Peter Preston raves about the Standard’s new Eros reward card in his column in the Observer today. It is a prepayment card that works like Transport for London’s Oyster and will provide invaluable information on readers who get a discount of at least 20% in return.

It went on trial at Waterloo last week. But I have a feeling it is a good idea too late. We already have to carry too many cards, loyalty, credit, debit, security, library, driving licence…

I suspect the East of England Co-op has been meeting resistance, constantly putting off the day when it insisted on swiping a membership card instead of giving a number. Today, they started demanding the card which I will have to remember every time we run out of milk. It takes longer when people have to search their purses for a card, the woman on the check-out told me this morning.

The trend may well be turning against multiple cards. Travel through Canary Wharf at the moment and you cannot miss the fact that Barclaycard OnePulse is offering a card which includes Oyster, allows purchases of under £10 by simply waving the card at a terminal but insists on a pin number when more is spent.

According to Preston, the Times and the Standard’s sister, the Mail, have also been experimenting. But my guess is that the future is in combined cards rather than in an inch-thick wodge of loyalty cards.

The BBC radio newsroom’s home page has some useful things for students including a link to download the news style guide, and news bulletin scripts from the past week. There is also advice on writing for radio.

I thought I kept fairly well up with the news until I clicked on the “Radio news quiz — how closely have you been listening to the news?”

It was hard. Very hard. Then I spotted the clue to why. It is in the questions one of which is:

Which pop group who have not performed since 1981 is to reunited for the Live 8 concert in Hyde Park?
A: ELO
B: Ultravox
C: Pink Floyd

Not my subject, and then I noticed a line at the top of the page: Last Updated: Tuesday, 24 February, 2004, 16:10 GMT. It must have been a bit later than that because Live 8 was in July 2005.

Can it possibly be that no-one has noticed that the same page has been there for more than two years or is there a technical glitch?

The sound of feet shuffling is almost audible in the stories today about the addition of the late-arriving James Purnell, the culture secretary, to a photograph of MPs organised by Tameside and Glossop NHS Trust. It seems to hinge on whether Mr Purnell understood the meaning of the word “merge” or whether he thought it would be OK because they were only going to lie to health service staff. The explanations are a bit different in the Telegraph and Guardian reports.

I am happy to put it all down to misunderstanding, but the idea that anyone could have thought it acceptable in any circumstances suggests media illiteracy. What really worries me is that Purnell has been spouting about trust in the media and the need to learn lessons from the fixing of phone polls.

It does not look likely that anyone’s head will roll over the picture, That is right, but it is worrying that the episode of the naming of the Blue Peter cat has reportedly led to the sacking of the editor. I do hope Mr Purnell will put in a good word for Richard Marson, of Blue Peter, next time he bumps into Mark Thompson, the BBC’s director general.

At this time of year I ask new students about their primary sources of news — where they normally look first. Is it radio, TV, newspapers or the web? Over the years the web has grown to be the first choice but last week newspapers did not feature at all among a group of around 20 students. It is the first time that has happened, not one hand went up.

So I asked an extra question: How many think newspapers are the first choice of your parents? Well over half the hands went up. This led to a discussion of how long printed newspapers, as we know them, would last. Until the generation of the students parents die, was the suggestion that seemed to get most support.

Interestingly, there was still a preference among many of the students for reading on paper and that led to talking about the impact of newsprint production on carbon emissions and the potential of electronic paper.

Returning from Spain, I opened the papers to the story of the Blue Peter cat: a surreal episode which demonstrates just how dangerous inward-looking examination can become.  This morning seeing the words “witch hunt” in a Guardian headline, reminded me of how the people of Brandeston in Suffolk turned on their vicar in the 17th century and hanged him as a witch.

No wonder an anonymous person at Television Centre says everyone there is “terrified about the next move”.