BBC Radio 4's The Today Programme provided a couple of nuggets this morning. The 'and, finally...' item in the top of the hour new bulletin was about Microsoft's decision to assist the champions of the Welsh language by releasing MS products in Welsh as well as other 'linguistically diverse' langauges such as Gujarati and Tamil in India, Catalan in Spain, and Bahasa in Malaysia - as flagged by The Register some time back. Scratch the surface of the story and you'll find that the software giant's altruism doesn't stretch that far, for the appearance of Welsh/Gujerati/Tamil/Catalan/Bahasan "Start" menu and other select commands in about six months is about all folks who speak these languages can expect.
The other nugget came during Jim Naughtie's post-budget interviewing of the Chancellor, Gordon Brown. Towards the end of the interview, after Naughtie had pressed Brown in his usual assertive manner on several issues, a mobile phone was heard to ring unanswered in a pocket somewhere in the studio. Shortly after, the chirrup of a pager could be heard. Was Gordon's best mate/worst enemy Tony calling to flag a concern? More likely is the scenario that the Whips or Chairman of the PLP were trying to prevent Brown from uttering any soundbites that could come back and haunt him during the run-up to the next election, or after even. If you have the time and the inclination, you could probably hear this for yourself with Radio 4's ListenAgain service