Good news and bad news

A couple of things have come up in the past few days that follow on from recent blog posts, so I thought I'd post some updates.

Libel reform: After my interest in libel reform was piqued by the Big Libel Gig last month, I was quite excited to see the latest ruling in the Simon Singh case. Very briefly, he's a Guardian journalist who was sued for libel after questioning some of the claims made by chiropractors. The latest court ruling isn't the end of his battle, but he has been allowed to use the defence of "fair comment" to justify his article. To use a well-worn cliche, it feels like a small victory for common sense.

Grafitti: On a less positive note, I was horrified on Friday when I walked along the lane and noticed that someone has painted over the beautiful typewriter grafitti that I featured in my late-but-one post. The whole section of wall has now been painted a rather boring grey. I know that grafitti is, by its nature, ephemeral and that's part of its appeal, but to destroy such a clever and inoffensive piece of art still seemed criminal. The only silver lining though is that after posting the picture on the blog, I was contacted by someone who runs a website featuring Bristol street art and asked to contribute my typewriter photo to the site. I don't think it's gone up on the site yet, but hopefully, it will be preserved there for others to enjoy.