Support Leeds Arena

Those of you who live in Leeds may well be aware of the current campaign for a Leeds Arena being trumpeted by the Yorkshire Evening Post and various figures in the local music scene.

There have been rumblings of a Leeds Arena for many years. After Queen's Hall closed down in 1989, Leeds has been left without a high capacity music venue whilst state-of-the-art arena's have been built in Sheffield, Manchester and Newcastle.

Plans were drawn up in the late 90's for a 10,000 seat arena to be built alongside Elland Road stadium, complete with Ice Hockey and Basketball franchises, yet those proposals were abandoned after Leeds United's financial troubles began to get out of hand.

In the meantime, venues such as the Refectory and Leeds Met have their place, but are nowhere near big enough to fill the void and music fanatics from Leeds are still left with the prospect of late-night journeys up the M1 or across the M62 to see world famous acts.

In 2004, private investor Patrick Nally came knocking on the door of Leeds City Council with his own cash. However, whilst he was ready to get his chequebook out, the council were seemed more interested in converting the Town Hall into a music venue, disregarding the fact that both the capacity and acoustics of the building were unsuitable for a top-class venue. The problems with Supertram didn't exactly go down well either.

Then we tried Millennium Square.
Millennium Square is effectively just a public square. It has been used in the past for art exhibitions, an outdoor ice rink every winter and it's a popular venue for fans to watch major football matches on the big screen that's attached to the facing Carriageworks Theatre. This time, the square would be tested for it's suitability as a rock venue and local bands Embrace and then Kaiser Chiefs played gig's in front of 6,000 people crammed into a public square directly outside Leeds General Infirmary.
Whilst the venue has it's place like most overs and whilst the gig's were a major success, Millennium Square was added to the list of "not quite suitable venues".

Then Robbie Williams came to town, bringing chaos, 180,000 people and traffic carnage to the area of Roundhay, closing 11 local schools and outraging the local residents. That has revitalised the current campaign behind Leeds Arena.

The music acts are wanting to come to Leeds, the Sheffield Steelers Ice Hockey team want a fixture with a bit more rivalry than their current "derby" against Nottingham and I dare say that fans both sides of the Pennines would relish a Leeds v Manchester roses battle.

The city needs a top quality entertainment, sports and function centre. The economic gain and prestige that comes with hosting major acts and events is something that Leeds lacks against it's neighbours in Sheffield and Manchester. All the proposed sites would benefit the local area bringing regeneration and business to some neglected parts of the city. This is long overdue.

Sign the petition and support the Leeds Arena.

We're All Going to Die and There's Nothing We Can Do About It

At least that's the message that seems to be coming out this morning. Apparently, the UK is top of the Al Qaeda hit list and that it's only a matter of time before they strike again.








The claim is that the July 7th bombings in London were "just the beginning" and that "complex cells" of terrorists are working under one "master cell" that will bring down Western society to a crumbling wreck.

Yet again we have fancy scaremongering from Downing Street. Just from reading the article, you get the impression that these "warnings" have just been made up by someone as they were stood in the shower this morning.
Interestingly, the statement comes only a week or so after some bad publicity about the Government's ID card proposal, an idea which they believe would stop terrorism and make everything fine and dandy again.
Yep, according to Blair and Co, ID cards are the solution. OK, so the terrorists that attacked London last Summer were legitimate UK residents and would have been able to legally obtain an ID card anyway, but apart from that, ID cards are the solution to all of life's problems.

So scaremongering is the order of the day. I only wish we had cool, simple to understand colour-coded warnings like the US do.
I don't deny that we live in dangerous times but at the same time, I'm sceptical of the notion that every inner-city suburb in the UK has an underground network of extremists wanting to cause mass destruction. Terrorism has always existed, so why is it suddenly a major problem today?

Is anyone else not quite buying into this new "terror threat"?

How Difficult is it to Buy a 9-Volt Battery?

You'd think it'd be easy wouldn't you? Walk into the super market, find a big sign dangling from the ceiling that says "Electricals" in big letters, pick up said battery, take to tills, pay and job done. What could go wrong?

Unfortunatly, in a West Leeds suburb, it's actually very difficult, given the incompetencies of the businesses tasked with selling such products.

For those of you unaware with the area of Bramley, we have a small local shopping complex whioch consists of a supermarket, about 30 smaller shops and an office tower, all housed in one of the most hideous buildings in Yorkshire.

At one time, Morrisons used to be the tennants of the supermarket complex and it was fine. Morrisons are the forth biggest supermarket chain in the country and it's fair to say that they know what they are doing.
However, when they build a brand new flagship store 2 miles away in Kirkstall, it looked as if competition laws would mean they'd have to leave. In the end, only local pressure got them to stay. Five years later though and they were gone.

After Ken Morrison decided to buy out Safeway, that left Bramley with two Morrisons supermarkets. Anti-monopoly legislation ordered them to close/sell one of them and so Bramley Centre lost it's supermarket.

But then, after a few months, in stepped Somerfield to take the crown and Bramley Centre had a supermarket again, horray!?

Well not quite.

You see Somerfield arn't a supermarket, however much they might like to think they are. They are more the "mini-mart" type of business, think of a big Spar and you're probably on the right lines.
Because of that, they place is empty. They don't have the buying power of the "big four", so practically everything on the shelf costs more than elsewhere, the are no staff - none at all, there is no signage, the product choice is sparse to say the least and the overall "shopping experience" is just, well, dull.

The fact of the matter is, even though it's a small unit (by supermarket standards) in an area that could hardly be described as affluent, they have taken on something that is far too much for them. Where the old Morrison's supermarket was consistently busy and always well-staffed, this Somerfield effort is akin to a ghost town.
I suppose it's a classic case brand loyalty. The old "Moggies" was well-loved by the locals. This new upstart is just shunned.

So anyway, back to the battery. From entering the shop to leaving took 14 minutes - just for a 9v PP3 battery.
After spending around 6 minutes trying each and every unsigned aisle, I managed to find a shelf, incompletely priced and ticketed, with the said battery.
From there, of the 20-some cash desks, two were open - that's right - two. The other 8 minutes were spend queuing at one of the choice of till counters.

Somerfield have been in that unit for about six months now. By my reckoning, they'll be gone in from there in another 18.

The Best Form of Flattery

Ask any working journalist, be it a writer for a multi-million selling national tabloid or a local free paper and they'll tell you the same thing: Hate mail is the best compliment you can receive.






In fact, it's that much of a compliment, your editor will probably ask questions of you if you didn't get any. He'd rather have the postman bring a bulging sack of letters from readers who absolutely despise anything you write than get the odd e-mail from readers telling him how lovely you are.

Hate mail shows that people are reading what you write and not only that, it shows you are getting a reaction. People don't complain if they agree with something, but they will sure as hell moan if they disagree. If you get a reaction, you get noticed, circulation increases, more people read your views and you get a bigger reaction - it's as close as an example of the snowball effect as a snowball rolling down a steep hill.

So I couldn't help but break a wry smile today when I notice a few extra comments in some of my article, all from the same person who to be perfectly honest, isn't in 100% agreement with what I've said in the past week or so.

Here's some examples, accompanied by my usual dismissive reaction:

In my "Big Brother phone trouble" entry:

Get off your high horse you self righteous PRICK!!!!Who the hell do you think you are patronising the great British public?

Self righteous prick? Patronising? I'm sorry if I've missed the boat here, but spending £1.50 per call on TV programme is entertaining, enjoyable and a productive use of time and money how exactly?

In my "DVD Bonus features" entry:

Why don't you go and buy your own DVD Mr award winning film maker! I hope there's no shitty extras with your 'bafta nominated' film!

Firstly, it wasn't a BAFTA, it was a First Light Film Award for "Best Comedy 2005". It just so happened I was the "Director of Photography" on the said prouction. Not quite a BAFTA granted, but not many 17/18 year old's could boast one of those. Secondly, there were no extras. In fact I've probably got loads of out-takes on disc somewhere. I might post them one day just for you if I can be bothered to look for it.

In my "Fat Northerners" entry:

Why don't you face the fact that you're a bunch of northern monkeys, incapable of understanding dietary advice.

From your picture you look like you could do with losing a few pounds yourself.

Oh dear. You caught me. Right! From now on, no more booze and no more 3:00am kebabs.


To be honest though, this is probably just the work of a wind-up artist. Given that the perpetrator's user profile is almost certainly a spoof of the current UK Transport Secretary Douglas Alexander.

Still, nice to know I'm hitting some nerves eh?

Today's Outrage: Outraged Football Fans are Outraged

The other day I was banging on about how useless the BBC is when it comes to getting opinions from the general public through it's "Have your Say" section on BBC Online due to the moronic comments is attracts.






Well it seems that BBC Radio Five Live isn't just as bad, it's even worse. Rather than asking a suitable question and letting it get taken over by idiots, Five Live start with a stupid question and then take the results of that to get comments from one of their multitude of 'experts'.

In this instance, they devised a poll asking if England manager Steve McLaren was suitable for the job. Nothing wrong with that at first glance. But then you learn that the poll was started immediately after England's loss to Croatia.
The result? A host of disgruntled England fans phoning / texting / clicking about how disgruntled they the Sun had told them to be about England's performance.

Ignoring the fact that this happened to be a very tough game against a very good side, one which England were probably going to lose anyway before you consider that England had players missing through injury and suspension , what were the Beeb actually trying to achieve? They most likely knew that asking a group full of football fans after a defeat would get a reaction and so, in a typical act of lazy, poor quality journalism, they exploited that to give them a story to run a few days later.

Next weeks poll - We go into a packed council estate pub at 11:00pm on Friday and ask "Who wants a fight?". Find out the results next week.

Who to Support

Today see's the finale of the engage Super League season with the Grand Final at Old Trafford.





After the National League's wrapped up their season last week, now is it's the turn of the countries elite league.

But as I take my seat at the home of Manchester United this evening I'm left with a conundrum: Which team do I support.

A Leeds fan at heart, I'm now faced with the decision between today's finalists, St Helens and Hull FC.
I think I'm plumping for St Helens. I don't particuarly like either side, but Hull less-so (and a Hull fan's feeling towards Leeds will be similar).

The Saints are going for the treble, after already wrapping up the Challenge Cup and Minor Premiership and play an outstanding brand of Rugby, so I'll probably be a Saint for the day.

It'll be a cracking game though so make sure you watch it. If you haven't watched Rugby League before, have a gander at this - it'll beat that gash on Prem Plus this evening.

Oh, and make sure you read my match preview as well ;)

Flogging a Dead Horse?

If you believe the likes of Jack Thompson, video games are the root of all evil, are the single biggest cause in the break-down of morality and will see our society crumble to the stage where we have to surround our homes with bunkers and barbed-wire to protect ourselves from the masses of axe-wielding 13-year olds.


It's almost inevitable that when a teenager attacks, or even kills someone else, there's almost always mention of a violent video game or movie. Perhaps one of the most high profile being the infamous "Manhunt Murder" in 2004.

Today's announcement that Microsoft are to announce safety settings on it's XBOX 360 console which would prevent games with certain age rating being played without a password would therefore go someway to halting the inevitable youth crime spree then surely?

Well....no. Not exactly.

You see, in the very same article, the BBC website links to this story which states that despite crystal clear guidelines on how suitable a game is for various age groups, the public are just too ignorant towards them, or too stupid to understand a two-digit number.

Video games rating are very clear.
All games now have a white sticker on the back with an age rating displayed in bold black letters. It's a simple system. For those games that are deemed to be violent or have large portions of content such as Manhunt or Grand Theft Auto, the BBFC (who classify all films in the UK) steps in and places not only a recommendation, but a legal restriction. Basically, if a film or game has a BBFC rating of "18", it isn't just advised you don't play it if you are under the age of 18, it is illegal for you even buy the thing.
So, with all that legislation, how do 13-year-olds get their hands on a game where the intention is to car-jack, smuggle drugs from Columbia, pick-up prostitutes and then shoot them in the face?
Simple, the parents. Prior to the release of San Andreas in 2004, the Grand Theft Auto brand had sold 32 million copies worldwide and San Andreas itself is thought to have sold a further 10 million.
Anyone with half a mind can see from those figure alone that ratings and advisory logos are beyond useless.

The problem is that many people of that age don't understand the computing or games industry. You see it at Christmas with the mad rush for PlayStation's and XBOX's. People are running around like a lunatic to buy one for their kids, but that haven't a clue what they are actually buying. People still have the impression that video games are like 'Pong' and 'Frogger' with the cute characters and innocent play, not realising that the games industry today is much like the Hollywood movie industry, with the capability to create a chainsaw wielding manic with frighting accuracy.

I'm not going into the debate as to whether video games do affect teenagers to the point they themselves become violent because, quite simply, I don't know the answer (and nobody really does). There are two different camps. The gamers will tell you that there is nothing wrong with violent games as there is a clear distinction between reality and fantasy whilst the pro-censorship camp will claim that games attempt to depict reality.
I myself have experienced these games and don't feel the urge to hit someone over the head with a baseball bat but we all work in different ways. I've never been one to imitate people, plenty of other people are.

What I will say though is that Microsoft are wasting their time in the same way that Sky wasted their time putting parental controls on their Satellite receivers. People make their own choices what to allow their children to access and no amount of marketing or legislation will make any considerable alteration.
Perhaps Bill Gates realises that to some extent and is just launching this publicity stunt to get the anti-violence mob of his back for a little while in the run-up to the years biggest sales period.

Auntie's Gone Barmy

The BBC, a British Institution. A media organisation that is respected the World over, free from commercial pressures and free to operate without conforming to the ideology of powerful press baron.





So with all that, you'd expect the BBC to be providing only the best possible quality content for it's various mediums, including television, radio and online?
You'd expect that, but you'd be disappointed.

I've never been a major fan of the Beeb's "Have Your Say" section and today's current topic sums it up perfectly. The discussion is "Why is the North fatter than the South?
What sort of discussion is that exactly. Whilst there might well be government research to show that people in the North are more prone to smoking, drinking, eating and the like, which half-wit decided to throw the discussion open to the public?

Now, the discussion has just been littered with moronic comments. I've said before that whilst the BBC discussions are moderated, they sadly aren't moderated for stupidity.

Here's a few pearls of wisdom:

People from the north are far less affluent than their southerly counterparts and tend to view life from a day to day perspective. Instead of thinking if I invest £20,000 in XYZ company today it will be worth £100,000 in 15 years time they think, I might well be dead tomorrow, so I will go and spend my last £40 on 5 pints, a packet of fags and a kebab. - Brian from Fife

OK, so let's ignore the fact that Leeds is now the second biggest financial district in the country and the growing affluence of cities like Manchester, Newcastle and Liverpool.

Apparently Northerners love gravy with everything and alot of foods consumed with gravy is fattening! - Jag from Wolverhampton

Spot the Soccer AM viewer who can't tell the difference between reality and a tongue-in-cheek phrase.

It's colder up North. They need the extra insulation - Jay, UK

Spot the idiot who thinks he's funny.

Simply, they do not eat real food. They just eat fast food. Burgers and french fries - Ali from Doa

Brilliant! "They" eat rubbish! Use the word "they" in a discussion about a racial issue and it'll go straight in the trash can. Yep, us Northerners all eat complete garbage.

With the collapse of the coal mining, steelworks and shipbuilding industries
there is little else left for them to fight the flab. - Peter, Borehamwood

Oh eye, since t'pit went under we've just bin sat on ther arses for't past 15 year.

The reason is that the people in the north are less likely to work for a living. People who work for a living are more likely to think that you eat to live rather than live to eat. - Jeanne, France

Unemployment rate in Yorkshire & Humber : circa 4.7-5%. Unemployment rate in London: 7.2%. Guess again Jeanne.

I've always said the the BBC "Have Your Say" page is probably the biggest waste on bandwidth on the entire Internet. Having said that, it's probably more amusing than their latest 'new' comedy.

It's a Bonus

After heading into Leeds this afternoon, I've come home with the obligatory bundle of shopping bags. Some of it necessary, some of it not so necessary.








I ventured into HMV for a quick browse and, being a sucker for DVD offers, I eventually left with a copy of one of the funniest movies ever to grace the big screen: Airplane!
It was reduced to £7 and is the "special edition" with oodles of "bonus features" that the other, cheaper disc doesn't have. But now I think about it, in true Yorkshire fashion, why the hell have I paid an extra £2 for the special edition?

Most DVD movies do this. When a box-office blockbuster gets released on DVD, you usually have the standard version which will retail for about £15 and a "special/limited edition" which would set you back about £20 and more often than not, people will go for the bonus version because they think that they are getting more. But what do you actually get?

• Firstly, you get a fancy case. This could be a cardboard sleeve with some fancy embossing on the front, or a really fancy metal case. Either of these will get thrown away because they don't fit in your DVD rack.
• You sometimes get some cards/stickers with scenes from the film. These always, without fail, get lost.
• You get lots of deleted scnes. These are scenes which the producers and directors decided were not good enough to be in the real film, and so they charge you extra to see them. The problem is, you never watch them because the producers and directors decided those scenes were not good enough to be in the real film.
• You get a "blooper real" where Hollywood actors/actresses make themselves look like idiots. You don't watch these because you can see Hollywood actors/actresses make themselves look like idiots on the news, in magazines, TV programmes and radio interviews.
• You get what is known as an "electronic press kit" or "EPK". This is effectively charging you for something that you could get for free if you bothered to ask.
• You get a trailer. This is something that tries to entice you into watching the movie. These are always at the end of the DVD, after you have watched the movie.
• You get a commentary from the actors. You don't bother with this because your eyes allow you to see what is going on without a Hollywood actor/actress telling you what you are seeing.
• You get an interview with the actor/actress who bleats on about how "emotionally connected" he/she was with the script / character / storyline / moral point / director / cameraman / pay-cheque. You don't watch this because you dismiss it as bullshit.

So, for you extra dosh, you get a whole raft of pointless features. Yet we still buy them.

The sad truth is, we are all suckers to big business and mass marketing really.

Big Bother

As phone scams go, Big Brother is up there with the best of them.






It's a Channel Four TV programme, completely funded by sponsors, encouraging people to vote for their favourite, or least favourite contestant using a premium rate phone or SMS number. Then, once the voting lines have closed, the unaudited winner is announced. Brilliant! What could possibly go wrong with a concept like that? A concept so good, it's also used by shows like X-Factor and Strictly Come Dancing.

Well, the problem comes when you try and take the proverbial urine out of your audience.

For those of you that are unaware, the Big Brother voting system encourages the audience, to vote to eliminate the brainless, talentless, fame-hungry contestant they least like from the house, which the audience duly did.
However, in a desperate attempt to boost flagging ratings, the producers pushed their luck too far.
From the contestants already evicted, Big Brother then told the public to vote again to keep out their least favourite, meaning that some would be sent back into the house. They had effectively misled the voters initially on what they were actually "paying for" and were then asking people to "pay again".
That led to more than 2,300 complaints to Ofcom and Ictis and has now landed Channel Four a £50,000 legal bill.

But despite all that, this bit has got me:

On reaching its decision, Icstis did accept that Big Brother was an "editorially inventive show".

How exactly is locking twelve delinquents in a house and then proceeding to mislead equally stupid people into phoning a premium rate number not once, but twice "editorially inventive"? The original concept may have been good and the first series may have gauged interest, but Big Brother is far from inventive. It is a tired concept which is resorting to desperate measures to maintain it's existence. I'd go as far to say that the only reason we are still subjected to this programme every summer is because it is profitable for Channel Four.

Channel Four is a good channel, with excellent programming. It's just a shame that Big Brother lets down it's portfolio.

Idiocy in Academia.

Time for a consumer review:

The summer's over and I'm finally back at college. It's my third and final year and so now there's no time for mucking about and skipping lectures to drink something rank in the Student Union.


The only thing is, it would seem that the staff at Leeds Trinity & All Saints College are still on their summer vacation.

The confusion started before I even went back. I popped in to pay my tuition fees around a week before college opened. On my arrival at the finance office, I'm met with a horrified look of someone seemingly scared senseless at the sight of £1174 in cash. Presumably they're used to students just giving them "mummy and daddy's" bank details to set-up a standing order. After all, it would have given them lots of needless admin to do (government funded/subsidised institutions always enjoy needless admin work)

Yesterday, after opening two weeks later than practically every other HE institution in the country due to renovation work they invite us all in to register, although on the same day that lectures are due to start.

Straight away that seemed like a cack-handed way of doing things, given the administration involved and confidently predicted absolute pandemonium. But on the supposed plus side, it could be done entirely with a few mouse clicks this year.
That's where it all went pear-shaped. The system, to put it bluntly, didn't work. For hours upon hours all people gt were time-out messages, errors, log-on fails and so-on. After restarting the web server twice, database server and practically anything that was plugged into an electric socket, the IT clowns still got nowhere near. Instead they suggested we all try again tomorrow (you can imagine the scene the following day) but there was a problem with that. No registration means no student loan payments and obviously as students, that money is needed at this time of year more than any other, what with the need to pay rent cheques, buy the necessary books and what not, so nobody wanted to leave despite how futile an exercise trying to register actually was.

I gave up and tried at home. Only blind luck eventually got me registered.

Today the problems continued. The online timetable system hasn't worked so half of the students couldn't get access to their timetable because the module codes were wrong and those that did get through were given duff information. That resulted in me missing one lecture this morning.

Surely then, you'd think that things couldn't possibly get any worse? That in all this pandemonium, they'd finally wake up and get things sorted? Well, not exactly. I was handed back someone else's essay feedback for starters and the college are still trying to bullshit people with regards to car parking.
Last year the college started charging £25 for students to park their car on a college campus miles from civilisation. The college is in a rather affluent area of Leeds and as a result, First Leeds don't operate any meaningful bus service to the area, as practically all the residents drive their own Mercs or BMW's. That means that driving is the only real way of getting their and back. The problem with charging for parking permits is that you push drivers into parking on the nearby streets, which has created serious safety hazards for people pulling out of the official car parks onto a busy A-road.
In an attempt to stop that, and email was circulated stating that "the police will hand out penalty notices to anyone parked on Brownberrie Lane or Lea Lane". That "threat" fails on two counts:
1. There are no parking restrictions on the named roads. No yellow lines, no clearways, no nothing.
2. The police are no longer responsible for parking enforcement. That responsibility now falls to Leeds City Council in order to free up police time so that they can do some real police work.

As a customer friendly institution Leeds Trinity & All Saints come at the bottom of the ladder by some distance. The past two years suggested that and less than 48 hours this year has only lowered my opinion of them. No other business can/would treat their customers with such contempt yet still expect them to pay in excess of £6000 in tuition fees over the course of three years and expect to get away with it. They've already made my bastards list, but that probably isn't a grand enough gesture.
I could go on to mention the persistently cancelled lectures, unpunctual lecturers, assignments that are handed out late, tutor strikes, a canteen that shows displays similar attitudes towards customer care and amateurish IT infrastructure but I really don't have the energy.

Two day's into the new academic term and I suspect the problems have only just begun at TASC.

Where Did I Go?

Where have I gone? I just keep getting the dreaded 404 message!









Some of you might have had trouble finding this today if you were typing in the URL or following a link to the main index page. Even I had trouble finding it!

Anyhoo, a few forums show I'm not the only person with a vanished blog and it looks like I've solved it now (touch wood).

Keep on blogging.

If You Don't Like Flying, Look Away Now.

This story made me chuckle today. Just like when your car heads to that big car garage in the sky and you reluctantly take it to the local scrapper (or used to until the European environmentalists got involved), it seems airlines do the same.


As the article says, most commercial airliners have a life span of circa 30 years, and so when that 30 years is up they get replaced as it's deemed not to be cost effective to keep maintaining them.
So what happens is that you end up with these 'aeroplane scrapyards' dotted on various parts of the globe. The BBC, obviously intrigued by such a phenomenon, decided to head to Chateauroux in France to investigate.

One line in the piece interests me though. This plane graveyard happens to be at a freight airport, hidden away from the public and according to airport manager Martin Fraissignes, this is a deliberate choice.

"it's good this is a freight airport which doesn't take passengers - the sight of these smashed up planes would do nothing for their nerves."

Presumably then, Mr Fraissignes hasn't flown from Perpignan Riversaltes airport in the South of the country?

Whilst there in March for the Leeds Rhinos game against Catalan Dragons, we got a Taxi on the Sunday morning to take us to the airport. Surrounding the airport is basically just one road which which goes from the motorway around the perimeter of the airport. As you approach, you are greated with the following sights:

(pictures from http://www.airliners.net)

Now, I'm not exactly the World's best flyer myself. I can manage it and in most cases the most uncomfortable part for me is the 10-year old brat behind me who's had one too many smarties, but the idea of travelling at 500mph at an altutude of 30,000ft in what is effectively an aluminium tube isn't really my idea of fun.

That taxi ride in Perpignan didn't really help.

www.hat is going on?

The Internet is great isn't it? Today, we can find millions of pointless video clips, share all our personal information with annonymous strangers, read jokes about Chuck Norris and David Hasstlehoff, access countless photographs of fat people and of course, View from the Bar, all at the touch of a button.

Yep, the Internet is a great place, that is whilst it's working.

On Monday night, my surfing time was abbruptly cut-off without notice. After the usual trick of resetting the router, re-inputting the account details didn't work so I left it til morning. It was late and the chances were that it was probably an issue at there end and even if it was something wrong with my equipment, there was nothing I could do at 10:30pm.

So morning comes and still no Internet. Again I try a few restarts, re-inputting the account user name but to no avail. A change in leads, filters and a disconnection of the phones still didn't do anything.

So I decide to phone my ISP, Pipex. After eventually working my way through the myriad of automated answering systems my call gets "put in a queue" to be answered within the next "10 minutes or more". Whilst initially the prospect of listening to Vivaldi and Green Sleeves for 10 minutes would be considered a form of mental tourture, in some ways it was reassuring to know that I presumably wasn't the only person having trouble.

So I keep listening, and listening, and listening all the while a pre-recorded message keeps telling me how I can get help on "their extensive website" which to say is a minor irritation would be an understatement.
Why do Internet service providers (and Pipex arn't the only guilty party here) insist on directing you to a website, when the smart money for your reason for calling would be due to the fact that you can't connect? Surely the number of calls to a tech support for that reason would be hitting towards 90% and as far as the other 10% is concerned, anyone who has to phone a hotline because they can't open up Microsoft Outlook, isn't really the sort of customer I'd be overly bothered about keeping.

Then I finally got through. I explained the problem and what happened when and the fuy on the other end of the phone started asking the usual questions.
But this is where tech support people get stumped. You see, most customers would be straight on the phone the very minute their line attenuation fluctuates by more than 2db demanding an explaination. I'm not like that and actually try to work things out for myself. After all, computing is as much about learning as it is about knowing.
So when I started answering yes to the usual 'run-of-the-mill' questions like "How you reset the router?" "Have you re-entered your user name?" "Have you changed the microfilters?" "Are you using the Master socket?" "Have you disconnected the phones and any other non-ADSL equipment?" and "Have you removed any extensions?", they didn't really know where to go.

They then gave me a 'test' username, which would establish a connection with the BT exchange and verify if I had any signal drop. Firstly that didn't work the a router so they sent me away to try and source a modem from somewhere.

To cut a long story short, blind luck eventually got me around the problem. It turned out that the modem inside the router was on the blink. A USB router at least established a connection before it froze due to a driver error. I then this morning went and got a replacement router, although I was reluctent due to the fact that Sky will be giving me one once I've switched to them but needs a need, I've got three people in the house all wanting to get online.

So far everything seems to be going OK. View from the Bar and The One Pointer are back online folks!

Welcome to Hell

There isn't much to do on Monday's. The Boomtown Rats didn't just write a song about Monday's for nothing, nobody likes them. It's a shame then that Monday quite often happens to be my day-off.


So in my pursuit of something to do, I'll usually end up going for a wander around the City Centre, a local park or shopping centre.
But today I got the urge for adventure and decided to go slightly further and head to Sheffield and the Meadowhall Shopping Centre. That was mistake number one.

There's a good reason why Sheffield's gargantuan shopping mall is dubbed 'MeadowHell', but the fact remains that not even the devil himself could devise a method of torture so intense. Having said that, some of my family do live in Sheffield so I really should have known better.

Getting there is a pain in itself. The M1 southbound usually gets busy as you approach Sheffield and always has done, but attempting to turn off at Junction 34 is a battle even Goliath would shy away from. Firstly, J34 has a whole lane dedicated to it. That creates the problem of people from the outside trying to pull to the left whilst at the same time, HGV's try to pull out from the left to the centre lane. Obviously, it's every man for himself, so nobody is prepared to give an inch as they eye a prized space in the left-hand lane.

Having eventually left the M1, I then tried to negotiate the myriad of car parks and traffic management systems that lead you in and around the centre. Sheer luck found me a space to park and I was on my way in to the "Land of Shopportunity", or so the sign above the door told me.

The first thing that hits you about these sorts of places is that they appear to be made entirely for the benefit of retail moguls such as Philip Green, DSG and John Cauldwell. All you see are the high-street chains that over recent years have completely saturated the retail market and left consumers with little or no choice when it comes to 'shopping around' (see the trouble I had trying to buy a PC earlier this month). Phones4U and Carphone Warehouse have at least two separate units in the centre, Republic have two and the number of units belonging to Phil Green (owner of Topman, Burton, Dorothy Perkins and others as part of his Arcadia Group) must be heading towards double figures.

Having spend an hour or so and about £40, it became apparent how people don't seem to realise what little choice we have. I'm all for sucessful businesses, but I at least like to see competition having possitve impacts on product quality and price.

Meadowhell does have 'The Lanes' which is a small corner of the store dedicated to smaller independent stores and some of the products on offer were things you would never expect to find on the high street. A proper music store for one, shop dedicated to Formula 1 memorabillia and a hardware shop that was staffed by someone who looked like he'd know what he was talking about, rather than the 17-year-olds you get in B&Q who'd struggle to wire a 13amp plug.
A walk down here is very refreshing and makes my somewhat happy that Leeds hasn't gone down the 'out-of-town shopping centre' route like cities such as Sheffield, Newcastle and to a lesser extent Manchester, instead prefering to harness the attractions of the City Centre. We do have the White Rose Centre, but that's akin to a large supermarket and not much else.

Leaving wasn't so much a problem. Meadowhall's one saving grace (apart from 'The Lanes') is that it's next to the M1, making for a speedy getaway.

The Worst Product in the World?

There are times in the corporate world when ideas are thin on the ground and the net result is just a stream of crap coming off the production line.




Things like 5-blade razors, phones that play "Karma Chameleon", a remote control for a handheld games console and a 25,000 seater stadium in Huddersfield spring to mind.
However recently I've come across what I believe is the worst idea to ever hit the British retail market - sugar-free polos.

The 'mint with the hole' used to be a mixture of sugary, minty goodness. Now they've taken away half of the goodness, only the net result is much worse. Imagine trying to chew cardboard, but then think how that cardboard would taste if it was coated with tile plaster.
You could argue that it's good for you teeth. The problem is that the taste is so bad that you invariably end up putting your own sugar on, which eventually equates to about 15 times more than the total content in a whole supermarket stock room of regular polos.

Unfortunatly, it's the culmination of a new trend. Michael Moore started it by moaning about McDonalds and now, ever since Jamie Oliver has started banging on about chips, sweets and chocolate will turn us all into obese monsters, companies have started jumping on the bandwagon with their "healthy alternatives".

The thing is, these "heath crazes" are what companies thrive upon. Rather than worry about what hit their profits might take from Jamie Oliver's vendetta, it's music to the ears of marketing directors. "Healthy treats" or whatever they call them are just devices to make huge multinational corporations look all 'cute and fuzzy' and give the impression that they actually give a rats ass about your health. In some ways they do, but only from the point of view that dead people can't buy mints from the petrol station. It's just a shame people fall for it.

Healthy eating. Pah!

Kicking Them When They're Down

Watching this years series of 'The Apprentice USA' you get a strong sense of the use of product placement that goes on in the States.








Thankfully, product placement in TV programmes has been outlawed in the UK. That's why on Coronation Street, instead of asking Betty behind the bar for a pint of Boddingtons, they'll ask for a "pint". Compare that to an episode of 'Friends' for instance, where Joey comes in yelling "Boddingtons! I'd like another frosty one of those bad boys!" It's just a different world over there where not-so-sublininal advertising is king.

So back to The Apprentice. For those of you that don't know the format of the programme, it involves two teams of job hopefuls who are sent out to each perform the same task. The team that loses, either by making the least profit or by failing to impress the judges gets sent to the board room where on of them gets sent packing to the local job centre.
After Donald Trump has sent them out on a task to flog beefburgers in Times Square or convince kids into spending their money on a minature golf course there's the indignity of the board room. Here the losing side all yell and scream at each other until one person thinks "sod this, I'm shutting up". It's then up to the person with the biggest gob to stick the knive in.
Eventually, one person gets "fired" and leaves the show.

Then is when the shows producers stick the boot in. As the losing contestent does the walk of shame to the taxi, the very forst thing they see happens to be a sign with the words "Find your perfect job at Yahoo!" illuminated infront of them.
I'm fully aware how advertising works and how companies arget certain audiences, but shurely just laughing and pointing at the loser would be more subtle?

Thankfully, our version with Sir Alan Sugar is shown on the advert-free BBC.

Goodbye Blackwell

Yesterday's announcement that Leeds United had sacked manager Kevin Blackwell would hardly have come across as a suprise.







The former Sheffield United coach ended his three year stay at Elland Road, leaving the club in the relegation zone of the Coca-Cola Championship with just two wins to their name and four league goals, two of which were penalty kicks.
The clubs precarious position and home defeats to Wolverhampton and Sunderland had left the fans calling for Blackwell's head and not even a 3-1 Carling Cup victory over Barnet's second string could save him from the axe of Ken Bates.

After reaching the play-off final in Cardiff last season, United slumped to a humiliating 3-0 defeat and rumours were abound of a bust-up in the camp and those rumours still continue to circulate with regards to players seemingly not seeing eye-to-eye with Blackwell.

The problems arn't just results however. Being someone who infrequently visits Elland Rd, watching the side has been painful. Passing ability is absent, creativity has been missing for months and goals are clearly in short supply. That, coupled with ever increasing ticket prices, has driven supporters away, a problem not helped by the relitive success of the Leeds Rhinos. Yesterday's announcement was an inevitability. For a club that has always claimed that it 'deserved' to be in the Premiership ever since it's relegation 3 seasons ago, it needs a manager capable of getting it to the top flight. Blackwell, as nice a bloke as he came across to be, was out of his depth.

As for a replacement, Alan Curbishley is clearly the fans favourite whilst Claudio Ranieri, someone who has previously worked under Chairman Ken Bates, has been noticed at several United games. Bates may also be tempted to go for another old friend, Dennis Wise but Curbishley is the man in many eyes to lead Leeds back to the big time.

Supertram is Here....Well, Sort of.

Here you have it ladies and gentlemen, the answer to all of Leeds' transport problems. The "First ftr"






This is what the various transport boffins in Leeds City Council, Metro, the DfT and First Leeds claim will ease the chore of the early morning commute in the city centre and will completely make up for the city being shafted on the Supertram project.

The "ftr", which apparently is txt spk for "future" will apparently change the way in which we travel on public transport, with new levels of comfort and convienience, or so the people who sell the things say.

What they fail to mention however, is that this is meerly a single decker bus with a Max Power body kit and repulsive paint-job.

Rather than actually do anything remotely constructive, First have most probably just handed a standard single decker to the first group of burburry cap wearers they found on the local retail park on a Sunday night, given them a few quid to 'do it up' and then sold the resulting mess to unsuspecting local transport authorities who are looking for something possitive to say after wasting some £40m of public money. Hence why the ftr is now in Leeds.

Having seen the actual thing driving around Pudsey, I can assure you that the image above does not even begin to tell of the horror. Perhaps First's plan to get the ftr round town quicker is to frighten other drivers off the road with it's ghastly purple tube.

But for all the fanfare, what First haven't realised is the actual problem with transport in Leeds - it's them.

Thatcher's image of privatisation was one of having the freedom to choose who we recieve our public services from. Everything from the buses and trains to gas, electricity and even the post. We would have had a plethora of private companies offering to serve us and the competition whould make it better for us, the consumer.
And in some ways she was right, we do have a choice. We can either use First, or we can walk. First's monopoly in Leeds means that they can do what the hell the like. They can charge what they want, because there is nobody to start a price war with, they can turn up when they want, because nobody else will arrive and they can go where they want because, well, there's nobody else is there?
Supertram had the bigwigs at First defacating in their pants, mainly because unlike everything else, they wouldn't have been able to get their grubby mits on it and muck it up like they would have wanted to.

Listen to the fanfare of the ftr all you want, but if you don't you won't get very far.

Friends Reunited

One of the things about living in the same area that you went to school in is that it's quite often you come across old school mates.








Well, I say "mates" but to be perfectly honest, anyone I actually would consider a mate I still keep in contact with anyway through various means. The rest I couldn't really care less about. Still, you say Hi to them when you bump into them. I see a few of my ex Rugby team-mates from time-to-time as well, one of which is now plying his trade in Super League for the Wakefield Trinity Wildcats first team and will even represent England later this year whilst another plays for Dewsbury.

Having gone to school in Pudsey whilst living in Bramley, I still see many people, most of which I still go to College with whilst like I say, anyone else I actually wanted to stay in contact with, I did through the magic of telephones, email and the pub.

But today was interesting. As I walked back along Bramley Town Street towards the junction with Broad Lane, I happened to catch a familiar face grining at me from the back of a car. Nothing exciting about that you might think and you'd be right, ordinarily, it wouldn't be very interesting. Except this car happened to have a uniformed man sat in the front seat, blue lights on the roof and the word "Police" on the side. Obviously, it would be unethical, unfair and illegal to name said individual or speculate why they may have been sat in the back of a police car with their hands behind their back, but if you predicted that scene to me a few years ago, I wouldn't have batted an eyelid.

It's always good catching up with old aquaintences, but who needs Friends Reunited - just visit your local constabulary's office.

Targetting the Wrong Group

Sometimes there are ideas which just strike you as stupid the moment they are mooted. Ideas such as spending £100m on a football team to get to the Champions League for instance, but quite often, so-called government advisors also come up with suggestions which don't exactly stack-up.


The government's 'Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs' has suggested reducing the legal 'drink-drive' limit from 80mg to just 50mg, completely doing away with the "two-pint rule" and making it practically impossible to legally be able to get behind the wheel after having any alcohol. On the face of it, that seems a good idea. Reducing the drink-drive limit will surely reduce drink related accidents (or increase convictions)? But that's where the good idea turns to a catastrophic failure. The ACMD want the limit reduced, but only for Britain's public enemy number one; the under 25-year old motorist. Oh, and they want to ban us from driving at night as well.

Without opening a whole argument on age discrimination or even Human rights, the ACMD probably haven't realised that they are preaching to the converted.
Drink driving was 'the done thing' more than 40 years ago until the introduction of the breathaliser in January 1966 and even then, the chances of actually being caught were minimal. Pub car parks were always full to bursting on Friday and Saturday nights and even today, pub's that attract the "older" clientele still have fairly sizeable car parks. Even today, most people of 'that age group' (i'll be carefull how I word this!) still believe firmly in the 'two-pint rule' and some just blatently ignore it.

Contrast that to Britain's most hated demographic. We've been brought up to a point where drink driving is despised in our eyes. From an early age, we've been subjected to hard-hitting marketing about the consequences of drink driving, both from a legal perspective and a safety perspective and in many respects, we're have a rare situation where the younger are telling the old how to behave.

Thankfully, the government has dismissed the idea out of hand. If you are going to reduce the limit, then do it properly.
This Labour government have played with young people before and got their fingers burnt. Blair and Co have so far 'pushed their luck' with young people, particuarly with the introduction of University top-up fees thinking that it was a 'safer' way of raising funds working on the pretence that young people don't vote. They came unstuck, certainly in Leeds anyway. The Headingley Ward and Hyde Park & Woodhouse wards combines to create one of, if not the, biggest student areas in the country. Of Leeds' 220,000 students, the majority live in Headingley, Hyde Park or Woodhouse and Labour eventually realised that, losing it's seats to the Liberal Democrats.

Now it seems, they are being careful. Young drivers do lack the experience but they still hold the same qualification as every other (legal) driver on the road, despite having to go through a much more stringent testing system.
Depending on who you listen to, it's only young people who are ever involved in accidents. Come on people, give it a rest please.

No Rugby for you Here

Some of you may have noticed a lack of Rugby League content of here lately. That's because I've decided to move it to it's own dedicated blog. It's been listed in the links section for a while now, but I figured that not all of you would look there. In fact, I know few of you look there, because my stat counter shows that very few of you have found it by clicking the link on here. So because of that, I'm thrusting this advert right infront of you!

If you haven't visited it yet, I think you should.

Happy reading!

Where in the World can you buy a PC?

Having worked in retail for five years, I know that not everything runs smoothly.







These days, a customer expects to walk into an electrical store, have sales staff fall at their feet before they have stepped on the doormat, expect to speak to an expert on the subject in question and they expect the whole logistical system to work like clockwork.

It doesn’t work like that.

Staff budgets are tighter than a lap dancer’s thong, experts won’t work for £5.20 per hour and retail logistics departments are run by buffoons sat behind a desk from 9 until 5 – that and DHL.

The time has come lately for my brother to require a laptop computer to assist in the completion of his A Levels and hopefully, subsequent university course. So yesterday we spend a good while searching various websites for laptop deals, reviews and prices. After finally concluding our search and picking a certain Compaq unit, I set off for the local PC World superstore, brother in tow.
On our arrival the laptop of choice is inconspicuous by it’s absence. After having to wait ten minutes for a sales advisor, we are told that said laptop is indeed out of stock but there was one at PC World in Burnley. Not thrilled by the prospect of a 120 mile round trip across the M62, we asked him to check Currys (all part of Dixons International). We were told that Currys at Birstall, less than five minutes down the road had two, ready and waiting to unleash their 1.7 GHz processing power.
So a trip to Birstall and again, it proves fruitless. They do indeed have two computers in store, but one is obviously the display model whilst the other happens to be in ‘un-saleable’ condition. At this point, most people would start shouting various expletives, obscenitys and "minimum wage monkeys" at the sales assistant in the vain attempt that he'd say "Oh wait - I'll magic one from thin air!" but I'm more understanding. The guys in both shops were doing their best, they'd just been let down by some muppet getting paid a lot more than they were who hadn't done his job properly.

Disappointed but not yet defeated we cross the road and head to Comet.
In here we find an even better system. It’s 2GB of RAM as opposed to the Compaq’s measly 1GB and it’s got twice the graphics power of the Compaq’s 128MB offering at the same price.
Again we here the line ‘not-in-stock’ but there are some at Huddersfield. Desperate times call for desperate measures so tomorrow I’ll be making the half hour trip. Unfortunately the said laptop also happens to be a Comet exclusive (according to Pricerunner anyway) so I can’t do the ‘sod you then’ thing and take my brothers not-so-hard-earned elsewhere.

This is what happens when you let a small group of powerful retailers take hold of the market. The problem is that the more powerful the business, it usually means the more idiotic are the people running it.

I'll be Avoiding the TV Today

We all know what day it is today and what happened five years ago so I'm not going to go into detail about it.









It's just a shame that the UK and US media don't feel the same way.

It's one of the disadvatages of having sattelite TV, having a choice of about 30 news channels of various languages, 21 documentary channels and a plethora of entertainment channels. Then of course to top it all off, you've got the BBC there as well.

So far, Sky News have dedicated their time to showing how what happended in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania has changed the world, (or Afghanistan at least) the same sort of features they have carried on this day for the past four years, CNN seem to be more intent on showing archive footage and I can't be bothered with Fox this morning.

At first I thought the BBC had been somewhat restrained in jumping on the bandwagon. I haven't yet seen anything about 9/11 on News 24 and although they did show a documentary at the weekend, it was actually very well put together. They have however let themselves down with BBC Online. A story and a feature about one of the most important events in modern history I can understand, but digging out old 'Have Your Say' discussions they've become as bad as the rest. In fairness, the BBC 'Have Your Say' sections are moderated, just not moderated for stupidity. I'd post some examples, but you could easily find them for yourselves.

National Geographic have already shown their 'Inside 9/11' documentary, as good as it might be, for more times than I care to remember and they'll no doubt want to show something tonight, if only to launch tomorrows opening episode of the new series of Seconds from Disaster and this evening more than any other I'll be avoiding ITV News, the video version of The Daily Mail.
In the press, The Mirror has it's 'moving 7-page memorial suppliment' whilst the coverage in the Times is somewhat more sparse, preffering instead to publish extracts from the autobiography of a 25-year-old.

Yes let us remember, yes let us appreciate that 3,000 people lost their lives in the most significant terrorist attack ever to take place and yes let us realise that the world is now a very different place to what it was five years ago. But please don't keep showing the same images infront of me year after year.

Today, their is no news. Five years ago there was news, but not today. Everyone at Reuters and PA can go home early this afternoon.

Yipee! A Celebrity Endorsement

Some of you may already know that Robbie Williams is currently on the Leeds leg of his UK tour. The former Take-That pop act will be performing infront of 90,000, all of whom have paid a sizeable amount of money to stand in public space tonight and tomorrow night, as well as a fairly sizeable TV audience.







Now normally, that wouldn't have anything to do with me, or me being at work on Wednesday, but this time was a bit different.
For any of you going to Robbie's concerts this weekend, look out for some of these. They'll be 200 of the buggers scattered around Roundhay Park.

I'm no real Robbie Williams fan, some of his stuff isn't bad but I wouldn't buy tickets to his show (although my boss did manage to blag two free tickets for tonight) but as celebrity endorsements go, surely that's up there with the best? Obviously, Mr Williams himself didn't come in and by them, it was one of 'his people' but still, it made a dull day slightly more interesting.

How to Ensure a Mass Gathering of Idiots

Late night TV in Britain has always left something to be desired, but late night TV on Sattelite has always left even more to be desired.





Bring up any programme guide and you'll be bombarded with offers of Barely Legal Teens, the 23rd repeat of the day of The Vicar of Dibley or a one of those stupid Quizcall things.
But then of course, there's the football phone-in, 'You're on Sky Sports'.
Sports phone-ins have never really attracted Britain's intelligentsia, but put one on in the middle of the night and you have a recipe for disaster.
I can never really understand the attraction as a viewer, of watching a group of drunken, half-brained fools argue and shout with a couple of ex-pro football players and I certainly don't understand the attraction in paying £1 per minute to argue and shout at said ex-pro footballers.

Sky have hardly tried to take the programme 'upmarket' either and if they have, they're going the wrong way about it by keeping Steve Claridge on there, probably the most self-important person ever to grace a television screen since serial arsehole Rodney Marsh got sacked for making an sick joke about the Tsunami that was completely unfunny to anyone who's brain-cell count consisted of more than a one digit number, which speaks volumes that he found it funny at the time.
A whole hour of moronic moaning at referee's, proclaiming how England are going to win the World Cup and play-ground arguments about how one over-paid prima-donna is better than another over-paid prima-donna.

Perhaps it's all a Government conspiracy to cut down on worker fatigue and get us all to bed earlier, or perhaps it's another money making ploy from Sky, by putting absolute rubbish on it's main channels and getting us to pay £42 to phone up those dolly birds on Quizcall.

I Have a New Banner

Having got board of the no-so-interesting pain white text at the top, I've decided to jazz up my header at the top. Pretty good eh?

In fact I think it's so good, that it's making me hanker for a nice cold beer, even if it is just 10:45.

We all Hate Insurance Firms

We all hate Insurance firms. Not content with parting us from our hard-earned for something we really don't want to pay for, irritating us night and day with television adverts only margnially better than those for debt management and bombarding us with junk mail, they're now wanting more money from us.

Following the recent trend set by gas and electricity firms, Motor Insurance companies are jumping on the price-hike bandwagon.

Norwich Union from next year will increase their prices in 2007 by an average of 16%, with prices for the high-risk groups inflating by around 40%.

I write this as someone who is currently getting quotes ranging from over £850 to more than £3200 to insure a 2002 1.1l Citroen Saxo, despite already having two years of claim-free motoring. This is because I am in the unfortunate position of being a 20-year-old male, which makes me public enemy number one in the eyes of Britain's insurers.

The problem is, this price rises seem a little bit short-sighted. Whilst I'm fully aware that insurance firms, like all businesses, are only interested in lining the pockets of themselves and their shareholders, it just seems stupid to announce this, although they seem to think that they are meerly leading a pack which will soon follow.

Amongst the reasons cited for the rise by Norwich Union, is the increase in claim processing costs, due to the presence of around 1million uninsured drivers on our roads.
The problem is, that these uninsured drivers are likely to be the young drivers, those on low income or those with bad driving records, who are being priced out of insurance in the first place. With increases like of 40% for these groups, surely this figure is going to rise much higher than the current one million? That means that in one/two years time, claim costs are going to rise yet again, and I'll probably writing a similar piece in the not-to distant future.

Is Norwich Union seeing something that I arn't?

$500,000 for Messing Up a Cricket Match? I Wish I Thought of That!

I'm no major cricket fan, I can understand the jist of what goes on, but don't really get into it that much. However, most of you probably know about the recent England vs Pakistan Test match which was postponed, which stemmed from a alleged ball tampering incident and the resultant protests from the Pakistani team.



Now it emerges that Darrell Hair, the umpire at the centre of the contraversy, has offered to clear off, but only on the proviso that he picks up a cheque for half a million US$ first.
Regardless of the fact that this said umpire failed to cite the actual perpetrator in the alleged incident, despite a plethora of TV cameras being present at the Brit Oval, and regardless of the fact that Hair's record of impartiality with regards to Asian sides is questionable at best, it still seems a fantastic idea.

I mean, in the current pensions crisis and with interest rates going up lately, what better way to safeguard your future and start a comfy retirement? Instead of working your fingers to the bone until you are knocking on the door of God's waiting room and putting your hard earned into a not-so-brilliant pension fund, why not become a cricket umpire? Obviously, you couldn't concoct an elaberate ball tampering scenario - that idea has already been taken, but instead think of another way to get a high profile cricket match cancelled and then offer to walk out taking a blow-softening £270k with you! Pure Genius!

Chances are, Hair is looking for his new Bournmouth sea-front home as we speak.

Just a Quick Note

You won't see me this weekend. I'll be heading down to 'that London' for the Rugby League Challenge Cup Final at Twickenham.





I suppose I'll be a Huddersfield fan for the day, on the basis that I'd rather they won it than St Helens.

Anyhoo, I'm off!

Professional Football - What's the Attraction?

Regular readers will know that i'm a pretty avid Rugby League fan. That said, I've also taken in a number of football games in the last week or so.





Last night I headed to Elland Road for the Carling Cup game between Leeds United and Chester City. Normally, I rarely venture to Elland Road. Firstly, because I work weekends and secondly, I refuse to pay upto £30 to watch what effectively amounts to 22 people kicking a pig's scrotum around. But yesterday was different. Firstly, it wasn't a weekend and secondly, it was only £12 to get in, which is a far more reasonable price.
It was hardly a thrilling game though. Chester, who are two leagues below Leeds, set their stall out to defend and frustrate Leeds but United were absolutely dyer. The ball control was none existant, the passing was poor and the foward running was poorly executed and predictable.
Even the goal was scrappy, bouncing off various players, the post (twice) and barely trickling over the line. To be honest, given the chances that Chester had, they will probably be disappointed that they didn't win the game, or at least force extra time.

The week prior, I got dragged out to Valley Parade for Bradford City vs Bristol by a Bradford supporting mate. I thought "I could do with the laugh", so went down to watch that.
That was a better game but in all honesty, it still isn't as entertaining as rugby. There are just too many occaisions when nothing is happening. Bristol scored after a minute and both of Bradford's goals game within 20 seconds of each other. There were a few chances after that but nothing to really write home about. As it happened, that night cost me £15 but if I'd have paid the full £24, I'd have rightly felt ripped off.

For my next football fix, I'll probably be heading just to my local side Farsley. Proper salt of the earth football is that stuff.

Trains are Useless.

I have come to the conclusion that trains are absolutely useless. I always thought it, but now it has been confirmed.





On Friday night Leeds had a game in Wakefield. Recently we've taken to using public transport to get us to the 'local' games and this week was no exception. It means that we can leave the car at home, have a few drinks and do our bit for the environment. Alistar Darling (or whoever does his job now) would be pleased to hear that, although after Friday night's debacle, Mr Transport secretary can stick the Britains entire rolling stock up an orrifice of his choosing.

After the game finished at Belle Vue, we headed to Wakefield Kirkgate Station for the train back to Leeds.
We'd just missed one that went around 10:05pm. OK, can't be helped, we stayed around after the game but even if we left straight away, we'd still be pushing it.
The next one was at 10:52, so we waited, and waited, and waited.
It got to 10:55, no train. It got to 11:15, no train.

Tired and irritated, I decided to give National Rail a ring to ask them where the hell my train was.
The conversation ended up something like this:

Operator: "Hello, thank-you for calling National Rail. How can I help you?"
Me: Hi, can you tell me when the next train from Wakefield Kirkgate to Leeds will arrive please?"
Operator: "It has gone sir, you have missed it"
Me: "No I haven't"
Operator: "I don't understand sir?"
Me: "I've been stood here since 10 past 10 and so have around 10 other people. The train hasn't arrived."
Operator: "Oh, let me see if there is a delay"
.......long pause........
Operator: "There is a signal problem between Leeds and Huddersfield"
Me: "But I'm nowhere near Huddersfield"
Operater: "Oh"
........long pause........
Operator: "Let me talk to a collegue"

Supervisor: "Hi sir, my name is Andy and I'm a senior supervisor at National Rail. I understand that you are trying to get from Wakefield Kirkgate to Leeds"
Me: "Yes, that's right"
Supervisor: "Right sir, what I'll need to do is take your details and contact the train operator to check if the train actually did stop there"

I hand him my details and hang up.

Ten minutes pass, still no train, but Andy to his credit does return my call.

Supervisor: "Hi Mr Hewitt, I have spoken to the National Rail communication centre and they say that the train did stop and leave Wakefield Kirkgate on time, so the best way for you to get to Leeds now is get the 23:40 service from Wakefield Westgate"
Me: "I'm confussed"
Supervisor: "Why is that?"
Me: "Well if the train had stopped, me and 10 other people would be back in Leeds right now and you and I would have never spoken to each other."
Supervisor: "Well sir, I am just relaying the information they gave me. I you wish to complain there is a complaints proceedure (blah blah).........but the only way that you will get to Leeds tonight is on the 22:40 service from Wakefield Westgate"
Me: "How do I get to Westgate?"
Supervisor: "What do you mean sir?"
Me: "I don't know where Westgate is."
Supervisor: "Oh,. it's about 10 minutes by train from Wakefield Kirkgate"
Me: "Is there a train to Westgate?"
Supervisor: "errr, No"

At that point the conversation ended and we followed the road signs for Westgate.
As we were just about to head into the city centre, a rumbling came from the bridge above us. We raced back to the station only to find a train and a perplexed driver asking "Where have you been?"
"Walking to fucking Westgate!"
"Why" is the conductors relpy.
"Because National Rail told us to"
"Oh, they're a bunch of idiots them".

And the reason for the lateness? "There was some manic at Sheffield on the roof with a gun!" exclaims said conductor.

At points like that you can tell the regular rail travellers. While the conductors give you the stories and excuses that Quinten Tarrantino would dismiss as unrealistic, they don't bat an eyelid. Almost as like they've heard it all before.

We finally arrive in Leeds, 3 hours after the game ended in a city that is less then a 20 minute drive from Leeds.

I hearby proclaim that Northern Trains and National Rail are complete wankers and as punishment, they will be added to my Bastards List.
As further punishment to Mr Transport secretary, I shall be using my car as much as humanly possible. Sure, the West Vietnamese Gumbo Tree may die out, but at least I'll get where I want to be.

The Mallorcan Diary: Pt IV.

It's show time! Or at least it was for two nights we were away on the island of Mallorca. I mentioned earlier that we booked to see 'Son Amar' and 'Pirates', well here's how we got on.




Son Amar

Every year we land in Mallorca, one of the first things we do is book onto the Son Amar excursion. This year was our third visit and we'll certainly be making another.
The 'Son Amar' experience is a four course slap up meal and a spectacular show. It costs about £50 per head (from the tour operator anyway) which sounds expensive, but it's worth every single penny and then some.

We settle in to the audatorium in our "Gold" seats (that's the middle tier of seats) and tuck into the starter, which is sort of 'Tex-mex' affair. Then, it's onto the prawn cocktail, but I'm not realyl a prawn cocktail sort of bloke, so I gave that one a miss. Instead, I had this line-up to keep me occupied:
For the uninitiated, that line-up consists of (from left to right), some champagney stuff, some orange juice stuff, some kind of white wine and a glass of water. And the best bit about it? I t was all complimentary (OK, I realise it's built into the price) and it was available on demand.
Then the chicken main course came - and went before the desert and then it was showtime!

There are some truely astounding acts on show. Mike Pidone, a multi-lingual singer and pianist who is an extremley good entertainer.
The variety of the show is unrivalled. Strahlemann & Soehne are two juggling acrobats who manage to juggle batons in between themselves whilst changing into each others suits, Duban Nikol is a trampolining comedian and there's a spectacular show of dancing, with Ballet de Espanol, Carnaval de Venecia, Ballet Moderno and the Flying Dancers. The show ends with one of the best and most lifelike Elvis tributes I've ever seen. One could be forgiven for thinking that Elvis is still alive.

After the show, they even put on a multi-million euro water show. Definatly a top night out.

Pirates

To be perfectly honest, Pirates was a bit of a downer. Not that the show was bad - far from it, it's just that it didn't really live up to the hype for my liking.
The meal, whilst not bad, wasn't as good or large as it was at Son Amar. The seating wasn't as comfortable and I was constantly pestered by the bar staff to part with my hard earned.
When you get there, you can tell why there is so much hype surrounding the show and a look in the programme suggests that the celebrity endorsements may have something to do with the fact that there's a chariety involved.

The show is excellent. Again, it's the comedy, acrobatics and dancing similar to Son Amar. As a show and a night out, its clearly much more of a kids thing.
A decent night out by all accounts, but I had to choose between the two, I'd give Pirates a miss.

Well, it looks like that's it. I can't really think of anything noteworthy to write about from my jollies, so now it looks like I'm back to writing about any old rubbish.

The Mallorcan Diary: Pt III.

There's quite a lot of wildlife you find in the Mediterranean that you don't usually find in the UK. Granted, you arn't going to find (to coin a famous John Cleese phrase) "herds of wilderbeast sweeping majastically across the plain" but on the flipside, you won't find lizards basking on the rocks whilst walking along Blackpool promenade.

So when walking on the beach front linking Sa Coma to S'Illot we came across a funny little bird skipping along and poking it's beak into the soil. It ws a small brown bird with a black and white 'zebra' pattern on it's wings.
My dad, proclaiming to be an expert in such trivial matters, claimed that this bird was known as a 'hoo-poo'. We thought he just made the word up, and just laughed. For the next few days, our immature minds were entertained by word plays on the name 'hoo-poo'.

Anyway, it turns out that the "Hoopoe" is indeed a real bird. And there were blooming loads of them in our hotel, all pecking away and ignoring the 'keep off the grass' notices.

Fair play to my old man - the fountain of insignificant information.

The Mallorcan Diary: Pt II.

So, we start our holiday and the first port of call on the 'package holiday' is usually the welcome meeting with the holiday rep.




Usually at these meetings they do give you some useful information like where the supermarket, beach, bars are as well as telling you to not, under any circumstances, drink the water but mainly, they are to try and flog you the various excursions or "experiences" as Tui call them. The rep was quite a friendly Welsh woman who at first seemed pretty disappointed that only 6 people turned up, four of them being our family. That said, she must have been celebrating a bumber commission once we started filling out the booking form do go on the 'Son Amar' and 'Pirates' trips - more on those in a later diary.

Anyway, after that we headed to the beach front. As we'd just landed only a few hours previous, the gear was still in suitcases so we were on purely a 'fact-finding' tour.

Eventually, we looked for lunch and found this beachside bar. Now unlike your typical ignorant bald-headed, tatoo-laden, England football wearing tourist, we tried to sample a little bit of Spanish culture. Wherever we can, we try and use a bit of Spanish, mainly in bars and resteraunts. It's a simple language to pick up and it's much more polite than pointing to a menu and making a series of inaudable grunts at the waiter.
It's just my dad has trouble with numbers, in particualar "dos" and "doce", Spanish for "2" and "12" respectively.
So the waiter was a little taken aback when a family of four asked for two toasted sandwiches and twelve cheeseburgers. Only my quick-thinking prevented a fairly hefty bill and four bloated stomachs!

More diaries coming soon....

The Mallorcan Diary: Pt I.

I'm back! After two 11 nights sunning it up on the island of Mallorca I've returned back to blightly with a rather nice tan.




I must admit that even though I had a great time, the trip didn't quite kick off to the best start, after the flight from hell out of the shiny new Doncaster Sheffield Robin Hood Airport. Having boarded the plane I soon discovered that I was to spend the next two hours sat behind a complete brat and his "couldn't care less- I'm on my holiday" parents.
If you ignore the the fact that he was intent on kicking my seat, bouncing around the aircraft and screaming at the top of his voice, it wasn't so bad. However, the way his parents were constantly buying sweets from the snack trolley irritated me somewhat. I'm no expert on parenting but even my limited knowledge knows that if you have a hyperactive little shit at 35,000ft, shovelling him with various e-numbers isn't the wisest decision.

We landed and that was the last I saw of him. All we had to do now was negotiate the labrinth of corridors in Palma de Mallorca Airport and head to the baggage claim and coach stand.

In the early hours, we checked in to the Safari Park aparthotel in Sa Coma and I was finally on my holiday - time to put my feet up.

In tomorrow's diary - The welcome meeting and the 12 hamburgers........