Russians

It is hard not to look like the loser in a beauty contest crying "it's not fair, I'm the prettiest" but the outcome of the draw for the country to host 2018 World Cup has been fairly hard to take.

The contest looks at a number of areas (security, infrastructure, stadia, hotel accommodation, training facilities etc) and then reports are produced by FIFA. By all accounts our reports were very good with the FIFA President, Sepp Blatter, allegedly saying that we were ready to host the tournament "tomorrow".

Yesterday each bidding nation had to make a presentation to the jury and again ours was seen as the best.

As we all now know the 2018 World Cup was awarded to the Russians and the main reason appears to be that their hosting it will leave the biggest legacy, which is one of FIFA's stated aims in awarding tournament. Does that mean that as we invented the game and have most of the country playing the game and have the best league in the world (?) that actually we couldn't leave a legacy? Our presentation in fact addressed that issue by talking about how we would use the competition to work alongside unemployed and disadvantaged people and use football to help them, but that was obviously not what FIFA see as a legacy.

We needed 12 votes to win from 22 delegates, we got 2. Frankly that feels like Eurovision does!

While the Sunday Times article and BBC Panorama programme (who both alleged bribery or corruption amongst the FIFA board)  may have annoyed or offended some of the delegates, 2 votes show that it appears we were never ever a serious candidate as we were never going to leave a legacy similar to that that Russia and Qatar (who were awarded the  2022 competition|) could easily demonstrate.

The depressing truth is that I can't ever seeing us hosting the World Cup again in my life time and it could be 100 years after the last time that  we did do it, before we might get the chance again if this experience is anything to go by.

The Sound of silence

The release by Somali pirates of Paul & Rachel Chandler is very good news and it was Sky news who told me the breaking story this morning when I tuned in at about 7.30 am.

As is my way in the mornings I was flicking between Sky News and BBC News and was surprised, if not slightly annoyed, that the BBC had not one word of this happy ending to an horrible ordeal. In fact I thought "well done" Sky for being agile enough to change it's schedule of stories to give this the prominence that it deserved.

I now find that according to the BBC, a quite different  story was playing behind the scenes this morning. This is best explained here.

The BBC blog is a bit pompous, but my overall feeling is that they were spot on in obeying the law (to the letter), while others, decided to follow ratings rather than the wishes of the Chandler family via the injunction.

What happens next? Will the court hold Sky (and others?) in contempt of court, if they have ignored the injunction and who will report on this story? This is why the BBC is so important and the ownership of press and other media by one overall owner is a very bad idea.

Magical mistakes

I'm reading the first volume of Michael Palin's diaries at the moment.

I have just got to the bit where the Pythons are filming the second series and they go off to Devon to film some scenes in and around Torquay.

Palin describes how, in May 1970, they check in to the Gleneagles Hotel just outside Torquay. While at first the hotel seems a bit more colourful and clean than others, it is the treatment given to their group by the proprietor, a Mr Sinclair, that appals them so much that they decide to leave the next day and move to a different hotel.

This is, of course, the incident that also prompted John Cleese the write Fawlty Towers and I expect that as soon as you read the words "Torquay" & "Hotel" in the same sentence, you were way ahead of me, so well known is the story.

What made me think however, reading that encounter from Michael Palin's perspective, is how fragile some of life's success can be? Who, for example, chose that hotel in first place and what if it had been full? What if they had decided to film in Norfolk not Devon? What if it had rained and they couldn't film? One of the finest (if not the finest) comedy series may never had been written.

All irrelevant in the end as they did go there etc but life throws opportunities at you all the time, the trick is, as John Cleese did, to see the chances that it gives you .

Brain damage

If you’ve watched or listened to any football programme or podcast since Saturday, you will have seen or heard various pundits discussing Man Utd’s second goal against Spurs. You can watch the incident here.

Most people seem to blame Gomes, the Spurs keeper, for the resultant goal and as he committed the school boy error of not "playing to the whistle" that's too where I place the blame for Utd ending up with two goals. The referee doesn't stop play, clearly trying to allow Spurs an advantage as the ball is in the hands of their goal keeper. Gomes tries to clear the ball down field, but only when he can't find an unmarked Spurs player does he then put the ball down to take the free kick, that the referee hasn't awarded, 10 yards further forward from where it should have been taken, had it been awarded (which again it hadn't).

The referee, Mark Clattenburg, has come in for some abuse over allowing the goal, much of which has been unjust and in some cases no more than "all referees are rubbish, therefore this was a rubbish decision"!. In my view he did nothing wrong, indeed with less than 10 minutes to play by not stopping the game for an unnecessary free kick he was ironically  helping Spurs make a quick counter attack.

Harry Redknapp, the Spurs manager, has been the most outspoken of his teams staff over the goal, claiming that "it was a farce" and basically genuinely believing that the referee should have given a free kick for the handball (and maybe as some have argued booking Nani for deliberate handball).

To my mind the acid test is this. If Clattenburg had blown for the hand ball and stopped Gomes while he was trying to clear the ball, to bring the play back to the correct place for the "free kick" to have been taken from, would Harry and others have said "good decision ref" or would they, as I suspect, have shouted abuse at the ref "for stopping the game when we're trying to counter attack". Because if they would have then Clattenburg did the right thing and what followed was both legal and Gomes fault.

Sound & Vision

I'm just back from going to see "The Social Network" at the cinema in Eastleigh. A great film and if you get the chance do go and make sure that you see it at a cinema. The main reason for that being that one of the best things about the film is how the music adds to the overall experience and you will need to have a fairly special home cinema set up to replicate to sound in the cinema.

The last film that I saw (Inception) also had a similarly impressive soundtrack that also added to the films tension, excitement and drama. While all these directors are spending millions of dollars on 3D production, including "retro fitting" (Stars Wars will be the next series to "benefit" from the experience) maybe they should be spending that money on the soundtrack.

After all most cinemas theses days do have state of the art sound systems in 5.1 surround sound etc and you can add lots more to the overall experience with the sound than in most cases you ever will with 3D.

At one point, mainly by the use of the music, "The Social Network" made the actor playing Mark Zuckerburg look cool while coding the first version of "The Facebook"!

Face to face

So in case you hadn't worked this out from my last blog, I am the proud owner of an iPhone 4.

My contract was renewable in August and I initially decided that the "Samsung Galaxy S" was the phone for me. the problem with that was that being an Android phone, it would have meant effectively buying again all the apps for that operating system that I had already bought for my iPod Touch (and which work on an iPhone at no extra cost). The clincher was that the iPhone 16GB was the same amount each month as the Samsung phone, albeit the iPhone had to be purchased but for a reasonable amount for what it gave me.  (Well that's what I convinced myself anyway!!!)

I've had it a month now and it's great, although having had an iPod Touch first does diminish the "WOW" factor. As a result some of it is no more than "Hmmm" as it enhances the iPod experience, but no more.

BUT it does have some stuff that is awesome. The phone is simple to use which may sound obvious but with my last Nokia, the hardest thing to do was actually make a phone call!! In addition it has "Facetime" which it is no more than video calling, but as it uses wifi is a free and novel way to talk to your friends in America. (Well it would be if someone kept his iPod and wifi on *cough* Gibbs *cough*).

It also has a 5 mega pixel camera (with flash) which also shoots HD video. Again all simple to use and top quality.

Oh and it looks and feels wonderful, like a beautiful, shiny phone/media jewel thing.

But be warned, it will also use up one months whole data usage in a day if you watch Kylie on the BBC news app and don't close it down properly!!!

I made my excuses and left

Writing this blog has become somewhat  harder of late and I'm not sure why? This is to such an extent that I only posted one blog in September.

Reasons why I don't blog:-

• too tired
• too bored
• nothing to say
• football/good comedy/film to watch
• no inspiration
• the words won't come
• my son rings me on "facetime" while I'm trying to blog.
• have to go out.
• too busy playing "angry birds" on my iPhone4.

So let's try harder shall we????

Any old iron

I have deliberately not posted on the Saints and the sacking of Alan Pardew, as I was unsure of exactly how I felt. The timing was so odd that I was pretty sure that it was not a football related decision and the fact that Pardew has remained firmly tight lipped since he was sacked only adds logic to that thought process.

He took the team (and me) to Wembley and won a trophy so I will always have good memories about his time at the club and he has my sincere thanks for that. Last season we got closer to the playoffs than a team starting with a 10 point deduction had a right to expect to be, so he finished last season poised to take the club back top the Championship this season. This season has not started well and clearly something was not right. Whether it would have been easily corrected we'll never know now.

So now we have a new manager in Nigel Adkins. He has done very well at Scunthorpe, winning two promotions to the Championship so he certainly has the pedigree to achieve this season what the fans expect. His first interview says all the right things and if he delivers then this will be a great season. He also has lots of qualifications and he seems to have the modern "scientific" approach to management which should improve the players overall fitness.

The club say they had lots of applications and they have picked Adkins as the very best manager available. Lets hope they have got it right this time!

Baker street

It's strange but the more TV channels there are to chose from, the more I seem to watch only a handful.

I mainly seem to watch the BBC, Sky Sports and the comedy channels, with the occasional dip into Dave. I rarely watch ITV, except for football, Channel 4,  Five, Sky 1 (or 2 & 3) or the hundreds of other satellite channels that I pay for each month. In fact if my sons didn't watch those other channels at weekends I would probably reduce my sky bundle (or switch to Virgin - which I am seriously thinking of doing).

The BBC has recently produced three excellent programmes, all of which I have genuinely looked forward to watching.

The first is "Rev", an half an hour comedy about an Anglican parish priest in London. Not the most original plot synopsis, but due to some great writing (by James Wood) and   similarly great acting by Tom Hollander and Olivia Coleman as the Vicar (Adam) and his wife it was a joy to watch. It dealt with real issues and as someone who interacts with ministers and vicars on a regular basis got the "feel" of the role spot on. The Rev chose subject matter that many people may wonder about including divorced people getting married in church, homosexuality and the priesthood (as a result of nerves, Adam announces on the One Show that "all the Anglican church is gay") and "happy clappy" churches (the local example of this type of church have to use Adam's Church - biggest problem - where to put the smoothie bar!!!).

The second programme has only broadcast one episode but I know that I will enjoy the rest of the series just as much. This is called "Vexed" and is an one hour comedy/drama detective series. It stars Toby Stephens (who played the Bond villain Gustav Graves in "Die another Day") and newcomer Lucy Punch as his partner. The main hook of the programme is that they disagree on almost everything but underneath there is a clear attraction between the two. It is funny with a semi-serious case to solve each week and works again through good writing and Toby Stephens "chewing up the scenery". While known as a "serious" actor he is excellent in this comedy role.

Finally we have the best of the three "Sherlock". This is a 90- minute "re-imagining" of the classic Conan-Doyle stories, set in 21st century England. It stars Dominic Cumberbatch as Holmes and Martin Freeman as Watson. On paper it sounds very hard to pull off, but they do and how. The scripts are very fast paced and do take concentration but they follow the originals but use modern technology (Holmes has a mobile phone!). It has a feel of "Dr Who" about it, which is not surprising as it was co-created by Stephen Moffat who produced the latest series. The genius of the original stories means that they keep you fully involved and guessing what will happen but the modern take on them also means that if you know the original story you are still engaged with the plot. Cumberbatch as Holmes is a joy to watch, he plays the part wonderfully and while Freeman as Watson takes more time to adapt to, by the third episode he feels right for the part. There were only three initial episodes but the good news is that another series has already been commissioned.

Adam Crozier has a big job on at ITV if this standard of programme making continues.

Don't stand so close to me

Cash machine etiquette is an evolving process, but I was stood in the queue the other day waiting to use the machine when I was reminded of an incident that happened five or so years ago.

My sons and I were queued waiting to use a machine on fairly a narrow pavement. We were stood behind the man using the machine rather to either side of him as that always feels like you're trying to see the users pin number as they key it in.

As it was a narrow pavement people were trying to walk along it as well which prompted us to move closer to the machine, my eldest son in particular.

When the man in front finished using it, he turned around and indicated that my son particular was too close to him and to be aware of that in the future. Being the indignant father I reminded the man that as my son was only 12, he didn't use cash machines and was only trying to keep out of the way of passing pedestrians. Cries of "Dad don't get involved" from my sons stopped it going any further as the man further muttered his unhappiness and I carried on with using the machine.

Ever since then I have tried not to crowd out the user and not stand to the side, but I do regularly see queues for machines straggling out into streams of pedestrians, as I guess others use my same thought process.

It seems that the British understanding of " how waiting in a queue works" does mean that this mainly goes on without a problem, but I wonder what happens in Europe and the USA?

The boys are back in town

I joined the Tesco DVD club about three years ago and in the interim period have watched about 208 DVD's ranging from live concerts, comedy series, boxed sets and films.

The joy of the club is that every so often I'll pick a film that in all honesty was a bit of a gamble and when it comes and I watch it, it actually proves to be an inspired choice.

"The boys are back" the film that I watched tonight, was definitely in that category. Mainly set in Australia, it concerns how a sports journalist (played by Clive Owen) copes with the death of his wife and then has to look after his 8 year old son. Add into the mix his 14 year old son (from his first marriage in England) coming to stay shortly afterwards and a mother in law who thinks that he doesn't know what he's doing and the emotional rollercoaster is at the top of the ride, ready to go.

Fairly soon after the death of his wife, we meet a Mum at school (who he thinks is his sons teacher) and frankly I thought we were revisiting Jack & Sarah. But the good thing about this film is that just as you think "ah right he's going to do this, then that and then they'll do that and then happy ending" then the story goes against the obvious route and delivers in the end a heart warming but not obvious end.

The final bonus was that the music was largely provided by Sigur Ros and was exactly what the story needed.

Embarrassment

Let's face it from the first game we were never in this tournament. Flattered by beating a nation of two million in the last group game, we were made to look what we are, a collection of individuals by the Germans.

The simple fact is that we don't have enough English players playing Premier League football at a high enough standard. When Arsenal, Liverpool, Chelsea, Man Utd and Man City fill their starting line ups with foreign players (funded by the TV money), then where are the future English internationals going to play football at the highest standard? Now you can argue that if they're good enough then they will break through but that simply means that when one or two do, you end up with players (Rooney, Gerrard & Lampard) who have no competition for their places. Others like Theo Walcott don't play regularly enough which just adds pressure when they do play and some of the "top" players actually aren't.

This has two impacts firstly the good ones get too complacent and secondly their replacements (if they get injured) play for West Ham, Aston Villa and the the like and that drop in class shows.

The future, I fear, is bleak. Our "golden generation" is getting old, many will not play in another World Cup and the players coming up from the Under 21's don't look of the same class (and who do they play for both now and in the future?).

As worrying is, if you read the BBC gossip column, all the talk is of Premier League teams buying more foreign players. Less and less English players will be playing Premier League football at any standard if this carries on.

The first solution is that we introduce "caps" on foreign players, but firstly "money talks" and secondly european/international law probably forbids it. Secondly we need to improve our coaching acadamies, but they too are now filling up with foreign youngsters, and the success that Arsenal had with Fabregas, will only encourage that approach. So there needs to be some intervention there too, but "money" and" European law" probably also apply?

Still we did get further than both the winners and runners up of the 2006 competition!

Festival

I've just been looking through the full Glastonbury line up for the week end after next.

One of the wonders of the festival in particular is the acts performing "down the bill" who you had no idea were performing (either at Glastonbury, or for one or two, at all!)

This year, among the hundreds of bands there, the following should be appearing :-

• Jackson Browne
  
• Lightning Seeds
  
• The Pet Shop Boys
  
• The National
  
• Nouvelle Vague
  
• Toots & the Maytals
  
• Mumford & Sons
  
• Ash
  
• Gang of Four
  
• Hypnotic Brass Ensemble
  
• Nick Lowe
  
• Al Stewart
  
• Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel
  

I wonder how many of those the BBC will manage to show at least one song live?

The Sound of the crowd

For those of you who follow this blog and don't know, each blog title is also a song title. Clever huh?

Most of the time I have the subject of the blog first and then fit the song to it. Occasionally though a song title jumps into my head and the blog then writes itself. This is one of the latter type.

Every World Cup game this tournament will sound like a swarm of angry bees are loose near to the effects microphone. The reason for this is a trumpet like instrument, widely available in South Africa called the "vuvuzela". This has led to wide scale debate on whether this is adding to the experience or ruining it. Most comment seems to be against the noise they make. Indeed Bill Turnbull on BBC Breakfast this morning even had a conversation with the sound engineer as to whether the feed from the stadium could have the crowd noise "turned down"? Simple answer – no it can't!

There has been talk of having them banned, but the SA economy is likely to be c$2m better off through sales so that's fairly unlikely. If someone throws one at a player then that could change, but let's hope that doesn't happen.

I actually quite like them; after all during the first England game I didn't hear the entirely inappropriate "Great Escape" at all!

Back home

So we put the wall chart up at work this week, the excellent Baddiel & Skinner podcast has examined the squad (main question – "Will Peter Crouch suffer more from playing at altitude as he will be higher up than the rest of the squad or as he plays at a slightly higher altitude than the rest of the squad all the time, will he be less affected by it?") and shops from "99p stores" to Waitrose have a special section of merchandise!

The BBC & ITV cannot have a gap between programmes without having a trail for it and programmes "remembering previous ones" have been commissioned. Last night Radio 5 live had "the 1986 squad" looking over the current squad and reminiscing about their tournament.

Most offices have drawn their sweepstake and twitter is full of posts along the lines of "I got Algeria in the sweepstake so that's me stuffed"

As we have no official song for this tournament, lots of quite dreadful remakes or new songs are about to be unleashed on an unsuspecting public.

And the boy who was the shock inclusion in the last squad is the shock exclusion as a young man for this one.

Ladies & gentlemen the 2010 Wold Cup is a week away...enjoy.

Where the streets have no name

This is meant to be a regular blog, but of late, dear readers, it has been little more than a weekly (if that) look at the world.

What are the reasons for that? Well firstly work is keeping me overly busy. Banking has never been the easiest of jobs but of late it has demanded most of my brain power so that by the time I get to sit down and could put a blog together my head is full of scrambled egg. Yes I know it seems strange but I do put some thought into this!

Secondly, I have an eldest son with glandular fever which also has meant that at weekends my time has been focused on him. He's doing well but it is a rollercoaster of an illness so we have some steps backwards but overall he's heading in the right direction.

Thirdly, I've found twitter has enabled me to mini blog. You would think 140 characters wouldn't be enough but it's amazing what you can get across.

Anyway I hope that this will be a more regular blog in the future, but I have said that before.

I'm writing this watching U2 on Sky 1 and the opening riff of "where the streets have no name" will always make me feel a slightly better person for hearing it.

You’re gone

I have just deleted both the Daily Mail and Southern evening Echo websites from my favourites and plan not to read them anymore. I also won't be buying the papers either.

There are two main reasons that I've done this.

With the Mail it's the Lord Triesman story that has "broken the camel's back". On last Sunday they published a story about Lord T, the then Chair of the FA and the England 2018 World Cup bid, who had allegedly said in a private conversation things about the Russian FA & the Spanish FA colluding over World Cup refereeing and hosting the 2018 competition. The conversation was recorded and the Mail obtained a copy. Now the Mail at that point had a choice. Firstly they could have gone to the FA and said "you have a problem, sort it out" and told the informant where to go. That you might say would be the right thing to do and as a British newspaper, the supportive thing to do.

They however chose to do the other thing. That was publishing the story that brings the England World cup bid to the attention of the worlds press in a very bad light. Yes Lord T shouldn't have said what he said to anyone, but it was a private conversation and he wasn't told by the young lady involved that she was recording it. It seems to me to be very doubtful that this was "in the public interest". Whether or not this saga will have long term repercussions on the2018 World cup bid remains to be seen but the Mail had a choice and they chose the wrong one.

The Echo banishment is over their publishing stories about Alan Pardew, the Saints manager, and how he was allegedly "fighting to keep his job" Their source for this story was "a national newspaper" which it turns out was the Daily Mail! The Mail had a small piece about how the Saints Chairman wasn't happy with the clubs performance after the money given to Pardew in the January transfer window. This in itself appeared to be a "retread" of an old story from March time and was dismissed by the Saints at that time.

The Echo also said that a "clear the air" meeting between the Chairman and Pardew expected to take place on a Wednesday had been postponed to the Thursday.

On the Thursday morning the Saints web site published a long article by the Saints chairman that basically said that he and Pardew were working closely together, having fun doing it and that comments by both ex players and the local paper were not helping. So clearly they had met! The Echo published a new story reporting the article and that the Chairman had criticised ex players. No mention of the stinging broadside aimed at the Echo at all. Unbelievable! The comments from fans below the article were numerous and the main theme was this very point, that the paper had completely failed to acknowledge its part in the "non-story". If that is the level of reporting that they think is acceptable then good luck to them, I for one don't need them.

Dance on a volcano

So now that the dust has settled (or at least drifted away) from the Icelandic volcano and most people are back from where ever they were stranded, what was the travel chaos all about?

Was the ash ever seriously in danger of turning jet aircraft into gliders or was the whole thing an over-reaction? Certainly when it kicked off, various "experts" were on the media saying that it wasn't safe to fly and everything was grounded. Then for the best part of a week the skies remained empty, and herculean tasks were undertaken for people to get back from places that they had only taken 2 hours or so to fly to at the start of their holidays.

Then financial meltdown for the Airline industry started to get discussed (although to my mind if your aircraft's not flying, you're not paying for fuel or landing duties?) and compensation was muted and hey ho "it's a much less dense a cloud than we first thought". Cue planes flying and everyone's happy.

I'm left with two thoughts. Firstly we've a long way to go on climate change, if the number of flights we take for an Easter break, are anything to go by. Secondly, if the volcano's big brother goes off, will that create dense clouds of ash that will put everything back on the ground??

It’s over

So Saints will get the chance to defend the JPT next season, as today Huddersfield went to Stockport and won 6-0. As a result of this, Saints cannot now get in the playoffs and therefore we will be in league 1 again next season.

It's too easy to say that the 10 point deduction is the reason that we will not get the chance to go back up to the Championship and that may be true, but in reality having got this close, the real chance was lost when we had such a slow start to the season.

Anyway it's been a great season and we did something that few fans will get to do in going to Wembley and winning a trophy.

Next season the pressure really starts, no point's deduction and much more expectation.

Extraordinary thing

I think that the lowest point was about 9 months ago when it looked like there was a real chance that Saints wouldn't find a buyer and the Administrator was talking about "winding up orders" and similar nasty legal arrangements.

Then into the spotlight stepped Markus Liebherr and his big bag of cash and since then to paraphrase Yazz "the only way's been up".

This has involved appointing Alan Pardew as manager and funding the purchase of some better players, including Rickie Lambert, who at £1m was a bargain. We have climbed the table and now sit outside the top six but close enough that with the correct combination of results we could still end up in the end of season play offs. If we did and won the first two games then the play off Final is at Wembley in May and we've already know what going there and winning feels like, because that's what we did last week-end!

Sunday March 28^th, saw 44,400 Saints fans travel up from the south coast to see their team play Carlisle Utd in the final of the Johnstones Paint Trophy Final. As regular readers of this blog will know, my sons and I went to Wembley in August 2008 to watch an England game, so the oohh factor had already been experienced, but seeing your team play there was a whole new ball game. We travelled up with my friend Paul (cheers mate!) and his son Joe, to Ruislip, where our friends Adrian (Norm) and Dawn had prepared a fantastic brunch for us. Kick off was 1.30 pm so we had left Southampton at 8.30 for brunch at 10 am and then fully fed walked to the tube to arrive at the stadium at about midday. We had already had texts from other friends telling us that the atmosphere was spine tingling and indeed as we left the tube stadium the wave of emotion that hit me was fantastic. I have walked up Wembley way before but when it's your team badge on the side of the stadium it makes it a whole new experience. Around the stadium was a sea of red and white (and some blue and white for Carlisle, but we outnumbered them by 2:1) and while it was very busy everyone was singing and waving flags and generally making a lot of noise.

The tickets had arrived a week before and while I had asked for seats in one corner, somehow we ended up in the top tier but on the half way line. So it was an escalator ride to the top and then we stepped out to see the whole of one end (and in places a bit more) covered in red and white, again a truly remarkable sight. While the JPT final may not have the status of even the Carling Cup final, one thing it does allow is for both clubs to fill half the stadium (if they have enough fans). We do have enough and due to the fact that other finals have to give tickets to county associations and the like, I can't think of another occasion when a club side will take as many fans to Wembley as we did (44,400).

The game itself went better than can be expected with Carlisle deciding to give us a head start by one of their central defenders palming away a cross, with Lambert putting the resultant penalty into the top right hand corner of the goal. Then just before half time we got out the Stoke City play book and a long throw was headed on to the far post where Lallana rose to head home, 2-0.
After half time we went 3-0 up when a Carlisle defender hesitated before trying to clear a cross, in stepped Antonio to shoot at goal which hit the keeper and then rose up for Papa Waigo to head into an empty net. Cue mass celebration.

The final goal came when Antonio picked the ball up outside the box, moved it to the left and then put it past the keeper with his left foot. Best goal of the game.
Thereafter the game faded and we even allowed Carlisle to get one back, but the final score showed we had won 4-1 and yet more celebration followed the presentation of the cup and the obligatory fireworks on the pitch.

Seeing your team at the royal box being presented with a trophy is something all fans dream of, but only a few are so lucky, whatever the competition.

An amazing game and an amazing day finished with the reverse journey home, by now in pouring rain.

Now let's just hope we can go back again in May.

My friend Paul has produced a wonderful video of the day you can find it here

Here is the News

As Private Eye would call it, "The Street of shame" has had a couple of potentially major developments this week.

Firstly News International announced that they would put the Times & the Sunday Times behind a pay wall. This means that in May they will re-launch the papers websites and that you will need to register thereafter to access them. Then in June you will need to pay for your registration to work, either £1 per day or £2 for a week. They also hinted that their other two publications namely the Sun & the News of the World might follow in due course.

Rupert Murdoch firmly believes that putting papers behind a pay wall is the future, others such as Emily Bell, the Guardian news and media Director of digital content, strongly disagree. In reality only time will tell, but my instinct is that Emily Bell is more likely to be proved correct than Murdoch. My reasons for this are that firstly my surfing habits are such that I view the Guardian, the Telegraph, the Times and the Daily Mail websites most days in addition to my homepage which is the BBC. In addition, I increasingly use other media outlets such as Twitter and Google. A newspaper, as the name suggests, should initially tell you the news and in this age I can find that in number of places, so the loss of the Times will be disappointing, but not sufficient to make me pay for the content that I shall lose. I used to buy the Times newspaper most days until about 18 months ago, now I find the news via Twitter on my phone at lunch time.

Secondly there will be add-ons to the Times digital content, such as an e-paper and no doubt an iTunes app on which to access it, ahead of the launch of the iPad in April/May. But there is already an excellent Guardian app, which ok you have to pay a one off fee for, but thereafter the content is free. It's so good that my eldest son said he wanted an iPod touch just to be able to access it! There are others too and with free content as well. In April the BBC News will also launch its iTunes app. The Times will be an expensive offering in an otherwise free marketplace.

Finally, the Times does have great writers that readers do follow and they hope that they will be a significant factor in people paying to be able to continue to do this. This may work, but will it be able to stop other sites allowing access to this content through other ways, i.e. is the pay wall security going keep the content behind it? It may well at the outset but for how long? And if those writers audience reduces by 95%*, will they be happy to stay behind the pay wall? I know that they will still be read in the actual paper, but the bigger potential audience is now via the web and if that reduces....

The second potential development is Alexander Lebedev buying the Independent and Independent on Sunday for £1. He previously bought the Evening Standard for £1 and then re-launched it as a free paper. Word on the street is that Lebedev may do the same with the Independent, although that could be harder to pull off. Will super markets, for example, stock a free paper alongside ones that they make money on? On the plus side, if you had a free copy of the Independent to read rather than the Metro, would you happily put it under your arm at the station? I guess the big question is would you read a free Independent over the Times or the Telegraph that you still have to pay for? It could be of course that giving away a free paper copy becomes increasingly irrelevant, as the digital version will, in probably a shorter space of time than we expect, become the version of the publication that we read more frequently. Which takes us back to the Times....

*Business models for pay walls work on the basis that a 5% take up is good enough to make a profit.

White blank page

This week I was 51 which when you write it down sounds old, but I still feel 25 so that's all right. (Yes before you comment, I know I look 75)

On Thursday night, I went with my sons to see Rob Bell speak. He's probably the best communicator I've ever seen, using both words, his physical body, pictures and video to support his point. He spoke for two hours but the time flew by and we all came away with a real sense of inner peace. The evening was titled "Drops like's stars" which comes from his 3 year old nephew staring at rain drops hitting a deck outside his window and shouting "stars, stars, stars" as they hit the ground. He didn't see rain drops he saw stars. To do the talk justice would need pages, so Google him, read the "Drops like stars" book or when the DVD comes out see that, you won't be sorry. Oh by the way he's an American preacher but in no way like any preconceptions you have of any other American preacher. To me his style is closet to Steve Jobs with jokes.

Musically I've discovered Mumford & Sons and "Explosions in the Sky", the latter courtesy I think of Rob Bell's iPod that was playing the music before he came on stage. We asked the road crew who it was it was playing! Check them out on Spotify; you do have Spotify don't you?

The spirit of radio

This week the BBC announced that they were going to "re-arrange the deck chairs", by closing two radio stations, close down part of its web-site and cut back on importing TV shows. The savings will be re-invested in "quality programming" which is a relief as "rubbish programming" would have been less appealing.

I never listen either of the chosen radio stations (6 Music & the Asian Network) or explore the parts of the website to go. I probably should watch one of the imported programmes (Madmen) but otherwise it doesn't affect me at all.

The loss of Radio 6 music has, however, instigated a "cause célèbre" campaign on twitter and in the media to keep it alive. The main reason being that, it's small audience are very loyal, it is one of the easiest places to listen to non-formatted radio, with a good chance of hearing something new and it fills the gap between Radio 1 & Radio 2. Now to be honest, I rarely listen to music radio at all these days, so I can't really comment on the rights and wrongs of that argument. It does occur to me, however, that in this age of the internet, there are probably far more places to hear new music than there ever were. The "gap" issue makes sense and certainly my limited knowledge of demographics, target audience and all the other things that focus the minds of radio controllers, leads me to believe that there isn't anything else doing what 6 Music is currently doing.

The problem has been the listening figures and that in turn leads to how you can access it, as it is only really available on a DAB radio or online. While at home, I only listen to the radio on a DAB set, but I'm an exception and the majority of people still use FM for their daily intake, which excludes    both these stations.

So is the BBC saying that DAB is dead? Well the evidence is no, as Five Live for example don't quote their AM frequency in trails. They say "on DAB, digital TV and online" these days. Furthermore the Government planned switch off of FM/AM means that unless online and mobile access completely takes over, then DAB has to have a future. Mind you when DAB was launched, no one had thought of listening to your radio on your mobile phone, so the alternatives to DAB are already giving it a run for its money and that competition will only get more intensive. The one saving grace that it has is that car manufacturers are now putting DAB radios into new cars. I'm sure that one day (and probably quite soon) we will stream internet radio via 3G into our cars, but in the mean time DAB will be the new technology that we will explore on the move.

As a non listener, a bit of me hopes that 6 Music will get a reprieve, to take the benefit of that opportunity.                                          

Up where we belong

Regular readers will know that I'm a big fan of podcasting and each week iTunes adds 12 or so new episodes of those that I subscibe to, for me to add to my iPod.

That number is fairly constant as many more would be impractical to keep on top of as I listen to them in the car as I travel around.

Recent additions to the list include two from Absolute radio and a new football one.

First the Absolute radio ones. Both are highlights of weekend shows and follow a similar format, with both starring the named presenter, a female sidekick and a male comedian/musican. They both last 40 or so minutes and are excellent.

The first presenter is Frank Skinner who is ideally suited to this format and relates stories of his previous week, his ongoing relationship with his girlfriend, his love of the Fall (he plays a different track each week) and he reviews the papers. He is asssited by Emily Dean, who besides being good friends with Jonathan Ross, as a child appeared in the original Day of the Triffids and has most male listeners hanging on every word she says. The final member of the team is Gareth a stand up comedian, who lives in Bournemouth and has year old son called Ethan, of whom stories feature regularly.

The second presenter is Dave Gorman, who had passeed me by until I saw "Googlewhack" a couple of weeks ago. That  was so funny that I immediately started downloading the podcast. He is assisted by award winning comedienne Danielle Ward and comedian/musician Martin White. They cover similar subject matter to Frank Skinner but one extra item is an additional piece at the end of the podcast (and not part of the radio show) called Pun Street. This is where listeners send in shop title puns in an attempt to get them installed on the street. This the maternity wear shop "womb with a view" was voted on, as was "Pak Butchers" (sent in by a pakistani) which replaced "Halal, is it meat your looking for?" as the streets butchers. 

The footbal podcast, "It's all up for grabs now" is hosted by the comedian and actor Alan Davies, together with two of his mates and revolves around their love of all things Arsenal. It is hilarious, a genuinely funny commentary on the ups and downs of following the Gooners. Most episodes reflect on the previous weeks games and their views on the various team memebrs performance. Most players now have a nickname and the best is Emmanual Eboue who is known as "Tinkerbell" as he is the team trickster, but most are brilliant based on some long story. In addition there are numerous "catchphrases" which have started to find their way into my football watching. One involves an older fan at Arsenal moaning (in a northern accent) "He's got yellow boots on", which now regularely appears at St Marys should any one have said coloured boots on! Songs sung at grounds also feature, my favourite to date being "you're white and you know you are" which the Arsenal fans sang to the permatanned Hull City manager Phil Brown. Even if you don't like football or Arsenal this podcast will have you laughing out loud in strange places while you listen to it!

Why the title to this post? Arsenal player Alex Song's full name is Alexander Dimitri Song Billong, which you can sing to the tune of the Jennifer Warnes/Joe Cocker classic.

Bring me your cup

I was the same age as my eldest son, Matthew, is now, when Southampton went to Wembley and won the F.A. Cup. The year was 1976 and I watched the game on the TV at home while my Grandpa fell asleep after lunch. He was visiting from the Isle of Wight and sadly it's one of the things I most remember him for, although after my Dad did it for years, I have now inherited that ability. Turns out it's a family skill!

I couldn't get a ticket for the Final as I hadn't been to enough games/didn't have a season ticket/had parents who thought football was a very dangerous spectator sport (which to be honest it could be in the 1970's). We beat Man Utd 1-0 and film of that game still makes me emotional.

As cup winners we got to play in the Charity shield the following August, against Liverpool and I was there for that, my first visit to Wembley stadium. we lost 1-0!

The next time they got to Wembley was in 1979, for the League cup final against Nottingham Forest. The game being the day after my 20th birthday. I was very lucky to work with the wife of one the Saints players and he obtained tickets for me. I don't remember much of the day, except that we scored first after 16 minutes and some idiot behind me started going crazy and chanting "we've won the cup, we've won the cup". Sure enough.....  we lost 3-2.

Our next Wembley final was 1992 and the ZDS Cup final again against Forest, managed by the great Brian Clough. His team included Roy Keane and they took a two goal lead. Saints fought back and Matt le Tissier scored (with a header!) and then Kevin Moore equalised. Sadly Forest won it extra time and so again we lost to them 3-2 at Wembley. Was I there...no I lived in Guernsey then and getting to the game was too tricky. If you look at any footage of that game (and you can on Youtube) Saints lost the toss and wore their away kit, which for that season was an all blue affair. We look like Pompey and that is not a good look!

One sad post-script to that game is that Kevin Moore, who is the same age as me, has recently been diagnosed with dementia, very sad at any age but particularly for some one of his age.

We've not been there since as the 2003 F A Cup final was at Cardiff's Millenium Stadium as Wembley being re-built.

Last night however Saints earned the right to play their first game at the new Wembley as they beat MK Dons 3-1 (4-1 on agrregate) to reach the final of the Johnson's Paint Trophy final. There we will play Carlisle Utd and having been at last night's game according to the announcer at the end of the match, I (& my sons) are entilted to tickets for the final. We've been there for an England game, but watching the Saints there will be awesome!

COYR

Sitting, waiting, wishing

There may be as yet undiscovered tribes in the Amazon who don't know, but most of the rest of the world can't have escaped that this week saw the announcement by Apple of their latest product, the "iPad". 

This was done in their usual way with Steve Jobs, on a stage in front of a screen, onto which were projected, firstly a series of facts and.....well you've probably seen it so let's cut to the chase. The iPad has caused a stir. 

Not all positive, the name has given school boy humour an opportunity too good to miss. But as comedian Ed Byrne said on Twitter "Yes. iPad is a silly name but so is iPod. Complaining about iPad and not iPod is like slagging Jar Jar Binks but not ewoks" 

Next up came the "it doesn't look good, it's not needed, where's the usb port, it's too big, and I won't be buying one" brigade. Let's be honest you all said the same about the iPhone when that was launched, but you've probably got one now! 

Stephen Fry loves it and he was at the launch and has therefore used one. You can see what he thinks here. But it won't come as a surprise that he likes it, as he tends to love new technology.

I think that we'll look back at this launch in years to come in the same way that we now look back at the iPhone launch. The initial product was eye wateringly good, but the next two versions will be the really good ones. There are competitors already but there will be lots more and they will not quite ever get as good as the iPad, in the same way as there is no phone that's beaten the iPhone. 

If the publishers get it right, this could be the gadget that finally gets newspapers and magazines onto the web in away that you can carry around with you. It could also finally break eBooks out into the mainstream, in the same way iTunes did for music. I don't feel though that this is the death knell for the book, but it will make publishers look at the costs of getting their product in front of a reader and realise that an eBook has to be a serious option now that it can be read in the mass market via iBooks. Up until now eBooks have been a bit of an expensive sideshow, but that could be about to significantly change for the better. I have a Sony Reader, that I love but it should be easier and cheaper to buy books for it. (Part of that is living in the UK, it is better in the US), but iBooks should make others up their game as well. 

Finally, the price. Apple products are never cheap, but I expected it to be much more expensive that it appears it will be. That might just make a lot more people put it on their 2010 Christmas list.

Silence is golden

So a new decade is half a month in and my keyboard has been quiet in this little section of cyberspace. Sorry. There are plenty of reasons/excuses but nothing that really holds water except that  I had nothing to say that I felt the need to put finger to key to say.

Life has continued much the same as the last decade, with the minor discomfort of some snow. The election campaign has started, despite the actual date being probably five months away. My bet, by the way, is May 20th.

Things on the sporting front have been interesting. Test cricket is written off by many as being out dated in these days of 20/20 and one day internationals, but three of the four tests against South Africa provided tremendous excitement at their conclusion. The NFL ias drawing to it's Superbowl conclusion. Will Brett Favre take the Vikings to glory? He really is an iconic sportsman in this over-hyped age of sporting celebrity. Closer to home Saints are a clean sheet away from Wembley in the JPT (Johnson's Paint Trophy) and have just drawn Pompey at home in the 5th round of the F A Cup, which will mean two full houses at St Marys within a week.

TV still has too many reality programmes on it. Skating, dancing (times two) and celebrity Big Brother fill the schedules, at least the latter is the last one. What we need is more quality like Wallender or Law & Order UK or even Hustle (although this series is not as good as others have been).

The world of podcasts continues to fill my listening (mainly in the car) The move of Simon Mayo to Radio 2 has meant the loss of the Daily Mayo but now we have two Mayo/Kermode one's on a Friday. The best one I've discovered recently is a football one by comedian Alan Davies called "It's up for grabs" He's a massive Arsenal fan and the podcast is him and two mates discussing the current position the Gooners find themselves in. It's hilarious and even if you don't like football it will entertain you.

Oh and Richard T Kelly commented in his blog about the kind things I said in my book review about his book. You never know just who reads any of this do you?

So that's my duck for 2010 on the blogging front gone. Good day to you