Schadenfreude at the BBC

There was a time when the BBC was the bastion of excellence in journalism. The now infamous spat with Alastair Campbell about the sexed-up dossier and the subsequent Hutton enquiry threw a new light on their journalistic integrity and the current reporting on the global credit crisis is not helping their cause. Robert Peston, the BBC Business Editor "broke" the story about Northern Rock and it can be argued his reporting worsened the situation.

Today has seen the announcement of the rescue plan for the banks and rather than this being seen as a positive step to bring some much needed confidence to the banking sector it is seen as a £2000 per taxpayer bill by the BBC. What rubbish. We need some confidence in the markets and seeing the dark side of everything is just undermining any moves this, or any other, government makes. Robert Peston seems almost gleeful at the prospect of the economy going into a deep recession.

In the end we will all pay the price for the reporting style being adopted by the BBC. Making a name for themselves seems more important than reporting what is going on in a mature, professional manner. Taking delight in others’ misfortunes is not reporting, it’s puerile and right now, plain wrong.

Doom & gloom

Peter Jones, the very tall one from Dragons Den, was on breakfast TV this morning saying we were talking ourselves into a recession and how typically British to do so. His point was that the economy relies on credit and that credit relies on confidence and it’s a lack of confidence that’s at the heart of what is going on in the economy. A little confidence would go a long way right now.

He went on to say that he thought that any recession would be short lived and that the sooner the banks start to trust each other and start lending each other money again the better for all of us.

It was very refreshing to see someone not talking gloom & doom. He should be on more often!

iPod touch – the ultimate gadget?

I finally succumbed to the lure of the new, 2nd generation iPod touch. I don’t want an iPhone as it can’t run the TomTom GPS software whereas my Windows Mobile powered smartphone can but the touch seems to pack a lot in.. music, video, games, wifi and it’s small and the user interface is stunning. Travelling through Heathrow Terminal 5 last week gave me the opportunity to get one tax free although I had to find a shop that actually had stock. Initial impressions were that it was all I’d expected and more and since then I’ve become more and more impressed as the days have gone by. I’m even writing this blog entry on it.

So why the ultimate gadget? I can listen to music, watch widescreen video, check email, surf the net, control iTunes from my sofa (this has to be seen to be believed), connect to the IM systems I use, check cinema listings and film times, play games and even update my blog all from a machine that’s a third of the depth of my phone. It’s fast too and it’s the speed that is the icing on the cake. Multifunction devices rely on features, ease of use and speed and the new generation iPod touch has all three in spades.

Living in fear

The current economic times are giving us a lot of things to worry about. How safe is my job being the chief one I imagine for most people, myself included. This doesn’t mean that we should live in fear though. Yes we should be concerned and we should be looking at what we would do if the unthinkable happened but worrying about it constantly and letting it affect our lives in a detrimental way is not going to help us. Negativity breeds negativity and there needs to be some level of optimism and hope to balance it or we might as well just admit defeat. Looking back I think I’ve spent a lot of my life living in fear of one thing or another and the time has come for it to stop.

There have been lots of books and articles about the politics of fear. We, as a populace, are easier to manipulate and govern when we’re scared. Politicians wants us to be scared and fearful, so do the media; it makes us pliable and a little more docile than we would be normally. It’s bad enough that these organisations want us to be fearful without us inflicting it on ourselves as well.

Desktop IntelliPanel

I was looking for an 8 way extension lead for my desktop (I just have way too many things that need to be plugged in to the computer and the power  at the same time) when I came across this. It’s a neat device – when I turn the computer off, either completely or in standby mode, it shuts off the power to all the other sockets. When I turn the computer back on the sockets get their power back and everything comes back on. It’s also surge protected so has given me the sockets I need, it’ll save a bit of energy when the computer’s not running and it’s a bit quieter without all those fans running. Cool!

24 Hours Later…

A 9 on the last at Sand Martins results in a round of 99. That’s the 2nd time I’ve broken 100 in a week. This is a great result for me and I am really pleased. The 9 on the last could have been so much better, 122 yards to go after 2 shots but then a fat shot into a bunker, 2 to get out of the bunker, chipped out the back, duffed chip back…it felt like the wheels were well and truly coming off, but a 9 was good enough. Looking back on the round there were some great moments…a birdie on the 2nd, a big fading drive on the long par 5 resulting in a par, the chip out of long rough over a pond on 17 to set up a 4.

Sand Martins is a fabulous course. It’s like playing 2 different courses as the front and back nines are so different. The front 9 is like a parkland course. Smooth, wide fairways and you need to go a long way offline to find deep rough. The back 9 is like a links. Big mounds, deep bunkers, narrow fairways and rough that seems to swallow balls (my playing partner lost 2 ball that seemed to be no more than 2 yards into the rough). 2 par 5s separated by a par 3 over water make a tough closing set of holes as well especially when the wind is blowing.

Holiday

This year my holiday with the boys was a little different; my girlfriend came along too. This wasn’t as straightforward as it might be as my ex insisted that she meet her before she got to go on holiday with the boys. The meeting seemed to go remarkably well by all accounts and we all headed up north to the North Yorkshire coast, Filey to be exact. We had a great week, my parents came to stay for a few days (2 nights turned into 3), I had the best birthday in years and the weather was mostly kind. The best bit by far was seeing how the 4 of us got on so well. No arguments, no shouting, just great fun and a lot of laughs. Nickelback’s Rockstar became the holiday sing-a-long song in the car and it was great to have something that was "ours". Staying in a caravan brought back lots of childhood memories as did scrambling around in the rock pools. The boys loved this aspect of it and were asking when they could go back as soon as we left. It’s really nice to see your kids enjoying the things you used to enjoy at their age and even better seeing them enjoy themselves outside, in the fresh air without a computer or PSP in sight. All in all it was a huge success. Can’t wait to do it again.

Duffing the last

After playing the magnificent course at Pitlochry with it’s stunning views, blind tees and greens and steep uphill climb for the first 3 holes I then played my best ever round at the local 18 hole course, finally breaking 100. Delighted is an understatement. Last night we played the local 9 hole course and despite not hitting the ball very well got round in a respectable score. Tonight was a different matter; still not striking the ball fantastically well but the 8s were staying off the card. Until the 9th. A 10. A bloody 10. A disastrous 10. A "why do I bother with this stupid bloody game" 10. It was still a reasonable score but a 10 really hurts and a 10 on the last hurts more than any other; there’s no next hole to try to make amends on, no next shot to put it behind you on. You just have to finish the round and write the 10 on the card…and go home.

New Golf Clubs

I’ve been "playing" for a couple of years now but don’t have a handicap. My beginners set had served me pretty well but I was in a bit of a rut. The more-than-occasional 9 on the score card was getting to me and I wasn’t enjoying playing as much as I had been. Then American Golf had an offer on a set of Mizuno MX-17 clubs. I tried them in the shop and they felt great. My girlfriend offered to pay some of the cost as a birthday present and I couldn’t wait to get them. As a final hurrah I played the local 9 hole course using just my old irons and did ok. Urged on by the new clubs I set myself a couple of goals for the rest of the summer. First to break 50 at least twice for 9 holes and to get a proper handicap. The first goal was achieved in under a week of having the Mizunos. I went from mid 50s to high 40s after 2 rounds.

I also bought a TaylorMade R7 Draw driver and a Wilson Deep Red rescue club. As of now I’m not hitting either particularly well and think this is mainly down to thinking about it too much. My old driver and rescue were never favourite clubs and I need to get my head game sorted as much as my hand position through contact.

Yesterday I played 18 holes with the new set for the first time and it was a disaster. My swing deserted me, I didn’t hit a single fairway for the first 9 holes and it was only my putting that saved me from complete embarrassment. Tonight I need to head to the range and see what I was doing so wrong. Instead of being downbeat I’m pretty optimistic that I can work it out and start swinging well again. I want to get out and play again and prove it.

Geek Week

It’s been one of those weeks where I seem to be in full geek mode. I’ve been playing around with the new iGoogle interface, upgraded my O2 Stellar to the new Windows Mobile 6.1 ROM, switched pretty much all my browsing to Firefox 3, been blown away by the image wall that is PicLens, swapped to Windows Live Writer as my  blogging tool and been controlling my phone from the desktop using MyMobileR (screen shot below). This last one is very cool – it’s like remote desktop for a Windows Mobile phone. Sending SMS, recording bank transactions, uploading photos onto Live Mesh is so much easier using a full size keyboard