And so it was that I came upon a release of engagements from the official diary of a previous incumbent which contains the wonderful line:
They are available in Hansard at www.parliament.gov.uk.
Which is all very nice except, erm, that's not the website address for the House of Commons (where you would find Hansard), that's an address that has been registered by an internet-type company. You'd find HoC at www.parliament.uk
Is it just me or would you expect a Civil Servant working to a Minister or Secretary of State to know that? Jings, Crivvens and Help Ma Boab (with capitals)!
3 comments:
Well the .gov.uk one certainly redirects to the .uk one?
I assume they just use the .gov.uk one to be consistent with other govt departments, and this is then redirected to the main domain.
Don't know about the registration, but I doubt if a private company or suchlike would be allowed to register a .gov.uk domain unless for the benefit of government and with official authority.
Now there's an interesting thing - if you click on the link in the pdf on the Scotland Office website it takes you to a holding page for NetNames but the link from my post is redirected to the correct address. The only difference seems to be that the full stop at the end of the sentence in the pdf is incorporated into the web address whereas I've cut it at the end of the address.
Ah, yes, that explains it - I clicked on your link rather than the pdf.
I've often wondered if it's good form to use a full stop to complete a sentence ending in a web address, but clearly it's not!
Even on paper anyone reading it might think it's part of the URL. Some people, at least!
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