After banking with Barclays for eight years they've finally given in to my perpetual complaints and palmed me off with a £100.00 lump sum. My latest complaint regarded the fact they charged fees on a telegraphic transfer I made. I insisted the fee was to be taken out of my account not the amount being paid to the recipient. Naturally, in all their incompetence, Barclays went against this instruction and subtracted it from the amount being paid to the recipient. As a result the amount due to the recipient was short and I had to make a second transfer, incurring another set of charges. One verbal complaint, one complaint form and one complaint letter later and a written apology arrives in my post box and £100.00 arrives in my account. Barclays, I thank you.

Have you ever wondered whether there is a hidden meaning in the colour of someone's umbrella? I was waiting for a [delayed] DLR this morning (clearly given Ollie's post below the "wrong kind of rain" hit the transport network today) and observed a complete myriad of different umbrellas on the platform.

You have the business men with the sober black brolly. The middle-class (yes, even in the East End) professional with the golfing umbrella. Is he trying to make up for deficiencies in other areas by the size of his umbrella? You have a woman in a conservative suit yet holding an umbrella with scenes from the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel (or equivalent) on it. Possibly wanting to display a less conventional, more artistic side? The young student, dressed rather hippy-esque, with a child's blue, yellow and red brolly. The young man gingerly holding a black umbrella littered with the playboy symbol. Clearly a player. The middle-aged lady carrying an umbrella, base colour pink, covered with cats and dogs. Does it belong to her daughter or is she trying to connect with a youthful, humourous side? The young professional, dressed solely in black, with a pink and purple stripy affair. There is some character beneath the more formal exterior. The elderly lady holding an umbrella covered with sunflowers. A National Trust purchase, one suspects. The slender lady in a black suit and red high-heeled shoes, holding a transparent umbrella. Designer, no doubt. And so the list continues.

I think umbrellas are like socks. Personality can shine through both umbrellas and socks. Take the wearing of "weekend" socks (a Dayorama Reader) or, heaven forbid, socks with the days of the week on them (another Dayorama Reader), or even the insistence on always buying colourful socks (a Dayorama Author).

There must be a PhD thesis in here somewhere. All I can say is that I see the same people, everyday, waiting for the DLR. And yet by observing their choice of umbrella, in contrast to their general attire and look, I felt - albeit rightly or wrongly - able to make assumptions about their character. Don't get me wrong, I don't spend my time trying to character assess, it's just this morning I couldn't help it.

Incidentally, no prizes for guessing which of the above relates to me.

Not often I get let loose on a new blog. Once every six years, in fact, going on current form. We've just launched our Olympics blog and yours truly will make occasional appearances not writing about trains, website design and the Anglo-Saxons. Unless I can find a way to crowbar the story of the otters who dried St Cuthbert's feet into a canoeing update.

Early blog articles (not mine) worth your time:
- Ben Dirs goes toe-to-toe with boxing champion Frankie Gavin
- Elizabeth Hudson previews the Paralympic World Cup in Manchester

I've not defected, it's the name of the programme. It may say a little too much about Setanta Sports that its most original piece of programming is a five-minute comedy puppet show, but it is a very good puppet show.

If you've ever seen You're On Sky Sports, the Sky phone-in show usually to be found polluting the airwaves late after midweek football games, you'll understand it was ripe for the mickey-taking. Presenters would gaze semi-comprehendingly at the camera while punters ranted about the latest injustice on the pitch, then ask their N-list celebrity ex-player for his opinion of their opinion, and maybe get the caller's opinion of his opinion of their opinion.

Setanta have wisely elected to do away with involving the public (boring), presenters (boring) and pundits (boring), in favour of glorified sock puppets which bear a vague resemblance to Jose Mourinho, Sven-Goran Eriksson and Wayne Rooney (hilarious).

Jose, naturally, bosses the show, Rooney provides the slapstick and acts like a sort of faithful golden retriever of comedy, and Sven gets the raw deal in almost every gag, often finding himself playing a musical instrument in a fashion ill-appreciated by his colleagues.

Not enough sports programming is this funny while knowing its place (they keep it to five minutes a show, which is perfect). More please.

Click here for the programme's official site, and you can also find out a bit more about the show's creators on the EPLTalk blog.

I'm tapping this post as I sit on the eternal District line. I've just left Ollie at South Kensington after spending a very pleasant few hours, (a) wandering around the National Geographic photography of the year (2007) competition at the Natural History Museum (along with a few of the other displays the Museum has to offer), (b) enjoying a particularly English and wholesome pub lunch, and (c) having a short stroll around one of London's more prestigious postcodes, namely the squares and tree-lines streets with grand Georgian terraces that surround South Ken station.

First up, the photography exhibition. Clearly some amazing - and inspiring - photography going on here. Some of the photos truly captured the innocence and the frailty of nature, along with the personalities (if I can call them that) of the individual animals. Truly breath-taking and thought provoking images. I'm unable to reveal my faourite image but let's just say that Ollie's Mum is a lucky lady. The exhibition was well presented and there was a helpful explanation (factual) of the featured animal in question, along with a comment from the artist.

If anything, what let the presentation down was the lack of judicial commentary (and I'm not just saying that because I'm a lawyer). It would have been helpful to know why a particular image was commended - was it for the colour, the composition, the imagination or the uniqueness behind the shot, or something entirely different? This is would have been particularly helpful in the context of the "winning" photograph. Not to say it isn't amazing or clever, but I (and I think I can also speak for Ollie on this too) thought that other photographs captured so much more in terms of spirit, ingenuity and imagination. But, who are we to know, eh?

All I can say is if I win the lottery... photography it is. The exhibition really did make you want to go and grab a camera and get yourself to the nearest park.

So, as I said I began typing this on the tube and was reading the magazine accompanying this week's Observer, the Observer Food Monthly. There's an article titled "Is food better than sex". The first paragraph seems, somewhat, to sum up the second part of Ollie and I's day ... "while food is [merely] a pleasant recreational activity, like golf, or peering in estate agents' windows and going 'blimey, half a million for that?'.

As I said, Ollie and I had a very enjoyable, somewhat quintessential (both for England and for Ollie and I's excursions), lunch and then wandered around South Ken. Despite the people who live there (pretence, Chelsea Tractors, comparing public schools and gymkhana successes) the area it’s self is beautiful. Ollie and I reckoned if we clubbed together we could probably afford to buy a one-bed flat. Sadly, we couldn’t afford the pad for £9,500,000 but – for compensation – we could afford the £170 per/month parking space. Praise be for small mercies. And then of course we had the ritual bet. Ollie’s going to get me playing a round of golf before the summer is out. Watch this space.

Recognise anybody there? BBC Sport's turned the clock back 100 years to celebrate the 1908 Olympics - held in London - with a video recreating some of the more unlikely stories from that summer. I think I'm allergic to fake moustache adhesive.

Photos from the day's filming to follow next week. I'm fast becoming a tug of war veteran, by the way: this time last year I was recording the Sandhurst team in training. Read more here and be sure to have a listen to the audio. The sound of a tug of war team is quite incredible.

“Early to bed, early to rise, makes a [wo]man healthy, wealthy and wise”. You think? Let’s examine the facts:

Early to bed… well, yes this did mean I only had a couple of glasses of wine at my parents’ house last night. Healthier for me and, perhaps, aiding their wealth.

Early to rise… so, I got up at 6.30am and by 6.45am I was out running for 7 miles on, quite frankly, rather undulating roads.

Healthy… well, the running is obviously healthy but I’m not sure my post-run breakfast was.

Wealthy… you see, the problem with getting up early is that your day begins much earlier. And thus your ability to spend begins earlier. And so I went and purchased a brand new, all singing all dancing sparkly black metallic BMW 1 Series. *big smile* Regardless of Ollie’s mutterings I haven’t purchased a new car lately. However, following last week’s RAC episode I decided that the time had come. I promised myself I’d always purchase a new vehicle when the old one began to cost me money. Well, it cost me £65 last week. Time for a change. So I decided last Sunday, finally chose the car, phoned the dealership on Monday and test drove / purchased today. Not bad going, really. Roll on June for the grand arrival…

Wise… nah, clearly foolish. I could have (a) had more sleep; (b) eaten less breakfast; and (c) not spent a silly amount of cash.

Ah well, we’re only young once. Time to be wise in the future.

Golf. What a game. Few sports in the world allow you to be simultaneously crap and alone and still derive something bordering on satisfaction.

Of course, two heads are better than one, so it was even better that my dad had teamed up with me for our first golfing contest in well over a year, if not two. (It's certainly more than 12 months since I last played.)

Our local course is a lovely nine-hole affair, Princes Risborough golf club, which offers healthy-but-not-too-long holes set in the quietest rural idyll you could imagine - with the possible exception of the railway line, which adds a certain extra anticipation to your drive off the seventh tee, if nothing else.

Red kites, bunnies, fish and the chirruping of a million birds follow you around the course. Well the fish don't follow you but they're there, lurking in the small lake to the left of the fourth green. Over the years we've sent a fair few balls in there, although on one memorable occasion somebody (I forget which of us) hit the stake marking the water hazard with their ball, which rebounded back into play - a lucky escape.

The pair of us began with respectable double bogeys on the par-four first. Things slipped a little at the second, third and fourth, but we actually managed most of the round in single figures, in itself an achievement. As the round progressed I started to entertain the notion of finishing the par-68 course inside 100 shots - watch the video to find out if that happened (it goes down to the wire).

The sad thing is that I shouldn't be aiming to finish inside 100 shots, I should be playing off scratch by now. I was playing the far more challenging 18-hole Taunton Vale course inside 100 shots when I was fifteen years old, so it's a little disappointing that my golfing development has regressed, let alone stagnated, in the intervening eight years.

I'd just about finished my bottle of water so I delved deeper into the bottom pocket and produced an unopened can of Diet Coke.

Now I appreciate I have not had much call to plumb the depths of my golf bag over the years, but the expiry date printed on the bottom of the can surpassed even my expectations: December 2003. I have yet to put the taste to the test.

Plan: maybe if I leave a new can of Diet Coke in my bag after each game, and promise myself I will play another round before it expires, my game will improve.

Qomolangma Yaks
Originally uploaded by Joel Hamilton

Unfortunately so far we have been told next to nothing about the climb itself. No start date, no word on who is taking part, or even how many climbers there are. So we have been trying to wait patiently in Beijing, but as we make our final preparations there has been no shortage of drama behind the scenes.

Events came to a head this week at the Olympic Media Centre in Beijing. The 20 foreign journalists had just been told that the trip was being indefinitely delayed and were summoned to a meeting to be told why.

We would now depart Beijing only when the Chinese mountaineers had left base camp to attempt the summit. There would also now be no coverage of the arrival of the torch on the mountain, a potential flashpoint for pro-Tibetan demonstrators. Our three-week trip to Tibet had suddenly been condensed into one.

Collectively we protested that by being raced from sea level to over 5,000 metres in just two days, our health was being put at risk. After a 24-hour stand off, the trip was tweaked. The journalists were given an extra day to acclimatise in Tibet but also issued with an ultimatum. We were told to pay for our air tickets before 10 the next morning or miss out entirely.

The world's three main news agencies decided they wanted further clarification and consultations before going ahead, and missed the deadline. They then discovered that the Chinese were deadly serious and refused to take them back.
Read more: BBC News - Everest Olympic torch diary

Earlier this week I received an email regarding the recruitment section of the Firm's website. This forms part of the main website and, along with the main website, has undergone several transformations over the past five years.

Once upon a time the website simply included basic factual details, then it developed to include online applications and profiles of Firm members (if you search wisely on Google you can find a profile written [partially] by me about my "life as a trainee") and now it seems we've reached the next level... podcasts.

It seems that there are two types of podcast planned. 1. simply a podcast you can listen to where two or three attorneys will speak for a few minutes on a particular deal; and 2. a full podcast video where an
attorney speaks about their experience either within the Firm or of a particular deal. This new initiative is aimed at both lateral hirers and graduates.

Rather like the change to the BBC website there's naturally been a mixed reaction to this proposal. Some people think it will be "great", "innovative" and "heading with the times" whilst others have referred to it as "naff", "embarrassing" and "pointless". I have to say that my initial thoughts were that the podcasts would be ineffectual, gimmicky, no-one would listen / watch them and generally it would be embarrassing. These thoughts are probably due to the fact that it's currently planned that I'll be featuring in both types of podcast. However, the more I think about it, the more I am inclined to toe the party line. Why not, eh? It's fun, it's novel, it's certainly on-line with current internet trends and if people want to find out more about the Firm then it will be readily available at the click of the button. I hope at least, given the cost incurred in setting the podcasts up, someone finds them valuable. Having said that, I'm not sure how many law students will be downloading a podcast of me wittering on about a deal I've work on and then listening to it in the gym. I suppose only web stats. and time shall tell.

The irony of it is that although clearly we are, to steal that well-known cliche, "moving with the times", in some ways we're actually going back to basics. Above I described our Firm website five years ago as being nothing more than a simplistic placeholder of the Firm's presence, containing only key details and information. I'm unable to find a trace of it on the internet anywhere but what I neglected to remember is that on entering the site there used to be a pop-up video, painfully slow if using a then-dial-up connection, where the Head of the Firm in Europe said a few brief words welcoming you to the Firm. It seemed very "American" and "corny" at the time. The idea was swiftly disposed of. And yet now, it seems set to return. Proof that along with polka-dots and leggings, history is always bound to repeat itself.

If you've been reading for a while, you might just remember last year's tour of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria - me having been a bit of an Anglo-Saxon historian for my degree, and all that.

Consider this part two, and this time it's Mercia (otherwise known as the Midlands), the strongest kingdom in eighth-century England, led by imposing King Offa.

Since Mercia's a bit nearer than Northumbria was, rather than take a few days to explore it I decided to bomb round the place by car. So at 6am I was out of the house and by 7am was already stuffing down the largest breakfast mankind has ever known at Hopwood Park services. (When I tentatively stuck my nose round the side of the breakfast counter to see if Burger King were open and doing breakfasts, the lady there yelled: "Don't you even dare! I've only just cooked this!")

By 9am I was on the Welsh border in the small town of Knighton, half of which sits in Powys, the other half in England. The legendary Offa's Dyke, for which the king remains best known, runs straight through the middle of Knighton, so my journey began sat on top of that. It's not quite as impressive as you might think, if you were just told you were visiting a 60-mile stretch of earthwork wall built 1200 years ago. Time has taken its toll and were it not for a little plaque marking the spot, you could easily confuse the dyke itself with three or four other hedgerows in the vicinity. Sadly I didn't have time to explore up into the hills, so a few quick poses with this mound of earth and we pressed on.

Next stop was the Anglo-Saxon capital of commerce, a place so rich in raw materials, trade and coinage that it could never possibly fade from prosperity, its reputation known across the world: Droitwich.

Droitwich was known as Saltwich in several charters drawn up in the eighth century, which gives you an idea of why it mattered so much. With fridges a bit of a distant prospect, the Saxons (and everyone else) relied on salt to keep food fresh - or at least edible - and Droitwich was one of the best inland sources, since it contains brine pits matched only by the Dead Sea.

Today the only living reminder of this is the Brine Baths in which you can take a dip, the last brine extraction pumps having shut up shop back in the 1920s. But at the time of King Offa, Droitwich would have been awash with salt and money. The early medieval church invested heavily in the saltworks and would have earned quite a bit of cash from salt, as did the king, probably via tolls and tariffs. Saltways radiated out from Droitwich, special paths for carrying the goods all over England.

So it's a bit odd to find that it's now a quiet little backwater just outside Worcester, with a Waitrose by far the most dominant feature of the town centre - except the lovely church of St Augustine perched on top of the hill, overlooking Saltwich of old. There's been a church here certainly since Norman times and possibly even earlier, since the site was once a Roman fort if you go even further back in time. Augustine himself was a Roman monk who introduced Christianity (or at least, the Pope's version) to England via Kent in the year 597. It's fitting he is commemorated with a beautiful church in this, the home of Saxon industry.

I rocked up in Tamworth, round the M42 and up a bit to the east of Birmingham, at about 4pm, just in time to get inside Tamworth Castle before it shut for the day. The castle was built by the Normans but like so many things, it sits on top of an earlier Saxon settlement - a burh, in other words a village surrounded by wooden ramparts of a sort, designed to keep out the Vikings. Which it singularly failed to do. Twice. (Doubly failed to do?)

King Offa had his royal palace here, although by "palace" we really mean slightly larger hut than everybody else's. Tamworth is a bit more impressive than the Northumbrian equivalent, Yeavering, which is now just a field full of sheep, but there's still not much Saxon influence left. By far the best building is St Editha's Church, proudly basking in the afternoon sun in the middle of Tamworth town centre. The stonework dates from Norman times onwards but Editha herself was the wife of King Athelstan, a tenth-century Saxon king who is probably the first man you could accurately describe as king of a united English people. (Helps when you've got Danes to fight.)

I find it funny that we don't care more about places like these. The people who do care, like the Friends of Tamworth Castle and the Offa's Dyke Association, do a fantastic job. But it continues to mystify me why people give a rat's backside about the Tudors, Stuarts and all that gumph, when the Saxon past of this country is so much more lively and interesting. Sod Blenheim Palace next time you want a family day out, and go and walk a bit of the Offa's Dyke Trail. I promise you won't regret it.

(By the way, I should acknowledge that my university tutor, Dr Maddicott, opened my eyes to quite how important salt was to the Saxons, especially at Droitwich. He gave me a draft of his article on Droitwich to read before it was published, and the town's unlikely history has stuck with me ever since.)

Two things this morning.

1. Berocca: Naughty boys

Compare these two videos. The first one is a few minutes long so, if you're not keen on the band OK Go or their music, just dip in and out to get a flavour. Then watch the second one, an advert for Berocca, and tell me if you notice anything.

As you will have seen (or, if you've not had the time to watch, you'll have to trust me), the 30-second Berocca ad clearly lifts the idea of a treadmill dance routine from OK Go's video.

That much is obvious without delving into any case history, but it turns out the ad agency behind Berocca's segment contacted OK Go asking to use the treadmill idea (which won the band a Grammy in 2006), didn't get a positive response, then went ahead and used it anyway.

To me that seems a little like open thievery, but according to an interesting piece on a site calling itself the Copyright Blog, the band may struggle to put their case. It starts off by quoting another article from The Scotsman:

An issue of copyright infringement could be determined by comparison of the videos' individual dance moves.

A source close to the band claims: "There was extensive negotiation to use Ok Go (by the JWT advertising agency on behalf of Berocca's manufacturer Bayer] but this didn't bear fruit."

The source says JWT had no authorisation to reproduce the choreography. JWT and Bayer have, thus far, ignored all requests for a statement.
Read more: The Scotsman - Those who can, create. Those who can't, copy

The Copyright Blog, by a gent named William Patry, concludes:

One would be hard pressed to find any copying of expression, although the conceptual copying is obvious.

Then, in the comments, the argument is extended a little.

Kasi Hill commented: "OK Go could have a successful claim here if a judge determined that Bayer used a significant portion of the group's work. While the group probably can't reasonably have a monopoly on the idea of dancing on treadmills, Bayer did seem to copy some of the groups specific moves. The group's video won a Grammy, so Bayer's advertising/research department, with its significant resources, can't legitimately claim ignorance here. If it is true that Bayer had negotiated to use the group's work before releasing the commericial, I would think Bayer is out of luck."

William Patry commented: "Kasi, I think OK Go would be hard pressed to show that it was the originator of specific moves or that the two videos as a whole are substantially similar in the copyright sense; the fact that Bayer's ad agency tried to negotiate a deal is bad atmospherics, but in the end irrelevant."
Read more: The Patry Copyright Blog - Advertising and the copying of concepts

If I were OK Go, I'd be mighty pissed off if an ad agency could come along, nick the moves, and frankly cheapen the whole creative process by turning a music video masterpiece into an advert with one of the worst tag lines I've ever heard: "Berocca - you, but on a really good day".

2. How to discover if your BBC colleagues are creative types

I filled out my BBC staff questionnaire yesterday. Much fanfare around this, essentially pleading us to take the time to bother with it, as though we were being asked to dip our extremities in hydrochloric acid for the good of the corporation. It took five minutes and was painless.

Several questions asked me what I thought of creativity - mine, my colleagues', the corporation's. Turns out there's a much better way to find out who's feeling alive and creative, and who's stuck behind their desk quietly seething: send a vast number of people an email by accident.

No, I'm not the culprit. That was a lady named Patsy, who wrote an email trying to discover how much it cost to install a broadband line in somebody's home. The email accidentally found its way to a distribution list which seems to cover thousands of BBC staff in all walks of working life.

When I logged in to check my email just now, I had around 50 replies to this mass email. Of those, there is roughly a fifty-fifty split between people having great fun with this, and people so annoyed at getting all these mass replies that they send another one demanding that everybody stop.

"What's happened here?" Asks a studio manager in one of the first replies. "The world and his wife have got this email!"

"My wife's feeling left out, she didn't get it," replied a waggish Radio Stoke journalist - only for an implementation manager to chip in with: "It's okay, I just sent it to her."

"Hello everyone, hope you have a lovely Thursday, love from everyone at RedBee," was the contribution of one department, while a Radio One producer added: "I wasn't on this original email, but my colleagues are so intrigued I felt I was missing out, please add me to any further correspondence."

Not everybody was enjoying the email tennis though. A senior broadcast journalist in the West Midlands who complained she was being "bombarded" found herself chastised by a colleague in Television Centre's drama building, who implored her not to "spoil the fun".

Among others who failed to see the irony in pressing "reply-all" then begging people not to reply were journalists from BBC Scotland, Wales, the World Service and BBC Swahili, alongside a series producer, a purchasing assistant, and a BBC Wales production executive who even said he'd complained to human resources!

To all these emails imploring us not to respond further, one systems and infrastructure specialist wittily and defiantly replied: "Definitely." A reporter for the Asian Network capped the whole thing off by announcing, "I've got it too," an observation which suggests they may not be the first to every story.

Now if I had things my way, I'd be hauling in those who complained via reply-all and giving them the creativity spiel...

After all the brouhaha about the BBC website over the past few weeks, am I allowed to have a tiny whinge at it myself?

Why we can't embed the shiny new flash videos - or at least the ones which have been rights-cleared - is beyond me.

So instead I'm going to have to tell you to click here and watch a very nice quick guide to the process by which coins are minted, on the 25th anniversary of the pound coin.

If the video editing gods are with me, there'll be a special St George's Day post tomorrow.

In the meantime, and on the subject of national traditions whose passing is now mourned, our old glory nicked by people who have appropriated the whole concept, let's talk cricket and India.

There's a couple of really good articles on the BBC site from the past couple of days. We do quite well out of this story because we have a bureau in India but those journalists are still BBC staff, so they're looking at it from a slightly different point of view to the local reporters in India, but not in quite the same way as the sports hacks back in Blighty.

Neil Heathcote filed a look at the IPL from the business side of things for BBC World's India Business Report. He's discovered that although the IPL is already awash with cash in some respects, it is the teams - not the league - who face the real battle to raise cash:

if the IPL has been tough in negotiating deals, it is the teams themselves that are now under most pressure to bring in the cash.

The new team owners are a curious mix of construction and media companies, power and entertainment firms. They are Boom India's new elite - the people making enough profits in the new economy to take a sizeable bet on the future of cricket.

They have already bid millions to sign up their players. So how are they planning to recoup their money?

They too are looking to sign up sponsors, strike franchising deals and maximise ticket sales. But despite all the hoopla, success is far from guaranteed. R Balachandram, who manages the costliest of the eight teams auctioned, the Mumbai Indians, insists that the whole project will be financially viable - but it'll take time.

"This is not a business that's going to be made or unmade in one year," he says. "We, as Reliance, are in it for the long haul. That's the most important thing."

At the end of the day, the critical question is; how many people will actually watch? India may be a nation of cricket lovers, but it has no real tradition of city teams battling each other. That local team spirit will have to be built from scratch over the weeks ahead, but the IPL itself is philosophical. India is home to a billion people, it points out, and they are wealthier now than they have ever been.

"We believe that cricket will increase in value and the Indian premier league will accelerate that process," says Raman. "Will we reach the heights of football? We'd certainly like to not only reach there, but probably better it."

Read more: BBC News - Indian Premier League changes cricket

My favourite part of the report is a line at the bottom of the page - "India Business Report is broadcast repeatedly every Sunday on BBC World."

Not sure we should be sounding quite so tired of our own programme on our website! "Broadcast several times," perhaps?

The business side of the IPL is making headlines but the IPL would far rather the cricket started doing that. I'm sure their top execs sleep easier at night knowing I'm hooked - but BBC reporter Soutik Biswas hits explores the possibility that sideshows like Bollywood celebs and cheerleaders might detract from the main event:

Purists fear that in this quest for offering entertainment to woo crowds, the dividing line between entertainment - read Bollywood- and cricket is becoming precariously thin. The result is very few are actually watching the game at all.

In a Mumbai weekend game, Bollywood's Saif Ali Khan, Kareena Kapur, and Anil Kapur ran along the ground sporting the team's jerseys emblazoned with the name of their upcoming film in a brazen marketing push.

In Delhi, another actor, Akshay Kumar, known for his daredevil and comic acts on screen, found himself suspended from a cable midway through the act, and had to be unclipped and let down. A Hyderabad team commercial showed the captain VVS Laxman teaching a rather sheepish looking local film star to play cricket.

Analysts say cricket and the cult of celebrity are feeding off each other at the competition.

"The cricket uses celebrities to feel good about itself; the celebrities use the cricket to stay in the headlines. It's a symbiosis of a particularly cynical kind," says cricket writer Lawrence Booth.

Meanwhile, as Bollywood stars dance and cheerleading girls do the jig, electronic scorecards are yet not working in many stadia, and at the weekend match in Calcutta, there was no drinking water available for over 70,000 spectators. Also, a floodlight blew its fuse stopping the game for half an hour and the dustbowl cricket pitch invited the wrath of players and analysts alike.

Clearly, there is nothing revolutionary about all this, and how it will change the game - for the better - is unclear.

Read more: BBC News - But is it really cricket?

The best bit is that I know Soutik's been to at least one game to research this piece (deservedly one of the big hitters on the day's "most read stories" panel), because I've had updates from him straight into my inbox.

See, the South Asia bureau - like India in its entirety - is mad on its cricket, to the point where its editor is always on at us to make sure we're covering relevant cricket stories from the subcontinent.

On Friday night that reached the point where Television Centre's sports reporters were all getting near-hourly updates from Soutik, via his editor, letting us know what was happening inside the ground at the IPL's grand opener. It may even be Soutik's colourful updates which subconsciously prodded me in the direction of the live IPL on telly.

I'm not entirely sure my enthusiasm, or Soutik's, has rubbed off on too many people I know. I'm certainly the only one who's watched any IPL on the box. But then maybe the theme of all these things - the cricket, the BBC redesigns - is that people take time to adjust to change. In four years' time, I suspect you swines will all have booked your tickets for Mumbai, and I'll still be watching Setanta...

Right then. No point me leading you through the new-look BBC News - by which we mean both the bulletins and the channel, now it's no longer "News 24" - when the corporation themselves have done a fine, embedded-stuff-laden job of it here.

As usual, writing about a set of changes on a BBC blog is like waving a big sign in the air entitled "Come and have a go if you think you're hard enough".

Responses so far range from the non-committal...

"Well, the new branding has completely failed to upset or scandalise me, so I guess that's a good thing."

... to the worldly wise ...

I give it 10 minutes before we get the usual staple ingredients - slipped-in accusations of BBC's apparent left wing culture and political correctness, comparisons with other popular "fiascos" like Terminal 5 or the 2012 logo, and general "outrage".

... to the slightly confused ...

The worst thing I'm seeing is no closing p tags in the html of the stories. This is html 101 and really should be fixed.

(Do keep up, the bully-the-web-team session was last week, this week it's bully-the-telly-bods.) And finally, the usual quota of appalled, enraged and upset members of the public, innocent victims of a mindless cull of the "way things were":

The name changes are pretty unforgiveable.

...

Gill Sans does not make a welcome return, it's really not that suitable anymore for 24 hour news.

...

The background to the new News looks like a vandalised scratched plastic window on a bus shelter.

...

Are you in this century? My builder's homemade website is more technologically sound. Are you portraying ironic retro? or just plain lazy.

Right. What follows is an entirely unofficial and personal response. In fact, a response more as a fellow human being than anything else.

For God's sake, people!

The name change - will this really affect you? No. It's a name. If it was called BBC Squirrel Munching News Orgy, you'd get used to it after a while. It does what it says on the tin - it's news, it's from the BBC, you're watching BBC News. Bosh. Sorted.

The font. My God, the font. Can you read it? Good. (Don't try to be clever with me, sonny, I know you can read it.) The basic theme of this redesign appears to have been to inject a clearer, lighter look to the channels and bulletins, and that it has done. Personally I'm finding it much easier to read things like astons and the ticker.

I actually rather like the background, too. Glassy, classy, bus shelter my arsey. (Or, for those pronouncing the first two words in a northern accent, bus shelter my ass-ey.) I'm finding it hard to describe precisely why it chimes with my eyesight, but it looks less tired than the old design, and gives the set a more expansive feel.

And your builder's home-made website probably doesn't have to deal with quite the same logistics, does it? These fellas have to produce a set which stands up to the rigour of umpteen different channels, screen sizes and what-not - including fairly unlikely venues like the little monitors on the Heathrow Express. Ditto the poor website designers, who have so many different demands on their technology that it's a little difficult to do anything overly dramatic without six billion people picking a decent-sized rock to throw at them.

Sadly, the vast majority of people who will have sat down with their sarnies in front of the news, briefly thought, "Ooh, that looks a bit different," then watched the news and got on with their lives, won't have commented beneath poor Peter Horrocks' post. But it was ever thus.

By the way, the best development this morning is that you can listen to the entire minute-long run of the BBC News theme music. One thing BBC News has always had is good theme music. It doesn't beat the 90s brass-tastic crescendo, but it floats my boat.

And thanks to Carl for pointing out that the Beeb has its own look back at news through the ages here.

Yesterday, I had to call the RAC out for my car. I had been sitting for around 10mins with the engine off and the stereo and fan on. This was sufficient to drain the battery. The electrics cut out. And the car effectively died.

Now, why was I sitting for around 10mins with the engine off and the stereo and fan on? Well, I was assessing a Silver DofE expedition over the weekend and I was waiting for my team to reach their checkpoint. I was sitting on a single-track road, in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by fields. Now, when the car "died" I called some people who were in the area and we attempted to bump-start the car. This failed. I then called the RAC. The conversation went something like this:

RAC Operator: Where are you?
Me: Well, that's a little complicated. I'm North East of Elham, in Kent
RAC Operator: Do you have a post code for that?
Me: No, I'm on a single-track road
RAC Operator: Oh, well, does the road have a name?
Me: No, it's a country lane
RAC Operator: Well, can you see anything around you?
Me: Fields. I am in the middle of fields.
RAC Operator: So you don't know where you are?
Me: I know exactly where I am - I can give you an 8 figure grid reference and tell you were I am to the nearest 10 metres, probably less, but I just can't give you a road name or a post code.
RAC Operator: Oh. Well, you'll just have to give me directions from the centre of Elham.
Me: *provides directions for 4km of country roads*

For goodness sake! It seems that outside of so-called "wild country" they operate on a post code or road name basis, and not on grid refs. or GPRS etc. Now, thankfully, the battery gained some life and I was able to drive the vehicle to a more convenient location and then re-phone the RAC. The chap was a little miffed, once again, I couldn't provide a post code, but at least he found us easily.

It turns out my battery was "less than 5% healthy" (according to the RAC man's fancy gadget) hence the rapid draining. I had the battery changed on the spot and all is well.

That's it, though. New car. Here I come. I've been fussing around for a while now. Well, that's it. Decision made.

Did you see the nail-biting final-over finish to the cricket earlier?

Now, there are three possible responses to that question. By far the most likely is, "Bollocks to the cricket, I couldn't care less and was doing something else."

But if you're a cricket fan, or channel hopped until you landed on a cricket game, there are two options:

a) "Yes, great fightback by Durham to stop Yorkshire nicking it," or
b) "Yes, Royal Challengers really turned it on to get past Mumbai right at the end."

See, Durham's 40-over game against Yorkshire in the UK's Friends Provident Trophy was being broadcast at the same time as one of the first games in India's brand new, all-singing, all-dancing Premier League (IPL) - a version of Twenty20 populated with some of the world's top stars, all bought in an auction held before the season started.

Sky had the Durham game, whereas Setanta had the IPL game between Mumbai Indians and Bangalore Royal Challengers. Watching the final half hour of both games, I found myself flicking between the two, as they finished mere moments apart, each building to a climactic finish.

But aside from similar nervy finales in Mumbai and Durham, the contrast could not have been more different.

Two of South Africa's finest world-class stars, Mark Boucher and Jacques Kallis, battered the Mumbai bowlers to reach a 50 partnership off just 28 deliveries, as Royal Challengers - with Chanderpaul and Dravid, also legends of the game, opening the batting - squeaked a win over Mumbai, themselves replete with Harbhajan Singh as captain and the likes of Pollock and Jayasuriya in their ranks.

Six after six soared up, away into the floodlights, thundering into the thousands upon thousands of baying fans packed into the arena.

If the IPL is cricket's new palace of glitz and entertainment, drizzle-soaked Durham shows English domestic cricket to be a case of rising damp.

Has ever a new season been met with such an abject lack of giving a toss?

True, the game itself went to the final over, Durham bowlers Neil Killeen and Steve Harmison dispatched all over the park before their skipper Dale Benkenstein took the winning catch.

But where Mumbai has massed ranks of supporters generating a clamour almost unknown to cricket under the glare of world television, Durham had a few hundred soggy spectators perched beneath umbrellas in the same old rickety little stands, the rotting gloom permeating anything bordering on celebration.

Mike Atherton came out to the post-match "presentations", but rattled through the formalities as he remarked that it was "freezing" and the players would be wanting a hot bath. And that was that. Some fanfare for the defending champions starting their new season with a bang. The world could not give two hoots.

Cricket is at a point where it needs to start attracting fair weather fans, in more sense than one. I'm a prime example of the species. Football is my first love and I have adopted ice hockey as my second sport. I play a bit of golf, used to be semi-decent at cricket, and enjoy the occasional game of tennis and the like. My sporting enthusiasm is up for grabs to the people who provide me with the best value for my time and money.

If I watched channel 430 this afternoon, I got razzmatazz, glorious boundary-laced adrenaline-junkie cricket, and enough stars of the international game to tide me over til the next feast - tomorrow.

If I watched channel 402, I got a moist clash between the same old counties in the same godforsakenly old, tired, dead-for-a-decade format, played by home-grown non-entities or foreign players too rubbish to warrant a berth in the IPL.

It is not difficult to decide which of the two I'd rather watch, rather care about, rather go into work shouting about. I've never been to Bangalore in my life but I'm ten times as much a Royal Challengers fan as I am a supporter of any English county side. I make no apologies for that, either. When it comes to cricket my allegiance, like that of many others, will be bought by the team I see playing the best, most exciting stuff. Seven hours of English sludge cannot compete with three hours of Indian explosion.

The IPL is not without its problems. The official website is ramshackle, the marketing could be better (why can't you buy shirts for most of the teams taking part?), and they have taken some bizarre publicity decisions - for example, all but banning world-class website CricInfo.

But you can forgive these teething problems when the end product is bloody exciting cricket featuring all the game's finest, popped in an easily digested three-hour televisual meal, pumped into my living room.

The inability of England's own stars to take part, and the defiant but toe-curlingly embarrassing, spluttering start of the English domestic season alongside the IPL, is a tragedy for the sport in this country.

Ice hockey should not be winning my favour over cricket. It's a sport struggling to survive in the UK, imported from North American and European climes. Cricket has had its talons deeply embedded within English and British culture for decades, centuries. It should not have sunk to a position whereby watching the NHL on telly beats the cricket hands down unless it's the Ashes.

Now the chance presents itself for cricket to be reinvented. Do away with this ridiculous, plodding 40-over nonsense, which even an internal report recommended be allowed to slip into long-overdue, peaceful slumber. Get us on board with this IPL lark - send all our top players over there to take part (only one has so far done so), hell, even get us a team or two (one for London, one for Manchester, sorted) and see if they'll play a few games over here as well. Or make our own league up and compete with the Indians for players, who knows.

Either way, the future of cricket is in the offing and the best English fans are getting is a bunch of nobodies taking an eternity in a poxy, empty ground with crap weather.

Three of those things we can change. World-class stars in a thrilling encounter in a packed stadium - in crap weather - I would take.

This must be some of the most incredibly foolish legislation I have seen in a long time:

A system giving students extra marks if they have suffered personal trauma is being defended by an exams authority.

GCSE and A-level pupils in England are given 5% more if a parent dies close to exam day or 4% for a distant relative.

They get 2% more if a pet dies or 1% if they get a headache. Critics say the system panders to an "excuse for everything" attitude.

Read more here - the article is almost three years old so this is nothing new, but has returned to the news with the national teaching union's demand for stricter guidelines on how this policy is applied.

I'll confess I had not, until now, realised these things were given specific percentages. You'd have to be insane not to try to pull some sort of trick in an exam as a result.

Let's say I reckon I'm getting a healthy - but unspectacular - 60 to 70 per cent in my maths GCSE.

I can immediately stick an extra per cent onto that by feigning a headache during the exam, so that's a start.

I do have an uncle but only vaguely know him and haven't spoken for a fair old while so, without wishing him any ill, it'd be remiss of me not to fake his death for an extra four per cent, so let's add that on too. (It's what he would have wanted. Were he dead.)

Pretending a parent has bought the proverbial may be a stretch too far even for the most cynical student, but imagine the legions of kids lining up to offer dead pets for inspection!

It's got to be worth setting up a pet shop to cater for demand. Special offer: hamsters five quid a pop, peacefully suffocate the little fella overnight, present him in a diddy little wooden coffin (£2) the following day and an extra two per cent is all yours. Alternatively take advantage of our three-for-two offer and get a full six per cent on top of your normal mark!

Now, Dayorama in no way condones murdering small animals for extra marks in exams. But - given most of the population thinks nothing of bumping off an animal to put in its lunchtime sarnies - it'd be the height of hypocrisy to have a go at anyone who sacrifices the family cat for the sake of their future career...

I'm really cold right now. I've been in for around 40mins and I've many layers on and a mug of hot chocolate, but I got cold walking home and I haven't warmed up yet.

Anyway, the above is icidental; I'm simply complaining. I picked up my post on the way home and received three envelopes. So that's three separate envelopes, with three separate sets of contents and tree separate trees felled to provide the paper:

1. "An attractive offer you won't want to miss" - the offer of a secured loan from Barclaycard of up to £100,000;
2. "Cash in just 4 working days" - a personal loan from Barclaycard of up to £25,000; and
3. "For you, from us, for nothing" - treats picked "especially for [me]" from Barclaycard.

Why was it necessary for them to send me three separate lettes? Why was it necessary for them to send me any of this stuff, anyway? If I wanted a loan then I'd simply ask for one. And as for the offers "especially for [me]" then I'm not sure how the promise of a complimentary tie or set of cufflinks will induce me to spend £150 in Thomas Pink or that the thought of £7 off will encourage me to spend £30 at firebox.com. Barclaycard well know that I'm a Charles Trywhitt and Amazon girl, respecitvely. Absolutely ridiculous. Just lower interest rates or something, stop sending me useless mail. Or email me these offers instead. It can't be that hard.

"Indira had a hole in her nose, and less hair. her number is, while in ecuador, now 092724918 plus ecuador dialling code (at start) which i cant be arsed to look up."

And that status message, along with this profile picture, is how Indira Swann (above left) will be remembered to the world forever.

She was one of the five British victims of the bus crash in Ecuador, which has been extensively reported over the last 24 hours.

Eighteen months ago I wrote about my old school friend Will who, having spent much of his life quite unwell, died after catching a virus on holiday:

Perhaps the most strange sensation is seeing Will's profile on social networking website Facebook. It's a snapshot which, for better or worse, will never fade.

It's well over a year since Will died, but still he appears on my list of Facebook friends from time to time. You can still read his profile, frozen in time. His friend Tom still earnestly enquires, days before Will's death: "I did get your text, thought I'd replied?" Will is still "in a relationship".

It is quite moving in its own little way. Maybe you find it a bit weird that you can read the profile of a dead man, long after they have gone. I find it peaceful to know that some little corner of the world, digital or otherwise, is forever Will.

I bet that's how a lot of Indira's friends feel. Indira's Facebook wall - the part of a profile where friends can post messages - is full of the most moving, affectionate tributes, ranging from the memories of people who grew up with her to the condolences of people who barely knew who she was until they woke up, saw the news, and the name rang a bell.

Some friends have set up a group in her memory where others have contributed more than 40 photos of Indira from their own albums. And all the while, Indira's profile is cast in an eerie stasis, her personality from 10 April 2008 - the last day she updated it - preserved for ever more. She, too, is "in a relationship", with a boy named Harry who will have to spend months logging into Facebook only to see that staring back at him.

Her favourite films, the books she enjoyed, it's all there. She belonged to Facebook's Boris Johnson Appreciation Society, enjoyed Top Gear, and even set up a group to keep in touch from Ecuador ("I thought, rather than e-mailing everyone to assure those who are worried I'm still alive, I'd just do this").

It's immensely sad, on the one hand, to see such a lively character snuffed out, in a foreign country, in the blink of an eye.

But on the other, I think if anything were ever to happen to me, I'd be consoled from whatever afterlife I find to feel that my personality lives on, incorrupt, in a corner where nobody can get to it, lose it in the sands of time, change it, remove my life essence. Under the lazily rotating banners of sheep, lighthouses and other natural curios, my thousand-odd Dayorama entries would keep watch over you lot til we're all dust and ashes - and then once you'd joined me you'd find I'd written a thousand more and kept them in a special file, just for you. An incentive to reject suicide if ever there were one.

Facebook are never going to get into the business of removing the profiles of the dead (which, in earlier days, they once did) - imagine the workload in 40 years' time if they went down that road. Nobody but the creator knows each account's password, so there Indira, and I, and you, will live on. Hole in her nose, daft but happy profile picture broadcasting joie de vivre like a beacon, friends tending to the memory, proud to maintain her in their lists of friends on their profiles.

Beats a gravestone, doesn't it? The twenty-first century preserves you not in stone, but in pixels.

I was also incredibly sad to hear that Indira's friend and fellow victim of the crash, Lizzie Pincock, had only just left Taunton School. Practically my entire childhood, from the age of two til 17, was spent at that place, and I know it's a friendly, close-knit community. My thoughts are with her family and everybody there.

I purchased some Lysterine (mouthwash) at the weekend. It's purple in colour - chosen principally because 1. aesthetically I favour purple over the alternative colours of aquamarine and green; and 2. it was on special offer / promotion. It tastes of mint. Naturally, all toothpaste / mouthwash / flossing products seem to taste of mint, albeit they may be spearmint, peppermint, or the likes of "ice-cool" mint.

Now, this seems wrong. It's purple. It should therefore taste fruity, full bodied and warm. It shouldn't taste of mint, be sharp and fresh. It simply doesn't feel right to be tasting something which is purple in colour, and yet that tastes of mint. It's rather like those lollies which are blue, and yet flavoured raspberry. They should be red or pink if they're going to taste of raspberry. Having said that if purple mouthwash did taste fruity, full bodied and warm, it would probably make your breath smell of read wine and that really would go against the logic of mouthwash in the first place. On that basis, perhaps minty fresh breath is best afterall, even if disguised in purple clothing. It still seems strange, though.

A friend and I had a pleasant wander around the Tate Modern today. I'm not sure why, but of late I've taken to buying fridge magnets. I suppose they remind me of people, places, good times. See below for the one purchased in the Tate Modern:

And now look at the reverse:

Since when did a fridge magnet become £3.00?!

In other news: (1) my new laptop runs on Windows Vista. It's deeply confusing; and (2) the weather in London has been particularly weird today. April showers, bright sun and rainbows.

As if there weren't enough foodstuffs out there to ruin my hips... red wine, cheese, chocolate, puddings etc., I've now discovered another. Krispy Kreme doughnuts. I know they're almost iconic, but until today (in fact, still have 1/3rd left on a plate besides me) I'd always passed up on an offer. They get placed in our pantry at work all the time, but I'd never got round to eating one before. Today however, was an exception. I thought they'd taste manufactured, stale and sickly. But... they're actually lovely. Impossible to eat more than one at once (I can actually feel my blood sugar rising, my arteries crying and a ring-shape appearing on my thighs) but delicious. I stand corrected - they're a far cry from the American trash I thought they would be.

According to an article here a village in Merseyside is, for obvious reasons, being forced to consider changing its name from Lunt to Launt. It appears that vandals have taken to crossing out the "L" and replacing it with a "C".

This strikes me as awful. Naturally, the community is divided between i) those who want to change the name in order to decrease levels of vandalism; and ii) those for whom to change the name would simply be "giving in" to said vandals. I can appreciate the desire of the community to prevent persistent vandalism but what about the heritage of the village? The tradition? The meaning behind the name in the first place?

Call me a romantic but isn't this part of our heritage that makes this green and pleasant land so unique? There are plenty of place names out there that, over the passage of time, now have alternative meanings or are relatively "funny". Pratt's Bottom and Thong are both places in Kent that instantly spring to mind. And Lunt isn't alone. A village in Kent called Hucking is, naturally, referred to as F*cking.

I can't find the complete history behind the place name of Lunt but the BBC article suggests that it was referred to in 1251 in the Chartulary of Cockersand Abbey as 'de Lund'. Obviously over the passage of time it has evolved to Lunt. So, can we just "evolve it" further? Or should this process stop. I favour the latter. English place names, and their influences, are complex and form part of our skattered history.

A little bit of Googling and you begin to learn quite a lot. Consider Ashwood in Staffordshire - this means ash wood. Not that difficult. Rockbeare in Devon though on the other hand means "grove frequented by rooks". The ending of "ham", for instance in Lenham, means "homestead, village or manor". Whereas if you live in a "hamm" then it means an "enclosure,, land hemmed by water or marsh or higher ground, land in a riverbend, rivermeadow". So instantly, if you drop of add the second "m" you change the meaning. Thannington Without, on the outskirts of Canterbury, is "without" because it is outside of the city walls. Lenham, incidentally, gave its name to the River Len (the source of which is in the village) rather than vice versa. As noted, the "ham" element comes from the Old English for "homestead or village". And the "Len" element seems to It seems originally to have indicated ‘Leana’s village’ – Leana being a man’s name. So there we go.

I could go on. It's rather fascinating, as illustrated in an interesting article here. Norman, Celtic, Saxon, French, Latin, Old English... whatever, as the link I've referenced states... "reflected in the history of English place names is the history of England. The waves of conquest and settlement were accompanied by new languages, each of which left their mark on English place names. In the names themselves, however, one has the opportunity to glimpse the world through medieval man's eyes. There are the broad brush strokes of the landscape hills, valleys, forests and bodies of water in all their variety. Information important to a farmer is often included in a name: the characteristics of the soil stony, clayey, sour, wet or dry, how the land was used fords on streams and rivers, hills for beacon fires, pastures for herds, clearings for crops and the presence of predators and pests such as foxes, wolves and crows. On a more intimate level, one gets glimpses of the finer details a copse of hedge sparrows, a stream filled with otters, a clearing filled with gorse, willows in a valley. This detail provides a different, more personal view of the past than the sweeping pictures of history. For both the large and the small view, this is a subject worthy of further study."

And for that reason I hope that Lunt remains as Lunt. Oh and all those vandals, clearly (c)nts, should be taught a lesson or two.

Forgive the intrusion, but I'd like you to imagine a particular scenario.

You've just returned from doing your food shopping (yep, back to the weekly Tesco shop again). So the things on your mind (aside from unpacking the shopping) are the things you bought - so poultry, fish, salad, vegetables, washing up liquid, shampoo, chocolate etc. You sit on your sofa and you look at the itemised shopping bill - you're moderately curious to know how much you saved on multi-buys (yes, I'm that sad) - and your eyes fall to your clubcard reward points. After that, are two vouchers. One promises you 50p off your next purchase (so long as it is £5.00 or more) off the "Tesco Finest Frozen Seafood Range". The second gives you 30p off "Duck Rim Block". Now, what do you think of first?

Duck Rim Block? My mind was crying out - what on earth is Duck Rim Block? I was thinking duck... duck legs, duck wings, some strange form of duck cut? Is a rim like a rump? And what of the block? Is that some reconstituted form of duck? So we're looking at a reconstituted lump of duck ass?

And then it dawned on me. It's not duck as in quack, it's duck as in toilet duck. The rim of the toilet. And in the form of a block. For goodness sake. I've never bought either the bird form of duck (I don't think, well, not for ages anyway) or the other type of duck. Not ever. How does my purchase of chicken and fairy washing up liquid justify the reduction on toilet duck? Amazing. Of course, it confused me no end.

One interesting (moderately) snippet: I went to the customer service counter after I'd finished my main shop to buy a box of matches (for lighting a candle). I handed over a £5 note - I only had £5 and some shrapnel. The assistant questioned me and asked if I had anything smaller. Why? Well, turns out a box of matches only costs 8p. Really? I didn't think you could buy anything of any substance in this country for less than the price of a Mars bar (and as previously discussed, that's around 52p now). Incredible. That's also around 30 matches. Which makes them around 0.3p each.

If you're a member of the London network on Facebook you may well have seen a poll asking you who you'd elect as London mayor. Survey says:

That's how things stand as at 7.45pm this evening and it's not much of a surprise, given Facebook's demographic.

There are currently 2,065,000 Facebook users aged 18 or over in London, of which 1,750,000 are in the 18-35 bracket that most people would consider the site's core user base.

130,000 say they are at university, and 120,000 have graduated (although in practice these numbers are substantially lower than the true figure, since Facebook relies on people bothering to fill out that part of their profile to tell us this). Only 6,000 of London's 18-35s have the word "politics" listed anywhere on their profile - by comparison, 63,000 have listed "football".

Lord only knows how many people have voted in the poll - those figures aren't shown, which makes an already unscientific survey even less reliable. Plus the organisation which has paid to run the poll is not shown. (Who do you reckon? One of the London freesheets maybe?)

Facebook started life as a word-of-mouth website spreading among students at top US - and then British - universities, and while it has now successfully wrapped its poking tentacles around a wide cross-section of UK society, I'm willing to bet a healthy chunk of that user base is inclined to support Boris and broader Conservative ideals.

But who knows just what kind of advantage Bozza's apparently whopping 23 percentage point lead really represents.

I wonder how many Facebook users will feel compelled to make the short trip down to a polling booth on the day and cast their vote. I can tell you right now that I'd struggle to motivate myself because, let's be honest, is it going to make that much difference who's in charge? I reckon a healthy majority of the Facebook generation will be equally disinclined.

Intriguingly, in the intervening fifteen minutes since I took that screengrab of the voting results, Livingstone has snuck an extra percentage point and Johnson is down two. Perhaps Red Ken hasn't lost the twentysomethings yet, but Facebook, which has after all been blue from the outset, is wearing those colours on its sleeve tonight.

The view from our commentary gantry at Slough as the Jets players warm up below.

I've just got back from our last live ice hockey game this season, Bracknell's narrow 2-1 win over Milton Keynes, which is enough to send the Bees through to the play-off finals weekend at Coventry, at MK's expense.

That marks the end of eight months of live coverage, first exclusively from Slough and then from Bracknell too in the last eight weeks or so.

As commentators who liked their ice hockey but had never tried to cover an entire game, we've faced a steep learning curve, but every game - and every lesson - has been an enjoyable one.

Here are my top five tips for British ice hockey commentators:

1. Don't pretend it's a football match.

You don't get anything like the time you get in football. While hockey games sometimes become stop-start affairs, with lots of little 20-second breaks to summarise the action or give a scorecheck, you just don't get the time during the actual action to fit in everything that's going on. You have to cut out chunks and just give the key information - where the puck is, which team has the puck, and what the options are.

Describing goals is almost always a retrospective activity ("Jasik with the shot!" as opposed to, "And Jasik shoots!") since the time between stick hitting puck, and puck hitting net, is minimal.

2. Talk to people, especially fans.

Ice hockey in this country is about as well organised as cricket in Antarctica, and that may be doing a disservice to the scientists at the foot of the planet, who probably get some great one-dayers going with the penguins. League tables freeze in time while webmasters go on holiday, owners of incredibly doubtful capability come and go, teams appear to flout rules safe in the knowledge that there will be no comeback.

Often the only way to work out what the hell is going on is to straw-poll about ten to fifteen fans, either on forums or in the flesh at games, and take a consensus from that. There's nothing worse, as a commentator, than having to admit you simply don't know how a league table works or why a certain decision has been made, but in this sport there are some things beyond understanding until you find the one person with the right answer.

3. Love your forums.

Ice hockey is probably the most net-savvy sport, from a fans' perspective, in the country. As in my second point, since the organisation of the sport leaves so much to be desired, fans' forums are often invaluable pools of hockey knowledge and inside information.

Need to know who scored in a game? Check the forum's results pages, where fans have texted goal-by-goal updates since no official service exists. Can't work out the league table? Check the forum because someone else will almost certainly have asked the same question, and ten people will have waded in with answers. Want people to know you're broadcasting? Pop a message up on the forum and it'll spread very quickly to all the right folks (i.e. the ones stuck at home unable to get to the game).

4. Become technologically savvy.

If you can't tell one end of a microphone the other, you may not get very far commentating on British ice hockey. The ability to innovate with a limited range of equipment is key to even getting on air in the first place, before you have the chance to show off that hockey knowledge.

My colleague Andy and I have fought so many hilariously unlikely battles against technological gremlins - and more obvious obstacles - this season, that I can barely remember them all. Here's my top three:

i) Commentating down a mobile phone for three hours at Bracknell (see picture, below), having turned up to discover that our newly installed broadcast equipment (below inset) was dangling from the wall by a thread. It has now been repaired and carries the message "do not remove from wall" in bold, black marker pen.

Andy commentates by phone at Bracknell. Inset: "Do not remove from wall" - that horse has bolted...

ii) Tonight's final game of the season threw two curveballs at me. First, the internet operations team in Maidenhead (who take all our live broadcasts from our studio and convert them into the stream you hear online) had got their times mixed up so, six minutes before we were due to go on air, error messages were popping up all over the place. After a frantic phone call that was fixed, but then during the first period a baby in a pram next to our kit (where did he come from?!) started pawing at a rather crucial wire. He had been squeezing the wire in his little hand for a good five heart-stopping minutes by the time his father noticed and extricated it.

iii) During the build-up to one game at Slough, Andy was taken off air by the player-coach on his exercise bike. The bike is next to the ISDN box (in other words the box in the inset pic above), and the coach had been giving it so much effort that his legs had dislodged the cable. Andy dropped off air in the middle of a sports bulletin and was at a loss for a good ten minutes before tracing the problem to an overactive calf muscle.

5. Learn to speak new languages.

Try pronouncing these: Emersic, Jasik, Alasaarela, Tarczycky, Ciccarello, Melicherik. Once you've been told they're pretty easy to remember, but if you've not had the time to ask anyone, and there they are about to ram home the opening goal of the evening, you'd better be prepared for a bloody good guess. Luckily ice hockey fans tend to be a little forgiving about this and I've lost count of the number of gently admonishing emails I've received, containing the correct pronunciation.

The EPL Cup trophy, below right, sits on our commentary desk as a fight breaks out on the ice.

So those are the top five tips, but if that sounds like it involves a fair bit of hassle, believe me, all the above pales in comparison with the fun you can have watching a hockey game. The sport is by far the most family friendly I've found in this country, the fans to a man, woman and child are welcoming, enthusiastic and knowledgeable, the players are normal people often with day jobs to hold down alongside their hockey, and the volunteers work miracles to keep teams going when other sources of time, money and sometimes inclination run dry.

This domestic season wraps up next week, but put a little note in your diary for this September: "Get to a hockey game." And if you need help deciding which one, ask me.

It's been pretty snowy in Kent today. How do I know this? Because I've been traipsing around fields supervising a Silver Duke of Edinburgh's Award expedition. To be honest, I was driving most of the time anyway (incidentally, I've just discovered you can buy a new Vauxhall online) so didn't get too cold (apart from below). I got back to London though around 7pm. It was light. I had my headlights on because, well, I was driving through moderate snow flurries from time to time. But visibility was absolutely fine. However. The. Number. Of. Cars. With. Fog. Lights. On. Really annoyed me. Why? Not necessary. Distracting. Annoying.

Check out rule 114 of the Highway Code, chaps and chapesses...

114 - You MUST NOT (...) use front or rear fog lights unless visibility is seriously reduced. You MUST switch them off when visibility improves to avoid dazzling other road users (see Rule 226).

236 - You MUST NOT use front or rear fog lights unless visibility is seriously reduced (see Rule 226) as they dazzle other road users and can obscure your brake lights. You MUST switch them off when visibility improves.

It's not difficult, is it? You have a indicator light on your dashboard telling you that they are on. Turn the damn things off.

So, the cold thing? I was waiting for a while at Reculver, a small town on the North Kent coast. There are imposing twin 12th century towers on the sea front. The waves batter the rocky headland beneath and, as the inscription inside the towers states, the now-local landmark was erected to be "sufficiently conspicuous to be used as a useful navigational aid" - info and a picture about it can be found here. Well, it was snowing. And the snow was coming from the North. And it was coming at me, pretty much horizontally. It was cold, it was windy, it was icy. And then you realise that there is absolutely no land mass protecting you from where you are standing, to the arctic circle. Now, that's when you realise why you're wearing a fleece branded the North Face. Having said all that, it was actually strangely refreshing and reviving. Well, it was until I lost feeling in my hands, my hair was blowing everywhere and I decided to jump back into a warm car.

Wondering what it feels like to be a jockey at the Grand National? Wonder no more. Watch this video and see through the eyes of Stephen Wynne aboard Coome Hill at 1999's racing extravaganza.

The video shows the event in a completely new light. The pace, the extraordinary length (it takes the horse a good ten minutes and it's hardly taking it easy!), and the sheer horse's-ears-in-your-face exhilaration of it all are readily apparent.

Following on from Ollie's post below, it seems that our stamps are changing too - or should I say, have changed. Not on design this time, but on price. Did anyone else miss this? The price of a first class stamp has gone up from 34p to 36p and a second class from 24p to 27p. Apparently if you have one of the generic stamps with "first" or "second" on them though, they are still valid even if purchased at the lower price. It may have been worth buying a few packs in reserve.

I don't have a problem with the above in principal but a) I do think it should be advertised a little more widely; and b) it really would be refreshing to witness a degree of improvement in the quality of the postal service as a result.

In other monetary news, I'm fortunate enough that for the last year or so I haven't had to "worry" too much about what I spend each month. This is generally because I keep an eye on my expenditure, save for the "expensive" months like the car going through its MOT and usually have a good idea of how much I've spent. What I don't like doing is wasting money. At least, I don't mind if a couple of pounds go in a slot machine in a pub - conceivably a "waste" of money - and I do spend money on taxis sometimes than use public transport - I'd rather spend £25 getting home safely than be raped, thanks. But I dislike wasting money.

It's common place for people to buy their lunch in the Wharf. It's a moderately social thing. You walk down with someone, you buy a sandwich or something, you take it back to your desk. On Monday I went to Crush - ok, so not the cheapest outlet because it pretends to be healthy and moderately "designer" - and purchased a salad, a bottle of sparking water and some grapes. And it came to just short of £8. What?? Ridiculous. I refuse to pay that sort of money on something which, well, really isn't worth it. And I'm only paying that because it's convenient. I'll spend money on pub lunches, I'll spend money on expensive and enjoyable dinners, but I refuse on a few lettuce leaves in a plastic container, eaten with a plastic fork. So, for the past four days I've brought my own breakfast - and lunch - to work. I'm not sure how long this will last... Probably until I get shafted again at work, have no time to do anything but sleep and go running occasionally. But at least I've made a moderate move. And economically it does make sense. It's also rather enjoyable, moderately speaking, to actually make your own lunch.

Clever boy, that one. Matthew Dent and his shiny creations pose for the cameras as the Royal Mint unveils the designs we'll all be fingering in our pockets come the summer.

It's been a bit of a touchy week for redesigns - Heathrow and the BBC having taken a bit of a knock with their new interpretations of an old space - but I'm loving these coins.

They look crisp, clean, elegant and contemporary.

So naturally, they've come in for a battering from the old guard, primarily because they've done away with traditional emblems like Britannia and the Welsh dragon.

"As a proud British subject, monarchist, and Welshman I am disgusted that there is no proper representation of the Principality, especially as the coins are produced in Wales," thundered David Davies (the MP, not the swimmer).

"This is another attempt to undermine the Union," he added, in a comment entirely applicable to the nice man in spectacles above, who is clearly hell bent on undermining the Union. The bastard.

The Design Museum's Stephen Bayley trumped Davies by managing to use the word "elegiac", for 30 points on a triple word square, in his critical analysis of the new coins:

"It seems a tad elegiac that 'supporters of the Union', whoever they might be, are now required laboriously to re-assemble their identity from a coinage as fragmented as it is devalued," said Bayley, failing to appreciate the distinction between giving The Telegraph a quote and writing a dissertation for the British Numismatic Journal.

Of course, who am I kidding? I love coinage, the older the better. One of my finest moments at university came when I found the Coin Room Library, an unmanned room at the top of the Ashmolean, occupied by a couple of elderly scholars and yours truly one spring afternoon. I'd have spent all my time in that library if I could have done, it was brilliant.

Then there was the time my tutor showed me the Fitzwilliam Museum's online coin find database. Look up any coin find from the early medieval world, then plot the ones you're after on a map. Possibly a bit impenetrable if you're not trying to write a thesis on the Anglo-Saxon church and the economy, but quite exciting if that's what you happen to be doing that day.

The sad thing is that as soon as these shiny new twenty-first century coins reach my wallet, they're doomed, and it's all my fault. I'm already holding several thousand coins captive in my bedroom - variously in two shoeboxes, three mugs, and an empty tube of barbecue-beef flavoured Pringles from 2005. It is my fervent hope that the coins will multiply like shiny, flat, metal rabbits when I'm not looking, and one day my loose change will have made me a millionare.

After all, this time last year my good friend Joe Campbell was telling us the British have "mislaid" £6,000,000,000 in pennies. Will a snazzy new look prevent you sacrificing them to your sofa? Do we even need a one penny coin, or any coins at all, these days? Perhaps this is the last redesign British coinage will ever undergo... let's see Bayley's face when Britannia's crushed mercilessly underneath your cashless Visa.

First tonight, an observation. Whoever scheduled the roll-out of the new BBC News and Sport websites knew exactly what they were doing.

As of this evening, for every single negative comment on the blog posts by the editors in charge of each site, 25 people have viewed the BBC-made hoax video of the flying penguins. Search for any blogs linking to the BBC today and the ones mentioning the redesign (several of which are highly complimentary) are drowned in a sea of penguins. Of all days, 1 April is a good day to bury... well you know the rest.

Moving on to a couple of nice trinkets that have landed in my inbox in the last 24 hours. You might have heard of the phenomenon of rickrolling this week (or much earlier if you're a pedigree geek - "pedigeek", if you will, a word which achieves that great rarity, no results in Google).

For the uninitiated:

In a rickroll, a person provides a link [on a website or discussion forum that] they claim is relevant to the topic at hand, but which actually takes the user to the Rick Astley video [for "Never Gonna Give You Up"].

The Beeb's Look North team have filmed a report about this here, but I've seen the video. Anyone who has been enjoying b3ta's recent Graphs Challenge will know that bar charts are the way forward:

With thanks to my good friend and fellow ice hockey commentator, Andy, for pointing that out.

Trailing the Astley graph by mere moments was a plug from a flash game company for their latest, hastily-constructed offering. Entitled "Wee Willie Walsh in Terminal Panic", this basic but hilarious application demands that the user rescue luggage from the hell-hole that is Heathrow's fifth terminal, pushing it through security before loading it onto a conveyor - all the while avoiding rogue trolleys.

I have to confess that, much like Walsh, I found shifting the bags to the right place to be nigh on impossible. Happily though, I haven't had to cancel a lot of flights to discover this. It's like FlightSim for the airport logistics industry...

So, seems it was the 90th anniversary of the RAF today. In celebration / to mark the occasion there was a fly past over London by the red arrows and four typhoons. I can speak with relative authority as to the former; I've no idea as to the significance of the latter. Anyway, the fly past was rather impressive and there are some rather decent reader photographs here.

The route took the jets from City Airport, over the O2, over the Wharf and then along the Thames, passing all of the obvious landmarks. I've an office view with a panorama of London, so was able to enjoy the spectacle as the jets travelled West and left their trademark vapour in the air - it really was rather cool.

However, it was only until the fly past was upon us that I realised what was going on. The event hadn't really been publicised. So, imagine the feeling when suddenly there is a tremendous roar in the East. And then the buildings in the Wharf began to shake. A colleague and I looked at each other with a real glance of fear. The initial thought was "it's 9/11 all over". I'm not exaggerating there, that was truly what it felt like and I'm sure that if I'd have been wearing a blood pressure monitor, there would have been a clear peak before the display actually became visible and we could enjoy the spectacle rather than fearing for our lives. Rather sobering as to the type of society we now live.

You will probably have read about, or seen, the BBC's flying penguin footage by now.

The first time I saw it - in my wannabe-nature-cameraman kind of way - I couldn't work out how they'd got such brilliant angles of the penguins in flight.

Then it slowly dawned on me that this is the one day in the year where maybe, just maybe, Bill Turnbull was sitting on his comfy BBC Breakfast sofa and lying through his teeth.

But I'm still left wondering if the British National Party's web staff have realised the gag. In an article billed just beneath a story entitled "Immigration: What is it good for?", we find a man named Chris Brown agog at the penguin footage:

"A non political story that is truly amazing. The pictures and video clip of this historical discovery really do have to be seen to be believed!!"