Today at work we got the following memo: "As from Monday 26 February 2001 our company access to undesirable internet sites will be removed. If for research or company business purposes access to a restricted site is required, a form must be obtained from the IT intranet web page, or directly from the IT Helpdesk. Authorisation is required by your department manager. Under normal circumstances 24 hours notice is required to enable access."

A week is a long time in politics; 24 hours is a very long time indeed in daily newspaper journalism.

And it's a finely-tuned censorship: Sandy was barred from the BBC's weather site tonight. Ooo, err, must be those saucy isobars! Stark naked statistics!