Three weeks ago I went on a course learning how to construct video packages for the newspaper. My colleague and I Andrew are still learning the ropes, but you can see a rudimentary effort here:
http://www.spaldingtoday.co.uk/sectionhome.aspx?sectionID=10614
As you can see, the room looks like an underground bunker, possibly in Eastern Europe. As it gets darker, this may be even more of a problem. I have no autocue, so I'm forced to read from a sheet which means my eye contact flickers - not ideal by any means. Also for no apparent reason I talk out of the right side of my mouth, as if my brain is demanding an imminent stroke. Quite why my gargoyle features have decided on this action I don't know.
We are planning a chromakey background - you put up a green sheet, and then superimpose an image onto it, similar to what you see when someone's doing the weather. Ours looks like a James Bond villain lair, with screens showing satellites, news, sport, entertainment, the Moomins, Loose Women, QVC, and Uncle Tom Cobley and all.
Also, check out my Mi Casa and Thoroughly Modern Millie package.
Other random observations and news:
*Heard from Chris Carter, the director of Tulip Radio, that Tulip is going straight for full time in January, without the usual November stint. Also the station will not be on 87.9, annoyingly (87.9 is reserved for temporary licences). The only problem is, we don't know what the frequency will be for another couple of months, giving Chris and Jan (Whitbourne, fellow director) no time to prepare promotions, adverts, stings etc. Ludicrous. sort it out Ofcom.
*P54 of the Spalding Guardian. Top picture, bloke on the front row, far left. Look closely.
*Mosley to win against Mayorga tonight, but to be hurt numerous times. Age must catch up with him soon.
*Nice to see David Haye finally has an opponent in Monte Barrett. Lot's see if the Hayemaker can live up to the hype.
Saturday 27 September 2008
Wednesday 17 September 2008
Toon true for comfort
Caught this on my surfing travels:
I hate Newcastle Football Club. The city is spectacular, as you can see, and the ground is one of the best. The team stinks.
In 1995 to 97 they had Shearer, Beardsley, Ginola, Ferdinand, Asprilla...born entertainers.
Combine that with a defence dodgier and wobblier than Jodie Marsh's breasts and you've got a team that wins little but always keeps you on the edge of your seat.
And then, slowly, imperceptibly, they became boring, after Keegan left (for the first time)
And then even worse, they filled the team with criminals.
Bowyer, Woodgate, Dyer, Bramble, and worst of all Bellamy, represented the sneering, arrogant face of football. All of these have been in court for assault, speeding, racist attacks - in Bowyer's case several of these.
But the Geordies embraced them - and yet they were surprised when they won nothing! A team of selfish thugs like this, and the fans expect a functioning team. Remember when Bowyer and Dyer were both sent off for punching each other - it summed it all up. They lost my respect and my admiration.
The thugs left and they became mediocre, inconsistent, also-rans. My respect did not return.
The team made a good start this season, drawing with Man Utd. They beat my lot Coventry as well. Now things are falling apart, the Keegan roadshow has left town again, and the most impatient fans in football started whining.
1955: The last time the Magpies won a major title. 1987: The last time Coventry won one.
21 years is a long time to wait, but 53, for a "massive club" like Newcastle, is ludicrous. Longer than Darren Peacock's hair.
My favourite moment of the season: whenever Newcastle go out of the league cup - so we can add another one to the 53.
Monday 15 September 2008
Husky hunt
Ok highlights of the 20s part deux.
Imagine going all the way to Scandinavia, moving through Denmark and Sweden to Finland, taking the 13 hour sleeper train to Lapland, getting to Santa Claus village - and then being told there were no reindeers or huskies. Gutted.
I was moping round like a bear with a sore head. That's possibly because I hadn't shaved in 10 days and had a hangover that was attacking my skull like a chav battering his wife on Jeremy Kyle.
So I meandered around the village, out in the snow, minus 20 degrees, my beard freezing over until I resembled a poor man's Sean Connery. Yes, Santa had been great - I sat on his knee, trying to think unhomosexual thoughts, while he regaled me with tales of previous visits to Spalding. The toy section was amazing (I was 28 at the time), although I couldn't get past that bastard level on Space Invaders. But there were no animals. Until...
In the very far distance I heard a bark. And another. Was it a Pekinese being savaged by a wolf? Unlikely. I approached. The barking gets louder. A pack of hounds mauling a ferret? Perhaps, but...I run, realising what the sound must be, almost in slow motion. I fall, going head over heels into the crumbly snow. My trousers are soaked. I don't care.
By the time I arrived at the private husky farm, a full mile away from Santa Claus Village in a zone I would imagine no tourist ever sees, the noise was deafening. Probably 100 dogs in pens excited to see someone not called Helki Jancobsson or something similar. I trudged to the nearest one, ecstatic, and he licked my hand. A nearby door opened and an Ogreish Finn emerges. He is not happy. I can see that trouble is ahead, and I will need all my journalistic negotiating skills to survive.
Finn: "You should not be here. This is a private farm."
Me: "Fair enough, but since I am, will you take my photo?"
Finn: "Oh, OK."
And so he did. You can see one of several snaps he got at the top of this blog. I didn't push my luck and left, my frozen cheeks beaming. The dog's fur was the most perfect I'll ever feel.
I still had another day in Lapland, then Helsinki and on to Tallinn. But to a dog lover who'd travelled about 3,000 miles and 40 degrees, my favourite holiday moment was already secure.
*Away from my indulgence, please check out Rob Brydon singing on Youtube - songs that don't match up with a tune. Thanks to my workmate Adam for that.
*Nice to see Coventry nestling into a comfortable 13th in the Championship. The season might as well end now.
*We've started putting videos on the Johnston Press website - later in the week we'll have a link to LFPTV, on which I will be a newsreader. Fab.
Sunday 14 September 2008
Three decades old
Well, I'm old. Three decades old.
There are ups and downs. Hair continues to migrate from my head to my nostrils and ears, the perilous journey through my skull fretting them into greyness. My belly, once chiselled and god like, is now pliant and monk-like. Colds that once lasted a day decide they like their new home, and stay for a long weekend. Admittedly I am more mature and wise, and anyone who disagrees is a wee-wee head, but this is of small benefit when a hangover that in my teens would not even have registered can now make my brain seep out of my nose and my stomach pour out of my arse like acid cleaner down a drain.
So in a purely self indulgent post I decided to look back at a few of the highlights of my twenties. A fun game is to guess how many IQ points I lost per event. I'll start with two tonight, with a few more tomorrow.
1) Time to go back to when I was 20. 1999. Man Utd were bathing in the triumph of Barcelona. Britney was still fit. I had a fashionable "bowl-cut" hairstyle and massive glasses, and was fending off women left right and centre with an erotic blend of constant sarcasm and curry for Breakfast.
On the night in question I was blotto. Drunk. Wrecked. It was a fairly lovely feeling as I was dressed in a tuxedo so I was still the man. We had been at my University sports federation ball, when I suddenly decided to walk home to Coventry. Normally this would take about 25 mins.
I left without telling anyone, smoothly slipping out of the marquee by literally wrestling with a sheet of plastic cover for about two minutes before a steward came to untangle me.
Then I walked out into the bleak night fully loaded on cigars, cheap red wine and hope. The wine lasted, the hope didn't. Within an hour I found myself lying in the middle of an unknown roundabout with an unknown man standing over me. Luckliy my trousers still seemed to be in place. He said, in a monumentally obvious tone: "You don't want to be sleeping here mate." I was lying in a bush, on the outskirts of Coventry, in a tuxedo, in the freezing cold. Thank you for that sage advice. I told him my road name. He said go to the end of this road, then go right, then the end of the next road, right, end of next road, right, then you'll be there. I followed this samaritan's advice to the letter, aprat from the last bit when I completely ignored him.
The journey lasted about 4 hours. I carried a hubcap for one of them.
I heard dogs barking. At one point I climbed over a barbed wired fence. I lay under a tree. I walked through some school grounds. I ran, crawled, stumbled, shuffled. I spoke to a man carrying a rucksack. I sat on a wall and counted out about 14 pence from my pockets, socks and underpants. I don't know what order I did these things in but I know I did them. Anyone following me would have thought I had real problems - I was walking through the city shouting "Where the F*** am I" at the top of my voice. And then I got home.
I woke up the next morning with sore legs, not really understanding the odyssey I had taken. At the time I was furious - the next day it was hilarious. It still stands as one of the funniest thing ever in my life, and yet I'm not really sure why - it has never been repeated, and never can be.
Number two tomorrow - a trip to Scandinavia - along with other bits and bobs
There are ups and downs. Hair continues to migrate from my head to my nostrils and ears, the perilous journey through my skull fretting them into greyness. My belly, once chiselled and god like, is now pliant and monk-like. Colds that once lasted a day decide they like their new home, and stay for a long weekend. Admittedly I am more mature and wise, and anyone who disagrees is a wee-wee head, but this is of small benefit when a hangover that in my teens would not even have registered can now make my brain seep out of my nose and my stomach pour out of my arse like acid cleaner down a drain.
So in a purely self indulgent post I decided to look back at a few of the highlights of my twenties. A fun game is to guess how many IQ points I lost per event. I'll start with two tonight, with a few more tomorrow.
1) Time to go back to when I was 20. 1999. Man Utd were bathing in the triumph of Barcelona. Britney was still fit. I had a fashionable "bowl-cut" hairstyle and massive glasses, and was fending off women left right and centre with an erotic blend of constant sarcasm and curry for Breakfast.
On the night in question I was blotto. Drunk. Wrecked. It was a fairly lovely feeling as I was dressed in a tuxedo so I was still the man. We had been at my University sports federation ball, when I suddenly decided to walk home to Coventry. Normally this would take about 25 mins.
I left without telling anyone, smoothly slipping out of the marquee by literally wrestling with a sheet of plastic cover for about two minutes before a steward came to untangle me.
Then I walked out into the bleak night fully loaded on cigars, cheap red wine and hope. The wine lasted, the hope didn't. Within an hour I found myself lying in the middle of an unknown roundabout with an unknown man standing over me. Luckliy my trousers still seemed to be in place. He said, in a monumentally obvious tone: "You don't want to be sleeping here mate." I was lying in a bush, on the outskirts of Coventry, in a tuxedo, in the freezing cold. Thank you for that sage advice. I told him my road name. He said go to the end of this road, then go right, then the end of the next road, right, end of next road, right, then you'll be there. I followed this samaritan's advice to the letter, aprat from the last bit when I completely ignored him.
The journey lasted about 4 hours. I carried a hubcap for one of them.
I heard dogs barking. At one point I climbed over a barbed wired fence. I lay under a tree. I walked through some school grounds. I ran, crawled, stumbled, shuffled. I spoke to a man carrying a rucksack. I sat on a wall and counted out about 14 pence from my pockets, socks and underpants. I don't know what order I did these things in but I know I did them. Anyone following me would have thought I had real problems - I was walking through the city shouting "Where the F*** am I" at the top of my voice. And then I got home.
I woke up the next morning with sore legs, not really understanding the odyssey I had taken. At the time I was furious - the next day it was hilarious. It still stands as one of the funniest thing ever in my life, and yet I'm not really sure why - it has never been repeated, and never can be.
Number two tomorrow - a trip to Scandinavia - along with other bits and bobs
Sunday 7 September 2008
Amir Khan't
This weekend there were two upsets seen by millions of people on TV. Here's Amir Kahn getting trounced by Breidis Prescott (although you may want to avoid reading the fascist posts underneath):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1hLX9j1gEg
The other one was Rachel Rice winning Big Brother
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9wOgh6NSkI
Rice was 11/4 to win, while Prescott was a massive 33/1 outsider for his fight. So if you'd put a tenner on the two, you'd be walking away with around a grand.
Rice has already been dubbed "the dullest winner ever" to win BB, and with good reason. I didn't see the final show, but I would imagine the highlights package lasted less than the Kahn fight. She was devoid of adventure, annoyingly prudish, and contributed very little in terms of coonversation in any way. So why did she win? Two reasons - the whole of Wales was voting for her, and she was a normal person.
The BB producers made another shambolic job of putting the programme together, but getting some relatively run-of-the-mill people in was one thing they got right. The freaks were there - Kat, Darnell, Alex, Dennis and Bex being notably awful - but they were beaten. Ironically Rachel's audition video was completely false - bubbly, dancing drivel, talking about how funny she is and living in a world of bunny rabbits and magic. A right load of garbage basically. But once she was there she sneaked through the rounds and was victorious. At first I was annoyed, now I feel OK about it.
Don't really want to say much more about her or the series because it was pretty dreadful. Putting Rex's girlfriend in halfway through was scandalous and nearly ruined him as a character. Also nobody had the guts to tell him that his hair had morphed into a ginger parrot crest by the end of the series. Luke wore a suit on the way in, and never wore it again. Bex was the worst thing to leave Coventry since the German bombers flew back home. The jail was rubbish. And Davina has got to grow. Her shouting is well documented, but the more annoying trait was that exaggerated, closed-eye, witch's face smile that hung off her face. Her delivery was dreadful, most of her dresses were bordering on S and M, and quite frankly when BB10 comes around - most likely the last series - hopefully she will evaporate with it.
On to Kahn. His chin has failed the test several times before and it did it again.
When you are fighting a guy who's unbeaten and has knocked out 17 of 19 opponents, the one thing you don't do, even if you believe he's been fighting people from the local job centre or bus stops, is run out with your chin stuck out like a flasher's dangly bits. There was no testing the waters, no surveillance of what Prescott had to offer, and he was annihilated.
The first right hand made his legs do a little jig, but rather than grabbing hold with Mr Tickle arms and stopping his opponent punching he traded, and a right hand dropped him almost sideways, in the way that is usually a fight ender. Somehow he got up, and really shouldn't have been allowed to continue, but he was. The second knockdown propelled him against the cornerpost. The 54 worst seconds of his life.
Can he come back? Maybe, but I doubt it. Lots of fighters return from defeat, but rarely defeats like that. In the 70s Duane Bobick, an outstanding amateur in the US team, was wiped out by Kenny Norton after being hit in the windpipe. Never did anything again. Others that spring to mind are Audley Harrison, Michael Grant and Jorge Luis Gonzalez, all crushed when they stepped up a level.
Kahn doesn't have the punch, he blatantly doesn't have the chin, and possibly most worrying he doesn't seem to have any tactical awareness. He will be beaten again within the next year, and this time it will be fatal to his career.
As a matter of fact, I think Manny Pacquiao will beat Oscar De La Hoya - that's one for another blog later in the year.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1hLX9j1gEg
The other one was Rachel Rice winning Big Brother
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9wOgh6NSkI
Rice was 11/4 to win, while Prescott was a massive 33/1 outsider for his fight. So if you'd put a tenner on the two, you'd be walking away with around a grand.
Rice has already been dubbed "the dullest winner ever" to win BB, and with good reason. I didn't see the final show, but I would imagine the highlights package lasted less than the Kahn fight. She was devoid of adventure, annoyingly prudish, and contributed very little in terms of coonversation in any way. So why did she win? Two reasons - the whole of Wales was voting for her, and she was a normal person.
The BB producers made another shambolic job of putting the programme together, but getting some relatively run-of-the-mill people in was one thing they got right. The freaks were there - Kat, Darnell, Alex, Dennis and Bex being notably awful - but they were beaten. Ironically Rachel's audition video was completely false - bubbly, dancing drivel, talking about how funny she is and living in a world of bunny rabbits and magic. A right load of garbage basically. But once she was there she sneaked through the rounds and was victorious. At first I was annoyed, now I feel OK about it.
Don't really want to say much more about her or the series because it was pretty dreadful. Putting Rex's girlfriend in halfway through was scandalous and nearly ruined him as a character. Also nobody had the guts to tell him that his hair had morphed into a ginger parrot crest by the end of the series. Luke wore a suit on the way in, and never wore it again. Bex was the worst thing to leave Coventry since the German bombers flew back home. The jail was rubbish. And Davina has got to grow. Her shouting is well documented, but the more annoying trait was that exaggerated, closed-eye, witch's face smile that hung off her face. Her delivery was dreadful, most of her dresses were bordering on S and M, and quite frankly when BB10 comes around - most likely the last series - hopefully she will evaporate with it.
On to Kahn. His chin has failed the test several times before and it did it again.
When you are fighting a guy who's unbeaten and has knocked out 17 of 19 opponents, the one thing you don't do, even if you believe he's been fighting people from the local job centre or bus stops, is run out with your chin stuck out like a flasher's dangly bits. There was no testing the waters, no surveillance of what Prescott had to offer, and he was annihilated.
The first right hand made his legs do a little jig, but rather than grabbing hold with Mr Tickle arms and stopping his opponent punching he traded, and a right hand dropped him almost sideways, in the way that is usually a fight ender. Somehow he got up, and really shouldn't have been allowed to continue, but he was. The second knockdown propelled him against the cornerpost. The 54 worst seconds of his life.
Can he come back? Maybe, but I doubt it. Lots of fighters return from defeat, but rarely defeats like that. In the 70s Duane Bobick, an outstanding amateur in the US team, was wiped out by Kenny Norton after being hit in the windpipe. Never did anything again. Others that spring to mind are Audley Harrison, Michael Grant and Jorge Luis Gonzalez, all crushed when they stepped up a level.
Kahn doesn't have the punch, he blatantly doesn't have the chin, and possibly most worrying he doesn't seem to have any tactical awareness. He will be beaten again within the next year, and this time it will be fatal to his career.
As a matter of fact, I think Manny Pacquiao will beat Oscar De La Hoya - that's one for another blog later in the year.
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