Now everything in the supermarket has its ‘organic’ alternative. Still more expensive, but within range of those people who are not on a tight budget and are keen to save the planet whilst eating healthy food.

But who defines what is organic and what is not? Shoppers who assume it means food grown without pesticides or fertilizers need to do a bit of checking if they are not to be misled.

Here’s an example: Morrison’s Organic Corn Flakes. On the box it says

Organic standards prohibit the use of genetically modified ingredients and seek to avoid routine use of artificial pesticides and fertilizers.

Such weasely phraseology would make a home-flipping MP blush.

Good. Not that I have any appreciation of the game. I watch a football match on TV with the same level of comprehension as our cat. We can both see coloured shapes moving around on the screen but that’s about it. But Urbis has been a white elephant from the start.

The exhibitions I have visited were disappointing and a bit well, thin. There’s just too much space and not enough to go in it. And too many staff. For example the gimmicky lift which goes up diagonally has its own attendant. And he or she is actually in radio contact with other staff. “I’m just going up now.”

So I welcome the proposal to put this building to better use. It will be a draw to the city and if I visit the Football Museum I might even become a convert to The Beautiful Game.

HELP POINT – inside BT Telephone

Nice to know help is always at hand.

They are even more helpful at Levenshulme station in Manchester. The station name is actually shown in Sign Language.

I don’t mind that the British word ‘stroke’ or ‘oblique stroke’ has universally been replaced by the American word ‘slash’. But not ‘forward slash’, please!

It’s bad enough that media presenters and advertisers say ‘logon to …’ when they mean ‘visit …’ a website. Why not just say ‘slash’? You don’t say ‘I was in my car, driving forwards’, do you?

You have now successfully logged out

I think this sort of confirmation should be extended to other challenging everyday tasks. How about receipts which say

You have successfully purchased something

or perhaps on clocks

You have successfully checked the time

Congratulations like this don’t cost anything and make the world a nicer place. You have successfully read this blog entry.

According to the dictionary, biometrics is

The measurement of physical characteristics, such as fingerprints, DNA, or retinal patterns, for use in verifying the identity of individuals.

The electronic chip stores only a copy of the photo and personal details printed inside the passport. So it is no more or less biometric than my old-style passport.

Is this nomenclature a mistake? Or is it planned to add my DNA information or other physical characteristics to the chip in the future? This is a more likely explanation, particularly as the passport already contains machine-readable data in the two printed lines with chevrons (<) at the bottom.

What's wrong with more secure passports? US President Obama, in his inaugural speech said

As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals.

I hope that this signified his distaste for repressive and authoritarian security measures, and his intention to cherish and foster liberty. We could do with a clear statement from the British prime minister along the same lines, but his record is not good.

Whenever there is a significant change in the way citizens are policed and their movements monitored and controlled, it is incumbent upon all of us to ask questions, to ensure that we do not risk precious freedoms being taken away.

Such questions might include

• Are these changes necessary?
• Are they a precursor to more radical or controversial planned changes?
• How might they erode the rights I currently enjoy?
• How could they be misused by some less benign future government?

You might be able to think of a few more.

In the rest of the world, it is more usual to put the name first, as in the Colorado River, Potomac River, Athabasca River, Volga River, Yangtze River, Murrumbidgee River etc.

So, there’s simple rule of thumb: name first, except in Europe.

Er, except the River Nile …

The next train to arrive to platform one will be …

Arrive to? What happened to “arrive at” or “arrive on”?

Is this a national thing? Maybe it is peculiar to Stockport. After all, there aren’t many stations which have a platform zero. Stockport does. They were obliged to designate the new platform “zero” when they added it next to platform one. If Stockport station is expanded further, we could get a platform minus one.

Now we have BT Answer the free automated call answering service. There is nobody really there of course, but the system talks to us using a recorded woman’s voice. She tells us if we have no messages, or if we do have messages, she introduces each one and afterwards presents us with options to delete, listen again, save or return the call. All very clever, but so commonplace that we don’t give this sort of thing a moment’s thought any longer. And with familiarity comes … impatience.

I have become impatient with the pointless repetitious wordiness of the recorded messages and the strange, slightly urgent (or is it scolding?) tone in which they are delivered. This is what you hear if there are no messages:

Welcome to BT Answer. You’ve no messages. Thank you for calling BT Answer. Goodbye.

When the words of politeness greatly outnumber the essential words of the message, I think it is time to do some pruning.
If you do have messages, it gets worse.

Welcome to BT Answer. You’ve one new message. First new message. Message received today at three forty-five pm. [message plays] To return the call, using BT, press 0. To listen to the message again press 1. To save it, press 2. To delete, press 3. There is a charge for Call Return.

Too many messages! The rising cadence of “To return the call …” makes it sound more like a Boeing cockpit warning: “Pull up! Pull up!” and the final sentence is gabbled like the legal stuff companies have to give at the end of radio adverts: “your home is at risk if you do not keep up repayments always check your flies after going to the lavatory terms and conditions apply.” Of course they are really hoping you have already pressed 0 and made their cash register go ka-ching! before reaching the warning. Did you know it costs 7.5p?

In Spain, Telefonica have a similar service. Theirs is superior in that it automatically starts a few seconds after picking up the phone (ie without dialling 1571), the instructions are business-like but relaxed – and she doesn’t say mensaje mensaje mensaje!