In a text book demonstration of how to flout copyright law, the Lancashire Evening Post has pilfered a couple of stories from El Reg.

Who ever did this gets the Cheeky Monkey of the Month award.

The first one originally appeared on El Reg on December 6 also appeared in the Internet Section of the Lancashire Evening Post.

Barely a word was changed between the original, which appeared here and the print version, three days later.

The same thing happened to this story about the Football Association pulling the reins in on Fanzine reporting of fixtures lists.

Shame on you LEP.

If you are going to pinch our stories, at least have the decency to change the words around a bit. You know, like everyone did when they got an essay on Mary Queen of Scots for homework at primary school: copy the passage from the encyclopaedia and swap the sentences around a bit.

Another possible explanation of course is that there is a psychic link between our editorial team and that of the LEP. We hope Mulder and Scully will investigate since we couldn't reach them for comment. ®

Our thanks to the vulture-eyed reader who sent us the clipping.