The RSPB on wind-farms

In view of the restatement of the government's support for wind energy in Wednesday's budget, a statement by The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds is timely. They say: "We’ve always supported taking power from the wind, waves, the tides, the ground, and anything else that can justifiably be labelled as a renewable energy source that doesn’t damage the environment.

"But we know there are some proposals out there – like the recently defeated Lewis windfarm application, and the current proposal for a barrage from Cardiff to Weston across the river Severn – that don’t meet sensible environmental standards. Based on the available science, we believe they'd harm the environment."

I would add that schemes should also be locally acceptable. The full RSPB statement is here.

Sun goes to Oracle

It was announced earlier this week that Oracle Corporation has agreed to buy Sun Microsystems for $7.4bn. This was a little more than what IBM was reported to have offered, and does not raise the same competition concerns as the IBM deal would have done.

It seems that Sun's sponsorship of MySQL has not troubled the regulatory authorities in the US.

Is New Labour trying to woo Paul Potts?

Surely once a Liberal Democrat, always a Liberal Democrat at heart, even though PP is no longer a councillor and (as far as I know) has let his membership lapse. But local Labour communications supremo Anthony Taylor has given prominence in a recent blog to the Potts's house refurbishment. Is he making overtures?

Budget

No responses posted on the biggest LibDem blogs so far (13:40) but here is my take on a few points which may not be covered by the heavyweights. (There is a pre-budget round up by Ali G at Freedom Central.)

Savings disregard for pension credit: a £4000 increase is not nearly enough when safe long-term investments are paying 1% a year or worse.

Subsidies for off-shore wind are mis-directed. Money should be put into the potentially more productive and certainly more reliable technology of tide and wave power. I can see why the chancellor is putting money towards wind-farms: the technology is mature, so installations can be up and running relatively quickly; and they are extremely visible. They demonstrate that something is being done: not necessarily the right thing, but something.

Combined Heat and Power: why wait until 2013 before giving the tax relief?

£100 million for energy-efficient new-build: will a pro-rata amount come to Wales (as explained by Peter Black) and how much will stick to the fingers of the Plaid/Labour government? Why is it being announced as for local authorities when this government, following the Thatcherite lead, is forcing coucils to divest themselves of housing stock, both in England and Wales? Will social landlords get a share of the (rather small) pot?

Update 14:00 BBC-2 has just got around to showing part of Nick Clegg's budget reply. It is all very well to say that the whole speech was shown live on BBC-Parliament, but how many viewers who will be very interested in what Liberal Democrats have to say routinely view BBC-Parliament, even if they have the facilities? Actually, I find the considered responses of the Treasury spokesmen on day 2 of the budget debate more instructive, and I hope Vince Cable will be given due coverage.

Further thought 14:25: no mention of Trident. Loads of savings there.

15:00: Going shopping and possible research into responses to the increase in beer tax in The Green Dragon.

Dead tree journalism, blogging and council glossies

Salford is a city next door to Manchester, and often confused with its more famous neighbour. It is the birthplace of Alistair (then Alfred) Cooke, a great journalist, at home on TV and radio, but also in print, right up to the last decade of his life.

It is also the home of a lively magazine, the Salford Star, which, until recently for reasons explained in issue no 9, published both a print and online edition. It won "Best Regional Newspaper" at last year's Plain English Campaign awards. However, it cannot survive in a print edition without sufficient advertising and, as editor Stephen Kingston said in an Independent interview earlier this week: "the problem is that if you are going to produce a proper community magazine you might have to bite the hand that feeds you. Because we are scrutinising and taking figures apart, advertisers don't want to go near you."

Needless to say, Salford City was not about to grant the "Star" any money while the council was spending £175,000 on its own glossy magazine. Councils' own free magazines are very good at propagating good news stories - and I take Cllr Derek Vaughan's oft-expressed point that these are not always attractive to the commercial press - but citizens are deprived if they don't have access to good investigative journalism as well.

Famous newspapers in the United States are being forced to take the online-only route. Even a nationwide (most US newspapers are regional) - nay, international - publication like the "Christian Science Monitor" went completely online at the end of March. Two American titles are folding per week, according to Donald Trelford. He is despondent. "The industry in which I have spent half a century may have to learn very quickly that society doesn't need newspapers any more," he writes, "but it will still need journalism to find things out and explain the world's complexities. The challenge – not just for newspaper companies, but for society as a whole – is how to pay for that when traditional sources of revenue have disappeared or moved elsewhere."

On the other hand, one of the most remarkable results of the democratisation of Iraq was an explosion in the number of print titles. This, in a land where blogging, though liable to land you with a visit from Saddam's heavies, flourished.

Blogging in its turn is doomed, according to my third excerpt from last Monday's Independent Media, by Andrew Keen. He reckons that self-publishing lumps of ones own static text is going to be replaced by real-time social media personal portals. He cites WordPress as enabling users to do everything from incorporating their Twitter feeds, videos and photos, to managing their own independent labels.

Well, Keen may not have noticed, but WordPress also enables you to self-publish text: witness Alix Mortimer. There is no sign of the Mortimerian Republic's losing popularity (though unaccountably it lost out in the Orwell awards to Nightjack; commiserations, Alix).

Good and lively writing is clearly going to thrive in cyberspace even if no newspaper survives. What is worrying is the future of authoritative journalism. The papers at the top of the American tree are famous for their scrupulous fact-checking and separation of fact from opinion, in the CP Scott tradition. This is not true of US television news, nor, mostly, of the press over here. What happens if the former die? Who can you trust on the Web?

There will be local print sheets as long as people have cars to sell or wish to notify births, marriages and deaths. The question is: can they also incorporate unbiased news, let alone carry out investigative journalism?

Alistair Cooke showed that one could combine traditional journalism with emerging technologies. (Television did not take off in the States until he was well into his stride as a Guardian correspondent.) I believe that old and new media will eventually find a means of cohabitation, but I cannot predict what form it will take.

Polymathy not for Anglo-Saxons

The recent death of Clement Freud occasioned a discussion in the "Broadcasting House" studio last Sunday as to whether polymaths were dying out, and whether polymathy should be encouraged. It struck me that both the expert witnesses, Susan Greenfield and Lisa Jardine, came from Jewish families, as did Clement Freud, of course. Now I know there is a Jewish cultural tradition which values breadth of knowledge, but surely you don't have to be Jewish to be a polymath? I tried to think of other scientists who had a wide knowledge of the arts, or even of other sciences. Jacob Bronowski came to mind, but he, too, fits the stereotype. Peter Medawar? - father Lebanese; Steve Jones? - Welsh. Simon Singh? - there must be a Sikh background. It seems that the common factor is not ethnicity as such, but not being English. Not appearing to be clever, or knowledgeable, is an Anglo-Saxon trait.

Ray Collins

Once a member of Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre Company, Collins was for many years the peppery police lieutenant in the first, black-and-white, Perry Mason TV series. In fact, it looks as if the reason that the series ended in 1965 was that Collins died in that year.

It was a surprise, therefore to see him resurfacing as the general secretary of the Labour Party and implicated, by association, with the Draper/McBride black emails. Lt Tragg may occasionally have been economical with evidence to the defence, but he would never have been guilty of defaming his opposition. Kevin Maguire, on "Broadcasting House" this morning, was equally clear that the Red Rag dirty tricks started long after Collins' initial involvement. Mind you, Maguire, being inside the Brown tent, must be regarded as a friendly witness.

Sons of violinists

Readers in my age bracket will remember "The Man From Uncle" and "77 Sunset Strip". These TV series featured respectively David McCallum and Efrem Zimbalist jr. Both men are still acting today, but I think it's fair to say that they made their first big impact on TV. (Just as Stephanie Zimbalist, daughter of the second, and Pierce Brosnan did in "Remington Steele", but that's another story.)

David McCallum's father was a violinist not only good enough to lead two or three world-class orchestras, but also to dub the playing of legendary virtuoso Paganini in "The Magic Bow". (Stewart Granger was the on-screen maestro.)

I believe Efrem Zimbalist sr was also a leader (concert-master) at one stage of his career, but was better known as a soloist. What triggered this posting was coming across the blog of Jessica Duchen (led to it by that of John Amis) , and her inclusion of a vintage clip of Zimbalist with Harold Bauer (piano).

jessicamusic is not only a feast of writing on music (I'm ashamed to admit that I hadn't noticed Ms Duchen's by-line in the Indy before, but I shall look out for it in future) but is also a treasure-chest of links to other music sites.