In a ground-breaking move UK national newspaper The Guardian is to give up 188 years of ink and paper in favour of publishing its stories by Twitter. Experts believe that all news stories can be told within the 140 characters allowed by the social-networking phenomenon.

The Guardian will also make available its mammoth archive in the form of ‘tweets’ which will allow readers to get straight to the ‘meat’ of the story. Some examples:

“1832 Reform Act gives voting rights to one in five adult males yay!!!”;

“OMG Hitler invades Poland, allies declare war see tinyurl.com/b5x6e for more”;

and

“JFK assassin8d @ Dallas, def. heard second gunshot from grassy knoll WTF?”

Guardian correspondent Rio Palof has more on this unbelievable development.

Incompetech.com is a wonderful website that offers hundreds of original music tracks for free use. Most are released under a Creative Commons licence (a few are now in the public domain) and the only stipulation is that you must include a credit for the composer: Kevin MacLeod.

It isn’t a lot to ask. But still some people can’t be bothered.

Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the US House of Representatives, is one of a list of people who have used a track, but give no credit. Her video Capitol Cat Cam, which uses the music track ‘Scheming Weasel’, has been watched on YouTube more than 325,000 times.

In his blog, Kevin MacLeod puts a brave face on the situation. But I say it is absolutely disgraceful that even people in government show this blatant disregard for creative people and their work. They should set an example.

I hope this won’t deter Mr MacLeod. Some of us appreciate his generosity and music.

Sacked Former Radio 2 presenter Russell Brand appears on the cover of the latest edition of a vegetarian starter kit that is produced by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). The Guardian reports that PETA has refused to replace him in response to angry calls and emails following the BBC obscene ‘phone calls scandal.

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More than 1000 people protested about Western media coverage of the Beijing Olympics and Tibet. After a two-hour demonstration outside the BBC, they marched up Oxford Street to Manchester Town Hall.

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