Well, our star player* Nikica Jelavic has moved to Everton on transfer deadline day. Not a major surprise that he went, and good luck to him. However, as this article points out, he will leave with the good wishes of most of the fans, not only because of what he brought to the team and the goals he scored while he was at Ibrox, and not only because of an awareness of the current parlous state of the club, but because he didn't profess undying loyalty to the cause. He made it clear from day one that he wanted to move to the English Premier League 'one day', and that day has now come. Had things been healthier on the financial front at Rangers it's highly unlikely he would have moved in the January window, or at least not for £5.5M, but so be it. That aspect was not of his choosing.

Anyway, for any Toffees reading this, you might want to reconsider your traditional allegiance to Celtic (or is that still the case? not sure anymore) as Jelavic is the latest in a long line of Rangers - Everton and vice versa connections. He's a quality player who I'm sure will do very well for you.

So - honesty in football. It's a crazy idea but it just might catch on.

*A moot point. I'm just relieved that Steven Davis has remained in Govan. Pure class, and without doubt could play again in the EPL.

The soothing tones of Jonathan Ive have cast a spell on me and I now really really really want one of these beasts.

The far easier route for me would be to spend £500 or so on a Windows laptop which would allow me to install a second copy of Adobe CS5 which I use at work. But I'm now seriously considering spending double that on a MBP (on interest free tick, of course, which I'll then shamelessly card-tart) which will have a gaping hole where my Adobe software could be. As it will take me a long while to be able to afford this, I'm thinking of using open-source alternatives like Inkscape and Gimp in place of Illustrator and Photoshop respectively.

Am I mad or is this me 'taking the long view'?

as most of us know, the fabs' first effort Please Please Me contains a fair few gems - I Saw Her Standing There, Twist and Shout et al; but for me, There's a Place stands out as a portent of the wondrousness to come.

It's epitomised by the combination of the other-worldly lyric ("there's a place, where I can go, when I feel low, when I feel blue...and it's my mind....") with peerless harmonies that kick in at 0.21. Staggering.

I've heard a rumour that other artists are available. Feel free to post suggestions of similar 'meerkat' moments from them...

Really enjoying this.

Slightly disconcerting to see 'Detective Ulrik Strange' pop up in another, very different, context, but once that subsided, I'm finding it absolutely gripping. Great characters - the Statsminister herself of course, but also her adviser Bent, spin doctor Kasper and unfeasibly attractive journo / news anchor Katrine.

Highly recommended.

I've been looking around for a new (at least to me) laptop and came across this, which at £535 used seems tempting. Thing is, I just can't see myself paying over £800 which is the usual Mac threshold. Max £600 and it becomes a possibility.

The most intensive use I'd put it to would be to run design software like InDesign and Photoshop simultaneously, but we're not talking about huge video files, games etc. Obviously, the normal machine for such work is a MacBookPro, but that appears way out of reach.

Opinions welcome, particularly about the benefits of Apple compared to what, on the face of it, seem greatly superior (and brand new) Windows options for the same price. Specifically, I've read that the screen, though small, is excellent. Thoughts?

It's great to live in 2012 - a time in which liking Donna Summer and The Sex Pistols simultaneously is perfectly permissible in polite society.

Oh, and John Otway's mannerisms reminded me greatly of Glenn Tilbrook (I'm sure it's the other way round but I'm much more familiar with Squeeze)

Oh, and Elton made a great presenter (slightly distracted typing this as I'm watching him do the unspeakably wonderful Tiny Dancer on the OGWT)

...chinos, t-shirts and hooded sweatshirts.

That's right, I'm having a Gap year.

As you were...

...and no problem with that whatsoever. The criminally underrated (early, it must be stipulated, although definitions of such may vary) Simple Minds (Love Song, for the hard of YouTube)

at least according to how Coldplay's 'Paradise' lyrics appeared on our new Christmas toy, the wonderfully entertaining, and indeed wonderfully named X-Factor Lucky Voice karaoke machine.

Ostensibly bought for our two young daughters, the GLW and I have nevertheless hogged the spotlight somewhat. Duet faves include The Pogues/Kirsty MacColl's 'Fairytale of New York', t'League's 'Don't You Want Me', Gabriel/Bush's 'Don't Give Up' and Bowie's 'Space Oddity' (GLW as Ground Control, me as Major Tom).

Oh, and for Dave A's info, there are a good few Del Amitri tunes on there - 'Tell Her This' being a solo highlight from me, so I'm told ;-)

The family filter is quite eccentric. I found that it allowed Cee Lo's 'Forget You' with its 'aint that some shit' and Katy Perry's 'California Gurls' with its references to sex on the beach and Snoop's 'all that ass hangin out' but blocked wedding disco staple Greased Lightning - presumably due to 'you know that ain't no shit, we'll be gettin' lots of tit' and 'she's a real pussy wagon'

I know when Hotmail, Yahoo Mail and GMail first arrived, the feeling was that retaining an installed e-mail program like Outlook was still advised, and I believe some sites did not allow registration with only a webmail account.

Is this still the case, or can we now safely throw off our deskbound chains?

Sofie Gråbøl of course.

She's not at all like the uptight, brooding Sarah Lund you know. Ah, so that's what acting's all about...

I and just about everyone else think so...

In a rare example of the law of unintended consequences working positively, the Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications Bill has managed the remarkable feat of uniting Rangers and Celtic fans, albeit perhaps in a marriage of convenience, but still...

The Government has tagged a feeble "freedom of speech" clause to the Bill which only underlines the extent to which this is in violation of it. The Lord Advocate insists that jokes and satire will not be actionable. But who is to decide? The law has a notoriously tin ear when it comes to irony, and is incapable of distinguishing between banter and abuse. Yet now, calling someone a "Hun", a "Fenian" or a "bluenose" could lead to imprisonment and a hefty fine if the words are uttered while footie is on the TV. Well, if my experience is anything to go by the police will be prosecuting workplaces and homes throughout Scotland. One of the ways in which people have sought to defuse sectarianism is by lampooning it, parodying it, satirising it. Many Celtic supporters call themselves Tims. Are they now to be prosecuted if someone overhearing these remarks feels threatened? Pity the publicans who are required to enforce this nonsense.

Nonsense it surely is. It's a major bugbear of mine that the kind of language uttered by Old Firm fans, because it can be labelled with the weighty term 'sectarian', is deemed to be on a higher plane of offensiveness than ordinary, common or garden bile such as, oh I don't know, celebrating the deadly gun attack on the Togo team bus which Emmanuel Adebayor survived and god knows what was said about Harry Redknapp in return.

On the scale of offensiveness, I would say that calling someone a 'Hun' or a 'Fenian' comes some way short of calling people paedophiles, saying their wives are on the game, questioning the legitimacy of their children etc.

Hubris from Salmond, undoubtedly. But understandable perhaps given the astonishing lack of effective opposition in Holyrood. I say that as someone broadly sympathetic to independence, although absolutely not if it takes the form of the kind of micro-management that the SNP administration seems to have an appetite for.

How come it's possible to watch YouTube but not football highlights such as this from the BBC site on the iPad?

Viewing the Word site on my HTC smartphone, I get a message 'flash player not installed' or similar, in place of any YouTube clips in blog postings.

What's the difference?

I was obviously aware of the plagiarism case relating to this girl group classic which George Harrison (eventually) lost, but I'd never really listened to the song properly until I heard it on the radio the other day.

I think it's fair to say there was a case to answer for our George ;-)

How that nice Allen Klein managed to drag it on for so long is a mystery.

Prompted by katyg's recent thread, I went in search of Carlos Bonell's Magical Mystery Guitar Tour and was absolutely smitten.

He takes none-too-shabby-in-the-first-place tunes like Here Comes the Sun, Michelle and Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds (unspeakably fine harmonics!) and wrings untold levels of gorgeousness out of them. Whisper it, but you may even find his version of M******'s S****r H****r enjoyable.

I suppose what I'm saying is that I was very impressed. Highly recommended...