Scotland and Sir Walter Scott: Sham country, but not sham bard
The Economist
Scott-land: The Man who Invented a Nation. By Stuart Kelly. Polygon; 328 pages; £16.99. Buy from Amazon.co.uk SIR WALTER SCOTT was a phenomenon. A poet whose first long poem, published in 1805, was such a success that he received an unprecedented ...

and more »

Bicycling: Double whammy
The Economist
It's All About the Bike: The Pursuit of Happiness on Two Wheels. By Robert Penn. Particular Books; 201 pages; £16.99. Buy from Amazon.co.uk ROBERT PENN needs a new bike. Well, he doesn't really as he has six already. What he really wants is a bike he ...

The human genome project: Ignition sequence commence
The Economist
Drawing the Map of Life: Inside the Human Genome Project. By Victor McElheny. Basic Books; 381 pages; $28 and £16.99. Buy from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk IN THE late 1980s it occurred to a bunch of biologists, many of them Americans, that it might be ...

and more »

Food: The global farm
Nature.com
With its plentiful sun, water and land, Brazil is quickly surpassing other countries in food production and exports. But can it continue to make agricultural gains without destroying the Amazon? Jeff Tollefson reports from Brazil. ...

CLUB STATEMENT
Everton Football
In the wake of a report in a Sunday newspaper in which the agent of Dan Gosling made a series of allegations, Everton Football Club has decided to take the unprecedented step of setting straight a record of recent events which has, in its opinion, ...

and more »

At Cost Energy: are its promises for real?
Money Saving Expert
Consumers have been waiting for months for the launch of an energy provider that claims it will sell gas and electricity 'at cost', but will it ever happen? The firm, At Cost Energy, first said last year it would provide power at the same price it buys ...

and more »

Blake Morrison: Jon Venables is not yet beyond redemption
The Guardian
Thirty years ago, Norman Mailer successfully campaigned for a convicted killer, Jack Abbott, to be given parole – only for Abbott to stab a young waiter to death just six weeks after being released. Mailer was duly castigated for having been conned and ...

and more »

iPad Owners Are 'Selfish Elites.' Critics Are 'Independent Geeks.' Discuss.
Wired News
Bill Klein models a photo of Steve Jobs on his new iPad at the Apple's Fifth Avenue store on launch day, April 3. Klein, visiting from Boise, ID, and says this is only the second time he's waited in line to purchase a new ...

and more »

5 Things Google's Latest Patent Tells Me About Links
Search Engine Land (blog)
Anyone with an interest in linking, link building and algorithms who hasn't yet read the latest Google patent might want to have a look. It's located on the USPTO database at an impossibly long URL, so here's a shortcut: http://bit.ly/9pbQfr. ...

and more »

With the US trapped in depression, this really is starting to feel like 1932
Telegraph.co.uk
The US workforce shrank by 652000 in June, one of the sharpest contractions ever. The rate of hourly earnings fell 0.1pc. Wages are flirting with deflation. By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard People queue for a job fair in New York. ...

and more »