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