In the BBC today

Oxford riot shield sledging police officers reprimanded:

Police officers filmed using riot shields to sledge down a snowy hill while on duty have been reprimanded...

Supt Andrew Murray said those involved have been spoken to and advised that their actions were a "bad idea".

But the local policing area commander added that the snow had "a habit of bringing out the child in all of us".

"I have spoken to the officers concerned and reminded them in no uncertain terms that tobogganing on duty, on police equipment and at taxpayers' expense is a very bad idea should they wish to progress under my command," Supt Murray added.

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At some point when I wasn't paying attention, the BBC has shifted its reporting policy on Honduras. This article I saw today contains this unexpectedly informative couple of paragraphs:

The reasons for and manner of Mr Zelaya's ousting have been bitterly disputed.

The Supreme Court ruled that his plans to look at changing the constitution were in themselves a violation of the constitution and ordered his arrest, while Congress voted to remove him from office.

However, instead of being detained and charged in Honduras, Mr Zelaya was seized by soldiers at his home and driven to the airport. There he was put on a flight to Costa Rica.

I note this because when I started reading news coverage of the Honduran crisis (about a week after it happened - perhaps the early coverage was different), I noticed that no BBC article I read mentioned that Zelaya was removed from his position (though not from his country) with the backing of the Honduran Supreme Court. I read every Honduras article I saw on the BBC front page for weeks without seeing mention of this fact, until Manuel Zelaya himself referred to it and (for a few hours until it was edited away) a BBC article quoted him on the subject. I would have thought it an important fact that the legal system had in fact initiated his removal, especially since many governments were describing the events as a "coup"; the BBC did not think this an important fact, or, if it did, held some variant of journalistic values that did not consider that all important facts should be passed on to their readers. Whichever was the case, I am happy that their approach has changed.

(The BBC also seldom mentioned that Zelaya's replacement was from his own party. I was talking about this to Elberry, who had not heard of Zelaya or the crisis, and based only on these two omissions, he was somehow able to guess Zelaya's politics. Curious.)