There's a much-told story about how the army revised one of its artillery drills at the end of the Second World War.
Keen to revise their procedures in the light of recent experience, a small group of generals and officers was shown a film of a gun crew tackling a firing exercise.
All ran smoothly. A truck pulled the gun into position, the crew pulled the trails into place, and the loading and firing went without a hitch. Then, one of the junior officers watching the film pointed at a soldier who was holding out his right fist and said: "What's that man doing?"
"Why," said one of the generals. "He's holding the horses."
Of course, horses hadn't pulled guns for about 30 years, but the drill had remained unchanged. The story was the perfect example of how custom had taken precedence over practicality.
There's a similar moral to be drawn from the Government's announcement that it has no plans to abandon Internet Explorer 6, the Microsoft web browser that was first released in 2001 and which has vulnerabilities that were used by the Chinese hackers who exploited Google's corporate network.
The incident was so serious that the German Government advised citizens to stop using any version of Internet Explorer, with the French taking the same stance today.
Not so the British Government, which uses IE6 extensively - including in the armed forces - which today stated that it had no plans to drop the browser, despite free and more secure alternatives such as Firefox and Chrome being widely available.
Ironically, the Guardian points out that the Goverment's own advice in Get Safe Online is to not use IE6 - laying it open to charges of hypocrisy.
It's a mistake. The more people that ditch IE6, the better - not only from the point of view of security, but of standards-compliant web design. The latter may sometimes seem like a luxury, but when it comes to internet security let's hope the Government doesn't shut the stable door after the horse has bolted.
There's a thought worth holding on to.
