Sunday 26 April 2009

Sporting matters

Good evening.

Hope you have all had good weeks and been enjoying the continued good weather. Perhaps the only people who have not enjoyed the fine spring sunshine and heat of the past few days were those brave souls in some cases dressed up in foliage or superhero costumes pounding 26.5 miles of London's streets in the name of charitable cause. Well done to everyone who raised money for their cause of choice. And suitably, I thought that this week I would focus my blog output predominantly on sporting matters from various arenas. Seconds out, round one. Ding ding.

1. PFA nominations show the case for technology
For those that follow the beautiful game, you often hear the argument that technology should be used to help with making the right decisions in times when the pace of the game and players' adeptness at fooling the match officials becomes more and more of an issue. Indeed, Harry Redknapp advocated this motion just yesterday in response to Manchester United being the beneficiaries of a fortunate penalty decision. Not that you will hear any complaints about that decision in this blog!

However, the most damning case for the use of modern technology in football can be demonstrated by this year's PFA Player of the Year and Young Player of the Year nominations. If you have not seen the awards shortlists, the Player of the Year accolade is being contested by five Manchester United players, Ryan Giggs, Edwin Van Der Sar, Rio Ferdinand, Nemanja Vidic and Cristiano Ronaldo. The sole non-Manchester United nominee is Steven Gerrard. This presents a strange problem in as much as any Manchester United player that votes will be forced to vote for Gerrard as they cannot vote for one of their own players. It is because of this that Gerrard is currently the bookmakers' favourite to win the award, despite the fact that he has been injured for a few weeks now. I rather expect there to be numerous abstentions and spoilt ballot papers around Old Trafford way to stop the Liverpool captain securing a runaway victory.

Quite apart from Manchester United's domination of the Player of the Year shortlist, it seems ridiculous that in times when technology can be used to collect the votes that such an antiquated mode of voting and drawing up the nominees is used because this invariably means that it is not the best player over the whole season that wins the award, but the best player up until the end of January when there are still four months of the season to run and no trophies have been decided. I like to see players awarded for making a tangible difference to their team between winning and losing, but these nominees were drawn up before anyone knew who was winning what and therefore knew who the difference makers were.

Now, admittedly there would be certain obstacles. Footballers as we know are not always renowned for being the sharpest tools in the box and when it comes to technology, the light switch is about as much innovation as some of the more Luddite minded can handle. There is also the problem that the further down the football pyramid you go, so the football season can finish earlier. If you are a member of the PFA though, you are entitled to vote for the Footballer of the Year whether you ply your trade in the Premier League or in the Screwfix League. Therefore, expecting votes to be cast in the final week of the Premier League season would be unrealistic as by then the semi-professional footballers will be partying in Ibiza or riding a camel in the Egyptian desert.

But these barriers can be overcome. Each club has its own PFA representative. All they need to do is input the votes on to a secure Internet or Intranet site on the PFA website. This would not involve collecting forms or even so much as the expense of a first class stamp. It would just mean one person sitting in front of a computer and inputting their team mate's voting preferences. OK, it would contravene the concept of a secret ballot, but knowing who your team mate's favourite footballers of the season are is hardly classified or confidential information.

And for the technophobes, there would be no problem. Just get someone from the PFA to come in after training and show the PFA reps how to use the software system. That way, voting need not take place until the final few weeks of the season when the players who really have demonstrated their quality over the whole campaign can ensure they come out on top.

Looking at the nominees, there is a strong emphasis on the Manchester United players that were pivotal in their team's period of over three months where they did not concede a league goal with Edwin Van Der Sar, Rio Ferdinand and Nemanja Vidic all nominated. Vidic's nomination is certainly warranted as he has been a defensive colossus for United for the vast majority of the season and he was consistently excellent throughout the time United did not concede a goal. Ferdinand as the other half of United's established central defensive partnership is also worthy of inclusion as United have been shaky when he has not played. Van Der Sar's choice, however, is a case of a goalkeeper getting the glory for his defence's achievements. Van Der Sar has not had a bad season by any means, but he has been prone to error as the season has worn on and so his inclusion is because of the plaudits he was receiving at the time the shortlist was drawn up.

United's two other nominees, Ryan Giggs and Cristiano Ronaldo would also polarise opinion with their inclusion. From reading the sports pages of the newspapers, I have been aware for some time that there is a strong contingent among the writers on the game who want to see Ryan Giggs receive the Player of the Year award because of what he has achieved throughout his career, in what they see as a season when there has been no standout candidate. This is all very worthy and corinthian and I am a huge fan of Ryan Giggs's myself. However, Giggs winning this award would be a triumph for sentimentality over realism. Giggs has played in a dozen of United's league matches this season and although he scored a virtuoso and priceless goal in a 1-0 win at West Ham in February, that is not reason enough to give him an award supposedly there to recognise achievement over a whole season. Nonetheless, Giggs should be applauded for his continued importance to Manchester United as the face of the experience.

In Cristiano Ronaldo's case, he has won this award for the past two seasons in a landslide. There simply was no other candidate to challenge him for the accolade last season, given that he scored 42 goals from his right wing vantage point, 42 goals that went such a long way towards United winning the Premier League and Champions League. In comparison, Ronaldo's performances this season have not hit the same heights. He came into the campaign with an injury after the European Championships and there have been times this season when the game has appeared to pass him by. That said, Ronaldo is still the top goalscorer in the league this season and in the past two months has often proven to be United's difference maker, even if his contribution has not been as consistently good this season as it was last season. But then, could he ever really expect to match last season's contribution?

There are some notable absentees from the list of nominees that was drawn up. From a Manchester United perspective, it is surprising that Wayne Rooney has been overlooked for both Player of the Year and Young Player of the Year, for which he would still be eligible. Rooney turned the game on its head at the weekend with his performance in the 2nd half against Tottenham and that was not an atypical performance by him over the course of this season as he has continued to energise United. I suppose people have overlooked him for Young Player of the Year because they do not realise he is still eligible as he has been around for so long!

Elsewhere, Frank Lampard has been head and shoulders Chelsea's best player throughout the season and can consider himself unfortunate not to make the cut. Liverpool have had their share of performers this season, as well as the nominated Steven Gerrard. Fernando Torres has been in imperious form in the past two months but missed much of the first part of the season which is why he is missing. Midfielder Xabi Alonso has done much to warrant a mention after the season began with him wondering if he even had a future at Anfield. Meanwhile, in a season which has seen them reach the FA Cup final, Everton could have been represented by the ever consistent Tim Cahill and rock solid Phil Jagielka and may wonder why Belgian midfielder Fellaini did not get on the Young Player of the Year list.

On the young player side, of those nominated Ashley Young and Stephen Ireland look like the best two candidates having been the best players for Aston Villa and Manchester City respectively over the course of the season. Young was instrumental in Villa's push for a top four finish up until a few weeks ago and so I think he should be the best candidate to win this award. Young winning Young Player of the Year sounds right too! Nonetheless, Ireland has shone like a beacon in the Man City team this season, when others that continually failed to deliver. As well as the aforementioned Rooney and Fellaini, Arsenal's Samir Nasri would seem to be the most glaring absentee from this list. Spurs's Aaron Lennon has been in fine form since the turn of the year and is another worthy of consideration.

Personally, my choices for these two awards are Nemanja Vidic and Ashley Young. However, the opinions of professional footballers can often be very different to the ones that the supporter has and so a surprise result should not be ruled out. For the record though, here are my players of the season for each of the Premier League's teams this campaign.

Arsenal: Robin Van Persie
Aston Villa: Ashley Young
Blackburn: Stephen Warnock
Bolton: Matthew Taylor
Chelsea: Frank Lampard
Everton: Tim Cahill
Fulham: Brede Hangeland
Hull: Michael Turner
Liverpool: Xabi Alonso
Manchester City: Stephen Ireland
Manchester United: Nemanja Vidic
Middlesbrough: Sanli Tuncay
Newcastle: Jonas Gutierrez
Portsmouth: Glen Johnson
Stoke: James Beattie
Sunderland: Kenwyne Jones
Tottenham: Aaron Lennon
West Brom: Chris Brunt
West Ham: Valon Behrami
Wigan: Antonio Valencia

2. If the product's good, why change anything?
While football is very much my first sporting love, the first sport I remember watching on television when I was a child was snooker. I was captivated by the game at a very young age, the table, the mixture of colours and the players' outfits. All in all, it just made for a brilliant television spectacle. Indeed, in these days of HD television where every small point of detail shows up in the television picture, there is possibly no other sport that is made so perfectly for a television audience than the green baize.

So, I am currently enjoying one of the finest sporting fortnights of the year with the World Snooker Championship currently taking place at the iconic Crucible Theatre in Sheffield. The intimate venue may not win any awards for being the prettiest venue in the world of sport, nor is it even the largest setting for a snooker tournament. But the memories associated with the place are such that the World Championship just would not be the same if it was held anywhere else. Because I remember watching the tournament as a young child and now continue to do so, the World Championship has a special place in my heart and I always look forward with anticipation to the tournament every year, although due to work I do not get to see all that much play these days. Apart from visiting the New Wembley and seeing a test match at Lord's, I cannot think of any sporting venue I would like to take in more.

My first memories of snooker were in the 1980s during snooker's so called "golden era". Back then, snooker was huge because there was blanket coverage of the game on television back at a time when there were only four television channels and the game was full of larger than life characters who would people on the edge of their seat with their antics, even if the quality of their play was not anything special. The first final I remember was the 1985 renewal which Dennis Taylor famously won on the final black in the early hours of the morning against Steve Davis. I can't quite remember if I stayed up right to the end, but I certainly remember Taylor sinking the black and I was none too happy as I idolised Steve Davis at the time.

Such heady days. I mention all this because currently if you believe the press and you believe Ronnie O' Sullivan, the game is dying. I dispute this because I think the people that proclaim snooker's golden era as being the 1980s are not really snooker fans at all. The game had plenty of characters back in the days of Davis's dominance, but aside from Davis, Alex Higgins at his absolute best, Jimmy White, Dennis Taylor and Cliff Thorburn, none of the players from that era would last five minutes in the game now. The evidence is damning. Last year, there were 68 century breaks made during the World Championship. Go back to the 1980s and you would be lucky to get even half that over the duration of the tournament.

Sure, everyone remembers Hurricane Higgins making crazy shots, head butting officials and soiling plants rather than potting them and they remember Jimmy White's years of gallant failure and Bill Werbeniuk breaking wind as he stretched over the table, but how did any of this add up to good snooker? Willie Thorne is somehow regarded as one of snooker's great characters because he had a shiny bald head and Dennis Taylor seemed to be more famous for his upside down rimmed glasses than for actually winning the World Championship. But people remember these people because they were on their television screens.

The problem snooker has now is partly down to lifestyle choice and partly down to perception. In the modern climate, there are so many other things people can be usefully doing other than watching snooker and they are spoilt for choice in terms of their viewing options. The casual follower is going to be less inclined to tune in now than they were in the past. It also does not help that snooker seems to have a negative perception in some people's eyes. "There aren't enough characters any more" they will cry. "Things aren't like they used to be" others will say and then there will be those that say "I'm only really interested in Ronnie, the rest of them are a bunch of faceless robots". People with that attitude won't be tuning in for the rest of the World Championship with Ronnie having crashed and burnt in round 2.

As a more avid fan of snooker, I do not see things this way. Yes, it is right that Ronnie O' Sullivan is snooker's biggest draw card, he is to his sport what Tiger Woods is to golf or what Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal are to tennis, the players that put bums on seats. When they swing a club or serve a tennis ball, the public are hooked. O' Sullivan is captivating not just because of the brilliance of his play but his unpredictability. On his day, he can destroy anybody that is in his path, but on other darker days, the main person he destroys is himself and his frustrations and character flaws make him the genius he is. There is no doubt that O' Sullivan's defence of his world title ending so early in one sense is bad news for the tournament because he keeps people interested.

In saying this though, this does a disservice to everyone else. In fact, with O' Sullivan out of the tournament, it makes this year's World Championship compulsive viewing because just about everyone left in the tournament is capable of winning it. The new bookmakers' favourite Stephen Maguire is testament to this because he has been made favourite despite the fact he has never even made the final at the Crucible before. There are plenty of fantastic players wherever you go, players with contrasting styles, but who each have their own merits.

The quality of the play now compared to 15 or 20 years ago is much better. Back in the 1980s, you knew that Steve Davis would have to play quite badly not to win the tournament, such was his superiority over his rivals. In the 1990s, there was slightly more competition coming through but for the early part of the decade at least, no-one realistically expected anyone of being capable of stopping Stephen Hendry. Compare and contrast this to now when the picture generally is that if O' Sullivan is in the mood, he can clean up, but if he is not then there are so many players in the field who could win the tournament. The pace of the game is much faster too, rather than the pedestrian nature of the players back in the days of Terry Griffiths and Cliff Thorburn.

The trouble is that snooker is not in the public consciousness so much any more. Apart from people have greater choices of programmes to be watching, the game is not on terrestrial TV as much as it used to be and there are fewer tournaments because of the current economic situation with sponsorship harder to come by. People are looking at ways of jazzing up the game and some have said that snooker should copy the template of darts with silly nicknames for the players and grandiose entries to the arena.

While it would be worth looking at ways of making snooker more accessible to a younger audience, I do think that people need to realise that the audiences for darts and snooker are different and if you rebrand snooker too much towards those with a shorter attention span, it will alienate the people most loyal to the game. Darts is a sport with its origins in the pub and the people that watch the game live treat the occasion like they would if they were watching in a pub. In essence though, it is a sport of precision accuracy played by middle aged, obese and sweaty men who can add up. Snooker might not require supreme fitness but it is an endurance test, a game where sublime tactical and technical play is required and a test of one's mental strength, resilience and powers of concentration. If people feel there aren't enough characters in snooker, it is because they do not understand the level of professionalism and dedication in snooker, something that is rare in darts unless you are Phil Taylor.

People continue to bemoan the lack of characters in snooker but in fact there are several capivating characters who will enjoy the limelight in Ronnie O' Sullivan's absence from the rest of the World Championship. The so-called "Jester from Leicester" Mark Selby is always good fun around the table and is full of wisecracks and humour, but also possesses a deadly competitive streak and can lull his opponents into a false sense of security. World number 2 Stephen Maguire is an unfulfilled talent. He has all the talent in the world but his temperament has been known to fail him at key moments and could have the makings of another Jimmy White in not reaching his full potential.

"Wizard of Wishaw" John Higgins is something of a veteran now and he takes the Steve Davis role of being fairly devoid of emotion at the table but being a silent assassin who plays his best snooker under pressure. Beyond them, there are the outrageous potting talents of Aussie Neil Robertson and Welshman Ryan Day and the young pups Mark Allen and Jamie Cope, who both seem to be capable of potting balls off lampshades. Then there's the quarter final to really look forward to between hometown boy Shaun Murphy and seven times world champion Stephen Hendry, who at 40 years old, seems only to play for this tournament now.

Times have moved on from snooker's golden era and realistically, it can never expect to enjoy the same amount of exposure in this country that it once had. But the sport is actually in pretty rude health at the moment with a talented crop of young players coming through and some seasoned pros still eager to prove they can cut at the highest level and the game's global profile is extending, particularly in the Far East but also increasingly in the Middle East.

Just tonight I watched two thrilling matches in the evening session with a match on one table which was a masterclass in break building and winning frames in one visit, while on the other table, there was a tight match between two players with little between them but where mistakes and tension led to frames being stolen from a seemingly unassailable position. Ultimately, if the product is good, as the quality of the snooker is, then it has got a chance. All the glamour and gimmicks in the world just add up to excess packaging.

As for who is going to win the tournament, well, I feel that the draw has opened up nicely for Mark Selby to win his first world crown. He was runner-up to John Higgins in 2007 and he could well face the Scot in the quarter-finals this time. A semi-final place would then await against either Ryan Day or O' Sullivan's conqueror Mark Allen. In the bottom half of the draw, I fancy Shaun Murphy to get past Stephen Hendry in the battle of the former champions. This would likely set him up with a semi against either his old adversary Stephen Maguire, last year's runner-up Ali Carter or Australian swashbuckler Neil Robertson. Maguire blows hot and cold but maybe, just maybe, this is his best opportunity of at least making the final.

3. Haye was not boxing clever
I would not describe myself as the biggest fight fan but more of a casual observer. The glory days of the 1990s are long gone as the vast majority of boxing's showpiece events are now shown on Pay Per View television and at inconvenient times in the morning in order to suit the American audience that comprises much of the world television audience. However, the sport did enter my consciousness this week with the actions of David Haye, heavyweight boxer from South London.

Haye is a world title fighter in the heavyweight section and is shortly going to be fighting the younger of the two Klitschko brothers, both of whom have held world title belts in their time. Haye is known as a cocky individual and is not averse to talking the talk, but in fairness to him, has also walked the walk by holding a world title belt. However, Haye overstepped the boundaries of acceptable sporting banter while promoting his latest bout.

It seems to be as much of a tradition in boxing as the pre-match weigh-in and the staring each other out contest that boxers feel compelled to trash talk one another in the pre-fight press conference and sure enough, Haye did just that by turning up at the press conference wearing a T-shirt which bore an image of the dismembered heads of his opponent and his brother on the front of it. Haye would later say that this tactic was deliberate because he wanted to make Klitschko angry at the insult he was making and therefore make Klitschko indisciplined when it came to the actual fight.

Maybe I'm being slightly old fashioned here, but is this really necessary? I do not recall Joe Calzaghe behaving in this way before any of his 46 professional fights and yet he did not lose any competitive edge. People might mention Muhammad Ali, but the great man would never have aimed such a metaphorically low punch in order to get his point across. What Haye did was cowardly and it was a cheap shot which could in fact rebound on him. Quite apart from possibly facing censure, Klitschko will definitely need no incentive when he goes out to fight Haye, he just needs to keep a photo of Haye wearing the T-shirt on his dressing room wall to pump him up good and proper.

Mind games seem all the rage at the moment with football managers doing their best to put one another off just to grab the smallest competitive advantage. But what does it all achieve when all is said and done? Words are just words, they can come back and bite you when they are not backed up by actions and Haye in trash talking Klitschko and choosing to be confrontational by wearing a T-shirt that was in such poor taste has unwittingly put extra pressure on himself now to win. Maybe he thrives on that kind of pressure, I don't know, but I think his cornerman will need to prepare himself for a busy evening when he gets in the ring with Klitschko.

Saturday 18 April 2009

Post Easter blues

Good evening everyone.

Well I suppose I should start by wishing everyone a belated Happy Easter which has come and passed since I last vented my spleen in a figurative sense around these parts. I hope you are all suitably full as a result of consuming plenty of Easter eggs over the holiday period. Sadly, I am now at an age where no-one seems to buy me them any more, hence I refrained from stuffing myself this year. A combination of the generally horrible weather and the stresses of the past week have given me the post-Easter blues, so I apologise if I'm in a particularly bad mood tonight.

As ever, there are a few things to discuss but I'll try and make it brief. Well, I suppose its quality that counts, not quantity. Here goes:

1. Legacy of Hillsborough is that it must never happen again
This past Wednesday marked the twentieth anniversary of the Hillsborough stadium disaster, one of English football's darkest ever days. On April 15 1989, 96 Liverpool supporters were killed after being crushed due to overcrowding in the Leppings Lane end of Sheffield Wednesday's Hillsborough ground just a few minutes into Liverpool's FA Cup semi-final clash against Nottingham Forest. Twenty years later and the grieving relatives of those that lost their lives that day still await justice in the form of an acceptance that South Yorkshire police take responsibility for the mass loss of life that fateful day.

This tragedy also has particular resonance for me because it is the first ever disaster I can really recall watching unfold on television. In April 1989, I was just over three months shy of my eleventh birthday and later that year I would be moving from primary school to secondary school. Remembering this timeline makes this recollection of the disaster all the more poignant because I can think of all the people who were at school with me 20 years ago who I would see in the playground the following Monday and the schoolchildren back then are now husbands, wives, mothers, fathers and in some cases are likely to have children not far off the age they would have been back then.

The youngest casualty of the disaster, who so happened to be current Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard's cousin, was 10 years old at the time. Had he have lived, what would he have achieved? Would he have been married by now? Might he have become a father? Would he have gone to university and forged a good career? Might he have been in Steven Gerrard's position and become a footballer for his boyhood team? Sadly these are questions that can never be answered.

Just as I imagine many people will have vivid memories of exactly where they were when JFK was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald on the greasy knoll in Dallas, or just as people will recall where they were when Princess Diana died, I can remember exactly where I was when the Hillsborough disaster occurred. I was in the very room from which I am writing this blog now, in the family home in Brighton. I no longer live here now, although my father still does, albeit I retain a computer here.

What is particularly striking is that it is the small details that I can particularly remember. I remember that I was alone in the room watching Grandstand when they went over to Hillsborough and cut to the pictures on the pitch. I was too young at the time to appreciate the enormity of what was happening, but I am pretty sure that even back then I realised I was watching people dying on television through my young eyes. The sight of the stricken being carried off on advertising hoardings used as makeshift stretchers is a haunting image that has stayed with me. I can remember the survivors being interviewed with bloodied foreheads and the sight of an ambulance being driven across the centre circle to treat the casualties. The same centre circle on which the match had kicked off just minutes earlier. In hindsight, I have wondered how watching such graphic atrocity unfold while watching television alone did not leave me traumatised or having nightmares in the aftermath, because I do not recall it affecting me in this way.

The twenty year anniversary of this horrific event also serves to remind everyone of how much the game of football has changed in the intervening two decades. Some of these changes have been for the worse with fans at the lower end of the wealth bracket sometimes priced out of the game, while corporate supporters have a day out at the football scoffing prawn sandwiches when previously they would have spent it on the golf course. The influx of corporate support and families may not be to everyone's liking, but the fact that they are going to football matches is a clear indication of how football's reputation has risen from the mire into the cash cow that is milked for all its worth that it is today. Inevitably, there will come a time when the game in this country will implode, but it is unlikely to ever fall into the dungeons of despair that it had reached by the end of the 1980s.

If the 1990s was the time of football's boom, thanks to Sky television's blanket coverage of the game and the new Premier League, then the 1980s saw English football's deepest depression. Hillsborough marked the culmination of a decade that brought the game to its knees in this country. In 1985, rioting by hooligan supporters tying themselves to Liverpool's colours resulted in 39 people dying prior to the European Cup final between Liverpool and Juventus. Just weeks earlier, a fire caused by a discarded cigarette caused tragedy at Bradford City's stadium. The season's worth of paper rubbish beneath the wooden seats gave the fire all the ignition it needed and within minutes the fire was fatally out of control. I remember seeing footage of this on a fire safety course a few months ago and it is astonishing just how quickly that fire spread resulting in the deaths that it caused.

The Conservative Government of the time, led by confessed football hater Margaret Thatcher saw football as an elephant in the room and pigeon-holed all of its supporters as worthy of the level of disdain that one normally reserves for chewing gum stuck to the bottom of their shoe. Around the time of the Hillsborough disaster, the Sports Minister of the time presided over the motion of cracking down on hooliganism by asking all football supporters to carry identity cards. Had this proposal ever seen the light of day, it would have given the Poll Tax a run for its money as the most unpopular policy of the Thatcher administration. Some of this disdain sadly had some justification due to the actions of a sadly significant minority, but if the aftermath of Hillsborough has achieved anything, it has certainly led to a change in attitudes among those that run the game.

The Hillsborough disaster was memorable for the dangerous perimeter fencing designed to keep supporters off the pitch. This was a measure brought in due to the rioting that was prevalent in the 1980s and unfortunately such fencing is still used in many other countries. The Taylor Report which reported on the disaster and introduced changes in its wake, requested that all seater stadiums be introduced and that terracing became a thing of the past.

This is a subject that polarises opinion among football supporters and I can understand why. There is no doubt that the atmosphere in an all-seater stadium can be funereal at times and being constrained by seats does not allow supporters to release the level of energy or passion they would if they could stand up and move around or go and stand in a "singing area" where the more vocal supporters could congregate and sing to their hearts content. There are those who advocate a "safe standing area" where those that wish to stand and sing can do so. In principle, I would not have a problem with this and when I go and watch a game in the non-leagues, I prefer to stand rather than sit. However, in practice there is the always the possibility that someone crosses the line of what would be termed "safe standing" and on that basis, I very much doubt you will see standing reintroduced in top flight football in England in the near future.

It seems that it often takes a disaster for the authorities to act responsibly and make the world a safer place. Take the railways for example, it was the tragic carnage of the Purley and Clapham Junction rail disasters that led to a mass review of safety on the tracks in this country. In recent times, railway travel has improved from a safety point of view, but it took these terrible tragedies to occur for progress to be made. Hillsborough proved to be a similar catalyst for safety in football stadia and the modern generation of top flight supporters can largely take their safety and comfort for granted when they go to a match on a Saturday afternoon, or indeed on any other day of the week that games are now played. This can be no consolation to the families of the bereaved, but nonetheless it is a legacy of this tragedy that people can take heart from.

For the families, they can never get any kind of closure until they receive justice. This justice is in the form of the South Yorkshire police force acknowledging blame for the disaster by opening gates into the overcrowded Leppings Lane stand and by following rules rather than responding to the reality of the situation facing them. It is also worth considering whether it would have been possible to have delayed the kick off of the match when the overcrowding issue became known.

Unfortunately for the families, I doubt they will receive the full apology they hope for. Police cover-ups are not unknown and they find it difficult to be accountable for blame where it is merited, as recent events in London may potentially demonstrate. The police force of that time have largely retired and I would expect if an unequivocal apology is ever forthcoming, it will be after the time that the people who needed to hear it most, the parents of the dead, have departed the scene.

In saying this, the footballing authorities need to take their share of the blame too. The ticketing arrangements needed to be better and it was crazy that the team with the greater number of supporters in Liverpool were allocated the stand with the smaller capacity. This was all the more shocking considering that there was a "near miss" at the same end of the same ground for a cup semi-final between Tottenham and Wolves some eight years earlier, where the larger contingent of Spurs supporters were crammed in like sardines in the Leppings Lane end.

In organisational terms, the football authorities have improved since 1989, albeit they are not perfect. But everyone involved in football in this country, be they administrators, players or supporters must not get complacent. The game has come a long way in two decades and it is to the credit of everyone concerned that families can go to the game now and enjoy a match, whatever some traditionalists' misgivings of the changes to demographics of the football supporter are. But this anniversary is a timely reminder that such atrocity must never happen again because the sheer notion that a dad and his child can go to a game on a Saturday afternoon and never make it home for their dinner is sickening to consider. I wish the families of the ninety-six supporters who lost their lives that wretched day all the best in their sustained quest for justice.

2. Apathy is the national dish
So are you all feeling patriotic? Have you fixed the cross of St George to your window sash? I only ask as next Thursday marks St George's Day, the day when people residing everywhere south of Hadrian's Wall, everywhere east of the Severn Bridge and everywhere north of the Channel should be coming together and celebrating this green and pleasant land. And yet for all that, we don't really do St George's Day justice in this country, do we?

Maybe it is because people are aware that their national patron saint is in fact about as English as Greg Rusedski, but I doubt that is the main reason. There is much debate about where St George is actually from, but popular belief has it that his origins were in ancient Rome. The plainer truth as to why St George's Day is not widely celebrated is that it is that very English trait, the classic English reserve that gets in the way. People often complain that we do not celebrate being English enough, until when it comes to the crunch, we are all as guilty as the next person of not really identifying what that Englishness is or caring what it is.

There are other factors at work too. Far right groups such as the BNP and skinhead groups have bloodied the flag of St George with their imperialist, partisan beliefs which have made national pride and celebration regarded as distasteful in some circles and so people distance themselves from being English. And yet, who elected this minority as being representative of the population anyway? The majority of English people who are proud of their country but do not resort to bigotry or partisanship need to be wrestling the flag from those who have so bloodied it. The ever controversial subject of political correctness rears its ugly head too, although its arrival cannot be entirely unlinked to the previous outbreak of jingoism.

At the other end of the scale, back in the 1990s, John Major showed once again how politicians have an uncanny knack of being out of step with the time by saying what his notion of Britain was. Major's idea of modern Britain was just about recognisable to a modern audience but only if they studied Charles Dickens for their A-levels. Major spoke of village cricket, the smell of cut grass, warm beer and vicars riding bicycles. Major's logic was not all flawed in that it is the simple pleasures in life that English people particularly indulge in and enjoy, but the picture he painted of modern Britain was terribly quaint and outdated, if indeed that Britain ever did exist.

St George's Day can never expect to be like St Patrick's Day is in Ireland and nor should it have any aspirations to. Quite apart from the fact that the Irish have an entirely different national psyche to the English and are generally more extrovert, March 17 is largely a commercial operation with a certain stout company that was founded in 1759 near Dublin and which rhymes with Binnis putting its name to various items of head attire worn by Irishmen of birth right and Irishmen of spirit (or spirits) packed into the theme bar.

And yet, there are things we can learn from St Patrick's Day even if we do not adopt the same template, if only we could change our attitudes. Real ale is the British alcoholic poison and so pubs up and down the land should be promoting the local ale on 23 April. Is it really so far fetched to think of the people of Brighton drinking Harvey's from when they knock off work through to last orders? In fact, the pub is a staple of the English culture so it should be the backdrop to celebrating the national day.

If you asked 100 English people to name English cuisine on a Family Fortunes revival, Les Dennis might well be forced to empty his pockets if a contestant suggested pizza, Chicken Tikka Masala or Spaghetti Bolognese, such is the common person's ambivalence towards homegrown cuisine. And yet, England does have cuisine with an appeal of its own and if you were to sum up what was English food, pub grub would be top of the list. So just as Irish bars offer up Irish stew on March 17, April 23 should celebrate scampi and chips and steak and kidney pie and the greasy spoon cafes of the country should celebrate the good old fry-up. And because we are English, brown sauce will be compulsory.

For those that are teetotal or for those that are not gastronomes, the celebration of what is English could surely be extended. This is a country of rich heritage. It has produced some of the finest music the world has ever heard. It has a rich history of low budget cinema. Some of the great innovators and scientists were English. Throughout England, there is an expanse of beautiful countryside and wildlife. All of these aspects of English life can be celebrated with special events on 23 April to attract those that identify with this part of being English.

I am sure that some of these ideas I have mentioned will come to fruition on Thursday, but that won't stop people complaining that celebrating being English is not widespread, while at the same time doing little to celebrate themselves unless of course they feel that participating in that favourite English pastime of having a good moan is an adequate way of marking the occasion.

There are those that suggest making St George's Day a bank holiday in order to encourage people to celebrate it more. I have my doubts about how realistic this strategy would be. The calendar in England is already top heavy in spring with regards to bank holidays with Good Friday, Easter Monday, May Day and Spring Bank Holiday all falling within a couple of months of each other. In contrast, there are no bank holidays at all in the four months between the August Bank Holiday and Christmas Day. It would make sense to mark the Remembrance Day commemorations with a Bank Holiday which falls during the intervening period to remember those that sacrificed themselves for their country. But apart from logistical angle, I think making St George's Day a bank holiday would largely see it treated by people in the same way that any other bank holiday is marked. If the weather is good, a day at the theme park or the car boot sale. If the weather is bad, stay at home and watch DVDs from under the duvet.

We have to acknowledge that the main problem in getting people to be more patriotic and celebrate St George's Day more is to remove people from the shackles of apathy that plagues the nation. This apathy is particularly prevalent during times of economic depression as the media whips up a frenzy of doom and gloom and actively encourages a country of negativity and self-pity. Until such insularity and apathy is conquered, and that certainly will not happen in the short term, we are going to have to accept that St George's Day is going to be day that does not register on many of the natives' levels of consciousness. Each of us can in our own way change this by doing some small things, but it is a collective responsibility to change our state of mind rather than the fault of bureaucracy or political correctness. But changing that state mind just wouldn't be, well, very English would it?

3. Cabinet roadshows a waste of time and money
I wonder how many Glaswegians had a warm glow in their hearts this past week in the knowledge that Gordon Brown and his cabinet would be arriving in the city in order to convene the latest monthly cabinet meeting.

Since Gordon Brown became Prime Minister in June 2007, the cabinet roadshow has been something of a brainchild of his and in recent months, the red carpet has been laid out for the PM and such luminaries as Ed Balls, Jacqui Smith and David Milliband at most of Britain's premier cities and Southampton for them to discuss the key issues of the day.

Yet, at a time when saving money is of paramount importance, surely these beanies are an extravagant waste of time and resource. Quite apart from the not insignificant policing and security bills that will be incurred in order for these roadshows to be hosted, consider also the amount of money that will be going on cabinet ministers' expense claims for their travel and their hotel stay. And that does not include any additional costs incurred for a minister's husband accessing a channel above 900 on the hotel television late on a Saturday night while the wife is discussing prison reforms in an adjacent room. Just as long as he paid for his own tissues!

In an age of high technological capability, why is there a need for extravagant day trips? If it is felt that meeting once a month in Westminster is problematic (which would be surprising given where the House of Commons is), why can't the cabinet have a video or telephone conference? At least that way, it will not involve sitting in a stuffy room and falling asleep when Alistair Darling speaks. Without wishing to sound like a ranting Talksport or LBC disc jockey who permanently have a moral compass fixed to their breast pocket, at a time when funds are tight and the country is in the grips of recession, there simply is no justification for such a blatant waste of Government resource.

4. Dyas needs to know what it is
In the latest round of recession blues, Robert Dyas finds itself in the soup with store closures and a buyout looking like a necessity. This seems to be a store that a lot of male shoppers have some kind of affinity for in that it is the Nuts of High Street stores. It sells male orientated products that can show off the male macho tendencies.

At least, that was the Robert Dyas that people remember. The perception and the reality would appear to be some way apart. Much like Woolworth's, this is a shop that people are remembering for its nostalgia but have probably avoided shopping in for several years. In these days of B&Q and Homebase superstores that have car parks enabling heavy goods to be readily deposited in the boot, the challenge Dyas has is that people are going to out of town stores where they can fill up the car.

The other issue is that Robert Dyas has something of a perception problem. It describes itself as an ironmonger but really its boundaries are stretched far beyond those confines. The last time I went into Robert Dyas, I can remember encountering everything from watering cans, saucepans, oven gloves and shelf brackets right through to cook books. If you were to ask the directors of Robert Dyas who their core customers are and what their core product is, I think there would be a shortage of clarity around the answer to both questions.

Because there has been extensive diversification in the types of product that Robert Dyas sell within its stores, the importance of having a good store layout is crucial to satisfying the customer. The last time I visited my local Robert Dyas, the layout was shoddy and it took me several minutes to find the item I was looking for. It was also noticeable just how quiet the shop was when I visited. Its stores are by no means small, but yet the layout can appear cramped and inadequately labelled.

We live in times when not only can the type of goods that Dyas sell are able to be bought in out-of-town superstores, but they can also be ordered online. Amazon has even ventured into the market of house and garden related goods. Purchasing hardware online and getting it delivered is a more convenient option in people's busy schedules and there is no doubt that Robert Dyas has been affected adversely in this way.

Just as Woolworth's did not move with the times and have an online presence and come up with viable competition to the clicks and mortar powerhouses, so Robert Dyas has stuck to its traditional model and believed that people will keep shopping with them because of their long standing name and reputation. The reality is now starting to set in and while nostalgia is clouding people's memories, subsconsciously there is a reason why these shoppers have stayed away all this time. Robert Dyas has a niche audience and it is no longer meeting mainstream customers needs because it has just become a pick and mix of the house and garden product. Its target market are older people but they fled to B&Q (in some cases to don the B&Q apron) some time ago. Against this, it really is not hard to see why Robert Dyas is in the doldrums.

Sunday 5 April 2009

Tales from a crazy island

Good evening readers.

Well, another week negotiated and plenty of things have happened since we last convened. Protesters descended upon London to voice their dissent against the world leaders in these times of economic depression, some of whom had a clear agenda, others just looked like they fancied a day off work. Then, extraordinarily, peace broke out where it appeared that differences of opinion were going to be irreconcilable. Not even Sir Fred refusing to surrender his bonus could get in the way of the sudden rejoicement.

Meanwhile, April Fools' Day came and went with the newspapers as usual trying to catch their readers out with stories of fantasy that J.K. Rowling would have been proud of. Best of all was the story on the front page of the Metro saying that nightclub bosses planned to shine a special torch up people's nostrils to check for traces of cocaine. And that story turned out to be true!

In the sporting world, the highlight of the week was the Grand National, the one day of the year when grannies will have a bet and normally their non-scientific system of picking the horse that shares its name with their first pet is just as reliable as the tried and tested system of the formbook. Typically, I backed a horse at 20 to 1, but sadly it didn't finish until half past five! Well done to those of you who picked the winner at 100-1, there's a good night out to be had with those winnings.

Well, as ever, seeing as how there have been so many things to talk about in the worlds of politics, the media, local affairs, business and sport over these past few days, I'm going to try my very best to cram as much as I can into this blog. So, let's get the show on the road.

1. Maybe protests can work after all
There I was sitting on a train this week thinking about what I was going to write in my blog come the weekend. There were a few stories dominating the column inches in the broadsheets and scandal sheets during the week, but by far and away the biggest talking point was the political circus of G20 coming to London for their summit meeting.

Beforehand, there appeared to be a lot of apathy and criticism of the decision to stage such a grand event in London with people dubious of the motives and also wondering how appropriate it was to lay on such an extravagant event for world leaders and to no doubt commit so much to the policing bill throughout the capital whilst the summit was occurring, all the while the world remains in the grips of economic meltdown. Surely, there were too many factions, differences in cultures and individual agendas that would get in the way of there being any meaningful progress that would come out of the summit and these would only open up old wounds.

And then there were the protesters. Who was really going to take them seriously? From what I could see, there just appeared to be too many pressure groups with their own individual agendas queuing up to lay bare their grievances about the current social, political, economic and environmental concerns with a vocal minority who would be prepared to take direct action in order to get their point across.

So there I was with my reporters' notebook, jotting down a few notes and planning a spider diagram for what I would write about this weekend (I like to be meticulous, you know!), thinking that the best angle to go with would be that protesters were wasting their time. World leaders are too aloof to be listening to the opinions of some scruffy protesters and to take on board the anger and frustration felt by the average Joe, especially when the typical presence of Rent-A-Mob comes along and causes criminal damage to a bank. How could a collection of tax dodgers and sickie throwers who did not necessarily know what they were protesting about compare to previous generations of protesters who were actually prepared to be martyrs to their cause in order to achieve progress? If anything, people's contempt of politicians would only be transferred to protesters who were wasting their time and bringing the capital to a standstill.

And then something extraordinary happened. In the next two days the 20 most powerful leaders in the world gathered round a table in London's Docklands and where acrimony and blood spillage was predicted, a relatively straightforward peace broke out. OK, so no hard and fast solutions were found, but then the issues up for discussion are too complex for quick fixes or overnight success. However, matters of personal difference seemed to be cast aside as the assembled caped saviours of the world thrashed out a commitment to solving the key issues of economic, social and environmental concern with a nine point plan of action.

Now, it would obviously be naive to proclaim the developments that occurred in the London borough of Tower Hamlets a success just yet. A commitment to achieving a common goal is only the beginning and that ageless saying about actions speaking louder than words certainly applies here. But, looking back to the start of the week, who could honestly say that they expected any kind of resolution from this summit? The beginning of the week brought about policy cliques and the usual expectation of horse trading between different nations where national protectionism would be bound to take precedence over the need to establish unity to reach a common goal. Expecting the elected representatives of world super powers with disparate cultures and agendas and different levels of tolerance looked about as likely as encountering a flying pig at Heathrow airport.

This looked all the more unlikely on the eve of the summit when it transpired that Nikolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel were at such odds over Gordon Brown's Keynesian model of Government spending in order to tackle the current recession that Sarkozy threatened to walk out on the summit and go home. Mind you, I think if I had Carla Bruni to go home to, I could understand his predicament! Sarkozy and Merkel had a point of course as it has been the heavy Government spending and subsequent cycle of borrowing from banks that has intensified the economic gloom in the United Kingdom. Fortunately though it would seem that a compromise was found with Sarkozy getting what he wanted and the G20 opting to abandon its laissez faire approach and agreeing to implement the imposition of far tougher global regulation on banks and other financial services.

There were several hot potatoes that the G20 leaders sought about addressing during the summit, including wiping out global debt, climate change and economic strategies. But perhaps the most significant of all was the commitment to cut out the flow of money into tax havens. You will be familiar with the tales of Formula One drivers and ageing rock stars who set up home in places like Monaco, Switzerland, Jersey, Iceland or the Isle Of Man where they will not be required to contribute any of their huge earnings to Her Majesty's Customs and Revenue Department. This is a good deal for those concerned, but it is a bum deal for everyone else as this creates an invisible economy, an economy where income is lost which could be contributed towards improving public services. So any attempts at eradicating these loopholes should certainly be welcomed.

So, having established a cautious optimism in terms of the outcomes that have emerged from G20, how much of what was achieved was as a result of the protests? I am not too sure on this, but I think that what the protests did do was reaffirm that the discontent and contempt for politicians as the decision makers who affect everyone's lives is at a current low and it is possible that politicians who saw footage of the protests and heard of some of the protesters' causes and agendas realised that people are in search of answers and actions to a global crisis that they perceive with some substance to be of the politicians' making.

What was noticeable about the footage of the protests was that whilst many of those who lined the streets just seemed to be there for a spot of the action and for a day away from a humdrum office or from having their head concealed behind a textbook, there were also those who lined the streets having been affected at first hand by the world's current troubles, such as people that had been made redundant by banks, people with savings in troubled banks and former postmasters at closed village Post Offices. These were not the kinds of people who attended protests and demonstrations surely? And yet, there they were with their placards and their whistles, waiting for a passing news reporter to ask them what their motives were.

I am still not entirely convinced that protesters can really make much of a difference to what a Government decides to do. The Government after all always retains the disclaimer that "you elected us" whenever rumblings of dissent are rife, although such is the level of political apathy among many that they abstain from voting, resulting in elections being won where only two-thirds of the population voted and so in real terms, far less than half the eligible voting population actually elected the winning party and leader.

Protesters can certainly generate awareness in their causes through their protests, but in my experience, I find that many are distrustful of protesters' motives and particularly get fed up wherever direct action takes place that causes disruption to their everyday lives. And yet, when we look back at the pages of history, some important freedoms and developments that we now take for granted have only been brought about as a result of powerful protest movements.

If it were not for Emily Davison sacrificing her life by throwing herself in front of the King's horse at Epsom in 1913 and were it not for Emmeline Pankhurst chaining herself to railings, women would not have been given the right to vote. Without that, the possibility of ever having a female Prime Minister would have been a pipe dream. Also, was it not for Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat on the bus to a white person and was it not for the black civil rights movements of the 1960s, segregation due to one's skin colour would still be accepted and oppression of this nature would still be tolerated. And if that was still the case, the chances of the United States ever having a Kenyan born, mixed race President would be nil.

As I said at the top, I find it hard to draw parallels between martyrs of a previous protesting age and the current generation of protesters. However, given how the G20 summit panned out and the "peace in our time" that came about at the end of it, it would be wrong to dismiss out of hand the impact that the protests had. The television images will have illustrated to the watching world the groundswell of anger and discontent that pervades at the moment and with politicians keen to ensure they retain power when they next face the ballot box, they had to be seen to be in touch with their electorate. It is not inconceivable that seeing these images and being made aware of the protests will have played a part in bringing about what, on the surface, appeared to be a pain free resolution. The next test is putting the plan into practice.

2. BBC detractors continue to miss the point
Once again, the BBC have come under attack from their enemies in Fleet Street and on rival airwaves this week. First of all, they were criticised for the heavy handed wording of letters to people who had not paid their television licence. This of course angered the Daily Mail, to whom outrage is almost a reflex state of mind.

Then, just to compound their problems, the BBC were then hit with a £150,000 fine by OFCOM for the Sachsgate affair. This resulted in Z-list columnists and no-mark talk DJs getting on their high horses about how disgusting it was that this fine was being paid by the licence paying public when it should have been paid by the presenters who were responsible for the ill advised lewd answerphone message in the first place. If this was supposed to whip this particular licence paying member of the public into an angry frenzy, it succeeded, but only in as much as I cannot believe just how much some people unbelievably miss the point.

A few things about these points. First of all, some newspapers did not do their research properly. They reported that this fine was a record fine that had been imposed on the BBC. It was not, and I can only assume that there has been an outbreak of short-term memory loss among the scandal sheet scribes. The BBC was fined three times as much just last year for its part in the telephone competition rigging scandal. You remember the one, innocent children were encouraged to telephone the BBC at mummy and daddy's expense to come up with a suitable name for the new moggy on Blue Peter, when lo and behold, the Blue Peter Production Team had already decided on a name. I'm sure Blue Peter viewers have not been so upset since George the Tortoise popped his clogs, or maybe his shell.

Secondly, the moral brigade among our elected Members of Parliament suggested that Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross should cough up the £150,000 to OFCOM seeing as how they were responsible for getting the BBC in the mess in the first place. Notwithstanding the fact that the editorial team were certainly culpable too, you would like to think that an MP would know something about the laws which they presumably play a part in passing. It would seem not, however, because it is currently illegal for an individual person or people to pay such fines, they have to be levied against an organisation. Hazel Blears in her latest attempt to get herself noticed has only managed to score an own goal. Even if it was possible to ask individuals to contribute, given that Russell Brand is no longer employed by the BBC, it is difficult to see how it would be possible to hold him to any monetary account over this matter.

Maybe it is just me, but there is something blindingly obvious here that everybody has overlooked. The OFCOM fine was for £150,000. Jonathan Ross is reputedly paid £6 million a year for his various projects on the BBC. Whatever your opinion on him or that figure, at the time his last contract was up for negotiation that would have been the going rate for a top ranking light entertainment presenter and I imagine back in those heady days, he would have been paid far more by ITV. Anyway, the point is that Ross was suspended for three months for his ill chosen cameo on the Russell Brand Show on Radio 2 with his pay frozen during that time.

By my working out, this means that Ross is paid £500,000 a month and so during the time he would have been suspended by the BBC, he would have waived £1,500,000. The £150,000 works out at just ten per cent of what Ross would have earned from his salary during that time had he not been suspended. This is money that would have already been committed, so the BBC could surely just cover this fine from Ross's unpaid salary over the three months and would still have enough to commission a documentary on lollipop ladies or possibly a new sitcom starring Ardal O' Hanlon. Therefore, people getting themselves worked up into a larva is pointless because the BBC already has the money tucked away to pay this fine.

So that brings me back to the licence fee. I really have some difficulty in understanding the mentality of people that are opposed to the licence fee or refuse to pay it. Anyone would think it was expensive, whereas in reality it costs less than £12 a month, which is fantastic value when you consider the array of programmes the BBC offers. People say it is an antiquated model and that they dislike the principle of paying a licence fee if you do not watch the BBC. Well, firstly you would find it hard to prove to anyone that you watch a terrestrial television but refuse to ever use two channels. Even if you select the channel in error, you are still watching a channel that the licence fee covers.

My particular problem with these cynics with nothing positive to say is that the very same people who are opposed to the licence fee are also the ones that complain about there being too much advertising on television. Or, they will be people with a satellite dish fixed to the back roof of their house with a monthly subscription fee far greater than a television licence. This is pure hypocrisy, or maybe people just think that the BBC should not actually spend any money to make television programmes. The corporation needs to be funded somehow, and if a licence fee is not an option, then these are the only two realistic alternatives.

Strangely enough, given that the BBC bashers have been critical of some of their digital output, accusing BBC Three and BBC Four as being a waste of money because they do not get sufficient audiences, the people most vehemently opposed to the licence fee might be surprised to learn that its days could be numbered thanks to the digital revolution taking place right now.

As we all should know, the digital switchover will take place throughout the UK by 2012 and at that point, the analogue signal will be switched off. I say that we all should know because clearly some people are still in the dark given that just last year, sales of analogue only televisions with access to just terrestrial TV remained steady. I expect the same people cook their dinner in an Aga and are still playing Pac Man on the Commodore Vic 20. However, there was a significant development this week with digital channel E4 scoring higher audience figures on Thursday night for its comedy-drama The In-betweeners than the Graham Norton Show that was airing on BBC2 at the same time.

What the digital era will herald, I think, once everyone embraces its being is a move away from the traditional terrestrial television schedule. People subscribe to satellite television because of the choice available, they can choose what genre of programmes they would like to watch and give a wide berth to those programmes that they do not have any interest in. People's lifestyle choices are greater in general now with more people watching a movie on DVD on those wet Sunday afternoons or chilled out Friday nights rather than flicking between the five main channels.

And I think with this, you might see the BBC look at moving over to something more akin to a subscription model where people can choose which of their channels they would like to watch and which they would like to leave alone. And if people don't want to watch any of their channels, then that will be their personal choice, but it will just mean that they do not get a picture if they try to select the channel that their programming output is on, including BBC1 and BBC2.

What I think will become more noticeable in years to come is that the days of the "one size fits all" model of a terrestrial television channel will begin to die out. The problem that both the BBC and ITV have with their main channels are that they are trying to meet the needs of too many audiences and they are therefore doomed because you cannot please all the people all the time. If you look at the BBC and ITV's back-up digital channels, they tend to be more focused on a particular audience and are dominated by a particular genre of programmes. BBC Three is largely an entertainment and reality television channel, while BBC Four is devoted to documentaries, particularly related to history, as well as dramas and films of cultural interest. With ITV, ITV2 is largely a channel aimed at a younger audience with several celebrity orientated formats and reality TV programmes. ITV3 tends to focus its schedules on repeats of archive ITV drama and comedy series, while ITV4 shows more factual output and imported dramas.

The BBC already has a flagship 24 hour rolling news channel, a channel devoted to Parliamentary affairs and channels devoted to children and toddlers, but as the digital age starts to gather momentum, I would expect other specific genres to be catered for. For quite some time, people have spoken about the BBC introducing a dedicated sports channel and this could be a possible avenue, with coverage shared between it and the red button. It could decide to have other interactive channels aimed at a particular audience, perhaps a film channel or a music channel could be options.

It is very easy to knock the BBC because of the way it is funded and because of the sometimes archaic and bureaucractic nuances of the organisation and of the people holding power in Shepherds Bush. But, the organisation remains a unique entity and as relevant a market player as it ever was. The organisation has shown itself to be a wonderful innovator, with one of the best and most accessible websites in common use and the introduction of the excellent iPlayer facility, as well as demonstrating its foresight in preparing for the digital switchover.

The organisation remains a much revered one around the world where it is regarded as a standard bearer. Those that do not like the BBC's programming output should turn on their television the next time they find themselves in a hotel on mainland Europe and see just what passes as entertainment in other countries. But above all that, there are some programmes that the BBC makes which no other broadcaster in the world could make as well as they do, because of the attention to detail that goes into the production.

I particularly refer here to the BBC's long established excellence in producing natural history programmes. Sir David Attenborough has done more in educating people about all the species of living beings on this planet than any Guardian wallchart could ever aspire to. When your licence fee goes towards paying for such magnificent wildlife programmes as anything that Attenborough has been involved in, or the recently brilliant Orang Utan Diaries with close-ups of cute apes, the presenting from the equally cute Michaela Strachan and the heart rending stories associated with the programme, then you really cannot complain. The Natural History Unit and the travelogs of Michael Palin et al are the tip of the iceberg where the BBC's stamp of quality is concerned and that is why people should be proud of the BBC rather than always being so quick to castigate it.

3. No place for a court jester
I would not want you to think I always watch the BBC and sure enough, on Monday night I found myself watching the Despatches programme on Channel 4, which was an expose on the mayoral tenure of Boris Johnson to date. Although you have to take the findings of the programme with a significant pinch of sodium chloride given that the journalist fronting the programme clearly had an anti-Boris agenda, the programme certainly raised valid concerns about Johnson's suitability for such a crucial power position of power.

I must confess I used to be quite a fan of Boris Johnson's, although I tended to like him because I regarded him as a classic English eccentric, a bumbling and harmless buffoon who was worth listening to as he would quite often cut through some of the male cattle excrement that is sometimes all too common in political circles. Johnson is no intellectual lightweight in that he is well read and had a career as a political journalist and social commentator for almost two decades before he was elected to Parliament and then ran for London Mayor.

In saying that though, I always had misgivings about Johnson becoming Mayor of London. To me, Johnson is too woolly to be taken seriously in a position of power and is likely to be too easily influenced by other people with vested interests when it comes to making important decisions. Johnson's main vote winner when he was elected was simply that he was not Ken Livingstone, whom many Londoners grew to despise over his time as Mayor, not least because of the introduction of the congestion charge.

Johnson it would seem has done everything he can to distance himself from Livingstone's policies but in doing this, he is in danger of actually taking London backwards. Johnson is a keen cyclist and has promised to make London a more cycle friendly and environmentally friendly city and yet the Despatches programme implied that Johnson has, in fact, favoured the motorists more in the policies he has introduced so far, including removing one of the congestion charge areas. Anyone who has been to London will appreciate that there is too much traffic passing through the city, especially given the plethora of rail and tube links there are across the capital. It seems to me that Johnson has given the motorists what they want because they are in influential positions and because these policies are at odds with Livingstone's.

Johnson's major fixation with transport has been the abolition of "bendy buses" which clearly seem to be a bugbear of the unkempt Mayor. Yet, really and truly abolishing these buses is an empty policy, there is no significant benefit to anyone by removing them. It had been claimed that these buses would be replaced by London Routemaster buses, which seemingly appeals to the nostalgia freaks out there who yearn for a more innocent time. However, according to Despatches, there are no immediate plans to bring in Routemasters and in the short term, the bendy buses will be replaced by ordinary single and double decker buses. It seems to be a lot of upheaval at no small cost for no logical reason.

The other factor that would concern me if I was resident in London is Johnson's public relations, or rather, his distinct lack of skills in this area. Johnson loves to give a good quote, until someone has the audacity to challenge him and then he gets angry. This was demonstrated just this past week when a committee convened to discuss the disruption caused to the transport network in London by the snow storms of early February. Johnson was asked by the London Transport Committee's chair, Val Shawcross, if he had enquired about whether there might be problems that would affect London's transport network as a result of the heavy snowfall. Being the grown adult he is in a position of power, Johnson decided not to answer the question, stood up and walked out of the meeting. Johnson later said he could not do anything about the worst snowfall for twenty years.

As discussed on this blog in February, there is only so much that could be done about the snowfall that occurred because it is not a common occurrence in this country and so workers are not used to dealing with the aftermath of a snowstorm. It did not help either that the majority of the snowfall in South East England initially fell on Sunday evening, a time of week when the transport industry is running on particularly low resources. Nonetheless, Johnson was wrong to dismiss Ms Shawcross's query out of hand because it is quite valid for people affected by travel disruption to and from the capital on that day to question why London came to a standstill when other cities that also had significant snowfall were able to continue running transport.

All eyes will be on London in three years from now when the Olympics comes to London for the first time in sixty-four years. This should be once in a lifetime experience for people throughout the country and particularly in London and it should serve as a useful seedbed in bringing about much needed regeneration in some of the less affluent areas of London that are situated close to where the stadium is due to be built. Johnson's role as Mayor is going to be crucial in ensuring that London follows in the tradition of Barcelona, Sydney and Beijing by being an affable "mein host" that provides a memorable occasion for residents and visitors alike, albeit on a much smaller budget in comparison to Beijing.

Call me a cynic, but Johnson's central role in this piece does not fill me with confidence. His handover speech at the Beijing closing ceremony where he talked about Britain having "invented the rules of ping pong" was one part hilarious but for the most part embarrassingly cringeworthy. The eyes of the world will be watching the UK when the 2012 Olympics are declared open and more gaffes like this from Johnson leaves this country in danger of being a laughing stock at the exact moment that it is needing to portray a good image. It's time for Johnson to step up and show he is a man of substance and principle, rather than just a bumbling fool who has allowed power to go to his head.

4. National status could be a double edged sword
I read with interest this week that the South Downs have officially been granted National Park status after many years of canvassing by talkative country walkers. I suppose that qualifies them as ramblers.

The Downs cover a wide area of countryside within Hampshire, West Sussex and East Sussex, running from roughly near Southampton right along to the outskirts of Eastbourne. The area in question are certainly areas of outstanding beauty which look good in all weathers, but certainly are showcased at their best in the glorious summer sunshine, which is hopefully going to be plentiful over the coming months.

Whilst I am pleased to hear that the Downs have finally been elevated to the same level as the Lake District, Snowdonia and Yorkshire Dales, a status that is richly deserved, I do have one major reservation about the impact that national park status will bring. This concern is that the amount of people that come to visit the Downs will increase and with this, so too does the litter.

In times when the laconic, self-deprecating members of this crazy island buy a book called Britain's Crap Towns 2, it is worth reminding ourselves that there is some beautiful scenery within our fair isle. The South Downs is a classic example of that, but the Kent countryside with its proliferation of oasthouses and windmills on the landscape are also fine examples too. Yet, we have the capacity to spoil the very landscape that we go to enjoy by at times indulging in selfish, thoughtless actions either by dropping litter or by allowing dogs to foul public greenery.

So, I hope that the authorities take the appropriate measures to ensure that national park status on the South Downs is not abused by providing an adequate supply of waste bins and by clamping down on those who do drop litter, so that the Downs can be enjoyed by everyone that visits them.

5. Fine line between debauchery and stupidity
A couple of sporting stories have particularly stood out for me over the past week. In the world of football, I was interested to hear of Scotland's in-house curfew breakers with their captain Barry Ferguson and goalkeeper Allan McGregor both being dropped from Scotland's midweek World Cup qualifying group match against Iceland after both players had gone on a drinking bender after their team's 3-0 defeat in Holland the previous Saturday. From what I have read, it sounds like this was more than a case of having a couple of pints to wind down after a defeat, seeing as how both men supposedly stayed out drinking until 11:30 the following morning!

Having been suspended, you would think it wise to not get yourself into any further trouble, but Ferguson and McGregor then effectively signed their own resignation notes by making V-signs to the camera as they sat on the bench during the Iceland match. For these relatively empty but stupid gestures, Ferguson and McGregor did not so much have the book thrown at them, but the Encyclopaedia Britannica as the Scottish FA banned the pair from ever playing for Scotland again. To make matters worse for them, their club Glasgow Rangers have subsequently fined both players and suspended them from action for at least two weeks.

Now, I certainly think that it was right for the authorities to punish both players and it was also right to waste no time in making the punishment, rather than waiting for several weeks as sometimes happens when administering disciplinary actions in the world of sport. However, even though I would accept that what both players did was completely unprofessional, I would argue that a life ban is just a trifle draconian.

In Ferguson's case, he certainly let the team down as he was the captain and he therefore should have been setting an example to everyone else, not least to McGregor who was his partner in crime in this whole charade. He also has some previous where hard drinking is concerned and so in his case you could say that cutting short his international career is no great loss, not least because of his diminishing powers as a player.

Allan McGregor, however, is a few years younger than Ferguson and is 27 years old, which I would regard as relatively young by the standards of high level goalkeepers. The Rangers stopper had previously won four caps for his country and is regarded by many as a keeper who could become very good in the next two or three years if he just knuckles down and rids himself of some of the more unsavoury aspects of his character. At his age, you could argue that it is a bit late for that, but I think the problem is that he needs to step out of the clique he has found himself in. A change of scenery at a new club and with the right manager could be the making of him.

Now, this is where I have a problem with the life ban. I personally feel that team selection should always be at the manager's discretion unless there is good reason for a player not to be selected, such as them having committed a serious criminal offence or serving an extended ban for something they did playing for their club. It is fine all the while George Burley is manager for him not to select these players, but what happens when he is no longer manager? If the next manager comes in and rates these two, what will his reaction be if he is not allowed to reverse this ban?

The best thing both players can do is go and make a new start away from Scotland. Ferguson has already failed once in the Premier League, so perhaps he needs to head onto mainland Europe for his next challenge. This could be good for him in terms of adopting a more professional attitude to the game. In McGregor's case, a move south of the border to a lower level Premier League side could be his best option. In their position, I would just be wanting to play so well that their performances could not be ignored, so that it would force the officials into reviewing their stance some day down the line when both players are older and wiser. Neither player can change the past, but now is the time that they can start to shape their future. I suppose time will tell just what both players are made of or whether their international days truly have bitten the dust.

Changing sports, Kevin Pietersen was in the news again this week for announcing that he had found it hard to keep himself motivated during the extended tour of the West Indies owing to the fact that he had not seen his wife, Jessica of Liberty X and Dancing On Ice fame for over two months. As you might expect, Pietersen's comments triggered a cyncial response and KP did not help his cause with it being common knowledge that he will be flying off to his homeland in two weeks time in chase of the Indian Rupee for the rescheduled Indian Premier League.

However, tossing the merits of Pietersen's individual case to one side for a moment, it is worth bearing in mind that cricket has a history of mental illness and suicides among players and former players. There are several theories that have been opined as to why that is, particularly in relation to the mental deterioration that can consume a player who is haunted by a run of bad form. However, there is no doubt that the amount of time spent on the road for days on end away from family is a significant reason for this.

If you want a vivid example of how family difficulties can affect a player's mental health, I suggest you read the excellent Coming Back To Me by former England opening batsman Marcus Trescothick. Trescothick was forced to retire prematurely from playing for England after a battle with depression, which had been initially triggered by an accident his father-in-law had falling from a ladder while Trescothick was on tour in India. The guilt Trescothick felt because he was not at home to support his wife at a time of personal stress took over Trescothick and resulted in a breakdown which has meant he has not been able to travel out of the UK in a cricketing capacity ever since.

So while it is easy to dismiss Pietersen as being a prima-donna who has got too cocksure for his own good, it would be wrong to just think that being away from home for months is an acceptable part of the territory for an international cricketer. Everyone is different and some people handle being away from their family for an extended period better than others, but perhaps it would be advisable for the ICC to try and ensure that future international tours do not last for more than two months, so as to avoid any more players being lost to the international game as a result of a breakdown.