Life is just a box of chocolates

Happy New Year everyone. I hope 2010 has been good to you all so far and that you are not experiencing the New Year blues. Scientists claim that the week just gone is the most depressing of the year. Let's look at the positives, another week and most of us should have received our first pay packet of the new decade and it isn't too long now until summer comes.

Well, I trust you have all been sticking rigidly to your New Year's resolutions and have become finer citizens as a result. Me, well, I didn't make any resolutions. That way I figured that there was no expectation and I wouldn't feel guilty if I had already broken them by the time the Christmas decorations came down.

As ever quite a few things have been going on to talk about. But the blog title may give a clue as to what the main topic of discussion will be.

Cadbury's being bought by Kraft
The main talking point in the business pages over the past week or so has been the news that the Cadbury's confectionery group has been bought out by Kraft, the American foods company with a vast portfolio of brands, but which is possibly most well known for its Philadelphia cheese spread brand. Kraft had been an active suitor of Cadbury's for several months and they had made a number of "hostile" takeover bids, which Cadbury's management had previously rebuffed. However, a bid of around £12 billion ultimately proved too enticing to shareholders who voted for the takeover to be accepted, no doubt having visions of the killing they could make on their shares. One wonders whether a Wispaing campaign prompted the sudden change of heart.

The general consensus of opinion appears to be that this is a victory for cut-throat Capitalist gains but a kick in the teeth for British industry and for Cadbury's staff. Cadbury's is intrinsically linked to the West Midlands area in which it originated and its Bournville operation is one of Cadbury's strongest emblems. The Bournville name is so associated with Cadbury's that they even lended its name to one of its small chocolate bars. To this day, the firm remains one of the leading employers in the West Midlands and so this takeover by an American company, renowned for closing plants in order to improve efficiency leaves many staff pondering their job security. Just a few years after the closure of Rover, the spectre of potential unemployment hangs large over England's second city.

On first impressions, it would seem that Cadbury's were coerced into selling themselves due to the guerilla style tactics adopted by Kraft. Certainly, it would seem that the hierarchy within Cadbury's did all they could to resist the lure of their American cousins. Months of stand offs took place with the irresistible force of Kraft's intentions coming to no avail against the immovable object of Cadbury's. This begs two questions. What was it that meant Kraft kept persisting? What was in it for them, especially considering the great expense to which Kraft were prepared to go in order to snare Bournville's finest? Secondly, what was it that changed for Cadbury's? What do they get from their union with the powerful American firm?

Dealing with the first question first, Kraft know that the power of the Cadbury's brand will enable them to conquer new markets. Cadbury's has such a powerful brand identity the world over and its portfolio of chocolate bars attract loyalty in many far flung outposts. Think of chocolate and the name of Cadbury's is one of the first words that you would associate with the brown foodstuff. Kraft, by contrast, has relatively minimal presence in the confectionery markets. It acquired Terry's, the English confectioner famous for its Chocolate Orange and All Gold products, in 1993 but with due respect, Terry's is a comparatively small fish against the Leviathan prsence that Cadbury's has in the global chocolate market. Cadbury's previous acquisition of chewing gum producers also allows Kraft to enter another market it does not presently operate in.

The Cadbury's name is all powerful and the quality of its products is well renowned but the principles of the company which are ingrained in the company are what makes it special. Thomas Cadbury, like Joseph Rowntree his fellow confectioner, was a Quaker who believed in Puritan principles of giving back something to people in society who were deprived. Hence these names being given to charitable trusts that still operate to this day. Although the Rowntrees name still appears on many chocolate bars, they have been part of the Nestle empire for the past decade, a Nestle name that is much maligned due to its perceived Capitalist attitudes.

People will see that there is a danger of Cadbury's heading the same way now that it has been acquired by Kraft. However, I think Kraft should do well to remember the power of the Cadbury's brand and what it stands for. Although Cadbury's is now part of the Kraft "family", many of Cadbury's leading branded goods are just so associated with the Cadbury's name that they should adopt a standalone approach to the branding of these products. Using the Cadbury's name will enable Kraft to enter new markets and new regions and so Kraft's marketing men should ensure that they make the most of the good name they have acquired for the princely sum of £12 billion.

To go back to my questions, I asked what would be in it for Cadbury's by them entering into this marriage of convenience with Kraft. Well, it would seem that although Cadbury's is largely the market leader for confectionery in the UK and a fair chunk of continental Europe, in other parts of the world, such as the Americas and the Far East, it finds itself lagging behind Mars in terms of market share. Although Kraft does not have much experience in the confectionery markets, it has good background knowledge of these regions due to the success of some of its other food products. This knowledge appears to be the vote swinger and could present a number of new opportunities for Cadbury's and for the diversification of the brand into new products.

There are concerns though, both for those directly affected by this deal and those indirectly so. Kraft have shown in the past that they are quite willing to make efficiency cuts and relocations in order to save money. Terry's chocolates for example are no longer produced in the original home town of the confectioner, York, but instead they are produced in the world's very hotbed of chocolate products, Poland. Rumour has it that Kraft agreed a deal to set up chocolate factories in downtown Krakow in exchange for 100 plumbers to be dispatched to the West Midlands, although this may just be a myth. Job cuts are likely to occur at some point, but there must be particular concern that the iconic Bournville could be closed down. Personally, I doubt this will happen, certainly not in the short term. Bournville is an important part of the Cadbury's brand and so if the plant is to be phased out, it will be done over time. That doesn't mean to say there won't be redundancies there. I expect this will be inevitable. What I do envisage happening is that other factories could be closed and it is certainly feasible that some relocations to Eastern Europe or Asia could be part of the strategy.

On a wider point, it is a sad reality that there are very few British companies with a global profile that still exist due to their swallowing up by foreign direct investment. The British car market ceased to be some time ago, but within the banking and utility sectors there are very few major players that are wholly British owned now. This is something that we bemoan, after all Britain invented all of these things, didn't they? Chocolate? Tick. Banks? Ah yes. Cars? Of course, that Henry Ford was Dagenham born and bred. Ah, hang on.

Speaking of banks, the news that Kraft had been lent some money by the Royal Bank of Scotland to part finance their takeover was greeted with uproar in some quarters because of RBS being in Government hands and this deal seemingly not being in the national interest. Realistically though, the RBS would have had no business vetoing this deal. Regardless of whether a bank is privately or publicly owned, its only consideration when lending money should be whether the transaction poses too great a risk to them. So long as Kraft showed concrete evidence that its adoption of Cadbury's posed no major risk to its long term financial sustainability then RBS were perfectly entitled to lend its customer the money it needed. Once banks start getting involved in ethical concerns and not on what is a financially viable project then you get problems and that is why banks failed in the first place, hence some of them being put up for public ownership.

While it is sad that Cadbury's employees face an uncertain future due to the corporate muscle that Kraft have exercised, it does not need to be the end of the Cadbury's story. There are too many identifiable products that are so intrinsically part of the Cadbury's family and the fabric and ethos that added up to the Cadbury's name is too powerful for Kraft to shed after 200 years of heritage. Sadly there are casualties in every war, but it would be counter-productive for Kraft to be too gung-ho in its approach. Apart from the not inconsiderable financial motivations, it was for reasons of synergy that this union came to pass and the knowledge of markets that Kraft and Cadbury's can both impart is likely to ensure that both names continue to flourish for the foreseeable future, even if the ownership is no longer in British hands.

Jonathan Ross leaving the BBC
The news of Jonathan Ross's departure from the BBC did not elicit a great deal of surprise, although it did receive plenty of press and Internet message board scrutiny in the days that followed the announcement. The main question was whether Ross chose to leave before he was pushed in order to pursue greater autonomy and possibly far greater riches in pastures new, or alternatively, whether the BBC chose not to renew Ross's contract beyond the summer because they felt Ross's continued presence left them with a permanent souvenir, a millstone around the neck, from the absurdly overblown Sachsgate affair.

Whilst we can only speculate on the conversations and events that led to this privately conducted parting of the ways that was so paradoxically played out in the public eye, it would seem reasonable to conclude that Ross took his decision to leave before he was pushed, or before he was told in no uncertain terms that there would be no deal. By commenting that he never negotiated a new deal, this makes it appear that Ross made the decision to leave and that the BBC were willing to let their most prosperously remunerated employee move on to more creative freedom with no hard feelings.

The truth of course, is somewhat different to the euphemistic and cordial ending that Ross and the BBC execs would like to pass off as the gospel. From the BBC point of view, Ross's continued stay at the BBC after so many other names implicated in the Sachs affair sacrificed themselves has meant that the one time TV researcher has become a continual elephant in the room and it has been becoming increasingly apparent from the media coverage amongst the BBC's most hostile enemies that Ross would have remained so for as long as he was on the BBC payroll and appearing across their network.

From Ross's end, the aftermath of Sachsgate and the culture of compliance that it created is that he has been stifled of creative freedom. In short, he has been muzzled and an off-the-cuff performer like Ross is not going to work well in such conditions. Firstly, his chat show was heavily edited upon Ross's return from suspension at the beginning of last year, with neither Ross or his guests allowed to swear even mildly on the show. Although there have still been some very interesting and amusing interviews conducted, Ross's interview style has suffered a little for becoming too stiff, with Ross not always able to relax and be himself.

Furthermore, it is likely that the straw that broke the camel's back was the decision to pre-record Ross's Saturday morning Radio 2 show. Personally, I thought this was a big mistake and it was a decision that neither Ross nor his radio show have recovered from. The great selling point of Ross's show was the spontaneity and energy that his live radio programme offered. Yes, at times there were caustic comments and banter that would have upset the type of people that go out of their way to look for offence. But the show was the perfect way to lie in on a Saturday morning and get you in the mood for the weekend. Once the show became pre-recorded, the edginess and spontaneity associated with the show was drained out.

In public, Ross seemed unabashed so far as this was concerned and even said that it was good that he could pre-record the show as he could spend more time with his children at the weekend. In private though, you somewhat suspect that Ross knew this arrangement could not be sustained. There was no comeback and the longer he stayed at the BBC, the more he would be muzzled. A parting was to be inevitable, the question would just be when.

This is not a bad time for Jonathan Ross to make a career change. Ross is 50 years old this year and he can look upon himself as one of television's great survivors, given that he first appeared on our screens over 20 years ago as the host of Channel 4's late night chat show "The Last Resort". Ross is sometimes perceived as an arrogant man by some sections of the public, but the name of his first television project is actually a prime example of his self-depracating nature, given that he only stepped in front of the camera when everyone else who had been asked had said no.

Due to the current economic situation that is being faced the world over, I think you will see a shift from the days when top light entertainment and comedy stars will enter in to "golden handcuffs" arrangements with networks and you will see more performers wanting the autonomy to pick and choose what projects they take on with whom without being tied to a contract. The BBC continues to have some performers that are in a tied arrangement, most notably Graham Norton, but I would anticipate there being a reduction in these arrangements over the course of time.

There has been some talk that Jonathan Ross's future may be outside of this country and that he may particularly be courted Stateside. After all, Ross has interviewed many of Hollywood's A-listers on both his chat show and on the Film programme and appears to have a good rapport with his subjects. I can see this school of thought, especially as the template for Ross's chat show is far closer to the type of talk show that David Letterman and Jay Leno have presented over the pond than it is to the more conventional, stiff Parky-esque British template of chat. However, Ross is a huge animal lover who owns three dogs as well as a number of other exotic pets and so I doubt he would want to contemplate putting pets in quarantine in order to crack America for a sustained period. Maybe like Cat Deeley he could divide his time between both countries, but I think there will be other projects to occupy his time closer to home.

From looking around the message boards, it seems that Ross has made a lot of enemies with the British public and it may take time for him to rebuild his reputation. Perhaps with that in mind, his best approach may be to avoid ubiquity in the months after his BBC contract expires in the summer but instead to pick and choose his projects carefully. There are certain types of show that Ross has not really ventured into before, such as travel programmes and game shows (apart from the famous Only Fools & Horses Christmas special) and I could see his agent being approached to ask for Ross's involvement in these types of show. The programme that Ross did on Japanese culture for BBC3 a few years ago was both informative and entertaining and I could see him using his wit and irreverence to good effect in travelog type programmes in the way Clive James used to.

Ross's main passions though are the movies and comics and so you would expect his future career projects to have a focus on these subjects. The BBC may have dumped Ross for now, but there is definitely a market for other networks to approach Ross with a view to him presenting a film interview type programme. Some of Ross's best interviews have been with film stars and his knowledge of the big screen is exceptional. Just because the door at the BBC has closed, I very much doubt that we have seen the end of the Jonathan Ross story. It might just be that like Noel Edmonds, he spends some time in the wilderness before enjoying a renaissance in his mid-50s as a result of landing a project that is a hit with the British public, as Edmonds managed with Deal Or No Deal.

At the moment, Ross is a convenient emblem for what is wrong with the country among people who are down on their luck. Just as the bankers are despised for being paid obscene bonuses when their investments have failed, so Ross's stock has dropped because he has been identified as overpaid, overrated and over here. Overexposure is more of an issue now than in the past due to the intense cult of celebrity that exists in the media. But you do not just become a bad performer overnight and a change of environment with greater licence to be himself again might just give the great JR the kickstart his career is in need of.

Now is our autumn of discontent

Hello again readers. Hope you have been keeping well since I last posted on these pages and that you enjoyed lighting a few sparklers and indulging in some trick or treating. Well, there have been some newsworthy developments since I last let myself loose at the keyboard, so let's get down to business.


Joe on....

Royal Mail reaching agreement with workers so avoiding further strikes until after Christmas
Common sense appears to have prevailed on this score. From what I have read and what I have heard of the reasons for the dispute, I do feel that the Royal Mail workers have had valid grievances with their management, particularly in view of the management's proposed plans to replace existing workers with machines that can do their jobs for "efficiency" purposes. Such a move is not restricted to Royal Mail of course, and all businesses have a duty to try and run efficiently. Nonetheless, in times of economic uncertainty, it is quite natural that fears of redundancies are going to be raised.

However, the industrial action has not done anyone any favours and was becoming a very messy affair. The sympathies that the general public had with postal workers was dissipating with every strike due to the inconvenience that the public have faced on days when strikes have taken place. The affair has also been very damaging to Royal Mail's reputation with businesses and custom has been lost due to the unreliable service offered all the while industrial action has been occurring. While the consumer does not presently have the choice of using any carrier other than Royal Mail, this is not the case for businesses, where there are an abundance of couriers that can carry mail and packages. Having lost customers while industrial action has been taking place, peace now breaking out between Royal Mail managers and staff is unlikely to result in these customers returning.

It is good news, however, that further strikes now appear to have been averted until after Christmas. Disruption to postal deliveries at the time of year when consumers use the post in its greatest volume during the course of the year would have resulted in a complete loss of sympathy for the posties' plight among the public at large and the damage to Royal Mail's reputation would then be beyond the point of no return. As it is, much work needs to be done to restore this reputation and while there is currently a temporary peace, this may prove to be an uneasy one in the long run if managers do not acceed to the union's demands or if the two parties are not willing to meet each other halfway.

One thing that would appear to be a certainty now is that, in the very likely event of a Conservative Government being elected next spring, the Royal Mail service will be fast tracked to privatisation. David Cameron has been very critical of the Government's laissez faire stance in the handling of the postal strikes and he has adopted an aggressive tone rather than one that would suggest he would look to be conciliatory should the disputes spill over into next year. Privatisation has always been a favoured policy of the Conservatives and anything that removes barriers to entry and encourages a free market is music to their ears. Whether these freedoms would be at the cost to employee relations remains to be seen, but the industrial action that has already taken place has already ensured that Royal Mail's reputation as a business has taken a battering.

The Daily Mail's comments about Stephen Gately
Another month and another story of a Daily Mail columnist making vitriolic and vindictive comments. That such comments were made would not normally be newsworthy given that the creation of negative energy is almost a reflex action among Daily Mail's largely middle England leading article writers. However, the Mail surpassed itself this time by breaking one of the unwritten ethical codes. Namely, to speak ill of the dead.

Stephen Gately had not even been taken from this world for a week when Jan Moir chose to share her ill thought out words with a couple of million Daily Mail readers. Choosing to criticise aspects of a dead person's lifestyle in a constructive way might well have been acceptable had a few months passed by, but Moir's comments came within one week of Gately's demise and her critique was anything but constructive.

While it is natural to find it unusual that a supposedly healthy 33 year old man should die so suddenly without any prior warning signs, it should also be remembered that a post-mortem had been carried out which had concluded that Stephen Gately had died of natural causes, as a result of a build-up of fluid in his lungs. This would seem to have been a very rare condition, but one which, unbeknown to Gately himself, would have meant he had a ticking time bomb inside his body which meant that at any time he could go to sleep at night and not wake up in the morning, as appears to have happened.

By questioning the events that had occurred in the hours prior to Gately's death, where Gately had been out socialising with his civil husband and with a Bulgarian gentleman who ended up finding Gately deceased, Jan Moir not only showed a lack of respect to the parties concerned and their families, but she also appeared to call into question the verdict of the post-mortem without being qualified to counter this verdict with any personal or professional insight. Unless Moir has had previous experience of having been a pathologist prior to becoming a Fleet Street scribe then she is not qualified in any way to call into question a qualified medical opinion.

Moir came out on the defensive after the Press Complaints Commission website buckled under the strain of complaints once her opinions became public knowledge. She was adamant that she was not homophobic and that she had previously been a fervent supporter of gay marriage. Leaving aside that previous Moir musings would suggest that her stance on these subjects is slightly different to how she perceives them to be, I think that there is a danger that this episode is seen as abhorrent most for a lack of tolerance towards other people's sexual lifestyle preferences, when the greatest crime was to speak ill of a dead person when they had not even been buried or cremated at the time of going to the press.

It is perhaps understandable, however, that homophobic overtones were particularly highlighted in the aftermath of these comments becoming public domain. The popular press has reported that intolerance towards homosexuals is on the increase and have used some recent unsavoury events in Trafalgar Square as an example of this. In truth, I'm not sure whether intolerance is really becoming more prevalent again, more that it has remained there under the surface among a minority of society. One has to remember that homosexuality remained illegal in the UK until the end of the 1960s and while tolerance has come on leaps and bounds in the past 40 years, acceptance of lifestyle changes among some more cynical sections of the public remains difficult to swallow. The battle is being won, but Moir's diatribe and Nick Griffin's recent comments that some people found same sex couples kissing "repulsive" (pots, kettles Nick, pots, kettles son!) have highlighted the end victory is still some way off.

Nick Griffin's performance on Question Time
It was reported in the immediate aftermath of Griffin's controversial appearance on Question Time that 22 per cent of people surveyed would consider voting for the British National Party. While this revelation no doubt resulted in some considered observers spitting their morning coffee out in worry and disgust, I was not unduly concerned by this statistic.

Surveys are not always a reliable way of gauging the public's opinion. For a start, we are not privy to how the question was phrased to suit the agenda. If the question was phrased in such a way to make the question a leading question that would prompt a particular response, then it is perhaps not surprising that over 1 in 5 of those surveyed would not rule out putting a cross in the box of the British National Party when next confronted with a ballot paper. Added to which, what these reports do not tell us is either the size of the audience sampled or the location of where they were sampled.

If 5,000 people were surveyed across a number of the UK's largest cities, then there may be greater cause for concern. The fact that the results were announced so soon after the programmed was aired, however, would suggest that the sample audience was not high. If only 50 people were surveyed, then it would only require 11 people to say they would be willing to vote for the BNP in order for the 22 per cent to be met. If the questions were asked on the streets of Burnley or Blackburn on the Friday morning after the transmission, one expects the results would also be more distorted than if the survey was conducted in Plymouth.

Having watched the programme, I do not see how Griffin's performance can have significantly aided his credibility. Whilst Griffin's nervousness was understandable under the circumstances, his lack of charm and somewhat evasive attitude will surely not have won him many new admirers. Some of what Griffin said was also tantamount to scoring an own goal. His comments about being acquainted with someone that was aligned to a "non-violent section of the Ku-Klux Klan" bordered on the comedic, all the more so given that Griffin seemingly did not appear to realise what was wrong with what he had said. Griffin did little to dispel the notion that far from seeking to represent an electorate that is down on its luck and lacking a voice in a changing Britain, his agenda is merely self-serving and a means of promoting his own prejudices.

Griffin felt that the programme had showed him in a bad light and that he had been subjected to a lynch mob. Really though, what was Griffin expecting when being offered a platform to appear on the programme? Given that many people did not want Griffin to appear in the first place, he should be grateful to have been given a forum to put his views across. That he did not use this forum effectively is no-one's fault other than his own. It would seem that Griffin felt that the audience had been deliberately cherry picked in order to take him to task, given the nature of his extreme views. But, surely Griffin must have known what he was letting himself in for when he agreed to appear.

The Question Time audience is not deliberately chosen, the audience for its shows is comprised of people that buy tickets. Once it was publicised that a bigot with white supremacist views would be appearing on Question Time, it surely comes as no surprise that a reasonable percentage of the audience that purchased a ticket would be from ethnic minority groups diametrically opposed to Griffin's viewpoints. If that reality was not to Griffin's liking, well hard cheese. In truth though, while the audience's contempt for Griffin was largely overt, the brickbats he faced were relatively tame.

The only sympathy that the public may have felt towards Griffin was how he was treated with contempt by his fellow panellists. Jack Straw's allowed himself to become too emotional in the early exchanges on the programme and that led to a hammy and weak performance from the Government's representative thereafter. Meanwhile, the Liberal Democrats' representative Chris Huhne largely cut an anonymous, peripheral figure. The only panellist that emerged with an enhanced reputation from the show was the Conservative representative Baroness Warsi, attired with a large poppy, who not only put Griffin in his place but also informed Straw of how Labour's immigration policies had impacted upon the BNP gaining popularity in the first place.

The issue of immigration is a very delicate and thorny subject and it is one which clearly needs addressing sensibly and rationally. This is perhaps something to talk about in more detail some other time. But in summary for now, the suggestion of it being time to "close the door" in terms of the UK's national borders would not be practical, legal or beneficial in the long term. It does not help when national newspapers run stories suggesting the population will increase by 15 million within 20 years, when there is no concrete evidence to suggest that it will. We live in a voyeuristic, material driven world and while more people will come to live in the United Kingdom, so too people will choose to emigrate to warmer, fairer isles.

The current wave of protectionism and looking after number one that people feel due to the current uncertainty economically provides some explanation as to why the BNP have been some people's protest vote party of choice. But, the fact is that they remain a minority party who represent fewer than 2 per cent of the population. Griffin's appearance on Question Time will have increased awareness of the BNP's actual agenda and Griffin's lack of coherent answers to the questions that needed asking will surely have done little to aid his or his party's popularity.

Russell Slade's sacking as Brighton manager
On first consideration, Slade's sacking would appear a trifle harsh. Only six months ago, the former Yeovil Town manager had saved Brighton from relegation to League Two after it had appeared a near certainty with only six games to go. Four wins from Brighton's final six matches ensured that the great escape became a reality.

The problem that Slade perhaps faced was one of perception. His managerial career hitherto had been spent at such unfashionable footballing outposts as Yeovil, Grimsby and Scarborough. It mattered not that Slade had led Yeovil to a League One play-off final nor that he had led Scarborough to the fourth round of the FA Cup and a narrow defeat to Chelsea, but his name was not a high profile one. Had he come into the Brighton job with some previous experience at Premier League and Championship level then his stay of execution would likely have been longer.

Brighton's season has not gone to plan so far, although any pundits that had Brighton down amongst the promotion candidates were always sadly misguided. In a division that contains a number of former Premier League teams among its number, a top half consolidatory finish for Brighton this season would be an acceptable campaign. Until the Falmer Stadium opens for business in the summer of 2011, Brighton simply have to ensure they remain at League One level.

It is this critical requirement which also contributed to Slade's departure. Brighton simply cannot contemplate starting life at Falmer as a League Two club, as this would be seriously damaging to their finances. Although Brighton have two thirds of the league campaign still to run to climb away from danger, they recently spurned an opportunity to take points from back-to-back home matches against mid-table opposition. Brighton instead took only one point from those two matches, conceding five goals in the process. The board decided to act in the knowledge that Brighton now face four consecutive matches against former Premier League teams in Southampton, Leeds, Charlton and Norwich. By the time those matches are completed, it is likely Brighton will be embedded in the League One relegation zone.

Brighton's wretched form at their unloved temporary home, Withdean Stadium is a major reason for their current struggles. Five defeats from eight home matches this campaign is a tale of woe. It has not helped that Brighton's plight has been one of self-destruction with several red cards having been brandished to Brighton players this season. This has led to Brighton rarely having a settled team, particularly in defence, where injuries have also taken their toll. While discipline is an individual responsibility, where there is a recurring problem, this suggests that there is a shortcoming that the manager is not addressing. Slade maybe required more time to stamp his authority in this regard, but football being the cut-throat, results oriented business it now is, Slade was not to be afforded this time.

As ever, when a manager's sacking is announced, there is a frenzy of activity about who will replace him and there has been the usual mixture of crazy, leftfield choices and managers who are out of work simply because they repeatedly left a trail of failure and destruction in their previous jobs. The best candidate for the job, Steve Coppell, has sadly ruled out a return to Brighton, with the job at Hull City possibly being what he has designs on. With Coppell crossed off the list, Dennis Wise appears to be a favourite with the Brighton chairman Tony Bloom, but Wise is a difficult man to warm to. Gareth Southgate's recent sacking by Middlesbrough makes him a candidate but his comparative managerial greenness is not ideal in the predicament Brighton find themselves in, added to which, his playing connections with Crystal Palace will not be forgiven easily.

Beyond these names, there have been some other suggestions put forward, ranging from the delusional suggestion that Alan Curbishley would take the job to a clutch of mediocre lower division managers being linked to the post. Personally, I think Brighton ideally need to go for a manager that has had a couple of previous managerial jobs and who is used to managing at League One level, rather than someone that played and managed at a higher level and who would find difficult to relate to players of a limited ability. Exeter City's Paul Tisdale is a bright, young manager who has done well with limited resources at the Devonian club, but whether Brighton would be able to prise Tisdale away from the South-West, or indeed whether Brighton would be willing and able to pay compensation for his services are another matter.

What is important is that Brighton get a manager appointed quickly. The longer Brighton go on without making an appointment, so they become more of a ship without an anchor. Results need to be forthcoming immediately and the last thing any new manager needs is to be playing catch-up. The next incumbent will at least be able to bring in some fresh blood when the transfer window opens in January, as well as ship out players that are surplus to his requirements. That way, whatever the end result is in May 2010, by then the next manager will have moulded their own team.

A changing of the seasons and another year in the bag

Well hello again everyone. You might wonder what has kept me so long. It is over 3 months since I last posted in this parish. Well, like the MPs and the school teachers, I decided to have a little break from writing over the summer, although my period of writer's block has lingered on for longer than I had anticipated. Speaking of summer, did we have one? I think we should all make a beeline for the Met Office and demand a refund. Those horrible depressing days of darkness at 4:00 pm are sadly only just around the corner now. And then, whisper it quietly, the dreaded C word is looming onto the horizon.

Since I was last here, I have celebrated another birthday, although I'm not sure that reaching the grand age of 31 merits a street party. Those foot loose and fancy free days of all night drinking and boisterous behaviour have now been replaced with thoughts of mortgages and sheds. Well, fortunately, I can at least put those thoughts on hold for a little while longer given that I rent my first floor flat and do not have a garden to maintain, let alone have space to accommodate a shed.

Given my long hiatus from my keyboard, there have been so many talking points that have emerged in the past 3 months from the worlds of current affairs, entertainment, business and sport. So let's not waste any further time, here's my take on some of the burning hot potatoes that people will talking about around the water cooler or the photocopier at the moment.

Joe's take on....

Royal Mail imploding
Royal Mail's current malaise is not a sudden problem, it has been a troubled organisation for several years. First things first, I am not an advocate of industrial action and in terms of demonstrating employee value, refusing to work is only likely to intensify the already contemptuous relationship that exists between your average postie and the man in the suit that runs the mail service in this country.

What needs to be considered though is how has Royal Mail got itself into such a terrible state, why is it that there are so many postmen and women that are out of love with their job and feel completely marginalised? I think as always there is an element of people finding it difficult to cope with change, which is not surprising. Technological advancement has been so rapid in the past 10 years or so and there will be some senior postmen who will have been getting up at the crack of dawn and risking getting their fingers ripped off by some overexcited Yorkshire Terrier for possibly 10 or 20 years in some cases.

But I think the other factor is that the frontline workers, be they postmen doing their rounds or the man driving a van with the optional extra of a black and white cat, do not trust or respect some of the top management in Royal Mail because they have not worked their way up through the ranks to become top management and so they are not equipped to understand the challenges and nuances of a postman's lot from any personal experience as they have not donned a light blue short sleeved shirt or worn the baggy grey shorts in the summer months in a professional capacity.

This can be shown at the very top of the chain. Royal Mail's Chief Executive Adam Crozier was not a postman in a previous career, he was in fact previously the head of the Football Association that installed Sven Goran Eriksson as England manager and has also previously worked for the advertising giants Saatchi and Saatchi. Mr Crozier's credentials as a decision maker are respectable, but he is not in a position to empathise with the shop floor. Top managers have also made some bad and expensive decisions, not least the costly and ultimately failed rebranding of the service to be called Consignia earlier this decade.

But beyond the very top management, there is also a situation where many workers can progress through Royal Mail without ever gaining frontline experience. As is the case in the rail sector, Royal Mail has a graduate employment scheme and often newly honoured graduates find themselves on a fast track system where they can end up in very senior positions in a matter of years. I have no truck with graduates, hey I was one myself once! Nonetheless, it is human nature that some of the more hardened, cynical postal workers will be far from happy to see some upstart coming in to a position of responsibility without having worked their way up in the conventional way of having been a postman first and a manager later, especially when they are given a position of power which directly affects the workers.

At management level, I do not think it is unjust to say that some of the decision makers have got complacent and thought that people would always be dependent on Royal Mail's service. The truth is that Royal Mail is not the only carrier any more, albeit it is the only conventional option for distributing personal post. So if delivery targets were not being met, some heads could possibly roll, but it would be pretty small fry because the non-business customer couldn't take their custom elsewhere. Except that the volume of personal mail delivery has decreased in recent times as people tend to embrace technology. People no longer pay their phone bill by sending a cheque in the post, they can set up a direct debit. Other payments can be made via Paypal or online banking. There's even an alternative to sending celebration cards in the form an online animated e-card. And sending a letter in the post to an old friend happens far less given the myriad of options that there are for keeping in contact on a more impersonal level in a hectic schedule, such as Facebook, text messaging or an e-mail.

It came as no surprise to me this week that Amazon have considered severing their ties with Royal Mail to deliver their goods. In fact I have a personal experience of Royal Mail's shortcomings with regards to delivering Amazon goods. Almost three weeks ago, I ordered 2 books from Amazon which should have arrived 2 or 3 days later. I am still awaiting these goods to arrive. Having contacted Amazon, I was advised that Amazon do not have a way of tracking items that are being delivered by Royal Mail. Therefore, my books could be sat in some pigeonhole at a Royal Mail sorting office somewhere in deepest Surrey and no-one will be any the wiser.

I have placed orders with Amazon on numerous occasions over the years and can honestly say that I've never previously encountered any difficulty in receiving their goods. The delivery has always been prompt and the items have been present and correct. Amazon only use Royal Mail for delivering some of their items, particularly books. When I ordered an iPod from Amazon earlier this summer for example, it was delivered by another courier company that Amazon use and in fact, the delivery turnaround time was excellent.

If Royal Mail cannot guarantee reliability to its business customers and their end users and there is no way of tracking progress of items they are delivering, then it stands to reason that more businesses will choose other carriers to distribute their mail. Given that there are proposed strikes during arguably the busiest time of the year for the mail services, in the build-up to Christmas, it is only natural that businesses will look at other options to ensure their post is delivered without delay. For the average Joe or Joanna that is posting their Christmas cards, they may just have to don their mittens and hand deliver the ones to recipients that are within walking distance.

Is this the beginning of the end for Royal Mail? Well, I think that is dramatic. I expect there to be a change of Government next year and I would expect any Conservative to get tough with any public services that are not performing. Royal Mail being privatised has been discussed for some time, but the Tories have always been the party of privatisation and deregulation. This could have good and bad effects. It could lead to stronger leadership, but equally it will probably also mean greater distance and contempt between postal workers and managers that have been appointed from big business. Certainly though, Royal Mail has to buck up its ideas at all layers of its organisation otherwise it could find itself playing out a slow, painful death.

The Sun endorsing the Conservative Party
This development seemed to raise quite a few eyebrows although I've got to be honest, I felt it was a matter of when and not if The Sun would change its allegiances.

It has to be remembered that The Sun is regarded as the common man's (and woman's) newspaper and therefore it likes to pass itself off as the mouthpiece of the public at large and its tone and opinion is likely to be reflective of the current public mood. At the moment, the average man or woman with any passing interest in politics is disillusioned with the Labour Government and particularly unhappy with Gordon Brown's lack of dynamic leadership at a time when unemployment is high and the economy is in catastrophic debt. As the Conservative Party are the only credible alternatives to Labour to govern the country, it stands to reason that the public and The Sun will back David Cameron and the Conservatives.

This is not necessarily a ringing endorsement of David Cameron's leadership, but more a scathing illustration of how apathetic the public are with the present Government and politics in general, especially in the light of the expenses scandal. If the public were given a straight choice of Gordon Brown and the Honey Monster to be leader of the country next spring, it is likely that the latter would get the nod. Cameron himself still has much to prove, especially if his rather empty and anaemic speech at last week's Tory Party conference was anything to go by. The Tories are deliberately playing their cards close to their chest and not divulging what their policies are and how they will solve Britain's problems. This is partly because they do not want Labour to steal their ideas and pass them off as their own, but also because they know some of their policies which involve inevitable cutbacks will prove unpopular.

The Conservatives' "tough times call for tough measures" attitude is likely to match the mood of the public at the moment and as people grow more self-serving and insular during hard times, they are likely to win the day. But the honeymoon period won't last forever. The Sun have always tended to be a newspaper that leans to the right. Even in its years of backing Labour, there were many key issues on which The Sun's editorial was more aligned with Tory policy rather than Labour, particularly on issues such as Europe, asylum and law and order. With the present dissatisfaction economically, socially and politically towards the Government and the Prime Minister, the Conservatives' hardline attitude was always likely to sway The Sun back into their arms.

From Labour's point of view, The Sun's defection will be a blow but not one that will cause them too many sleepless nights. The Sun may be the newspaper with the highest circulation, but overall newspaper circulation has been greatly diminished since the halcyon days of the 1980s and early 1990s when the power of the tabloids was at an all time high with the circulation war that existed at the time. The advent of 24 hour rolling news and newspapers' websites allowing free access to the news means that less people have the time or inclination to read a daily newspaper from back to front. No doubt The Sun will still proclaim that it was responsible for the Conservatives' ascent to power coming next spring, but the Labour horse had run lame before The Sun changed saddles. Labour insiders would be more worried if their traditional newspaper The Mirror decided to change its allegiance.

Chris Evans becoming the Radio 2 breakfast show host
Chris Evans seems to be one of those media personalities that really polarises opinion, a real Marmite figure. There are those that proclaim him a genius of his craft, that connects with his audience and energises them. Then there are those who regard him as a laddish, egomaniac who is wrapped up in his own inflated sense of self-worth.

There is no doubt that Evans has shown traits in the past that have made him enemies. However, I have always been a fan of the ginger cropped one and think that not only was he the logical heir apparent to fill Wogan's size elevens, but he was also the only choice. Evans knows the breakfast audience better than anybody, having presided over the Radio 1 breakfast show for 3 years, Virgin Radio's breakfast show for 2 years and having also presented the Big Breakfast on Channel 4 during that programme's most successful times. Breakfast radio is about energising your audience, waking them up and getting them ready for the challenges of the day ahead. Evans's early morning banter, bar room style games and musical tastes are exactly what is called for at that time of the day.

The BBC knew Evans was the man they wanted to replace Wogan eventually when they brought him back to radio over 2 years ago in the drivetime slot. Evans's stock at the time had dropped to an all time low. His previous excesses and inflated ego meant that he lost everything, his reputation, his friends and his career. For a short time, Evans was selling jewellery on a stall in Covent Garden in order to make ends meet. Because Evans has experienced losing everything, it gives him more perspective now and the mistakes he made in his younger days are unlikely to be repeated. It is worth remembering that Evans is now 43 years old, is married and has a young child. His life is back on track and so he is now more mellow.

Of course, Evans won't be to the liking of some of Radio 2's more traditional listeners who I expect would much rather have the comfy cardigan wearing Ken Bruce in the breakfast slot. If Chris Evans's high octane, energising approach is the radio equivalent of Red Bull, then Bruce's more gentle, soothing style of broadcasting is a nice cup of coco. Bruce's present slot of following the Breakfast Show is exactly the right time slot for him. Radio 2 has changed in recent years and particularly has changed with regards to its music policy. There are many listeners to the network under the age of 30 now, which would have been inconceivable in the past, and this has led to Radio 2 becoming the most listened to station in the country.

The only real challenger to Evans as Wogan's replacement would have been Jonathan Ross. But, quite apart from the fact that I don't think Wossy would have wanted to give up the school run five days a week in order to present the show, any aspirations he may have had to present the Breakfast Show will have been cut down to size in the aftermath of the Andrew Sachs affair last year which caused Radio 2 much damage. It was noticeable how it was Evans who rallied the troops in the days that followed the media hysteria when that story broke and it is possible that this did not do his cause any harm.

The Chris Evans that people will remember from radio in the 1990s has matured like a good wine. Sure, his show can still sometimes be edgy and it is possible that some female listeners could still find some aspects of his show a touch too blokey for their tastes. But Evans is a winner and he is very savvy when it comes to knowing what his audience's demands are. He knows he has a tough act to follow but he also has the confidence to fill Wogan's shoes and not be intimidated or be overly concerned if people are critical about him initially. Chris Moyles' audience share could well be under threat.

Golf and rugby sevens being added to the Olympic roster and Rio De Janeiro being awarded the 2016 games
I always tend to believe that there should be two criteria that should be applied to determine whether a sport should be included in the Olympics. Firstly, is the Olympic competition the pinnacle of that sport? Secondly, will the competition be won by the best competitor in the field? To my mind, golf fails both of these tests.

I would not pretend that golf is one of my favourite sports. I can watch the Ryder Cup and sometimes will follow the Masters or the Open Championship and I respect the fact that golf does throw up some tests that other sports do not, such as competing against the elements. But golf is hardly an athletic sport, as witnessing Colin Montgomerie's chest and waistline will be testament to. Added to which, could the Olympic golf competition ever possibly be the blue riband event in that sport? I really don't think it could be, for a professional golfer all that matters is winning one of the four majors or playing in the Ryder Cup.

Of course, the argument that you could throw up at this stage is if you take this line of thought, what business do tennis, football or basketball have being in the Olympics, given that the Olympic tournament is barely a footnote in the schedules for those respective sports. My answer to this would be that they should not be in the Olympics either because they are not the pinnacle of their sport. Tennis players care far more for winning Wimbledon or the US Open, while the Olympic football tournament is an irrelevance in an already packed calendar. The Olympics started out as the ultimate amateur sporting event and while it would be naive to expect these corinthian values to be upheld as purely in modern, monetarily dictated times, it does not seem right that super rich, super successful sportsmen like Roger Federer or Shaquille O'Neal should be competing on that stage.

To my mind, the Olympics are about sports that you do not see on television very often outside of the four year cycle of the Olympics. Swimming, weightlifting, rowing, hockey, cycling, volleyball, badminton, these are the sports that the Olympics are really all about and in every single one of those sports, an Olympic gold is the absolute pinnacle of achievement in their sport. Of course, above all, the Olympics are about the track and field programme and the annals of sporting history have filled with the achievements and sob stories on the track and on the green expanse in Olympic arenas.

The only way I can see golf being compatible with an Olympic competition would be if it were strictly for amateur golfers, much as boxing in the Olympics is only for those yet to turn professional. This would sit more comfortably, but even so, I still do not think golf is a good fit for the Olympics because it is not necessarily won by the best player. You only need to look at golf's majors in recent years to see that there is no sport more open to big upsets and unlikely winners who have their 15 minutes of fame only to disappear into oblivion. I suppose those that like a gallant underdog story would be happy to see golf included on this basis, but I prefer sport to be a test of technical supremacy and because of golf's tendency to be something of a lottery, I feel it should not be included in the Olympics.

As far as rugby sevens is concerned, I can see more reasoning for its inclusion given that there is not a major alternative competition for that form of rugby. There is the Hong Kong sevens tournament, but I would expect an Olympic gold to be regarded as a greater achievement and it would give 7-a-side rugby a greater profile than it presently receives. On that basis, I am in favour of its inclusion.

Concerning the choice of Rio as the host city of 2016, this was pleasing to see. South America has not previously hosted an Olympic Games in its 120 years of existence and is therefore the only continent that has not previously hosted the Games. A summer games in Brazil will throw up a carnival atmosphere full of glamour and colour and I am sure Rio will prove to be an inspired choice. There may some concerns about where Rio will find the money to host the Games and whether it is ethical for so much money to be committed to the short term gain of hosting the Olympics when much poverty remains in some of Rio's less photographed areas. These concerns are valid, but the Olympic carnival coming to town should at least create much needed job opportunities.

Much was made of Chicago's failure to secure the Games after being heavily backed by Barack Obama and whether this was an indictment on Obama. The answer to this is no. Chicago did not get awarded the Olympics because it was one of the weaker bids and the United States have already hosted the Olympics twice since 1980. It is good to see some equality and South America has waited long enough for its chance and so on this occasion, Rio getting the nod appears the right decision.

BNP being invited to appear on Question Time
I am a great believer in free speech and I think that it is perfectly acceptable for even the crankiest and craziest of believers to have a platform for voicing their opinions, so long as their opinions are not breaking any laws.

Where the BNP are concerned, the controversial and bigoted nature of their party line is such that it could be argued that some of their opinions come very close to breaking laws of racial intolerance and hatred. However, I am pleased that they will be allowed a chance to speak on Question Time because it will actually give the public a chance to see what their policies actually are, or more to the point, to see how their distinct lack of coherent policies are papered over by self-pity and vitriolic bile.

Because the BNP only receive a very small amount of airtime because of the extreme nature of their views, this in some ways makes them more appealing as a protest party to some of the electorate that feel that the more conventional political parties have failed to serve anyone other than themselves. The trouble is that because the BNP does not get a place at a public forum very often, people may feel that their views are actually tapping into the public mood and that they could be possible knights in shining armour in making tough decisions to make Britain great again.

By allowing the BNP on to Question Time and giving their leader Nick Griffin opportunity to expand on his party's thoughts on Britain and their possible solutions to its ills, I think this can only be good in properly educating anyone that is tempted to vote for them that what they actually stand for is backward and repulsive and that their views have no place in a forward thinking world.

Oasis splitting up
The only surprise in this announcement was that Oasis actually lasted this long! Surviving fifteen years and seven studio albums of sibling rivalry and in-fighting has in fact been quite a sterling achievement.

I have been a fan of Oasis's right from their beginnings and What's The Story Morning Glory was in fact the first album I ever remember buying. I have all of their studio albums and although I would say that they never consistently matched the quality of their first two albums in the decade or so that followed, Oasis did continue to produce some good material well into the naughties. Their final studio album, Dig Out Your Soul, I felt was a slight disappointment and perhaps not the most fitting way to bow out. Nonetheless, they will remain relevant in 20 years time as their songs will still be played on the radio and they will continue to influence new Indie bands just as their influence is evident in some of today's big bands, such as the Arctic Monkeys and Kasabian, both in terms of the music and the attitude.

Oasis have in the past been accused of being a derivative band that borrowed much from The Beatles. There is some truth in this, but it is a rather simplistic school of thought. Yes, The Beatles certainly influenced Oasis's music, but listen to their back catalogue carefully, and they were far from their only influence. Acts such as the Rolling Stones, Kinks, T-Rex, Stone Roses, The Jam, Sex Pistols and even Nirvana have also had some influence on the Oasis sound over the years. Music is often about being influenced by your predecessors' sounds but enhancing them for a modern audience. Oasis did this better than anyone during the 1990s, although they perhaps lost some of their relevance and mojo after the turn of the millennium.

Noel and Liam Gallagher do not strike me as the kind of men who have much place for regrets in their life, but if they did, they may perhaps wish that they had been able to break America in the way that The Beatles managed to in the 1960s, and indeed, how Coldplay have managed to in recent years. The Americans never quite took to Oasis's bravado and that didn't help their cause. However, I feel that there is something quintessentially British about Noel Gallagher's songwriting and the anthemic nature of Oasis's sound which perhaps the American audience never quite got. Oasis are probably the biggest stadium rock crowd pleasers to emerge from this country since Queen and perhaps it is not coincidence that Queen also never made huge waves in the United States, despite being huge in other far out places.

The brothers Gallagher will now surely go their separate ways and embark on different careers. Although Oasis are often regarded as primarily Noel's project, it is worth remembering that he was the last person to join the original line-up and in actual fact, it was Liam that formed the band under their original name of The Rain. So, by rights, Liam could carry on with the band but without Noel on songwriting duties. On recent albums, some songwriting has been shared out and so Noel's departure in this respect need not be terminal. However, there would be some complications in terms of performing Oasis's back catalogue live given that the public would demand to hear the classics, all of which were written by Noel. Any future Oasis material without Noel would lack credibility in the same way that Guns N' Roses's return without Slash just was not the same.

Noel's career is far from over and I expect a solo album or two will materialise before very long. I would expect Noel's solo sound to follow a similar pattern to that of his mentor and friend, Paul Weller. Weller was an angry young man in The Jam but the style and sound of his solo career has been a much more mellow affair, reflecting his advancing in years. The Oasis songs on which Noel has provided lead vocals, such as The Masterplan, Little By Little and Half the World Away have tended to be more gentle strum-along affairs with well considered lyrics and I would expect more of the same from his solo projects, although like Weller, he may feel more willing to experiment with other sounds that would not have sounded right on an Oasis record.

Liam meanwhile I can see taking a backseat from music for a while. He is heavily involved in producing his own brand of clothing and I think the end of the line for Oasis could well result in an expansion in his clothing lines. Maybe one day Liam and Noel will patch things up and Oasis could provide the great comeback tour of 2015, but I would not go betting the family silver on that eventuality. Whatever happens in the future, you cannot ignore Oasis's past and their legacy to British music will live on through radio airplay and the next generation of bands who will be influenced by their music and their swagger. To borrow the title of my favourite Oasis song, I believe they will live forever.

Ringing tills, splattering eggs and pigs in Photoshop

Hello again.

Well, so much has happened since I last sat at this keyboard. We have seen the world's first £80 million footballer, of which there will be more discussion in a moment. Also, we have seen the less than encouraging developments of 2 BNP candidates being elected to the European Parliament, which I will also cover further down. And then, just when you thought it had disappeared off the radar this week there was news that the swine flu pandemic had reached a grade 6. This was quite surprising news to me. I mean, who honestly realised that pigs could play the piano?

Perhaps the most bizarre story of the week concerned the revelations that the one millionth word had entered the English dictionary. It turned out that the word in question really wasn't a word at all but some technical geek speak in the form of web2.0. Maybe I'm missing something, but I thought that words needed to exclusively contain letters of the alphabet in order to qualify as a word and they also needed to consist of one word, not a series of words tagged together. Does that mean that you could nominate one of the blank tiles in Scrabble as a number in future play? Me thinks these crazy boffins haven't thought this one through.

Anyway, it has been a week of many stories worth discussing, so let me now do that very thing.

1. Everybody has their price
Well, news that there is an economic crisis does not appear to have reached the power brokers in the world of football, with Real Madrid currently throwing money around with reckless ease in the manner that a wedding party reveller would throw around confetti. In the past week, Real have spent the grand sum of £139 million on the signing of two admittedly prodigious footballing talents, Brazilian midfield playmaker Kaka and the jewel in Manchester United's crown in recent seasons, Cristiano Ronaldo.

To the footballing layperson, such figures must seem preposterous. To the average football fan struggling to make ends meet, let alone be able to afford to watch their favourite team live, it must seem just as obscene. And I suppose really, from an ethical standpoint, it is. How can one justify such vast amounts of money being thrown around for anyone in what essentially is an entertainment industry? The bald facts, however, are that top football clubs are multi-million pound corporate businesses just in the same way that ICI or Cable and Wireless are, and it is a dog-eat-dog world out there, where clubs will be prepared to sell their soul to the devil, or pay vast amounts of money to the Red Devils in order to seek to gain competitive advantage.

Fans of American sports, particularly American Football and NBA basketball will point to the American model of sport as being the benchmark for addressing the vast inequalities in the distribution of wealth that exist in club football. It was an irony not lost on the media this week that for £20 million more than it cost Real Madrid to sign Cristiano Ronaldo, the whole club of Newcastle United football club could be bought, right down to the last breeze blocks. However, it is hard to envisage the American model of equality ever working in European football. For one, there is a very powerful cartel among Europe's leading football clubs that would never allow such a system to be introduced.

Secondly, it is hard to see a transfer system being imposed where at the end of the season, the best players would be forced to go to a lesser team. In the US, the weaker teams get the top picks out of the upcoming college players for the next season. There is no such college system that exists in Europe, because players go straight into football at the age of 15 and 16 and abandon their studies. Expecting established players to move to lesser clubs in order to address the discrepancies in the league is a nice ideal and all that, but the chances of it ever happening in European football are the same as Charlton Athletic's average score last season, nil.

There will come a point in time where the gap between the haves and have nots are such that, I would expect League One and League Two in English football will become a semi-professional outfit, in order for the clubs at that level to survive. There are 92 clubs in English football and given the disparity in the distribution of wealth in the league pyramid, the time will come where several clubs in the lower leagues are going to be forced to the wall unless player wages come down. You only need to look at the problems that relegated teams from the English Premier League have had in recent seasons. The three relegated teams from the Championship in season 2008/09 were Southampton, Charlton and Norwich. All three of those clubs were in the Premier League as recently as the 2004/05 season. But failure to return to the top flight at the first attempt meant that they lost their parachute payments and consequently, each club has been plunged into a financial black hole. In Southampton's case, they have been unable to pay their players during the past two months, during which time they have fallen into administration.

Leaving this aside for the moment, let's get back to considering the sale of Cristiano Ronaldo and the merits of his move to both the buying and selling parties. Eyes will be raised about why a player would leave a club that has won its domestic championship in each of their last three seasons, as well as having reached two successive Champions League finals would leave to join a team that has gone three years without winning a trophy and has not won the Champions League trophy since 2002. On the surface, you would think that such a move would be a backward step for a player that has aspirations to be regarded as the best player in the world. Certainly you would if you have an allegiance to Manchester United, as the author has no desire to hide!

It is not quite simple as that, however. Real Madrid are not like any other club in world football, something that I came to appreciate at first hand when I toured their ground on a friend's stag trip just over a year ago. What really strikes you when you walk around Madrid's museum is the incredible history that the club has. Wherever you go around the museum, you are reminded of the club's glorious past and its former heroes, right back to Ferenc Puskas and Alfredo Di Stefano in the 1950s and 1960s right up to more modern heroes like Zinedine Zidane, Raul and David Beckham. Real have not always been the top club in Europe, in fact they went over 30 years without winning the European Cup before eventually winning it again in 1998. But even during those barren years, they could still attract some of the best players in the world at that time.

There is always an allure among the top players to play for Real Madrid at some point in their careers, particularly for those with more Narcissus tendencies as Cristiano Ronaldo has tended to demonstrate in his career to date. Ronaldo certainly wants to win the big pots, but there is a part of him that craves the attention and the adoration that goes with being a world class individual talent. Madrid as a club have always embraced players with star quality, not least because of the lucrative marketing opportunities that this generates. Sales of replica shirts with Ronaldo or Kaka on the back are as much of an attraction to Real's power brokers as results on the pitch.

The recent re-election of Florentine Perez as Real Madrid's President has played a part in Real's purchasing power. The presidential system may be somewhat alien to people that only sport in this country, but what happens is that Spain's top clubs elect a president every few years and much like a president in a political sphere has a manifesto that is set out to appeal to the electorate, so the footballing equivalents have their manifestos that make or break their candidacy. Except that theirs are not so much manifestos as wishlists, or rather, a list of guarantees. Perez's winning manifesto will have been along the lines of "If you elect me, I will buy you Kaka, Ronaldo and Ribery". Well, as Meat Loaf once broke glass from ten paces in emphasising, two out of three ain't bad.

Real's purchasing power is all well and good, but it would fair to argue that it will not guarantee them success on the pitch. After all, during Perez's previous spell as President, Real were the very definition of "Galacticos". This word has negative connotations in that it describes that Real had a group of all stars in the shape of Zidane, Raul, Beckham, the original Ronaldo, Roberto Carlos and Luis Figo and yet for all this, their success on the pitch was less than dominant. They failed to win the Champions League during David Beckham's time at the club, while both Valencia and Barcelona claimed Spanish titles as often as they did themselves.

One of the principal reasons for Real's failure to dominate either their domestic league or European football back in the early part of this decade was that they only purchased star attacking players. To Perez's mind, defensive players do not put bums on seats and so he will not sanction big money purchases of top notch stoppers. It is true that supporters prefer to see the great attacking players show off their skills, but it is a fact of the game that the best teams need to be balanced, as witnessed by Barcelona's recent victory in the Champions League final. So, while Real throwing money at top class attacking players is all well and good, until they sort out their vulnerable defence and make their midfield stronger, their chances of conquering Europe will not be huge. This is a team that has not even made the last four of the Champions League since 2003.

Their great rivals both in Spain and on the European stage will be Barcelona and it is hard to imagine the Catalonians relinquishing their supremacy any time soon. Not only do Barcelona possess arguably the best player on the planet currently in Lionel Messi, but they have the most balanced team and particularly have a midfield that is unstoppable when in possession of the ball, as their lead protagonists Xavi and Andres Iniesta showed in the Champions League final recently. No team has successfully defended the Champions League since that format was introduced in 1992, but this Barcelona team is definitely good enough to be capable of achieving that feat. So Real signing two players, even of such high class that Ronaldo and Kaka possess is no guarantee of success.

The question you ask then is, were Manchester United right to accept Real's £80 million bid for Cristiano Ronaldo, given that the player has been such a crucial factor in Manchester United's recent success on the pitch. My answer to this would have to be an emphatic yes. Every player has his price and in Real's case, they have actually paid beyond Ronaldo's true value. The biggest problem that Manchester United will face in replacing Ronaldo is that, in essence, they will need to sign two players to replace him because on the one hand, they will need to sign a pacy, tricky right wing player, but in addition to that they will also be needing to sign a forward that is able to score a significant amount of goals, especially as United are also likely to lose Carlos Tevez during the coming weeks.

But United will no doubt be intending to reinvest the vast majority of the money they recoup from the Ronaldo sale into bringing in reinforcements for the new season, plus they should have around another £20-25 million to spend from this season's transfer budget as well as the seemingly imminent sale of striker Frazier Campbell to Hull City. A budget of around £105 million would be enough for United to sign a right wing player and a centre forward, as well as strengthening in other positions where players are required. This will be particularly so in midfield where both Ryan Giggs and Paul Scholes are heading towards their retirement, while Owen Hargreaves has serious injury doubts and Anderson has much to prove. The only danger is that the footballing world will now know of United's newly generated income and consequently, will hike up the price of any player that they covet.

The sale of Ronaldo ultimately was justified because it has been clear from the player's body language over the past season that he has been kept at Old Trafford under duress. Just last summer speculation was rife that Ronaldo would be heading to the Bernabeu, but it took all of Sir Alex Ferguson's powers of persuasion to keep the Portuguese flyer at Old Trafford. The past season has done little to allay fears that Ronaldo's heart lay in Madrid. It would be churlish to suggest that this was evident because Ronaldo did not play as well last season as in the previous two campaigns, because there simply was no way he could top those campaigns. However, his dissatisfaction was evident in his posturing and frustration towards team mates and it became clear that he was far from happy when discarding his tracksuit when he was substituted in United's win near the end of the season against Manchester City and just about signed his resignation note when openly criticising Sir Alex Ferguson's tactics in the aftermath of United's defeat in the Champions League final.

The mantra at Manchester United has always been that no one player is bigger than the club and time and again that has proven to be the case. Eric Cantona's retirement was supposed to be the end of United's domination and yet two years later, the team achieved the still unprecedented treble. David Beckham's departure to Madrid after being caught by a flailing boot was supposed to be a hasty move from which United would never recover and yet United simply replaced him with Ronaldo. Ruud Van Nistelrooy's sale at the end of the 2005/06 season was meant to be a disaster, especially when United did not replace him with a ready made replacement. And yet, in the three seasons since the big Dutchman left Old Trafford, his former employers have won three consecutive league titles. During Van Nistelrooy's five season stay in Manchester, they had won the title only once.

All of this tells us that the sale of one player, however influential, does not mean the demise of Manchester United. Instead, what it means is that the team takes stock and other players will take more responsibility. Just as Beckham and Van Nistelrooy's sales gave Cristiano Ronaldo more licence to become the crucial player he has been to United's cause these past two or three seasons, so now the baton of progress is passed to some of United's other players.

I think this is an excellent opportunity for Wayne Rooney to prove what a quality performer he is. Rooney has just enjoyed a top class campaign for both club and country and Ronaldo's sale is likely to mean that he is afforded more opportunity to play in his best position and to have the team built around his strengths. I also expect next season to be a defining campaign for Dimitar Berbatov, after a first campaign at Old Trafford in which many felt he went through the motions. Expect his contribution to come to the fore in 2009/10. Above all though, just remember that Manchester United and Sir Alex Ferguson are at their most dangerous when they are a wounded animal.

2. Silent majority only have themselves to blame
There are times in life when you see something in the news and you make a grim forecast of an event that will follow and you take no satisfaction from being proved right when that very event comes to fruition. Unfortunately, this was one such week when that scenario came to pass when the news broke that the British National Party had won two seats in the European Parliament. Pardon the pun, but this development hardly left me feeling egg-static.

As I argued on these pages some weeks ago, there was always a danger that the European elections would give a platform to the cranks and loonies of the world , not least because of the current outpourings of protest voting. Sadly though, it would seem that the electorate's approach to protest voting was not so much to vote with their feet as to superglue their seated positions to their comfy armchairs and DFS sofas. I have thought for some time that apathy is a national dish in the UK and it came fully served with coleslaw for the Euro elections, with just a paltry thirty seven per cent of the eligible electorate bothering to show up to put their cross in the box.

It reminds me of an article I read way back in the autumn of 2000 when I was in my final year of studying at university and one day I recall collecting some information for an assignment I was doing on European Integration, a subject that I have always had a passing interest in. There I was in the computer room one rainy November afternoon, idly discussing some information that would be useful to put into an assignment, when I stumbled across a nugget of information on the Internet that has stayed with me ever since. The piece of information was that people aged between 18 and 35 were more likely to vote in the Big Brother final (which at the time had only been going for one series) than they were to vote in a European election. I mean, what does it say when people can choose between voting to keep a bunch of misfits and cranks in an overpopulated house but would rather choose who wins a reality TV series!

Frivolity aside, this is a disturbing insight into people's sense of priority and it is every bit as relevant now in 2009 as it was back when this trend had identified back at the start of the decade. The cult of mini celebrity has grown larger with each passing year and every one of us is consumed by the power of celebrity every time we pick up a newspaper or turn on a television, even if the newspaper of choice is a broadsheet. Even Newsnight feels compelled to discuss celebrity and all its trappings every now and again, much to the legendary Jeremy Paxman's rolling eye disgust.

Public apathy towards politicians is nothing new but it has been significantly heightened by the recent expenses shenanigans and also the continual economic difficulties that the United Kingdom faces. Therefore, public discontent was always likely to play a huge part in the European election results. Unfortunately, the most ugly aspects of the recent self-pity Britain tone that has been carried by the newspapers and the broadcast media reared its ugly head when you look at some of the trends from last weekend's elections.

The biggest winners from the European elections were the Conservative Party and the UK Independence Party, while the Green Party enjoyed some moderate success. The Labour Party were the party that took the biggest fall from the election, and that was to be expected in the current climate. The other party that also suffered in the Euro elections were the Liberal Democrats, and on first impressions, their failure was more surprising given that their party was far less tarnished by the expenses row than either the Labour Party or the Conservatives.

On closer scrutiny though, there is a clear and sadly insular reason for these two parties bearing most of the public's ire. Both parties are primarily supporters of integration in the European Union and it appears that one of the current hot potatoes with the people that actually did vote is the thorny issue of immigration. You sense that the phrase "British jobs for British people" that Gordon Brown so unwisely uttered a few months ago has remained in the public consciousness. It would seem that when people mention immigration, they are often not making any distinction between people who are quite legally living and working in Britain as foreign nationals and those that are living here without conforming to the rules.

This rather xenophobic attitude seems to be a bi-product of the fever of self-pity that I have previously made reference to. People feel threatened because their jobs are in danger, while foreign nationals could possibly stand to benefit most from their predicament. Rather than wallowing in self-pity, however, some of these people should escape their comfort zone, stop thinking the world owes them a living and ask themselves why it is that people from overseas are being considered for their jobs? Yes, money does come into it, naturally so at a time of recession, but it certainly is not the only reason. Particularly within manufacturing and construction industries, foreign nationals may have skills that the incumbents do not possess or have no desire to learn.

When things go wrong, people are all too quick to look for scapegoats and targets to blame for their predicament rather than looking in the mirror and seeing what they could do differently to improve their prospects. Now, this is where the BNP come in. Their typical voter, so we are informed, is a young, working class person living in an area where poverty is high and education standards are low and people are likely to form their opinions on the world from their own struggles and from the editorial in The Sun. Because they live in an area where prospects are low, let's say somewhere like Burnley, which is a traditional BNP stronghold which has also traditionally seen jobs in factories, the average young person with no prospects is likely to blame their lot on Johnny Foreigner.

One has to wonder, however, if some of these people could be more proactive about their plight, either by undertaking the necessary skills training in order to qualify for a trade, or by being willing to move to another area where job opportunities are greater. At times of recession, much of the unemployment is structural, with certain parts of the country being affected more than others. Therefore, if people in these areas were prepared to be more flexible then their prospects would be far more enhanced.

The Freedom of Movement of Labour is a compulsory element to being signed up to the European Union and because of this imposition, those that have been affected most negatively by the current economic crisis are railing against the United Kingdom being part of an integrated Europe and would like a referendum at the very least. It does seem to me, however, that people forget that this freedom is in fact a two way arrangement. Just as our borders have been opened up to nationals from the EU's other 26 member states, so the borders to Poland, Estonia, Denmark, the Czech Republic et al are open to Brits. Surely the opportunity to enrich oneself on a personal level by immersing themselves in another culture and learning another language is something to be considered as a positive life changing experience? Or do we want to always want to hang on to the island mentality of only looking inwards?

So, let's get back to the BNP. Was the election of their two candidates to the European Parliament a sign that xenophobia and insularity is on the rise and that people are looking out for number one? I think that is true up to a point, but I think a context also needs to be applied. The two areas in which the BNP had candidates elected did not see a steep rise in BNP votes. In fact, in one area where the BNP were elected, the BNP's total votes were down in comparison to 2004. It just so happened that the overall turnout was also down and so they had a sufficient share of the vote in order to gain a seat. Incidentally, you would not see a better argument against proportional representation than these European elections.

In total, the BNP acquired six per cent of the vote across Britain, but let's remind ourselves that this was in fact six per cent of thirty-seven per cent that actually turned out to vote. So in actual fact, less than two per cent of the eligible voting population wilfully voted for Nick Griffin and his band of not entirely merry men. Fair to say, therefore, that the BNP's agenda was not pulled over the eyes of the vast majority of the nation.

It does remain pertinent, however, to look at how and why a party with such sinister motives can attract enough of the vote in order to have elected members and therefore what lessons more established parties can learn from this development. The self-pity Britain factor and animosity towards immigrants comes into the equation. So too, does the current mistrust of the established order among the leading political parties and figures. There are other elements too. I think that some more misguided people saw the media's and senior politician's pleas for people not to vote for a far right party as red rag to a bull and it symbolised the action of voting against the establishment. If that was the case, it was a foolhardy way of making the point. Equally, some other misguided voters possibly saw the BNP as representing the views of those that despise political correctness and the causes of political correctness. The irony here is that the BNP's views have in some part caused some of the political correctness that exists in the UK with their vitriolic opinions.

The strange part is that when it comes to actual policies that the BNP are willing to admit to, their policies are aligned much less with the far right and more with the far left. This is a party that claims to support nationalisation and the abolition of the monarchy. Neither of these are policies that are traditionally favoured by those with blue blood but are more in keeping with the fervent socialist wing of Old Labour. Of course, it is these very same people who have been most affected by the recession and feel the most amount of self-pity to their plight, hence it would be natural for the BNP to target such a vulnerable group.

It is to be hoped that when the General Election comes around, either in the autumn this year or in the spring of 2009, that the main political parties have managed to get their acts together and realise that the public are fed up with the old order making the same promises and the same mistakes and taking advantage of the privileges that come with the jobs they are elected to, with some notable exceptions. Pigs might fly I suppose, but the alternative is too gruesome to ponder. But, if sixty-three per cent of the voting nation cannot be bothered to turn up to vote, unfortunately the silent majority only have themselves to blame for what we are given.

3. Knowledge should come before point scoring
The recent Government reshuffle saw its share of controversial appointments, particularly in view of there being two high profile posts created for people that are not elected MPs, in addition to an elevation for Lord Mandelson of Slimeville, a man for whom the phrase "Keep your friends close and your enemies even closer" has never been more apt. It was the appointment of Sir Alan Sugar, soon to be rebranded as Lord Sugar, that appears to have generated most controversy and had most column inches devoted to it.

Sugar, it is known, is both a champion of entrepreneurship and a long standing ally of Gordon Brown's and of the Labour Government. His recent media profile has been significantly enhanced and exposed through his involvement in The Apprentice, which after five series continues to sustain its popularity. Sugar, being the wily operator that he is, has never missed the opportunity to make the most of this newly gained profile and put it to use for the greater good of the business community by travelling the country to promote entrepreneurship and apprentice schemes. Say what you like about Sugar as a person, but this is certainly putting something back into business.

The news of Sugar's appointment as the new Enterprise Czar does throw up some interesting challenges and questions, not least about whether Sugar will be able to continue his involvement in the programme that helped give him this platform in the first place. Sugar's credentials for the newly created role should not be in any doubt if he is being assessed purely from a knowledge and an experience perspective. The man worked his way up from nothing in order to become a multi-millionaire and is far more aware of the pitfalls and challenges that face any small business that is starting up. This is insight that the average civil servant in Westminster simply cannot provide.

Where Sugar's problems lie are that however much he would like to believe otherwise, his new role is a politically affiliated one. Sugar's claim that his role was "politically neutral" is an uncharacteristically naive comment from the usually wise sage. His role involves him sitting in the House of Lords as a Labour peer, working for the Labour Government, advising the said Government on policy to put forward in order to support small businesses. Sugar will argue that he is offering his support in an advisory capacity to a Government that sought him out, but his role in the House of Lords is one where he is representing the Labour Party and putting forward their motions. What he would like his role to be presented as, is in fact somewhat different to the reality.

As ever, the Conservative Party are opportunistically looking for a bandwagon to jump on and a small number of their MPs have put together a petition to ask that Sugar be removed from his job as chief hirer and firer on The Apprentice. While I can understand that there is a potential conflict of interest between Sugar's television role on the BBC, which likes to take maximum efforts to remain politically impartial, and his new role with the Government, am I alone in finding this bunch of blue blooded moralists actions just ever so slightly petty? I dare say the Daily Mail will be calling for honours for each of them, but then again, what the Daily Mail says is very rarely in keeping with what is for the greater good of the country.

I still believe that the next General Election will be held in the autumn, rather than next spring, which would mean, therefore, that by the time the next series of The Apprentice airs, the likelihood is that there will have been a change of Government and with it, Sugar's role with the Labour Government will have come to an end. This would mean that any political influence he could have had just by being on television would have been all over before it started. But putting this scenario aside for one moment, what is actually to be gained by removing Sugar from the television schedules? Who ends up winning the end game? Certainly not the television viewers who tune in to watch his brusk manner on The Apprentice. And his role as a business mentor would be much diminished if his role on television was no longer there. I do not imagine people would be tuning in to BBC Parliament to see him addressing the House of Lords.

As I said earlier, Sugar was certainly naive to take on his new role with the Government without paying more careful consideration to the effect this would have on his role with the BBC and his stewardship of The Apprentice, which we are led to believe he enjoys far more than his board room demeanour would sometimes suggest. But those that are slinging arrows in his direction need to realise that people finding their way in business need a mentor to look up to, someone who is in the media profile.

By taking Sugar off air, it is depriving people of access to a potential mentor when they are finding their way in setting up a small business. Just as Sir Richard Branson is a role model for many young entrepreneurs through his constant media presence, so Sugar too has become a mentor for many, as have the Dragons from television's Dragons' Den because they are all there in our living rooms. Take these people out of the media and who is there for the young aspiring businessman or woman to look up to?

Hopefully the BBC can see fit to overlook the cheap calls from the Conservative Party and beyond for Sugar to hear the words he has so often uttered at deluded, wannabe apprentices. Meanwhile, it is hoped that Sugar's Governmental role can become a more low key, advisory one where his attendance in the House of Lords is rarely needed and so the need to the stick to beat him with can be withdrawn for the foreseeable future. I get the impression, however, that this storm is going to continue erupting for some time.

4. A load of old balls
It would seem that Conservative MPs are making constructive use of their time in preparing for Government. Not content with trying to get a reality television personality sacked, another MP has really cut to the heart of the issues that truly matter to the British public at large. Take a bow Tony Baldrick, sorry Tony Baldry, Tory MP for North Lincolnshire, who claims that the use of soft balls in youth cricket is ruining the game at schools level.

To continue with the cricketing terminology, this line of thought left me stumped thinking 'Howzat' exactly. Firstly, is it really the best use of parliamentary time when we are in the midst of an economic crisis and MPs have been claiming on duck islands to raising this concern in the House of Commons? But beyond this, I am wondering how exactly Mr Baldry thinks that using a tennis ball or a wind ball is likely to be harmful to schools cricket? I would have thought that of far greater concern to the future of the game at schools level are the amount of school playing fields being sold off in order to make a tidy profit.

As with any sport that a child starts playing at a young age, it is unlikely that you are going to start off using the standard apparatus right from the start. I would expect most kids that take up cricket first play it in their back garden with a plastic bat and a tennis or soft ball, with a jacket acting as the stumps. This is partly for their own protection and partly for the well-being of Mrs Jones at number 42's greenhouse window. Once children start playing bat and ball sports at school, be it cricket or be it rounders, baseball or stoolball (if you live outside of Sussex or Kent you probably won't know what that is) then gradually the tennis ball will be replaced by either a wind ball or a hard ball depending on the age group and the proximity of the science lab to the playing fields.

This is just a gradual development, just as it is with any other sport. Children aren't likely to use a regulation grade 5 leather football until they are 10 or 11 years old. I remember the first time I used one at a similar age and it was nearly enough to put me off football for good as I remember that making a valiant save left me with a bloodied mouth from where the ball hit me full in the face. Similarly, I would expect that most children first learn to play tennis with a plastic racquet and a swingball in the back garden unless they are the product of very wealthy parents!

What does not change, regardless of what apparatus are used, are the rudiments of the technique required to play the sport. OK, so learning to bowl leg spin is perhaps more difficult when using a tennis ball or a wind ball than it is with a Kookaburra cherry, but the technique required to bowl it is exactly the same. A young budding cricketer can still execute cover drives with a plastic bat picked up from Brighton Pier as much as they can with a far heavier Gunn & Moore willow version. In fact, it makes sense to learn the technique of the game with the apparatus that you feel comfortable with before using the more "grown-up" equipment when you have become acclimatised and have honed your technique. A young golfer isn't going to start out by using a driver but by driving the green with an 8 iron at Roedean pitch and putt.

Let's not forget that cricket is at its most popular on the Asian sub-continent, in India and Pakistan, two countries where there is a significant divide between the rich and the poor, as was illustrated in India's case by the recent movie Slumdog Millionaire. In both of these countries, the game is often learnt by children using a taped up ball, while in the Caribbean, young West Indian cricketers first play the game on the beach using a rubber ball that has a skidding effect off of the sand. Seemingly, such experiences has not deterred the likes of Sachin Tendulkar, Wasim Akram or Brian Lara becoming world class cricketers and is more likely to have put hairs on their chests.

It concerns me at times that we are too concerned with exposing children to the realities of their chosen sports at too early an age, which in fact, has the effect of not nurturing the crucial aspect of skills. Football is a prime example of this. For so many years, representative leagues have played their Sunday morning matches from under-9s or under-11s level upwards on full size pitches. I think this has a detrimental effect because often it can mean the game passes some members of the team by. At a young age, the game should be more about giving children exposure on the ball and being constantly involved in matches rather than having so much emphasis on running. The time to focus on the athletic side of the game should come much later, when the teams get to their teenage years.

Those that are charged with running youth football in this country should get on the telephone to the BBC and ask if they have a DVD of a documentary that the BBC aired over ten years ago. The documentary was about Ajax's coaching academy and youth setup and was fronted by Gary Lineker, back in his very early days as a sports broadcaster. What was striking about the documentary was that Ajax's youth teams did not play on full size pitches until they were fifteen years old, but that every Ajax team from the under-10s right up to the senior team played the game "the Ajax way", using the same system and formation and played with an emphasis on skills.

Cynics will no doubt point to Ajax's lack of success in the past decade or so as testament that this approach no longer works. That would be a myopic point of view, however, as the main reason for Ajax's lack of success has been that they have had to sell their best players. They have still continued to nurture players of a high standard, with two of the current generation of Dutch stars in Rafael Van Der Vaart and Wesley Sneijder having risen through their ranks. Given that for a country with such a small population, the Netherlands have continued to produce technically gifted player after technically gifted player, there is a lot that this country can learn from their skills based schooling.

So, in summing up, it can be shown that Mr Baldry has missed the point and that his argument is in putting him on a sticky wicket, so to speak. The right honourable MP for North Lincolnshire should therefore think before he opens his mouth in future, unless he would like to be characterised as his soundalike's root vegetable of choice in a future tabloid publication.

5. Comedy is defined by audience and context
There was some discussion in the newspapers this week about the lack of female comedy performers, particularly on the stand-up circuit, within the public gaze. This discussion came in the light of Victoria Wood's observations that female comics made up a very small number on television comedy panel shows, such as Mock The Week and Have I Got News For You, where the male dominated panels tend to try and hog the limelight.

Ms Wood's observation that female comics make up a very small percentage of television panel shows is an accurate one. However, it could also be equally argued that the percentage of women appearing on such programmes is in fact representative of the number of female performers currently to be found on the stand-up comedy circuit. If you were to ask the average man or woman in the street to name ten female comedy performers, I think they would struggle unless they were a dedicated follower of the comedy circuit. Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders would be named, as would Catherine Tate and the aforementioned Victoria Wood, and quite probably Jo Brand. But the last two excepted, none of the others are really stand-up comediennes as such. If you asked this same hypothetical audience to pick Jo Caulfield or Lucy Porter out of an ID parade, I would expect there to be results almost as hilarious as their material.

So I suppose the question to be asked is whether female performers do not appear on panel shows purely because this is representative of their numbers on the circuit, whether it is due to some performers not wishing to appear on such panel shows where testosterone reins supreme or simply because they are not regarded as funny enough. My answer to this would be a combination of all three of these factors. There are only a finite number of renowned female stand-ups doing the rounds, there are some performers who are likely to be intimidated by dominating male comedians on television and there are some female comics whose humour is not best suited to a television audience, but is more suited to the edgy surroundings of a stand-up club or a theatre. This last point can, naturally, also apply to male comedians.

I think the important words when judging how funny a comedienne is and how suitable they are for the medium of television are audience and context. A lot of material that comediennes use in their routines is understandably aimed at a female audience and not unexpectedly, the target of much their humour are men folk. This is likely to appeal to the humour of a female audience but is often likely to make the male members of the audience cringe, particularly where a raw nerve is struck and the subject matter is delicate or embarrassing. Someone like Jo Brand, for example, is highly regarded by female comedy fans but quite often a figure of hate among male counterparts, primarily because her material is perceived to have an anti-male agenda. It is for a very similar reason that Loose Women is a television programme enjoyed by women as a guilty pleasure but often hated by men, although interestingly, that does not seem to deter male viewers from watching.

On television, panel shows like Mock The Week and Have I Got News For You have a broad, mainstream appeal and so they are not aimed at one particular gender over another, although it would not be unreasonable to forecast that there are likely to be more male viewers watching these shows than there will be female ones. The content of these shows, however, is a more topical output and so the kind of territory that a female comic will enter in their stand-up routines is likely to be reduced. Whereas there have been a number of male stand-up performers who have a certain amount of political overtones to their comedy and rely heavily on social commentary, female comics tend to focus more on feelings and interactions, as the female audience identifies more with this type of comedy.

There are certainly some very funny comediennes on the circuit, but I think there are reasons why there are not more of them to be found, particularly in terms of those that enter the public consciousness. One of the main problems, I feel could be one of self-esteem or perception. There is a tendency to judge women in a lot of fields by their appearance, and this is particularly true within any visual performing arts. Some wannabe comics may feel that they will judged as much by their appearance as they will be by their material. Others may feel pressure to look a certain way in order to be taken seriously, or may feel that some people believe the old stereotype of a comedienne being bitter and twisted and deprived of sex as still ringing true.

It possibly does to some narrow minded people, but the whole point of comedy is that it is supposed to challenge narrow minded views. Therefore, when someone goes to watch Lucy Porter, who is a very attractive and also a quite bubbly, likeable comedienne, you are drawn into thinking that she is too nice to be a comedienne and she talks to her audience in much the same way that you imagine she talks to her friends in the pub. The great thing about this is that Porter can actually make some quite outrageous, crude and bitchy comments about people in her act but get away with it than some other harsher comediennes would not be able to, simply because she is delivering the barbs in a witty and friendly way with her audience.

Porter is one of the few women that have made an appearance on Mock The Week and more than held her own with her male counterparts and perhaps a few of her female counterparts need to follow her lead and be adaptable to the audience. There are other female stand-ups who have a good following and who produce witty material, such as Shappi Korshandi and Zoe Lyons, but the acid test for whether their comedy will transfer to a television audience is how the context of their humour will transfer to a more mainstream audience than the ones they are used to performing to in a stand-up club. On the plus side though, if no-one finds them funny on television, they just will not be booked again rather than having to deal with hecklers or the rotten fruit treatment.

6. Humble pie for Ramsey's just desserts
If celebrities had an official rating, in much the same way that Public Limited Companies have a share price, there is little doubt that Gordon Ramsay's stock will have plummeted in the past few months. First of all, the clean cut family image that television's premier chef had cultivated through his F Word programmes was placed in tatters with the sordid tabloid revelations of his extra marital affairs. More recently came news of his wealth having taken a hit during the credit crisis, while there were also problems with one of his London restaurants.

Just when it could not get any worse for the well coiffured chef par excellence, Ramsay found himself hitting a new low this week after an ill advised Photoshop based attack on Australian chat show host, Tracy Grimshaw, in which Ramsay made disparaging comments about her before producing a Photoshop production mixing a pig's head with a female body and then comparing his digital artwork to the aforementioned chat show host. It is a sign that you have overstepped the mark when an Australian audience is offended and even the Australian Prime Minister got involved and referred to Ramsay as a "low life". Worse still, Ramsay found himself having to apologise to his mother for his churlish remarks.

Ramsay, much like Jeremy Clarkson, appears to be someone who polarises opinion in much the same way as Marmite. There are those that champion Ramsay as a genius of his craft and a standard bearer in his chosen profession. His critics, however, present Ramsay as a surly bully, who manipulates the media in order to raise his profile. You somewhat expect that if you were to take fifty per cent from column A and fifty per cent from column B, you would not be far from the truth.

Personally, I have generally held Ramsay in high regard. I am not a great fan of the celebrity chef set per se, and particularly dislike some of the jumped-up twerps that seem to be common amongst that group. The undisputed king of this group is Jamie Oliver, although honourable mentions (if honourable is the right word) also go out to James Martin, Anthony Worrell-Thompson and Hugh Fearnley-Cakestall, or whatever he is called. Ramsay, however, has always stood out from the crowd. He calls a spade a spade, his cookery programmes are interesting, even if they are not altogether politically correct. He understands that the food chain can sometimes be cruel, but that sometimes necessity has to come first. Above all though, there is an intensity and a passion about his food programmes that you do not get when watching some of his rivals in the television chef stakes.

Like all geniuses in their craft though, Ramsay does have a huge ego and he also has the capacity to self-destruct and this has been increasingly noticeable in recent months. Perhaps because of his vast success and the cutting edge nature of his programmes, Ramsay quite possibly felt that he was fireproof and that so long as the public were watching his programmes and buying his cookery books, then he could say and do whatever he liked. For a man of not inconsiderable bluster, this was a perfectly plausible mind set. But as the public have become more aware of his shortcomings and Ramsay's halo has slipped, so now the press have taken a sharp knife from his cutlery drawer and sunk it into his back.

Ramsay would seem to have been guilty of believing his own hype and got himself immersed in the cult of celebrity that has made casualties of lesser mortals. Whether Ramsay has taken his eye off the ball or not, it is to be hoped that he can find a happy medium between remaining the highly proficient, self-confident chef and businessman that backs his instincts while keeping that air of controversy about him, while at the same time, trying to show some more humility to those that have helped him to achieve his fame, not least the public who have watched his shows and been inspired to improve their culinary skills.

Ramsay is not a bad man, but he could be showing some signs of a mid-life crisis, that is being played out in a very public arena.


That's my lot for this evening. Hope you enjoyed reading and I will be back again for some more, hopefully next weekend.