T'was the night before Christmas...

... and there was feck all on the telly.









Christmas TV always manages to scrape the barrel of the television archives and this year is no exception.

Aside from some big-name film that can now be found in the £3.99 bin at Blockbuster, Christmas TV, especially Christmas Eve television, tends to involve repeat after repeat after repeat of Blackadder, however many versions of A Christmas Carol that currently exist and The Santa Clause.

This year, a thumb through the TV guide reveals nothing, absolutely nothing worth watching.

Aside from the 'Christmas Eve specials' of various soaps designed at the 'OK Magazine' reading share of the audience, the film offering consists of either 'Pirates of the Caribbean; Curse of the Black Pearl' on BBC One or back-to-back showings of the chav favourite 'The Fast and the Furious' and '2 Fast 2 Furious' on ITV2. I've no idea what ITV1 are showing as they try to expand their audience of complete morons.

BBC Three has 'Football Gaffes Galore' - probably the same DVD that you'll be getting for Christmas tomorrow followed by wall-to-wall Little Britain.

The only saving grace is a 'Father Ted' marathon on More4.

So Christmas Day.... what have we got? Shrek 2 and Finding Nemo? That might work. ITV1 are showing some crap from X Factor and I've not idea what the other channels are showing.

Oh, and there's the Christmas speech - whoop-de-fecking-doo.

Is it any wonder why we're so good at binge drinking? Drinking dangerous amounts of alcohol is far more preferable to a night in front of the box.

That depends who you are asking

It's that time of year once again. Time for the car insurance renewal.








Unfortunately, as a sub-23-year old single male, I'm public enemy number one in the eyes of the motor insurance industry as so finding an insurer that will actually honour their advertising claims of "cheap" car insurance is a nigh-on futile task, even with four years without claiming.

But nevertheless, the law requires me to pay for a piece of paper which only has any value in a moment of crass stupidity on my part.

As you can imagine, I'm subject to all the "young driver excesses" that any insurance company feels free to make up on the spot which makes claiming anything a completely pointless exercise. If I do claim, I have to pay the bulk of the costs out of my own pocket anyway and I'll be forced to pay for the rest next year by way of an increased premium. It's a sort of legalised blackmail that works very well in the insurance industry.

But anyway, the renewal note came through with a revised premium of around £381, which wasn't all that bad and around £80 less than last year.

Now in the past as this point, you would go to your local broker and accept any randomly generated number as "his best possible price that he could do if you bought today" or spend a whole afternoon phoning every listing in the Yellow Pages for numbers even more random that you'd be better off asking your newsagent for a 'Luck Dip'.

But the Internet is now here and thanks to other random number generators like Confused and Money Supermarket, I can do it all in one go and, if I'm lucky, pay a hidden middle-man affiliate fee that nobody cares to mention.

A search on both sides revealed a "best price" that was about the same as the renewal but did miss off a few insurers who don't want to be associated with these comparison sites, so I tried those.

One site offered me a "special online price with 10% online discount" of £568, so they were quickly discarded. Another site, who promised to "beat your renewal quote if you have 4 years NCB, even if you aren't very posh" didn't beat my renewal quote. Instead, the tried to triple it.

Resigned to defeat, I tried an online quote with my current insurer and sure enough, I was quoted the "brand new customers only" price of £331. Knowing that I'd have to change the occupation listed on my current documents anyway, I phoned said insurer.

Now I would think that changing my occupation from "care-free, careless student" to "upstanding professional" would have seen a welcome drop, not a £16 increase and so before I knew it, I was passed onto the "Internet quote team" to get the "brand new customers only, but also existing customers if you ask nicely" price.

The annoying thing though, is that for all these various names in the motor insurance industry, they are, on the whole, the same company. Three insurers I obtained quotes from (including the one I went with), were all the same insurer once you get past the marketing yet offered three prices ranging from £331 to nigh-on £1000. For others, the difference was even greater and those that claim to "specialise in younger drivers" were amongst the worst of the bunch.

Never mind eh, there's always next year.

Things that you notice in a major city centre

On Saturday afternoon, I had the misfortune to venture into Leeds city centre, not realising that said day also happened to be the major shopping day before Christmas.



But still, major shopping days happen to provide a source of mild amusement when you actually take a minute to look around. Here are a few that I spotted.

• People naturally join a queue, despite not knowing what the queue is for.
  
  
• Police truancy patrols are a very good idea, but I would question their effectiveness on a Saturday afternoon.
  
  
• Every single motorist wants to park in 'The Light' car park.
  
  
• In the German Christmas market, most shoppers will adopt one of two strategies.
  1. Talking to the stall owner in your best GCSE German.
  2. Talking in the "S-L-O-W-E-R AND L-O-U-D-E-R" method that Brits do so well when abroad.
  They do this despite the fact that the stall keeper is a Chinese boy with a distinctly unnerving Yorkshire accent.
  
  
• People don't seem to understand that shops at Christmas are often busy places and continue to proclaim that "this is stupid this is" at single one of the 32 Christmas temps drafted in just for that particular weekend.

I'm sure I'll think of more later

You want to buy something? You'll have to pay extra for that

Back when I used to write on this thing a bit more regularly, I mention my displeasure at a number of life's "cons" and one in particular, booking fees.







These 'booking fees' might also be disguised as a 'credit card fee' by internet retailers who don't want to have that stigma of the booking fee.

The credit card fee is very common with low-cost airlines, as is any other fee that you might think of to be honest as they shave penny after penny from the cost of their seats, only to recoup that discount elsewhere. But who cares, you've bought a flight for 5p, right?

The idea of paying these fees is still a concept that people are getting used to. In the past, when there was still a mystique about flying, you never paid these fees for booking the flight, taking a bag with you, checking in, sitting in the airport lounge and choosing your seat. Well, you did pay them, but the airline never told you.

Then Ryanair came along and turned the industry on it's head. With this new brand of airlines, you got absolutely nothing bar a seat on a plane but in return, you paid next to nothing.

Such things are important to a Yorkshireman, which is why an airline with similar ideals, Jet2, moved in to Leeds Bradford airport with their stupidly cheap flights and it is something that we will be taking advantage of this summer.

With Leeds Rhinos playing the Perpignan-based Catalan Dragons in July rather than February, we've opted to head out for a weekend of rugby-based-cultured-beer'y fun. But instead of spending time just in the Catalan part of France, we'll also be taking in the Catalan capital of Barcelona before flying back into Leeds mid-week.

As with most things in our circle of friends, I'm charged with booking these sorts of things. One of them is just useless and is justifiably not trusted with anything more taxing than booking a minicab to the pub. The other is a lazy, forgetful sod who almost certainly jump in the taxi to go to the airport and ask "What was I supposed to book again?" and the other, whilst not being quite as bad, would rather I did it.

So I'm left to scour the net for discount hotels and flights with a primary criteria - cheap as possible, which is where the credit card fees come in.

Booking the outbound flight was easy. Manchester to Perpignan, £5.99 plus tax with bmiBaby, coming to about £36 each with a few options on the 'credit card fee' front. I could pay £2.99 with Maestro or £5.99 with Mastercard - I picked the cheaper one.

But then we came across Jet2, who seemingly wanted to overcomplicated the process from the very first click.

Firstly, they insisted in giving prices in Euros on the basis that I was booking a one-way flight from Barcelona and thus, I must be Spanish, right?

So anyway, the calculator comes out and I'm quoted around £42 per seat including all the multiple taxes and I accept, only to be presented with an even more complicated 'credit card fee' menu.

Like Bmi, thee were different charges for different cards but these were more peculiar. Mastercard and Visa credit cards were the most expensive, €3 a pop whilst Visa Electron, a card that banks give to 16-year-olds that they don't trust, happened to be much cheaper than a bog-standard Visa debit card despite the fact that they will almost certainly go through the same merchant system and an Electron has many more security procedures surrounding it.

At this point, questions start popping in my head but never mind, I soldier on - I am going on holiday after all but it is only then that you realise that the 'credit card fee' is not a one-off payment processing fee to cover the handling charge but instead a full-on €3 per person surcharge.

Like a mug, I paid it but who cares, I'm going on holiday ;)

Abnormal service will be resumed

I noticed yesterday that it's been a while since I've been here. I've no idea why. Perhaps I need to be a bit more interesting?










Last Friday we had a family trip down to the Leeds Grand Theatre to see Blood Brothers and had an extremely enjoyable night.

I was the only one of the four to have never seen Willy Russell's musical. My parents had seen it before and my younger brother was taken to the show on a school trip to London but for me, it was a completely new experience.

The performance itself was excellent with a cast including Z-listers such as Anthony Costa, once of Blue fame.

Apart from that...erm.... lets see.....

The pilot light on the central heating won't stay on........ erm........ I managed to find somewhere that sells ping-pong balls...... and erm......... I've book the annual trip to France (with a stop-off in Barcelona) to see the Leeds Rhinos play the Catalan Dragons in Perpignan - but that escapade will be covered another day.

It's official.....

The dark overlords have spoken, its the end of November and Christmas is now officially here.





Those Coca-Cola adverts, the official start of Christmas, are now playing ad finitum on television and commercial radio.

For the next five weeks, it will be nothing but illuminated trucks, constant renditions of "holidays are coming...holidays are coming....." and even longer dentist waiting times as thousands of children sit in the chair with rotted teeth from drinking excessive brown fizzy water.

But I'm not going to let it get me down this time. It's the first Christmas in six years where I aren't working in retail and I've even got the unusual experience of being able to book holiday in December.

This year is going to be better, I just need to avoid ITV, which is no bad thing in itself....

How hard is it to buy a ping-pong ball?

Seriously, how hard can it be to find a very simple, very common piece of sporting equipment in one of biggest cities in the UK and one that prides itself on a thriving retail industry?







In the office we are fortunate enough to enjoy the use of a ping-pong table.

I know at this point many of you will be reading with disgust. "A ping-pong table at work? You want to get 'yer hands dirty in a a real job and do a proper day's work" I hear you cry, and you'd be right but right now, I'm enjoying my job of manipulating Google search results and enjoying the title of the world's worst semi-professional ping-pong player.

The latter point was further demonstrated this afternoon when the sixth and last remaining ping-pong ball from this latest pack was sent flying down Wellington Street after being smashed out of an open sixth-floor window and, as far as I am aware, is still rolling along the gutter towards Kirkstall.

So because of that indiscretion, I was sent in search of a fresh batch of balls or I would incur the wrath of fellow players....I mean workers.

Now in the UK, you have a problem because if you want a piece of sports equipment, you can't go to a sports shop - at least not a city centre high-street sports shop.

For instance, you wouldn't go into a sports shop and ask for a snooker cue because
a) The 14-year-old staff member wouldn't know what a snooker cue is, and
b) a snooker cue isn't the latest chav-brand hoodie that UK sports shops specialise in.

In fact, one particular sports chain specialise in the cheap crappy chav-orientated merchandise more than others that it won national recognition over the success of it's audience targeted product range. (In fact, I've mentioned this before)

It also earned the distinction of being named the worst of the 50 biggest UK high-street retailers in the UK by consumer magazine Which? Needless to say, they couldn't provide me with a simple piece of equipment.

There's also another option in Leeds. The chav-wear emporium on the Headrow which has been "closing down tomorrow and everything must go - right now" for the past four years. This, if anything, was an even more hellish experience and if I happened to be a government employee investigation Disability Discrimination Act compliance, I'd take great pleasure in closing down said establishment.

They also, were unable to perform the function that the sign above their door claims to serve.

So, the sports shops couldn't provide me with a simple piece of spots equipment. Thankfully, a catalogue shop that doesn't specialise in sports equipment could.

It's no wonder that internet shopping has boomed.

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank.....

You may have noticed my profile box on the left hand side, the one with the really good-looking photo in it and you may also have noticed the line "award-winning film maker".


The film in question happens to be one I made back in 2005 as part of an AVCE Media Studies module which required students to produce a short film or video production.

Now before the Daily Mail reading contingent points it out, I know already. Media is one of those 'doss' subjects that is devaluing A-Levels and instead of messing around with a television camera, I should have been doing more worthwhile subjects like physics, maths and Latin or something like that but that's not the point.

Said film was a spoof-documentary about a group of young filmmakers, like us and how, long story short, it all goes belly up. If you've got the time, you can even watch it on the BBC website although be warned, the producer sent the wrong copy to the Beeb - one without a section of voice over - idiot.

Anyway, the right copy was thankfully sent to the a panel of judges First Light National Film Awards which included Stephen Fry and Sir Ian McKellen who were that impressed that they decided to award it the Best Comedy Award for 2005. Impressive eh? The only downside is that I couldn't make it down to the fancy London shin-dig.

So anyway, that led onto my Journalism course (yes I know...doss subject....dumbing down education...blah blah blah) at University (well, actually, Leeds Trinity & All Saints College but it does say University of Leeds on my degree) which, aside from actual journalism, involved a considerable amount of media and film work.

And so again, we went film-making, I got my degree and left it at that.

Six months after leaving and six months into job that has nothing to do with films, I stumble in to what is inevitably a pile of bills on the doormat as well as various Christmas gifts (yes I know, shame on me).

To my surprise, one wasn't a bill at all. In fact, it was a letter from the college informing me that one of my films has won the "Michael McNally Prize".

Now I have no idea who Michael McNally is or what his prize is, but I will happily accept his £100 cheque and the chance to call myself a two-time award winning filmmaker!

The road to ruin

Several months ago, some bright spark decided that he wanted to buy a football club. The only downside to his clever scheme was that he didn't quite have the cash needed to get started, so he called in some help.








Pretty quickly, MyFootballClub.co.uk was born. All that was needed was for 50,000 people to stump-up £35 for a controlling interest in a then unnamed football club. The only clue was a set of criteria for which the eventual club would meet.

A vote ran between members to pick their preferred take-over target, with Leeds United the number one choice. Unfortunately, they failed one of the key criteria which was to have "no or manageable debt", even if most of it is located in an unknown tax-haven on the British Virgin Isles.

Today, after attracting the required number, the website confirmed an agreement to purchase Blue Square Premier side Ebbsfleet United, with the site members now taking a 51% stake in the club, subject to the finer points being sorted out.

In essence, a supporters membership scheme is a good idea. It works in various sports at various levels across Europe. My local amateur rugby league team Bramley Buffaloes has one, so does FC Barcelona. They can be a very good way of running a football club.

But this scheme, unfortunately, is doomed to disaster.

Unlike your typical membership scheme, where supporters / members get to vote on internal issues, this scheme is asking for something a bit more.

They are wanting a say in team selection, transfer dealings, team tactics - virtually everything you can think of.

I can see it now - scores of fans squabbling over what formation to play in their Tuesday night match at Aldershot or which 35-year-old+ League Two player to sign in the transfer window. It truly is a case of the lunatics taking over the asylum and at this level of football, where the knowledge will be minimal at best, it's practically suicidal.

I've worked in a professional sports club. (I have to keep that quiet, for I'm a supporter of their main rivals!) and one of the first thing you learn is that as a supporter, you know nothing about how sports clubs actually run. Most supporters only see what happens on that big green thing every Saturday afternoon and nothing more. Fans always think they know what to do, very rarely is that the case and Australian rugby league coach Wayne Bennett summed it up: "If you start listening to the fans, it's not long before you're sitting with them".

You could argue that Bradford City are finding that out the hard way. After being relegated last year, the club chairman was looking to bring the 'feel-good factor' back to Valley Parade.

Along with cut-price season tickets, the chairman appointed the fans choice as the new manager and former players Stuart McCall and Wayne Jacobs were installed as the new management team. Today, one of the pre-season favourites sit in 19th in League Two, with just four wins from 15.

My suspicions are that most of the people who have actually signed up to this scheme don't realise what actually goes on away from the playing field, thinking instead that running a football club is just a big version of a Football Manager PC game. The situation that you have now is that instead of having a fully qualified and experienced football coach making the on-field decisions, you've now got a bunch of strangers who's only achievement between them is that they managed to win the Premier League with Mansfield Town on their PC and that one of them came top of the Fantasy Football League last April in the Sun newspaper.

I do feel sorry for Ebbsfleet. I saw them when they arrived (25 minutes late) to claim a 1-1 draw at Farsley Celtic in the BlueSQ Premier this season and whilst they were no superstars by any stretch, they were a decent side.

I hope this comes off for them and there's no doubt that the publicity will but the club in the spotlight. There is also of course, the argument that such a scheme is taking the game away from the money men and back to the fans, which is a valid one. There is however, a very good reason why 'fans' tend not to be the money men behind a football club and as sad as it may be, I can only see this ending in tears.

The biggest mistake of my life

I've made a dreadful mistake today, for I have left my iPod at the office.













On it's own, that wouldn't sound like much of a problem. Surely the worst that happens is that instead of listening to my music of choice on the train to work tomorrow morning, I'll just have to listen to the excuses of Northern Rail as to why my train is delayed again, but nobody has been hurt, nobody has died, it's just an insignificant error that nobody will care about.

Oh no, for the contents of said iPod are cause for concern.

I can sleep safe in the knowledge that my bright red iPod (like the one in the picture) would have been like the forbidden fruit to my work colleagues as it sat there on top of my paper stacker and those who had stopped after 5:30 will have definitely been thumbing through the, shall we say, "eclectic" library. You know the big red button that they always tell you not to push yet proves too irresistible? Well this was the big red iPod equivalent.

I don't have a "bad" taste in music, quite a good one in fact but I do have an uncanny knack of going to crappy, cheesy nightclubs, coming home with hangover already brewing and kebab / curry in hand and heading straight to iTunes to download whatever tracks are still ringing in my ears. My local pub also has 'golden oldies' on Sunday, so it's a bit of a double whammy really.

I won't go through what's on it (I'm pretty sure my colleagues have already uploaded my library to as many social bookmarking sites as possible) but me thinks that I'll have some serious explaining to do tomorrow morning.

Bonfire Night

You can probably tell from the constant banging in the air, a distinct smell and the fact that your dog is cowering in the corner, but tonight is Bonfire Night.




It's not a day that particularly appeals to yours truly. I personally don't see the excitement in spending money on cheaply made, expensively sold boxes of fireworks and burning effigies of Catholics, but each to their own.

I especially don't get excited by doing those things when, if I felt it, I could walk around the corner to find that Leeds City Council have gone to the time and expense on my behalf, but that's not the point.

My younger brother wanted to invite his girlfriend round, and what better excuse than to light explosives in the back-yard? It was something to do and as long as it didn't cost me anything, I wasn't bothered.

So anyway, tonight comes and we've got food, beer and fireworks ready to be enjoyed in their respective ways.

In order to feel important, I assigned myself the job of setting things on fire in the garden. I did this because:
a) It gave me something to do other than get cold and
b) There was no way that I would allow my brother to have any responsibility over over-the-counter explosives.

So anyway, we spend a good hour or so working our way through the respective boxes, ooooh-ing and ahhhhhh-ing at the various patterns of chemical reactions and retreated inside for beer.

So now, I'm typing this wondering what to do next. It's currently half-time in a turgid game between Manchester City and Sunderland on Sultana TV so I may decide to re-watch last night's brilliant Top Gear.

I watched it last night after taping said episode due to my attendance at the Farsley Celtic vs York City clash last night, also televised on Sultana Sports - and I even managed to spot myself in the crowd. Not a disastrous performance from Farsley, who were caught out by a better team whilst chasing an equalliser and despite the harsh 4-1 defeat, there's bigger games to come - not least the relegation six-pointer at home to Altrincham.

The Secret Diary of Lewis Hamilton, aged 22 & three-quarters

When I was little, I used to drive go-karts but then a man called Ron came up to me and asked me if I could drive his car for him.








At first, he would only let me drive little cars, but then one day, he let me drive a really fast Mercedes car. I really enjoyed racing the big car, even if I had to work with a really nasty Spaniard who didn't like me very much and I even won a few races.

In the end, I finished second because the car broke down and then I went to live in Switzerland so that the nasty tax man can't take any of my money.

Now of course, all of that probably isn't an extract from the Lewis Hamilton: My Story - available from all good book stores and some rubbish ones as well.

Neither is it a slant at a young, British driver who has got people talking once again about a sport that had a dwindling following before he arrived on the scene.

But the point, as you might have gathered, is more a question as to how someone of 22 years of age, with just one full-season of top-class sport behind him, can possibly write a full, worthwhile autobiography?

Unfortunately, he's not alone when it comes to pointless autobiographies and with 2006 being a World Cup year, last Christmas was full of them.

Frank Lampard, Wayne Rooney, Ashley Cole, Rio Ferdinand, Steven Gerrard and Joe Cole - all players who achieved the net sum of "zero" during the 2006 tournament in Germany despite a hefty match fee were all lured by another big cheque to cram pad out their entire life story into a few hundred pages. Then Manchester City loud-mouth Joey Barton summed up my feelings perfectly:

“England did nothing in the World Cup so why were they bringing books out?” Barton asked. “ ‘We got beat in the quarter-finals. I played like s***. Here’s my book’.”

Sports autobiographies can be excellent. Lance Armstrong's series of books but, most notably, 'It's not about the Bike' is superb. Tawera Nikau, a former Castleford, Warrington and New Zealand international rugby league player who had to content with the tragic death of his wife and the loss of his right leg, wrote the eye-opening 'Standing Tall' and the likes of Tony Adams, Paul McGrath and Paul Gascoigne have all put together good books which, unfortunately, get lost in a sea of shite on the shelves of Waterstones.

Another quick search on Amazon brings up such delights as 'Russell Brand: My Booky Wooky', 'Jodie Marsh: Keeping it Real', 'Being Jordan' and 'My Autobiography' by Big Brother ignorant Jade Goody.

Honestly? Who buys this garbage?

The Haka

It's one of the iconic sights in international sport, calling on a nations aboriginal heritage and declaring war on the opposition, albeit in a sporting context.



It's most notably performed by the New Zealand rugby sides and on Saturday, New Zealand's rugby league side kick-off a three-match test series against Great Britain in Hudderfield.

I'll confess that I haven't actually seen the "Kiwi's" peform the Haka in person. I've seen the Fijian's perform their versionm 'The Cibi', at the 2000 World Cup and I've seen a spectacular rendition of both the Samoan and Tongan Hakas, performed simultaneously, towards each other, only last year in a World Cup qualifier in Leeds.

But's I've not yet seen the New Zealand version, instead, having to make do with the television:



A lot of opponents have foolishly tried to challenge the Haka, in both codes, non more so than Australian forward Willie Mason, who's probably still suffering the after affects from the 2006 Tri-Nations. It's not big, it's not clever, and more often that not, you end up paying for it.

Tomorrow, I'll be attending the first Gillette Fusion test at the Galpharm Stadium, hoping for a British win of course.

What can Sheffield Wednesday teach us?

[obligatory joke answer] How not to play football! [/obligatory joke answer]








Sheffield Wednesday, a Championship football club in South Yorkshire are probably making a lot of bloggers and forum users think at the minute.

Sheffield Wednesday currently lie 22nd in the Coca-Cola Championship and, as I type this, are trailing 2-1 at home to newly promoted Scunthorpe United. They are reportedly in financial trouble and their supporters, understandably, are frustrated with goings on at the club.

It's the sort of scenario that most sports supporters will probably be familiar with.

In the past, these sorts of issues would be discussed over a pint in the local pub, around the water cooler in the office or in the factory canteen. You could shout, swear and put the world to rights as much as you wanted with no fear of the consequences.

Today, we've got a new medium - the world wide web.

If you can think of a special interest, no matter how mainstream, how commercial or how bizarre, there's probably a website, blog and forum on it and in this case, you don't have to look hard to find a football forum.

That's where Sheffield Wednesday come into it.

After being unimpressed with the running of the club this summer, a number of supporters, like fans of any club would, vented their frustration on the fans forum Owlstalk.

The board at Hillsborough however, didn't take too kindly to the comments and filed a defamation lawsuit against 34 of its own supporters. That number has since reduced to the point where the High Court has ordered the owner of the site to hand over details of three users of the site.

It made me question my own position, both as a blogger and as an internet forum user.
I've looked at some of the posts that have been mentioned in the court documents and, to be honest, you soon realise how careful you could have to be.

I won't post examples in here, but you can read them for yourself here.

Upon reading those comments, it's nothing that I haven't already read on plenty of internet message boards in the past. I've also posted my fair share of uncomplimentary things on here about certain firms / people in the past with minimal thought and I'm sure most other blog posters have as well.

Whilst it's no excuse for a publication (and a web forum or blog is a publication) to defame individuals, I'd like to think that most football clubs would be "PR savvy" enough to realise that taking legal action against users of a fan site is something of an "own goal". It also opens up the whole "freedom of speech" argument. We aren't going to see a "Google.cn" style of censorship, but are we going to be in a position where people are wary of sharing opinions and ideas?

Whatever happens in this case over the coming months, the stance taken by a lot of football forums in the future could be extremely interesting.

Try or no Try?

I'm a rugby league fan. I'm used to seeing video referee decisions that, to say the least, raise more questions than they answer.





I could go on and on about how I've seen video referee decisions that have caused outcry in the game. I remember seeing a decision go against Bradford Bulls which effectively cost them the Grand Final in 1999, I've seen my own team Leeds have plenty of decisions go against us and for us since the idea of video replays was first introduced to the sport in 1995.

Obviously, such instances are not unique to rugby league, as was proved less than a hour ago in the Rugby Union World Cup final.

England, trailing 9-3 early in the second half, make a rare clean break for the South African line, which ends in this very scene just seconds later:


A video referee is called in to adjudicate on the decision. Did Mark Cueto leave the field of play before he grounded the ball? The people watching my TV set as the action was replayed from various angles couldn't agree and, from that second picture at least, the fourth official was being asked to decide whether a certain blade of grass was painted white or not, such was the margin.

After plenty of deliberation, the try was ruled out. In the end, it would have made little difference as the Springboks came out 15-6 winners in Paris to clinch their second World Cup.

In the end, you'd have to say that it was a fair result and concede that the "right" team won the tournament. England have been poor in the years leading up to the tournament, they were poor when they first arrived in France and, long story short, they aren't the best team in the world. South Africa on the other hand, are unbeaten in the tournament, thrashed England 36-0 in the group stages and knew how to play England's game tonight.

Lewis Hamilton could cheer the nation up tomorrow, as at the age of 22, he looks to become the first ever F1 driver to be crowned World Champion in his debut season.

Crap TV adverts

One advert is irritating me lately and really hope that I'm not the only one that cringes every time I see it.







It's the Bridgestone tyres advert, and I just don't get what it's trying to tell me.

Problem number one: The music bed is completely to cock. It starts with an operatic attempt at "World in Union" which, whilst not my first choice for a tyre commercial, isn't completely unacceptable, but the "sting" at the end is. It's completely out of sync and is the sort of thing that would fail a GCSE media studies project, let alone a multi-million pound marketing campaign.

Then, the images. Why would I deliberately drive over a wooden plank with 12 inch nails protruding upwards? Why would I be interested in F1 slicks that aren't road legal? Why would the fact that Bridgestone tyres are used on a Boeing 747 encourage me to put them on my Citroen Saxo? You really haven't identified your demographic have you?

I'd love to meet the marketing exec who signed it off.

Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find the offending article online, but I have managed to find another Bridgestone commercial from years gone by, but one that probably didn't make our airwaves.

The ad still seems to be more one for a certain car manufacturers brake discs, but it's better than what they are currently inflicting upon us.

A great sporting weekend

What a fantastic sporting weekend we have just witnessed.....







Now upon seeing that sentence, you'll probably be expecting this blog post to claim how fantastic it was that England's footballers beat a team of Estonian bricklayers and minicab drivers whilst the nation's over aged public-schoolboy squad somehow squirmed their way into the Rugby Union World Cup final against a side that, for much of their history, were merely a Nazi-sponsored band of looters and thieves. (Mike Rylance's book 'The Forbidden Game' will tell you more).

But no. For me, the event of the weekend was the engage Super League Grand Final in which my team Leeds battered the defending champions St Helens by 33-6 to win the domestic rugby league championship.

Before the game it was impossible to split the sides. In the past three meetings, Leeds had won two, St Helens the other. In the league, one competition point split first-placed St Helens from the Rhinos and in the play-off game at Knowsley Road, a dubiously awarded penalty goal was all that split the pair. What we saw was a second-half blitz from Leeds which blew away the current World Club Champions.

It was a fantastic day out in Manchester and, unusually for a Leeds side, a stunning final performance in front of 71,000 people at Old Trafford.

It wasn't just the victory, or the manner of the victory against a side that has really set the benchmark in recent seasons, but there were plenty of other subplots behind yesterday's game.

In the early hours of Saturday, just a matter of hours before the sides were due to take the field, former Leeds scrum-half Jeff Stevenson passed away at the age of 75. During the presentation, Leeds captain Kevin Sinfield paid tribute to the Leeds legend in his post-match acceptance speech.

If their was any other motivation needed for the side, another Leeds legend and perennial gobshite Garry Schofield was busy making himself look an idiot one again and proclaiming how Leeds would get stuffed. As great a player Schofield was for both Leeds and Great Britain, he's a nothing pundit. Anyone inside the game knows that, the fans know that and the press know that - it's just that he can always be relied upon to make a stupid headline grabbing comment at the expense of his own dignity - as was the case this weekend and many weekend's before it.

It was also the final game in charge of Leeds for coach Tony Smith - and what a final game. After joining the club in 2004, Smith has guided Leeds to three Grand Finals in four years, winning two of them and in his debut season, brought Leeds their first title for 32 years. Smith will now take the job of national team coach.

So all in all, a fantastic sporting weekend only dampened by Farsley Celtic's unlucky 1-0 loss to Oxford United.

Getting the message across?

The BBC are in a bit of bother again this week, except this time they aren't pulling a premium-rate phone scam or getting 9-year-olds to fake a competition win.






As part of a HIV awareness drive, the Beeb have introduced an educational video which has been attacked by "parent groups" (no me neither). It's probably worth mentioning that the Metro happens to have some link with worst rag in the UK, the Daily Mail, a publication that is hardly supportive of the BBC it has to be said.

Judge for yourself:



Now I don't care what anybody says - that's funny. OK, so the overall message might get lost in translation, but it's definitely got people talking and no doubt the hits for that online video will be skyrocketing.

Mission accomplished surely?

Football Fortunes

After a summer of turmoil, Leeds United are appearing in a live televised game for the first time this season.






OK, so it's the Johnstone's Paint Trophy, the butt of all professional football jokes since it's inception in 1983, but they face Darlington tonight on the road to Wembley. It was almost inevitable that the match presenter opened the programme with "Seven years ago, Leeds were in the Champions League", but playing in the football league trophy is hardly the worst thing that could have happened to the club lately.

After being all-but relegated last season, the club exploited a Football League loophole and entered administration due to the long-term debts the club accrued in an ill-fated drive for the Champions League, with unsecured debts totaling £100m at one point before a succession of chairman chipped away at the debt.

Football League rules meant that Leeds incurred a 10-point penalty for their financial situation but, as they were effectively relegated anyway, the club faced the wrath of fellow Football League members.

As it emerged, it was all one big debt avoidance scheme by chairman Ken Bates, a man who himself resides in the tax-haven that is Monte Carlo.

Creditors of the club were vast, ranging from a local mobile DJ, a balloon supplier, St Gemma's Hospice and the St John's Ambulance but it was four main parties that were of major interest in this remarkable saga.

Whilst their was a number of creditors, the bulk of the debt was owed to four parties. Astor Holdings, Krato Trust, Forward Sports Fund and HMRC - the tax man to you and me. But here's the twist: Nobody had ever heard of the former three firms, they were based at various parts of the globe, including the British Virgin Islands, where businesses can set themselves up almost anonymously. The link was that Bates was attached or associated with the three firms all along. He was in a win-win situation. 75% of a creditors vote was needed for a new ownership of the club, yet Bates himself was attached to 45% of the creditors.

Bates promptly made an offer to creditors - you would get 1p back for every £1 you were owed. That meant that a local hospice, who were owed more than £800, would get little more that £8. However, in line with Football League regulations, all 'football creditors' had to be paid. That meant that former players, owed hundreds of thousands of pounds, would receive every penny.

The offer didn't go down too well with the tax-man, who challenged the resulting CVA.

I could go on here but I'll bore you. Long story short, the CVA was scrapped, against Football League rules, and after much uncertainty over whether the club would be allowed to compete, they were eventually, at the eleventh hour, granted entry to League One - with a 15-point deduction and no FA membership.

There was one other Yorkshire side though who weren't so lucky.

Scarborough FC are another football club who had been teetering on the brink of collapse for a number of years.

As the debts mounted, the solution seemed to be to leave their home at Seamer Road and move to a new, purpose built ground on the outskirts of the city. There nothing wrong with the McCain Stadium, I went their myself whilst following Farsley Celtic last season and as a Conference North ground, there few, if any that were better. But the site was prime land for property developers. Flats and apartments were starting to surround the ground and the "Seadogs" wanted to cash-in on the housing boom.

But local politics got in the way. A covenant existed on the site that restricted its use only to sporting activities. There was no way that the site could be sold to a property developer without the covenant being lifted. Despite the club's best efforts to convince the authorities that this plan would save the club, Scarborough Borough Council refused to budge.

Inevitably, the club was wound up. A new club has formed, Scarborough Athletic, in the Northern Counties East League and the club, an offshoot from a side that was facing Chelsea in the FA Cup in 2004, will face Kirkbymoorside this coming Saturday as part of a league campaign that will take in Rainworth Miners Welfare and the Leeds Metropolitan University team.

There are probably intricacies and details that I'm probably not aware of in the case of Scarborough FC, but from the outset, it seems a shame that a local authority was so short-sighted when it came to the state of the club. After insisting that the site at Seamer Road could only be used for sport, they now have a site with no sports team which will, in all likelihood, be sold off to a property developer.

I also type this just hours after Widnes Vikings RLFC themselves entered administration.

In the chase for promotion, they banked heavily on a result which, on Sunday, never came. Today the club are counting the cost of that ambition and, although it would seem unlikely, the sport could lose one of it's great names.

The rugby league authorities are introducing a franchising system from 2009, which would eliminate automatic promotion and relegation and force clubs to build a long-term plan and prove that they are capable of competing in the elite division - both on and off the field. It can't come soon enough.

A Plea

On Friday night, Leeds Rhinos ended their home campaign by booking their place at the Rugby Super League Grand Final at Old Trafford.

A 36-6 victory over Wigan in the Final Eliminator of the play-offs means that Leeds will now face St Helens at the home of Manchester United for the right to be crowned Super League champions and after queuing for around 2 and a half hours from 7:50am on Saturday, I had my match ticket in hand.

The Grand Final itself is a fantastic concept and a great day out. The game is played in the sports traditional heartlands, Manchester City Centre opens up it's bars to supporters of all clubs without the need for the heavy police presence that accompanies certain other sports and the game itself is as tense as anything ever seen in a sporting arena. A full season of work comes down to 80 minutes.

That photo was taken in 2004 - when Leeds won the championship for the first time in 32 years and it was an unforgettable day. It also showed that even Leeds' rugby team can do something that Leeds United can't do - win at Old Trafford. ;)

But there is one downside. One blight on the evening that spoils the day for all involved - air horns.

Despite the various signs displayed at every turnstile informing you that such items are banned from all British sporting stadia, street traders the length of Sir Matt Busby Way will be peddling these infernal horns to people stupid enough to buy them. As soon as the gates open and you reach your seat, you are guaranteed to be sat in front of some brat who insists pointing his new-found toy directly at your ear lobe.

Some of us see sense. There is a bloke selling the same offending articles at Headingley, standing on St Michael's Lane before every home game. Despite this, I have never heard an air horn sound in the ground for as long as I can remember - and I don't think that's down to the eagle-eyed stewards telling purchasers where to shove the offending object before they enter the ground. Quite how that seller earns a living is quite intriguing.

So anyway - it's time to take a stand. If you're going to the Grand Final on Saturday - don't buy air horns. Don't even think about it - just don't.

I even made a crappy photoshop banner to start my campaign. Feel free to steal it if you wish.

Ice Hockey is funny

The NHL came to London this week in the first of many attempts by the Americans to spark some interest from Europe in sports that, generally speaking, only Americans play.




We've got Basketball and American Football yet to come, but the National Hockey League took centre stage this weekend as the Anaheim Ducks played the LA Kings in two NHL regular season fixtures.

The aim of the game is to build a team of big, angry, violent, toothless Canadians, give them a stick and some ice skates and get them to score more goals than the opposition whilst also trying to start as many fights as possible in the three periods of play - simple really.

As it turned out, LA won the first game 4-1 whilst the Ducks won the second game 4-1.

Personally, the main reason I subscribed to NASN (aside from the fact that it comes bundled with Setanta) was for the almost wall-to-wall NHL coverage and there is a hell of a lot of skill involved besides just trying to knock as many teeth out of an opponents gum as possible, even if that is the biggest crowd puller. A bit like this one between the Philadelphia Flyers and Owatta Senators:



But in the world of sporting hard-men, there's always one who's on standby ready to make a pillock of himself and in this blog, we pay homage to Calgary Flames hard-nut Dion Phaneuf.

Enjoy!

Know your market

Every now and again, the local free-paper that sometimes turns up is stuffed with leaflets for local window cleaners, drive tarmac'ers and the local supermarkets.



This week, said paper did turn up, with said offers leaflet from said supermarkets.

Now a quick browse through the offers of cheap fish fingers, tinned soups and of course, booze, brought to my attention a drink known as "Red Square".

This Red Square happens to be a vodka-mixer jobbie that is packaged "RTD" (Ready-to-drink, apparently). But what intrigued me more is the tag-line: "Ibiza in a Can".

Now at first it puzzled me as to how you could fit a Balearic Island into a 500ml aluminium container. Then of course, it hits you as to what their audience actually is. The idea of Ibiza that they want to get across isn't sandy beaches, blistering sun and blue seas, it's expensive nightclubs, pissed-up revellers and sick in the streets. Red Square, naturally, prefers to say that the product is aimed at "18-24 year-olds". I prefer to say "aimed at the type of Chavs that watch Jeremy Kyle".

Jerry Springer wannabe Jeremy Kyle has had his chat show blasted as "human bear-baiting" by a judge this week after a studio guest was convicted assaulting another guest during a recording of the show.

Kyle's day-time talk show essentially encourages families from Britain's underclass to come on stage, get their 15 minutes of fame, swear at each other on national TV and then make an emotional pledge never to sleep with the milkman / barmaid / TV repair man ever again. All the while Kyle talks down to them from his high-and-mighty position.

It's a show that always walks the tightrope for what was acceptable and it was only a matter of time before it went too far. Like most ITV shows, it's car-crash television specifically catered for the hard-of-thinking. It's the same reason why Jerry Springer was so popular for a brief period until people started seeing through it.

At least it's good to see ITV's name getting dragged through the gutter once again. A few more premium-rate phone scandals, high profile criticisms and profit warnings and we might see the last of their garbage.

Is Graffiti "Art"?

The jailing of two teenage 'graffiti artists' for 15 and 12 months in Manchester has hit the headlines this week.








The pair caused around £13,000 worth of damage on a graffiti spree that saw them target a number of rail stations across the North West but whilst the jail sentences handed to the pair have been condemned, the issue has also re-opened a debate on the issue of this so-called 'urban art'.

On the one hand, you have those who claim that graffiti is a unique brand of art which typifies urban, inner-city life. Many of the underground walkways in Bradford City Centre used to feature this form of art in an attempt to make the subway system more appealing. Graffiti was often used to make political statements, particularly in Northern Ireland, promote under-represented subcultures and in the US, many of the world's leading brands utilise graffiti art as a form of advertising.

But on the other side of the coin, you have those who say that graffiti is nothing more than another form of vandalism, petty crime and yet another symbol of urban decay and inner-city squaller.

Most politicians, it must be said, seem to side with the latter argument and understandably so. Most graffiti isn't art at all and there's no way that the words "Daz woz 'ere" scrawled on a bus shelter would get nothing more than a derisory look from any right-minded individual.

But then take someone like "Banksy" and some of his work, which is undoubtedly impressive:


Of course, the sentences handed out to these two lads has also been questioned. Without trying to turn this into a "why give these kids 15 months when people who get much less" argument, it is excessive.

You have to question to what degree these youngsters are a danger to society and you'd also have to question what a custodial sentence will achieve which a community service wouldn't have achieved? The elder of the pair will now miss his first year of university and a year of trying to better himself to be able to contribute back to society. Instead, he's at even greater danger of turning to a life of petty crime.

Manchester, like many major cities in the UK has it's share of problems, but should clamping down on over expressive 'art' really be the priority?

Crisis Management 101

This morning's staff meeting at London 2012 HQ was probably a busy one after Channel 4's Dispatches uncovered some pretty damaging truths about the real costs of the 2012 Olympics.


Despite the warnings that the games would be astronomically over budget, barely finished on time and be a massive drain on resources, those in power tried to convince us all, even those of us outside the M25, that's we'd all benefit from London hosting the Games of the XXX Olympiad.

And last night, Channel 4 told us what only the most foolish already knew, and much more besides.

Economic research, previously hidden by the DCMS, blew out of the water the idea that we'd all be winners in the Olympic race. The 2012 organisers tried to sell us the idea that Olympic teams would be setting up camp at a hotel in Yorkshire, going for a brisk warm-up at a council-owned athletics facility in Hunslet and then jumping on the bus down the the Olympic Park. All of which was an idea that got no further than the imagination of Sebastian Coe's sound-bites and press releases.
In total, London will see investment of around £5.9bn whilst the rest of the UK loses around £4bn, that's before you factor in lost Lottery funding.

That brings us nicely onto the point that most of the press have picked up from the documentary, Seb Coe's involvement in the games, with Dispatches alleging that he had benefited to the tune of £200,000 in his role as an after-dinner speaker.

Now I'll hold my hands up and admit that, at times, Dispatches can be as objective as a Michael Moore film but in this case, it summed up what a lot of us already suspected about the Olympics. The bid party knew they had to drum up support, and so they were going to at whatever costs.

What stood out for me personally though is the number of private individuals involved and why some of these organisations were headed by very public figures. Not just some no-mark MP, but London Mayor Ken Livingston and Sport Minister Tessa Jowell for instance.

All of that allowed major public figures to conveniently skirt obligations under the Freedom of Information Act. This coming from a government that is trying to sell the idea of ID cards to us with the line "If you've nothing to hide then you've nothing to worry about."

It's little wonder that support for the game is at an all-time low. Once the Olympic bandwagon has well and truly packed-up and moved on to the next unsuspecting city, Sebastian Coe's "legacy" will be nothing more than dilapidated, grass-roots sports facilities starved of lottery funding, a East London community dismantled, an Olympic village sold off to wealthy property developers and a budget over-run that would make Montreal look like a bargain.

A day at the races

Nope, not horse racing. On Sunday I tootled along to Donington Park for the World Series by Renault weekend.





I've not really been a massive motorsport fanatic. I was one of many that became disenchanted with F1 after Rubens Barrichello pulled up before the finish line to let Michael Schumacher take the chequered flag at the 2002 Austrian Grand Prix. From then, I saw it nothing more than 24 moving cigarette adverts (and later, post tobacco advertising ban, mobile phone adverts), some evidently much quicker than others, all following team orders in order to contrive a result.

But I've tended to keep a ear to the ground anyway, especially in the lesser known versions, British Touring cars, World Rally Championship, that kind of thing.

And so we headed to Leicestershire for an event, armed with free tickets (a Yorkshireman doesn't turn down a freebie) to see what you don't tend to get with Bernie Ecclestone's offering these days, some competitive racing and fan friendly fun.


There was plenty going on as well. There were five races that day and two exibitions. One of which was of Renault's Formula One cars of yesteryear, including the John Player special once used by Ayrton Senna:


They then broke out the current Renault R26 racing car, which proved almost impossible to photograph:


But it did get a little easier as the day went on.......


There were plenty of side-stalls as well and it all made for a fantastic day out, all complimentary of Renault Sport and one that probably be attending again. Ignore the fairgrounds, interactive games and simulators in the infield where you got to queue for ages, there was still plenty to keep you occupied between races.The infield still had exhibitions from the Renault Collectors and Classic Car club and after we'd had a wander around there, we headed into the Paddock.

Here you had plenty of photo opportunities, chances to talk to drivers / mechanics, classic car shows, collectors car show, it was a petrol-head's paradise.


There were obviously people there who didn't fall into the "casual viewer" category like I did and they felt right at home talking about gear mechanisms, power-to-weight ratios and slip-differentials, stuff that goes way above my head.

Me? My interests were elsewhere....


Who said motorsport was dull?!