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For Facebook 'Hacker Way' is way of life (Physorg.com) Sun Feb 05 20:45:14 +0000 2012

Sun Feb 05 20:45:14 +0000 2012

(AP) -- Facebook's billionaire CEO Mark Zuckerberg calls himself a hacker. For most people, that word means something malicious - shady criminals who listen in on private voicemails, or anonymous villains who cripple websites and break into email accounts.

British firms warned of Olympics Internet gaps (Physorg.com) Sun Feb 05 20:45:13 +0000 2012

Sun Feb 05 20:45:13 +0000 2012

British businesses are being warned of possible Internet breakdowns, data caps and unavoidable mobile phone problems during the London 2012 Olympics, in official advice from the Games organisers.

China’s Economy May Face ‘Rough’ Landing, Singapore’s Lee Says (BusinessWeek) Sun Feb 05 16:45:56 +0000 2012

Sun Feb 05 16:45:56 +0000 2012

China’s economy may be headed for a “rough landing,” Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said.

Romney has big win in Nevada (Sydney MH) Sun Feb 05 15:10:07 +0000 2012

Sun Feb 05 15:10:07 +0000 2012

Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney has captured a clear win in the Republican caucuses in the western US state of Nevada, projections showed.

Greece faces 'deadline to clinch bailout' (Al Jazeera) Sun Feb 05 09:55:35 +0000 2012

Sun Feb 05 09:55:35 +0000 2012

Finance Minister Venizelos says Greece has one day left to clinch a 130bn euro bailout to avoid chaotic debt default.

Romney looks to solidify position in Nevada (Al Jazeera) Sun Feb 05 09:55:32 +0000 2012

Sun Feb 05 09:55:32 +0000 2012

After a win in Florida, front-runner Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney looks likely to take Nevada caucus.

Billionaires Channel Millions to Think Tanks (Forbes) Sat Feb 04 23:30:26 +0000 2012

Sat Feb 04 23:30:26 +0000 2012

Just as big money is transforming politics, it?s also helping to reshape American think tanks. Members of the Forbes 400 have poured millions of dollars into research organizations that fit their social, political and/or business concerns. The conservative Heritage Foundation has received funding from libertarian Charles G. Koch, CEO of Koch Industries, as well as ...

Too Young to Fail (Tech Review) Fri Feb 03 16:40:06 +0000 2012

Fri Feb 03 16:40:06 +0000 2012

17-year-old Laura Deming doesn't drive and can't vote. Is now her chance to change the world?

Laura Deming was studying for finals in a crowded MIT reading room last April when her phone rang. That's when she learned she may never again take another exam.

Newcastle United 2-1 Aston Villa (Guardian) Mon Feb 06 00:30:05 +0000 2012

Mon Feb 06 00:30:05 +0000 2012

Aston Villa became the first Premier League team to suffer defeat by Double Demba. After falling behind to Demba Ba's opener, Alex McLeish's side travelled home cursing Papiss Demba Cissé's first, suitably spectacular, winner for Newcastle United.

Home fans did not have to wait many minutes before taking a first peek at Cissé. When Leon Best hobbled off with a knee injury the team's new £9m signing from Freiburg joined his Senegal international attacking partner, Ba, up front.

Shortly afterwards Cissé directed his first effort on target, out-jumping Stephen Warnock before unleashing a header which the returning Shay Given saved.

Presumably anxious not to be entirely upstaged by his friend, Ba promptly celebrated his return from the Africa Cup of Nations by scoring his 16th Premier League goal of the season for Alan Pardew's side.

When Richard Dunne failed to properly clear Danny Guthrie's speculative left-wing cross, Ryan Taylor unleashed a shot which Warnock made a desperate, studs up attempt to block. The ball rebounded off the visiting left-back into the path of Ba who required one touch before squeezing a shot beyond Given's reach.

Unfortunately Taylor's right shin ended up as collateral damage after feeling the force of Warnock's studs during that wildest of lunging challenges. Following prolonged treatment on the pitch, Taylor was carried from the pitch on a stretcher with an oxygen mask clamped to his face and his leg heavily strapped before being taken to hospital for X-rays.

Along with Given and Stephen Ireland – who had a brief stint on loan here last season – Charles N'Zogbia was returning to his former club. The series of Newcastle managers variously driven to distraction by the immensely talented yet infuriatingly inconsistent left-winger would doubtless have smiled at the sight of Villa's Alex McLeish repeatedly screaming at N'Zogbia in apparent despair. Take him on, take him on, McLeish kept bellowing as his strangely dawdling winger spent much of the first half struggling to make the desired impact.

Eventually the message must have got through because just as scores of spectators began to drift away in search of a hot half-time drink, N'Zogbia scorched past the back-tracking Gabriel Obertan en route to the byline from where he dispatched a superior low cross in Robbie Keane's path. With Tim Krul stranded the impressive Keane dispatched his 150th English League goal into the empty net before indulging in a spot of celebratory cartwheeling and somersaulting.

Newcastle were badly missing the suspended Yohan Cabaye and Cheik Tioté, who is otherwise occupied with Ivory Coast, but with Davide Santon outstanding as a most attacking left-back and Guthrie growing in central midfield stature Pardew's side retained hope of victory.

If Keane and his Villa team-mates may, at times, have gained more points for artistic merit Newcastle never gave up and should have regained the lead at the end of an attack sparked by Santon and concluding with Guthrie supplying Cissé with a highly inviting cross. Unfortunately the clearly tiring new boy proved unequal to it, heading wastefully over Given's bar from 10 yards when unmarked.

Redemption was not long in arriving, however. As Jonás Gutiérrez accelerated down the left wing Cissé eased his way between Warnock and Dunne. This manoeuvre left him perfectly placed to meet Gutiérrez's cross with a controlling touch before lashing the ball into the top corner from the edge of the area. Suddenly everyone could see why Pardew spent months pursuing him.

Although Krul was subsequently required to save brilliantly, not to mention, bravely at the feet of the substitute Emile Heskey, Newcastle remain set fair for Europe.

Louise Taylor

Mitt Romney Scores Another Win In Nevada Caucus (MTV) Mon Feb 06 00:10:07 +0000 2012

Mon Feb 06 00:10:07 +0000 2012

Ron Paul comes in third in latest GOP contest.

Greek PM in crucial bailout talks (BBC) Sun Feb 05 23:30:03 +0000 2012

Sun Feb 05 23:30:03 +0000 2012

Greek Prime Minister Lucas Papademos will meet party leaders in his coalition to discuss a proposed 130bn euros EU rescue plan.

Forbes Leadership Highlights of the Week: Set for Super Sunday (Forbes) Sun Feb 05 22:15:02 +0000 2012

Sun Feb 05 22:15:02 +0000 2012

With the biggest sports event of the year upon us this week, drew leadership inspiration from both and Eli Manning with ?Know Your Teammates: Lessons from the Super Bowl Quarterbacks.? ??looked beyond both those stars with her ?Super Bowl MVP Prediction: No, Not Brady or Manning. It?s .? let us know who???also neither Brady nor ...

More than 220 dead as Europe freezes (Sydney MH) Sat Feb 04 14:50:12 +0000 2012

Sat Feb 04 14:50:12 +0000 2012

Temperatures have plunged to new lows in Europe where a week-long cold snap has now claimed more than 220 lives as forecasters warned that the big freeze would tighten its grip over the weekend.

Derby County versus Nottingham Forest called off due to snow (Guardian) Sun Feb 05 20:55:10 +0000 2012

Sun Feb 05 20:55:10 +0000 2012

• Game postponed on spectator safety grounds
• 'The pitch is fine and inside the stadium is safe and dry'

Derby County's Championship match with local rivals Nottingham Forest has been postponed on safety grounds, the club have confirmed.

The match was due to kick off at 12.15pm on Sunday but heavy snow has left roads and pavements around the ground dangerous, and the club have called off the fixture after discussions with the match officials, police, the Football League and Forest.

Derby chief executive Tom Glick told the club's website: The pitch is fine and inside the stadium is safe and dry. However, the roads throughout the city and county are unsafe. This is the biggest match of the year for our supporters and we wouldn't want anyone to miss it because they had difficulty getting to Pride Park Stadium.

The game was due to go ahead less than 24 hours after it was announced that the Nottingham Forest owner, Nigel Doughty, had been found dead at his home in Lincolnshire.

Games for football lovers on iPhone and Android (CNet News) Sat Feb 04 12:50:04 +0000 2012

Sat Feb 04 12:50:04 +0000 2012

The big game is this Sunday and I've put together a collection of games for both iPhone and Android that let you play the role of different players on a football team.

Firefox 11 to get add-on sync (CNet News) Sat Feb 04 12:50:03 +0000 2012

Sat Feb 04 12:50:03 +0000 2012

Changes are a-foot again for Firefox. The beta channel can now sync add-ons, the Aurora channel completes a smoother update process, and work on the faster native UI for Android continues.

VIDEO: Son on Libyan diplomat's 'torture' (BBC) Sat Feb 04 12:20:23 +0000 2012

Sat Feb 04 12:20:23 +0000 2012

The Libyan authorities are being urged to investigate the death of a former ambassador who, it is believed, was tortured in custody.

Combined Approach to Global Health Can Save Lives at Lower Cost (NewsWise) Sat Feb 04 11:30:07 +0000 2012

Sat Feb 04 11:30:07 +0000 2012

A new analysis published this week in the open-access journal PLoS ONE (Feb. 3, 2012) focused on a combined public health campaign in Western Province, Kenya led by the Swiss-based company Vestergaard Frandsen, the Kenyan Ministry of Health and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The analysis looked at the cost effectiveness of simultaneously confronting the problems of HIV/AIDS, malaria, and diarrhea caused by waterborne pathogens.

Beware The Long (Global) Arm Of The IRS (Forbes) Sat Feb 04 11:05:13 +0000 2012

Sat Feb 04 11:05:13 +0000 2012

In an attempt to balance the budget and close the tax gap, Congress, the Obama administration and the IRS are on a mission to intimidate Americans into reporting all of their income, onshore and offshore.

Zuckerberg's 2011 personal income tax bill: $1.5 billion (The Register) Sat Feb 04 10:25:05 +0000 2012

Sat Feb 04 10:25:05 +0000 2012

That's 'billion', with a 'b'

If all goes according to plan, Facebook founder, chairman, and CEO Mark Zuckerberg's share of the profit in his company's upcoming initial public offering will result in him facing a tax bill of around $1.5bn for 2011.…

The Internet Versus Your Gut: Personal Training Goes Digital (Forbes) Sat Feb 04 00:16:39 +0000 2012

Sat Feb 04 00:16:39 +0000 2012

Gyms, as they stand, are not particularly distinguishable. More money means slightly nicer (or cleaner) facilities, better showers and better amenities ? a bit like a hotel. You also get access to a stable of who ? from the three gyms I?ve had the experience of being at (currently at the and Racquet Club in ...

The Week Ahead: Investors Await Earnings from Groupon, LinkedIn (TheStreet.com) Mon Feb 06 07:45:06 +0000 2012

Mon Feb 06 07:45:06 +0000 2012

Contributor Ken Shreve takes a look at upcoming economic data and some key earnings reports for the week of Feb. 6

British identity: the state of the union (Guardian) Mon Feb 06 07:40:47 +0000 2012

Mon Feb 06 07:40:47 +0000 2012

In this jubilee year, the Queen will commemorate 60 years reigning over a changing Britain. Now, with talk of Scottish independence in the air and preparations for the Olympics under way, 100 UK residents tell us what being British means to them

The poet Edwin Muir, who pootled round Scotland in an unreliable car in the mid-1930s to research his book Scottish Journey, was admirably realistic about the limitations of what he could achieve. Scotland, he concluded, could only be known by someone who had the power to live simultaneously in the bodies of all the men, women and children in it. He modestly described what he was doing as gathering shells whose meaning was often obscure or illegible to me.

I have also been on a shell-gathering expedition, and not just in Scotland but across the whole of the UK. I am, in fact, a little shell-shocked as I write this, having just travelled from Devon to Stratford-upon-Avon via Caernarfon, Belfast and Coventry in less than a week. I am tired of trains, ferries and cheap hotels, and irritated that I have no grand, overarching theory of Britishness to offer as a result. Instead, I have returned with 100 visions of identity, drawn (sometimes reluctantly) from people I encountered – shop assistants, window cleaners, bankers, lawyers, mechanics, students, pensioners, unemployed people. All British life is here – or a decent chunk of it anyway.

This journey, I had to remind myself as its lunacy dawned on me, was my idea. I saw 2012, with the jubilee and the London Olympics, as a watershed year, a last hurrah for a monarch who symbolises the old, deferential, class-bound world. Soon she will give way to the new order, represented by power couple William and Kate. There may be a brief interregnum when Charles, embodying the confused collision of two eras, reigns, but that is appropriate too. New worlds are not born easily.

It seemed like a moment to ask who we were and what we wanted to be. I talked to 100 people, in 10 different locations across the UK. The aim was to get both a geographical and a demographic spread, to build up a sort of patchwork of the UK to mark Monday's 60th anniversary of the Queen's accession to the throne (pause here for the playing of the national anthem).

Taking the pulse of a nation is, however, hellishly difficult. As I stood in freezing temperatures in Bradford's Centenary Square trying unsuccessfully to get twentysomething Muslim women to tell me how they lived their lives, I started to have doubts about the exercise. Belfast was even colder, and with security concerns still a worry – there were two bombs in Derry the day I arrived – some people were wary of talking about Britishness. For that reason, two of the identities of my Northern Irish interviewees are not disclosed: a sixtysomething Catholic who served in the army and was proud to be British, and a young Catholic in his 30s who thought Sinn Féin had sold out and still saw the country as being occupied by the British. Those two are the only ones whose names and photographs are suppressed.

I usually managed to dispel my doubts with a continuous stream of coffee and the encouragement of the occasional very good interview. Where possible, I tried to engage people in a proper conversation. Some encounters lasted a few minutes; others half an hour or more; one ended in a pub with a man telling me his life story and coming close to tears as he recounted his struggles. Though a few people I approached thought I was mad to be asking questions about their identity – or, worse, thought I was a chugger – most were willing to engage. On the whole, their answers were intelligent and thoughtful. I was left with a warm feeling about my fellow citizens who, despite a failing economy, remain remarkably resilient. I was also impressed by the trains, ferries and planes, which were surprisingly punctual. Despite all you read in our mordant media, ours is a society that more or less works.

The initial reason for undertaking the journey was the jubilee, but that was quickly overtaken by the Scottish question. The storm produced by David Cameron's attempt to bounce Alex Salmond into an early referendum broke when I was in Edinburgh, and gave an urgency to the inquiries I was making. The issue was on the front of every paper; people were discussing it in pubs; it mattered. If Scotland went, the game would be up for the UK. The disintegration predicted by Tom Nairn in his book The Break-Up of Britain almost 40 years ago – he called Britain a basically indefensible and unadaptable relic, not a modern state form – would have come to pass. Three hundred years of history would have to be unwound. Warring partners usually argue over the CD collection; this separation would see disputes over nuclear weapons and oil revenues.

I began my journey with a mission to stand up for Britain. I was born in Wales and have a bit of Irish on my mother's side, so am drawn to mongrelism. I have lived in England for almost 40 years without ever much liking or understanding the English. At heart, I remain Welsh, vague, mystical, verbose, a devotee of hwyl, that curious mixture of passion and inspiration with which Welshmen seek to play their rugby and lead their lives. But do not take my paean to Welshness as a plea for a Welsh state. I despise nationalism, embrace the idea of the melting pot that is the UK (a description much favoured by pro-Britishers I encountered), like the tensions that animate the union. I can happily cheer on England at cricket and Wales at rugby. Indeed, when it comes to rugby, I will support anyone but mechanical England. These confusions are vivifying. A country, so I thought, was like the human body – the more mixed the gene pool, the better.

Initially, my theory held up. In Stratford, east London, where I began – the conceit underlying the journey was that I would start in cosmopolitan, Olympic Stratford and end in heart-of-England, Shakespearean Stratford – people born to parents who had migrated to the UK seemed much happier to be called British rather than English. Britishness felt inclusive; Englishness conjured up bulldogs, union flag underpants, riotous football supporters and sometimes racism. But elsewhere I began to wonder about my easy assumption that British was best. For many people, Britishness meant little or nothing. The trip from prosperous, flag-waving, jubilee-supporting Ottery St Mary, a small town in Devon, to recession-hit Caernarfon in north Wales, where Welsh speakers easily outnumber those for whom English is the mother tongue, was especially telling. Britishness was a hazy notion here. Their horizons were narrower; their world defined by the language they were proud to speak and nurture.

The Scots are Scottish, the Welsh are Welsh, the Northern Irish Catholics mostly look south. Only the Northern Irish Protestants wear their Britishness on their sleeves, and on some public buildings too – a vast union flag flies above Belfast town hall, a shock after union flag-less Wales. So gradually I began to wonder about the thesis I was so sure of as I began – that Britishness should be protected at all costs. If it was already largely moribund, what was there to protect? As one man in Stratford-upon-Avon said, what would really change if the constituent parts went their own way? Hadrian's wall wouldn't be rebuilt. All the old links, of culture and family and business, would remain. Only the political settlement would change. And what, in the end, is politics when set against life?

Much of this was anticipated by historians and cultural commentators in the 1980s and 90s. Raphael Samuel, in Island Stories, argued that the redundancy of the post-imperial state made the idea of Britain problematic, and explored how British history was being replaced by Four Nations history, pointing out that 1066 was a great date for the English but barely registered for the Scots, Irish or Welsh.

In reality, as the discussions I had on my journey show, to break Britain down into four constituent parts is hopelessly simplistic. There are several Englands: urban and rural, northern and southern, the east, the west and the usually ignored Midlands. In Hastings, I found a society of misfits who had gone as far away from mainstream English society as they could without falling into the sea. There are at least three Scotlands: lowlands, highlands and islands. Salmond should beware secessionism. Might not Shetland want to go its own way, linking up with Norway in a Scandinavian arc of prosperity? In Caernarfon, it was clear that north and south Wales – rural v urban, Welsh-speaking v English-speaking, post-agricultural v post-industrial – loathe each other.

There aren't four Britains. There are 40. In Coventry alone there must be a dozen ethnic groups living in largely segregated communities. I had to change trains at Smethwick, near Birmingham, on the way to Coventry and had 40 minutes to kill, so went looking for a pub. There were none, because this was an almost entirely Sikh community. Or rather, there was one tatty building called the Old Comrades Club, which was shut. It was flying a ragged union flag on a pole in the car park. The flag was at half mast.

Britain no doubt means a lot to the men who drink in the Old Comrades Club. It means quite a lot to me, brought up on the Victor comic with its tales of wartime derring-do. I also think it means a lot to Jeremy Paxman, author of a recent book on the British empire. His interviews with Salmond are sparky even by his incendiary standards, and my guess is that his distress at the idea of Britain breaking up adds fuel to his interviewing fire. We have lived with Britain all our lives, and thought we would die with it too. But now the old comrades' voice is growing fainter. It is not the British state that people care passionately about, but the British state of mind, the values that Britishness is thought to encapsulate. When I asked people what mattered to them, few mentioned the monarchy, the army, the BBC, parliament or any of the organs of state; they eulogised our values – democracy, freedom, equality before the law, openness, tolerance, fairness, justice.

These were referred to repeatedly as the essence of Britishness, or perhaps of the New Britain, because some of those qualities were certainly not in evidence in the class-bound realm which Queen Elizabeth II took possession of in 1952. Tolerance, openness and diversity have all emerged in the past quarter-century, and now define our society. The young – those under 35, let's say – have embraced the virtues of a tolerant, easy-going, multicultural society; many of those over 65, especially in the big cities, feel dispossessed, their old cultural certainties shattered; those in between – me and Paxman aside, perhaps – are just about swimming with the tide, or at least keeping our thoughts to ourselves. What matters for the post-1970 generation is not the protection of institutions but of values. They would accept a new political settlement – If the Scots want to break away, that's up to them is the prevailing view in England – but they would fight to keep their freedoms and the anything-goes view of society we have come to take for granted in the past couple of decades.

I started my journey at the gleaming Westfield shopping centre in Stratford which, as one visitor said to me, could easily be Singapore. Hastings I chose for its historical associations, but it was a washout – the Normans landed 15 miles down the coast, the great battle was fought six miles to the north (the precise spot is disputed), and I got soaked. Then I headed north to Bradford, to explore an archetypally multicultural – and economically depressed – city, filled with wonderful 19th-century buildings and horrible 21st-century pawn shops and amusement arcades. I chose two locations in Scotland: Edinburgh, inevitably, where I paraded up and down the Royal Mile and buttonholed people outside the parliament building, which looks like the sort of elaborate home an Arab sheikh might build; and Pitlochry on the edge of the Highlands in Perth and Kinross, where I had haggis for every meal, including breakfast.

From Scotland, I travelled to Ottery St Mary in Devon, birthplace of Coleridge and what I hoped might be a typical West Country village. The locals, however, berated me for calling it a village, insisted it was a town (population about 4,000) and introduced me to the mayor. I fear I failed in Ottery, because I spoke almost exclusively to the bourgeoisie, most of whom were involved in amateur dramatics. Farmers and the rural poor passed me by completely, but I do now know a great deal about the Mikado.

I took three trains from Devon to north Wales – a journey that took seven hours – and stayed in a hotel in Bangor run by a Chinese family. I did my interviews in Caernarfon, in the shadow of the castle, where Prince Charles had his bizarre investiture in 1969 – look at the TV coverage on YouTube and marvel at the absurdity of the occasion. Caernarfon is desperately poor, yet the love of the language was palpable. Whereas Scotland defines itself by the separateness of its institutions, Wales relies on Welsh.

Then came Northern Ireland, probably the most eye-opening part of the journey, and the two Midlands towns: Coventry, chosen because it symbolised post-war reconstruction, but vying with Caernarfon as the most dismal of the places I visited, and a city clearly rebuilt for the convenience of the car rather than pleasure of its people; and finally Stratford-upon-Avon, heart of England and home of the bard, where I was pleased to discover children still danced around maypoles, and I talked to a beggar who told me the police wouldn't let him beg in the town centre because it made a bad impression on tourists.

I was left with misgivings about the future of the UK, but no doubts about the capacity of the people who live in these islands. The young, for all the talk of a lost generation, have buoyancy and self-belief, while the old have their gripes and prejudices to sustain them. I had an epiphany early in the trip when I watched dozens of young people skating on an ice-rink as darkness fell at a wintry Westfield in east London. Plenty of the skaters fell, too, but they quickly bounced back up and made their way across the ice, laughing and clutching on to friends, fearless and eager to learn. People are remarkable in a way that countries can never be.

Stephen Moss

Manchester United's David de Gea shows true worth in Spanish duel (Guardian) Mon Feb 06 07:40:46 +0000 2012

Mon Feb 06 07:40:46 +0000 2012

The young goalkeeper illustrated his talent with a superb save from Chelsea's Juan Mata in added time to preserve a point

David De Gea, whose fitness to succeed Peter Schmeichel and Edwin van der Sar is a constant source of debate, reimbursed a chunk of the £18.3m paid for his services by Manchester United when he preserved the 3-3 scoreline so dramatically secured by his team‑mates with a save that conspicuously illustrated the talent identified in the young Spaniard by Sir Alex Ferguson and his scouts.

In the first minute of added time Paul Scholes obstructed David Luiz 25 yards from the United goal, leading Howard Webb to award a free‑kick. Juan Mata, who had played a part in each of the goals that had given Chelsea a 3-0 lead, hit a fantastic 25‑yard free‑kick that was arrowing into the top right-hand corner until De Gea, twisting as he flew across the goalmouth, used his right hand to turn it around the angle of bar and post. Three minutes later, in the final seconds of the contest, the goalkeeper reached up to tip over a furious 25‑yard drive from Gary Cahill which, like Mata's effort, might have restored Chelsea's advantage and reinforced their challenge for the fourth Champions League qualifying place.

Coming from a man who arrived in England with a reputation for conceding goals from long-range shots, and who will undergo an operation this summer to correct a congenital defect in his eyesight, both interventions were enormously impressive. Goalkeepers are paid to have a decisive effect, and in the end De Gea was as influential in the outcome of this high-octane contest as the referee, who was presented with the sort of near-impossible decisions that are becoming more common by the week at the highest level of the English game, and which had both managers hopping around their technical areas in various stages of exasperation.

Chosen to start after Anders Lindegaard had been ruled out by injury, De Gea had begun the afternoon badly, fluffing an attempt to punch a ball that looped up in as crowded goalmouth following a Raul Meireles corner in the sixth minute. It was a weak intervention that seemed to underline all the reservations expressed about the ability of his slender 6ft 4in physique to cope with the power-play of the Premier League. But as Chelsea reversed the run of play and established what looked very much like a winning lead with three goals between the 36th and the 50th minutes, the goalkeeper could not really be faulted for any of them.

The first came when David Sturridge, receiving a clever pass from Mata, brilliantly transfixed Patrice Evra before darting for the byline close to the goal and pulling back a ball that rebounded off De Gea's outstretched leg on to Jonny Evans's chest and back into the net. The second may have represented Stamford Bridge's most enjoyable moment of the season so far, when the hard-working Fernando Torres received the ball close to the right-hand touchline and measured a long, dipping cross that Mata met beyond the far post with a volley of staggering velocity and stunning accuracy. Made in Spain, it was a goal of majestic proportions, and had De Gea managed to get any part of his anatomy in its path he might not have been seen for the remainder of the season. The goalkeeper was similarly blameless when Mata curled in the free‑kick from which Luiz, with the aid of Rio Ferdinand's shoulder, made it 3-0.

Where do they come from, these shuddering thrillers between the top Premier League sides, each one a self-contained scene within a season-long grand opera, occurring with a regularity completely unknown in previous eras? If this match reached half-time as a fractious and unlovely affair, with far too much time and attention expended on listening out for the chants of One England captain, there's only one England captain from the John Terry loyalists in the Matthew Harding Stand and Rio! Rio! Rio! from the visiting fans in the Shed End, in its final stages the damp fuse finally caught, enabling it to explode like the most extravagant of firework displays.

André Villas-Boas bemoaned what he sees as Chelsea's run of bad luck with referees, and the award of a second penalty to United, when Danny Welbeck stumbled over Branislav Ivanovic's leg, certainly seemed to have been provoked by the United player. In terms of absolute justice, however, there was a strong sense that the contest had rebalanced itself fairly as the champions clawed their way back into the match, driven on by an impassioned Wayne Rooney, whose two spot-kicks were dispatched with even more than the customary measure of violence. It's almost normal service for them – a big comeback, great desire, the disappointed Villas-Boas said in a courteous tribute to the characteristic Ferguson holds most dear.

At that stage, De Gea could only stand and watch. But in the end he had his part to play, and it was executed with a panache that, for all his evident callowness under certain kinds of pressure, spoke eloquently on behalf of the future Ferguson has in mind for his willowy 21-year-old.

Richard Williams

Chelsea's failure to nullify Wayne Rooney proved their undoing | David Pleat (Guardian) Mon Feb 06 07:40:45 +0000 2012

Mon Feb 06 07:40:45 +0000 2012

It was Wayne Rooney, more than anyone else, who rocked Chelsea, as Manchester United stormed back to snatch a point

After an ordinary first half, the game exploded after the catalyst of Chelsea's third, fortuitous goal. Juan Mata's great volley, created by his fellow Spaniard Fernando Torres, had lifted Chelsea's spirits but their team, devoid of core players – Ashley Cole, Frank Lampard, John Terry and Didier Drogba – fumbled their way forwards after Sir Alex Ferguson's changes worked to perfection.

His alterations were aided by André Villas-Boas's decision to substitute Daniel Sturridge, the one player who could create a pressure point for the home team, teasing Patrice Evra to the first goal and then drawing the Manchester United left-back into committing a yellow-card offence. Without his trickery in wide areas, Torres was even more bereft of support. In truth, Torres's approach play was better than in recent games but in delaying a golden opportunity to score when Chelsea were 3-2 up he displayed a lack of confidence. Chelsea never got into advanced areas down the left because the left-footed Florent Malouda was too narrow, particularly in the first half. Mata, also a left-footer, played his scheming role more centrally, and the right-footed José Bosingwa was trapped when advancing into the middle third.

Torres did not receive one cross from the left to attack from an advanced position and his goal famine goes on.

It was Wayne Rooney, more than anyone else, who rocked Chelsea as United stormed back. Picking up balls from all areas he needed to be man-marked. His energy is incredible and his desire to be accurate in all he does is admirable. His finding of space is so intelligent and his forward runs, with or without the ball, exemplary.

Michael Essien, understandably lacking energy, might have attempted to sit on him had Ramires been available to play alongside Raul Meireles. They needed someone with enough energy and discipline to nail Rooney.

Paul Scholes, in the centre, was clinical and Ryan Giggs, calm and classy on the left, held sway. The Blues lacked the confidence to keep the ball and gain passages of possession to take the sting out of the game. They got submerged into the ebb and flow, but they desperately needed to hold the game as United threw caution to the wind. Ferguson had a field day. Even David de Gea, the much-maligned goalkeeper, came up trumps in the final minutes. It was that kind of day.

David Pleat