Reflections of The Hendo

Leveson and Twitter

2011-11-24T18:13:00.001Z

The Leveson Inquiry is underway and it's fair to say it's been a gift to the live news channels who've been sticking with the hearings since the Dowlers opened proceedings so explosively at the beginning of this week.

But Twitter is a gift to hacks and others following events without the time to actually devote to listening to the witnesses. The Inquiry chairman has allowed tweets and also there's an annexe where the journalists can sit, watch and use their smartphones (and actually write their pieces) to their hearts content. Put these contributors in a twitterlist, open it in tweetdeck, and basically you'll end up with a live text feed of evidence - very useful.

No collection of links would be right without pointing out that the Inquiry itself has a helpful website which among other things lists the forthcoming witnesses. And I post this list with the usual caveat that it can't be complete; if you've been missed out drop me a tweet (@hendopolis) and I'll add you in.

The broadcasters have deployed in force. Ross Hawkins, more usually a political correspondent, is there for the BBC's News Channel and Peter Hunt watches it for the Corporation's various radio news and sequence outlets.
Sky are also there. Jim Old is their fixer and tweets about upcoming witnesses,and Mark White is a great provider of colour who pointed out this evening that after describing to the hearing the frightening effect of photographers, JK Rowling found her car being pursued up the street by yes, more snappers. Daisy McAndrew of ITN is also there at times, and has tweeted today how gripping she's finding it. Understatement of the year; our newsroom, usually a cauldron of sound, was definitely on mute as the McCann's described their treatment after their daughter's disappearance.
David Batty of the Guardian is a good follow, as is the paper's Lisa O Carroll and Jonathan Haynes. I think Ben Fenton of the FT is there sometimes judging by his output.

As well as the BBC's live page beta the Telegraph runs a live blog on its frontpage as does the Guardian. Other notables include Giles Dilnot, and Index on Censorship who seem to be live-tweeting it. There must be more. I'll add them as I find them.

Riot

2011-08-17T13:28:00.004+01:00

I've had the busiest few days I can remember in the last week or so. I thought I'd write down my impressions of the disorder in Brixton while my memories of that Sunday night are still fresh in my mind.

The curtain raiser to the days of anarchy we've all just witnessed was of course Tottenham which blew up when we were in Kent visiting some friends. I watched what was happening on Twitter, and had a look at the initial news pictures. For what it's worth I now think one of the most significant things about Tottenham as far as the overall policing picture was concerned was what happened next door in Wood Green where a lot of looting went on unopposed for some hours.

Certainly what transpired in Brixton the following evening was definitely more about Wood Green style looting than anger against the police. I was turning in at around eleven on Sunday when I saw on my twitter feed that something was afoot there, so I took my iphone and ventured into the streets.

I'm still trying to make sense of what I saw. First, in central Brixton, deployed around Coldharbour Lane, I found about a hundred and fifty police officers sealing some streets. These were a 'hard core' of public order trained officers with riot equipment, and a larger number of uniformed officers who chatted when I ID'd. They had been deployed to meet with some trouble that had happened directly after the Brixton Splash festival, and were clearly apprehensive. The usual resources the Met can deploy along with riot equipped officers weren't there. No horses, no dogs and the chopper wasn't in evidence. One officer said to another that "we're stretched across the Met" and I started to realise that it was now kicking off across London. They were forming into lines, and were clearly expecting Tottenham style confrontation. What they got was Wood Green.

I watched as a line of worried police in normal uniforms stretched across one end of a side street - then they heard something on their radio and ran fifty metres to the other end. There were no locals to be seen. It was as if they were waiting for a battle but it simply wasn't going to come.

To cut a long story short I wandered out onto Brixton Road, where all the shops are - and here there were no police at all. It was about midnight and H&M had already been looted, and I think the Footlocker might already have been torched. There were loads of older kids running around and cycling about with masks on their faces. But there was no massive angry mob - really a couple of hundred or so people, if that. They'd form into a group suddenly - then disperse just as fast.

I saw one kid in a bikers helmet attack the McDonalds windows with a pole. Up the road a bit a woman had grabbed a chair and was smashing the windows of Morleys the department store, which has been in Brixton through thick and thin. The windows and door of the KFC was smashed and the till was in the middle of the pavement outside. I saw a member of staff still inside who looked at a total loss. The H&M was ransacked, with people shouting at each other to get something. But there was no rhyme or reason to it, clothes were just left up and down the street. I watched as one girl struggled with a bin liner full of stuff not thirty feet from the line of riot police watching in a line across Coldharbour Lane. Some sort of collective madness had descended.

I heard one character say to another that Curry's was next and people began to stream up the road towards it. The atmosphere was odd, like Guy Fawkes night gone wrong. I saw two guys try to pick up some girls. When I got to Curry's which is in a kind of mini retail park with a neighbouring Halfords (not robbed when I was watching - I'm still trying to work out why) the shop was being attacked by about thirty people intent on getting through the steel doors. There were no police in sight. People were bringing up storage wheelie bins from around the back of the building - it had an semi - organized feel.

Rain began to fall and I decided I'd pushed my luck as far as I was going to that night. I toddled off home along reasonably quiet streets, seeing small groups of youths emerging from a nearby estate already wearing hoods and masks - clearly the weather wasn't going to put them off.

What followed was some of the busiest days I've ever had on a newsdesk and it began to dawn on me how privileged I am to work with the people I do - night after night they were putting themselves out there, doing the coverage, with not a single whinge.

When Manchester, Salford, West Brom and Birmingham all kicked off simultaneously on Tuesday evening I gave up trying to work out why things were happening, and to be honest I still don't have the sociology or even the politics to rationally account for the things we've all seen. It's easy to guess the causes, much harder to really know.

Hacking and Tweeting

2011-07-29T21:57:00.003+01:00

Alastair Campbell used to say that no story lasted for more than forty eight hours. I don't know what he thinks of the phone hacking saga's marathon stay at the top of TV running orders but plainly we're in for the long haul, as the judicial inquiries play out in parallel with the two police probes - and whatever criminal proceedings come out of them.

So here's my list of tweeters who are particularly good to follow on this story, which comes with the usual caveat that no twitter list can be definitive...

The Guardianistas:
Editor Alan Rusbridger; and his deputy Ian Katz. Guardian Politics is also useful, Patrick Wintour is the political editor. There's also media editor Dan Sabbagh, and reporter Josh Halliday. Web editor Jonathan Haynes is well worth your clickage, while the Sultans of this story are investigations editor David Leigh and his special correspondent Nick Davies - who gets a lot of the credit for keeping on keeping on.

Other hacks
Providing not so much news-tweets so much as pungent tabloid comment via both her feed and her blog, Fleet Street Fox is essential. But she has just got a well deserved book deal, so we might be hearing less from her. Guido Fawkes is also key, as is Dizzy Thinks. Danny Finkelstein of the Times often makes useful observations. Keir Simmons of ITV works hard on the story as does Andy Davies at Channel Four. I'm not quite sure who Bernard Cole is or who he works for, but he says interesting things on this issue. The story is now across the Atlantic and Michael Wolff, a contributing editor at Vanity Fair is a great follow. My colleague Robert Peston continues to break stories on phone hacking, as does the BBC's Jon Manel. The view from inside Wapping is represented by, among others, the Sun's Political Team.

Some Players
In no particular order, I follow Tom Watson, the Labour MP for West Bromwich East who has become the Murdoch's tormenter in chief..Louise Mensch and Therese Coffey are his colleagues on the Culture and Media select committee. She has just had to apologise to the ubiquitous Piers Morgan for misquoting an article about phone hacking. Jeremy Hunt has a twitter feed, but he's been quiet of late. His department, The DCMS tweets more frequently as does Number 10. Others worth a look are Sara Payne's Phoenix Chief Advocates and Hayley Barlow, the publicist who was until recently working for the News of the World.

Not exhaustive, and I promise I'll update this entry as the saga unfolds.

Fiends

2011-07-09T05:12:00.007+01:00

A long time ago I went to a house fire. An old lady had died, and I was tasked with doing a report for Radio Manchester. I parked the radio car (an estate vehicle with a gigantic telescopic mast on the top - these were analogue days) and had a shufty at the house. It was certainly a mess. It was the days when there were two big causes of house fires, chip pans and exploding TV's. Firemen would wax lyrical about the dangers of plugged in TV's. I don't think they explode anymore. Apparently chip pans are still a problem. But I digress.

Another old lady emerged from a house nearby. I asked her who had lived in the burnt out shell.
"I don't think Mrs Wells have would have wanted her name published." she said.
I wrote down "Mrs Wells" in my notebook.
"You fiend" hissed the neighbour.
Actually I don't think I used the name in the end.
I think I had a fit of conscience.

But this week I kept remembering the neighbour. She was certainly being critical of me, but if I wasn't much mistaken, there was a tinge of pleasure in the way she expressed it. I was a fiend. And that's the way I thought about the News of the World. They were fiends. And wicked. And week in and week out three million of us bought the paper. I was one of them, from time to time.

I have to be honest. I loved some of the stories the NotW came up with. Nobody was sacred.(Maybe that was the problem). There was an amazing never-ending parade of exclusives. They'd started before I was born. That iconic shot of Christine Keeler sitting naked on a chair at the height of the Profumo affair? The NotW. Jeffrey Archer and an envelope full of money for a woman he'd never slept with? Them. And of course there was the fabulous fake Sheikh himself, investigator Mazher Mahmood, whose gleeful exploits among the greedy and gullible surely earned himself a secure place in the heart of anyone who considers themselves a hack.

Their methods and targets were the very worst, now we know. And looking back it did strike me as a tad odd the way people's criminal records would pop up in their journalism. And they seemed to know all sorts of amazing things about very private people. Over the years I did also notice that police raids, really sexy ones with proper villains being foiled by brave armed officers, did have a curious habit of occurring in front of a Wapping snapper.

They were drawing journalistic holy water from a magic well, or so it seemed to me. There was obviously always a dark side to the operation, but nobody felt like pointing it out. Other hacks were a bit scared of their operators, they were so mean and slick. Phone hacking, well that was bad, cheating and illegal, but who cared except Hugh Grant and Sienna Miller? Until this week when it all came to bits under the scrutiny of the Guardian. When I heard the Milly Dowler and UK war dead families allegations it was clear to me that the paper was finished. Who on earth can have thought, for a second, that intruding on those poor people was a good idea? The paper, which often seemed dangerously comfortable in the shadows, had finally lost its way.

Will I miss the News of the World? Yes, quite a bit if I'm frank. I'm afraid it's easily the most interesting of the Sunday red-tops. Footballers will rejoice as the market for kiss and tells has just received a mortal blow. On the other hand some great sports reporting has just gone out of the window.

It's the last one this weekend. I'll buy it and keep it to show to kids in years hence. This was a newspaper, I'll explain. But they had to shut it, in the end.

Update: @langrabbie points out the iconic Keeler photo wasn't for the NOTW, which is true, although the paper did buy her story for £23,000. The truth behind the pictureis revealed on the V&A website.

The Police Have Arrived

2011-05-27T12:38:00.000+01:00

I like the twitter-tradition of Follow Friday but it lacks a little something in terms of explaining the context of the why and wherefore of a recommendation. The police are interesting people to follow currently because two things are happening - the command level are waking up to twitter as a way of publicising their force achievements and crime initiatives, and the grassroots cop and their representatives are finding it a way to express reservations (sometimes very serious reservations) about the way things are going on the ground. So these are the Boys/Girls in Blue who I follow, and of course I'm very open to other suggestions.

I wish twitter had been around when I was a local reporter at Radio Manchester and Granada because there are lots of local story tips now being dropped by the cops. Falling in to the this category is @Co11MetPolice which flags up things of interest, I also like @GMPGorton in east Manchester - which I know from experience can be a challenging area for the law. WestYorksPolice actually puts job adverts up. DCC_StuartHyde a self confessed pie eating man-mountain Deputy Chief Constable in Cumbria is also good value.

Other police tweet and blog under a cover of anonymity, and very illuminating this is at times like these. @TheCustodySgt is one such; he manages a thirty cell suite and a thriving twitter account. He opens up a gateway to lots of cops who also tweet, which I leave you to explore. Don't miss @PCWibble. He does a fizzing tweet-feed and also check out the blog belonging to InspGadgetBlogs.I also follow Spartancop and very good value he is.

The Police Fed and ACPO are also running accounts. Have a gander at polisee - she's involved with policy at the Federation, RimonSeed is also there, olliecattermole is an ACPO tweeter. I shouldn't forget the middle management: policesupers

Journalists who follow the cops are also very good value. @RoamingRoyston is Deputy Editor of the Police Review, and he's got lots to say.

I've just scratched the surface, but the point is they're out there and well worth adding if you're into that sort of thing. Fellow hacks are welcome to loot my list.

Twitter Is No Answer

2011-05-16T12:19:00.001+01:00

Last night another demonstration of how excellent Twitter is for sparking communication. Dave Winer (@davewiner), who's the visiting scholar of journalism at the NYU, posted up a discussion of how the service could well be the host for 'twitter only' reporters, and as he suggested, if there wasn't one already 'there was something wrong'. I found myself responding to this, then feeling a blogpost was in order and so here it is.

He wrote as follows:

"Last year I was looking out my window on Bleecker St in the West Village and saw a huge plume of smoke off in the distance. Within five minutes, through Twitter, I knew exactly where the fire was, and had seen pictures taken by people on the scene.

People working at a local TV station couldn't possibly have gotten a reporter and camera there that fast."

Well this is true. And twitter is a great way to stay alert to all kinds of happenings like fires, which lots can see and maybe tweet about, particularly in New York which is full of folk who love to tweet. But my issue with this is, who finds out what caused the fire? And if someone is hurt or killed, who names them? If the fire is in the small hours of the morning, or is in the middle of nowhere, what if nobody tweets about it?

Lots will point to the chap who tweeted about the raid on Osama Bin Laden's compound as it happened. But if the guy had been a real reporter as opposed to a twitterer just think of the story he'd have got. And the job offers he'd now be fielding.

I think I'm some sort of dinosaur, because I feel that although it's clear Twitter has many qualities there is no way it's a replacement for longer forms of financed reporting, in which there's a proper investment into training, the development of veracity and the cultivation of trust.

Twitter - let me deal with it now as a "community" - actually abandons standards many journalists are brought up to hold dear, as we've seen in the last few days with the ridiculous and libellous stories about two BBC presenters and the full scale challenge to the rule of law as followed by the rest of the media. I like to tweet, and I get a lot out of it - stories, thoughts, even friends.

But Twitter is nothing more advanced than a high tech rumour mill. It doesn't replace sending trained and resourced correspondents to places, as Dave, in fairness, admitted in his blog post. It can't replace the kind of journalism that requires even a modicum of fact checking and investigation. It's a magnificent communication and referral tool, but it can't go far in replacing journalism. If somehow mainstream journalism withers as a result of people claiming it's a panacea to the rest of our ills, well we shall all be hugely the poorer.

Londoner

2011-05-07T13:28:00.001+01:00

I never thought I'd make it as a Londoner. When I had to move here to start a job with ITN in the 90's I actually wept at having to leave Manchester. I was completely attached to all those things which make that city so excellent, the cricket at Old Trafford, the football at Maine Road, Granada TV, Chinatown...the list seemed to be endless.

And added to that was a kind of professional resentment about the Londonisation of the media's priorities. Journalists in Manchester were under the bitter impresson that London's priorities didn't include making the most of stories from the provinces, but this would turn into resentment when for example the Manchester Air Disaster happened and a cadre of London hacks arrived to cover it.

And for years I was miserable in London and went 'home' virtually every weekend. To me, for ages, it seemed to be imploding under the stress of simply being Britain's capital city. Smelly and chaotic, to me it just didn't seem to function properly as a place to live.

But gradually I grew into it, or adjusted to it, and now it seems absurd to go back to Manchester at every opportunity. And these days it seems mad to me that Manchester doesn't have a really swift public transport system that links virtually everywhere with everywhere else with a minimum of hassle. Or a proper river in the middle of it. Or a parliament and a selection of really top rate art galleries, etc etc.

So against the grain, I've become Londonised. But did I have to be? Ultimately I've lived or worked almost everywhere in Britain at some point or another. Shouldn't I just be a citizen of the UK and feel comfy wherever I land up? Well, I think I draw the line at Warrington.

Pool Thoughts

2011-05-07T12:01:00.001+01:00

Hovering around 16 degrees celcius a wetsuit is essential - after all why be uncomfortable? But already I don't think a day off is quite complete without hitting Brockwell Lido.

Divided into lanes it's really the perfect environment for some serious swimming, which unfortunately I'm not capable of. Still, my neoprene clad frame can manage around twenty lengths before I have to drag myself out, spent, to the amusement of the lifeguard staff.

Location,Location

2011-04-24T11:06:00.002+01:00

Much turbulence in the blogosphere this week about the revelation that the iphone and the ipad record your location and let Steve Jobs's peons know where you are. Even the Observer's John Naughton has weighed in, and has pronounced privacy as dead as a dead thing. He's right, but the iphone is a trivial incursion compared to the other things that have been happening over the years.

Before I kick off about what I believe is some quite lazy thinking, I should show my hand. I am an unabashed fan of Apple; the iphone and ipad have between them changed my life. The invention that makes them both so essential is the internet of course, the truly revolutionary influence in all our lives, but Apples machines have made the net startlingly relevant and above all, helpful.

No more hunting around for a number for a taxi when you're a bit drunk at a party. The Yell app will find the nearest firm. Wondering what the weather will be like on Wednesday? The Met office app will show you straightaway. Trying to organise a revolution in an arab state? There's a few apps for that. And so on, ad infinitum.

So I couldn't do without my iphone, now I'm happily living life with it. Which is where the location function comes in. The iphone and ipad now have a free account with 'mobile me'. A lot of apple iphone owners don't know about it, but it is absolutely essential (and easy) to set up.

Simply put when you log on it shows a map of the world and your phone is there on it, and so is your ipad. If you should lose your phone, or have it taken off you, there it will be. You can lock it, erase it and even send the person who has it a message. With mobile me you have pretty much lost your last phone. You need never worry about the data being compromised; you can blank your phone with a mouse click.

Presumably the location tracker is for that, because in all the years I've owned an iphone the targeted ads and marketing that privacy campaigners are fussed about have never appeared on either of my devices.

Privacy is as privacy does. I see the criticism that the tracking facility can cut both ways but who would take a tracking phone to a sensitive meeting, or even use a mobile phone to arrange anything confidential? Governments of various hues can be assumed to listen to all mobile communications. The existence of the NSA's giant eavesdropping computer called Echelon has been worrying the EU for years. Surely facial recognition software allied to CCTV is a much greater threat to the privacy and liberty of ordinary citizens than any number of iphones.

If I want to go off the Cupertino grid, I can turn the iphone off and dump it in the desk drawer. Sadly that doesn't apply to the many other cameras and computers that can now track us in our daily lives.

Summer,Trains, Portugal, Blogging

2011-04-23T13:44:00.001+01:00

I love this time of year. The full heat of summer isn't on top of us quite yet, although it's a blazing April. Train trips up North to see my aged Dad are marvellous experiences as the green vista of England unrolls past the window. The other day I was on the news desk and watched some pictures come in from the news helicopter as it 'repositioned' over the West Country. There really is a massive amount of water in the lakes and rivers and the whole landscape is incredibly verdant, the sunshine having kicked off a massive growth spurt in the countryside.

I've wanted to write about lots of things in the past few weeks but haven't had the opportunity to simply sit and update things. Watching Manchester City beat Manchester United in the FA cup semi final has to be one of the highlights of this or any year. The following day I was on a train (see a theme here?) and lots of Manchester United fans got on, among them a little boy in full replica Utd kit. He looked utterly miserable. Is this character forming? Is one of the central lessons of growing up how to lose? My heart went out to him.

I've also been on a brief trip to Portugal which was superb. I haven't enjoyed a city break so much in years; the Portugese are tremendously welcoming but you have to put up with wildcat strikes and stoppages in the transport system - in other words it's just like home.

After a few days in Lisbon we were heading into the countryside near Porto and made the mistake of using the trains at a weekend. We were sat in a small village waiting for a connection when a rail worker ambled out and told us the train drivers had just decided to have a strike. We all laughed about it.

"It's just to annoy people." he explained, and who could disagree, it certainly did the trick.
The government finally resigned when we were there, a tremendously worrying period has only just begun for the Portugese. It's a very cheap country to visit by the way, a welcome contrast to Ireland where pizzas now cost £53 apparently.

I keep reading articles which claim the 'fizz' has somehow gone out of blogging. It's certainly true that the hype has moved to twitter and facebook, but I think blogging still has an old school internet cred. I shall keep doing it; having finished my stint at BBC Online I've been missing the creativity of melding writing and pictures.

Education

2011-03-12T17:55:00.005Z

I've been a dedicated viewer of Jamie Oliver's new reality show about schools. The premise is the producers recruit twenty kids who left school with no qualifications to speak of, then expose them to teaching from some of the best people in the country. So Jamie teaches them Home Economics, Dr David Starkey (of whom more later) does History, and so on. The only professional teacher is the head, who is cast in a supervising role.

Virtually none of the things teachers tell me about in their experiences is in the show. People can teach in the way they like and what they choose, rather than conform to lesson plans with learning and curriculum objectives set by government. OFSTED is not a factor, naturally. So a dream school is exactly what this is, there can be no other school like it in the country.

The teenagers, some excluded for "behavioural issues", misbehave in a really epic way. They talk when the teachers are speaking and their attention wanders to the point of rudeness. Actually it's what these people are - they're just rude, in a basic sense that implies they don't even know they're being insulting. And they don't seem to have stop buttons. A fight nearly broke out in politics (teacher, Alastair Campbell) over someone's sexual identity.

Starkey made a bad mistake during his first history lesson when he abandoned teaching and dared suggest a pupil was fat. The lad is overweight, but then of course Starkey had lost his authority and the lesson degenerated into name-calling. Starkey flounced for a bit but was talked back by Jamie Oliver. I didn't have a lot of time for Starkey, who cultivates his own special brand of rudeness, but I have less now. The programme shows how he can give it but not take it, which is illuminating about Starkey but not about education in any real sense.

Nevertheless some critics have been shocked by the way the argument from the teaching pro in the "school"was that Starkey had to apologise. I seem to remember teachers being incredibly rude to me and others at school and the lesson you were learning was to take it. But in the event both student and teacher apologised to one another, respect was re-established and Starkey did better in his second lesson at holding their attention. Perhaps we should respect the "respect agenda".

The teaching is on surer ground when largely bogus claims of creativity are entertained. The brilliant fashion photographer Ian Rankin took pictures of the kids, which some of them then cut up. Funnily enough there were no fashion photography classes at their previous schools. Jazzie B (Soul 2 Soul) did the music class. Jazzie B did not tolerate misbehaviour and the class was a big success. Jamie's Home Economic class seemed to go down well, but I am deeply suspicious of the editing in these things. Unfortunately there are very few jobs available in cutting up pictures of yourself, unless you're Picasso or Lady Gaga. Rolf Harris taught Art. I wish Rolf had taught me Art. Some of the kids did amazing pictures, but Rolf seemed tortured that somehow he had missed the mark.

In just the way Location Location is not really about property so much as the people buying it, Jamie's Dream School is really about the people in this odd situation. Will any of these kids re-enter education, this time prepared to knuckle down, get some real qualifications and compete in today's frightening job market? It seems unlikely. I reckon some will conclude its better to stay home and compete on the Playstation.

I watched all this in the week I stuck my own toe back in education, heading down to Hayes secondary school to mentor 12 year-olds doing BBC School Report. I went on two days and talked to two hour-long classes. The children were immaculately behaved and were obviously interested - I didn't get through my presentation on either occasion because there were so many good questions that sidetracked us into great discussions. The teachers I met were motivated and seemed highly professional. The whole feel of the place was of a set-up aimed at getting the best from everyone. I don't know how representative Hayes is of the average establishment, but it all seemed a long way from "Jamie's Dream School". At the end of one class they all wrote little notes on Post Its about how much they'd enjoyed it. Reader, I'm a hard man at times, but I nearly cried.

Cat

2011-02-16T15:33:00.003Z

I was thrilled to see the Cameron-Clegg administration bow to the inevitable this week and send for a cat to police Number 10. The sighting of vermin at our most prestigious address can't be a good thing for the country's image. (Insert your political rat joke here). A grateful nation must hope Larry is successful in his mission of making the outside of Number 10 a safe place to do pieces to camera once again.

There was an unmistakable air of self confidence about Larry as he was unloaded by his handlers. The photographs of him on the stairs show a cat with a degree of chutzpah, not to mention his pre-emptive strike on ITV News correspondent Lucy Manning. But there are things the Camerons should know about their new friend.

First, the vast majority of cats are accomplished benefit scroungers. They will always choose the path of least resistance and Downing Street looks as if it has a number of excellent places to get some shut-eye. I suspect Larry may not be a fan of volunteering, and like one of Downing Street's former bosses, cats as a species do not really recognise society.

But secondly, should Larry feel an urge to make a living and actually nail a couple of rats the Camerons should expect a visitor in the wee hours bearing a gift. This gift may infact be only wounded. We can only hope Dave and Sam have a strong stomach, and perhaps a shovel should be issued to the Number 10 copper to extinguish any rat-resistance and dispose of any bodies.

Third, and this is crucial, getting on with cats requires both bribery and an eye on your furniture. I suggest Whiskas treats and the installation of a scratching mat on the cabinet room wall. You can get them from Lidl, Prime Minister, if you're passing.

Bonne chance Larry!

2011-02-12T23:46:00.001Z

First decent walk of the year in weather that looked like....could it be....Spring? Twelve miles between Fareham and Guildford on the North Downs Way before bailing out and heading for a whiskey and a bath at home, not necessarily in that order.
Lagged behind everyone else because I couldn't stop taking pictures of the delicate sunlight amid the trees. I love it when the warmth tempts out the life from the plants and you can hear the birds chirping away in the woods.
Stopped for a pint in the Puttenham village pub "The Good Intent". I can recommend the steakburger and chips, as well as the Otter Ale.

Driving

2011-01-21T16:56:00.002Z

I've started driving to work a bit more often since I'm generally starting at 6 in the morning while I'm with BBC News online. London roads are probably as quiet as they ever are at that time, but while no marvel behind the wheel myself I do wonder about some of my fellow drivers.

This morning I saw one with a dog on his lap. At the next lights I saw another reading the paper (it was the Times, since you ask).

And then a white van overtook me doing at least fifty and went through a red light.

Made me think.

Onenote

2011-01-19T12:14:00.004Z

Being terminally disorganised I was cheered to find out from Wirefresh that Microsoft are releasing Onenote, a handy little app for the iphone. It's a list maker on steroids that could mean I never forget to buy my yoghurt again. And it's free (for a limited time). Even better.

Well, I was pleased until I found that the release was restricted to the US only. If you go to the British app store it's never been heard of. Why on earth do companies do this? And why don't they say so upfront rather than wasting everyone's time? The cock-up produced this interchange on the Microsoft blog:

AndyPoots

18 Jan 2011 1:12 PM

Hi, Is this App not available in UK? No results on App Store search :-(
Michael C. Oldenburg

18 Jan 2011 1:15 PM

@Andy: The product team confirms that this is currently only available in the U.S. App Store on iTunes. I'll try to find out what our international plans are, but right now I don't have any info about that — my apologies. Thank you for visiting our blog.

Good grief.

Peter Yates

2011-01-12T09:18:00.004Z

The British film director Peter Yates died this week. He directed among many other things Bullitt which contains the classic car chase which all other movie car chases have to be judged by. The whole movie is superb, arguably the Casablanca of thrillers. Steve McQueen, who insisted on doing the driving in the chase sequences, smoulders his way through the film with Jacqueline Bissett as his to die for girlfriend. There's also a saucy jazz based score by Lalo Shifrin but Yates doesnt plaster the film with music and isn't afraid to have moments of silence and pauses, which you don't get in todays frenetic Hollywood offerings. Think I'll pop the DVD on this evening and raise a glass to a class director.

After Nigel

2011-01-03T19:26:00.006Z

Courtesy The Archers Blog

Almost total silence in the newsroom this evening as we listened to the fallout from Nigel Pargetter's untimely death in The Archers. Death is an odd visitor to Borsetshire because the soap isn't really ratings driven, and so can amble along on a delicious slow burn mode. News is when there's problems with Tom Archer's sausages or Lynda Snell's panto set falls down. People listen in droves but it's usually with a slightly ironic smile. The smile goes when death visits the cast, to be replaced by a worried expression. Hang on, you want to say, this is Ambridge. Other deaths are recalled, like Mark Hebden's car crash and John going under the tractor.

Most of the male characters in the Archers are useless so we'll miss Nigel who for all his daffyness could actually get a thing done once he put his mind to it, like the aerial tree walk. (What exactly IS an aerial tree walk?) Marriage to Lizzie was a hell of a challenge - she can be a bigger cow than most of David's Herefords - but he always seemed up to it. He was first launched on the unsuspecting Archers public in the early 80's, prancing round in a gorilla suit with Tim Beecham . He dated Shula, at one point trying to sneak into her bedroom and getting under the covers with Phil and Jill by mistake. That was the funniest episode in the Archers EVER.

With the departure of Sid Perks, Phil Archer and now Nigel strong older males are now in short supply in Ambridge. There's whingeing Adam, Iain (who's too good for Adam) and Fallon's new boyfriend but I don't think he's a stayer. David will be crippled with guilt for next three decades and I've never been partial to moaning Tony. I'm left pouring a stiff gin and tonic and listening out for Brian. He must now bat into the fading light for us forty-somethings too old to trot down to the clubs in Felpersham with Alice and Chris Horobin.

UPDATE It's Chris and Alice Carter, of course. You don't ever stop being a Horobin though, in reality.

Sixteen to Follow In 2011

2010-12-31T16:55:00.008Z

Twitter is now a minor obsession with me, invaluable for my work and an endless source of diversion and interesting internet titbits when I'm not. I follow nearly nine hundred people, despite being pretty ruthless with my follow list. People who don't tweet for a month get dropped, too much hate-tweeting also gets you binned as does endless political ranting. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy political tweeting, just not ten tweets inside two minutes.

I have many personal favourite tweeters and I'm risking causing offence by missing lots of friends out but this blogpost is really for the perplexed mates at work who say: I've got a twitter account, but now what? The now what is these sixteen people. They're a start and they lead to lots of other brilliant folk who make twitter the super thing it is these days.

@fieldproducer or Neal Mann, my rival at Sky News who appears to be tweeting on a round the clock basis. His tweets are almost always useful, or funny, or both. Almost everyone at Sky News has a twitter account which is obviously handy for people like myself. @DharshiniDavid is another excellent Osterley based tweet-source for economics issues. And of course there is @peston if you like hot gossip from one of the country's best informed journalists.

@gracedent the UK's funniest TV columnist. Essential if you like sitting on the sofa with your tweet device of choice in one hand, the remote in the other and Strictly Come Dancing or somesuch on the telly din-din. The other superb columnist of this ilk is Caitlin Moran @caitlinmoran who has done me the honour of following me back.

@ruskin147 or my colleague BBC tech editor Rory Cellan-Jones. One of the first people I knew to get an ipad. But he was beaten to the punch by the Guardian's @katebevan. Both write about technology and Rory spices his commentary up with pictures of his adorable dog. I also like @wirefresh which links to a strong tech blog edited by a great friend of mine.

@bletchleypark Many people argue Britain won the war in a series of shabby huts in Buckinghamshire filled with the best code breaking minds in the country. Now the place badly needs visitors and funds as it becomes a museum. A very active tweet account, definitely worth your clickage. My New Years Resolution is to get up there and see around as soon as possible. World War 2 is also represented by @ukwarcabinet which is a tweet account linking to feeds of cabinet minutes from the time.

@Oliverkaytimes Essential if you like sport and football, which I do. Mr Kay breaks stories on a regular basis, as Does David Taylor of the Guardian @DTGuardian

Iain Lee @iainlee is a stand up comic, a broadcaster and a newish dad. But his beautiful wife@Fandango69 also tweets and they have hilarious bickering sessions online.

@RAFairman will be off to Afghanistan soon. I will be following him and reading his well written and highly informative blog.

Political tweeters I follow across the idealogical spectrum @guidofawkes is essential. Iain Dale is retiring from blogging (he says) but keeps a fizzing twitter account. On the other side of the park there's Labour Matters and @ChukaUmunna who's efforts are a world away from most MPs who generally tweet that they've had a most productive surgery in Oakshotte, or wherever.

That's my sixteen, so please don't be offended if I've left you out - it's a lack of space not a lack of love.

Movies in 2010

2010-12-24T11:36:00.012Z

Winter's Bone (see below)

You can't see them all and you'd go mad if you tried, but I've been to the cinema a great deal more than last year. Maybe the weather has helped in that I've been indoors a good deal, but the 2010 crop of films has been strong. There's a few I've missed and they're on my to-do list, like Black Swan, Shutter Island and The Fighter. But for what it's worth here are:

Hendo's Six Hot Movies of 2010.

Monsters is a rare thing, a British science fiction film. And it's great. A sort of road movie made by Gareth Edwards with a crew of about seven who travelled through central America in a bus. Every now and then they'd get out, recruit some locals and shoot a scene with improvised dialogue. When he got home Edwards cut the film in his bedroom on his PC and painstakingly added in all the special effects. The result is a very watchable Easy Rider meets Day of the Triffids affair, the budget for which came in at around £300,000. That's miniscule in film terms and should endear him all the more to austerity hit Hollywood. Go see.

Kick Ass A super hero film with a difference, ie that the main character has no super powers but decides to fight crime in a funny costume anyway. He's well played by Aaron Johnson, and the film also boasts a promising performance by Chloe Moretz. Well paced direction from Matthew Vaughn and a sparkly script by Jane Goldman makes it worth getting the DVD, or a download or whatever it is you do these days. But a word of warning, this is one of those films which absolutely everyone loved except me. I thought it was reasonable but there's a bit where one of the characters gets set on fire which crossed my personal line on violence and - for me - spoiled it.

The Social Network. American students talk at one another, invent Facebook, fall out, hire lawyers. I was bored stupid, but everyone else thinks this film is pure gold. I just couldn't manage to care about any of these preppy/nerdy types. Aaron Sorkin wrote the screenplay and one of his keynote strategies is to make his characters speak quickly 'so that they appear clever'. It revolves around people talking about money in offices and has six Oscar nominations which shows how bankrupt American film culture really is. But I'm afraid you're going to have to see it, if only to post what you think about it on Facebook.

Winter's Bone. A teenager in backwoods Missouri finds her dad has gone missing while on bail, which wouldn't be so bad if the bail surety wasn't the house she lives in with her silent mother and perky siblings. Loved this film for a variety of reasons; the no holds barred depiction of grinding rural poverty and deprivation, the ensemble cast with the outstanding performance from newcomer Jennifer Lawrence as the teenage girl trying to cope with demands most adults would run away from, and the taut thriller of a script. Superb, my film of the year.

Of Gods and Men. A small community of monks in North Africa walk the perilous line between Islamic fighters andTunisian government forces. Beautifully shot with some brilliant acting from the French speaking cast. And a really unusual film which is a bit dull for the first ten minutes but take it from me, it's worth sticking around. Based on a true story which makes the moving drama even higher in impact. Do seek it out.

Inception This film is so clever people had to go and see it twice to work it out. This is risky marketting but fortunately smart break-neck direction, amazing effects and DiCaprio at full throttle makes it all a worthwhile exercise. I think I kind of 'got it' but not being totally sure still made this thriller a great way to spend an afternoon at the Ritzy.

I'm looking forward to the King's Speech and for some reason connected to Tamsin Greig and Gemma Arterton I may see Tamara Drewe for a second time when it comes on the telly. Happy filmery in 2011!

Carlos Tevez

2010-12-13T12:22:00.008Z

Courtesy Box Office Football

As a journalist of some twenty five years in the trade I tend towards the cynical end of the spectrum as far as my view of human nature is concerned. But even I have been shocked by the decision of the Manchester City captain and top goal scorer Carlos Tevez to hand in a written transfer request to the club's management this weekend. It is a venal disgrace.

Presumably the curtain raiser to this sordid opera was the flirtation of Wayne Rooney with Manchester City earlier this year. A striker who owes a great deal to Sir Alex and Manchester United was considering taking his Bentley across town to the side's most bitter rivals: why? Manchester City fans (I am a long standing sufferer) would have had big problems accepting him. Nevertheless some sort of financial flirtation was reported to be taking place before Rooney's common sense prevailed and he decided to stick with a club which wins things most years as opposed to one whose most recent addition to the trophy cabinet was made in 1976.

Now the irony here is that Tevez made exactly the same journey some months before. For reasons which were inexplicable at the time Fergie decided let him go. For months City fans have had a laugh about this but now it's starting to look like one of his better decisions.

Mr Tevez has made two statements which contrast in the most severe way with the club's account of the affair. Money, he says, has played no part in his wish to sever his very profitable relationship with Eastlands. The rumour this morning is that he is paid £280,000 per week. No, it is his growing disenchantment with football, and the inconvenient geographical position of his estranged wife and two daughters who live in Argentina which is uppermost in his mind at this time.

The club sees it much differently, and a statement from them this weekend claims that until very recently the players representatives were angling for a pay rise and an extension to his contract. Football contract negotiations are a hall of expensive mirrors, but there is a ring of truth about this.

City fans love Tevez, or did until Saturday night. He works and works. He actually scores frequent goals. He can light up the grimmest of afternoons in the shabbiest of surroundings. This quality has been marred in recent weeks by the overt disrespect he has shown to the club's stylish manager Roberto Mancini. The timing of this contract problem is to say the least suspicious and unfortunate, coming as it does with City joint top of the Premier League - the highest position since 1977. I will be interested to hear the fans reaction should he ever have the guts to pull on a blue shirt and run out in East Manchester again.

Students

2010-12-06T23:08:00.003Z

On the tube to work this evening I was suddenly joined by some students leaving tonight's protest at Tate Britain. They sat next to me, two young men, two women. After a while they started getting things out of their bags to show to each other. One of them retrieved a chess set he'd made, which was contained in a small leather box. He folded back the lid and revealed an ingenious hinged board which expanded out. The carved chess pieces were stacked neatly inside. He'd made two, he informed his friends, but one had been broken. Another student got out a picture she'd done, presumably on the protest they'd been to. Two police officers, sketched with great skill in green pen stood glumly while a student in a bikini with a clown face arched over them like a dolphin.

I find it difficult not to be charmed by these people.

Photographs

2010-11-07T12:59:00.008Z

I should declare my hand at the very start - I am an unabashed fan of the way digital storage and the merging of phones, cameras and the internet has changed the photographic landscape. That virtually everyone is carrying a camera of some kind is an amazing step forward for photo journalism if nothing else. I was reminded of this the other night when the Qantas A380 experienced a radical engine failure. Parts of the cowling flew off and made a scary hole in the wing. The phlegmatic passengers who were sat in the windows could have panicked, prayed or written their wills. Instead they took pictures of the damage. Then other passengers passed them their cameras in order that they too could have pictures.

Photography is now past being a hobby. Taking pictures now seems to be something people do when anything worthy of note or even life threatening occurs. I saw someone taking pictures at a funeral a few weeks ago. Since when did we take photographs at a funeral?

But I love photographs of all kinds. Other peoples pictures are great, even if I don't know them. When I was a kid I couldn't understand why people got bored of looking at other people's holiday snaps. I loved other people's family photos. I still remember my Aunty Margaret coming home with three hundred slides of a trip to the United States and I sat dazzled in her darkened front room with the slide projector rattling through the entire collection. I hadn't even left the country at that stage and I was entranced - and green with envy of her two boys my age. But most of all I vowed to take myself to America at the earliest possible opportunity, which I did. And when I got there I took hundreds of photos, which nobody really wanted to see.

Maybe it was being an only child, for even the most mundane of family shots fascinated me. I'd look at the way people held themselves next to each other, or sat on top of one another, or stood their distance. They smiled, or frowned. They threw themselves in front of the lens or had clearly been dragged there. Sometimes parts of them were missing because SLR photography did not exist and often you had to guess where to point the thing to get the shot. Light sometimes ruined the film, and left blasts of red and white light across flat landscapes of caravans and cows. Clearly this random odd quality is missed by more people than just me because you can get an iphone app (Hipstamatic) that puts in all the old imperfections and grainy effects into your brand new hi-res snaps.

Recently I've been sent lots of pictures of my relatives, which have been an utter delight. I don't know who some of them are, but the mystery serves to make the stills more interesting. Above is a picture of my Great Grandfather dating from the 1920's. Photos were obviously much more of an effort then and hugely costly, which makes the picture of him with his bicycle all the more unusual and interesting. Whereas anything you don't like these days can be binned instantly and another shot taken, which is a shame, in a way, imperfections adding so much more to life and our desperate efforts to capture and record it.

Iphone4

2010-10-16T17:23:00.009+01:00

Back in 1997 I bought my first computer. It was made by the North London company 'Mesh' and had an astonishing 2.3 Gigabyte of hard disc storage together with 64mb of Ram. The standard RAM spec was 32mb, but I decided I wanted more bang for my bucks, and I ended up spending a lot - well over a grand - because I also shelled out for a 17 inch CRT screen. I think the system boasted a Pentium chip. The system lasted four years, the monitor a further five.

A month ago I acquired a new iphone4. Boffins reading this will have to tell me how this chip compares in speed with my 1997 machine, but this handheld device has ten times the storage of my first desktop. The phone is a much more powerful computer than the one which sat humming under my desk years ago. And it has two cameras. And a compass. And maps, and a GPS. Oh and it makes phone calls. It's this sort of comparison which makes me impatient of the android versus iOS debate; if this is the kind of progress that can be made in computing in just thirteen years what will the future hold? And taking the long view means arguments about 'widget handling' look what they are: meaningless.

The new iphone is a solid piece of quality engineering, made of metal and glass. You know when it's in your pocket because in phone terms it's quite large and a bit heavy. The buttons are much where they were in my 3G, but made of steel. I accidentally dropped it onto some stone flags while out on the town in Turkey and it didn't even scratch.

The OS has been upgraded and so you can now use several apps at once by simply pressing the home button twice in quick succession - thus I can play my internet radio and tweet while checking the headlines. Much has been written about the 'retina' screen and it's very clear indeed; videos, web pages and apps display content beautifully on it. It comes with the Safari browser as standard, but may I suggest icab as a better alternative, since it allows muti tabbing and boasts all sorts of options Safari does not have.

The ipod facility is the same and the apps transfer seamlessly from your previous iphone - and if this is your first then wonders await - but the big technical change is surely the camera. Here I must confess I quite liked the one included on the 3G effort; phone cameras are not really about composition and professional results, they're really about the impromptu moment down the pub when your mate gets up to do Lady Gaga on the karaoke machine. Which brings me to the other big change from the 3G - this device shoots HD video at a really impressive 720p. It tends to produce shaky-vision and you have to remember to tun the phone on its side to shoot 16:9 ratio, but this function is great, and the imovies app means that you can edit on the phone itself before posting to the web.

The phone itself, while being a nigh invincible weapon of web, is not that great as a phone. Reception can be a bit crusty although I suspect the O2 network may be partly to blame here and actually ending a call can be a bit hit and miss since the screen turns itself on and off as if possessed by some light flicking poltergeist.

And I am yet to use the much trumpeted Facetime video calling feature. I know a few people with these now and I know of nobody else who has made a call with it either. But the more down to earth task of contact handling is great particularly if you run an exchange account over the air with Gmail, which meant I could simply wipe one phone, start again with another and instantly download all my contacts and calendar from the cloud.

As usual with Apple I'm left wondering what might have been. It would have been nice to have an SD card insert, for example, and bluetoothing data around does not seem to be allowed. But the other question in my mind is what Apple can possibly do to improve this phone to make me buy another in 18 months time. Sheesh, I expect they'll come up with something.

This changes everything, said Steve Jobs when he wheeled the iphone 4 out. Actually the change is really further development on a theme, that being Apple's drive for dominance of the mobile internet by the use of the App store and its linked devices. The iphone4 costs, feels and works like the quality digital companion it's been designed to be. My friends may (and do) sing the praises of the cheaper android OS rivals. But there is a clarity of purpose about the quality design and ease of use of the iphone4 that is its own potent argument.

The Social Ipad

2010-09-19T19:10:00.011+01:00

I tend to paddle rather than swim in the sea of networking so this post will just cover the couple of things I do regularly, ie using Twitter to alert the public to the latest doings of my cat and messing about on Facebook, the monster which has replaced e-mail and other 'traditional' things we used to do on the internet to a great degree.

First Facebook. The company is worth billions but unaccountably there's no ipad app designed by them at the time of writing. Of course you can always use their (excellent) iphone app, but that's rather pixelly when it translates to the ipad's bigger screen, or just use a web browser. But there is a paid for alternative, which I reckon will serve fine until Mark Zuckerberg and the Palo Alto minions get around to producing one of their own; it's called Friendly and it retails off the store for 59p.

The screens (above) are much easier to use than messing about with the web page but there's a lot of functionality missing from the site proper, most notably the ability to post pictures and there's no support for the new 'Places' application, but then again you may find that something of a relief. It's all very simple and as friendly as its name suggests.

Twitter is now essential in my business - it was the reason why I bought an iphone - and the service has had an interesting evolution on the ipad since the device was launched earlier this year. The first app available for it was Tweetdeck, which I like on the PC and sometimes use rather than bother with the website itself - because it can silently run under other things and run new tweets as a little window in the top right corner. But of course we don't have multi tasking on the ipad yet, so it loses that advantage when put up against other ipad Twitter apps. The irritating habit of booting and then immediately asking you to set up an account so it can sync your settings across platforms has been abandoned in the ipad application, and it handles lists quite well. I now follow nearly two hundred journalists via Twitter so list management is essential if an app is to be useful.

The only negative thing I can think of to say about it is that it crashes on my machine a lot. It doesn't take down the whole system, but I often find myself looking at the desktop rather than tweets. Sort it out Tweetdeck. It's free, by the way.

Twitterific is by contrast not very terrific and you pay £3 for it. It can't manage lists and seems to lack all the bells and whistles that it's competitors boast. So my advice is not to bother.

Last and not least there's the recently launched free 'official' Twitter app and I think it sets the bar very high for other efforts. One challenge for apps is how to handle the associated web and picture content that so many of us post with our tweets, and this app does that by opening some screen territory to the right of your list and displaying it. Then when you've finished looking at it you simply swipe it off the screen with your finger and get on with looking at other tweets. Neat.

Visually it's very straightforward and appealing, and it does that list management thing very smoothly indeed; infact it's less of a hassle than Tweetdeck's function, and there's a sense the app is well integrated with the original Twitter feed. New tweets you're writing appear at the top in an appealing notebook format and attaching pictures is as easy as you'd expect. It has an onboard URL shrinker for those long web addresses that don't fit in 140 characters, and all in all it's very impressive.

There are lots of other apps that do tweeting, and there's also the Flipboard app I mentioned in a previous post which is a marvellous way of looking at Facebook and Twitter content. There's also that Foursquare thing that demands you 'check in' when you go the pub (utterly ludicrous) but there are some things missing from the ipad's social networking abilities. I'd like a Blogger app (Google are you listening?) and while they're at it I'd like to see Picasa on the ipad and the iphone; not likely to happen in the near future one suspects.

The Ipad and News

2010-09-10T11:47:00.009+01:00

Every cloud has a silver lining say cloud salesmen, and one side effect of my foot disease (see previous post if your stomach is strong) has been the opportunity to upgrade the apps on my ipad. Naturally there's no shortage of ipad app reviews on the net but I don't see any reason for me not to add mine, together with some thoughts about my experience so far with this allegedly 'magical and revolutionary' device. To start with I'll deal with the device's Operating System and news apps, with the rider that this is very much a personal view, and in no way my employers.

First the OS. While the user experience is smooth and apps burst forth onto the screen in a generally fabulous manner, the tweaking which is due in November cannot come too soon for me. The obvious absence from the original release is multi tasking. It really beggars belief that Apple think its users will be content only doing one thing at once. Even the most basic £200 netbook runs things in the background. A machine which costs up to three times this amount should have had that ability as standard from the off.

But I have become reconciled to the lack of Flash. Its absence is not as crippling as the critics suggest and much web video development is now in the new ipad friendly h.264. But another thing that my £200 netbook can do is print documents and the ipad cannot do this off its own bat. These omissions are irksome, but again will be sorted come the Autumn, so it is said.

The big switch with ipad and news is one of power, which has moved away from journalists and towards their readers listeners and viewers. There's now an abundance of choice which is accessible via the web and the many apps, but the apps themselves allow the user to choose news priorities and sources. Added to that is the flexibility with the ease of display and it's easy to see how the real fight for survival traditional news providers already have is going to intensify as tablet use takes off.

For there are some great news orientated things to use with the ipad which has made it my favourite device around the house and work and has rendered the idea of leaving the building to actually buy a magazine or newspaper superfluous. Chief among them is flipboard which makes your Twitter and Facebook feeds into a delightful colourful magazine which you can flip through, as the app title suggests. This app really does take advantage of the tablet's display and touchscreen in an impressive way, and hints at the future of magazines and media generally. For with Flipboard you are the editor, choosing sources of information which display in the order you want. As well as social networking the app allows you to display blogs and some magazines web feeds in the same way. This app in itself could be very bad news indeed for conventional magazines. It's free, by the way.

I'm a fan of the Metro newspapers ipad and iphone app. The Metro lies about on Tube trains and is a rubbishy pest which puts people off buying proper papers. But it works well online, loading down into the ipad the full newspaper imagery, which you can blow up with your fingers as you would a webpage. For a free app it's very versatile, even allowing you to choose your background music from the ipod app as you browse the stories. It even includes the Metro's magazine. And you can download the paper to read later, when for example, you're on the tube and so offline. Great.

But other magazines and newspapers are struggling with the ipad's challenge. Maclife comes close to getting something worth having; it's free and worthwhile if you like your geekery apple shaped. Other techy print merchants are having a go too; Wired has done a demo version for the ipad which is well worth a look, but I can't see how to buy other editions from the app store or even see how much they'd be. I wouldn't pay more than 50p for it since the ipad means the publisher has neither to pay for printing or distribution, but at the moment the business of selling the magazine electronically seems to elude them. Which is ironic when you consider Wired's speciality.

The electronic media has adapted much more quickly and easily to the ipad and here I have to bow the knee to my employer which has issued the natty free BBC news app which has boasted over a million downloads to date. There's an array of text and video treatment of stories from the various World Specialist and UK fields, together with a video feed of the news channel when you're within wifi range. And yet there are odd omissions. Why no way to listen to Radio 4's PM or Today through the app? Or select Five Live's news offerings? Radio generally doesn't get a look in. And I can't see how to search. And unaccountably there doesn't seem to be a way to send stories to the BBC through the app. Sky News has an iphone app which does allow users to interact, and which translates to the ipad from the iphone quite well, but it's not custom built for the bigger screen so the stories have a pixelly feel.

There are other news apps on the platform which are highly professional in feel. Reuters has a beautiful news ipad app - it's called the news pro - which is the best presented news effort on the platform combing the cream of their written journalism with their stills photography and video. Sumptuous and free. Their competition in the agency business, Associated Press has also delivered an accomplished app which showcases their stories and video. It's a little too US dominated for my personal taste however and there's a plan to sell its content through the app. So far though, it's free.

Other news providers are experimenting with the ipad interface and offering things which are plain gimmicky, like the US TV channel's abc's news globe - it gives you the stories in a globe which you can revolve and touch to make stories leap out, which is pretty but ultimately pales beside the Reuters or BBC's approach which may be duller but allows for a quicker and more efficient browse. I also like Newsy which sources US news outlets for pictures and treatment of stoies, and allows you to build your own running order. TV bulletin editors watch out. Pulse was initially quite interesting - infact it was so interesting publishers initially managed to get Apple to remove it from the app store - but I now find I less compulsive than Flipboard. Pulse just displays stories from other people's websites in moveable rows, which is a swift way to assess coverage but which is visually less than appealing. Again, you can choose your sources, as you can with Flipboard. And it would be wrong not to mention the NPR app which is a magnificent way to access the US public radio output and which the Beeb would do well to have a good long look at.

So my news addiction is well catered for , but other media efforts are less compulsive. The Guardian has an excellent iphone app, but has yet to revise it properly for the ipad. Instead they send you a photo a day through their eyewitness app, which while worthy is scarcely competition for the other news providers. I was recommended Newsrack, which is an ipad RSS reader but its workings have eluded me so far, my fault I suspect. Some iphone news apps have been installed on my ipad and get used, most notably the excellent Manchester Evening News and the Evening Standard, but hurry up chaps, please do a bespoke ipad effort for this journalist.

Of course there are many other news apps. I have found the Wall Street Journal too demanding of both money and e-mail details to be compulsive, the New York Times has yet to update its iphone offering for the ipad, preferring a patrician 'Editor's Choice' effort, so wholly missing the point of the power switch that's occurred - we as consumers have the choice now, not the editors.

My next post will cover my take on social networking on the ipad, and also look at games if I get time.

Foot

2010-09-06T19:38:00.006+01:00

Hospital stories are the pits aren't they? Yet somehow I want to write mine. It all boils down to a series of snap shots.

A funny pain in the back of my knee and sweating a bit in Bristol on Thursday lunchtime. The full on shakes and hospitalisation in London in the wee hours on Saturday. Waiting to be seen by doctor with drunken shouty people in Kings College Hospital A and E. Phone ringing every twenty minutes to announce the decks being cleared for shooting victims.

Eventually seeing a succession of doctors one of whom draws around large spreading red areas on my leg with a biro. These lines quickly treated as irrelevant by spreading red areas. Leg begins to look like the Atlas of the World drawn up during the heyday of the British Empire. An IV drip being connected to my arm for the swift input of industrial amounts of antibiotics. The offending leg proceeding to behave like an infectious lava lamp. Surgery of a radical nature suggested by young turk of a doctor, then as quickly discounted by an older hand, mercifully.

The Bank Holiday weekend spent in the Oliver ward which if anything is noisier at night than it is during the day. There's a man who shouts all the time. And I mean all the time, every two minutes. ("Nurse! .....Nurse!.......Can someone be appointed to talk to me?" Ad nauseam. All day and all night.) Eventually they take him away. Then they replace him with another man, who shouts AND vomits all day and all night. Where do they get the energy from? I could do with it, I reflect sourly as I ram the ipod headphones further into my ears at 3 am.

Reading a book a day while watching the leg slowly change colour. Red. Then a bit yellow, then blistering like the surface of an alien planet, suitable for a drive by the Mars Rover (see above. I've not included the upper thigh. Just be thankful) Posting on Facebook from my iphone but realising photo of leg is unsuitable for the internet, could actually get me imprisoned. Two brilliant nurses, Andrea and Angela, who keep me sane, calm and above all going while the doctors stay semi detached, at times preferring to look at a computer screen round the corner rather than actually come and see me. Am I that boring, I wonder.

Eventually start shuffling about but it feels as if my leg is in a vice. Epic of endurance to get to the shower, so don't bother for four days. As days accumulate I continue walking about, sometimes in the middle of the night to get a bit of peace. Consider sleeping in the hospital garden. Reject idea as might annoy nurses.

Lots of visitors. These are welcome in one sense, ie proof I am clearly not terminally unpopular, but really just want to sleep or read and get strength back. Have appetite again, despite the antibiotics, but food in hospital incredibly bland. On the other hand it is delivered by Howard, a friendly Chinese bloke who is a star. Try to eat it in order not to disappoint him, but vomiting ward-mate puts me off by projectiling into the bin at 1pm and 6pm on the dot. He is spectacularly rude to the nurses and refuses his medication. Why is he here?

Bonkers messmates aside I start to find hospital delightfully stress free, a bit like Yossarian in Catch 22, so make a face when senior doctors turn up on Tuesday and decide I'm bed blocking. Consider hiding under the bed. Reject idea as might annoy the nurses. Ms T, who saved my leg by insisting on me seeking help the previous Friday then turns up and drives me home. She looks exhausted, I realise humbly that sometimes it's worse watching people being ill than actually being ill yourself.

Leg now almost the right colour, although still limp about like Long John Silver, and foot swollen from time to time. What is this thing? None of the doctors seem to really know though the catch all term is cellulitis. Some insect may have bitten me, it appears, or maybe a small cut let the bacteria in. Just bad luck.

Drama over. Back to work Wednesday, hopefully.

Undesirable Reporting

2010-08-18T23:31:00.006+01:00

I've started following @ukwarcabinet on Twitter; it posts a short summary of Churchill's meetings with his ministers, in a kind of realtime format but sixty years ago. It works as a handy reminder that whatever mess you think you're in, there've been worse, and in living memory.
You can click through and download the full document from the archive, free and gratis. Halfway down this week in 1940 we find this note:

6. The Minister of Information said that he was investigating
the circumstances in which a false report had been allowed to appear
in some of the earlier editions of that morning's newspapers stating
that five divisions of troops were said to be massed on the French
beaches opposite the south-east coast, ready to embark for an
attempted invasion and that they had been bombed by the R.A.F.
It was agreed that it was very undesirable that rumours of this
kind should be published.

I love the understatement. Lots more like this available from the National Archives.

Istanbul

2010-06-09T15:05:00.001+01:00

Istanbul, in the rain. It's really only possible to get fleeting impressions of a city this big in the time we had, but I think I want to go back. It's a very male city, full of history and heavily politicised with a demonstration of some kind every day we were there, although that activity was mainly a protest against the Israeli action against a Turkish ship in the Gaza aid convoy. The 24 hour news channels, and I counted five on my little hotel telly alone, were inevitably full of this story. Infact they weren't covering anything else.

The more I experience Turkey the more I like it. The food is great for one thing, and the people almost invariably welcoming. And Istanbul is way more sophisticated than I'd been expecting. If you're there have a drink in the ultra chic bar in the city's Museum of Modern Art, overlooking the Bospherous with all the ferries and container ships passing as you sip your Efe's Pilsner.

Out

2010-06-01T17:27:00.004+01:00

Back in 2008 I wrote this about a brilliant blogger who called himself Bete De Jour:

"For a few weeks now I've been reading Bete De Jour's blog. Bete is supposed to be a very overweight and (he says) ugly chap whose lovelife is a non starter and who very much wants to lose some weight and get his life back.To say the blog is masterfully written is an understatement; ....But my problem (ianasmuch as I care, which I don't really) is that it's now getting too good and I'm thinking, he's just got to be a pro.He reads a lot like Irvine Welsh or maybe William Leith when he was writing some of his profoundly uncomfortable self revelatory stuff in the Independent way back in the day. There's also a companion blog, which seems to be by a friend of his who has MS. But which I rather suspect is also a creation of Bete's, who lives a very incident filled life......"

Anyway turns out he really wasn't what he said he was. He wasn't extraordinarily ugly, he was instead rather normal looking and wasn't single, he had a girlfriend. Some of his readers may feel cheated but I don't. He did seem to me to be almost TOO good at writing and some sort of mental klaxon I've developed as a hack went clanging away during some of the posts. He's outed himself here; I wish him all the best. Anyone who'll go on GMTV with a bag on his head deserves to sell a lot of books.

ipad

2010-05-29T23:12:00.003+01:00

Reader, I bought one.

I'd been waiting for weeks. Hearing the news that sales had gone so well in the States that they'd be launched late here came as an almost physical blow. Taken in by the hype? Yes, like a child is by Christmas. And lo, when the morning came there I was with hundreds of other goons waiting at half seven for the Westfield Apple Store to open so I could buy one with the money saved up from doing extra shifts. It felt odd to line up for an item of consumer goods, a bit like Ms T says you did in Soviet Russia; what an irony, one of the richest companies in the world now forces consumers to line up round the block.

I have never behaved like this before in my life, I thought, as the black blinds dropped from the storefront while cheering clapping Apple staff ushered the first favoured few inside. A man came up. Did I want coffee while I waited? Yes, I said. Have you pre-ordered? he asked. I had not so could not have one. You have to hand it to Apple, they have it sorted to a fault. But you have to play their game.

Eventually I got to the head of the queue - it took around an hour all told - and a cheerful girl took me inside, found me my flavour of ipad (32G with 3G) and relieved me of my money. Then she activated it, so I could take it back to the office and show people. Because that's the fun with this device. Everyone loves it.

All day they came up to my desk. I hear you've got one, they'd say, so I'd give it them to play with. Suspicious frowns were replaced with slow growing smiles as the super smooth browser produced vibrant, almost tactile web pages you can blow up with a stretch of two fingers. The BBC iplayer boots easily off the web and plays HD quality imagery. The book thingy has Winnie the Pooh which charms and delights as it expands off the shelf and offers itself for page turning. The maps explode off the screen and reduce down with a couple of taps on the screen into a beautifully rendered streetview.

Above all, the sensation of speed and smoothness in everything the ipad does, and a feeling of considered design producing a trouble free experience. As others have remarked, their stuff just works, and how. In comparison with my netbook it's a Bentley ride after the Ford Focus. Sure they'll both get there. But my God, the difference in style. It's a little heavy perhaps, but I sense this is my digital companion on all manner of trips from here on in. And it'll be my handy second screen at work for twitter and news apps.

We're at the start of the journey with this device. The iphone was an instant hit with me but then I bought a 3G one when there were already thousands of apps in the store. The ipad is going to be the focus of a massive amount of creativity from software designers and publishers. I get the sense the device will gradually become essential for media types like me, and possibly many more people as the simplicity and ease of use beguiles and enslaves.

Will the ipad save publishing? Can it save newspaper journalism? I don't know. My hunch is that we'll know within two years.

Scam

2010-04-23T23:40:00.005+01:00

My Dad, who is 92 this year, takes a while to get to the phone these days. He still beat me to it the other day. He listened to the caller, explained he 'wasn't interested' and put the phone down.
I was intrigued. Who was that, I asked.

'Somebody selling burglar alarms. Apparently break ins have risen in this area'
I 1471ed, got a Salford number, and called them back. My dad's number is part of the Telephone Preference Service database and so should not be rung by salespeople. I encountered a girl called Lucy.
'What's the name of your company?' I asked.
'Erm, I can't remember.'
I think I may have expressed disbelief at this point.

'What's your full name?' I inquired.
'I'll get the manager'

After an interval the 'manager' came on the line. I pointed out the TPS problem.
'We'll delete your number' he promised.
'What's the name of your company?' I asked
'Crime Prevention UK' he said.
'Where are you based?' I asked
'We don't disclose that' he said.

There is no mention of any firm 'Crime Prevention UK' anywhere on the web.

My Dad now gets an average of three of these kind of calls a week. He is obviously on a list of old people who could be targetted profitably by scamsters. What is the point of the TPS if it does not protect the elderly from these calls? The TPS complaint form, since I obtained one and filled it out, says it will relay the complaint - with all your personal details - to the company you're complaining about. Not reassuring.

There is a dark underbelly of business in this country populated with salespeople making a desperate living preying on the vulnerable either door to door or by phone calls from shabby call centres in low rent business parks. I caught a glimpse of it in this incident and it wasn't edifying.

Food

2010-04-09T13:35:00.005+01:00

My aunty Hilda was a landgirl. I thought of her this week as Ms T and I finally got around to the Ministry of Food Exhibition at the Imperial War Museum. It's a great display with handily presented films, a wartime greenhouse complete with a simulated cup of tea and many recollections - written and also available for you to listen to - of the people who Hitler came close to starving.

Some of the food the British were eating in the 1940's looks pretty grim. Not nutritionally deficient necessarily, but definitely fairly sparse, and dull with an acccent on our less interesting veg. The gravy was dubious. The rich eat out, because there was no rationing in restaurants. The rest of us struggled with a shortage of onions and not much fruit. It was roughest on the children. Imagine growing up without ice cream! There's a brilliant picture of two perplexed kids looking at carrots on sticks.

Everyone knows about rationing but I didn't realise it only finished in 1957. Infact it got tighter after the fighting ended, with bread and potatoes being rationed in 1946 and 1947. At one point the rationing of sweets ended, then had to be reintroduced after there was a rush. Scandalous. The exhibition finishes next Feb.

UPDATE My friend Jo-Anne says her parents' experience was that rationing was largely an urban phenomenon. Her mum in London kept chickens in the back garden and experienced rationing in the raw. Whereas her dad, who moved between Liverpool and North Wales, had access to many market gardens and so experienced no real shortages. Her grandad also kept a pig in a factory yard.

Pad Thai

2010-03-31T11:35:00.004+01:00

Here by popular demand is thePad Thai recipe I was taught by Leng at the Smile Koh Mak cookery class on Koh Mak in Thailand. All seems a long time ago now but there you go.

Other tips for perfect Pad Thai
- Soak the noodles in warm water so they're soft.
- The Pad Thai sauce you can buy from Chinese supermarkets, or you can make it by combining the ingredients listed at the top in a small saucepan, heating till the sugar is dissolved and it thickens. Coconut sugar is known as Palm sugar here - Chinese supermarkets again.
- Dried shrimps are optional, as is the pickled radish. But it does make it more tasty and authentic, and you can use chicken instead of prawns.

Alternatively go to Koh Mak and get Leng to give you a lesson.

From SEAsia 2010

River

2010-03-21T11:23:00.004Z

Prayers for rain are being uttered here in SE Asia much more fervently than usual as we go into the windy and wet season. The reason is the parlous state of the Mekong River which is now dangerously low. It flows like a carotid artery through a brace of countries, starting deep in China and winding through Burma, Laos, Cambodia and finally widest and usually most impressive in Thailand and Vietnam.

Millions of people literally live and trade on it but people we spoke to in Laos say they're now seeing sandbanks they've never seen before because the water level is so low. The reason, some say, are the dams the Chinese are building upriver. The Chinese for their part say it's the low rainfall recently. And it has to be said that Laos and Thailand are both planning and building dams themselves.

Next month the Mekong River Commission, which represents Thailand Laos Vietnam and Cambodia is meeting to discuss the crisis and to ask the Chinese to give them more details of the effect of the upriver dams and to discuss what's to be done.

I took the photo above, which you'll note is also very hazy. That's because it's the burning season at the moment (farmers clear their land and set light to the vegetation) which restricts visibility to the point that aircraft can't fly. It all just adds to the sense of looming environmental disaster round these parts which is perhaps not the most positive note to end my trip on.

Bears

2010-03-09T16:49:00.003Z

A couple of years back the police in Laos stopped a motorbike headed towards the Chinese border. Their attention was caught by a pipe of a few inches in diameter strapped to the machine, which they opened and squinted down. Inside were two tiny Asiatic bear cubs, the size of human fists. The pair were destined for bear farms inside China, because there the animals bile is claimed to have a value in medicine. Their paws are also considered delicacies.

The rescued bears now live with around twenty of their kin in a sanctuary just outside the Laotian city of Luang Prabang, which is where I encountered them and their British keeper. He and his partner sold up in the UK a few years ago and in his words 'burnt their bridges'. Just as well, since the sanctuary's population of rescued bears - they don't breed them here - has shot up in recent years.

The bears in the wild are solitary but here in the big enclosures they all seem to rub along fairly happily and spend their time taking baths, playing with balls and dozing on platforms. They've been saved from a life of almost indescribable humiliation. If you're in Laos, and you're passing, drop in as they can use your support.

Escaping

2010-02-23T19:13:00.005Z

From France0210

With Britain in political ferment, football in freefall and an apparently endless winter gripping the country like Glenn Close grips the rabbit in Fatal Attraction I thought it was best to leave town.

For six years now Hazel and Adrian have been living the expat lifestyle in Maureillas Les Ilas which nestles in the Pyrennean foothills. They've been kind enough to let me crash their expat idyll for a few days while I recover my sense of humour after the joint depradations of snow and newsroom.

Walking up hills is very much in vogue here, and a good deal of the day can be spent sitting in the garden reading and stroking their knee bound cat Margaret. Red wine remains ludicrously cheap despite the parlous state of the euro and the sun has come out. France. It's bloody superb isn't it?

Holiday reading has included some Ed McBain which Wallander's creator Henning Mankel says is a big favourite, the well received Ian Dury biography and Evelyn Waugh's Put Out More Flags. I think I enjoyed the Waugh most but I keep reflecting on Dury, the bitter brilliant wordsmith who awakened me and lots of other people of my generation to the terrible pleasures of Rock and Roll. The book's a good read if slightly too populated by a big changeable cast of session musicians. Dury, a twisted gifted raucous bully, shines through the pages. How we still miss him.

Citeh's Big Night

2010-01-22T11:28:00.001Z

From iphone2010

I've started going to see City again this season because the Blues have enjoyed a long League Cup run, which in turn meant midweek fixtures that fit with visits to my nonagerian dad. As a treat a good mate fixed me with a ticket for Citeh v Manyoo in the first leg of the semi final.
In the moments before the game began the lights were turned off in the enormous City of Manchester stadium and the forty six thousand strong crowd went collectively bonkers. An enormous projected blue moon appeared on the Main Stand and the United fans lit enormous red fireworks. This was so much more than a game to the people in that ground - a massively significant fixture as the blue half of Manchester met the red half on equal sporting terms for the first time in many years - and at stake a trip to Wembley which would bring to an end City's exile from football's top table.

And I don't think I've ever seen a more exciting match although City's performance lacked finishing (with the glorious exception of Carlos Tevez). The final ten minutes as the home side clung on to a 2-1 lead against the massive efforts of Rooney and Owen was the most nervous time I've ever spent at a sporting occasion. I don't think I'll ever forget it, and I doubt anyone else there will either. The problem is City has to go to Old Trafford next week, which may end significantly differently.

Family Ties

2009-12-27T20:19:00.006Z

From Shropshire240508

I never really got to know the rest of my family beyond my parents. My Dad was in his forties when they got me from an adoption agency and my mum was in her late thirties. We were a self sufficient unit. I got the feeling my Dad's folks were from Cumbria - we'd see my two uncles Joe and Jim from time to time - and my mum had a brother who came round with his kids occasionally. All my Grandparents were gone by the time I was any age at all really.

Recently though my Dad has started talking about our relatives so I got busy on the PC today and subscribed to one or two of these ancestry sites that market the old census lists. Some of them even have online access to the death certificates. I found my mum pretty much effortlessly, which was as sad as you'd expect.

My Dad's side was interesting (but I admit I'm biased). It seems he comes from a long line of Cumbrian farmers which I traced back to 1840. His ancestors had loads of kids and I'd bet they led pretty hard lives, although at least they were out in the fresh air and not down a pit or something. Their farms are still there and I gazed down at them on Google Maps. I reckon I might drive up there at some point when the weather improves. I can see how people get hooked on this.

Unveiled

2009-11-15T10:10:00.005Z

So, Belle De Jour turns out to be a research scientist from Bristol. Techcrunch this morning speculates this unveiling may not be entirely of her own volition. Dr Magnanti went to massive lengths to protect herself including setting up shell companies to handle the proceeds from her book and TV transactions. But it seems there may have been an ex with an agenda and thus we find her in the papers on her own terms rather than on someone elses.

Secrets are difficult to keep in the internet age, but at least all Belle has to endure is some annoying newspaper articles and a few sideways looks in restaurants. I once knew a man who infiltrated the IRA. The penalty for discovery was death. His RUC handler had this aphorism for his continued survival as a spy: Never even tell your best friend. For your best friend has a best friend.

Time Out Country Walks Book 1 Number 6

2009-11-13T12:10:00.005Z

From Hampshire091109

Just the right time of year for a walk down in Hampshire, the train to Pirbright and then a tramp across the county border to Haslemere in Surrey. Really quiet, the rain stayed away, nobody around and the leaves all turning. Steak and Chips in the pub, the Red Lion in Fernhurst. Good friends on the nine mile trek. A perfect day in a beautiful part of the country.

Top iphone Apps

2009-11-13T11:22:00.003Z

I thought I'd make a list of the things I'm impressed by on the iphone at the moment. Blackberry and Palm Pre users please look away now. All these things are free, and I heard about them on tech head sites like Wirefresh and Gizmodo.

- Tweetdeck. I'm an unashamed twitterholic and this newly updated widget makes it all so easy. And if you set up an account it syncs with the version on your desktop. .

-Sky News. It makes me grit my teeth to say this but their app works brilliantly. But they should incorporate their bloggers to make it rule utterly.

- NY Times. Their net offering works better on the iphone than it does on the web. Authoritative US journalism delivered to your phone.

- I'm also trying out Zen News which is an original graphic take on the world's headlines. Not convinced by it yet though. .

- TV Guide. The UK TV listings at your fingertips. Very handy when you need to sort your reality viewing.

- The Trainline. Tried this rail timetable tool out while we were walking down in Sussex at the beginning of the week and needed some train times from Haslemere. Simple to use and worked brilliantly...and it's free unlike its competitor, National Rail Enquiries, which was still £4.99 when I checked this morning.

- Currency. Handy little thing for working out how much the bill is in Sterling when you're travelling. Quietly pops onto the net to find out how the pound is doing so it's always up to date.

- Kayak. Its designers say this finds the cheapest flights from wherever you are to wherever you need to go. Looks on a number of sites, including that of Easyjet apparently. And it has an option to book a car and a hotel at the other end. I'm quite impressed but I think I'd still feel happier doing that sort of high cost operation on my PC.

- Rightmove. Watching houseprices rise and fall is my guilty pleasure.

- Speedtest. A bit nerdy this. Basically it's a handy little program which measures the speed of your net connection. It's also available on the web which is handy when lambasting your ISP over low bandwidth.

Dog

2009-11-01T13:25:00.002Z

To my friend Rikki's house to take pictures of his guide dog Russ for a guidedoggy publication. It takes raw courage for even sighted people to take on London's transport system and Rikki used to do it armed only with a stick. These days Russ is his right hand dog.

There have been few mishaps, although Russ did once walk Rikki into an overhanging refrigerator lorry door. There again, there was all the excitement of an ambulance ride afterwards!

Kidnap

2009-10-21T20:45:00.003+01:00

Not had much time to blog recently, mainly because life has got in the way. But my imagination has been caught by a superb series of articles David Rohde has written for this weeks New York Times.

Rohde was kidnapped by the Taliban in November 2008, together with his translator and driver. There followed eight months of captivity, including frequent promises of release, the making of those terrifying videos we've all seen and sundry other terrifying hardships. Finally Rohde and one of his colleagues managed to escape, after tiring out their guards by an endless game of chequers and then disappearing over a compound wall.

Rohde has had a unique insight into what the West is dealing with in Afghanistan. The series is a must-read if you're into journalism and want to know about the growing perils faced by some of the people who do it for a living.

Home

2009-10-04T13:57:00.002+01:00

Sat in a comfy chair at home musing on our experiences in America. Result: lovely country but I'm glad I don't have to live there. It really is survival of the fittest in the Land of the Free. All through the trip I watched the health care row take form on tv and the web. I struggled to get into the complexities, and will stand correcting, but it appears to be based on the concept of insurers commissioning care from the health system on behalf of clients. Naturally this only works if you have the resources to get the insurance. If you have insufficient resources you don't have a policy - unless you have none at all in which case the state can step in - or if you're over 65 in which case you get 'medicare' benefits (which it has to be said seem very good).

The majority of young people take the risk, don't buy a policy, and hope they won't become ill. So a large proportion of the population pays nothing at all into the health system. If they do get ill that's a problem because you can't get insurance if you have a pre existing condition. The cost of health care has in any case ballooned in the US, as it has in all industrialised countries, but in the US to a really radical degree. It now accounts for 16% of the country's GDP, up from just 8% in 1980. At some point a bill will emerge 'from the hill'. For what it's worth, and I'm no expert, I reckon it'll be Obama's defining moment in this term.

It was exciting to be in a country that can faces up to this problem with heated debate and a proper democratic process, albeit swayed by the lobbyists. And as we travelled I got a real sense of ordinary Americans wanting something sorted out; I think back to Georgia when I met a man at breakfast who faced a bill of over $1000 when his daughter picked up a minor sports injury; only a proportion of the bill which was largely borne by his employers policy .

The country as a whole feels as if it's weathering a difficult period. Two wars. The health care problem. The economy still very much in a trough, with more unemployed this month than even the analysts were expecting. But I got the sense, speaking to people, of a country with a great sense of pride in itself, and a sense of purpose that I rather wish we had over here.

Tenement

2009-10-02T00:55:00.002+01:00

To the Lower East side to take in the Tenement museum, which is absolutely superb. It centres on the Moores family who arrived in New York from Ireland in the 1860's. The tour guide takes you up the steel stairs into the building on Orchard Street and around the tiny insanitary space the family lost a child in, and which hasn't materially changed since the thirties..

Researchers know a lot about the family and have even spoken to their descendants. The tenement was built in 1862, which makes me wonder what happened in in our house, built 1876?

Museum Revisited

2009-10-01T01:02:00.004+01:00

From NY

Slipped away from Ms T and her foodie mate from Chowhound (they were engaged on a Mission to a Market) and headed uptown to New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. I've been before but it's worth a revisit because of the remodelled Greek and Roman antiquities gallery. Their collection is rivalled by the British museum, but only when the UK's key museum actually has the staff to open all its galleries..

Here there's polished gems from Knossos, an entire Bronze age chariot and the most superb collection of ancient Greek vases - starting from approximately 600BC - I've ever seen anywhere. They ask for $20 for admission (non compulsory) to this and the rest of the museum which has apparently kicked off a very New York row...

Murder

2009-09-29T21:17:00.005+01:00

We finished an idyllic three days in Savannah by sitting in the sunlit Madison square and reading our books before catching an overnight Amtrack to New York. Madison Square is one of the most famous crime scenes in US literary history, as it's the site of the slaying featured in the 90's journalism-thriller 'Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil' by John Berendt. The book - people in Savannah simply refer to it as 'the book' is notorious and lies like a curse on the city. The reason is its heady mix of fiction and fact. There really was an antiques dealer called Jim Williams and he really did shoot a young man in the 1800's house in my picture above. The book, which is a great read, brought in the tourists and even Clint Eastwood to shoot a picture - but now Savannah can't exactly wriggle free of its reputation as... a bit louche. There again maybe it doesn't want to.

As to the cavalcade of of other characters in the novel, some of them did undoubtedly exist, some have their names changed - and everyone here will tell you that they know someone in it.

Moving

2009-09-25T04:53:00.004+01:00

Tomorrow we pull out of Charleston and head further south into Georgia. We spent today at the beach and got our noses burnt in unseasonable sun. Out to sea dolphins broke the water as fishermen dangled lures off the pier. Pelicans dived to catch fish and the sunlight glinted off the Atlantic, which turned out to be so warm even Ms T felt up to a paddle.

Afterwards we went along the pier to meet the gnarled fishermen who turned out to be the cast of 'Jaws'. What are you fishing for we asked. Shark, they replied. I looked suprised. I'd been swimming in there, I laughed (uncertainly).

Ah well, they replied, the shark are there all the time. You might not see them but they are there. But they're only a risk in the evening or first thing in the morning. So now I know.

Charleston

2009-09-22T23:48:00.004+01:00

After a swing through rain soaked Virgina we've arrived in sultry Charleston, a costal city on the coast of South Carolina. I've never seen downpours quite like the ones we drove through, but that's America, they don't do their weather by halves.

Twenty years ago to the day Charleston played host to Hurricane Hugo. The physical scars have long gone but the local news today featured an item about shelter suitability; they can't take their security from the elements for granted here. We wandered about the elegant French quarter and a friendly lawyer showed us around the court complex which dates from the eighteenth century. The centre of the storm came ashore here and tore the roof off, he reminisced, so they spent two million dollars or so rebuilding it to its former glory.

Washington

2009-09-18T00:13:00.003+01:00

From Washington

In Washington for the first time in years. Passed by the Vietnam memorial (above) - always moving, so perfect and simply achieved...then walked our little legs off. You rarely see people in uniform at home in London, but in Washington by contrast you rarely walk the length of a street without seeing a Marine, or an Air Force officer. It feels like the country is at war in a way which ours isn't. And that's borne out by reports here this week that Gen McCrystal will shortly ask Obama for up to fifty thousand more troops to get the job done in Afghanistan.

Museums done we headed for Rosslyn across the Potomac for a lunch at Ray's Hell Burger. This made headlines a few months ago when the President and Biden dropped in and lined up at the counter like everyone else. It's not ritzy but by God it was tasty.

View more news videos at: http://www.nbcwashington.com/video.

Conkers

2009-09-14T11:04:00.005+01:00

Two quite heavy days on the newsdesk had left me with a headache so it was up first thing and off to the Lido for a swim. The water was so cold my face nearly fell off. Pushed the polar bears aside and did my twenty lengths. But Autumn is with us now and leaves were floating in the pool. The morning sun made the waves glitter as I sculled up and down. There were about fifteen other hardy souls none of whom were wearing wetsuits and some had their small children with them. Respect! The headache disappeared and my skin tingled. Swimming in a heated pool feels odd now, like being in tepid tea.

Afterwards in the park on the way home there were horse chestnuts on the ground. They were so shiny and cool I had to pick them up. Do kids still play conkers or has the pastime been banned on health and safety grounds? Or maybe the Nintendo DS has conquered conkers.

Beds Walk

2009-09-11T12:05:00.004+01:00

To Harpenden for one of our walkabouts, with Ms T choosing the route from a new guide we'd not tried before, the Rough Guide walks around London. This is not quite as good as the Time Out versions in that the walks are circular rather than from one station to another, but it does make buying the train tickets a good deal less complex. The maps in the Rough Guide are much much better than the Time Out equivalent which makes navigation easier, although the directions are less comprehensive. Like the Time Out routes there's a pub in the middle, in this case the Wicked Lady in Weathampstead which looked gentrified to the max and which I thought would be dreadful - but which surprised me with an excellent fish risotto and Ms T raved about her sardines on toast. So there you are.

Harpenden is what it is; a dormitory suburb outcrop of London but a pleasant place with some nice country areas around it. The weather was stunning, Summer's last hurrah.

After being on the wagon for two weeks and holding out with a lime and soda in the pub my will evaporated when I got home and I indulged in a Spitfire Ale. Then it was off to the Regent where I got three sheets to the wind with Ellen and Ms T. Remembered in the morning why not drinking can be a Very Good Thing.

Doctors

2009-09-08T17:31:00.002+01:00

Walked in hot September sun (?) down to Camberwell to see Charlotte, struck down by Salmonella after an encounter with a chicken sausage at Colombo airport. Ms T was hungry on the way so we stopped at a Vietnamese cafe a short distance from the hospital.
The next table was occupied by two youngish doctors. The door opened on another world as the conversation ebbed and flowed.
"We went to Tuscany for a fortnight but the nanny didn't come."
"I don't think the recession ever reached us actually. And we saw some bankers the other night - very bullish. There's money to be made..."
"We were trying to buy an apartment in Manhattan, but the deal fell through."
How much are these guys on?

Catalogue

2009-09-07T09:01:00.002+01:00

This is the latest thing to fall into our garden overnight. I don't think it's the kids this time, somehow, so I'm not sure it falls into the same category as the dinosaur (see below). When I came out to go to work there were pages strewn all the way up the street, so perhaps it was someone who was drunk or just unhappy with the service levels at Argos.

Old Aunty

2009-09-06T10:06:00.006+01:00

Love this 1959 documentary of life at the BBC looking at the overnight operations, including a hilarious sequence apparently filmed in the wee hours in the Bush newsroom.

'Anything new for the 0300 bulletin?'

It's still like that, well, sort of. My favourite sequence is the security guard ringing Jack De Mannio to point out that it's half past five in the morning. They ought to bring that sort of thing back.

Dinosaur

2009-08-23T11:57:00.003+01:00

From Drop Box

We have a small walled garden which borders the street. It's a little green sanctuary and I'm thankful for it, and feel fortunate we've got it, particularly when I don't have to mow the lawn. The kids who play outside frequently throw things over the high wall, usually old toys they don't want anymore, mainly small things, but once an entire scooter. They rarely come to ask for things back (although they did for the scooter).

I've decided to start cataloguing these things, stuff fallen to earth from Planet Childhood. This week's offering, a scary plastic dinosaur witha revolving head arrangement that allows you to choose between cheery and scary.

Hurt

2009-08-21T13:05:00.004+01:00

Sometimes, at the gym, I say to Adam, please leave me a little bit of strength and endurance because I have the rest of the day to get through. His response is always the same, that there is no point in training unless you push the envelope. I can do another fifteen bench reps now, he then adds, just for good measure.

But today, fully two days after a session I find just getting my jacket on and off a real problem; and together with my back which is still randomly painful, everything in the top half of my body seems to ache. The weight isn't really coming off although I look and feel quite a bit better. I also feel a lot stronger in the pool, where I can cheerfully knock off a kilometre before breakfast.

But I have to face the fact that the drinking will have to go if there's going to be any move on that front, and so next week I'm going back on the wagon AGAIN. The other problem is I have bet Ms T's dad Roger that I can do a triathlon by next summer. At this point, dear reader, I don't even own a bicycle.

Cows

2009-08-17T14:01:00.002+01:00

In Lincolnshire this weekend which must surely be one of England's most overlooked and most beautiful counties, especially at this time of year. We combined seeing Ms T's parents with attendance at the Wedding of the Year, that of Charlotte and Alastair Tatam. It took place at Alastair's parents house which is surrounded by fields and lovely gardens.

Some cows came over to examine us as we parked cars and put up tents for those staying late. They stood in a huddle, swaying silently.

'Are they frightened?' asked a small boy of his dad

'Sort of frightened and curious at the same time'

Later there were fireworks which caused a fresian stampede.

Books

2009-08-14T15:03:00.003+01:00

People have been tagging me on Facebook with requests to name my fifteen books. I had real problems doing this, which surprised me. Just getting to fifteen was a massive effort which shows that either I'm in mental decline or the whole exercise is worthless even for people who like books.

Catch 22
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch
Adrian's Panda
Barchester Towers
Bright Shining Lie
Master and Commander
Little Tim and the Brave Sea Captain (see pic)
Midnight's Children
In Cold Blood
1984
Brideshead Revisited
Carter Beats the Devil
The Macpherson Report into the Murder of Stephen Lawrence
Biggles in The Cruise of the Condor
The Odessa File

See Little Tim and the Brave Sea Captain? A heady percentage of the fifteen I'd take to the desert island are from my childhood, and took root in my heart as my mum taught me to read. Later I was on an adventure with Biggles (I love flying to this day), and then there's the Odessa File, my first grown up thriller which helped inspire me to be a journalist. Brideshead has to be there, Orwell had to get in somewhere and iI found I wanted Rushdie's Midnight's Children - for my money his best work. The Macpherson Report opened my eyes to what it was like to be black in our country and is a drily effective piece of writing into the bargain, but ultimately I love fun in my literature and what can surpass Carter beats the Devil for that? I have omitted other much adored friends like Raymond Chandler, but I think that's my drop dead essential fifteen.

Dawn Glory

2009-08-07T08:57:00.000+01:00

I'm in the West Country at the moment and yesterday I went over to the funeral of our last Great War veteran, Harry Patch. At six in the morning driving on the roads here is a real pleasure and I was forced to pull over by the lovely view of mist in the Somerset valleys.

1984

2009-07-25T20:35:00.004+01:00

A few days ago a friend of ours, who's very senior in one of the publishing firms, came over for a barbecue with her kids. I asked her whether she was a bit concerned about the new e-reading gadgets that Amazon and Sony are marketing. They're like ipods but for books, and I reasoned that people might pirate literature just like they do music. Well she said, DRM - Digital Rights Management - is under development for that.

And quite radical this DRM is because the other week Amazon magically made some books disappear from their clients readers, before apologising and putting them back. You don't really own a book you buy for one of these things. The company does and can change it, or make it go away at will.

As it happened one of the titles was Orwell's 1984 which I'm re reading (on paper) at the moment. In Winston's world all the books have been burnt. And the hero spends his time rewriting history. How Big Brother would have loved the new e-books! And may yet, I suppose.

Choose the Moon

2009-07-25T18:55:00.003+01:00

Can it really be forty years since the Americans made the ultimate statement about tourism and went to the moon? It wasn't being there so much as getting there that we celebrated last week.

I'm caught up by the techy geeky romance of the whole lunatic enterprise. Some years back I made the trip of a lifetime to the States and sat in a Command module simulator in NASA's Huntsville museum (above). That's where they developed rockets by the way - they developed Cape Canaveral later, I think. My apologies for the shorts and the cheesy grin.

There are lots of webby offerings which I've been surfing in my downtime but I reckon the best is the JFK library super site: We Choose the Moon. Fabulous.

Swine Flu

2009-07-25T12:51:00.001+01:00

Much sweating, real and virtual, about swine flu which is sweeping newsrooms and parts of the nation. Despite claims that up to sixty thousand people could die, and the tragic deaths already associated with the virus, I can't help but be sceptical. Part of this attitude is stupid bravado. I've had flu many times, goes my reasoning, so bring it on. Let's test the mettle of this so called dread phage against the antibodies already residing in the Hendosystem.

And I have problems with the advance publicity for this thing. I spent half the nineties thinking I was doomed to die of Mad Cow Disease because I'd had a dodgy sausage or two. And another part of it stems from watching Newsnight the other day when Simon Jenkins suggested we were being driven into hysteria by a self interested health care system.

I don't dread the virus so much as the time it'll take out of one of the nicest stretches of the year. Who can bothered being ill when the weather's so clement? There's nothing we can do save send our 'flu friend' for the tamiflu. Which according to one GP blogger doesn't work anyway.

Art, anyone?

2009-07-17T19:39:00.003+01:00

To the National Gallery with Han to see a gentle exhibition of landscapes by nineteenth century French painters: 'Corot to Monet'. They always have these exhibitions in the basement of the Sainsbury wing which gets a bit warm and has odd subdued lighting, but I enjoyed the quiet pastoral paintings of people standing in wide fields under big skies. My favourite was a series by Boudin, who appears to have liked a particular beach in Normandy (above).

Nothing revolutionary about these paintings, but then you go around a corner and see how they gave rise to Impressionism which was very Rock and Roll in those days.

Then it was off for Dim Sum in Chinatown passing the now famous plinth in Trafalgar Square. On it was mounted a man in blue lycra cycling a stationary bike. A crowd of schoolchildren had gathered, shouting up at him excitedly. Art or Bollocks?

Origin Of Species

2009-07-14T06:31:00.003+01:00

From DownHouse120709

To Kent to see Down House, the home of Charles Darwin for forty years after he returned from his epic voyage in the Beagle. Lovingly restored by English Heritage you can now see the pokey study where Darwin sat with his dog Polly and wrote the work which tore down Victorian beliefs about the world and man's place within it.

Darwin emerges from the exhibition as a family man - ten children - with an obsessive eye for detail, spending eight years just classifying barnacles. The house is much bigger than I thought it would be and there's lots you don't see, which makes you wonder what you're missing. The gardens are lovely though, not fussy, just well tended.

The trip was the idea of Graham who runs our book club. We were there to discuss 'This Thing of Darkness' which is a superb book by Harry Thompson all about the Beagles' voyage, and about its captain, Robert Fitzroy. Recommended.

Moving With Difficulty

2009-07-06T19:19:00.004+01:00

From Birthday040709

I share my birthday with American Independence Day so we had a party at Hendo Towers this weekend, which Ms T imbued with bunting, her best barbecue cooking and an American theme with the help of her US friends at Chowhound. A good time was seemingly had by all (see pictures) infact we spent the whole weekend BBQing as to the manner born.

We were lucky with the weather; not too hot but lovely anyway. We moan about our summer, but we're having a nice one this year. I think people got sick of the heat last week though and welcomed the cooler stuff this weekend.

I am 45 now, the foothills of old age. This was brought home to me when my back went after my swim and I spent the rest of the day crawling around in extreme pain. I'm eating painkillers like they're sweeties. Wondering what the problem is I rang the doctor shortly after nine this morning but a voice told me to ring back when they were less busy. I called back a bit later to be told by the receptionist that 'all the appointments were gone'. Could I book one? No, all those kind of appointments were gone too. But if I rang back tomorrow there might be one.
How much are we paying these people again?

Pub Crisis

2009-06-30T09:52:00.004+01:00

From Kent Walk

Hundreds of the country's pubs are closing every year, infact one industry expert now puts the closure rate at around fifty a week. If like me you enjoy a pint and think pubs constitute a vital part of our social fabric this is depressing news indeed.

Some, like Anthony Worrall Thompson, are calling for the smoking ban to be lifted from pubs but this problem is not so simple. The Pubco contracts which force franchised landlords to sell beer at an unfeasibly high price is also to blame for some of this crisis, and the tax environment for alcohol generally here is madly high.

The Government has known about the pub meltdown for a while and yet doesn't move, maybe eyeing the cost of late night disruption in town centres and reasoning that as alcohol is a poison perhaps drinking less of it would be good for the population and the pressure on the NHS budget.

Whatever, I don't think the smoking ban should be removed. It's a pleasure to return from a night at one of our remaining pubs and not have to consign all your clothes to the washing machine.

UPDATE Over dinner tonight I was taken to task over claiming that the tax environment for alcohol is madly high. According to research done for the brewers we tax our beer higher than the vast majority of Europe, trailing only Finland and Ireland.

Bodyguard of Lies

2009-06-29T06:22:00.002+01:00

Last November an American journalist working for the New York Times was kidnapped by the Taliban. David Rohde was staring death in the face and his employers asked media organisations not to say anything about it. They reasoned that Rohde's release price would rise if his plight was publicised, and the fuss would hinder negotiations for his freedom. They even got Wikipedia on side, altering the way it showed Rohde's reporting record, but this didn't stop an anonymous user from Florida from trying to amend the site to show the journalist's imprisonment.

Rohde escaped by climbing over a wall earlier this month, and now we can have the debate about the rightness of the cover up. Me I support it, and feel that wikipedia user in Florida was a priggish menace. The NYT piece about this quandary is here.

Dordogne

2009-06-28T05:51:00.006+01:00

From France0609

I haven't blogged for a while partly because I've been on a fabulous holiday in the Dordogne, where I scandalously failed to visit the recreation of the cave paintings at Lascaux. Instead of paying a reverential visit to see man's first attempts at a visual reproduction of his animal friends and foes we sat enjoying the peace at the house in the countryside we'd rented, and occasionally jumping in the pool to cool off. Ms T and I rather fell for the place and we're promising a ourselves a return trip - although maybe we won't drive the 700 miles next time, given the number of handy airports we found out about when we got down there. Never mind, Rachel and J stood the rigours of my driving with great fortitude.

We did stir ourselves a bit, wandering around Perigueux where there's a superb little military museum. It's one of those charming places with the accent on show rather than tell, lovingly tended and full of interesting stuff from a massive variety of conflicts. One exhibit simply a map of Algeria with little flags and a book - did you serve in Algeria? asked a notice. Please sign here and plant your flag; and a lot of people had. Then suddenly in one case, bringing me up short, the terrifying uniforms worn by residents of the town who had found themselves inmates at Ravensbruck concentration camp.

Bete's New Book

2009-06-22T12:31:00.003+01:00

I should start by declaring an interest. I’ve been a reader of Stan Cattermole’s since he started his blog and have ceaselessly promoted him here and to my friends. I’m even on the list of supporters at the back of this new book. And I’m so pleased he’s made it into print; his writing deserves recognition and some money. The paradoxical problem with the internet of course, is that even excellent things like his blog ‘Bete De Jour’ are free, thus producing a problem for the purveyors of excellent things. But while it doesn’t seem to me to be cheating to take the best of your blog posts and repackage them as the basis for a book I don’t know wether this one really works.

Bete De Jour – as a blog - is pretty exciting writing if you like laughter and honesty with your laptop and coffee. Over the months Stan has faced up manfully to a humungous weight problem, an alleged lack of looks and a grim poverty of sexual opportunity. His posts deal with a wealth of other problems which are met head on in an often hilarious and always highly compelling way. A lot happens. He discovers some truths about his parents, I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say his love life enjoys something of a renaissance, and he moves house. So this book which uses the blogging as a springboard for a bigger narrative isn’t a thriller. Think suburban earthquakes.

And for his friends and readers – the net often merges the two groups and at one point this works in Stan’s life to an extreme degree - there’s a return of old favourites. The brilliantly written scrabble match in Burnley is here and some of his terrifying early sexual encounters make their terrifying re-appearance. There’s a lot of additional material about his appalling childhood. Being by his own description ‘ugly’ is just the start of his problems.(I have no idea if he is, incidentally. Stan doesn’t favour us with pictures) Some of his schoolfriends are so cruel they ought to be had up at the Hague. He goes to a reunion. It is as difficult as you’d imagine.

Because he writes so unsparingly, and it’s usually funny, this book just escapes being a misery memoir. But just occasionally I found my self thinking, come on Stan, hit back. Get a little wicked. Don’t be afraid to give in to the Dark Side, I shouted inwardly, because by God he takes a hell of a lot of stick in this book. Bad luck seems to follow him around. His close friends become ill very frequently. Don’t get too attached to his cat. It’s all a bit grim, at points. And that’s one of the reasons why it doesn’t completely gel; I want a fightback.

I also want more themes somehow or maybe even a bit of suspense which you don’t get when you’ve been cruising his blog, so maybe that’s my fault. He’s added a lot more into this than just transcribing his blog posts, yet there’s a sense of the book being a stitched together series of episodes rather than a narrative flow. Maybe I’m being pernickety.

That being said, Stan changes his life in many positive ways, which is a big thing and a good read, particularly if you’re a newcomer. And don’t get me wrong, this is a strong debut from a man with a considerable webby following. He does write almost suspiciously well. Could this be a fascinating experiment by someone much better known? I can’t rid myself of this thought. I’m like that though.

Anyway do buy this book, a man who writes like this – whoever he is - deserves lunch. But for all his accomplishments, both in his life and in the way Mr C has documented it, it still feels a bit more of a blog thing, than a book thing.

Blogging Matters

2009-06-04T12:03:00.003+01:00

"Sadly, my time in Sicily has not been all good. It started out wonderfully, however, and everything was going great, until halfway through my second night, a couple of people with whom I had been getting on really enormously well turned on me, swore at me viciously, pushed me away and left me drunk and weeping in the middle of the night, in the middle of a strange town, without even the name of the hotel where we were staying"

Bete De Jour, a self professed ugly man who writes like an angel, has a book out! Added to this excitement he has ended up in Italy, where he falls out with people and sits mournfully in churches. This is what blogging is all about!

Lido Decisions

2009-06-04T11:20:00.005+01:00

To the Lido for more of that swimming habit I get at this time of year. Summer is really here now and this morning is cool but sunlit so I still take my wetsuit. The decision to do this is less than obvious because I'm not sure which is better for swimming; should it be 'wetsuit mode' which is like being held in the water by a kind of giant buoyant rubber fist but which definitely creates more drag as I swim..or should I go trunks only which, even with the warmer water temperature (19.5 C this morning) is a big shock to the system and makes me work a bit harder to stay afloat?

Sweating up and down the pool I notice a group of kids arrive from one of the local schools. I'd reckon them to be about eight years old. They are accompanied by five teachers/assistants and a yellow tee shirted instructor. They spend some time being told about the pool, at some length. The minutes tick by and I start to wonder what it is that anyone needs to be told about the concept of a swimming pool. Then they get changed into their togs and then they do that thing which drives me up the wall, ie just stand shouting, splashing each other and throwing a ball around.

The staff just stand there on the side and laughably, one of them tells off a child for screaming. You get in here lady, I think, and see if you don't scream. Looking at the teachers, and I admit I am in a greenhouse stonethrowing here, one or two of them could use some exercise. After a bit the kids get out. Nobody has taught them a single thing about swimming. Is this Health and Safety or something? Because surely the real risk to a child's health is not to be taught to swim.

** Hat tip to the Brockwell Lido website for the lovely vintage picture featured above..

A widdyam

2009-05-29T11:33:00.002+01:00

The ongoing expenses story has coincided with half term so I was drafted in to help our team at Westminster. I arrived shortly after Julie Kirkbride and Margaret Moran had decided to step down. It was organised mayhem with the phone ringing all the time and reporters flitting around in front of cameras and radio microphones. It's been years since I worked at Millbank so I was, to put it tactfully, on the steep bit of the learning curve. I'd forgotten how fast moving political events can be and how vital it is to stay on top of the detail.

A couple of hours into this a colleague turns round to me.
Colleague: "Obviously we'll need to do a Widdyam."
Hendo: "?"
Colleague: "A Widdyam"
Hendo: "Erm.."
Colleague: "Yes, a 'What Does It All Mean'"

Light Dawns.

So now you know, when you watch the news and you see the top piece saying what's happened and then you see a second item all about the first, it's a Widdyam.

On the Beaches

2009-05-26T20:38:00.006+01:00

From France230509

To Dunkirk to retrace the steps of the doomed British Expeditionary Force almost exactly sixty five years earlier. And to buy wine, oh definitely to buy wine. That's one of the great things about France, the way they sell alcohol there. They let you taste it first. How civilised is that? We bought quite a lot in a cellar in Boulogne then drove up to the Dunkirk area for a night in neighbouring Gravelines.

I kept thinking about the young men who found themselves defeated and exhausted here at the end of a tumultous May in 1940. And of the poor civilians who remained in the town, which was razed to the ground. We wandered around the museum then along the seafront. Could it really be here that a desperate beach commander had driven lorries into the sea to create a makeshift pier for his men to walk along? Among them Ms T's Grandad.

Then driving out across the flat canal filled land at the back of the town where hundreds of French and Allied soldiers laid down their lives in a bitter unequal defence against the Panzer units so as to let their mates escape; people tend to forget that bit. Could all this have happened in this green and tranquil landscape? That's the power of northern France to me, the knowledge of massive sacrifices amid the mundane beauty.

Wetsuit News

2009-05-18T18:53:00.004+01:00

I can't face the Brockwell Lido at the moment, because the British summer hasn't really sputtered into life. And yet the water does look inviting, particularly after a session in the Gym with Adam trying to cause a coronary. (Joking).
So for the last few days I have been cruising South London looking for my first wetsuit, which today I finally sourced from a shop in Fulham.
Getting it on was a kind of titanic struggle but I finally managed. I look like a kind of pregnant slug wearing it, but nobody laughed and it seemed to fit so here goes. I shall be in the water tomorrow, all being well. Hopefully by the end of the year I shall be a bit less Orca the sea cow and a bit more Marine Boy.

Scandal Pizza

2009-05-16T03:49:00.002+01:00

For the last week the revelations involving the MPs expenses has turned the news cycle into a kind of Groundhog Day involving the scrutiny of the Daily Telegraph's website, late night repositioning of satellite trucks, cameras and correspondents, and then a race to keep up with a frantic pace of political development. People are obviously very angry indeed, but being a hack you see things slightly differently in that what's going on is revelation on top of revelation, an incredibly swift moving news story, and that's coupled with a realisation that politics in this country is never going to be the same again.

I've got a kind of thought-pizza about what's been going on.

First, the state of the economy has fuelled the sense of outrage we saw on Question Time on Thursday night. People are really up against it and that's added to the bruised feeling. Would it have been as bad for MP's if we weren't looking at spiralling unemployment? I don't know. Maybe.

Secondly, Stephen Fry missed it when he was asked about the row:

"Anybody can talk about snouts in troughs, and go on about it, for journalists to do so is almost beyond belief, beyond belief.
I know lots of journalists; I know more journalists than I know politicians.
And I’ve never met a more venal and disgusting crowd of people when it comes to expenses and allowances. "

He must know different journalists than I do although the Guardian's Ian Jack admits Fry has a point, or at least he did do when journalist's employers had some money.

Because (lastly) I'm lost in admiration for quite a few of the ones I do know, and this week I've been learning more about journo-campaigner Heather Brooke whose single minded and courageous exploitation of Freedom of Information law has led to this week's events. She's written a superb piece about the long legal battle she fought to wheedle the disclosures out of the authorities only to be beaten by the Telegraph at the last hurdle. The moral victory belongs to her at any rate.

iphonerati

2009-05-12T18:20:00.004+01:00

I've recently bought an iphone and it's been a big hit. I've had mobile phones that outweigh it in terms of factors like the onboard camera which is a bit basic in the Applephone but the cunning elegance of the design has totally won me over.

The device's unique selling point is the appstore which has lots of games and useful functions you can quickly and painlessly install, usually for nothing or a small fee. Over at Urban 75 there's a discussion about which of the applications people have tried out, but for the record here is mine so far:

I use twitterfon for twittering about the lido temperature with Tricky Skills (free)

Wunderradio for all my internet radio listening - haven't tried it in 3G yet but it seems to work pretty well next to wifi - (it's a few quid)

Bloomberg to watch my shares fall and get all my nerdy business news (free - and a really impressive app)

accuweather (free) but it claimed it would rain on sunday and it was lovely.

Skype (free) but i only know one other person who skypes. And you can only use it in wifi areas - for now, at least.

Tubedelux ( a few quid) or Tube Status (free) for checking the alarmingly frequent times the Viccie line is paralysed. But as Helen points out, you cannot use it underground.

A whole load of free news apps - I like the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, BBC News... the iphone is very well served by free apps for news, which is great because I'm a news junkie.

Facebook, natch. Free.

Urbanspoon: a free restaurant review app which offers you a new place, local to you, when you shake the phone.

Audioboo. the very trendiest twitterati do this, it being a kind of audio tweeting. Free.

Cylon Detector. For detecting whether your boss is actually a cylon. They frequently are. 59p.

Winchester Wandering

2009-05-06T16:06:00.007+01:00

To Winchester for a book club weekend to discuss Anthony Trollope's Barchester Chronicles. It was like dropping back twenty years.The streets were filled with public schoolboys from the town's 26K a year college, crusty red faced locals with those padded green jackets you see on the League of Gentlemen thronged the bar of the Wykeham Arms, and the inn's four poster bed creaked and groaned like a sinking schooner (or was that me after a couple of pints?). The diet was discarded in favour of steak, red wine and various other misdemeanours but these were offset to some degree by some walks along the river Itchen, and another quite long hike near Elton.

I like Winchester. It's genuinely pretty in a non-chintzy way, and then there's the Cathedral which costs six pounds to get in but has a number of fascinating gravestones outside (see above). There was a food fair in a gigantic marquee in the grounds where various tv chefs signed books for the adoring foodie throng. Ms T was not of their number. ("I'm not paying £2.50 for the opportunity to buy things")

Up the road is the Hospital of St Cross which is the almshouse community which Trollope based 'Hirams Hospital' on in The Warden. It still houses various gentlefolk, one of whom kindly showed us around the grounds and the superb Norman Church. He'd arrived there in the 1980's when the oldest resident at that time was over a hundred. One afternoon this gentleman had been wheeled out in his chair to regale the rest of them with his experiences as a tailor in the English Army in India...in 1902.

Between Good And Evil

2009-04-30T13:17:00.003+01:00

If you read a bit here you'll know I've been spending a good deal of time and money at the Gym where the personal trainer Adam has had me re-evaluating the nature of pain. His workouts involve a mix of (to me) very heavy weights which I either have to push up or pull around or flex me poor old legs against, together with a refreshing mix of push ups and running very quickly on the treadmill. I have found all this very hard indeed, but I must be honest and say I am enjoying the results - once the pain has worn off.

I was very struck by something Adam remarked upon as I pushed 50KG of weights the other day, a laughably small weight for him but I might as well have been attempting to bench press the Queen Mary. Adam's skill is to add in the 'reps' to take you to just beyond the point of your endurance. Of course the temptation is to quit. But then you will lose face, and this is about as popular in Herne Hill as it is in Hong Kong, at least with me.

Seeing me struggle - I was really pushing with everything my puny body had to offer - and that temptation appear on my face, Adam made a sage remark cleverly designed to motivate the Hendo mentality.

"This is the difference between Good and Evil" he said. "To give up is Evil. To struggle is Good."

I have booked a further ten sessions.

A Brief Recap..

2009-04-26T09:48:00.003+01:00

My head empties when I work hard and that's been the case in the last few days, hence the radio silence. But here's a few random reflections to end the week.

1. I've been going to work at half past six in the morning and the number of runners pacing the pavements as I sailed past in the Focus has been awesome. A lot of them are wearing rucksacks. Of course they've all been getting ready for the London Marathon and I take my hat off to them. Is not running twenty three miles in the company of thousands of others most peoples idea of Hell? But oddly, I'm tempted, albeit in the way you're tempted to jump off Beachy Head to see what it would be like.

2. Went to a dinner party last night in which the hostess said she found the recession 'really interesting'. Well I'm bloody terrified and the more I read and hear the worse I get. At some point we hacks will get bored of telling you about how deep we're in - roll on that day.

3. My colleague, the excellent Political Correspondent James Landale has returned to work after a battle with Cancer. He looks great and everyone is very pleased. This tends to put reflection no 2 in a sharply reduced perspective. As my Dad says: Who cares about money if you have your health?

4. I have been running a bit and training with scary Adam pretty regularly, and combined with staying (mainly) away from the demon drink some difference is reportedly visible in the Hendo Waistline. Morale was raised when someone remarked on it in the office.

5. The weather is lovely! We went for a regime breaking glass of wine and some lunch at a pub on Friday and sat in the breezy sunshine. Felt good to be alive.

New York Memories

2009-04-20T12:14:00.004+01:00

From Chris & Neil In the US

For me most holidays come and go, warmly anticipated then swiftly forgotten. These days I put the pictures in Picasa, the tan fades and the footprint of work swiftly eradicates all the easy going feeling acquired from swanning about in the sunshine.

But one or two trips will always stick in my memory. One was the three weeks Ms T and I spent in California and Nevada around the time of 9/11; infact as I recall we arrived in San Francisco the night before the terrorists struck. Watching America make an overnight transformation from inward looking complacency to huge public grief and sudden outward aggression was something to behold. (CNN: Who ARE the Taliban?... Fox: America Under Attack!). Many people in Europe underestimated the amount of change in the US psychology after the outrage.

The other holiday that I'll never forget was another trip, first to New York and then in the deep south of the US at around the time Princess Diana was killed. Looking through a cupboard I found a big box of photographs and scanned the best ones on to the internet. The shot of New York makes me sad and wistful; I can't see that city's skyline without thinking of the twin towers and the photo now reminds me of a more innocent, more trusting time.

Walk On The Heath

2009-04-19T11:55:00.003+01:00

To Hampstead for a walk on the heath in bright sunshine and accompanied by a gigantic cheery posse from Urban 75. Beforehand had a fortifying lunch of fish finger sandwiches in the Garden Gate pub. I excused myself to go to the Gents only to encounter there Liam Gallagher, lead singer of Oasis and arguably the finest rock vocalist of his generation, looking after two of his children. What do you say in these circumstances? I elected to say nothing. Oasis fans should know that Liam looked fit, tanned and was wearing a green parka type kagoul much beloved of Mods who have to stand in the rain.

He was having lunch with his family and shook hands with an eleven year old of our party as we were leaving. I thought: this man is utterly unlike the slavering loon depicted in the red tops. Why am I even vaguely suprised about this?

Then it was up the Heath, to look at a Viking ditch, a hollow tree and to do some egg rolling down a hill. I didn't risk a swim in the ponds but if it gets any warmer (always a gamble in the Brit Summer) it could be on the agenda. I fancy a bit of 'wild swimming'.

Cybercat

2009-04-16T17:53:00.003+01:00

Twitter is all the rage these days and my cat Dylan now has a twitter account in which he micro blogs his days spent being terrorised by other cats and chilling in the towel rack. Do follow him, if cats are your bag.

First Day of Summer?

2009-04-15T20:23:00.007+01:00

From Regents Park Walk 150409

To Regents Park for a walk from Ms T's new London Walk book. I like this for two reasons, the first being that I get to see aspects of the capital I haven't seen before, and the other being that there's always a pub in easy strike range. We walked through the park next to the massive Georgian residences, then along the canal for lunch at a little bistro called L'Absinthe. I had the steak frites, to nobody's surprise. (I had been in the gym at 8 that morning. Life can't be all hard work etc etc).

Passing the zoo we saw a group of young men wearing orange tabards, standing around next to a fence. Closer up I could see lettering on their jackets which read 'Community Payback'. One of them was painting the railings. The others were watching him.

Double Indemnity

2009-04-11T02:53:00.005+01:00

When Ms T and I were away in Greece we read a short novel called 'Double Indemnity' by James M Cain. It's pretty brief but the story of the crooked insurance salesman and his murderous girlfriend exercises a real grip seven decades after the author came up with it. A few years after it saw the light Billy Wilder and Raymond Chandler turned it into a movie - and even though it was made in 1944 it's still a scorcher, as I found out when I dragged myself out of bed after a night shift and put it in the DVD.

Barbara Stanwyck, who plays the adulterous killer got one of the movies seven Oscar nominations. Time hasn't blunted her erotic force; in this film she's hot, end of. She spends most of the film in a blonde wig and an anklet which exercises a fatal sexual pull on the hapless Fred MacMurray. And infact she carries the film, although Edward G Robinson as an insurance analyst is also pretty good. When I saw the date of production I wrongly assumed it had been scooped by Gone with the Wind, but no, another movie called 'Going My Way' - a Bing Crosby vehicle - swept the board. Heard of that film? No, neither have I. Double Indemnity is better written up on an excellent blog called Modern Times, and hat tip to them for the poster I've put on the top of this entry.

Ms Stanwyck got her due in the end. On Youtube you can see her get her honorary award from the Academy, presented by a terribly young John Travolta.

Concordat

2009-04-09T17:21:00.003+01:00

Some aircraft are like popstars and have fanclubs. But can there be any more idolised machine than Concorde? When I grew up in Manchester it was a source of civic woe that BA didn't operate scheduled flights of the noisy elitist monster from 'Ringway', as it was called in those days. This was natural from a city which gave birth to Rolls Royce and acted as a midwife to the computer. Now BA has retired its fleet the techy Mancunians have got their wish and have installed one of the beasts in its own pristine purpose built hangar in their airport's viewing area.

I went to see it the other day but my fiver only got me as far as the glass wall of the new building. They're fitting up a restaurant so you can view the machine as you eat your burger. When they're actually open (it was closed at 4pm...why?) they want another fiver for the privilege of going in there and getting on board. I bet they're not short of takers; when Concorde occasionally flew in over our house on chartered flights my Dad would shout and actually run into the garden to see it up closer. It would take passengers on joyrides over the Bay of Biscay. All subsonic. Nobody cared. They were flying in Concorde.

People would pile into their cars, drive out to the airport and literally press their noses into the fence. This graceful bird, white, shiny and a source of national pride was sitting just a few hundred yards away! It could droop its nose! The wings changed shape when it broke the sound barrier! It didn't just fly at Mach 1, it did Mach 2.2! The Yanks had nothing like it! People would shake their heads, turn away, then turn back for some more. And now they can have as much as they like, for a tenner.

Dumping the Tech, Hefting the Filofax

2009-04-03T20:23:00.009+01:00

For the last few weeks I've changed the way I run my life in a small but retro way.
I used to be leading edge in my organising. My diary was online and synced with my PDA, a Palm TX which was in many ways ahead of its time. And it even played Scrabble! It fitted my geeky staus to a tee. But the truth was that while very high tech - and oh so much part of the 'cloud computing' age we're said to live in - the system was a pain in the bum. It really was tedious to deal with. Just putting in what I was doing next Tuesday seemed to take ages - putting appointments and my work schedule online seemed to take forever.

Now it's a new era for while on a lunchtime wander in Westfield Shopping Centre I was lured by the charms of an A5 Filofax 'Kendal' (see above). It has a chunky serious look about it which seems to suggest that, yes, this is what important people record their things to do in. Infact it even has a 'things to do' section. In short, it tickles my pompous side. And it's so easy; got something to do next Tuesday? Well, just write it in.

A Filofax. They're so Eighties. Back in that decade I used to have one with an embroidered cover which everyone thought was hilariously camp. Now they've survived the hype - and the label of witless yuppie accessory - and become timelessly cool. Well they are, until I see the next funky gadget.

Filofax paid Hendo no money for this blogpost, in case you're wondering.

Exit Greece

2009-03-30T11:46:00.004+01:00

From Greece 09

I'm sat in Athens airport, where there's 45 minutes of free net access and thinking, I'll just post a final blog entry before submitting myself to British Airways and the flight home. And I've loads of thoughts about Greece which i shall put down while trying hard not to sound like Jeremy Clarkson.

- Greece is drop dead beautiful and there are a load of places where most tourists haven't heard of. I think I'll be back and maybe a bit later in the year next time so I can do some swimming.

- The ban on smoking in public places is a good idea. Getting used to secondary smoking again has been no fun. Greeks light up all the time, often with other people's food within range. There is no culture of public health here the way we have it at home, and over the years I've got used to it.

- Greek drivers are fine outside cities. But put them on a motorway and they will try to kill themselves and take you with them. The hard shoulder is just another lane to them (and they use it for overtaking slower traffic) as are lanes closed off for maintenance. And if the traffic is a bit slow on the main carriageway they'll speed through rest areas just to hop a few cars. In 150 miles of anarchic motorway yesterday I saw no police whatever.

- Greek food. It's fine as far as it goes but basically its in a ghetto because none of the cosmopolitan influences that have transformed our eating out experiences have arrived here. They used to major on fish but thats not possible anymore because the fish stocks are so depleted. And there are too many chips. They arrive unbidden with virtually everything. But on the plus side, God, I like chips.

- The collapse in the value of the pound has made Greece quite expensive. And if it's bad here what will it be in France for example? We Brits have got used to our spending power on the continent and it's hard not to see a political fallout when UK dwellers get home from their hols this summer.

More Grecian Meanderings

2009-03-28T17:01:00.006Z

From Greece 09

We've fitted in a great deal in a short time; the ruins of Mycenae yesterday and today we visited Epidaurus – the highlight being an enormous theatre which seated 1400 people. Despite its undoubted majesty the structure was literally a side show for the main event, which was a complex of buildings set up to heal the sick. The key healing ingredient was apparently a labyrinth filled with snakes; the sick would crawl about in the dark being bitten and so (incredibly) healed. Everyone believed it was the sacred snakes that did the trick, so much so that Rome sent for one when suffering the plague. But in reality the healing was being achieved by the canny Greek doctors who separated the infectious from the recovering and groped towards a proper understanding of medicine. An inscription at Epidaurus warns of the dire consequences if their fee didn't get paid. Physicians haven't changed in 2300 years.

25^th March

Githio

Spent the night in a hotel with paper thin walls and decor unchanged since 1952. Was awakened by an unsilenced motorbike. I lay semi conscious, a bit hungover, as snoring from a neighbour (NOT Ms T) echoed through the walls.

But today is Greek Independence day. I had already seen the first small boy in national costume by 8.30am. Ms T and I debated what our national costume might be. A shell suit, a soccer shirt and a permanent sneer maybe. But here the bunting has come out, the local national service boys are marching on the seafront, and I suspect a party may be in the offing - notwithstanding the weather, which has gone a bit cloudy.

26^th March

Karavostasi

After driving for hours round hairpin bends etched into the side of mountains we've fetched up in a small village on the coast, sleeping in one of Alastair Sawday's 'Nice Places to Stay For Middle Class People' (It's not actually called that, but it might as well be.) We'd had lovely weather to explore the coast but as we checked in the clouds gathered and rain lashed the small fishing hut where we drank our beers and ouzo.

I think they've been watching Gordon Ramsay round here. Last night a shouty restaurant owner told me to eat my boiled Broccoli.

On the brighter side the coast is really incredibly pretty, and full of interesting shrines, fortified towers and the remains of Ancient Roman settlements - and best of all there's virtually nobody here. And the weather this morning is glorious. I keep thinking of touring holidays my mum and dad used to go on in the Highlands, mum striding about the heather, clad in brown anorak and headscarf.

Greek Odyssey

2009-03-23T08:14:00.005Z

From Greece 09

I'm in Greece with Ms T for a few days, so web access is a bit hit and miss. So I'll post up my travel diary which I'm keeping as we go, strangely enough.

22^nd March

Ancient Corinth

First full day in Greece, having arrived at the ruins of Ancient Corinth. Yesterday it rained hugely as we drove south from Athens along the motorway but the weather this morning is much better. Wandered about in the old city and saw small improvised church service. Wondered why, then realised that these pilgrims were following in the exact steps of St Paul, some 2000 years previous.

Watched TV in the room last night. Specialty here seems to be news channels which record and rebroadcast Sky News leaving in the remarks of Kay Burley.

23^rd March

Nafplio

We have pitched up in Nafplio, a frightfully chi-chi town which reminds me a bit of manicured places in the south of France. On the way here we had various adventures, such as nearly rolling the car by reversing it over a cliff someone had thoughtlessly left in the road. Fortunately a team of Greek villagers came to our rescue. They righted the unscathed vehicle and I rushed around saying thanks. They looked a bit bemused. Maybe helping the clueless British is all in a days work.

Much exploring ancient ruins, which makes me wonder how long before there is a shopping revenge by Ms T who is usually resolutely opposed to looking at piles of stone with notices attached. Perhaps it's not long off; we are staying in a remorselessly trendy hotel with wifi, so last night we had the weird experience of listening to the Archers as we dressed for dinner, and around me I see the dread mark of the designer boutique.

I have been conditioned to New Labour's Britain, so it came as a shock to see how many people lit cigarettes in the restaurant last night. I expect the EU health people will make them buckle under, sometime in the next three centuries.

This Is Not A Game

2009-03-19T08:59:00.002Z

I had lunch with Adrian Monck, who now lectures in journalism, a few months ago. And I'm sure I asked him then why he left TV news. I think he may have glossed over it at the time, for it seems that this is the reason, and it must surely rank as the bravest blogpost of the year.

I am like, Meh.

2009-03-17T19:13:00.003Z

Now that I'm 44 I'm slow on the urban speak, so it's only recently I've caught on to this fab word 'Meh' which has wriggled into my language . I turn to the Urban Dictionary to discover that it's been currency among the cognoscenti since 2002:

Indifference; to be used when one simply does not care.
A: What do you want for dinner? B: Meh.

As language does, it's changed its meaning slightly in the intervening months from 'I don't care' to an estimation of the quality of something.
Here's how it was used the other night at Hendotowers:

Hendo: I watched the first episode of Red Riding on Channel 4 the other night.
Ms T (doing something else way more engaging): Hnnn?
Hendo:..and I thought it was a bit 'meh'.

There's so much this handy little word can get applied to these days, and now I 've got a nasty cold and no voice it can be applied to me in totality, ie:

Hendo: I'm having an early night. Meh!

Being Burgled

2009-03-15T11:51:00.002Z

We got off lightly really. Ms T came home on Friday - the 13th naturally - to discover glass across the bathroom floor and 'evidence of entry'. The thieves, or thief, had broken in by a first floor window, but then our security meant he couldn't leave via a door. So he'd left emptyhanded the same way he came in.

I got home from Manchester an hour later to discover the house in a social whirl. Rachel, who knows a few things about surviving crime, had come round to lend moral support to a cheerfully stoic Ms T. Rebecca and her kids arrived, and decimated the fruit bowl. Brixton CID also attended along with an utterly glamorous Scenes Of Crime Officer. They declined tea, did 'house to house' and 'took swabs'. A glazier came round and sorted the window. Rachel and I cleaned up the broken glass. The cats emerged from under beds.

As I say, nothing had gone. The DI examined my Playstation and pronounced it 'insufficiently cutting edge'. Infact we're up on the deal, as they left a handsome garden fork in the back yard.

What can you do? I sorted out a stiff G&T, put it down to modern life and thanked God neither myself and my loved one were in at the time.

Drained

2009-03-10T13:23:00.004Z

Two nightshifts punctuated by depressing news from Northern Ireland. But at least I was supposed to be on duty. When the first shootings happened a certain correspondent (I could name him but won't) abandoned a family holiday and turned in an apparently endless series of packages and two ways. Our coverage of these distressing events has been first class as a result and I am proud to have a played a minor role in it.

Docklands Walk

2009-03-06T18:14:00.005Z

From Docklands060309

Ms T has a new book which features shortish London walks - between three and seven miles - so we did one with our friend Han this afternoon. The one we chose wound through Wapping next to the Thames. The weather was spring-like with seagulls arcing in the cool breeze and boats cutting foamy wakes in front of the looming Canary Wharf. Lunch was at The Prospect of Whitby which boasts its own gallows with a good view of the river.

"Was anyone hanged there?" asked Ms T
"Pirates" came the reply.

Spare Tables

2009-03-05T14:04:00.006Z

From Drop Box

To Canary Wharf to have lunch with my City friend. The recession has arrived and it is as awful here as anywhere. One in ten people in his company had been fired the previous day. Many of the tall buildings were half empty, he informed me, and the atmosphere at his firm - usually upbeat and businesslike - was naturally very low. Smollensky's restaurant, which had been too busy to find us a place when we'd been a few months ago, had tables to spare.

Time Out Country Walk Book 1 No 48

2009-03-03T12:09:00.007Z

Swans: 2
Fish: Numerous
Pints of Ringwood Ale: 1.5
Distance: 20Km

To Hampshire during a much needed break in the wintry weather for a long walk mainly along the Test. The river is high; not quite bursting its banks but nearly there. The water was clear in the strong March sunlight and you could see the enormous trout the Test is famous for. We explored two churches, both dating back to the 11th century, one with stocks outside and another with a 1610 picture of somebody being stoned for collecting firewood on the sabbath (see above).

The pub was the Plough, one of those bland affairs with maddening soft rock muzak which have turned into a restaurant to survive. But the fish and chips were great and it was good to find locally brewed ale.

The walk's been messed around with, partly by landowners who are keen on enjoying their bankside privacy and also by a farmer who's let the path become overgrown and at one point has actually barred access to a style. And elsewhere Hampshire council have diverted 'the Test Way' around a huge and smelly pig farm. In my rush to get out of the house for the train I'd printed out the wrong updates so it was unnecessarily stressy at one point, what with Ms T needing new boots because the pair she has are pinching her ankles.

Apart from that it was fine.

Crunch Nightmares

2009-03-01T19:53:00.003Z

The figures are almost too big to imagine, but here's a link to a superb article in the New York Times which explains the mess the US insurance giant AIG has got itself into. Bears of little brain, ie me, will want to read it twice; it explains in relatively simple terms how we ended up where we are.

But here's the paragraph that chilled my blood:

Here’s what is most infuriating: Here we are now, fully aware of how these scams worked. Yet for all practical purposes, the government has to keep them going. Indeed, that may be the single most important reason it can’t let A.I.G. fail. If the company defaulted, hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of credit-default swaps would “blow up,” and all those European banks whose toxic assets are supposedly insured by A.I.G. would suddenly be sitting on immense losses. Their already shaky capital structures would be destroyed. A.I.G. helped create the illusion of regulatory capital with its swaps, and now the government has to actually back up those contracts with taxpayer money to keep the banks from collapsing. It would be funny if it weren’t so awful.

I shouldn't look at the internet, it gives me bad dreams.

A Legal Remedy

2009-02-27T09:39:00.004Z

The media is in a spin about what to do about the bankers who drove their organisations into the ground but who then waltzed off with amazing pension deals. But m'learned friends already have the answer, the dreaded Bill or Act of Attainder. Used throughout English history, and apparently still existing in the Common Law framework, it enables the Government to execute people without trial and to take their estates into public ownership, leaving their families destitute.

It's a bit strong but I can see it going down well in some quarters.

Surreal is the right term for this experience

2009-02-25T20:01:00.005Z

There's no doubt Twitter is changing journalism, but to my mind, only on certain types of story..and these are the mass event kind of stories when someone in the crowd of people involved and witnessing it starts tweeting.

And the cloud of tweeters range in on sources like @Nipp who was next to the tragic plane crash in Amsterdam this morning, and who finished the day with nearly nine hundred new followers and a line of interviews with news channels. As he said, surreal is the right term for this experience.

But twitter doesn't change all stories. I had a look for twitter coverage of the Financial Service Authority appearance in front of the Commons Treasury select committee this afternoon. It's pretty sparse, very partisan and tends to link to those 'old fashioned established news sources'. So for stories about one of the most interesting things to happen today it seems you still need a proper journalist.