The owners of one of Britain's influential newspapers, 'The Telegraph', decline to be interviewed (about the Island of Spark). Here. So they can investigate and write about others but stop others investigating and writing about themselves.

Salty pizza. Here.

The list of invitees to 'dinner' at Downing Street. Hosted by the Camerons in this story.

I don't think donors to political parties should be hosted at government venues. Cameron should be able to distinguish between government and party. He studied political science at Oxford, and I would have thought that this distinction is a pretty basic one. (Lord Levy agrees here.) Yes, meet donors for breakfasts, dinners, suppers, canapés, receptions - whatever - but, at party (as in political-party not party-party) locations not at HM Government locations.

Cameron has got himself in rather a lot of 'trouble' with 'friend' related stories: Coulson, Wade, Liam Fox now this. Is this just bad luck?

And, the guy that got this story rolling. His blog here.

Has Britain got talent? Maybe. Maybe not. Some of these erstwhile contestants definitely do have. It's good to see that some of these are making money. And that's definitely a talent worth having. Here.

Do we think about the past in colour? Definitely not with a vividness of colour. Aided by the black-&-white photos of the past we imagine the past as grey. That people lived their lives in a world that was somehow more muted than ours. That somehow life in the modern world is more 'real'. Nonsense of course. People lived their lives in the same world of colour as we do.

These colour pictures are extraordinary, in that they add colour to a world, which to the extent that we have photographs of the period, are all black-&-white. (See this blog for example). In some ways it shocks. They really were like people of today, not somehow of dimmed sensations, which allowed them to live through some of the tragedies of twentieth century Russia.

Real-life Rapunzel. Here.

Some crime stories today:

• What a perfect casting this was.
• The perfect crime, they thought. Sadly not.
• Is it beyond the wit of man to screen such types out? 

Discussing the relevance of the 'established church' in modern Britain. A cleric (Bishop of Leicester) and a lawyer (Lord Falconer). Here.

Interview with Harry Windsor. Here. Quite articulate. Interesting.

The Assads like to use email. Now we can all read them. Here.

Households facing a debt tide. Here.

Shisha Pipes.

Not only in the Middle East - here.

Listen to this. Literally.

Kate Middleton's brother attributes his success to his hard graft. Here.

I don't think so. I mean, for example, is it simply a correlation that his businesses are all party-related or is it because his family is in that line of  business anyway?

He is making the following argument: I work hard so I'm successful. No, not necessarily. It could just as well be I'm successful so I work hard. And that's what it undoubtedly is in this case. Most people would work hard if they had a reasonable chance of success. The reason why so many people don't  is because, for many, hard work will not bring success that is proportional to the work undertaken. James Middleton's education, connections, etc make it almost impossible to fail if he decides to 'work hard'.

James Middleton is lucky. He refuses to admit it. He is is a snob and a braggart.

Super Tuesday 2012.

James Naughtie (of Today) writes here.