suggest the email addresses were harvested from the 'Big Conversation' which was meant to be a public consultation website for all members of the public – not just Labour supporters.

Oh dear. Last year it was a dodgy dossier now it would appear to be a dodgy database.

However, Steve Linford from SpamHaus told silicon.com the party is not technically in breach of the law as Tony's cronies are gaily dancing through a "giant loophole" in the law governing spam email... put in place by... yes, you guessed it, the current Labour government.

But irrespective of legality, Linford said: "Labour should stop sending these mailings immediately and work out where it went wrong."

An initial enquiry into Labour Party HQ was met with a denial that any of the emails sent were unsolicited. silicon.com was told all emails were either requested via the Labour Party website or as part of their party membership.

...which frankly we didn't believe, given the above, so we asked for more details, only to be met with comment from the press officer along the lines of "well, there were probably... we did, erm, do some, well we may have taken a ... can I get back to you?"

Which they did – insisting they did not send spam and that all emails were opt-in. So that clears that up. (In the name of even-handed-ness, read more about what they had to say here.)

While sitting on 'hold' silicon.com couldn't help noticing that the Labour Party's hold music includes US grunge rockers Pearl Jam – notorious opponents of Bush, Blair and their invasion of Iraq.

However, such a choice seems rather indicative of Labour's whole take on matters of late: 'We don't really get the message and we really don't care about the truth but as long as it sounds good it's good enough for us...'

If Lib Dem MP Richard Allan might worry about the possible outcome of his colleagues discovering an email addressed to a 'Dear Labour supporter' in his inbox then spare a thought for the CEO of Boeing who was sacked this week for having a fling with a female colleague which was exposed to the board of the company by another employee. Could it be an internal email was read? That's certainly been one suggestion.

The IT department is playing an increasing role in disciplinary matters, it would seem, and this subject was put to our most recent CIO Jury.

However, Ted Woodhouse, an IT director within the NHS, was more concerned with why Boeing has a ban on co-worker nookie.

"Perhaps a more interesting question is why Boeing has a policy forbidding relationships with co-workers - that seems a little archaic and possibly contravenes human rights somewhere," he said.

"Perhaps they're frightened of the 'Mile-High Club' taking off, or rather landing, in Seattle,"

And still on the theme of communications going astray, the Round-Up received a Christmas card this week, which would appear to be the last of last year's rather than the first of this year's. So thank you to all at PR company Text 100 - your card arrived on Wednesday.

To give them their due the envelope was franked on 16.12.2004 so it was either the slowest ever walk to the post office by the receptionist or an employee who only just found the cards in the bottom of a bag.

Unless it's just because the British postal system is horrifically flawed... But surely not.

Strangely two of the Round-Up's colleagues received their cards from the same agency last week and the week before respectively. It's all a bit of a mystery – perhaps some clever PR campaign which is lost on us.

Or maybe not.

Perhaps a time machine might be the answer. Which brings us very neatly (OK, slightly clumsily...) onto the latest news on intergalactic timelord Dr Who and word that an episode from the forthcoming BBC series has been leaked onto the internet.

The BBC was horrified, while the rest of the world was highly sceptical, given the publicity the leak has created for the series, details of which until now had been largely 'under wraps' - which is media speak for 'nobody knew it was coming out and nobody was going to stay in and watch it'.

So thank heaven for all those pirates, as Robert Louis Stevenson may once have said of his literary career.

Despite this, an ungrateful BBC spokeswoman told Reuters: "This is a significant breach of copyright which is currently under investigation."

The corporation wasted no time in pointing the finger. "The source of it appears to be connected to our co-production partner," she added, referring to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

The clips in question show how the good Doctor becomes united with his new travel companion, played by Billie Piper – the soon to be former Mrs Chris Evans.

She is working in a London department store when aliens attack... the classic opening for many a story.

The Doctor then appears to save the day but not before the aliens in question reveal an ability to disguise themselves as plastic household goods...

Excuse me. They do what?

...is the Round-Up the only person who thinks this all sounds like one big wind-up?

"We would urge viewers not to spoil their enjoyment and to wait for the finished version, which airs at the end of the month," the BBC spokeswoman added.

Frankly the Round-Up is just staggered that the BBC has managed to come up with a programme that doesn't involve pressing the red button now or texting in to vote somebody off...

And speaking of which...

Some mornings the Round-Up walks into work from London Bridge Station. The walk takes in the South Bank between Hay's Galleria and Tower Bridge and is repeated in the other direction each evening.

On the corner of Tooley Street, by the bridge is an old haunted building. A disused dental college, the building dates from the nineteenth century.

On recent particularly cold evenings, after dark the Round-Up has been able to hear the painful wailing and tortured screams of Victoria dentistry that still haunt its corridors...

...or so the Round-Up thought. But not so. It seems the BBC has commandeered the building for Celebrity Fame Academy and those agonised noises may well have been one of the pupils reaching for a high note. Probably Adrian Edmondson – which the Round-Up says for no other reason than convenience, because the Round-Up doesn't know who the others are or what their names are.

As many of you may know Celebrity Fame Academy is part of Comic Relief (so-called because comedy gets the night off) which takes place this very evening... so go out, get a nice meal and avoid the gratuitous footage of newsreaders in tights being wacky... but do also please dig deep and give money for this excellent cause, whose ends most definitely – well almost – justify the means. The Round-Up will gladly donate cash to avoid the horror of Michael Buerk in a tutu – or whatever they have planned this time around.

Comic Relief continues to raise much-needed funding for projects in the UK and Africa and we'd encourage you all to make a donation online at www.rednoseday.com.

Moving on.

Some people who could definitely do with going back to an academy or school of some descript are those responsible for the new easyMobile website. You may remember the Round-Up stood up for easyMobile in its recent legal spat with Orange... now, on grounds of crimes against grammar, we withdraw that support.

The site claims easyMobile offers: Voice call's and SMS text's...

...it goes on to use apostrophes with gay abandon scattering them about its site with absolutely no rhyme or reason.

(As an aside – harking back to the same Round-Up in which we discussed Orange v easyMobile, we heard from the Cisco exec who was sat on a BA flight next to the Round-Up. "I'm the guy in the tie in seat 13D you mentioned in your recent Round-Up," he began. "I just wanted to clarify a small fact or two, there was no administrative oversight at BA - at Cisco everyone flies economy, including me, which nicely highlights our culture of frugality and keeps all our shareholders very happy indeed!" So there, the Round-Up is more than happy to clear that up – and doffs its hat to Cisco for being able to roll with the punches and take such things in the spirit they were intended.)

And finally, back to matters (loosely) scholastic. There has been Ivy League scandal this past week after Harvard University was victim of a website hack.

The hackers gained unauthorised access to the school's enrolment website and found out which students have gained one of the coveted college places – they then offered the same access to anxious students unable to wait until the official acceptance letter arrived.

In total 119 successful applicants discovered they had a place through these slightly back-door means.

All have now been told they will no longer be welcome.

Kim Clark, dean of Harvard Business School, said in a statement: "This behaviour is unethical at best - a serious breach of trust that cannot be countered by rationalisation.

"Any applicant found to have done so will not be admitted to this school."

So those were pretty short-lived celebrations.

"I'm in...
"What's that...?
"Oh, I'm out."

The champagne is well and truly back on ice.

Until next week – give generously to Comic Relief tonight and have a great weekend. Here's some news to send you on your way: