In an obvious challenge to Wikipedia, Encyclopedia Britannica is offering free subscriptions to bona fide publishers and bloggers. So I applied and was approved. Hence I can offer you all sorts of factual accuracies alongside my much opinionated scribblings. 

What’s more if you, my dear reader, click on one of the links I post to the learned tome, you too can read the whole Britannica article for nothing. So take a look at this widget and click for more ….

I have owned the many volumes of Encyclopedia Britannica since 1986 and collected every year book until last year when it seemed that the internet has superceded the hard bound volumes on the shelf.

A brief look at the online version reveals a much slicker delivery compared to the free Wiki entries. So if you love bells and whistles, Java and Flash, authority and formality  – you’ll love EB. But if you prefer the more geeky and folksy Wikipedia – well it’s still there and will remain forever free.