:: Are You An Illegal Immigrant? ::

In the wake of recent plans to test asylum seekers for Britishness, several sources have already proposed possible online versions. This one said I was "as English as Guy Ritchie" - an epic slight against my character. And a German colleague is apparently "as English as Sherlock Holmes" - shurely shome mishtake?. What do you get, factfans?
Although this is a bit of fun, I think the whole idea (Blunkett's proposals not wasting five minutes on a Friday afternoon on a lame internet quiz) is a bit sinister. A period of naturalisation should be a given for people wanting to live in this country, but teaching and testing in this way leaves too much room for "new citizens" to be modelled according to a political agenda.

As usual, Johnny Foreigner seems to be popping up all over the place these days (Gadzooks! Albanians in Orpington!). Let's take a step and thank god we're not Ukrainians. Swilling in vodka and melancholy, these chaps have set on a new money-making scheme: they're renting out disused classrooms - to the "wrong sort of tenants".

Nearby Lithuania is the source of many of my woes this week. Checking pricing data in the Baltics has turned into a tangled task as the following comment from a researcher proves:

"...this type of beer is popular among the consumers with lower incomes. Plastic packaging is more popular in countryside. Also in the countryside people drink more so 2 litres bottle is very comfortable"

Precisely! So that's it then, I'm going to spend the weekend on a park-bench swigging from cans of Tesco Value Bitter...