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.