Iran has blocked access to the Foreign Office website from computers inside the country, William Hague said today.

The Foreign Secretary condemned the action as "counter-productive and ill-judged" and called on Iranian censors to reverse the move.

In a statement, he said the Foreign and Commonwealth Office website - which hosts travel advice and information for Britons in countries around the world - had been added to a list of thousands of blocked websites.

It's not often one has much in common with leaders of parliamentary parties.

I'm not rich, have never been to Eton and all my expenses claims are whiter than white (ahem).

So when Labour leader Ed Miliband confessed: "My favourite Christmas present was my first computer, a ZX Spectrum. Yes, I was a geek, so I can't complain when people call me," I knew exactly where he was coming from.

Ah yes, I can well remember that exciting day, when a large gift was unwrapped to reveal a black plastic box bedecked in rubber keys (why did that never catch on?).

Image via Wikipedia

The joy of Horace Goes Skiing.

The frustration of trying to get Thorin to stop singing about gold in The Hobbit.

The impossible to complete Jet Set Willy.

It was meant to be a joint present with my sister, but I can't ever recall her getting much of a go.

I can only wonder at the strife which must have taken place in the Miliband household, with brothers Ed and David going hammer and tong over who got the next go on Daley Thompson's Decathlon.

No doubt the seeds of the rift which eventually came to a head over the leadership of the Labour party were sown there.

Image via Wikipedia

Parents will be warned about explicit content in music downloads from today after the music industry rolled out its parental advisory scheme online.

The explicit warning will be attached to music and video files on sites including Amazon, iTunes, HMV and Napster.

The scheme, run by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), has applied to physical music and video content since 1995 covering tracks which could be seen as offensive or unsuitable for children, including strong language, sex or violence.

Firms that offer advice on mortgage deals by text and live web chat must still assess whether the mortgage is appropriate for the customer, the Financial Services Authority (FSA) said today.

Technological developments will increasingly lead to communication being made in this way, the regulator's Mortgage Market Review said, and it was "perfectly possible" for mortgage advice to be offered via social media sites, texts and instant messaging on mobile phones.

The report said: "Although their use is still quite limited, the importance of these forms of communication for firms will continue to grow as one generation gives way to another, and social media and 'smart devices' become increasingly popular.

"We are also starting to see the development of online systems in direct sales which provide consumers with a 'live chat' option, where an individual, within the firm, will answer questions from consumers online in real time."

The FSA continued: "We propose that all sales involving some form of interactive dialogue between the intermediary and the consumer - whether face-to-face, over the telephone, through social media, mobile devices, online propositions with the facility for live chats or otherwise - will be advised sales.

"This means that an intermediary must always assess whether a mortgage is appropriate for the consumer based on the consumer's particular needs and circumstances."

Christmas gift gadgets could add up to an extra £150 on energy bills unless families change their habits, researchers warned today.

And the £25 a year saved by bringing home loft insulation up to the recommended 270mm thickness could be lost with just a couple of presents, according to academics at the University of Salford.

The warning comes after researchers looked at some of the most popular gifts and worked out how much they would cost to run if the family left gadgets on standby or permanently charging up.

A Facebook upgrade which allows users to display the story of their lives has been made available to everyone, the company said

Image via CrunchBase

The timeline feature, which was previously only open to people in New Zealand, will redesign users' profile pages, splitting the screen into two columns and placing greater emphasis on photographs.

But a privacy lobby group said the development would "hijack" personal information.
It includes the opportunity to add details of what you did before the social networking site was founded by Mark Zuckerberg in 2004.

Now we Brummies pride ourselves on being nobody's fools but...

Well just arriving in my inbox - this year's internet search statistics for the city from Google.

And well there's no way of putting a positive sheen on this for bolder than brass at number 5 in the top ten internet searches in Birmingham, on, erm, google, is...ah ... google.

Yep we're going on google and then googling to find google.

Oh well.

Anyway the other top ten shows that no-one actually writes anything into the url box at the top of the search engine, with facebook (facebook.com), youtube (youtube.com) and hotmail (hotmail.com) the top three. Presumably no-one uses bookmarks these days either.

Anyway for posterity here are all the top internet searches for 2011.

Hi-tech systems should be integrated to help combat transport congestion that is costing the UK £12 billion a year, a joint industry/Government report said today.

Existing and new technology, infrastructure and all forms of transport would come together to create "intelligent mobility", the report said.

This would allow predictive travel, better routing of traffic and and easing of congestion - by as much as three to five times in places.

A campaign calling for a ban on a "sexist" Ryanair advert has been backed by more than 5,000 people.

The campaign, on social change website Change.org, has been led by a flight attendant called Ghada.

She wants the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) to ban the Ryanair advert which shows a scantily clad woman under the caption "Red Hot Fares & Crew".

Ghada said: "I'm a member of cabin crew. I love my job and take it seriously, so I was disgusted to see this Ryanair ad which basically portrays cabin crew as glamour models.

"My work colleagues, many of whom are male, work hard with me to ensure the safety of our passengers. Safety is our number-one priority, not the brand of our underwear."

Brie Rogers Lowery, UK campaigns director for Change.org, said: "This campaign shows that Ryanair cannot get away with objectifying female staff in their adverts.

"With no budget and only a computer at her disposal, Ghada has managed to recruit thousands of supporters."

Below: One of the banned ads. Disgusting eh - and to think that we, like all other media outlets have just given them even more publicity by publishing it again! Ah the hypocrisy...

Almost half of Britons have shopped online after drinking, often falling asleep or having to abandon a transaction, new research showed today.

In a survey of more than 4,200 consumers, 14% admitted they would never have made their purchase if they had been sober, often sending goods back straight away.

The most popular items bought online by "boozy" shoppers were clothes and shoes, DVDs, books, video games, technology and lingerie.