Google, you've got nothing to fear

You may have read elsewhere that Cuban computer programmers have developed the island's first Internet search engine.

Which is great to hear although it will be of no use to 99.9 per cent of Cubans, who are forbidden by the Castro regime from accessing the Internet. Too dangerous, they reckon.

But even those few Cubans lucky enough to be allowed access to the outside world may be a tad disappointed by the new search engine - it doesn't search the Web, but only those sites previously screened and approved by the regime.

Most exciting of all, we are told, the new search engine has a special facility that allows users to search through a supposedly comprehensive database of Fidel Castro's many and lengthy speeches.

Well, not all that comprehensive.

A search for one of those early speeches the then fresh-faced Castro delivered back in January 1959, promising to hold free and fair elections within 18 months, failed to come up with any results. Zilch.

I am sure this little oversight will be rectified by the developers in due course.