Please note!
The views expressed in this weblog are those of the individual author
alone and do not in any way reflect the views of any organisation
or any other contributors.
It appears as though the British government might end up running its own F1 team this season.
Here's a report just filed by the AFP agency, on the back of an article apparently in today's Guardian:
HONDA Racing could apply for a bail-out from the British government, which this week said it would unlock billions of pounds in credit funding for the auto industry, it was reported Thursday.
The team said it had had meetings with the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR), whose chief minister Lord Peter Mandelson unveiled the funding plan on Tuesday, the Guardian newspaper said.
"We have had meetings with BERR over the future of the team on several occasions over the past month," the team was quoted as saying.
A BERR spokeswoman told the paper there was "no reason why Honda Racing couldn't apply" for funds from the package worth up to 2.3 billion pounds (2.5 billion euros, 3.2 billion dollars).
So, it's my understanding from the above that there is a chance some of the government's many billions in bail-out money may end up going to support the former Honda team.
I look forward to hearing how that one gets sold to the public, whose money is of course going to be what funds the bail-out cash.
I very much like my Formula One and, when I went to visit Honda's F1 HQ a couple of months ago, I was struck by how nice everybody was to me, just a day after it had been announced that their jobs were on the line.
But even so, I can't help but feel a government-backed, indeed taxpayer-backed F1 team is not something for which the world is ready.
Thousands of jobs are being axed every day and if the car industry bail-out is suddenly seen to be funding a bit of wind tunnel jiggery-pokering in Northamptonshire, followed by a 747 or two to get the cars to Melbourne and back, there is - let's face it - going to be a minor issue with the Daily Mail et al.
Not to mention, of course, the impact of this on the government's environmental policies. Difficult to promote wind energy if you're indirectly footing the bill for a Formula One team to criss-cross the globe, despite Honda's much-publicised (and ultimately financially perilous) Earth Dreams campaign on its cars.
And would Jenson Button automatically become the highest-paid civil servant in history? Does he become eligible for a final salary pension. Bloody hell.
I wonder what the government livery will be. Bright red, a la Ferrari? White with elegant gold parliamentary piping? Or the simple understand of Her Majesty's royal seal emblazoned upon the nose?
Now then. You're on the tube, heading home from Bethnal Green at around 11pm on a Friday night. (Yes, it's taken me a few days to get round to writing this one.)
You've already spent 15 minutes waiting for a train while trying to do something, anything, with a man covered in a pool of his own vomit on the westbound platform, but you're not about to delve back into that repressed memory. Now it's your quiet time, with a book, settled down for the Central Line trek to Northolt.
Somewhere in the middle of London, a figure in a rather large, beige trenchcoat brushes past you. I say "brushes past you" but what I really mean is "practically sends you flying into the next carriage". They take the vacant seat next to you.
Five minutes later, you're aware that this person has shifted their knees and body so as to be facing in towards you, and they are studying the book you are reading. (It's Bill Hicks: Love All The People, which I am still reading.)
Then, in a moment of phantasmagorical awkwardness and fright, you feel a sensation behind your back. The figure has put their arm lightly, yet still incredibly intrusively, around your shoulder. They make no sound, nor any attempt to register this development. The train rumbles on.
From furtive glances out of the corner of your eye, you are able to establish that the figure is a middle-aged lady, which is immediately something of a relief. But you are now left with a quandary. Do you make some sort of attempt to confront this unsolicited intimacy - remove the arm, make some sort of dissatisfied grunt, politely turn and request she desist - or leave things be?
Well I'd spent 15 minutes in someone else's sick, was quite enjoying the book, and had relaxed into a passive frame of mind I all-too-rarely enter. I let the subliminal hugging slide, and continued to read the book.
Then I began to feel myself being stroked. Just delicately, a little ripple of the fingers along the shoulder blade now and then. But I was still not prepared to cause a stink with a clearly-astronomically-drunk lady on a packed tube train. In fact, all I really wanted to do was laugh, but I decided that wouldn't be appropriate either. I tried to suppress the smile and carried on with the book. (Although by now, through combined terror and pensiveness, I'd read the same sentence 75 times.)
Lord only knows what other passengers must have thought. Here's this woman with her arm around a (much, much younger) man, and the man is paying her no attention, indeed seems to be trying to ignore her. What a bastard.
At Lancaster Gate, she broke the silence.
"Is it interesting?"
Is what interesting, dear? The smell escaping your mouth as you say those words? The position of your arm, lurking inside my personal space like Gary Powers? Or do you mean the book?
I decided she meant the book. And, you know what, I was in just the frame of mind for a conversation with a stranger, even a drunk one with strangely amorous designs, on a crowded Friday night train.
So I told her just how interesting it was, and explained who Bill Hicks was since her eyes were already glazed and it was very difficult to tell precisely how much information was going in.
Over the course of the next ten minutes - during which her arm remained locked in place - we discussed the book, how she came to be quite so drunk (champagne parties across London which she couldn't tell me about, one suspects as much out of amnesia as secrecy), who she was (an actor, but she couldn't say who... again, probably literally could not think of an answer), and who I was.
She ended the conversation, as she made for the exit at Notting Hill Gate with (and you may employ a suitably Notting Hill plum in your mouth here): "Well you do have the look of the privileged, my boy. You've had a veeeery privileged upbringing, haven't you? But you are lovely, you really are. And I will probably never see you again."
Touch wood. Actually no don't, my dear, you'd get quite the wrong idea.
Yes, it's me, I'm still alive! I am not sure when I last wrote on Dayorama - I can't be bothered to look - but it certainly wasn't this year (incidentally, Happy New Year, everyone). The thing is, when one is dwarfed (not simply by height) by the sheer excitement of Ollie's jaunts to various sporting events and David's excursions along the West Coast Mainline, of what interest are the tales of a lawyer, eh? And, even after all of that, I have very little to report. I have, as David described earlier this month, a day off in lieu today. But of course, rather naturally, I still woke at 6am and haven't yet been able to go back to sleep.
At least, as Ollie seems to have re-discovered of late (if he ever lost it, that is), the internet provides a suitable source for procrastination. So with that I shall just add one photo taken over Christmas.
This has now been enlarged on to canvas, courtesy of Largerpix, a website offering great service if you want your photos put onto canvas. It looks incredible and little detail has been lost – in fact, it looks enhanced.
It's amazing to think that ten years ago we were still plugging films into a 35mm camera and waiting with eager anticipation for the Bonusprint envelope to arrive in the post. I'm unsurprised that we have gone full circle now though. Once upon a time we had photo album after photo album. Then of course it was digital this and that. But how many of us really bothered to immortalize those memories by finding a friend with a decent laser printer, spending half your week's wages on expensive photo-paper, and then as soon as you begun to print them out, realizing that the magenta ink cartridge had run out and suddenly your photos looked yellowy-blue. Was there any point? But now of course you can pop into town, or pop into ASDA, slip your memory stick into the machine and out fall your perfect photos. Ah, technology.
Nine to five readers - probably deciphering this through the hazy steam of their four o'clock coffee, wondering if they'll manage to escape early to beat the rush hour queues - will rarely have known the joy of the hard earned lieu day.
In BBC terms, if accrued properly (I know not only the term, but the rules), it's probably an indication you've been working too hard in recent times, and deserve a day off before the overtime budget becomes even more exhausted than you.
Tuesday was not only my day in lieu, but my day in Looe. Much anticipated on both counts, it's been the little jaunt I've held in sight through the long days and nights I've worked of late. The end of a branch line I'd not travelled since 1993 - the year I started secondary school, and terrifyingly more than half my life ago - it's an experience I remember fondly, and these days an effortless one to repeat.
For even the most apathetic of railway travellers, it would be hard not to fall in love with this little branch line. From the very start it's a curiosity; here are Platforms 1 and 2 at Liskeard station, the junction for Looe, on the main line from London to Penzance:
And here's Platform 3, from which the Looe train departs:
Quite separate, and at right angles to one another, the two stations are in different worlds when it comes to geography, let alone time. The Looe Valley Line platform is, like all the ‘halts’ along the way (using old Great Western Railway terminology as they still very much do), dressed in the old chocolate and cream livery of the GWR heyday, with immaculate enamel signs – reproduction ones, one assumes, though so well depicted you could never be certain.
Leaving Liskeard on a 180 degree curve, passing once under the main line and twice under the A38, the line begins a gentle clickety-clack decent to Coombe Halt, where it meets the original line from Looe to Moorswater. Once a member of the crew has climbed down from the train to operate the points via a manual ground frame, the train then changes direction and heads south down the line towards Looe.
It’s not impossible to believe we nearly lost this beautiful line to Beeching. As you travel along the leafy riverbank miles from civilisation, it’s harder to believe it’s not fifty years ago, when so many wonderful rural lines like this were living out their final years of existence. Only two weeks came between the Looe line and the fate proposed by Beeching; to my mind it’s the best fortnight’s work Barbara Castle ever did.
The town of Looe is nothing short of spectacular. If a river running through its quaint little heart isn’t enough, you get to sit on a small beach eating shellfish and watch that river emerge into the sea; you’re able to roam the tiny cobbled streets and paths that link a network of shops and restaurants; and you get to go to the pub.
I'd originally intended to spend a couple of hours in Looe. This little venture was going to be combined with stops along the Looe Valley Rail Ale Trail, but a combination of non-availability of genuine leaflets (I hate presenting print-outs to landlords, who often have a hard enough time understanding what’s being shown), and sheer delight at being in a place so wondrous in January meant I elected to stay for the entire day. Plus £1.75 for a pint of Cornish Mutiny at The Bullers Arms helped a bit, too.
I would say it's well worth the journey, but that's all part of the pleasure of Looe. It has, though, been well worth the wait. Don't hold on for longer than you need to before you go to Looe.
If this was the photograph I'd waited twenty years to see, imagine what five-year old Shep would have made of this:
It's been a busy few weeks at Sheppard Towers; as a result the usual circuit of favourite Google searches has been held up (along with eBay, much to the delight of NatWest).
And in typical fashion, whenever one turns one's back...
This video is a wonder I never thought I'd see. The PEP (albeit 4001 and not 4002, my favourite of the three PEP units, for obvious reasons) in full motion - in original Rail Blue, and in glorious technicolour. It's as good as actually being on board.
And as if this sudden and long overdue recognition of the PEPs' significance isn't enough, Google has suddenly taken to offering this little curio:
This, for me, is like some bizarre dream sequence. Though the ending is somewhat gratuitous (none of the three PEPs ever crashed), the thought of being able to observe even a simulation of the PEPs in full flight like this - and indeed the very thought that someone should actually want and try to simulate them - is far from even virtual reality. At last we have something as weird as my own utter obsession with them.
When I tell people I'm an ice hockey commentator, I'm often asked how I manage to keep up with the play and work out where the puck is.
For the first few games we covered, I won't lie, it was pretty hellish. We didn't have the best grasp of the rules, it was difficult to work out which player was which (especially when facing us, so we couldn't see the name or number - and remember, they're all underneath helmets so facial recognition goes out the window), and yes, it is bloody tricky following a small, black puck up and down the ice when you're already struggling with all those other things.
Over time, things have improved, and now it's rare that I lose the puck completely, or don't have a clue who scored a vital goal. Like most things the more experience you have, the easier it gets, and we must have done close to 50 games now.
But tonight I went right back to square one.
I wasn't on air but I went down to Slough's game at home to Telford anyway, and took my little handheld video camera with me to experiment with filming highlights.
Now, filming and commentating at the same time is nigh-on impossible. I cooked a pretty decent fry-up for lunch today, timing bacon, eggs, toast and beans to arrive simultaneously, and that's probably the finest display of multi-tasking I've produced in 24 years. So speaking non-stop for a couple of hours while following the game through my Sony Handycam screen is not going to be an option.
Especially, I discovered as I started filming, because spotting a small, black puck through the screen on a Handycam is about ten times as hard as it is with the naked eye.
The first five minutes of footage are littered with the camera practically shaking its head at itself, as I sweep from side to side, scouring the blank, white landscape for that little bastard. Then the abject, tell-tale zoom-out of defeat, before picking up the action again, grateful that nobody bothered scoring in the interim.
The other problem was trying not to put too much thought into it. When you're commentating, it helps to be able to think a step or two ahead - so if you reckon the puck is likely to go one way, it's good to quickly look across and work out who the likely recipient is, then there's less of a panic when the play develops.
Do that with a video camera, though, and you can end up fooling yourself. If you cast a sly glance at the unmarked player on the far side while commentating, nobody will know if the player with the puck decides to go the other way instead. But veer a little to the right with a video camera at the wrong moment, and the play will leave you for dead when it goes down the left.
I wonder how many days, months, years of training the cameramen who film things like football for Sky or Match Of The Day get? When you watch football or cricket, the cameramen often seem to possess a sixth sense for spotting incidents, and someone always follows the key player at a crucial moment, even when it's the least likely protagonist on the pitch. Is that just through the sheer weight of cameras trained on the game, or is there a knack to it? I'd love to go on a course one day.
With a bit of frantic, slapdash editing during the period breaks, I managed to get the highlights online about 20 minutes after the game finished. They're very rough around the edges but at least, by some miracle, I got all nine goals in Telford's 6-3 victory on film. If you're reading this through an RSS reader or something like Facebook, the video might not have appeared above, but you can watch it here if you're keen.
In these days of global penny-pinching, no sport, however showy and exclusive, is immune.
That's why most Formula One teams are having to cut back in a variety of ways, especially with Honda setting an ominous precedent by pulling out of the sport last month. No longer are teams staffed by 800 people, on vast premises with research budgets to match, a sustainable entity.
Even the glitzy tradition of the F1 car launch has been hit. Ferrari opted for a traditional unveiling in front of the press on Monday (though they had to swap test tracks as their normal one was covered in snow), and McLaren are doing the same tomorrow, but today, Toyota opted for something a bit different.
Via the website tf109-premiere.com, Toyota's F1 team aimed to give its 2009 car - the TF109 - an online debut. No physical press conference, no laps around a test track for the cameras. Instead, we waited all morning as a countdown ticked apprehensively away towards the launch.
At 11am, the timer reached zero. "Out now!", screamed the text which replaced it.
And then nothing happened.
Ten minutes later, still nothing. Two different browsers, five or six different windows, hitting the refresh key like it had insulted my mother, but not a bean from the TF109's much-hyped online "premiere".
But I and many fans were left distinctly bemused by the big announcement, which fizzled out with a whimper. One contributor to the 606 forum cynically observed: "Well, this is quite an achievement. Toyota have managed to crash before the season started."
Eventually the launch website slowly wobbled back up to its feet, providing a short film in the style of a movie trailer, some basic photos, a few Q&As, and other assorted bits and pieces. The glamour of an F1 launch, however, was somewhat lacking.
The fairly obvious question that immediately sprang to mind was: "Didn't Toyota expect quite a lot of people to want to see this?"
It turns out that while Toyota had assumed a fair few people would, they hadn't quite realised the impact of offering an online-only launch, which fans can see at precisely the same time as the world's media and anyone else.
Last year, 50,000 people visited Toyota's website in the 30 minutes before its new car launch for 2008 went live.
Today, for the 2009 launch site, that figure had jumped to 236,000 in the half-hour leading up to the unveiling. Enough, apparently, to knock the website off its perch.
So it's McLaren tomorrow, then Williams, Renault and BMW Sauber next week, with Red Bull set for February and Toro Rosso, Force India and whatever-Honda-become all yet to announce a date.
As a staunch Williams fan I'll be looking forward to seeing their new car. Their website has always impressed me - sleek, stylish, very capable and offering something extra that other teams seem to lack (primarily their video content, which is superb). If only the same could be said on the track. Come on Frank, it's been a while now...
Devouring transcripts of his caustic sketches is enough for anyone to find themselves dabbing foam from their lips as they go about their daily business.
In fact, I was planning to come here and get heavily involved in a slightly unhinged soliloquy about revolving doors (which are, by their very nature, unhinged).
I was going to wonder why the hell everyone insists on walking in a little semi-circle in those big airport-style revolving doors (the ones that can take about 20 people a go), when all logic dictates you can just walk slowly, in a straight line, down the middle. But some force of nature makes us all do a little semi-circle, just because we are walking through a semi-circular space. Those doors play games with your mind.
And consider yourself lucky that the above paragraph is all you're getting on the topic, because I've been distracted by one of the most moving things I've read in a long time.
You may be aware Sri Lankan newspaper editor Lasantha Wickrematunge was killed recently. He edited the independent Sunday Leader, wasn't afraid to speak out, and paid for it with his life. This country is full of journalists unhappy with their lot, and a few of them would do well to imagine what it's like trying to produce fair and balanced reporting in Sri Lanka.
Below are edited excerpts from Wickrematunge's final editorial. He clearly penned it very recently, in the expectation he would be killed. It was published three days after his death. The full article ranks in my mind as one of the greatest speeches on behalf of those who prize freedom over oppression.
In an age where most journalists seem to think their biggest threat is Twitter going down, this is a stark reminder that reporters around the world continue to fight for liberties we take for granted.
No other profession calls on its practitioners to lay down their lives for their art save the armed forces - and, in Sri Lanka, journalism.
In the course of the last few years, the independent media have increasingly come under attack. Electronic and print institutions have been burned, bombed, sealed and coerced. Countless journalists have been harassed, threatened and killed. It has been my honour to belong to all those categories, and now especially the last.
It is well known that I was on two occasions brutally assaulted, while on another my house was sprayed with machine-gun fire. Despite the government's sanctimonious assurances, there was never a serious police inquiry into the perpetrators of these attacks, and the attackers were never apprehended.
In all these cases, I have reason to believe the attacks were inspired by the government. When finally I am killed, it will be the government that kills me.
I have the satisfaction of knowing that I walked tall and bowed to no man. And I have not travelled this journey alone. Fellow journalists in other branches of the media walked with me: most are now dead, imprisoned without trial or exiled in far-off lands.
As for the readers of the Sunday Leader, what can I say but thank you for supporting our mission.
We have espoused unpopular causes, stood up for those too feeble to stand up for themselves, locked horns with the high and mighty so swollen with power that they have forgotten their roots, exposed corruption and the waste of your hard-earned tax rupees, and made sure that whatever the propaganda of the day, you were allowed to hear a contrary view.
For this I - and my family - have paid the price that I had long known I would one day have to pay. I am, and have always been, ready for that. I have done nothing to prevent this outcome: no security, no precautions. I want my murderer to know that I am not a coward like he is, hiding behind human shields while condemning thousands of innocents to death. What am I among so many? It has long been written that my life would be taken, and by whom. All that remained to be written was when.
I cannot hold a candle to this man. My thoughts are with his family. I urge you to read an extended version of his editorial here.
It’s not everyday you do something you can be certain our ancestors were doing seven hundred years ago.
(Okay, so it is; but aside from that…)
Since 1281, in one guise or another, ferries have been carrying the good folk of Plymouth across The Sound, the picturesque bay which these days happens to be approximately 27 seconds from my front door.
Today, yours truly braved choppy waters to join with his forbearers, and also to get a good pint at some of the pubs which lay in wait on the other side. It’s no wonder the service has lasted.
By car, the journey to the tiny village of Turnchapel would take me roughly twenty minutes on a good day; by ferry, we’re talking less than four minutes – and that includes the 27 seconds to the Wharf.
But it’s not just convenience that makes the ferry a wonderful option.
There’s something marvellous about seeing familiar territory from unfamiliar angles, and for me, to look back across the Barbican is a fascinating experience. Suddenly, one’s life takes on 00-guage proportions, and cares quite literally fade into the wash.
If you find yourself taking the ferry, don’t linger too long in Mountbatten (where it docks), especially at dinner time; though the pier is pleasant, and there’s a bar of sorts, get yourself east along the South West coast path to Turnchapel, where The Boringdon Arms awaits…
A splendid pub, which has been around too long not to know what it’s doing. On a previous visit, I was welcomed into the building by one of the locals who’d “come outside to fart”. Today, I enjoyed a pint of South Hams’ XSB in the company of the landlord and landlady (of six years), and a man who insisted the wallpaper had changed since his last visit twenty years ago. Apparently it had, but only once.
I missed lunch (through farting around outside), so tried my luck at The Clovelly Bay Inn, another haven for real ale, but perhaps less so for characters. And they’d finished serving, too.
If you miss the ferry back – last one’s at 1800 in the winter, though in summer months they go beyond closing time – the bus service provided by First (or Western National as I will always delight in calling them to staff, who rarely put me right) is impressive, even on a Sunday. But this is one of the few occasions I’d recommend avoiding the bus if you can.
I'm attempting to write this while listening to episode one of the radio recording of I Am Legend, on iPlayer. This is not wise. I hate horror. I've heard two sentences so far and my heart rate is through the roof.
It's not just football where new coaches have an inexplicably rejuvenating, electrifying effect on failing teams.
But they pale in comparison with the performance of ice hockey's Romford Raiders tonight.
On Tuesday, they parted company with former coach Warren Rost. Rost, who used to be assistant coach at Slough (I interviewed him many times last season), had struggled at the club and they found themselves two points adrift at the bottom of the Premier League.
Later that same night, one of British hockey's stalwarts, Jesse Hammill, was announced as Rost's replacement. Hammill himself is from British Columbia but he's spent years playing for teams in Milton Keynes, Basingstoke and Peterborough. Now, he found himself tasked with elevating Romford from tenth (i.e. last) to at the very least eighth, which would be good enough to get the team into the all-important play-offs in April.
Hammill (centre right in the photo above, which shows him playing for MK Kings about seven years ago) took charge of his first game tonight, at Bracknell.
The Bracknell Bees are fifth in the division, on the cusp of the top four, and are one of the Premier League's great mysteries. These days they appear to be well-run, play out of a good, well-maintained rink with two tiers of seats and a healthy helping of dedicated fans, and have a squad containing some top-quality players.
But they remain the Manchester City of ice hockey, minus the half-a-billion dollars. There is absolutely no consistency and their Bracknell rink - "the Hive" to fans - is where they are often at their worst, even though it should be a fortress.
Young goalie Tom Annetts, who's increasingly challenged the established number one Gregg Rockman to start matches this year, got the nod for the Bees tonight. He had a shaky game against Sheffield recently and Romford, bottom of the league, might have proved a confidence booster.
Not so. Just three minutes into the game, Annetts came out to gather the puck and scooped his clearance straight to Romford forward Andrej Sporina. All Sporina had to do was flip the puck back into the empty net, and Romford took an unlikely lead. Five minutes later they were two goals ahead and, by the end of the second period, they had somehow opened up a 5-1 advantage, Sporina completing his hat-trick.
The Raiders won the game 6-3, Bracknell's late resurgence tempered by an empty-net Romford goal (the Bees having withdrawn their goalie in order to gain an extra attacker) in the dying seconds. It is a scoreline that not even the most optimistic Romford fan would have predicted.
While I was commentating in the third period, a Bracknell fan sent me an email. How could I explain this result? What had Bracknell done that caused them to capitulate to the league's lowliest side in such embarrassing fashion?
I stalled on that question for a few minutes, but even when I eventually tried an answer, I couldn't really decide what to say. I doubt I'm alone either - I reckon Bees player-coach Adam Bicknell will be searching for an answer too.
Bracknell weren't particularly dire tonight. I've seen them play much worse (a 1-0 defeat to Sheffield earlier this season, easily one of the most tepid, forgettable encounters any sport has ever offered to humanity, springs to mind), and yet tonight's result is beyond bad.
Had Stoke beaten Liverpool 4-1 today, that'd be about the footballing equivalent. There would be an inquest at Anfield, as assuredly as there will be at the Hive. A quick scan of my Facebook news feed shows Bees fans demanding the team take "a long, hard look at themselves". Fans on The Hockey Forum (British ice hockey's greatest resource) are at a loss too.
I spoke to Jesse Hammill after the game. He was, of course, in high spirits, but admitted the turnaround wasn't as easy as him turning up, then Romford becoming world-beaters overnight. His target is winning sixteen games by the end of the season, which Hammill reckons will be enough to overhaul Wightlink and Swindon (ninth and eighth respectively) and reach the play-offs.
(Superbly, his dad David had been emailing the broadcast from Vancouver throughout the match. The great joy of commentating on these games is the regularity with which players' families listen in - whenever Bracknell or Slough play Peterborough, Brent Gough's family in the US say hello by email. Tom Annetts' mum is almost always listening, which made describing Tom's howler for Romford's first goal all the more painful.)
What had Hammill done in midweek to transform Romford from whipping boys to six-goal game-winning stars? The big decision seems to have been to restore Andrej Sporina from defence (where Rost had been playing him) to attack, and Hammill appeared in disbelief that Sporina had ever played anywhere else. That move was rewarded with a hat-trick.
But it's difficult to ascribe a thumping away victory at a team widely expected to trounce Romford to that one switch. From somewhere, a bizarre electricity has been infused into the team by the change of coach, just as Spurs jolted into life with Redknapp's arrival, and Blackburn regained consciousness with Allardyce on board.
Neither Allardyce nor Redknapp are great enough managers that teams become good overnight simply in their presence. Hammill has a fine pedigree in English hockey but I doubt he's got that midas touch either. No, he's just new. And new, in any sport, seems to buy that extra 20 per cent.
For how long, though? Hammill is going to need that 20 per cent to hang around for a good few months for Romford to stand a chance of the play-offs. The big test isn't winning tonight's game. It's winning tomorrow's at Swindon, then next week's, then five or six more before February is out, and seven or eight in March. As with everything in British ice hockey, it's going to be a bit of a slog.
Listen to live EPL ice hockey coverage from yours truly via the BBC Sport website. Click here for more details.
Yesterday, I popped down to Cornwall for the evening.
It’s both a great perk and an irony that living in Devon affords such impulsive jaunts to the duchy. For just £2.70, I can buy an off-peak return (tempting though it is to stay in Cornwall whenever you go), and be across the border in under ten minutes.
Ah yes, the border.
A couple of weeks ago I found myself following directions to a pub on the Devon bank of the Tamar, which separates the two counties. I couldn’t help but smile at the instruction to “turn left at the railway bridge” as Brunel’s famous Royal Albert Bridge began to hove into view, somewhere up there between the clouds and heaven.
With its 150th anniversary looming large in May, watch out for more about Royal Albert Bridge here soon.
And it was in the shadow of Brunel’s finest railway viaduct that I had most of my fun last night, this time on the Cornish side. The small village of Saltash is famous, not just for the viaduct, but for The Union Inn. And it’s easy to see why it might earn its place on the old fleshy tablets…
The plain, understated exterior décor gives enough of a clue to the fact that what goes on inside might be just a little bit special. And last night it was. Fluke, four Plymouth-based old rockers gave a spellbinding performance, including the meanest version of Joe Cocker’s “Delta Lady” you ever did hear.
I’m no connoisseur of live music, but I know an electric atmosphere when I feel one; and on a Friday night, with a pint of Sharp’s Nadalack (from cask out’back) in one hand, half a pint of cockles in the other, and Fluke playing loudly enough to make your organs shake, my £2.70 had done well.
There’ll be more from over the bridge soon. As Sybil herself says, “it’s so beautiful there”.
I'd called the tape up from our Windmill Road preservation archive the previous day, then hacked an action-packed race down to just three coarse but functional minutes.
That meant we could proudly deck out our article on the planning permission granted to renovate Donington (which inherits the British Grand Prix from 2010) with the video of the race. 1993 is the only previous occasion on which F1 has graced Donington. The picture at the top of this post shows Senna on a wet track that weekend.
It's really exciting to be able to unearth and publish classic video like this example. For the last few weeks most of my job has involved finding and editing the very best bits from the BBC's Formula One archive, and while the rights restrictions on when and where this stuff can be used are pretty darned detailed, we're now, at last, getting the opportunity to give some truly brilliant footage a new lease of life.
At least, it's really exciting for six more days, and then that's me done. My Formula One career comes to a quicker halt than that of Divina Galica as, via seven days spent up all night covering the Australian Open tennis, I make my way to BBC News.
The new job promises to be just what I'm after right now - a proper creative outlet, where the aim of the game is to generate ideas on a daily basis in rapid response to a changing news agenda, at the same time as developing longer-term projects.
The team I'm joining comprises journalists, designers and developers, who between them put together things like maps, charts, explainers and, really, anything out of the ordinary you find on the BBC News website.
The best part for me will hopefully be the chance to work more with science, environment and technology stories, which I enjoy - but I'll confess I've quickly grown attached to the F1.
It feels as though everybody is embarking on a great mission into the unknown now that the BBC has the rights back, and a big part of me would have loved to have gone on that journey (both literally and metaphorically speaking).
But you cannot, alas, have it all, and from the beginning of next month I'll take on a level of responsibility with creativity hard-wired into the job spec. No complaints there. Question is, do I now go to work in a suit and tie each day?
Perhaps my favourite gift of 2008 arrived on Christmas Eve, a day I got to enjoy one of life’s little triumphs against the bad guys.
I well remember my first encounter with The Clifton Pool in Bristol. Along with University pals, I’d just signed up for a year’s tenancy in a house seven doors away. Intrigued by the long, tatty wall at the bottom of the street, I googled “Southleigh Road + derelict” to see what appeared. To my surprise, I discovered our new neighbour to be one of the most original Victorian swimming baths in existence – not only a lucky though derelict survivor, but one threatened with imminent demolition.
Until that moment, I’d not been aware of the plight of the Great British Lido in general, threatened to within an inch of its deep end by more lucrative developments, in this case housing.
But its story was entirely analogous with the loss of other buildings I cared about, and with the late Clifford T Ward’s beautiful “The Best is Yet to Come” spilling from the speakers of my PC, I instantly made it a priority to involve myself with an active residents’ group to save the Clifton Pool.
In a campaign that stretched from physically restraining demolition men, to site occupation, and ultimately slapping a Grade II* listed building status on the site, I like to think I played my small part. As well as attending all the meetings and writing all the letters, it was a regular mention on my student radio show, to the point that the students’ union at one point even seriously considered moving its own swimming pool there.
At the time I left Bristol, the future was looking more promising, with the erstwhile soulless Sovereign Housing (who, by the way, would have sold their grandmothers [and their granny-flats] to see the pool filled in – so much for a community minded organisation) being forced by English Heritage to consider the bids of those trying to sustain the site.
Eventually, a miraculous and successful bid was made by the Glass Boat Company to refurbish the pool as a leisure facility, and it would seem from my many visits to the site since 2004 that no expense has been spared in so doing.
As I turned the corner into Oakfield Place on Christmas Eve to see lights ablaze in the main building for the first time since 1990, I cried a small tear for such an amazing triumph. It is the real-life ‘Titfield Thunderbolt’ of the lido world.
The result is stunning – a modern renovation, but to the original specification. The old sun terrace now houses a restaurant and bar, and although we couldn’t quite run to the ex(t/p)ensive dinner menu (the pool does, as we used to stress at meetings, need to be sustainable), it makes for a great meeting place for drinks at lunchtime. The pool itself is well used, even in the sub-zero winter climes, and the new spa bath was packed when we visited in the new year.
So, it seems that dreams do come true at this time of year. As I enjoyed a celebratory Christmas Eve pint in The Victoria – the pub situated in the main Clifton Pool building, itself much revamped for the better – the words of Clifford T Ward echoed ever more ironic:
“We had all the magic to put us on our way…
But you know I’m right
When I say the best is yet to come.”
If you're reading via Facebook or an RSS reader, you'll miss all the video. Head to the full Dayorama site for the goodies.
Ooh, those pretentious types who spend their miserable student lives watching foreign films for no good reason. How they make my blood boil.
Or they did, until I became one of them. For in the most shocking and unnerving development in the field since I watched Y Tu Mama Tambien with a friend and her mother (yes, delicious, that irony, isn't it), I have watched not one but two foreign films this week.
And they were both brilliant, in very different ways.
Che: Part One is a masterpiece. I declare this having consulted no other reviews of the film, so I'm going out on a limb and may very well be the film's only fan. But to me it was everything about which cinema should be.
The film comes in at a pretty heavyweight two-and-a-half hours, but achieves the rare trick of making you forget how long you've been sat in your seat, suffering. Many times, even in good films, I have snuck a look at the time and wondered if things couldn't scurry along a tad. Not this time.
Che envelops you in your chair, overwhelming you with an intricately woven arsenal of fine camerawork out in the Cuban wilderness with Che the guerrilla, black-and-white artistry and black comedy with Che the elder statesman, and composed yet combative reflection with Che the interviewee.
That the film manages to flit effortlessly between these styles and stages of Che's life, without losing its thread, shows how deftly you get drawn in. Some of the camera angles do an intensely exciting job of placing you right there, in a revolution. Half the time you think you're watching a documentary. The rest of the time, you think they're your own recollections.
And of course you're not watching a documentary, because if you were, you'd be watching one of the most biased pieces of journalism ever made. This film relentlessly and openly glorifies Guevara and the revolutionaries, almost lending them a divine, righteous air which it's hard to believe everybody really felt at the time.
Moreover, every member of the ruling regime is portrayed as either a moron or a bastard. Their leaders are shown committing acts of cruelty, neglect and crass stupidity at every turn. And while I can well entertain that Batista's men struggled to match their wilier revolutionary counterparts, this sometimes descends to cartoon levels of black and white.
But then, it's make-believe. It's a biopic of a legend more than a memoir of a human being. And above all, it's a bloody good watch.
For me, the crowning glory was that Che turns out to be a dead ringer for my former colleague Graham - comparisons will shortly be drawn on Facebook.
The whole cast turn in fine, immersive performances, particularly Che's young revolutionary friend and future wife Aleida, but the finest cameo comes two-thirds of the way through the film, from a small black-and-white cat.
Che and Aleida are wandering through a darkened Cuban suburb when, in the background gloom, a cat strolls out towards the pavement. For the slightest moment Che obscures our view and then, an instant later, the cat is hurtling back into the shadows.
I would love to know the cat's thought process for that scene.
Maybe it had been expensively brought in from a Hollywood agency and was hitting its somewhat ostentatious marks to perfection, or maybe it was a local extra making an uncertain debut. Either way, it enters the record books as the least decisive cat in the history of film. Look out for it when you go.
Che is filmed in Spanish with rare English-language incursions and the rest subtitled. Swapping languages, our second foreign film of the week is a French comedy entitled Le Diner De Cons or, to translate, The Dinner Of Idiots (also known in English as The Dinner Game)
This is a very short film. At just over an hour, it's practically an extended TV episode, and almost all the drama occurs within the same four walls, so the budget can't have caused much consternation either.
It's best characterised as psychological slapstick. A man and his friends hold a weekly dinner where the aim is to invite along the biggest idiot you can find. Having apparently plucked a winner - a government worker with a penchant for matchstick architecture - our gentleman is systematically unravelled.
The ending veers disturbingly close to the kind of didactic, virtuous schmaltz nobody ever wants to see, but for the most part this is a surprisingly funny and captivating film. The English subtitles actually add something that may not be present in the original French, as though we Rosbifs are eavesdropping on those crazy continental types and their doomed, romantic lives.
The film is a good few years old so don't rush out looking for it down the Odeon, but do make time for it one evening when there's nowt better to occupy your time. The kind of DVD to leave lying around near the telly for that perfect nothing-to-do moment.
But for God's sake don't, whatever you do, watch Y Tu Mama Tambien with a friend's mother.
With the current cold snap (-12ºC down here in parts of Devon last night), the air is as laden with Winter clichés as it is with frosticles. It’s important we know from where they came.
That importance is echoed by Mark, who wrote to me recently, ostensibly from the “Global Warming Summit – Poland”, but more probably from Bristol - where he would have stood a better than a frozen cat in hell’s chance of hearing my show - and also where his ‘postcard’ received its stamp.
He writes, in block capitals (softened for your purposes):
“Dear David,
Saturday evening at 11.25pm, you said you saw a “brass monkey in tears”…
Are you aware a brass monkey is a tray used to hold cannon balls. These trays had 16 indentations to form the base of a cannonball pyramid. Brass does not stick or rust, but contracts much faster in cold weather. Indentations holding lower layer of cannonball pyramid would contract, and spill balls over men-of-war ships!”
Hence the expression; lest, like me, you should consider making crass allusions to monkeys losing their testicles on nine radio stations at once, you’d better remember it.
Just as it’s worth tucking Mark’s bonus information under your cap, admirably illustrated on the reverse of his ‘postcard’, informing us that “A fathom is six feet, two yards, or four cubits”.
These curious little gems, which are entirely in line with the spirit of the show as I hope it’s received, are a validation of everything I believe about the magic of radio. Read the address, and there’s no doubt this man’s onto me. In a way, it is just “a convenient truth” that I’m on his local radio station when I’m actually a hundred-odd miles away in Plymouth. But none of that matters; he still feels close enough to write to me on the back of a cereal packet.
In these cold times especially, that warms me a great deal.
To Mr. Charlie Chaplin, Sennet Studios, Hollywood, California.
Congrats stop. Have found only person in world less funny than you stop. Name Baldrick stop. Signed E. Blackadder stop. Oh, and put a P.S.: please, please, please stop.
In the good old days, communication had to be kept as brief and minimalist as was humanly possible for reasons of space. (Blackadder's telegram to Charlie Chaplin, above, being a prime example.)
Then, in the 1980s and 1990s, we suddenly started splurging words around with a boundless enthusiasm more usually associated with golden retrievers, on sighting other golden retrievers. Now, in the 21st century, we have rediscovered restraint with the advent of Twitter, which gives us 140 characters to do our worst.
Things have come full circle, and cricket coverage is a great example of this.
Think of Test Match Special and you'd probably associate it with some of cricket broadcasting's true legends - Blowers, Johnners, Aggers, CMJ et al. (Unless you've never listened to Test Match Special, in which case this post is probably going to leave you as bemused as this gent.)
Those broadcasters achieved their legendary status through an all-too-rare ability to be both loquacious and interesting. When cricket matches endured hours without play through rain or bad light, TMS ploughed on with conversations about anything and everything, interspersed with chocolate cake, pigeons and London buses. And people still listened to this all-day cricket broadcast, through entire days with no cricket to broadcast.
TMS, of course, lives on as an institution - the BBC signed a new deal for radio coverage just the other week - but the BBC Sport website has been trying new tricks to expand Test Match Special's portfolio.
The TMS blog has been in existence for a while, and maintains the programme's tradition of wielding words with relative abandon. But recently TMS trialled its own Twitter account, powered by producer Alison Mitchell, who found herself harking back to the grand old days of pithy updates squeezed into that 140-character limit. Here are a couple of examples from the summer's England-South Africa series:
Ejection Count: Stewards tell me 37 people ejected from Western Terrace so far... Around 45 yesterday and 62 on Friday. 9:13 AM Jul 20th
Add another pitch invader to that tally, and a female at that. She nearly took out Billy Bowden at the non-strikers end. 9:35 AM Jul 20th
Test Match Special's Twitter experiment has drawn to a close for the time being, but the purpose is obvious - add a bit of colour to the usual reporting. One thought per update, written in the informal style that's ever more popular in output like the BBC's blogs and live text commentaries.
Back in the 1930s, however, cricket reporters had to somehow crowbar an entire day's play into a similarly confined space. In the days before live coverage, these correspondents would cram three-word sentences, lacking any punctuation, into cables despatched from Melbourne back to Blighty for the cricketing faithful back home to consume.
Dan Hill, on his City of Sound weblog, has produced a wonderful piece explaining more about the ordeal faced by reporters, with superb pictures of the cables themselves, as sent back to Britain during the infamous Bodyline series.
The communications technology of the time attenuated the bandwidth available to the reporters to an almost unimaginable degree by today’s standards.
The reports are dispatched without punctuation and merely consists of two- or three-word phrases breathlessly running on after each other. But the action still comes through loud and clear nonetheless.
These raw transcripts of the cables are a supreme exercise in concision and compression. Here the content was compressed to fit the signal, and then expanded upon by broadcasters at the other end of the world. It's dependent on creative interpretation by humans, with the compressed signal only visible to the system, not the ultimate receivers.
Visit Dan's blog to see more of the original cables and read transcripts - with thanks to Dominic Sayers, who spotted Dan's article and posted it on Brightkite.
Personally, I wonder if the BBC would be better off using Twitter in much the same way the old cricket reporters used their cables, but with a 21st-century slant.
I can see a market for Twitter devotees to sign up and get regular, concise, no-frills updates. For example, you could ditch the fluff about the number of ejections and pitch invaders in favour of a score update and cable-style staccato summaries of play:
Lunch England 87/1 South Africa toiling in heat Cook caught 7 disappointing waft Bell 32 Strauss 39 commanding wicket fast but outfield damp
That's your 140 characters. A few of those with some colour updates thrown in, maybe?
And more importantly, it'd be great to see some of our Twitter-enabled reporters taking the time to sign up to other users' feeds and replying to messages sent to them using the service.
A quick look at the TMS Twitter feed tells me 459 people are still following the TMS account (despite half a year out of action) but, unsurprisingly, TMS itself is following... nobody.
Like many mainstream media incursions into social media, it's all a bit of a one-way street, and I think that needs to change.
But at the same time I don't for a moment blame the BBC and other media for not quite opening up to services like Twitter in the same way individuals engage with it.
The rules are a bit different - control over editorial is one big issue, of course, and bosses are reluctant (especially after 2008's various catastrophes) to allow anything remotely likely to skirt close to the edge, like questions and answers taking place on Twitter.
Then there are technical questions. In many cases Twitter accounts are set up by one person (often me!), used day to day by others, and occasionally even passed from person to person depending on who is down to do what on the rota.
How, in that environment, is responsibility assigned for which person signs the TMS Twitter account up to follow others, which persons replies to comments, etc? That's the kind of territory nobody has every really had to think about before.
But I don't think it should be too tough a nut to crack either, and I think the benefits would be superb. Sooner or later I'd love to see a reporter at a big event dedicated to a service like Twitter, providing a stream of updates and engaging with all feedback. If someone asks a good question, go and find the answer. If another person says they've spotted something of interest on the far side of the ground while watching on TV, go there and find out more.
Essentially you'd become the people's reporter, and I think that sort of thing is what could continue to set the BBC apart from others, in that we're often prepared to be that open. And it would all be in the same spirit of concise dissemination that's evident in those 80-year-old cables.
I can't remember the last time I saw a new musical.
By new, I mean new to me. Wicked has been around for a few years now on Broadway and in the West End, and like Avenue Q, I've been wanting to see it for ages. But musicals are something I seem to forever aspire to see, without actually making the time.
That changed last night at the Apollo Victoria theatre, ostentatious green neon-bathed home to the production, opposite Victoria station.
And what a production Wicked is. I say this as probably the least clued-up punter in the building, mind you. Not only do I see roughly one musical a decade, I've never seen the film of the Wizard of Oz, read the books or anything - all I know is that witches, a girl, a dog and a tornado were involved, and the Wicked Witch of the West wasn't very nice.
Wicked, of course, turns that whole concept on its head, giving us her side of the story. The original book, published in the mid-90s, differs somewhat from the musical version (I've not read the book either, I'm working off plot summaries here), but the simplified tale of the musical is captivating, funny, clever and concise. You won't need to start drawing vast family trees to follow the action, and you won't be straining to hear barely intelligible lyrics to work out what's going on.
In fact the voices are superb, particularly Elphaba. If I could afford to squander half my monthly salary on a programme I'd tell you who played her, but as it is I'll just have to remain ignorant for now. I will try to find out though, because both her stage and singing voice were spectacular. And from the dress circle she looked pretty dazzling for a green woman. (I've always been a fan of the pointy-hat black look. It's a wonder I'm not a goth.)
My one gripe would be the Wizard himself, who was played by a genial enough gent who had the ideal look for the part - but a bizarre voice which strayed from plummy Brit to chummy American and back, even throwing in a Steve McClaren Dutch accent once or twice. Elphaba (as the Wicked Witch is known to family and friend) knocked spots off him, not only magically but dramatically too.
The production we saw even managed to overcome a 10-minute stoppage for technical difficulties midway through the first half. A bookcase steadfastly refused to be automatically wheeled off the stage (presumably done using magnets or something under the floor?), and so the curtain unceremoniously plunged down over the action, even as the performers gamely tried to press on with an outdoor scene despite the incongruity of a bookcase in a market square.
Standing ovations all round at the finale, which added a new twist not found in the book and certainly not anticipated by yours truly - though if I were better-schooled in Disney-esque musical endings I'd probably have seen it coming.
It's all a nice little allegory for the 21st century in its own way. The central thrust of the musical (and book) is that the Wicked Witch of the West is only wicked because she is portrayed as such by others with vested interests. In reality, she was a perfectly decent person struggling to cope with the rejection, betrayal and ignorance of others. And she only got arsey with Dorothy because she nicked her sister's shoes, while the lion, tin man and scarecrow were a series of tragic errors.
In other words, this is the kind of production the famed Iraqi Information Minister, Muhammad Saeed al-Sahhaf, might have knocked together. (Others might suggest, by way of balance, that it's the kind of production Tony Blair could easily have penned too.) It is also nice to see Wikipedia listing Wicked as "revisionist". Oh to have written a book so good that, 90 years later, the terminology of historians begins to apply to its plot!
I think Wicked's West End run has been extended to September this year and will surely go on past that. Just as anything with a pulse appears to have been to Avenue Q and come back raving about it, I'd say this one is a must-see. And now I get the pleasure of watching The Wizard Of Oz as a never-before-seen sequel...
I've never easily tolerated Mac users or indeed anything Apple.
I can accept that iPods are worthwhile additions to some people's lives, and yes, video is easier to edit in Final Cut Pro on a Mac than it is in Avid on a PC.
But that doesn't make up for the deeply abrasive holier-than-thou attitude of the company, the mindless white box worship of a good 90 per cent of its customers (many of whom have no better reason for owning a Mac than not liking Bill Gates' face), and what I can now reveal to be the god-awfulness of its Apple Store in the Westfield shopping centre.
Apple have tried to revolutionise the way you shop, but they neglect to tell you this while you are trying.
I'd gone in for a headphone splitter jack, since MicroAnvika had sold out. (And their staff were about as helpful as a sparrow in your underpants, but I digress.) I found the right product fairly quickly, and turned to pay.
But where the hell do you pay? There was nothing that looked like a till, just something called a "Genius Bar" at the back of the room, with five or six members of staff engrossed in conversation with wide-eyed customers.
It transpired that there was one stealth till, tucked away at the far end of the "Genius Bar". No "Pay Here", no signs at all, just a tell-tale queue to give the game away.
I waited in the queue for ten minutes without moving, as the two gents behind the stealth till struggled to sort out a problem for the customer at the front. (Is that not what the Genius Bar is for? Why had he come to the Reasonable Degree From a Former Poly Bar?)
Finally another member of staff came along the line, asking if anyone would like to pay by card. Fine by me, so I paid with them instead.
Except it took five more minutes for my card to go through from his hand-held device and, most scarily of all, I was then asked to confirm my email address and postcode.
Now I can understand that this information is held on credit cards, in user accounts on the Apple website or wherever, but it still disturbs me a little to be confronted with my own email address in a shop when I'm just trying to buy a headphone jack. Shops like Curries and Comet used to always get you to give them the same information, and that always got to me, too. I just want the stuff. I don't want you to know where I live, I want the bloody stuff.
I'm far from prudish when it comes to sharing information and data online - I like to think I've got fairly sensible boundaries about where I put my private info and, at the same time, I accept that it's going to end up in quite a few places if I want to get much done.
But I'm not sure I should end up staring back down at my email and home address on some bloke's handheld computer, purely from the swipe of a credit card, when all I'm doing is buying one cheap product. I don't really want Apple to have that stuff. It's not the end of the world, sure, but for some reason that really put me off.
Lo, I return to my desk to discover that the receipt for the transaction (I did wonder why I hadn't been given one) has been emailed to me.
I get the idea. This is supposed to make shopping faster and more efficient. But if I'm a little apprehensive as a relatively technologically-minded man in his mid-20s, then there are going to be people out there a damn sight more confused about how the Apple Store suddenly knows where they live and how to contact them, when all they wanted were some earphones.
Most importantly, if you want to change the way we pay for our goods, you have to tell us. It's no use having a big shop full of customers on the first day of trading in the entire year, and having just one till open, with no signs and nobody explaining that things here are different. I'm sure we are expected to go up to any assistant if we want to pay - the idea being how easy that makes life - but not if we're never told that is the plan.
You'd think a company like Apple would have that kind of basic communication sorted.
Er, happy new year then! New year's resolution: join a band again.
