I'm already bored of 2008

We're now just 17 days into 2008 and I'm already bored of the following phrases:

• Carbon footprint
• CO2 emissions
• Flood warning
• Energy prices
• Facebook
• Data Protection
• Credit crunch

I'm sure I'll think of more later.

No so bright now eh?

The smoking ban has been in for a while now and what a fantastic piece of legislation it has proved to be.











Pubs are smoke free, the air is healthier, my clothes don't stink and drinking establishments are, generally, much more pleasant places to spend time. It also seems that, contrary to what the pro-smoking alliance kept telling us, the pub industry isn't dying - apart from those that were probably on the Grim Reaper's list long before July 1st 2007.

But the smokers still aren't happy. After all, why shouldn't they be allowed to expel hazardous fumes upon people who would rather not breathe them in? Why should they have to go outside in the open air in order to take their pathetic dose of precious, precious nicotine?

Well one Yorkshire publican seemed to disagree with the latest legislation, openly allowing his clientèle to smoke within the four walls of his premises, a fact he admitted live on the BBC Yorkshire regional news.

His argument is that people have a human right to smoke inside a public house.

If said landlord genuinely believes that the "right" to smoke is included in human rights legislation, perhaps he should consider actually reading up on the contents of the European Constitution on Human Rights. Whilst he's at it, he can download a map to the nearest Magistrates.

On Strike

Today I became yet another victim of French engineering and the tendency for all things from the across the channel, be they internal combustion engines or air traffic controllers, to go on strike without warning.


The gearbox on my faithful Citroen Saxo seems to feel under-valued and unloved and is refusing to work until I throw a considerable amount of money at it and even then, it may not return to action.

Which is bad news on several counts.

It means that my "new car fund" won't be seeing any growth this month and it means that my already-poorly Mastercard isn't going to get much rest either.

But it gets worse than that. It also means (and I can barely bring myself to contemplate it), I'll be having to use public transport for a few days at least!

I know these problems can happen with any vehicle, but I'm annoyed and nobody is going to stop me angrily waving my fist in the direction of the English channel.

Right on Time

There was something of an inevitability about it, but in true railway fashion, the timing of extended rail disruption to the West Coast mainline could not have been worse.


Essential maintenance to a footbridge which crosses the primary line connecting London with Birmingham and Manchester over-ran, meaning that rail passengers were met with chaotic scenes at stations across the London and the South East with cancelled services and lengthy delays - and the same is on the menu for tomorrow.

And the news couldn't have come at a worse time for our alleged "eco-conscious" leaders, as rail operators announced fare rises of up to 11% on certain routes on the day that Britain 'went back to work' after the festive holidays.

The rises, which will understandably grate with commuters, environmentalists and anyone looking to jump on the Labour-bashing bandwagon - one that is already as overcrowded as a Northern Rail commuter train.

However the Rail operators, who experienced a 15% increase on complaints this year according to one passenger watchdog, claim that the rises are "essential" as they are needed for "essential" investment that will provide "essential" service improvements on "essential" services. If you learn anything as a rail operators spokesperson, it's that using the word "essential" enough times will make your price rises seem OK. What you also learn is that it is perfectly fine to re-issue the same press release that you released 12 months ago.

One of the biggest culprits happens to be First Great Western, despite having the dubious honour of being the worst train operator in the UK according to official statistics. With an appalling record for customer service, including threatening to sue a passenger watchdog for complaints made about it's services and being subject to a 'fare strike' by passengers (with another one threatened), their bosses tried to justify their average 6.1% rise on unregulated fares.

First Transpennine Express, who run the main route between Leeds and Manchester, is even worse with a 6.4% hike and the main operator in and out of Leeds, Northern, has upped their fares by an average 5.7%. Despite this "essential" rise to facilitate "essential" service and capacity improvements, the capacity on the Manchester-Bradford-Leeds route was halved again this morning and afternoon.

The rises don't exactly 'fit' with the government's constant insistence that we need to start leaving our cars at home, start using the railways and save the environment because in truth, the environment is just an easy excuse to mask additional forms of taxation.

Today we have a government that is happy for rail operators to increase fares and is preparing to bulldoze an entire village to facilitate an expansion of Heathrow yet come budget day, Alistair Darling will stand at the podium and attempt justify a further rise in fuel duty by trotting out tired lines about "CO2 targets" and "environmental concerns" amongst the other garbage that spews from his mouth.

Happy New Year everybody!

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.