Winterval spotting (10 days late or 355 days early?)

When the Google Alert first popped up I thought there must have been some kind of mistake. Perhaps the internet was broken? After all, how could even the Daily Mail squeeze a mention of Winterval into this story:


But there it is, tucked away in the 24th paragraph (just next to the HILARIOUS Pugh cartoon):

The rubbish gap has been dubbed ‘Binterval’ after the name Winterval, which was first coined by council chiefs as a politically correct replacement for Christmas.

Quite who has dubbed the rubbish gap "Binterval" remains unclear; the Mail cites no sources and a Google search turns up just one news story containing the phrase, and that's this piece of quality Mail journalism. There ARE plenty of hits for it on a general search and on the blogs, but these all refer to it in this kind of context:

"According to the USB 2.0 spec, bInterval value for the High Speed Bulk OUT endpoint must specify the maximum NAK rate of the endpoint."

Which means absolutely nothing to me, but clearly isn't about the menace of infrequent rubbish collection.

Still, even if the Mail's intrepid reporting duo HAD found someone outside their own office to dub the snow-and-strike-related delays "Binterval", the name couldn't have been derived from a politically correct replacement for Christmas devised by council chiefs, as no council chiefs (politcally correct or otherwise) have ever tried to replace Christmas with Winterval.

But then you already knew that. And I already knew that. And loads of people already knew that. So why does the Mail keep insisting that the opposite is true?

Honestly, I sometimes wonder why I bother.