While universities often get criticised for being overly middle-class in their intake, it’s important to remember that this has its advantages. Going to uni generally turns posh halfwits who’ve grown up spouting Daddy’s opinions into independent beings. Being a pop star is a less effective way of growing up (and other controversial statements).

I’ve discovered an annoying problem with Google’s core search engine: the way it deals with accents. For example, if you search for "Muller", it doesn’t pull up pages where the U contains an umlaut.

This is daft. It would be easy for Google to treat unicode characters 0075, 00FA, 0171, 00FC and E146 (all the accented Us) as identical, and would significantly improve search functionality. The database already treates unicode 0075 and 0055 (lowercase and uppercase Us) as the same, so the move wouldn’t even involve significant coding.

I am biased here: I’ve long believed that the use of accents is a waste of time designed exclusively to piss people off and keep grammar teachers in business – indeed, I think the computer industry made a terrible mistake in moving away from standard ASCII to allow foreigners to pollute the digital world with their stupid characters.

Nonetheless, even a believer in accents should be able to see the utility in allowing combined searches, given that nearly all accented words and names exist in the web in both accented and accent-free forms. You could even do the same for pedantic Anglicisations of accented words, so that "Muller" also returns "Mueller".

For purists, Google could easily make "return actual character only" an advanced search option (the same interface could also allow case-matching, which might sometimes be helpful). Alternatively, the foreign-language versions of Google could continue as they are, while the English version moved over to working in proper English.

Mild digression: few editorial style things annoy me more than people who use accents when writing English. The word is role, you idiot. We don’t have a hat in our language.

I’ve just worked a 22-hour day. I really should get the final two hours in now I’ve gone that far – unfortunately I think that would be fatal. Potentially literally.

Subhuman is a harsh phrase, and I probably didn’t mean it. But bloody hell… if you really think the War on Terror-ness is worth sacrificing the rights that we’ve fought for, well, pretty much all the time since civilisation emerged, then I’m not going to shed any tears if you get blown up. Well, unless you’re related to me or something.

I would rather live in a country where 3000 people were killed in terrorist disasters every month than in a country that suspended the rule of law and permitted torture. And if you wouldn’t, that’s because you’re subhuman.

Today, I am mostly being a drinks expert.

Meanwhile, Mark Chapman has been refused parole after a "review of records". Clearly they didn’t review any of John Lennon’s post-1973 records, otherwise they’d have granted him an official pardon.

And the VP debate appears to have been a draw, with both candidates making the vicious attacks that Bush and Kerry can’t or won’t (respectively, pretty much); probably Edwards came ahead on points, if only because expectations were lower. Although it did allow the Chicago Tribune to run the most Onion-esque headline I’ve seen in a while: "Facts interpreted selectively". And amusingly, Cheney got the URL of anti-Kerry site factcheck.org wrong, referring to factcheck.com instead. Which redirects to George Soros’s anti-Bush site – result!

Final debate thought: I was surprised to read a headline on Google claiming that Cheney creamed Edwards – until I clicked through to discover not only that it was a piece by mad hack Hugh Hewitt, but also that Hewitt thinks Bush won the Kerry debate last week. Again with the wishing it were satire…

Drink driving is a scummy activity. However, the French prosecutor trying to jail a couple who told their drunk guest he was too wasted to drive, tried to take away his car keys, but didn’t call the police when he left, is a lunatic and himself deserves to be run over.

Nathaniel Davis, brewmaster at Anheuser-Busch, has managed to make an even worse variant of Budweiser. This requires true skill and dedication.

Donald Rumsfeld wins the backtracking award for the day. Apparently, when he said there was "no strong, hard evidence" of Iraq/Al-Qaeda ties, he really intended to say "there were ties between al Qaeda and Iraq".

Mr Rumfeld’s boss’s communication difficulties seem to have become contagious. Hopefully they’ll spread to Dick Cheney in time for tonight’s debate…

Bob Geldof’s programmes on marriage and fatherhood go out on Monday and Tuesday next week.

Not only do they carry the Laban Tall seal of approval, they’ve also involved nine months of implausibly hard work by their producer/director, my friend Annalisa.

Admittedly, the "being shown on Monday and Tuesday" is still dependent on her getting them finished by this Thursday evening…