Premier League II

I could not put it better myself, really. Everton really must be having a 'mare with David Moyes is now getting all Satire-waving about the "inevitable" coming of "Premier League 2".

On the most basic argument, any additional top league in English football featuring the Old Firm rivals Celtic and Rangers would put an end to the long serving tradition of British football. As a kind of "thank you" to inventing the modern game, the four Home Nations are awarded four separate seats on the FIFA and UEFA top tables; England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales. Okay, we're not quite unique in this, France has a separate international team within its borders, but I won't give away this pub quiz answer today....

For Celtic and Rangers to become permanent, full members of the otherwise English Premier League, the whole future set up of the national and international game would change forever. UEFA and FIFA have made it quite clear that a separate English international football team would not exist were the Old Firm to become members of any national football division. Remember the fuss regarding Cardiff winning the FA Cup not being able to take part in European cup competitions? Think about that writ large.

If the idea of a joint Anglo-Scottish football team doesn't jump out at you (oh imagine the pubs before kick-off...), what about the future of the lower leagues? The amount of money trickling down to even League 1 and League 2 levels is not torrenting down in great waves; an increasing number of Conference and non-league sides are up against the financial wall including Hyde, Farsley Celtic, and Chester. The possibility of having a "walled garden" outside of which survive a withering clutch of barely solvent league teams is nothing short of offensive.

"Mighty" Anderlecht are about discussing the "Atlantic League" theory in case a British "Premier League 2" falls flat. If the notion of pan-European league fills you with a logistical shiver down the spine, you may not be the only ones. But the future of British football, which is far more than sepia-tinged nostalgia for half-time pies and giant killing, relies on the four Home Nations having leagues of their own. Cross-border leagues do not exist in any other country in the world; for clear and unique reasons, the United Kingdom does not suit the notion of a grouped league football format.

Healthy and economically strong our football teams are not (Spurs aside, and there are rather dodgy non-politically correct suggestions for why...). Bringing English and Scottish leagues together in any form would merely produce an incredibly exclusive clutch of world-famous franchises kept away from the motley crews (and indeed, Crewe) below. As a fan of football, and of the lower league game specifically, the prospect does not thrill me with joy at all.

Votes @ 16 B4 '10

Last week, Gordon Brown suggested that he supported the call for "votes at 16". The question was put by Phyllis Starkey, of the Milton Keynes South West constituency, and apparent expenses-related farago. But enough of her. The main issue is one of the few outstanding electoral improvements I think Labour should enact immediately; it took over a generation to give women the vote, decades to lower the voting age to 18, with the second decade of this 21st Century almost two generations from this last welcome move.

With the age at which people can be a candidate now at 18, the time to bring the voting age in line with most other "society says you're an adult now" levels is all the more relevant. Sixteen is not exactly an age at which people are clueless children; "Make Poverty History" and anti-fascist demonstrations show a growing number of teenagers who are rejecting party politics in preference to single-issues. This should be encouraged as much as possible; the often sneered at world of "student politics" is far deeper than detractors would have believe.

Through Facebook, Twitter, and blogs, younger people who feel marginalised by the political processes have found other means to react and interact with the matters of the day. Be it the drug legalisation debate, student fees, or how to deal with persistent illegal downloading of music, teenagers are more at the centre of the contemporary political debate than ever before. If a candidate aged 18 can request the support of a large electorate in an election, how can it be justified to ignore a growing surge of 16 and 17-year olds whose points of reference are so similar?

As a long-time (failed!) candidate in elections, I have first hand knowledge that not all adults walk into polling stations having read each and every party manifesto. This kills the notion that awarding teenagers the vote would somehow award ignorance. It's simply not the case.

The entrenched party loyalties often stubbornly stuck to by people in their 30s, 40s, and older, do not exist to the same extent with younger voters; continued polls of the young show a taste for democracy and a willingness not to be loyal to one "brand" or "party". Elections to and activities in the Youth Parliament continue to grow as increasing numbers of young people find their voice at a time when "youngster" so often means "thug" or "clueless hoodie" in the columns of the tabloid press.

Labour do not have a faultless record with either electoral administration, or policies which improve the lot of younger people. They should not be scared to embrace the one policy which would bring into the political process thousands of people whose minds are open to questioning the norm and walking against the tide. Relevance to the debates which alter their lives seem so distant at a time when politics is alive with issues. Sixteen year olds are in the same position today as 18 year olds were in the 1960s; a new generation of people more than able to participate in politics. It is time for the improvement to be made, for the issue to be sorted out before the next general election.

Give 16 year olds the vote.

Why I support John and Edward

X-Factor viewers are not exactly in for a treat this year. Acts already out of the contest include a group who turned the self-referential nature of reality television on its head by being manufactured live on air; and a bite-sized Lee Evans with the inability to talk without breaking into tears accompanied by a soft-piano backing track, as though he pressed play on a tape-recording of sorrowful music whenever the moment suited it.

Remaining wannabes do not exactly justify the idea that the United Kingdom is the hotbed of musical talent. One contestant, Stacey, is something of a shapeshifter, talking like the a hairdresser from Hell one minute before channeling the spirit of a cruise ship warbler when she sings. A bloke called Daryl, whose attitude appears to be younger than the children he teaches, proves he can sing by unnecessarily holding onto notes at the end of each verse for the sake of a whooping applause.

Above all of the hopefuls sits the one last hope in reality television, however. I like to call it the "Michelle McManus Phenomenon", relating to the woman whose success in Pop Idol some years ago was almost certainly down to the concerted nationwide effort to give victory to the antidote to variety shows. Larger than most pop stars, and without anything like a distinctive voice, McManus was the victor the producers, presenters, and music company did not want to touch with a bargepole. Her victory was probably best characterised by the mysterious disappearance of her second single days after appearing on television promoting its release.

"Michelle McManus Phenomenon" is about to happen again with the X-Factor secret weapon; two Irish lads called John and Edward. If enough Facebook petitions, bored tabloid journalists, and Twitter users can keep pressing Redial on their phones, these two lads may well be the death of X-Factors from this year hence. Imagine the power. "Jedward" have almost no actual talent; their singing is breathless and often out of tune, their dancing uncertain and without much choreography. Like John Sergeant on Strictly Come Dancing last year, their continued appearances are thanks to a population who want to stick two fingers up at the perceived wisdom that producers knows better than consumers. Nobody actually wants tone-deaf Irish kids on their radio every day, but imagine trying to give X-Factor and other such shows credibility ever again were they to win.

This is why I fully support the two frankly terrible young lads to win. Not because I am a fan of the show, or of them, or their "mentor" Louis Walsh. Because I remember the amount of laughing around the country when Pop Idol judges were forced to grin and applaud as Michelle McManus blandly warbled her way through a two-bit pop song. Because I remember Alex Parks on BBC One's Fame Academy, the spiky-haired Cornish lesbian who sounded like Tracy Thorn with hiccups, but who nevertheless was an actual talented singer held back by the prejudices connected to winning a phone-in reality show.

Putting an end to such shows in the future is a bold aim. It could just work. To ensure X-Factor has to suffer a serious pride-fall from which it may never recover, all support must now turn to the two people who can bring down its empire. It's time to vote like you've never done before. It's time to celebrate the Britney Spears cover-versions and uncertain high-kicks and garbled half-forgotten lyrics. It's time to hand victory to John and Edward.

It's the least we can do for the good of our country.

Climbing out of recession

Previous posts - No Money, No Excuses Pennywise

Like Earl Hickey, I have made a list. Topping the list is my usual November pay-day wage, a four-figure sum. From there is subtracted the final installment of the Inland Revenue's required payment, various bank charges, rent, and utility bills. As currently calculated my budget for the remainder of this month is around £50.

As described in the earlier posts on this subject, I am acutely aware of how this financial situation, tough as it may be, is a temporary measure. That it involves such an extreme drop from one figure to the other is unusual but not unique.

It is one resulting from earlier errors now rectified and learned from.

There are people possibly no further from my house than two streets away whose financial state is far deeper and harder than mine. However if something has really come to the centre of my mind these past few weeks it has been just how easy it can be for a person to remain at the foot of a steep financial mountain despite their best efforts. I am more aware than I was last month, on a three-week budget of seven pounds, of how best to make the money last; and I cannot ignore the words from my boss who reminded me how her generation often had to make very little go a very long way.

What has angered me more than usual during this period is the continued availability of 'easy money', even with the recession so deep and long-lasting, and the nation's banks under such scrutiny. Plans to tighten up credit card terms are to be broadly welcomed although any forced increase in minimum payments must, surely, take into consideration the 'death spiral' into which people fall when forced to pay more than they can afford. Again, I have to make clear that the depth into which people fall is largely their own fault - "guns don't kill people, people do" - however it does not take long to see how the banks and credit card companies encouraged quick loans and easy credit when times were good with little regard to the long term consequences.

One particular consequence from banks having to almost stop the availability of loans and easy credit is the continuation of loan companies advertising and door-knocking to entice the already vulnerable into contracts they cannot possibly afford. This really gets to me now that I can appreciate just how easy it can be to fall from a complacent attitude to spending into a very tight and tough financial hardship.

One company I caught advertising during a daytime cookery show yesterday - I won't name them - used a plain looking model pretending to be a housewife talking in glowing terms about getting same day "top ups" to her wages, in easy to afford amounts for paying back at her convenience. The terms and conditions printed in very small text along the bottom of the screen confirmed nothing more strenuous than a valid e-mail address would suffice for identity. Its APR - the rate of repayment, a good indication of the relationship between the end amount you pay with the amount originally loaned - was quoted as 2,356%. Two thousand, three hundred, and fifty-six percent.

I am confident that my attitude to money and spending will be all the better from my experiences last month and this. I remain, however, concerned and indeed marked by this period as a time when I could see far clearer than before how much must be done by government, banks, and financial institutions, to stop the culture of cheap money and spending without consequence. The financial meltdown will not end at the behest of bored journalists looking for a new scandal to type up: people who remain at the bottom of the pile because of our deep, dark recession may be suffering for decades to come, leaving that as the real legacy of our elected representatives' drive to "end the era of boom and bust".

telly addicts

So, farewell then, analogue television.

From tomorrow in two English regions, and Wales, the second installment of the national switch-off begins. For people of all ages an era ends: for my generation it is perhaps the final installment of a gradual up-grade process from the four channels in the 80s, through basic Cable television, to the ability to pause live programming in a fashion not even predicted by the usually excitable studio of Tomorrow's World.

Looking back through my memory banks shows just how important in my life the box in the corner of the room has been. As a child, I was particularly over-excited by regional-opt outs, icons and logos, anything it would seem except the programmes themselves. The faintest echo of the Children In Need "Let's go round the regions" anthem still filters around my head, a triumph of my anorak nature and the ability of the Beeb to write a catchy tune which could withstand the slight delays inherent in switching from the studios in Edinburgh to a car-park outside Eccles. If you want to help - DRUM - help Children In Need. It's all flooding back....

In the early years of cable television in this area, I would tiptoe to the front room to channel flick until the sun came up. In later years it was, I concede, more to do with the promise of untold thrills during The Adult Channel's preview adverts, although at first even the chance of watching a channel close down that wasn't the BBC interested me something rotten. In those days - how odd does that sound, and yet how true! - BBC One still closed down, playing the national anthem over a spinning globe before fading to black.

As a defender of the licence fee I hope talk of "top slicing" the funding to other channels does not occur if the consequence is a weaker, lesser BBC. That most of my viewing and listening comes from the BBC is not just an unwillingness to channel-surf; I happen to prefer most of the Corporation's output to that on ITV and, sadly I have to say, a lot of what is now broadcast on Channel 4. There was a time when it felt daring and exciting to watch 4, often with the sound turned down and a pillow under my bedroom door to ensure nobody spotted I was watching The Word, or the "red light zone" themed programming seemingly broadcast for the benefit of my youthful development (if I can phrase it that way).

Channel 4 maintains some high standards, although even its own time flagship programmes Cutting Edge, and Dispatches, have become sensationalist and boring.

Tomorrow will mark the next-step in the advancing of Britain's digital broadcasting age. I must look back with some nostalgia at the advances of yesteryear which somehow seem terribly quaint by today's standards: flick a switch on a channel now to access the all-day broadcasting schedules of a hundred channels, on the former Cable North West service there was one screen with a scrolling schedule information display and a 30-minute cut-off.

Maybe the box in the corner will be pushed back even further into the shadows if television-on-demand, iPlayer, downloads and so on continue to become more popular with the viewing public. Maybe television itself will cease to be thought of in terms of separate channels and networks as commitment to single brands continues to dissolve. All I know is, the manner of watching the screen has certainly changed beyond all recognition but the little child inside is still humming the theme tune to Live & Kicking and wondering if he'll ever see the HTVWales logo again.....

Glasgow North East by-election

Following the resignation of former Speaker, Michael Martin MP, there is to be a by-election in his Glasgow North East constituency. This will take place on the 12 November. The candidates are as follows, with links and info where available.

In keeping with my policy set out in the Norwich North thread, this blog does not include direct links to British National Party websites or candidates.

Updated 1 November with Scottish Socialist Party link

Charlie BAILLIE – British National Party
Willie BAIN – Scottish Labour Party Candidate
Eileen BAXENDALE – Scottish Liberal Democrats
Mev BROWN – Independent (Fellow blogger Kristofer Keane informs me that Brown has stood in various Scottish elections with different party labels each time, namely thus far Referendum Party, UK Independence Party, NHS First, Scottish Voice Party, and the Jury Team.
Colin CAMPBELL – The Individuals Labour and Tory (TILT) This newly registered party seems to be a mix of traditional Tory, old Labour, and Whig-influenced policy pick-n-mix with some terrible poetry to boot.
Ruth DAVIDSON – Scottish Conservative and Unionist
David DOHERTY – Scottish Green Party
Mikey HUGHES – Independent. Mr Hughes took part in Big Brother. Did he win? I have no idea.
David KERR – Scottish National Party (SNP)
Louise McDAID – Socialist Labour Party
Kevin McVEY – Scottish Socialist Party – Make Greed History
Tommy SHERIDAN – Solidarity – Scotland’s Socialist Movement
John SMEATON – Jury Team. Smeaton is the Glasgow Airport baggage handler who "took on" the attempted terrorist attack while on duty with the now infamous words "This is Glasgow: we’ll set aboot ye".

If there any further updates or links, I will try my hardest to add them.

I wish Liberal Democrat candidate Eileen Baxendale all the best of luck in what will be a testing by-election fight.

Index Eye

By using Google Analytics and StatCounter I am able to spot who is reading what, when, and from where they are staring through a screen at my Missives. Oo-er and indeed missus.

The following six (and a bit) entries are not necessarily the most popular, rather they have maintained a loyal little readership long after the publication date. Can blog entries be "published"? Of course they can, that orange button says "PUBLISH POST". Right, good, that's sorted.

So, here are the "Top 6-ish blog entries which have maintained popularity over a certain amount of time, listed to give readers a chance to peruse entries they may have missed. Type thing."


1. Book Clubbed. In which I go through how many writing pads have been filled with endless attempts at writing novels and stories, only to end somewhere mid-sentence through a middle chapter in a mixture of resignation and slight disappointment.

2. Derren Brown - parts one and two. When the "wisdom of the crowds" met the "scepticism of the Doktorb". Guess who won...

3. Backstory - Jumper No idea why this is still picking up the readers, (it seems to be very popular every now and then with American IP addresses). What happens when a younger Dok goes into a clothes shop. And fails to do anything right.

4. Scotland Memories of Mallaig, the Small Isles, and such like. Badly typed Gaelic too, I wouldn't wonder.

5. Nick Griffin - parts one and two No surprises here, I suppose. The one surprising thing about my articles making the case for the BNP leader to appear on Question Time is how many people got here searching for "X Factor" and "Simon Cowell is a [naughty word]".

6. Sleeping with John Peel Musical musings and such like memories. I can only assume it's the provocative title, you know....

Dusk's optimism

These are the shadows embracing, the firm embrace of dream-time loosening, loosening. What strength drawn through the light milk of translucent morning stirrs the consciousness; arms stretched and hands posed as to admire jewellery.

These are the thoughts of uncertainty which melt with the dawn, voices not your own, typeface characterised in colour. If this is the wariness of dawn its partner must be the optimism at dusk.

Your footsteps have been walked before, we call them the witness of strangers, only with the addition of clunking chains. Maybe the touch of fabric against skin, slightest whispers of leaves, twigs, branches, rustling in the chase. Footsteps of a Victorian gentleman starched and bearded: else a lost woman holding up her hand to shade light and deflect attention.

In our hands grasped, an orb, purple and shocking-pink; these are the reputations we do not realise are held by others. Heavy, unusually warm, our bounty we are eager to hide under a plenitude of x's. Imagine the jagged donut-hole.

Our ironic egg.

London fascist week

Nick Griffin must think all his birthdays have come at once.

From the first dawn of new year 2009, the mainstream media and blogosphere have united in giving the British National Party the one thing they crave; massive and widespread coverage. For around six months the topic was "How we can stop the BNP being elected to Brussels". When the North West of England, and Yorkshire & Humber elected one BNP member each, the former being Griffin himself, a brief flurry of discussion later has lead to a new target: the BBC, in allowing Griffin to appear on Question Time, is now in the firing range.

Deluded rent-a-quote Peter Hain, MP for Neath and Welsh Secretary - so in other words, Minister For Having Nothing To Do With How the BBC Conducts Itself - has been ranting like a wind-up toy for weeks about nothing else. He called the BNP "illegal", which must come as some shock to the Electoral Commission whose Register of Political Parties includes them just as they do almost every other group wishing to stand in elections. In Mr Hain's imaginarium, the BNP probably do not exist. Or else, perhaps, they do; Griffin is only one below the Archbishop of Canterbury in order of precedence, and Question Time is a CGI-laden one-off event broadcast across all frequencies and watched by literally everyone.

The BBC are completely within their rights to ask Griffin to appear on Question Time, just as they are completely within their rights not to ask a card-carrying member of the Monster Raving Loony Party: much to the annoyance of people like Hain, Nick Griffin has gone and achieved the sort of democratic mandate every trick in the book was supposed to deny. "No Platform" has resulted in dozens of councillors, a GLA member, and 2 MEPs. The one thing which could have stopped the tide of BNP success - face-to-face discussion - was dismissed as being something akin to collusion or agreement.

Allowing Griffin to appear in all his pudgy wonky-eyed glory will "prove the lie" on the strength of his party and their policies. Jack Straw represents Blackburn, so should know a thing or two about the realities of racial relations in a multi-ethnic town. Bonnie Greer has her own perspective on the difficulties - and consequences - of racism far beyond our shores. On any subject other than race - and there's quite a few news stories circulating at the moment - Griffin will struggle. Anyone who has seen UKIP leader Nigel Farage shoehorn Europe into every single answer he's asked to provide know how tiring it becomes hearing the subject heave-hoed up the hill each and every time.

Griffin will hang himself with his own words. It's not as though his other interviews and appearances have ever been successful in reinventing his reputation. Those who wish to deny his voice on QT forget just how many blogs and YouTube appearances the man is getting even as I type. Let democracy and the democratic process actually happen, on a respected and popular television programme, and then react.

There are a lot of extremists on the left-wing who forget that the "spectrum of politics" can so easily be displayed not as a straight-line, but as a circle...

pennywise

Thatcher's children turned 18 with the country on an economic high and confidence soaring. Blair's children turn 18 at a time of deepening recession and unemployment touching 3 million. Such are the circles of history and the echoes which come from whoever is writing the great story of life.

Okay, yes, I know that things are not so simple, but try arguing with ultra-loyal Labour supporters about the real reasons behind the current economic problems faced here and world-wide. They deny that £800bn debt (and climbing) is of any real concern. Gordon Brown was looking somewhere else, doing something different, it was the Bank of England really, nothing to do with anyone on the Government benches. It is such cowardice from Labour and their more vociferous supporters which makes their certain defeat in 2010 all the better to look forward to.

As I wrote some weeks ago this month has turned out to be the complete opposite of what I was expecting. To have only around £7 to stretch out across three weeks is entirely my own doing. How I have lived, and what I have experienced, puts the national politics and economic headlines to one side. I do not want to come across as enjoying these past few weeks, acting like some kind of "poverty tourist" doing it for show.

It has been rather humbling, if nothing else. My 9o'clock or 10o'clock jaunts to the "reduced to clear" aisles as Tesco reminded me how much food waste there must be in this country, and how many people must live without the spare cash available to impulse buy or stock up on expensive treats. "Invisible poverty", the reality of life behind closed doors, is something which affects thousands of people across the country. Thousands of pensioners who have to choose between heating and eating; a growing number of millions who cannot find a place back on the job ladder.

The first week following the discovery of my less-than-a-tenner situation has been something of a struggle. Entirely my own doing, I have to stress how much I realise this. I have become quite the fan of cut-price hotdogs and sell-by-date skimmed milk. Walking to work - five miles each way - is still hard to master. At Bamber Bridge I start something resembling a hurried trot: I must resemble a sit-com bridegroom late for the wedding after a list of "hilarious misunderstandings" and "you couldn't make it up" situations.

I had to bite my tongue whenever a beggar asks "Do you have any spare change?", as strictly speaking I actually don't, which is different to the times I shake my head and mumble something indistinct about having 'nothing to give', whatever that means. As I type this - free Internet!, such things now become welcomed with open arms, thank you, thank you Lancashire County Council! - my bank balance is around £2.70. This should be fine, though, I've stacked up on Aldi Shredded Wheat and cup-a-soups. People from work are being quite generous with left overs and unwanteds.

But it's not a situation I want to repeat. This is a window into another world; of actual poverty, of real life for thousands in this country and millions around the world. Unlike my temporary inconvenience, a lack of money and no guaranteed access to food is the reality for those in developing countries and so-called developed Western superpowers. It's a bit much, I admit, taking one man's overspending into the context of starvation in the poorest countries on Earth, but it takes a little of "you don't know what you've got 'till it's gone" to put things into context.

However - and it's a big "however" - having said all this, and with two weeks of struggle and lack of food still to go, this pay day weekend will be marked by a night of spending money with some abandon. It is surely my right to acknowledge the achievement of living this way by having one or two swift ales and the best darn foodstuffs So! Noodles has to offer of an evening...


...isn't it...?