adrenochrome

Yes, indeed, your global correspondent’s Airbus has come in, and I am back in the UK and ready to blog. Throughout my Spanish experience, I made many notes and came to many conclusions that I was intending to share gradually with my reader. However, it appears that my favourite public sector broadcaster has got itself into a corner, to date over 11,000 complaints, refusing to broadcast the DEC Appeal for aid for Gaza.

The Director General who, in fairness to impartial and open reporting, visited Israel in 2005 with his Jewish wife and met with senior Israeli politicians, issued a defence today on the BBC website, and there was further exclaimation from the BBC hierarchy during the Radio4 ‘Today’ show. Following this radio discussion, Tony Benn and 50 Labour MPs have tabled a House of Commons motion to force the BBC to air the appeal. You may wish to listen to the programme on BBCs i-player, or read the Director-Generals comments on the BBC Blog ‘News Editors blogs’, but I shall precis the DGs comments and respond below.

The DG, named Mark Thompson, stated that the BBC had refused to air DEC Appeals before. This is true, though does not help his case. Whilst broadcasting DEC Appeals for the following ‘controversial’ aid scenerios;                                                                           Gulf Crisis (1990)
Former Yugoslavia (1994)
Rwanda (1994)
Sudan (1998)
Kosovo (1999)
Liberia (2003)
Sudan - Darfur (2004)
Darfur & Chad (2007),

the BBC did refuse the DEC ‘Lebanon’ Appeal after the Israeli invasion and bombing of the Lebanon. The BBC has now refused 2 DEC Appeals, both after Israeli involvement. This may not be due to any outside influence, but for a corporation which has seriously damaged its image and lost the trust of the public, this seems more than coincidental.

The DG states that a major reason for not broadcasting is that Gaza “remains a major ongoing news story, in which humanitarian issues - the suffering and distress of civilians and combatants on both sides of the conflict, the debate about who is responsible for causing it and what should be done about it - are both at the heart of the story and contentious.” The DEC appeal for Darfur was identical to the statement above.
The concerns that the aid may not be safely delivered and to the right people was even more so in Darfur, where the African Nations were arguing about a peace-keeping force, and the UN would not get involved.
In Gaza, UNWRA are already there, and other aid agencies were operating prior to the latest conflict, and shall return with their networks mostly still intact.
Whatever a person feels about Israel or Hamas, approximately 1,000 young children and thousands of adults are in need of medical care but the hospitals have not the relevant medicines and equipment. Thousands more humans are now homeless, and whilst Gaza may be meditarranean, it is still winter, and temperatures are very low at night. They need tents and blankets, shoes and clothes.
Additionally, there has been a 9 month blockade of Gaza which has let to shortages of food, fuel and other essential daily items.
This is a valid DEC Appeal, with international backing, and the BBC should support it.
If there is also any hint that broadcasting the appeal could be deemed to have breached the BBCs impartiality, perhaps Mr Thompsonwould like to consider how his phrase “a duty to ensure that nothing risks undermining our impartiality” tallies with the BBCs choice to dedicate a half hour of peak time evening viewing for a whole week to show ‘Anne Franks Diary’ DURING the conflict. In the light of Sir Gerald Kaufman’s comments in the House of Commons, the BBC seems to have taken a side in this matter already, and is not fulfilling its “duty”.

Dear reader

 It is that time of the year when the rain and overcast cold becomes more than my ricketty old bones can handle. Hence, tomorrow afternoon, your correspondent shall be jetting off to Alicante, for a whole week. I shall, however, leave you with a few points to consider whilst awaiting my return.

 1/ If the government anticipates the recession to have bottomed out by June and the economy to be growing from July, why are the DWP recruiting large numbers of people on 18month contracts? Could this reflect that government rhetoric and reality are differing?

2/ Will I be deported for supporting Basque seperatism?

 3/ Will the Rt Hon Gerald Kaufman forgive me for not mentioning that he is in fact Sir Gerald Kaufman? I suspect he will.

4/ If 40 is the new 30, and silver the new black, what will replace the satsuma?

5/ Is Nietsche’s ‘Superman’ resistant to Kryptonite?

6/ Why, oh why, is telly going back 30 years - ‘Gladiators’ on Sky, ‘Minder’ on Five, etc?

Well, that should keep you in deep contemplation till my return, with tales of the Med, Spaniards and paella. Have a good week.

It has been an easy week to have a go at the government, especially the moronic gibbering of Baroness Vadera and her ‘green roots of recovery’. In Manchester, where ‘the lights are on, but nobodys in’ Hazel Blears smuggly grins and ignores everybody, we had the scandalous rubbish from the Hon Stringer, who claimed that dyslexia does not exist.

However, one Labour MP really excelled once again, the Rt Hon Gerald Kaufman. Mr Kaufman used to be my own local MP, and he has always been superb for his constituents and a great parliamentarian. He is old school, with life experience, morals and common sense. This week he spoke out against the Israeli actions in Gaza, upsetting many people by comparing the activities of Israeli soldiers with that of Nazis. This condemnation of the Israeli government and military is even more profoundly important within both the UK and Israel because Mr Kaufman is both Jewish and a supporter of the Israeli State.

Unfortunately, for Manchester and Britain, it appears that Mr Kaufman may be set to stand down from politics at the next election, and New Labour shall no doubt attempt to replace him with a Balls/Miliband clone. Too many career politicians, straight from university but with no life experience nor common sense, now fill the seats of both the Commons and Lords, and there are far too few genuine parliamentarians left.

Congratulations Gerald, for standing by your principles, and leading the debate more vociferously than those cowardly cabinet members. Please, do not retire, ever, as Manchester and the UK need you and more of your ilk.

Having been doing the family thing this week, I have had to bite my tongue and save up my comments till now. Here goes, let’s let rip;

Politics; New Labour announced another Tory policy of guaranteeing loans, though why they are doing this is not clear, especially as the recession is supposedly over and the green roots of recovery have been seen by a New Labour peer?! What a fool (and that was not the first word that sprang to my mind), who should have her peerage removed, she clearly isn’t up to the job of making decisions for the future of the country, for which she was elevated to the House of Lords.

Middle East; there has been a victim of the war who has not yet been mentioned. For the first two and a half weeks of the invasion, a female Israeli Major was on our telly teeling us the Israeli spin. After she named two Hamas militants who she claimed were in the UN school shelled by the Israelis, the army then said that they had NOT intended to shell the school, that NO Hamas militants were firing from within the school, and that they had been attacking near the school, and had accidentally misfired the shell that entered the UN compound. The major had also claimed that Hamas were targetting women and children in Israel, whilst thr PMs spokesman and the army have both stated that Hamas are not targetting anyone, but indiscriminately firing out of date missiles towards Israeli towns. The major has now disappeared, and is clearly facing the blame for Israel losing the war of words with the public and media.

Today, an almost identical shelling of a UN compound has taken place, and again Israel is telling two stories; 1/ We did shell the compound accidentally (though the UN had kept notifying them that their shelling was getting closer and closer to the compound) & 2/ We attacked it on purpose because Hamas were firing rockets from within the compound. Again the same two stories, and again Isreal has shelled a known UN compound, injuring UN staff and, because they used incendaries, destroying UN Aid Relief. Hopefully this repeated anti-UN activity and lies from the military will result in War Crimes being brought against Israeli Generals and Politicians (just as happened to Slobodan Milosevic and his Generals).

Israel sank an American ship during the Arab/Israeli War and yet America did nothing, even though according to the CIA radio observer, the pilots questioned the command to attack because the ship was a ‘friendly’ and, according to American Military survivors, the Israeli navy fired upon their liferafts. American Presidents love reassuring the people that they will always protect their people and troops, yet allowed Israel to get away with this prearranged attack. Israel has ignored International Law with regard to the building of its wall around the West Bank. Israel has now launched several attacks upon the United Nations. Terrorism is acting outside of International Law, and Israel is committing acts of terrorism in Gaza. No peace can possibly be achieved whilst the Palestinian people are shown that they must act within International Law, whilst Israel does not have to. They must be shown that the law applies to all.

BBC Radio7; a digital channel that was established for the spoken word, as opposed to being a music channel, has access to the whole archives of radio programmes from BBC4, the Light Programme and regional BBC radio stations. It focuses on comedy, crime & thrillers, sci-fi and classics. Strangely, like the rest of the BBC, when it comes to classics, they are incredibly ignorant and not at all well read. Guess what they are; yes, Dickens, Bronte & Austen! In fact, their knowledge of the subject is so poor that this week they are having to tell us two Dickens stories each day!!!

What is even more of a condemnation is that they need to repeat every programme that they have at least twice a year. They appear to have only about 5 months of programming. As most of the Crime & Thrillers section comprises only Sherlock Holmes and Miss Marple/Hercule Poirot, and that by turning to ITV3 on your tv set you can watch the same stories with Jeremy Brett etc and get the whole story in one sitting, this is quite pointless.

Comedy wise, each episode of classic comedy is played three times a day, and is so dated that at times it can be border racist and sexist. ‘The Goons’ often contains the type of stereotyping and Peter Sellars ‘faux Indian’ accent (among others) that if repeated by a modern broadcaster would result in firings, resignations and apologies that would make the Brand/Ross affair seem small fry. ‘Dad’s Army’ and ‘Hancocks Half Hour’ may contain humour but do not to further opinion of British foreign behaviour. After all, is it any surprise that Germans believe English people can not NOT mention the war, when wartime though post war comedy is seen as standard fayre by the BBC, and not a day goes by without one of the 5 terrestial tv channels showing a second world war movie? It also semmes that only 1 radio comedy was made by the BBC between 1959 and 1980, the amusing Kenneth Horne shows (’Around the Horne’ & ‘Beyond Our Ken’) which include risky and risque ‘gay’ performances despite homosexuality being illegal still at the time they were made - and they have Kenneth Williams in the show!

The more modern comedy offerings are more promising, though some still beg the question ‘who commissioned this b*llocks’. Too little Armando Iannucci and his stable of stars, too much Angus Deayton & Marcus Brigstocke.

What a shame that according to BBC7, the BBC has only produced circa 1,500 hours of worthwhile spoken material during its whole existence!

Modern Comedy Radio Shows; this is a different section, though BBC7 has plenty of this rubbish, and a real bugbear of mine. Don’t get me wrong, I love the modern comedy, I think that we have produced more quality comedy in the last 30 years than any other country in the world. It is just one aspect of the modern comedy radio shows that I hate - the musical interlude. Do not get me wrong, Bill Bailey is magnificent with his music based shows, Victorai Wood wrote some amazingly funny piano tunes to end her shows, and I even used to enjoy Richard Stilgoe at the end of Nationwide, summing up the days news amusingly to tune. I own numerous ‘Bonzo Dog DooDah Band’ LPs, and likewise ‘Half Man, Half Biscuit’, ‘Macc Lads’ and ‘John Shuttleworth’ ones.

The great stand up comedians of each era do not need to take 5 minutes out, having got the crowd laughing, to introduce some fool with a keyboard, who dismays the audience, only for the star to return and try to pick the crowd up again. Peter Kaye does not do this, Steve Coogan never did this, Dave Allen would have baulked at the idea, and Tony Hancock felt he could thirty minutes withhout such rubbish. Unfortunately, almost every Radio Comedy show of the past 30 years seems to have decided that the tried and tested, well proven approach is not for them, and force some musician onto the cast list. Shows such as ‘Punt & Dennis’s ‘It’s been a bad week” suddenly stop, and up steps a music graduate who is not good enough to play with an orchestra, who is such a non-entity personality wise, that no band would want to be on a tour bus with them, and who wouldn’t know satire if it spanked them. Usually, this role is taken by Mitch Benn, whoever he is, though I suspect his father/mother may work for the BBC.

Stop it - comedy is comedy, musical comedy is a great art which must be mastered, but these nobodys who destroy the work of the main artists must go. We are in 2009, not Vauderville.

That’s enough ranting for today. Instead, I shall sit back and think about my Spanish holiday next week. Sun, sand and sangria. Nice. 

Well done New Labour, another new policy, to pay employers for employing staff. Sounds good, especially as it is targeted at those who have been unemployed for over 6 months. Only one problem, it is the same policy announced two months ago by the Conservative Party. I thought it sounded familiar.

What is truly different this time is the speed at which the government stole an opposition party policy. It took six months for them to nationalize ‘Northern Rock’ after Vince Cable (Lib/Dems) proposed it. Since then three other policies have been stolen, and at increasing speed. This most recent one being snaffled in just two months. It really makes you grateful for the fact that we have opposition parties, or the government would have done nothing, remained clueless, and still in denial about the true state of the British economy.

If we are really lucky, Labour will announce a 2p reduction in the basic rate of income tax during the budget this Spring. Vince touted this, and it is probably the only real alternative that can genuinely inject cash flow into the economy.

And, whilst discussing New Labour, wasn’t it nice to see that lovely Tony Blair speaking about the Middle East. It is only the third week of conflict, with nearly a thousand dead, and thousands injured, and, at last, the Middle East Peace Envoy has found time out for touring America and collecting gongs from George W Bush, to actually look in on his day job! What a joke he is.

Yesterday, LA hosted the BAFTA/LA Party and the Golden Globes were dished out. Britain did well, which is nice, except when the lovies get involved. Following her own disgracefully embarrassing Oscar acceptance speech of latter year, Gwynneth was proud to announce awards for Kate Winslett. Kate, in return, gushed, gasped and seemed to be feigning a panis attack; who’d have thought she’d be so knackered from walking to the stage, specially as she had two blokes to help her? How humiliatingly affected a woman she has become. Is it surprising that only her husband seems to want to employ her? And there is still the Oscars to come, how bad will she be there?

Tom Cruise, what a freak, was also on tv this weekend, attempting to look genuinely upset by the sad loss of their son for John Travolta and his wife. He failed to look anything but fake, and it seems that Scientology means milking others sadness.

In this ever changing global landscape, I felt it was time to give updates on some of my previous blog entries;

1/ Israel - has now been condemned for violating international law, humanitarian law and failing to recognise the neutrality staus of the International Committee of the Red Cross. My best friend is of German Jewish extraction, and whilst being a generally calm and relaxed person, he is ashamed and angered by Israels actions. Many European Jews are likewise disgusted. Unfortunately, Israel tends to ignore international law, the UN, and even the Jewish people of the majority of the world. This cannot be allowed to continue; Jewish people have been attacked in Denmark, supposedly a list of influential European Jews has been drawn up for retribution (including Sir Alan Sugar), and this was before the atrocities of the last few days. These kinds of reprisals against the Jewish communities of the world can not be condoned, but only Israel can defuse this situation. Even the USA seems split, with Condoleeza Rice stating that the UN statement is a step in the direction towards the aims of America, but she still abstained rather than voted for the statement! Israeli soldiers must not attack Red Cross and UNWRA staff, can not block ambulances, should be ashamed that children are left for days without food and water whilst lying amongst the dead bodies of their mothers, and the whole idea of corralling citizens into a ’safe’ house then shelling them is just too close to concentration camp extermination for any human being to not be shocked. Israel is perfectly entitled to take action to protect its citizens, yet producing hatred of Jews across the world, and the next generation of Hamas and Hezbollah suicide bombers will not do this. The action of Israeli troops has got severely out of hand and is being counter productive. As usual, more carrot and less stick will win the war of hearts and minds in the long term.

2/ Andrew Strauss has been named the new England cricket captain, at least for the Test matches, and whilst I suggested Paul Colliongwood, Strauss is a level headed character, who has respect among the players and an even handed approach. This is a good selection, and I wish him well.

3/ The UK economy - well let’s face it, when Alistair Darling claimed in the pre-budget report that the recession would be over by July, and when Gordon Brown claimed the UK was better placed than other western countries to weather the storm, I mocked. Today it became clear that I was right.

We are all aware of the job losses in December and the downturn in manufacturing pre-Christmas (especially in the car industry) but today we have learnt that November saw a downturn in productivity 5 times larger than economists had expected. With even worse figures to come over the next few months, with unemployment likely to hit nearer to 4million than the 3million predicted, and with worse than anticipated US employment figures, it seems that Alistair Darling is going to have to rework his figures and downgrade his expectations. That these were ridiculously over optimistic was apparent to everyone, but by how far he has been proven to be innaccurate has even shocked me. The affect of all this on the individual is not being discussed by the media. Remember that after the PBR (Pre-budget report) the Tories said that this would lead to massive debt for the country, which the next generation would have to pay? Well the reappraisal will mean that the country will have to borrow even more, and for even longer, and the debt will be substantially higher, leading to higher VAT, PAYE and interest rates for even longer, possibly not just our children but our grandchildren. Additionally, both Darling and Brown stated that they were ‘urging’ the banks to lend more capital to individuals and small businesses to ride out the recession, keep people in jobs and aid the economy. They also agreed that if the banks didn’t act, they would take measures to force compliance from the banks. 2 months later, still no compliance, no lending, and no action from the government, who are obviously in the pockets of the same banks.

Yesterday we had the pointless action of a 1/2% cut in the Bank of England base rate. This will have no effect on the economy for numerous reasons. It only affects ‘tracker’ mortgages, most of which have a bottom level limit of 2%. The banks are not lending, and the lower the interest rate, the less profit for them from lending. This is a disincentive. It is made even worse by the fact that the government money lent to recapitalise the banks is charged at 12% to the banks, therefore, every pound that the banks lend at 1.5% will cost them 10.5p in losses. This is also a disincentive to lend.

The affects of the unemployment have not yet been felt, and as things stand it is unlikely that the country will start to come out of recession till November this year, at the earliest. Meanwhile, the most atrocious spectre of printing money to buy our way out of debt is now looming. This would be a travesty, leading to wage inflation, devaluation of an already devastated pound sterling, and inflationary pressures that could make the Weimar Republic blush.

Even so, the Guardian today had the headline that Barrack Obama agreed with Gordon Brown on policy. The truth is that the only way out of recession is to spend your way out, but not by giving money to the banks. This has already been tried and failed. Vince Cable, deputy leader of the LibDems, has again been right from the beginning. A small tax cut at the bottom level would put money back into the pockets of the public, who could then spend. This is the only practical way to spend our way out of recession.

No more money for the banks, no more cash being printed, just a two pence reduction in the bottom rate of income tax will redeem our ability to spend our way out of trouble. Strangely, this would have been the first thing a Labour government would have done, prior to their becoming Thatcherites under Tony ‘Middle East Peace Envoy’ Blair.

Sorry that todays blog is so bleak, at least the cold weather is coming to an end. Let’s hope the rain that falls on frozen ground does not lead to localized flooding.

The world is changing, evolving and, some would say, getting smaller. The old Union of Soviet Socialist Republics has been broken down, allowing independence for the Ukraine, Belarus, Azerbaijan, et al. The Baltics are reestablished as seperate countries, most with EU membership. The Balkans are back, and the Czechs and Slavs now have a country each. The EU is enlarging quickly and recognising the rights of many old and new communities. Surely now is the time for the EU to finally act and recognise the independence of the Basque lands and people from their Spanish and French occupiers.

The Basques, known in their own language as Euskadi, have existed since paleolithic times, pre-dating the Indo-Europeans. They have their own language, still taught and extensively used, their own religious history (based around earthly Gods; Mari and Sugaar primarily), and have faced more persecution than almost any other peoples.

Why should an English man care about the Basques, and what business is it of mine to poke my nose into the affairs of France and Spain? A valid question, but which can easily be answered. History, morality and conscience.

When Roman Catholicism turned away from fighting Saladin in Jerusalem, and instead started targetting Christians for eradication, the Basque people aligned with the Templar ethos prevalent at that time in Southern France and the Pyrhennes, and allowed protection to Jews, Muslims, Cathars and other Christian faiths. As a consequence of this, the church persecuted the followers of the Basque religion under heresy and witchcraft trials.

During the 1930s, Franco attempted to assimilate them, and Hitler used the territory as a proving ground for new weapons technologies in the build up to the second world war. When the war itself was underway, the Basques aided the Allies in carrying out guerrilla warfare against the Germans occupying France, and supplying information to London. These actions were appreciated by many artistic people, notably Picassos ‘Guernica’ painting and Hemingway in his novel ‘For whom the bell tolls’. Unfortunately, politicians have decided successively to be completely ungrateful for this assistance, although in 1979 the Spanish government did allow the people some level of autonomy. France, however, has no such provision for the territorial part of the Basque homeland within its boundaries.

The Euskadi have a language that is not related in any way to the romance languages, though does have a similarity with Welsh, especially when heard spoken. They embrace many european sports, most notably football and rugby union, and have long played Jai Alai (or, pelota).

There are seven autonomous regions to the territory, which cover the old Pais Vasco and parts of Navarro and Aquitaine. Predominantly its industry has been based on iron and steel, with agriculture outside of the major cities. As such, there is quite a bit of wealth in the area, which explains Spains retiscence to allow freedom to the land.

Graciously, following the world wars, Britain gradually gave up its empire; a reward for the support given by non-European peoples to our cause in those bloody conflicts. It is time that Europe thanked the Basques for their individuality, morality and support.

President Sarkozy is currently trying to bring a peace to the Middle East, and recognition for the Palestinians, alongside safety for Israel. This is highly commendable behaviour, but I hope that upon his return to the Elyssee Palace, he can open dialogue with Spain to finally free the Euskadi, and deliver Euskal herritarok (Basque independence).

In Europe, we have all learnt that you must talk to terrorists, as despicable as this idea may seem to Americans. People such as Yasser Arafat, Martin McGuiness and Nelson Mandella were all regarded as terrorists by their governments, but were brought to the table and have helped to bring peace and stability, albeit a task that is still ongoing in certain arenas. End the Basque occupation and division, and there would be no more ETA. No more bombs, kidnappings and disruptive action. ‘Peace in our time’ may be possible across Europe. There is little doubt that the Euskadi would wish to be a part of the EU and UN, and certainly Europe would benefit from this.

So, the ongoing feud between the English cricket captain and head coach has come to a head with both Kevin Pieterson and Peter Moores resigning. It seems strange that egos should take over a nations sport like this. Whatever the sport, the head coach/manager has always been the boss, with the captain making on field decisions. This does not seem enough for Pieterson.

Last year, Manchester born Yorkshire cricketer, Michael Vaughan fell on his sword honourably and resigned the captaincy. He was genuinely tearful during the press conference, expressing his thanks to the players and backroom staff (including Mr Moores) and his belief that captaining your national side is a magnificent honour. His resignation followed a lack of personal form with the bat and poor performances by the England team. Vaughans behaviour was an example, to all national sportsmen, of decency, character and responsibility. The nations football team had shamed themselves, failing to qualify for the European Championships, and seeming like overpaid prima donnas, who had not spirit and no national pride. They had performed as though being selected to represent your nation was no privilege, no honour, just a money-spinner. Michael Vaughans behaviour was the antithesis of this.

Kevin Pieterson does not seem to be made in the same mould. Perhaps the fact that Pieterson is not English, having been born and raised in South Africa, and becoming eligible to play for the national team having spent five years in the country, is a factor. Perhaps it is because he is a big name player has affected his ego. Whatever the reason, his resignation should be accepted and England should offer the captaincy to Collingwood.

Pieterson came to the job when England had lost the Test series to South Africa, and the team promptly won the last Test against them. This what not really a surprise. Whatever sport you examine, whenever a failing team makes a substantive change, the players try harder, the slate is wiped clean, and the team usually has a good spell, though this does not mean that the original problems have gone away (just look at the Spurs football team this year). Vaughan had only been Test captain, with Collingwood captaining the one day side. Pieterson was given captaincy of both, although our one day side had shown some good form. In the 5 months Pieterson has been captain of both, we have won one Test; the final one against South Africa, when they had already won the series and were out to enjoy the experience rather than battle hard. We lost every one day game on the recent tour of India, threw away the first Test and drew a dull second one. The ‘dead bunny bounce’ lasted just one game.

Pieterson had no captaincy experience prior to his national appointment, which has been rather apparent recently. During the final Indian innings in the recent winnable First Test, Pieterson set unnecessarily defensive fields, with too many players set on the boundary to prevent fours and sixes, especially against batsmen new to the crease. We needed 10 wickets, yet he did not show faith in his bowlers. The classy Indian batsmen just placed the ball in the spaces and won the game. This was Pietersons responsibility.

Additionally, I do not think that a serving England captain should be writing a column for a national newspaper. Pieterson does so for the News of the World. It isn’t as though he needs the money, as lucrative contracts and sponsorship deals already ensure a very healthy income. Such a column can only cause disrest amongst the England team and staff.

It cannot be denied that KP is a magnificent batsman, with the ability to turn a match around with his skill. However, the captain is not God, and he seems to believe that he should run the ECB. Whether Peter Moores is the right man as head coach is debatable. His record of 8 wins, 7 draws & 8 defeats is hardly sparkling, especially as the wins have predominantly come against the weak West Indies team and New Zealand, whose successes in the one day game outweigh their Test performances.

With the Ashes later this summer, this is probably a great opportunity for the ECB to take a broom to the locker room. A new head coach, a new captain and a new direction should be announced. A tour of the West Indies is just two weeks away, and would be an opportunity to bed in the new group, build relationships and hopefully taste some success. This would also be a great chance to pick English born and bred coaching, with support from other nationalities, and a proud to wear the whites of England captain.

It has just been mentioned on tv that KP was part of the side that won the Ashes in England, but they failed to mention that he was also part of the side whitewashed in Australia eighteen months later.

Whatever happens, it should be an entertaining summer.

Happy new year one and all.

A new year, yet some things never change. As  Channel4 continues to spiral into bankruptcy, another series of Big Brother is being planned and the ‘celebrity’ special gets underway. Novelly, they have chosen 3 ex Boy/girl band members, a topless model, and, a batch of Americans, plus some middle-aged has-beens. The American rapper spot has gone to Coolio, a one hit wonder to British audiences. For the freak role, and probably undoing all the good that Jermaine did for the family last year, is La Toya Jackson. As a scouser reflects all that is common, ugly and derisable to the Middle England TV Producer sect, we have an ex-Brookside actress, she does at least still have a career, in the award winning ‘Shameless’, though I don’t watch it myself. Throw in an obscure Scottish MP (Scottish Parliament) from George Galloways stock - and wasn’t CBB just the high point of George’s career, as anyone remembering the lycra and cat impression will billiously recall. Ulrika Jonsson needs little introduction, having many failed careers and partners behind her - with four children by different fathers, famous relationships with married men, and no real job since being a weather girl, she should have been cast in ‘Shameless’ herself.

That leaves the last two places, and the two contestants who may actually entice me to tune in when at a complete and utter loose end - Terry Christian and Verne Troyer. Verne is already the bookies favourite, which is hardly surprising, as my mother always reminded me - great things come in little packages. Whilst diminuitive in stature and having a real cuteness factor, Verne has already shown that he will not be bemused by the British sense of humour, as many Americans are, but has had the advantage of working closely with British born Mike Myers on several film projects, and has always seemed down-to-earth in interviews. Terry is a Mancunian, who revels in his straight-talking northern credentials, and reminds me a little of myself (he’s not as sage and wise as I).

No doubt the tabloid press will be setting aside page after page for any titbit from the show, magnifying the bland, sensationalizing the stupid, and, discussing breasts (especially the ‘News of the World’). Fortunately, it will all soon be over and forgotten about. Can anyone remind me of the original celebrities who first entered the Aussie jungle, and where they are now? I thought not.

2009 and it’s already a re-run.