Conspiracy nuts will be overjoyed: London Underground Bombing ‘Exercises’ Took Place at Same Time as Real Attack. (Via.)

“I will ‘blog for victory’ on the 10th of August by writing a post about the need for House of Lords reform, and link to the Elect the Lords campaign website but only if 20 other bloggers will too.”

Yesterday, for the first time in months, I completed the daily Guardian cryptic crossword – all on my own, without a dictionary or Google, and before I’d even reached the station for the train journey home. I was suitably flushed. Even better, it was set by the crème de la crème of setters, Araucaria, and featured a signature Very Long Answer. This anagram – 8 words comprising 33 letters – once solved provided a useful hoard of checked letters, which enabled me to solve my favourite clue from the puzzle:

Mary’s third keeps dog in order — good news about her and another James? (4,5,4)

And the answer is…

BOTH DOING WELL

The explanation: Mary Queen of Scots’ third husband was James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell; “dog in” order = doing; and “good news about her and another James?” refers to Mary and her son, James VI, and therefore an expression for mother and child.

There are some factual differences in reports about the London transport bombers from the Beeb and the Grauniad.

The Guardian says he went to the same university as me (and Harold Shipman), but the BBC says he went to Leeds Met. The Guardian also claims one of the bombers’ credit cards were found at the scene of the bus explosion. The BBC says cash cards – more likely for a devout Muslim who wouldn’t want to run the risk of incurring interest charges.

Incidentally, one of the houses raided yesterday was in the Burley area of Leeds, only a couple of streets from where I was living this time last year.