Last night saw the opening game in the Rugby World Cup. I happened to be in Toulouse airport going to a friend's wedding and stopped by the bar with a TV. The silence was golden as it became clear that Argentina were going to beat France. It doesn't mean much in the mathematics of the competition but it certainly makes things interesting. England will probably be next for humiliation.

On the publishing front, the highly successful Macmillan Digital Audio has moved into educational audio with the launch of downloadable Macmillan Readers. This is a series of classic novels with limited vocabulary for learners of English. It will be a fantastic resource for adults as well as students. Try out the samples at least.

In another digital development, an organisation called Live Ink maintains that rearrangement of words can make screen-presented text more readily ingested. I'm not sure, but if you check out this version of Moby Dick they seem to have created an automatic method for turning prose into poetry. I'm sure Melville would have been impressed.

And finally, a plaudit to a competitor. It is fifty years since the launch of Sputnik and New Scientist magazine has produced a wonderful web celebration here if you click on the 'gallery' icon.