There’s consternation, no doubt, at that sad shadow of its former self, the erstwhile Thunderer, at the threat that the Data Protection Act may be extended to cover paper files: according to Peter Hilmore in the Observer, The Times, which has covered itself in ignominy of late by describing several dear departed in gratuitoucly nasty terms in its obituary columns, so feared that potential future victims would invoke the Data Protection Act and ask prehumously to see what horrid things the Murdoch rag was going to say about them once they were post that when the winds of computerising change swept through Fortress Wapping, the Obit editor jealously protected his collection from the digitising maelstrom, and demanded that they remain in pristine paper form; the proposed new law will however enable all of us to demand to see just how unpleasant our valedictions will be – or worse still, find that they decided that we were unworthy of that final deadline.
