*Yes, we sometimes give ratings
to days or weeks. It all harks back to our beginnings.
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.
When I wrote about Ceefax the other day, I hadn't realised one of our regular readers is capable of reeling off The Story Of Ceefax from memory.
So I was mildly surprised to find Carl, whose comments you might have spotted before, had written a comment as long as your arm beneath my pitiful Ceefaxy offering.
There's some cracking information in this so I've reprinted the majority of it here, since it deserves a slightly wider audience (the three people who read Dayorama as opposed to the one person who checks the comments).
Here we go then. I present The Life And Times Of Ceefax, by Carl...
"Ceefax (and indeed any other teletext services) pages are composed of a 40x24 screen. This translates to a row of text 40 characters across the screen, with 24 rows in total, plus an extra row for the Fastext (coloured) options on the very last line, making it 40x25 really.
"All tetetext services (and indeed Ceefax) are transmitted digitally over the analogue signals in the hidden areas of the picture. These are the parts of the picture, just beyond the top and bottom of the TV screen that you cannot see. On TVs made before the 1990s or so, it was possible for the viewer to adjust the picture, and it was here that the normally invisible parts of the picture could be made visible by adjusting the vertical hold, etc. Teletext services can be seen as little dancing lines at the top of the picture – very strange looking!
"There is no technical reason why teletext services cannot continue after digital switchover, and teletext services have been digital since their inception anyway! Indeed, some satellite and cable channels operate small services on digital platforms.
"However reliable it is, it’s often not a good idea to use teletext services to check your lottery numbers. The reason for this is that errors can sometimes occur, leading to the occasional character not being displayed at all, or perhaps even the wrong character! This does not happen with the newer interactive services, like BBCi, but they’re not quite as fun at times, or nearly as accessible or fast. Teletext services have a whole 7 megabits of capacity all to themselves!
"I know all of this off by heart – I didn’t look it up! How sad! Well, I have always wanted to be an ICT teacher. Why I do know these terribly nerdy facts about Ceefax? Well, I once edited pages like this, though these were viewed by around 1,000 or so people, not several million! This was in the heady days of the early 1990s – well, up until 1994 actually – where my secondary school run its own internal Ceefax-like service. We called this “Noticeboard”.
"In those days computers started up almost immediately, and after pressing a red function key, one was quickly presented with the main Noticeboard page. From here, you would enter a three-digit page number that would take you to any number of pages of information. In fact, we had hundreds! Pages included sports pages (the school was and still is recognised for its sports activities), a ‘home page’ for each form, fun facts, quizzes… all sorts.
"Lots of fun in those days, though it had to be shut down in mid-1994, when the BBC network was finally switched off and we moved to an all-PC network. I had the grand title of... wait for it... "Acting Deputy BBC Network Manager". Beat that!"
First things first, before I present to you a short but significant scientific paper. You can now find some photos from Tuesday's archery filming on the BBC Sport Flickr page (which you should visit often, hitting 'refresh' many times on each occasion). The shot of an arrow piercing a watermelon is the star of the show, although you should also see what an amazing day it was outside - despite being bitterly, bitterly cold.
Right then. Time to blind you with some science, for I have discovered an entirely new scientific principle that I like to call the Williams Loop of Futility. Here it is:
We'll get to the minutiae of how this loop is produced very shortly. The Williams Loop of Futility serves to embody what, precisely, it means to be a member of the barnstormingly fallible, transient, intransigent species that is the human race.
Let us pick on a specific and perhaps representative example of the breed, a man who, on a Sunday evening, must drive his car from his home near Oxford to another house in the town of Yateley. It is a fifty minute drive from door to door on a good day. Today is a good day.
The following morning, our man must make his way from this latter house to his place of work in London. However, he cannot take the car with him. He must either drive the car all the way back to a car park near his home in Oxford, then take a coach all the way back down the same motorway again and into London; or leave the car at the house in Yateley and travel in by train, returning for his car later on.
Our man chooses the second option and takes the train on the Monday morning. However, to complicate matters, he is then driven to Shropshire in another car, where he stays overnight. He leaves Shropshire in the same car at 5pm the following day.
He must now collect his car and return to the original house to sleep. But how?
Well, we watch as, at 7.45pm, he is dropped off at a park and ride near Oxford - just ten miles from his house. However, the car has yet to be retrieved.
With no money about his person, he uses his Oxford Tube bus pass to cadge a lift on a returning coach into the centre of town, and walks to the train station, where he buys a ticket for the slightly delayed 8.15pm service to Bournemouth, calling at Basingstoke.
The train arrives at Oxford fifteen minutes late, and reaches Basingstoke station by 9.22pm. Spotting his connecting train waiting at an adjacent platform, our human guinea pig pegs it through the underpass like a man possessed, throws himself onto the train as the doors close, and finds himself fifteen minutes later on the platform at Fleet station.
Having by now found a cashpoint he lobs a ten pound note into the hand of a taxi driver and is soon reunited with his car, with the time standing at just gone 10pm. A short while later, with the car de-iced and its driver refuelled on a little pasta inside the house, the final leg of the journey - a three-motorway trek back towards Oxford - may be completed.
And, as car and driver arrive just ten miles away from their starting point at 11.20pm, taking over three and a half hours to replicate what is normally a fifteen minute drive, the Williams Loop of Futility is complete:
Let the Williams Loop of Futility stand as testament to the only species on Earth that could conjure up such an insanely complicated method of going ten miles down the road back to its resting place. Never again. Never again. (Until this Sunday.)
Cheltenham Town striker Steve Gillespie and I get along quite well.
The deal is this: whenever I turn up to watch Cheltenham at their home ground, Whaddon Road, Steve scores a goal for me.
He did it against Scunthorpe last season (although admittedly he got himself sent off afterwards), and yesterday he did it again, scoring the only goal to record a thrilling, historic victory over fallen giants Leeds United.
Except - if you were listening to BBC Radio 5live for your score updates, you'd have had a slightly different impression of the game.
First, watch this video we filmed from the halfway line. It shows a Leeds United disallowed goal.
You can tell the goal will not stand because the disembodied figure of Amy Jones, self-appointed number one Cheltenham fan, hoves into view within a second of ball hitting net. Lo and behold, there is the linesman, flag raised aloft. No goal.
A shame BBC reporter Simon Mann didn't have Amy to help him out...
"We've all been there," says Eleanor Oldroyd in incredibly patronising fashion. There will have been heads hung low in the Mann household yesterday evening. Unlucky, son. And there is a scoreboard, too...
It takes me five hours of travelling each day - two and a half hours each way, door to door - to get to and from the office, now that I'm working in London.
That includes four hours of coach travel a day. If on-demand downloadable television hadn't been invented, I don't know how I'd cope.
I used to think on-demand TV (like the BBC's iPlayer and Channel 4's 4OD) was a bit gimmicky, and that nobody really wanted to watch stuff whenever they felt like it. What would be the point? It'd be a phenomenal waste of time.
But then I discovered it proves incredibly handy for passing time on a coach and, in fact, makes you feel like you're making use of time you'd otherwise waste. Now, each night, I go to iPlayer and 4OD and make sure I've got at least three hours of brand new telly on my laptop ready for the morning, plus a DVD or two for good measure.
This week's menu has been:
Tuesday: QI, Family Guy, Have I Got News For You, Film 2007 Wednesday: Family Guy, Outtake TV, Top Gear Thursday: Cranford, Family Guy, Sound Friday: Waterloo Road, Cranford, Peep Show, The £800,000,000 Railway Station
Funny how shows like Cranford, the new BBC period drama with a hint of comedy, suddenly appeal when you know you can watch them at your leisure. I wouldn't have touched that with a bargepole if sat at home in front of the box. But stick me on a crowded coach in Friday evening rush-hour traffic, and escape to a Cheshire village in 1842 has a remarkable quality to it. And what a first episode, too! Loved it.
Already I'm planning next week's schedule - see, they talk about this in terms of "let the audience create the schedule", and they're actually bloody right!
The first three episodes of new Channel 4 series Nearly Famous, alongside a documentary on the Antarctic, another episode of QI and the latest Film 2007, are all ready and waiting. Plus I'll be having episode two of Cranford on Sunday night, and anything else that looks tasty.
Then, come another 5.30am start on Monday, I'll settle back, relax, and watch the telly I was too knackered to stay up for all last week. And anyway, why on earth would you want to watch telly when the broadcasters tell you to? Funny how a little experience can change an opinion, isn't it.
My first week in my new job has reached its conclusion and, for the first time in over a year, I actually know what it is to have 'that Friday feeling'.
Now that I work - gasp - a normal 9-to-5 Monday-to-Friday week, it means the coach journey back home on Friday evening is a cause for minor celebration. It's not that I don't like the new job - far from it - but the prospect of a couple of days without five hours' commute is a nice thought, as is tomorrow's ice hockey commentary and a trip to see Cheltenham v Leeds on Sunday.
Anyway, given I've not stopped by since Tuesday's car crash, I should get that out of the way first. I'm fine, no lasting damage, and the car is going in for repairs early next week. It has remained perfectly driveable so the damage is purely aesthetic (I've been searching for that word all week and only now have I remembered it). The only enduring effect, in fact, is a newfound paranoia when changing lanes. I now require at least two miles' open road in either direction before pulling out, and exist in a state of neurosis whereby I'm sure my wing mirrors move whenever I'm not looking directly at them. This may require therapy, or a good slap.
At work things are going well, although it is difficult to overstate quite how different my day job now is, despite the fact that I am technically still exactly what I was before, an online sports journalist.
In the old job I'd come in and be racing against time all day long in some shape or form - meeting deadlines with sports bulletins and programmes, getting interviews online as soon as possible, driving to outside broadcasts and interviews.
In the new job I turn up and then sit and have a very good, long think. Thinking was a sport reserved for the car on the way to interviews when I was doing radio; the concept of taking time to just think in the newsroom never, ever materialised.
But now I'm tasked with getting things right for our main Olympics website, which means it's my job to come up with ideas, flesh those ideas out, then find the people who can turn them into a reality.
When you're reading sports bulletins the deadlines come every half an hour or so - now, the ultimate deadline is ten months away, which means it's a very different mindset. Suddenly I find myself having to create, and dream up, my own workload, rather than arriving at work knowing what I've got to do. It's like having to come up with hurdles to throw in front of yourself, then working out how to leap over them.
The good thing is, when you're setting your agenda, you can make it pretty interesting. Today's been about working out how we're going to make the best out of social networking over the next year - in other words, going through sites like Bebo and Facebook, trying to work out what we could offer that people would want to consume via social networking sites. It's odd to spend your day trying to surf Facebook with a purpose, rather than in the usual aimless fashion.
But now, for the whole weekend, I'm going to forget about that and actually enjoy the idea of a Saturday and Sunday off. Well, except for the ice hockey on Saturday night. But that's hardly a chore, now, is it?
What a week it's been so far, and it's about to get even hairier. Believe me, I have very good reasons for having been largely absent recently. Here's a quick run-down:
Saturday
Sam and I went to watch the Basingstoke Bison play ice hockey. We turned up in the arena car park a good 90 minutes before the start where, to my surprise, Sam transformed herself into The Knowledge Of Basingstoke and guided us straight into a Frankie & Benny's. This was a result. In a bizarre twist, I found myself putting up half-hearted arguments for not having the enormous sharing platter to start - Sam insisted. That, too, was a result.
It was a result for the Bison, who also went home happy having stuffed the Sheffield Steelers 6-3. Great game, some of the best ice hockey the Bison have played in yonks if you believe fans on the message boards. Ice hockey is an incredibly under-rated spectator sport although, having said that, watching the announcer at the Bison is also an under-rated spectator sport. He was playing everything from Backstreet Boys to Paddington Bear (or similar), and going mental with delight whenever the audience clapped along. He was the Keith Chegwin of ice hockey.
Monday
If ice hockey was my 'home' fixture, ballet on Monday night was definitely the 'away' leg. We ended up in the Hexagon in Reading to see the Moscow Ballet perform Sleeping Beauty.
We were underwhelmed.
For me it just wasn't quite as graceful as you'd imagine. Dancers missed the musical cues by split seconds, everyone looked a teensy bit wobblier than was strictly necessary, and it was all acted out with a lack of emotion bordering on the mechanical.
Then again, this was a one-night-only whistlestop show in a middling English town from a ballet troupe who, for all I know, could be the ballet equivalent of going to see the Cheeky Girls at Butlins. I may be expecting a little too much if I judge ballet as an entity based on this one performance. I'd like to go to a top notch venue and see the undisputed heavyweights of the ballet world (if that's not an oxymoron) to compare and contrast.
The best entertainment of the night came before curtain-up, when I reached my seat seconds before a gentleman with the exact same ticket. "I should have run faster," he jokingly declared as he went off to fetch a steward. "Yes," I helpfully added, faking laughter and defending my seat with my life.
Speaking of the curtain, the man operating the giant red drapes is clearly not paid overtime. His curtain work was abrupt to say the least! At the end of the second act, the ballerina playing Sleeping Beauty had barely jumped into Prince Charming's arms when the curtain snapped shut in their faces. There was certainly no dwelling on the emotion of the moment! But then as there was no emotion either, that's probably just as well.
Tuesday
So which smart-arse decided lacrosse would be a good sport to take up? Me, that's who. The lacrosse team came into the studio, convinced me to give it a go, and I signed up for training on Tuesday nights.
Sam - labouring under the illusion that it couldn't get more painful than the acting in the ballet - accompanied me down to training with the Reading Wildcats, on a slightly damp but bearable evening.
It got a whole lot less bearable the moment I took to the tennis courts being used for training. Lacrosse stick in hand, I was thrust into the deep end, immediately joining a passing drill where I was streets behind absolutely every other player. "Novices welcome", the website will tell you, but you do need a fairly thick skin to survive constant failure in the face of people who've played for years!
That said, I'd hate to give the wrong impression. Everyone was very helpful, chiming in with hints and tips, and soon I was catching a good two-thirds of balls flung at me, even if my passing still leaves heaps to be desired. But then, as one new team-mate told me: "Think how many times you've kicked a football in your life. Now how many times have you picked up a lacrosse stick?"
In other words, it's going to take time. Having been thrust into a 3-on-2 attack-on-defence drill, I was hauled out by our North American coach Jared, who wisely spotted that I haven't the slightest how to defend in lacrosse. It got slowly better. Who knows - in months to come I may actually develop into a half-decent player. Certainly in the social game at the end, Sam and I both had clear scoring chances - her shot was fierce, on target and unlucky to be saved; mine bounced five feet over the top of the net from two yards out.
Wednesday
Everything hurt on Wednesday morning, most notably my back and shins - but there's no rest for the wicked, nor those suffering the after-effects of an evening's lacrosse, so into London I went for a meeting with the BBC Sport Interactive team.
I've been harping on about minority sports to anyone who will listen for months now, so to placate me a lady named Claire (who writes for the BBC Sport Editors' blog here) invited me to participate in a meeting in which the bbc.co.uk/sport team planned their coverage for the 2008 Olympics.
Obviously I've neither the memory nor the permission to elaborate on many details here, but it was extraordinarily interesting and great to be a part of the thought process. Staggeringly, my flood map made it into Claire's starting presentation about new ways of covering events, and she didn't even realise it was my baby! I was extremely chuffed by that. So chuffed that, in an incredibly sad moment, I took a crappy surreptitious phone camera shot of the meeting room:
Ahem, yes, so moving on. Very interesting to see the Sport Interactive newsroom, with neat frosted glass into which the BBC Sport logo is etched, at the very heart of Television Centre. I could put up with spending considerably more time in there, it must be said.
Friday
Has only just started, and it's another big day for reasons I can't really explain yet. (I know, everyone hates the pillock who builds artificial suspense for no good reason). So I'd better be getting some sleep. Good luck to Amy J by the way, who has a job interview coming up later on...
Life in the front line as a public sector worker has to be fairly tough. But sometimes you have to wonder if they make it even harder for themselves.
Last night, going to the Barbican to see the theatre group Complicite, my travelcard refused to work at the tube barriers at Paddington.
I went up to the gentleman operating the swing barrier and said: "Excuse me, sir - can I get through with this?", producing the ticket at the same time.
"I'm sorry?" Said the man.
"Can I get through with this?"
"Do you mean, 'It's not working'?"
"Well I don't know, I don't think it is..."
"So 'It's not working'. Not difficult is it?" He said, voice laden with sarcasm, opening the barrier for me. "Hey!" I said, wanting to go back and have my say on this.
"No, it's easy, you just say it's not working," he said, dismissing me.
Well he can dismiss me all he likes but, like every member of the blogosphere, I can damn well vent my self-righteous anger to all twelve people who will accidentally visit my weblog while trying to find something else.
I mean, how in God's name is his version more polite than mine? My version had a polite introduction, followed by a polite question and the production of my (valid) ticket. His version required me to grunt, "It's not working," in his general direction.
I get the feeling that if I'd gone up and said, "Excuse me, sir, but my ticket's not working," he'd have said: "What you mean is, 'Can I get through with this?'"
Anyway, short of writing what passes for a three hundred word electronic sigh, there's very little I can do. The performance, on the other hand, was magical.
Complicite had devised a show all about an Indian mathematician who travels to Cambridge University in the 1930s. It's admittedly an unlikely scenario for a two-hour stage drama, played out on a set comprising a whiteboard, a projector and the occasional video sequence of a train or an Indian city, but it worked brilliantly.
The acting was first class, the set ingenious, and the environment ideal. The only mild complaint I'd have is an echo of the thoughts expressed, loudly, by one of the sixth form girls who'd crowded the row to my right. When the show finished she bellowed: "So are we supposed to understand what the hell that was all about?"
For all the fantastic scenes, clever acting and spontaenous eruptions of dance, music, verve and intrigue, it was bloody hard to make sense of what was going on. The Indian mathematician made irregular appearances but was outdone by what were apparently a modern-day couple, a hedge fund operator and a lecturer.
By the end the lecturer had died of a brain haemorrhage on a train (I'm not spoiling the ending, this will be the least of your worries by the end of the show if you go to see it), the man has taken her maths books to India to throw them in a river, and back in the 1930s the Indian mathematician has also bought the proverbial farm.
But no one seemed to be entirely sure what all this was telling us. Nominally the whole show was about string theory, infinity, sequences of numbers and all kinds of other equations. However at no stage was anything profound ever revealed, mathematical or otherwise. I came away feeling like I must have missed the point on at least one level if not more.
Despite that I really enjoyed myself. It sounds silly to say but even though I don't have a clue what I am supposed to have taken from that performance, I'd go again. In fact I might have to go again about nine times to fully appreciate what I'm watching. Maybe that's a good thing.
Last night was another ice hockey commentary, and what a game - a 7-7 tie after three periods, which went into overtime and then penalties.
I was commentating on my own (my colleague Andy was working on the football coverage back in Caversham and couldn't make it in time, so he presented from the studio during the breaks) and that meant holding the fort on a three hour broadcast, covering one of the fastest non-motorised sports on the planet. My voice was already going by the end of the first period - when I realised we were going into extra time, my voice box was serving the last of its notice.
It was a fantastic game and an amazing privilege to be commentating live. Even though it was only the second game I've done, I doubt I'll get another game like it. But as I mentioned last time round, iit's the comments people leave on forums during and after the games that really make it worthwhile.
Over on the away team's forum it transpired that a few fans were chatting away all night while listening to the commentary at home. They thanked us for being impartial (something we didn't quite achieve last time!) and seemed delighted with the service.
But on the main hockey forum - dubbed, cleverly, The Hockey Forum - you can read the response of real, dedicated ice hockey fans, some with decades of loyalty to the game under their belts. It's quite daunting to think that some of these people are tuning in to hear me, alone on a gantry above the ice, trying to keep them interested. Obviously it helps when there's 14 goals - God help me when it's nil-nil going into the final period.
The reaction's generally been good though. One person emailed the show to say it was the best radio sport they'd heard in years! I'm not sure it deserved quite that accolade but it's hard not to swell with pride when you read something like that. Another fan says:
"I was grateful for the commentary! So the guy does need to stick a thesaurus on his Christmas list (that'd be a brilliant present), but he's a good commentator and in time he'll be a good hockey commentator. If the coverage can keep me from leaving the room - even during the period breaks - they must be on to something.
How nice is that? A complete stranger tells the world they've got confidence in you to become a good hockey commentator. How kind to take the time to even commit that to the web. However, he does raise an issue others have mentioned, which is my hideous over-reliance on the word 'brilliant'.
Listening back to the highlights (here) it's fairly obvious, and it was probably worse live on air, but I never noticed it at the time. I was too busy trying not to make far greater mistakes! Here's me, the great Grammar Nazi who enjoys nothing better than lording it over others with a lesser grasp of the English language, and I can't find any synonyms in the memory bank for 'brilliant'. It's shameful.
With this in mind, for the next commentary on 6 October I'm going to institute a Brilliant Box. Between us, Andy and I will come up with some sort of forfeit for each time I use the word 'brilliant' during the commentary. I'm also going to sellotape a list of synonyms (marvellous, amazing, superlative, astonishing, spectacular, maybe even peerless) to the side of the gantry.
Not a bad way to improve in life though, is it? Have a go, then wait for anyone listening to let you know exactly what they thought. After the first game it was clear I hadn't researched the opposition well enough - solved most of that for this game. And next, we bump up the vocab a bit. And maybe after three years of this, I'll get to cover Great Britain at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics...
The online trainspotting wait continues for BBC News article number 7000000. It would appear that the numbers are assigned in a slightly irregular (but broadly chronological) format, so we have indeed reached the seven millions, but article number 7000000 itself has either not been assigned or not published.
The closest I can get so far is number 7000003, which takes the form of video highlights of Celtic against Inverness Caledonian Thistle.
Football placed highly in my list of odds as to what would constitute article number 7000000 but of course, this one is three out. So the wait continues. Not wishing to rock the boat for the defeatists among you, but not every number is used - so there is a chance there will never be a 7000000. Futility is all a question of perspective...
I suspect that only internet geeks of a certain persuasion, like myself, would either a) notice this or b) find it interesting, but I am about to indulge in the online equivalent of trainspotting.
The BBC News and Sport websites are only a few articles away from ticking over to 7000000.
If you look at the URL of any BBC article, it contains a seven-digit number which in essence ticks up sequentially whenever a journalist fires up a new one.
The Northern Rock article dominating the news front page is number 6999615. Over on the sport front page, a Muttiah Muralitharan article on the ticker is 6999629.
By tomorrow late morning or afternoon, unless the numbering system used in CPS (the content management system news and sport employ) resets to some other figure, we should hit 7000000.
But what will article number 7000000 feature? I reckon the odds would look a bit like this:
5/1 - Northern Rock
6/1 - Liberal Democrats
7/1 - Gordon Brown
8/1 - Football
10/1 - Cricket
10/1 - Rugby
12/1 - George W. Bush
18/1 - Foot-and-mouth
25/1 - Weather or climate change
33/1 - McLaren
50/1 - Amy Winehouse
66/1 - Facebook
100/1 - William Hague
10,000/1 - Dayorama
We shall see. Wake up tomorrow morning and start checking URLs! Oh go on. It'll be fun. Fine... I'll have all the fun then.
Things need to change. Many, many things need to change, in fact, but the world is so large, and the list so long, that I'm prioritising the things I can actually do something about.
Number one: I need to go to more interesting things. Now I already do a good line in interesting sporty things, and the occasional interesting newsy thing, but cultural things are I'm afraid a dead loss. About three years ago I went to the Museum of London of my own accord, on my own, and that was probably the last proper outing my brain received.
The solution is to go and see Complicite, recommended by my lovely friend Lucy May, who (prior to becoming a broadcast journalist) was a dancer and general arty person. She retains a commanding knowledge of all things arts and highly recommends Complicite, who are performing at the Barbican til early October.
From what I can gather I'll be in for a sort of extended story told through the medium of dance, where everyone is aware of each other's space apparently, which puts me in mind of a shoal of fish. Here is the blurb from the booking page:
"This is a story about connections between ideas, cultures and times. In London a man attempts to unravel the secrets of his lover. In Bangalore a woman collapses on a train. In Cambridge in 1914 Englishman GH Hardy seeks to comprehend the ideas of the Indian prodigy Srinivasa Ramanujan."
Cripes. I don't get that at the ice hockey. I'm already full of eager anticipation.
Oh and thing number two on my list of things to change is the amount of sport I play, which currently stands at nil. Speaking of ice hockey, it's on my list of potentials, although I need to learn to skate first (and thereby conquer the fear of skating I've had since crocking my ankle on a school trip nearly a decade a go). It's either skating or rowing but at least with skating there's less chance of sinking, unless global warming really does kick in.
It's been a whole seven days, if not more, since I last appeared here. That's probably some kind of record, but at least I can argue I've spent the week engaged in various worthwhile pursuits. Here's a rundown:
Sunday: Reading Festival winds down
That's the view late on Sunday night as BBC3's beautifully lit outdoor area stands empty. The backdrop takes the form of Reading Festival line-ups from previous years, which briefly caused me consternation when I saw Blur were top of the bill... albeit for 2003.
We finished the festival off with another quality live broadcast on Sunday evening, playing a Smashing Pumpkins track to round things off. Linda, the presenter, is going to be away for a couple of weeks in September... so guess who gets the gig of standing in for her?
Yep, I'm dusting off my music knowledge to present our new music show, including a live band in session each time. I've absolutely no idea how it's going to work but I'm really looking forward to it. Tune in on Sunday 16 and 23 September from 7pm.
Monday: What Bank Holiday?
I know there are a lot of people out there who work Bank Holidays. I tend to wear this as a bit of a badge of honour - the whole weekends and Bank Holidays thing - so the Monday was packed out with stuff to do.
By 11am I'd already been back down to the festival site to film the clean-up operation and the legions of dirty teenagers filing back down the road to waiting coaches, trains, and parents. The top one per cent had arranged to meet parents in the surprisingly deserted Waitrose car park, a mile's walk away but well away from the traffic. The remaining ninety-nine per cent were scrapping it out along the avenue right outside the festival gates.
Once inside (with security no longer an issue) I found myself a rubbish truck and started filiming the crew emptying sacks into it. These are standard shots for any regional news report: you can probably write the script yourself. "The clean-up has begun at Reading Festival this morning as eighty thousand rock fans leave the town.." etc.
Except I'll be taking £250 off You've Been Framed. One of the binmen picked up a huge black sack full of drinks cartons, empty food wrappers and such like, and swung it towards the truck. On the way, the sack broke, and his hapless colleague was showered in concentrated festival detritus. Needless to say, they didn't bother picking the debris up, and drove off.
In the afternoon I headed down the M25 to Sutton to watch Maidenhead United play. They recorded their first win of the season, 3-2, and we did live reports into our drivetime programme. It's remarkably easy to get just about anything on air on a Bank Holiday. Radio stations might as well not exist on public holidays - all the regular presenters are nowhere to be seen, so the stations tick over on anyone too slow to confirm their absence. As Richard Hammond said, sitting in on Radio 2, he was "cheap and available". I don't know if his definition of cheap matches our local radio definition, but the idea remains the same.
Tuesday: A Walk In The Life
As Amy knows, my dog Toby is a big fan of the sculpture trail that leads through the woodland a couple of miles away from our house. This was my first proper day off back here for a while so the priority was a good dog walk.
Toby had his usual half hour or so chasing tennis balls around a lush, green meadow near the woods, then as we headed back, we were intercepted by a young man with a number of clipboards. Turns out he's doing a survey about the woodland in the Chilterns for a degree at Reading University - he explained it in far better detail than that but I sort of lost the plot midway through and remain unsure as to what, precisely, I was contributing to. Either way, someone, somewhere, now knows I'd be prepared to pay a car parking fee for better upkeep of the woodland and initiatives aimed at preserving wildlife.
Later that day I got my hair cut, which I must say was quite incredibly overdue. The things hairdressers can remember continue to amaze me. Not only did mine recognise my voice on the phone (I, ashamedly, am still not sure of her name), remembered my job and even remembered that my friend Rita injured her knee in a bouncy castle-related incident two months ago. That's good going!
Wednesday: The Wedlock Stand
Sounds slightly dodgy, doesn't it? Like a market stall for mail-order brides. It's actually the comparatively harmless away stand at Bristol City FC, where my dad and I found ourselves for Wednesday night's Carling Cup game.
Our Blast reporter at work (a form of extended, in-depth work experience) is a Bristol City fan, so if Man City lost this one, I wouldn't be going back to work. Ever. Simple as that.
Happily we squeaked through 2-1, but since then we've lost at Blackburn. This slow degradation in form is funny in its own way, because if you read the online forums for Manchester City, they mirror the ones for Reading I'm so used to browsing. One moment fans are delighted to high heaven with the team - the next, every thread posted to the board is doom and gloom. Sadly my old plan of supporting whichever team is doing better has gone up in smoke, as they're both currently crap.
Thursday: Simpsons Movie
Not bad at all, this, but it doesn't at any point feel remotely like you're watching a movie. You can get a longer helping of The Simpsons just by sitting down in front of Sky One on a Sunday night, so despite the big screen, it's a glorified session in front of the telly. Don't misunderstand me though; that's no bad thing. This was a quality way to spend the 90 minutes or so. I keep insisting to myself that I should go to the cinema more often, but I fear this may have been another false dawn, and to my utter chagrin, Harry Potter goes unwatched...
Earlier in the day I nipped into work to sort some things out. Like Scrabble on Facebook, for example:
Says it all really, but how addictive is this game? Half the office is surreptitiously scrabbling away during quiet moments or lunch breaks. I even discovered today that a colleague has started a game between her, myself, and the man who edited our Reading Festival website! It's somewhat odd to feel like Scrabble is being used to break down borders and build relationships. I've also had my first two ever seven-letter words. You cannot overestimate the joy that brought. For the record, my first time was "PIONEER", followed by "AMPULES". Get in.
Friday: The Bash
Our managing editor had her leaving do on Friday night. You know it's going to be good when there is spare room in "The Lodge", a sort of miniature hotel-like chain of buildings near the entrance at work, each housing a number of universty-accommodation-esque rooms.
Naturally I chose to wear an eight foot multi-coloured sombrero to the evening, and was delighted to find the sombrero and I in the company of the chairman of Reading FC and the man in charge of all local radio sport across the country. I'm sure I made a good impression. I managed a second potential You've Been Framed entrant in a week, too, when filming my friend Emma on my mobile while she was sporting my sombrero. She went for a couple of drunken spins on the dance floor, collapsed, and ended up propped against a table with the sombrero at an angle, akin to a sleeping Mexican in a Speedy Gonzales cartoon. Nine seconds of pure joy.
Great mirth on our Friday night sports show earlier that evening, too - it turns out fans aren't the only ones confused by last-day transfer deals before the transfer window shuts on the top football clubs in the country.
We had Reading's Glen Little in the studio. During the conversation the name of fellow midfielder Seol Ki-Hyeon was mentioned. "He's gone, hasn't he?", said Glen. "Er, no," replied our presenter, Tim. "Oh," said Glen. "Must be, er, wrong about that one then!"
Naturally, hours later, Seol had left the club. One can only assume the club had told the players earlier in the day and Glen hadn't realised they were keeping it quiet til the deal had properly gone through. It's nice to receive the occasional inadvertent tip-off!
Saturday: Gently Down The A4
Saturday, on paper, was a relaxing day: in work, but no bulletin or programme responsibilities to maintain, so just a website shift.
In practice I slaved away all morning, bombed down the A4 to record a piece about Maidenhead United's historic football ground for BBC London's new non-league show, then bombed it back to film my adopted rowing crew in their grand finale back in Reading.
They came third out of nine - a fine effort - and at the end, someone came round with a clipboard persuading all the novice competitors to sign up permanently. I have to confess I was sorely tempted to volunteer. The atmosphere at the rowing club was electric and the sense of camaraderie among all the members is amazing. I'm going to give it serious thought. How hard can it, er, be?
Speaking of rowing, Bristol City-supporting Chris had his trial for the World Class Start programme today (Sunday). Because of his height (a good six inches taller than me) he was singled out for the chance to try out for the phenomenally successful rowing programme, which has produced a succession of stars in recent years. He's had no previous rowing experience so today will have been interesting - the best bit is, he's recorded the whole lot, so you can hear how he got on this Friday from 6pm. Oh, and it's yours truly presenting.
On Saturday evening the family descended on The Bull at Bisham for Alice's birthday meal (she's 12). The Bull had lost the booking but put on a fine show, and the food was as good as is expected at what is a fine establishment. My dad, impressively, was only £2 out with his guess as to the final bill. I think he'd agree that's a sign he has too much experience in that place. The Maitre D' is one of the best in the business - makes you feel completely at home when you know full well he couldn't really give a toss... but he's just so nice...
Sunday: Barbecue On Ice
Getting up at 6am has become routine for Sundays but, for some reason, was sheer hell today. The morning passed off calmly enough but the whole day was really a preamble to the excitement of going to the home of the Slough Jets for a barbecue by their ice rink ahead ot the new season.
I had an enjoyable if slightly garbled and staccato conversation with their new Czech signing - who drove to Slough from the Czech Republic! - and discovered that the team's manager, Steve, once played (albeit briefly) for the New York Rangers back in the late 80s, scoring one goal in Philadelphia. That's good enough for me.
The best bit is that it looks like ice hockey commentary may be a realistic prospect. Whisper it quietly, since we need to iron out some of the technical side of things, but we just might be in a position to do a live commentary from the Jets' first game of the season this coming Saturday night. If so, you can spend your Saturday night by the computer, listening live... yep, knew you'd be thrilled. But well done for getting this far to the end of the post, eh! Normal service will resume, promise.
Unless he's just emailed you to let you know his new email address.
My colleague Linda, who does a lot of work with bands and the music industry, must have found her way into the boy Sharkey's contacts list at some point.
She's just received this email:
"Dear All,
On Monday the 20th of August my email address will change to [address deleted otherwise Feargal would probably be a tad miffed].
At least that's the theory, fingers crossed.
Kind regards,
Feargal."
Have you had a change-of-email notice from anyone to beat that?
I woke up in a cold sweat at about four o'clock in the morning having just emerged from what I can only describe as a sort of sci-fi zombie horror nightmare, beautifully crafted by my subconscious, drawing inspiration from one of the movies it knows I can't stand, then adding in some very nice topical touches.
It took as the basis for the story the film, "28 Days Later". Now I've only seen tiny portions of this film, which found its way onto terrestrial telly quite recently, and I flicked back and forth, trying not to watch too much because frankly, those films scare me rigid. I can't do horror. This is the basic premise of the film as lifted from the internet, in case you've not seen it:
"Set in early 21st century England, the story depicts the breakdown of society following the accidental release of a highly contagious virus known as "Rage" (which renders people mindlessly violent) and focuses upon the struggle of four survivors to cope with the ruination of the life they once knew."
So there I find myself, at the top of an all but derelict tower block-cum-multistorey car park, in some nondescript English city. We're on the tenth floor. I know (not sure how I know, but I know) that floors seven downwards are full of Rage-infected zombies. In the back left corner of the room there is an elevator that will take me down, should I wish (I really don't wish). To the right, you can walk outside onto what used to be a roof garden, but what is now quite eerily overgrown and silent.
I say "we" because I'm not alone by any means. This top floor is abuzz with activity, concentrated around three or four banks of computers that vaguely resemble an old school computer room, except the PCs all look fairly futuristic. It's apparent that this is the home of some form of anti-zombie resistance movement, with quite technologically-minded Bright Young Things clattering away at keyboards, wearing headsets and generally acting like the Rebel Alliance. Outside, all is spookily quiet. Inside, it's a blur of activity.
And who's leading this last hope of humanity? My old school friend Gaby, who added me to Facebook some time yesterday afternoon. My subconscious has played a blinder in immediately casting her as the Admiral Ackbar of my worst nightmare.
The zombies never made an appearance during the dream, but I'm not sure that was any help. Instead my internal Hitchcock racked up the tension with horrific noises-off, the air rended with screams from the floors below - particularly when I briefly gazed down the ramp of the car park section of the building, toward the dreaded seventh floor. Picking my way cautiously through the roof garden it became clear that this was some kind of post-apocalyptic attempt at food production by the top floor survivors, who would obviously have to be self sustaining unless they fancied running the gauntlet of the zombies below.
At one point I was mad enough to board the elevator with Gaby. Its inspiration was definitely the lifts at Reading station, dull yellow lights illuminating the panel of numbers, an awful metallic claustrophobia setting in as the doors rattled shut. Gaby was going down to the eighth floor but I, panicking at the thought accidentally going just one floor further down, slammed my hand on the "nine" button as we reached it, then waited for the elevator back up - minus Gaby. (Plot hole: why can't the zombies board the elevator up?)
Then, an interesting turn in events. I hadn't been terribly sure what I was doing in the building from the off, but the first act had been taken up in exploring and trying to comprehend the situation. The second act, back up on the tenth floor, was for me to produce my new mobile phone - another nicely topical reference. Suddenly, I'd remembered that I worked for the BBC and was only here as a sort-of observer, albeit an incredibly reluctant one, and I very much felt my work here was done, thanks very much.
So I started tapping away at the phone, trying to enter my BBC passcode to access... well I don't know, but it felt like I was trying to access something that would get me away to the safety of a BBC newsroom as fast as possible (no zombies there, apparently - first time for everything).
Then, in the third and final beautiful element of topicality, I finished the passcode, hit "OK" and pulled this kind of transparent cloak over myself, grimacing and steeling myself for the sensation of compressed air inside my lungs.
And where did that come from? The final Harry Potter book, which finished itself (as an audio book, read by Stephen Fry) in my car last night. Harry owns an invisible cloak and can disapparate - which, as one Potter fan site will tell you, means:
"A magical form of teleportation, by which a witch or wizard can disappear from one location and reappear in another. The act is accompanied by a very unpleasant squeezing sensation, as though being sent through a tight rubber tube."
The squeezing sensation stopped, and I woke up. Genius. The only similar exit from a dream I've ever had was about ten years ago, when I somehow managed to dream a big black door with one of those luminous green "Emergency Exit" signs above it, walked through it, and awoke. But I don't think that can rival disapparating out of a zombie-infested tower block, back to the land of the living. If only I hadn't left my car on the seventh floor...
Way back in the mid-1990s I had my first brick of a mobile phone, a Nokia that weighed half a ton, on what was then the one2one network.
A decade later I've come home. Sat beside me is a Nokia N95 on the T Mobile network, one2one's successor, after an afternoon of to-ing and fro-ing between the Vodafone and T Mobile shops in the centre of Reading.
For a while now my Sony Ericsson w800i has looked a little dishevelled, and the camera function's incessant self-activation has drained both the battery life and my patience. So it was time for a change, and I wanted a phone that would get me online plus offer me good photography capabilities. My mum has an N95 and it looks like it will fit the bill perfectly.
I suppse I'd have been happy enough staying with Vodafone but since joining them ages ago they've always felt a bit like the enemy - it didn't help when they sponsored Manchester United, for a start. So I decided to shop around and realised it was between them and T Mobile. Off to the shops.
Shop 1: Vodafone, 4pm
Something is amiss. I've got to approach a Vodafone employee rather than having twelve of them circling me on entry. Vodafone lackey Yasar tells me he's got some concerns about the N95, but they don't sound too grave and seem to centre on Vodafone's proprietary software for it - certainly it doesn't seem to have bothered Vodafone, who have adverts for the N95 plastered all over the shop.
Yasar and I spend ten or fifteen minutes establishing precisely how I'd change my contract and what the phone would cost. It seems like the data/internet side of things is an afterthought in their brochure and in their mindset, rather than the central feature I want it to be.
When I say the phone cost seems to be a bit steep, Yasar calls in a senior employee, who is clearly feeling a bit brash and starts barking away with Vodafone advantages over T Mobile. The one he returns to is Vodafone's superior network coverage. "But I'm not going to spend that much time in the Shetlands," I protest. "No need to be flippant," he barks. Quiet, relaxed Yasar - who was prepared to admit Vodafone's failings where appropriate while giving decent advice - is quite a contrast to barking man, who makes it clear I need to give T Mobile a chance.
Shop 2: T Mobile, 4:30pm
Look, this is the last day of the month, these guys are supposed to be ready to do anything to hit their targets. Instead I have to ferret out an employee again, but this time it seems a bit more like they're understaffed and the shop's at the wrong end of town, rather than not giving a monkeys.
Chris is immediately more impressive than anyone at Vodafone. He rubbishes at least three Vodafone claims about T Mobile's service and assures me their internet is unrestricted, does have a more generous fair use policy, and isn't harder to view on the phone. He's even got an N95 himself with Web'n'Walk, the T Mobile service I like the look of, and hands it over for me to inspect. He can also talk from experience about which sites work best, and how you go about doing various things. It's very helpful to have found someone with the phone immediately to hand, with experience of day-to-day use.
Chris gives me his absolute best price for the Web'n'Walk deal I want, and I say I'll go back to Vodafone to give them one last chance.
Shop 3: Vodafone, 5pm
Eight Vodafone employees are laughing and joking at the front of the shop. Yasar, sat at the back, confirms the worst: they've hit all their targets for the month and I'd be better off ringing customer services. The clear message is that having hit their targets, they couldn't care less about keeping my custom. Fine by me. T Mobile could put the cost of the phone up by fifty quid and I'd still sign for them at this point. Barking man comes over and tells me the phone might be £50 cheaper with Vodafone, but he'll only know once he puts the deal through. "So I'll only find out if I've saved money once I've paid you?" Yes.
Shop 4: T Mobile, 5:15pm
Go back to T Mobile - Chris insists he can't drop the price of the phone. It looks like a few beads of sweat are forming on foreheads in T Mobile though, which is a good sign.
Twenty minutes later I've somehow managed to negotiate myself into paying an extra five pounds a month, for ten pounds off the phone. That doesn't immediately sound like a great deal, but the extra fiver means I can use the phone as a modem for my PC to get online anywhere, which is well worth £5 a month. It's a deal. Off to the till we go, where Chris hands me to fellow assistant Brett.
Brett now tries no fewer than nine times to persuade me to take out mobile phone insurance with them, for £9 a month. Replies of mine include: "There is no way on God's green earth I am signing up to that."
"No thanks, I'm not touching that insurance form with a bargepole.
"Good God man, how much commission are you on to sell this?"
At one point Chris comes over and says he'll knock £10 off the phone if I sign up to the insurance. "I thought the phone was as cheap as you could possibly make it?" I say. "Oh it is, it is. Just baiting you," says Chris. Hmm.
Five minutes later, Brett is still at it. "We'll knock £40 off the phone if you sign up." Hang on - at this rate they'll be paying me to take the phone in return for this insurance scam. How desperate must these people be for me to sign? As a joke, I suggest that I'll sign up if they knock £100 off the phone. "I'll have to ask the manager," says Brett, walking into the back office. Bloody hell.
The manager says no, thankfully, so there's no dodgy insurance for me, just a nice new phone and a half-price memory card thrown in. It's funny - at the Vodafone shop, Yasar took a call during his chat with me, which turned out to be to do with some house-hunting he's doing in Marylebone. "Bloody estate agents," he says. But it's only taken me an hour in a couple of mobile phone shops to realise why I only do this every two years. To think I work for the company accused of deceiving its audience...
There's nothing more annoying than having good stories to tell, but not being able to tell them. It's the reporter's nightmare: the scoop, the exclusive, the thundering top line, gagged for one reason or another.
I've got two tonight. In the first place, I cannot tell you about the friend who could be on the verge of landing a place in the next series of a major BBC1 series. You'd know it, it's a household name and all over the BBC's schedules while it's on air. Final auditions are set to be held soon and my friend is one interview away from, how can I put this, being hired.
See, we usually find a way to tell at least some of the story.
I can tell you my second story, but I can't use the picture that would really sell it to you. It is always disappointing when friends know you well enough that they warn you a photo is under strict copyright when they email it across.
So let me describe the image instead.
My friend Helen, long ginger hair brushing a red dress with black heels, is sat on top of a table - not unlike the kind you'd find in a classroom, relatively small and spartan but sturdy.
She's wearing a nervous smile breaking into a laugh, eyes fixed apprehensively in the middle distance. In one hand is a wine glass, although it looks empty. The other hand is at the end of an outstretched arm, wafting through the air as though she's trying to balance.
She is in a restaurant. Around her, clients of the establishment wear expressions of shock, amazement and delight, much like the waiter stood by the door on the far side of the room.
The reason they are all shocked is the man beneath Helen. Well, beneath and behind. He stands, arms outstretched, holding the entire table - with Helen on board - in his teeth. It is not supported by any other means.
This man - looking middle aged, with a receding hairline and neat moustache brushing the table surface - is George. George is going for a world record for weight lifted by teeth alone. Helen's weight is part of that record.
If only you could see the photo. It's a marvel! Earlier I asked her how she came to be involved in this most bizarre record attempt, which took place in Luxembourg:
"One of my students at the FTD [German Financial Times, where she's an intern] is going to work for the photographer as a translator (because the photographer's English).So she asked me if I had time to come along. Apparently his teeth can take 52kg."
Now I'm not prejudging you or anything, but I reckon you've had a boring day by comparison with Helen.
This was lying on the kitchen table earlier today:
You might remember my sister Alice went through the eleven-plus, and got through. Now it'll be younger sister Lucy's turn, so back out come all the tests, mock papers and guides.
This particular book was lying open at this page:
See if you can spot the problem I had with that page.
In the mean time, another problem I have with it is that the question itself is bloody difficult!
Have a look at the example first. Would you immediately associate "stable" with barn and shed, and with steady and firm?
Move on to number 25. What word would go with bat and stick, and also society and group? I've not got the answer sheet and I'll confess, I've no idea what the answer is. Maybe it's 'racket', but that strikes me as a bit high-brow to expect 11-year-olds to associate racketeering with groups. It can't be.
Am I being unduly thick? By all means let me know the answer if it's obvious, but it's not to me! I reckon 26 is probably "segment", 27 "thick", and 28 "swamp". Even then, if you soak something, do you swamp it? I'm fairly sure my eleven-year-old self would have been lucky to get one mark for writing his name on the paper, let alone scoring marks on the questions inside.
And yes, the original problem is that the book's author has been unable to spell "separate" correctly. And yet we're supposed to know what links bat, stick, society and group. Separate planets.
Update: Congratulations to OJ, who supplies the following:
"I had to resort to a thesaurus, but I'm pretty sure that number 25 would be "club". I got "swamp" and "thick" as well, although I had to look over "stable" to see what they were getting at.
"As I remember it, the 11+ scholarship examination we sat just involved some colouring in, didn't it?"
And many thanks to "AN Other" on the comments, who comes up with a better answer for number 26: perhaps it's "part", not "segment".
AN also attempts number 29, which you can just make out in the picture. They reckon class/category and arrange/order are linked by "sort", whereas earlier I'd have gone for "group". It's a mess.
So here am I, barging back into your life after a radio silence of almost two months, without so much as a word of explanation. Rest assured I'll bore you with many of those over the coming weeks and months (essentially just busy times at work to blame). But now, onward...
Today marks an important personal anniversary for me; if it's not seven years since the actual conception of my broadcasting career, it's certainly seven years since the foreplay began.
I remember the morning of July 4th 2000 very well. For a start, I'd made the very bold exception of missing the opening few minutes of Wake Up to Wogan; knowing me at 17, probably for the first time in years. Instead, at precisely 0734 (keen by a minute), I arrived at the Hallam Street entrance to Broadcasting House in London, on a promise of this:
It's not my back you see, but that of the great Alan Dedicoat, chief announcer of Radio 2, and the well chosen recipient of a letter from a dear school friend of mine, begging a chance for me to visit the radio station I loved best. Busying myself with exam stress, I knew nothing of the letter until the shock arrival of an email, purporting to be from one of my great radio idols, offering "lunch and a look round... If you pass".
(I gathered a few well observed special requests had probably been made by my friend, as there was also mention that I'd "probably get to see Ken Bruce".)
Nervously suppressing his over-enthusiasm, 17-year old Sheppard proudly announced his appointment to see the Voice of the Balls, and like a grown up, was invited to call the internal number himself. Like a proper anorak, I still remember it.
I spent the early part of the morning with Deadly in Studio 1D, watching his side of the notorious exchanges with Wogan and Walters, and soaking up every detail. I even got to wiggle my first fader - the one for Studio 1F, then Ken Bruce's studio - at 0930, to a fanfare from Wogan on the off-air studio talkback, saying he "liked the lights"...
I was soon whisked upstairs to Studio 1J to meet Wogan and Walters in person, receiving the characteristically warm welcome that made me feel like the interesting one. And, above and beyond in true Dedicoat style, I not only got to meet Ken Bruce, but sat with him for the final chunk of his show.
"17 years, of Ruscombe in Berkshire?", he asked, on being introduced. It was how I signed my letters to the show.
I didn't win the 'Headline Hunt' that day.
It's exactly seven years since I decided a career in radio needn't be just a dream. Everything I'd seen had confirmed that what you hear on the radio is real; somewhere, albeit in strange dark rooms, there are real people making the stuff. Human beings, and some very decent ones at that. Why shouldn't I be amongst them?
Seven years on, I still struggle to believe it earns me a living. So did my Bank Manager for a while; but it now does, just. I now spend more of my time in studios than I do in my bed, and yet it's all still every bit as entrancing as it was seven years ago. It's a fine career, but it'll never be work.
Speaking of careers, I'm pleased to say that my parallel role in the bus industry became official at the beginning of the month: I'm now Transport Manager to ThisBus.com, the fully licensed operating wing of the Broadcasters' Bus Consortium. My business partners and I will soon be hiring out the Routemaster for weddings, day trips and the like, a fact cannily picked up on in this piece from the Daily Express a couple of weeks ago:
Wonder what David Sheppard, 17 years, of Ruscombe in Berkshire, would have made of that?
Alright then, hands up. Who wants to see my sister falling off a horse?
Oh now that's nasty. How could you? But since you're so keen...
Thank the Lord for professional photographers at children's sports events, capturing those moments that big brothers throughout the land would otherwise have missed. Poor Alice. This is one of a series of photos which trace, like a flipbook, the slow parting of ways between horse and human.
Of course I wouldn't be introducing this public humiliation if she wasn't actually, secretly, quite good. She and fellow sister Lucy even own 'virtual' horses on Howrse.com, as though a real horse weren't enough. Feed it (Alice's is, apparently, 'too fat'), take it over the gallops, train it up... it's like a twenty-first century four-legged Tamagotchi.
One wonders if a virtual horse can throw you off. I'm sure Alice will let us know.
The other day we were sent a press release about a survey, conducted by YouGov on behalf of Friction TV - the "online debating website" (as, presumably, opposed to an offline debating website, which would be even less useful).
As is tradition, the press release began by picking out some key headlines from the survey's results. Like the Daily Mail on the wrong side of its bed, the email screamed:
Only Half of the British Population has Ever Spoken out About a Sensitive Issue
Er... and this is a bad thing because?
Yes, everyone has the right to free speech. But how stupid you must have to be, to suggest that 50 per cent of the population speaking out is somehow a woefully inadequate showing.
Think about it for a minute. Think of an issue like, say, smoking, or abortion, or religious extremism, or animal testing. Now think of people you know who you think ought to be speaking out about it.
Can you think of anyone? For each of those issues I can think of one or two friends or family members who have direct experience, strong views, and an ability to put those views succinctly and powerfully - in short, they are people who can contribute something worthwhile.
At the same time I can think of plenty of friends, whom I love dearly, who probably shouldn't be trying to speak out about any 'sensitive issue', and indeed aren't doing. Not because they don't have a view, or should be denied their right to free speech, but because lots of other people - mostly newspaper pundits - are already doing the speaking out, and we don't need every man and his dog piling in to have their say.
Of course we treasure our right to free speech but that doesn't mean we should all be taking any and every opportunity to exercise it. Our days are full of enough people trying to preach this or that without each person you meet trying a little amateur evangelism on their chosen issue of the day.
If I feel deeply about something I might write about it here, but is that 'speaking out'? I'd define 'speaking out' as trying to make your views as public as possible, not popping them on your weblog or sharing them over coffee with a few friends. Or I might find a recognised voice on radio, television or in print, who shares my views, and email them my support. That's not speaking out, that's democracy - electing someone else to represent me far more effectively than I can.
Just think about that 50 per cent of the nation. If that's such a bad figure, what might be better? Let's say 80 per cent of the nation get the chance to speak out. Who's in that 80 per cent? Without sinking too swiftly into any depths of class stereotyping, 80 per cent of Britain would include some fairly unsavoury types, not to mention some people who simply don't know enough about anything to hold a view worth speaking out with, when others are doing it better.
If we lived in a world where more than 50 per cent of the population spoke out about sensitive issues, we'd be all the poorer for it. So whatever it was you had to say that's really important: save it and talk to me about telly instead.
You have to feel sorry for Peter Sissons. He's live on BBC News 24, a car has crashed into Glasgow Airport, and he's got an eyewitness on the line. Except the eyewitness seems to be having trouble hearing, and then a completely different voice appears in its place. Listen to Peter's somewhat bemused reaction and remember - all this is live on air:
I don't know why I should be laughing, given this happens to the likes of us far more frequently than it'll ever happen to Peter Sissons. Later on I'll present to you a truly mad five minutes from David's show earlier today, where we ran a competition in which contestants had to name all the train operating companies in the UK. It gets to the point where we have people yelling the word 'cuff links!' down the line at us.
(This is the 'second song of Sissons' since the first one was last year.)
From an MSN Messenger conversation a few moments ago:
Ben says: I was very wound up by a National Express commercial today. Ollie says: Why's that?
Ben says: Because they managed to say, 'We are old-fashioned, racist bigots', without actually saying it. A groom leaving a church proclaims, 'We stand for traditional values'. What could that possibly refer to? I think it means, 'We hate gays, but we've found a slightly less direct way of letting you know'. Ollie says: Or they could just mean marriage, the break-up of the family, etc. Could be wrong, but still.
Ben says: No, the National Express is homophobic. And I used to read it, because my grandad buys it, but now I refuse. Ollie says: On what grounds could they object? Do gays stain their seats? And hang on, you used to read what?
Ben says: The National Express. Ollie says: The National Express is a bus company. Do you mean The Daily Express?
Ben says: Yes. Yes, that's what I meant.
Some of you - certainly David - will know the Fox And Hounds pub in Christmas Common, South Oxfordshire.
It's set in the heart of the tiny village, with a small gravel car park leading to a beautiful countryside building comprising a bar with roaring fire on the left as you enter, and a rather gastronomically cultured restaurant on the right. (Octopus salad, anyone?)
A couple of months ago Amy and I decided to meet for lunch there, only to discover on arrival that it was closed for refurbishment and would re-open in early May.
It's on my way to work each day and duly, by early May, it had re-emerged as something quite different entirely. The very traditional Fox And Hounds sign and title letters had disappeared, to be replace by a garish - frankly, ugly - logo for a place called The Treacle Well. If you think the logo for the 2012 Olympics is bad, believe, it was a work of art compared to The Treacle Well's new sign. I've nothing against change, but I was horrified.
I didn't get the chance to go in and sample The Treacle Well's fare, but a quick search online reveals someone who did, and they were less than impressed:
Regrettably, the heart and soul of this wonderful old pub has been ripped out in the name of gastro-pub world domination. It has been re-named The Treacle Well (WTF???) and is now utterly and completely without salvation.
They'll be even less impressed when they realise they've been completely and utterly had - by the BBC.
Amy and I went back there today for a second attempt and, lo and beholf, everything was back to normal! The Fox And Hounds sign is back, the lettering is back, and there's no sign at all of The Treacle Well.
As we parked I was already thinking this mightily odd. Had the regulars been so furious that the old owners had been restored? It's unheard of for a pub to change ownership, then change back, in two months.
Inside we went. It was after 3pm, a time when many pubs aren't serving (boy did we find that out), so we asked the man behind the bar if there was any food going. The response:
"No, sorry, we're not serving any food. We're still getting everything back together after the BBC moved out."
Eh? If ever a sentence needed some elaboration it was that one, but he wasn't giving too much away.
"Yeah, the BBC were here for seven weeks filming a competition. People had to take over a pub and run it as best they could."
So that explains that. The Fox And Hounds became The Treacle Well for a forthcoming BBC television series in which some poor people try to run a pub to the best of their ability - clearly not well enough if our earlier correspondent is to be believed. Keep an eye out for it! But in the mean time, go back to enjoying your old pub, restored to its former glory.
After another four pubs told us they weren't doing food, we eventually found ourselves at The White Horse, the pub opposite the BBC in Caversham, which did us a very reasonable (and late) pub lunch for just over £15 total between the two of us, in a surprisingly quiet courtyard behind the pub. Certainly nicer than I remember the pub.
Our afternoon continued with Toby, the resident dog, now into his eleventh year on the planet and showing a little wear and tear in the limbs, but not in the enthusiasm for a good walk. Amy and I drove him out to the Chiltern Sculpture Trail, a wooded area punctuated by sculptures that may or may not actually be there - some were clearly visible, others had apparently been 'removed' at some point, lawfully or otherwise. We think this might have been one, with a little helpful graffiti:
The dog and Amy may never speak again after one incident which I can't possibly relay here, but otherwise it was a tranquil way to celebrate Amy's elevation to the post of Woman About Hong Kong-elect. Congratulations Amy!
Yes! Here we go again. For the next God-knows-how-many months, Big Brother will be on our screens. And as per the last series, I'll do my best to hate it, then surrender and watch every minute.
There were live updates throughout the launch show - start at the bottom of this post then scroll up to read them in order.
22:12 - Carole
That's your lot: Carole, in her fifties, is the Alan Sugar of the house, threatening to go in and "shake people up". Expect her to point a finger and yell "You're fired!" when people get evicted.
This lady seems to bridge the gap between Tracey (share East London accents) and Lesley (share a certain age).
"She's like mum," says Sarah, who will not thank me for repeating that in the public domain. If her mother is reading this, I'm sure she didn't mean it. Carole is apparently divorced and bisexual, says Davina. No further comment from myself or Sarah.
Carole is getting big response from the crowd, and it's all positive. Maybe Nicki isn't the out-and-out favourite? Carole is a winner with Sarah, Davina and the fans, which must give her the early lead. The Big Brother website only has three housemates on it so far - poor effort. No surnames either, Glen, so the stalking reaches a temporary halt.
Hilariously, we're about to go into an episode of Desperate Housewives, which is of course precisely what we've got in the Big Brother house, as an almighty final cheer goes up for Carole. Big Brother is back. No men! Amen! Goodnight.
22:09 - Nicki
Nicki (could be Nikki, or any other variant, missed it again) has Sarah's vote. She chatted religion in her video, which is a first, and was adopted from Mother Theresa's orphanage, which is an unlikely base from which to go on to become a Big Brother contestant.
On the grounds of audience reception and video content, she might go far, you know. She also likes parmesan cheese which can never hurt. She's got that genuine smile, unlike most of the other lot, who are trying to look like celebrities before they've done the hard part.
Over go the twins to the diminutive Nicki - either all the other girls are tall or she's in desperate need of some better heels. By now they must all have twigged there's not going to be any male talent in the house, but no mention as yet...
22:03 - Laura
Ah ha, here's the cute Welsh one we always get! Except... well... let's be diplomatic and hope the cuteness will flow at a later date.
Laura is wearing mildly scary make-up in her video, but has a nice voice. She apparently sweeps leaves at her local graveyard, and her friends say she looks like Peter Kay. Forget Laura, put her friends in the house! They'd sort the twins out.
For a 16-year-old, my fellow Big Brother analyst Sarah is proving surprisingly adept at shaming the Big Brother producers. First she ridiculed the notion of an all-female house, and now she asks: "Will there be a disabled contestant?"
Aside from Tourette's syndrome, we've never had one, have we? Interesting. Very interesting. In goes Laura, to the question: "Are you Welsh?" And they're off, discussing each other's friends from Newport.
By the way, what's Chris Moyles doing presenting the Big Brother sideshows for Channel 4! Traitorous bastard. His leather jacket is a few sizes up on Davina's - see, if she was pregnant, they could have bought them in bulk.
21:57 - Glen, I don't know
Glen has left a comment asking for the surnames of the contestants. Sadly I can't provide this information since I'm only a humble viewer and the Big Brother website isn't telling us. I can tell you Charley is Charley Richardson, I believe, cousin to Man United's Kieran - other than that, no idea.
And Glen - isn't that a tad stalker-ish? Going to Facebook them, are we?
21:55 - Emily
"I'm not a rich bitch," says Emily, which is a disappointment, because if she was I'd be there in a shot.
"I look like Peaches Geldof," she adds, which is a second good point since I'm quite the Peaches man but have never previously revealed this.
"Isn't it about time you put an intelligent woman on the show?" Oh dear. Emily doesn't understand the concept. She also wants "rocker boys" in the house, but the closest she's going to get is the great unwashed pink hair of Tracey.
Emily is in a delicate coral blue number and takes plenty of time to indulge the paparazzi. She looks slightly overwhelmed by it all and is keeping her mouth shut, which is quite an excellent way to go about things given tonight's previous contestants.
Her favourite word is "hoodwink", which impresses both Davina and myself. Going down the stairs she reminds me of Keira Knightley post-Bend It Like Beckham, which was a very good look.
One of the twins has just greeted her in an octave not even audible to dogs. Judging by the 20-second snapshot of the house, Tracey and Lesley have gone off to a corner to chat, which is surprising but encouraging. Adverts.
21:50 - Shabnam
"People think I'm a mad lunatic, which I am." At least the honesty is somewhat refreshing from Shabnam, who apparently has a dodgy ticker, which is a horrible accident waiting to happen.
"I love reading on the toilet," she tells us, automatically earning my vote for the foreseeable future. "I'm passionate about people that like to eat," she adds, earning my vote for the entire series.
Alright I take that back, she's yelled "Cheer me" so often going down the line of fans that I just want her to go away. She's wearing pink, which is going to endear her to the twins.
Sarah does not agree with my verdict that enjoyment of toilet literature is A Good Thing. Anyone else? It's an institution in our house.
Down goes Shabby, screaming like a twin when she enters the house. "You're twins, but you look lovely," she tells the twins, implying most twins look like the back ends of the same bus. Must be careful, there is probably a twin reading this.
21:46 - Chanel
Big Brother contestant in "I'd like to be famous" shock. Chanel tries to model herself on Victoria Beckham and talks at roughly nine thousand words a second - I talk quickly but not, at least, about Victoria Beckham's second-album-which-wasn't-released-cos-her-record-label-didn't-want-to-make-it.
Not sure if that's how you spell Chanel - I missed it on screen and, shockingly, the official Big Brother website is not updating live as these things go on! That's it, lads, leave it to me to carry the nation's obsession.
Down the steps goes Chanel, into the pit of pink. Charley is off to say hello first, and Chanel says the booing made her want to cry - that wasn't half as bad as the reception some of the others, Charley included, got. Mark this one 'fragile'.
21:41 - Tracey
Well, technically there are still no men in the house, but Tracey (why does everyone have a Y at the end?) is near enough to count. If you've ever seen Stargate SG-1, she has the voice of a Goa'uld. For the rest of you, that's a very deep voice. It's also got a very London twang. I've got no idea what she does or who she is because the voice somehow captivated me.
"What's with all the women?" Demands my good friend Sarah. I wonder if Big Brother have entirely thought this all-girl premise through. The teenage female population could get remarkably stressed without a Glyn to ogle.
Tracey has appeared with pink hair and patchwork hoodie, looking like a mop in a technicoloured dreamcoat. "Fucking 'av it," is Tracey's opening gambit to the world.
Now, given the pink hair, the twins should love this... but they seem slightly unnerved by another "'Av it!". Lesley is not going to last long, Tracey will have eaten her by breakfast.
21:33 - Charley
Charley doesn't work - she says she's been fired from all her jobs - and is apparently a South-East London "It" Girl. I already hate her, which is precisely what I'm supposed to do (no point fighting the producers' whim on these things).
"I speak so much, I'm flirtatious, and I'm hot," says Charley. The booing is twice what it was for the twins. Charley looks like any silver screen prostitute you'd care to name. I'm not totally sure if I can be sued for saying that, but really, she's dressed in denim hotpants beyond description.
In goes Charley looking a little underwhelmed by her reception. "Oh my God," she pants as she descends the stairs. Over go the twins like pink clones of the Andrex puppy. "Those hotpants are gorgeous!" God save us. "I'm Lesley," says Lesley, in the kind of deadpan voice employed by Dougal on the Magic Roundabout when things get a bit too much.
By the way I'm taking some flak for changing the Dayorama banner to honour the start of Big Brother. I'm proud to watch this shite. The rest of you can put up with it. Adverts.
21:30 - Lesley
There is an elderly lady! She's Lesley, she's 60, and she can clearly get in a bath unaided because remember, the bath is in the living room and there's no Bath Knight attached.
"The British public will either love me or hate me," says Lesley, who has not bargained on taking a bath in front of them.
Lesley, with short, dark hair, a neat white blazer and dark trousers, gets a warm reception from the crowd, who clearly feel obliged to cheer the token geriatric.
Now she meets the twins... who run over like some kind of bizarre, pink leeches. "Hello, we're twins," say the twins. "It's uncanny, isn't it?", replies Lesley. But the twins have moved on. "Oh my God, is that the only bath?" This will be a long night.
21:25 - Twins
In the never-ending quest for the lowest common denominator, Big Brother has conjured up a pair of young, blonde twins. "If there's only one fit boy in the house, we'll share him," says One Of The Twins, as I shall call them for the rest of the series.
Now if we assume the rumour of an all-girl house is true, and there's no fit boy to share, does that mean they...? Let's not go there.
Their car has taken forever to arrive. Their names are Sam and Amanda by the way, and they're dressed in white with pink Hawaiian skirts, with yellow handbags that might as well be Lego. I've not seen less style since David fell in a river. There is booing and cheering in equal measure among the crowd.
Surprise surprise, they liken themselves to Paris Hilton. Well alright, only one of them did, but like everyone else I'm going to start lumping them together in everything they do. I wonder if they only get one phone number for voting?
They've successfully negotiated the "Push" doors, so maybe they're not like Paris Hilton after all. There is a lot of screaming. They're both in the bath. This will need to remain post-watershed, I fear. The booing outside has reached a crescendo.
21:15 - Diary room
The chair is a brilliant and transparent white, the rest of it is black. It's alright. Could have done better. Adverts: Virgin mobile have taken over the Carphone Warehouse slot. Sorry guys, not the same without Mobli.
21:10 - Budget cuts at Channel 4
They've got Davina operating a handheld camcorder. Couldn't afford the crew could we, boys? "I'm rubbish at home movies," says Davina. Great.
The entrance to the house has gone all white, then you get to a chessboard "vestibule area" (no smoking in it, presumably), and then into a garishly coloured living room.
The table has "Eat" written on it - you can tell the calibre of individual the show attracts to take part - and there are shelves all over the shop. "My jacket is so tight, I can't quite reach," squeaks Davina as she tries to reach the top shelf. This is why we're watching.
The bath is indeed in the living room. One assumes there are no elderly contestants as there is no Bath Knight attached. There is a telephone which looks like a fish - each time Davina asks what something is for, the production team giving her talkback don't bother telling her. It's nice to know those in charge don't even want Davina knowing why they want a telephone resembling a fish on a mantelpiece.
Lots of different beds, including a tiny bed created for the Amy Kennedys of this world. There's then a huge bed, created for the... now I've got a choice of me, OJ or David, and I don't want to die, so I'll move on.
My word, the bathroom is actually quite nice. Given the one constant of each BB series is a housemate crying in the bathroom, this will vastly improve viewing. Davina likes it. She reckons the tap on the sink is "like a river", which suggests Davina hasn't been in many hotels recently, where these things tend to be a staple.
Davina has just managed to film her autocue. This camcorder is a terrible idea, not least because I want a camcorder and she's there waving one about like they're ten a penny.
They've put the oven in the bedroom. They're talking my language.
20:59 - And first in the house it's... Ofcom!
Ha ha ha! I'd read about this but seeing it on air only makes it better. Congratulations to Ofcom for making Channel 4 air a detailed explanation of its ruling immediately prior to the live launch of BB8. Hell, even I don't understand it, let alone the millions of brain-dead teenagers watching, but they'll realise some sort of shit has gone down, and that'll do.
By the way we've already seen Davina, and she's not - repeat not - pregnant. I'm not sure I can carry on watching. It's the not same - no baby bump, no Carphone Warehouse adverts every 50 seconds, no Glyn... Argh!
20:55 - Rumours
Rumours, rumours, rumours. The BBC has already produced a handy selection. Apparently...
The show will start with an all-girl house
Relative of Premiership footballer in the house (member of the Barton family maybe?)
An Islamic contestant will wear a veil
The bath will be in the living room
But this doesn't address the major issue: will Davina be pregnant?
It just won't feel the same if she isn't. Big Brother is only Big Brother if Davina McCall is on national television about to pop. We know Davina's back, but if there's no miniature Davina in tow, it'll be a crushing disappointment. And with three minutes to go, time for a pregnant pause.
I've spent the day in a very windy feild in West Kent. Yes, DofE related. An "extreme" sports event. I'm on my way out, but currently look like I've been dragged through a hedge backwards, and I'm knackered!
Anyway, we all know that mobile phone operators have been trying for ages to disguise mobile phone masts. This website even suggests they have been disguised as a crucifix. Heaven forbid. I'm utterly benmused by a so-called "disguised" phone mast on the side of the M20. For starters, I don't suppose anyone would really notice a mast if it just looked like a mast, since it would be sitting on the side of a motorway, on the edge of a wood. So what. You do however recognise this rather alien tree... There you are, driving along, conscious there are woodland areas either side. But wait, what is this giant brown pole. With "twigs". Oh, and a spike out of the top of the trunk. Honestly, I wish I could have pulled over and taken a picture of it. It's madness! Just call a spade a spade and leave the mast as it is. Or, preferably disguise it properly i.e. actually disguise the damn thing! I think the person who designed it must have been the same person who thought it would be a good idea to create wallpaper for wheelie bins. You've seen it... cover your wheelie bin in floral plastic wallpaper. Yes, that ill disguise it. Not.
Why is it that a tunnel gets wet inside? I drove through the Blackwall tunnel earlier. It had been raining quite heavily, so the road surface was quite wet. You could certainly see the film of water. So why is it also wet inside the tunnel? I know that car tyres must carry a certain amount of water, but surely not enough to make the road surface in the tunnel wet as well? Not for the entire distance, anyway? And it isn't as though it can ran in the tunnel. Lets hope it wasn't a leak.
My second random musing is about our very own tunnel vision. I've been writing an application for the last week or so. I've finally reached a draft I'm happy with. A good thing really since it has to be in tomorrow. It's amazing though, how we re-read our own work, without necessarily seeing the wood for the trees. It is easy to add emphasis, or read a word that you think "works", but only because you want it to work, or you think a certain sentence has the correct emphasis when indeed it doesn't. It is also so very easy to be negative. You may not mean to, but who wants to say "I will do this" or "my enthusiasm will" get me somewhere, rather than settle with the rather more comfortable, "would". It is also so easy to put "I believe that I am...", rather than simply, "I am". Such ls life I suppose. Now, the application I'm writing was hardly a poor effort, but I'm still very pleased I had Ollie to sort out all my misfits :o)
You'd expect that to be the sentiment of any American watching a cricket match. Potentially you can play for five days and still end up with neither team winning. But no, that's the view of BBC cricket commentator Jonathan Agnew as he watched the farce that is the Cricket World Cup Final.
Have a listen to Aggers' bout of depression using the audio panel below. With Sri Lanka on 150 for 3 having just re-emerged from a rain break, Agnew was told (apparently erroneously, it now seems) that according to the notorious Duckworth-Lewis method, Sri Lanka had lost two overs-worth of batting but still had to get the same number of runs. He wasn't thrilled.
"I can't work it out. I'm beyond working these things out. How can there be no change to the target? If they were to chase so many off 38 overs, why are they chasing the same number off 36 overs now?
"It used to be a straightforward game, this. You ran up and bowled, and someone hit it. It's a mad game now."
Seriously, listen to the audio version though. The tones of voice from Aggers and his summariser epitomise world cricket's lunatic tendency.
Update: Australia have just won after a bizarre sequence in which the umpires offered the Sri Lankan batsmen the light, the batsmen accepted, Australia thought they had triumphed, Glenn McGrath pulled a stump out of the ground, the umpires said the game hadn't finished, they took the stump back, put it back in the ground, then made everyone carry on.
Here's a second clip from the BBC commentary - the final ball of the 2007 Cricket World Cup, in what television pictures showed us really was absolute darkness. It could be an Eddie Izzard sketch, but it's the actual commentary from the final ball of the finale of cricket's showpiece competition:
Only a quick one to register my delight that the BBC's school-based drama series, Waterloo Road, has been recommissioned for not eight (series one), not twelve (series two), but twenty new hour-long episodes for a forthcoming third series.
This means the show, whose second season ended tonight, will presumably run for nigh on five months when it returns this autumn, sitting it alongside the likes of Casualty and Holby City in the BBC schedules as a long-term commitment for its viewers.
I only started watching a couple of episodes into the second series, but it's some of the most consistently excellent television I've seen in a long time, and for me it's up alongside Life On Mars and Dr Who as the best drama TV has to offer at the moment. Any show where a burger van plays an integral role in a murder has to be worth its salt. And vinegar.
We all like an iconic dog, and nobody knows this better than HMV.
Nipper - old HMV dog - is being replaced, only temporarily mind you, by Gromit, erstwhile companion of Wallace in many an Aardman animation. For a special campaign, Gromit is now the Listening Dog, sat attending to his master's voice down the gramophone.
So that's Gromit. But back in the deep, dark recesses of my childhood the very name 'Gromit' conjures up the memory of grommets - tiny devices inserted into the ear to drain fluid and improve hearing in children. Steel yourself for this photo of an eardrum with grommet in place:
Yep, I became a member of the Borg at the age of 6 or 7, lying on a surgical table, holding my own anaesthetic tube like a brave little boy, then slowly realising it was all a con and that the sweet strawberry-scented air was actually knocking me out.
An hour later (or maybe a day, a week, a decade - I've no idea) I woke back up and must, presumably, have had these things installed. They are apparently supposed to drop out of the ear after about a year, but I've no recollection of ever waking up to find the Inner Ear Fairy had left a pound under the pillow.
Ah, the fun we had with my hearing when I was a child (and you thought these ears were funny shaped and nothing more). I remember a separate visit to the doctor, still only aged something like 6, where I was given a pair of headphones and told to raise my hand when I heard a sound.
The doctor went over to the tape machine, sat back down, and waited. I heard nothing. After two to three minutes the doctor went to talk to my mother. As she tells this story, he asked if I was, shall we say, mentally deficient and unable to grasp the concept of raising one's hand on hearing a noise. She double checked these relatively simple rules and regulations with me and I assured her I was on top of my game. But still I wasn't putting my little paw in the air. I was either deaf, dumb, or both.
Or alternatively the doctor might have forgotten to actually press 'Play'. This tends to help. I'm led to believe apologies were swift and profuse (I don't remember any, so he still owes me one). Bless my mother for having to put up with my many attempts at physical injury when young, most of them somehow involving my head, a source of endless maternal exasperation. On another occasion a doctor had a breakdown with us in the room. Clearly I'm a bad omen for these people.
A couple of other points of order for tonight:
- Yesterday I accidentally declared our horse racing reporter dead. I meant to call him a "great" correspondent but accidentally prefixed it with "late", as in the popular yet entirely inappopriate phrase "late, great". Happily I don't think he was listening but it's never wise to prematurely announce the demise of your collleagues, since it tends to hasten your own.
- I can't stop listening to an album by the Norwegian singer Hanne Hukkelberg.
It's called Rykestrasse 68 (don't be scared, all the tracks bar one are in English) and you can find it on iTunes or in your local music shop, hopefully. There's a bit of Kate Bush, some Sarah McLachlan, a little jazz, some country and a typewriter. As with all the best music, there are dozens of layers to each song and you find a new one with each listen.
P.S. I've just checked on Google and yes, I am the first person in the existence of humanity to use the term 'Inner Ear Fairy'. There's an achievement.
For five years, Phill Jupitus and Phil Wilding have been the duo double-heading digital music station BBC 6 Music's breakfast show, and it's been unlike any other breakfast show on radio.
Forget the travel, the weather, the sport, the serious breaking news story - put some good records on and indulge yourself in a few hours of comedy each morning. "Surly", one tearful listener called it as they wrote their goodbye on the 6 Music message board. It was brilliant listening and I don't think I've heard any other radio show be so consistently good. The music was great, the chat was hilarious.
I've been criminal in my neglect of their show, really. A few years ago I started listening to digital radio using a slightly battered portable DAB radio my dad gave me - during the university holidays I'd sometimes have to get the 7:20am bus from home to the libraries in Oxford and I'd take my little DAB with me. As the bus wound its way through the back roads of Oxfordshire, the DAB signal would somehow just about stay intact, delivering Phill and Phil to make the journey seem like seconds instead of an hour.
I vividly remember, one morning, sitting on the bus when the pair did their usual review of the papers. (In reality the paper review lasted throughout the entire show, and the papers just served as launchpads for all sorts of crazy discussions.) I have no idea what story was in the papers that day, but Phill and Phil ended up talking about gay monkeys.
I still don't know what I really thought was so funny, but it just was funny, and I was in hysterics on this bus, trying to keep my composure but snorting, giggling and chortling helplessly. I don't know what everyone else must have thought. It left such an impression that the monkey joke got a Dayorama mention, so I can even tell you which morning it was - and it was almost two years ago to the day, on 29 March 2005. To think these two have been broadcasting five days a week since then, and I've barely heard any.
In fact I feel cruelly deprived by this whole business. My digital radio, ordered months ago, took a small eternity to arrive in the post but eventually turned up last week. I scampered upstairs and hastily assembled it (I say 'assembled', I plugged it in and pressed the 'On' button), and immediately tuned to 6 Music, which is my favourite station anyway. And there was Phill, announcing that it was their last week!
Well, I can only count myself lucky that the new radio allows me to record live broadcasts to memory card. I woke up this morning for the last ever Phill Jupitus and Phil Wilding breakfast show, from Phill's house, and as the minutes ticked away I pressed the 'Record' button so I'd have a little reminder. Use the link below to listen to a montage of bits from the final 20 minutes, starting with the final bars of Billy Bragg's tribute, played live in Phill's kitchen. They'll be missed.
Check out their MySpace, by the way, by clicking here. They promise to produce podcasts. Most podcasts are complete gimmicks - these will be something special.
But only just. Amy J and I reckon we scored 52 and 51 respectively in Wednesday night's umpiring exam. We don't know the scores for sure yet but we do know we passed - George, the examiner, told us we'd both done enough to get the 48 out of 60 needed to get through the GL6 umpiring examination.
It's been an odd ten or eleven weeks. The classes started as an incredible hoot for the first few weeks - with umpiring stories allied to unlikely laws governing, for example, mowing, Wednesday nights were initially a winner.
But by the time we got to around week six or seven, we were starting to flag a little. I think it was then that we realised you have to really know quite a lot of laws, and the sessions became a slog to get through things like the entirety of Law 42: Fair & Unfair Play.
So tonight has probably come at the right time, since there's very little room left in my head for more umpiring. And the evening provided a fitting end to the course, too. Our umpiring instructors, each wonderful characters in their own right, bowed out in style as they threatened to have to abandon the entire exam, since no one could find the examiner and they weren't even sure which examiner was turning up.
When the man himself, George, eventually turned up, all sorts of things conspired to make the evening pleasantly entertaining in spite of the hard work to be done. During the exam the barman managed to drop a glass on the floor, interrupting proceedings with a CRASH! followed by a sequence of low-key tinkling in the background as he tried to mop up the evidence.
This must also be the first exam I have sat where smoking has been allowed. The lady next to me began the exam puffing away on a cigarette, which is certainly a little off-putting when peering through the smoke to study an image on a projector.
Perhaps the best part, though, was going through the answers afterwards. Once we'd given our papers in (which were marked on the night, and that's how we know we've passed), one of our instructors took us through the whole exam paper and told us all the correct answers.
As he went through them, one by one, I kept a score of how Amy and I had done, noting that we simply had to get 48 right (in other words, get at most 12 incorrect) to pass.
With 30 questions gone I knew for sure I had messed up three, and Amy had fallen four times. Then it got a bit messy: both of us knew we'd not exactly set the world alight in the later questions, and it was only with less than ten questions to go that we could both safely say we'd scraped through.
Going through the answers provided the ultimate confirmation that we were a room full of budding umpires. On several occasions the "correct" answers to questions were challenged by almost half the room, most noticeably on questions where we were required to give LBW decisions.
We'd be presented with a diagram and asked to deliver a verdict of "Out" or "Not Out". In more than one instance the room was divided between half who'd give a batsman out, and half who wouldn't. It will reassure you to know that far more than half passed the exam so, despite all qualifying from the same course, you'll get markedly different LBW decisions off some of us in a game!
The next stage of the course doesn't take place until this time next year. Who knows what I'll be doing then and if I'll have time to further my fledgling umpiring career, but I am proud to say I am now a qualified member of the Berkshire Association of Cricket Umpires and Scorers, and I'd like to thank everyone who gave their time to drum enough knowledge into me for that to happen.
If you'd like to hire Amy J and myself for a match, you can get me on the usual email address.
Keep this one under your hats, and don't tell me I never give you exclusives...
If you like the idea of watching the television you want, when you want to watch it, then you should probably get used to a screen similar to the above. That's all I can really say.
At this point I'd like to say my new digital radio, which took longer to arrive than it took Fogg to circumnavigate the globe, is technology at its finest.
At the same time as I'm downloading a television episode of 'Dead Ringers' using the above, my digital radio is recording a radio episode of 'Dead Ringers', currently being broadcast on BBC7, to a memory card so I can listen later.
I wonder if I'm the first person on the planet to be simultaneously recording live digital radio and downloading television. That would be quite a nice accolade. (It's unlikely but until someone posts a comment to the contrary, I'm claiming the title.)
One wonders how the Irish find enough people to go around.
This afternoon the Leprechaun hats were sprouting up all over the Cheltenham crowd, and now this evening they're all in the West Indies at the Ireland v Zimbabwe cricket match.
To top it off, at the weekend they'll all be in Reading for the London Irish St Patrick's Day game - it's already a sell-out and guaranteed to be the biggest attendance in the history of rugby union's Premiership. Let's not forget the Six Nations, either: on Saturday Ireland are in Italy so expect the same dodgy green hats in Rome, all clutching tickets ready to get back to the Mad Stad for Sunday.
All these events are, of course, not even in Ireland itself, which has plenty of its own sport to be going on with. What odds on Irish hats at the speedway tomorrow night? I'll let you know.
Actually, speaking once again of speedway, I've found a very handy website which provides live text updates on the scores around the country. It's like Ceefax except it's maintained entirely by volunteers - one texting the results of each heat back to base, the other typing those results up for the web.
I've used it to follow tonight's friendly between Swindon and Reading, and it worked a treat. I'll definitely be employing its services to keep me up to date while I'm at the track over the summer.
A quick plug for tomorrow's Sportsweek while I'm at it. As well as the speedway, from 7pm we'll have rugby, hockey, cagefighting, snooker, cricket, and maybe a bit of ice hockey and rowing.
Not forgetting Cheltenham either, although frankly we don't speak of Cheltenham any more. My woeful inability to back a winning horse has continued all week, culminating in the 20/1 outsider Crozan, riding with £2 of my blessing, tripping over a hurdle mere moments from recording an unlikely but brilliant victory.
I've now downloaded a virtual horse racing game in a bid to rig it so that just for once in my life, the horse I choose wins a race. As yet we've had five races and my horses have finished nowhere. Luck of the Irish indeed...
As you've probably heard, there's a new £20 note in circulation, starring economist Adam Smith. This means the old Edward Elgar £20 notes are being withdrawn.
The Elgar notes were first issued in 1999. But which note in circulation is the oldest, and whose face does it feature?
It's always a nightmare when you're returning to your car only to see it, off in the distance, about to be clamped.
That nightmare gets even worse if it's a branded BBC pool car with the name of your radio station emblazoned across the side, and it's looking like you might have to get the Park & Ride back into town wearing a branded BBC fleece.
And no, it wasn't me. I'm too young to drive a BBC pool car. It was our sports editor Joel, during a little scouting mission around the route of the Reading half marathon, coming up a week on Sunday. I'm going to be out and about on the course so we were working out all the best spots to hit during the hours we're on air.
For the briefest of moments, Joel left the car by the roadside in an all-but-deserted Green Park so we could work out where the marathon start line would be, and how close our colleague Sarah can get the radio car to broadcast from the start on Sunday.
We found the start line and Joel happened to notice a sign which suggested cars could be clamped. Five minutes later we were ambling back to the car to discover that this was no idle threat but a very real possibility, given that a man in a white van had turned up and was inspecting our vehicle.
Joel began to run back to the car (I, being the help that I am, switched on my microphone and began commentating). As he got closer, the bloke nipped into his van and produced a wheel clamp in threatening fashion. There followed an exchange of views and, by the time we'd caught up with him, Joel had managed to negotiate the pool car's freedom.
According to the bloke, there's no fine for parking illegally where we did, but "it takes eight or nine hours to find the key to the clamp". Such pleasant people. We'd been in this ghost town of an industrial estate for all of seven minutes, and someone had already launched themselves into their van like a member of Thunderbirds in a hurry and hared round, clamp in hand.
Still, that kind of hospitality is the exception to the rule in Reading. And today we're particularly fond of the weblog Reading Roars!, which kindly dropped us a link last week as a "quality blog with a Reading connection". As if that wasn't enough, it even called us "well-designed". Alas, like pre-haircut Britney, it's outwardly fine but inwardly a complete mess. Thanks for the compliment all the same, though, and Reading Roars! goes onto the favourites list forthwith.
PS It's highly reassuring that both Reading Roars! and the Reading Chronicle blog have mentioned BBC Berkshire in the past week or so. The Chronicle even had its chief reporter telling the editor to update their blog because we'd mentioned it on our site. It's encouraging when, every now and again, there's evidence people read the stuff we write...
"Hi there," in an American accent. "I'm calling from Barclaycard. You told us you don't want us to ever call you unless it's to do with the running of your account, but periodically we ask our customers to review that decision."
End of phone call. What sort of idiots does a company have to employ to end up calling people who don't want to be called, to check if they still don't want to be called? I'm off to cancel my card for that, they don't deserve a penny.
That's Amy J at Lord's last year, trying not to look as excited as Simon Jones before facing Cambridge in the women's Varsity match.
But last night she received an honour she says is as great as being picked for that Oxford team. She was asked to represent the Berkshire Association of Cricket Umpires & Scorers at the 2007 regional Finger Quiz.
Now this is positive discrimination at its absolute worst, and naturally I appealed to every available authority to discover why I was overlooked for the prestigious honour. The answer:
She's "better looking" than me (Gah! Were there any women on the panel?)
She's younger than me
She got 24 out of 24 on her homework (I got 23)
This is appalling. The first point is very much in the eye of the beholder and I feel should never form part of the selection criteria. Certainly not when I'm involved.
The second point shocks me to my inner core - it's the first time in my entire life that I've been passed over because I'm too old for something! It can only be downhill from here.
The third point is an absolute outrage. The stuffy woman somehow pulls full marks out of the bag for the very first time in week seven of the course, having been knocked out of sight by yours truly in the first six, and suddenly the glamour of being a, well, Fingerer, is bestowed on her!
I tell you, there'll be grim repercussions. For a start there's my threat to record her performance in the quiz itself - she and three others of varying skill levels will represent Berkshire against the likes of Hampshire, Surrey and other surrounding counties, in a test of umpiring skill to be held somewhere in darkest Berks.
But that's for the future - some time near the end of April, in fact. First I had to put my journalistic hat back on and grab an interview with the lucky nominee...
On last night's Match Of The Day, some plonker in the MOTD graphics department got it badly wrong at the start of the Charlton v West Ham highlights.
In the background behind Gary Lineker appeared the club crests of Charlton and... Spurs! The dang fool had somehow mixed Spurs and West Ham up, so while Lineker yakked on about the Hammers, the Tottenham crest rotated serenely above his left ear.
Now I imagine very few people have, or crave, the dubious honour of being awake to watch both the Saturday night and Sunday morning versions of Match Of The Day. But clearly this crass club crest calamity (say that when you're drunk) caused someone plenty of concern, since in this morning's version, it's magically been corrected!
One can only assume they dragged the poor man Lineker back into the studio at the end of Saturday's live broadcast and made him re-do his link. The things he has to put up with - if it's not graphics going wrong, it's football managers walking into his shot.
This is exactly the sort of thing that makes every football fan convinced the BBC hates their club, by the way. I've seen plenty of Reading fans complaining about coverage on BBC Sport Online (a favourite seems to be to confuse the club with Portsmouth), and in the latest edition of Man City fanzine King Of The Kippax, there's a whole two-page spread devoted to one man's analysis of how often the club feature last on MOTD.
I can categorically state that nobody who puts the highlights together, or works for BBC Sport, actively tries to confuse Reading with Portsmouth or put Man City last in the billing. Essentially, the problem is thus: imagine how many people work for the BBC department looking after your football club. Now divide that number by three. That's how many people are actually working in that BBC department, and they've probably got an entire division of clubs in their care. Portsmouth... Reading... QPR... Luton... Celtic - they could all blur into one, couldn't they?
While studying for a postgrad in broadcasting, you have to do a fair bit of work about media law. The exams at the end often take the form of questions like:
"You receive a call in the newsroom at 5.30am from a pig farmer. He proceeds to tell you he is absolutely certain that he just saw local MP Jeremy Bogstaff engaged in grossly inappropriate conduct with a farmhand, down behind the barn. What steps do you take in covering this story?"
The answer is not:
"It's six o'clock, I'm Ollie Williams. Our top story this hour: local MP Jeremy Bogstaff has been round the back of the barn again sniffing cocaine off the pigswill-stained backside of another poor farm boy."
Instead there's the usual rigmarole of having to stand up some legal defence or other before we're confident we can carry a story. The most useful one is being able to prove it's actually true, a defence rarely available to any British tabloid.
But the thing with these questions is you always think: does this really happen? Will I really get a call from a voyeuristic farmer who happened to think the best thing to do was ring the local radio station? Will it really just be down to me to make a decision?
And then you get a brilliant real life example to prove just how these things can and do happen.
A friend of mine lives next door to the girlfriend of a Premiership footballer. Yesterday he texted me to tell me he'd just seen this footballer leaving the house in floods of tears, and that it looked like they had split up.
Tonight I got another frantic text:
"Give me a quick call sometime, can you? You will not believe what is happening here."
It's like those bits in Star Trek when Scotty's voice appears on the intercom. "Captain, I think yae shud come down here an' see this." He can't just tell us what's wrong - we have to all go and look before we're any the wiser.
Having waited forty minutes til the end of Life On Mars (priorities), I gave him a call.
"You won't believe it. You remember my text from yesterday, yeah? Well he came back today and somehow broke in, and had to be restrained! The police have been round here twice today. There's talk of a restraining order and everything."
Obviously it's not wise for tomorrow's sports bulletins to start with, "We think a Premiership footballer's gone postal and he might get a restraining order". For a start radio stations tend to nurture their relationships with football clubs and it would wreck that overnight. But that's no excuse for not running a story - it's very hard to ignore something like this when one of your reporters is seeing it all with their own eyes.
What will always stop us is the fact that there's very little we can prove and in all honesty, what's our Premiership footballer done wrong? Had a row with the ex and been led away to simmer down, apparently. It's a good episode of Dream Team but it's really none of our business until it winds up in something like a court.
I think we'll go for the answer the law exams never give you. "Wait for a tabloid to print it, then go to town with the line 'reports claim that...'." In the mean time, camera phones at the ready boys.
On Facebook, that social networking site to which we continually refer and which you probably don't care much about, there is the opportunity to join - and create - groups.
My old university friend Mark has just joined a group called: "I'm Not Southern, I'm Not Northern, I'm From East Anglia!"
Now I realise there are one or two readers who may be mildly offended, but one has to ask why anybody would want to shout that fact from the rooftops, when it's generally agreed that East Anglia is at the very least geographically deficient (flat, boring, no decent roads), and probably lacking in many other faculties.
I had a quick look at the group and sure enough, right there in a group supposedly celebrating East Anglia, lies the very reason it's the subject of such scorn. Here's a comment from a lady named "Beca" (parents may have been unable to get as far as a recognised spelling), left on the group's page:
"what I really hat is that people only know where east engla is because jade bloody goody was dence enough to think it was abroad that readiclous. PLus they think its like 20 min from one side to the other. Nowrich and cambridge ar nowhere bloody near each other there in differen counties people make me mad."
Someone else has joined the group simply to vent long-held frustrations:
"Why are you proud to be whats commonly known as the a*se of England? I had to LIVE in suffolk! Actually live there!"
I've been to Colchester a couple of times, Norwich a couple of times, and spent a memorable evening in Great Yarmouth winning eight different cuddly toys out of those funny little grappling-hook machines. That'll do me.
A particularly interesting letter appeared in the inbox for the website's "Feedback" page yesterday. The sender had come to the feedback form via an article on two Reading girls' football players who'd gone for trials at Fulham FC. Here is the text of the letter in full:
Greetings to u in the name of our lord jesus christ,
I am a young footballer,with a great view of being in your team and by GOD grace taking us some were.
I submited an application to join your team i please do want you to highlight me more on how to go about it because i am realy interested in joining ur team,i had already stated in my application that i am a vibrant young football star with a dream,i have my video clips of little of my very best and my pictures maybe i can do forward my pix to ur mail so u see me,or rather my video clips.
I play for my club here in nigeria bafana fc,and solid rock fc,as a striker cus i excebit all it take to run it. But all the same i would like to come for a trial of playing with u and i promise you will never regrate me coming in jesus name. Ild like to hear from you as soon as you get my mail .here is my contact adress ... (deleted from mail).
Thank you
GOD bless
from Tobi
I've deleted Tobi's full contact details, but part of the address given was:
(Street name), Off Moshoba, By The Power Line, Ojodu, Ikeja, Nigeria
I refuse to believe this is your typical Nigerian spam - for a start it's asking for a trial at a football team, not money, and secondly it's quite some Nigerian spammer who approaches specifically via the page dedicated to trials with a football team.
Alas, Tobi's not going to get a gig with Fulham's girls or the BBC Berkshire charity team, but here's hoping something works out somewhere.
It's hard to believe that the first episode of Life On Mars aired over a year ago, and I can't wait for the new (and final) series to start on 13 February - particularly when the posters advertising the show's return are this good:
How clever of the folk in charge of the campaign, using the old-style BBC logos, lettering and house style (note "13th February", which you'd rarely if ever see now, in place of "13 February"). In the show, of course, the plot centres on a character who's been thrown back to the mid-1970s, from whence he's half-trying to escape while solving all sorts of crimes. At the same time, it could all be a dream and he could be in a coma. It's one hell of a plot.
And it's not just the posters which have had the 1970s treatment either. Look at this brilliant trail for the show, taken from the BBC earlier today:
Even the voice of the announcer has been changed to chime with the blue "BBC1 Colour" logo - a masterstroke when so many TV trails seem to follow the same tired pattern.
Bloody marvellous, Life On Mars. I wasn't around in the 1970s to know what they were like, but the 70s on display in Life On Mars is believable enough to me. But forget that, it's just great to see a decent new cop show on telly - this is like a British Starsky & Hutch, right down to the natty cars and cardboard boxes all over the shop. Thrown in the good-cop-bad-cop leading actors leaping into action, hurdling a table like they're The Sweeney and fighting each other as often as they fight the bad guys, and you're really cooking with gas. Top it off with the time travel from Dr Who and the odd surreal he's-actually-in-a-coma moment, bring to the boil, and it's the best show I've seen on telly for ages.
Sorry, did someone say Starsky & Hutch? Because the BBC have a Life On Mars trail just for you...
A final quick admin note: there's four new Dayorama banners in the system. Numbers 69 through to 72 will occasionally appear at the top of your page - or you can press "refresh" a gazillion times over til you've found them all.
Thanks to Amy J for the video clips and the poster pic.
"Look how much they've written about it! It's huge!" And it is, as well. Some poor unfortunate soul, volunteering their services to the world, has written up the whole shebang for Wikipedia. There's even a news article about the debacle, including quotes from this weblog. Somebody has been very hard at work, with too much time on their hands. But credit to them all the same - they've got some very useful mathematical diagrams and the whole thing seems very well done.
That wasn't enough for my good colleague though, by now practically bouncing up and down with fire in his eyes. "You can even edit it as well!"
Five minutes later and he had indeed edited it, adding to the top of the article the name of the BBC regional news programme on which the original item was aired, and the name of the reporter (i.e. his name).
It amuses me greatly to note that, within half an hour, the good people who maintain Wikipedia - i.e. the general public, since that's the whole point of it - had gone back into the article and removed the reporter's name again! I don't think he's noticed yet.
Not only that but, in what would appear to be a form of punishment, they've removed the other reference to our good reporter, and a reference to me, later in the text. My fifteen minutes of Wikipedia fame destroyed by my over-excited colleague. Disgraceful.
However I find it immensely comforting that within moments of the boy getting a bit carried away with all his newfound "I can edit anything I like" power, one of the old hands quietly stepped back in and put it all back the way it was. Here's an extract from the "history" of the article, which records all changes made:
Someone, almost certainly over on the other side of the world, has delicately but firmly slapped my good friend's wrist and restored the entire article to its pre-interfering-TV-journalist state. The human race is a remarkable thing.
Actually, there's one very serious point to this. The "history" pages for each and every Wikipedia or Wikinews article are invaluable. They allow you to see precisely what changes were made, who changed what, and why they did it. For example, when the news article was edited to include my comments on Dayorama, a note was attached to the history: "Here's what Williams had to say." So I know precisely when my comments were included, and by whom.
That's extremely transparent and should be something to which the BBC's websites aspire. I've always been one for things like documentation - I find this sort of thing interesting as much as I find it useful - and if it was built into the technology we have, I'd love to use it to explain changes I made, rather than leaving sinister-minded visitors to guess at all manner of conspiracy theories.
In fact I'd imagine the vast majority of BBC online journalists would go for this. The problem is less the mindset and more the technology. Wikipedia can do it because it was set up to do it - the BBC website, over a decade old and full to the brim with clunky bits and pieces, needs a complete overhaul to accommodate that kind of technology. But we can't just take BBC News Online down for a month, redesign a few million articles, then bring it all back again.
So much as we'd love features like this, it takes us forever to bring our website in line with more streamlined competitors simply because of the length of time we've been doing this. It's annoying when you can see it being done so well in the examples above - hopefully we'll have something like it soon.
Sundays are very much "off" days for many BBC local radio stations. Ours was barely populated after 2pm today, with one or two people recording shows, and the occasional passing broadcaster (including one gentleman who appeared to have come in purely to ring up National Rail Enquiries and yell at the poor lady whose job it is to man their phones on a Sunday night).
But we'd better hope Al Qaeda take a similar approach to their weekends, for two reasons. Firstly the massive barriers which traditionally guard the entrance to the car park have been down for the last day or so, presumably because they've gone for a burton again. This means that, despite having the sort of security developed to keep the Russians from infilitrating local radio and gleaning precious travel bulletin information, any terrorist only has to nip round the front and they can walk in without bothering to scale any of the more formidable defences.
Secondly, we have many, many cameras all around the complex to allow our security guards to keep watch over things like the barriers, be they down, up or otherwise (once they caught a car containing a local band coming in to record a live session - it tried to follow a friend in without letting the barrier go up, and the barrier elevated the car at a hilarious angle, wrecking it in the process. Amusingly the band were called The Skies.)
So, in theory, even if the terrorists had been rota'd in for Sundays and noticed the absentee barrier, they'd have been picked off by our crack security squad in seconds. Especially if they did more than 15mph down the drive.
But it would seem the security staff, watchful as ravenous hawks when the barriers do work, take the malfunction of the barriers as their cue to chillax a little. I got in this evening to discover the pair on reception giggling at a computer screen. On further inspection they were watching clips from The Wedding Singer on YouTube.
"It's alright," I said, "I'll let you know if there's any terrorists in the building."
(In reality I don't begrudge them their YouTube at all. There's about as much likelihood of us being the centre of a terrorist attack, on a Sunday or otherwise, as there is of me winning the Reading Half-Marathon. Or even running it.)
Yes, I know. I haven't posted this week. Why? Well, it snowed, didn't it? And if the tube doesn't work in the snow, and if planes can't take off from Heathrow, and traffic on the M25 comes to a halt, then I am unable to post. More precisely, it was so very cold that I didn't want to move off my very comfy sofa and post. I also had a horrific cold on Monday - Thursday. It was only bad on Monday and Thursday; Tuesday and Wednesday I just survived on Lemsip. But Monday and Thursday were truly dreadful. I knocked myself out with honey, lemon, whisky and hot water in order to sleep. Luckily, the worst came, and then was over by Thursday evening, since I had an all-nighter at work, followed by an early morning finish on Friday night / Saturday morning. So that snow? Even London is quiet in the snow. You know how the countryside becomes so very still in the snow? Well, even the same is true of London. The view from the Wharf over the City, all white and covered in snow flurries, was beautiful.
Yes, I've gone and treated myself. It's not cheap, but if I'm going to work in radio then it makes sense to have a very good radio of my own (shut up, that's my story and I'm sticking to it).
And the above, a Pure Evoke 3, is a very good radio indeed. Almost all the customer reviews you can find online sing its praises, despite the expense and despite the somewhat dodgy quality of DAB radio (for that's what it is) in some parts of the UK. In my experience the reception is pretty good around these parts, so I don't anticipate any trouble.
Of course if you're my dad, you spend your days listening online. I don't know how he's done it, but the PC at his industrial unit streams live radio like it's the easiest thing to do in the world.
Here are the rest of us, struggling with infernal time spent "buffering" and audio quality which makes it sound like the presenter is in a submarine - and my dad has crystal clear online quality. I've not heard it buffer once. BT must have built a pipe the size of Mauritius with which to supply his net access.
Anyway, back to the DAB radio. The good thing is I don't need to rely too heavily on the reviews, since I checked the radio out for myself while shopping in town earlier. So I've seen it up close and am satisfied that it's a very tidy little box of tricks. Its greatest asset is that it is, in the words of many reviews, the "Sky+ of radio" - it can record hours and hours onto a small memory card, and you can book shows in advance using electronic programme guides supplied by radio stations. I need never miss a David Sheppard show again (more to the point, he need not burn each and every one onto a CD, to be filed in a personal Sheppard archive bigger than the BBC's).
Of course it might have made sense just to buy one in the shop there and then. But, for the very first time in my life, I resisted the impulse and decided to chance my arm on the internet back home. Lo and behold, I have just picked one up for £30 less than the price the High Street was prepared to quote me. Is it any wonder our town centres are dying out when they're charging me a £30 premium for shifting my lazy arse out of bed to see them? The only other entertainment I had out of my afternoon was taking arty photos on the Park & Ride:
In fact at this juncture I'd like to recommend eDirectory.co.uk, which I've only happened across just now using Google, despite its insistence that it's been around for 10 years. It appears to bring together lots of little shops in one searchable location. I found the £30-cheaper radio, a memory card and even a 6-way extension plug (need somewhere to plug the radio in, after all), all under that one virtual roof. Assuming the goods turn up, I'll be a very satisfied customer.
Oh and if you want a show recording, let me know. (I've got visions of doing a roaring black market trade in back issues of the "Royals Footy Phone-In" to Reading fans.)
"It's amazing what you can download from the internet these days..." says Henry Kelly, inadvertently clubbing the head of today's nail while ribbing his producer yesterday. I echo the sentiment of the last speaker.
Here's the photograph I've waited almost twenty years to see:
I didn't take it - God knows, I wish I had - but I discovered it today among the Suburban Electric Railway Association's fine collection of photographs on their website. Take me back twenty years, and it would have been the best Christmas present I could possibly have received.
Before I tell you why, let's leave behind the notion that what you see here is merely an ordinary train. Trust me, it's not - and if you're one of those strange people who can't be excited by any train, ordinary or extraordinary (I've seen your type grouped along the middle of the platform), let's leave that behind too. Imagine yourself as a five-year-old boy who laps up the mere sniff of any train, let alone one as significant as this.
(As BBC management would say, there's a human story in all this.)
What you see is a photograph of one of British Rail's three prototype High Density units, 'PEPs' as they were known (an acronym of "Prototype Electro-Pneumatic", but dubbed by the press at their launch as "Pack 'Em Perpendicular"). To the layman, these were the forerunners of just about every British-built train you can travel on today - the first suburban overground train with electric sliding doors, the pioneer of the electronic coupling between carriages, and the test bed for dozens of new functions we now take as standard on our trains.
Above, you see 4002 (the second of three units) in a derelict state at the back of Clapham Junction's most unreachable siding; just how I was introduced to it almost twenty years ago. A trip to London with my father to indulge our mutual passion for trains took us to 'CJ' (as we know it) for the first time in 1987, and I immediately became engrossed with a faded old train in a siding we could barely make out in the distance. Legend has it that I spoke of nothing else for days; I made models of it from cardboard boxes, drew it everywhere I went, and worshipped the one photograph my Dad was able to dig out of his collection, albeit from its heyday.
Ah yes, its heyday:
Unsurprisingly, much attention was lavished on these trains when they launched in 1972. They represented a new era in British rail travel, modern thinking at a time when being seen to be modern was everything. Yet, once testing was over, their demise was virtually unchronicled even by the railway press. This little train, with its faded yellow front, taught a young Mr Sheppard a whole new range of emotions; he felt sorry for it, abandoned as it was, and he felt angry that nobody shared his curiosity enough to write anything about it - or, especially, to photograph it.
Most of all, it taught him the art of longing. For three long years, I wanted nothing more than to go and see the PEP up close. I wrote (in PEP-coloured pencils) to the Chief Engineer of British Rail's Southern Region, but received no reply; my letter was probably mistaken for a complaint. Three years which, in recollecting them now, seem like a far lengthier chapter in my childhood - the PEP obsession was probably the most important thing to me at the time.
Those three years came to an end in November 1990, when on one of our many journeys to London to see the PEP (most boys go to see the Queen), something extraordinary happened. My Dad and I were aboard a fast train to Waterloo, and so passed through CJ at some speed. All the same, we could see the PEP was no longer in its distant, unreachable siding, but... crikey, actually moving slowly through the station, and in full view!
My snatched few seconds up close to the PEP as our train thundered past turned out to be the last time I would see it. By the time we could return to CJ on a stopping train, it had gone. Two weeks later, it was broken up at a scrapyard in Yorkshire, characteristically without ceremony. As a young child, it felt like a personal assault - that somebody could so easily destroy something that meant so much to me. Today, it seems no less of a tragedy that nobody, not least the National Railway Museum, cared enough to save such a significant part of our railway history.
It turns out that day was the first time the PEP had turned a wheel in over seven years. It was also my ninth Birthday. What felt then like a cruel taunt from the God of railways (or, the more secular Chief Engineer of British Rail's Southern Region), now seems like a most uncanny Birthday present of a lifetime; a happy coincidence which at least gave me a chance to witness the PEP's departure, albeit for a mere few seconds. After all, I could so easily have been taken to London the following day instead.
So, thank heaven for the internet. Twenty years on, I have the chance to study the PEP up close in a way I never got to do in person. It's lost none of its mystique for me, and it probably never will. This second instalment of my ninth Birthday present is almost certainly as close as technology can take me to actually being there; but again we must conclude, it's truly amazing what can be downloaded from the internet.
Post title in tribute to those many trips to London with my Dad, some of my happiest times and the memories I treasure most. Casey Jones, the 'other' CJ, was a burger chain (named after the legendary American railwayman) with outlets at most of the mainline stations in London, a usual lunchtime haunt. I miss them, too...
Remember Tiddles? He's David's on-air correspondent from a variety of events: football matches, local fetes, foreign postings, the lot. He's also a cat. To the untrained human ear it can sound as though David's simply playing a "strangulated meow" effect from a bank of audio clips on a computer - but all cats, even the barely visible Basil, can understand every word.
Well, we're slowly piecing together more information about Tiddles with every appearance. And today I discovered that Tiddles is owned by none other than cricketing legend Geoffrey Boycott!
I got my first clue at 1:30pm, while reading a sports bulletin. Geoffrey, ever one to have an opinion, reckons it's a disgrace that England's cricketers all got MBEs last year, and now they're being humbled by the Aussies. We had an audio clip of him saying as much - and adding that he was going to give his own OBE to his cat, as it meant nothing any more.
Richard, the presenter on air at the time, punctuated this by declaring the cat to be "Tiddles, OBE". Ah-ha, I thought. So that's where he's been all winter! Every since the football season started and David's Saturday show found itself replaced by live commentary, our feline correspondent's headed Down Under with Mr Boycott to watch some cricket.
But I couldn't quite be sure. As has been widely documented, all BBC journalists need at least two sources for their stories these days. Patience was needed.
My lucky break came while driving home listening to Five Live. It's often the case that the sports scripts and clips we get are from the central BBC newsgathering service, which pumps out material to all BBC radio stations. In this instance, the very same Geoffrey Boycott clip had found its way onto the Five Live cricket round-up that evening.
The moment it had finished, Five Live's Russell Fuller declared Geoffrey's cat "Tiddles, OBE". That was uncanny (uncatty?). Why should two radio presenters, on different radio stations, at different times of day, without being prompted, both plump for "Tiddles" as the name of Geoffrey Boycott's cat? Clearly it could only mean one things - it's our very own Tiddles!
My great fear now is that, unable as I am to distinguish Tiddles' insightful analysis from a strangulated-meow sound effect, I don't know what accent he has. If he sounds anything like Boycott, heaven only knows what we've been unleashing on the feline population of Berkshire.
Finally I should make the point that while both presenters went for the oh-so-predictable "Tiddles, OBE" joke, I took it to a new level, announcing that Geoffrey's cat had been elevated to the Order of the British Em-Purr. I thank you.
I've had enough. The Torchwood season finale has pushed me over the edge. Let me see if I can give you an idea of the plot:
The lead character and the resident piece of totty end up in 1941 instead of the 21st century. It turns out an old, scary-looking bloke with an old, scary-looking name is messing with time when he's not running his antiques shop. Everyone starts having visions and goes a bit mad, culminating in one of the Good Guys shooting the Main Good Guy dead. Three times over.
Having scanned the dead guy's eyes to enable a massive time rift to open up, the remaining Good Guys realise they've accidentally unleashed a gigantic monster implausibly named Abaddon (above). Abaddon gets about 34 seconds to try to eat the planet, starting with Cardiff, before the bloke the Good Guys shot dead three times turns up and kills it, killing himself (again) in the process.
Or so we thought. But three days later the piece of totty kisses him and wakes him up, just as Hans Christian Andersen begins to spin violently in his grave. Then he disappears. The end.
Granted, it was mildly entertaining. But when boiled down to the above component parts, it has to be said that the plot is utter shite. I think the nadir came when this gargantuan creature, pretty much the devile incarnate according to folklore, could apparently do no better than scare a few shoppers in downtown Cardiff before succumbing to a bloke we'd just seen shot dead.
Yes, I know I'm skipping over some plot points from previous episodes which make this scenario marginally more understandable, but essentially you need to be licking some remarkably hallucinogenic toads to come up with this stuff.
With this in mind, I hereby form a new group: LOTADROSS.
LOTADROSS - the League Of Television Addicts Demanding Realistic Or Sensible Storylines - exists to prevent this sort of thing happening again.
The plan is that the moment we hear of a scriptwriter trying to come up with something like this, we shut them in a dungeon somewhere below Cardiff. We then shoot them, open a time rift, and send them into it with a 200-foot tall monster. Let them see how it feels, and see if they feel like documenting it in the form of light entertainment when they get back. It's the only way they'll learn.
Why would you want to watch the fourth test between Australia and England? The English are already a wicket down, they've barely scored at all, the players have all gone off for rain, and Sky are already showing a repeat of the only session's play so far.
The Barmy Army have even been robbed of the chance to watch paint dry, the expected Aussie sun having been replaced by traditional British drizzle.
But, flipping a few channels up the Sky box, we find more cricket. New Zealand v Sri Lanka, in a Pro20 (i.e. Twenty20) international. And this match is absolutely cooking with gas! Sri Lanka are currently 59 for 6 with just over half their allotted 20 overs gone - they're really struggling, and they weren't helped by a suicidal run-out a moment ago.
Earlier on I had trouble getting to grips with my new PS2 game, Cricket 07, and posted some pretty poor scores. Well, watching this is like watching two Cricket 07 teams, both controlled by me, flailing around in a desperate bid for quick runs (I'm not the most patient batsman on a PS2, unlike in real life, where I once batted 45 minutes for 0 not out).
Marvan Atapattu has already been removed cheaply having looked entirely out of place in this environment, and that's what always has purists gnashing their teeth. Gone are - OH MY GOD, I've just seen one of the best catches in cricket, 61 for 7 - sorry, gone are some of the old elements like patience and certain forms of cunning. Uprooted are the tactics you'd need for the five day game, even the one day game. It takes a different breed and many fine cricketers are not cut out for quick cricket.
But sod those cricketers. If they can't adapt it's their own fault. Call me a revolutionary, an ignoramus, a fool, but I'd happily dispatch the five-day form of the game back to the pavilion tomorrow if it was a choice between that or Pro20. Imagine a whole internatonal season of smash-and-grab Pro20 matches, each held over just a few hours, entirely accessible for an evening's viewing - either on TV or at the ground itself. It'd be brilliant. You could have a meaningful league table for the first time in cricketing history and everything.
Not that I actually want to kill off test cricket entirely. Look at last year's Ashes for England fans, and this year's for Aussies - you'd have to go some to find a Pro20 game generating quite that atmosphere and tension over such a prolonged period of time, but it's precisely that period of time which helps. When a five-day game goes down to one wicket in the final session, it vindicates playing that game for five days.
But what about England against Bangladesh? Or Sri Lanka? Can you remember the scores? Can you name anyone else we've played over the last couple of years? It's not very easy because those test matches are almost immediately forgettable (especially with all the cricket now on Sky, although if they're putting the money in, all power to them). Test matches are great when it means the world to both teams, but I've seen a few lately on various sports channels where neither side has seemed to really care.
Give them a couple of Pro20 games a month, playing all the other top international sides in a year for the title of World Champions, and see how we go. I think it'd be brilliant. Very few sports feel the need to maintain a version which takes five days and could, at the end of those five days, end in a draw. Most sports tend to take two or three hours to play out. Pro20 makes sense, doesn't it?
Sri Lanka are now 86 for 8 off 91 balls in around an hour (and they're playing Take On Me in the background, you can't help but love it all). England are 36 for 1 off their same 91 balls, three hours into their allotted time following two rain interruptions and an early lunch. Pro20 might just be the home of cricket this century - I hope so.
I took my four-year-old half-brother, Harry, out to the cricket pitch (our finest nearby green expanse) with the dog earlier this afternoon.
We spent between twenty minutes and half an hour out there, in overcast but not unpleasant weather. I thought it might have been colder than it was, but then I was wrapped up in a scarf and my much-treasured overcoat. Harry, by contrast, had insisted on being allowed out in a pullover and shorts. Yep - apparently he even goes to school in shorts, throughout the winter, by choice.
The dog we kept occupied with a tennis ball, an object of worship for the dog since a very early age. There is nothing the dog will not do for the love of a good tennis ball. Contrary to popular belief, the most luxurious reward that dog knows is not scraps from the table after a particularly scrumptious roast, but a brand new premium tennis ball, fresh out of a can of Slazenger's best.
He'll humour you with some fetch-and-toss for a few minutes but as soon as he thinks he can get away with it, he'll take the ball well out of reach and start energetically ripping the luminous yellow fluff from the ball's circumference. This gave rise to one of my all-time favourite photographs. It shows Toby (for it is he) moments after one of these indulgences - the tell-tale sign being a small bundle of glowing fluff protruding from his teeth.
Harry had a ball of his own to keep him engaged, one of your typical inflatable-but-fairly-rugged footballs for kids. He initially busied himself trying to kick it as high as he could, but quickly discovered the far more enjoyable and rewarding game of kicking it at my face from close range. Happily his aim is not yet up to scratch.
It certainly wasn't with his very last kick of the afternoon, just as I was putting the dog back on his leash for the short walk home. To get back we have to go down a little walkway between the cricket pitch and the main road, with high walls on either side, behind which are the gardens of various houses. Harry, just as we left, gave the ball a final hoof - over one of these walls into the great unknown.
When we rounded the corner at the end of the walkway onto the main road, it became clear that the high wall tailed off into a rather low wall, decorated with assorted thorny shrubs. I, with dog in one hand, was not about to go clambering through the foliage even though we could see our ball in the dim distance - so, with some encouragement, I was able to dispatch the intrepid Harry to hare across two back gardens, retrieve the ball, and scamper back.
My greatest fear was that an owner of one of said gardens would emerge, somewhat aggrieved (I'm sure it's possible for some people to berate an intruder for getting their ball back, even if that intruder is a four-year-old on Christmas Eve). It didn't happen and I'm glad to say we made it home safely.
Instead what intrigued me was not my fear, but Harry's. As soon as he got back he suggested we go home as quickly as possible... lest the police catch us. Harry professes not to like the police - they are 'scary' - and was sure they were mere moments from arresting the pair of us for breaking and entering (breaking one shrub, entering two gardens).
I'm told this isn't the first time Harry's been desperate to give the pigs the slip. According to my dad the wee firebrand became a literal wee firebrand some weeks ago, when caught short on the way home in the car one night. My dad pulled over and introduced Harry to some bushes in which to perform the necessary. Poor Harry spent his whole penny facing the terror of possible arrest, charge and prosecution (not to mention extensive interviews with the Mirror and the BBC, no doubt).
It must be nice to be four: to not yet have grasped that the world's police forces have other worries, to believe oneself to be the absolute centre of everybody's attention. And why the hell not? At four years old you are under no obligation to accept the sentience of other beings - you're it. And if you go for a crafty wee in a hedge, you quite reasonably expect Thames Valley Police in its entirety to be out prowling the fields with sniffer dogs.
Christmas is exactly the same when you're four. A couple of weeks ago I sat down with Harry and made his Christmas list. Twenty minutes passed and he was still adding to it, while I frantically tried to pare his expectations down to a level Santa might reasonably attain.
But Santa's not coming for me, is he? I know who got my presents. In many cases I know what those presents are without having unwrapped them, and in at least one case I bought the bloody present for someone else to give back to me! My dad and the rest of my family are the same - even Alice and Lucy, my half-sisters aged 11 and 9 respectively, can harbour few remaining hopes for the existence of St Nick.
But Harry believes in every element of the Christmas we try to sell to our jaded adult selves, just as Harry believes the thin blue line are behind the next bonsai. Tomorrow is for him and everyone else his age. Merry Christmas to all who read, and write for, Dayorama.
It occurred to me last week that just one thing stands between me and sports video gaming perfection - a good baseball game. I've got rugby, cricket, football and ice hockey all weighed off, but it's years since I had a baseball game.
The last one I had was Triple Play, back at the turn of the millennium, for the PC. And my word, what a game it was. It was like watching television and I'd play for hours on end, sucked into a world of baseball which I barely understood but felt I could entirely control. The commentators were brilliant, the music was amazing, the graphics photorealistic (or as good as), the gameplay perpetual. For a few months, I lived Triple Play.
So my natural inclination, on realising the absence of a good baseball game, was to find the latest incarnation of Triple Play. It's an EA Sports series of games - and when something's made by EA Sports, there's always a "latest version" to be had. Isn't there? FIFA 07, NHL 07 and Cricket 07 are all in the collection - Madden 07 (NFL) could find its way in too. Let's get Triple Play 07!
But no. Triple Play 07 doesn't exist. Triple Play hasn't, on closer inspection, existed since 2002! In 2003 it became MVP Baseball, still produced by EA Sports but under a different name for reasons I can't immediately pinpoint.
Then, in 2005, the hammer blow. EA Sports... wait for this... EA Sports lost the rights to Major League Baseball!
In the UK that's unheard of. EA's FIFA games are licensed to the hilt by every football association going, every player sculpted to perfection, every sponsor's logo intact. EA's arch footballing rivals Konami, makers of Pro Evolution Soccer (widely held to be the superior product), have to supply their game with made-up names for their teams (Charlton are South East London Reds, Manchester City are Man Blue, Middlesbrough are Teesside). EA has all the cricket rights, all the rugby rights, etc.
But not for baseball. In 2005 another company signed a deal which means first-party games manufacturers (i.e. Sony for Sony consoles, Nintendo for Nintendo consoles, and so on) can use Major League Baseball names, but only one third-party manufacturer can. And it's not EA. So Triple Play, having become MVP Baseball, ceased to exist at all.
Well, that's not entirely true. MVP Baseball lives on in a 2006 version dedicated to college baseball - because, of course, American sport thrives at the college level, with tens of thousands of supporters turning out for the kind of game that might get a couple of hundred people, maximum, at English university level. But I don't care a jot about college baseball and wouldn't know where to start - take my Chicago Cubs away from me and I'm bereft of any passion for the sport. I need my proper baseball fix, and now I'm in a quandary.
While I wait for the deal to lapse (in 2012), heralding EA Sports' triumphant return, I've been spending a little time listening to music. And it's usually about this time of year that I predict some bands to make it big in 2007.
Last year I went for Guillemots - who've since sold well over 100,000 copies of their album "Through The Windowpane". The year before I went for Kaiser Chiefs, which didn't turn out too badly, did it? So my Dayorama track record with this is not too shabby.
This year: Lovers Electric, Fields, and Switches. Okay, I'm taking a few liberties by having three bands where last year I had one. But while Guillemots were barely known this time last year, these three (with the possible exception of Fields) aren't even bubbling under.
Lovers Electric are from Australia - which might hold them back a bit in the UK, we'll see - but look out for a track called 'Start Again' and one called 'Honey'.
Fields are becoming better known already and their signature tune, at the moment, is 'If You Fail, We All Fail'.
Switches were at Reading Festival (I remember taking photos of them although I didn't really pay too much attention to the music at the time), and they're a bit like a new version of the old Blur sound. Which is a good thing, in my opinion. Current top track is 'Message From Yuz' but their whole EP of the same title, including a track named 'No Hero', is good.
Success for all three predicted this coming year! I'll be back on the topic in 12 months to see how I got on.
Tell you what, this fog's a bit scary. We've heard all about the flight cancellations and the predicted Christmas traffic chaos, but can anyone tell me where the hell it's coming from?
I'll freely admit to being totally ignorant in this respect, but I don't understand where you get a fog that merrily descends on the whole of southern England for days at a time - and it was a pea-souper here in Minehead at the same time Heathrow was closed.
I've got to drive back up the M5 and M4 tomorrow and am having nightmare visions of crawling along at 25 miles per hour for six hours to get back.
By the way, I learnt of an ingenious trick earlier today. A friend of mine couldn't decide what to get another friend for Christmas, so - instead - they're going to give them a meal out. This will take the form of an IOU written inside their Christmas card ("this card entitles the bearer to one meal out paid for by the sender", etc). That's a bloody clever way of admitting you've not been able to think of anything remotely appropriate to get them! I'll be adopting that one, so ready yourselves for a few meals on me in early 2008.
Oh, and we got another mention on Bloggers' Blog. Trust Amy to post once in a blue moon and still get featured on it. I swear they have their favourites - and speaking of posting, I'll be totting up our annual figures shortly and publishing the resulting graph. I hope Messrs Wooding and Kennedy are quaking in their boots ahead of that little performance review...
I've just exchanged a series of emails with the aforementioned Ben Goldacre of the Guardian and his Bad Science blog, and the thing that most strikes me is he's so bloomin' prickly! We've discussed the article and he makes the points I'd expect him to - I've no problem with that at all and I think he'll publish some of it on his blog. I'm all for discussing the maths with him and the stuff we've both written.
But I've also endured a dig at my age and a dig at comments on this website (an unfair one I might add), which just seems a bit unnecessary and irrelevant. He seemed to be out to have a go at me from the start. It makes me glad I don't have to endure this kind of bickering day in, day out, in what is - for the most part - a job full of very pleasant, positive people. I'm sure Ben's like that normally but this afternoon he seemed determined to get under my skin.
"I don't really get blogs," says a colleague sat next to me. "I don't get why you assume people want to read what you write." And here are Ben and I sat writing agitated emails. It's probably a nice day outside... I need that attitude! Consider all maths-related blogging here closed.
It's been truly a voyage of discovery watching the internet take the story of Dr Anderson and his theory, then rip it mercilessly apart, occasionally punctuated by isolated voices threatening to support his work. I can only imagine how the man himself must feel.
I was extremely impressed with the individual who, confronted with the original article on dividing by zero, declared: 'That's Numberwang!'
I was also pleased to discover a podcast entitled The Weekly Geek, which featured the article right at the end.
But my award for the finest response from the internet goes to a gentleman named Bill, from a website entitled TheScrabbled. You may remember that in my initial nullity-related post, I included an image of Dr Anderson's proof, drawn on the back of an envelope:
Bill took that image, disappeared briefly into his image editing software, and re-emerged with the following effort - adding: "This makes just about the same amount of sense to me."
I never expected to have somebody doctor my handwriting so that it represented ninja kittens, and I'm really quite pleased with the end result.
You can now hear a 20-minute discussion between myself and Dr Anderson where I try to put some of the more clearly expressed arguments to him, here. I'm not expecting you to have listened to it the next time we meet. That would be really awkward. "So, didcha like the bit where I asked about binary?" "Look, Ollie... I'll be honest... I sort of didn't click the link."
By the way, if you want to keep track of what I'm writing just in case I do come up with something you're interested in, you might want to bookmark this link. Google News have now added us to their list of sources, so each article we write will appear, in date order, on that page. It includes articles written by colleagues at News Online and in our newsroom so the stuff won't all be mine, but at least a third of it will have come from yours truly - ninja cats to be supplied at a later date from our US office.
Thoughtful but strange, you might think, for a listener to be sending me a manual on "Cars & Trains", apparently illustrated in powder paint by a young child. I was inclined to agree at first sight. Except that the young child turns out to have been me, 18 years ago...
It could only be me when you look closely. Who else, at the age of 7, would have misspelt basic words like 'were' ('wour') and 'because' ('becose'), yet quoted the correct unit number for a Class 485 electric train arriving at Sandown? And who else would have annotated their drawing of a lorry with a disclaimer, warning that "this type of Leyland badge only apears on lorrys. on buses a different badge is desplayd"? Guilty as charged.
Less of a disclaimer, more of a boast, is the rather blatant admission of plagiarism...
(Note that 'how' is spelt 'Howe', as in the name of the railway locomotive. I wish I could lay claim to being pun savvy in those days, but sadly the error is repeated throughout...)
Other gems include tips on driving safety ("To drive saferly your brakes must be working"), and a lament for Richard Trevethick's steam car, which sadly didn't take off as a concept "becose it frightend hourses".
Oh, and a diagram which fully exploits the phallic connotations of Stevenson's 'Rocket'...
Parts of this little booklet I can remember working on. I remember the frustration of the paint colours running into one another on the cover, and Miss Rattray (yes, a real name) having to glue paper over the top to enable a second attempt. I can also remember the book we used in the great 'gathering up' of information, as I delicately put it. What I can't remember is who ended up keeping it - which rather precludes any hope of understanding how, ultimately, it came to be me!
In the now time honoured tradition, the parcel's sender hasn't signed a name, but has left a charmingly understated note branding it as "something to amuse". My old friend Joe Northcote is my hot favourite, but it's not his writing (compare it to that in the book if you don't believe me). Perhaps Miss Rattray herself, but then why would she have kept it for 18 years? As with the mystery of Ollie's portrait, we may never know...
But what a privilege to have the job I do. A job that allows me to return to work after a week off, to find more weekly chocolate parcels, more CDs (others have copied the idea since I mentioned it on the show last week), and a little lump of my childhood, all stuffed into my pigeon hole.
Thoughtful but strange, you might think, for a listener to be sending me a manual on "Cars & Trains", apparently illustrated in powder paint by a young child. I was inclined to agree at first sight. Except that the young child turns out to have been me, 18 years ago...
It could only be me when you look closely. Who else, at the age of 7, would have misspelt basic words like 'were' ('wour') and 'because' ('becose'), yet quoted the correct unit number for a Class 485 electric train arriving at Sandown? And who else would have annotated their drawing of a lorry with a disclaimer, warning that "this type of Leyland badge only apears on lorrys. on buses a different badge is desplayd"? Guilty as charged.
Less of a disclaimer, more of a boast, is the rather blatant admission of plagiarism...
(Note that 'how' is spelt 'Howe', as in the name of the railway locomotive. I wish I could lay claim to being pun savvy in those days, but sadly the error is repeated throughout...)
Other gems include tips on driving safety ("To drive saferly your brakes must be working"), and a lament for Richard Trevethick's steam car, which sadly didn't take off as a concept "becose it frightend hourses".
Oh, and a diagram which fully exploits the phallic connotations of Stevenson's 'Rocket'...
Parts of this little booklet I can remember working on. I remember the frustration of the paint colours running into one another on the cover, and Miss Rattray (yes, a real name) having to glue paper over the top to enable a second attempt. I can also remember the book we used in the great 'gathering up' of information, as I delicately put it. What I can't remember is who ended up keeping it - which rather precludes any hope of understanding how, ultimately, it came to be me!
In the now time honoured tradition, the parcel's sender hasn't signed a name, but has left a charmingly understated note branding it as "something to amuse". My old friend Joe Northcote is my hot favourite, but it's not his writing (compare it to that in the book if you don't believe me). Perhaps Miss Rattray herself, but then why would she have kept it for 18 years? As with the mystery of Ollie's portrait, we may never know...
But what a privilege to have the job I do. A job that allows me to return to work after a week off, to find more weekly chocolate parcels, more CDs (others have copied the idea since I mentioned it on the show last week), and a little lump of my childhood, all stuffed into my pigeon hole.
There's been a tornado in London and the whole of southern England has suffered a pretty blustery day - but I've been safe indoors watching the enthralling spectacle that is a blogstorm.
If you're a regular reader you'll be sick of this by now, but a Reading academic reckons he's onto a winner with a new theory about dividing zero. However, so far he seems to have been far more successful at dividing the mathematical community. It has to be said that the weight of opinion suggests he's got it wrong.
This all started yesterday evening, when South Today broadcast our piece on the prof and his brand new number - nullity. We had a wave of people descend on the site to watch extended footage of Dr James Anderson explaining his theory and leave their comments.
Then, somehow, Slashdot got hold of the article. Slashdot is a major US science and technology website, read by many thousands of people. Those many thousands of people all clicked the link to the Berkshire site and left their comments.
But these days, people don't just read major websites and leave comments. They write about everything themselves, just like we do on Dayorama. I've just done a Google Blog Search for links to the Berkshire site from blogs and, since we published the story, over 100 bloggers have had their say.
Remember that all these hits from intrigued bloggers and mathematicians are going to the Berkshire site. But then Buzzfeed, a site promising to 'find your new favorite thing', latched onto the Dayoramaposts about nullity.
Since then we've had what is, at the time of writing, the second best day ever in this website's history - almost all the traffic coming from Buzzfeed. If 11 more people visit this site in the last half an hour of today, it'll become the all-time number one day for Dayorama (taking the crown from David's brilliant tribute to Radio 2 producer Paul Walters, a day's traffic single-handedly driven by the online forum for Terry Wogan listeners).
So what are all these bloggers linking to the article saying? Well, there seem to be three broad categories:
1: Wow! What a cool idea! / Leave Dr Anderson alone
A rare bird, that latter one. I've seen three or four people mounting defences for Dr Anderson in the face of mounting criticism, and about 20 blogs thrilled that the problem of dividing by zero has been cracked, not having noticed the accompanying outrage.
2: Dr Anderson is a quack, boffin and/or crank
By far the most popular choice, both of mathematicians and intrigued layfolk (probably swayed by the volume of negative comments underneath the BBC article). There are sub-categories here too: some people think his proof doesn't work; some think he's proving something that they've known for years and it's nothing new; some think he's dangerously wrong; and some think all three.
3: What on earth are the BBC doing reporting this?
Obviously the interesting one from my point of view. Five or ten blogs, and some of the people commenting, think it's outrageous that the BBC has published this crackpot theory from a quack, boffin and/or crank. They see it as irresponsible journalism to write about something like this without waiting for it to be peer-reviewed by other mathematicians and published in a recognised journal.
We're getting Dr Anderson into the BBC studios to answer all the points raised by people in category two, so let me deal with those in category three. I think it's entirely responsible and demonstrably sound journalism to publish this story.
First, let's remember the raison d'etre of the BBC Berkshire site. It's designed to reflect local stories and provide features of interest to people living in the area. That doesn't mean we can let normal BBC standards slip, but it does mean we're not writing for a global audience of mathematicians. Our target audience is people who live in Berkshire and the vast majority will have no specialist mathematical knowledge.
That means the article is going to be written in broad terms with no great mathematical detail. We don't want to write an article that's impenetrable to the majority of our readers, we have to word it so it's understandable to anyone. We're not going to reproduce pages of mathematics because it's not our job. Some people have had a go at Dr Anderson for using simplified terminology too, but he knows we're playing to a mainstream audience, and at the time we filmed him, he was showing his theory to a class of schoolchildren. Those circumstances were never going to breed an in-depth half-hour scientific discussion, and none of our regular readers would want that.
Second, if you only want us to report scientific news once it's appeared, peer-reviewed, in a recognised journal, it's going to be very dry, and it probably won't be news. Of course there's a place for that and the last thing we want to do is mislead anyone, intentionally or otherwise. The BBC's mission is to educate, inform, and entertain. I think a story about a University of Reading academic potentially solving a mathematical conundrum ticks those boxes - especially by opening it up for over 500 commenters to have their say on the issue.
We did not present Dr Anderson's theory as gospel, although with hindsight it could have been made clearer that this is very much a theory and by no means universally accepted. But we certainly weren't shouting a mathematical revolution from the rooftops. Dr Anderson has, in one or two places, been chastised for coming to the media with his theory instead of his peers - a sure sign of a quack, boffin and/or crank according to one blogger. Actually, one of our reporters happened to meet him during a demonstration against the closure of the university's physics department a couple of weeks ago, got chatting, and discovered Dr Anderson reckoned he was onto something. He certainly didn't break the door down looking for media coverage.
I think the telling factor in this story is the sheer amount of interest it's generated. If it wasn't an interesting story, if it didn't offer a subject of real debate, and if it didn't have any base in fact, it wouldn't have 500-plus people wanting to sound off about it within 24 hours of being published. For some reason dividing by zero captures the imagination, whether you're a mathematician or not. The reason for the article is to say: "look, a local academic thinks he has a great idea. Does he?" And hundreds of people have written in to either agree or disagree. Sure, far more people disagree, but they're not all on that side of the fence. There is a real gem of a debate in there.
It's not for the BBC to become a journal of mathematics - that's the job of journals of mathematics. It's for the BBC to provide lively science reporting that engages and involves people. And if you look at the original page, you'll find a list as long as your arm of engaged and involved people. But it's not job done til we take all their concerns and questions to Dr Anderson - so stay tuned.
I have to update you on our "dividing by zero" story, told on the BBC here and on Dayorama here.
Since last night, the world has gone crazy. We've had over four hundred comments on the BBC page and doubtless thousands of visitors (we've yet to see the stats), most of whom have probably come from Slashdot, the major science/technology site which somehow picked up on the story late yesterday.
Overwhelmingly, commenters to Slashdot and the BBC think Dr Anderson's theory of 'nullity' is, well, null and void. The main arguments seem to be either that it's just a mathematical device that anybody could have come up with which solves nothing, or it's fundamentally flawed in the proof and won't work anyway.
I'm working hard to get hold of Dr Anderson to put all these questions and get a response - it's great to be encouraging a proper mathematical debate! Of all the articles I thought might grab some attention and foster a good discussion, I'd never have thought to put money on a video purporting to show a new means of dividing by zero. It's brilliant.
Dr Anderson, to his immense credit, has already written a robust defence of his theory into our comments system. The bad news is, the comments system will only take so many thousand characters and, as you can imagine, a robust defence of division by zero needs more than a few thousand characters! So, quite hilariously, the good prof's argument is cut short in its prime, just when he's about to get to his proof.
The conspiracy theorists will be out to get us if we leave it that way for long, so early next week I'm hoping to track the doc down for some serious mathematical meditation. Until then our expert commenters will have to remain, er, divided...
Did you know that if you book a return flight with British Airways there's an £8.80 surcharge to land you back at the same airport from which you departed?
It's true. I'm not sure if it's policy or not at BA, but earlier this evening, when booking a short break for June next year, I was surprised to find I had to pay almost £9 extra for my return flight to land at the same London airport!
For around a tenner less BA were offering to fly me out of London Heathrow but deposit me back at London Gatwick. Pay the tenner and the plane will land at Heathrow instead. I'm sure there's a feasible reason for wanting to take off from Heathrow and arrive at Gatwick, but it's safe to say that would be pretty bloody inconvenient.
On the plus side, I don't think we sometimes quite appreciate the technology now at our disposal, and quite how fast it's changing.
Seven months before taking to the skies in an Airbus A321, I can of course reserve my tickets, reserve hotel rooms at my destination and check that a regular train runs between the airport and the city centre.
But I can also tell the airline I want one of the party to have the vegetarian option on the flight, and I can choose the exact seats I want on each plane - row 24, A and B. All in five minutes without the involvement of a single other soul, at no cost in time or effort to either me or the airline.
You probably take that for granted, but would you have done a year ago? Two years ago? Five years ago? In a very brief space of time technology has accelerated to the point where, more than half a year in advance, I can put someone in seat 24B on a British Airways flight out of London Heathrow, and I can tell the airline to serve them a vegetarian brunch. Seconds later my ticket has arrived by email.
I used to think technology had got boring, to the point where there was nothing major left to invent. Then I thought about wireless power, but that seems ages off, so I decided there was nothing exciting being developed now. How foolish I was - with every passing day there's progress somehow, somewhere, on something. And in a few months' time we probably won't bat an eyelid at that something, because we're becoming so used to this progress that very few things faze us. Think about it. What would someone have to invent to truly stun you?
To my horror, loading iTunes because I found myself stuck for good music in the car earlier, I have discovered a small yet disturbing alteration to the iTunes shop's homepage.
Previously the set of five tabs at the top of the page showed popular genres of music - rock, pop, etc. Among these there once lay an option entitled 'Alternative'.
In a move which, if it reflects society, means we might as well all emigrate now, the 'Alternative' option has been replaced with either 'Hip-Hop/Rap' or 'R&B/Soul' (I can't remember which of those two had already been there - suffice to say neither play much part in my music browsing).
This comes as a crushing blow to my faith in British music or, at the very least, British music tastes. I was only just sat here thinking how far our musical culture has come in the last five years as well. Fields' "If You Fail We All Do" was the song used for the end credits after Sky's coverage of Man City v Watford (how very apt, the game ending 0-0).
The song was a brilliant choice and one that simply wouldn't have found its way onto mainstream television until the advent of the likes of Soccer AM, which did wonders to promote the practice of setting football highlights to obscure choices of music.
Now, dropping indie tunes into your broadcasting is all the rage - I can tell you that the highlights of our Reading match commentaries sound pretty good over the top of new Muse track "Map Of The Problematique", for example.
But if 'Alternative' is no longer considered worthy of top billing by iTunes, does this mean the damned fools buying rap, hip-hop and what is laughably dubbed 'R&B' are winning out? In a few years, will my abject evening sat in front of a dismal Manchester City performance be capped off with a cap in my ass? I shudder at the thought. Now is my winter of discontent.
The highlight of an online sports journalist's career - reporting live from The Ashes. You're at the ground, you've got your laptop, you've got your press pass, the second day's play is about to start. What could possibly go wrong?
Don't ask BBC Sport's Scott Heinrich that question.
It’s one hour before the first ball on day two of the second Ashes Test and I can tell you that the four walls of the South Australian Cricket Association administration office are very, well, clean.
I’m stuck here for the time being, intercepted at the gates by the SACA fashion police because of crimes committed against… the collar. I’m not wearing one.
I knew members were required to adhere to dress regulations which state that men must wear collars. I had no idea the same rules applied to the media. As a colleague just pointed out to me, “when did anyone care what journalists wear?’.
A friend of mine is bringing a collared shirt for me. Soon I’ll be in. I hope it’s a pink number. Geoff Lawson said yesterday pink was in for blokes this summer.
I hope my good friend and colleague Andy's taking heed of these developments in the policing of journalistic attire. I'd hate for him to be thrown out of Aldershot v Basingstoke tomorrow for wearing "away colours"...
There are few things in life as exciting as hearing one's name mentioned on the radio. I still get a tingle when I hear colleagues talking about me on-air, just as I hope the listeners do when it's my turn to do the mentioning. Better still, those occasions on which that mention is accompanied by 3 or 4 minutes of sheer indulgence, where a favourite record is played seemingly just for you... Magic.
With the technology to find and play just about any record from our home PC in just minutes, the concept of the request show may seem a little dated, but in fact, the thrill it brings is timeless. And to prove it, take a look at this:
Earlier today, I had a call from BBC Berkshire's reception, to say that a parcel had arrived for me. Hand delivered, the sender in question had issued such firm instructions to "pass this on to Mr Sheppard", that security guards had assumed I was expecting it. I wasn't!
Inside, accompanied by three 332.5g chocolate bars (yes, almost a kilogram of my preferred brand of chocolate!), was 'All the Roadrunning', the fantastic new album from Mark Knopfler and Emmylou Harris which I'd been planning to put at the very top of my Christmas list. A postscript on the label directs me to Track 6, 'Love and Happiness', to which I'm listening as I write. I'm moved to tears by the words, and by the overwhelming power of a gesture well made.
Though there's no further message, I'm in no doubt as to the identity of the sender. The choice of Mark Knopfler points to the most loyal of listeners, a lady who clearly hears every word I blather at all hours of the day and night. The chocolate, which usually arrives weekly with a card and a request, confirms it - though this week the request show has been turned on its head. Suddenly I'm the one getting the tingle.
Track 6 will get a play this weekend. In fact, it'll get more than a play; it will receive the most heartfelt dedication I've ever given on the radio, to the lady who this time didn't text or email or write with a request, but actually sent me the CD from which to play it. Listen out - this will be just for you.
Post title from the lyrics to 'Love and Happiness', written by Emmylou Harris and Kimmie Rhodes.
Number one: for reasons not immediately clear, somebody arrived at Dayorama earlier today from the forum of the Scottish Licensed Window Cleaners' Network.
The network, or SLWCN for short, appears to be a group of Scottish window cleaners intent on providing a better service. Good on them. They've even supplied a page dedicated to explaining how the group came about. Here's an abridged version:
The first organisation to represent window cleaners throughout Great Britain was started in the late Forties and became known as the National Federation of Master Window Cleaners, then the National Federation of Master Window and General Cleaners and is now the Federation of Window Cleaners. Rightly or wrongly, it was perceived as being stuck in the past and not being proactive enough for some.
Some frustrated Federation members - along with window cleaners who would never have joined because of how they considered the “Fed” to be - decided to form the Association of Professional Window Cleaners.
As only Scottish councils license window cleaners at present, Tam Kay, who was involved in the preparatory days of the APWC, decided his efforts would be better directed in forming the Scottish Licensed Window Cleaners Network. It’s not part of FWC or APWC in any way.
It has to be said that the FWC certainly sharpened up their act in the months leading up to the APWC launch. The change of name and logo was already in the pipeline, but to accompany that, the members’ quarterly magazine – WindowTalk – was revamped with a more up to date style.
For the full version, and to find out more, click here. I'd have to register if I wanted to discover precisely which page refers to Dayorama but, with just 27 members at the time of writing, I'd feel a tad self-conscious doing so.
Second on the agenda are the many vacancies in the Doctor Who production offices at BBC Wales.
In an email circulated today, no fewer than seven job opportunities - working on the likes of Dr Who Confidential and Totally Dr Who - were announced.
Why have all these vacant posts suddenly appeared? Is there something slightly fishy going on in Cardiff? Have the Daleks exterminated the previous appointees, or should we be looking in the bowels of Torchwood for the unfortunate seven?
All highly suspicious. Still, you can imagine the horror for Amy J when it's announced the Dr Who offices are looking for new Tennants...
With Twink and Winky, I share a compulsive love of Wine Gums, which often explains why whole clumps of the little coloured gems go missing from your bag whenever I'm nearby. I rarely make it from any main-line railway station to a tube or a bus without first buying and consuming an entire cylinder in two mouthfuls. I once stopped at the Severn Bridge services to buy a 250g bag "for the journey", but managed to consume the lot before I'd reached Wales.
Unlike the Wombies, though, I don't like the yellow ones much. Widely supposed to be lemon flavoured (at least, according to Wombania's study of The Great Wine Gum Flavour Debate), it's unlike the other colours in its corrosively bitter taste, and if you've ever stopped to compare the smell... yuck.
For most, the black and red gums have the edge, to the point where you can guarantee they'll be first to be exhausted at the hands of cherry pickers (who have the gall to call themselves friends, despite leaving you with a bag of yellows to finish up). You smile, but herein lies an important thing about human nature. One of the big Wine Gum manufacturers (Maynards, I think), played on the popularity of the red and black gums some time ago, and began selling bags of just those. Legend has it they were a flop, whilst sales of the standard gums continued to flourish.
So, it seems we'd rather have both ends of the spectrum. The bitter and best. One makes the other seem much better.
Yet, which of these leaps out at you?
Let's be honest, you could use a roulette wheel to select your chosen gum.
That I seem to buck this quirk of human nature is bugging me as I listen to a compilation CD I made this week. Much as I do love i-Tunes and its many cousins which answer my long-term prayer to be able to store all my music in one place, I'm also still a fan of the trusty compilation CD, which allows me to enjoy a select few favourites which work well together - if you like, the black and red records in isolation.
This week, my informal theme was "so rarely heard, but every one a winner", and the resulting collection is so good it hurts. The ecstasy of hearing Elton John's 'Part Time Love' rubbing shoulders with Captain & Tenille's 'Love Will Keep Us Together' is beaten only when Toto's 'Hold the Line' breaks in with that marvellous single drum beat and, oh, that piano, to be followed by China Crisis' "Wishful Thinking" at Track 4... And so on.
The problem is, by the time I've worked my way through Carole Bayer Sager, Chris Rea's 'I Can Hear Your Heartbeat', The Korgis, England Dan & John Ford Coley, Air Supply and more, to The Carpenters' beautiful version of 'You' (a favourite of the late Dr Wally), I feel like doing it all again. And invariably, I will - all night long. It's exhausting.
So how come the black and red Wine Gum venture failed? Sigmund Rowntree (the well known psycho-confectioner) might have concluded that to appreciate the high points in life, humans must know the other extreme; to enjoy the black, one must endure the yellow. I'd tend to agree, but for the fact I'm a self-confessed glutton, who'd happily plough his way through packet after packet of exclusively black and red Wine Gums with the same unending enthusiasm which has led to my re-starting 'You' six times (so far) this evening.
So while Twink and Winky are busy chewing their way through the yellows in search of happiness, I'll be laying back and basking in an ecstatic sea of red and black, playing The Carpenters over and over and...
Tradition has it that when broadcasters fill out little Q&A forms for their profiles, there's a question which asks for their worst moment on radio.
Take the BBC Radio Five Live profiles, for example, which ask for each person's worst on-air nightmare. Here are some answers:
Asmaah Mir | "When Ian Payne made me corpse during the news and I just couldn’t recover."
Nick Mullins | "Telling actor David Tomlinson that I thought he'd been great in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. He'd actually been in Mary Poppins. He didn't speak to Radio Kent again."
Dalya Raphael | "Losing my voice after having rushed up five flights of stairs to make a news bulletin on time. I was so short of breath when I opened my mouth I simply couldn't talk."
Mark Saggers | "Once, I’d been banned from Old Trafford by upsetting Sir Alex, so we set up across the road on a grassy verge. All was okay, until one of the engineers accidentally touched a cable to a power line, and blacked out half of Manchester!"
If you asked me that question now, the answer would read like this:
"We turned up to do a live commentary on a local FA Cup match, and everything was fine all the way through 45 minutes of pre-match chat, up until about 5 minutes into the game.
"At that point our microphone decided to start cutting out, and we had to drop off air to switch to one of the three or four pieces of back-up kit we keep in our radio car.
"As the first half of the match went on with no commentary (songs were going out on air instead), we slowly and painfully discovered that every single item of technology was in some way broken, inoperable or useless in our situation.
"Eventually at half time we gave up - cold, humiliated, and verbally abused by a fair percentage of the local supporters."
To give you some idea of the evening, we had to set our own commentary position up using a picnic table and an umbrella next to the pitch:
Our gravest error came when we removed the umbrella, since it stopped raining. Once the game started, about 20 or so young football fans clambered onto our bench to get a better view, nearly shook it apart, and then our microphone died - my evening along with it.
My co-commentator tells me it's the worst broadcasting disaster he's had in six years at the station, so it must immediately rank as my top on-air nightmare. Hand me that Q&A form to fill out - then I'm going to go to bed, to weep softly into my pillow.
My main problem with the usual abuse the BBC is given is that some people act like every BBC employee is working on the Middle East desk at News 24 or News Online. If you remove from the equation people with a vested political or personal interest in the Israel/Palestine conflict, the number of people lobbing verbal molotovs into BBC inboxes declines a fair whack.
From my point of view it's sad, and unfair, that people prepared to tear apart the BBC's coverage of the Gaza strip don't recognise that people like me spend our whole working week right in the middle of our communities, trying to do good things - even in our very small way - that people will enjoy.
And when I say communities, there will be people expecting that to bear out a supposed attitude some dub 'hug-a-Muslim'. It doesn't.
I have spent my entire afternoon processing match reports from junior football games around the county - taking reports from parents and coaches, sub-editing them, formattng them and adding them to the web. It might well not be a service you'd ever hope to use in your life, but every match report is 20-plus kids with their names, or at least their team name, in lights on our website. The feedback we get from parents is great: their children love finding the reports online and it feels like a real public service when I'm doing it.
I have absolutely no idea, nor do I care, what creed or colour the kids playing football are. From their names I can gather that some are of Asian origin, some are of European origin, many more are of British origin, but it's the very last thing on my mind.
I've covered a few junior football matches first-hand in the past couple of months, giving up a Sunday on top of my working week to go down to a game, take photos, and interview the young players as though it were a miniature Match Of The Day. I do it because it's great fun and, for the 100 or so players and parents there, it's an extremely visible sign that the BBC is trying to do something good for them.
If junior football isn't your bag I can guarantee the BBC has someone, somewhere, doing exactly the same thing for your pastime of choice - be it music, cars, gardening, wheelchair basketball or computers. It's a shame, for me, that cynics glued to the Middle East news items don't notice it if it isn't political. We just seem to get referred to as "you BBC", as though many thousands of individual employees, each often working in entirely non-political fields, all made Barbara Plett cry when Yasser Arafat died. We didn't.
On a related note, some journalists go beyond the call of duty in ways I could never dare (sacrificing Sundays is not something for which I'm about to demand a medal - I only use that to make the point that it's not something I do because I'm forced).
Dilawar Khan Wazir is a BBC Urdu reporter based in an area of northern Pakistan running along the Afghan border. He's gone missing, months after his young brother was killed and his family attacked by militants in the area. It's likely he's either kidnapped or dead.
I find it highly unlikely Dilawar Khan Wazir is "you BBC", watching militants attack and kill family members while he reports on an area where Osama bin Laden was once thought to be hiding - an area charged with political tension. We're all individuals and some take immense risks to try to find out what's really happening. And no matter what some people may say, that's the driving force behind the vast, vast majority of reporters you will ever meet, BBC or no BBC.
I'm proud to work for the same organisation as Dilawar Khan Wazir, and I hope he returns safe and well.
So, where's Osama bin Laden then? My Iranian friend reckons he has an answer. We'll call him Keith, which is manifestly not his real name, because he's extraordinarily paranoid and reckons the Iranian secret services will bump him off any day now.
Keith insists it's a dead cert that Osama bin Laden is in Iran - or at least, was until recently. It's a theory I'm willing to entertain as highly plausible, although Keith has so little evidence that I'm not about to worry I'm missing the story that could make my career (cue egg on face when all this proves true).
Here's Keith's reasons for believing Osama to have been in Iran:
"I went to Mashad - it's a huge city close to the border with Afghanistan, and there's this posh hotel a bit out of the city centre. It was the most expensive hotel in Mashad, called the Qasr, which means 'castle'.
"We drove past it and my uncle told me to look at it. The hotel is meant to be closed for refurbishment but that's odd, because it's massive. You wouldn't close the whole thing down for refurbishment, and apparently it had been closed for ages.
"I couldn't see any sign of refurbishment - like scaffolding, builders etc - but the place was completely and utterly surrounded by soldiers and tanks. That's weird, because the place is very quiet and out of the way.
"Another uncle of mine said he was dispatched as part of a security team, taking various politicians to a secret location in Iran using an army helicopter.
"He tells me Jack Straw and some US politicians were there, and that it was all being kept very hush-hush."
Keith went on to tell me Straw and the US politicians had been negotiating for Bin Laden's release from Iranian custody to a neutral country. ("Hello, Switzerland speaking? ... Oh for God's sake, have you any idea the trouble we got into last time?")
Now I'm not so sure about the part involving Jack Straw. In fact, I reckon this is symptomatic of all the problems engulfing speculation as to Osama's whereabouts. Yes, the above information is consistent with Osama hiding out there, and yes, other articles freely available online suggest the same thing, but where's the evidence? I've just had to fend off accusations from the very same Keith that the BBC are wilfully suppressing this sort of information, But, with the greatest will in the world, how is anyone supposed to report that?
There's absolutely no evidence for the whereabouts of this man. If you know otherwise, I'd love to hear from you.
One of the joys of broadcasting is being able to laugh yourself senseless when your colleagues mess it up live on air.
This has happened twice in the last week with two different BBC newsreaders. One had the computer die on him just as he went into the studio, so he attempted to ad lib the news, failed miserably (you try it), and had to admit defeat. The second got to the story about a rocket up a gentleman's backside and lost the plot entirely for the rest of the bulletin.
The reason this is always so funny is partly that you know it'll be you next, so you're very much laughing while the going is good.
So far I've not come up with anything truly tragic. My finest on-air calamities to date have all involved my mind going completely blank at the exact moment I need to open my mouth - a feeling I'm certain is well known to everyone who works in radio.
It happened a couple of weeks ago when I was interviewing a young band, five 14-year-olds, on the verge of a trip to compete in a national competition. 14-year-olds aren't usually given to supplying loquacious answers and, true to form, each one I spoke to summoned up a three-word answer and left it to me to carry on talking.
This was fine until we got to the fourth band member of five. I asked him a short question, he gave me three words back, and I had expended so much verbal ammunition that I had nothing left in the tank. There was a two second pause, followed by me blurting out something horrendous about getting my thoughts together and being "overwhelmed by the celebrity in the room", desperately trying to prevent an abject silence as my mind raced for a new question. Eventually we got there, but I returned home tail decidedly between my legs.
And today it happened again, just as I thought I'd banished the demon (I don't think this demon is ever going to go away, on closer inspection).
I had the privilege of attending a brilliant FA Cup football match between Stafford Rangers and Maidenhead United, providing updates on the game throughout the afternoon. These are always between 40 seconds and a minute in length, and involve the presenter handing over to me, me trawling out the latest news from the ground, then handing back. You hear this sort of thing all the time on Five Live, for example.
Maidenhead went a goal behind on 15 minutes, so I hollered down the microphone to our producer, who passed the message on to the presenter as I frantically scribbled notes on what I was going to say about the goal and the game so far.
Thirty seconds later I heard the presenter hand over to me, and all started well: "Thanks, it's Stafford Rangers 1, Maidenhead 0, the goal coming around the 15 minute mark..." - and there it stopped.
I wanted to say that Stafford's captain, Wayne Daniel, had scored a header from a Danny Edwards corner. But for the life of me, my brain simply wouldn't start the sentence. Imagine trying to start a stubborn car that simply won't get past that initial cough and splutter. That's exactly how it felt inside my head. All the information was on the paper in front of me but for two or three seconds I mumbled who-knows-what before getting my act together. The rest of that update was then ropey as hell as I tried to recover (and in the ensuing updates my voice was no doubt tinged with a mild terror lest it happen again).
Away from the private little hell of my brain powering down, the game was fantastic. Maidenhead had two players sent off but somehow contrived to earn a replay against Stafford, who are two divisions above them. Maidenhead's keeper, Chico Ramos, performed miracles, not least saving a penalty - the Maidenhead fans stormed the pitch to celebrate (and knock seven bells out of a Stafford fan or two, and vice versa) at the final whistle. Once again, and we've said this quite a few times over the past few weeks, it was a great advert for non-league football.
Meanwhile Basingstoke, the other team we were covering, beat Chesterfield, a massive giant-killing act, so when the draw for the FA Cup's second round is made tomorrow, we've still got plenty of interest (far more than I think any of our sports team expected!). The Basingstoke fans are all singing the praises of the full commentary on their message board while the Maidenhead fans seem slightly non-plussed at a perceived lack of attention (and probably the idiot who couldn't get his words out doing their updates). But they've got a replay coming up against Stafford, in Maidenhead, and I'll be there for that without a doubt. Let's hope my ability to speak joins me for the ride this time.
Last night my Canadian friend Amanda, a woman far more proficient with a hockey stick and some skates than I, mentioned she had a copy of NHL 07, the latest offering from EA Sports.
I used to love the NHL games so I dashed out today and bought it. The control system has entirely changed since I last owned a copy so, with only a couple of games played so far, I'm in all kinds of trouble. But the important thing is everything else appears intact - the look and feel, the ultra-slick, ultra-fast gameplay, the commentary and 'atmosphere' far in excess of anything EA Sports have ever conjured up for their FIFA football games.
Not only that but the whole bloody game is sponsored by none other than...
How amazing is that! I've always had a very keen sense of brand loyalty - just looking around me I can see brands like Diet Coke, Toshiba, Sony Ericsson and, indeed, the BBC, all of which I would fiercely defend if anyone so much as dared utter a bad word. So the pairing of a computer game I've always loved with the latest brand to consume my heart is a marriage made in heaven.
Still, we'll leave ice hockey behind because its grass-based namesake occupied my thoughts for most of Sunday.
That there is Richard Mantell, officially one of the top 16 hockey players in the world. He plays for Reading and England, and he's a nice bloke from the little I spoke to him. His Reading side trounced Surbiton 6-2 yesterday before Reading's ladies went on to lose 6-1 versus Slough - 15 goals being a reasonable return on an afternoon's investment.
Field hockey's also great fun for taking photos. I met Gareth, a freelance photographer who spends a lot of time at Reading hockey club, and he said as much. Both of us spent a happy afternoon snapping away from all angles.
The fruits of our collaborative labour and a report on the day's matches, plus audio interviews with Richard and others, can be found here.
Small terriers were put on the planet on an omnipotent whim, when He realised most of the animals were really quite boring after a while. In His wisdom, He scraped what was left out of a distressingly smelly jar marked 'Dogs', and - lo and behold - small terriers came into being.
Small terriers like this one, terrorising a water jet at Reading hockey club's Sonning Lane astroturf today:
I tried to shoot a video of him on my mobile phone but I won't humiliate us all with the resulting pixellated mess.
Instead I'm sure you can imagine the scene. Take your average small, yappy terrier, and unleash it on six different powerful jets of water, arching back and forth across a hockey pitch. It went mental, charging between each jet, barking at the damned things to STOP! with all the success you'd expect. The owners had little choice but to wait for the jets to be switched off, before reclaiming their half-pint hydropower Hitler.
More tales of Reading hockey club tomorrow, sadly with fewer terriers involved.
Yes, that's the car that previously bore the number plate S921 OCW. But you will recall that my new car, the Dodge, now proudly displays that very same plate. So the Nissan Micra has been given a new plate, but of course there's no way I'll ever know what that is.
Unless, improbably, the DVLA are so crushingly incompetent as to somehow make me the owner of the Nissan Micra when processing the documentation, then send me the new registration certificate. A bit like this:
So it's three cheers for S373 BDP! If this is now your car, then:
a) Aren't you slightly concerned it's registered in my name?
b) Congratulations! Treat her kindly, and
c) Is the penguin still on the dashboard?
It's the done thing for many movies to paint a bleak future for humanity. After all, you only have to look at the news on any given day to realise it's not difficult to envisage things going horribly wrong.
Minority Report, which I watched for the second time on BBC3 a couple of nights ago, portrays a society so rigidly defined by identity that more problems are caused than solved. Every eye is scanned in every location - there is nowhere to hide. When you're innocent, that's a very bad thing.
Children Of Men, the film of the PD James novel, depicts a world where everyone is infertile, the last generation of humanity is dying, and Great Britain is the only nation still in existence - governed as a police state with democracy in tatters. The message: we're just one event short of eternal global catastrophe.
I've been thinking about this, and it is apparent to me that all this freedom of choice we now have could well be our undoing. Take television as the prime example: with a Sky+ box you can already record any programme you like, then watch it back at your leisure. Gone - or at least, going - are the days of appointment-to-view TV, when you can now make your appointment the moment you feel like it. The BBC's currently testing its iPlayer service, which will let you download hours and hours of TV to your computer in high definition, should you please. Already, the Beeb's 'Listen Again' service is operating almost at capacity, such is its popularity. You call the shots in the world of broadcasting.
Now apply this to the concept of 'Top 100' shows, with a liberal sprinkling of Minority Report theory. There are far too many Top 100 shows on TV but we tolerate them because they're always controversial in their own little way, and we like to enjoy watching them in order to catch snippets of our favourite shows. Above all we like to be reassured that other people like the same stuff we do. If Tom & Jerry isn't in the nation's 'Top 100 Cartoons', we want to know why. It's a nostalgic device, a safety blanket and a conversation topic - that's why these shows continue to endure.
What if a box on the top of your TV - the same box which lets you play a 'Top 100' at any time of your choosing - scanned your retina before the show began? What if it used your ID to call up a record of your most-viewed television since your birth and, from that, determined your 'Top 100 Cartoons'? When you sat down you'd be presented with your very own customised programme showcasing the 100 cartoons you've most enjoyed watching throughout your lifetime to date. That, in the eyes (literally in this example) of many broadcasting executives, must exist as some kind of holy grail. You cannot get more personal than that, and today the demand is always for the tailor-made viewing experience.
But how much fun would that really be? Imagine tuning in to be presented with your top 100 shows. There would be no surprises! No room for argument, because how can you argue with yourself? No anxious wait for the number one show because you know damn well your favourite cartoon is The Simpsons! Slowly but surely your idyllic world of on-demand, personalised television becomes a hell-hole where you're encased in your own bubble, away from anyone else's experiences. That's what we're doing - extending the user-generated environment to the point where there's no other input - and that's not just dangerous, it's boring.
The scary thing is just how close all this is. Watch Doctor Who when you like, follow it with Torchwood, download a customised news bulletin with the stories you choose from specialist criteria. How are you ever going to be exposed to anything you didn't know about, or didn't think you'd care to know about? I worry that technology isn't broadening our horizons any more - it's starting to close them. As Children Of Men we may not yet be infertile, but the fertile mind is very much an endangered species.
I am so excited that words can scarcely do justice, despite the BBC journalist's use of the word 'rockers', in the title of the news article, in a fashion that suggests 'rocking chair' as opposed to 'rocking out'.
I only ever got to see Genesis - the proper Genesis, with Phil Collins or Peter Gabriel singing - on their early 90s 'Way We Walk' tour. I'd have been about 9 years old but I remember so much of it as though it were yesterday. I would have given anything to see them in concert again and now my wish has come true.
My favourite song of all time, and I'm listening to it now, is 'Domino' by Genesis, played live at Earls Court. Genesis were always at the forefront of advances in lighting and stage devices - they pioneered the kind of stage show you'd associate with the likes of Muse today (and indeed, Muse at Earls Court a couple of years ago were just like Genesis visually, full of tricks). For 'Domino' they had massive screens onto which were projected neon green dominoes, collapsing one after the other - not bad for early 90s technology. At 9 years old my jaw hit the floor watching my heroes playing that song with that in the background.
Now I'm listening to it again in the forlorn hope that maybe, just maybe, they'll revisit it on their forthcoming tour. I'm fairly sure they won't - it probably doesn't feature on many people's top ten lists, it's very much my own acquired taste (plus I can drum to it!) - but really I don't care. Whatever they play, I'll be in heaven - and you'll hear about the gig first on Dayorama.
(Note that earlier today I entitled a post 'Seconds Out'. It has only just dawned on me that this is also the title of a Genesis live album. I've clearly been in the mood all day.)
On my show this afternoon, I paid the briefest of tributes to one of the formative figures in my life, Paul Walters, who died this morning. It was a bizarre experience for so many reasons, not least because I was broadcasting to a small local radio audience who may never have knowingly encountered Pauly or his work (chances are, they have); but it was something I wanted to do, just to say a small thanks to a great man who's inspired me enormously over the years.
Radio 2's website is today awash with tributes from hundreds of the many millions of listeners whose lives he touched, each of them writing about somebody they consider to be a dear friend. I'm with them on that.
As a young listener of 15 or 16, I would write to Pauly with contributions for Wake Up to Wogan scarcely expecting them to be read, let alone read out; yet, then and for the next eight years, my best work always made it to air. Often a reply would arrive, answering a question I'd asked about the intimate workings of the show, or a pose for the studio webcam would be arranged to acknowledge that they'd got the joke.
Here's the good Dr Wally getting ready for surgery...
Under Pauly, the show became the ultimate circle of friends ribbing one another, with just one line sparking hilarity for all. Pauly, Dr Wallington P. De Wynters Walters, was every bit as ingrained on the character of the show as Wogan himself. He found himself at the centre of the recurring gags: the party at which he accidentally launched a cocktail sausage at Lord Reith's portrait; the teasing about living at home with his mother (which, of course, he didn't!); the many 'nieces'; the infamous "accident", just as Wogan opened the microphone; and the mimes on the radio, like walking into the wind.
Of course, if you're not a listener, all this will mean very little; but if you are, it will mean the world.
On the occasions I met him, I couldn't help but be in awe of his style. At the helm of the country's most popular breakfast show, he ambled back and forth between Wogan's studio and the cubicle next door, performing his many and varied roles with the utmost control and calm, still with time enough to speak to you like you were the most important visitor in the world. That's production at its highest and most elegant level. So many could learn from him.
He once arranged for me to interview Wogan for my student radio show (my gently probing request was met with the kind of welcoming response that made me question why I hadn't asked sooner). Pauly explained that he wouldn't be there on the day, or indeed on Wake up to Wogan that morning, as he was off to the golf. For the purposes of the show, his silence was to be explained by a gumboil which rendered him unable to speak. Nobody would really believe it, of course, but it was the perfect analogy for how the show felt that morning; the listeners might not have heard Pauly's voice, but they could still quite believe he was there, busying himself in the background.
Now, we'll have to learn to believe it all over again. It's been eleven months since he last worked on the show, and yet still you hear his influence breaking through. The ultimate legacy. As one well meaning but slightly confused tribute on the Radio 2 website reads, "never a day went by when I thought of Pauly".
It's nice of Virgin to provide a sign welcoming us to Coventry. It's just a shame they sent us to Coventry in the first place.
Here we all are, at 11pm on a Wednesday night, stood helpless on the platform with our broken-down train licking its wounds opposite.
Earlier in the evening I was mildly uptight when I accused Virgin of being "idiots" and intimated I would be demanding my money back.
Now I'm finding it all amusing, in its own numbingly inevitable way. My current estimated time of arrival into Reading is 12:30am, three hours late and eight hours after the train's scheduled departure time from Newcastle.
In that time the sheer number of trains - hypothetical and physical - involved in the operation has been staggering.
One train left Edinburgh bound for Southampton earlier this afternoon, and that's the one I got on at Newcastle.
A separate train left Manchester bound for Southampton slightly later on and, at Birmingham New Street, these two trains merged. Confusingly, the Edinburgh train on which I was sat became the Manchester to Southampton service.
Between Birmingham International and Coventry that train broke down. This was hardly unexpected - it was an hour late leaving Edinburgh because it wouldn't work properly, but Virgin seem to have taken a chance on a faulty train making it all the way to Southampton.
After twenty minutes dormant in a field it managed to limp to Coventry. Forty minutes or so later a replacement train arrived, and that's where I find myself. Add a taxi back to my car and the drive home, and I'll be lucky to get back before 1:30am. I mean it, this is it. No more Virgin for me. The Dodge can take me everywhere... its record is so much better...
Post title in honour of Andrew, the train manager for this service since New Street, who - while we were stopped in the middle of a field - used the word to describe the journey thus far.
I've been trying to refrain from writing this for over an hour but Virgin have now lobbed sufficient straw on this camel's back for me to get the hump.
Ultimately, the foul mood I'm in as we sit at Birmingham New Street is in some respects my fault. I booked the ticket for this train a couple of weeks in advance and, when I went to Newcastle, forgot my Young Persons' Railcard, which is lying on a bookshelf at home.
That's cost me £32 tonight, thanks to the conductress aboard this train, who saw no room for leniency and charged me the excess when I couldn't produce the railcard.
This means that, in total, the round trip has cost me over £100. The original fare was £66.40, plus a small booking fee, which I personally thought more than enough given I could probably get a cheaper flight. (And I will be doing, next time, even if the flight's more expensive, or I'll go with GNER. I've had it with these idiots.)
I would be holding my hands up and admitting fault over the railcard - indeed I already have done - but circumstances are starting to make me feel cheated of every single penny.
For a start we're now well over an hour late, and have been since just after my journey started. I won't get to my car in Reading until well after 11pm, a good 90 minutes later than scheduled. Frankly I hope it's more than two hours late so I can reclaim the entire bloody fare.
Secondly, we've just been held up at Birmingham New Street waiting for a connecting service from Manchester. This train has now officially become the Manchester Piccadilly to Southampton service, with all the folk from the Manchester train boarding this one.
This train is thus packed full once again, and furthermore - hilariously - the old reservations on this train have been replaced by ones from the Manchester service.
This has had the unbelievable effect of changing the display above my seat: where once it was reserved for me from Newcastle to Reading, it is now "available until Stockport"! We're going the other bloody way! These incompetent cretins have charged me a three-figure sum to take away my seat on a severely delayed train!
The final insult is the buffet, or lack thereof - not that I have the slightest intention of spending a penny in their toilet, let alone an extortionate sum in their shop. There was no hot food until Birmingham, a situation Virgin have rectified by refusing to offer any food or drink past New Street. That means nothing at all for the remaining two hours (at least) this service has to run. Is that even legal?
When the lady charged me the excess I handed over the money on the grounds it was a fair cop and she was just doing her job. But no. No, they haven't done their jobs on this train, they've provided a crummy service tantamount to no service at all. I want my money back and, in the immortal words of every wronged British consumer, they'll be hearing from me.
I'm posting under the category of 'Thinking Space' in the desperate hope that, somehow, I might buy myself some.
In a little under five hours time, the Reading Comedy Festival will launch tonight's instalment of frolics in a popular central Reading bar, and I'll be making up precisely one quarter of the acts.
'Making up' is very much the phrase of the day, I fear. I've never attempted stand-up comedy before (at least, not to an audience that doesn't consist entirely of mates and generally good people who are already on my side); but three weeks ago, I was set a challenge on-air to perform a slot at the Reading Comedy Festival.
In the great spirit of "never say no to anything new", I agreed, knowing that we'd record a few five minute features for Radio Berkshire following my training and preparation, but blissfully overlooking the fact that, some fateful night, I would actually be required to perform.
Three weeks later, I've just heard the penultimate piece being played on The Henry and Ollie Show, and finally it's struck home. Tonight is that night. And despite the many hours I've invested in putting those radio features together, and the many prompts I've had from listeners who are eagerly awaiting the final instalment on next weeks show (entitled "How Did He Get On?"), I've hardly put pen to paper on my act.
As every dying compere says, moments before the first rotten tomato comes his way, "anybody know any good jokes?"...
Few things compel me to stand, staring at another gentleman in the toilets at Paddington station. Other people pass by - staring in turn at me, wondering why I'm eyeing up another bloke using a urinal, and contemplating a quick phone call to the poilce when they're suitably relieved.
Wondering what was going on? Use the audio console below to hear me explain myself from the Paddington concourse a little later:
One of the great things about working in radio is the visual anonymity it affords. Whenever you meet somebody who listens to you with any frequency, rarely will you ever be able to satisfy them completely that you are, in fact, the one they hear on the radio.
At a recent bus event in Berkshire, a loyal weekend listener approached Alan Dedicoat - broadcaster of international renown, listened to and loved by millions - and asked "are you David Sheppard?". Hugely humbled yet acutely embarrassed on his behalf, I ushered the gentleman away from Alan, and proceeded to disappoint him with the brutal truth that, much as I didn't look as he should, I was in fact David.
The man's response was text book. An initial look of disbelief was followed by a fixation with the mouth which, somehow, was managing to produce a sound he knew well. A few sentences later, and confident that at least I knew David Sheppard well enough to borrow his voicebox for the day, he assured me that he never missed a programme, and had listened to David for ten years.
I've actually only been on for three, but it was a charming moment I shall treasure forever. Not that it's any tribute to me as a broadcaster, but rather to the magic and intimacy of radio in general, and a reminder that in this reality obsessed age, there's still a market for imagination and illusion. At least where balding, roly-poly broadcasters are concerned.
Funny, then, that I should find myself in exactly the opposite situation with regard to Amy and OJ, who I've still yet to meet in person. (We're forecasting a Dayorama social in early-December, under the Christmas lights.)
Of course, I know what they look like, from photos I've seen right here. I also know much about them both, and from what they write, I've a fair idea of their respective tones. But sound-wise, I can only imagine. I have a very clear idea of how OJ should sound, and much as I'm certain I'll be as aghast as the typical Radio Berkshire listener when we meet, here's how the illusion has become in my rather tangled mind:
Unlikely, I grant you. I can't imagine Homer's even visited Taunton.
As for Amy, I predict something akin to the silky tones of Kate Kestrel from Terrahawks (who, as a child, I used to fancy like mad, even though she was a puppet):
Again, unlikely. Kate too was American.
Since I know what Ollie sounds like, it's impossible for me to detach his visuals from vocals, but as these two are gradually merging into the same being, here's a forecast of how he'll sound one day:
And as for me, I sound a bit like 'bloke off t'radio. Don't look much like him, though.
London Irish are away at Wasps in rugby union's EDF Energy Cup this afternoon, and our reporter Graham's providing live commentary - but, since we've got other programming on our FM radio frequencies, the commentary is going out solely via the internet, on the station's website.
This is a bit of a hit-and-miss procedure. We have to book an ISDN line through central BBC shenanigans which connects Graham to our studio, then send the commentary through that studio out onto the web. We're never totally sure it'll work, since it only needs a bit of lousy communication between us and the BBC's Internet Operations centre, and we're stuffed.
So I've been sat here for the last hour or so in a state of standby, with the London Irish live commentary stream ticking away silently in front of me. That's okay - the match doesn't start til 3:30pm, so silence isn't necessarily the sign of something going horribly wrong. But if it stayed that way I'd have to jump in the car, drive to the studio and try to sort things out.
About 10 minutes ago the stream jumped into life, pumping out background noise from the arena ahead of the commentary starting in half an hour or so's time. I rang Graham to let him know all was well. The conversation ended with:
"Marvellous, thanks Ollie, well done - I was just testing the line, I'll turn the mic off now."
I popped the phone back down but left the live stream running, thinking I'd probably listen to the commentary while I'm watching the game on TV, since Graham's a good commentator. About a minute later, I heard:
"Marvellous, thanks Ollie, well done - I was just testing the line, I'll turn the mic off now."
No time delay there, then! Maybe I won't watch the rugby with the online commentary after all...
For an "official" blog - i.e. hosted on the Chronicle's site - it seems pretty open, honest and candid, and Simon keeps it regularly updated, something that's all too rare with promising weblogs.
From my point of view it's interesting to read about the issues facing print journalists covering the patch. Particularly eye-opening is the problem of the ads on the 'wrap' - the extra sheet of ads wrapped around the main paper - clashing with the front page splash.
In the last few weeks this has happened at least twice according to Simon's blog:
21 September
Paul Thomas [editor of the company's Slough paper] had a very powerful and emotive story about a dog that was thrown from a 12th-storey balcony of a block of flats.
Paul wanted to run the picture of what was left of the dog on the front page, along with a suitable headline. Looking for advice, I agreed with him that on these occasions it is important to get the message across, however graphic and disturbing.
That was until we discovered that the paper had a wrap booked (four page advert going round the front page) from 'Pets R Us' (or whatever) containing a picture of a very fluffy, happy dog.
Paul decided in the end to pull the front page picture - any other week and we would have gone with it.
29 September
The initial plan was to lead on the very disturbing story about how a young cerebral palsy sufferer was turned away from a hairdresser because the stylist had a 'phobia' of people like her and "no one else would do her".
That was until we discovered that we a huge great big advert on the front page... from a hairdresser.
There was a real debate about whether we should still run with it on the front, but juxtaposition is everything when it comes to headlines/pictures/adverts - and I don't think it would have been fair on the advertiser. The casual reader may initially assume the two were linked.
Not an issue you'd think we would face, given the lack of adverts. But a similar thing happened to me a couple of months ago when I reported on an all-night ghost hunt (mentioned on Dayorama here).
I got back into the newsroom at around 5am having been up all night at this event, and had some great clips - including one of a young lady describing how a spirit medium had, as far as she was concerned, really been in touch with her deceased grandparents.
I thought this was a great story. I saw no ghosts and had no evidence of any, but quality audio of an otherwise entirely sane-looking young woman convinced she'd been in dialogue with the other side is not to be sniffed at.
Unless, apparently, the early morning religious programme is on air. The story was dropped entirely from Sunday's bulletins on the grounds it might offend people listening to our spiritual programming!
I'm spending some time browsing through properties for rent in West London on the Foxtons website.
Now, a while back, we mentioned Foxtons on the back of a BBC documentary exposing less-than-savoury goings-on at some of their London branches.
So I was bearing that in mind while searching through the properties they have to offer. One caught my eye in Isleworth - it was at a very reasonable price and looked beautiful from the photos:
The Foxtons description of the property reads as follows:
Situated within a delightful, secluded development this smart two bedroomed ground floor flat offers bright well presented living space with allocated off-street parking.
The flat is located on a quiet no through road moments from nearby superstores and within easy reach of the more extensive amenities of Twickenham town centre.
Well this is all very nice, I thought to myself - I'll have a look on the map. Foxtons, conveniently, have a map option on their site, so I clicked it. Lo and behold:
Very few things scare me about the internet. The last thing from which I truly recoiled in horror online was a website entitled 'Rate My Poo', and that was some years ago.
But I'm a wee bit perturbed today. A few times over recent months I've noticed, in the Dayorama site stats, visitors arriving from www.vroomfondel.co.uk.
If you go to that website, you receive this message:
Well, VroomFondel was a minor character in Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy. VroomFondel, a philosopher, protested against the use of computer Deep Thought to decipher the meaning of life. So the use of VroomFondel's name for a "brand cleansing" website already sounds rather sinister.
The URL of the page you reach from the site stats has the word 'boots' in it, so it may not be a surprise that the visitor from vroomfondel.co.uk reached a page of Dayorama where I discuss Boots, the High Street chemists and sandwich shop:
I introduced my friend Andy to the concept of the Boots meal deal a couple of week sago, and he was so taken with it that he went round this lunchtime drumming up support for a group outing to our local store. Off we went, about ten of us, descending on the sandwiches and leaving barely anything for those unlucky few who found themselves behind us.
The post carries on in similar vein and it's very complimentary about Boots. But "brand cleansing" very much suggests a mechanism for unearthing references far less glowing than mine. The header of the vroomfondel.co.uk page includes the phrase "Netrank Brand Cleansing", so I went in search of them.
That search dug up an article by The Guardian on the power of bloggers to moan about comapnies, and the ways companies can fight back. It also uncovered a reference to 'info-cleansing', which I took as my next keyword.
After 20 minutes or so digesting various sources it seems 'info-cleansing' is the process by which companies hire people to 'clean up' negative comments about them on the internet - either by deleting, masking or counteracting those messages. For example, if I were to suggest that Boots' sandwiches are, in my opinion, of shoddy quality, one of their friendly 'brand cleansers' will come along and either try to take my post down, try to get it off search engines, or write a comment shouting down my argument.
I find it disturbing that companies are prepared to pay thousands of pounds for this extraordinarily Big Brother-like stance on free speech. If I think Boots' sandwiches are shite it's within my power to tell you so without Boots wading in guns blazing. Moreover it's the slent, stealthy nature of this monitoring - a website declaring it does not exist, password-protected pages, and the very terms involved. 'Info-cleansing' is not a natural process.
I'm not the first to notice this by a long chalk. Milan, a Canadian graduate student at Oxford, found something very similar going on with his blog a month ago.
Well, happily I've discovered the Life In Swindon blog to tell me more about what it's really like in this paradise of boundless employment and unspoilt air. The verdict?
The soil in Swindon is like nothing I have ever experienced, it is pure clay!
Or panic in the Atlantic, at least. My Dodge was on the back of that boat til about ten seconds ago.
I jest, I jest. I'm just excited because the new car docks in England tomorrow, having (hopefully) safely crossed the pond between the USA and Blighty. I rang up the garage to check on its progress and was told:
Dodge: "Don't worry sir! It's bobbing up and down in the Atlantic as we speak..." Me: "That's great!" Dodge: "... I mean on a boat, of course." Me: "Er, yes. Thanks for that, I'd kind of assumed you did."
I don't know which port it arrives at - I'd rather not know or else I'd abandon work to go and welcome it. Apparently it'll take between 10 and 12 days from arrival on these shores until I can go and pick it up. So there's one last hurrah for the Micra which, thanks to David, had "DODGE" ironically etched into the dirt on its boot when I last looked.
Back to the title of the post. 'America', by Razorlight, is possibly the best song I've heard all year. I heard it for the first time a few days ago, then again today on Radio 2, and it's completely captivated me. Haunting guitar at the beginning, gorgeous vocals, nothing too strained or overworked about it. And the lyrics!
All my life, watching America
All my life, there's panic in America
There's trouble in America
I don't know why I find that chorus so unbelievably good - I just do.
Naturally I've just discovered I bought the new Razorlight album a couple of months ago on iTunes and have had 'America' sat on my laptop, neglected, ever since. I'm now listening to the album all the way through. I can't believe I've ignored this and overlooked Razorlight as a band for so long (though I did approve of 'Golden Touch' off the first album, back in June 2004).
That's the brand new BBC One ident. Based on the lifetime of the last two sets of BBC One idents, get used to it - it'll be here til 2011.
The 'Dancers' - idents showing various forms of dance - have been BBC One stalwarts for four and a half years. Before that, 'Balloon' idents ran for five years.
To watch one of the brand new idents, click here. (You can also download it by right-clicking that link and selecting 'Save Target As'.)
So, thoughts? It's probably worth watching the full ident before you judge. It's got more of a Sky feel to it than the previous ones - a faster pace, brighter colours, a snappier 'daytime' feel. There are expected to be up to 15 of these 'Circle' idents created, each reflecting the genre of programming to follow. For example, a 'Circle' ident involving a hippo will herald the arrival of a natural history documentary.
The sound doesn't thrill me. There are motorbikes involved in the featured ident, lapping the circumference of the central BBC One logo. I can't help but imagine the noise of motorbikes will start to grate with me very quickly - who knows how I'll survive til the next decade with those revs drilling through my skull between programmes.
Richard Hammond is reported to be making progress in hospital following his much-publicised crash in a jet-powered car. According to one news wire he smiled at Jeremy Clarkson from his hospital bed this morning.
In the words of one wag: "must be severe brain damage then".
Golf's a sport oddly suited to radio. The swoosh of the driver, the cheer of the crowd, the hushed tones of the commentator.
Or at least those tones should be hushed. Nicky Campbell, fronting Five Live's coverage of the opening morning of the 36th Ryder Cup, forgot himself for a moment:
"A great start for Darren Clarke there and... er... sorry - Jim Furyk's just stepped back from the tee and looked at me while I was telling you that. Let's, er, go to the news."
This following a colleague who had remarked on the presence of a Scottish flag at the Irish venue:
"Nicky, that flag must be for you since there's no Scottish players in the European team."
"Well there's Colin Montgomerie..."
"Oh yeah, Colin Montgomerie! Of course."
Let us imagine the sun has gone in. This is the very moment at which cat's eyes tend to be useful items of road furniture. However surely to God, in the absence of sunshine, solar-powered cat's eyes look like this:
Speaking of cats and vision, we were hoping to bring you an exciting event yesterday - the choosing of a new cat for a friend's flat, broadcast live by videophone from a local re-homing centre.
Alas we never got the call, but today we discovered why: the cat refused to go on camera! Our intrepid reporter Bryony barely got one photo of it before it put the proverbial paw on the lens. Everyone thinks they're a superstar these days - we're now negotiating terms with it.
Going back a step, on a road-related note I've recently read several more less-than-glowing reviews of the Dodge Caliber (which I've now actually bought - it arrives in a couple of weeks hopefully). They complain of build quality, drive quality etc. But then I read some posts on Dodge Caliber forums and remembered why I bought the car. Here is one such post:
So I was sitting at a stop light in Santa Cruz this week and I notice this older gentleman gawking and staring at me. Since this happens quite a bit since I've had the Caliber it was no surprise.
I look away and out of the corner of my eye I see this guy take a face plant right into the sidewalk. There was a dip in the sidewalk due to a driveway entrance. I felt bad but just goes to show, Caliber can be hazardous to your health.
Yes! I've not bought the Caliber for superior build or drive quality - it's not going to feel like a step down from the Micra, let's be honest - but I certainly have bought it because it's something different.
The forum is full of people saying how glad they are they purchased their car, and how much they love it. That means a lot more than snotty reviews from people who drive the finest cars in the world for a living.
Without my ever having met them, a select bunch of French children have ruined my chances of a luxurious long weekend in the south of France this month.
When I got this message from my friend Helen in August, I was really quite interested:
Hey Ollie!
How are you? I'm having a good time here,( though definitely don't like French children) come and visit if you want a weekend in the south of France!
I've never been to the south of France before - I imagine it's a very nice place to go and it would be lovely to see Helen. So I wrote back saying I'd love to come and asking which dates might be best.
Today my hopes lie dashed. Helen's reply:
Unfortunately I, erm, had enough of the horrlble little shits last week and ran away... am back in Newcastle now need to start looking for a job, preferably none children related!
The photo is unrelated to Helen's little horrors - it's the number one Google Image Search result for "French children". Note the stressy parent confirming Helen's opinion!
The reason he remembered me, he said - and given he had a potential customer worth thousands of pounds on his hands, he trod extremely carefully with his wording - was my "distinctive" hair.
So from waitresses in Chinese restaurants, to chavs at bus stops, to car salesmen, to legendary former pro footballers, everyone has had a frolic with the follicles. It's time I paid more heed.
No, I'm not changing it. Don't be daft. Instead, for the first time ever, I've decided to measure exactly how tall it is - and at the moment it's quite long even by my standards. Off I go to find a ruler and a mirror...
Five minutes elapse.
... And I'm back, with the only ruler I was able to find - a Barbie one from my sister's desk. It did the job and the result is...
My hair currently stands at height: 4.13 inches / 10.5 cm
The height is defined as the distance between emergence of hair from scalp at very front of forehead, vertically upwards to very tip of hair at front of head.
What this does not measure is how long my hair is. It's cheating to pull the hair taut and measure it - it's all about how well the hair defies gravity. With a little bit of curvature involved, the hair is reaching and maintaining a height of 10.5cm from the beginning of my hairline to front tip of hair.
I'll now track the ebb and flow of the hair on a weekly basis using the Haircast box which will have appeared on the front of the homepage to the right hand side. This also shows a small diagram of what we're measuring to be ultra-clear: the blue vertical line as depicted. No slanting or diagonals allowed!
The hair's due a cut so I imagine the figure will drop very low soon enough, then slowly build back. But it's that age old question - is four-and-a-bit inches enough to satisfy a woman? (Sorry, I had to get that joke in before Amy did.)
Having come back from Canada I was regaling the nth person in the newsroom with holiday tales when good friend and colleague Richard interrupted me.
Richard: "Did you say you'd been to Newfoundland?" Me: "Yep!" Richard: "Did you go to St John's?" Me: "Yep!" Richard: "My grandad has the freedom of St John's."
And if we are to believe Richard - we have no reason not to - his grandad does (or possibly did, I'm unsure of tense) possess the freedom of the Canadian harbour town of St John's, following his rescue of thirteen of the town's sailors. How about that!
I have also discovered a whole series of posts documenting a Pearl Jam gig in St John's, which is probably quite an experience. Apparently the band compared it to Seattle "without the killers and rapists". I certainly didn't see any killers or rapists so I'd have to agree!
It's fun to put your name into Google and see if your name turns up anywhere unexpected.
It's probably less fun if your name is Tory Blair - for a BBC correspondent exists with this name! How utterly unfortunate do you have to be? Poor Tory. She currently has a video report on the BBC News Online website about couples in New York recreating a famous kiss.
Put "Tory Blair" into any search engine and I bet you have to wait a while before you find a page referring to her.
I don't think I've had a particularly tiring day today but for some reason my legs are burning with exhaustion as though I've run a hundred miles.
This morning was fantastic. I went to Odds Farm Park, just down the road, where they raise all kinds of rare breeds of animal. They're doing really well with some Bagot goats, which look a little something like this:
Bagot goats are, I'm told, extremely rare, and Odds Farm Park has the second largest herd in the UK. So that was certainly interesting and I had great fun talking to livestock manager Clare, assistant Shelley and work experience girl Katy, all of whom had the dubious pleasure of being dragged to a microphone by yours truly.
The highlight for me was, however, the sheep racing.
This was sheer brilliance. Five sheep racing round a short rectangular track towards a trough of food, negotiating a series of jumps along the way ("woolly jumpers" as Linda in the newsroom later observed). My chosen sheep came a disappointing third but I was amazed at the sheer speed - and comparative grace - with which they took the jumps.
I recorded Clare's sheep racing commentary while the event was taking place. Tomorrow on the BBC Berkshire site you'll be able to pick your sheep from the list of competitors, then listen to the commentary to find out if it won!
Meanwhile on the site you can already see an exclusive extended interview with a lady named Paula. She emailed the site a few days ago with a tale of woe from Gatwick Airport - her luggage, like that of many others, had been slashed open and ransacked for valuables. Certain unscrupulous individuals are targeting luggage stowed in the hold because, with increased security measures in place (i.e. no hand luggage), valuables had to go in the hold in these cases.
Our BBC reporter Joe Campbell spoke to Paula about it and provided us with the full interview. This is the second time in a week that Joe's delivered a small but perfectly formed video report created especially for the online team, which is really putting the idea of convergence into practice. We officially like Joe.
Reading Bulldogs are taking on Poole Pirates tonight and it happens to be on Sky Sports 2. When I discovered it was on TV l thought I'd watch for a few minutes just to see how the local team were getting on. Almost an hour later and I'm still watching.
Reading are tearing Poole apart - it's 25-13 after six heats which, even with my limited knowledge, is a pretty damn good score for the Bulldogs.
Part of the attraction is that when I've spent time editing up the audio highlights from Radio Berkshire coverage, so as to put them online, it's sounded like a great laugh. Our sports editor moonlights as the man on the PA at the Smallmead Stadium, where it takes place, and I think I can hear him in the background on Sky tonight. When he leaves audio of his post-match interviews it has the feel of a friendly, fun atmosphere, and it looks like the same on the box.
There's so much speedway too. These teams seem to be at it at least two or three times a week and, when not riding for their local clubs, the riders end up in things like the Swedish championships a couple of nights ago! Not to mention the World Cup last month. If you're a speedway fan you'll not be left wanting this summer, that's for sure.
And since I'm in a Reading mood, click here to download one of our brand new Reading FC wallpapers (or a London Irish one if you feel like it).
We've had more luck with images of Reading than the Reading Chronicle newspaper. Here's an extract from the Chronicle editor's blog:
We had a major problem with Reading's team picture which has been supplied by the FA Premier League licensing people. I can't go into too much detail, but unfortunately we have just discovered that one of the players has a wig on (the wrong picture was sent over just minutes before going to press). There aren't too many times where we have used the phrase "Stop Press", but this was one of them.
I do hope I'll get to see the photo in question. It'd be a shame to waste the one with the wig...
Goodness. With OJ suddenly back to posting on Dayorama some semblance of order is restored. Surprising to note, however, that during his long absence he has lost the ability to spell "Troy McClure". (A character from The Simpsons, for those wondering. Dad.) He could spell it on 30 May this year, but now? Gone.
Interesting also that between his 30 May reference and today's there had been 177 Dayorama posts. Of these, OJ has contributed: 1.
And is if that weren't enough naming and shaming for one post, it should also be brought to your attention that OJ's new work email address takes the form (before the @ sign) of surname then first initial, with no underscore or dot. OJ's is thus WOODINGO. As I have written on his Facebook wall, much to his parents' amusement so I'm told, this spells Woo! Dingo!. It is a great email address.
I watched Hotel Rwanda on Sky Movies last night. It tells the true story of Paul Rusesabagina, a hotel manager housing Tutsi refugees during the Rwandan genocide of the early 1990s.
I was about eight or nine when the Rwanda conflict was going on, and I can just about remember the news reports at the time. This film did so much to try to explain precisely what had been happening and how it really feels to be caught up in it. For a start I grew up with the impression, from news reports, that if you send UN trucks in somewhere then that's your problem solved: your UN trucks go in, they restore peace, everyone is okay again.
Hotel Rwanda gives the lie to that. It shows in brutal clarity the arrival, and subsequent departure, of UN reinforcements at the hotel, and it shows the gulf between diplomats and reality in these situations. Most importantly, in several shocking but compelling sequences, the film made plain the loneliness, isolation and vulnerability of a single UN truck carrying Tutsi refugees.
One comment on the IMDB movie website calls this film "an acting treasure". That exactly sums it up for me. It's only on reading about the film online that I've remembered the events were portrayed by actors and none of it was real. Every second was, for me, believable. It's a serious, depressing film which makes you wonder about the civilization you inhabit, but I've not seen finer (or more educational) cinema.
Happy Birthday Dad, who received a remote controlled Dalek from me earlier this evening. It had the desired effect of causing much mirth and the entirely unexpected but equally amusing effect of petrifying the dog.
Today was spent in Bristol with around twenty of my equivalents at other local radio stations, deciding how we go about covering sport online this season. Plenty of interesting things to look at for the future although, from what I can tell, there's a lot of leeway to come up with our own plans for this season, of which I approve.
Long may it remain that way - it's new and individual approaches which drive the high standards we've got. After all, if we all did the same thing, what would there be to share at Best Practice sessions?
I do love the train journey to the westcountry (stop me if you've heard this one before). Every time the train pulls into Bath station there's a wonderful minute or two of the most beautiful urban scenery I reckon you will find in Britain. I'd love to live there one day. Fast trains to London, gorgeous city, hilly surroundings so lose a bit of weight walking to the station... perfect.
Normally the strength of the pound against the dollar wouldn't mean much to me.
But so far this week it's allowed me to import seven t-shirts from the USA where, just a year or so ago, I'd have only been able to get four.
Deal!
Maybe they trade t-shirts on one of the commodities markets... I could start swapping t-shirt futures! Imagine that, ordering 25 t-shirts for November in the hope they'll be even cheaper then. That's how to get me interested in the economy, my friends. Make it real.
Nikki's going back into the Bg Brother house (or at least the one next door). Fine, as expected, and she'll almost certainly be the one who makes it back into the house proper.
But Grace! You, the British public, voted Grace back in! Well done! I'm so pleased with that. I actually quite liked Grace and thought she was pretty good looking to boot. Much better entertainment value than Nikki. Excellent decision, Britain. Pat yourselves on the back.
You also put Mikey and Lea in as well, but in fairness to you, you had to put four of them back in and they're as good as any of the rest. So no hard feelings there either.
Thank the lord for the that! I'm sure you, like me, remember the finale of the latest series of Dr Who, in which Rose Tyler is cast adrift into a parallel universe with her family. The Doctor uses some celestial trickery to snatch one last moment with Rose, declaring "I'm burning up a sun just to say goodbye"...
Great, that'll be Tennantophile Amy J sucked in then. But here's the good news: Rose is alive and well in this universe! Either that or Channel 4's news teams are capable of jumping to parallel worlds, which I suppose is also a possibility.
How do I know? Rose Tyler has just been on Channel 4 News, holding a baby and talking about the website Mumsnet, which is involved in a dispute with parenting author Gina Ford.
Some cynics among you may suggest there are two Rose Tylers on the planet (or not, as the case may be), but these are the same cynics who believe the news becomes ever more like The Day Today with each broadcast.
Take an excerpt from the same report in which it is declared that part of Gina Ford's grievance with the Mumsnet website stems from one lady posting a message which made the following accusation:
"She straps babies to rockets and fires them into South Lebanon."
I don't know about you, but I can see Chris Morris barking that at a camera with a suitable graphic to follow. No "baby boom" jokes please.
Finally, and on a not entirely unrelated note now that I think about it, the front page of the BBC Berkshire website today shows a man dressed as a six foot squirrel riding a monkey bike the length of Britain. I did promise it...
Forget global warming. Forget Iran's nuclear weapons programme. Forget the Middle East conflict. A far more clear and present danger is upon us this evening.
There is a good chance that, in the next hour or so, Nikki will return to the Big Brother house. Suddenly the scenes of rampant jubilation that broke out in front of my television three weeks ago seem a dim and distant memory.
It's like watching the family dog narrowly avoid being run over by a truck only to see it pummelled into the ground by a rogue meteorite seconds later - unpleasant, unexpected, unfair.
There remains the outside chance that the British public will halt this madness and vote for one of the other former contestants to go back into the house instead. But be reasonable here. Who wants Shahbaz back in? (Yes, you hadn't even remembered him, had you! All those many moons ago.) Who wants Lea? Who wants George? I'm afraid the return of Nikki is mind-numbingly tedious in its inevitability.
I shall do everything in my power to avoid this fate, short of switching over to Celebrity Love Island. Good luck everybody.
On a side note, my stepmum has been kept busy tonight trying to explain the precise meaning of the word "gash", as deployed by Liverpudlian Big Brother evictee Mikey, to my two half-sisters. She has just about got away with it, largely because the girls - aged 8 and 10 - failed to properly decode Mikey's accent and think he said "gas"...
And if you thought "Miss France" looked hideous enough, how about this creature:
For some reason that thing sends shivers down my spine. It's been viewed over a million times on YouTube since being filmed in Bolivia.
It is testament to what happens when the all-encompassing nature of twenty-first century technology meets the human psyche that more than a million of us have used the internet, not specifically to further humankind and end world poverty, but to conduct the equivalent of poking a silly looking caterpillar with a stick.
"The news headlines at 1:30pm: bullied city worker gets six-figure damages, and huge ecstacy haul."
Could have done with a bit more of a pause on that comma. It sounded very much as though the bullied businesswoman had been given a year's supply of class A drugs as compensation!
So that's the end of day one of UpFront, the BBC's two-day induction course for new employees.
*Quick reminder: comments now working!*
At lunch I was happy enough with it but felt it had perhaps been given a billing by former attendees which it could never quite match. (Certainly I've heard a story from one UpFront alumnus which will not be matched tonight unless I'm extraordinarily lucky.)
Now, back in the hotel room before heading out for a drink with some of my newly discovered colleagues, I'm pleased to report I'm certainly warming to the merits of the course.
Much of that is down to the gentleman from Editorial Policy, whose name inexcusably escapes me, who spoke to us between about 3pm and 4.30pm. He was a revelation, livening up the day with audio clips of great transgressions, e.g. Chris Moyles referring to a mobile phone ringtone as "gay". He opened each one up to the floor for us to debate the rights and wrongs of the individual cases, and let me tell you it felt good to hear 70-odd BBC employees with such a varied response.
I, personally, do not think Moyles should have used "gay" in that derogatory sense. I accept the argument that it probably caused minimal offence and would barely have been noticed by much of Moyles' target audience, but equally it just seems entirely unnecessary. He gained nothing by using the term - he could have used "rubbish" and not one of his listeners would have thought twice. No one is going to stop and think, "Why didn't he call it 'gay' instead?"
Anyway I digress. It was a fantastic 90 minutes of similar discussion and really fired me up about what was acceptable or otherwise in terms of the BBC's output. Obviously I'm familiar with the BBC's basic editorial guidelines but I've not had the chance before to challenge the way I interpret them in a room of colleagues with an expert stood in front of us, and that helped me a lot.
It also reaffirmed my view that the BBC is there to foster my journalism, not hinder it in any way. I may have mentioned it here already but I subscribe to the view that the BBC is not my employer, it is my publisher - it provides me with a reputable outlet in return for the best journalism I can offer. Our man from editorial policy hammered this home. His message was essentially that it is okay to take risks and try new things. First, it keeps our output fresh, stimulating and cutting edge, and second it keeps him in a job when our managers ring editorial policy in a panic. I liked that a lot.
Other UpFront news:
- The hotel had no bedrooms left when I arrived. After 20 minutes and having threatened to kick me into another Hilton over the other side of town, they relented and put me on their "keep" list ahead of someone else. The bedroom is air-conditioned, which is a godsend on the two hottest days of the year so far.
- After about 10 minutes in my room my hotel phone went. Someone asked, "Are you on UpFront?" They were also on the course so we met in reception and went for a wander. It soon transpired that not only had we grown up in the same town, we also had some of the same friends, despite never having met before. What a small world.
- There is a party of several hundred Jehovah's Witnesses staying here. One wonders if their door-knocking policy is vigorously applied in hotel environments.
Tomorrow brings more practical opportunities - it's looking like I'll be part of a team producing visual content, which I read to mean television.
Alright, I wasn't that bad. I ran half the length of my Sport Relief mile before slowing down, which admittedly is still relatively pathetic but at least I did it. No marathons for me, I suspect. There was a great turn-out though and we also had an enjoyable charity football match - Radio Berkshire vs Calcot Hawks - which we won 3-2 after trailing 1-0 at half time.
Yours truly, having been kicked out of goal by our captain who wanted to play there, had the enjoyable opportunity of playing up front. I did actually cause the opposing goalkeeper mild consternation once or twice, too, although I am unlikely to prove the final piece in the England jigsaw puzzle for the 2008 World Cup.
After finishing my final radio piece of the afternoon a young lady came up and asked for my autograph, which was very nice and not something I had ever been expecting to happen! Apparently she listens all the time and likes to get to know who all the presenters are. Clearly the combination of holding a microphone and standing near the radio car has elevated me to "presenter" status. Result!
Yesterday proved to be a very long day. Having done all that I went on to cage fighting in Bracknell, by now suffering a fairly intense headache as a result of spending the afternoon in the sun. I sat through four hours of cage fighting and I'm still not sure what I think about it. I spoke to lots of people who explained with great passion and clarity exactly why cage fighting is no worse than football, rugby, boxing or any other sport, and how it is a career involving plenty of rigorous training. But even so... I don't know.
I'm starting to see why it might not be the manifestation of evil some people would have us believe it is. Equally, though, there's something very odd about sitting in an arena with a thousand other people watching two people try to do quite serious damage to each other. One spectator, a bald man in a black shirt, kept pressing himself up against the cage and screaming at the fighters, particularly a local hero named Andy. When one fighter lost the plot entirely and did enough damage to his opponent for the paramedics to have to burst into the cage, the latter's partner threw herself at the former, calling him a "f***ing c**t" and forcing the organisers to call for security.
I'm sure that's no worse than has happened at boxing matches before, but it's certainly not pleasant and I can't reconcile that sort of incident with the idea of paying money and enjoying watching it. Another fighter admitted to me that if any government minister had seen that one moment of chaos, it would be enough for the sport to forget any ambition it has of getting recognition and a regulatory board of control. Frankly I think if the argument is that boxing is no better than this, I'd choose to have neither this nor boxing.
I finally left the newsroom at just gone midnight, completing what amounts to a 15 and a half hour shift. What a lovely lie-in it was this morning though. First time in a while I've felt like I actually earned one.
Nikki has been evicted from Big Brother and is reacting with predictable bad grace. Spoilt, ignorant, self-absorbed brat. Why it took this long to get her out of the house is beyond me, although most people defended her continued preence on the grounds "she's funny". I have seen funny, and she is not it.
Nikki is now making a noise like a trapped banshee just inside the main door to the building. It is depressing that this is the very fabric upon which British celebrity culture is built. A woman with less backbone than a puddle, less moral fibre than a parsnip and all the creative spark of a comatose panda is the shining, oddly-wrinkly face of Great Britain.
Weigh her achievements up against the stars of this evening's Money programme on BBC2. 17-year-old Oliver runs a business selling shoes in larger sizes to the likes of OJ (they go up to size 18, as Chris Evans discovered on Radio 2, having jokingly asked for size 17s). Sarah runs a company delivering oak furniture. Jake, or at least I think it was Jake, can't have been more than 10 years old but runs a company selling napkins. Nikki, older than any of that lot, is frankly a waste of oxygen by comparison.
Oh God look, someone shoot her. Please. (Don't actually shoot her, I can't condone that, but at the very least tranquilise her and put her somewhere far away from humankind for our safety and hers.) She's gawping around in the studio like a stoned Andrex puppy. If she had character I'd assassinate it. How does someone with the brain and looks of a seven-year-old survive in this world, let alone get themselves on national television for over two months?
God... maybe I should be congratulating her! After all it's a bloody big achievement. The wheel has spun its way across Channel 4 for months despite the hamster inside it having died a decade previous. I reckon there's an entire universe inside her head, a vast vacuum punctuated by tiny specks of matter, expanding all the time.
We'll end on this nice, revealing little exchange. Nikki, having seen highlights of her stay: "I look like a demented f***ing..." Davina: "... yeah."
It's been a pleasure to watch Alastair Cook reach his century for England against Pakistan at Lord's in the last few minutes.
I've got a soft spot for him because he's almost precisely my age and it's great to see someone relatively young succeeding on a cricketing world stage which, for all teenage footballers are paid millions, I fancy is a little trickier to master than international soccer.
Not as tricky to master, however, as the language of cricket. Witness a gentleman named Mark, from Philadelphia, who wrote the following on his blog just now:
While reading my daily mini-dose of BBC news, I ran across the following blurb in the sports section.
"FIRST TEST, LORD'S, DAY ONE: England 201-3 v Pakistan
Paul Collingwood and Alastair Cook hit fifties as England recovered to 201-3 half an hour before tea in the first Test against Pakistan at Lord's. Collingwood hit seven fours and shared a vital century stand in 158 balls with Cook, who was dropped on nought and 45. England's openers shared 60 inside 12 overs but both fell within six balls, and Kevin Pietersen was lbw for 21."
Read that paragraph again and you can see where confusion might creep in. Hit fifties? Fifty what? Why are they drinking tea? What are they testing? Which lord? Why not say 28 instead of seven fours? What is a century stand, do you have to refrain from sitting down for a hundred years? If you're dropped then what are you even doing in the team? Why do the team have players whose job is simply to open things? They shared 60, but of what, and what on earth are 'overs'? Can the BBC not spell 'others'? Where did they fall? How do you pronounce 'lbw'? It's a minefield out there.
Sky have recently introduced two fairly nauseating cartoon characters, Willow and Stumpy, to explain cricketing terminology to youngsters watching live television coverage. Today, for example, the pair treated us to an explanation of a 'googly' (sorry, Mark, but it would take forever to describe here). Perhaps Willow and Stumpy need to make the trip over to the US for a while.
And to think that just three days ago Alastair Cook was bowling, according to Amy Watson, who went to watch England A v Pakistan:
Come Sunday the rain came... but when the sun finally broke through England still added to their now unreachable lead of 500 and Pakistan responded (very maturely) by only using their opening batsmen to kinda chuck the ball at Ian Bell and Alastair Cook.
England, in a very mature manner, decided that two could play that game. Come the last 2 hours, as Pakistan batted, the England players were obviously very bored. Rob Key, Captain, brought every single member of his team, including wicket keeper Chris Read on to bowl at least two overs. I seriously doubt Alastair Cook, opening batsman, will ever bowl an over in a Test Match again so it was an absolutely classic moment!
What's also interesting about Amy's blog is her concise yet informative 'about' section, where she explains who she is. Dayorama has one too. Why the hell don't most blogs? When I was putting together a list of Berkshire blogs earlier in the week my task was made incredibly difficult by the neglect of most bloggers to include any guide to who they actually are. Usually I ended up having to trawl the archives to find out if bloggers even lived in the right county, let alone what they did for a living, how old they were, or why they were writing.
Why should this be the case? Earlier this week I received an email from a lady writing an anonymous blog, and in many circumstances I can see why anonymity might be preferred. But lots of blogs I came across were demonstrably not anonymous - containing plenty of personal details from which you could identify the author - while at the same time being utterly impenetrable. Amy Watson's blog, by contrast, has this clearly visible on its main page:
Name: Amy Watson
Location: Essex, United Kingdom
In love with Jesus. Sister of a 6ft-something teenager. Daughter of an ex-pantomime dame and former Avon lady. Owner of the cutest dog in the world. Guitar playing, squeaky-voiced worship leader. Wannabe bass player. Ex-veggie who gave in to the need for tuna and bacon sandwiches. Cricket fanatic. Jelly Bean consumer. Student Youth Worker at Christian Youth Outreach, Colchester. Has an extremely eclectic music taste (from Nirvana to Singing in the Rain). Drinks decaf tea with 2. Hates beetroot. Has dyed her hair 5 different colours. Passed driving test 1st time.
Without going into details, once again I had my eyebrows waxed today. As many of you know, I have a scar on my right eyebrow. An accident when I was 4yrs old. Six stitches on 11/9/88. I know that because I wrote it in my photo album at the time. Yes, I was aged 4yrs, so the writing is large and child-like, but still it stands clear as the day. I've also stuck a sticker next to the photo of "Amy with stitches" which has a little teddy-bear on it and the phrase "I sat still for my x-ray". Fond memories in a changing world. Anyway, the scar. Naturally I've always had a fear of any needles, tweezers, wax, threading by my eyes. I can't touch that area myself. It hurts when I am tired and makes me go queasy if I think about it too much. And yet today I managed to let someone wax my eyebrows. It didn't hurt too much. A sting. A momentary sickness in my stomach. But I faced the fear and I realised that perhaps it wasn't so bad after all. Life is certainly a changing for me at the moment. And it's scary. But perhaps if anything the incident today shows that if you face your fears, they're probably not half as bad as your worst nightmare. I was having a long chat with Joan, my quasi Grandma today. She's ninety next year and has known me since I was five. She was the first person who knew I got into Oxford - she says it was one of her proudest moments when I ran to her flat and burst into tears in her arms - and she was there when I expressed fears about going up for the first time. So it seems natural that today, when I was rather scared and upset about the future, that I turned to her. And she recounted times in her life when she has felt anxious, scared, daunted by the unknown. And she imparted wise words of wisdom that I shall never forget. I suppose that I shall feel anxious many times between now and September. It's only natural I suppose. But in many ways if today's incident with the eyebrow wax showed, I just need to face those fears, and perhaps it won't be so bad after all. We'll see. And as Joan quoted at me, Matthew 8.23-27 has a lot to answer for.
So it's goodbye to the DayoRimet World Cup graphics, and welcome back to the revolving Dayorama banner. There are now fifty, each also now numbered and named, so you can while away your days hitting refresh and completing your set. Try memorising the whole lot off by heart... what's in banner number 28?
My little (half) brother Harry continues to impress me. He's now a fiery four-year-old who barks instructions at me like he's my mother. "Ollie! Tidy this room! Are these your shoes? Where did you get them?" I'll say this for him, he's inquisitive.
I had a great exchange with him earlier today. I've got an iPod Nano sat on my bookshelf. He came in and as per usual started picking stuff up, demanding to know where it came from and can he have it.
Harry: (picking up iPod) What's this? Ollie: It's called an 'iPod'. It plays music. You can put your music into it and then listen to it wherever you go. Harry: An 'iPod'? Why did they call it that? Ollie: Well... (how do you explain the i- prefix, Apple and corporate branding to a four year old?) Harry: But why? It's got nothing to do with my eyes! Ollie: Ah, see, no. You say it the same but "eyepod" would be spelt differently to "iPod". See, peas come in pods too. The idea is... Harry: (with no time for that explanation) But why not call it eye computer? Or eye box? Or eye thing?
iThing. If it doesn't already exist it will do.
Harry also kept me entertained with my pocket London A-Z. He picked it up and demanded to know what the words on each page began with. So he would cram an index page containing hundreds of London streets into my face and demand to know what they all began with or, worse, present me with one of the map pages and demand to know what all those words began with.
He progressed from this to trying to work out the alphabet using the index at the back of the book. He was particularly keen to know what "muh" (i.e. M) looked like. I pointed it out to him. He then shut the book, scampered off and came back a few minutes later. I challenged him to go back to the index and find "muh" again. He found the index alright but when he presented his answer, his finger was pointing squarely at W.
Ollie: No, you're close but not right. That's a double-yoo. It's like an M except it's upside down. Harry: (turns book upside down) Muh!
He may not know what an M looks like, but my word he's good at quick-thinking, logical solutions to problems. Negotiation is also a forte of his. He wanted to play on my PS2 football game. First he asked if there were two controllers then, on being told there weren't, opened his pitch:
Harry: Can I have two goes? Ollie: What happened to one go? Harry: Alright, one go. Ollie: In a minute. Harry: Five goes?
Bad news for one This Is Local London sub-editor. Under a headline which rages "POLICE HIT OUT AT BNP OVER FAKED PHOTO" we find the following:
POLICE have slammed the British National Party for "painting a false picture" of Loughton in campaign flyers before the last local council election.
Epping Forest District commander Chief Inspector Jon Hill and Loughton Inspector Denise Morrisey said BNP claims that inner city youths were "invading the town in gangs mugging and attacking local people" were "just not true".
Mr Hill said: "Basically they've been driving up unjustifiably people's fear of crimes which don't exist. You couldn't recognise our area from the picture painted. And it doesn't make the job of police any easier."
Now this is the danger of writing a headline without paying over-much attention to the story (which continues for several more paragraphs in much the same vein). The police say the BNP were "painting a false picture", including the specific quote "you couldn't recognise our area from the picture painted". Look again at the headline. See the slightly crossed wires developing? No faked photo. Just a badly painted picture, and a metaphorical one at that. Silly sub-editor.
(And no, there isn't any reference to faked photographs in the entire article.)
Right, here's the deal. I'm running a Sport Relief mile and just like the man Geldof, I want charities to get their grubby paws on your cash. At the same time I'll be shedding precious calories in the name of good causes by cantering helter-skelter round Prospect Park in Reading on Saturday 15 July. It's really worth it. Come on. A few quid.
I know a fair few people read this weblog at some stage or other. I even know Newsnight editor Peter Barron has stopped by in the last week or so and, Pete, you must have some loose change kicking around.
The target is £200, I have no idea how close to that I will get but anything you can do to help it along will be great, and ideally we can raise a bit more than that!
Too peaceful - goodness me, two years go by with a post from one of the three of us every day, then within a couple of weeks we miss two days entirely. But I'd argue you've had your fair share of posts over those years, certainly enough to keep you going, and we've not yet reached the stage where renaming ourselves 'Weekorama' would be appropriate.
Frankly I don't buy quantity over quality anyway - which is lucky or else I'd have petitioned for OJ's dismissal many moons ago. For those who are wondering where he is the answer is the Westcountry, where he's up to various things law-related (none involving CCJs or restraining orders - this time) and has just got his degree results. I'll allow him to elaborate if he so desires.
Looking ahead to next week there should be some good stuff to report from this side of the country. On Monday I'm meeting one of the BBC's 'blogging experts' with a view to discussing the whys and wherefores of weblogs. Naturally I'd quite like my own but somehow I suspect the idea is how we give them to other people to extend our involvement with the community - a notion I'm very happy to entertain since I don't think we do it enough yet. (We're still very good at it, mind.) I can think of a vicar, a druid, a comedy duo touring New Zealand, an American Football team and a former drag queen, now eking out a living as a psychic, all of whom I'd happily hand some form of blogging power on the Berkshire website.
On Wednesday I'm back at the archaeological dig taking place in Harleyford to see how much more progress has been made. Last I heard from the site, on Friday, things weren't going entirely to plan, but there's plenty of work to do and soil to shift yet, so who knows what the state of play will be by the middle of next week. I've now invested in a tripod so should be able to improve on the distinctly average video piece I came up with last time using the family handheld camcorder.
Thursday morning brings kayaking - not for me, I hasten to add, although I'm sure I'll get round to it eventually, such is the current rate at which I'm going through alternative sports. No, this is the sports crew at Radio Berkshire, with me tagging along to write a piece for the website, take some photos and probably edit up a short video, all in aid of Sport Relief.
Speaking of which it seems I'll be spending most of Saturday relieved in the name of sport. I'll probably be playing football for a Radio Berkshire XI versus a local side - if we can get a team out - and in any case I'll be running the Sport Relief mile that afternoon. If you'd like to sponsor me I'll have details available shortly.
Not all of Saturday will be dedicated to Sport Relief. I've had an invite from the Freestyle Fighting Federation to go down to Bracknell that evening for a night of mixed martial arts cage-fighting. I may skip on my usual insistence on participation this time, although I'm looking forward to chatting to local fighters going up against others from around the globe. I will be intrigued to discover what, precisely, makes cage-fighting an appealing career.
Finally a taster of what's coming up in the more distant future: sheepdog trials, WOMAD, ghost-hunting with a former drag queen, Aussie Rules and of course Reading Festival. I'm looking forward to WOMAD in particular, we had a meeting about it on Friday and there's some fun things planned. I, as a festival and WOMAD virgin, am going to try to pair myself up with someone who knows all there is to know, about WOMAD and its performers, as my guide. The ghost-hunting should be fun, too, with the promise of a live webcam all night long for those of you too lazy to join me and the former Miss Sue Panover (real name Jamie) at a fifteenth-century haunted house.
Occasionally I have to really sit down and think about what to call a Dayorama post. I like to slip a pun in but sometimes, even by my standards, they're too laboured. It's tricky.
Not so today. I want to talk about two things. The first is the digging of huge trenches in a field just outside Marlow, marking the start of a major excavation to uncover the archaeological remains of the earliest bronze age settlement there.
I'm tremendously excited about this since I'll be down there with microphone and equipment ready for my first live outside broadcast. Massive adrenaline rush expected. Even that notwithstanding it's bloody exciting since archaeology played a pretty big part in my first degree, something I didn't expect to be putting to good use quite so soon (if, ahem, ever). Now I get to combine my fragile knowledge of archaeology with my fragile knowledge of broadcasting. It's going to be a lot of fun and it'll all be on the Berkshire website later on - maybe even some video footage.
The second thing I wanted to talk about is the brand new Muse album. I've loved every single album they have produced and this is no exception - it's a storming assault of the finest I think I've ever heard them, a subtle evolution rather than any grand upheaval, even allowing for the different approach on new single Supermassive Black Hole. Every track is carried along with such a brilliant, electric momentum. I've been sat here paying no real attention to which track is which, I just know I'm thoroughly enjoying listening. The finer details of which track I'm actually listening to are for later.
The title of this album? "Black Holes And Revelations". Precisely what I expect tomorrow.
Big Brother's throwing five new housemates into a brand new 'secret' house next to the old one tonight - and dumping pseudo-evicted housemate Aisleyne in there to boot. It's all sort-of exciting and sort-of desperate on Channel 4's behalf.
BUT - what's this! Prepare yourself for possibly the most hilarious claim to fame ever. The first new contestant, John or Jonathan or something like that, once danced on stage with Five Star! He's got my support already. My hero.
Have you ever had one of those moments where you hear a phrase, or a fact, that you've never heard before in your life, and then hardly a moment passes before you see it somewhere else? And you think to yourself, "How come I have never come across this before in my entire life, and now it seems like it's absolutely everywhere?"
It happens fairly frequently to me and it's just happened again. Yesterday I read an article by Peter Barron, editor of Newsnight, about podcasts, which included this excerpt about the current number one podcast on iTunes:
It's something called Kitcast. Kitcast is, according to the blurb, "a ten minute weekly videoblog covering the world of sex". Each episode, it goes on, is "hosted by a lingerie clad (non-nude) hostess Ms Kitka" - a little red box warns of explicit content.
Ms Kitka. "Interesting name, that," thought I. "No idea where it comes from though. Probably Russian."
Fast forward to this morning and I'm trying to find some decent television to watch (see previous post). The best Sky One can come up with is Supervixens, an exploration of comic book superheroines and the actresses who've appeared as them in the movies and on smaller screens. I only catch the very end, which is about Catwoman. I learn that at least one incarnation of Catwoman had an alter ego known as Ms Kitka!
I go 21 years and 7 months never having once heard the name "Kitka", and in the space of 24 hours I know it serves both as a disguise for Catwoman and the nom de pod for some sex-obsessed woman. Fascinating.
There is nothing on TV at this hour of a Sunday morning.
This is good news since it encourages us all to go and do something mildly productive, like write on the internet about the lack of good television on Sunday mornings. But even so.
Sky Three's "Animal Airport" looked like a viable alternative - I'm a sucker for airport television - but the description didn't really sell me. "A Mastiff en route from Prague to Boston is stopped at Heathrow Animal Reception Centre when staff think it has been over-sedated by its owner." So essentially this would be half an hour spent watching a drowsy dog.
Still, it beats Sky Sports 1: "Cricket Writers On TV". Says the description: "Paul Allott is joined by Mike Dickson, Michael Henderson and Steve James to discuss the cricket stories making the papers and the latest news on and off the field."
Well that's unmissable television. No actual cricket highlights, just three cricket pundits (have you heard of any of them?) and a presenter locked in a darkened studio for a whole hour and a half. Very reminiscent of the Sky Sports show which plonks football writers in a faux-dining room with Jimmy Hill each weekend, for an hour's heart-stopping broadcasting.
Sky have outdone themselves on this one though, since the brand new Sky Sports High Definition channel is also showing "Cricket Writers On TV"! As if ninety minutes of cricket writers talking were somehow not punishment enough, you can choose to watch the discussion with every wrinkle, scowl and nose-hair rendered in unprecedented quality! All you have to do is call 08702 404020 for further information.
Of course this Sunday's even worse than your average Sunday since we have the England v Ecuador World Cup clash this afternoon. Broadcasters have therefore made the wise assumption that most of the television-watching nation is either a) already drunk, b) off getting drunk somewhere, c) out buying supplies with which to get drunk, d) milling around (drunk) amid the wreckage of plastic chairs in a market square in Germany, trying to find a jumbotron television, or e) in a police cell in Germany (drunk) trying to find a jumbotron television.
Well, I've de-camped with all my revision to Kent. It's certainly nicer to revise at home, rather than being stuck in London on my own. I'm seriously distressed thought: there is no Neighbours for the duration of the World Cup.
I'm slowly filling up my summer, and keep having to ring various Aunts and God Mother's. It's all very confusing.
I've purchased Coldpay's X&Y (sorry, OJ - just be grateful I don't have the freedom to add it to your i-tunes anymore...). I think "Fix You" will be added to my all time favourite depressing songs - along with Belinda's "In Too Deep".
A friend has just sent me a text to say that he's revising for Criminal Law (on the GDL) and just read the facts of a case called Bourne, 1952 and had been reminded of hour "foul a species" we can be. Curious, I looked it up. A man forced his wife to have sexual intercourse with a dog. She was not charged with a criminal offence but her husband was convicted of aiding and abetting an illegal act. How lovely.
It doesn't seem that long ago when I was contemplating a training contract, drinking bubbly and deciding that it may be worthwhile to work for someone called Flom. Today I chose the first seat for my training contract... daunting yet exciting stuff.
I was given an alarm clock over the weekend (by the same people who gave me my avocado plant, and most recently my peanut plant - grown from one of the parrot's uneaten peanuts). It has several functions you can wake up to including "seagulls" and "jungle" (not the music, the rain forest noises). It was given to them as a free-be. No wonder, do you really think people buy these things. It amused me on Monday to wake up for my exam to the squawking of seagulls. Rather like listening to Sarah Kennedy, but without the jokes.
I washed my car earlier. Well, my Dad and I did. He complained that it was held together with mud and it was about time we did something about it. He took charge of the sponge and soup, whilst I had to continually fill the watering can (we have a hosepipe ban) from the water butt. Anyway, I managed to cover myself in water more than the car. I then had to have a conversation with our neighbour, where she asked me whether I had wet myself. Great.
Oh and I haven't mentioned how I nearly got thrown out of Tesco on Saturday. I was buying some strawberries, cream and some sparkling wine. I got to the till and was asked for ID (you need to look over 21). So I handed over my driving license to this stern looking cashier, who didn't look as though she believed I was over 18, let alone 21. Anyway, she asked me how old I was, and I said 21. She replied that my driving license said I was 22. I chuckled and said, "oh yes, I am... I just forget sometimes". Ooops. Then I failed to enter my correct pin-number (my b/card is different to my other cards). I chuckled (again) and said, "oh I'm always doing this" and then entered the correct number. The cashier looked most impressed. She then proceeded to tell me that I needed to be 18 to have a clubcard (I have one of their little ones that you put on a keyring. The main account belongs to Jane). I said, "oh, but it isn't mine". Not looking impressed, the cashier said "oh, is it your Mother's". I said, "no. oh, yes, oh, OK, yes, it's my Mum's". The cashier seriously looked as though she was about to call security. I grabbed my keys, cards and bags and ran like the wind. Oh dear.
Ooooh, look what they've done with the Golden Housemate!
As you may have noticed over the past few weeks, Big Brother's run a Golden Ticket competition. Suzie is the lucky lady to have won, but now she's living under a brand new set of rules which only apply to her:
- her own "Golden Quarters"
- her own gold clothes she must wear at all times
- her own "Golden Shower" each morning (can you even begin to imagine the hilarity at Endemol when they thought that one up)
And - this is the good bit - she's the only one doing the nominations for eviction next week. A fact of which she's not aware, but everyone else in the house knows it only too well. Davina promises life will be "hell" for the Golden Housemate throughout the next seven days. This will mean flicking between the World Cup and Channel 4 all week long so as to be able to maintain the public service that is Dayorama updates on both topics...
News is reaching us on the wires that last night in the Big Brother house - i.e. coming up in tonight's TV episode - there was a drunken game of Spin The Bottle. This resulted in Glyn/Lea and Nikki/Lea pairings. I am also informed that Sam - in the house as a girl though actually a man - will be shown doing something entirely untoward.
This may well be unmissable television. I am not exaggerating when I tell you people in the newsroom are ringing their friends and cancelling their Friday night plans to watch this. Permission to despair granted.
We've also held our World Cup sweepstakes. I drew the USA, which could be infinitely better and infinitely worse - it's safe to say I'm unlikely to win, particularly with "Captain America" Claudio Reyna underperforming for Manchester City all season let alone on a world stage.
Still, could be worse. My esteemed colleague Linda drew Angola.
Press releases. Traditionally tedious, hurled at journalists by press officers in the hope of hitting one with a deadline looming and nothing else in the can. But not always. Try this one:
Who is that guy with all the eggs on his head that you see at all the bestest festivals in South Africa? His name is Gregory Da Silva - an artist, comedian, storyteller and dancer from Benin, West Africa.
His outfit always turns heads and each day it boasts a new feature, a new symbol of an African culture or practice. His headdress weighs up to twenty five kilograms, his body is armoured with artifacts and his face painted with tribal patterns and an undying smile.
Each day, Gregory Da Silva presents the city centre with a new display of his symbolic art. Gregory's voice is lively and he repeatedly offers phrases and words in French. Born in Benin, West Africa, 1979, he was trained in computer science at university, but went on to found a theatre group in Benin called 'Voice of Spirit' or 'Voix de l'Esprit'.
He explains the eggs on his head dress as being symbolic of life and says "everything must be life, everything must shine, [and] be positive". Next his hands grab the arcane black bottle near his waist to explain that in his culture, the Sangoma people would place "good spirits" in a bottle, with which they would "heal sick people [they] passed while walking on the roads".
When not walking St George's Mall or Green Market Square, Gregory features at the Grahamstown Festival, the Hermanus Whale Festival, has been hired to receive guests at hotels and airports, and has also appeared on SABC 2 and E-TV news.
Thoughts:
- The first sentence, with its intriguing use of "bestest", has clearly been added to the top of an otherwise rather eloquent article about him (which I've subbed down a bit or else we'd have been all day, trust me).
- He was trained in computer science at university?! Bloody hell. Who was the last computer science graduate you saw with eggs on his head dancing their way around Africa? Although we should note that with Guy Goma bursting onto our screens on News 24 recently, these computer science folk are starting to lead the way in all things weird and wonderful.
Personally I'm no longer an egg man. I did indulge in quite a few while I was in Somerset but I've gone all Fruit & Fibre this week. There was never a more gorgeous cereal made. Whisper it, but I go to sleep happy in the knowledge that the first thing I'll wake up to the next day is a bowl of that stuff. It's the little things in life, you know...
Oh, and my BBC badge arrived. The power! Yes, the power I can wield. The power to open the little security gate myself instead of whimpering like an abandoned puppy at reception each morning. The power to nip out for some lunch without being shut out of the newsroom for ten minutes til someone notices and lets me in. The power to open the car park entry barrier without having to line my window up with the little security speaker, misjudging it, then stalling when I try to edge the car forwards a bit. The badge is already a lifesaver.
If you know us fairly well, you're probably aware that something of a friendly rivalry has existed between myself and OJ since, well, the dawn of time.
This occasionally extended to the sports field. Rugby was a no-go zone for me whereas OJ excelled at it, leading to hilarity when the school mistakenly engraved my name onto the 'Most Improved Rugby Player' award. Football wasn't OJ's game - too busy with rugby and hockey - but it was pretty much all I ever did after school, playing in some old hockey nets until it got dark.
So it was the cricket field where we could both claim a modicum of skill. I stress modicum because neither of us were especially good, and our skills tended also to be our shortcomings. OJ had a lot of strength and could easily blast a junior cricket ball out of the ground, but this often led to a massive hoik at thin air with the ball bumbling past onto the stumps. I was pretty good at defending the ball and never went for the big shots, which meant I stayed in bat while the rest of the team crumbled, but often meant the team crumbled because I wasn't scoring any runs.
OJ spent much more time than yours truly in the top teams at school, a decision probably justified in hindsight (my opinion of my cricketing ability at school was far higher than my opinion of it since). But this must haunt me somewhere deep in my subconscious. A couple of days ago OJ wrote about his recent - highly successful - cricketing adventures. Lo and behold, last night I was wracked in my sleep by dreams of OJ playing for England.
I didn't get the chance to see him bat for them, thankfully (that would have destroyed me), but he bowled a couple of solid if unspectacular overs and then, horror of horrors, proceeded to take a one-handed catch at Deep Long-On. That just wasn't funny. If there was one plus to my cricketing ability at school it was catching; OJ's weakness was his fielding. Having to endure him soaring through the air by the boundary, plucking the ball from thin air to dismiss one of the Australian opening pair (my subconscious clearly doesn't rate Sri Lanka highly enough for inclusion), was neither expected nor welcome.
Mercifully I didn't see much else of that match or I'd have woken, screaming, in floods of tears. However this does heighten the urgency with which I must execute my plan to join a local cricket club around Reading. If anyone can recommend a team, let me know. I must put this horrifying experience behind me as soon as possible.
A spoof notice from the DVLA is currently doing the rounds:
In order to assist other motorists in identifying potentially dangerous drivers, it is now compulsory for anyone with a lower than average IQ and driving ability to display a warning flag.
The flag (comprising of a red cross on a white background) will be attached to the top of at least one door of their vehicle.
For drivers of exceptionally low ability, additional flags are required.
People collect odd things. Right now I'm at a football programme fair near Manchester where quite a few people will probably part with three or four figures in cash for what remain, essentially, pieces of paper.
But that's not odd by collecting standards - it's positively mainstream. Earlier this month I had an email from a friend of mine which read as follows:
Dear all,
For a long time now I have had a small affair with something. This has recently moved from a small affair to a beautiful, loving relationship, and now to full-on obsession.
I have a thing for matches. The free matches one gets in pubs, clubs and other trendy spots. I can't stop thinking about them. I base where I go of an eve depending on where I can get new matches. Yesterday I even picked up a packet of matches from the floor and was bitterly disappointed to find them empty.
So I'm asking you, trusted friends and loved ones, to help continue this. If you are out somewhere and you see a pack of matches, why not take two? One for me and one for you.
Travelling people - could you maybe get some cool ethnic ones to make my collection more eclectic (and, thus, politically correct)? Those residing in England: yours are of equal importance, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Point of note - my flatmate would like to add she does not share this obsession, and is getting a bit freaked out to be honest.
Alright, so that's starting to verge on the obscure, and if she starts constructing elaborate models of the Sistine Chapel from her collection then I'll be notifying the authorities. But now we head to one of England's very own vineyards - Boze Down, near Reading - for this little plea to the collecting masses:
Special Note for Label Collectors
You would be amazed just how many requests we get for Boze Down labels from collectors all over the world. At first I thought this was because we had such an original distinctive label design, but now I realise that there are just a lot of enthusiastic label collectors out there (mind you, it is still a great label design).
Well that's great - good to see such interest in wine. But I do have a little problem here, since you all ask for just the labels and nobody ever wants the wine! I happen to think that collecting wine labels is fine, but only if you have tasted the wine.
So here is the deal. You let me know where you are and what Boze Down wine(s) you want. I'll let you know the cost to post it to you, and on receipt of payment we will send whatever you want - yes, even one bottle - complete with spare Boze Down labels so you won't have annoy the wife soaking all those bottles in the sink to get the labels off.
This way you can enjoy delicious wines from Boze Down, impress all your friends with your extensive wine knowledge and add to your label collection. What a deal!
Closer to home (or further away, actually) this collecting lark only crossed my mind when I was in my hotel room up here last night. I went to switch the telly on with the remote control, but it wouldn't work. On closer inspection the lid which should enclose the batteries had disappeared from the back of it.
What I want to know is who the hell 'collects' - i.e. steals - those things? From the sheer number of lidless wonders I've come across, someone somewhere must be sending frantic emails to their friends imploring them to indulge in petty acts of plastic-pinching. It takes all sorts.
This little cardboard figure - front on the left, reverse on the right - dropped through my letter box this weekend, dwarved by the humongous envelope in which it came. As you can see it's a little promotional device for the new Keane single "Is It Any Wonder?", due out on Monday. Top marks to their marketing crew. Perhaps it may be a little daft but I think it has a certain unconventional charm.
And dropping into my inbox a moment ago, a link to a new BBC News 24 remix. This one's a bit special because it's done by a gentleman whom OJ and I used to go to school with, called Adam. Click here to listen to it (or right-click that link and select 'Save Target As' to permanently download it). I've dubbed it the "Emergency Services" mix owing to the signature tinkly-keyboard siren which runs through it, also faintly reminiscent of winter. It wouldn't sound out of place on BBC News 24, that's for sure, so that has to be good.
Finally, congratulations to Cheltenham Town (and number one Cheltenham fan Amy J) on promotion from League Two to the giddy heights of League One today.
The Rest of the World may be 2-0 down to Robbie Williams' England XI in ITV's much-hyped Soccer Aid game as we speak, but it's good to see Peter Schmeichel still dominating every match in which he appears. England could have had five or six by now (and may well do in the second half when Patrick Kielty takes over between the sticks) but Schmeichel's made a series of staggering stops to keep the English at bay.
Things were a little more seriously contested at the Millennium Stadium earlier on, where Barnsley snuck past Swansea on penalties to claim their place in the Championship via the play-offs. We join Sky's commentary team around three minutes after the Barnsley keeper has made the promotion-clinching penalty save:
Commentator 1: "They are the pride of Yorkshire right now. They... are Barnsley."
Commentator 2: "They certainly are."
[A short period elapses.]
Commentator 1: "The winners here today... are Barnsley."
Commentator 2: "They certainly are."
It is this sort of revelatory stuff that makes me wonder why the BBC gets all the flak for its main commentary team. They all need work.
So does the main stand at Ascot, although it's almost finished. The racecourse held a pre-opening meeting today to iron out a few problems with crowd management and check everything functions as planned in time for next month's Royal Ascot showpiece (which, of course, took place in York last year while Ascot was a building site).
I went to the meeting to take photos of Ascot's brand new look, which you can see on the BBC Berkshire site by clicking here. I especially liked the observation of one photographer that the new royal box resembles "the bridge of the Enterprise".
The BBC and composer David Lowe have released a new three-minute version of the BBC News 24 countdown.
A while ago I spoke out in favour of the old 90s BBC news themes, which I loved because I was young and impressionable and they were, well, bloody good. But even though I'm not so keen on the main BBC News themes these days, it doesn't get much better than the full-blooded BBC News 24 extended themes. If that doesn't get your hair standing on end by the time it finishes, very few things will.
You can listen to the new three-minute version on the BBC's site here - and even remix it, if you've got the skills, time and inclination. The second mix, by David Wartnaby, is particularly good in my opinion.
On the subject of BBC sites, if you happen to live in Berkshire then please go out and photo some squirrels. I'm updating the BBCi Berkshire photo pages and there aren't enough squirrels. I even ended up on the radio this afternoon making a plea to the good people of Berkshire for more squirrel pics. To paraphrase Bob Geldof, just give us the f#@!ing squirrels!
Oh how I wish the current crop of mind-numbing 3D-cartoon-animal extravaganzas would end. Please, everyone, just let Pixar do it and accept that they've got the tools for the job. That means you, Father Of The Pride, you, Over The Hedge, and you, The Wild. And please never let Garfield be transformed into a weird 3D monstrosity again. There is a place for 2D yet.
I spent the morning in Birmingham being introduced to the BBC's online Content Management System. Writing for websites in the past, not least this weblog, has given me a decent grounding in these things, and it certainly looks pretty comprehensive. But content management systems are renowned for their fickle nature, and it's no surprise that this one seems a bit temperamental too (I'm told it went down for most of yesterday, which leaves the minor problem of a hundred or so BBC journalists drumming their fingers impatiently for a day). At least I've certainly lost enough Dayorama posts - for example, by pressing "Save" and then the system inexpicably dying - to be able to deal with that sort of thing.
On the way back from Birmingham the train was held in Leamington Spa for an hour while a woman was treated by paramedics. I've no idea what was up, but the train manager had earlier called for anyone with medical training on board to help, and 60 minutes is a long time to wait in a station, where the paramedics could easily have removed her from the train had she been in a fit state to move. It must have been serious.
So I was quite angry at the reaction of a fellow passenger a little later on. The train pulled in to Oxford, still an hour late, where it was announced it would terminate - despite originally being destined for Reading. There was another train to Reading departing in five minutes from the other side of the same platform. That was not enough for one gentleman, who proceeded on an extended rant-to-nobody about the "incompetent" Virgin Trains staff and the "cynical" attitude of the company.
I don't think there's anything incompetent or cynical about delaying a train for an hour to allow a seriously ill woman to be treated. If that means the train has to terminate early because of the severe delay, adding all of an extra five minutes to the hour lost, so be it. You'd think the knowledge that another passenger had spent 60 minutes in what must have been an extremely serious condition - before paramedics even contemplated moving her - would be enough to make the rest of us just glad to be fit and well. Alas, some people want it all.
I promised myself I'd stay away from Big Brother. In my defence I'm sat here being subjected to it by others, rather than choosing it of my own free will, so I'll allow this exception.
Aside from the fact I'm watching a young man in a silly hat and an orange shirt cry openly over possibly the single most trivial issue in the history of mankind, it's actually been almost worth - wait, no, no it hasn't. It's pap of the most unbelievable variety.
The one redeeming feature is the image conjured up every time someone mentions Sezer, one of the contestants. I can only envisage Cesar, the dog food marketed by a rather sweet little West Highland Terrier. I remarked the other day that Big Brother would be more bearable if older people were involved, but now I'd much rather have a contest populated by twelve Westies. Insert laboured "barking" pun here.
There exists a brilliant sketch by Eddie Izzard on the subject of dog food and Caesar, the well known Roman. It's on iTunes if you want to go and find it (I imagine it'll only cost you around 80 pence for it). It may be this which inspires me, and it goes a little something like this:
"There was a dog food a while back called Mister Dog, for small yappy-type dogs. After a while they decided to change the name from Mister Dog to Cesar. That's a bit of a shift ... Mister Dog: small dog, bushy face. Caesar: Roman leader 2000 years ago... small dog with a bushy face ... bit of a left turn at the traffic lights on that.
"I doubt Caesar was thinking in those terms 2000 years ago: 'My name is Caesar, I am the first emperor of Rome, I wear the laurel wreath upon my head ... in 2000 years' time I shall be remembered as a can of small dog food, for yappy-type dogs'."
And later, Mr Izzard impersonates a Roman centurion meeting a Gaulish leader:
"Well, I'm a centurion, and this is our leader, Mister Dog."
"Centurion, a word with you if I may. Now, centurion, I'm thinking of changing my name. Mister Dog's all very well as a name, but Caesar... I think Caesar, that would work."
Go and buy it. I first heard this at least seven or eight years ago at school and it's only getting better with time.
We've just witnessed one of the more bizarre refereeing decisions of all time, in football's showpiece - the Champions League Final.
A Barcelona striker breaks clean through on goal. On the very edge of the penalty area Arsenal goalkeeper Jens Lehmann brings the striker down, but not before the ball rolls free to another Barcelona player, who tucks it into the empty net.
In many, many people's books, that is a goal. Not for this Norwegian referee. He brings play back, awards the free kick on the edge of the box, and sends Jens Lehmann off. Robert Pires, possibly playing his final game for Arsenal, is withdrawn to allow a replacement goalkeeper onto the pitch after mere minutes of his swansong.
Pundits and fans often talk about wanting to see common sense applied by referees on a football pitch. Leaving to one side the question of playing advantage - and surely you'd think the goal being scored was advantage plenty enough - common sense dictates that the goal and a continued game of 11 versus 11 is infinitely preferable, for all sides, compared to no goal, a sending off, and one of football's finest occasions marred in almost the opening moments.
What possesses an official to make such a bizarre decision at a crucial moment in the game? Granted, there is immense pressure on everybody on the field of play, not least the three officials - after all, one linesman for the game was forced to step down earlier because he was photographed wearing a Barcelona shirt. But this was one of the most obvious decisions I have ever seen. Barcelona wanted the goal, Arsenal wanted their goalkeeper. In one fell swoop, the referee alienated both sets of players, enraged supporters on either side and spoilt what was for many the 'dream' cup final. It's a shame.
During my three weeks on placement in Manchester, I stayed on the floor of a good friend (BBC Radio Manchester's sports reporter Andy May, a man so very good at his job that you wouldn't guess his age til you met him). We only had one key between us - I suggested getting another cut, but Andy rightly pointed out that there's a special electronic fob on the keyring allowing access past the security gates into the building, which we couldn't replicate. So one key it was, between two of us, for three weeks.
Most days, that meant me leaving the key on BBC Manchester reception, halfway between my place of work and home. This arrangement was fine by us two, but clearly it did for the poor receptionist: BBC Manchester are now advertising for two new ones!
Well, someone had to go to the fifth day of the test match between England and Sri Lanka. And that someone was me, forfeiting my tenner at the North Gate and taking a seat in the Edrich Stand below the space-age media centre. (My laptop picked up the BBC's Test Match Special wireless network from underneath their commentary position, which - were I an expert hacker of a certain inclination - could have been amusing.)
I settled for the old-fashioned trick of listening to TMS while sat watching the afternoon's events unfold. Alas, there were very few events in need of a good unravelling. All we got through the entire afternoon session was a dropped catch, a couple of sixes and the monotonous trudging of the Sri Lankan tail towards what had been an immensely unlikely draw. I left at the tea interval, after which they duly sealed an escape which has every England head dangling in shame.
But let's look away from the pitch for some sources of comfort.
Alright, granted, perhaps not the most inspiring of views. However it tells a little story that I find quite heartening. There are very few spectators in that particular corner of the ground, or indeed any other, but those that are there have turned up on their own. You don't get that very often with sport nowadays - it seems to me cricket could well be the last bastion of the casual spectator rocking up at the ground on his or her own for an hour or two, then sloping back off to carry on with the work they've been putting off.
That was certainly the case where I was sat. There were plenty of empty seats in our stand, but even those that were occupied changed hands - or buttocks - with surprising regularity. People came for half an hour, sampled the action, clapped a few times, drank a beer, then slipped away back into the north London hubbub. It was almost an extended lunch break for some, a chance to unwind in this, the calmest of all sporting atmospheres: that of a test match heading for a draw.
Equally pleasing is the variety in the crowd. Go to some football matches and you have to work very hard to find a member of the crowd who is not white. There is nothing wrong with that - after all what would the solution be if there was? Introduce quotas? No, it's simply an observation I've made at more than one game. Today at Lord's the crowd was as diverse as you could imagine. There were of course plenty of Sri Lankans, mostly on their own as I've just described, smartly turned out in suit and tie, clearly popping in for an hour or so to see if the boys could complete their great escape. Then you had your English contingent, but that doesn't just mean middle class white people like me. Sat in front of me was a young black man, probably around my age, doing the exact same thing - watching the cricket, listening to the radio, politely applauding. And looking around even a crowd this small covered every shape, size, colour and creed.
Cricket should be proud that test matches completely transcend any of these artificial barriers we sometimes throw up. Avid Sri Lankan fanatics sat a couple of seats away from paid-up Barmy Army troopers and shared their appreciation, a laugh and a joke, on the drizzly, breezy fifth day of a dreary test. Football's World Cup is coming up and is always billed as an inclusive celebration - the 'universal language of football' - but too often that descends into the universal language of violence, xenophobia and irrational hatred. Certain sets of fans can not be placed together or else all hell will be let loose. I've attended very few football matches where the crowd has been totally mixed (England v Portugal in Euro 2004 was one, and I wrote about the sensational atmosphere here).
Cricket, by contrast, has retained its gentlemanly reserve in this country. Sit where you like, with who you like, and have a good natter and a sandwich. Sat there in the Edrich Stand watching England throw away a near-certain win it felt like, for that select number who speak the language, cricket's cultural bonds are far greater than anything football can offer.
The debate over animal testing has raged on for far too long without any sense of direction and not a peep from the government - strange for a leadership often portrayed as the 'nanny state' elsewhere. If it's allowed to continue unchecked then more people could die and more atrocities be committed at the hands of extremists, and who'll be accountable?
The government needs to take a hard line on animal rights terrorists as the very first sign of its new commitment to overhaul the warped sense of 'human rights' currently enshrined in UK law. It's a small first step, and the public will be expecting this to be followed up by a comprehensive set of measures which deter and detain these extremists. But unambiguous support in the face of the lunatics from the very highest level of government is a good, if belated, start.
NO
The last thing we all needed was Tony Blair wading into yet another minefield (if fields can be waded into, as such). It's almost another Iraq in miniature - a highly flammable situation with tensions running very high, and the PM's plumped for an option which brings those tensions to boiling point while solving absolutely nothing. What will his name on an online petition do, aside from throwing more timber on the dangerous, burning passions of the extremists? Does he not have enough people plotting against him already, be they in a cave in Afghanistan or next door at Downing Street?
This is a pathetic attempt to pander to popular opinion with no considered strategy brought to the table. What we need are means of dealing with the threat of animal rights extremism, backed up with a definitive, independent study into precisely how much animal testing is still necessary. Then we can pursue the highest medical and ethical standards, and the extremists, with equal vigour and success. What we do not need is a knee-jerk reaction and a token gesture from a deeply ill-informed leader.
Let me know what you think. Email ollie dot williams at gmail dot com (comments remain broken indefinitely until I have time to resolve the issue!).
I have a four year old brother named Harry. He loves his tricycle. Today the family spent a lot of time transporting all kinds of furniture and goods to new premises we're renting for our small memorabilia company. All the while we were loading and unloading, Harry circled us like a miniature shark on wheels.
He probably doesn't like cycling this much, though:
A four-year-old boy and his father are attempting to break into the record books by cycling the length of Britain.
Henry and Adrian Cole, from Winscombe, Somerset, are two thirds of the way through the 874-mile trek from Land's End to John O'Groats.
The pair have already cycled 500 miles up the length of England, and are now preparing for the final, Scottish section, which will begin later this month.
They cover an average of 30 miles a day with Henry pedalling a trailer cycle attached to the back of his father's bike.
Much as Harry might not be up for taking the trike the length of the country, I have noted it down as an alternative threat to 'the naughty stair'.
That, of course, is a Supernanny invention. She's Harry's arch-nemesis. Last night I asked him what he thought she'd do if she came to the house:
"She'd make me sort lots of things out... stupid-nanny! I'll kill that Supernanny."
Harry then displayed signs of having watched a little too much Power Rangers with a series of faux-martial-arts moves designed to mortally wound Supernanny in the forthcoming confrontation. Harry Williams - Supernanny's Lex Luthor.
Update: It turns out Supernanny has one crucial ally in her battle against Harry - the Cybermen. They starred in tonight's episode of Doctor Who and he's so scared of them, he had to ask me to accompany him to the fridge to get a pudding in case one jumped out at him en route. I told him there was one inside the fridge so he couldn't go in and there'd be no pudding. He was not amused.
In a week when the whole world's eyes have had to be dragged kicking and screaming from Melanie Slade, I found beauty of an entirely different sort today. In a building.
That's Caversham House, home of BBC Monitoring (and Radio Berkshire), and it's not even the side of the building I saw. The entrance is round the back, where "the back" is defined as a driveway extending through an acre or two of lawns, flower beds and trees, punctuated by two football pitches (no idea why). I've not seen too many BBC buildings in my time, but this must be the finest approach to one in existence.
It's one of those buildings with a faint colonial mystique about it. It's bloomin' huge and entirely unsubtle, but it fits its surroundings and has that intriguing air, like the MI6 building. There it sits in central London, and you know full well really interesting stuff's happening there every day, but the building itself possesses a built-in warning. When you see it, it says to you "don't even think about it, sonny". Caversham House has a bit of that. That did not stop me thinking about it. Time will tell who wins.
Did you watch Fonejacker? It followed Lost on Channel 4 and involves one man making prank calls to a series of people. Highlights include:
- the phone call from an obvious fraudster to a woman working for a major bank, trying to get her account details so that the scammer can allegedly "steam clean the vault" her money is being kept in. Woman duly spots obvious fraudster a mile off, reads fraudster riot act, threatens to call police. Woman: "Do you even know my name?" Fraudster/Fonejacker: "Miss... er... ... ... Jones?"
- "Jean-Pierre", the wealthy Frenchman attempting to buy a car from hapless British car salesman Roger. Jean-Pierre's phone mysteriously kept cutting out every time he went to give Roger his credit card number for a ten thousand pound deposit. Roger's ire steadily increased (actually I thought he reached frustration tipping point far sooner than he should - that man had no patience to speak of).
- a gentleman (Fonejacker) with a very high pitched voice phoning the vet and insisting on being seen immediately. Vet's receptionist insists man actually needs doctor. Fonejacker (represented by a cartoon mouse on screen) claims it has to be a vet, says he ate some cheese with funny green powder on it. Is sure he has been poisoned. Makes dying noises, dies. Vet's receptionist hangs up.
New comedies don't have a particularly great success rate in grabbing their audiences, but this one did a decent job without relying too much on the same gag (although they cut it fine once or twice).
The only oddity is why on earth this show was ever commissioned for television. As a half hour comedy all about phone calls, it's ideally suited to radio, even though I'm well aware Radio 4 tried and failed with a similar format last week. The screen time was filled by cartoon characters and photos with South Park-esque moving mouths, adding very little to the programme with the possible exception of the mouse sketch, which it simply made even more obvious.
I do also wonder what became of the bank lady's complaint to the police. If it is a crime for actual fraudsters to call people up demanding bank details, is it a crime for people making silly Channel 4 comedy shows to do the same? Being locked away indefinitely for criminal television would be a new one.
I have been able to divine, from the Dayorama site stats, that some of you are wondering whether David Miliband is a vegetarian or not. This also appears to be a source of intrigue for the Vegetarian Society, one visitor from 'vegsoc.com' arriving having asked Google about the man's eating habits.
It's a valid question to ask of the man newly appointed Minister for the Environment. After all, his choice of chow might well affect his approach to climate change. Vegetarian? Likely to be sympathetic to "greener" points of view then, which might be ideal - and the reason why Tony Blair chose him for the job - given David Cameron's push to give the Tories ultra-green credentials. And if he isn't vegetarian, then we're talking a pragmatic, no-nonsense approach. Not to suggest vegetarianism is nonsense - yours truly was vegan for two years. Indeed, a reluctance to entertain vegetarianism as a concept might just suggest a certain pigheadedness (arf arf).
Let's not forget "Food and Rural Affairs" are also part of the brief, so farmers are going to be interested in this one. If you're a cattle farmer, a vegetarian minister in charge of your rural affairs is probably not the best news you've ever heard. (Although if John Prescott were in charge of rural affairs you'd be listening for dodgy noises coming from the barn.) If you've been cultivating plenty of soy beans lately, veggie politicians might be better received. My limited understanding of global food production leads me to believe soy beans are largely produced abroad, whereas cattle is of course common to Britain, so a vegetarian minister might just subconsciously boost British food imports.
All of which leads me to the admission that I haven't got a clue whether he's vegetarian or not. I've emailed his office and asked - I'll let you know.
Elsewhere today, not one but two voxing expeditions. Those of you who haven't been reading religiously may not know that I tend to object to vox pops (the process of broadcasters interview randomly selected people on the street as a gauge of public opinion) for two reasons:
a) They often tell us very little we and our audience don't already know. Today, for example, the choice of audio was between 15 seconds of three people telling us why youngster Theo Walcott should or should not have been taken to the World Cup, and the England manager explaining the same decision. I would choose the England manager's viewpoint over the vox every time. In longer programmes the vox has a place, but never - in my book - over and above audio from figures able to speak with authority about something.
and
b) I'm rubbish at them.
I failed dismally to locate any Manchester United fans to discuss Ruud Van Nistelrooy's anticipated departure this morning, but then I did only have ten minutes to do so, and one cannot magic up Manchester United fans at will. Having endured those ten miserable pessimism-infused minutes (dead-end voxes are about the only time you'll catch me like that), I thought I'd served my time. Think again - at 5:30pm back out I went to vox people on the England squad selection. In the wind and rain. This vox mercifully took only five or ten minutes, but then a hell of a lot more people can relate to England than can to Manchester United, even (especially?) in Manchester.
This vox comes with a delightfully relaxing accompaniment too. The background noise as the rain lashed the nearby canal sounds just like the pitter-patter of tiny feet - Theo Walcott must be going to the World Cup after all.
Dick Van Dyke never fails to surprise me. Aside from going through more feature-length episodes of Diagnosis Murder than I've had hot dinners, he's now turned up on my television in Sabrina: The Teenage Witch. He's playing a gentleman newly returned to human form having spent his previous years as a cat. First line: "Do you have any of those liver treats?", followed by a sequence of Dick batting the air with his "paws". Clearly the children and animals line never passed anyone's lips in the Van Dyke household.
What a brilliant last day's Football League action. Matches you'd never have thought meaningful 46 matches ago are suddenly life or death situations. Bournemouth have equalised against Brentford deep into stoppage time to stop Brentford, including new chairman Greg Dyke of course, being automatically promoted.
Meanwhile, as I write, Oxford and Leyton Orient are drawing 2-2 in added time. Oxford have to win to stay in the league; Orient have to win to gain promotion. It's one of the few games still going. It's odd that my emotions at this point are mainly guided by Football Manager (Championship Manager, as was). It's a football management game. In around 2002/2003 I took Leyton Orient to the Premiership in it, then last year I did the same with Oxford in the next version. I want both teams to do well.
And Orient have just scored! Oxford are down, Orient are promoted! Ivan Gaskell is live on air on BBC1 as I type describing the action, which is the sort of broadcasting moment you can only hope to have as a sports journalist. I think I wrote some kind of tribute to football quite a long time ago in very similar vein, but this is the sort of stuff that makes sport a worthwhile proposition. It's full time, Orient are up. Congrats to them, commiserations to Oxford, and there's always next season...
Somehow or other I managed to find myself at the Radio Academy North-West Radio Night yesterday evening - an extremely warm back room of a bar, packed with what can be politely described as "radio enthusiasts".
These, my friends, are the trainspotters of radio: the people who produce the jingles and other fancy noises that aren't music or speech. For them a sweeper is not the bloke sitting just behind the back four in a 5-4-1 formation; give them a good stab and they'll appreciate it.
I'll grant you I like a good theme toon - I even wrote about the BBC News themes recently. But I am not a member of what the evening's host endearingly termed the "jingle community". The night consisted of around ten tables of said community, to which had been added one table of BBC Radio Manchester employees, to which had been added me. So I found myself representing the arch-rivals in a three hour long pub quiz about radio production.
Well needlessly to say I didn't really represent them, since I couldn't answer more than one question. In the lyrics round I knew "I'd make a deal with God, and get him to swap our places" is from Kate Bush and "Running Up That Hill", but that was the extent of my participation. I was of no use during the jingle round, in which two jingles were played and the audience invited to fill in the missing words.
Jingle number 1 turned out to be the very first Key 103 jingle after it changed its name from Piccadilly Radio. Lyrics: "Get up and get going with Key 103, start the day knowing what's new, get up in the morning with the breakfast show on Keeeeeey 103." Have a listen here:
Jingle number 2 was, apparently, the BBC Radio 2 news theme - played backwards. Then there was the round where we had to guess the station from the very first moments of its launch date broadcast, with the station identity bleeped out. If you're born a considerable number of years after Radios 2, 1, Aire and Piccadilly launched, then obviously this is going to be a tricky round to negotiate. As was the question where the teams were asked to give the full phone number of a particular, seemingly legendary, jingle production company.
However there was a free bar, so I shall stop looking this jingly gift horse in the mouth, and maybe in forty years I will know my RCS from my LBC in such matters.
During local election night I forgot to mention one enjoyable moment. I'd gone to interview a successful Labour candidate - I won't say which one for reasons that will become clear. It isn't anyone I've mentioned elsewhere or whose audio I've put online (i.e. it's not Richard Leese). They were being hugged and congratulated by plenty of people as we started the interview, so having begun recording and said my opening hellos, I had to break off while these celebrations continued.
The Labour candidate then spotted a friend walking past and called out to them, with breathtaking clarity, "You can tell Tony Blair that sometimes the bloody infantry win it without the sodding leaders!"
This was by far the most interesting audio I collected all night. But alas, seconds later, the candidate turned white as a sheet as they looked back at me and at the microphone. "You've not recorded that, have you?" Well, I said, yes. "No... you haven't," they said, laughing nervously. "I'm afraid I have, you know." And at this point I felt so utterly sorry for them that I committed the journalistic sin of promising not to air it. I've not quite reached the highest hard-nosed summit of political hackery... yet.
Tonight saw me off to the opening night of Moby Dick at Manchester's Library Theatre. I'm not normally one for opening nights at plays - or, come to think of it, plays - so this was a departure. It was actually very good, too. I was worried that at three hours in length, and having to go on my own in the absence of knowing anyone up north who was free to take up the spare, I'd become phenomenally bored. That wasn't the case, it was a genuinely entertaining production with one or two very odd but laudable interpretations. He said, commenting on interpretations of a book he hadn't read. I'll be quiet.
Anyway, the highlight of the evening wasn't the play. There I was, stood in the foyer before the performance was due to start, thumbing through the programme, when who should appear in front of me but one Max Carter. He and I used to go to school together for quite some period of time - so much so, I'm fairly sure there exist photos of us playing football at something like the age of 5. He'd turned up to the opening night of Moby Dick with his girlfriend! Such culture vultures. He seemed very well indeed, which was reassuring. I remarked how surprised I was to see him, and he rightly pointed out that, being a student at Manchester University, and me being a student in London, his was not the most surprising presence there.
My presence on Sky News earlier today was equally surprising. It all harked back to this morning, when I was asked to go to Bolton Wanderers for a press conference. Then we remembered I can't drive, so we tried enlisting the help of other people in the newsroom. I ended up booked in to go to the conference with a reporter from arch-rival-but-not-really BBC Radio Manchester. So I wandered over to the BBC where Del (short for Delyth, I think) came out to meet me. She's only a few years older and used to work for Manchester United radio before coming to the BBC, which is a career start you're certainly unlikely to find me pursuing. And speaking of starts, she couldn't get the BBC standard issue Peugeot to move for fifteen minutes, til she remembered the steering lock (I can't talk, it had me totally foxed too, but then I rank as one of the least useful people ever to have sat in a car during a car-related panic).
So Del - who by the way would win Broadcasting Hair Of The Year if such an award existed, I was extremely impressed - took me to Bolton and looked after the young work placement kid from the rival radio station for the next hour or so. Out came Sam Allardyce, who had a good long chat about his rapidly waning England prospects, and we all went home again.
I got back to my own newsroom and sorted my audio out, then went to pre-record my sports bulletin. I emerged again to be told I'd just made my debut on Sky. It turns out the TV crews had taken footage of us lot clustered around Sam Allardyce with our microphones, hanging on his every word. That footage had made it onto Sky. I've not seen it so I have no idea how much of me, for how long, made it into the frame, but everyone apparently recognised the shirt so there you have it. My dad's no longer the only one in the family with a Sky appearance to their name!
Around a week ago I paid a little tribute to Dayorama posts from First Great Western trains over the last three years - today, it's hats off to Virgin. I'm on one of no fewer than three trains leaving Oxford for Manchester in the space of an hour. It arrived ten minutes early, it's all but deserted, and this last detail may be absurdly minor to most people, but the windows are gobsmackingly spotless.
Now that really surprised me. Most problems with trains aren't entirely guaranteed: there might be a seat after all, it might just be on time, there might not be a bevy of teenagers strangling the life out of you with tinny r'n'b from their mobile phones. But you can be nigh on certain the windows will either:
a) contain utterly illegible graffiti etched thinly into the pane with a key, sure to confound the archaeologists of the forty-first century with their intriguing hidden messages; or
b) not have been washed since the age of steam, black smears providing a beautiful view of the countryside as it would look if coloured by a peculiarly depressed three-year-old goth.
Not here. I'm afforded a gorgeous, panoramic, unspoilt view of... well, Leamington Spa platform 2 at this precise moment in time, but give us a few moments and it'll be glorious English countryside again. For a bank holiday Monday the weather's not at all bad - bit blustery, granted, but it's truly a green and pleasant land out there this morning.
Of course for some people, the last place you want to be this June is England. They'll do anything to get hold of some World Cup tickets. My trusty bottle of Diet Coke informs me I can win World Cup tickets with them :
How much do you LOVE the FIFA World CupTM?
Take a photo with your mobile phone or digital camera showing how much it means to you. Send it to 80094 via MMS (std ntwk rates apply) or upload it at www.coca-colafootball.co.uk and you could be there!
All well and good. World Cup ticket offers are nothing if not expected, bordering on obligatory, in the run-up to the big event. But have a closer look at what we might, following Coke's example of vowelicide, call the "trms n cndtns":
No Purchase Necessary (NPN). Entrants must obtain consent of al identifiable individuals in photo. Daily draws from 01.06.06 to 30.06.06. Extra draw 01.09.06.
Whoa - these terms go on a bit longer but we'll stop right there. Extra draw 01.09.06?! That's... a good month or two after the World Cup ends! What gives?
Peeling the label off and studying the back for the full trms n cndtns, I've discovered the answer:
All entries received up to 31.08.06 will be entered into a draw for a chance to win a pair of 2010 FIFA World Cup tickets.
So there you are - if you want to be one of the first people guaranteed to be on the plane to the 2010 World Cup, start buying Diet Coke and wait til the day after this World Cup ends to enter. You could take a photo demonstrating the 2010 World Cup means so much to you, you missed the 2006 one just to be in with the chance of going to it...
Around a week ago I paid a little tribute to Dayorama posts from First Great Western trains over the last three years - today, it's hats off to Virgin. I'm on one of no fewer than three trains leaving Oxford for Manchester in the space of an hour. It arrived ten minutes early, it's all but deserted, and this last detail may be absurdly minor to most people, but the windows are gobsmackingly spotless.
Now that really surprised me. Most problems with trains aren't entirely guaranteed: there might be a seat after all, it might just be on time, there might not be a bevy of teenagers strangling the life out of you with tinny r'n'b from their mobile phones. But you can be nigh on certain the windows will either:
a) contain utterly illegible graffiti etched thinly into the pane with a key, sure to confound the archaeologists of the forty-first century with their intriguing hidden messages; or
b) not have been washed since the age of steam, black smears providing a beautiful view of the countryside as it would look if coloured by a peculiarly depressed three-year-old goth.
Not here. I'm afforded a gorgeous, panoramic, unspoilt view of... well, Leamington Spa platform 2 at this precise moment in time, but give us a few moments and it'll be glorious English countryside again. For a bank holiday Monday the weather's not at all bad - bit blustery, granted, but it's truly a green and pleasant land out there this morning.
Of course for some people, the last place you want to be this June is England. They'll do anything to get hold of some World Cup tickets. My trusty bottle of Diet Coke informs me I can win World Cup tickets with them :
How much do you LOVE the FIFA World CupTM?
Take a photo with your mobile phone or digital camera showing how much it means to you. Send it to 80094 via MMS (std ntwk rates apply) or upload it at www.coca-colafootball.co.uk and you could be there!
All well and good. World Cup ticket offers are nothing if not expected, bordering on obligatory, in the run-up to the big event. But have a closer look at what we might, following Coke's example of vowelicide, call the "trms n cndtns":
No Purchase Necessary (NPN). Entrants must obtain consent of al identifiable individuals in photo. Daily draws from 01.06.06 to 30.06.06. Extra draw 01.09.06.
Whoa - these terms go on a bit longer but we'll stop right there. Extra draw 01.09.06?! That's... a good month or two after the World Cup ends! What gives?
Peeling the label off and studying the back for the full trms n cndtns, I've discovered the answer:
All entries received up to 31.08.06 will be entered into a draw for a chance to win a pair of 2010 FIFA World Cup tickets.
So there you are - if you want to be one of the first people guaranteed to be on the plane to the 2010 World Cup, start buying Diet Coke and wait til the day after this World Cup ends to enter. You could take a photo demonstrating the 2010 World Cup means so much to you, you missed the 2006 one just to be in with the chance of going to it...
Minor hiccup from Channel 4 News last night. In their daily Snowmail news update, emailed out about a few hours before broadcast, they list all the items they expect to cover in their evening programme along with a brief summary. Last night's email got down as far as the sport, then read as follows:
In the sport with Lindsay, premiership leaders Chelsea are out of the FA cup after falling to a vastly superior Liverpool in the semifinal.
All well and good, but the email was sent at just before 5pm. The game between Chelsea and Liverpool hadn't actually kicked off.
The gaffe prompted this second email, titled "On our FA Cup premonition...", to be sent out about an hour later:
In tonight's snowmail, I jumped the gun a bit in describing an easy Liverpool win over Chelsea in the FA Cup semi final. We are not running a betting shop and I didn't have a premonition. A line was missed off which gave the Reds victory. Maybe it was wishful thinking from our newsroom...
As we go to air the game is only halfway through and 1-0 to Liverpool so sorry for causing any premature grief (for Chelsea fans) or celebrations (for Liverpool fans.
We will of course report the match latest on our programme at 6.30pm.
Liverpool did indeed win the game. No wonder Channel 4 have such a good record with exclusives when whatever they announce comes true...
I'm on a Great Western service between the Westcountry and Reading - a special service starting in Taunton and calling everywhere (even Bridgwater, described as 'the Vietnam of Somerset' by my driving instructor). Every other train is being delayed after someone was run over near Exeter.
These journeys always seem to inspire something for Dayorama:
12 September 2003 - delays after someone's killed on the line (I don't seem to be a good luck charm for the rail network)
6 December 2004 - train carries out reversing manoeuvre, praises of new mp3 player sung
19 June 2005 - extolling the virtues of the train and the countryside, profiling folk at the bus stop
1 July 2005 - hiding in first class on another train carrying out a reversing manoeuvre
This one's not reduced itself to reversing down the line yet, but it can only be a matter of time. We've got the delights of Yatton to get through before even reaching Bristol, then across through Swindon to Reading. Then to Stokenchurch, Oxford, Stokenchurch again, Leeds, and arriving into Manchester Piccadilly around lunchtime tomorrow. Not all on the same train, mind.
There's three weeks on placement in Manchester coming up, reporting for a commercial radio station by day and sleeping on someone's floor in university accommodation by night, so appearances on Dayorama will likely be fairly few for a while.
Beautiful piece of advert placement for Nivea on Key 103 just now. We were subjected to thirty seconds of advertising for Crazy Frog-esque ringtones ranging from gerbils to terrapins, all of whom gave off the usual helium-tastic insanity-inducing noises. You know exactly the kind of advert this is, an onslaught of pure noise peppered with numbers to call and hidden charges mentioned oh-so-briefly.
But it eventually came to end, praise be. Cue the Nivea ad:
"Life has enough irritants. Don't let your skin be one of them."
You're given a special link to access the feedback forms, since if you don't fill them in, I'm told you can't advance to the next stage of the course. Except that link doesn't work for lots of people. So you find another, alternative link, and somehow manage to get in, otherwise you won't pass the exams you're facing this week.
You're then faced with the feedback forms. However, some of the assessments the students take are also done online, using forms you fill out which are marked automatically as you go along. The feedback forms use the same templates for each web page.
That means your feedback gets "marked" as you go along, since the computer knows no different, it's just following the template. Which in turn means a friend of mine just received 0 marks out of a possible 1 for agreeing with this statement:
"The doctors here are ethical."
Apparently they're not ethical - but at least they're honest about it.
Mildly relevant title based on the adorable Tamsin Greig, star of both shows.
At least thirty-four people die in Iraq, a British soldier who died there on Saturday is named, thirty-one people are hurt in an explosion in Istanbul, a man's shot dead by police in Northern Ireland, people are killed as a train and truck collide in Greece, and there's extensive flooding in the Balkans.
Still believe in God? Happy Easter.
Talking to my friend Colin about this, it's made me wonder what a society would be like without any form of religion. No churches, no shared form of spirituality. You might say we're coming close to one now in the UK but we're not really - the entire spiritual system from local parish churches through to the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Pope is far too influential for that to be the case.
Is it possible to have a functioning society that resembles ours, minus the religious side to life? Or not?
Is it likely to happen in future now that, as Colin says, we've "had religion and come out the other side"? And is that good or bad?
If we had comments working you could let me know, but we don't, so you can't. You can however email me (address on the 'about' page). And in the mean time I'll try to get a TV series about it commissioned (how do you even go about doing that? It'd be a lot of fun...).
For a long, long time at LCC, there was a certain exhibition of photos on the walls leading to and from our media block. That's hardly unusual, there's exhibitions going on all the time. But this one was a bit different - it showed images of various people reaching the point of climax.
I never particularly warmed to this as a means of welcoming me each morning. Most of the participants are not, in my humble opinion, of an overly attractive nature. And while none of the bodily organs involved in the process were on view, the looks on their faces are enough for anyone to put their morning flapjack off.
I thought I'd seen the last of this chamber of horrors, but no. It's come up at The Toilet Gallery at Kingston University, presumably these poor volunteers having not received enough, er, 'exposure' in the LCC corridors. Follow the link to look at some of the images - the last thing I'm going to do is put one on Dayorama, and I'll be avoiding Kingston like the plague for the rest of this month... (via Londonist, who deserve to pay for what they've done by finding this).
It's now Sunday lunchtime and I'm still watching the Masters golf (there was a break for sleep, I assure you). Occasionally the footage of various golfers cuts to views of the scenery, presumably because the US feed the BBC are using cuts to adverts or such like. When this happens, the UK commentators have to fill a little time.
These moments bring out the best in commentators. During cricket matches, long stretches without action - if rain stops play, or in a break for drinks - encourage commentators to wander off on all manner of subjects. Test Match Special's crew are famed for their tendency to rely on red buses, pigeons and chocolate cake in the absence of any cricket.
Back at the golf, and on the most recent occasion of a cut to scenery, we found ourselves following a bird of prey as it circled high up in the Augusta sky. Cue our commentators: massively experienced pro Sam Torrance, and BBC regular Peter Alliss, who shares a little personal experience.
Alliss: "He's out searching for his breakfast, and he's not after a blueberry muffin, I can tell you. What a beautiful creature.
"Cruel, but beautiful.
(Wistfully) "Like a few people I've met over the years."
(Short pause)
Torrance: "Here's David Howell at the eleventh..."
My mum's gone away on holiday to East Anglia for a week, so I'm left house-sitting (and looking after the dog). This does have advantages - so far, the chief one I've discovered is the ability to take her rather swish surround sound to task.
Somehow, whenever we watch a DVD here, my mum finds it within herself to spend ten minutes faffing around with the remote control to get the surround sound working properly. I sat down to watch Howl's Moving Castle tonight and had the surround working like a charm in under thirty seconds. I'll be giving her a lesson when she gets home... (of course long before I get the chance to do that, I'll have been shot for so much as suggesting there are advantages to her absence. They are far outweighed by that absence itself, honest.)
The surround sound is now getting put to use for the golf coverage. This is the first time I've tried watching golf with speakers all around me - I don't really watch golf, let alone with this kind of technology in tow - and it's really pretty damn good. Whenever anyone sinks a putt, people behind me applaud while the commentators in front of me describe the action. It's remarkably immersive. Gary Lineker (since when was he the BBC's head golf honcho?) is now talking to someone who looks like they might be Gary Player, and there's a delicate ripple of background noise by my right ear. It's like sitting by the side of the course. Albeit on a plush sofa with a fridge ten feet away. Even better.
I realise this is hardly a groundbreaking step for mankind to those of you who already possess this kind of thing, but not being lucky or rich enough to own either a new car or surround sound, I felt the need to indulge myself. Speaking of which, now there's no one else in the house for a week, I'm going to polish off the remains of two different tubs of Ben & Jerry's. Sergio Garcia, meet Cherry Garcia.
As confirmed by OJ's somewhat brief comment just now following his initial post here, 'Sir OJ' failed to make it to the end of today's Grand National.
Here he is in all his blurred TV-screengrab glory, plummeting to the ground after the twenty-second fence:
I did briefly contemplate placing a small bet on 'Nil Desperandum' - who did at least finish fourth, a whisker away from third - but didn't bother in the end. Probably just as well. Who would put money on a stupidly named horse ('Numbersixvalverde') ridden by a stupidly named jockey ('Slippers' Madden)?
Elsewhere, my article in the Telegraph Weekend section finally appeared. Well, I say 'my' article, my research at least. OJ (the man, not the horse) considers it a shame there's no credit in it for me. He hasn't thought this through. Had they put my name against an article on marathon running equipment, they'd have immediately invalidated any opinion expressed in the newspaper on grounds of absurdity. OJ and I have proved we can barely finish a sack race, let alone a marathon.
Here I am, sometimes vaguely concerned about what may happen when out getting vox pops in south London, and all the while the BBC's Tehran correspondent - Frances Harrison, pictured above - has slightly greater concerns:
The BBC office is in a small residential apartment block in north Tehran, underneath the flat I live in. There's no sign and it's all very low-key. We don't give out the address to anyone we don't know
Quite a lot of the time we are simply not invited to press conferences - some are only for local media or even state media. Often they decide to exclude us or forget to include us - we never know which it is ... Our telephones may well be bugged - something that producers in London should remember when talking to us. We cannot do anything without the intelligence agencies knowing what it is - nor can journalists on tourist visas either. And many of the people we want to interview are scared.
When we are out in the field, one of the perils is to dodge the state-run TV camera crews who hunt us down - tape rolling - to ask us what we think of the anniversary of the revolution or whatever event is upcoming. When we say we are not allowed to give interviews without permission from London, they prepare a montage of the foreign media refusing to talk to them and add a voice-over saying how pathetic we are.
Some of you may know that I like a good pun. I know that some of you do, too. And it is with great delight that I reproduce in full the following article by Will Pavia, which appeared in today's Times2. I reproduce it in full on the grounds that I can't immediately find it online, it's extremely funny, and it's a reason to go out and buy the newspaper, both today and in future. News International, don't come after me, stick to harassing George.
I admit that I like extremely laboured puns, says Will Pavia. The sort that leave you red-faced after an agonising delivery. We British were once extremely good at them. It is how we acquired the empire on which the pun never set. Then we started going in for political satire and fart jokes. And there was a wind of change.
Kenneth Williams is dead now. "Infamy! Infamy! They've all got it in for me!" he shouted. Those were the days. If I ever go into comedy, bad puns will be my stock in trade. By day I will sell hosiery and that will be my stocking trade. And I will run a mail order company selling firewood for household pets (get the catalogue).
With the profits I shall set up a charity that builds affordable underwater housing for large sea mammals. I'm going to call it Habitat for Huge Manatees.
I admit that I don't like the car driver consensus that cyclists ought to obey traffic laws. Even before I began biking to work, I loved to watch cyclists coasting through roaring junctions, as oblivious to the Highway Code as Hindu cows. [Ollie: see, this is like listening to Clement Freud on Just A Minute]. Now I see the rationale: it's because they don't want to die.
Many started cycling for that same reason, afraid of terrorism on the tube. They know that jihadi strikes on cyclists are harder to pull off. The cyclist is far more likely to notice the bearded fellow in the padded jacket climbing aboard.
It is this same high regard for self-preservation that causes cyclists to ignore traffic lights. They would rather not negotiate a crossroads in a murderous column of vehicles. They would rather have a head-start. Occasionally, though, they can't be bothered to wait.
Of course, I never do it. I'm only the non-elected publicity front-man for the support of cyclists. I'm a wheel spokesman.
[source: 'I admit that I like...', Times2 p7, The Times, Wednesday, April 5, 2006]
Missing: one grouse (famous). Last seen a few years ago in a variety of mildly amusing adverts based on plays on words. Feared dead at the hands of a Famous Grouse marketing relaunch. What the hell do they call this:
Our rather more famous grousey friend seems to have been relegated to the 'goodbye' page of the company's website and the advertising annals contained within.
Of course, don't worry that the grouse will disappear forever if the worst turns out to be true and he's been dumped as official mascot. When search engine Ask did that with Jeeves, Dayorama stepped in and gave the old geezer a new home here - he's one of our forty-odd rotating banners at the top. I've got a Dayoramous Grouse banner waiting in the wings, so to speak...
This is the advert I was going on about yesterday (got round to it eventually):
I just found it amusing. If this really doesn't mean anything to you (and it took me a while, I didn't bother reading the text at first), these guys may have some involvement.
You'll be delighted to know, I'm sure, that I passed my driving theory test. 34 out of 35 on the theory, 65 out of 75 on the hazard perception. As OJ put it, I am theoretically a safe driver.
The question I got wrong: there's a blue circular sign on which "30" is written in white. There is a red line diagonally through it (I'd put a graphic up but I'm on Vodafone wireless right now and have trouble with image quality on it). What does this sign mean?
Your options are:
- A: minimum speed limit
- B: maximum speed limit
- C: end of minimum speed limit
- D: end of maximum speed limit
I've still got no idea, I'll look it up later and supply the answer along with that advert scan I promised earlier.
Music recommendations this week: new singles from Editors and Secret Machines. Buy them for the B sides (oft-overlooked, trust me, they're the whole point to buying singles), particularly Editors' "The Diplomat" and Secret Machines' "Another Minute Standing Still". Also note the release of Guillemots' single "We're Here", Guillemots being one of the bands I tipped for the big time in 2006.
And elsewhere on the web today:
- Ken Livingstone in 100%-correct-about-something shock: "When British troops are putting their lives on the line for American foreign policy, it would be quite nice if they paid the congestion charge," quoth he. Couldn't agree more. Possibly should've stopped short of the "snivelling little crook" comment though regarding the US ambassador.
- Life On Mars is being rewritten and remade for US television, no doubt on the basis this was how Starsky and Hutch should have been done.
- And Google's official blog found itself deleted last night. By Google. Employee Jason Goldman explains:
We've determined the cause of [the] outage. The blog was mistakenly deleted by us (d'oh!) which allowed the blog address to be temporarily claimed by another user. This was not a hack, and nobody guessed our password. Our bad.
That's okay, I only trust them with my email, desktop contents, search informaton, personal financial information, instant messaging capability and all the good websites to read. Reassuring to know that's in safe hands...
A quick round-up of a few things I've been meaning to mention:
Commiserations to my dad, who failed his driving theory test last night. Happily for him the swine got his licence aeons ago, so falling one mark short of the pass percentage on the mock version I've got on my PC wasn't the end of his world. My stepmum then getting two extra marks and passing it might have been, though. My exam's tomorrow, so I note with a wry smile that OJ has succeeded in booking lunch with me in Oxford just before it starts, allowing him plenty of opportunity to sow the seeds of schadenfreude that will no doubt blossom if I fail it.
On that note, if you never did the Hazard Perception tests, think yourself lucky. You have to click every time you see a hazard, potential or developing, on the screen. One hazard for each clip shown gets marked for reaction time between hazard first appearing and click, from a maximum of 5 marks down to 1. But each clip has around 15 hazards in it, so you don't know which hazard will get marked. Things like cars parked half on the kerb and half off it are losing me marks because I'm more worried about the eighteen-wheeler with its hazard lights on in heavy rain, around which a man with a guide dog is walking.
A couple of good stories from today's MediaGuardian:
- The rise of "participation TV", i.e. premium phone quizzes promising big prizes. (Lovely screengrab of Richard and Judy with the word 'Cheese' above their heads in that article.)
- Peter and Dan Snow are coming back with another of their battlefield series, this time going all around the world.
Don't forget to watch the "Recommended Reading" box on the right of the homepage, below our prospects and the Dayoramap link, for more articles I think are worth a go. And thanks to old pals Bloggers Blog for using me as an example when reporting Google Reader's addition of that kind of "sharing" capability.
Finally, a website to keep you occupied if you don't have much to do - "Things My Girlfriend And I Have Argued About". Not my girlfriend, you understand, but author Mil Millington's - and he's made a couple of books out of this. If you've not seen this yet though, it's worth a quick look. It's one big, long page with loads of little girlfriendy anecdotes on it, so it's probably wise to pick and choose. This example's a long one, but I thought it rang true, stick with it...
It's Wednesday the 12th of February. It's early evening. Margret and I are sitting in the living room. Margret has asked me to do something the following day.
Mil: 'I can't, I'm afraid. I'm going into town.'
Margret: 'Why? What do you need to go to town for?'
Mil: 'Oh, I have to get some stuff.'
Margret: 'What stuff?'
Mil: 'Just some stuff... things.'
Margret: 'What things?'
Mil: 'Various things.'
Margret: 'What things?'
Mil: 'What does it matter?'
Margret: 'What things?'
Mil: 'It's not important what specific things, is it? I have to get things or I wouldn't be cycling into town, would I? All that's relevant here is that I have to go, not the details of the individual items I need to get - there's no point wasting time giving you a big list, when the only significant point is that I need to go to town.'
Margret: 'What things?'
Mil: 'Oh, for Christ's sake... Pizzas. I need to buy some pizzas, OK?'
Margret: 'We've got pizzas.'
Mil: 'We've got a pizza.'
Margret: 'So? How many do you need?'
Mil: 'Several. I want to have several in the fridge.'
Margret: 'Why?'
Mil: 'So that we have a stock of them.'
Margret: 'Why?'
Mil: 'So that we don't run out, obviously.'
Margret: 'What would happen if we ran out?'
Mil: 'I'd have to go to town.'
This flings itself out of my mouth while my higher brain is still racing along behind it frantically waving its arms and shouting, 'Wait! Wait!'
Margret responds with just the tiniest movement of her eyebrows. Absolutely minuscule. Sufficient in size, however, to make me wonder if I could get a UN resolution to have her bombed.
Mil: 'I have to get other things too.'
Margret: 'What things?'
Mil: 'What the bloody hell does it matter? Why can't I go to town if I want to, for God's sake?'
Margret: 'Why are you being secretive? What are you up to?'
Mil: 'I'm not up to anything.'
Margret: 'Yes you are.'
Mil: 'Like what?'
Margret: 'I don't know.'
Mil: 'Because there isn't anything.'
Margret: 'Yes there is - I can tell.'
Mil: 'There isn't.'
Margret: 'You bloody liar.'
Mil: 'You bloody mad woman.'
Margret: 'Tell me.'
Mil: 'Stop talking now.'
Margret: 'Tell me.'
Mil: 'I...'
Margret: 'Tell me.'
I think we've both risen to our feet by this point (it allows for better voice projection).
Mil: 'OK! OK! You want to know why I need to go up town, you relentless harridan?!'
Margret: ''Yes! You lying swine!'
Mil: 'So I can get your Valentine's Day card! So I can get your bloody Valentine's Day card and post it to here - so it'll arrive as a nice surprise through the post!'
A tiny flicker. It's the merest stutter of hesitation, though, then she's back on track before the beat is really lost.
Margret: 'You don't need to get me a bloody Valentine's Day card!'
(I can't imagine what makes her think she's going to get away with this move - she must be getting old.)
Mil: 'Too bad! Because I'm getting you a Valentine's Day card! And I'm posting it to you! Tomorrow! When I go to town!'
Margret: 'THERE'S NO BLOODY NEED!'
Mil: 'WELL IT'S GOING TO BLOODY HAPPEN - GET USED TO IT!'
And, indeed, I do go to town, buy her a card, and post it. Inside I write, 'Surprise!' She gets it on Valentine's Day and says, 'Thank you,' to me, through gritted teeth. (She gets me one too, by the way - it reads, "I'm not interested in a nice, normal relationship... I like ours better.")
That's a section from a new poster launched by Bullywatch London, slogan: "If you can spot it, you can stop it."
By which token if I can spot a distressing visualisation of what life would be like in London under Orwell's Big Brother, I should be able to somehow stop it. I mean, look at it! Does that poster make you more inclined to report instances of bullying? Or does it make you think of everyone around you as having a giant CCTV camera for a head?
Bullying is a problem and one we need to tackle, but the powers that be seem forever incapable of coming up with an effective means of doing so. Remember the blue wristbands with "Beat Bullying" proudly emblazoned on them, as modelled by the likes of Bono? KIds wearing them at school were beaten up for it on the grounds that, by wearing the band, they marked themselves out as easy targets!
Now we have posters where two kids engage in the sort of public act of bullying I don't think you'd normally get (give over, bullying's far more insidious than that, it's the mind games and not the knitting bones that do the damage), and people with spooky cameras for heads stand and watch!
To me, that sends out this message to the British public:
If you see an act of bullying occur, act like a CCTV camera: an inanimate, grey object, powerless to intervene or do anything other than watch from a safe distance in case someone comes along asking questions later.
Is that the society we want? The phrase "have-a-go hero" is much derided, but do we really want to encourage people to leave kids alone to be battered in the streets, just as long as they got a good enough view of the perpetrator so that someone might catch them once hell freezes over? Isn't that what the actual CCTV cameras are supposed to do?
If I'm getting attacked on a London street I'd much rather you came in guns blazing (not literally, let's not be too extreme) with a few other strangers you'd got together, chased away the culprits and helped me to my feet, thanks. Leaving me for dead but making a detailed note of the trainers my attacker's wearing is no use to me at all. Stop it, don't spot it.
Today's Guardian has a very good piece from Emily Bell, editor of Guardian Unlimited (i.e. their website), about the paper's new podcasts and various related ramifications.
First up, here's an idea of what's going to be on offer:
There is a daily news show, inventively called Newsdesk, which one of our news editors, Jon Dennis, is anchoring (during podcast training his dry tones suggested he could be catapulted to John Peel-esque fame). There is a politics show fronted by our seasoned political commentator and ace broadcaster Mike White, a media talk show hosted by media editor Matt Wells, a science and technology show, an arts and entertainment show, a music show about much-loved albums (a sort of musical Good Read) which our director of digital publishing, Simon Waldman, is turning his hand to, and a raft of other projects to follow.
Then Emily goes on to mention Volvo's involvoment (I know, I crack me up) in the podcasts as sponsors, making the valid and worth-pondering point that podcasts aren't regulated yet:
I wonder, fleetingly, if I should mention during recording the media talk podcast that I drive a Volvo (which I do) and it is an excellent car (which it is) ... Thus far, podcasts are not under the auspices of media regulator Ofcom, and it is not clear that they would be self-regulated by the Press Complaints Commission, either. Therefore issues such as bias, loose language, undue commercial prominence and the plugging of sponsors' products are not prohibited as they would be under the stringent rules which apply to radio licences. Anyone can podcast anything. I leave the gratuitous Volvo mention to one side, but I can't help feeling that this is one area where regulators will spot a job creation opportunity.
Never mind the regulators, I've spotted a job creation opportunity too. I've got a near-as-dammit irregular podcast going on here in terms of audio supplied to Dayorama (and the near-live Dayoramoblogs, posted from my mobile phone as and when I feel the need - example here). I've also given plenty of thought to a regular Dayorama podcast, something I still want to do, possibly when I have my own place and can set up a little studio corner to produce things properly. It also needs to have people other than me talking in it (I do realise I can be very boring, fear not), which I could achieve using Skype - recording interviews and informal discussion via free internet phone calls, in other words - if nothing else. It's worth a bit of research and development.
But that's not going to pay me; I couldn't do what some people are trying, go off and make a living out of a weblog or podcast, much as in some ways I think that's my ideal environment. Instead, I do harbour some interest in the prospect of working for a newspaper podcast. Guy Ruddle is the Telegraph's Podcast Editor, which sounds very much to me like a full-time position alongside his commitment to early-morning Five Live programming, and he's very good at his job.
I've listened to offerings from both the Times and Telegraph, and the Telegraph wins hands down. The Times had one uninterested-sounding individual reading articles out of the print edition of the paper for three quarters of an hour; The Telegraph had Guy and six or seven of the paper's other journalists involved in around a half-hour show, including a different foreign correspondent each day and some lively, informal banter with the city and showbiz staff. It was only let down by incredibly wooden performances from the 'newsreader' (sounded for all the world like someone on print journalism work experience, a broadcasting recipe for disaster) and the market round-up presenter.
I can't imagine newspapers are yet thinking of paying that many, if any, people as full-time podcasting staff - and if they do, it'll be for a pittance I'm sure - but it's worth bearing in mind. How about working as a podcaster for somewhere like The Sun? It'd be a brilliant job, to my mind. I'm half tempted to email them about it.
Anyway, do try some national newspaper podcasts, especially if you commute anywhere for longer than half an hour each morning. Why bother listening to the same old music on the tube when you can have Guy Ruddle et al acting like the breakfast show in the radio-free underground? The Telegraph, Guardian and Times all definitely have podcasts to try (I'll be interested to see if The Times has got any better in the last month or so). The Telegraph podcast is available directly from iTunes for free and comes recommended by me.
And since they're students, they're getting paid peanuts.
The NUJ's annual conference is being blogged by a team of 15 journalism students (yes, other peons of the media industry like myself). Those are the mugshots of the team above, plus their two actual-journalist mentors in the corner. Somehow I suspect a few of those photos are not of the individuals they purport to be.
You can click here to read the blog, though at the time of writing very little exists. For example you can still read the instructions left on the blog for the young bloggers themselves to follow. This is all the usual highly basic bollocks like so:
Check your copy before posting. And always ask a co-writer to double check it for content, tone and typos before it goes live.
Since the students involved are print and broadcast - as well as those fancy MA students who you always suspect of spending more time concocting wild theories on which to base a thesis - we're promised a cocktail of text, video and audio reports from the Liverpool venue.
I'll certainly be keeping up to date with it, if only to weigh up the standard of material being put out by other journalists on courses like mine, as well as BA/MA courses around the country. And also because I feel a bit sorry for them after reading this section of their instructions:
There is no point writing for no-one, at least not for this project. So each of us needs to undertake a personal promotion campaign - email the site's address to everyone you know. I kid you not! Proper grown-up bloggers go to other relevant blogs, add their comments and then link back to their own sites - and that's a great way to build an audience. I'm not sure we've got time to do that really, but if you can give it a try, great!
There, I've done my bit. Someone on my course once called me a 'public servant' (of which I'm very proud, I might add), so that's my good deed done for the day.
Anna Adams, now officially Best Looking Undercover Reporter, taking over from Donal Macintyre in what is otherwise a very poorly contested category.
I've just finished watching the investigation into UK estate agents put together by Anna and fellow reporter Emma Clarke (possibly not their real names, I can't decide - Anna Adams appears not to exist elsewhere on the internet in any shape or form, other than as a middle-aged author and poet)
It was very well done, and was always a guaranteed winner on a topic most people approach with preconceptions in the first place. As one text contributor to Five Live put it in the programme's aftermath:
So estate agents are crooked. Well done BBC. What's next? 'Bear defecates in woods' exclusive?
But that's missing the point. Sure, we all think we know estate agents are less than level with us. Even so, sitting in front of the television watching employee after employee indulging in a variety of tricks to screw both buyers and sellers is compulsive viewing. It's essentially licence to sit in front of the box screaming 'Bastard!' every four or five minutes. No one passes up that opportunity. This is why soap opera is such a popular medium ('They're under the patio! Under the patio!').
I've just one complaint about the entire programme. No, two complaints, but one is arsey nitpicking because after five months' training to be a broadcast journalist I think I know everything. In other words, I thought the script was a bit unsteady now and again, and fell too often into the trap of overdoing the naivety.
In reality, the phrase 'I was worried that this wasn't right' is a little incongruous as you watch estate agents telling our undercover reporter to lie brazenly to anyone and everyone. Of course it's not right. Were you bollocks worried, that was exactly what you'd expected to find and now you're thrilled because it means you have a programme in the making.
Louis Theroux does this as well. In his Weird Weekends series (he's returning to BBC2 by the way, hurrah) he'd be filmed sitting in on an orgy involving 30 naked, middle-aged Americans, romping around with each other in some suburban idyll. Then he'll narrate over the top: 'I felt a little uncomfortable being here.' Really... no shit, Sherlock. Of course if we're honest, you also felt elated that you had footage of 30 naked, middle-aged Americans romping around with each other, ready to broadcast to an open-mouthed British public.
And speaking of shit, that's my main complaint with tonight's report on estate agents. At one point we were shown some secretly filmed footage inside the estate agent Foxtons (who really, really didn't come out of this well). You could distinctly hear people using the word 'shit' over and over again. Nothing was bleeped out. Yet the subtitles that had been put in place to clarify the voices - not the ones provided by Ceefax, these were put in by the production team to help you understand what was being said - had all asterisked out the word: 's**t'.
Why?
If we can perfectly well hear people saying 'shit', what possible further damage could be done by spelling the word out on the screen? Is it okay if kids who stayed up late enough learn how to say it, but entirely unacceptable for them to spell it correctly? Are deaf people particularly sensitive to the word?
I wonder if this is to do with a little-known piece of technology used when subtitling programmes. Earlier today I discovered the stenographers who transcribe the subtitles for live programmes use special dictionaries which filter out swear-words to ensure they are not broadcast. This is documented in a MediaGuardian article, part of which is reproduced here (the link would want you to register, which I never like to encourage):
Channel 4's Richard and Judy escaped criticism after an ... error was made with a swear word appearing on subtitles. Ofcom was told the stenographer quickly realised the mistake and issued an apology at the end of the programme.
The broadcaster revealed that the wrong electronic dictionary had been used - enabling the stenographer to create subtitles at speed. The dictionary allowed strong language and was designed for Big Brother post-watershed broadcasting.
If the subtitles dropped into the estate agent report also used some form of dictionary, presumably the dictionary asterisked out 'shit' while we all got to hear it.
Of course if you work for Foxtons, you were seeing, hearing and thinking and doing nothing but shit for the entire hour.
In other news, I'm glad Manchester City's abject failure to beat West Ham in the FA Cup last night has been more than matched by Birmingham's 7-0 annihilation at home to Liverpool in the same competition. Misery loves company.
Accompanying my dad and I to the Man City v Wigan game today - lost 1-0, abysmal, but our lot are saving themselves for the Cup quarter final against West Ham on Monday - we had one of my dad's friends. This happens from time to time and, first and foremost, means I'm relegated to the back seat of the car, resulting in crippling pain in my back and legs from the (comparatively) cramped conditions.
Okay, I may exaggerate, but when I say my dad's friend has a penchant for a good discussion, I do not. Mr J, as we shall refer to him, likes nothing better than to insert topic after topic into conversation to see if anything can produce a properly heated debate - indeed he admitted as we arrived back home tonight that he enjoys listening to people enthusiastically fighting their intellectual corner. This, famously, resulted in all-out war a year or two ago when, following Mr J's argumentative lead, my dad concluded the excursion by telling me if I stood as a politician he'd never vote for me.
So it was with some trepidation that we made today's journey, and indeed within minutes Mr J was off. I was relatively safe for the first fifty minutes or so because he and my dad stuck to the topic of football programmes, about which my views are rarely sought, being fairly ignorant beyond the basics as I am. But then we ventured into broader footballing territory, so I was called upon to discuss whether the next England manager should be English, British or foreign (answer: don't mind, if there's a good English manager then by all means, but not to the exclusion of all foreign options).
From there I knew we'd be entering ground inevitably covered every time this trio end up in the same car: immigrants, the various social dichotomies emerging in the UK, the NHS, tax and politics:
Do I believe in the welfare state? (Sort of, it's a nice idea but it's not working in practice, and no, I don't have any better ideas.)
Can I provide any reasoned argument for socialism or Labour policies? (No, this being why I don't vote for Labour - or indeed anyone else, before I'm accused of supporting any other party. I do, however, support bans on hunting and smoking, something which riled Mr J, particularly the former.)
Do I believe positive discrimination in favour of ethnic minorities is lowering standards? (Quite probably - it's a very British, noble, 'proper' idea in principle but I do feel it relegates talent to second place, and if I were from such a minority, I would feel aggrieved that I had been selected purely because when the interview saw my skin colour they ticked a box and waved me through, rather than because I was actually very good at what I do.)
Why are the media so biased in favour of ethnic minorities? (They're not, at least not intentionally. Bias does exist although to call it 'bias' is a little strong, it's more an earnest endeavour to appeal to, and cover, all sections of the community. However it is sometimes overdone in a sort of making-up-for-lost-time way, to the extent that white middle-class England - as represented by the Daily Mail, never slow to pick up on this - occasionally has reason to feel the BBC and co have forgotten they exist. That said, almost all daytime terrestrial programming is targeted at precisely those people: property shows, cooking shows, 'Loose Women' etc.)
The conversation was most interesting when I got to pry into Mr J's political preferences. He's right-wing by his own admission, much as I don't believe in such broad labels, extolling the virtues of Margaret Thatcher as Britain's greatest ever politician, and bemoaning some aspects of David Cameron's tenure thus far. He is further to the right than my dad, which makes for the amusing sight of my dad picking holes in Tory arguments, something I usually have to do as devil's advocate while he represents the party. Needless to say he does it better than me.
And so we got onto the subject of banning smoking, etc. Mr J at one point professed to be 'not overly bothered' by an outright ban on cigarettes in their entirety, though he subsequently said the smoking ban should logically result in an alcohol ban, i.e. prohibition, too. He then extended this argument to drugs, where suddenly his views took an abrupt about-turn. Our right-wing Mr J came out in favour of legalising cocaine! This I had not been expecting, so I pressed him on it and he confessed it was something about which he did indeed hold a left-wing view. From what I can recall his argument was that drug-taking was nigh on as prevalent and as dangerous as alcohol abuse, and therefore if alcohol is entirely legal in any quantity (with certain legal restrictions e.g. on driving), why not drugs?
Now, I'm not about to agree or disagree with that. As with many of the things we discussed, I feel a little uncomfortable adopting any definitive stance because I've not infomed myself well enough to make that sort of decision. I've decided this is one reason journalism appeals to me - let other people do the research and the policy formaton, then let it be my job to canvass opinion and produce a synthesis. And on that note, if you've any strong opinions on any of the above, leave them in the comments. (Comments need me, Amy or OJ to approve them before they're published, so if your comment doesn't immediately appear there's no need to submit it again, I promise it worked the first time.)
In other news, a quick look at the stats for Dayorama shows my 'Celebrity Autopsy' post to be quite popular (along with rumours about Jermaine Jenas, and Daz Sampson. Not rumours about Jermaine Jenas and Daz Sampson, though). This worries me. It was supposed to be a satirical post suggesting TV shows of the future, one being 'Celebrity Autopsy'. However people are arriving here having searched for this! Clearly, a market does exist for that TV show! What a harrowing thought.
And finally, I never cease to be amazed by the people I know. I like to think I've got skills in a few different areas of life, but nothing compared to one friend on my course. Aside from training to be a broadcast journalist he has a wealth of experience at the BBC directing TV shows and entire networks, which was the first thing I learned about him and was enough to really impress me on its own. Then I discovered he's a landlord too, one armed with a disturbing anecdote involving having to call in 'the heavies' to remove some less than pleasant tenants from a flat. And tonight I learn he trades cars on eBay! Truly a man of many talents.
My ears have been fluttering in the appropriate circles to pick up news about Energy Minister Malcolm Wicks, originally a prospective interviewee for my report on the UK Energy Review.
Mr Wicks, ever keen to strengthen his green credentials, is having a wind turbine built at his home. However, I'm reliably informed his neighbours hate the idea - as does his wife. The man is having enough trouble converting the unbelieving in his own front room, let alone the wider United Kingdom. You may also wish to keep your eye on the progress of David Cameron's turbine as a gauge of which is the more environmentally efficient political party.
He's not the only man suffering wife trouble either. I'm also told Newsnight new boy Julian Rowlatt, tasked with being an 'ethical man' for a year (click here for more), has been getting it in the neck from her indoors. Mrs Rowlatt reckons Julian 'couldn't care less' about ethics and is having to take his lead from her instead. It's said that during a recent interview about it, she confessed as much and then barked 'will you shut up!' at her protesting husband in the background. By the sounds of it he's on a tight lead, let alone taking one.
Meanwhile, an accolade for Dayorama tonight: an 'Honourable Mention' in the Carnival of Bad History: 'highlighting only the very best of the worst history'. Amy's got the gong for her article on Lincoln College and the book 'An Uncommon History', which you can read here. I have absolutely no idea why this was nominated or by whom, but at least she avoided a Lifetime Achievement award - claimed this year by David Irving.
Remember this goat? Well now there are new goats in town. Lying on the floor with their hooves out:
That one image does no justice to the phenomenon of the Tennessee fainting goat. Visit this website and watch the short video instead.
So, what is a Tennessee fainting goat? Here's one explanation:
The name 'fainting' goat is a bit misleading because they do not actually faint. They have a genetic problem with relaxing muscles. When they are startled or surprised their muscles lock up and the goat then sometimes falls over. Hence the name 'fainting' goat. Older goats are more adept at leaning against a fence or barn and so they don't exhibit this trait as much as younger goats.
The article continues, documenting one hilarious yet unfortunate early use of the fainting goat:
The goats were used primarily for meat, although they were also used to protect sheep. With a fainting goat in the herd, if coyotes or dogs threatened the sheep, the sheep could run away while the fainting goat fell over, providing the predator with an easy meal while the sheep escaped.
And if that's not enough information you can check out the website of the International Fainting Goat Association - founded, appropriately enough, in the 'fall' of 1989, and owner of one of the great logos of our time.
It tell us that fainting goats fall into two categories:
1. PREMIUM
Goats that readily faint. Bucks require a full down photo. Does require a down photo or one showing obvious stiffness (ready to go down).
2. REGULAR
Goats that are wooden legged but don't fall over.
And the merchandise section is here (t-shirt coming my way).
Moira Stuart. Not to be confused with Moira Stewart, professor at the Department of Family Medicine in London, Ontario. The crunch is, neither of them are anywhere to be found if you just put 'Moira' into a Google search.
With all due respect to Dr Stewart, her work on the healing partnerships between patients and family doctors is probably not enough to get on the first page of results. But Moira Stuart should be ashamed! Over two decades of newsreading and somehow she's not even in the ten or twenty best-known Moiras on the internet.
Challenge for the week for you all: name a more famous Moira, without looking one up first. Go on. You've not got a chance.
Rather randomly, I was reading the small print on my can of adidas deodorant this morning. It rambles through the warnings about inhalation, the fact it is inflammable etc and then it states, "try with adidas shower gel, for a fuller sense of wellbeing". Now, I can see how "trying with adidas shower gel" could "enhance my adidas experience", but how can it enhance my wellbeing? I thought wellbeing was enhanced through eating organic food or going to the gym and sitting in a sauna for extended periods each week? But perhaps not. The dictionary definition of wellbeing describes it as "a contented state of being happy and healthy or prosperous". So maybe you can achieve happiness from using adidas shower gel "and" deodorant? I don't know, it just seems such a strange place e.g. on the side of an aerosol can, to find the phrase "wellbeing". OJ and I had an email conversation during the week which plunged to the depths of "happiness" and "being happy". He remarked that Aristotle had stated believe that happiness was the highest form of being. He called it eudemonia: reasoning that being happy was the ultimate goal in life since everything we do - love, family, work, money, power, is meant to make us happy. So, can we reason this through? If adidas gel and deodorant is meant to lead to a sense of wellbeing, and wellbeing is a contented state of being happy, then using adidas gel and shower gel can therefore contribute towards being happiness, the highest form of being. Now, what a strong line of advertising that is?!. And, even Aristotle would approve.
P.S. I think there are fundamental flaws in this argument, but I would appreciate it if Ollie and OJ (and anyone else for that matter) didn't take this post too seriously, or rip it apart... I'm just being silly, OK?!
I'm now a member of a tiny, exclusive community - people who know where eBay's UK headquarters are.
It's not too difficult to find this out using Google, but to save you the time they're in Richmond, in Surrey. Not only do I know this, I've joined the miniscule ranks of non-eBay employees who've spent more than a few seconds inside the building.
You won't find the address on eBay's website, and you won't find the eBay logo on the outside of the building either. It's tucked away in a serenely quiet Georgian square just off a main road, a square bordered by about eight different buildings. It's not until you get into the right buildiing that a tiny sign behind reception, below those for several other companies, acknowledges you've reached the home of eBay (UK).
I checked in and got my visitor's pass, then waited for a few minutes in the rather plush reception area. There are three or four low-slung, comfy blue armchairs around a transparent coffee table in what is otherwise a relatively uninspiring entrance for such a powerful company. The whole point of this building seems to emphasise the relative inconsequentiality of eBay's UK headquarters compared with the behemoth that is its big US brother. Indeed, the reason given for the lack of a UK address on eBay's site when I asked about it was that there's no one here to write to - no customer services, no one in any position of direct responsibility to eBay's users. It all goes to America, and by email if they can help it.
My spokesman came bounding down the stairs to greet me. I don't know what the image in your head of an eBay spokesman is, but he wasn't particularly like mine. He wasn't an overweight, suited and spectacled relic, nor was he some ultra-trendy 18 year old out to prove to the world how eBay's the hippiest, hoppiest happeningest piece of technology since spliced bread. He was just an ordinary bloke really, and a friendly one at that. We had a quick chat and his primary concern was not eBay, eBay, eBay, but whether he'd get soaked cycling home to Clapham afterwards.
Still, I'd had a fairly rotten day up til this point. Dr Mark Bauer, social psychologist at the London School of Economics, had abruptly and rudely hung up on me as I asked him for an interview; and Brenda, a member of Sutton Council's communications team (not press office, communications team, pompous bastards, it's only a local council) had told me I couldn't interview a couple of councillors at an anti-chewing gum press call tomorrow because they had a 'tight deadline' and it was 'for photographers only'. The press release about the event - 'Council tells Wrigley's to stick it', ho ho chortle - had said there'd be an hour set aside for the press call. That is not the tightest of deadlines. This involved the same councillor, Colin Hall, as refused point blank to talk to me in October, forcing me to rely on the (far kinder) Paddy Kane for my street cleaning piece. I am beginning to dislike him.
So the eBay guy got it in the neck once the interview started. What didn't help was his expertise at his job. He was incapable of answering a question in anything other than carefully couched eBay-approved terms, quoting facts and figures complimentary of eBay, riding roughshod over subtle changes of emphasis in my questioning designed to elicit a little more. The more I pushed, the more I got the same facts and figures back at me. So I became fairly adversarial in my approach, interrupting and really trying to drive home points. Once or twice I got what I was looking for, something a bit different to the usual party line, but it really was tough going.
Not that I can fault him for that, since it's his job - no company wants to employ a press officer given to memorable quotes and colourful language, they want a guy who can recite the same thing over and over until hostile journalists give up. After fifteen minutes we ended the interview and carried on debating things off-mic, fairly heatedly, for another ten minutes, then we switched the mic on again and recorded some of what we'd just said, since we both thought we were making decent points. That hasn't happened before, I've not been in an interview where both parties have been so wrapped up in the debate that neither cares if we're recording or not.
The room we did the interview in was very plush, with nice chairs, a big desk and most impressively a giant projector screen, which my spokesman used to surf eBay as we spoke. He talked us through eBay's 'football memorabilia' community, 109 members discussing all matters memorabilia-related, and then we looked at some memorabilia 'power sellers'. It turned out one of them was a memorabilia trader I'd spoken to just yesterday, who'd said he does 75% of his trading on eBay, and looking at his feedback rating (well into four figures) he wasn't wrong. Amusingly my spokesman took quite a while to find the football memorabilia community - if the eBay spokesman himself can't find it, chances are casual eBay users are unlikely to accidentally trip over it either.
It was, though, the decor of the room that said so much about public perceptions of the company. eBay has, for some reason, elected to name each of the rooms in its building after British icons of some description or another. For example, the first room I saw as we stepped into the first floor corridor had a sign on the door saying 'Big Ben'. I assumed this was one of those trendy Googlesque offices where mildly euphemistic nicknames were perfectly tolerable. Then I saw the one next to it was called 'Mini Cooper', and next to that 'Bond'. Each room had a glass facia onto which had been applied artwork depicting St Stephen's Tower, a Mini and 007 himself. I'm not sure why, but this jarred slightly, as though eBay had adopted an unsettlingly quaint American outlook on its representation in Britain. "Look! Here we are! And we love your UK!" But you can't phone us, and you can't write to us. This, I fear, is why eBay remains an organisation without a soul to so many of us. The one place they allow a little emotion, sentiment, even humanity to show through, and it's in their own offices, where you'll never ever see it.
With two more series of celebs-do-tricks reaching their climax this weekend - Just The Two Of Us and Dancing On Ice (or as my family have called it more than once, without irony, 'Skating On Ice') - I thought it was time to look at what's likely to be next on the list...
What If God Was One Of Us
Premise
Celebrities try to pass themselves off as ordinary members of the public, holding down a normal job in a normal town, making normal friends and shopping in normal places. The winner is the celeb who lasts longest before someone realises who they are. This raises the prospect not only of celebrities having to suffer the ultimate insult - lack of recognition - to win, but also the possibility that some of them may never be noticed and therefore end up condemned to eke out the rest of their miserable existence as a toilet cleaner in Gateshead.
Starring
Kerry Katona (Atomic Kitten, Iceland ads, many many reality shows) as a supermarket checkout girl in Droitwich;
Patrick Stewart (Star Trek, many plays, rubbish new series on ITV that's been cancelled) as a bus driver in Hastings;
The Hamiltons (politics, several embarrassing TV documentaries and chat shows, Radio Swindon Christmas special 2005) as husband-and-wife hairdressing salon owners in Wrexham;
and Lulu (singer, Just The Two Of Us judge) as a dinnerlady in Rochdale.
Celebrity Autopsy
Premise
Groundbreaking Channel 4 series starring renowned, er, 'television autopsionist' Dr Gunther Von Hagens dishing out post-mortens to recently deceased celebrities as other celebrities watch. The winner is the last celebrity left standing. Has the advantage of potentially running for decades until the last of the initial bunch dies (or it could become like The Running Man and the audience could vote for someone to be quite literally bumped off each week).
Starring
Anyone likely to depart this mortal coil in the specified thirteen-week slot Channel 4 give the programme. So that'll be Bruce Forsyth, Pete Doherty, Ronnie Biggs, Vera Lynn...
Celebrity It's A Knockout 2006
Premise
Stuart Hall makes a welcome return to our screens fronting this legendary slapstick game show, this time with an array of D-list celebrities with nothing better to do than represent their home cities.
Starring
The casts of every soap opera going - Coronation Street representing Manchester, Eastenders for London, Emmerdale for whichever poxy Yorkshire village that is, The Archers for the Home Counties, Family Affairs for, well, god knows. Not forgetting the Holby team on their quest to convince us it really does exist as a place in Britain.
Celebrity Job Swap
Premise
Actors and actresses swap their small-screen jobs for the chance to do the real thing, then a panel of real-life judges awards them points.
Starring
Martin Shaw (Judge John Deed) as a magistrate, finding out that in actual fact life in court is less about heroic posturing once a week, and more about the umpteenth speeding conviction in one day;
Charlie out of Casualty (I don't know his real name, he's always been Charlie to me) in a failing NHS hospital trying desperately to avoid spreading MRSA to yet another ward;
and John Simm (Life On Mars) as a policeman, spending five hours filling out forms for each individual stopped and searched.
Celebrity Cheese Rolling
Premise
The stars of prime time television hurl themselves down the hills of Gloucestershire in pursuit of cheeses, in time honoured tradition. Four celebrities compete each week to set the fastest time or, at the very least, survive the course intact, before the grand final for the four quickest - chasing an edam down Kilimanjaro.
Starring
Anne Diamond, displaying a little-known positive side to her figure having quite Celebrity Fit Club, opting to barrel roll after a hapless cheddar;
Stephen Hawking, a little out of his depth from the outset before coming memorably unstuck as his wheelchair lodges itself in the entrance to a rabbit warren;
and Shelley Rudman, British skeleton bob silver medallist, putting her skills to possibly their only beneficial use as she rides her teatray to victory.
"Everything about that was so wrong, somehow it became right."
Jonathan Ross on one of the acts - Daz Sampson - performing in Making Your Mind Up, otherwise known as the Eurovision Song Contest British Qualifying, Terry Wogan and all. He might as well have been talking about the whole competition.
"A man in his mid-forties rapping with under-age girls dancing around him - it's got to win," continues Ross, giving us a pretty succinct summary of Sampson's act. It was truly, er, unique. I think I almost agree that it was so utterly bizarre it deserves a chance at the rest of Europe later this year. Kym Marsh has also made a return to our screens after Hear'Say died a welcome death several years ago - night of the living dead, anyone?
Good lord... Terry has just had the honour of getting to 'go round the nations and regions' of Britain, like we're our own mini-Europe, to see what Cardiff, Manchester, the Scottish nation and the rest of the UK have to say about the three acts we've heard so far. Terry just gave Birmingham a big hello, only for Belfast and Roy Walker (opening line: 'No Terry, say what you see!') to turn up on screen. Roy in turn handed over to Alistair Appleton (nope, no idea either) in London, half of whom had been cut off one side of the screen. I suspect someone has paid peanuts and received a monkey on the technical side of this programme.
"There they all are, all the BBC nations and regions, in case you think we're making it up," says Terry as we finish our first trip round the UK. Oh Terry, as if anyone would make up BBC Regions. (Only a few people will understand that, but still, that's probably more people than understand Making Your Mind Up so far.)
Next up it's 'City Chix', who appear to be the British answer to t.A.T.u - yes, it's important to get that capitalisation right - on the basis that t.A.T.u at least ended up third the other year, which is more than we've done for a year. One blonde, one with black hair, both dressed in fetching black-and-red numbers, singing 'It's All About You', which if we're honest is so bland it won't challenge Daz 'old bloke, young girls' Sampson. And they didn't even write it. Boooo. Then it's 'Four Story', an imaginatively named quartet of blokes who look like an older G4 minus the cute blonde one. Nope, it's still Daz - the whiter than white rapper, perhaps? - for me.
Worryingly I've just searched Dayorama and we seem to give Eurovision annual coverage! Click here for 2004 and here for 2005. Now, much as I'd love to stay and run my sword through the remain acts (and I do not mean that in a t.A.T.u sense), my Chinese has arrived. So I'll keep my powder dry for the main Eurovision event this May. Wonder if I can swing a press pass...
UPDATE 1, 8:11pm - I really want Daz to win but that blasted Antony Costa's chasing him all the way...
UPDATE 2, 8:16pm - He's done it! Or has he? They've sprung a cheeky surprise on us by changing the scoring system for votes from mobile phones! It's all in the balance! Oh, the drama!
UPDATE 3, 8:20pm - YES! Victory for the middle aged rapping bloke surrounded by nubile-yet-illegal vixens! Europe won't know what's hit it. Antony Costa and Kym Marsh looking gutted there, and well they might. Where did those promising careers go? Carefully crafted and manufactured by the monolithic British pop industry, only to crumble and fall in the face of a denim-clad havin-a-giraffe cheeky rappy chappy. He doesn't have a hope in hell in Europe, but tonight is Daz's time to shine.
I really want to see Syriana and Kidulthood. Whenever I go to see a film I always decide, immediately afterwards, that I need to go and see a lot more films. And then I never do. Someone come and drag me to those two films before my enthusiasm inevitably wanes.
Reading the Independent's article about how Kidulthood compares with real teenage life in Britain (see link above) reminds me of being on the bus to see Brokeback Mountain a couple of days ago - that movie being the reason I'm in this little film-watching mood. Anyway, the six of us who went to see the film piled onto a bus from Elephant and Castle to Brixton, thundering up onto the top deck of the bus and into the back seats. One of us, Ray, had a melon with him that he'd bought for a quid at the local market, but the less said about that the better. At least when he threw it at me on a busy traffic island I proved my football skills aren't dead yet, trapping it beautifully. Nutter.
Sorry, distracted there. So yeah, we were in the back seats of this bus when a load of secondary school kids exploded onto the bus full of the joys of this chuffing freezing spring we're having. They, too, bounded up the stairs. And then to their absolute horror they realised the back seats were occupied - by us. They were not pleased. We got called 'tourists' (hardened inner London journalists I'll have them know) and were practically the sole topic of conversation among them for a good ten minutes.
This was fine by us, though. For a start we had a pretty insurmountable advantage by actually being in the seats they cherished so much, and second, one of us was working on a radio piece involving kids on school buses, so they broke out their microphone and recorded some script with the noise of rowdy teenagers in the background. Excellent idea. After ten minutes of highly vocal despair at the loss of the back seats, the kids took the only option available to them - all ten or fifteen of them got off the bus and onto the one behind us, which had vacant back seats.
Today was an altogether more refined affair for me, working at an auction in Northampton. I always get on quite well with our auctioneer, a man named David who's made occasional appearances on the usual array of TV auction shows. What I hadn't realised until this morning was the amount of nuance that goes into working as an auctioneer. For example, he changed the microphone stand around from the one provided to one of his own that he preferred, which was fine by me since I could use the spare stand to attach my own microphone, which I then used to record him conducting the auction for a radio piece I'm working on. Yes, everyone on our course is doomed to an opportunist's life of snatching audio in unlikely circumstances.
But it doesn't end there. His second challenge was deciding what length of mallet to use. You know, the thing auctioneers hammer onto a table to indicate when a lot has been sold. It's not called a mallet really but I can't remember the proper name for one. Anyway, I'd always assumed auctioneers just had one of these things and it went everywhere with them. Not so. David brought two in with him, telling me he was 'experimenting' with a longer handled version today. In the event, he smashed this thing into the table with such force that my dad was practically deafened at one point, and I had something approaching a migraine by the end of the afternoon. I need to find a way of attaching a silencer to the mallet (or the table). And still his trials and tribulations hadn't ended - having made his mallet selection, our man had to select his waistcoat of choice. Today it was quite a fetching floral number.
Meanwhile, I was busy up on the podium alongside David pioneering some new auction technology. Well, it's not really new technology, more the application of recent technology in a novel way. Our auctions are held in one of the stands at Northampton Town's football stadium, and they're spread out across several rooms. At one end of the complex there's an area to view the items up for auction or collect items won after the auction ends; in the middle is the auction room itself where the sale takes place; and at the other end is the payment area where the computers sit and customers settle up before collecting their goods. Traditionally, the auctioneer writes down the price an item for sale has reached and the buyer number of the individual who wins the item, and this is transported on a sheet of paper to the payments room for processing. It's a bit laborious and requires a runner to go back and forth between the payment and auction rooms.
Today we put to the test some technology that promises to solve the problem. Gryphon, a company based in Bristol, design the software we use, and two of their staff were on hand at the auction to see if we could get wireless connectivity working between the auction room and the payment area computers. After a couple of false starts it was a success - I could sit in the auction room entering results the moment they happened, and these would appear in an instant on the screens of staff in the payment area. It saved a lot of time and hassle, and given a bit more testing should cut down considerably on paperwork too. And if anyone with responsibility for IT at an auction house is reading (shut up, you never know) then I wholeheartedly recommend Gryphon.
In other news (and well done for reading down to here past what, let's face it, was a deathly boring bit about auctions), and back to Andrew Collins. Yes I know, I said I'd never link to him again but he's too bloody good. This time, instead of the standard outdoing-me-at-observational-humour, he's outdone Amy at complaining. Earlier this week Andrew was shocked when John Lewis asked for his postcode at a collection point. It has escalated to a phone call with a customer service lady:
I told her that the system was bad. She said nobody else seemed to mind (that's because they are idiots) and assured me my details would not be passed to any third parties and I would not be sent junk mail. I tried to tell her that in the current climate I'd rather keep my details to myself wherever possible. That's why I don't have a Nectar card or any loyalty cards. She offered to take my details off the computer system, which I said yes to, on principle. (From now on, I shall only buy things from John Lewis that are small enough to be on display. She seemed to think I was joking when I said this.)
Andrew has also mentioned a sign at a rail station, of dubious provenance, that Amy sent me in an email earlier this week. The boy Collins and Dayorama clearly move in similar circles.
Finally, in the comments to an earlier post a lady calling herself only 'oxfordfemme' mentioned one possible explanation for the geographical curiosity that is KFC. As you may remember, I wondered why KFCs only turn up in slightly unseemly areas, trapped in a cultural sphere between the upmarket (no fast food chicken places) and the fleamarket (Chicken Cottage etc). She reckons it's because KFC appeals to a certain British socio-economic group more than others, according to its heritage as an organisation growing up in the American Deep South. Click here for more.
I'm actually going through a spurt of productivity at the moment, but a couple of thoughts. First, Chris Evans as the new host of Drivetime? Hmm. The jury's out. His Saturday show has been better than I thought, but it's still not Johnnie Walker territory. Second, say what you will about the motives for the Pro-Test march, but I haven't heard any animal rights campaigners since then. Good stuff.
Bloody Andrew Collins. No sooner have I linked to his blog than I realise I might as well become a turkey and vote for Christmas. The man writes about the same topics I would, in the same way I would, except better. Without fail, better.
For a start he can even write more eloquently and insightfully about a dead German cat than I, but take this example from within the last 24 hours. This is Andrew writing about his daily commute into work (something you know I'll go on about at length sooner or later if I haven't done already):
My next routine marker now comes as I approach Redhill Station just before 9.10am, as passengers from a very busy train trickle into Redhill itself across the pelican crossing. It is here that I have started to notice a rotund man, who may only be in his late 20s or early 30s, and he's always smiling to himself. The first time I saw him I thought perhaps he had just thought of something funny. The second time it struck me as a not unpleasant trait (after all, what is there to smile about if you are commuting into and not out of Redhill?) - some may find it creepy or odd that he is always so amused, but not me. I like it. He has a Hawaiian look about him. Is that why he is so preternaturally happy? Because he comes from the land of hula skirts and Elvis Presley? It's good that this happy-go-lucky nature travels so well.
Click here to read the rest of it. Bastard. That's exactly the sort of thing I'd write, except more engaging and with a slightly different spelling of "praeternaturally" (see, I'd put an extra A in it, but both are correct). This is why I like him so much but it's the last time I link to his weblog or else I'll have no readers left. I am the Chicken Cottage to his KFC.
Speaking of which, it's become noticeable that KFCs only turn up in areas of London you wouldn't ideally want your kids to grow up in. A few of us had decided this the other day when we couldn't find one anywhere around Borough or London Bridge, ending up in the one down the Walworth Road in Elephant and Castle. I ended up in Brixton this afternoon to watch Brokeback Mountain at the Ritzy, and there's a KFC in the middle of Brixton just outside the cinema. Then I got on the bus home and there are two more KFCs in the middle of Streatham. Then you get between Streatham and Streatham Vale and there's a Chicken Cottage; get as far as Streatham Vale and the Chicken Cottage has become a Morley's. This says a lot about Streatham Vale.
Why should this be? It doesn't affect Burger King or McDonalds. They turn up all over the place, but KFC seem - in London at least - to be confined by some socio-economic boundary to an odd middle ground between affluent London (no chicken establishments) and effluent London (Chicken Cottage or worse).
In other news, I went to interview Colin Sheaf, deputy chairman of Bonhams auctioneers, in New Bond Street earlier. I had a chat with him about Bonhams and Ebay, how they've had to adapt to Ebay and whether they consider Ebay a threat. He was firm in reassuring me that Bonhams had suffered no ill effects at the hands of the internet, and wouldn't deviate from that line throughout the interview, giving very little ground to Ebay. I'm going to see if I can talk to Sotheby's (having been told they've experimented with the internet to a far greater extent and come off worse) and find out if they're in agreement with Colin.
And that's not too bad a start for England is it? All the reports on today's cricket say we gave up our early momentum, but given the woeful injury crisis the squad is in, I think to get into the 200s for seven wickets is about par for the course. I have absolutely no doubt we'll lose this test but think getting to three figures should be a comfort in itself. The football team have just got themselves out of jail as well, lucky sods.
Elsewhere on the internet, Manchester City have banned an entire row of fans from sitting together for one game at the club's stadium because of 'persistent standing'. As you may know, standing is technically prohibited at top flight football grounds, but a lot of fans like to stand and pay little heed to warnings, so you arrive at something of a, ahem, stand-off. Personally I think everyone should sit down, but then I'm of the opinion that you go to football matches to watch the football, not make a bloody loud noise and get wasted, so I may be in the minority. Either way Bitter And Blue has blogged the letter City sent out to fans in the affected row, which you can read here.
Coming up soon: audio for the Energy Review, which is now a thing of the past having been assessed earlier today - results some time in the next few days. Goodness me, I nearly forgot - passed my shorthand exam! Which means I can officially produce shorthand at the relatively dismal rate of eighty words per minute, and in reality means I never have to do the bloody thing ever again. Cheers to that.
It's looking likely that there'll be strike action by some higher education workers this coming Tuesday. Though the staff on my course are all coming in regardless, that means there's a possibility that we'll have a picket line outside the doors to the LCC.
Earlier in the week we were sent an email advising us that if we don't want to cross any picket line that forms, that's entirely understandable and no action will be taken against us. Personally I don't think that will be the line taken by many of us.
Instead it's looking more likely that we'll be directly responsible for getting beloved children's TV icons attacked by picketing lecturers.
You may have seen that iconic TV series Rainbow is set to return to our screens. This from the BBC News report:
The series, which featured George the hippo, Bungle the bear, loudmouth Zippy and human pal Geoffrey, will be repeated by digital channel Nick Jr.
Rainbow, which also featured singers Rod, Jane and Freddy, was screened by ITV from 1972 until 1992. Re-runs dating from 1982 will begin on Monday as part of the channel's evening nostalgia programming.
My course colleague and good friend Andy, pictured with his hero above, is keen on getting Geoffrey - and yes, maybe even Bungle - to appear on our news show on Tuesday. This may mean leading Bungle through an aggressive picket line. As someone just rightly observed, this raises the ugly prospect of Bungle having to pick egg yolk out of his fur. (Although we're also convinced his bear suit was stolen some years ago - if you happen to know its whereabouts, do tell!)
It's a phone-in show hingeing on a debate about a website entitled Fake Alibi which does exactly what it says on the tin: pay your money and the website's staff will organise a fake alibi for you according to your requirements. The idea is mainly aimed at love rats, who can arrange to receive a full itinerary as well as messages and phone calls relating to an entirely fake trip, then spend the weekend away with their lover instead, with nairy a suspicion on the part of their loyal husband/wife.
Naturally plenty of the people phoning in to the show were hostile to this idea, not least the show's presenter himself, who branded anyone calling in support of the website 'mad'. But in a point I made by text message (and they actually read it out, which pleasantly surprised me) the presenter made the odd assumption that the people being cheated on using the service were absolute angels. More than once he exclaimed that the service was allowing people to con 'decent' and 'innocent' individuals.
Do you think everyone using the Fake Alibi service will be setting out to con a decent, innocent individual? Or might some of the site's clients be oppressed (psychologically, mentally, perhaps physically), frightened individuals escaping an aggressive environment? If you were trying to buy time away from a threatening partner to spend either with someone else or in therapy or seeking help somehow, would you rather lie to them outright with no support, or use this service to give you a 'watertight' alibi? (Of course in that situation you'd probably want to talk to someone like the police or social services, but threatened people don't often feel capable of doing that for obvious reasons.)
Changing subject, and if I've had my little slice of fame on Five Live tonight, one of our erstwhile readers' dads has had his across the pond. David Whitehead, dad of Rachel on the LCC broadcasting course, is quoted in a New York Times article on ownership of port operations. It's probably quite exciting if you're well versed in the world of ports and shipping (and he's director of the British Ports Association so I imagine he knows a thing or two), but suffice to say the article goes a little over my head. Congratulations all the same!
I can't get away from the similarity between the e-fit police have issued over the Great Tonbridge Robbery, and the 118 118 team.
Of course if my suspicions are confirmed and the latest adverts are to be believed, the police will have quite a job catching them: they've got an A Team made up entirely of children and a ten-strong choir helping them make good their escape...
Our Curryspondent's been in touch about his revelation that Ken Livingstone isn't the only politician with a grudge against a London media organisation. Nope, we can exclusively reveal that of all people it's Milky Whiskers MP, formerly known as George Galloway, with an axe to grind against BBC London.
We know this because our Curryspondent went along to Kitten Towers yesterday to grab a quick interview about, well, curry in his constituency. Mr Whiskers' public relations officer was of the opinion he'd be up for it, but alas on arrival, that wasn't the case. Our Curryspondent said he was from BBC London and this seemed to put the cat out, so to speak. It turns out that according to George there's some form of ongoing dispute between the two parties, and Galloway, normally so difficult to actually shut up, won't say a word on 94.9FM.
One wonders if it might be over the insults traded between Whiskers and Oona King during a debate arranged by BBC London last year, as recorded in this (oddly bipartisan) Respect report:
BBC London's political editor Tim Donovan, who was chairing the debate, asked if he thought it "odd" or "misguided" that he should be attempting to unseat one of the few black women in parliament.
Clearly between then and now BBC London and Whiskers have gone their separate ways.
Anyway our Curryspondent went back this morning offering to do the interview for a different BBC station, but nothing doing, only a very curt 'no' from Mr Whiskers, famed for his kitty impression at the feet of Rula Lenska. It's almost as if he's suspicious of the press these days.
My friend Alice, off the LCC course, has not only heard of them (usually an achievement in itself) but knows the lyrics! We were singing 'Rain or Shine' together in Elephant and Castle earlier. It was a heavenly moment. This hasn't happened before and isn't likely to ever again.
She also fancies Romford's finest, Stedman Pearson, one of the five members of the Pearson family who made up Five Star in the mid-80s. "A British version of The Jacksons", no less, according to their Wikipedia entry.
1986 and 1987 were Five Star's zenith, which you'd think might rule me out of their fan club, aged between one and three as I was. But no. They released five singles in 1986 alone, reaching the heights of numbers two and three in the UK chart. A video of my toddler self dancing to one of those hits exists somewhere, so I know I already liked them then, when they actually were quite famous. Always in when the bandwagon's barely rolling, me, Kaiser Chiefs style.
Less thrilling is the revelation that their Greatest Hits album, my Five Star bible and a collection I'm now listening to on my laptop, reached just number 53 on the album chart in 1989. How the mighty fell! But they'll always be remembered, by me and Alice.
Hmm. Following my post about the Irving trial a few days ago, I've been wondering what exactly I should write. Much has been fluently expressed about the situation elsewhere in the press and the blogosphere, so I shall just add my own scattered thoughts, rather than synthesise the whole thing.
David Irving is a bad historian. He misrepresented his own sources, and failed to account for others that were readily available. There is a lot to be said for being outside the mainstream academy, but there is also a limit which I think Irving crossed, whereupon he became a posterchild for forces that used history for their own ends. Of course, some twenty years ago, Irving was widely regarded as a good historian. That's the way these things go. It's important to remember that he went to prison not solely because he is a bad historian. If there were punishments for bad history, I should imagine that there would be many - not least in Oxford - who would be afraid.
Irving was punished under Austrian Holocaust denial laws. So the real issue, and I don't think this got enough space in the commentaries, is whether as a society we should be willing to imprison people for making statements that are so offensive that we classify them as criminal. After discussing the matter with some friends, there was a clear argument that Austria (in this case, though it goes for the other countries with similar laws) is showing a lack of maturity as a nation. 60 years, and almost three generations on, there is hardly anyone who does not appreciate what happened during World War II. More importantly, I don't think there's any reason to think that by letting Irving's speeches go unpunished, Austrians - or Europeans - are implicitly in agreement with them. Ever since the Lipstadt trial, Irving has been widely discredited in mainstream society, and those who favour his beliefs are a minority for whom Irving is only one idol. That to me is a sign that society has done a pretty good job of self regulation in this matter. It goes back to that oldest of choices - would you rather be too free and suffer some negatives, or unfree and miss out on the positives? Freedom always wins. And part of being a historian, of course, is going back to the sources yourself if you disagree with the conclusion of someone else. As much as it is true of postgrad historians, for example, it is also true of everyone else - always think for yourself.
And so here's another thought. In light of the current climate, could Irving's writings ever be construed as "glorifying" holocaust denial? It is a shame the debate concluded before the trial started.
I've not been to many exhibitions in my life. I can remember going to the NEC once when I was a lot younger, and I've been to Earl's Court for plenty of concerts, but not proper exhibitions. So going to Ecobuild was quite interesting.
Three hours later, having waited over an hour for my last interviewee to turn up, it was less so. Let's be honest, I'm not much of an architect, and I think that was the fatal flaw in the day's events. It was pleasant enough for an hour or so, milling around the exhibits and interviewing a few people involved with the energy industry, but after that it dragged. That's despite having a swanky press badge attached to my coat, allowing me to indulge in leering at other people's badges, confident that at least I looked like I had a purpose. The managing editor (online) of Architects' Journal and a member of the Isle of Wight Council were just two of the distinguished guests to wander past.
Anyway, photos ought to liven up this dull account a bit. I had real trouble getting sound effects for my energy review piece at the exhibition, resorting in the end to the sound of rain hitting a solar panel outdoors - this one had the good fortune to be inside:
In fact, between the solar panel and this fountain and garden, the entrance to the exhibition was pretty top notch:
But that was nothing compared to some of the exhibits. This being the Ecobuild exhibition, the aim of the game for most of the exhibitors took the form of new housing concepts, be that heating, decoration, structure, design or planning. And some of those exhibitors wanted nothing more than to build their proposal in front of your very eyes. I give you the strawbale house, which does exactly what it says on the tin:
See, you think you've seen it all now. Afraid not. Next door but one from the house of straw, we have...
Yes, a house of hemp! The exhibitors took pains to stress that it was all manufactured legally...
I was going to stop there, but I've just been reminded of something. A certain individual I know uses the word 'chillax' in conversation. It's a hybrid of chill and relax, in case you couldn't tell, and it's one of the single most annoying sounds known to mankind, along with the sound of sniffing, the sound of babies crying, and the sound of James Blunt (hackneyed but true). This is an open letter to that individual, mentioning no Rachels - stop it. Otherwise I'm going to write you an online dating profile like I've already written someone else's...
Until last night I had forgotten that the above expression existed. I hadn't used it or heard it in such a long time and had neglected to remember how good it was! However, it has that element of passion about it that made me want to know where the expression/phrase/idiom came from. After a little bit of googling, it would appear that the phrase originated at the beginning of the twentieth century. Apparently the earliest examples relate to cattle ranching: cattle would be driven to rail heads in NW America. In 1939 a book was published by Paul Wellman with the title Trampling Herd: the Story of the Cattle Range in America it was stated, "In spite of hell and high water is a legacy of the cattle trail when the cowboys drove their horn-spiked masses of longhorns through high water at every river and continuous hell between.". So there we go.
Time for a round-up since I've not had time to pull my thoughts together for a while - starting with Amy's D of E bash in Kent on Saturday night.
The evening was dedicated to the 50th anniversary of the Duke of Edinburgh's award, and was held at the Kent Showground in a rather large building which was not, thankfully, the marquee we had been dreading it would be on a particularly chilly night. I got over my initial exasperation at the flappy things that pass for a collar on dress shirts - mine wouldn't sit down properly like everyone else's, and it was messing with the bow tie - and enjoyed a lovely evening in the company of fine individuals and food.
Two of Amy's closest acquaintances got awards for their service to D of E, something she'll no doubt get in half a century's time judging by the conversation I had with two of her young charges, one of whom having been involved in an unforgettable incident involving illegal immigrants and a threat to eat the entire D of E party.
There was a laser light show to finish the evening, using one of the clever green lasers put to good use by The Australian Pink Floyd band in Oxford last year. I want one!
Sunday was the gig in Oxford, which went pretty well all things considered, even if the drum kit did fall apart on me early on. It was another battle of the bands and, indeed, another battle of the bands we didn't win, but it's always great to be playing, especially when it seems increasingly likely the band is breathing its last. We'll be going our separate ways this summer when the other three leave Oxford, so who knows what will happen, but I'm not convinced it'll be possible to keep going.
One person who didn't turn up to the gig was other Amy, an Oxford student (and therefore someone who had to travel considerably less far than my own mother, who came all the way from Somerset) who found herself otherwise engaged. In retaliation I'm therefore going to set aside this paragraph for a little ritual humiliation. Other Amy took the time instead to launch a miniature witch-hunt into the sexuality of a good friend of hers, and then succeeded once again in not telling the person she loves that she wants to go out with them. This saga has been running on for a number of weeks if not months now, and infuriatingly she comes within a whisker of asking this unwitting individual out time and time again, only to somehow blow it. I've had a friend like her before, called Simon (whose voice intriguingly sounds exactly like Amy's, but slightly deeper), who refused point blank to ask out a girl he liked back in Somerset. No matter how much badminton they played together, nothing doing. I despair. Take a chance! Roll the dice! At least get an answer, one way or the other. Rant over... for now.
Onwards, and it's a busy week ahead with more people to speak to. This week I'll hopefully be hearing from Dr Kevin Anderson at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change in Manchester, who's pencilled in for 2pm tomorrow before I head off to the Hall of Fame gala dinner at Manchester City FC (second outing for the black tie in four days, after two years of mothballs). Dr Anderson wrote a very good piece on the BBC News site a month ago on the UK's energy crisis, and I'll be following up on that with him.
Then back down to Culham, near Oxford, on Wednesday to interview Chris Llewellyn Smith, the man in charge of Britain's nuclear fusion research. Fusion isn't like the nuclear we use now, it's a futuristic, somewhat enigmatic technology that we're told will be mightily powerful and very safe. Alas, it's half a century away at least, assuming they can get it to work (they're building a new test facility in France to find out, I believe). I'll be asking Chris what the odds are that this will sort out our energy problems. I expect the answer is 'slim', for now. It's all very exciting because in order to get onto the Culham site I need my passport to prove my ID - access all areas, this journalism lark, I tell you.
On Thursday it's off to the EcoBuild exhibition at Earl's Court, home to a vast array of household renewable energy solutions. At 2pm I'll be speaking to both Gareth Ellis of the Solar Trade Association about how we harness the potential of the sun to power our homes, and then to Mari Martiskainen from the British Wind Energy Association. She's their Small Wind Officer, which I think is a great title, and she'll be setting out the conclusions she'd like to see the UK energy review reach. I'll also be asking both of them if the different forms of renewable energy are happy being lumped together in an age-old 'nature versus nuclear' debate, or if they're actually competitive in their own right - after all, if you think wind power is better than solar power and you're trying to capture the same market, why would you want consumers identifying the two of you as one rather vague whole?
Finally, a quick look at a couple of news stories I've seen. Unlikely Headline of the Week award to This Is Local London for 'End Illegal Treaty And Save Babar', which refers to terror suspect Babar Ahmad and not, as first thought, the loveable elephant king of same name. 'Man Killed Landlord With Crossbow' also caught the eye, and lodged itself in it, as did this Social Affairs Unit article on Pro-Test, the pro-animal-testing group formed by an Oxford student. Except in this case that means a student from the Oxford area, as in a 16 year old from Swindon, and not a student at Oxford University, which is what most national newspapers assumed when they reported it. Reading the article the individual concerned seems unduly preoccupied with ensuring he gets media coverage, which is a shame, because these things should be done out of genuine belief and not a desire for self-promotion; the media would have come flocking anyway.
The crew in the newsroom, all hard at work - spot the Ollie.
Cor dear me, it's been a manic couple of days. You can tell we have our fully-working-newsroom days on Wednesdays and Thursdays because either a) I put all sorts of audio on the site or b) I go AWOL for 48 hours. This week, we got off at the 'B' stop, to paraphrase Whybird, a much underrated icon of children's television.
Not that I don't have audio to offer. In the can from the past couple of days we have:
Mark Field MP talking about the UK energy review and his pro-nuclear stance, based more than anything on the negatives of all other options outweighing the negatives of nuclear.
Dr Matt Genge of Imperial College London, discussing his once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to analyse some space dust brought back from a comet by the NASA Stardust probe, the first cosmic dust samples to arrive in that fashion since the Apollo missions.
Colin Challen MP providing the opposing viewpoint on the UK energy review, arguing that nuclear makes no sense compared to the 'infinite, free' power offered by renewables (though conceding that supply could be 'intermittent').
Roger Evans, member of the London Assembly's environment committee (and member of just about every other committee, I've spoken to him before about transport issues) bemoaning the state of London's water pipes after two burst mains this morning, and pinning some of the blame on Thames Water.
Hilary Bennett, Thames Water spokeswoman, unsurprisingly refuting that point of view but admitting that it is 'unfortunate' for two main roads to have been flooded when London's in its worst drought for thirty years.
And owing to time constraints I just missed out on the chairman of London Travelwatch discussing passenger safety on the tube following the stabbing of three people on the platform at Holloway Road station last night. Some of this might make its way online in the near future.
Our ISDN line is now working, which means it's considerably easier to get hold of people to talk to. ISDN provides much better quality audio than a normal telephone line, and most places that can expect reasonable media interest from time to time have an ISDN line installed (messrs Evans and Bennett both used them to talk to me today). It means I can sit in a studio and conduct interviews instead of trekking across London - or even to Reading in the case of Thames Water - for a chat.
On this subject can I also mention Mark Demery, press officer at the London Assembly, who is the most helpful member of his profession I've spoken to in a long time. He went out of his way to set up an interview with an assembly member about London's water pipes, bringing back several suggestions and providing the ideal candidate. These things are not taken for granted and I'm grateful.
Contrast that with the London Underground press lady, who berated me for 'only' giving them two hours' notice that I'd like an interview, exclaiming that 'even the BBC give us far more'. I checked this with Martin, the course director, who worked for the BBC for a number of years, and as I suspected that's entirely untrue. It also transpired that LBC had interviewed a London Underground rep on their breakfast show about last night's stabbings, an interview that can hardly have been arranged with much notice. Some press officers are either fools or take me for one. Others, like Mr Demery, are warmly appreciated and not forgotten in a hurry.
Now then, your reward for reading this far down - more photos! Don't say I never treat you. All taken this evening by various people, then shared using the wonders of bluetooth (what fun we had with that). Scroll over the images for captions.
Finally, a date for your diaries: 20 July 2006. It's my graduation day, to probably be held at Westminster Hall, across from Westminster Abbey (assuming, of course, I actually manage to graduate...). This post so named because Mr Andrew Silke was hassling me like a bitch to get this online.
a) Valentines Day in London is incredible. I was on the tube around 7pm last night. There were women smiling with bunches of flowers, other women looking on at the "flower girls" in envy, other women were smiling back. There were couples looking happy to be going out and there were men dressed smartly - also with bunches of flowers etc. Somehow, the whole tube seemed united in a sense of "loving". It may be a commercial load of rubbish, but somehow it was really beautiful. For the record I smiled at my observations - and had neither man nor flowers with me!
b) I've started reading Alistair Cooke's Letters from America. It's actually incredibly interesting and I've learnt quite a lot already. Some of it, of course, goes straight over my head.
c) Still ploughing through the witch book Ollie bought me. I certainly won't be so turned off fantasy books in the future.
d) I've my advocacy exam tomorrow. Wonderful. I'm then heading home for a long weekend, but have exams on Monday and Tuesday
I do worry about OJ - he may have done no end of damage to his future political career. For a start I now have those embarrassing birthday photos stashed away (see OJ's last post) ready to break them out when political correspondent in thirty years' time. More worryingly, perhaps, who else might have got hold of them?
Take the case of a Mr Unwin, undergraduate at another Oxford college, as an example. Some unkind soul lifted a number of quite grotesque photos, involving him and a female stripper of a certain size, from Facebook, and placed them on the Oxford Gossip website for all to see (click here to see them, but I warn you it's not pretty and certainly not work safe).
Alright, fine, so that's just one web site and not really one frequented by anyone outside the university. No real damage done. But an Oxford student enveloping his face in a stripper's flabby extremities is precisely the image of the university that the rest of the town loves to cultivate. Lo and behold, there's a discussion on the web site of Nightshift, the Oxford music magazine, dedicated to those same photos.
One person posting a message to that discussion says:
The depressing thing about it is that as oxbridge graduates half of these morons-losers-wankers-take your pick- will probably be forming the government of 2025. Someone should keep these pictures. They'll be worth a lot to some tabloid paper when one of these shit bags runs for leader of the opposition or something.
They've all obviously have had limited or no sexual experiences too. That or there just a load of sadists... Actually, wait a minute. A load of sadists and a few naive, easily lead virgins. Looks like the government of 2025 will be pretty similar to the one we've got now.
Indeed, although if the government of 2025 involves people who've "all ... had limited or no sexual experiences" then at least it won't be Lib Dem. But don't you worry for OJ yet? Have you seen those photos with his trousers down? Do you want to see them? Do you think the political editor of the News of the World will want to see them in twenty or thirty years' time? Did George Osborne stop to consider this before having certain compromising photos taken? Oh ho. There may be trouble ahead...
News in brief: I'm going to Key103 for my placement, as I'd originally planned, and not Fox any more. OJ will no longer be able to tune in to listen to me each night (unless he goes online for the Key103 version), but anyone in the Manchester area ought to be able to catch me, or at least my work, on Key103 news broadcasts between 24 April and 15 May this year. And it's Parliament aplenty tomorrow - I should with a bit of luck be speaking to Mark Field MP in the morning about the UK energy review (he's pro-nuclear), and in the afternoon we're being invited into the Commons by the very kind Paul Flynn MP for a quick tour and a chat.
There's an interesting supplement to the Observer today - Pleasure: What It Is And How To Find It. Obviously, this is coinciding with Valentines Day. However, it does provide some interesting statistics and questionnaire answers. As the title of the supplement suggests, the main discussion is regarding Pleasure. What is it? Is it the look of love, the sensation of losing yourself, do you achieve it skydiving, or is it found sitting on the edge of a mountain? Surely pleasure means different things to different people. However, I think I agree with the sentiment that "pleasure - narrowed down - seems to be built up of simple transient moments". For me, pleasure could be a particular meal, a particular smile or conversation, a particular afternoon spent walking or with friends. I think I have had a pleasurable birthday weekend. Friday was wonderful, Saturday was a very relaxing day and then today I went to church, had a leisurely and enjoyable lunch with a group of friends and then wandered around an art gallery looking for some art to purchase (savings and birthday monies). What could be more relaxing? Or pleasurable? Obviously, this pleasure is brief. Tomorrow morning I shall sit in an exam hall and the "pleasure" will no longer exist. However, the memory will still be there. Now that, is the definition of pleasure for me. Think of all those wonderful moments you have had, the meals you have shared or the times you have sat in front of an open fire with a bottle of wine and some crisps (a common pastime of my Mum and I) and I'm sure that even thinking about it will bring a little bit of pleasure into your world. Well, that's my thought for the day.
Contrary to popular belief, I'm not a great fan of literary works such as Narnia, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Harry Potter, even the Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. I've read them all, and I suppose I have enjoyed them - for their quality and imagination only. However, I wouldn't go into a bookshop and, out of choice select such a book. I'd much rather go for a chick-flick-novel or pretty much anything from the "Penguin Classics" range. I also read a lot of modern fiction - the latest booker prize winner or whatever. But, if the novel fell into this "fantasy" category, or indeed "crime", I would be less likely to pick it up.
I therefore approached one of my birthday presents from Ollie with caution. A book titled, "Wicked" by Gregory Maguire. It is a black, hardback, rather austere book. It has green edging on the pages, with gold gilding on the front and small illustrations spread throughout the novel. The summary on the back of the novel refers to The Wizard of Oz - "we know all about Dorothy and her triumph over the Wicked Witch of the West, but what of her arch-nemesis, the mysterious witch herself?" This book promises to enlighten me on the witch. It takes "readers past the yellow brick road and into a phantasmagorical world... [the novel] is a rich and triumphant feat of imagination and allegory". It's sounding quite interesting isn't it?
Obviously, for those in the know - there is a rather ironic reason that Ollie has given me a book involving a witch. He also, incidentally gave me the book Jim - The Nine Lives Of A Dysfunctional Cat, because no witch can be complete without a cat. By the way, this book is an absolute reflection of the life of Daisy.
Anyway, back to these witches. The author of the book is American and in his introduction he discusses his move to England and the rise of fantasy fiction. Maguire states that he had moved to England, a country that he knew mostly through fiction, in order to write about a country he knew mostly through fiction. This is a good point - it is possible to glean a great deal about English life, countryside and culture through fiction - both modern and classical. Consequently, there is supposed to be a "little bit of Oxbridge" in the book, and the animals in the book do owe something to Orwell, C S Lewis and Beatrix Potter etc etc. I think you should be getting the picture by now. I must admit, this book does appeal. So far I've read 32 pages and did have to drag myself away and go back to some revision. Clearly bewitched. I hope it doesn't disappoint. Thanks, Ol.
I always used to wonder why Amy had some features on her GMail that mine didn't possess. What most vexed me was her insistence that above her inbox was a 'web clip' or some such, with 'spam recipes' occupying that spot in the spam folder. These didn't exist on my GMail in any shape or form, and nor could I find reference to them in the settings.
Still, I can live without 'web clips' and spam recipes, I thought, so I didn't press the matter. And then a few days ago, the blasted woman comes on Google Talk and tells me how her GMail now links up with Google Talk, so that it saves all the conversations in GMail for future reference. Well, that was the straw that broke the camel's back, because I'd quite like that. Again I searched feverishly for that functionality in my copy of GMail, to no avail. My copy of GMail clearly despised me and had no desire to comply in any shape or form.
Then, a brainwave. I swapped the display language in the settings from English (UK) to English (US). Lo and behold! The entire set of features appears: first web clips, then a special place for saved chats. They'd been there all this time but, for some as yet unknown reason, Google wasn't offering them to people with UK English as their language of choice. Such discrimination! Sod any privacy or censorship issues with Google, what about the 'special relationship' our countries are supposed to share? Gone in the blink of an eye. Disgrace.
Of course, this set my mind entirely at ease. I can cope with the US English setting - it makes not a jot of difference, except the Americans probably wouldn't use the word 'jot' in that or any other context - and the features are well worth the sacrifice. More to the point it meant Amy was doing nothing spectacularly clever or different to get hold of the new stuff, and had simply not bothered changing the settings to her own native language, presumably on the grounds that 'guarentee' is correct in neither American nor British English.
So now if I use Google Talk, anything said is saved automagically in GMail. This is highly useful and a teensy bit more accessible than MSN Messenger, which tucks away its saved chats in mildly user-unfriendly XML. What would be perfect now is if Google Talk got hold of the ancient MSN Messenger 4.0 emoticons, tiny pixellated things that didn't look as daft as all the new stuff, and added them to its own interface. Then I'd have no shame in using it exclusively. I'd just have about three people to talk to.
(As a further note, the option exists to go 'off the record' with Google Talk, clicking a button that will prevent the messages exchanged from being saved by either participant in the conversation. This is very clever, but no journalist likes the words 'off the record'. Where's the fun in keeping a record of incriminating conversations if the other guy can smack that button? Still, the old rule applies - you have to decide you're off the record first, there's no hasty backtracking...)
Oh, and a little slice of stupidity arrived in the mail this week. About eighteen months ago I ordered a set of books for the last year of my history degree, including Variae by a bloke named Cassiodorus (I wouldn't bother, he's got nothing on JK Rowling). All the other books turned up but Variae did not, so I just borrowed library copies when I needed it, which wasn't very often anyway. And yes, it turned up a few days ago. This would be my cue to laugh, but for the fact I suspect it is also the cue for the distributor to charge my credit card for its safe arrival.
I've rambled on before about the fact our lives are now filled with things that "beep". I've now decided everything "hums" too. I've been working at home for one day and the fridge hums, the bathroom fan hums, my laptop hums at me. All these electrical hums.
Also, the real gripe. A modern telephone. A delicate cordless thing which when you have finished using it, it has to be slotted back into its stand and then the phone responds with a beep. If you have a double-glazing esque call, get angry and want to slam the phone down (as you would be able to do on an old style phone), you can't. Instead, you have to gently place the phone back and wait for the stupid little beep. I'm not sure if new technology is a blessing, or simply gets me more stroppy. Not that I ever get stroppy, obviously.
I know lots of people get angry when they phone a customer service telephone line and have to select about five different options before, if they are lucky, they get to speak to a human. I'm sending back my complicated, useless upgrade phone to Orange and on the letter they actually state: "If you have any queries about returning this equipment, please call XXX... select option 4, followed by 1, then 1". I suppose it should ensure I get through to the right department, but if they can be so precise it makes me wonder why I can't just press 9 or something in the first place!
See, I knew OJ had been quiet for too long. And then slowly but surely, a few more Dayorama posts emerged from him. Coupled with Amy's usual consistency, I was horrified to find the sea of my green-tinged posts, to which I had become accustomed, turning to mauve and sky blue. But our only other indication of where he'd been all this time was the mention, in one post, of the Facebook.
For those not in the know, it's a community website where you can put a little profile up and add all of your old friends from uni to a little list on that profile. You can also create groups.
And now I know that the true master has returned to form. OJ has created an entire group dedicated to Caecilius, star of basic Latin textbooks and a source of much intrigue when we had to learn Latin at school. As I recall, Caecilius had the minor misfortune of living in Pompeii around about the time of that rather large eruption, but in the months running up to it we grew to know and love his whole family. Most of whom were then wiped out.
Still, it brought back a cherished childhood memory, and now any Facebook member from Oxford can join in the fun. As OJ writes on the group page: 'Caecilius est in horto. Caecilius in horto sedet. And don't you forget it, buddy.'
Having followed the fortunes of the Thames Whale (yes, it requires capitals, on a par with royalty as it appears to be) all last week, those in the know and with nothing to fill their lives are now following the progress of the watering can used during its failed rescue. The can's up for sale on eBay and, as reported earlier in the week, was at one point fetching well into six figures.
Alas, it seems the people bidding that much may - gasp - not have been entirely serious. The auction has been restarted and the current price is now far closer to, though not yet, a sensible figure: £325 at the time of writing. Only pre-approved bidders may now get involved with the sale. This may not be the first whale-related case of people artificially inflating something far beyond what was right and proper. I might add that a Valentine's cruise for two down the Thames is currently selling for only just over half the watering can's top bid, to put even that drastically reduced figure into a little context.
Now, turning to some more non-entity fixation, which after Chantelle won Celebrity Big Brother must be all the rage. Whisper it quietly, but I'm told a former editor of mine - from the days when I worked on music websites - has been unceremoniously dumped out of the Kaiser Chiefs' forthcoming book. The individual concerned is closely involved with the band and has been since their very inception, as well as running several music websites and writing for others. I resigned from my post at the websites concerned last autumn, ostensibly owing to family illness but in reality because I found him incompetent and disorganised in the extreme. With, in my opinion, all the communication skills the whale now possesses.
This may have come to the attention of the Kaiser Chiefs' management, for whom he does plenty of work. He was to have been mentioned a few times in the Chiefs' book, but I'm told management have now taken the liberty of going through it and removing all references. Draw your own conclusions - Dayorama, continuing its role as your first port of call for useless Kaiser Chiefs information.
Finally, a reminder that my own band are playing in Oxford on Wednesday night at The Wheatsheaf pub. Email me for more information, or just turn up on the night if you know where you're going. Bring plenty of friends.
A few days ago, Amy and I had a discussion about the future of squirrels both red and grey. The debate focused on whether it was right or not to exterminate grey squirrels to protect red ones - the policy our government is currently pursuing. The qualities the red squirrel possesses in order to enjoy this preferential treatment are: some people think they look nicer, they're smaller and less aggressive, and they die of diseases that don't affect the greys. And they were here first, of course, but have since had a good couple of centuries sharing the forest.
Into this argument I'd like to introduce Barbara Toner, writing in The Guardian today and clearly inhaling toner at the same time:
Is this fair? I don't love the grey squirrel. Some days I hate it. The gang that lives in our garden digs up our lawn and plants. Were I a killing woman, I might get a gun to them. But were I a killing woman and were the squirrels red, I'd take them out too. Discriminating on the grounds of colour has never seemed right. But is this relevant? You could argue, no. The grey squirrel not only threatens the future of the red, it also threatens the future of the dormouse and woodland birds. But I am arguing yes because it's my guess that if the red squirrel is allowed to flourish in the manner of the grey, it will behave in exactly the same way and then who's going to be looking silly?
Read the full article to see why I think the dear lady must have been on something with a bit of a kick to it (Big Brother and bronze are all involved). But she makes a point I largely agree with, in that it is singularly not the grey squirrels' fault that we and the red squirrels have a problem with them. Cunning though they may look, I'm prepared to bet that their forebears did not put in a request to be transferred from North America to the UK all those decades ago. Their descendants living in our trees today would proibably happily get along with a red squirrel if they ever saw one, which chances are they never have. It's not their fault that red squirrels drop down dead the moment they inhale the same air as a grey squirrel - that's a design fault in red squirrels. And in my personal opinion it's a little rich for politicians and park-keepers, many of whom must look truly hideous to the squirrels, to start discriminating on the grounds that red squirrels scrub up a little better for the cameras.
Imagine - and I fear I may have recently trod this ground on Dayorama, but in any case back we go - imagine, if you will, an alien race descending on earth. They decide that it's horrific, all these humans polluting the place and generally spending the last few millennia making life a misery for the rest of the planet's inhabitants. And they all look ugly anyway. The only course of action is to cull the humans. When they come a-knocking on my door, I'm going to be terribly aggrieved that the aliens want me to die on those grounds. None of that is remotely my fault. True, I'm associated by species with some pretty terrible individuals and organisations, but making me answerable for that is extraordinarily unfair. Grey squirrels would no doubt put forth the same argument. Having probably never so much as seen a red squirrel in their lives, how can we turn up on their doorstep and obliterate the lot for the sake of a nigh-on identical rodent in a different shade of fur? Bizarre.
I'm just back from hearing Andrew Marr deliver the annual Hugh Cudlipp lecture at the London College of Communication.
He spoke for about thirty minutes or so - perhaps a little less, it certainly didn't drag - on the subject of popular culture and how he interpreted the future of the media. He admitted that whilst he himself had been somewhat 'high-brow', and had consequently spent a less than successful period as editor of The Independent in the mid-90s, he felt the current preference for 'popular culture' over intellectual 'news' to be one worth defending. He made the point that whilst papers like The Mirror had Diplomatic Correspondents in the 1950s whose reports regularly made the front page, that was a different era whose hopes and fears rested on a different agenda. He defended the News of the World's publication of allegations concerning Sven-Goran Eriksson, and professed to have met 'fake sheikh' Mazher Mahmood, expressing both admiration for him and incredulity that Britain was still a nation where you could 'don a tea towel' and learn the most intimate secrets of anyone to whom you chose to speak.
Oddly, during the question and answer session that followed, he told one student that it was better to first become a print journalist rather than dive straight into broadcasting, because of the basic manipulation of words that print journalism would teach. This ran in contrast to much of his talk, which often returned to a theme of newspapers in decline - there will be no new newspapers, said Mr Marr, and younger generations pay almost no attention to them. Newspapers, he argued, are in every sense yesterday's news to anyone under the age of 20 (I'd argue 30) because these people are used to finding their news online, so it takes columnists and exclusives to sell newspapers, not news. The suggestion he made, but did not explicitly state, was that a popular newspaper has to place finding 'something extra' in the form of columns and 'popular culture' stories ahead of the day-to-day business of raw reporting.
I don't see why there is thus any attraction in becoming a print journalist. The argument would seem to be that you get taught basic skills useful as a broadcaster, whereas broadcasting doesn't teach skills you need for print. Setting aside the fact that I disagree, there's absolutely no incentive to learn those basic print journalism skills if no market exists for your services once you're done studying. In an environment where, as Mr Marr himself put it, sounds and images are taking over from the written word, it's the broadcasters who have the skills associated with the fastest-moving form of news today, not the print journos. Even if we hypothesise that news completes its leap into an online environment, broadcast journalists have the skills to add sounds and images to their written reports, print journalists do not. Broadcasting provides life and colour to each story it touches, it's what we're encouraged to do the whole time. I think the exciting developments occurring online and the progress of TV and radio news make broadcast journalism the cutting edge, regardless of the apparent induction print journalism provides. You can't treat print journalism as a step up to broadcasting if, as Andrew Marr suggests, there will shortly exist barely any step on which to find your feet.
I'm no fashion expert. In fact, I wear a simple style of clothes - sometimes enhanced by the odd expensive top or skirt. Nothing outrageous, nothing particularly "in fashion", but just general clothes. I make an effort to look good though, and I am conscious of those little things that can make or break an outfit. I also think I know what does and does not suit me - in broad terms anyway. So, lately I've been constantly enraged by people I've seen around London, a few on my course, who really could use 5mins with Trinny and Susannah.
First. If you're a woman, you should buy a bra that fits. There is no excuse for a tight bra, and a tight top. This means that the bra squashes the skin, and then skin/fat bulges outside of the bra. This can be clearly visible under a top. Why do it? It looks horrid!! Just buy a proper bra. It's not that hard. And on the subject of bras, there is no excuse for being able to see the tip of them under a low cut top. Perhaps men think it is sexy? I don't.
Secondly, thongs. OK, so I'm known to wear them. But at least I make an effort to cover the back of my jeans. I don't want to see the entire plumbers backside of a girl sitting near me. It isn't pleasant.
And last but not least, shorts. It's fashionable at the moment to wear cropped trousers - to around the knee. These look amazing... if you are a stick insect. So if you're not, it looks bloody awful. Don't do it to yourself, just wear something that fits.
I was on the train back from Kent today when we were held at Swanley for a while because of a gas leak at Battersea. Apparently no trains could pass over the bridge into Victoria. I wasn't in a rush, or meeting anyone so I didn't need to instantly reach for my mobile and dial someone. Instead, I said a silent prayer for all those I knew were somewhere in central London today. Was this a gas leak or was it something much worse? I use the tubes daily and don't give a second though to terrorism - I don't think you can. But today I did wonder whether this was something more sinister. It was a strange feeling and I doubt this would have ever happened before 7/7. Clearly a sign of the way we now live. Thankfully, it was just a gas leak and I got back safe and sound, but those people were still in my thoughts.
I was on the train from London to Kent yesterday and for about twenty minutes the peace and quiet of the carriage was disturbed by one girl, about sixteen, talking at the top of her voice on her mobile. The whole carriage couldn't escape hearing the saga between her best mate's boyfriend, and sister, and step-sister and anyone else who appeared in the conversation.
I made a mental note of just a few of her phrases - all said in the most eloquent Kentish accent, like, of course, like. There are quite a lot of * necessary, so I apologise.
- Holy mother of God (in place of "oh dear")
- I'm going to "nut" him
- I'll properly "muller" him
- I'd've "b*ggered him
- f***ing hell
- f**k me
- b****cks, no waaaaay
- you're having a sh*g (seemed to be in place of "you're having a laugh")
- X is really in the sh*t
- Oh d*ck (another "oh my God" line)
And so the language went on. This girl was getting several looks from people in the carriage, although no one plucked up the courage to tell her to shut up. I think if she hadn't have disembarked when she did though, I would have had to say something. For one, she was rude. Not only was she talking at the top of her voice but her language was clearly offensive. Really, I'm just jealous that I didn't understand half of what she meant. If there had been young children in the carriage, someone would have had to tell her to be a bit more discrete. Perhaps I'm getting old, but there really isn't the need for that sort of language. Admittedly, I swear. But not to that degree! If you use it to that extent, it becomes farcical - there's no passion or strength to the so-called "swear word". I remember the first time I said, "shit" and promptly risked being smacked by my father. So, times have changed and the common use of swear words is more acceptable. But, please. I don't want to keep hearing phrases such as the above when I am trying to read, thank you. What is society coming to? Blair. Respect? There's a long way to go.
Of course, Amy misses the really important heritage event of the year: Benjamin Franklin's house in London, at 36 Craven Street, will finally open to the public next week after years and millions in renovation. Bravo!
There's a incredibly pleasing article in today's Observer. In their "Escape" (travel) section there is an article titled "Where to be in 2006". It claims to chart the hottest spots for the year ahead – you know the random things that are going on across the globe. With a caption stating, “fancy witnessing a total solar eclipse…. or being an inaugural guest in the first underwater hotel…” I thought, "here we go", a month by month account of all the places that I could go if, and a big if, I had the time and the money. Lots of places to be seen at, but none of them will be accessible, non will be cheap and non will be in the UK. But I was wrong. This three-page spread includes several entries for the UK.
In February, we should visit Sinatra at the London Palladium; in April we should visit the completion of the thermae spa in Bath and also the Shakespeare festival in Stratford-on-Avon; in May Jamie Oliver's third fifteen restaurant will open near Newquay; in June The Deeply Vale Festival, a legendary Seventies hippy gathering, is apparently having a come back; in July the 50th anniversary of the Duke of Edinburgh's Award will be celebrated by a series of events around the country including a two-day event in Windsor Great Park (a big plus point in my opinion that they include this since it is close to my own heart!); and then finally in September we should watch the first World Golf Championships to be held in the UK.
So, lots of things taking place in the UK, alongside the more grand in the States such as the Sky Walk 4,000ft suspended glass bridge across the Grand Canyon (June) or the football World Cup (Germany in June) and Commonwealth Games (Australia in March) or finally the chance to walk around the rim of the Ngorongoro Crater in Tanzania (March).
So the UK is up there. It was pleasing to read the article and think, "I could practically do some of these things, if I wanted to". A good bit of patriotism there by the Observer and a triumph in my eyes because there is nothing worse than an article that tells you lots of amazing things that you just couldn't buy or do.
Far be it from me that I should criticise another weblog (nay, two of them) with the panache, insight and verve to link to one of my posts here, but I do get a little wound up by this:
Just thought I'd point people in the direction of a wonderful selection of photos taken by Chris of animal rights activists (some may also moonlight as terrorists) in Oxford. The captions are superb:
Right wing individuals seem to get remarkably worked up by animal rights activists, even the palpably-not-militant 85 year olds that dominate the photos linked to above. In this instance, the campaigners are staging a perfectly legal protest, policed as one might expect. Last I checked, the right to freedom of speech and legitimate protest was a bedrock of conservative thought, although so's 'some animals are more equal than others', I suppose, so I oughtn't be surprised.
What does surprise me, and did for the last three and a half years, was the extent to which this pattern of thought is engrained in so many people at Oxford. The end product, having unleashing a new bunch of 18-year-olds on one of the greatest sources and keepers of knowledge in the world each year, appears to be some sort of haughty ideological overkill, a great descent of black-and-white political theory and enough posturing to make your average man on the street vomit at the thought that this is the best we can offer. I was probably guilty of it to an extent myself and may well still be so, but not in the way that a lot of Oxford undergraduates adopt absurdly narrow-minded world views on either side of the political spectrum.
It'd be nice, in a purely hypothetical way, to think of Oxford as producing people who could all work together and at least understand different points of view without seeking the path of least resistance, a crass dismissal. I hate smoking but I can at least understand why pro-smoking groups put forward the arguments they do, even if I disagree. If they want to walk down the Streatham High Road campaigning in favour of smoking, fine - it doesn't make them retarded, it makes them passionate about what they belief whilst staying within their legal right to express that belief. I won't be criticising that, and when I criticise their beliefs I'll do it as constructively and forcefully as I can without resorting to insults.
As for the animal rights protesters 'paralysing' half of Oxford, according to one of the photo captions, I'm frankly amazed the author isn't used to that by now. The traffic system's enough to paralyse the town in the first place. What about May Day? That's an exercise grounded in greater pointlessness and futility than any animal rights campaign, but eager young students clutter up a major bridge into the city centre once a year without fail. And it's only the ones that jump off the bridge into a foot and a half of murky water that are rightly labelled idiots. A little perspective, some imagination and, perhaps - if we're really dreaming - a relaxation of crude political idiom might not go amiss sometimes.
But what Williams doesn't mention here, is that him and I are yet to meet/have coffee/have dinner at all of the London mainline train stations. We've certainly made it to Paddington on a few occasions, and today's meeting will be Victoria. Perhaps we'll have to try to make it to all of the others in future.
For Guillemots in 2006. They're a band that I'm told - and having heard one track, firmly believe - will be the talk of the year. The track's called Trains To Brazil, which is useful because I was going to talk about trains anyway. Beware their website by the way, it's a bit strange but not impenetrably so.
Anyway, trains. This could get a bit anorak-y but I'll keep it brief. I reckon I completed my 'set' of London stations today, by taking the train from Nottingham to London St Pancras after the Manchester derby (City 3, United 1, yes yes yes yes yes). I've now boarded or left a train at every single one: Blackfriars, Euston, Fenchurch Street, King's Cross, London Bridge, Liverpool Street, Marylebone, Paddington, St Pancras, Victoria, Waterloo...
Nightmare. I've just discovered, to my horror, that I've not done Charing Cross. Must write that down on the 'To Do' list. Still, since I'm in this anorak mood, I did a quick check on the National Rail site to see which train companies' trains I've used:
Have travelled on these: Arriva Trains Wales, Chiltern Railways, First Great Western, First Great Western Link, GNER, Heathrow Express, Midland Mainline, Northern Rail, one, South Eastern Trains, South West Trains, Southern, Thameslink, Virgin Trains, WAGN and Wessex Trains.
But not these: c2c, Central Trains, Eurostar, First ScotRail, Gatwick Express, Heathrow Connect, Hull Trains, Island Line, Merseyrail, Silverlink and the TransPennine Express.
So I've been on more than half. But you have no reason to care, so to make it worthwhile reading this, here's some interesting and topical train-related articles. Radio 4's 'From Our Own Correspondent' programme has mentioned trains a couple of times recently. Yesterday's edition had Malcolm Billings on the hundred-year-old Hejaz Railway carrying pilgrims out of Istanbul; last week, Karen Allen ventured forth on the equally antique Lunatic Railway in Kenya.
For the real lunatics, however, look closer to home - not pilgrims, but pigeons. Wandsworth Council has threatened Network Rail with an ASBO if it doesn't stop pigeons at Queenstown Road station crapping on unsuspecting passengers below. The council took the action after a petition was received containing an almighty ten signatures. One wonders what ridiculous schemes one might be able to force through in Wandsworth with the help of nine friends...
I'm busy ploughing through Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix on audio book (which I think I mentioned a week or two back). I've put it on my mobile so whenever I'm on the tube or a train, I can listen. Two thoughts:
First, when I get a phone call, the audio cuts out to allow me to take the call, obviously enough. It then restarts automatically when the call finishes, so that you need hardly do a thing except press the button to answer the call. Great. Amy rang this afternoon and I answered it, flicking the headphones out at the same time because they get in the way. We chatted for about ten minutes until my train was about to reach Victoria, at which point we said our goodbyes. And as the line went dead, but before I could put the headphones back in, Stephen Fry resumed his (quite brilliant) reading of the book, at full volume, on speakerphone. That improved my credibility with the fifty other people in the carriage no end. Must be quicker with the phones in future.
Second, these audio books would make a great present for a stoner. Each CD is broken up into about sixty tracks of just over a minute each, with neat breaks between tracks at the end of sentences. On your favourite druggie's birthday, wait for them to get comfortably high (this being their birthday, they're bound to) and then give them the audio book to listen to. When they're not looking, set their ipod or CD player or whatever to 'shuffle'. When they press play, they'll be met by a stream of one-minute Harry Potter segments in an entirely random order. See how long they'll listen before realising something is amiss.
Since we're on the subject of audio, I bought some new speakers today. Or at least I collected them, having ordered them on Monday from a little family-run Hi-Fi outlet in a nearby suburb. This being south London, the Hi-Fi shop keeps its front door locked at all times, and only opens it once the staff inside have eyed you up and are satisfied you won't rob them blind. On Monday I thought that was a good idea. Today I was less sure. It took me twenty minutes - stood outside in the cold, banging on the windows and door, and ringing their phone number - before someone let me in. SInce I had a fairly tight schedule to begin with, I was less than impressed. Still, they won brownie points on Monday for giving the speakers at a good discount, so on balance they might get a second go.
God, it's good to watch someone fervently denying the existence of God. Richard Dawkins, you star. Bringing challenging, controversial debate to the television in a way that I've not seen for quite some time, calling God "the most vindictive character in all fiction" with his final words of tonight's first instalment.
One very simple moment caught my eye - when one of Richard's Muslim interviewees told him to sort out how he and his society dress their women, only for Richard to respond, quite indignantly, that the women of course dress themselves. I'm in full support of the arguments made on this programme. I'm not going to go into those arguments myself because I'm thoroughly incapable of expressing them as eloquently and I'll only confuse myself, but please do yourself a favour and watch the second part, from 8pm this coming Monday on Channel 4.
Sounds like a particularly violent form of diarrhoea, doesn't it.
But I actually mean the other side of spam and blogging: when the blogs are spouting the spam. We have enough trouble getting rid of spam comments and trackbacks to Dayorama, but you can also get blogs set up by mischievous types purely to spam blog search engines. Now there's a splog (spam blog) that's making great mileage out of RSS in cunning fashion, as discovered by this Canadian journalist:
Andrew Scheer, Conservative MP for Regina Qu'Appelle, used to keep a Blogspot blog. I subscribed to the RSS feed, but it's long been dormant. Today, it popped back to life. With this. It's a spam blog, set up at the same address (and therefore with an RSS feed that was exactly where my RSS reader went looking for it) and filled with cribbed text from elsewhere. It's intended to drive traffic to porn sites. Either that or Andrew Scheer has some 'splainin to do.
I also note with interest that David Cameron has backtracked spectacularly on education this morning. Very little seems to have been made out of this. How it can be below a story about Paddy Ashdown supporting Sir Menzies Campbell in the Lib Dem leadership election on the BBC News front page is beyond me. The man has abandoned a Conservative stance which gave the electorate a clear choice on student fees, in favour of what may just amount to a carbon copy Blairite policy. To think The Mirror spent this morning accusing Tony Blair of muddying the waters (see last post)...
Safestyle UK. You know the adverts. A burly bloke struts around a selection of windows screaming 'YOU BUY ONE, YOU GET ONE FREE!' over and over again until you relent and decide your industrial-sized greenhouse needed re-doing anyway. Well, folks, I'm here to present a dramatic revelation to you.
Wait for it...
That man is the tannoy announcer at Burnley FC.
This was revealed to me by a gentleman asking to be identified only as Etienne De Cracy, but who in actual fact is my mate Rhys. His friend's auntie is going out with Mr Safestyle himself (real name Jeff Brown, which is a shame, as I was thinking of writing to Mr Safestyle and seeing if it worked the same as writing to Santa). What a career that man has! Half his time spent aggressively parading a selection of glasswork for television, the other half entertaining a few thousand Lancastrians with nothing better to do than watch Burnley.
I wonder if he ever gets it wrong. Maybe that'll make out-take TV one day, seeing as Carol Thatcher's wee on I'm A Celeb never will. Mr Safestyle lunging at the camera and screaming "THE FOURTH OFFICIAL HAS INDICATED THERE WILL BE TWO MINUTES OF ADDED TIME". Therapy may well be called for in later life. And that's just the viewers.
Watching Match Of The Day, it occurs to me that - more often than not - it's the goalkeepers who really perform during FA Cup outings.
I may be biased. I'm a goalkeeper myself (or at least I was the last time I played, in the dim and distant past) and it's usually a thankless task. No one really notices when you play well, everyone can tell when you make a howler because a goal against your side is the inevitable end result. You have to have a bit of a masochistic and/or insane streak, which explains how people like Bruce Grobbelaar are compelled to join the profession.
Anyhow, all the top performances by lowly sides in today's games were aided and abetted by stunning shows of goalkeeping. The Luton Town keeper Marlon Beresford saved a penalty in the game against Liverpool, which very nearly turned into the upset I had earlier predicted, with Luton leading 3-1 at one point (final score: 3-5). The Tamworth keeper was highlighted by the studio panel on MOTD for a string of fine saves and some heroic bravery against Stoke, and the Nuneaton keeper was heralded as 'magnificent' by Middlesbrough boss Steve McClaren.
At the other end of the pitch, these sides were usually offering little or nothing. Tamworth had a few chances but nothing special, and Nuneaton needed a penalty (albeit a coolly taken one) to get on the scoresheet.
It's not just the minnows whose goalkeepers deserve a pat on the back tonight, either. Birmingham's Maik Taylor spared his side's blushes with a series of great saves against tiny Torquay during their 0-0 draw. Which serves as a reminder that the heroics may not be over yet - Nuneaton, Tamworth and Birmingham are all going to be in action a week on Tuesday in the replays of their drawn matches.
Finally, if I were a Colchester United fan tonight, I'd be upset. They pulled off the only 'proper' upset of the day, defeating highflying second tier outfit Sheffield United away from home by two goals to one, only to be shoehorned unceremoniously into the back end of MOTD whilst the show focused on nil-nil draws at Torquay and Stoke. If the coverage had been entirely true to the giantkilling spirit of the day, Colchester deserved to be right up there at the start. But I'm not a Colchester fan. So I'm not upset.
Earlier today I gave my views on what might or might not happen in this afternoon's FA Cup 3rd Round ties. In particular, I had this to say:
Yes, pity us Manchester City fans, hoping against hope that we might turn over Scunthorpe. It'll never happen. Last year we contrived to lose to Oldham on one of the windiest days in the history of mankind, at the coldest football ground in the history of mankind. Today the weather may be (marginally) kinder, but you can bet your bottom dollar Lady Luck won't be.
Well it's odd that I should have mentioned betting and Lady Luck. As it turned out, City beat Scunthorpe 3-1 having made an atrocious start, going in 1-0 down at half time to a goal from a young Scunthorpe forward by the name of Keogh. Before the match, I had filled out a Ladbrokes coupon on the match as I usually do, spending £5 on a small selection of bets. £2 of that was placed on a combined bet of Manchester City to win the game 3-1, but with a Scunthorpe player picked at random - one Mr Keogh - to score first. The odds on that happening were 200 to 1. It happened. I'm £400 richer.
Moving on - he said, allowing the alcohol to settle in his stomach and with a smile etched into his face - and let's see how those prospective giantlkillers fared this afternoon. My prediction had been that Manchester United and Chelsea wouldn't suffer, but Aston Villa, Liverpool and Newcastle United might have cause for concern. I also felt it was a near certainty that City would lose to Scunthorpe, which happily was not the case. Of those predictions, Manchester United play Burton Albion tomorrow, but Chelsea saw off Huddersfield 2-1, a closer result than I might have imagined. Interestingly, this time last year, it was Chelsea playing Scunthorpe and Chelsea who beat them 3-1 after having conceded first. so Scunthorpe must be getting used to that. Hull lost to Aston Villa but only by the one goal, Newcastle snuck past Mansfield by the same margin thanks to a fairly late Shearer goal, and as I write Liverpool have just conceded an equaliser to Luton Town. So it's been close.
Oddly, though, for this round, there've been very few proper upsets. The nearest we can get, in fact, is a series of improbable draws: Nuneaton's last minute penalty against Middlesbrough, Tamworth's goalless draw away at Stoke, and Torquay holding Birmingham to a draw. So it was nice of Ladbrokes to relieve the tedium. Cheers!
It's that glorious day, the FA Cup 3rd Round Saturday, where a bunch of no-hopers turn up at a big stadium absurdly hopeful of getting an entirely unexpected win, only to come back down to earth with a heavy drubbing. Yes, pity us Manchester City fans, hoping against hope that we might turn over Scunthorpe. It'll never happen. Last year we contrived to lose to Oldham on one of the windiest days in the history of mankind, at the coldest football ground in the history of mankind. Today the weather may be (marginally) kinder, but you can bet your bottom dollar Lady Luck won't be.
So, which other top flight knights in shining armour might suffer at the tiny paws of lesser minnows? Manchester United are not going to lose to Burton Albion, so let's rule that one out, glorious though such a result would be. Huddersfield might briefly threaten Chelsea but that won't happen either. Hull have got a decent chance against Aston Villa though, and Luton have occasionally sprung upsets on teams before (e.g. City) so who knows, Liverpool have to trip up eventually, they might as well do it spectacularly.
But my best tip for an upset: Mansfield at Newcastle. Imagine the scenes if that one happens. Souness will be out of the club before you can say "auf wiedersehen, pet". Newcastle are in disarray at the moment, Mansfield will be up for it in a cauldron of atmosphere the likes of which most of their players will never have seen before. All they need is to nick one goal from a set piece or penalty and then defend like it's Rourke's Drift for the other 89 minutes. And let's hope Torquay beat Birmingham, the first time they've ever faced a top flight outfit. The rate Birmingham are going, the two sides will be meeting more regularly soon anyway.
It's that glorious day, the FA Cup 3rd Round Saturday, where a bunch of no-hopers turn up at a big stadium absurdly hopeful of getting an entirely unexpected win, only to come back down to earth with a heavy drubbing. Yes, pity us Manchester City fans, hoping against hope that we might turn over Scunthorpe. It'll never happen. Last year we contrived to lose to Oldham on one of the windiest days in the history of mankind, at the coldest football ground in the history of mankind. Today the weather may be (marginally) kinder, but you can bet your bottom dollar Lady Luck won't be.
So, which other top flight knights in shining armour might suffer at the tiny paws of lesser minnows? Manchester United are not going to lose to Burton Albion, so let's rule that one out, glorious though such a result would be. Huddersfield might briefly threaten Chelsea but that won't happen either. Hull have got a decent chance against Aston Villa though, and Luton have occasionally sprung upsets on teams before (e.g. City) so who knows, Liverpool have to trip up eventually, they might as well do it spectacularly.
But my best tip for an upset: Mansfield at Newcastle. Imagine the scenes if that one happens. Souness will be out of the club before you can say "auf wiedersehen, pet". Newcastle are in disarray at the moment, Mansfield will be up for it in a cauldron of atmosphere the likes of which most of their players will never have seen before. All they need is to nick one goal from a set piece or penalty and then defend like it's Rourke's Drift for the other 89 minutes. And let's hope Torquay beat Birmingham, the first time they've ever faced a top flight outfit. The rate Birmingham are going, the two sides will be meeting more regularly soon anyway.
What I'm about to say is slightly dangerous since I know that Ollie disagrees with it to an extent before I've even started, but here goes anyway. Why do people eat on the tube? I don't mind the tube, but it is undoubtedly hot, full of dirty, smelly air and hardly the most hygienic place in the world. So why chose to eat your Boots meal deal there? Last night, about 11pm, there were a couple eating some pasta box thing. It smelt absolutely disgusting and in the heat, smells of stale smoke and alcohol, it made me want to retch. I take Williams' argument that if you are in a rush, then the tube may well be the only place to eat. Fair enough. That's excusable. But some people look as though they are about to pull out the hamper and the tartan rug and settle down for a good old picnic. Disgusting.
We read in The Times this week that a small group of Manchester City supporters have written an open letter to others of their kind. They are making the suggestion that they all stop taunting Manchester United supporters about the Munich air crash of 1958, in which 23 people, including eight United players, were killed. But it's not the stopping that is intriguing, it is that they started in the first place.
Simon goes on to discuss 'vileness' in football and other sports, concluding that sport appears to demand it from people, that it has become 'routine'. But at one point he almost touches on what I think is the right explanation for the above example:
The sporting crowd is not an individual, but an individual can speak through the machinery of the crowd, so it doesn't really count. Sociologists talk about "deindividuation", the loss of self-awareness and personal identity that happens to someone subsumed in a crowd ... In a crowd you are not only safe, you are a different person.
That's right. Let me put the Manchester City chants in question into their full context. The Munich air crash also claimed the life of a City player turned journalist, Frank Swift, as has been pointed out by the supporters' clubs who wrote the letter. The letter did not suggest that they all stop taunting Manchester United with it, as far from all supporters do so. You'll find a small minority at home games, and the vocal numbskulls who travel en masse to away games and get drunk, are the main culprits. The chants do not refer explicitly to the air crash itself (though one which is now not sung used to, so this is not a recent problem), but refer to United supporters as 'Munichs'. For example, one chant to team other than United is "You're just a town full of Munichs", implying that most of the town supports Manchester United (usually true enough).
I reckon I can guarantee that 99% of the supporters using 'Munich' in their chants never give a thought to the source of the word, the air crash in question. They do not sing it with specific reference to the air crash, they do not intend its first effect to be reminding Manchester United supporters of that crash. Most Manchester City fans prepared to use the term are far too ill-educated to have a clue about what actually happened, and have none of the empathy or compassion required to fully comprehend the act of death itself. Believe me, I've sat through enough away matches in the company of drugged and drunk nutters to know that this is no pre-meditated summoning of the annals of history to taunt their opponents.
Instead, 'Munich' is a form of shorthand. You try coming up with a chant involving 'Manchester United fan', 'Man United fan' or if you're lucky 'United fan' that scans properly and is easily memorable. Because for many of these people going to a game is all about chanting, and all about getting drunk. This is why it is seen as a badge of honour if your set of fans is the loudest - football for them is not about turning up to enjoy a game, it's a tribal event where the tribe that shouts loudest, wins. I don't agree with that at all but I know that is how they perceive it. These people need their chants to identify them, to be short and to be memorable. When City fans want to refer to their United counterparts, they use' Munich' because it means 'Manchester United fan' and it fits nicely into most of their songs. The way it's used, you'd be better off spelling it 'MU-nik'.
Now please don't take any of that to be a defence of the term or of the mindless people who use it (and I call them mindless for many reasons, not just this one). The Munich reference must at some point have originated from the air crash, thanks to some group of sick individuals. But don't be under the illusion that the majority of young men singing that word represent people intentionally calling to memory the deaths of so many young men half a century ago in order to taunt others. The people who sing these songs are, sadly, too closed-minded to be that intellectually cruel.
Celebrity Big Brother has landed once again with a new crop of celebrities. One of them isn't actually a celebrity, although I defy you to pick the right one, even once Channel 4 have told you. Here's the list of contestants, and here's an idea of what might happen on the first day...
It's Day One in the Big Brother house, and Pete Burns, star of 80s group Dead Or Alive, lies face down in the swimming pool with that question no longer in doubt. A nervous Michael Barrymore sits as far away from the pool as he can possibly be without appearing conspicuously far away from the pool, and is thus seated at the breakfast bar, next to Maggot, rapper with Goldie Lookin' Chain.
"It wasn't me this time," says Barrymore, allowing himself a second too long to look at the pool before snapping his gaze back to the middle distance of the kitchen work surface. "And that doesn't mean it was me last time either. Because it wasn't. As I've said. But it wasn't me this time and there's cameras everywhere to prove it."
"You knows it," concurs Maggot. "Those fu-", and there the viewers leave the conversation for ten minutes of audio from the chicken coop as Maggot delivers his opinions. Eventually we return. "Safe," he concludes.
Meanwhile, on the lounge sofa, unknown entrant Chantelle is attempting to fulfil her brief and fill indie rocker Samuel Preston's briefs by convincing him, or at least his erogenous zones, that she is indeed a famous person. "I'm an It Girl dahhhling," she purrs into her microphone, enunciating the 'It' with enough cut glass to furnish the entire transparent bathroom provided. "You must have seen me. I'm an A-lister!"
"You can't be," says Preston, seeing through her disguise like he'll see through the bathroom wall when she's in the shower later. "After all you're in here, aren't you?"
In the diary room, George Galloway is receiving a grilling from Davina McCall via the studio link-up, over rumours that Oona King was supposed to be entering the house instead of him.
"Mr Galloway, are you proud of having got rid of one of the very few black women famous and unemployed enough to want to come on the show?"
"What a preposterous question," he retorts." Wouldn't you be better starting by congratulating me for one of the most sensational eviction results in modern history?"
"But George, we haven't had an eviction yet-"
"Move on to your next question, Davina, I've got a lot of other people who want to speak to me."
"George, no one else in there wants to speak to you, that's why you've sat in the diary room all day. We've had the microphone turned off for the last four hours to give the producers a rest. Now are you proud-"
"If you ask that question again, I'm going, I warn you."
"Going where, exactly, George? The next Jack Dee, are we? Tony Banks was sitting here five minutes ago, and he said that you were behaving inexcusably, that you had deliberately chosen to go to that part of the house and to exploit the leather armchair there."
This was enough for George. "You are actually conducting one of the most - even by your standards - one of the most boring interviews I have ever participated in. I have just won an eviction. Can you find it within yourself to recognise that fact? To recognise the fact that the people of Britain chose me this evening. Why are you insulting them? Can't you find it within yourself even to congratulate me on this victory?"
"Congratulations, Mr Galloway. Now please go and join Mr Burns."
Why do zebras have stripes? Peter Stothard, for The Times:
Black and white stripes? Camouflage to hide from lions? Were Zebra Crossings designed so that the driver couln't see them? I didn't think so ... This week I've been having close natural encounters with zebras - on the ground beneath the bird-filled skies of southern Africa.
In the bush of Madikwe my childhood zebra scepticism is reinforced. The beasts stand out from their surroundings barely less well than the luminous kit of the night cyclist. Further south in the Namibian desert the Attenborough party scores more strongly. The stripes disappear in an early morning swirl of sand and reflection.
The latest zebra lore suggests that scepticism about the camouflage purpose may have been the right course all along. Zoological researchers, it is said, have carefully blacked out the white stripes and whited out the black ones of randomly elected zebra. The result? A hundred times as many nasty biting tsetse flies on the mono-coloured flanks. Those much-debated stripes? Naturally selected insect repellant. Hiding from lions is nothing as to hiding from flies - as any visitor to Africa will attest.
I really like the idea of stripes as nature's fly spray. There are a couple of other theories I can find, though. One is that the stripes help the animals to blur into one when they travel in a herd, causing all kinds of problems for predators, who presumably have to have a good sit down and rub their eyes after ten minutes to get their depth perception back. Equally, the markings might be of more importance to other zebra than other animals, acting as a visual cue for all sorts of courtship purposes, like the plumage of a bird for example.
It's also pointed out in the book Wild Ways, by Peter Apps, that camouflage seems unlikely due to the way zebra move, and the fact that most predators have no trouble at all nailing a few at a time. So if there's any lessons to be learnt, it's that you should wear a Newcastle shirt to protect against insects in Africa, but in such cases, do beware lions.
Finally, to return to Peter's line: "Zoological researchers ... have carefully blacked out the white stripes and whited out the black ones of randomly elected zebra." One hopes, for the validity of their study, that it was not the same zebra.
Did you know that you can’t just get original caffeine or decaffeinated Nescafe coffee anymore, but you can also get half-caff. I was confused. Apparently…
Nestle original is the full works; the decaff has no caffeine and the half-caff has half of the caffeine of the original.
For goodness sake. What will it be next? Half-caffeine diet coke? You either want the caffeine coffee, or you don’t. Or you just drink half the quantity of “normal” coffee. Why go for half-caff. Mad.
I'm not convinced by the new range that Air Wick are advertising at the moment. I appreciate their seasonal "mulled wine and festive spice" air freshner or whatever it was, but how can you have something or other and green tea? Does green tea have a smell? And if it does, why do you want your home to smell of it?
That's a question I always wonder about and never seem to know the answer to. I'm subscribed to around 50 different feeds on the basis that it'll guarantee something worth reading each day, leaving it up to me to wade through things that don't interest me to get to the good stuff. Some of those feeds will only provide new content every two or three days, some will cough up ten or twelve articles per day. Since no technology is yet good enough at sorting the wheat from the chaff, it still leaves a burden on me to find needles in my RSS haystack.
Maybe 50 is too many, then. Or is it too few? Should I saturate myself with RSS feeds from every blog I've ever thought looked worthwhile, and just allow myself ten minutes to pick my way down a list of articles each day, picking out the quality? Or should I accept that some good articles will sink to the bottom, and just pick up the top articles in my RSS reader whenever I get the chance? Or should I only have 10 or 15 feeds, so that I never miss a thing from sites I know I'll love? But can you think of a site whose posts you know - one hundred per cent - you'll read each time? There aren't that many. I personally would rather pick and choose from a wide variety than rely on a shortlist to constantly come good for me. The alternative is to sit through the bland stuff in the hope that it'll expand my knowledge if nothing else, but that seems hardly the point of RSS.
So, if anyone else reads this (presuming you haven't skipped over it in your RSS reader...), I want to know how many, if any, RSS feeds you're subscribed to. Why that number, and what's the theory behind the subscriptions you have? What drives you to subscribe to something, is it one very good post, a series of consistently good articles, or just the topic areas under discussion there? Answers on a postcard, or in the comments, please.
It amazes me how few weblogs there are devoted to football, considering its mass market appeal. Maybe newspapers and TV have such a monopoly on punditry that no one else has the creativity or determination left to write up what they think somewhere else - certainly that's the case with me. I just can't build up the enthusiasm to really decide what I think about things that happen on a football pitch once everyone else has had their say, let alone write that down on here.
The reason I bring this up is that earlier today, Manchester City signed Espanyol midfielder Albert Riera on loan until the end of the season, with a view to a permanent move. I was interested to see what people thought about this so I put his name into Google Blog Search. The only real result of interest was Danny at Bitter and Blue, who wrote this:
Coupled with the availability of Tuomas Haapala (whose contract commenced January 1st), it throws doubt on the long-term future of Kiki Musampa who has seen himself out of favour in recent times and Riera's arrival in particular will have done him no favours. With the size of the squad currently though, it is unlikely Musampa will be sent back to Atletico Madrid before the end of the season but it looks a certainty that he will not be back next season.
Granted, for those of you who don't follow City, that may not make much sense. But from my relatively informed perspective that's a good point, well made. Danny takes a matter-of-fact approach to his analysis, a bit like a mildly subjective version of BBC Sport, even earning praise from Spurs fans for his preview of the match coming up tonight, so it's a blog lacking most of the irrational sentiment you might expect from a football fan. On first glance, at least (there might be a few Munich songs lurking in the archive, who knows...).
It's just surprising that there aren't more sites like Bitter and Blue out there. I did check out one other supposed City weblog, mcfcblog, that was linked to from Danny's site, but the last post there was for 27 November. Like I said I have difficulty sustaining football arguments on paper - people have tried to cajole me into writing for a City fanzine recently and I'd love to but can think of nothing worthwhile to say. So in some respects I can understand why there aren't more City blogs around. But equally, I'd have thought there are people who can wax as lyrical about City out there as I can about, say, hurricanes, news or everyday incidents on Dayorama. Perhaps the literate City fans have exhausted their opinions elsewhere, i.e. the pub.
When I was studying history, a thought always used to occur to me - just the one, I wasn't very good at history. That thought was: how will future archaeologists perceive my generation?
My forays into the history and archaeology of the Anglo-Saxons brought that thought to the fore. I remember one discussion with my tutor about a cattle enclosure in Anglo-Saxon Northumbria. There used to exist a royal palace in that kingdom (as it once was) at a place called Yeavering. At the time you'd have found a succession of comparatively grand wooden halls there, along with a small wooden amphitheatre, what was probably a chapel, and some interesting, indeed unusual, examples of burial. You'd have also found this cattle enclosure. But was it a cattle enclosure? Who knows. It ran from one end of the site to the other, a set of trenches that might have held a fence or some such, providing what certainly looked like a walkway leading into a roughly circular fenced enclosure. It might have been a stable.
In any case, my tutor and I discussed what we thought its purpose could have been. The likelihood is that the Anglo-Saxons and their British subjects would have held a market at such a prestigious location, so the evidence does lead us to the market/cattle enclosure conclusion. But then there existed a smaller circle of archaeological debris running inside the enclosure, parallel to its outer border. What could that be? That's the question my tutor asked me, and I said I thought it was a viewing platform, tracing the edge of the enclosure so that traders and buyers could stand and peruse the animal goods on offer below. He said it was a suggestion that hadn't occurred to me before, and the reason I remember this exchange so vividly is the rarity with which I ever elicited that sort of response out of a tutor.
Around thirteen hundred years after the enclosure was lost in a fire, and historians don't really know what went on there. They can only vaguely get an idea of its outline, let alone an understanding of its precise function. So how will our culture be interpreted when it's all inevitably reduced to ruins at some (hopefully distant) point? Take, for example, the Millennium Dome. What will future archaeologists make of that? I was pondering this earlier and tried to imagine myself discussing it with my tutor, and what I'd say. A giant aquarium, maybe, or perhaps an artificial ski slope.
Then my thinking progressed - what if I somehow ended up the only survivor from my age, talking face to face with the archaeologists and historians of the dim and distant future? (I don't know precisely how that eventuality would have come to pass, but trivial issues like the hows and whys of a situation tend not to bother me when I'm having a good think). There'd probably be some difficulties of language and interpretation, but assuming we had a decent enough mutual grasp of communication, they'd be asking me what this great big structure was. It was a Dome, I'd say, and they'd probably accept that much. But imagine the looks of horror and confusion on their faces when I say it became a white elephant! Unfamiliar with the expression as it exists today, they'd be awestruck at our possession of the technology to transmute architecture into wildlife, and before I realised the error it'd have caused a thorough re-evaluation of the historical accuracy of Transformers: Robots In Disguise.
[Originally posted on our backup blog when we broke the main one...]
Welcome to the Dayorama backup then, which we shan't hopefully be using for long. Hopefully for OJ at any rate, because if I'm not reunited with my beloved normal Dayorama soon, there is going to be trouble. OJ didn't quite clarify this enough for me in his first post here so allow me to elaborate - it was all his fault. He has destroyed my back end, so to speak. Forgiveness, at this moment in time, is some distance off.
In the mean time I'm going to treat you to a poem. Logging in to Blogger with what I hoped would be a username/password combination I'd already registered, I discovered about three weblogs I'd set up at some point in the past two or three years. One of them included a poem I'd written about a year and a half ago, and had long since forgotten. It's called Dead Fly and it goes like this:
You are just a dead fly
That's all that you are now
No more buzzing around me
No more feeding off a cow
You had it all before you
It might have lasted forever
Feeding off our leftovers
In stifling summer weather
Yet pride comes before a fall
Or a squish, as it was in your case
There's only so much I can stand
Of you pissing about in my face
You should have seen it coming
You faeces-thieving crook
But now you're just a smear
On the back page of my book
Life is full of little ironies
And now I've added another
The book was all about the life
Of David Attenborough
So much for Zoo Quest and Life On Earth
Or even Tribal Eye
He won't study you, that's for sure
You are one very dead fly
I was listening to Five Live yesterday when it was suggested that roughly 30 million Britons make New Year's resolutions each year. Contrast that with this IFA Promotions survey:
Nearly 7 million British adults will make a New Years resolution for 2006.
Either 23 million British children (out of an estimated total of 14 million in the country) have been making themselves promises for 2006, or a large number of people who normally make a New Year's resolution just thought 'sod it' this year on the back of a crappy 2005. Or someone's figures are wrong.
Not, alas, a BBC News headline. Yet. Those NHS budget cuts could be tough though.
No, this is a movie currently showing on the Horror Channel on Sky Digital. In a vain attempt to procure something decent to watch, I carried on scrolling down the channels until this title caught the eye. The description:
Masochistic nurses, wearing lingerie and heavy eyeliner, inflict terror upon male patients with an arsenal of knives, whips, shotguns and booby-traps.
Aside from the fact that I've just guaranteed us a busload of comment spam with phrases like 'masochistic nurses wearing lingerie', the film itself is pretty dreadful. During the three minutes I could bear to watch, some awful footage was only rescued by a fairly amusing body count screen, showing the running total of gruesome deaths thus far. Over I went to IMDB to find out how such a fantastically named movie rates, and the answer is it gets a paltry 2 out of 10, which one suspects is generous. 'Snoopy', an IMDB user from Budapest, had this to say:
Here's the formula to duplicate this movie: shoot some cheap videotape footage of women in white lingerie. You don't even need to shoot sound footage. In fact, it's more flexible without sound. Just make sure there are plenty of shots of the women from behind, so you can dub in some voices later without having to worry about lip-synching. This gives you the additional advantage of having the movie in any language for later distribution.
...
Here's how to lengthen it. Watch a travelogue on TV and tape it. Let's say it's about Venice. Choose about 10 minutes of good stuff, insert it in your footage somewhere near the end, and have one of the characters say something to another, something like "you wonder how it all began? Your mother and I met in Venice, where I was working as a gondolier."
"Hey, no travelogues on tonight. Just some shark specials on Discovery."
No problem, my friend. Just change the monologue to "your mother and I met off the great barrier reef, where I was hunting the Great White with Captain Cousteau's crew." Pretty much any real-life footage will work.
Oh, and speaking of underwear and what not, here's what Andy McNab's new range of underwear might look like according to The Sunday Telegraph earlier this month. So hideous, even pencil sketches demand their faces be blacked out...
When even your mother asks whether youve posted recently, it is perhaps time to get back to posting. Or at least, post. So, instead of watching another gardening program, here are some things that have been in and out of my head over the last week or so:
Simon Schama yes, he of DayoSchamaLlama fame has an interesting piece in todays Guardian where he reviews the more monumental things that have happened since the year 2000. Apparently, 2006 marks the start of the second half of the decade, though I would have thought that 2000 is part of the noughties and 2010 is not. Its windy and wide ranging, marrying digital progress with political shocks. And it has an amusing punch line, so take a look.
On a not un-distant theme, the publication of BBC Historys Top 10 Worst Britons seems to be making both the media rounds and the blogosphere. I have no great qualms with the choices; perhaps there might have been someone more interesting than Jack the Ripper for the 19th Century, but then I did avoid it because it was slightly boring. Perhaps the Duke of Cumberland is an awkward choice. He was, after all, only doing his job, and if we consider that in defeating the Jacobites he butchered Scots but saved the Union, perhaps it is difficult to see him as a worst Briton. And it was hardly as if other battles were somehow less bloody. Also the list contains, I suppose, a warning about the teaching of history. Ever since we did medieval Britain back at the age of 11, I have always been of the belief that Thomas (a?) Becket was in fact a good man wrongly murdered. Having never studied the period since, it is something of a surprise to see him listed as a worst Britain. Mind you, I didnt really like history back then (my aversion to medieval stuff runs deep), and I seem to remember that we learnt this particular tale by acting it as a class. I think I was one of the knights, but Im not positive.
I interrupt this post well actually, I return to it. Ive just seen the Return of the Goodies special on BBC2. What kind of mind does it take to come up with a puppet government that includes Sooty as Prime Minister, a Clanger as Chancellor of the Exchequer, and a giant Dougal that was operated by using ten men? Comedy gold.
Where was I? Now, while the top ten worst Britons have been making the news here, the blogosphere has been more interested in the top ten worst Americans. Im trying to find the links I seem to have lost them but many of them are overly contemporary. If I see a list, Ill post them. And Ill put my mind to it as well, and see what I come up with. Of course, studying the Revolution is little help here, as all the people who did good were American, whereas all the losers magically became British. This is tangentially related to an essay Im writing, which basically argues that just because its hard to find a bad American (or negative views of a good American) does not mean they did not exist. But more on this, surely, in the weeks to come.
Christmas! It's that time of year again. Five days after the last one. Parental divorce, it's the way forward I tell you. More lovely presents from my Dad's side of things, including some cracking eau de toilette, both series of The OC on DVD, and plenty of books.
But books, eh. What's the big deal. You have to sit down, plough through the buggers, and then you get to the last page and feel like your best friend's kicked you in the knackers and run off into the distance, never to be seen (or read about) again. In a world dictated by time, books demand far too much of the stuff. Especially those Harry Potter books, bloody hell, half the size of Kent and about as hard to get through given Amy's snowy narrative. I read the third one when I was a lot younger, and that's it, never again (even though I enjoyed it). I've relied on the films for the story since then, something I'm told is stupid since the films necessarily skip a lot of what goes on in the books, but tough monkeys, Rowling.
Til now, that is.
I was petrified that the silly bint would release the final book next year (as she has confirmed), with me still waiting for the fifth and sixth films to come out. But having tried to read the fourth book and abandoned it twenty pages in, I knew it'd be folly to go near the books again. So a cunning plan slowly evolved...
And now I'm the proud owner of the fifth and sixth books on CD, read by Stephen Fry. I'm going to copy them to my laptop and pop chapters on my mobile phone so I can listen on my way into London and back each day. Sorted! With a bit of luck, and a few healthy long tube delays, I'll be up to speed before devil woman Rowling can get number seven out.
Dayorama is fast becoming a trendsetter for society's bright young things.
Yesterday, Amy mentioned www.justducks.co.uk, purveyor of 'luxury and deluxe' rubber ducks (what's the difference between luxury and deluxe?). Today I noted with interest that the Facebook profile of Amy Jones, student at Oxford and secretary of St Hugh's JCR among many other (mostly cricketing) accolades, had been updated.
Facebook, for those not in the know, is a place for people at uni to put a little profile up and link to their other friends, a feature which paves the way for contests to see who has more friends. I've got about 30-odd listed, Amy J has 153 at the time of writing, so you can tell who the aspiring socialite is. In fact, I lose to just about everyone. Shows what happens when you spend your first year of uni barely prodding a petrified toe out of your own doorway.
In any case, I digress. Her profile had been updated and I note with even greater interest that it now lists her favourite website as none other than www.justducks.co.uk. I have no way of proving that this link surfaced as a direct result of Amy K's post on here, but I'd bet my house on it. On the grounds that if I lost, my housemates and their cats would be homeless.
Warning: This post is potentially a wee bit techy, self-indulgent and tedious. Approach at own risk.
Every now and again I let Google in to run my life.
Last time it happened was a few months ago on my old laptop. I downloaded Google Desktop Search and left it for what felt like a couple of months to index that laptop in its entirety, which let me tell you is no mean feat. The MS Outlook emails on there numbered something like 30,000, plus a gazillion and one archives of old instant message conversations and such like. And all my old photos. And the music. (Does it index music? Who knows.)
So anyway. Now it's happening again. It started when I decided I wanted a new aggregator. If you know what one of those is, skip a paragraph.
Right. Hi, Dad. An aggregator, in this specific context, is a piece of technology you use to collect information from websites like this one, i.e. other weblogs. If you have lots of weblogs you like, you can use an aggregator to keep you updated with all the posts people make to those weblogs, without having to check around all the different weblogs yourself. It's like opening up one web page and finding all the new stuff from those weblogs on that page, so it's very useful for saving time and effort. You might have heard of things called RSS feeds. If you look at the top of the main Dayorama page, you'll see we've got our RSS feed link there. These are the things aggregators use to do what they do. They take the link provided by the RSS feed, and they use that to monitor the site and get the new info every time something new happens on that site. There are lots of aggregators around, and the difference between them tends to be the way they present the information they gather, since obviously it can be tricky taking it all in. Right, back to the story.
I'd had an aggregator once before, called NewzGator or some such. It worked fairly well, but the layout was quite plain and I sometimes felt a bit swamped by all the posts rolling into the system. That's not necessarily NewzGator's fault, of course - if I choose to receive a great big wad of information from 50 different websites then I can only expect to face a barrage of text every day - but subconsciously it still put me off the service a bit. When I swapped to my new laptop, I didn't bother re-installing it and so departed the world of RSS and aggregators again.
Today I decided I quite liked looking forward to reading different people's opinions each day, so I'd get an aggregator again, but something other than NewzGator. I used the much-maligned Wikipedia to find a list of them, and the two I checked out were called Nutshell and Pluck. I liked Nutshell because it had a fun, informal approach on its website and it put me in mind of squirrels, a guaranteed selling point when it comes to offering me a service. It tried to be an aggregator in a sort of instant-messaging style, which didn't seem to really work, so I abandoned it again. Pluck tries to fit an aggregator into a sidebar in Internet Explorer, but again I wasn't overly impressed. And then, as I was about to uninstall Nutshell, I saw a piece of news on it about Google Reader, Google's own aggregator. As quite a fan of Google's products (the search engine, the email service) I went and downloaded it.
And it's okay. I've added a lot of different feeds to it to test it out: my usual sites like web comics, Dayorama itself, a couple of other weblogs and some BBC News feeds, plus a range of feeds from newspapers like The Times, The Telegraph, The Mirror and The Guardian, to give me a decent spectrum of newspaper opinion pieces. It's not been tested properly yet since I've only just done it, but so far it does the job in a very clean-cut, professional way, even though you can't sort your list into feed order, something that might prove annoying (since there are always certain sites you want to read more than others).
I wanted an easy way to access Google Reader, perhaps building it into Google Mail or something, so I downloaded the Google Web Toolbar to see if that had a Google Reader link on it. The Web Toolbar sits just underneath the URL Address box in your browser window, and no, it doesn't have a way of accessing Google Reader. So that was a failure although I'll keep it, since it might prove useful in other ways. Then I noticed a button on there allowing me to download Google Desktop Search, the thing that I'd previously had on my old laptop, and I thought what the hell, so I downloaded that again.
And so I'm back to having Google silently running my life via my laptop, only now it's even worse than before. Not only does the Desktop Search open a series of windows showing me my Google Mail, my Google Talk instant messaging service, my To Do list and Google's idea of 'What's Hot' on the internet (no Dayorama, can't be right), but now I have Google Reader condensing my favourite parts of the internet into one place for me, and the Google Toolbar watching over everything I see online. You can see why people might get a little tetchy about their personal privacy with one company carving so many avenues into their lives, even if I do think those worries are ultimately unfounded. Personally I take the Google mark to be a sign of something sturdy and reliable, built by enthusiastic employees, and that's an impression Google has spent ten years successfully trying to convey to us all.
Right. Time to give Google Desktop Search some time to get on with it. It only indexes files on the PC when I'm not doing anything, and that's so rare that in two hours it's only seven per cent of the way in, so I'll give it the whole night to finish off wrapping its claws around my entire life.
So, in case you can't see the image above, a recap of the text:
Unwanted gifts? Start selling now ... and buy what you really wanted.
This sickens me. Ebay does well enough for itself already, without flagrant capitalisation on the continuing crass commercialisation of Christmas. (Who said alliteration was dead?) To be issuing a 'reminder' to its customers - not members, don't give me that, they're customers - that they can shift unwanted gifts for cash using eBay's services, less than 24 hours after Christmas Day, is appalling.
Not only that, but eBay obviously knows it's in the moral and ethical basement with this one. If you care to scroll down the email a little - something the email is designed not to make you want to do, with a very large clickable image at the top - you'll eventually find an 'eBay for Charity' box. That's it, on the left below the big advert for '5p listing day', where it says 'Sell your unwanted Christmas presents and make some cash for the New Year!'. Below that, the charity box reminds us that we can also sell our things and donate the proceeds to charity using eBay. There's also a tie-up with paragon of virtue The Sun allowing you to auction unwanted gifts and raise money for Great Ormond Street hospital. Fantastic. Why are these initiatives not at the top of the email, rather than the bottom?
The obvious answer is the ugly truth: people are more keen to look after their own pockets in the aftermath of their Christmas shopping spree than look after those of others less fortunate. But that doesn't justify eBay in pandering to that selfish outlook. It could have tried taking a lead and encouraging the donation of gifts and cash to charity. Even if it felt that would somehow be presenting a damaging image of the company (how?), it could have just kept quiet and assumed that those people who wanted to profit from their unwanted gifts would find their way to eBay sooner or later, especially if they're already registered customers.
I tell you what, here's a place to go on holiday if you like your golf: Bermuda.
I was having a play with Google Earth, the free application which maps the entire globe using satellite photos and allows you to explore it at your leisure, and I came across Bermuda. On closer inspection, I saw a little golf course in the bottom left hand corner of the island, and thought how nice it was that the islanders had a golf course of their own.
Then I saw another.
And another. And another.
In total, I could spot no fewer than seven different courses on the island. Having done a bit of research there are actually nine, although two are not full 18-hole affairs, which is probably why I can't find them easily.
As one article says, this is the highest concentration of golf courses per square mile (9 in 21) in the world. Can you imagine the effect on land prices there? All that potential building space for new houses etc and you've got nine golf courses instead. That's one course for every 7,300 people (there being around 65,000 people living in Bermuda). To give you some context for that figure, there is probably one golf course for every 20,000 people in Britain, and we're not short of courses here (the best figure I can find for British courses is "over 2,500", which I upped to 3,000 for a conservative estimate, and the population is c. 60,000,000).
Presumably the logic lies in the attraction to golfing tourists, the same as adverts for Ireland (and any other country) on TV invariably include footage of a picturesque golf course. But if Britain were as well endowed with golf courses as Bermuda, you'd have to turn twice as much of the nation into fairway. Now I'm the first advocate for lots of green spaces, particularly for something as enjoyable as golf, but even I think that's mildly excessive.
That was the message that Mr Clip on Word greeted me with this morning. I didnt know he was into pastoral care. I thought he was just meant to confuse you with endless tips and shortcuts.
Im feeling a little under the weather today. My Mother, bless her cotton socks (because I know shell read this) doesnt believe in Beechams or Strepsils. Consequently although Ive had a cold/sore throat since Saturday I havent taken anything. It hasnt been that much of a cold, but its been there. If I had had my way I would have dosed myself up and felt fine (btw, the Word grammar correction wants to change dosed myself up and felt fine to felt myself and fine up. Heh) by now. But I havent. Ive carried on regardless. I woke about half 5 this morning feeling rather shitty and Ive just gone to the Chemist to buy some of the above medicine. I now feel much better. Mmm. Sugar free strawberry flavoured Strepsils.
Adding to my morning of discontent are five
additional factors. These are, in no particular order:
a) my father
b) the cat
c) the computer (again)
d) my Christmas lunch
e) clocks and beeps
a) My father has lit a fire in our sitting room and I need to do some work on the computer (advocacy mock on 6th Jan). Rather than sit in the cold study on my own, I would much rather sit in the sitting room and use his laptop. But oh no, hes using it. Like hell he is. Hes just decided he will. Men. I would have brought my own laptop home, had I not feared that the travelling would have killed it. Yes, I know its a laptop but it is rather lazy and doesnt like to be moved. When it is moved it gets incredibly stroppy. You just wait till I get a laptop allowance next September.
b) Daisy is really quite clever. Have I mentioned before that when she brings mice in, she has a rather disturbing habit of putting them in our shoes? We invariably have garden shoes by the back door and you have to make sure they dont have mice in them these days! My old trainers have been the shoe of choice this morning. In comes the cat with mouse in mouth. It gets popped in the shoe and then battered about. Thats quite clever. Daisy is also biting my Mother a lot. If she wants food, she just bites her ankles. If she wants a door open, or to play in the cellar, or have the back door opened because she doesnt want to push her flap, she just bites her ankles. And continues to do so until my Mum gets up and follows wherever Daisy leads. Its hilarious.
c) My Dad has done something to the speakers on our main computer i.e. unplugged them. I dont trust myself to plug anything back in the right place (and Im too stubborn to get him to do it) so Ive brought my old stereo into the study in order to listen to some music whilst working.
d) I have my CAB Christmas lunch today. I ordered my meal at the end of August. Do I have a clue what I am going to eat? Do I eck. I think it is melon, salmon and meringue. But I could be totally wrong. We shall wait and see
e) Our life today is filled with clocks and beeps. Everything has a clock on it. Everything has a beep. My parents bought some new phones yesterday and they have a clock on the stand. Why? We have mantle clocks, wall clocks, clocks on dvd players, clocks on the tv, clocks on the boiler, the microwave, the thermometer, the computer, mobiles etc. Why? Isnt one enough. And anyway, the more there are, they all tell the wrong bloody time. And also, everything beeps. Phones, dvd players, stereos, alarms, microwaves, answer phones, even bloody washing machines. Our life is driven by beeps.
**Edit: It was actually smoke salmon roulade, brie and tomato tart and pavlova. So I was 2/3 right with the salmon and the meringue. I also won a box of choccie biscuits (so my Mum can't complain about us having chocolate biscuits in the house :)) and it was a very enjoyable lunch all round!
So, Space Cadets eh. How utterly disappointing. How woefully unimaginative. How weakly it ended. I'm appalled.
The premise, for those of you without television or preferring to watch whatever other tripe was on: Johnny Vaughan presents a Channel 4 show in which a small group of 'contestants' are convinced they are going to space, then convinced they are actually in space aboard a shuttle. They are actually on a disused airbase near Ipswich.
Oh, such promise. I've watched more than my fair share of this in the belief that it's a glorious premise and one Endemol, they of every-reality-show-ever fame, couldn't fail to deliver on. I was sadly, sadly mistaken. A quick trip to the Space Cadets forum on the Channel 4 website will confirm that I am in the vast majority when I declare it to have been unmitigated shite.
The problems are numerous. First, the ending shown tonight - in which the three remaining participants are told they're not really in space - was dire. Presumably in an effort to dampen the shock to the unfortunate trio, C4 elected to break it to them gently in a series of stages, rather than just open up a wall of the shuttle simulator to reveal a studio audience laughing themselves to death at their expense. This is an entirely morally upstanding way of doing things, but it's a little late in the day for a television series based in full on duping 'suggestible' (for which read unbelievably gullible/stupid) people into thinking they're in space. If morally upstanding was the end result we were looking for, we might have perhaps come up with a programme like Gardeners' Question Time. In this instance, inflicting one last, memorable burst of mental and emotional agony on the hapless participants would have infinitely improved the series. After all, they got 25k and a real trip to Russia and trip into weightlessness anyway. It can't be that bad.
That wasn't the only issue. Johnny Vaughan became progressively more withdrawn from his own series as it went on, presumably having laboured under the same basis as us that it would be hilarious, only to discover as we did that the producers had sucked any speck of life out of the concept. The participants were made to endure a selection of increasingly 'wacky' tasks, like demanding 'admittance to Uranus', chortle chortle, as the series went on. This may have been done with the intention of giving them clues as to what was actually going on, but where's the fun in that? It was just pandering to the lowest common denominator and was cringeworthy.
This could all have been so much better. Why not take one person, pop them in a capsule on their own surrounded by 360 degree monitors displaying 'space', and leave them to it for a week or two? Imagine the psychological insights you'd get. Naturally, the big problem in the 21st century is the wet-behind-the-ears brigade who'd be down on you like a ton of bricks saying how unkind it was. But for two weeks it'd be our very own Truman Show, one person in their 'space' capsule, watching the Earth (easy enough to fake using screens and old shuttle footage), believing themselves to be in space. No gimmicks, no nonsense. See if they realise it's a con. Burst open the capsule at the end to reveal a studio audience. Rush over to prevent the inevitable suicide attempt. There's your television. Taking this ingenious premise and transforming it from one of the most intriguing psychological experiments ever devised for telivision into a sham targeted at people as stupid as the 'contestants' is a betrayal of Channel 4's remit to deliver provocative, alternative broadcasts. They and Endemol should hang their heads in shame.
Shocking photographic evidence that my band were winning followers with a penchant for livening up the Berlin Wall, before I'd even set eyes on a drum kit...
And so it begins, with the War of the Worlds theme tune over the introduction, something guaranteed to put the wind up me. I never could stand that. I avoided that film like the plague.
Anyway, it's a new series of I'm A Celeb, and even though I usually steadfastly refuse to watch this kind of thing (e.g. X Factor, not seen any of the new series, Big Brother, ditto since the second series) I find myself irresistibly drawn to this. For a start I love David Dickinson and want to see the cheeky chappy exposed, though not literally, to find out what he's like underneath that permatan exterior. Secondly it's only two short weeks of celeb hell, and it'd be nice to read The Sun and understand what they're talking about on pages 2, 3, 4, 5, 12, 13, 18, 27, 28 and 32 each day. Finally, I enjoyed the last series and I have a lot of time for that old chestnut, the Ant and Dec presenting partnership. Family television gold, those two.
Right, on to less trivial matters. I sat opposite a man on the train home today with a pretty special facial tic. He could not control his eyebrows. Up they went in mock-surprise fashion once every two or three seconds. Whilst he was looking at me. That was initially quite disturbing, but it did become clear after a time that it was entirely beyond his control, as he listened to his voicemail in what looked like a state of perpetual concerned wonder. What a hindrance that must be to ordinary life. Imagine trying to sneak a sly look at some attractive woman with that going on, or trying to work as a salesman in any capacity ("How about this car, sir... please, ignore my eyebrows"). What about saying the simplest of things? A woman on a different train dropped her hat, which I picked up and returned to her. Imagine doing that with your eyebrows racing! She'd have you down as a slobbering pervert before you could say "it's Tourette's, honest".
Finally, my dad and I worked something out today. That does sometimes happen if we both work hard as a team. We realised that out of the 14 matches (in league and cup) Manchester City have played this season, I have seen eight. City have either drawn or lost all eight. I have missed six. City have won all six. It is quite some achievement, in 14 matches, for a football club to win whenever I do not turn up, and only when I do not turn up. I imagine I am, this season so far, one of the top bad luck charms for any club in the country. Watch closely for the result of the City v Liverpool match this coming Saturday, which I can't attend. If City win, the dismal run continues. Any other result and the curse is broken.
Stuart Pearce has only been in football management for just over half a year, but he's taken all his character and determination with him into the job.
I went to meet the Manchester City boss at the club's Carrington training ground in below-freezing conditions, and was confronted by the man they call "Psycho" wearing a t-shirt and shorts.
Listen to Stuart defend his choice of clothing - and the rest of the interview - using the audio panel below. Alternatively, scroll down to read what he had to say.
Ollie: It's minus three outside this morning - you've turned up in a t-shirt. Is that why you're called 'Psycho'?
Stuart: No, 'cause I had a hat, coat, scarf and gloves on when I came through the door.
Ollie: So it's all a show for the press?
Stuart: Of course it is.
Ollie: You've been manager at City for 9 or 10 months now. Is it what you expected?
Stuart: That and a bit more, I think. It's a very difficult job - football management's very tough. You have to keep a level head on everything you're trying to achieve and have a long-term goal, and also win your short-term battles. I've been very fortunate, I've had good support from everyone at the club.
Ollie: You say in your autobiography that the game's changed but you haven't. Has that changed since you became a manager?
Stuart: Not really. I think as in life you have to be honest, reliable and dependable and serve a football club to the best of your ability - look people in the eye at supporters' club meetings and give them an honest answer. Whether they like that or not is irrelevant if you can be honest and people look at you and say "hang on a minute, what this fella says is probably the truth".
Ollie: You're gaining a reputation for being quite active on the touchline. Do you ever worry you'll get too involved and make a tackle? Take a throw-in?
Stuart: I think [assistant manager] Steve Wigley has got a bet that it'll happen this season. Someone'll just have to skate a bit close to me when we're winning 1-0, last minute, it could be worth taking a booking.
Ollie: Has Bryan Robson forgiven you for the slide tackle you dished out to him earlier this season?
Stuart: Just wait til we go to The Hawthorns. When he wants the ball back and we're beating them, he won't get it.
Ollie: Your MBE isn't often mentioned. Did you ever think about it before you received it?
Stuart: No, obviously not. I view myself as a very humble working man, fortunate to stay in football for a length of time. You always thought MBEs and OBEs were maybe for people who'd done charity work or deserved it, not someone like me who does a job for a living that I love doing.
Ollie: Presumably you'd trade it in for a World Cup winners' medal?
Stuart: I don't know. I respect the Queen greatly and it was very pleasant of her to do so. It'd be nice to have both.
Ollie: That brings us on to penalties. Everyone will know your case history with penalties, but when Robbie Fowler missed the one that could have taken City into Europe, what was going through your head?
Stuart: We were one kick away from getting into a European place and it was a good achievement. It's strange - we talked during a team-building thing afterwards and Robbie brought that up. I'd never even thought about it from the day it happened til now, it's such an irrelevance. All I reflect on is we failed to beat Middlesbrough, not Robbie missing the penalty. That's what cost us getting into Europe.
Ollie: Do you ever think you'll enjoy management as much as you enjoyed playing?
Stuart: No. Never.
Ollie: Not even if you lead an England team to World Cup glory as manager?
Stuart: No. For me football's about playing football. The big thing about football is playing in a team, the camaraderie in that dressing room before, during and after the game. Yes, management gives you a second place to that, but make no mistake - when your team win and you enjoy it for your little bit that you put towards the team, you can never actually be one of those players again. That's the most important thing.
Earlier, Ollie and I met for a diet coke (it had to be a diet/light coke and it had to be in a can, not a bottle) off Chancery Lane. We were wittering (or I was wittering, and he was talking in moderately coherent sentences) about a variety of issues, including the research/news article thingy he has yet to do on an issue affecting local government in Sutton. What could this be? Recycling, fly tipping, road safety, environmental issues, and bypasses were all things that we came up with. But a bypass? How would Sutton have a bypass? Surely the M25 is the ultimate bypass. But does the M25 need a bypass? Perhaps it does. Perhaps there could be a road to bypass Heathrow. What a good idea. It could be the M25 s just like Harry Potter. Even better, what about a train. You could come off the M25 at junction 9 s, board a euro-tunnel-esque train in your car, get transported around Heathrow, and then get placed back on the M25, somewhere before the M4 turn off. Amazing. Is this what the planners have in mind when they aim to extend the Eurostar link from Waterloo into the North of England. It will never work, says Amy, the lawyer and therefore natural cynic. Journalists are always optimistic, cries Ollie; of course it will work. And so the discussion progressed.
Oh and also Ollie has spent a stupid amount of money (although I can't really talk after my cushion) on a diary. And do you know the worst thing about it? It has maps of the world and information about the water quality in Israel (contains high levels of chlorine and may lead to stomach upsets, or something), but does it have a tube map? No. So could we argue where Colliers Green was? Well, yes we could argue, but did we have the evidence? No. Stupid bloody diary.
Listening to the commentary on this morning's cricket between England and Pakistan, the slightly grotesque English attitude towards food was in evidence. Our supermarket culture appears to have left us bereft of the concept that food actually has to be grown under certain conditions at certain times.
The match is being played in Pakistan. Cue the English commentator and his Pakistani counterpart:
English: [TV screen showing a shot of a player drinking some form of juice] That's mango juice, plenty of mangos grown around here.
Pakistani: Yes, this is a big area of mango production for Pakistan.
English: It's a shame really, I've not seen any mangos in the two weeks I've been here. I wonder where they all are.
Pakistani: [beat] Well, it's not mango season.
English: Oh.
Pakistani: If you'd come maybe a couple of months ago, the mangos would be everywhere.
English: [sounding disappointed and not a little stupid] Right.
Pakistani: You can always come back. It's 74 for 1. [cut to adverts]
I've just seen an advert on TV for the new DVD of Titanic. It includes, and I quote, an 'all-new alternative ending'. How fantastic is that going to be!
I can just imagine what might happen. The only major thing that could change (aside from the woman not being a bitch and letting her rescuer slip into the depths of the Atlantic at the end) is that the ship makes it across instead of sinking. What happens next? A whole new era of boat travel is ushered in? The aircraft is shunned? When war breaks out in 1939 the German invasion of Britain goes unrepelled since there's no decisive Battle of Britain in our skies? Britain becomes a Nazi territory and the U-boats wreak havoc on the US coast with so much shipping to pick off? The US crumbles under a combined German/Japanese naval onslaught? The world beats to the drum of faschism until a young Margaret Thatcher leads revolutionaries in a coup of global proportions, declaring 'The lady's not for Berlin'? I'll get the DVD if they've filmed all that. I'd better not be disappointed.
Take one bag of Sainsbury's "SO" Organic washed and ready to eat Watercress, Spinach and Rocket. Locate the "grown in" box on the front: UK, Kenya, Portugal, Italy, USA. That's one continental salad!
I hope everyone appreciates why I took such an interest in hurricanes over the years, now that they're all over the headlines. Wilma is now the strongest hurricane on record according to some reports (although the National Hurricane Center urges caution over that assertion, since it's based on unconfirmed readings from an air force reconnaissance craft in the eye of the storm). It also makes this year a record-tying year for named storms and hurricanes (which are two different things). The next named storm, if there is one before the season ends in November, will have to be called Alpha, the first time the Greek alphabet has had to be called upon.
Elsewhere, I'm working on a couple of plans for podcasts. Podcasts, for the uninitiated (hi dad), are similar to weblogs like this, except audio. This means that whenever someone 'posts' some audio, you can download it and listen to it, be that on your PC or on a mobile device (e.g. an iPod) or whatever. The audio I put on here is an irregular form of podcasting.
The new ideas are first, a Dayorama podcast involving all three of us, and second, a music podcast with Clare, who's also on my broadcasting course. That might expand into a fully fledged LCC podcast involving as many people as possible, depending on interest in the idea. It'd be great fun to do if lots of people wanted to contribute, it'd be like producing our own weekly drivetime programme, and our course director likes the idea. Both ideas would use the LCC studios - for Dayorama, I'd probably have OJ on a phone line into the studio (I tried it successfully with him earlier today) and Amy with me in the studio itself.
I've also had a chat with my course director about work placements over Christmas and Easter, and have got an idea of what to aim for (neither of these would be official LCC placements, that one takes place after Easter). I'm going to make my enquiries and see what happens, it's all a bit up in the air.
This afternoon I left a couple of messages on people's answering machines and with their PAs for a story I'm researching on local bus routes. A couple of hours later I got a call back from Gordon Taylor of the West London Residents' Association, about a 'funeral procession' they are staging tomorrow in protest against the congestion charge. I have never heard of Gordon Taylor or his association, and none of my messages were left for him, yet he knew my name and my phone number and was sure I'd wanted to talk to him. Either someone left him a message pretending to be me, or I phoned him in my sleep. I acted quickly and interviewed him anyway, but I'm at a loss for how he got my details and why he thought I wanted to talk to him. It makes no sense at all. However, I am not one to discourage people from phoning me with good London stories, even if I don't solicit them. It can only help.
It is a strange fact of life, but it is possible to hear silence. In the countryside, surrounded by fields and clouds, you can often hear the silence of the landscape. However, silence isnt something you would usually associate with the hustle and bustle of London. Today, as I waited for the tube at Mile End, there must have been around seventy people spread out along the four platforms. There was no music. No announcements. No trains coming and going. No one was moving. The air was still. You could just hear silence. Remarkable.
Only a quick post since I'm very tired and trying to fathom the various journeys I'll need to make tomorrow in the Northern Line's absence - and indeed, it's that I want to talk about. At 1:42pm today, Transport for London very kindly sent me an email to let me know that the Northern Line was out of action, going on to list the selection of alternatives from which I might like to choose.
Dear Mr Williams,
I am writing to let you know that the Northern line is not running today due to problems connected to the signalling system.
...
I apologise for the disruption to your journey. Please be assured that we are working to resolve this problem.
Yours sincerely
George McInulty
Service Director - Northern line
Which is all well and good, but by 1:42pm, I and around five hundred thousand others had made alternative arrangements. Far be it from anything done by the Northern Line to experience a severe delay, of course. "You're turning into a true Londoner," said my dad on the phone earlier. Not quite yet - I still pronounce the second T in Streatham.
Channel 4 is launching a new channel, More4, on 10 October. It promises:
"... the best of world documentaries, smart films, highest-quality news and current affairs and big pieces of home-grown contemporary drama."
More importantly from my point of view, it's giving a UK home to The Daily Show, which is very possibly the funniest thing Americans have ever done that did not involve Frasier Crane, Homer Simpson or Peter Griffin. It's a political satire which I've only occasionally seen glimpses of thanks to other weblogs, but what I've seen I've loved, so it's great that it finally has a chance to air here.
Alas, I'll be going up against the dyed-in-the-wool evening schedule of housemates Louise and Cat, who from 5:30pm collapse in front of a whole host of soap operas including Neighbours, Home And Away (yes, it's still going), Hollyoaks, Eastenders and Coronation Street. The Daily Show falls slap bang in the middle of this routine. Bah.
That there is Ollie Williams. He's a weather forecaster in the cult US cartoon series Family Guy, which for the uninitiated is a marginally darker version of The Simpsons. It's very funny and entirely lacking in political correctness - thus a black weather forecaster whose catchphrase was, until recently, "It's gon' rain!"
If you've ever tried searching for me on Google, and you never know, you might have done, then chances are you found quite a lot of sites devoted to my apparently more illustrious cartoon namesake. He's now something of a cult figure himself, and I'll confess to having previously been mildly agitated that an extremely minor character in a once-cancelled TV series is more popular than I. That, however, was before Ollie added me to his list of friends on Facebook, a website which provides students at many universities, mostly American but including Oxford, with a webpage from which they can develop lists of friends and find people in similar areas or at the same uni with similar interests. It would seem that someone in Wisconsin has used their university email address to give Family Guy's Ollie Williams his very own page (there are pages for other members of the series cast too), and that this someone has then decided to search for other people who tried the same trick. Except they found me, the real Ollie Williams, instead, and sent me an invite to join their network of friends, their sides no doubt splitting all the while.
I wrote to the guy behind the cartoon Ollie's profile saying thanks for the add, and he wrote back as follows:
That's awesome that your name is actually Ollie Williams! Just thought I had to add you. Cheers to you real Ollie!
Cheers to me, the unlikely cult weather forecasting namesake.
I expect that I share a common burden with many of you in that I have far too many passwords for things online, coupled with far too many places where I have to remember them.
Having just done a quick count, I have four passwords that I actively use. One I've been using for almost a decade, two I've had for a few years each and one has been a very recent addition to the clan but is already used in a fair few places. For a long time I only had my first password for everything, which was convenient even if it left me somewhat vulnerable to a hacker or a lucky guess. Then a lot of websites started requiring numbers as part of the password, which disabled password number one, so more passwords were born. Password number four is now in use for things where other people might need access and I don't mind telling them the password (and also my super-secret new weblog, which is what led me to this post, since I initially forgot which password I'd used).
There are certain websites which always, without fail, get the wrong password out of me. PayPal and eBay are particular culprits - I can never remember which password I've used for either of them. Occasionally I have trouble remembering my username let alone my password. Normally you'll find me as 'carruforth' across the web, which is fairly unique so you can all but guarantee that anything with that username attached is mine, but occasionally I've demanded an extra level of anonymity or secrecy and have duly changed my username to something totally obscure (an album name, to be precise, which narrows your list of options down to a few million). On some websites where you use your email address as the username I also have trouble, particularly if it's a site where I thought I might get spammed as a result of signing up, in which case I'll have used one of several obscure email addresses that won't get checked. Sometimes signing in to a site has been an absolute nightmare where I've had to cycle through my list of popular passwords with about ten different email addresses to see which combination works.
Conversely, a few years ago when I first started my fantasy football league I required that everyone taking part have a password that I could associate with them. This meant that when they used forms on the website to contact me, they could put their password as a guarantee that they had sent the message and that it was not an impostor at work (forms are not email - it is impossible, without a password, to guarantee someone is who they say they are, and even then it's not foolproof). One unintended consequence of this was that several people gave me their 'normal' passwords that they used for everything else, as I found out when one person frantically emailed me saying that they'd had to change their password everywhere else as a result, just to be on the safe side. They suggested I email everyone else and remind them not to be so careless with their treasured passwords, which I duly did, but not before checking each password against its owner's email account to see, more out of curiosity than any malevolent scheme, if I could gain access. In about seven instances I could. I can still remember three of four of these, and having just checked again for the first time in years, in one instance I can still gain access to some poor unfortunate's email account. It is a good job I am such a fine, upstanding individual...
Reluctant as I am to part with this nostalgic line of Oxford thought, I discovered today that F. T. Palgrave, he of Palgrave's Golden Treasury, was educated at Exeter College. Only the other day I noticed an edition of the Treasury on Amy's shelves. I also have a copy - it was the first book I ever received as a prize at Taunton School. I do love a little serendipity.
Ok. Take me back to Home Economics lessons. Cheese. Made from milk, right? Cows produce milk. It then gets churned up into butter or cheese. Why then, (for ffs) does a packet of cheese have to have "contains milk" on it. I then checked my packet of nuts... and it says "contains nuts". This is life gone mad.
Speaking of ideas (no, we were, Amy was saying about one she had a couple of posts ago, and she used loads of brackets just like these), I had one earlier. There should be an Automated Voice Of The Year award, presented to the lady or gentleman whose pre-recorded announcements are voted the best in the UK.
Off the top of my head, a few contestants might be:
1. First Great Western Man, now sadly in decline at FGW stations but alive and well, I'm delighted to say, at stations served by Southern. Always sounds like he has a full head of dark hair, shiny teeth, good skin for his age and a decent education. Could do a better job of sounding sincere about delays. "Please do not leave unattended articles anywhere on the station", or, my current favourite, delivered with impeccable gravitas, "Streatham Common, this is Streatham Common".
2. Cockney Tube Man, who extols the virtues of the Oyster Card in his best London accent at tube stations across the network. "Oyster. It's faster, cheaper and smarter." Yes, Guv'nor.
3. Vodafone Lady, the stone-cold bitch who grudgingly reveals information about how many voicemail messages you have. "You have *spits* one new message. F*ckwit."
4. Southern On-Board Lady, who takes over from FGW Man once you're safely on the train and moving. Has an uncanny knack of syncing her delivery of forthcoming station stops with the scrolling displays inside the train showing the same information, so that she hits every syllable the moment it scrolls into view. "This is a Southern service for Epsom Downs, calling at Battersea Park, Clapham Junction, Wandsworth Common...".
There must be many more across Britain whose talents are going unrecognised (wouldn't you love to meet one of the people who lend their vocal talents to this and watch them in action?). The only entry requirement is that their announcements must be pre-recorded - no live material is allowed. Over to you for your nominations.
I'm delighted to report that lots of people are having problems with their iPod Nanos, and that Apple may now take one step closer to being just another company and not some utterly irrational banner of corporate non-conformism under which Microsoft haters huddle for warmth.
I was thinking about posting with the same sentiments as Ollie below: It is only just three months to Christmas, that's actually a quarter of the year (about 0.3% of our life - if we lived until we were 80) and yet M&S have wrapping paper and Christmas cards on display... not to mention mince pies. Taking this one step further, imagine there was this three month preparation for the rest of our lives (say 60 years?) that means that for 15yrs, we would be plagued by "the run up to Christmas". And the vast majority of people in this country are probably non-practising Christians anyway. Having said that, I don't really mind Christmas makes me smile. In reality I am just time wasting in the LPC computer suit and quite happy to number crunch (probably inaccurately) and bore you to tears.
What the hell are mince pies doing in the kitchen in September. I ask you. It's a travesty when a full three months before Christmas, the festive food is already sneaking its way out of your local M&S and into the home.
Thanks to Amy J: 'lounging around doing nowt but look up rubbish on t'internet pays off'. Speaking of which, the BitTorrent thing seems to work now... sort of. I remain unconvinced and I've bought the DVD anyway.
Just in case anyone is wondering, OJ is alive and well in Crete. Apparently he is turning into one giant freckle, made up of lots of little freckles! Oh not to turn brown!
Note before reading this post: If you live in Somerset or Devon (like OJ &c.), you may not understand the phrases "housing development" or "housing estate". These are phenomenon that exist all over Kent (a heavily populated county with too many buildings, according to OJ) and incite hatred amongst those who want chocolate box villages to remain as they were when the chocolate box was first painted, and glee amongst old dears who like to complain against anything. Needless to say, every planning officer in Kent retires early.
Anyway, I am straying off the point (rather as housing developments stray alongside roads). A few years ago, every housing development seemed to look the same. In the 1990s new estates were just row upon row of square houses, with or without some mock weatherboard or timber frame, and occasionally with a garage or two. The gardens were no bigger than postage stamps (2nd class at that) and the idea seemed to be to squash as many houses as possible into one small area. However, in recent months a change seems to be sweeping across Kent. There are two relatively new building developments which have occurred close to where my family home is in Kent. The first, on the outskirts of Ashford (voted the UKs number 1 place to live) has been completed for a while now and the development seems increasingly popular. Ive tired to find a link on Google, but my searching skills have failed. Anyway, these flats have landscaped gardens, wide roads between properties, columns at the entrance to the development, hanging baskets, street lamps, rubbish bins. Is this really just a standard estate? And yet that is what it is being sold as. The other new development is also along the A20, but towards Maidstone (less desirable, if you can say Ashford is desirable in the first place). This development has one building which looks rather like a replica oast house (another Kent thing), other houses have interesting cobbles and flint (also Kentish), and all in all each house looks different. Perhaps we are finally moving away from being forced to live in identical, square homes and are able to chose an estate, where every house does have character, and heaven forbid, is unique. I dare say price may come into the equation too.
Like Japanese soldiers still fighting in the jungle decades after World War Two ended, not everyone thinks the Ashes are over.
Geraint Jones is chatting on Sky Sports right now during severely rain-affected coverage of a County Championship cricket match in Canterbury. Since hardly anyone will be watching this, I felt I should relay the following little story he's just told.
Jones is down in Canterbury and kitted out in full England one-day regalia in order to do a spot of promotion of the game. This morning, he went to a local school to have a net session and chat to the kids, who of course all loved him and appeared as thrilled as he had been on the Tuesday morning after winning the Ashes.
Jones, whose batting form has been questionable throughout the series, took guard in the nets to face a few deliveries from lucky kids selected to bowl at him. The first one, using a youth-sized but still entirely properly made cricket ball, came in from a run-up of about eight yards and hurled down a bouncer which struck the helmetless Jones square in the face. Jones staggered backwards but obviously couldn't say anything or do much other than take the blow. It transpired that the kid had been brought up in Australia, and Jones is now sporting a baseball cap inside a TV studio in the murkiest of weather to hide the damage.
Requiem For Ceefax
Legends And Fairy Tales
Mast Or Misfit?
But, flipping a few channels up the Sky box, we find more cricket. New Zealand v Sri Lanka, in a Pro20 (i.e. Twenty20) international. And this match is absolutely cooking with gas! Sri Lanka are currently 59 for 6 with just over half their allotted 20 overs gone - they're really struggling, and they weren't helped by a suicidal run-out a moment ago. 
Remember that all these hits from intrigued bloggers and mathematicians are going to the Berkshire site. But then 
Dilawar Khan Wazir is a BBC Urdu reporter based in an area of northern Pakistan running along the Afghan border. 
It's the done thing for many movies to paint a bleak future for humanity. After all, you only have to look at the news on any given day to realise it's not difficult to envisage things going horribly wrong. 
Even I'm surprised how long it's taken me to mention this:
Just Passing Through
