A Christmas cracker

Well, merry Christmas everybody. After the long preamble and the trials and tribulations of buying the Christmas presents, wrapping them, putting up decorations and filling up on turkey and all the trimmings and consuming copious amounts of wine, Christmas was gone in a flash. Yet again, all those hopes and dreams of unwrapping a magical present only to discover the usual array of socks and boxer shorts again. I dare say the turf accountants of this fair isle will be suitably non-plussed too given that they will have to pay out on a white Christmas after snow fell in Glasgow and parts of Northern England on St Nick's Day.

I hope Santa was kind to you this year and that your Christmas experience was a good one. But as well as Christmas, there have been some other things going on this crazy spinning globe we inhabit. So I'm going to recline in my comfy chair and discuss some of these issues while scoffing some turkey sandwiches and knocking back a vino or two. Here goes.

My take on...

The pre-Christmas cold snap
Well if there is a man of divinity upstairs in control of the weather, he appears to lack a sense of timing. While the romantics were keeping their fingers crossed that they could wake up to a classic Christmas card scene on Christmas morning, in the event the blanket of snow arrived a week early. I suppose the timing was at least spot on in the eyes of schoolchildren, given that the blizzard-esque conditions arriving when they did enabled them to start their Christmas holidays a day ahead of schedule and instead of heading to school for double Maths and possibly The Santa Clause DVD as a reward for good behaviour in the General Studies class, they instead could just retreat to the garden for triple snowball fighting.

Snow does appear to be a strange phenomenon for the majority of people in this country, probably because being a temperate country, we are not used to it visiting these shores very often. This is reflected in many people's attitude towards the white stuff which could be best described as a love-hate relationship. People love the idea of snow falling and the romantic image of opening the curtains to a white carpet where the night before there had been driveway and pavement. They may also love the thought of being snowed in for a day so that it prevents a day's travel to work. But once the snow turns to ice and makes navigating the pavements a challenge even to Torvill and Dean, people are less enamoured by this invasion from winter's forces of nature.

It is true also that because extreme winter weather conditions are not a regular occurrence in the United Kingdom that preparation for such conditions is not as ingrained in the national psyche as it would be in countries more accustomed to snowfall. This is worth remembering when assessing the fallout from this most recent flurry of snow and the disruption it caused, particularly in view of the criticism that local authorities received over the lack of speed with which they responded to the situation.

There is no question that local authorities were reactive to the inclement weather rather than proactive. The adverse weather conditions had been forecast several days beforehand, although it is probably fair to conclude that the amount of snow that fell in a short space of time was greater than had been anticipated. Nonetheless, the cold snap had been widely predicted beforehand and so it would not have been unreasonable to have expected there to have been some measures in place whereby the gritting supplies were on standby. The argument that you cannot plan in advance on the strength of a weather forecast no longer holds the weight that it would previously have done given that the long range forecasting technology available now has improved the accuracy of forecasting.

All this said, there was only so much that could be done. In February, you may recall that there was discussion about the heavy snowfall that caused disruption at that time and one of the key points I raised back then was that the difficulty in reacting quickly to the situation was because much of the snow fell at the weekend when there were not adequate staff around to grit roads and pavements or to clear snow from railway and tram lines. This time around, the snow fell largely on Thursday and Friday, but some areas were at their most treacherous at the weekend when the snow had thawed out and roads and pavements had become pathways of sheet ice as it is known in Newcastle, or sub-standard ice as it is known elsewhere. This meant that addressing the problem at this point was more difficult because of the lack of manpower available and was further exacerbated by the disruption to the transport network, preventing workers from getting to the scene.

There are those that would suggest that local authorities keep a war chest of suitable machinery to use in the event of snow, much like is used in Russia or some Scandinavian countries. Such a move would be impractical though given that this would be an expensive exercise to deal with a weather pattern that is relatively rare in the United Kingdom. While it is true that this is the second time that there has been significant snowfall during 2009, it is also worth remembering that prior to this year, the last time there was anything that could be described as a blizzard in the south of England without sounding very melodramatic would have been some eighteen years ago. Asking local authorities to resource for a scenario that may not present itself again for the best part of another two decades at a time when local government is needing to make cut backs is not a realistic solution.

So should we just grin and bear this and accept that sometimes the forces of nature are too powerful for man and woman and their insatiable desires? Well, maybe rather than looking to authority to solve all our problems, we should look closer to home. One of the arguments I have heard in the aftermath of this latest cold snap is that there was a distinct lack of community spirit from good samaritans, people who would clear the pavement of the snow near to their house with the aid of a shovel in order to allow others easier access to get from A to B. After all, the common complaint when the snow fell last week was that while the main roads were dealt with relatively quickly, it was the side roads and cul-de-sacs that were most treacherous because they were not visited by the gritters and so consequently their inhabitants were "snowed in".

But, could these self-same inhabitants have done more to ensure that they and their neighbours were not snowed in for so long? If more people had taken it upon themselves to put themselves forward and clear the covering of snow around their humble abodes, then maybe the gridlock that ensued could have been reduced. There is a pervading attitude that "this is not my responsibility" and in one sense, this is probably right. However, as citizens of this planet, doing good deeds for others is something that everyone will say they strive to do, but very few actually achieve.

This would have been one of those situations where if more people had adopted a more selfless attitude and a spot of "Dunkirk spirit" then many others would have benefited. As it was, it is a sad social commentary of our times that the people that did do it were so rare that they appeared on the local television news and were unlikely to have received the gratitude for their efforts. Such noble gestures would have been more commonplace in generations past but it says much about the fast paced society in which we now live where we have become accustomed to being spoon fed at every opportunity so as to interfere as little as possible with our individual schedules.

So while you can blame authority for being too slow in responding to a situation which they could have managed more effectively had they been more proactive, every one of us could have done a few small things that could have made life easier for everyone else.

Rage Against The Machine winning the Christmas number 1 battle
There are some Christmas traditions that are a staple part of the festive period. Mince pies, secret Santas, office parties that in the cold light of day result in heavy heads and busy photocopier call-out engineers. And of course, the Christmas number 1. For pop anoraks, this coveted position is gold dust and for record executives, reaching the apogee of the charts in time for Christmas is very lucrative. Yet, for everyone else, is being number 1 on Christmas Day such a big deal? The pop charts have never been a meritocracy, but more an exercise in lavish self-promotion.

Of course, the championing of Rage Against The Machine was supposed to be the antidote to the routine inevitable victory for the media machine in propelling the X-Factor winner to Christmas number 1, a position every series winner had reached since 2004. The social network using public were figuratively raging against the machine by downloading the 1992 anthem by the Californian grunge-metal act. And yet, contained within this campaigning was surely the most rich, delicious irony, richer than the Christmas pudding that has likely been affixed to the roof of your mouth since Christmas Day. This irony being that it was the power of another self-serving machine, Facebook, and the publicity that the online campaign had generated, that ensured that this most unfestive of songs reached number 1 in a comparative landslide against the odds.

In one sense, it was certainly good to see that the X-Factor had been defeated. I am likely to be in a relative minority, but I am not a fan of ITV's biggest ratings winner outside of the soaps, mainly because of the inflated sense of ego among the judging panel. Simon Cowell is a difficult man to like, even if in one sense you have to grudgingly respect how powerful and influential he is, to the point that he could pull the plug on the X-Factor tomorrow if he so chose to. It is his show and Cowell strikes me as the autocratic type who will do what he wants, when he wants. As a human being though, he strikes me as a charmless, arrogant man who would be a shoo-in on any list I would compile of celebrities I would gladly, notionally throw in the alligator pit at feeding time. But beyond the head honcho, the rest of the judges are worthy of receiving a horse's head in their stocking at Christmas, not least Dannii Minogue, who appeared to miss out in the supply of charm in the Minogue household.

The past few years have seen the Christmas charts become a predictable formality with the winner known as soon as the winner of that year's X-Factor was revealed. Not that they are part of a profession that elicits any sympathy, but one imagines that bookmakers will have been none too pleased with this trend given that it will have ended the Christmas charts as a betting heat. But maybe we should also remind ourselves that before the X-Factor came along, the Christmas charts were hardly renowned for their quality control, given that such musical icons as Bob The Builder had previously scaled the summit at Christmas. The ease with which music is available now via instantaneous downloading has meant that novelty songs released at this time of year retain their popularity and this can be seen by glancing at the full top 40 at Christmas this year.

The choice of "Killing In The Name Of" as the campaign song to challenge the might of the Cowell machine was a curious one, not least because the song was originally released nearly eighteen years ago. The lyrics of the song have an anarchic tone and would seem to strike a chord with the rebellious teenager that does not want to conform. Maybe this makes it an appropriate song for this campaign given that its purpose was to challenge the accepted practice of the established order, i.e. The X-Factor and the media machine, always determining the outcome of the Christmas number one.

But while the intensity of the Facebook campaign certainly helped to propel Rage Against The Machine to number 1, it got there as much because of the lack of warmth for Joe McElderry and his song "The Climb". As I stated above, I rarely watch the X-Factor and I missed the final this year, so I am not really qualified to offer an appraisal on the merits of McElderry against his rivals. However, when you consider that his song only sold around 450,000 downloads and copies in its first week when the X-Factor final pulled in around 13 million viewers, that hardly serves as a ringing endorsement for McElderry.

I am no great fan of Rage Against The Machine and to be honest, "Killing In The Name Of" is not my mug of musical Twinings. The early 1990s era of hard edged, angry American grunge and guitar music rather passed me by as a generic genre (try saying that after a few Christmas vinos) and this song is no different in this respect. Nonetheless, I am always happy to see anything that knocks Simon Cowell and his cronies down a peg or two, so all the Facebook users that joined the campaign should go for a stroll in a country field and thereby give themselves a pat on the back. I doubt the victory will be a permanent one though and I am sure with a stronger X-Factor contender next winter, we will see that machine restored to its customary number one spot at Christmas.

For the rest of us though, if you would like to download a cheery, wintry tune ideal for cold mornings, I suggest you download "Winter Winds" by Mumford & Sons. Without the support of the media machine or of a global social networking site, however, this fine track only made it to number 48 in the charts earlier this month. A shame really and that tells you all need to know about the charts and their credibility.

Manchester City sacking Mark Hughes
Among the popular press, there has been much consternation and disgust over the cut-throat sacking of Mark Hughes immediately after Manchester City's victory against Sunderland on 19 December with former Inter Milan manager Roberto Mancini immediately appointed in his place. Yet, despite the outrage over City's decision and their conduct, can anyone honestly say that City were either wrong in removing Hughes from office, or in the way they conducted their business?

First things first. As a Manchester United supporter of nearly 25 years, I have fond memories from my childhood of Mark Hughes as a player. In the early days of Manchester United establishing themselves as the all-conquering force they were to become in the 1990s and beyond, Hughes was a cornerstone of the United team and a player who had an uncanny knack of scoring a crucial goal at a vital time in order to rescue United, none more so than an equalising goal he scored in the FA Cup semi-final in 1994 against Oldham Athletic with 30 seconds of extra time remaining and United staring down the barrel of a defeat. United won the replay, defeated Chelsea in the final and completed a league and cup double, but without Hughes's intervention that afternoon, their season could easily have unravelled.

While I had fond memories of Hughes as a player and can remember the disappointment I felt on the day he left United to join Chelsea in 1995, I have been less impressed by some of his conduct as a manager, in which he has at times shown himself to be a bully and has shown a lack of respect to both his former manager at United, Sir Alex Ferguson and also to Arsene Wenger. Now, you might say this is a good thing that he is not scared to ruffle a few feathers and does not constantly fall in awe of the established order. I have no problem with that as long as you retain a respect for people that have achieved much in the game and at this point in his managerial career, Hughes seemed to show a distinct lack of respect to managers who had achieved far more in the game than he has mustered hitherto.

Hughes's dismissal was certainly a cut-throat, cold and calculated move. But the move was not a surprise and his position had been the subject of speculation for several months with a number of high profile names linked with the job. Hughes had not been appointed by the current Manchester City owners and their appointed hierarchy. He had been made manager by the former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra who then relinquished his ownership not long afterwards in the wake of allegations of corruption. This led to the club being bought by a member of the Abu Dhabi royal family and the promise of untold riches.

Since last summer, City have demonstrated their financial muscle with a string of high profile signings, including Robinho for £32 million and the acquisition of Carlos Tevez from Manchester United (or technically from Carlos Tevez's owning company) for £47 million. There has been much speculation as to whether Hughes himself sanctioned these signings, or whether these were moves made by City's board so to show off the weight of their purchasing power. Robinho in particular has only fleetingly shown glimpses of his true potential and it is speculated that he is eyeing a move back to Spain, where a pack-a-mack is less likely to be needed.

Despite spending over £40 million on defenders during the summer, as well as also signing Tevez, Adebayor and Santa Cruz to bolster their forward line, City were only in sixth place at the point at which Hughes was relieved of his duties. In normal circumstances, sixth place would be an acceptable position and City have lost only two league games in the first half of the campaign, the fewest of any team in the top flight this season so far. But the flip side to that has been that City had won only two of their last ten league matches under Hughes, drawing seven of them. Of his signings, only goalkeeper Shay Given, midfielder Gareth Barry and his fellow Welshman Craig Bellamy have been successful acquisitions while some of his other signings have rarely justified their fee.

In most clubs' predicaments, a top six place at the halfway point in the season and two losses would be gladly accepted. But the mistake that the media are making is that Manchester City are no longer in the realms of an ordinary club. The amount of investment that has been put into the club has seen to that. Manchester City is a "project" to its owners, they only want to be involved for a finite amount of time while it serves their interests, achieves it purpose and they will then move on. But for the project to meet its needs, Manchester City will need to win trophies on the pitch. Finished in the top six is not good enough for them, they have to be seen to be in contention for trophies, although it is worth considering that they soon to play in the Carling Cup semi-final against Manchester United.

Mark Hughes said in the aftermath of his dismissal that he was on target to meet Manchester City's pre-season objectives of making the top six and reaching 70 points. That may well be the case, but what he may have overlooked is that events elsewhere may have seen City's owners move the goalposts. At the start of the campaign, most observers would have expected that the established elite quartet of Chelsea, Manchester United, Arsenal and Liverpool would be the top 4 sides at the end of the campaign, not necessarily in that order. This would not have been an unreasonable prediction given that these teams have occupied the top 4 places in the Premier League in each of the past four seasons.

However, the regression of Liverpool this season has meant a place in the top four is up for grabs and City's owners will no doubt have expected their team to fully capitalise on this. That they have not done so and that both Tottenham and Aston Villa are currently ahead of them in the table despite having fewer resources available to them is likely to be what triggered the City power brokers' dissatisfaction in Hughes and questioned his ability to continue to be the right man for the job.

Roberto Mancini was appointed to the job and it would seem that he was first approached several weeks before he actually was installed in post. This will not sit well with some well meaning people, but the consequences of City sacking a manager and not having someone immediately available to take over would have been counter-productive from their point of view. Whether Mancini remains in the hot seat in the long term remains to be seen. Although his haul of three Serie A titles with Inter Milan seems impressive, in reality this was only possible due to the match fixing episode in Italy that weakened their rivals. The first of those titles was won by virtue of two teams finishing above Inter both being disqualified while the next title was won with Juventus having been relegated to the Italian second division as punishment and AC Milan having been docked 20 points. With a World Cup next summer, one or two high profile coaches could become available after the finals that City may wish to consider.

It has been suggested that the sacking of Hughes could result in some mutiny among Manchester City players unhappy at his removal from office and understandably the volatile Craig Bellamy has already been rumoured to have had a difference of opinion with Mancini, a rumour that will have been further strengthened by Bellamy's removal from the starting line-up against Stoke on Boxing Day. I am not sure this mutiny will surface though as players ultimately have a duty to be professional to their club, regardless of who is picking the team and with a World Cup looming on a horizon, players will want to ensure they are playing regularly in order to make sure they are in prime form come the summer.

Changing manager at the time they did means that City can bring in some more signings in the summer, possibly "name" signings that will be to the liking of City's top brass and who will signal their statement of intent from now on. While their Chief Executive Garry Cook's corporate tubthumping and promise to make Manchester City the biggest club in the world seems a little ahead of itself given that they need to establish themselves as the biggest club in their city first, there is no question that City's owners expect an immediate return on their investment and will expect a top four finish at the end of the season so that they can push on and challenge for the Premier League title next season. You may say City need to walk before they can run, but that does not appear to be an option that their owners wish to entertain.

Political party leaders to appear in televised debates before the election
It was announced last week that all three of the leaders of the main political parties in the United Kingdom will appear in three separate televised debates prior to the General Election. The election can take place no later than May 2010, but there has been some recent speculation that an election could be called early in the New Year and will take place in March. The three debates are likely to take place each on separate television networks, with Sky News showing one debate, the BBC another and ITV showing the third. This move is a good one in terms of fairness but also having three different chairs for the debates should ensure that a wide spectrum of issues are covered.

It is good that these debates will be televised and will be broadcast live into people's sitting rooms as it at least means that the public have the opportunity to hear what the three main political parties have to offer, what style of leadership each leader would adopt and what solutions each party have to the current political, social, economic and environmental challenges facing the world, and more pertinently, this country. That way, when you hear someone say that all political leaders "are as bad as each other" you will at least hope they have reached this conclusion having watched the televised debates and heard what each of the wannabe residents of 10 Downing Street have had to say.

The party leaders giving their consent to their attendance at these debates is all well and good, but the debates will only be useful exercise if they are chaired effectively and if there is an opportunity for audience participation, with a range of questions on a whole host of subjects being asked and not just a series of planted questions that suit the soundbites, causes and agendas of any one of the three main leaders. There are obviously some common themes that the public would like clear answers to so they can make a rational and informed decision on where to place their cross on the ballot paper on election day. These will include such hot potatoes as asylum, law and order, education, the health service, taxation and the management of the economy. But there are likely to be other fringe issues of interest to some voters and which will most likely have a major bearing on what way they will vote. It is important then that the format of the programme allows this and that the chair finds the right balance between giving each leader enough time to speak but also allowing enough topics to be covered.

The role of the host will be a crucial one in ensuring that the three leaders answer the questions posed with minimal repetition, deviation and hesitation. Although the three amigos will get more than a minute to elaborate on their given subjects, it is likely that the programmes will last no more than an hour and when you consider that two of the debates will be on commercial channels at prime time when product placement is of paramount importance to the advertisers, in reality there could only be a 50 minute window in which four or five topics and/or questions will need to be covered. Therefore, the host will need to ensure that the typical evasive qualities associated with political figures is kept to a minimum to keep things moving but they should also challenge anyone caught dodging a question they do not like the content of to provide a straight answer.

One would suspect that Adam Boulton, Sky News's political correspondent will be charged with chairing the debate on their network. In canine terms, Boulton is a Jack Russell among political interviewers. He may occasionally be an ankle biter but his bark is much worse than his bite. There are certainly more political heavyweights around who the party leaders would much rather not be interrogated by. There would be no shortage of figures at the BBC who could be candidates for chairing their debate, ranging from the staple part of their election night coverage, that cuddly Labrador David Dimbleby as well as the occasionally deceptively vicious German Shepherd with big ears, Andrew Marr.

But to make the debate more of a spectacle and to provide the triumverate of leaders the most amount of discomfort, I would advise selecting one of the BBC political Rottweilers who will be prepared to rip some flesh if the questions are not suitably answered. I am referring to either Jeremy Paxman or John Humphrys. I would expect Dimbleby to be the safe appointment that the BBC will make, but it would be a more entertaining spectacle if Paxman was put in the hotseat and allowed to show the same disdain for the party leaders that he usually reserves for students with no knowledge of Shakespeare.

Over at ITV, with Sir Trevor McDonald having pretty much retired, it is hard to see who they would ask to chair their debate other than one of the regular two presenters of News At Ten, although I suppose the possibility of the dreaded Piers Morgan hosting their showpiece could not be ruled out given that he appears to be retained by their network these days. Let's just hope no-one raises this possibility to the execs at ITV.

As we have determined, the role of host is going to be very important for each of these debates but the format of the shows will play a part in how useful they are too. Ideally, you would want the shows to work to a format something like this. The show allows for time for 4 main questions to be asked by the assembled audience, possibly 5 in the case of the BBC debate where there will be no interruptions for "important messages". Each leader will get a chance to answer the question and say what their party's stance is and there should be time for there to be open discussion, indeed argument between the other leaders. But a balance has to be found between this type of discussion and allowing the debate to degenerate into a diatribe of "this is what 13 years of Labour Government has given you". As with Question Time, there should be some opportunity for supplementary comments to be made by audience members to raise points that were not covered in the politicians' answers.

It is also to be hoped that at the end of the programme, adequate time is provided for each leader to have their own two minute soliloquy where the rostrum is entirely theirs and they use the 120 seconds to state exactly why they should be leader of the country, what changes they would bring and why they feel they can do it better than the other assembled candidates. This is, after all, what a candidate for a job would be expected to do in front of an assembled interview panel to convince them that they are the only person who they should consider for the job. Admittedly, this will be an interview panel of upwards of 100 members of a studio audience and somewhere in the region of 7 or 8 million television viewers rather than just 3 people in an air conditioned office, but a good performance in this section could seal the deal.

Televised debates are a key part of the American election build-up and although there are times when we are right to tire of the American influence on popular culture in the United Kingdom, this would seem to be a very powerful way of reaching out to a public that finds itself somewhat disengaged in politics and apathetic towards its politicians in the wake of the expenses scandal, but still all the more immersed in the cult of celebrity and its many pitfalls and hypocrisies. A good showing in one of these debates may not be enough on its own to win an election, but a weak showing from one of the leaders could certainly be enough for them to lose it. But at least putting the main protagonists in a prime time televised slot to discuss the key issues at least means that those who claim not be informed about politics have no excuse for their ignorance should they not know what they will do come election day.


That's just about it from me for today. This is likely to be my last blog of 2009 and so I would just like to say thanks to those of you who have been kind enough to read my blog during this year. I apologise for the periods when I have been absent from writing duties and I hope to post more frequently during 2010. That's one New Year's resolution I hope not to have broken by January 5th! All that remains is for me to wish you all a Happy New Year and I hope that 2010 delivers the prosperity, good health and sweet smell of success that you are aspiring to.

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.

Song of the decade

Well, as we now find ourselves just two months away from the end of 2009, it is probably inevitable that the media begin to get into reflective mode and start to review the past decade and all of the events that have happened in that time. When you think of what you were doing in your life, it is often easy to place a particular point in your life through a musical timeline, the soundtrack to your life at a certain stage in life.

With this in mind, Absolute Radio, which in a former life was called Virgin Radio, is currently in the process of getting its listeners to choose the Song of the Decade, the song which in the humble opinion of its listeners was the song of all songs to be released between 1 January 2000 and 31 December 2009. Absolute will be playing out its listeners top 100 choices just before the end of the year. People can vote in the poll at songofthedecade.com .

For those not familiar with Absolute, it is a radio station that tends to largely play popular rock, indie and alternative music from recent years, as well as a reasonable portion of "classic" songs from popular recording artists from the past four decades. Therefore, given the nature of the music policy of the station, you would expect the higher echelons of the poll to be dominated by bands such as Coldplay, The Killers, Kings Of Leon, Snow Patrol and Oasis, while more manufactured acts such as Girls Aloud, McFly and even Take That are not likely to feature too much.

Bearing in mind the criteria I have laid down about the type of music that Absolute plays and which is therefore likely to be eligible, I have compared my own list of my ten favourite songs of the past decade. These are not necessarily the most popular songs of the last decade, nor do I expect all of them to even make the cut in Absolute's final poll. In some cases, the songs in question didn't even chart that well, although that is rarely an indicator any more of how good a song is. No, these are simply the 10 songs that I'd say on reflection have just about given me the most pleasure over these past 10 years, taking into account the type of music that would be played on a station like Absolute. So, in reverse order...

10. White Lies - Farewell To The Fairground
This was a close call between the standout single from this London combo's 2009 debut album and The Chemical Brothers's 2004 hit Galvanize for the last place in my top 10. In the end, I opted for White Lies on account of the fact that this song is currently fresher in my mind and also due to The Chemical Brothers probably not technically meeting the criteria of the kind of music that Absolute Radio would play.

White Lies have the distinction of providing me with the album I have played most in 2009 and this song for me remains the highlight. It is an edgy jaunt about leaving behind the place you have called home but which you have now outgrown. The lyrics to this track rather typify the dark and thought provoking nature of White Lies's excellent debut album, yet although dark, this track is also very uplifting in its outlook. It may have only reached number 33 in the UK singles chart earlier this year, but it does 23 places better in the chart that really matters!

9. The Coral - Dreaming Of You
Back in the early part of the decade, this Liverpudlian band looked and indeed sounded like a band that could evolve into one of the most original and innovative of the decade. That this evolution has not happened is one of the disappointments of the past few years, as with each passing album The Coral have instead become sadly more derivative and uninspiring. In truth though, it may just be that whatever followed their output from their first two albums could never really compare. Although their second album Magic and Medicine is arguably their finest work to date, this track from their self-eponymous first album remains their most commercially successful track and their signature piece.

What struck me when I first heard this track was how original the musical arrangement on the track was, with brass music in the middle of what was an otherwise jaunty indie song. This gives the song the feel of being crossover of both standard indie music and also Ska influenced music, such as The Specials. What particularly marks this song out as a classic is that it is only 2 minutes and 21 seconds long and so much is crammed into that time.

Although The Coral do not seem likely to ever match the quality of their offerings, perhaps this tells us more about how great their early output was, rather than how mediocre their subsequent efforts have been.

8. U2 - Stuck In A Moment You Can't Get Out Of
U2 remain rock and roll's equivalent of Marmite some 30 years after they first arrived on the scene, but they have remained both active and relevant over the past decade, even if they have not quite consistently managed to churn out the quality that they managed back in their late 1980s heyday. Nonetheless, like the girl with the curl, when the Dublin fourpiece are good, they are very very good and this was probably best demonstrated during this decade on their 2001 album All That You Can't Leave Behind, which was regarded by many as a fine return to form after a few years in the doldrums.

Beautiful Day tends to be the most acclaimed track from the aforementioned album and it is a song that has its merits. However, Stuck In A Moment, to my mind has all the hallmarks of a classic U2 song. Brilliantly written lyrics, heartfelt emotive vocals by Bono and a song which expresses a good sentiment. The sentiment of the song, as has been discussed on this blog previously, was a recollection by Bono of a conversation he had had with Michael Hutchence, former lead singer of INXS and close friend of the permanent wearer of sunglasses. Hutchence had taken his own life while U2 were recording the album.

In the years since this song came out, for some reason it does not appear to have maintained the popularity of some U2 tracks and yet in many ways, it is arguably one of their most hauntingly beautiful compositions.

7. Kings Of Leon - Use Somebody
I have a confession to make as far as Kings Of Leon are concerned. This confession being that I am not a great fan of theirs as a band and I may be one of very few people on the planet that does not like the song that shot them to super stardom, Sex On Fire, a song which I have no doubt in believing will finish in the top 5 when Absolute plays out its poll. In some ways, Kings Of Leon remind me somewhat of REM in that they have achieved massive global success and yet for the most part, I am largely indifferent to their music and fail to see what marks them out as special. However, just as REM have had occasional flashes of genius with songs like Orange Crush and Drive, so Kings Of Leon pulled out a glorious exception with Use Somebody, the follow up single to Sex On Fire.

Because Sex On Fire was an astonishing worldwide hit, it is easy to overlook the fact this track sold by the bucketload as well. As with several of Kings Of Leon's other tracks, the theme of the song appears to be a hedonistic one, but in truth, what makes this song stand out is the sheer rockiness. The heavy guitar sound at the beginning of the track sets the tone for what follows and even I as a somewhat reluctant member of the Kings Of Leon posse has to admit that this track provides some of the finest riffs to emerge from this decade.

6. White Stripes - Seven Nation Army
No finer musical judge than Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker provided validation for this song recently when he nominated this as his song of the decade describing it as "the Smoke On The Water of the new millennium". I can see exactly what he means with this description. The opening riffs of Deep Purple's 1974 hard rock hit are iconic and were amongst the most popular to that particular generation of sideburns sporting, flares wearing rockers. Fast forward some 30 years and the guitar riffs featured throughout this track are among the most familiar to the new generation of budding Guitar Hero players. In fact, I hear that it is one of the most popular riffs of choice in the aforementioned console game.

What appeals to me about this track is how the tempo often changes subtly from a relatively gentle riff and solid drum beat into the cacophony of noise that surrounds the chorus. As with some of the other nominations, I do not feel that Jack and Meg White have managed to quite match the epic sound they produced in this song in anything they have put together since, but that may simply confirm the future "classic" status of this song.

5. Dirty Vegas - Walk Into The Sun
This is what an American audience would refer to as a curveball, a surprise choice out of leftfield. It is possibly a surprise on a few levels. Firstly, Dirty Vegas are barely known in the United Kingdom, despite the fact that they originate in London. Despite their birthplace, they have been based in and enjoyed more critical acclaim across the pond for several years. This lack of exposure in the UK was reflected in the chart placing of this track when it was released back in 2004 when it reached the dizzy heights of number 54 in the UK singles chart. Despite this low placing, it remains Dirty Vegas's highest ever chart entry. What is odd is that although on the surface, you would think this is an obscure track, it has been used as background music on several television programmes, it's just that they tend to be the run of the mill daytime TV offerings like Cash In The Attic or Flog It where no-one is really paying attention. Much like most of Dirty Vegas's work, the sound is kind of a fusion of dance, house and electronica mixed in with a more conventional indie sound. They are a band that seem to borrow much from bands like New Order and the Happy Mondays, bands that were at the forefront of the Acid House scene of the beginning of the 1990s. Although Dirty Vegas have not been commercially successful in the UK, this is not a reflection of their talents and this gentle, uplifting track with well written lyrics and a bouncy sound is in some ways a typically understated Dirty Vegas work, despite being a masterpiece.

4. Snow Patrol - Run
If Dirty Vegas are largely undiscovered and commercially unknown, the same accusation can no longer be levelled at Snow Patrol and the reason for their commercial viability can be traced back to this song which burst into the charts at the beginning of 2004. Such was Snow Patrol's obscurity before this track was released that it is largely forgotten that they had released two albums before their commercial breakthrough Final Straw hit the shelves, from which this was the first singles cut.

Sometimes when you hear a song, it requires several listens before you fully appreciate its quality. With Run, that was not the case, upon hearing it the first time, I realised I was listening to a modern classic. There are those that proclaim Chasing Cars as Snow Patrol's jewel in the crown, but while there may be a beautiful sentiment in that song, musically Run is far superior. Again, as with White Stripes, there is an edginess to the song that results from the subtle changes of tempo during the 5 minutes and 55 seconds of this composition that makes this such a masterpiece and Gary Lightbody's brooding vocals do justice to the song. As with many of Snow Patrol's back catalogue, it would appear that the song is a love song of some kind, albeit the lyrics would suggest it is a plea to a lost love rather than a straightforward love song.

Whatever it is, I am a believer in the saying that imitation is the greatest form of flattery and this can be seen in Leona Lewis's decision to cover this song earlier this year. The only injustice was that her butchering of the original version rocketed to number 1, four places higher than Snow Patrol had managed. It has been noticeable how commercial popularity has taken some of the edge off of Snow Patrol's music and due to that, it is debatable whether they will ever hit the heights again that they showed in initially establishing themselves to the mainstream audience with the excellent Final Straw album. If they do not, it will not diminish the enduring brilliance of this track, which will remain a classic in twenty years from now.

3. Elbow - One Day Like This
Like Snow Patrol, Elbow's commercial success was something of a slow burner. The Mancunian band fronted by Guy Garvey were formed back in 1990 and had released three studio albums prior to the release of their Mercury Music Prize winning Seldom Seen Kid in 2008. Victory in this coveted prize ensured that a more commercial audience started to sit up and take notice and further success in the BRIT Awards means that this band's time in oblivion is now surely a thing of the past. Of any number of excellent mellow compositions from Seldom Seen Kid, such as The Bones Of You and Mirrorball, One Day Like This is both the most commercially popular track and also the rightful standout track from an almost faultless album. The album version of the track is six and a half minutes long, but the single version was cut to just over three and a half minutes for the benefit of radio airplay.

It is a sign of the quality of the song, both musically and lyrically, that both versions are worth listening to in their own right. For me, this song has particular resonance because the sentiments expressed in the song were ones that I was feeling at the time the song was being played on the radio. Although this song brings to mind certain bittersweet and poignant memories, there is no escaping the simplicity in the beauty of the song. The lyrics really capture the feeling in Guy Garvey's soul and Garvey's vocals do the lyrics full justice. It is possible that the amount of airplay this song has had in the past year have given this a sense of overkill, but I think time will be kind to this song.

Possibly in 10 years time, people will have difficulty recollecting other Elbow songs, but they should still remember this one. It's a beautiful song and it is the kind of song that will have a special meaning to many people because of the association they will have with being in a bright and happy place when they heard the song, even if they have not remained there since.

2. Coldplay - Violet Hill
The top two places in my list are occupied by, to my mind, the best two bands of the past decade. Firstly, we find Coldplay, who burst onto the scene with their debut album Parachutes at the beginning of the decade and who were still going strong at the fag end of the decade, by which time they had released a further three studio albums and had pretty much conquered the world. In the space of the past nine years, Coldplay have gone from being a band fresh out of university to being one of the biggest stadium rock bands in the world, with a Hollywood wife to boot. The difficulty in putting this list together was deciding which Coldplay song should make the list, given that they have had several epic singles worthy of consideration.

It was tempting to go for Yellow or Trouble, the two singles cuts from Parachutes that set Coldplay on their way some nine years ago, while the poignant Fix You from X&Y and the haunting Clocks and The Scientist from Rush Of Blood To The Head were also worthy contenders. But it is to Coldplay's most recent album, Viva La Vida, where my choice is to be found. While the title track attracted many of the plaudits, to my mind the album's first singles cut Violet Hill was its highlight and to this listener at least, is Coldplay's greatest work to date. The song would appear to have an anti-war theme, as I originally discussed on this blog at the end of last year.

What I like about the song is the sentiment being expressed and the images that the track throws up. Chris Martin is very good at really painting a picture for you with his vocal imagery and this is possibly never better demonstrated than on this track with such as descriptions as there being snow on the rooftops and people being outside freezing while others looked out of the window. What this description does is it really brings home the loneliness of being a soldier fighting for his country thousands of miles from home and I think that is the whole message of the song. Apart from this, I just think the song is so well constructed that it makes it a track you can listen to again and again. This is the cream of a very strong crop where Coldplay are concerned.

1. Killers - Smile Like You Mean It
It was going to take a special band and a special song to keep Violet Hill and Coldplay off top spot, but I think I have found both a band and a song worthy of doing the honours. The Killers have always been a band I have held a special fondness for because I like to think I discovered them before the masses did. The first time they registered on my consciousness was when I heard feminist and that well known music critic Germaine Greer slate their debut album on Newsnight Review back in the summer of 2004. At the time, the Las Vegas outfit were barely known anywhere, not even in the Nevada desert, but on the strength of Greer's criticism, I went out and bought Hot Fuss the following week. What immediately struck me was how The Killers seemed to have a sound that paid homage to new wave music from the 1980s. Now, this is something that just about everyone from Florence and the Machine to White Lies to MGMT have tapped into, but back in 2004, The Killers were the first band to be using that era as the influence on their sound.

Apart from the noticeably 1980s sound, the other thing that struck me about The Killers was how their music and lyrics were dark and edgy. There were songs with rather seedy, sordid lyrics, such as Somebody Told Me and the immensely popular Mr Brightside. There were other songs that seemed to deal with very dark subject matter, such as Jenny Was A Friend Of Mine and All These Things That I've Done. In the end, there were possibly 3 Killers songs that could have occupied this position, All These Things That I've Done being one while Read My Mind was the standout track from The Killers's second album, Sam's Town. In truth though, there was only song that I was ever going to pick.

Commercially, Smile Like You Mean It was far from being The Killers's most successful or most popular song. When it was released in 2005, it only reached number 11 in the UK singles charts, although this may have something to do with it being the fourth singles cut from the Hot Fuss album. What marks this out as my favourite Killers song and my favourite song of the past decade is just that it typifies the Killers' sound and music better than anything else they have done. The sound is very much new wave influenced, and in fact the song title is shared with a previous composition by Talking Heads, who certainly influence much of The Killers' work. There is a wirey edginess to the sound which when coupled with the dark, difficult to interpret lyrics really draws you in to the song.

Even now, over 4 years after the song first came out, I am still not entirely sure what the meaning to the lyrics are. I have a vague interpretation of what I think they mean, but I think this is quite deliberate on Brandon Flowers's part, there is possibly no definitive meaning behind them and they can be open to interpretation. For what it is worth though, I interpret the song to be a message from an older of oneself giving a message retrospectively to a younger version telling them not to get drawn into life's superficialities and falsehoods and to not worry about playing up to an image all the time in order to please life's hangers-on. As with One Day Like This, this song has a special meaning on a personal level because of a shared experience I had around the time the song came out and the sentiments expressed in the song as I have interpreted have rung quite true at times both then and since. Because of the place this song has captured within me, this makes it stand out among The Killers's back catalogue and even as Brandon Flowers and his band mates look set fair to dominate the world over the coming years, I think it will take a very special song to ever better the craft that went into the lyrics and sound of this track. So while Mr Brightside looks likely to be a strong candidate to win Absolute Radio's accolade, to my mind Smile Like You Mean It is THE song of songs over these past 10 years.

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.

The king is dead

Afternoon guys and girls.

I hope you have been enjoying the summer weather of the last week or so. Although, for those foolhardy souls who made the trip to Glastonbury, I hope that you went suitably prepared with umbrella and Wellies! The height of summer also means the annual pilgrimage to SW19 and the sounds of a yellow ball being whacked on graphite and the sight of Union Jack adorning socialites sipping Pimms and eating strawberries on Murray Mount.

I will speak more about Wimbledon in the next instalment of this blog, but the last couple of days have really been dominated by one story in the news, the sad demise of Michael Jackson. So, it is only right and proper for this blog to talk about the one time King of Pop.

Yesterday I was travelling to work on the train, some 7 or 8 hours after the reports of Michael Jackson's death were confirmed. As I was travelling, while reading one of the papers that had run a late edition to report Jackson's death, a thought entered my head. In my very nearly 31 years on this planet, there can have been so few occasions when a news story of a death of a famous person or of a world atrocity could have had such an impact.

As a child of 1978, I was born the year after Elvis Presley died and so therefore missed out on experiencing the mass outpouring of grief that accompanied the demise of the previous title holder of the King of Pop. I would only have been two years old at the time of John Lennon's murder outside the Dakota Building in New York City in 1980 and so obviously I do not recall that event either. Bob Marley's death from cancer a year later was also far too early in my childhood to register as a memory.

Since those times, there have been no massive deaths from popular culture that have made an impact on a global scale. I can remember Freddie Mercury's death in 1991, but even though I was only 13 at the time, I can recall that this was not unexpected, as by then the public were aware that he was HIV positive. The only comparable death in the public eye in terms of its magnitude would have been that of Princess Diana's back in 1997. It is amazing to think that her death was so long ago because the aftermath of hysteria and almost enforced grieving from the media remains clear in the memory. I can recall that it took nearly a week for the television and radio schedules to get back to normal after her death, with radio stations in particular playing a looped playlist of sombre and funereal tracks for several days afterwards.

Diana's death reached hysteric levels in this country because she was a British glamour icon and people identified with the demise of an English rose. There has also always been a sympathy for someone who is taken from this mortal coil before their due time and because of Diana's previous circumstances, having been through a divorce and seemingly on the way to finding happiness, the public was able to express much sympathy and sadness at the perceived cruelty of her demise.

Other than Diana's death, the only other world event to happen in my lifetime that really forced you to stop what you were doing and watch was 9/11. This is the single most monumental world event I can remember in my lifetime and the reason for this was that the shocking images that people round the world saw meant people's reality was changed forever. Up until then, people's school of thought was that such events and such images could be seen "only in Hollywood". But this was no film script, no Tom Cruise or Harrison Ford blockbuster. The events people were seeing had really happened, aircraft had been crashed into buildings and the atrocities were real. I could live to be 100 and I do not think I will ever see a more poignant or life affirming news event.

The one difference between the death of Diana and the planes crashing into the Twin Towers compared to the news of Michael Jackson's death breaking was that I was not in front of a television to follow the story in the first two cases, whereas with Jackson, what had already been a surreal day for me on a personal level, ended surreally as well by hearing of his reported death and then having this confirmed as events unfolded on the news channel I flicked over to watch. With regards to Princess Diana, I was in bed by the time the car crash had been reported and then latterly when her death was confirmed. I did not hear of her death until the following morning.

In the case of 9/11, it really was one of those "you remember exactly where you were and what you were doing" moments and on the day in question, I was at work and had been required to go over to another office in the afternoon to sit on an interview panel to interview a temporary member of staff who the company I was with at the time were wanting to come in and start running a new project until a permanent person was in place.

The interview was fairly unmemorable but after it finished, I had to walk back to the office where I worked to pick up some belongings I had left there before heading home. On the ten minute walk back, I remember walking past a newsagents with the local newspaper's placard outside. The words on it were few but the impact was immediate. "Planes hit Twin Towers" it said. My immediate thought was "That's surely caused some damage". As I walked up a side street back to the office, I was conscious that every house I passed had the BBC news on in the living room. I just wanted to go and collect my belongings and get home as quickly as possible to see what had happened. When I did, the images and the knowledge of the atrocities were truly shocking.

The death of Michael Jackson is certainly not in the same ball park as far as its wide reaching effects and the magnitude it had. But in terms of deaths of famous people, cultural icons if you like, in my recollected lifetime hitherto, only Princess Diana's death is in any way comparable in terms of its impact. Why is this? I mean, Michael Jackson's death in itself was not entirely surprising. He had had struggles with his health for fifteen years or more and Jackson's surgery and lifestyle choices had taken their toll on his physical and mental wellbeing. When it was announced earlier in the year that Jackson would be performing 50 shows at the O2 Arena, I do not believe I was alone in voicing cynicism that these shows might not happen. That this prophecy has been fulfilled in such tragic circumstances, however, is something that this soothsayer is neither happy to have forecast nor one that he expected to turn out in this way.

People might also wonder how it is that Jackson's death can have dominated the news agenda in the way that it has at a time of other pressing matters around the world, especially when Jackson's stock has fallen significantly in recent years, with his appearances in the newspapers usually being for more sinister implications associated with his private life, rather than for any positive accomplishments in his professional life. After all, Jackson had not recorded any new material since 2001.

Let's consider a few things though. First of all, am I alone in not being too bothered if the fallout from Michael Jackson's death is given priority on the news over yet more tedious reports of MPs having fiddled their expenses? Yes, it is quite shocking that MPs can get away with flipping second homes, more than that in fact, it is a fraudulent offence to which you hope the offenders will be brought to book. But the revelation that MPs are shady characters that will take advantage of a system that they regulated is about as earth shattering as discovering that the world is round. The story has just run and run in recent weeks, far beyond its natural saturation point. Discovering that an MP made a claim for a packet of biscuits or peppermint tea is really not newsworthy.

The wider point to be considered though is that if you ask the big media giants, Reuters or Sky News or the BBC for example, what influences what news stories you cover, their answer will be a simple one. Their response will be "our audience's demands will determine what news we give to them". With that in mind, consider this. On Thursday night, in the light of one news agency announcing the first rumours of Michael Jackson's death, inquisitive web users made a beeline for the world's most popular search engine to find out news, so much so that it resulted in said search engine crashing, buckling under the weight of its enquirers' insatiable demands for updates.

Of course, the moralists and the people with the highest brows in society will turn their noses up at this and scoff that this is a sign of standards diminishing in society. Hmm, maybe there are some grains of truth in there somewhere. But we live in a celebrity obsessed society. Go into your average household and at least one person will be reading a glossy celebrity magazine or reading the gossip pages of a tabloid newspaper, showing pictures of some F-list celebrity falling in or out of a taxi after excessive fuelling. The attitude of newspaper editors and media executives can be found in the lyrics to "Going Underground" by The Jam - The public gets what the public wants.

But this was the death of no run of the mill celebrity. This was not the death of a reality television star or a soap actress, both of which have brought the guarantee of a front page headline in recent times. Michael Jackson has dominated the media coverage and resulted in the mass level of World Wide Web hits over the past 48 hours because quite simply he was a global icon and megastar, who was identifiable the world over, even allowing for his plastic surgery over the years. OK, his star has fallen and diminished and his reputation has been sullied by revelations of his private life and the allegations and court cases that went with this. But look at the evidence, Google broke under the strain just two nights ago and his concert tickets sold out in no time at all.

I was talking to a couple of people at work yesterday and also holding court on a website forum I use discussing Michael Jackson's death and one of the things that I tapped into was that even if you are not an ardent fan of Michael Jackson and you are either a casual fan that just a copy of his Greatest Hits at home (a group which I would include myself in), or you do not like his music at all, Jackson's music in some way will remind you of an event or a time in your life that you can recollect when you hear his music or which your mind will have gone back to when you heard of his death. I think this is a phenomenon that readers of the human mind refer to as association.

This mind set is true for me, as I am sure it is for many of you out there. I expect there are plenty of couples who will have chosen a Michael Jackson track as the backing music to the first dance at their wedding, or who may even have conceived to one of his past classics. To people of my age and I would say people currently aged between 30 and 50, Jackson's music may well have featured in the soundtrack to their lives growing up.

Personal moments of Michael Jackson association for me would be thus. Being at junior school back around 1987-1988, I can remember classmates in the school playground copying Jackson's Moonwalk dance moves. I can remember a birthday party where this author decided to caricature Jackson's vocals on Bad. Needless to say my efforts matched the song title and my only prior poison had been orange juice. Well, I was only 10 years old at the time! Fast forward a few years to my final year at school and I can remember another party, this time where the poison on offer was harder. At this party, I can remember some joker putting one of Michael Jackson's albums on the CD player and playing a track that featured breaking glass sound effects, in order to preturb the girl whose party it was, who was out of the room at the time, into thinking that a real glass had been shattered. Incidentally, if anyone can tell me what Michael Jackson track I am referring to, I would be very grateful as it is something of an unsolved mystery to me. Thinking of the timeline, I think it might be off of the Dangerous album, but I am not completely sure.

My point is that these sorts of personal memories will ring true for those of you reading this blog and for many other people out there, certainly among people currently in their 30s right up to people even in their early 50s. Just as people of a certain age will have recollected their youth when Elvis Presley died, so now people will remember their halcyon days of youth when hearing of Michael Jackson's death. Back in times when Top of the Pops was a staple part of the television schedules, people will have grown up watching Jackson's latest video featuring at number one. The visual medium was something that Jackson tapped into and the release of Thriller, two years after MTV America first aired, was an example of someone using the right media at the right time.

Of course, detractors will report that Jackson was not really a pioneer in this field and that the pioneering music video that opened the door to its wider use as part of the package when releasing a new single was to be found back in 1975 when Queen released Bohemian Rhapsody. It is true to say that Bo Rhap was the first proper music video to be widely associated with its composition (although Bob Dylan and The Beatles had used film some 10 years before) but Michael Jackson raised the bar and took advantage of the new visual media. Without Bohemian Rhapsody or Another Brick In The Wall, maybe MTV would never have had a reason for being. But what Jackson did was see that MTV had arrived and reinvent the whole concept of the music video. Thriller was not so much a pop video as a short film and was put together on a budget more expensive than some Hollywood blockbusters.

Then there are those that apply the school of thought that Jackson is not really a musician on the grounds that "he can't play an instrument". Not only is this incorrect, as Jackson was certainly a proficient piano player, but it ignores the fact that the human voice is an instrument within, an instrument that both requires natural gifts and nurturing. Purists may argue that Jackson was not a great vocalist in a technical sense but he was certainly a showman and the vocal range that he used in his back catalogue over the years was extensive. It also ignores the possibility that Jackson intended to use his dance moves as an instrument, an interpretation of his lyrics and the tempo of his songs.

Wherever you look in the current pop music climate, Jackson's influences are to be found, both in a musical sense and from a choreographical perspective. If you look at the current R&B scene and even the rap scene, there are several artists who borrow from Jackson's work, the beats, the arrangements, the dance routines. Look at Take That. Here is a band that spends hours practising specially crafted dance routines and which uses complicated sets for their stage performances. Who are they borrowing from in adopting this approach? A Mr M. Jackson features highly. His influences cross over to just about every musical genre, from soul and R&B right over to rock and Indie music.

Of course, part of what has made the Michael Jackson story what it is has been the story of him having all the talent in the world but leading, what to all intents and purposes, appears to have been a reclusive life that he did not enjoy. Like some other stars who found fame at a young age and who were pushed into show business by their parents, such as Britney Spears, Drew Barrymore and Macaulay Culkin, Jackson has led a tumultuous life in the public gaze from an early age and the childhood he was seemingly deprived of at its natural age, he has sought to cling on to in aspects of his adult life. This is something that has led to unsavoury perceptions among many and it would be remiss to accept that some of Jackson's behaviour over the years would constitute acceptable conduct as far as social norms are concerned. However, it is very important to remember that Jackson has never been found guilty of any crime and for as long as the judicial system operates an innocent until proven guilty policy, then any judgements people make are being made on hearsay and rumours rather than any concrete proof. The phrase "no smoke without fire" is one of the most dangerous catch phrases in common usage.

Jackson's lifestyle choices and decision making have at times been naive and misguided at best and this is not just confined to his conduct around children. His insecurities that led to his constant changing of his appearance and then his regular wearing of masks will have, in some way, contributed to the deterioration in his health and ultimately to his untimely death. 50 is no age to die, especially when you consider that Madonna, some two weeks older than Jackson, remains in peak fitness while Bono at 49 years old is still bounding around stage like a man 20 years younger on U2's latest world tour.

Jackson is the latest in a long line of flawed geniuses who have been bestowed with great natural gifts and talents but who have been consumed by other demons that they have never been able to conquer. In these times of Britain's Got Talent and the X-Factor, young men and particularly women crave fame without necessarily having the rudimentary requirements of a talent. Jackson did have this talent and certainly had the fame, but the fame he achieved was a pyrrhic victory and one which sadly proved to be his undoing, as ill health led to more medication and more medication surely led to more side effects, which in turn, led to, seemingly the last devastating cardiac arrest that he endured.

So what of the aftermath of Jackson's death? It would seem that the media are keen to point the fingers of blame at his doctor and at organisers of the concerts that he was due to perform in London, just next month. This is probably a natural process wherever such a big name person has died, but in truth, it does not help anybody because unless the post-mortem proves otherwise, we can only ever assume that Jackson's death was as a result of natural causes, his heart arrested and he could not be resuscitated. However, because of this finger pointing, we can expect the story of Jackson's demise to continue to be played out in the public eye for some time to come, even if it does not produce quite the levels of hysteria associated with Princess Diana's death.

Whatever Jackson's faults that have been touched upon earlier, whatever the sordid allegations and connotations, the simple facts are that there will not be many occasions in our lifetime when a defining figure's passing makes such an impact through the media. The death of a monarch or of a US president would certainly eclipse it, but it is hard to think of anyone else's passing that would. The reason I feel that this is the case is that for so many people, Jackson's music is a reminder of a past moment in their life, a significant event, a recollection of a time of happiness or possibly sadness, but also a realisation of more innocent times, innocent times no longer afforded to them because of responsibilities.

Jackson's legacy will be his back catalogue, much the same as it will always be for Elvis, The Beatles, Buddy Holly and any other stars long after their demise. If today's news that Jackson had 100 pre-recorded tracks left in a vault at his home are true, then his influence can carry on, albeit in a posthumous sense. We can only speculate on what Jackson would have achieved musically had he lived long into his 50s, but maybe we can still find out. At the very least, with Quincy Jones still around, there is surely the possibility of a Beatles Anthology-esque album or two emerging.

As for his grieving fans, expecting to see him in London in a matter of weeks, well if the O2 have any sense then they should consider going ahead with at least some of the concerts, albeit with Jackson's appearance only being via previous video footage. This may still be enough for plenty of admirers to still attend, while others can claim their full refunds. And it could also be an opportunity for some of the great and the good to stop by for the night and pay their own special tribute to the man who was supposed to be the headline act.

Whatever way you look at it, the past week has been a surreal week and Jackson's death whilst not on the surface really being a seismic shock, has nonetheless, registered a greater impact than his fading star suggested it should do. Thanks for the memories.