Statistical anomaly

As I attend my Birth Basics classess with my wife, I have discovered a number of interesting facts on subjects as diverse as hormones and pain relief. But here's a striking one. Apparently 50% of all twins are now delivered by Caesarian section. Does that mean one each?

Google Gaydar

Not only has Google come to dominate web searching over the last few years, it can now find out people's sexuality. Just go there and search for "ashley cole". Scroll a little further beyond the top few sponsored links and you'll see Google suggesting results for "ashley cole" gay. Could Google's automated searching suggestions be libellous?

Demi-pension

It's a bit of a hobby-horse of mine, pensions. There are a couple of things about them I'd like to reiterate:

1. They almost certainly offer the best return on savings available in the UK, as the government actually invests your a rebate into the plan; if you're a basic-rate taxpayer, for example, the Treasury pays in 22p for every 78p you contribute.


2. The earlier you start to contribute, the more you'll save. Even if you start piling in loads of cash in your thirties, you'll never make up what you would have made if you'd started contributing a tiny sum in your twenties.

This applies to private pensions, of course, be they stakeholder or otherwise. But this is what you have to rely on now as successive governments have ducked the bullet on state pension contributions. Moreover, if you look back to 1950, there were roughly five workers for every pensioner. But by the time I hope to retire, around 2030, the ratio of workers to pensioners will have halved. That means half the money to help me out in my old age; and when the full state pension is currently around £70 a week just think how far it'll go by the time you retire.
I could point you in loads of different directions for information about pensions and why you need to save more. For the moment, however, I'm going to stick to this article in the excellent Motley Fool, which sets out all the changes that are taking place to pensions from the new financial year.
You should take advantage of some these changes as you can, even though they may seem unpalatable. If not, just spend 2 minutes on this form to see how poor you might end up.

(Data)Base values

Is the government simply pandering to a populist agenda or has it completely lost the plot when it comes to databases? The latest wheeze is to get a list of anyone who has failed a Criminal Record Bureau check that debars them from working with children and (although the BBC seems to think it's designed for schools) allow any Tom, Dick or Rebekkah Wade jump to their own conclusions about which paedophile's house to attack first.
I really can't fathom this. Currently any person registering as a childminder has to pass a CRB check; they can't be listed as a childminder without going through this process, so all a parent has to do is ask for proof of registration. No school or private nursery can employee someone without having passed a CRB check. So what possible benefit does a database that anyone can access offer any of the vulnerable groups this legislation is supposedly safeguarding? It's just going to lead to abuse (by newspapers I expect) and errors.
The only consolation -- if you can call it that -- is that judging by some of the other registration schemes the government has tried to build over the last few years, they'll never get round to implementing this one. There's a high price to pay for necessary ineffectualness.