The Mail Bag

2005-12-04T15:59:00.000-08:00

The time has come to 'Kick Adams out of football'

A dark cloud has descended on the world of football. As a result, I feel the time has come to 'Kick Adams out of football'. This is a very worthy campaign and stems from the completely inept punditry Tony Adams offers on Match of the Day 2. His sole purpose seems to be to make Grame Le Saux look good. But that is not enough.
Adams has had his day. He was a great captain. But he was a woeful manager at Wycombe. And he is an even worse pundit. Sadly, the BBC persists with him and he is a constant source of hilarity for all the wrong reasons. He comes out with the most useless rubbish such as 'we don't want basketball.' It just leaves you speechless. He makes no sense and his tactical waffle only baffles the viewer.
This scourge on the game must be removed before the popularity of this great sport is damaged beyond repair. Football lovers unite and meet this threat with the opposition it warrants. 'KICK ADAMS OUT OF FOOTBALL'

2005-11-24T10:17:00.000-08:00

I am sure I am not the only person who had these textual temptations. Merely the only one who admitted it.

I have something to confess. I am a Ceefax enthusiast. More than that, I'm a reformed ceefax addict. I used to spend minute after minute glued to a screen full of numbers and texts. Granted, it was more often than not primed on p.300 onwards which is the sports section. But the sad thing was I could never get enough of it.
Now, I have moved on to the internet and no longer spend endless sessions pressing the green and red button. I refer to Ceefax because it is in danger of becoming extinct. Thankfully Pete Clifton, editor of BBC Interactive, set the record straight. He is in charge of Ceefax, and BBC Online, which is constantly updating to cater for modern technology and increased audience interactivity. Clifton said there was life in the old dog yet. So for the moment at least Ceefax lives on.
I am sure I am not the only person who had these textual temptations. Merely the only one who admitted it.
Just to warn you I will begin a campaign if Ceefax disappears. It is an institution and will never die. Ceefaxists, I call on you to stand up and point your remote at the powers that be. Save Ceefax.

2005-11-21T10:52:00.000-08:00

It involved a man whose grasp of the language, if described as pigeon English, would be an insult to those very birds.

I paid my first visit to Cardiff Magistrates Court today. And it might be the first of many trips because it's in my ward (Adamsdown). We'll keep that between you and me though. There were a number of drugs related cases and it was sad seeing how many people had screwed up lives. I felt sorry for some of them but not for other unsavoury characters.
There was one outstanding case which will live long in the memory (for today at least). It involved a man whose grasp of the language, if described as pigeon English, would be an insult to those very birds. His case was rather curious; he had been charged with insulting police officers after going to the old bill to find his stolen possessions. When the police told him they weren't there and to go home he got rather lippy.
We saw evidence of this in court after he pleaded guilty to this misdemeanour. He broke out into tears and fits of rage claiming it was not his fault. After being escorted out, by his embarrassed lawyer with the words 'leave while you are free to' ringing in his ears, we thought that was the end of it.
Until five minutes later. During the next case, he flung himself back into the court room in a frenzied verbal attack. Tourettes Toure I think he was called. Anyway, I would be surprised if Cardiff Magistrates has seen the last of this particular miscreant.

2005-11-21T10:09:00.000-08:00

Manchester United scored a public relations own goal by banning Roy Keane's interview

We had a talk on Public Relations last week. It was meant to reflect the positive attributes and importance of PR. However, my cynicism ensured that the pejorative reputation of PR remained constant throughout. Think PR and you instantly connect it with spin. Alastair Campbell wrote a decent article in The Times last Thursday (17-11) reflecting on David Cameron. He basically said that Cameron had little substance but excelled at telling people what they wanted to hear and spinning politics. Whether Cameron has much to offer; time will tell. But as much as I detest Campbell, I couldn't help but agree with him.
Spin is very much an every day facet of politics. To say that all PR is this would be wrong. But it must be said that bad PR revolves around spinning material and ignoring newsworthy issues to sell a company or group. Manchester United scored a public relations own goal by banning Roy Keane's interview from being aired on their channel. Far greater damage was done by censoring it and causing excessive controversy in the media.

2005-11-11T04:37:00.000-08:00

Yesterday saw Kim Hollamby, the Head of Electronic Media at IPC give a talk.

He spoke about boats, yachts, the sea and more boats.

But he was obviously very keen on them. He said there was great loyalty from magazine readers, whereas internet users were unlikely to stay loyal to a shit site. This surprised me because I thought that with magazines prices and the net largely free it would be the reverse. It appears not. I'm only enhancing my reputation a tight wad aren't I?
He had a bit of fun towards the end when he tested out his site's forum. Looking for responses he got six of them offering feedback on the forum. One response said 'it's crap but the best available!' Hollamby then asked if we he was a good lecturer. Nervous silence from the audience hardly seemed inspiring. But in fairness he was very watchable.
The holy grail goes on as I prepare to complete my first website. I have seven days and it is fairly sparse at the moment.

2005-11-04T00:30:00.000-08:00

Richard Burton, the editor of Telegraph Online talked to us today. He became very excitable after noticing the headline stating Rebekah Wade had been arrested for assaulting Ross Kemp. In fact, it seemed to keep distracting him throughout his speech!

Although he gave a lodown on his background, most of the talk was aimed at explaining the website's commercial interests. Advertising equals endorsements. It was ironic that the same pop-ups earning the site thousands of pounds were enfuriating Burton as he showed off his front page.

The importance of speed and efficiency was once again apparent. Burton spoke with pride about the time his staff had loaded a news line onto the web inside 12 seconds!
He also stated that the internet had the power to overun print in many ways, but did not see the death of newspapers as imminent.

I have been recently assigned Adamsdown as my local patch for the year. This means I get to run around annoying the hell out of everyone there. So I decided to try the police station. Until I found out that it was part time and the door was bolted shut. Part time coppers, now that's serving the community! Next stop the prison. All they could give was me an address (the govenor)to write to. The librarian was equally useful; he told me I would have to go to the council before I could talk to him.

However, it was not all gloom and doom. I found the traders and local punters in the high street (Clifton Street) only too happy to wax lyrical. They emptied their grievances out as soon as I mentioned the words 'journalist' and 'issues'. The afternoon was enjoyable and I finally felt I was getting somewhere. I handed out some pristine business cards (only another 245 to flog) and even tried out a phrase in shorthand. A triumph if ever there was one.

2005-10-27T09:29:00.000-07:00

Last week we had our first guest speaker in Online Journalism. Her name was Amanda Powell. She is the editor of BBC Wales News Online. Her overarching message was to have a questioning mind. Needless to say, we were keen to fire as many questions as possible at her.

Journalists need to have a sound legal knowledge and to realise sources given to us need to checked. Powell likened the pace of the online newsroom to the broadcast environment. News is being updated every minute.

I thought Powell provided a useful and insightful account of the media industry. She was a clear and confident speaker. But she did underline the difficulties facing newspapers in this ever changing media climate. It makes me wonder if studying newspaper journalism was a pragmatic choice. Who knows? Maybe this course will be extinct in 5 years! Part Two of the guest speakers follows next week. To be continued......

2005-10-26T14:12:00.000-07:00

Welcome to my blog debut. I'll keep it brief. Until next time.