This year’s Bank Holiday list. Check out when you’re off.

• New Year’s Day: Thursday, January 1
• Good Friday: Friday, April 3
• Easter Monday: Monday, April 6
• Early May Bank Holiday: Monday, May 4
• Spring Bank Holiday: Monday, May 25
• Summer Bank Holiday: Monday, August 31
• Christmas Day: Friday, December 25
• Boxing Day: Saturday, December 26 (Changed day to Monday, December 28)

Our data is one of the most important things we possess. Various information can be used against us by unscrupulous people.  The government and our banks warn us about fraud and how to protect ourselves, but how can we protect ourselves from online signups and any-size websites?

Sign-up pages can ask for a variety of information. Basic signups are username, password and e-mail. But some signups include address, telephone number and sometimes DOB.

There is a lot of information in long signup forms. Also, imagine what you have given? You have given your name, your address and postcode, also your DOB, mobile number and e-mail address.

Let’s start with a basic signup. Username and password are not really a problem. Any site you use that asks for a password over 8 characters is usually strong. Then there is just the email address to fill in, except for the terms and conditions and the website advertising button.

The email address is usually your email address, but this can lead to problems. You have given a website your email, and it could be subject to spam. Your junk box usually helps, but some spam can get into your inbox.

Even if you uncheck the checkbox not to receive adverts, you can still get them. But sometimes it’s better to protect your main email address by having a junk email address for signups.

There are many free email companies like Gmail, Hotmail, Mail.com and Proton Mail. They are all good, and don’t put your own name in the email address; make something up.

Now we have your name and address. This seems reasonable for an e-commerce website that is delivering something. But giving your name and address, DOB and mobile number to a website that offers free wallpaper downloads is a no-no.

Adding your mobile number to a form has become common on larger corporate websites. You currently cannot sign up for certain sites without a phone number.

The only idea we have is that phone handsets are cheap now, and with SIM cards from £2.50 a month, you can have a spare phone to store all your secondary internet numbers. Yes, we get spam on our phones, and you try getting rid of and blocking the messages.

The last point is the DOB field in a form. This is starting to appear on forms now. You must ask why and what use your DOB is, maybe for spam.

At the end of the day, you must read the privacy statement to find out how your data is used. If they sell it people can have a lot of information about you.

We live in England, and at times when everything seems to offend everyone. It’s impossible to talk without upsetting someone, and everyone’s looking to complain about something. The world seems to have become oversensitive.

Racist is a word that enters the fold all the time. Everyone is first to call the racism card, even when they get it out of context or get it wrong.

With racism has come people calling people far right-wing or left-wing. With the UK having an illegal immigration problem, citizens are divided, but the word is that if you disagree with the left your far right. It’s very childish and solves nothing.

The major problem with racism is because its causing division. The courts’ passing leniency on black people does not help. Iman’s touching young children gets off, but if it were a white person, they would be jailed.

Police have been accused of two-tier policing. The Henry Nowac case has shown how a white stabbing victim was treated as the guilty party when it was the black guy. They cuffed a man who said he was stabbed and could not breathe.

Then we can move on to flying the flag. Many people in all countries of the world are nationalistic and love to fly their nation’s flag. It may be a sporting event or similar, or they just like to fly their national flag out of passion.

But in England, we have problems flying our national flag. It all seemed to start when some goodie-goodie councils said flying the flag could offend some minorities.

This idea then moved to various councils banning the flying of the St George’s flag, even though it’s the flag of England. Now, doesn’t that all sound confusing? We cannot fly the England flag in England because it might offend someone with not British ethnicity.

There is also a dark side to this, and it’s the way some people have made the St. George’s flag an object of hatred. The flag is the flag of England, not a right-wing object.

Are all the England fans at the World Cup with flags right-wing NO? Yes, we can agree that the right wing uses the flag for their own uses, but it’s a minority. The neo-Nazis in Germany fly the German flag, but they are a minority, too, and the Germans don’t ban the flag.

All the time in the world, they say, but if you had to go around worrying what to say all the time, you would go mad.

It’s understanding that if something is totally offensive, but everyone’s tolerance is different. Some people like to make an exaggerated call for help.

Racism is uncalled for, but more definition is needed because things that are not racist are being mixed up with the term racist.