We heaved a sigh of relief yesterday when the Crown Prosecution Service issued its press release and where Sir Ken Macdonald stated:

"I have today concluded that the evidence sent to us by the police is sufficient to charge Andrey Lugovoy with the murder of Mr Litvinenko by deliberate poisoning.

"I have further concluded that a prosecution of this case would clearly be in the public interest.

This was the same  suspect as Martin Sixsmith had fingered in his book The Litvinenko File which we published about a month ago. Goodness knows where the diplomatic stand-off between Russia and Britain will end but one side-effect is that the book's sales have already accelerated in the 24 hours since the announcement.

I asked yesterday whether anyone objected to the ads on this blog which have earned (I had pointed out to me) $254.12, not the figure I gave which was just the latets instalment. Nobody seems to mind and so I'll continue. The money will, I promise, be put to good use.

A little while ago I wrote about the differences in style between British and American dictionaries. British entries try to define a word as accurately as possible with as few words as possible. Analgesic febrifuge as a definition of aspirin in the COD is an extreme of Britishness. The American style is more discursive and descriptive and here is an extreme of American-ness from the Merriam-Webster Unabridged:

Main Entry: ¹ho·tel    Pronunciation Guide
Pronunciation: ()h|tel
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): -s
Etymology: French hôtel, from Old French ostel, hostel -- more at HOSTEL
1 archaic : a city mansion of a person of rank or wealth
2 a : a house licensed to provide lodging and usually meals, entertainment, and various personal services for the public : INN b : a building of many rooms chiefly for overnight accommodation of transients and several floors served by elevators, usually with a large open street-level lobby containing easy chairs, with a variety of compartments for eating, drinking, dancing, exhibitions, and group meetings (as of salesmen or convention attendants), with shops having both inside and street-side entrances and offering for sale items (as clothes, gifts, candy, theater tickets, travel tickets) of particular interest to a traveler, or providing personal services (as hairdressing, shoe shining), and with telephone booths, writing tables and washrooms freely available