Martha Lane Fox says the Government should get its coronavirus app right because “we’re going to need these things again … this is like the test run for something I believe that’s going to continue to happen”.
Lane Fox, a crossbench peer and doyenne of the tech world who founded lastminute.com in the Nineties, echoed concerns of experts who believe the current app, designed for a track-and-trace system, may be unsuccessful.
There are concerns over privacy as well as possible effectiveness. Oxford University researchers estimate that 60 per cent of the population would need to use the NHS app to stop the epidemic. “It must be possible to create something that is easy to use and that we don’t have to force … and has a drop-dead date when we know the data will be deleted,” Lane Fox said.
She also told the Infotagion podcast that the app must be trusted “because the terms and conditions are incredibly easy to understand”, and that the commercial sector should be engaged. She added that as we may need the app again “we might as well try and structure it right”.
“That does not seem outside the wit of woman.”
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MARY BEARD admits: “I tend to stick to the very cheap stuff, and get quite a lot of it” when it comes to buying... plants online. The classicist and TV presenter writes in the TLS that she has now developed a new habit, namely an obsession with gardening. Blaming lockdown, she says: “In my 65 years I have hardly ever touched a trowel.”
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Director Edgar Wright, who made Shaun of the Dead, says “it’s quite ironic, sixteen years later... to walk around and recreate my own movie” as he strolls through London. But Wright warned on Jay Rayner's podcast that such films, featuring deserted cities, were unlikely to be popular post-coronavirus: “You’d be like, ‘Yeah, I’ve seen it, I saw it every day when I walked to Sainsburys.’”
SW1A
Nicky Morgan, former education and culture secretary, tells us she’s thinking of writing a book “about the period between the referendum and the 2019 election”. Morgan, who was ennobled as Baroness Morgan of Cotes in January, adds: “But, current events have rather made the whole Brexit debate feel much less important.” Morgan recently told the magazine Finito World: “My post-politics employment plan is suspended too. I’m still working out my new role in the House of Lords". Go for the book.
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The contest is on for best Zoom background in the Lords. Lord Adonis lists some of his favourites: Baroness Wheatcroft’s fireplace is “the grandest ... anywhere outside Versailles”, Lord Baker is “surrounded by cartoons of himself”, while Viscount Trenchard’s has curtains “reminiscent of old sepia pictures of Victorian parlours”. A “whose background” TV show beckons.
Give me sunshine, flowers and a barrel of laughs
Aisling Bea failed to check her measurements and so got a giant vintage wine barrel delivered instead of a large plant pot. Elsewhere, Jessie J and Suki Waterhouse soaked up some sun, while Britney Spears was wowed by a bouquet of flowers. Forget sunbathing — this summer, sit inside a giant wine barrel.
