Saturday 27 June 2009

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.

Sunday 14 June 2009

Ringing tills, splattering eggs and pigs in Photoshop

Hello again.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

Sunday 7 June 2009

Times are a changing

Evening folks.

Well, another week has flashed by and today sees the conclusion to another monumental mission. No, Gordon Brown has not left office yet, but it is the final of The Apprentice series 5 tonight. Who will be rewarded with a £100,000 a year salary and a permanent seat in Sir Alan, soon to be Lord Sugar's empire? By the way, doesn't the boss's new title make him sound like he should be a character in a Roald Dahl book? My prediction on a previous blog that Debra would go all the way has gone slightly awry but to my mind at least, the best two candidates over the whole series will be contesting the final.

Yasmina did not know the difference between a gross and net profit, so probably best that she doesn't end up doing Sugar's accounts! However, she has shown herself to be a determined candidate who is strong on the hard sell and not someone to be crossed. By contrast, Kate is less maverick than Yasmina and tends to go more by the book. I do not for one second believe she is the robot that the press and Sir Alan's advisors would make you believe. She might have the appearance of the dizzy blonde but I think there is a quiet determination to succeed inside and whereas Yasmina's skills lie in her hard selling, direct approach, Kate has a softer set of selling and people skills and she has shown herself to be a consumate presenter. It's going to be a close run thing and by the time you see this blog, the result will probably be known. But I'm predicting Yasmina to edge it by the slightest of slight margins, as Sugar tends to like someone who has a bit of maverick about them.

Well, there are those that think many of The Apprentice candidates are not fit enough to run a railway. Speaking of which, let's proceed to the first topic of this blog.

1. Changing the concept of time
As a regular commuter on one of the busiest rail passenger routes in the country, I am well used to the common problems that come with the territory. Finding a seat on a rush hour train is always a challenge, especially when you can guarantee that in every carriage there will be at least one selfish passenger who is apparently oblivious to the plight of the other passengers on the train. So while you are squashed like sardines in the standing room area with fold-up bicycles and each other for company, at least the rucksacks of the world can travel in comfort with a seat to themselves, despite the fact that there is a luggage rack especially for them.

As if the people aren't bad enough, the trains themselves are often awful to travel on, especially if like me, you have the misfortune of usually travelling on First Capital Connect. For those that are not familiar with First Capital, it would be fair to say that they are the Ryanair of the commuter train sector, with a very definite no-frills policy. Their trains invariably are so old that they would probably qualify for a Saga holiday. Due to their age and the lack of maintenance staff, the trains are usually to be found in a dirty and odious state. Draughts are another common problem. Not people playing the board game you will understand, although the phenomenon certainly leaves commuters in a huff. This is due to the windows often not closing properly, which results in not just a draught when you go through a tunnel but the accompanying hazards of a nasty din and a less than pleasant smell.

If you want to get between the south coast and the capital in a reasonable time, then First Capital is not the service for you. I have not given them my own private epithet of Slow Capital Connect for no good reason. If you get on a Brighton to Bedford service, the train will stop at near enough every station on its route between Brighton and East Croydon. I previously did not realise anyone with a pulse inhabited Wivelsfield or Balcombe! First Capital also suffers for being the least priority carrier on the line. Therefore, if there are train delays between London and Brighton, which is near enough every night, then people catching the First Capital trains will be the ones who ultimately suffer, as the Southern trains are allowed to move on ahead.

So I was rather intrigued and somewhat nonplussed by the news this week that train reliability and punctuality is at an all time high. According to the statistics that have been released, ninety per cent of long train journeys in this country are on time. Apparently, journeys that are classified as short journeys have a higher percentage in the punctuality stakes. If, like me, you found yourself thinking that these statistics could not be plausible, well it would seem that they are. However, it has meant a whole re-defining of the English language in order for the plausibility to be effective.

It was Mark Twain I think who came up with the quote about lies, damned lies and statistics. I wonder what the creator of Tom Sawyer would have to say about these statistics, because they would confirm his point. According to the report, being on time means that trains are no more than five minutes late on a short distance journey, let's say from Brighton to Gatwick Airport, and no more than ten minutes late on a long distance journey, let's say London Euston to Manchester Piccadilly. Now you begin to see how these statistics have been manipulated in order to produce the desired results for the people in power.

Surely there is no grey area in measuring being on time? On time means on time. Therefore, if your train from Brighton is scheduled to arrive at Gatwick Airport at 6:30 and it gets there at 6:34, it is late. I imagine that if the passenger alighted the train at that very destination, hopped on the travelator to the airport departures hall to go and check in only to find that they were late, there would be far less leniency shown for their late arrival. If you or I turned up to work four minutes late every morning, we would soon find ourselves up before the beak and if you turned up four minutes late to school every morning, you would soon find yourself in detention. It does not send out a good message to other walks of life if arriving five minutes after the scheduled ETA is considered to be acceptable.

Rather than trying to spin a yarn by redefining the parameters of time, it would be more effective if those overseeing the running of the transport infrastructure in this country could look at ways in which the railways could be run more efficiently, in order to encourage people away from using their cars for their journeys to work. I think that there are some drivers out there that would consider travelling by rail to work to avoid the daily road rage on the M23 or M25, but who are preturbed by the lack of reliability on public transport. For public transport to ever be a meaningful alternative to the car, it has to be both reliable and flexible to the passenger's needs. Right now, the trains all too often fail on both levels.

There is only a finite amount of track that is carrying a vast number of trains across the network on seven days a week. This causes several problems, it means that track maintenance is frequently needed, sometimes as a matter of emergency and this results in delays to trains. On an everyday basis, the sheer volume of trains on the track can automatically cause delays and especially if one train is running late, it means that an orderly queue of trains will form behind it, all of which will end up getting to their destination late as well.

There are those that blame these problems on the privatisation of the rail service which resulted in separate operators running the trains and another operator appointed to maintain the tracks. While I think that some carriers are more efficient than others, I do not think that the faults of the railway lie with its privatisation. In fact, I think you can trace the seeds of the malaise further back to a time when the railway was completely in the hands of Government control.

Both my parents spent the early parts of their working lives working in the railway industry and from what they told me, the impact of the Beeching Report in the early 1960s was what led the railways towards some of the recurring problems that it now faces. I did not really appreciate what they had said until I found myself watching the excellent BBC2 series fronted by Ian Hislop that looked at the closure of some of the routes in the aftermath of the Beeching Report and the impact that these closures had on their community. The closures of certain lines were made on the basis of profitability, an inevitable decision maybe, but one which you would normally expect from where a model of privatisation exists, which back in 1963 it did not.

In times of economic strife, it is unlikely to expect the Government of the day to invest money into the improvement of the transport infrastructure, especially in terms of developing new track. If, as expected, the Conservatives are in power by around this time next year, then I would expect their policies to be more focused around budget cuts to public services and so I would not expect transport to be any different.

However, with an Olympics in the capital just three years away, a need for a reliable and punctual transport infrastructure running from in and out of the capital is going to be heightened and it would help if the transport network could ensure that passengers in the home counties do not need to travel to the capital first and then change in order to get somewhere else in the home counties. For someone living in Sussex, but wanting to travel to most parts of Kent for example, travelling to a London station and then changing is usually a pre-requisite. The Government in power in twelve months time should at least explore the feasibility of introducing three new lines in Southern England to provide some alternative routes to the congested ones inside the capital.

That way, passengers may start to feel that they are getting better value for money on the often extortionate rail fares and can arrive on time by anyone's standards, not only by definition of a man in a charcoal suit, eating hob-nobs in the Transport Office.

2. Always a frown with Gordon Brown
Continuing the musical theme aluded to by the title to this blog and this sub-heading, time seemingly is running out for Gordon Brown's premiership if the events of the last week are anything to go by. Just as they say that Assistant Managers are not always cut out to be good Managers in football, there is also previous precedent to back up the argument that successful Chancellors of the Exchequer do not make for good Prime Ministers. The very notion that Brown was a successful Chancellor would appear to be subject to conjecture these days given the ramshackle state that the economy now finds itself in, but until recently, Brown's stock from his ten years in charge of the Treasury was at a high level.

The past week has seen a chain of events that even Brown could not have totally foreseen, even allowing for the ongoing furore resulting from the Daily Telegraph's expenses expose, which let's not forget, has not only named and shamed Labour politicians but members of the house from rival parties as well. The resignation of several ministers over three days during the week were not made necessarily as noises of dissatisfaction towards Gordon Brown and his ability to lead their party into an election, but more to do with the protecting of self-interest. The public anger that manifested itself in the aftermath of the expenses scandal breaking was for the very reason that it was transparent that MPs had put their own interests ahead of the constituents they were serving, and yet, still now it would seem that there are so many of Westminster's least wanted that are looking after number one first, second and third.

The resignations of Jacqui Smith and Hazel Blears were to be expected. Neither politician is popular with the public due to their part in the expenses scandal. Smith also has attracted criticism from libertarians for her role as Home Secretary in putting in place the plans to introduce identity cards. In Blears's case, her lack of popularity with the public has been more due to her just presenting herself as a pretty ghastly human being. If I was a betting man, I would make her favourite to have her effigy feature in the Lewes Bonfire procession later this year.

There is a saying that I'm sure many fellow males can vouch is true from personal experience and that is to say be careful of a woman scorned. That is what happened later in the week when former Europe minister Caroline Flint resigned after sending Gordon Brown an open letter in which she said she objected to being used as "window dressing", just a day after having given her full support to Gordon Brown. Leaving an appraisal of Ms Flint's not insignificant MILF qualities aside for one moment, I would think that her decision to resign was more to do with her not benefiting in Gordon Brown's cabinet reshuffle. It is known that Ms Flint is a close ally of both Blears and Smith, which leads me to think she was also trying to strike a blow for the sisterhood, however misguided that was.

There have been accusations that Gordon Brown has chauvinistic tendencies and that has influenced his recent hirings and firings, while his close and trusted male allies have fared best from the reshuffle. I think this trend is a coincidence and the real reason that Jacqui Smith and Hazel Blears left is simply that their positions became untenable and so they resigned before they were pushed. In Caroline Flint's case, her political career is far from outstanding and her previous spell as Housing Minister came to an end when confidential briefing notes for a meeting at 10 Downing Street were captured on camera.

If the Labour Government was in a healthy position, these eruptions would be far less harmful than they are proving to be. But because the foundations have already been shaken by the ongoing economic travails and the expenses row, what should have been a minor earth tremor is more like a full scale earthquake. The Labour administration has been in power for twelve years now and like any Government that has been in power for so long, it has become stale and is making routine mistakes that a Government fresh to power would not be making.

The question of how long can Gordon Brown last as Prime Minister will become apparent over coming days, but it will depend on whether a senior member of his serving cabinet breaks rank and calls for a leadership election. Either that, or another senior member of the party that has previously served in the cabinet puts themselves forward as an alternative leader and attracts enough support from within the party that a leadership contest is triggered. If that happens, then it could result in a similar scenario to the one that occurred in 1990 when Margaret Thatcher was forced from office. Thatcher won the first ballot but did not have quite enough of a majority to prevent a second ballot happening. This lack of a majority was enough for Thatcher to tender her resignation. A similar situation with Gordon Brown should not be ruled out, especially if the European election results are as grim for Labour as the preliminary indications suggest they will be.

Regardless of whether Brown does get a stay of execution or not, I feel that it is unlikely that we will get beyond the autumn without a General Election occurring. Brown's lack of popularity at the moment can in part be explained by the fact that he has never been elected by the British public and it is inevitable that unless there is a dramatic change in the public mood in the coming weeks and months, which given that unemployment is rising all the time would seem unlikely, then Brown would face a heavy defeat at the polls. A change of leader for Labour would only result in a slight reduction in the crushing majority that the Conservatives will surely gain.

The early indications from the European elections, not just in the United Kingdom, but in Europe's other leading countries are that the centre right parties are going to fare best in the polls. There are a couple of things that can be read into this. Maybe that people are voting for parties opposed to a Federal Europe and, using the United Kingdom as an example, are siding with the parties that will favour a referendum on the European Union. It could also suggest that parties that favour tougher policies on immigration are getting favoured over the parties with a more relaxed stance. Hence, the Tories, UK Independence Party and, alas, the British National Party seem likely to gain in terms of their percentage of the vote while the Liberal Democrats and obviously the Labour Party will be in for a sharp fall.

I think on a more general point though it comes down to people making a protest vote and saying "we will vote for anyone but Labour". Having crossed Labour out, they are then looking at which party is most likely to take tough decisions in a time when the political and economic climates demand them. Seemingly, the pragmatism of the Conservative Party is trusted to make the hard decisions more than other opposition parties at the moment.

Interesting thought processes, but David Cameron still has much to prove. Amid all the calls that Cameron has made for an election, he has been far less vocal about his plans for governing the country and as Brown rightly pointed out in PMQs this week, Cameron has done little to challenge him on matters of policy within the chamber in recent times. Cameron's response to this will be that he has been representing the public mood in demanding when an election will be called, but it is also convenient for him in masking his party's policy shortcomings. Cameron will need to get writing his manifesto fast as I expect he will need to jump on the battle bus in late summer.

3. A right royal PR disaster
This weekend has seen the commemoration of the sixty fifth anniversary of D-Day and Operation Overlord with a number of special events and speeches laid on in Normandy. Barack Obama, Nicolas Sarkozy and Gordon Brown were all in attendance, but it was the one person who was not that generated the most controversy. Her Majesty the Queen was expected to represent Britain at the ceremony, but she was to be found at Epsom watching one of her racehorses on the undercard to The Derby.

The circumstances around The Queen not being in attendance has naturally caused outrage in quarters where outrage is only too easily vented, namely in the editorial offices of the Daily Mail and the Daily Express. Conspiracy theories have been circulated and questions have been asked as to who it was that decide to snub Ma'am when sending out the invites. Whoever it was, it was certainly a very foolish oversight by those concerned.

There are those that suggested The Queen should have insisted that she be allowed to attend. But it does seem absurd to suggest that a serving monarch should go begging cap in hand to be allowed to attend the commemoration. The nostalgia buffs have been quick to point out that the Queen served in the forces towards the end of World War II and so she should therefore be there as the survivors could more readily identify with her. But this is all symbolism really. Yes, if the Queen had been invited at an earlier juncture, I am sure she would have made the trip across the channel. The fact of the matter is that she was not, so should she just wait by a telephone in the hope that she could get an invite right at the last?

It is also worth bearing in mind who ended up going in her place. That's right, the Prince of Wales. First in line to the throne. The next king of England. If he is not deemed ready to represent the Royal Family now on a national duty, when exactly will he be? His mother is 83 years old, his father is 88 years old. Just because they are royalty does not mean they should be immune from slowing down a tiny bit and letting others take on some more responsibility. Let's face it, sending the Duke of Edinburgh on a foreign sojourn is a risky business at the best of times, let alone for such a sombre occasion.

The Prince of Wales will become King Charles III in the not too distant future, you would expect, either as a result of his mother's death or through her abdicating to allow him his chance as he is now 61 years old. It is only natural that there should be some kind of handover period where the future king gets to represent his country on state occasions. His appearance in Normandy might have been an impromptu one, but I doubt it will be the last time that he is asked to go somewhere in place of his mother, and nor should it be. As with everything else right now, let's blame this PR disaster on the Government.

4. Nothing without the product
The business pages in the past week have been dominated by the news of General Motors' bankruptcy. This initially came as shock news as GM have always been regarded as one of the real powerhouses of US commerce and big trend setters for global businesses in establishing a functional organisational structure as a division of labour.

Scratch beneath the surface though and you realise the truth is that GM has failed simply because of one very basic fact. Their products have just not been good enough. That is the bottom line. You could in fact extend that comment to the US car industry as a whole. Whereas once, Henry Ford had been a pioneer in getting the US to lead the way in manufacturing standards and product differentiation for the humble motor vehicle, their cars have faded in popularity as more Americans have switched to driving European or Japanese cars. The Japanese manufacturing principles of TQM and Just-in Time have been instrumental in raising the bar of car manufacturing and their leading brands, such as Honda and Toyota have gone from strength to strength while time has stood still for GM and its compatriots.

There had been suggestions that the US Government should step in and save GM in much the same way that it did with its big insurance giant AIG last year. That was an altogether different situation though, because unless the vast majority of businesses in the United States owns a GM car which is of significant asset value to the future of the business then the impact of their loss to business would not be felt. Without the leading insurance company in the country, it stands to reason that companies would go to the wall because their insurance guarantors would not be in a position to pay out. You can survive without a fleet of company cars, unless you happen to be a taxi company, but without any insurance, you are permanently behind the eight ball. There is no point sustaining a failing company unless there is no-one else out there in a position to do things better and that is why there will be no rescue package for General Motors.

Nonetheless, the impact of General Motors will have an effect on the community within Detroit. What was once the US's motor city is now facing an uncertain future and that is where it needs to be wary of Detroit's other less wanted tag, that of being a city rife with crime, not just confined to bananas being inserted in tailpipes as happened in Beverly Hills Cop which was set in the city. Barack Obama as senator of the adjacent state of Illinois will no doubt be aware of the challenges ahead and the need to retrain those whose jobs are lost, so avoid the temptation of a life of crime in order to make ends meet.

Friday 5 June 2009

Hope not hate

I have come across this website, which I thought I would share with you. As you will be aware, given the current apathy there is with the three mainstream political parties and the politicians associated with them, there is a potential for a surge in support for fringe protest parties, not least those parties representing the secular far right views of the misinformed or downright ignorant members of the electorate. At the forefront of this are the British National Party, who will hope to tap into the current waves of self-pity Britain being perpetrated by the written and spoken media.

Unfortunately, I stumbled across the link to this site a little late in order for me to post it up here before the European elections, but nonetheless I feel that it is well worth visiting this site to serve as a reminder to us that whatever anger we feel towards the present Government and its most well established opposition, that looking to the BNP is not an alternative that is acceptable to anyone that appreciates the value of a democratic society or who wishes the United Kingdom to be a "free society". Just visiting the site I am linking will provide a number of revelations which for anyone out there that thinks the motives of the BNP have any merit, will have their eyes opened to their real, less than honourable intentions.

The campaign is called Hope Not Hate and the website is found via the following link - http://action.hopenothate.org.uk/content/home/suit . Go take a look.