In America alone, people spent $170 billion on “direct marketing”—junk mail of both the physical and electronic varieties—last year. Yet of those who received unsolicited adverts through the post, only 3% bought anything as a result. If the bumf arrived electronically, the take-up rate was 0.1%. And for online adverts the “conversion” into sales was a minuscule 0.01%.

As gays have moved into the mainstream, Republicans have landed on the wrong side of history.

[…] weepe now or never, thou haſt made more ſorrowes then we have eyes to utter.

A reformed alcoholic with an “appalling” history of drink-driving between three and five times the legal limit was jailed yesterday.