Google is apparently using camera-bicycles to cover the more tricky terrain (alleyways and dirt-tracks) for its Street View service.

This will go down well in China where Google is powering ahead. The Chinese love bicycles and will have absolutely no concerns about Google's cameras invading their privacy.

When is a pyramid not a pyramid? Answer: when it's a bank.

A number of high profile banks that were apparently on the point of collapse six months ago are now the kings of Wall Street once more. So what was it that returned them to such prosperity? A return of confidence it appears.

One wonders, if the success of a fund or bank is so predicated upon investor confidence, maybe it is time to re-assess Mr Madoff. Surely, it was only the total loss of confidence that did it for him? 

Asset Manager Nicola Horlick is facing the possible liquidation of her Bramdean Fund this week in a high profile spat with property investor, Vincent Tchenguiz.

Perhaps, you can 'have it all', but the question is: how long with it all last?

In  a post a couple of weeks back, I might have wrongly suggested that PM (Peter Mandelson) should either be elected or swiftly 'crowned' as Labour leader and new PM (Prime Minister).

I now realise that shifts in the balance of power (or political coups, for that matter) rarely, if ever, require anything as vulgar as an election, anything as pompous as a coronation.

Do we really need to ask such tedious little questions as "Does the end justify the means?" when it is quite apparent that the ends and the means are one and the same thing?

Protector of the Gurkhas, Joanna Lumley, is apparently going to star in a 'satire on the modern art world.'

The Sunday Times says that she will be 'going to war again,' and 'mocking the madness of the comtemporary art world'.

In a new twist to our understanding of satire, the film will be advised by art world insiders Damien Hirst and someone called Mollie Dent-Brocklehurst. As the Sunday Times has it, Damien Hirst will be providing his own works and works by Tracey Emin and the Chapman Brothers will also be re-created (with permission, one suspects) for the film.

Quite where the invective comes in to this 'satire', when said 'satire' is being advised by so many art world insiders is anyone's guess.

This situation is somewhat akin to the Emperor Trajan offering the Ist Century Satirist, Juvenal a supply of 'bread and circuses' because he's keen to 'support his brave new writing career'.

... It is a sign of the times that an ex Union leader, ex Labour MP and socialist firebrand, Mick Gormley, now heaps praise on the honours system.

Mr Gormley said, "Who would deny a Knighthood or OBE to someone who has dedicated their life to the services of football or soap opera or promoting government policies. Ordinary people should be rewarded for the good that they have done in their lives."

Baron Gormley, Thain of East Kilbride, then went on to say, "If its good enough for them, its good enough for..." 

Supporters of the opposition / reform candidate in the Iranian are up in arms because it appears that they have been denied free and fair elections.

It is easy to forget that elections can never be free and fair in a country that would prohibit a radical reform candidate to stand in the first place.

This 'rigged' result should remind us that the idea that Iran is a democracy is, at the very least, questionable.