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The Daily Mail in one of its strident editorials, recently launched a vigorous attack on the BBC for its declared intention of using the terms "BCE" and "CE" rather than "BC" and "AD" when referring to a year within a given date, - "BC" and "AD" of course being the well familiar "Before Christ" and "Anno Domini", while "BCE" and "CE" are purportedly the more modern usage that stands for "Before Common Era" and "Common Era". The editorial for all its vitriol had a serious content that was thought provoking and struck a chord with me. I am a regular Daily Mail reader, - it is my daily paper of choice, although I am probably not a typical Daily Mail reader. I read the Mail for the quality of its journalism rather than its political stance, but of late I have been finding myself in sympathy with the Mail in at least one regard: its oft repeated contention that the BBC is prepared to disavow almost every custom or tradition of the British Isles, in order simply to be piously multicultural and "politically correct". I was therefore as exasperated as the Mail was indignant to learn that in future the BBC was to use the designations of BCE and CE instead of AD and BC. The BBC's explanation that it was simply conforming to modern usage did not carry with it the ring of conviction that it might have hoped. This is probably unsurprising given that the BBC's has in recent times introduced a number of practices which it may well characterise as being "modern" but which in fact are arguably motivated by "political correctness". One such "modern" practice that has now been introduced by the BBC, for example, is the use of the term "settled communities" when reporting on immigration issues. The BBC now prefers to use this bizarre Orwellian term to refer to the native English of the British Isles, rather than referring to them simply as "the English", lest the term "the English" should give offence to recent immigrants. Given this kind of BBC "modernity", I felt quite justified in being smugly confident that what I was witnessing was not at all a BBC about to embrace modernity, rather a BBC that was descending further into political correctness. I was however, soon to discover that I might have been over-hasty in decrying the BBC's actions in this instance, - for I have learned to my consternation that the terms CE and BCE, which I thought were indicative of the BBC's desire to disassociate itself from the Christian origins of the modern calendar, are in fact being used by no less a Christian body than the Jehovah's Witnesses. I am no stranger to Jehovah's Witnesses. A very charming lady regularly knocks on my door and engages me in a gentle discourse about the Bible, as well as inquiring about my well-being. She always ends these door-step conversations by pressing a copy of the Watchtower (a publication of the Jehovah's Witnesses organisation) in my hand and urging me to read some article therein together with some additional Bible reading that she recommends. Although I have little inclination to be a Jehovah's Witness, I quite look forward to my encounters with our Jehovah's Witness lady, not least because she is such a mild mannered gentle old soul. I also like reading the Watchtower as it contains not just the usual evangelical message but also articles about historical events and personalities referred to in the Bible, - such as for example, the kings of Persia and the Babylonian Empire. Interestingly, these articles always refer to dates as either CE or BCE. Seeing these articles referring to the Year of Our Lord as years of the Common Era, was to me an unexpected discovery and it just occurred to me that the BBC might have a point after all, and that CE and BCE might indeed be modern usage, and not as I had imagined an attempt on the part of the BBC to eschew practices that happen to be rooted in Christian tradition. It is always chastening to have to admit to one's misjudgements and I am obliged to do so this on this occasion since the BBC can clearly substantiate its case by reference, at the very least, to the Watchtower. But this episode is illustrative of how institutions, like individuals, are frequently judged on their reputation rather than their actions. The BBC has acquired a dubious reputation as an incorrigible recidivist when it comes to acts of political correctness. On this occasion the BBC's reputation would appear to have gone ahead of it and those like me who value the role of the BBC as a public service broadcaster might be forgiven for attributing to it motives that it did not in fact harbour.

The facility that the HTTP protocol provides for extracting the IP address of a Web user's computer and its subsequent use by many Websites to determine the country or the geographical region in which the computer is located, has always seemed to me to be an unnecessary intrusion of my privacy. For Websites of course this information is quite useful as it facilitates the display of highly targeted advertisements that focus on products and services that might be of local interest. However, a slightly unnerving aspect of this type of IP-targeted advertising is sometimes witnessed by those of us who occasionally visit foreign-language websites. Here we find to our alarm that the website's advertisements suddenly change of their own volition from the local language to English, as if sensing somehow that we are actually native English speakers. Of course as IT experts know, the website has no such sensory perception, - only the ability to associate the visitor's IP address with the appropriate geographical location and thereby determine his native language. I am a student of German and frequently visit the website of the German newspaper "Bild", with the aim of improving my German, - although that might well be a forlorn hope. To my chagrin, the "Bild" website is also given to this propensity to recast all its advertisements from their normal German into English, the instant it recognises my UK-based IP address. I am now resigned to this, and try to console myself with the thought that as the products being advertised are usually of the kind that have an international market, such as Nokia mobiles or BMW cars, their advertising can not really be characterised as deliberate targeting of unsuspecting UK-based web-surfers, - even when facilitated by the unscrupulous use of surreptitiously obtained IP-address data. However, I was not so sanguine about one particular advertisement that recently appeared on the "Bild" website' The advertisement was in fact a recruiting poster for the Royal Air Force, exhorting its readers to enlist and promising them a rewarding career as an airman. I found this poster bizarre. I could not imagine something so definingly British as service with the RAF being allowed to be sponsored by a foreign website. No rational being in the Air Force, I would have thought, would ever have authorised such a course of action , - not least because of the obvious potential for cruel parody that such a poster had, with its use of a German website as a recruiting agency for one of Her Majesty's services. In my mind's eye I could well see a Monty Pythonesque sketch, with a Prussian recruiting sergeant barking at cowering English recruits. It occurred to me that such thoughtless form of advertising could only be encountered in the wholly computerised world of the Internet, where human wisdom takes a back seat and so-called intelligent software undertakes action and decisions which in the real world belong to humans. Reflecting on this extra-ordinary advertisement and chuckling to myself with amusement as well as disbelief, I could not help wallowing in a certain schadenfreude at the amazing faux-pas that this advertisement had managed to commit. For it told me that the so called artificial intelligence of modern computers, that we humans are constantly reminded of, is in reality only a step away from artificial stupidity, as this astonishing advertisement has clearly demonstrated.