Fresh from Jim's Desk

MissRepresentation and the role of men making society for equal for women

2012-02-02T12:23:00.000Z

Last night I attended a screening of a fascinating documentary called MissRepresentation at Portcullis House (the big swanky new government building over the road from the Palace of Westminster).

The film itself was a through-provoking and sometimes moving examination of the way women are portrayed in the media, and the effects this has on the status of women in society, business and politics. It's US-made and focusses entirely on the situation there, but it should open the eyes of men and women living in the UK as many of the same trends are in evidence here.

At the heart of the film is the message is: 'You can't be what you can't see'. Without positive role models, young girls will find it harder to grow up with positive ambitions, struggling with self-worth and more restricted to a narrow choice of proscribed careers paths (which, inevitably, will include marrying someone rich and famous).

A notable element of the film was a number of strong male voices, including the lieutenant governor of California and Oscar-winning screenwriter Paul Haggis. On reflection, this shouldn't surprise us - men must be as important drivers for change as women in our society, as at the moment they hold more positions of power and influence, not to mention the money.

What's more, boys and young men must be educated early on that the stereotypical alpha-male behaviour which, by its very nature, subjugates women to a lesser position in society is unacceptable. Believing women are second-class citizens is not a genetically inherited trait, it's learned behaviour, which is easier to steer your son or nephew away from than it is to open the eyes of someone for whom those views and attitudes have become entrenched.

Men must play their role and not stay silent when they see or hear the mistreatment or negative portrayal of women in all realms of our society.

Find out more - watch the MissRepresentation trailer here, or if you have more time check out the first ten minutes here.

Do more - visit www.missrepresentation.org and take the pledge, or even organise a screening so that you can others can see this inspirational documentary for yourself.

Movember - Day 1: Ouch

2011-11-02T00:22:00.001Z

When you’ve got more than a £100 of other people’s money riding on you having a shave, you’d better reach for the razor. Last night, it was with significant trepidation that I lathered up in order to kick off Movember in style.

Not since the tender age of 22 had I exposed my pasty jowls to the elements. I like being hairy, it means a lot to me. In the masculinity stakes, it’s pretty much the only weapon in my arsenal.

On arriving at the office this morning, the reactions ranged from “Oh you look quite good” to “God, you look young”. I took them in the spirit in which they were intended. All of the comments were kicked into touch by my girlfriend’s reflection, some 24 hours after actually shaving: “You know, it makes you look a bit chubby.”

You have to have a much fun as you can with these occasions, don’t you? Here I am, about to audition for a Red Hot Chili Peppers tribute act.

One thing I was grateful for was that nobody mentioned the fact that, as I’m so out of practice, I’d clearly cut myself to ribbons. As such I won’t continue reacquainting myself with my bladed friend until tomorrow evening at the earliest.

I’m free of facial hair and for some inexplicable reason spots have broken out on my forehead. The gods of male grooming as toying with me. I am 16 once again.

So far this has hurt. In the name of all that is good and holy, please donate. Thank you.

Hello world (and bye-bye face-fuzz)

2011-10-27T23:52:00.000+01:00

It's been a while - far, far too long, in fact - but your humble blogger is back.

So how have you been? Summer was a bit of a non-event, wasn't it? How about
those Spurs?

Right, that's the pleasantries taken care of, on to the matter in hand. What's prompted me to break 18 months of radio silence is a good 'un, so read on.

In the spirit of charity, philanthropy and sheer red-blooded masculinity, I have decided to participate in this year’s Movember. For those who are unfamiliar with the concept, Movember is a charitable event in which men all over the world grow a moustache throughout (the month formerly known as) November, in order to raise money for and awareness of prostate and testicular cancer.

So, on the morning of Tuesday November 1st I will rekindle my relationship with my razor and expose areas of my face to direct sunlight for the first time in at least three years, before attempting to cultivate a half-way convincing hairy top lip throughout the following month.

I would really appreciate your support in my hirsute pursuit, so to donate to the cause please visit my MoBro page. All donations are welcome, but in the spirit on oneupman/womanship, please feel free to try to outdo each
other.

I will be using this page (and this very blog) to write the occasional (hopefully) witty missive as well as post pictures of the progress of my mo.

Yours in hairiness...

My first match at the new Wembley; and a surprisingly reliable knee-joint

2010-05-26T20:46:00.006+01:00

On Monday, my girlfriend, my good old-time drinking buddy JK and I went to Wembley to watch England take on Mexico in the first of the World Cup warm-ups - a much more entertaining affair than their tie against Saudi Arabia at the old Wembley stadium in 1998.

That was the last - and indeed, the first - time I saw England play and although I had a fantastic day out (with my Mum, bless her), the game was a bore-draw. Not that I cared, of course. I was about 13 and loved every minute.

Monday's match was far more entertaining, even if the performance was patchy at times. Seeing five Spurs players get an outing was great, and the appearance of one in particular filled me with joy.

Ledley King is the nearly man of the canon of English centre-halves. A superb defender, quick, mobile, with two good feet and great aerial ability, the only thing that has prevented him from challenging Terry and Ferdinand at the heart of England's defence has been a knee which inflames to the size of a beach-ball at the end of each match (drunken pant-wetting episodes in London's West End notwithstanding).

As such, 'Deadley' (as he's definitely not known to his mates) cannot play more than one match a week and has to train on his own. In a swimming pool.

This sorry state of affairs has threatened his career but his inclusion in Capello's squad seems to have spurred his ligaments into some kind of magical self-healing as he completed all 90 minutes on Monday night, capping it all off with a great headed goal to open the scoring after 15 minutes.

Not bad for a player who's not had a cap for three years.

King has since made a pledge that he will be fit and healthy for every match if required during the tournament. Just how well he knows how his knee is going to react during the competition remains to be seen, but as a Spurs fan who loves the guy (but admits to having doubted his staying power at club level let alone internationally) I couldn't be more pleased.

Well done big man. Keep up the good work.

Everyone, breathe!

2010-05-14T16:15:00.007+01:00

It was almost inevitable that, as the World Cup in South Africa looms, English football fans shed their veneer of confidence and return to outwardly displaying the jittery, nervous pessimisim about England's chances of returning home with the trophy, regularly recoiling in belly-gurgling fear at every sign that Fabio Capello has lost the plot or some more-than-crucial member of the squad has ruptured something important.

I, on the other hand, have faith that the genial Italian knows exactly what he's doing.

Yes, he made an error of judgement regarding that Capello Index thing, but this was short-lived as both he and the FA acted swiftly to ensure it remains no more than a footnote in the team's build-up to the tournament.

Yes he tried to tempt an old war horse out of retirement in the shape of Paul Scholes, and certainly many have questioned his selection of Jamie Carragher (none more so than myself, having been unfortunate enough to have watched Liverpool play a few times this season).

But look how everyone questioned his faith in Emile Heskey, until the mighty oak emerged as a key part of our attack.

Recall how the team posted one of the best qualifying records in recent times (with the only loss coming in a match which was played after we'd qualified and only shown on the internet, and as such no-one was watching anyway.

Consider how the man can nonchalantly drape a (no doubt, very expensive) sweater casually over his shoulders without looking like a) your Dad on holiday b) a twat.

This is why the man is coining it in to the tune of six big ones every year. Sven Gorn Eriksson, with his possibly homesickness-fuelled ex-weathergirl daliances and extremely dodgy computer game endorsements, he is not.

So, in conclusion, everyone should just calm down. Fab's got it all under control.

Bigots, apologies, and fuss over nothing

2010-04-28T19:00:00.005+01:00

As insults go...it wasn't actually an insult. Today, Gordon Brown's latest stint on the campaign trail hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons as he described a voter in Rochdale - 65-year-old Gillian Duffy - as "bigoted", without realising he was still miked up from an earlier radio interview.

He had spent a minute or two discussing immigration with Mrs Duffy in a visit to her street. By all accounts, it appeared to be going quite well, but as Big Gord hopped into the waiting car he began moaning to an aide about how he should never have been forced to speak to her in front of the cameras, before describing her as a "bigoted woman".

Commentators left, right and centre have been blathering on about how the gaffe (when is this word used in any other context?) has pulled the legs out from under Labour's election campaign, which is probably true if they continue going on about it for long enough.

But let's consider the facts. If you listen to the recording, Dear Prudence doesn't actually slate the woman, or go on and on about it, labouring the point. He just expresses his dismay at her views. That's it.

Meanwhile, the incident has generated a flurry of apologies. Brown apologised during a Radio 2 interview in which he was played the tape, head in hands, before telephoning the woman to apologise shortly after.

Obviously this was deemed to have been unacceptable as he then commanded his driver to throw the Labour Party battle bus into a handbreak turn, in order to go directly to Mrs Duffy to apologise to her in person. For more then half an hour.

He emerged from her modest two-up, two-down, all smiles, and apologised again, referring to himself as "mortified" and a "penitent sinner".

Back in Westminster, Peter Mandelson uttered something approaching an apology, seemingly to counter all the other party's spokespeople literally throwing themselves in front of microphones to add fuel to the fire.

So far, it appears no-one has yet apologised to me. Not that I'm a Labour voter, or particularly deserving of some kind of contrition, it's just that while everyone else is getting in on the act... I'm not holding my breath.

But as I said in my comment on the story on the Evening Standard website earlier today: everybody calm down.

This whole business raises a number of questions, which I will now do my best to answer.

Q: Does this debacle mean Labour will lose the next election?
A: No, that was already quite likely to happen a long time ago.

Q: Is the media scrum over this gaffe justified?
A: No, it was just a slow news day.

Q: Should Gordon offer up Peter Mandelson (or perhaps Jack Straw) as a sacrifice to regain favour with the Gods?
A: Yeah go on, why not?

Q: Will Gillian Duffy be voting Labour on May 6?
A: Don't bet on it.

Angry under-educated resident in expletive-laden email to local journalist shocker

2010-04-28T17:08:00.005+01:00

After being on the receiving end of a torrent of abuse from a BNP supporter on the strength of something I posted on Facebook a few months back, I've now had my first angry email from a reader about one of my articles. Notoriety is mine at last.

Leaving aside petty criticisms of his spelling, punctuation and grammar (as satisfying as they may be), what makes it all the more entertaining is that he has no point whatsoever.

Here's the email, in all its inarticulate glory.

Subject: What gave YOU the right to talk total crap on my behalf ?

Wow !! now I know what a total pratt and f#cking idiot low life journalists that work for silly little newspapers like you do !!

DONT EVER EVER SPEAK ON MY BEHALF YOU TOSSER !

Your story on how redbridge dont want Nuclear weapons is sh1t like you..

How many people did you ask ?

What were their ages ?

What area of Redbridge did you poll?

What % of your crap poll said what ?

How many were undecided ?

This is what makes you a f#cking idiot... NO ONE I know wants rid of any of our Nuclear weapons or subs..

What a total prick you are.

Sad that you are just a liar working for a silly little newspaper !

Lets do a poll on what the public think of journalists workiong for 2 bob papers desperate to pull a story ! hahahahaha

And here's the article to which he so eloquently refers.

A print-out of this now takes pride of place on the noticeboard beside my PC monitor, and I now have an abuse folder in Outlook.

And, as my colleague said as we laughed about after it had done the rounds in the office:

1.) He hasn't read my story in full, because it details the sample.
2.) He's getting confused between the messenger and the story.
3.) I must be doing something right to get an email like this.

I am officially worth 0.057 of a human being. Sort of.

2010-04-15T13:18:00.004+01:00

After discovering that I should probably vote Green (see last post...), any political engagement I had developed as a result now teeters on the edge of the abyss of indifference - as it turns out my vote counts for pretty much sod all.

I don't claim to explain the maths behind its figures but the Voter Power website takes into account the probability of the seat changing hands and the size of the electorate, to calculate how much each person's vote is 'worth'.

I live in Chingford and Woodford Green - one of the Tory's top seats and one of the safest in the country overall. If my knowledge of politics, such as it is, tells us nothing else then at least it shows that the higher profile the MP, the safer the seat (by and large).

Former Tory leader, 'Mr Broken Britain' and probable future cabinet minister Iain Duncan Smith currently holds my constituency and has done since 1992 and most people around here don't have a bad word to say about him.

As such, my vote in the election is equivalent to 0.057 of a vote. That's perhaps not as bad as it sounds, given that the average UK voter has 0.0253 of a vote. Or perhaps it's all just terrible. I'm confused.

Knackers to it, I'm still not going to vote Tory.

Green fever

2010-04-15T12:40:00.003+01:00

As the general election looms - in addition to the local council elections for all my fellow Londoners and I, plus plenty more people around the country - my mind has finally shaken off all the usual ephemera it concerns itself with (Do we need milk? Will I have time to go the gym tonight? Why do Spurs break my little heart time and time again?) and come round to pondering the most pertinent topic: namely, who will I vote for?

The date of said election was only announced a matter of days ago but given that it was possibly the worst kept secret in living memory, the parties were only too ready to spew forth a raft of stage-managed public appearances and election promises.

Such is relatively short period of time between now and polling day, I (like a few other million people, I wouldn't mind betting) am already feeling a touch overwhelmed about what specific policies each party plans to put into action during the next 4 or 5 years.

Thanks be, then, for a new website called 'Vote for Policies'. It lays out, point-by-point, what each of the the main six parties (Lab, Con, Lib Dem, Green, UKIP, and Naz...er, sorry, BNP) plan for all the major policy areas, such as democracy, immigration, welfare, the economy, health and education.

Earlier, I took the test and I was slightly surpised, if not exactly bowled over, by the results.

In truth, I'd thought I'd already made up my mind. I can't stomach any more Labour mismanagement, thanks very much, and I'm deeply opposed to the neo-Thatcherite lunacy of 'Call Me' Dave Cameron. Despite the fact that my incumbent Tory MP, Iain Duncan Smith, is sitting on rather a nice majority and will almost certainly keep his seat and become a cabinet minister in the next parliament, I felt my best bet was to vote Lib Dem.

I've met the candidate, briefly, and he seems like a stand-up guy but I'm far more concerned with the policies at a national level than any personality traits I might like in my MP. I'll be using my vote at the local elections to decide on specifically local issues (althought this will more than likely see me voting Lib Dem as well, but there we are).

But the fact that, according to my relatively serious policy decisions on the online test, I'm 55% Green, I might be forced to reconsider.

It's hardly surprising that my views should run roughly along the line of the Green party, as I've become more and more engaged in the battle against climate change in the last couple of years (I've become a bit of a 'Standby Nazi' and continue to infuriate my mother by turning the kitchen telly off at the socket on a daily basis).

Plus, the Lib Dems have always been too pro-Europe for my liking, but I was prepared to take a hit on that single policy area in return for competence with the economy (thank you, Mr Cable) and a bit of detachment from the two parties that have been making a general of a hash of things since I was in short trousers.

So, rather than clarifying exactly who I should vote for on May 6, this clever and informative website has seen me go from being fairly certain to fairly confused.

Such is politics, I suppose.

Sunday is the new Saturday. Fact.

2010-03-01T18:25:00.005Z

The recession, logistics and the low pay in local journalism all conspired to make a trip overseas for my girlfriend and I's fifth anniversary yesterday next to impossible.

For our first, we went to Riga in Latvia, our second was spent in Krakow in Poland, our third in Seattle (from our temporary home at the time in Whistler - we weren't feeling particularly flush that year or anything), and last year we were away skiing in Valmorel, France.

But what could have been a let-down was actually a fantastic trip, and all no further away than zone 1 of the tube.

We stayed for the evening at the Dean Street Townhouse in Soho. It started well, as on arrival we were told that our special web-rate booking had been upgraded to their second largest room (which would otherwise have cost more than three times what we paid). Mildly self-satisfied smiles all round.

The hotel itself is decorated in a classic style (even down to the decades-old furniture and fittings) but with a contemporary twist, although not with anything so smug and off-putting as irony. The reception area is all leatherbound books and - yes, you saw it coming - rich mahogany, while the rooms are painted in muted tones. I'd pin the furniture down to the period if I didn't find Antiques Roadshow so consistently dull.

Oh and the following should almost be mentioned: Flatscreen LCD telly? Check. Sky HD? Check. Blu-ray player? Check. Retro-styled DAB radio? Check. Bose SoundDock? Check. Softest bed-sheets ever? Check. Bloody great big bathtub in the room itself? Checkity check-check...check.

We ate at the hotel's restaurant downstairs and that didn't disappoint either. My starter of haddock souffle with a creamy mustard sauce was light but substantial, while my monkfish main with fennel was moist and flavoursome. Treacle tart with marmalade ice cream: every bit as good as it sounds.

The only slightly underwhelming part was our brief trip to Soho House, the exclusive members club on nearby Greek Street. Our hotel and the club are owned by the same group and they rang ahead so we could nip inside for a cheeky aperitif.

Our anticipation of something achingly hip fell by the wayside as the only area open was the rather bland House Kitchen room on the third floor - it was a Sunday night, after all. Still, the service was great and my bottle of Bombardier slipped down a treat

All in all, thoroughly recommended - particularly if you can get in on a quiet night and pick yourself up a bargain.

It took a neo-Nazi buffoon to bring me back from the wilderness...

2010-02-23T23:07:00.008Z

Hello all. It's been far, far too long - six months? - but I'm back, and so is this esteemed blog.

I've become more and more interested in anti-fascism over the last few months, as the rise on the BNP has increasingly horrified me. I try to have a positive opinion of the general public but then things like BNP councillors getting elected keep happening, which really tests my resolve.

Anyway, a charming young chap by the name of Joshua Wren contacted me on Facebook earlier today. I've never met him and never heard of him, and I presume his unsolicited message was the result of my membership of the Expose the BNP group. Anyway, I looked beyond his basic grasp of the English language and argued the toss.

Here it is, in full, with my typo's intact to boot...

Joshua Wren 23 February at 17:16
As a reporter you should also know that the BNP are a democratic party. If it wasnt then it wouldnt be allowed to stand. Start reporting the truth for a change and not bullshit like you always do. VOTE BNP

Jim Ranger 23 February at 17:20
Interesting view. Have you actually read any of my work?

The next time I write about the BNP and their democratic process - which I've never denied - I'll make sure I also mention the fact that the party is a thinly-disguised group of racists and white supremacists.

How's that for reporting the truth?

Joshua Wren 23 February at 17:22
yes i have and its crap maybe you should report that i am an openly gay member and would gladly be interviewed for your filth. Also you can report how barking will become a bnp mp in may also. that would be some truth for a change.

Jim Ranger 23 February at 17:42
It's crap? Of course it is. Could you do any better? Please try, I'd love to see how you get on.

It's shame you don't live in my area as I'd also really like to interview you. What would happen then is that, after you spout some racist nonsense, the 99% of people in the borough who have a brain would then realise that the kind of person the BNP attracts shouldn't be trusted with a can opener, let alone a seat in the House of Commons.

I'm pretty confident that there are enough people in Barking who are so horrified by the idea of Nick Griffin possibly becoming their MP that they will vote for a legitimate party, any party, instead of your mob.

In a way, it's not entirely your fault. For whatever reason you feel disenfranchised by mainstream politics. All the other political parties have their flaws, there's a lot wrong with them, and the expenses scandal is only the tip of the iceberg. But they don't hate people because they have different colour skin, or talk a bit funny, or come from a different country.

Joshua Wren 23 February at 17:44
the last stament is correct and for your information i dont talk any racism actually. I have friends who are white,black,and asian. Why dont you people report on the evil islamic extremists that run riot in our country??? or why the facists (lol UAF) dont come out to protest about that??? very ironic indeed

Joshua Wren 23 February at 17:46
for the lat time also the BNP ARE A LEGIT party

Jim Ranger 23 February at 17:54
So you're a hypocrite then? Black and asian friends, yet you belong to a party which - whatever it's leading figures may say - is founded on the politics of hate.

Perhaps Nick Griffin and the other BNP figures who speak to the media present the image that the party is just out to look after the interests of 'indigenous' British people, but most people simply don't buy it.

Everyone else realises that the great majority of the party's membership consists of racists, and the it plays on the fears of the people in the UK who simply can't deal with immigration and ethnic diversity.

Extremism in all its forms is dangerous - racist nationalist extremism, like the kind you promote, is just as harmful and divisive as the kind "evil Islamic" extremism to which you refer.

And I wouldn't mind betting that there are more people in the UK who think like you, than people who think that we should impose Sharia law and that it's ok to blow people up in the name of Allah.

Joshua Wren 23 February at 17:58
Well you think what ya like which is why your articles are are bollox. You dont know me or know what i am like. I am no hypocrite i am a realist. What you fail to report also is the fact that griffins best mate is a sikh and that he was the main witness in dismissing griffins race hate trial.

Jim Ranger 23 February at 19:01
So one Sikh man falls under the illusion of the BNP and that legitimises the whole operation and its supporters. Well thanks for clearing that up. It's about on the same level as your 'I'm not a racist, I've got loads of black friends' argument earlier on, which was a real gem.

While we're on the subject of your illustrious leader's credentials, I also recall he studied at Cambridge. However, that doesn't mean the man isn't an inept bigot.

The BNP has also just voted in favour of admitting black and asian memembers. That doesn't mean it isn't a racist political organisation.

Thinking of it now, I don't think I've ever written an article on the BNP, it's certainly never been much of a theme in our paper. Perhaps you think the articles I write on residential planning disputes, nightclub licensing hearings and charity fundraisers are all bollocks.

Thankfully I write about an area which has managed to resist the creeping influence of your particular band of hate-mongers, and I hope it stays that way. There's only one BNP councillor in Redbridge Council, and he never actually does anything except sit in meetings looking bored, and the word is he'll lose his seat in due course.

Rather than a triumphant moment for the BNP, I have every confidence that the next election will mark the moment that the sensible majority in this country take to the ballot box and exercise their democratic right to show the BNP that their particular brand of neo-fascism has no place in 21st Britain.

Thanks for messaging me. I've never knowingly spoken to a BNP supporter, so this has given me an insight into the kind of distorted a worldview people like you have.

I'm not yet sure what I'm going to do with our exchange, although I'll certainly be sharing with the other members of the Expose the BNP group and anyone else who shares my position.

One final thought - as a gay man, have you ever been called homophobic names? Spat at? Physically abused? Had defamatory leaflets distributed around your neighbourhood?

I ask because supporters of the BNP have done those things because other people were born in a different country or don't have white skin. They are the proponents of hatred and I know that if I was a member of a group which had suffered at the hands of bigots - and still does in some corners of the world - I could never bring myself to associate with a group of hate-mongers.

However, as you've made clear, you don't see the BNP as that. As far as you are concerned it's legitimate and the only party which cares for the British people.

I, for one, hope that the great majority of the UK completely disagrees.

Joshua Wren 23 February at 19:20
No i have not and there have never been any leaflets like that posted ever. If there was then we would of been arrested and havnt so they werent offensive then were they??? as for 'your encounter' i havnt given you any reason to attack me havnt made any comments that you may find offensive or given you an excuss to call me 'nazi' racist' etc so maybe you can now see that we are desent people just concerned about not been listend to by the so called goverment. i will no longer reply now as i dont trust filthy reporters one bit as it wouldnt suprise me to find you have alterd my words to suit you. I will however drop you a message when we have mps in parliment. To rub that in to your filth written bullshit

Jim Ranger 23 February at 22:56
Not once have I attacked you, whereas you have sworn at me and attacked me professionally. We clearly have a very different idea of what 'offensive' means'. You've called my work bullshit and bollocks - and I doubt you've any idea what you're talking about.

Perhaps no BNP operative has ever done those things while on official party business, but I would not be surprised to learn about members engaging in that kind of thing on their own time.

I used the term neo-Nazi to characterise the kind of fascism which drives organisations like the BNP, which is perfectly legitimate.

And, believe me, I would have no need to alter your words one bit in order to suit my own anti-fascist agenda - not even by correcting the terrible spelling, punctuation and grammar (particularly seeing as mine hasn't exactly been perfect).

I don't expect you to be convinced by my arguments as you're obviously completely entrenched in your blinkered far-right extremist views, and I hope you would do me the same courtesy and understand that your angry, poorly-argued datribes will do nothing to change my views.

I'm serious about an interview, if you'd like to give me one. So how about it - the day the BNP get an MP in Westminster, we'll sit down and thrash it out.

You might have a chance if you just learned to think for yourself rather than simply doing what is easy: being scared of and angry at immigrants, blaming them for the all the problems up and down the country, scapegoating them because society can't accept collect responsibility for the current economic and social mire we're in.

So in May, when you get your MP or - God forbid - MPs, drop me a line and we'll talk.

So, anyone thinking of voting British National Party in a few months time?

Booze. Hooch. Liquor. Sauce.

2009-09-29T22:37:00.003+01:00

As a graduate of the University of Sheffield, I thought it incredibly apt that my alma mater led the research into minimum drink pricing as a means of, in effect, lowering the amount of booze that passes our parched lips each week.

While by the third year of my degree I only used to hit the sauce around once a week, in my first year, still hopped up on the excitement of being away from home and the pleasant incestuousness of dormitory living, 4 or 5 nights out a week was not unusual.

Monday night was the real killer. Across the city venues that, without the presence of tens of thousands of thirsty students, would otherwise be empty would offer deals the likes of which would never be found inside the M25.

The three main nightclubs in the city would sell vodka and mixer for 60-80p, while bottles of lager were often less than a quid. I once bought a round of drinks for myself and five friends. It cost me £3.

Like countless numbers of my peers, I happily chucked plastic glasses of industrial cleaning fluid masquerading as spirits down my throats on a weekly basis, and got royally leathered in the process. Often in some kind of fancy dress and/or drag.

While this is primarily the experience of the student population, who are still young and spunky enough to knocking back a skinful, eat a kebab, roll in at 3am and still get up before noon and make it to lectures, all the fond memories of those hazy, alcohol-fuelled days cannot hide the fact that keeping drink cheap does encourage you to consume more of it, irrespective of your age or level of education.

The news today carried the story of a fresher at UCL who collapsed and died while out partying, and subsequently an 'all-you-can-drink' event was cancelled. Most students, even with the obvious temptation of the kind of promotion which most of them would see as a kind of challenge, would hit their limit and not come close to consuming so much as to put themselves in serious harm. However, a small minority are capable of physical consuming so much hooch as to risk a trip to A&E and it is for exactly these people that legislation must exist.

Weatherspoon's pubs - friends of the student and the pensioner alike - offer cheaper drinks than just about anywhere else. Consequently they are the most ubiqutious presence on the high street from Land's End to John O'Groats (whether either of these two place actually have a 'Spoons, I know not).

Not that this particular chain is any better or any worse than all the others. But they, like all licenced premises, must accept the responsibility that comes with selling alcohol. The fact that this is not enshrined in our laws is something which must be corrected.

It seems obvious to me that hiking the price of drink would have an impact on the level of booze consumed, but this is by no means a cure-all for one of the most widespread social ills in our country. It can only be effective as part of a concerted effort to lessen the harmful effects of alcohol consumption.

I lived my university days neither any more or any less responsibly that most students, and often found myself staring down the business end of an essay deadline with a sore head and a queasy stomach. I don't feel that I should have altered my social agenda in any way, shape or form.

But in since graduation I have come to understand that the sheer reckless abandon of the student lifestyle - when it is all too easy to get carried away on a night out - means that something has to change in the way that alcohol sales in this country are regulated in order that students, like the rest of society, can make more responsible choices about their intake of the demon drink.

Big German cars, moist palms and 'flying' solo on the first day on the job

2009-09-01T21:53:00.004+01:00

I'd had a fairly clear idea of what my first day as a proper working journo would entail. A few re-written press releases, a bit of noodling around on the phone, and the usual rigmarole of getting settled in to a new office.

It was all going swimmingly when my editor dropped a set of car keys on my desk and told me I'd have to drive somewhere to get some quotes. On my own. In an unfamiliar car. For the first time since passing my test five weeks ago.

He didn't know that this what it meant for me, of course, but I could already feel my palms getting sweaty. I started shifting uncomfortably in my seat. 'Bricking it' is a phrase that comes to mind.

Happily, I survived. By the time I'd shifted into gear and pulled out onto the High Street I was already having the time of my life.

On the journey back I'd barely left South Woodford before turning on the radio and unrolling the windows to let the the sweet late summer air. On arriving in Epping, part of me wished the drive was longer and I could just keep going.

The only potential blight on an otherwise perfect journey came at the very end, as I parked up on my return to the office. After spectacularly misjudging my entry into a bay I very nearly scraped the side of a Porsche Cayenne, which I managed to evade by no more than an inch or so.

As I struggled into the space, I glanced up and there, walking across in front of me, was a middle-age bloke in an expensive suit, who disappeared into the staff entrance of a bookmakers wearing a concerned expression that said something along the lines of: "Don't touch my car you little oik, or I'll have your arse."

I got out of the car and looked down at the white line next to my foot, unmistakably on the wrong side of his front wheel.

Liza Finn at Purple Turtle, Camden

2009-08-20T11:07:00.003+01:00

Liza Finn has a new band and last night an appreciative crowd at Camden's famous Purple Turtle saw the debut live performance of the five-piece. Having performed around London over the last few years, the band is beginning to move up a level of venues as it becomes more and more established on the circuit.Having handed keyboard duty to her new band member, the singer-songwriter looked happy to be free from the constraints of sitting down on stage. The person who enjoyed this most was her boyfriend Mike: "I've never seen her legs before", he exclaimed (possibly only half-joking).

Tight and precise throughout, the band's jazz-pop sound is aided by a refreshing combination of bongo drumming and trumpeteering. Later on, Liza informed me that this was the first gig she had ever earned any money from and, on this showing, it will be the first of many at venues across the capital.

Lies, Damn Lies and Republican Party Statistics

2009-08-14T11:40:00.003+01:00

I’ve long thought that, were I a US citizen, I’d be a card-carrying Democrat. But the recent actions of the Republican party have left me dumbstruck at their audacity, to say nothing of their outright dishonesty, in attacking Barack Obama’s plans for universal healthcare.

I’ve never been a tub-thumping patriot but I confess to feeling more than a little aggrieved at the vitriol recently directed from across the Atlantic at the NHS.

Despite having made only very limited use of it in my life I’m in no doubt that it’s an absolutely crucial part of the fabric of our society – something, without which, countless people would suffer from sub-standard healthcare and restricted access to important medication, treatment and advice.

Anyone reading this from the United States finding that this sounds at all familiar? Yes, that’s right, this description could easily refer to the current state of healthcare in the US.

Aside from gross misapprehensions and downright lies, the Republican party is unashamedly playing on the lowest common denominator in American politics: fear. By engaging in the cheapest, most base level of coercion the Republicans are creating a climate of fear to scare Americans into rejecting what would be a revolutionary change – for the better – in one of the most inequitable healthcare markets in the developed world.

It seems to come down to something fundamental in the make-up of your average right-wing voter. Universal healthcare comes in, some insurance plans are no longer viable and I might have to pay a bit more for their excellent level of care. Poorer families will benefit, but who cares, because now I’m $50 a month lighter.

I’m sorry, but if a family earns in excess of $350,000 a year it can afford to subsidise the poorer sections of society. They clean their houses, they cook their meals, they empty their trash cans, often for woefully inadequate wages. They owe them.

Forgive me for trotting out some dyed-in-the-wool lefty rhetoric but the provision of health is something far too important to be controlled by the free market. I simply do not believe that the trusting something so volatile to allocate resources most efficiently in the financial sector, let alone something as fundamental as healthcare. If you let the market decide, a large proportion of people get royally screwed. This, if nothing else, is what the recession has taught me.

What currently passes for a Labour government in this country seems hell-bent on shifting the NHS closer and closer to a market-driven model, via none-too-subtle changes in structure, reflected in nauseating linguistic changes. ‘Service users’, not ‘patients’ is just the tip of the iceberg.

How things change. Our government is continuing the shift away from the founding principles of the NHS (a move which began about 5 minutes after the thing was actually created) and at the same time the US – up until a few months ago the bastion of liberalised, free market principles – is looking to socialise healthcare to ensure that no American is left behind.

People are naturally conservative. Change is scary. And some there are some who are genuinely so elitist that they genuinely don’t care if poor people have access to healthcare.

But taken logically, the change Barack Obama proposes is for the better. What doesn’t help is scaremongering, fear-stoking and outright lies about the NHS and universal healthcare - music to the ears of the faction of reactionary lunatics who, somehow, seem to have more of a voice than 100 of their moderate, reasonable peers.

Tightening banking regulations to stop huge bonuses and potentially catastrophic, short-termist investment decisions relies on the same logic as ensuring a basic level of care for people across all their healthcare needs. If we ignore lessons like this then we risk falling back into the same pattern of boom and bust, the kind of unsustainable growth which will eventually leave us out of pocket. We are all responsible.

The Republican Party should be ashamed of itself. Dr Stephen Hawking should appear on television, broadcast coast to coast, and denounce the claims that a ‘American NHS’ would have left him for dead years ago. Obama should do more to counter the ludicious claims being made on TV and at rallies across the country. The American people should trust in the man than they, ultimately, elected to provide adequate health care for every single citizen, not least the 47 million uninsured and 25 million under-insured.

Will all of these things happen? Only time, and the determination of the most exciting US President in living memory, will tell.

Extrasensory perception

2009-07-24T17:21:00.004+01:00

If you weren't absolutely certain of the fact that the world's top 100m sprinters are finely-tuned speed machines, minutely calibrated to the nth degree to wring every last drop of speed out of their musclebound, Gatorade-chugging frames, then Jamaica's second-fastest speed merchant has dispelled the last lingering speck of doubt.

"The ankle is in shape to go 9.7 [seconds] but I'm not sure it's in shape to go below that," he revealled to BBC Sport on the eve of his appearance at the Crystal Palace Grand Prix.

Awesome stuff. Plus, he also thinks the reason British sprinters don't pick up more medals is because they're lazy. Is there nothing this man doesn't sense?

Woah, look out!

2009-07-24T15:04:00.006+01:00

A dangerous thing happened today. In its infinite wisdom, the DVLA consented to let me drive, unaccompanied, on the roads of this great nation. At about 12 noon, I passed my driving test at the second time of asking. As you can see, "a dog with two dinkles" just about sums it up. After learning for about a year, I have finally got this particular monkey off my back.

The end of a couple of eras

2009-07-17T01:48:00.007+01:00

Sad times, all, for this week two big parts of my recent existence came to an end. On Thursday I took a big step into the world of hackdom and completed my last NCTJ exam. But potentially even more earth-shattering, the previous night I watched the final episode of the West Wing. From today, I must move on to pastures new.

Virtually every evening since Christmas has seen almost my every move gear up towards the hour when I can retire to my bed, remote in hand, and delve for 40 minutes into the brilliantly-rendered world of Washington politics.

As such, I'm open to suggestions as to the next US TV boxset with which I can fixate myself. I'm not interested in anything with an abundance of initials in the titles, so that rules out NCIS, CSI or any of its geographically-located cousins. I hear good things about The Wire and I know people who positively swear by The Sopranos. Clearly this is something that requires some serious time and thought - probably far too much than should be spent decided on what to watch on telly.

What is far more scary is that the world of unemployment is now upon me. Having been able to chalk up my depressing lack of cashflow down to something as convenient as "being a student" for the last 20 weeks, I now have no excuse than to get my sorry rear end into employment.

And it's not even as if I have some leeway with having to immediately get a job. After finishing a three year degree you'd be amazed at how easily I'd convinced myself that, given the length of my period of economic inactivity, I could afford myself some time off before getting up before 10am every morning with any consistency.

Now consider that I've just finished a course which lasted just 5 months - so by my reckoning I need to find some work within about the next week or else I'm just mugging myself off.

Sad times indeed.

Chunky knit genitals and the family-friendly paper with a new set of boobs every single day of the week

2009-06-22T18:56:00.006+01:00

I've never had much time for tabloid journalism and every so often I spot something which confirms my misgivings. For all it's exposed nipples and papping of female 'celebrities' sunbathing in the noddy or falling out their tops while falling out of a nightclub, once proceedings move beyond base titilation the Sun comes over all nudge-nudge, wink-wink and adopts a tone of cod-moral disapproval.

A case in point is its coverage of the latest promotional stunt for Sacha Baron Cohen's new film, Bruno. The premise of the event was a fairly ham-fisted pastiche of the controversial United Colours of Benneton adverts of the 1990s ("United Colours of Brünotton", in case you were wondering). Baron Cohen and a few others appeared in the middle of Berlin wearing chunky-knit body suits (most of which were pink, with a yellow one and a brown one chucked in for good measure).

The Sun, in it's infinite wisdom, decided to pixellate the family jewels of each of the suits. Yet, ITN, the Daily Telegraph and the Evening Standard (and these are just the ones I discovered before I got bored and stopped looking) left the images untouched for the world to see the crocheted genitals in all their glory.

Hats off for the man behind the stunt to pay such attention to detail that he gave the 'black' body suit a tiny penis and endow the 'Chinese' one with something that could, at first glance, be mistaken for a French riot policeman's nightstick.

As for the Sun's approach, it's the journalistic equivalent of a bunch of geezers sitting in a pub, drinking pints of Carling, using terms like "John Thomas" or "member" to refer to a penis: utterly laughable and cringe-worthy in one fell swoop.

Shh...their spies are everywhere.

2009-06-12T20:25:00.008+01:00

I spent most of today sneezing my own brains out at the office. It's official, my hayfever has kicked in. This relatively recent development has only begun to afflict me in the past few years but now, each summer for one or two weeks straight, I am rendered incapacitated by sniffing, snorting and rubbing my nose red raw with supposedly supersoft tissues - all the while necking antihistamines like I'm trying to take an overdose.

Forgive the graphic detail, but today my left nostil ran like Red Rum on steriods, it just wouldn't stop. And it was of the particularly thin kind that creeps up on you with no warning. Most embarrassing when talking to your editor.

By the time I got home my schnoz had started behaving itself and what could have been a potentially fraught trip to the supermarket passed off without incident.

I returned to my laptop and logged into my email. Ooh, I have 1 new message.

"Kleenex Tissues is now following you on Twitter!"

HOW DID THEY KNOW!? Did they plan this? I've come to the conclusion that's all one big conspiracy and they must release vast quantities of pollen and other airborne irritants from a gigantic Tuppaware container somewhere over the channel and wait for the prevailing winds to take hold.

Their marketing manager is a genius.

Is there something we should be told? (after Private Eye...)

2009-06-08T12:38:00.013+01:00

I don't usually go in for these, but this occurred to me during a recent flick through the papers.

Cast them as cousins.

Anyway, now to the serious business. Yesterday Newcastle United Football Club placed a notice on it's website declaring that, once again, the club is up for sale, this time around for the princely sum of £100million. A steep sum for an outfit playing in the second tier of English football, you must agree.

The latest move to find a buyer can only have confirmed among the most ardent supporters what outsiders knew long ago: the club is under the stewardship of a complete amateur. At the time, Mike Ashley's acquisition was seen by some as a welcome move given the burgeoning trend of low-profile foreign money men taking controlling stakes in top-level teams.

While cries of "Cockney Mafia!" have since echoed around St James' Park and beyond many fans were pleased to see the old administration make way for the new. How things change. While the faithful are die-hard to the point of self-denial, it has become increasingly clear to fans and commentators alike that the club was being run by someone without even the first idea how to do so.

The unprofessional - if direct - nature of Ashley's way of advertising his desire to rid himself of this multimillion-pound burden is all too apparent. What compounds it is that this is only the latest incident in a long-line of forehead-slappingly stupid moves.

"What's that?" said Ashley to no-one in particular when he heard of Manchester City being offloaded by its unscupulous former owner to a band of oil-rich squillionaires from the Middle East, thus simultaneously purging the club of any lingering scandal and pumping its coffers full of dosh that they would be hard pressed to actually spend despite laughable delusions about being a 'big club'?

"I'll have some of that," he must have muttered to himself as he got on the blower to his travel agent.

The thought of someone of Ashley's not inconsiderable mass touching down in Dubai and stepping out of an air-conditioned first-class cabin into 40-degree heat is comical enough. But the notion that the kind of individuals to whom he was looking to sell would just allow him to turn up at their corporate headquarters with the keys to SJ'sP and a stack of replica shirts with "Sheikh" printed on the back is staggering in its ineptitude. Something tells me necking cocktails in public during the holy month of Ramadan didn't do him any favours, either.

What's more, it seems that no-one has yet learnt from Ashley's mistakes. Fans have espoused the need for a manager who loves the club to sweep in and take over, perhaps in tandem with a new owner who understands what NUFC is all about. This would surely only compound their woes and see them sink ever deeper into the mire. Tough love, or perhaps no love at all and instead sheer pragmatism, is what is needed now more than ever.

And the sooner Mike Ashley sells, to almost anyone, the sooner the club can begin to redeem itself in the eyes of football fans in general and, most importantly, its own supporters. The faithful might still believe in their side's stature for the time being. But something tells me that, by the time the whistle blows on the first day of the season and they line up to face not Manchester United or Chelsea but instead the likes of Plymouth Argyle and Doncaster Rovers, the shit will have well and truly hit the fan.

For a comprehensive and compelling look at the club's current need for a detached and utterly unromantic manager, read Times columnist Matthew Syed's thoughts on the matter - rightly described by my friend and fellow blogger Matt as "the most 'nail on head' article I've ever read".

Is this Silvio Berlusconi's penis?

2009-06-06T02:34:00.006+01:00

Adolescence is a time of upheaval, change and discovery but despite this it does, from time to time, offer the odd chance to stop a short while and reflect. Such is the effect of impending adulthood and burgeoning indepedence, it's only natural to ask questions about the world and think of what the future holds.

At the age of 17 or so, these questions can be glaringly short-termist, such as 'Will I pull at the house party on Friday night because two of my friends have gotten some in the last month and it's starting to get ridiculous?'. Or they can take a more laudible and far-sighted character, such as 'If I do a degree in Sociology will I still be sniggered at in a decade's time?'.

However, I would be so bold as to wager everything I have and, were it possible, everything I ever will on the fact that not once did it cross my mind to ponder, even for a second, the following question, which at the age 23 I now find myself incapable of avoiding:

'Is this the president of Italy nursing a semi-on?'

For me, the tan lines are a dead giveaway - although, if there's one major world leader who would sunbathe naked it's this guy, right?

El Pais
BBC News

And while I'm on BBC Sport... "Progress"?

2009-05-29T19:32:00.006+01:00

How can it be considered 'progress' that the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish FAs have so little interest in the profile of the sport at an Olympic level that they would so readily withdraw their involvement and consent to 11 English players taking the field under the auspices of Team GB?

It's a sad indictment of our national game that petty differences and paranoia about independence can get in the way of what would almost certainly be a temporary arrangement for London 2012.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/olympic_games/8072981.stm

A loaded choice of words...?

2009-05-29T19:27:00.001+01:00

Janko Tipsaravic: "a naturally offensive player" (according to BBC Sport).

Is it the floppy hair or the silly specs that make him so objectionable?

Slow News Day...?

2009-05-25T22:43:00.003+01:00

Granted, it's a Bank Holiday Monday - but surely this doesn't merit a front-page link on the BBC News website.

Versace denies boardroom dispute

I don't read Vogue or anything, but seriously...who gives a shit?

Hollyoaks 1 - 2 Celebs XI

2009-05-17T00:01:00.007+01:00

The XI isn't the number of players on the team in Roman numerals, rather the 'list' that they constitute in the grand scheme of Celebdom.

Yesterday afternoon I took in this sporting spectacle at Chester City's Deva Stadium and shortly after the final whistle had to be treated for two burst eardrums, such was the volume of high-pitched shrieking to be heard every time "Jason-out-of-Coronation Street" got anywhere near the ball.

The revelation of the day was one Ralf Little who, in addition to being the only person present who could justafiably be referred to as 'famous', was easily the best player on the park.

His place in my estimation went up even further when he turned out to be a thoroughly good bloke as he chatted away to my missus and her friends, as naturally as you like, as he and his fellow players did the rounds signing autographs and posing for photos after the match.

"It's a fucking disgrace!"

2009-05-08T00:43:00.008+01:00

Allow me to stir the pot a little bit.

I'm normally among the first to bemoan the lack of respect footballers show towards officials and often sympathise with the frequently-voiced view that these outrageously-shekeled primadonnas should just keep it shut and concentrate on what they do with the ball.

In a game I love so much, it's the one aspect I think the governing bodies should address with utmost urgency and have often looked to the example of rugby players or supported the proposed idea that captains should be the only players allowed to address the match officials

I didn't actually see the coverage of the Chelsea-Barcelona match but after watching a replay and witnessing the subsequent reaction, I found myself feeling a new-found respect for Didier Drogba.

So often found lacking under Avram Grant and Phil Scolari, the Ivorian powerhouse seemed a shadow of his former imposing self from Mourinho's reign (that dodgy first season, when it appeared £24m couldn't even buy you a decent first touch, notwithstanding).

If anyone was left in any doubt whether he had been fully revitalised under caretaker coach Guus Hiddink, they need look no further than his full-blooded reaction the conclusion of last night's semi-final. There he was in all his fist-pumping, badge-kissing glory and I found myself in (I admit, somewhat surprising) admiration.

Were his actions so reprehensible? After all, it's hardly the first time a player has vented his spleen at a ref after the final whistle and, in light of what occurred in the preceding 90 minutes, I cannot recall circumstances more deserving of such protestations. The words he gave to the nation were born of a sense of injustice and were not directly accusing the referee of being complicit in anything untoward.

Moreover, the incident was broadcast after the watershed (such as we understand it in our post-Sachsgate world) and at the error of the show's production team, for whom the time-delay safety net of live telly is supposed to be a crucial tool.

Somewhat at odds with my instincts, I have often found it ridiculous that managers can be censured for comments made after a game about a referee's performance. As a trainee journalist the principle of free speech (and all the many complications and caveats that accompany it) has been drummed into me from day one. Are football managers not afforded the same privilege? And, indeed, are their charges, especially under such controversial circumstances?

See the big man in action for yourself:

Arsenal 1 - 3 Manchester United (1-4 on aggregate)

2009-05-05T21:36:00.009+01:00

So many column inches and minutes of airtime are devoted to speculating about the outcome of football matches across the gamut of the sporting media each week - and then every so often a game comes along that, within the opening 11 minutes, absolutely blows all of that out of the water. Tonight's Champion's League semi-final between Manchester United and Arsenal was just such an affair.

Delicately poised at 1-0 following John O'Shea's goal at Old Trafford, football fans and pundits alike will have spent most of today ruminating on team selection, formations, tactics and all manner of other variables which could have swung the tie one way or the other. On the night, it was an unfortunate error from an inexperienced youngster and a moment of audacious brilliance from arguably the finest player in world football which put matters to bed. We should all give up trying to predict these things and just enjoy them from the sofa with a beer or two, shouldn't we?

A final thought: this season Darren Fletcher has all but dispelled ideas that he is somehow a weak link in the Manchester United team and has consistently performed in domestic and European competition. How sad then that a poor refereeing decision should cost him his dream of playing his first Champion League final. Chin up, son.

Flora London Marathon 2009. I feel tired just looking at the pictures

2009-05-05T20:44:00.012+01:00

Earlier this month, an uncharacteristically sunny day greeted the many thousands of crazy people who each yeah trot their way to all kinds of blisters and nipple burns in the London Marathon. For the first time in living memory I actually knew some of the participants, but this was not enough to ensure I actually made visual contact with any of them, such is the vast gargantuan scale of the whole thing.But being there in the flesh for the first time was actually quite an emotional experience and I was made to realise, like never before, that each and everyone of the people who participate in this world-famous event are absolutely fantastic.

My warmest congratulations to you all.

Facing my two-wheeled fears

2009-04-14T20:46:00.005+01:00

After a virutal blackout, enforced by the increasingly demanding workload of my NCTJ course (6 weeks in, going really well, thanks for asking) I can return to the blogging fold with the news that today I rode a bicycle for the first time in nearly a decade. I can confirm that the adage is true - you don't forget how.

To her great credit my thoughtful, considerate and always well-meaning girlfriend has on several occasions tried to get me to get back on the saddle. Despite the calm, rural surroundings of her Cheshire village and the number of vehicles at my disposal in the garage I have managed to resist all but the shortest of trundles in her back garden.

But today was different. After my usual sulky refusal routine, for some reason, I softened, pondered and, swallowing my pride, mounted

After a shaky start I realised that this cycling lark isn't really as hard as I'd made out and before I knew it I had done two laps of the car park. Fast forward 20 minutes or so and I'd left my girlfriend behind and was exploring the cycle paths of Delamere Forest

Next on my list of things to rediscover after spending 10 years telling myself I couldn't do them: swimming.

A good night in with the husband

2009-03-30T23:38:00.003+01:00

It's not that fact that Home Secretary Jacqui Smith's husband filed an expense claim for watching a couple of mucky films - it's the two viewings of Ocean's Thirteen that I'd be embarrassed about.

On a serious note, in the news coverage of the latest scandal involving MP's allowances, one member of this merry band of privileged individuals implied that if they were only paid a decent wage then they wouldn’t have to claim every little extra cost incurred in the course of their working lives.

My heart, it bleeds. As of April 1st 2008, the salary for a Member of Parliament was £63,291, with a London supplement of an additional £2,916.

On top of that they can claim up to £100,205 in "staffing allowance", £22,193 in the gloriously vague "Incidental Expenses Allowance (IEP)" (possibly the second home allowance – clearly given its own special acronym to lend just a soupcon of legitimacy), "additional costs allowance" of up to £24,006 and a "winding up allowance" of a maximum of £40,179 – whatever in God's name a "winding up allowance" is meant to be.

So, in addition to earning almost three times the average wage for a UK worker, they can claim in excess of £200,000 each year, which is before you factor in transport expenses and all manner of pension shenanigans.

Is it a huge assumption to say that this renders their entire net income as (excuse my cynicism) beer money?

In Parliament today, Gordon Brown proposed scrapping the second homes allowance for all members. If you genuinely believe this should be done, for the good of our economy and for the efficacy of the cockpit of our nation, contact your MP and urge him or her to support this move.

If I were you, I'd study their response carefully.

A sporting day to remember

2009-03-22T01:11:00.006Z

Today started well, went rapidly and unavoidably downhill, before picking up again and finally reaching a jouyous finale by tea-time. Such is a day in the life of a sports fan.

The main focus of my Saturday was covering London Scottish vs Rugby Lions, a Division 3 fixture taking place in Richmond. My journey across the city seemed relatively straightforward but, this being London, I arrived at the ground some two hours late (don't ask). only reaching the press box when the match was an hour old. A few cobbled-together words and the gracious help of a couple of employees meant my match report (a term I use loosely) actually made some kind of sense by the time I phoned it in about half an hour after the final whistle.

I was actually very disappointed to have missed out on much of the afternoon, such was the party atmosphere at the Richmond Athletic Ground. In honour of the Calcutta Cup being contested just a short stroll away at Twickenham, the club has gone all out with the celebrations and a festival marquee, a Deuchars IPA-themed bar and a merry band of pipers and drummers all added to the spectacle of seeing the home side notch up a record victory of 85-3.

In other sporting news, my beloved Tottenham Hotspur defeated Chelsea at White Hart Lane in a hard-fought contest which sees us rise to the heady heights of 9th in the Premier League table. The optimist in me feels a UEFA Cup...sorry, Europea League spot could be ours come the end of the season. Elsewhere, Manchester United - clearly still reeling from their mauling against Liverpool - went down 2-0 against Fulham at Craven Cottage.

Andy Murray added to his already impressive record against Roger Federer with a win in three sets at the Indian Wells 1000 and England put together a pretty convincing performance to defeat Scotland 26-12 in the aforementioned Calcutta Cup, althought this was somewhat overshadowed by a thrilling Grand Slam-clinching win for Ireland against a dogged Welsh side. Rarely has the Six Nations ended with such high drama.
Here's hoping England's women can overcome New Zealand in the Cricket World Cup final to round off a pretty epic day of top-class sporting action.

A cider-soaked weekend in Bristol

2009-03-15T21:39:00.012Z

When my friend Nick, at whose stunning harbourside apartment my friends and I lodged during our recent weekend of revelry in Bristol, described his adopted city as "cider-soaked" I took his words with a pinch of salt. With hindsight I feel the most enduring image of the soujourn is as follows:

Just look at the colour of it. I'm not even much of a cider drinker, but the rich variety of Bristolian brews on offer - best acquired from one of the city's 'cider boats' (quite literally a floating bar on the river) - are enough to convert even the most sceptical quaffer. While meandering our way drunkenly around the centre of town I was stunned to see a eyrar of swans (yes, that is the appropriate collective noun, I looked it up) as up-close-and-personal as I have ever witnessed. I now regret getting as close as I did to take this picture as I'm sure the pair of tasty bites I now sport on my right calf are the product of a fleeting encounter with some kind of airborne insect.

This blurry shot of the light of the adjacent drinking establishments reflected in the water is a good representation of my vision at any given point after 10pm that night.
While stumbling through the newly-regenerated part of town between our base and the city centre we witnessed all manner of impressive sights, not least this huge chrome structure which our host informed us - in complete deadpan - was the actual spaceship used in Flight of the Navigator. For a moment, in our apple-fermented haze, we almost believed him.
The next day, flagging somewhat, we took a leisurely drive to the outskirts of Bristol. While some might find the landscape a little bleak, I felt it was oddly beautiful with its soft, sweeping lines and rolling hills.
The urban landscape is just as striking. Aside from the numerous works by a certain Banksy dotted around, there is a wealth of other examples of local graffiti artists. Something about the roughened, slightly world-worn nature of the former industrial hub creates the ideal backdrop to this colourful, idiosyncratic art form.
On our last day in Bristol we felt it was high time to take a trip on our local river ferry service. At 60p each way it was as cheap as chips and is actually incredibly handy as the only other means of crossing the river lie a good few miles in either direction.
We tried to sneak onto this boat without paying. We were, much to our chagrin, caught red-handed.
Shortly before packing up and heading home we sat with one last pint to contemplate the revelry of the weekend and the memories we had shared (not to mention the unwelcome sight of my good friend Kirks walking towards us with blood spattered on his cream jacket, the result of an encounter with a local pikey outside a nightclub).
Despite this sole incident of wanton violence, there's no doubt that Bristol + copious amounts of cider = good times.

Champions League Tuesday

2009-03-10T22:36:00.005Z

Liverpool looked absolutely rampant tonight as they dispatched Real Madrid 4-0 at Anfield, securing their passage to the quarter-finals with a 5-0 aggregate win. Gerrard was once again his side's engine and tonight saw the midfielder give as comprehensive a display as you'll see in a European match, with exceptional movement, awareness, incisive passing and a well-deserved brace in the form of a beautifully-taken (if erroneously-awarded) penalty and a crisp half-volley shortly after the break. His team's domestic form may vary pretty wildly but Rafa Benitez now has even greater credentials in continential competition.

Before the match the Liverpool coach had suggested his side's surrendering of their early season pace-setting in the Premier League had threatened his overall reputation at the club. "We have the best record in Europe over the last five years, yet some messages coming my way are not the best," he said. "The facts are there to see. Anyone can see what I have done here." After tonight's result, his detractors should, for now at least, be rendered silent.

Meanwhile, Chelsea drew 2-2 (agg. 3-2) against Juventus in a thriller in Turin to move into the quarters and Bayern Munich consolidated their 5-0 away win in the first leg of their tie against Sporting Lisbon with a 7-1 home win. That's 12-1 on aggregate. Ouch.

A week in Valmorel

2009-03-10T00:08:00.014Z

I recently spent a fantastic week in the French ski resort of Valmorel, as the guest of my girlfriend Anna's aunt and uncle. Regular readers (a term I use optimistically) will understand that since coming home from Whistler last summer I've been pining to get my skis on and come down a snow-covered hill a bit fast. Stoked as I already was to be going anywhere near a mountain, the stunning view from the plane left me even more excited and I was grateful for the good fortune of landing at the perfect time to watch the sun set over the incredible landscape below.On the first morning we awoke to grey overcast skies – an unwanted sight on virtually every other kind of holiday but just what I had hoped for on this occasion. Fresh snow abounded and, despite the low visibility, our hosts gave us a whistlestop tour of the area.
That evening we dined out in honour of the last night of some of my good lady's relatives and were taken to a local watering hole which is probably the most lively in the village – Jimbo Lolo's.

What follows is a video of the bar's main attraction, called the Harry Potter. For €5 the barman will pour a shot of black sambucca into a beer chalice, light it, and chuck cinnamon into the flames to create a small-scale pyrotechnic display. Then you drink it and inhale the trapped fumes – commonly known among students as a 'gas chamber'. It's worth pointing out that the barman really earns his keep, donning as he does a cape and pair of ludicrous spectacles for the duration.

The next day, with a depleted sense of balance and cracking headache, we were greeted by beautiful blue skies and bright sunshine. These were the perfect conditions for the local topography to really show itself off, with dramatic contrasts between the jagged rock ridges and smooth lines of the snow-laden slopes.
After a good, ooh, 20 minutes or so we stopped to enjoy some well-earned hair of the dog. I can confirm that beer (in this case, Leffe blonde) does taste better if a) it's enjoyed from a proper glass b) costs the equivalent of £6 per pint. The one cowering behind his hand is my girlfriend's brother Daniel – giving as a good a demonstration as any I've seen that it's always worth keeping your sunglasses or ski goggles on when posing for photos in the intense sunshine.
While it was disappointing not to get more snow for the rest of the week ,the variety of terrain kept me well occupied and the intensity of the sun ensured conditions underfoot remained pleasantly soft. I felt, given the intense shade of blue and awe-inspiring scenes all around, this was as good a time as any to switch to panoramic mode on my camera.
Clearly I was by this point the only one to remember to keep my eyes sufficiently protected when facing skywards.
On our last night, I remarked at how lovely our little corner of this picturesque village is by night. After cursing not reading the manual that came with my camera I managed to twiddle with it sufficiently to capture this, one of my better attempts at night photography.
Having left my old job the day before flying out – enough of a weight off my shoulders under any circumstances – the week in this charming and friendly town was the perfect mix of relaxation and exhilaration before starting the next stage of my life as a graduate (but more of that in the very near future).

Poor little sod

2009-02-20T12:48:00.005Z

The BBC (my favourite source of news, dontcha know) reported today on a study which appears to have uncovered a means of curing nut allergies

Pity the poor wee fella, "Peanut allergy sufferer Carl Morris" who gave the reporter this choice soundbite after he was given back the ability to consume nuts:

"I hadn't had a Mars Bar in nine years"

Awww. No-one should have to suffer that.

"Cold showers... scaffolding... Ann Widdecombe"

2009-02-19T16:03:00.004Z

My congratulations go to British cyclist Mark Cavendish for winning a stage at the Tour of California. I enjoyed learning about his two-wheeled exploits from a report on the BBC website but I was most intrigued by the accompanying picture, showing him in receipt of pecks on the cheek from a couple of rather cracking-looking women.

Note the distinct grimace and steely look of concentration on his face. Is it me, or does he look for all the world like a man trying really hard not to get an erection while wearing cycling shorts in front of a crowd?

Another new look

2009-02-12T00:15:00.004Z

Like a celebrity-obsessed 16-year-old with low self-esteem, this blog has given itself another new look. It is now officially blue.

Please let me know what you think. And if you're looking at the marvellous graphic at the top, then yes - I did take those pictures.

Football club chairman, they are fickle mistresses

2009-02-09T22:34:00.008Z

Although they seem to happen all the time, the occurence of not one but two Premier League managerial sackings within 24 hours of one another is a rare thing.

The circumstances surrounding each were rather different and each has been met with contrasting reactions: Adams's sacking, seemingly looming for a number of days, has elicited a great deal of sympathy; Scolari's, meanwhile, has apparently shocked a fair number of onlookers (which I found very surprising given how unhappy that particular captain's ship has looked in recent weeks, culminating with their disconsolate performance against Hull City on Saturday).

But without question the most bizarre thing the convergence of these seemingly unrelated situations could bring about is that, if certain reports are to be believed, the coming days and weeks will see a most unlikely bidding war ensue for the managerial services of one Mr Avram Grant.

I shit you not.

Obamasation

2009-02-07T21:20:00.000Z

Dedicated readers (there are almost certainly none beyond my own mother) might remember that, back in August 2007, I Simpsonised and South Park-ised myself - in both cases a wee while after the rest of the world had cottoned on. In trademark tardy fashion, I've now discovered you can Barack Obama-ise yourself, in deference to Shepard Fairey's iconic Hope poster which spread like wildfire during the Democratic nomination race.

I am an Obamicon. Not bad for a first attempt, I think, and I may or may not do a few more if the mood strikes.
On a serious note - just the fact that people think to create these websites and that others have responded to them in their thousands, if not millions, really means something, doesn't it?

I won't harp on about the significance of Barack Obama's achievement (not that I believe in it any less but I just don't want to re-tread any ground) but I'm struck but just how a single part of the man's iconography can have such a widespread impact.

That's how much he has captured people's imagination. I really feel that to live to witness something like that is truly remarkable. Bandwagon-jumping for a great part, certainly, but remarkable nonetheless.

Funniest vegetable-related phrase of the week, maybe the year

2009-02-05T16:11:00.003Z

Here's one you'll like. This story was funny enough already: a man was caught trying to smuggle two pigeons into Australia. Inside his trousers.

Even better is the picture captured at the scene, depicting a pair of rather hairy legs and some knobbly knees, with avian-concealing tights (worn under his trousers, evidently) around his ankles, pigeon-parcels still in position. Priceless.

But here comes the deal-breaker. Police also found what the BBC reporter covering the story described as an "undeclared aubergine".

Utter cock, as usual

2009-02-03T20:35:00.008Z

So, here's the thing. I was just writing the post below when I discovered that the gist of it had, in fact, been debunked.

It turns out what happened to the Daily Express story in question can actually be done by anyone to any content on their or the Daily Telegraph's websites. Slightly disappointing, given that I'd invested a good - oh, I don't know - 3 minutes of my life on coming up with something to say about it, but fun nonetheless.

See Dr Ben Goldacre's Bad Science blog post on the matter a-here.

And now the story of a man who truly deserves a performance-related bonus and a fat expense account.

Today the Guardian's brilliant Media Monkey reported on the carefully-chosen words of a certain Daily Express web editor who, in constructing the URL for a fairly preposterous story about how seven or more cups of your coffee a day could be bad for your health (hold the phone...a mere seven?), summed up the feelings of not only himself but probably a few million others out there.

Mr Monkey summed it up thusly - but for the impatient here's the Daily Express story right off the bat.

Keano is back...who saw that coming? Oh.

2009-02-02T18:29:00.002Z

As so the White Hart Lane revolving door continues to spin. Following hot on the heels of Jermain Defoe and Pascal Chimbonda, Robbie Keane has returned to his rightful home in N17. Must be the Arry Effect.

Snow, snow...literally shed-loads of snow

2009-02-02T18:02:00.007Z

Just as I thought I was getting over not being in the mountains, hurrah! It started snowing like nobody's business. Thank you, Mother Nature. I awoke at 6am to go to work and made it about as far as the bus stop. Here's the view from my front door:

By the time the sun had its hat on the back garden was looking like an ever-more tempting opportunity for a spot of 'urban skiing'.

Quite how I was going to build up any momentum on a surface that is about as flat as the Netherlands, I don't know. I never actually got as far as unlocking the back door.

Victory for Kaka, victory for football

2009-01-20T23:03:00.003Z

I am both delighted and relieved that the ludicrous business of Kaka's proposed nine-figure transfer from AC Milan to Manchester City, and the astronomical wage packet he was reportedly offered, has fallen through.

It is a victory for the safety, even the sanity of the sport on a global level, but even more so it is a victory for the convictions and principles of a humble, quiet young man who scores goals for Jesus and wants to stay close to the people and the place he loves.

In a game so utterly dominated by money and run by an unaccountable group of incomprehensibly wealthy individuals who think it is possible to buy lasting success, every true football fan should be encouraged by the fact that a player of such obviously bankable talent should choose with his heart and not his wallet.

He's not exactly hard up at the San Siro and it may have been the case that the club simply refused to allow him to talk to the Eastland's money men. In any case, he is still a Milan player and the chequebook has been put away.

Will this news result in the toning down of the unsustainable financial movements which exist, in the top echelon of the world's most popular sport, on such a scale as to be truly crass in the face of such international economic turmoil? Almost certainly not.

But it has sent out a message that occasionally, to some people, some things are more important than money.

Inauguration Day

2009-01-20T22:50:00.003Z

One last moment of inspiration before the hard work really begins. Read the speech.

Free speech gone mad

2009-01-19T18:25:00.005Z

Before you assume I've come over all Daily Mail, fear not. I do, however, feel compelled to share with the world what is as fine a case as I think I've ever seen against allowing members of the public to post comments in response to news stories on the internet.

The news piece in question reports that a promising young drama student has been selected to front a government campaign aimed at reducing knife crime, self-harm and other such ills among young people.

The comment from 'Manny Mark' in Redbridge which follows isn't so offensive because of what he says – nuggets of cynical, narrow-minded and ill-informed rubbish are ten-a-penny all over the internet – but rather the manner in which he says it, so utterly bankrupt in its means of expression that I actually cast my eyes to the heavens and tutted like a grandmother.

Leave it out and do me a favor do you think this is going to solve the dreadful positions of kids carrying the knives? . What and they are going to pick up the knifes and then remember to log on and listen to two other kids saying dont do it? Just because this crazy governement dont spend any money on police for the streets they use the wishy washy tactics to clould the wool over peoples eyes like a smoke screen to veil off all whats really happing in the society that we are forced to living under the fear and terrible state we are put under by the kids who are out of control these days? We used to get a clip round the ear and when we got home if we got in any bother with police the parents would give you a few more clips also.

The spectacular use of mixed, confused and downright garbled metaphors actually left me speechless. Check out the middle sentence (all 3,000 words of it). Absolute gold.

Go and see Slumdog Millionaire

2009-01-14T23:49:00.004Z

If you manage only a single trip to the cinema in 2009, the one film guaranteed to lift any lingering gloom or underlying feeling of pessimism about your life or the world around you is Danny Boyle's exceptional Slumdog Millionaire.

In it, the director's vision is so clearly formed that the story, told with what is actually a rather complex narrative, is perfectly observed.

It is a demonstration of Boyle's now, I would argue, fully-realised skill as a filmmaker that in telling a story set against the backdrop of one of the most chaotic cities on Earth he still manages to pick out every last detail, not missing so much as a single beat.

I cannot recall walking out of a cinema with such a wide, unapologetic smile on my face, having wept with joy only seconds before, or feeling more elated at the end of the film in my entire life.

This is a work of art which runs the whole gamut of emotions before ultimately finding an exquisitely beautiful finale. It is the romantic story of a man and a women. It is a a paean to a singular and awe-inspiring city.

And it is, above all, an enduring, uplifting and overwhelmingly convincing testament to the redemptive power of love.

Go and see Slumdog Millionaire.

Ooh, what a bitch

2009-01-07T19:48:00.004Z

There's something I need to get off my chest. From time to time my job involves subediting news stories derived from the meaningless effluent so-called celebrities (sorry to turn this into a semantic argument, but find me someone who celebrates these people, I defy you) will say in interviews or sign up for just to get a few column inches.

As most of this passes before my eyes it prompts nothing more than a shrug, a disbelieving frown or even the odd, slightly camp, cast of my eyes to the heavens. But sometimes I feel the bile rise up inside me. Here's a selection of some of things I've found myself saying, out loud, this week:

Cheryl Cole on her surprise that Victoria Beckham didn't support her when her she found out her husband was cheating on her or something: "we've had barbecues together."

What I said: "How do you barbeque Diet Coke and cigarettes?"
_________________________________________________

Pete Wentz saying that people who sell pictures of their new-born babies to the press are "strange". His child with singer/actress/big pair of tits Ashlee Simpson is named Bronx Mowgli.

What I said: "In which case, what does that make people who name their first-born after New York boroughs and feral monkey-children from popular literature?"
_________________________________________________

And finally, my response to Madonna's new advertising campaign for Louis Vuitton, in which she reclines with legs open and knickers on display: "The Sun's likely headline: 'Show us yer Madge'."

Happy New Yizzle

2008-12-31T14:05:00.001Z

Here's hoping you all have a rum old New Year's Eve and feel remotely adequate the next day.

The honeymoon is well and truly over: WBA 2 - 0 Tottenham

2008-12-28T17:38:00.004Z

Clearly Spurs have decided that flirting with relegation earlier in the season wasn't enough, and have decided to finally pluck up the courage and ask it out for dinner.

Meanwhile, the turning point of the game seems to have been the red card for Benoit Assou-Ekotto after just over half an hour. Possibly the first time in Premier League history that a player has been dismissed on account of his ridiculous barnet. Expect to see Everton's Marouane Fellaini given his long-overdue marching orders sometime in the near future.

Boxing Day down the Orient

2008-12-26T22:11:00.005Z

My presence at professional sporting contests represents, to my mind, a curse upon the fortunes of whichever team or individual I would rather see victorious. My first time at White Hart Lane some years ago saw the home side defeated 1-0 to a rather freakish Steve Stone goal for Nottingham Forest and most recently I watched a pretty hopeless San Diego Padres team succumb to a visiting Cleveland Reds side on an otherwise perfect trip to southern California.

The sole victory that I have witnessed in the flesh was in the first leg of the UEFA Cup qualifying round, as Spurs left Prague with a valuable 1-0 win against Sparta. I put this anomaly down to the fact that it took place some thousand or so kilometres away from home and as such my powers were greatly diminished.

But in keeping with the festive season, I made my way with my season ticket-holding uncle to Brisbane Road this afternoon to watch Leyton Orient take on fellow League One relegation fanciers Swindon Town with a spring in my step and no thought of my previous form as a sporting spectator.

Things did not start well. The game was barely 30 seconds old when the Orient defence – possibly still half-cut from the previous day’s festivities – let the ball bobble around their penalty box long enough for Peacock to latch on to it and send it net-wards. ‘Goal’, I thought to myself shortly before the away fans went into raptures, and a goal it was.

Now fully awake, the O’s looked far more lively going forward until half time yet their reluctance to fire so much as a single shot on target was baffling to say the least. The 15 minutes after the interval proceeding much the same, until around the hour mark when a Swindon player committed as clear a handball as would have been seen at any football ground around the country.

The linesman on the near side then rose his flag, without hesitation, and awarded a penalty, before the roof of the stadium actually lifted an inch or two off its supports as around 7,000 people screamed the word “WHAT?!” in perfect unison.

Penalty safely tucked away, the visiting supports were delirious and the home fans incensed and perplexed in equal measure. Over the next ten minutes the offending official was submitted to as vehement a selection of abuse as I have ever heard.

My personal favourite nugget of vitriol was “Oi, silly bollocks!!”. Much of what was said was in this vein – the occasional attempt at a fully-formed sentence or even a rhetorical question tended to trail off before the end as the individual concerned lost interest.

With around ten minutes left on the clock, Orient’s steadily-building pressure paid off and they managed to pull one back, but not before missing a hatful of chances.

In all, I had a fantastic afternoon and would happily spend many more afternoons at Brisbane Road. My curse, I feel confident, will one day be broken.

See the club’s official match report here.

Season's greetings

2008-12-25T12:49:00.002Z

Eggnog in hand and pheasant readied for the oven, I bid ye all a very Merry Christmas.

Twas the afternoon before Christmas, and everyone was out. Jimmy sat and thought to himself: "Ooh I fancy a stout"

2008-12-24T15:01:00.004Z

It seems like only yesterday that I sat in my apartment in Whistler and wrote my last Christmas message to my literally three or four readers. Suffice it to say that this last 364 days has absolutely hooned by.

When will I stop bleating on about Whistler and how much I miss it? No time soon, I can assure you.

Just thought I'd share with you something I found online. More room for presents, evidently.

Bad times on Blackcomb mountain

2008-12-18T00:15:00.004Z

I was taken right back to the base of the mountains today when I read that Tower 3 on the Excalibur gondola from Whistler village up onto Blackcomb had collapsed, leaving more than 50 people stranded for up to several hours.

The local Whistler newsmagazine reported it thus, while the BBC has posted its TV report online here.

Bad times indeed.

Quote of the day...week...maybe month, we'll see

2008-12-09T19:53:00.006Z

"While kissing is normally very safe, doctors advise people to proceed with caution"

Sage words from the China Daily newspaper, on the news that a 20-year-old Chinese woman lost the hearing in her left ear following a particularly passionate kiss with her boyfriend.

Something I noticed... (Spurs 2 - 0 West Ham)

2008-12-08T22:39:00.004Z

As I write I'm still basking in the afterglow of watching a hard-fought but thoroughly well-deserved Tottenham victory over the Hammers at a local pub. Fortunately, I'm abstaining from alcohol this week, otherwise I might have missed a little piece of history in the making. For tonight I witnessed what I believe is the first example of a 'common sense substitution'.

Until the 54th minute of tonight's match the rationale behind a substitution had consisted of a fairly well-defined set of reasons. A player might be substituted if he is injured, for example. A player might be in danger of picking up a second booking, and might therefore be replaced in order to avoid being sent off, particularly if he earns a bit more than everyone else and there’s a bit game coming up. Indeed, the player may be having a bit of a shocker, or tired, or being used as a makeweight for a tactical substitution so that his team might change their approach to the game.

A player might be having a blinder, have scored a hat-trick or just contributed a particularly exceptional performance that has put the game beyond doubt, and their removal from the field of play is just an excuse for them to be allowed their own special round of applause from the gathered and grateful.

Then there’s the ‘Juande Ramos special’ substitution, which consists of replacing a perfectly good player simply because you’re at 1-1, there’s 20 minutes left, your strikers couldn’t hit a barn door and you don’t know what else to do. Or the ‘Sven Goran Eriksson', which is bringing on Owen Hargreaves on the right of midfield when you’re 2-1 down with ten minutes to go.

Tonight, Tottenham Hotspur’s Russian striker Roman Pavlyuchenko was, to my mind, a participant in the first ‘common-sense substitution’. The 50-odd minutes he spent on the pitch weren’t particularly lacklustre, nor were they spectacularly good. He didn’t seem particularly fatigued or injured, nor did man who replaced him – Darren Bent – offer a great deal different in the tactical department. Mssrs Ramos and Eriksson were nowhere to be seen.

His departure was greeted, certainly in the pub in which I was sat, with a pause and then a collective reflection of: “Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense”. Ladies and gentlemen: a common-sense substitution.

Post-Whistler Blues - an almost timely update

2008-11-26T22:44:00.008Z

The significance of the date on Monday almost passed me by. Odd really, seeing as I’d held it in my head as a pseudo-jokey watershed point when I should stop moping and move on like a real grown-up.

On November 24th my Canadian visa expired, and with it the legal technicality that I could return to that country and earn a living without facing the wrath of the authorities. It may not sound like a big deal but I can’t help feeling a pang of regret, to add to the hearty dose of nostalgia I’ve been carrying around ever since I landed at Heathrow back in June.

But as it turned out I’d found myself so busy with work, travelling up and down the country at weekends to see my girlfriend and preparing myself for the prospect of moving out of home that it crept up and then stole past without my notice. Bugger. And to think of all the date-specific wallowing I’d missed out on.

On a serious note, the comedown from returning from Whistler has hit me pretty hard. Strangely, it seems to have combined itself rather cruelly with a delayed reaction from leaving university and moving back home.

By the time I’d finished my exams and left Sheffield for good I felt I was ready and eager to move on, as well as to live at home again at least in the short run. The intervening period between then and moving to Canada for the winter was filled with a pretty decent summer, the chance to earn a few quid and the anticipation of a life-changing experience to come.

In effect, I hadn’t had a chance to stop and think about how much I missed university. Now I do, I find myself pining for both student life and the existence of a ski bum. But my visa has expired and that, I’m afraid to say, is that.

To sum up: more Whistler = a serious cash injection + some time spent reacquainting myself with the real world + another visa.

So with that, on the poignant occasion of my 100th blog post I must withdraw my gaze from my naval and stop trying to re-live the past. As if I didn’t know that already.

A tiny little bit of solace...

2008-11-18T22:42:00.008Z

Tonight I finally saw the new Bond film and, after having read numerous critics express their opinions that it wasn't really a Bond film or that it had removed what made the series so loved, I can say with some confidence that much of what has been written about this release so far is utter bollocks.

Quantum of Solace is absolutely what the franchise needed. After several lacklustre outings, the villains growing ever more cartoon-like and the threats to world peace ever more preposterous, change was overdue to correct a serious loss of direction and focus.

Casino Royale was unmistakably Bond, and yet it was so much more. It’s follow up expands on this and, although the impact of the novelty factor has worn off to some extent there is still so much to enjoy, new and old.

Picking up where, literally as well as narratively, the previous film had left off QoS sees Daniel Craig continues to flesh out the human character behind the licence to kill, James Bond as opposed to 007. The increasingly complex relationship between the two is the film's central conceit and this, balanced against superb action sequences so up-to-date they make what has gone before look almost prosaic, works brilliantly.

James Bond is, as Maurice Greene puts it, "damaged goods" (making the attempt at a more humanised character in Die Another Day seem fairly flimsy in comparison) and this makes him more riveting and engrossing than ever. This is new Bond, with plenty of familiar and welcome hallmarks - not least Dame Judy Dench's excellent M - ably playing their parts.

Craig's Bond and the world he inhabits continues to reinvigorate one of the greatest mythologies in cinema and has managed to tick all the desired boxes and simultaneously subvert a whole raft of thematic and aesthetic expectations at the same time. For my money, a remarkably canny and rather accomplished piece of work.

Spurs 4 - 2 Liverpool

2008-11-12T22:29:00.007Z

The renaissance continues! And the best part? The players all seem to be taking it in their stride. Warm smiles all round indicate that they're rightfully enjoying their current run of form but their demeanour suggests they remain ever mindful of their position in the Premier League table and the importance of maintaining momentum.

Still, cracking result…

History in the making

2008-11-05T20:14:00.005Z

Read the speech

Victory

2008-11-05T19:30:00.005Z

So much has and will continue to be written about what the results of today's US presidential election will mean for the world. Column inches are already fit to burst with analysis on how an African-American came to be the most powerful man in the world. Pundits have talked themselves hoarse with predictions about the monumental challenges President Obama will face.

I awoke this morning, tense from the instant my eyes opened. I had just had a bad dream, the most vivd for as long as I can remember. I went downstairs and turned on the television to find that John McCain had triumphed in the election. But the television pictures were indistinct and I turned to the figure to my side. "What's happened?" I asked. "What do you think?" came the resigned, defeated reply.

When I actually woke up and went downstairs, I had already recovered my sense of certainty about what had occurred overnight. When I actually turned on the television I saw that the result had, in fact, been a landslide. And it was with a lump in my throat that I read of stories of ordinary Americans making their voices heard - those who had voted for the first time in their lives, or queued up since dawn to cast their ballot, or had changed their long-held political allegiances as they sensed that they too could play their part in this indelible moment in history.

I don't feel there's much I can add to what has been the most heavily-covered, not to mention most expensive election in history, save this one thought. From this day forward the world should be optimistic. And America should be extremely proud.

Tottenham Hotspur Astonishment Watch 2 - The North London Derby

2008-10-29T23:04:00.004Z

Never dull, is it?

Tottenham Hotspur's Premier League season became that bit more incredible tonight as they drew 4-4 at the Emirates Stadium.

It began with a 43-yard screamer from David Bentley, a player seeming transformed in terms of his confidence within a few days of the managerial change at White Hart Lane, and ended with Aaron Lennon's cat-like reflexes bagging his first goal of the year, Arsenal fans silenced in their droves and what was unthinkable only a week ago - a point away from home against a free-flowing Arsenal side - a reality.

I'm no neutral, but even I managed to enjoy the spectacle of the match, one of the most exciting and competitive North London derbies I've ever seen.

While shipping four goals is concerning, the defensive frailties can and will be worked on and considering the opposition it’s far from a disgrace. Managing to score four times against a team with such an ability to retain the ball, given our form before the match, is very encouraging, not least because two of thethe strikes came in such spectacular fashion.

But perhaps the most significant factor in all of this is that the players never threatened to give in and simply refused to capitulate. It is this kind of resilience which has been so sadly lacking since the start of the campaign and is surely the stepping stone towards achieving the most pressing objective for the club: survival in the top flight.

To sum up... (or, Tottenham Hotspur Astonishment Watch)

2008-10-26T17:30:00.005Z

I think my head has now stopped spinning as a result of the last 24 hours in the world of Tottenham Hotspur Football Club. I became aware of developments at the Lane late last night when I turned on Sky Sports News to find that, not only had Juande Ramos, his two assistants and sporting director Damien Comolli all been sacked but 'Arry Redknapp had been appointed as the new manager.

He was already on the phone to the channel telling them how much money he'd cost his new employers. Something tells this is one they'd had in the pipeline for the while...

By far the biggest cheer I gave all weekend was at the news that Comolli would not be replaced, signalling a return to the traditional style of management, no longer dividing what most proper football fans will tell you are the indivisible tasks of managing player movement and coaching the team. Halle-bloody-lujah. As the BBC's Phil McNulty put it: "out with the new and in with the old".

This underlines just how significant a factor the presence of a sporting director was in the club's abject failure so far this season and I can only hope that, for the good of the game in this country, this isn't the last time we hear of a 'head coach' becoming a 'manager' as clubs move back to the way of running a football team that seemed to have worked perfectly well for a good century or more.

It would be churlish to suggest that Daniel Levy’s decision to hold out for the best price for Dimitar Berbatov was a bad one, but in squeezing an extra £5million out of Manchester United he put the club in jeopardy of losing so much more. Berbatov’s departure was, in truth, the tip of the iceberg but it does demonstrate a crucial failure in the money men’s very relationship to what happens on the pitch.

Hopefully it won’t mean Harry Redknapp will be the recipient of pressure from the board because at least a sporting director, in removing responsibility for transfers from the manager, meant that head coaches weren’t subject to bullying from the chairman with an eye on the bottom line. Then again, not allowing the man picking the team to have the biggest say in who is and isn’t in the squad means that clubs can find themselves with shirt numbers to allocate, cash to spend and a general air of panic about how to replace the team’s very heart, as happened with Spurs at the start of this campaign. The faith that must now be shown in Harry Redknapp is crucial.

Pavlyuchenko is a good player, as are Darren Bent and Frazier Campbell. They are not, however, Dimitar Berbatov or Robbie Keane. £50million is a lot of money, but given only a few days or even hours to spend it leads to rash decisions and is not conducive to developing a well-balanced side.

Ramos made some bad choices, that much is undeniable. Poor selection, too much rotation and endless tinkering with the formation unsettled the entire side so much that they have looked like a pub team for large periods of the season. The players must take some of the blame, but the effect that confidence in their coach and the integrity of the people responsible for hiring and firing them should not be underestimated.

While it’s too soon to judge, Tottenham recorded their first Premier League win this afternoon against Bolton. Clive Allen and Alex Inglethorpe were officially in charge, but Mr Redknapp spoke volumes when he said liked to think he had something to do with today’s 2-0 overhaul.

I remain tentative about the future, yet cautiously optimistic that the board appears to have made a very good, if overdue decision.

The first ever black President of the United States

2008-10-25T11:54:00.004+01:00

At work yesterday afternoon I was writing the last story for one of my news feeds, about an online video series that has been spoofing the weekly developments in the US presidential race, when I had what can only be described as an epiphany.

It came as I wrote a short contextual paragraph at the end of the piece, something I had put into words seemingly countless times before, when I found myself stopping what I was doing to stare at what I had just written.

"On November 4th the United States will go to the polls in a historic election which could see the first ever black president of the United States."

Those last eight words really stopped me in my tracks.

I thought for a moment about what they meant. The simple, core statement of fact behind them I had written, said and heard in one form or another probably a thousand times ever since Barack Obama decided to stand for the Democratic nomination, not least since he defeated Hilary Clinton and was declared the chosen candidate.

But at about 2.55 on Friday afternoon was the perhaps first time I really had some sense of what they meant. I found myself struck by prospect of what they might mean for America and, as a Briton, for the entire world.

At the heart of it, I think, is that it will show how much America has grown. For all that might be said about a vote for Obama being as much a one for the man himself as it is a vote against eight years of what has become deeply unpopular, almost catastrophic Republican governance, Barack Obama becoming the first black president in American history would be something to be cherished.

If it happens (and I, like many others, hope and almost expect it to) then I shall be glad to be alive to see it. Just as I am thankful that I have never had to suffer the indignity of being considered by great swathes of people, certain laws and, at one time, a national government that I am an inferior being because of the colour of my skin.

I don't pretend to feel empathy with any victim of persecution as I have never been on the receiving end of such a thing, and having never been an American citizen I am not as aware as I might be of the scale of racism and prejudice that sears through American history from its beginnings as a independent nation to the present day.

In light of the obvious scale of sentiment against Barack Obama and black people in general alive and well in America, the fact the country may well be about to elect a black man to run it from the White House seems remarkable, brilliant and astonishing to me.

It would be easy to explain away this piece of history in the making. John McCain is not necessarily a strong enough challenger to the skilled, principled oration of Barack Obama. His choice of running mate was, to many people, a cheap trick which while pleasing a select few has seen many more alienated and further distanced from his message. The legacy of the outgoing president, one of the most unpopular in history, has seen to it than the Democrats were a virtual shoo-in for the Oval Office this November.

All of these things and more may well be true. But the fact remains that a country which once enshrined slavery of the black races in its very laws is on the verge of putting a 'person of colour' into the most powerful job in the world.

I think yesterday I gained a sense of just what that might mean.

Tottenham Hotspur Bullshit Watch - it could become an ongoing series...

2008-10-24T19:08:00.010+01:00

After last night's woeful display in Italy, my attention is drawn even further to the kind of rubbish that is currently coming out Spurs players' mouths to go along with the rubbish they're shipping out on the pitch.

Today, my thanks go to first-choice central defender and possibly our most consistent player Jonathan Woodgate for the following slices of fried gold. That's right, not just one but several little gems to share with the world.

On the BBC Sport website today, Mr Woodgate said the players were "one million per cent" in a relegation battle. What, pray, could have prompted this revelatory statement? Was it the fact that in the history of the Premier League only one side has managed to survive the drop with this few points at this stage in the season (Southampton in 98/99, trivia fans)? Who knows, but wait, he isn't finished.

"People say we are too good to go down but we aren't. I've seen it happen at Leeds and they had a better team than we do here". Firstly, no they don't: it's hard to pin down exactly, but my bet is that sometime around 4:45 on Saturday afternon, as the final whistle blew and with that they slumped to a 2-1 defeat to Stoke, people stopped saying Spurs are too good to go down.

Secondly, ten out of ten for the assertion that we aren't as good as the Leeds team that were relegated a few years back. As a fan, I don't know what to take issue with first: a key player, in effect, talking down the squad or the implication that he doesn't much fancy our chances.

It seems that, such is the sheer extent of the mire in which we find ourselves that, unbelievably, our team has actually run out of platitudes and cliches and has now been forced to talk outright nonsense.

Watch this space for more updates on the lengths to which Tottenham players are able to expell hot air in the national media

I remain a faithful Spur and I love my team but this is really trying my patience. I'm on the verge of resigning myself to the fact that next year we will be playing Championship football. And that, sports fans, is what really hurts.

The big match

2008-10-23T18:21:00.005+01:00

I write this sat in front of the television, minutes away from Tottenham's UEFA cup tie against Udinese, all the while ruminating David Bentley's stunning assessment, printed in the sports section of the Guardian this morning, that so far this season has been "a bit shit".

Far from questioning such a towering philosophical figure in this otherwise plebian game, I wonder if the utterance of such a damning critique might put the figurative boot up the players' collective arse and force a decent performance out of somewhere. Here's hoping.

Is this the best they can do?

2008-10-20T19:05:00.015+01:00

This weekend I saw BBC Switch for the first time. For those unfamiliar with the concept, it's a new 'youth' TV brand on BBC2 on Saturday afternoons, alongside the odd show on Radio 1. Think of it as like T4 but funded by licence-payers money. Or rather, think of it as slightly like T4, but without being entertaining.

Admittedly, at 23 I am a few years older than its target demographic and this might be behind my not getting it.

For example, one of the shows on offer, Fresh, documents the escapades of a bunch of university first-years during their first few days at university away from their overbearing, controlling 'rents. Pondering this show I had to remind myself, to my horror, that the label of 'fresher' applied to me no more recently than 4 years ago, which made me feel quite old and deeply out of touch.

The show could be taken as either an enticement to bettering yourself through tertiary education or a cautionary tale about what you might have to endure - and consume - during university, depending on your constitution.

So far, so ambivalent. Then, then Switch went all Robert Kilroy Silk with open debate show The Surgery. Discussion programmes featuring young people are nothing new. But while I can tolerate the occasional, slightly cringey editions of Question Time where the audience is given over to an intelligent, ponderous bunch of late teenagers, this show went too far.

To summarise, it started badly, before getting consummately worse. While I'm all for covering a wide sweep of society, I found myself wondering if there wasn't some way that the BBC could have vetted the contributors for at least a basic grasp of the English language.

If I had counted the amount of times one audience member used the word "like" in expressing his view, I would have probably had run out of fingers and had to take my socks off to start using my toes. Fortunately the host, in a deft and charitable move, interrupted and uttered something of the lines of: "So, you're saying we’re living in a real melting pot?"

That alone was enough, and I turned off the television. I wondered if the presenter had never seen The Office and therefore not realised that the term 'melting point' is now officially off limits. For good.

More than anything, I was struck by how badly wrong the people overseeing BBC Switch seem to have gone. Young people aren’t all inarticulate yobs who spend their time binge drinking and walking around with the arses hanging out the back of their jeans.

While this may describe the majority (I jest), even the most cynical mind might admit that the efficacy of seeing such people supposedly ‘representing’ their age group would be greatly improved if: a) a half-way intelligent counterpoint were present, in the form of someone who appeared to have completed their secondary education without a brush with the law; and b) the presenter hadn't so readily fallen into speaking in platitudes and clichés to appease the studio audience.

In mentioning Radio 1 and T4, two of the best examples of how to do this kind of broadcasting only serve to highlight in relief Switch’s lack of quality. T4 aims itself at a similar age range and manages to be funny, accessible and not in the least bit patronising all at the same time.

Radio 1 has an even broader demographic and provides news which only occasionally sounds like a spiced up version of Newsround (which is hardly surprising, mindful as it is of its being listened to by a fairly large number of young teenagers). Yet it relies on some solid content, which is the quality of its music. Switch doesn’t have that, but something tells me that this is more than a scheduling issue. To justify its own existence it can’t rely on imports. Instead, it has to do what the BBC is renowned for doing, namely commissioning and producing original programming.

At the moment, the problem seems to be one of approac: not to making youth-specific programming but rather its desire to do such a thing in the first place. I would argue such a specific bracket in society doesn’t actually need its own cross-media brand. It has E4, Radio 1 and a whole raft of things on television and the internet that, while not necessarily made specifically for it, it finds very appealing nonetheless.

On reflection, it seems that BBC Switch is a solution for a problem that doesn’t exist.

My appaling attitude to writing regular blog posts

2008-10-11T14:01:00.008+01:00

I'm in no doubt that my slackness in writing anything on here for weeks at a time is a symptom of my new job.

For the last four weeks I've been working for a small news agency in Docklands, doing something that vaguely resembles journalism in return for cash, as is the fashion. As enjoyable as the job is I'm a bit concerned with how much money I see drop into my bank account each month, and given that I want to move out sometime in the new year while attempting to save up enough to travel the world some more (my recent winter sojourn to Canada and the US having only whetted my appetite rather than got anything out of my system), I feel impelled to keep looking for something a little better paid.

What my job also means is that I sit at a keyboard for eight hours a day and so, by the time I get home, I can think of very few things I'd like to do less than write.

But I think I'm adjusting. Slowly. I will make more of an effort in future, I promise.

Post-Whistler Blues

2008-10-09T19:11:00.007+01:00

A few days ago I was looking at the Facebook page of a friend I had met while spending last winter in Whistler and I noticed he had changed his status, the crux of which was that his Canadian visa had expired, marking exactly one year since he left the country to start the ski season. The note of sadness, present even in such a short missive, was palpable. And with that, it was confirmed: someone else was suffering the Post-Whistler Blues.

I've found myself caught in a mood of longing and nostalgia over the last month or so, something which is not unknown to me by any means, but has been heightened recently due to a couple of factors. After leaving university last June I hardly had time to let my feet touch the ground, as I made a brief return to Sheffield for graduation week before embarking on what turned out to be a short-lived and utterly vain attempt to make some money developing property, back when there was a housing market to speak of (ah, those were the days...).

By this time our plans to spend the winter working in Canada were already in motion. Our interviews took place in July; by the middle of August we - to our utter delight - had been given the ok, had booked our flights, and had already begun getting to know some of our fellow seasonnaires in earnest. By the time September came around the paperwork was mostly in order and we had attended a fairly well-lubricated departure party. I remember looking around the office at everyone present, each looking slightly more giddy with excitement and anticipation than the last at what the next nine months would hold.

The season itself (and this may be just the misty haze of nostalgia obscuring my vision again) was a fantastic experience. Being freezing most of the time was only occasionally tolerable. Being broke was downright shit. But I would not have swapped it for anything in the world. Spending five weeks travelling down the American west coast was everything I had hoped for and much, much more. We returned at the start of June, beginning a relative flurry of events that kept the wolf from the door, disappointment-wise. I did a week's work experience at Empire (brilliant); then my birthday and the attendant festivities came around; then I secured a place on an NCTJ journalism course; then I got some temporary work to keep me in curry and beer at the weekend; then I went on holiday to Barcelona; then I started my new job, which is the first consistent bit of paid writing I've ever done.

And so, about four or five weeks ago, it hit me. I noticed the weather had begun to draw in and not only did I miss being in Whistler I also found a greater-than-expected longing for university because I hadn't really been able to feel that way when I left more than a year ago. It had all come at once. While my visa still has until the end of November to run the point it hardly seems the point, and the process of coming back down to earth after the experience has been tough, the transition difficult.

My girlfriend of three and a half years and I have gone, once again, from living in each others pockets to being more than a hundred miles, several hours and about thirty quid away from one another. My burgeoning career in journalism feels like it’s at a hiatus. The nationals are not exactly knocking down my door. I mean, where are you? Do you not read this thing? Clearly not.

Ok then, morose semi-rant over. I'm fine, honestly. Positivity only from now on.

The times they are a-changing

2008-09-28T22:57:00.007+01:00

As you may well have noticed, Jimmy's Desk has a new look. It's green. It's also a heck of a lot lighter and brighter than its previous dark grey, bespotted incarnation. Hope you like it.

In fact (brainwave) let me know what you think by commenting on this post. I understand this is opening myself up to ridicule because now no-one will write anything and the fact that no sod actually reads this thing other my mother will be known to everyone. Just a risk i'll have to take, I suppose.

Tottenham Hotspur Football Club

2008-09-28T15:36:00.003+01:00

Exactly what is going on? It's now so far beyond a joke I just don't know what to think.

Homage to Catalonia - part 4

2008-09-25T21:35:00.017+01:00

Back in the city, on our last day around town before flying home we revisited my favourite aspect of Barcelona from our last visit together three years before - Park Guell. As testament to my now well-developed obsession with the work of Antoni Gaudi, we visited his unique urban concept: inspired by a certain style of gardens in England (hence the Anglicised 'k' in 'park', as opposed to a Catalan 'c'), he recreated one in his own vision, where palm trees sit beside unmistakable tiling and ceramic work.

Before we'd even reached the park, I noticed something else which caught my eye. For a split second it occured to me that it was some kind of public art, before realising something a bit more militant was at work.
I mentioned to my girlfriend that the Catalan people specifically, and the Spanish is general, weren't afraid to deface or even set fire to stuff they didn't like, that was affected or lessening their standard of life (this observation I made with more than just a hint or admiration). Of course, my companion put it pretty straightly: "Well," she said, "if you fight for your freedom in your own country, you aren't going to think twice about splattering something in paint". Quite right. I can't read Catalan, but I think it says something about the apartment building spoiling their views...

The park sits almost on top of el Carmel hill, a steep escalator ride up to the top which did provide some rather unique views.
Although they were nothing compared to what you might see when you actually reach the park.
And as if I needed to be convinced any more of the national willingness to nail their political colours firmly to the mast, here was further proof.Dotted around the park are a number of small buildings, the purpose of most of which I don't know, but they I still enjoy them all the same.
The centrepiece of the park is this large, open, parade ground-like area, the far edge of which lined with benches of smooth, brightly colour ceramics and mosaics.By the way, did I mention the views? As with the Sagrada Familia, Gaudi's fusion of natural forms and the raw physical logistics of construction and structure is evident here. In case you can't see her, my missus is peeping out from behind one of the pillars, the wave pattern arrangement of which I always stop to take in a while. On the way out, the park has more beautiful, vibrant ceramic work in the shape of fountains, and one particularly popular dragon. Catalonia, and more specifically Barcelona, is a unique place that you have to visit. Don't just take my word for it.

Homage to Catalonia - part 3

2008-09-25T19:15:00.007+01:00

After a few days spent meandering the charming streets of the city, that familiar look in my girlfriend's eye told me she was itching to get to the beach. And so we drove, about 2 hours up the coast towards the French boarder, to Roses (pronounced 'ross-us', with or without a rolled 'r', depending on your preference).

The town is a charming seaside resort, clearly geared for tourists but the crucial difference is that tourists are largely Spanish, with the odd German or French family for good measure. Very few Brits, is what I'm getting at, and I found it refreshing. The family flat we stayed sits about half way the Western most hill, overlooking the town with a sweeping, inobstructed view of the bay, the village, and the first foothills of the Pyrenees looming in the background. The view at sunset was just breathtaking.

And the view at night wasn't bad either.
The town itself has plenty of good restaurants, and plenty of good enough repute for us to be unlucky trying to obtain a table on a Saturday night without booking first. The town is also within a stone's throw of the legendary El Bulli restaurant, one of the few eateries with three Michelin stars in the world, let alone in this part of Spain. It has been voted 'The Best Restaurant in the World' four times since 2000 - this is the standard we're talking here. Needless to say we decided the credit card wouldn't stretch to even bread and oils, and dined elsewhere.

What really stood out for me was the genius of having a miniature golf course on the seafront, which is open until after midnight, with a Belgian beer bar attached for good measure.

Unfortunately the time of year meant the weather, while sometimes pefectly amenable to sunbathing, occasionally turned for the worst. But while my girlfriend has grown used to the view over the years of visiting with her family, I still found myself drawn to the balcony, looking out across the bay. As I said, breathtaking.

Homage to Catalonia - part 2

2008-09-23T20:11:00.002+01:00

Dominating the Barcelona skyline. soaring into the sky above the roofs and terraces of what is an otherwise fairly low-rise city, sits Gaudi's most famous (unfinished) opus: the Sagrada Familia. The temple dominated the last 15 years of the architect's life, following a previous 25 years of toil, and standing outside looking skywards you can understand what a labour of love this huge edifice would have been.

The level of detail is quite exceptional, more so on the outside (which is, ostensibly at least, rather more complete than the interior) and the audio we procured before starting our tour gives an informative narrative on what you're peering up at.

The imposing bronze doors bear rows and rows of scripture, with the occasional detail picked out in gold.

Inside the church, the sheer height of the vaults is the most striking feature. That, and the building work going on down at sea-level. The audio tour includes comments from the current architects who are working on the project, and who have contributed to the exterior. Whatever controversy greets each new stage of construction and the pangs of indignation even an architectural layman like me might feel at someone other than Gaudi himself working on the building, the encumbents seem to know their stuff. If the outside is anything to go by, then the inside is in safe hands.Gaudi was influenced by natural forms throughout his career and in the Sagrada Familia these are as evident as ever. The entire structure is shot through with shapes resembling flowers; botanical shapes inform the pillars which soar up to support the roof.

Homage to Catalonia - part 1

2008-09-14T00:38:00.002+01:00

Such is the British obsession with Spain as a package holiday destination, it is all too easy to forget that is a rich and vibrant country with much to offer those who would rather stay at home in rainy Suburbia with a dose of the flu than visit one destinations favoured by so many of their countrymen/women each summer.

Barcelona is a fabulously cosmopolitan city, alive with colour and energy in its nightlife, food and architecture. It's Mediterranean climate drenches it in sunshine and consistently high temperatures for most of the year and its people are proud of their heritage - counting themselves as Catalan first and Spanish second (or, in some cases, not at all). All of this makes the area feel singular, different. Catalonian culture and language mark it out as distinct from the rest of the country.

Our base was my girlfriend's grandfather's house in Colonia Guell, a village about a half an hour away from Barcelona proper but a world away from the hustle and indeed the bustle of the city, its position on the end of a metro line belying how restful it feels in comparison.

Such is the way in countries like Spain, the relatively simple-looking exterior of the house hides a beautiful, unmistakably Mediterranean interior and garden. Below the large deciduous tree is a small pond, home to a number of wee turtles who pop up for a feed whenever you chuck thin slices of chorizo into the water. Or they might be tortoises, I can never tell the difference.The village was founded by Eusebi Guell, most proflific patron of Catalan national treasure Antoni Gaudi. Its also home to a stunning church of the same name, which some say it is his great unfinished masterpiece, and has attracted controversy in recent years after additions were made. Barcelona's cultural powers-that-be are no strangers to controversy, but more of that later. No pictures of that, sadly, but there isn't always enough time...

The city has an abundance of beautiful squares in which to sit and while away and afternoon, cafe solo in hand. Below is the view of the cathderal, just a few streets away from the busy shopping area around La Rambla.

Gaudi's touch isn't just present on a large scale. His work crops up in some of the smaller, low-key elements of the city's landscape, like the lamp-posts in the square below.In contrast to the historical flavour of much of the city, down by the port is a huge new complex of shops and restaurants. It's set at the end of a wide pier, which takes you from the Barcelona of old to the Barcelona of now, but the feeling is one of sympathetic juxtaposition, rather than stark contrast.More soon.

He's gone. Finally, he's gone.

2008-09-02T00:53:00.002+01:00

In the beginning, I pleaded down the imaginary phone line into his head: "Please, Berba, please don't go! Don't be lured by the communal glory of Champion's League football and double-your-money wage deals. Stay at The Lane, play your way into our hearts and become a legend!" This was a player for which I had a genuine affection, the desire (for probably the first time) to buy a replica shirt and emblazon his name across the top of my back.

Then, the attitude started. And although I wasn't around for a great chunk of last season, I was aware that, yes, he was still our player and, yes, he was still banging them in but all the while Fergie had a wee gleam in his eye, counting and re-counting big piles of crisp twenty-pound notes and eyeing up our prize asset. As soon as the season had closed (the dreary, wearying and ultimately anti-climactic 'Ronaldo-to-Madrid, will-he-wont-he' business notwithstanding), Dimitar Berbatov's long-heralded move to the Red side of Manchester was the main story for many fans, and had begun to look as much of a eventuality as ever. And, guess what, the player was already making disgruntled noises, and what was hinted at in that almost-overlooked "I'm happy...for now", uttered in a press conference what seems like an age ago, became a clear and distinct possibility. The revelation that he was a smoker, made by a fellow supporter and friend, seemed to confirm the start of his rapid decline in my affections.

The head dropped, the eyes narrowed and the sulk came into full-effect. Clearly he was a man somewhere he didn't want to be, and after a number of soundbites confirming what his body language clearly suggested, as far as I (and, I wouldn't mind betting, a majority of other Spurs fans) was concerned, if he didn't want to play for Tottenham Hotspur then he was no longer welcome and was, in effect, no longer fit to wear the shirt. "You want out", I said to anyone who would listen to my little make-believe conversation time and time again, "off you go. Up the M6. Go on, piss off" and so on, and so forth. I had resigned myself to the inevitable, and would be very glad to see him go (in return for a huge sum of money, of course).

And now, with cheque for 30+ million quid and a bright young striking prospect called Fraizer Campbell making their way down South mere minutes before the cut-off, Berbs is no longer a Spurs player. And do you know what? I find myself feeling a little sad.

Maybe it's the transfer deadline television coverage and the somewhat intangible nature of the news on this most idiosyncratic of days. Without anything to actually beam live into our living rooms news channels have to make do with 'best ofs', voice-over'ed montages, played on a loop, reminding us fans exactly why our players are so desired and lauded after. Sitting there, watching our lanky, elegant, Bulgarian ex-employee dance through and around defences (and make no mistake, when on-song he does just that: dance) and put the ball in the net with insouciant ease, I felt wrenched at having my club let such an individual talent like that go, albeit in accordance with the man himself's wishes and a lot of dough. Still though, such a player... Seeing him play in the red strip of Manchester United will be difficult indeed.

Even now, some months after I had accepted the inevitable, seeing the picture below actually makes me grit my teeth and want to to utter a four-letter obscenity out loud. Odd, given that seeing fan's favourite Robbie Keane for Liverpool was far harder but seeing him play for another team has actually been relatively pain-free so far. Perhaps this is because, after 3 Premier League games, he's so far failed to score a single goal and has been, to be perfectly frank, a bit poo.

But I remain very upbeat. Our creditable draw away Chelsea this weekend and our new signings all add to my increasing sense of optimism (which had threatened to fully nose-dive after the opening two fixtures). It is with the events of these last few days, not least the removal of a potentially divisive dressing-room influence in the shape of the unsettled Bulgarian, that I feel Spurs' season may have really begun.

Leeds Festival 2008

2008-08-28T20:43:00.001+01:00

And so came to be that, in a muddy field somewhere outside Leeds, West Yorkshire, a 23-year old innocent (in the ways of the music festival) was, finally, deflowered. Perhaps the virginity metaphor is a little tenious, even unedifying, but it seems appropriate to me given the circumstances. Anyway, more of that in a future post perhaps. Maybe.

This year's Leeds Festival (running simultaneously with it's sister site in Reading, which boasts exactly the same advertised line-up, shifted around by day) is second only to Glastonbury in terms of scale, and has moved away from its hard rocking roots in recent years, a move no more evident than in this year's high-profile appearances by East London boy-done-good Dizzee Rascal, achingly hip The Ting Tings and Brazilian electro-rock five-piece CSS. As if to balance this out, and appease the die-hards in the 75,000-strong audience, the weekend also saw rare UK appearances from Metallica and (I got so excited by this prospect I nearly wet myself) Rage Against The Machine.

I arrived at the site with a few preconceptions still swirling around my head. Would the sheer scale of the operation mean getting around to see who I wanted, when I wanted, a thankless task? Would the effect of a captive and largely intoxicated audience mean the prices of food and beer had been inflated to wallet-tightening levels? Would the presence of so many lagered-up, hell-raising revelers mean I never got any sleep, and be forced to enjoy/endure the weekend's performances in a sort of sleep-deprived daze? My concerns, in hindsight, were toally unfounded and I returned a convert to the joys of a festival.

Friday didn't start too well, however, as I arrived at the mainstage during Feeder's set. Not my idea of an entertaining rock band, they did give a committed performance. Slipknot's cancellation at the last minute hardly left me disappointed, as it meant that my highlight of the first day, rock band/comedy duo Tenacious D, were next up.

Their set was the expected blend of trademark humour and deadly accurate rock song pastiche, which buoyed the crowd up nicely for the evening headliners, Metallica. While not really to my taste, these legends of rock leave few in doubt as to why they have inspired, endured and cultivated such an ardent following over the last quarter of a century. Their concise, tight and furious thrash mental sound was given substantial room to breathe on this biggest of stages, with complementary vertical flamethrowers at key moments and fireworks at the show's end.

Where Leeds really competes with Glastonbury (and stands head and shoulders above the over-commercialisation of the likes of V Festival) is the lack of any significant curfew, and the after-hours fun is a big part of the draw. Sure, the stages all adhere to an 11pm light-out but the night remains young, with one tent given over to showing short films, another becoming a cheesy student disco. Outside the main arena, each campsite has its own DJ stand of varying size, sending out thumping dance tunes into the night and another fairground equal in size to the one opposite the main stages hurls small numbers of booze-soaked folk around in circles well into the wee small hours. Our tent was situated on a pitch about as far away as the confines of the site would allow. As we settled down to a our first nights sleep (and my first under canvas for some years) we were in close enough proximity to feel part of the action, but far enough away to rest up undisturbed, readying ourselves for Saturday when things really kicked off.

Bow's finest Dizzee Rascal lit up a sunshine-bathed main stage at lunchtime on Day 2, bowling around with his arse hanging out the back of his baggy jeans, and the huge screen astride the stage blending clips of his videos with close-up live action. One thing his performance did highlight was how commerical his recent sound has become, which he acknowleged by 'biggin' up' Calvin Harris for helping him stay in the number 1 slot for a month, before launching into the Harris-produced 'Dance With Me' to close his set. His first album was, even to a deeply uncool suburban white boy like me, one of the most exciting things I'd ever heard, and I confess to being a little slow on the uptake of his subsequent material. Catchy little choon though it is, 'Dance With Me' does come off as deliberately chart-friendly, something which grates on my inner purist. All power to him for becoming a high-profile success, as this is surely responsible for his excellent performance at Leeds, but one can't help but hope he doesn't become that most disreputable of things in the urban music world - a sell-out.

Up next was Serj Tankian, who fell a little flat. All the imaginative power which informed his work with System Of A Down seems conspicuously absent, and all that remains is his distinctive voice (a result of his mixed Armenian-American heritage). Following Serj were Biffy Clyro, and while I'm totally unfamiliar with their material I, like much of the rest of the crowd, got quite a kick from their raw, unapologetic power and rock sensibilities.

The Enemy followed, and for all the annoying oik swagger of their lead singer (with neither the charisma or good looks to conduct himself in such an arrogant manner in front of so many people) the quality of their songs and their tightness as a band shone through, making for a great performance, albeit with some unwelcome chuntering in between numbers. The Fratellis came next: rarely have I felt such a loathing for such a seemingly inoffensive band, as I made a bee-line for the Radio 1/NME tent to catch MGMT's much-anticipated set. The first part of half seemed lumpy and directionless, but once their more recognisable tracks came to the fore and the band seemed to find their mojo the crowd seemed to agree, bouncing along to the 'Electric Feel' and Flaming Lips-a-like 'Time To Pretend'. Not what I had hoped for but, in comparison to hearing one of my least favourite bands belting out 'Chelsea Dagger' it was infinitely preferable.

Back to main stage for Queens Of The Stone Age, who were largely underwhelming the last time I saw them supporting Foo Fighters in Hyde Park a few summers back. This time they did not disappoint in the least, with frontman Josh Homme staggering on-stage and declaring that he had been drinking since 6am that morning "to be ready". While his demeanour in between songs supported his assertion that he was three sheets to the wind, his guitar playing and vocals showed no signs of intoxication, and the band played a riotously good set. The perfect set-up for what followed.

Rage Against The Machine have acheived that rarest of things, at least with this music-lover - they occupy a mythic status inside their own lifetimes, albeit one which has seen them disband and reform on at least one occasion. Their appearances in the UK have been limited in the last few years to say the least, and my familiarity with the seminal, unsurpassed brilliance of their first album (attained at the expence of my listening to the rest of their releases more than just a handful of times each) meant that by the time they finally, after some 30 minutes delay, I was unfeasibly excited.

A good friend (in whose estimation I had gone down a notch or two when I told him I had only seen the first 30 minutes of Metallica's set in favour of CSS) assured me that his brother had reported RATM as being 'amazing' the night before at Reading, and to look out for their entrance. When it came, minus the orange Guantanamo Bay-referencing jumpsuit and binbag-obscured heads of the the previous night, it still sent the crowd into a frenzy. "We are Rage Against The Machine from Los Angeles", as if any one of the tens of thousand of people in the audience needed to be told, before ripping into their incendiary opening riff of 'Bombtrack'. We went, quite literally, wild. I wished I had the moxy to remove my camera from my bag to record the event, especially seeing as the world's most politically-conscious (and active) band had asked that no official photography or video footage be made by the media at any of their UK performances, but something told me this would not be an event I would forget in a hurry.

The giant glowing red star burned out above the heads of this most exciting four-piece, just as unremitting and brutal a symbol of the band's take on the world as any of their lyrics. It was a headline set to remember, despite including a delay of several minutes as the band stopped playing and asked the crowd to take two steps back from the stage. "We'd hate to have to stop the show 'coz of some bullshit", vocalist Zach de la Rocha told the assembled masses, "we just came to get down". Given the political polemic and overt symbolism of their entrance during last night's Reading appearance, compared with the complete absence of any such content tonight, showed the band were prepared to put aside their uncompromising views for one final night of unadulterated partying at the end of their European Tour. Perhaps they've mellowed since their mind-blowing debut some 16 years ago, but on Saturday at Leeds they did what they do best - take people's breath away.

The last day of the festival promised to be the best. The first act we saw on the main stage was The Subways, a British three some with some of the most exciting modern rock sounds to come out of this country in years. "We're so excited to be here, playing Leeds for the fifth year in a row!" said lead singer Billy Lunn after their first track, and it's easy to see why - their cult following has spilled over into a full-blown festival-based adulation, and it might well be their second release All or Nothing which brings them the commercial success their critical acclaims rightly warrants. Before their set Colin Murray said they were some of the nicest people in rock and had a exceptional interaction with the crowd.

The latter was evident from the start, as Lunn and Cooper explored the full latitude of the stage as they gee'd up the whooping crowd, and at one point the former dropped down into the no-mans-land between the stage and audience, who he whipped up to even more of a frenzy as he stood, shirtless and dripping in sweat, at the front barrier. Perhaps the atmosphere disorientated even the security team, who tried to prevent him returning to the stage before realising he was 'with the band'.

Up next were Dirty Pretty Things, who leave me entirely cold (despite oft-repeated assurances that Carl Barat is a lovely fella, which I don't dispute, their music only makes me think of The Libertines stripped of the showmanship and the zing, if not of the song-writing element of the former band). But my attention to the main stage returned as We Are Scientists, one of my favourite bands, took to the stage. Their well-known on-stage banter, while rumoured to be scripted, is just as entertaining as their fantastic material. "Just a word for any of you who were thinking of throwing a bottle of piss at us", bassist Chris Cain interjected mid-set, "I can tell you that, on average 85% of the piss tends to land in the mouth of the throw-ee...I shit you not". A missile, perhaps an empty bottle of water, then flew its way vaguely toward the stage from somewhere in the middle of the crowd. Cain was quick on the draw: "That was a burrito, as near as I can tell. They tend to hit home around 50% of the time", before talking was put aside in favour of action as the band launched into another live favourite. One of the best value bands around, they kept the crowd nicely hyped-up as the evening approached.

I used to like Editors, but I now see them as a band that have grown so samey that their place in such a high-profile slot on the last day of the festival left me a little bemused. This gave us, however, the chance to head to the NME tent to catch The Ting Tings, who might have been the best thing about the entire festival. Their sound is so now, so up-to-date that in 6 months time they might be able to get arrested, but no-one in the packed tent could have cared less as their set, a series of quirky, endlessly catchy upbeat pieces of electro-rock, built towards the crescendo of 'That's Not My Name'. After returning from the festival, I saw television coverage of their performance the night before at Reading. There was all manner of shennanigans on-stage, with skipping ropes and the like. At Leeds, none of this was necessary - quite simply, they sounded better. Again, I apologies for the lack of photographic evidence. At the time, plucking my camera out and snapping away was the last thing on my mind. I was that excited.

Literally buzzing, we returned to the main stage to catch Jack White's current concern The Raconteurs. While not particularly familiar with their material, the band were entertaining enough, but the engagement of the crowd was fairly low, due mainly to the natural ebb and flow of things (and possibly the fact that they were following the aforementioned Editors) and they received only a lukewarm reception. Jack White, however, cast a captivating figure onstage, clearly enjoying an understated camaraderie with his group of troubadors, as they propelled us into the late afternoon.

If music, whether it be a song, an album or a band as a whole, can transport you back to a specific point in space and time, then my first year at university could very well be soundtracked by the next band to take the stage: Bloc Party. Their first LP, Silent Alarm, was received with critical and commercial success, and their subsequent releases have pushed their sound to places no-one could have imagined, with it's edgy, dance-inflected elements and broad lyrical scope. This being the second time I have seen them in concert, it is clear how much they have come on as a live act.

The first time was in the comparatively tiny Octagon centre in Sheffield, and in the intervening period I saw footage of them in an afternoon slot at Glastonbury. They looked tentative, failing to fill the vast space and dominate the occasion. A few years later, here at Leeds they were not found wanting, marching on stage as lead singer Kele Okereke asked of the crowd, not without rhetoric, "Who wants it?!" before launching into the first of their razor-sharp, post-punk numbers. The fading light gave scope to red flood-lit smoke to pour across the stage, a fittingly dramatic backdrop to Okereke's scorching vocals and Tong's robotic beats. The earlier material took me back to my days as a Sheffield Fresher, and their more recent offerings excited in prospect of what we might expect from their imminent third album.

And so, with the warm afternoon sun now a distant memory, the vast crowd became eager in anticipation of the festival's conclusion from The Killers (once called "the best British band to come out of America", in deference to the majority of their influences). A nervous-looking Brandon Flowers seemed to continually risk eschewing the crowd, but nevertheless delivered a rich, warm vocal performance to match his band's confident swagger. The set included all the favourites from the band's first two albums, as well as their B-sides and rarities collection Sawdust, with the stage adorned with several oversize pot plants, their speaker stacks drapped in fairy lights, and the word "Welcome" spelled out in foot-high neon lamps, on which the camera came to rest in between songs. Before the band had even departed the stage for the first time, the crowd were already singing for their encore of 'All These Things That I Have Done'. When it finally came, after Flowers had joked "It's coming, it's coming, but we've just got one more song to do", the effect was pure catharsis as, in unison, the assembled thousands yelped out the stirring refrain "I've got soul, but I'm not a soldier" at the very top of their lungs. It was as if each, for each and every audience member, it held its own, very personal meaning and investment of emotion.

Many have questioned the validity of a band such as The Killers closing a festival of this scale. Certainly, they may lack the brutal power of RATM or the electrifying speed-thrash of Metallica, but as a completely partisan fan I can say that when it comes to sheer, emotive power then Las Vegas' finest suffer not shortcomings, delivering as they did a triumphant, truly rousing performance. At the end the feeling was of euphoria, and exhaustion. Thank you Brandon, Dave, Mark and Ronnie, for ending such a memorable festival on a real high.

Leee-eeeds!

2008-08-22T12:00:00.000+01:00

As this blog post goes live, I shall probably be just arriving somewhere outside the charming northern English city of Leeds, about to enjoy its annual festival. Those that know me know I don't really do camping. But I'm also enough of a music lover to not let 3 days of mud, burger van food and 'baby-wipe showers' ruin my enjoyment of what promises to be a pretty epic weekend.

Watch this space for photos and gushing about a reformed Rage Against The Machine soon.

...and another thing

2008-08-21T21:46:00.000+01:00

One of my other passions aside from sport, namely film, has been consumed this month by the achievement that is Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight, easily the best film of the year. As an ensemble piece, it moves beautifully, and while the plot isn't perfect and the action occasionally a little far-fetched, such is the quality of the overall package you find yousrelf sitting in the cinema thinking "I know this shouldn't be plausible, but damn it, I'm enjoying myself so much I want to believe!" Such is the brilliance of the picture.

Beyond any doubt the finest element in all of this Heath Ledger's vast, commanding performance as The Joker. Amidst all the incessant, wearying grinding of the rumour mill about the circumstances surrounding his death and much pontificating about whether his inspiring dedication to fleshing out such a challenging role lead to his psychological decline, his work in The Dark Knight stands as a brilliant, unforgettable tribute to a great talent taken from this world on the verge of greatness.

It's been a while...

2008-08-21T20:53:00.000+01:00

I know, I know. I'm sorry. You're right, I've neglected you. Although I know you're not interested in excuses, I have been pretty busy. Yes, I understand, "all the more reason to post a few things to tell the world about it", that's true enough.

Okay, enough of that. In the nigh-on month since I last threw together a few haphazard thoughts on this very blog, I've mainly been revelling in the wonder that is Beijing 2008. Not the event itself, of course - I don't buy into the idea that a country's human rights abuses, denial of democracy and free speech and the wholesale social cleansing of its own people can be overcome by a really, really good sports tournament. I am, of course, talking about Team GB and their unparalleled success.

As I write this, what might be called a relatively mediocre day for Britain’s sportsmen and women has come to a close in the Chinese capital (1 gold, 2 silver, if memory serves, such is the height of the team's achievement in the velodrome and on the water over the last week or so). Some of the outstanding competitors our country has produced have bettered their already excellent records this time around, such as Chris Hoy’s fourth Olympic gold and Ben Ainslie’s 3rd. Even the athletics has provided some highlights, not least Christine Ohuruogu, who seems to have shaken off any dark clouds resulting in her missing 3 drugs tests prior to being banned for a year, and in the swimming pool Rebecca Adlington became Britain's most successful female swimmer ever.
What's more, this Olympics has seen two of the greatest individual sporting performances the world has ever seen. Michael Phelps's unprecedented achievement of winning 8 gold medals at a single meet (with records being broken left, right and centre in the process) is something truly exceptional. And the 91,000 spectators in the Bird's Nest Stadium were privileged enough to an awe-inspiring display from Jamaica's Usain Bolt, as he won gold and broke the world record in the final of both the 100 and 200 metres. Both men has legitimate claims as being the greatest Olympian of these games (to my mind Phelps has the edge) and both have cemented their place in the annals of sporting history. I would even go so far as to argue achievements of this kind, and the manner in which they were accomplished, transcend sport itself and stands within the grand narrative of our contemporary times.
Glad I got that off my chest. More soon folks.

A trip to the seaside

2008-07-29T18:25:00.000+01:00

Not that we didn't see it coming a mile off, but perhaps it's the recent downgrading of the weather from 'stifling and hot' to 'grim and blustery' that has prompted me into finally posting this long overdue missive and revelling in the memory of the gloriously sunny weekend in which my girlfriend and I finally made good on our promise to take our first trip to Brighton. It was on a blisteringly hot Sunday that my better half, my parents and I drove down to the Sussex coast, basking in the sunshine and looking forward to the joys of the seaside on the perfect summer's day. The beach and surrounding area was heaving, but the huge crowds and and sweltering weather just added to my excitement at visiting for the first time. My abiding memories of the British seaside come courtesy of Essex Coast family favourite Southend, which is made to look decidedly second-rate (recent multi-million-pound rejuvination project notwithstanding) in comparison.

Here's the missus and I enjoying our day at the seaside.

Likewise, my folks.

For those who have yet to visit the bustling, vibrant magnet for all that's young and hip you'll not be surprised by the crowds and, while this is definitely a family-friendly resort, the presence of a large university and scores of young visitors means this really is a mecca for the twenty-something sunseeker. While certain coastal towns a few hundred miles west may have developed a reputation for underage drinking and illicit moonlit parties in recent years, you wont find many empty Bacardi Breezer bottles and empty packets of Benson's strewn over the beach here, oh no. Modern waterfront bars and live music are definitely the flavour.

It's worth noting that my family has a strong traditional streak: we spent a good hour and a half playing pitch and putt a little way up the coast, and had fish and chips on the beach. And Brighton seems to share this sensibility too. It has, bursting out from the coastline and imposing itself on the waterfront, a traditional, comfortingly-cheesy pier and some proper deckchairs (albeit rendered in some fetching modern colours).

My first driving lesson

2008-07-14T22:23:00.000+01:00

As this post will no doubt indicate, I emerged from my first outing behind the wheel of a car unscathed. I think I did rather well, stalling only twice, and generally making the thing go in a straight line without hitting anything. Or anyone. I arrived home feeling heartened.

The lesson took place in a little nook of South Woodford, so positioned as to run parallel to a busy A-road, the net effort of which was to simulate the noise and commotion of driving quickly with lots of other people buzzing in your ears without any of the pesky traffic and other business. Whether this was intentional or not I don't know, but it certainly made me a bit nervous to begin with. Happily this was short-lived.

As if my 'novice' status wasn't obvious enough, the fact the place in which I was having my lesson was also the site for a dozen or more other lessons, (each under the livery of a different driving school, each performing their own little 3-point turns or, more rudimentarily, their cockpit drill and learning how to start up and move off properly) was a source of amusement and surprise. It was like a little learner's commune, L-plates our badges of honour and our fleeting glances of concentration and tentative gestures of acknowledgement a sort of improvised code of brotherhood. "I'm learning to drive", we seemed to say to one another, "and so are you". When behind the wheel it's both hard and unwise to try to form thoughts much more complicated than this, as you can imagine.

And so, some 6 years after wanting to start learning to drive, I have finally got my way and have put into motion to plan to clog up our capital's roads with yet another environment-bothering automobile. God Bless our modern freedoms.

The vocal stylings of Ms Liza Finn

2008-07-09T18:02:00.001+01:00

On a horrible, rain-sodden evening in North London, singer/songwriter Liza Finn and her band headlined at Lark In The Park in London's Islington, bringing her soulful vocals and harmonious, jazz-inflected nu-pop sound to yet another appreciative audience (providing a much-needed ray of sunshine to counter the downpour outside). Her vocals are expertly supported by her own work at the piano, with the presence of atmospheric guitar-playing and trumpeteering at once lending her style an uncommon originality and a nod to some of the better British music of the last few decade or two.

Liza is no stranger to the London gigging circuit, having been performing for some time now, and around a year ago her band's current line-up came into being. Her regular performances at a number of venues around North London have given her the not-unwelcome problem of having to keep up with demand by adding to her body of original material (perhaps including the odd cover version for good measure, her boyfriend recently informed me).

Liza is an Exeter University music graduate - this is one alumna who proves how foolish their decision to shut that particular department back in 2004 truly was.

For more of Liza and her music, check her myspace.

Others road users beware

2008-07-09T17:38:00.000+01:00

Yes that's right, I have received my provisional driving license. Scary stuff. And if you're scared about the prospect of me whzzing around suburban roads, barely in control of a tonne or so of internally-combusting machineness, then that's nothing compared to how I feel.

Thank God for dual controls.

Ladies and gentleman, play is suspended

2008-07-03T18:22:00.000+01:00

Ah, the joys of a Wimbledon rain delay. Satisfying most people's inner cynics, the spectacle of a rain-free first week of the tournament had been too good to be true, and so far the second half of the fortnight has seen a fairly average number of stoppages.

Thankfully, Sir Cliff Richard has only been seen just the once, and there has (as yet) been no cause for him to huff his ever-more emaciated frame out of his seat and serenade Centre Court during a particularly lengthy piss-down. With regards to the television coverage, as professional as the BBC consistently is and as regularly as these delays have occurred down the years, they always appear a little under-prepared. In this case, perhaps the gloriously sunny first week prompted an element of complacency, and the onset of showers caught them without their metaphorical brolly.

Today saw a classic example of some half-formed nattering accompanying some fairly one-dimensional footage. Clips of players having a knock-about on the training ground are not that uncommon, but once the player has been spotted and the viewing public have managed to work out who they're looking at (stripped of their Wimbledon whites, and now in an unfamiliar combo of more obviously sponsor-clad get-up) the interest is lost. But what's this? Can it be British wild-card, Chris Eaton, less than a week following his exit in the second round, having a knock-up with - cue deeply un-dramatic camera pan - dun dun duuunnh! Roger Federer! Back in the studio Sue Barker is all wry smiles. Perhaps, she offers, now they're best buds he'll offer to practise with him in the future. The sub-text was hard to miss: with this, perhaps the Fed Express' greatness will rub off and one day, like his new mentor, Eaton will dominate the All England's Club's courts for half a decade, once he's filled out a bit and set up a charitable foundation. Then, the pupil will have become the master. Well, really.

"You can learn so much from just being around great players, seeing how they behave and conduct themselves around the finals of a grand slam" one commentator said on a voice-over (!) of the training court footage. What, all that one-foot-in-front-of-another stuff, yeah? Good for Eaton, of course, and I'm sure he thoroughly enjoyed the experience, but as a potential boost for his world ranking, I'd not get too excited.

Bring on the sunshine, thanks.

A victory for football

2008-06-29T23:10:00.000+01:00

Spain, the tournament’s finest team from start to finish, were tonight crowned champions of Europe in Vienna, and rightly so. Their style has, at times, echoed the best of the Brazilian teams from the 50s to the 70s, since Pelé and co. lit up the playing field with their effortless passing and movement, and even the more recent brand of ‘total football’ as played by Johan Cruyff and his Dutch Masters of the 1970s, where the team played as a coherent unit, players filling in other positions when others broke free to attack or defend as the game ebbed and flowed.

While the Spanish victory may go down as a vindication of so many pundits’ conviction that they were tournament favourites, it stood in counterpoint to the German side’s incredible (yet, oddly believable) achievement of reaching the final. Their performance, and defeat, against a delightful Croatian side in the second game of the group stages left many thinking they would finally shrug off their recent ‘fluky’ reputation and fail to even progress beyond the group stages (having been uable to even win a game in the competition prior to this year's opening victory against Poland since football 'came home' in 1996, when they eventually ran out as winners against an unfancied Czech Republic side at Wembley).

At the end of the game, the BBC pundits reclined in their chairs and contented that tonight had been a “victory for football”, and that the Spanish side had reminded us how football should be played. So much is true, but more than this they reminded just why we love this beautiful game so very, very much.

So long, and thanks for all the stats

2008-06-29T23:08:00.000+01:00

Tonight was very special for another reason. While a full farewell would be somewhat premature, as he will continue to commentate for the highlights of English club football for at least one more season, this is the last time we’ll hear John Motson, BBC narrator of our beloved game for nearly 40 years, oversee a live football match. And for Motty aficionados (a group in which I certainly include myself) it marks the beginning of the end for his unparalleled statistical knowledge being heard in our living rooms. You see, his finest moments tend to come when commentating on live games, in big tournaments like the World or FA Cups. His stats, like the man himself, rise to meet the occasion. As much as we love The Great Sheepskin-Coated One, hearing how many league goals Carlton Cole hasn’t scored in all the years of his career doesn’t really compare with the big stuff like how many times a German has missed a spot-kick in a shootout since the 1976 European Championship final against Czechoslovakia. Which is just the once, by the way.

In support of his decision not to commentate on the 2010 World Cup, Motson says he wishes to go out while it’s still not too late, while he’s still able to perform. Such professionalism is genuinely heartening, and it's reassuring to know BBC commentary (let’s not even discuss ITV’s coverage, which pales in comparison) should be in safe hands, not least with Jonathan Pearce who, it must be said, loves a bit of football.

Arise Sir Motson, if you please.

Suggs In The City

2008-06-25T22:14:00.000+01:00

The weekend before last (I've been away, I have a backlog of things to post on, I'm sorry...) I saw the filming of a wee gem of a TV programme, Suggs In The City, by virtue of my good friend Will working as a researcher on the show. It's aired at 11.10pm every Thursday night on ITV1 London (Sky channel 993 for those of you outside the capital), and filming takes place inside The Colony Room, a famous members bar on Dean St. in Soho. If you haven't tuned in yet then get a move on, its run ends in a few week's time. On the show I saw: Dirty Pretty Things perform their new single 'Tired Of England', the band swigging gin martini between takes; Stephen K Amos banter very funnily with the host; and Jools Holland perform with Lisa Stansfield, the latter I suspect was quite pissed. In between the segments, when the cameras had stopped rolling, one lucky chap got to jam a few bars with Jools on the piano, which made his night.

From my experience in the audience I can confirm a few things about the show and television in general:

People are not the same height they appear on telly. They are either much shorter or much taller.
The space inside The Colony Room is not as small as it appears on telly. It's even smaller.
Studio lights do make the inside of studios much, much hotter than usual. In somewhere as constricted as the set of SITC (as no-one's calling it) makes this many, many times worse.
Filming telly is not neccesarily as stop-start as, say, film-making. In fact, the relaxed, conversational feel of the interviews is enhanced by this style of filming.
A television programme, shot in a bar, in which you can get free beers, is a very good idea.
A television programme, shot in a bar, in which you can get free beers but doesn't have a working toilet, is a bit of a challenge.

Watch Suggs In The City - Thursdays at 11.10pm on ITV1 London. You know it makes sense.

Germany 3 - 2 Turkey. Is there any justice?

2008-06-25T21:52:00.000+01:00

In the absence of any style or flair in their play since some time around 2000, football pundits and journalists have resorted once again to the tired old lexicon of familiar, stereotypical and even vaguely racist terms to describe the German national football team. Tonight, it reached new extremes, as a truly horrendous German side SOMEHOW managed to overcome an impressive, injury-savaged Turkish team. Terms like "methodical", "ruthless" and their ilk should be replaced the unequivocal "downright bloody jammy". Yes Philipp Lahm's winning goal was a belter, but equally he was shocking when in defence, just like the rest of his team. And this shant come as shock to long-time readers of this blog who know I'm a Spurs fan but I will never, EVER tire of seeing big Jens Lehmann cock things up in between the posts.
Look at him. Poor Fatih Terim. He's almost as lovable as Slaven Bilic, another coach whose team should still be in the tournament - maybe.

Anyone who knows me knows I don't believe in luck, but tonight I began to have my doubts. The Turkish side weren't just "plucky" and "dogged" (and all those other, equally familiar and hackneyed phrases), they can actually play, were tactically astute and looked very, very up for it.

In spite of all of this, I can't criticise too much. It was a superbly entertaining game of football (despite the world's biggest thunderstorm descending on Vienna, interrupting television feeds, and thereby rendering my television no more than a decorative humming box during some crucial parts of the match). My only hope now is that whichever team emerges from the other semi-final (a more evenly matched affair, no doubt: despite Russia's relative underdog status, they've already proved they can play and do not have to follow Turkey's lead in dispelling the idea that they're just "determined" and they "never know when they're beaten") will royally stuff the Germans. Not because they're German, you understand. But because they simply aren't good enough to deserve their name on the trophy.

Back home

2008-06-24T08:10:00.000+01:00

I've been back home for 3 weeks (the travelogue posts which have preceded this one were not made in real time - sorry to spoil the illusion) and with the end of travelling up and down the United States comes a return to all that is homely and familiar. Where a few weeks ago each day brought the prospect of some exciting new place or other, now the alarm clock ringing means little more than another day in which I must do that most soul-destroying of things: look for a job.

If anyone out there wishes to employ a plucky young blogger in some sort of vaguely interesting position (which doesn't directly involve dealing with members of the public - I had enough of that in Whistler) then please do get in touch.

One last hurrah in Whistler village...

2008-06-18T22:21:00.000+01:00

How odd to return to Whistler, once submerged below several metres of snow, to see it all lush and green. Our motive behind returning for a night was to see the place in such a state, but nothing could have really prepared us for the shock of seeing our former home without all its wintery paraphernalia. Whistler is now all about bikes, it turns out... ...with the only skiing to be done really just token rubbish for the cheapskate very late season crowd, and the odd park rider who simply can't live through the summer without riding rails and hitting kickers.
But of course these gripes of mine ignore the single greatest thing about Whistler after the big thaw. Bears. They're all over the show, all big and furry and dangerous. There had been a few sighting by the time we left to head south, but I hadn't managed to spot one. I'm glad to say that, within about 3 minutes of getting on the gondola to do some sight-seeing up above the village, I saw bears. Not just one but several, of different sizes and increasing levels of cuteness. And I have proof.
I think the look on my face on this last picture tells you everything you need to know. Excited was not the word.
My girlfriend, ever supportive of my blogging and other stuff related to my wanting to become a professional journalist, had only a slight criticism on my travel updates below. She was somewhat surprised that she wasn’t present in that many of the pictures. “Did you actually go away with real people, Jim, or were you on your own?” she asked, not without sarcasm. “No dear”, I replied, “you were there with me too”. So here she is, looking beautiful.
And just to prove that we aren’t one and the same person, here we are together, enjoying the sunshine and the fact that we could wear flip-flops at more than 1500m above sea level.I may have criticised the fact that the place is now all non-ski-friendly, and it’ll be a long while until I next blast through the trees or plunge through waist-deep powder on either Whistler or Blackcomb mountain, I shouldn’t grumble overly – the place is still just as beautiful as it ever has been. Just a bit differently, that’s all.

San Diego, Ca

2008-06-05T00:07:00.001+01:00

Our final stop on our north-to-south tour of the United States, San Diego, has it all. As soon as we left the Greyhound and stepped out into that Southern Californian air we had precisely the kind of warm, welcoming feeling that was conspicously absent in Los Angeles. We were staying the Gaslamp Quarter - the beating, nay, thumping heart of SD's downtown and centre for entertainment and dining in the city. It's a beautiful old neighbourhood, its vitality coursing from the many bars, restaurants, cinemas, theatres and shops which line its historic streets.

And then there's Petco Park, the city's brand-spanking new baseball stadium, home to the San Diego Padres. We arrived on game night, and so with our intention to drink in some real America, we bought ourselves the cheapest seats available for the section known as 'the bleachers' (the equivalent on 'the Gods' in a British theatre) and settled down with a hot dog and some nachos. As the sun set the giant scoreboard's illumination and the huge floodlights bathed the stadium in a fantastic, albeit unnatural, light for the remainder of the game. After it was over (the Padres, apparently, suck - losing 7-2 at home to the Cincinnati Reds) there was a huge firework display. Fun for all the family, and only $15 apiece.

The day after our dose of "America's Pastime" we headed for the harbour. San Diego is many things, but first and foremost it's a maritime city. The US Navy has had facilities in and around the city for years (including the famous Miramar, which was the inspiration for the 'Top Gun' movie). The USS Midway, the Navy's longest serving aircraft carrier, is now in permanent position in the harbour, retired after its lengthy service. It is, quite literally, huge.

The famous photograph of a sailor returning from wartime to the arms of his sweetheart is reproduced in the form of 30-odd foot high statue.

Balboa Park is one of the most beautiful city parks you'll see. It's centrepiece is El Prado, a long, wide promenade running east to west, home to the city's key cultural complex which includes a number of museums and cafes, and further north in the park is the world-famous San Diego Zoo. El Prado's buildings are just stunning, built in the Spanish Revival style (a blend of Spanish and Latin American influences).

There are also a number of smaller gardens, littered with beautiful, ancient trees, cacti and roses of every imaginable colour in full bloom.Not only does San Diego's city centre hold so much, it's also only a few miles away from the city beaches. We spent 3 nights at Ocean Beach. The main strip has an abundance of bars, pubs and cheap (but very good) restaurants, paving the way down to the glorious beach. But another great feature of San Diego is that it's only 15 miles from Mexico, and so one afternoon we headed south of the border...Not wishing to be kidnapped, shot, robbed or murdered by marauding trigger-happy cocaine smugglers, we avoided Tijuana completely, driving straight past it and heading for the much quieter, but equally tourist-friendly, Rosarito, around 20 minutes further south. The beach is a vast swath of fine white sand but there are only really 3 main places to sit out and drink. However, each takes the form of a gargantuan nightclub-type affair (the kind of thing you might expect to find in the 'lads on tour' holiday destinations of Malia or Magaluf - right down to the smelly toilets and open-air dancefloor) so there was no danger of feeling crammed in. Our attentive waiter supplied us with cheap food, even cheaper cocktails and ludicrously big bottles of beer all afternoon while we relaxed in the sunshine. Our driver even had her hair braided.The main part of the town is surprisingly quiet, but if the posters adorning the outside of the nightclubs were anything to go by, come Spring Break the whole town is awash with pissed-up American college kids, consenting to having tequila poured down their throats and munching on cheap burritos.We headed back later than afternoon, a little sun-blushed and slightly tipsy, content that we had sampled Mexican hospitality. Further up the coast from Ocean Beach is La Jolla, quite easily the swankiest place we'd been to on our entire journey. It doesn't boast huge lengths of beach, but it does have a beautiful sheltered cove, totally protected from the wind (not to mention natural, only fine-ish sand that doesn't stick to a freshly sun-lotioned leg or arm).

Below is the view from a 1st floor restaurant at which we ate a (very reasonably priced) lunch.

San Diego has everything - beautiful weather (given its extremely southern position, only a few minutes from Mexico), a fantastic, welcoming centre and downtown, great beaches, and just about everything else you could want fro a city. It's testament to the appeal of the place that we were genuinely sorry to leave.

Our American journey had finally come to a most satisfying end.

Los Angeles, Ca

2008-06-03T23:53:00.000+01:00

I should have heeded the warnings. I should have listened to my friends and everyone else I know who's been. But I didn't, and so was left feeling decidedly let down by Los Angeles. Let me prefix the series of photos and off-hand remarks you're about to see with the qualification that, although Los Angeles looks quite nice (at least when rendered in a digital photograph) and there are a few famous sights to see, there really isn't that much to it, and what is there really isn't that pleasant. We arrived in Hollywood and, with only 48 hours to spare, set about sight-seeing in earnest. What you think of when you think Hollywood will probably consist mostly of its eponymous Boulevard, home to the Walk of Fame (where you can literally stomp all over famous names of stage and screen from Orson Welles to Tom Hanks, and scores more that you've almost certainly never heard of) as well as compare the size of George Clooney's hands to your own outside Mann's (formerly Graumann's) Chinese Theater. The tour of this famous, prestigous and, most-importantly, beautiful old cinema was a treat. Being permitted to a few minutes of the latest Wachowski Brothers film, Speed Racer, was not.

Just the other side of the Hollywood & Highland Mall is the Kodak Theater - since 2002 home to the biggest night in the movie business: The Oscars. Completely in contrast to it's Orient-inspired counterpart, the Kodak is extremely modern but is nonetheless imbued with a historical sensibility. The walls of the public areas are adorned with blown-up photographs capturing memorable moments of Oscar ceremonies past and present and large sections of the lobby are adorned with the similar kind of fabric out of which the early 'silver' movie screens were made. Unfortunately, photography was not permitted inside and our tour guide was so informative and charming I didn't feel any compulsion to incur his disappointment in one of his charges by sneaking any cheeky piccies (and he did rather thoughtfully give us all a photo postcard of the view from the stage, looking out upon the gorgeous auditorium). While on that subject, we were also told that we were extremely lucky to be standing on the famous stage, home to all those cringe-worthy acceptance speeches and questionable wardrobe selections. In 2010, Cirque de Soleil will begin a ten year run at the theatre, making way only for the Oscar season, and thus rendering the stage off-limits to all tourists.

That word, 'tourists'. It seems to connote all manner of low-brow pleasures and uncool behaviour. I embrace such things. Following our theatrical tours, my girlfriend and I did one of the most 'touristy' things imaginable and went on a trip around the star's homes. I feel compelled to qualify this with the fact that it had been recommended to us as surprisingly entertaining, but to be honest I would probably have done it anyway. Our tour guide-cum-driver was Ghanaian-born Tutu (apologies for the spelling). His idiosyncratic manner, sense of humour and commendable knowledge of exactly who lives where (barring any opportunistic charlatanism on his part) made our day, and occasionally had us in stitches. What's more, we struggled to think of a better way of spending a beautiful, sunny Californian afternoon than being chauffeur-driven around some of the world's most beautiful residential suburbs, where the fire hydrants are platinum and the roads constructed without pavements to discourage anyone from taking a stroll too close to the homes of the rich and famous. I took many photos of the houses, most of which mean nothing after event, but the best one I took was of possibly my favourite house - harking back to my childhood, the house in the exterior shots from Will Smith's big television break 'The Fresh Price of Bel-Air'. The tour also gave us some spectacular views of LA (and for a city that isn't exactly aesthetically laid-out or particularly easy on the eye, that's no small feat): in particular of the Hollywood Bowl and - the real reason anyone comes, if they're honest - the Hollywood sign. But that's not all. Arguably, we topped our touristy escapades of the day by embarking on a boozy tour of Hollywood by night. In a limo. A big, white, stretch 4x4 limo. Shameless. I haven't included any 'party' photos because there's really nothing flattering about the sight of a bunch of pissed-up Brits, Aussies and Kiwis swigging lukewarm 'champagne' and body-popping to over-loud hip in a moving motor vehicle. But it is bloody good fun. Worthy of inclusion are some shots of the fountains at The Grove shopping district, the first stop on our tour - small beer in comparison to the Bellagio's in Las Vegas (see previous post below) but attractive nonetheless. What’s more, the whole area seemed like an extremely good place to test the breaking point of your credit card away from the staggering designer label prices of Rodeo Drive.
We left Hollywood before the novelty wore off and travelled west to Venice Beach. From everything I'd heard it was to be a cavalcade of freak-show performers, buskers and tanned, rollerblading LA lovelies. When we arrived it appeared they had left town for a relaxing mountain retreat or some other such distrction because the only entertainment on offer was random homeless people sleeping on the beach and the odd street performer who hadn't paid their union membership (and thereby forfeiting their invitation to the retreat?) Albert Kinney Blvd has a fantastic array of shops, art galleries and restaurants, but as with Hollywood we were found wanting with the area as a whole. Up the coast, in the decidedly ritzier Santa Monica, a more pleasant atmosphere abounds. Under the pier, we witnessed the shooting of a scene of 'I Love You, Man' the next film from Jason Segel (writer and star of 'Forgetting Sarah Marshall'). It was fascinating to see movie-making in action, but I was not in the least bit envious of the actors or any of the crew due to the incredibly stop-start nature of the whole business.
On our last day before departing for San Diego, we spent a day in downtown Los Angeles (I was relieved when I consulted the map and realised that we were still some miles north of Compton, evading any threat of drive-by). At the top of City Hall, expansive views were available, not least of the Frank Gehry masterpiece, the Walt Disney Concert Hall.
In the final analysis, Los Angeles is not a place to visit very often, or for very long. It isn't without merit - in fact, like Athens and a number of the world's other big tourist cities, there are a relatively small number of unmissable attractions, which collectively mean you sort of have to see the place. "Go there, see it, then go somewhere a lot nicer" would be an appropriate, if not too catchy, maxim for the City of Angels.

Santa Barbara, Ca

2008-05-30T03:19:00.000+01:00

After the honky-tonk of Sin City, we were in need of some rest and relaxation. Santa Barbara, one of the most beautiful beach towns I've seen, was the correct remedy to the dust and neon overload of Las Vegas. The main drag of the town is State St, running at 90 degrees from the front into town, offering several miles of excellent shops, restaurants, bars and cafes south of Ortega St nearer the beach, with sophisticated museums and galleries further up and into town. We arrived on the most perfect blue sky day.

For all the retail therapy and nightlife options on offer on State St (and it really is buzzing of an evening, even during midweek) the main draw of Santa Barbara is the beach, 3 or so miles of superfine white sand, encircled by beautiful soaring palm trees, all of which is set against the stunning, perennially mist-shrouded Coast Range mountains, looming almost watchfully in the background.

Santa Barbara pier juts some few hundred metres out inside the ocean, affording another perspective on the landscape, including the multi-million dollar residences perched up and down the slopes behind the town proper, home to any number of stars and millionaires for whom Los Angeles is perhaps a little clichéd and over-busy. If I popped to the shops in a Ferrari or had more bank accounts than shoes then I would certainly opt for a home here than in the smog and the superficiality of LA (but more of than in my next post).

A great way to get along Santa Barbara substantial ocean-front is to cycle. I'm not that at home on the two-wheeled variety, but the prospect of hiring a four-wheeled, two-seated Surrey was too good to pass up. The outing opened up some lovely little pockets of greenery away from the busy front. In explanation, the look on my face in the fourth picture is a mixture of cockiness that I'm doing something so unfamiliar as pedalling a bike mixed with disbelief that I'm pedalling a bike without taking myself, or anyone else, out.A real highlight was the 'Wheels and Waves' festivals one afternoon, a showcase of automobile classics dating from the 1920s to the present day along State St. Below are a few favourites, including an extremely pimping, felt-lined Cadillac and a gorgeous Ford Mustang.

A classy, quietly affluent seaside town, Santa Barbara's architecture hints at times past but the town is undeniably modern and young in character. Its picturesque State St has everything you could want by day as well as by night, and the overt yelp of wealth and glamour (which is Las Vegas' trademark) is conspicuously absent - in this sense it was our perfect antidote. Without question an excellent holiday destination: charming, fun, relaxing and invigorating all at once, Santa Barbara is undoubtedly an absolute gem on this most beautiful stretch of the Californian coastline.

Las Vegas, NV

2008-05-26T07:54:00.000+01:00

Las Vegas, it must be said, is a strange place, and at times can be a little overwhelming. This can go one of two ways. If you’ve got money to burn, then great – you’ll have a blast. But if you’re on a budget, like my girlfriend and I, then its appeal is quite limited beyond the initial novelty of the sheer scale and colour of the place. As we drove towards the strip, neon illuminating the night sky from miles away, I found myself genuinely excited, annoying my travelling companions as we went as I uttered far too many repetitions of the phrase "Vegas, baby!". If Vegas is ‘Disneyland for adults’, then I was the kid who couldn’t sleep the night before the trip to the theme park. Everyone can name at least one famous hotel-cum-casino mega-complex, and in truth they are as spectacular in the flesh as any silver screen depiction. Each one makes an attempt to stand out, look different and, in time, become singularly recognisable. And in all three of these respects, none fail.
By daylight, the city’s all-singing, all-dancing temples to vice change significantly. Some appear vaguely classy, elegantly structures. Others, stripped of their neon glitz, appear a little dated, tired, even grubby. The southern part of the strip (where all these photos were taken) is the newer section, most of which is second-generation Vegas. The odd pockets of outmoded, smaller-scale gaming hint at what lies a few miles north, past the Sahara and the Stratosphere, in the older and decidedly seedier Downtown (despite an attempt at reviving the area’s flagging fortunes in the shape of the electricity-guzzling Fremont Street Experience). This is where Vegas began, and to my mind there’s no doubt that its future lies to the south. The Trump Tower, suitably resplendent and gold, is situated on the edge of an enormous empty lot, soon to spark alive with construction and development. Slap-bang in the middle of the strip itself there are one or two huge new buildings already taking shape, their gargantuan steel skeletons already in place, hinting at the next stage in Vegas’ continual evolution.

Inside the hotels, casinos and their seemingly obligatory parade of high-end shops and boutiques, just as much attention to presentation is evident as on their outsides and, true to form, their attempts to out-do one another is all to the benefit of the camera-happy tourist (like yours truly).Call me easily pleased but one of my highlights was the fountains outside the Bellagio. At regular intervals their aquatic waltz conducted itself in time to music, from old swing tunes to opera. See them in the day and at night for the full effect. And the best part – they won’t cost you a dime.
In contrast to its high-rolling, life savings-blowing image, Vegas is often touted as a blagger’s paradise by those supposedly ‘in the know’. In truth, in Vegas the term ‘free’ is highly conditionally, probably best expressed as being shorthand for ‘only if you’ve spent some serious coin first’. Sure you can get free drinks in most casinos – but only if you’re gambling, and this usually involves some significant outlay. In truth, the scantily-clad waitresses hold the cards (pardon the pun) as there aren’t nearly enough of them to come round and serve you more than a couple of beverages before you run out of money. Certain renowned party bars found in the likes of the Treasure Island casino offer punters free shots and the like, but you just try sitting at one of their tables and not ordering a thing until the freebies arrive.

This next statement, depending on your point of view, may sounds like the most obvious thing in the world, or we may appear as if we simply weren’t trying hard enough: there isn’t, after a point, much to do in Las Vegas if you don’t gamble. There is other entertainment – for example, world-famous Cirque de Soleil currently have five different shows in town, in addition to other big productions numbers like Stomp, not to mention countless other comedy and live music acts. The cost of these is usually fairly hefty too – tickets to a Cirque show might start at less than $100 but they soon shoot up to something approaching $200. If you can buy in at the lower end its not bad value but our experience was that the affordable tickets sold out too fast to make the prospect of seeing a show viable. Over the border into Arizona, the Grand Canyon is a spectacular, awe-inspiring, jaw-dropping natural tour-de-force, best seen by helicopter or charter flight. These start at $250 per person, and as such is unrealistic you’re on a budget. Can you see a pattern emerging?

There are, of course, distinct annoyances – off the beaten track the city is definitely seedy and unkempt. From dusk onwards, and sometimes earlier, the streets in between casinos are lined with men in day-glo t-shirts handing out cards offering what are effectively home-delivery strippers, all the while clicking and slapping the edges of their flyers to attract your attention. And, most of all, the atmosphere of enforced fun (akin to one long New Year’s Eve) can begin to grate.

It’s easy to see Vegas’ appeal to the masses. After all you can do two things which are rapidly becoming taboo elsewhere in the developed world: drink alcohol outdoors and smoke indoors. Non-smokers might be in for a surprise and as for tee-totallers - they should perhaps just make alternative arrangments. All of this isn’t to say you won’t enjoy Las Vegas. Just come prepared to leave significantly lighter in the wallet than when you arrived. And don’t stay too long.

San Francisco, Ca

2008-05-19T03:02:00.000+01:00

San Francisco is a grower. To my mind, it’s not the sort of place that wins you over instantly; instead, it takes time for you to warm to it and its charms. But once you’ve become accustomed to the noticeably higher number of individuals who are, shall we say, less than entirely in touch with reality and gotten used to the slightly grubby veneer present on most of it, once all this has come into focus and you are able to look beyond the superficialities, SF (as it’s know to the locals) is actually a rather special city, even quite beautiful. Put simply, San Francisco feels like a big US city. It has all the stereotypical things your canny Brit-on-holiday might expect: skyscrapers, bustling streets full of taxi cabs and honking horns, fast food chains, big name boutiques and all the associated razzamatazz of American urban life. After visiting such endearing places as Portland and Seattle previously on my journey, I think all of this was a little lost on me to begin with – it was only after I discovered how charming the city can be did I begin to appreciate all the other paraphernalia in relief.
The city is famous for a number of things, none more so than Alcatraz. The former federal prison, home to such notorious ‘cons’ as Al Capone (all the other big names, as menacing, vicious, nasty pieces of work as they were, haven’t been portrayed in a Hollywood film by Robert de Niro and therefore remain less well known outside America) is now just as famous for its status as one of the city’s biggest tourist attractions. Lying just 1 1/4 miles from the city’s shore, ‘The Rock’ began life as a lighthouse in the mid-19th century, before becoming a fort designed to protect the bay from all manner of thievery during the Gold Rush. Later it became a military jail, full to the brim with sissies and deserters no doubt, before finally become a federal prison in 1934, as a response to the rise in organised crime in its major cities as a result of The Great Depression and Prohibition. It was perceived as both a solution to the need to house the extremely dangerous and well-connected criminals of the time and as a foreboding, visible deterrent. And foreboding it is too. Despite more than 40 years of closure (not to mention a short-lived occupation by a group of Native American Indians in the 1970s) the compound, as much as the island itself, can still send a chill down your spine. The prospect of spending your term shut away in your tiny cell, feeling both entirely removed from society and at the same time knowing that it only lies about a 20 minute ferry ride away seems unimaginable. The view of the city from the island is just spectacular, and perhaps this was its most rehabilitating feature: such an inescapable reminder, delivered daily, of exactly what it was that you were missing. The cell building, like the compound as a whole, is actually remarkably small (you know what they say about things looking bigger on television) but that doesn’t lessen the impact of the place. And if you’re the sort of the person who thinks a ‘self-guided audio tour’ sounds like the perfect cure for insomnia, think again – Alcatraz’s offering is just brilliant, and you’ll see (or rather hear) why it’s won so many awards. Its gripping narrative of some memorable escape attempts and descriptions of life inside the prison, told by former inmates and officers, is simply unmissable.
An iconic structure recognised the world over, the Golden Gate Bridge is right up near the top of most people’s ‘to see’ lists. Its a little way out of the city centre however, so can’t just be strolled to but, satisfyingly, it’s well worth the excursion. The sheer scale of the thing, its unusual colouring (said to have been chosen to complement the natural surroundings, eventually favoured over the originally planned ‘military grey’) and its elegant shape are all reasons to get excited about a bridge, and it really is something special. I felt I had gotten a handle on what the city was all about as we approached the bridge – to the south side is a large park called The Presidio, at the northern edge of which there is an area dedicated to barbequing and socialising. And lo, despite the overcast weather and threat of rain (both ever-present in San Francisco) there were hundreds of locals out enjoying their weekend, cooking for their friends and family, all set against the backdrop of the Golden Gate Bridge. This, for me, is what San Francisco really seemed to be – a colourful, vibrant city, rich with famous sites and scenery, and home to a relaxed, friendly population who appreciate the their home as much as the tourists who flock there year after year.

The views from the bridge are wide-ranging and spectacular in every direction – such a pity that the day we chose to see it, the weather had decided to close in. As we walked back over the bridge, something remarkable happened – the fog thickened and virtually the entire bridge disappeared within a matter of minutes.
The ‘Summer of Love’ and the Hippy movement, enshrined in folklore and popular culture ever since, began in San Francisco, centred about the Haight-Ashbury neighbourhood to the west of the city centre, just next door to Golden Gate Park. Four decades on, the strip along Haight Street itself is alive with unique shops and boutiques, cafes, bars and all manner of little oddities and curios. It put me in mind of Camden in North London (which I blogged about back on the 10th February, after a fire destroyed some of its historic heart) in terms of the singularity of the area and its residents. Anyone who enjoys spending time there should see Haight-Ashbury for themselves, buzzing with arts, culture, fashion and some pretty solid food and drink to boot. The area’s artistic heritage is evident in the architecture, some beautiful outdoor murals, even in the way locals have painted their own homes. From art that’s painted on the side of your house to art that hangs on white walls in a cavernous gallery, the DeYoung Museum is currently home to the Gilbert And George retrospective (which I managed to miss out on seeing when it was back home in London). I understand their frequent and self-reflexive inclusion of their own (not always clothed) images in their work, together with their penchant for scatologically- and sexually-inflected content, may put off many people. For those of you who enjoy what they do, it was a treat, even if photography inside was prohibited. The rest of the museum is a little hit and miss, but then again contemporary art is such a contentious thing at the best of times - there’s no way a single museum can satisfy everyone’s taste. At least everyone might agree on the merit of the views from the observation tower at the museum’s eastern edge. Even better were the views from the top of the Coit Tower on Telegraph Hill. Built to resemble a fire hose by the legacy of a mad old bat who appointed herself unofficial mascot of the city’s fire department (after being saved from a burning building as a young child), the tower's peak is one of the highest publicly-accessible points in the city. On the way down the hill, the best route is to follow either the Filbert Steps, a super-steep descent, through which you are afforded a glimpse into some secluded private gardens, temporarily taking you away from the hum of the city and into a little urban oasis rich with rare plants, exotic flowers, sculpture gardens, hidden cottages and even the odd squawking parrot. Another hidden gem in a city quite literally full of them.
One for tourists and tip-seeking taxi drivers alike – the world’s ‘crookedest’ (not actually a word) street: Lombard, between Leavenworth and Hyde. Its 8 switchbacks reduce the risk of vehicles and pedestrians falling foul of its extremely steep gradient. Yes that’s right, a city of twenty-three hills San Francisco is occasionally very steep – so steep that it has street signs advising motorists to park at right angles to the street. Finally, a personal highlight: sea lions basking in the sun at Pier 39, a Disneyland-esque array of souvenir shops and eateries. My favourite is the big fella in the last picture. I don’t know why, he just looked to me like he was enjoying the attention as much as the sunshine.

Once you’ve let it all wash over you, and have gotten over any preconceptions, San Francisco is quite a place.

Portland, Or

2008-05-05T19:30:00.001+01:00

If you’ve never heard of Portland, Oregon – you should have. A 4-hour journey from Seattle takes you across the state line and into one of the most charming, most happening cities I’ve ever known. Ever flicked through a Lonely Planet guide and read about a “neighbourhood to which hipsters flock” and been a little confused? Turns out that these ‘hipsters’ are cool young men and women with a penchant for idiosyncratic fashion, art, culture, music, leftish politics (every party political sticker or banner we saw were for, without exception, Barack Obama – John McCain simply doesn’t exist in these parts). Also on the hipster agenda is eco-friendliness and (certainly in Portland’s case, at least) tasty, locally-brewed beer. The neighbourhoods in which they congregate may only number one or two in any city you might visit but in Portland the vibrancy and hospitality of them give you all the city-break fuel you could need.

Our hostel - the HI Northwest - was perfectly located between the leafy, laid-back suburb of Nob Hill and the slightly more built-up, converted warehouse zone of the Pearl District. The key strips of the former are NW 21st and 23rd Streets, both of which are filled to the brim with a quite incredible array of restaurants, bars and coffee houses. The latter has the pick of the city’s galleries: everything from tiny, one-room independent spaces to much larger and more commercial affairs. It was the Pearl District’s art scene which drew us out one evening for ‘First Thursday’, a monthly event of after-hours gallery viewings and street entertainment. Among the range of things offer were a market of arts and crafts (not meant in the tacky sea-side sense, but instead things you’d actually like to hang on your walls or put on your coffee table), live music and even some capoeira.

The city’s green spaces are also a major attraction, and will stand up to any found in its bigger, better-known cousins. It’s not so much the ‘green’ aspects, however – it’s the quirky nature they all share. Seattle has odd little nuggets of art and creativity peppering its streets and sidewalks – Portland has these and more in the shape of pieces of art and sculpture found lurking its in parks and other pockets of greenery.

Or even just at a normal road junction.

On the theme of greenery, a relaxing afternoon can be spent at Portland’s Japanese Gardens (once described by a visiting dignitary as the finest he’d seen outside of Japan) - a journey through five different ornamental styles. In what can be a bustling, noisy city, the gardens are an oasis of calm, a tranquil hideaway from the world – even if the most stressful thing you’ve encountered so far that day has been the walk up the hill to find them, as it was in our case.

One of the most striking and moving parts of Portland is the Holocaust Memorial. It isn’t the only one in the world, by any means, and there are larger and more high-profile edifices dedicated to the same cause. However, Portland’s is certainly noteworthy for the comprehensive and thought-provoking narrative describing the events leading up and during the Holocaust, and moreover for how the city’s creative sensibilities are on show once again in small bronze pieces littering the grounds of the memorial. To my mind the rendering of everyday objects recalled the visitor exhibits at Auschwitz, where the most mundane personal possessions became something much more poignant.

One of the biggest draws to the Portland, and the Pacific Northwest as a whole, is the beer. Portland has 30 breweries within its city limits, the most of any city in the world I’m reliably informed, and the array of brews from the lightest white concoctions to the darkest of stouts and porters made my lips smack from start to finish. If ever in town try a brew or two from the tiny Tugboat Brewery (I’d be more specific as the location, but I’m afraid it wasn’t our first stop of the evening), the Amnesia Brewing Company on Mississippi Avenue in the Northeast (a lovely, dare I say ‘hippy-esque” neighbourhood) and for dog-lovers and beer-lovers alike the Lucky Labrador brewpub on Hawthorne Avenue to the southeast of the city centre. This is by no means a comprehensive run-down – go nuts, try them all, you’ll be in for a treat no matter what happens. And if you ever see O.T.M. Stout on tap anywhere, buy a pint and reconsider ever eating chocolate again because this rich but very drinkable brew is hard to beat.

If it hadn't been for a random conversation in Whistler with a visiting local, Portland wouldn't have even been on our travelling itinerary. If you’re looking for a visually-striking place, full of well-know tourist attractions then visit Seattle, New York, San Francisco, to name but a few. But for a welcoming, laid-back feel, a young, fresh and unpretentious sort of a place, then Portland is for you.

Seattle, Wa

2008-04-30T03:13:00.001+01:00

As rich and varied a place as it is, mention Seattle anywhere on my side of the Atlantic and most people will respond with some mumbled comment along the lines of "Didn't even like Nirvana" or "Bloody Starbucks, there's one on every street corner these days". Maybe it's just the particularly grumbly nature of my countrymen, or perhaps that we just don't know enough about what is an undeniably fantastic city.

The software company powering everything that isn't a Mac and that view from Frasier's apartment aside, there's much, much more to Seattle. During our first visit, my girlfriend and I ticked all the boxes of the usual tourist attractions (namely, the Space Needle, the Experience Music Project and so on - see the post from Fri 29th Feb), but the refreshing advantage of a second spell is that it allows to explore the lesser-know neighbourhoods, the other side of the city. In short, you're able to really get under its skin.

The area of Fremont lies about 1 mile or so outside Downtown Seattle. It's the sort of arty little 'hood to which lefties, artists, poets and people who just love organic coffee and good falafel flock. You might think this means the whole area must be stuck in some kind of ghastly tye-dye time-warp - think again. For such a relatively small area there's a lot to see, most of it nestled in amongst people's homes and small independent business (and, this being Seattle after all, the odd Starbuck's).

This cheery fellow is the 'The Troll', and he lives underneath the Aurora Bridge just up from the main junction in Fremont. He's half-way through devouring a small car, and is a typical example of the little nuggets of quirky creativity found all over the area.

This piece is called "Waiting For The Interurban", and is located just off the major junction in the centre of Fremont. The rough cast aluminium forms depict passengers waiting for a train that will never arrive, alluding to the cancellation of the Interurban service which ran from Seattle to the nearby city of Everett until the 1930s. Towards the far end of the sculpture, not quite visible in the above photograph, is a dog with an oddly human face: that of Armen Stephanian, once Fremont's honorary mayor, who made the mistake of objecting to the statue during its conception.

Former Russian Communist leader Vladimir Ilyich Lenin isn't necessarily the first person you expect to see cropping up in statue form in the continental United States. That's Fremont for you - utterly singular and considering itself completely above any raised eyebrows that might greet such a sight anywhere else in the rest of the country. The statue was originally a commission piece constructed in the Soviet-controlled Eastern Bloc in 1988, and one of the few ever made which depicted Lenin surrounded by guns and fire, noting his status as a violent revolutionary (in contrast to the more common perception as an intellectual and theoretician, usually alluded to by some sort of book-holding or hat-waving). It made its way over to Fremont following the fall of Communism when it was found discarded face down in a park. The work is actually for sale (asking price: $250,000 to anyone with that kind of cash and penchant for late 80s Soviet political sculpture) but as yet its remains unsold, still temporarily watching over Fremont, unofficial guardian of the weekly flea market which unfolds every Sunday under its watchful, Marxist gaze.

As if you needed further reassurance that the residents of Fremont are a bunch of absolute space cadets, such reassurance comes in the form of the above 53' high rocket, attached to a corner of a neighbourhood coffee house. According to the commemorative plaque opposite the rocket, Fremont was discovered to be the 'Center of the Universe" sometime in the 1970s, and the rocket was built in celebration of this. It is emblazoned with the emblem of the Republic of Fremont - apparently the area regards itself an independent state. A little pocket of the city that, quite literally, has to be seen to be believed - all of this and a beautiful riverside setting as well.

To get 'under the skin' of a city, as mentioned earlier, it's sometimes necessary to quite literally delve into its underbelly. The Underground Tour, centred around a few blocks of the historic Pioneer Square district, does just that. Our tour guide lead us underneath the sidewalks of the area, where the city's original form lay bare for all (of us who had paid $14) to see. The original Seattle was built some 8-15 feet lower than the present day city. The tour works its way in between the first floors of the city's founding business and the granite retaining walls which were built to counter the problems of the mud flats on which the settlement rested. For something that's effectively a dusty, debris-strewn basement it was rather enlightening, not least for its dishy insights into the more seedy history of the city and its important figures.

Our hostel was located within a stone's throw of the world-famous Pike's Place Market. When we arrived at the weekend the entire area was buzzing, and by midweek the thousands of people loitering around, chatting and smoking among themselves, had been replaced by a beautiful, floating stream of pink cherry blossom from the many trees which line the avenues.

Then, after nightfall, the neon signs flood the area in an unnatural, but nonetheless beautiful light, the red glow warming the otherwise chilly, windy streets.

Seattle truly is a superb city - for every hackneyed perception anyone might have, there are another hundred different experiences on offer - with the whole even greater than the sum of its parts.

Victoria, BC

2008-04-26T06:33:00.000+01:00

Victoria, the provincial capital of British Columbia, is located on the south-eastern tip of Vancouver Island, known as the Saanich Peninsula, just across the water (and a few small islands) from Seattle. In contrast to Vancouver, its larger, edgier and somewhat grubbier sibling, Victoria is every inch the charming, sophisticated seaside city. I hasten to use the word "charming" in relation to any place, as it sits a little too close to "quaint" or even the dreaded "twee" for my liking, but I qualify my assertion of Victoria's charm with a nod to its buzzing nightlife scene around the waterside Downtown area and its wide range of restaurants, offering an eclectic mix of good-value cuisine from all over the world.

Our journey to Vancouver Island began with a short ferry ride, cutting a dash between the rocky outcrops and fuzzy green islands littering the Strait of Georgia, which divides the island from the mainland.

We arrived at our hostel, checked in and dumped our bags before strolling the short distance to the marina, just in time to witness that most spectacular of things: a coastal sunset.The city centre also has a number of beautifully-maintained public spaces, in which my girlfriend was only too happy to pose for the camera.

About 20 minutes to the north-east of central Victoria lies the swanky suburb of Uplands, which borders the leafy campus of the University of Victoria. To the south is the lovely Cadboro Bay area, which comprises a number of very open, sweeping bays and stretch upon stretch of sandy beaches, well used by locals young and old (and their dogs).

As a stop-over which only made its way into our itinerary the day we left Vancouver, Victoria has been a great place to start our travels down the West Coast.