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We hear the Bloomberg gang has risen up in protest against censorship.

 They are fighting for intellectual freedom. They are fighting for the right to speak in their native dialect.

 They are fighting for the right to say 'pissed'.

 This, we hear, is one of a list of banned words on the Bloomberg message system.

 There are a whole host of naughty terms and phrases stored in their system.

 And it doesn't just affect staffers either. Anyone sending a message on a Bloomberg computer can fall foul of it.

 Lai See activated the censors' sensors when trying to describe someone as 'knowledgable, but a miserable old fart'  Immediately, a little window popped up.

 'Compliance alert' it warned.

 'The following word 'fart' is not considered appropriate in the context of business correspondence.'  Anyway, the word 'pissed' was also on that list, until the office Brits rebelled.

 'The word 'pissed' is perfectly acceptable in our country, and used commonly,' they said. 'How dare you rob us of our very identity by trying to strip us of the vernacular that makes us unique, that makes us free, that makes us proud to be British?'  Well. We may be embellishing slightly. Possibly what they actually said was more along the lines of 'Oh, get real. Everyone says 'pissed' in the UK.'  But the underlying sentiments were there.

 Of course, we in Hong Kong are no strangers to pornography.

 Fortunately, we've got the Obscene Articles Tribunal to protect us. Remember when they protected us from Michelangelo's 'David'?  And when they saved us from Dame Elizabeth Frink's 'new man' statue. A giant fig leaf was placed over the contentious bits.

 Anyway, it's been a bad week all round on the censorship front.

 Richard Bell fell foul of US Web directories over his many close up pictures of a pair of Great Tits.

 If that made you picture female anatomy - shame on you.

 Obviously we were referring to birds. The winged variety.

 In America, Great Tits are known as chickadees. So when they popped up on the British wildlife artist's site, the guardians of decency swung into action.

 'Contains adult content' was the ruling.

 The automatic Internet screening system also took offence at a description of 'a magnificent cock pheasant', reported The Sun newspaper on Wednesday.

 The Net firm only lifted the ban after Richard insisted his site www.willowisland.co.uk was not offensive.

 Richard of Wakefield in Yorkshire said: 'I had an e-mail from them referring to the adult nature of the site and was totally baffled.

 'Apparently the word tits is on the banned list. My Web site mentions them endlessly.'   Richard set up his site in 1998. Said he: 'I've had 4,000 people visit it without a complaint. I update my wildlife diary every single day and there are illustrations too of all the birds and animals.'  Lai See decided to pay this controversial little site a visit.

 It was indeed outrageous.

 Richard admits to having lurked about in bushes spying on young birds.

 Totally naked bats were openly displayed, their wings spread.

 And this sort of smut was printed below: 'House Martins circling over the rooftops against a grey sky inspired me to try an animated sketch,' the pornographer said.

 'But I decided that, because of the limitations of simple animation, the fluttering of a bat would be a more suitable subject than the smooth, flowing flight of the House Martin.'  Clearly this man is a perv and a menace to society.

 Some people just can't be satisfied with a conservative, simple life.

 People like Richard just live for the wild life.



Web site censors caught in a flight of fancy