The English, the English, the English are best: I wouldn’t give tuppence for all of the rest, sang Michael Flanders to the music of that great composer of jolly melodies who just died, Donald Swann: in its latest tirade against software piracy, the Software Publishers Association has compiled tables purporting to show the losses to software developers from piracy in all the major markets, and estimate the rate of piracy in the UK and Ireland as the lowest anywhere in the world, at 27%; that beacon of rectitude in south-east Asia, Singapore comes next with 29%, the Germans, lumped with the Austrians, are on 33%, tying with the US; the rate in France is put at 52%, in Italy, 61%, in Benelux, 67%, and in Spain and Portugal at 79% – sort of explains why the Brits get so exercised about silly new rules being agreed in Brussels to the amazement of their partners most of the other countries cheerfully sign up to new rules and then ignore them.
