daveydave

He won then, convincingly. As a UK citizen I obviously had no say in the election itself, but I'm delighted Barack Obama won. While I don't believe an administration under a President McCain would have been anywhere near as damaging as the last two terms under Bush, I can't quite align myself with Republican policies. They represent the extreme of the selfish, me-first capitalism that I find so distasteful. Barack is a fine speaker and is backed up by a fine speech-writing team. His victory speech in the early hours of Wednesday morning was as masterful as it was moving. I have watched it several times. I sincerely hope that he can deliver on that which he has promised so eloquently and which is so desperately needed. A quick word on John McCain. I don't subscribe to his polices nor do I feel particularly comfortable with his choice of running mate, but his final speech of the campaign conceding defeat to Obama showed him to be a decent and honourable man. It is a real ...

My posts tend to ramble (especially anything remotely political) so I'm going to try and keep this one short. I like the House of Lords, I like the fact they are unelected and therefore (put simplistically) beyond the reach of the party whips. I believe they perform an invaluable job in keeping a check on Government legislation - they are highly qualified and experienced experts in their respective fields. They are not career politicians. I do not support the Government's proposals for an elected upper house and I doubt I ever will. I do not believe that the job the Lords have done so well (e.g. amendments to the Identity Cards Bill, throwing out 42 days, etc...) can be achieved as effectively with elected politicians under the rule of the whip's office. By all means modify: reduce the size of the house, change how they are appointed, look at the legitimacy of appointed Government ministers in the Lords. But don't replace it with an entirely partisan body full of polit...

Haymarket Bus Station is located at the north end of Newcastle-upon-Tyne city centre. It is a very busy station serving Newcastle, North Tyneside and Northumberland and it is very badly run. I've used this place for years and never cease to be amazed at how shockingly bad the organisation is, and watching one girl miss her bus this evening has prompted me to vent. First, a little more background. The roads around Newcastle are not the best and they get busy. Once the clocks have changed and late Autumn arrives they get busier. If there is even the slightest hint of rain, they get busier still. Result: buses run late. So to this evening. The X1 was due to leave for Blyth at 17:25. It arrived in good time to deposit its passengers and meet that departure time. However Stand T, where it was supposed to park up, was occupied by the X4 that was running late. The X1 parks up at Stand S prompting the queue of people waiting at Stand T to push their way through crowds and round barriers to...

I finally got round to hitting the countryside and going for a walk. OK, it wasn't a big walk by any stretch, but it was a start. I headed up to the Simonside Hills, just south of Rothbury and ambled around for a couple of hours. You know what, it was great. I'd forgotten how much I like hill and fell walking, and how fantastic the scenery is in Northumberland. I'd also forgotten how curiously satisfying it is to sit in the boot of a 4x4 and just look out at the scenery. It's a comfy place to change out of your walking boots and, should it rain, the tailgate will keep you dry. There was also a slightly geeky side to the walk. Having a mobile that is equipped with GPS enables me to figure out where I am, but it also allows me let everyone else know where I am too. I tried the system for the last 10 minutes of my walk today and, sure enough, the route appears on the website . Had you been looking at around 3.30 today, you could have followed my progress as I walked down t...

You probably don't know, I certainly don't. So few of our receipts list VAT and none list other taxes such as fuel or alcohol duty. You know how much income tax, national insurance and council tax you pay, but you don't know how much you pay in indirect taxation. Personally, I'm in favour of transparency in such matters. If the government is going to take my money off me, I want to know how much. So I was interested to see that Nigel Evans , Conservative MP for Ribble Valley, introduced a Private Members' Bill on the 1st of July this year. The Transparent Taxation (Receipts) Bill aims to make it a legal requirement that receipts list the total amount of tax paid. Its second reading is on the 17th October and while Private Members' Bills hardly ever make it onto the statue books, it should be an interesting debate. I'm sure, like me, you'll be eager for the publication of Hansard on the 18th. No? Just me then.

As two weeks of hard-fought sporting greatness draws to a spectacular close, attention moves swiftly from Beijing to London. How quickly the Olympics pass. Years of preparation, not to mention the $42bn spend, over in an instant. But what games. China had something to prove to the world and it did that emphatically. These games were supremely well organised, visually stunning and magnificently entertaining. I hope now that the UK (or GB as it has been for the last 2 weeks) will work to make a real success of 2012. I know people are complaining about the cost, about the fact it's mostly benefiting London, that £26 million is a lot to spend on cycling, etc., etc. But let's be honest, there are always people who will complain - we are after all, a nation of self-deprecating - almost self-loathing - whingers. For me, sport is worthy of proper investment. You simply cannot can not put a price on how the success of Team GB has lifted people in this country, how much of an influence i...

I had a little chat about KP last week, so now that he's England captain I feel I should probably post a follow up. Last week I had called into question KP's place in the Test side because I wasn't convinced that he could control himself long enough to get the big scores required of him. Well, now that he's skipper and his place is guaranteed, giving him the authority and responsibility he so evidently craves, is it going to affect his game as it has others? I can't honestly see his average slipping, in fact it'll probably improve. But what of the flash shots? Well, we were reminded on Friday that he can resist the glory shot and play very well indeed. This could be just what he needs to go from a brilliant if sometimes rash batter, to a genuine great. Only time will tell. He's lucky that he has this dead game to captain (South Africa have already wrapped up the series win, so the 4th Test at the Oval is for pride and practice only) as it gives him much need...

Those of you who have read my inane drivel over the past couple of years will know I've been about a bit. No, no, not in that way. I've been lucky enough to visit quite a few countries around the world at the expense of my carbon footprint. You will also know that, despite moaning about it, I'm a big fan of public transport and trains in particular. So in an effort to be more green, and to actually see some of the country in which I reside, I intend to have a poke about the UK by train this summer, starting with a day trip to picturesque Whitby on Sunday. I'll be jotting my random thoughts down on this and future trips, and I'm sure you'll all be looking forward to reading them soon. Ahem!

KP, FigJam, call him what you will, Kevin Pietersen is an outstanding batting talent. When on song he is fantastic to watch and is capable of getting you many many runs. The problem is, although he has huge talent, he has a larger ego. He was doing everything so well. When woefully out-of-form Paul Collingwood arrived at the crease, KP coaxed and cajoled him through the early overs to score some much needed runs. The two of them put together a fine, well-crafted partnership which started to look like giving England cause to consider a win. However, as KP approached his century, the ego appeared and he started to play his more flamboyant shots. So, when he was on strike with 94 to his name, he decided to go for the glory shot over the long-on boundary and got himself caught. Having put so much effort in to rescuing the game, to then lose his wicket not due to a fantastic ball, or an excellent catch, but to throw it away tending to his ego is unforgivable. I know this may be controversia...

The live, in-the-field reporting rather tailed off there didn't it. I guess a mixture of mobile phones not being the best medium for writing even short copy on, and the question of who is really that bothered about hearing what I'm up to in real-time, brought that little experiment to an end. However, it did leave things a little open-ended. So, my overall thoughts of the German capital? A very cool city; it has a bit of everything as all capital cities should. It obviously has a wealth of history, particularly recent history and a fine mix of architecture, obviously a lot of it is modern, but the quality of the design of the new buildings is pretty high on average. What I really love though, is how they've managed to mix new with the remains of the old and, indeed, how they have reinvigorated some of the older buildings: the Reichstag in particular. Norman Foster has done great work with this famous old building and the views from the top are quite spectacular. One things ...

I've been trying for hours to post something but no joy. So, Germany defeated by the Spanish. Many many unhappy Germans filed passed this evening after the final whistle took away any chance of a German comeback. Subdued is not the word. But at least it gave us the chance to enter the party zone. There was a hard-core still dancing at the stage closest to the gate, but that party came to an end just before midnight. Back at the hotel now; shame Germany didn't win, it would have been fun, but what was great to see was calm resignation and that those Spanish fans who were visible were left alone and not given any grief. Back to normal tourist duties tomorrow.

Well, the Brandenburg Gate area is crammed with half a million football fans, so we couldn't get in. Standing in a bar round the corner with 10 minutes to go. Not looking good for Deutchland.

Today involved more walking, as these trips tend to. The morning was a visit to the zoo. I can't say I'm the biggest fan of locking animals in cages but I can see there is a scientific side to such establishments. However, it was good to see the elephants, gorillas and the polar bears. Feeding time for the panda was pretty cool too because it meant the lazy oaf actually moved. After lunch (guess what!) and a mooch about, I headed west to the old royal palace, Shloß Charlottenburg. Extensively damaged during the war, it has been restored and was an interesting visit. The build up to the Euro final tonight continues apace. The train back to the hotel was full of locals suitably covered in black, red and gold. Tonight's destination is the Brandenburg Gate area, which is already very busy. More later, hopefully.

Greetings from Berlin. Day 2 already and my feet are sore. Yesterday was mainly travel and the obligatory trip to the Brandenburg Gate and Reichstag. Currywurst and a couple of biers too, of course. Today has been mainly walking the city from the modern Potsdamer Platz area, the Holocaust Memorial down to Checkpoint Charlie. I won't go on too much as typing on a mobile phone is never easy, but the Holocaust Memorial was quite amazing and truly moving, especially as you read the last letter of a 12 year old girl to her father. Leaving there to the sound of the B52s was a jarring experience as I found myself in the middle of a huge, loud and colourful gay parade. This is certainly an interesting city.

I'm off to Berlin tomorrow for a few days holiday. This conveniently coincides with Germany playing in the Euro 2008 final on Sunday. I'll try and blog over the next few days and let you know what's happening.

Use Google much? Click on those little ads when they show up something interesting? Wouldn't it be nice if instead of the money paid for that ad going to Google Inc., it went to a charity. That's exactly what's on offer with Everyclick : 50% of advertising revenue goes to charity, and if you sign up you can even tell them which charities you want to benefit from your clicks. So next time you reach for a search engine, think about using Everyclick instead of just defaulting to Google.

Yes folks, the IPL is upon us. The official Twenty20 cricket league in India kicks off on Friday with Bangalore Royal Challengers vs. Kolkata Knight Riders . Of course the tricky thing is who to support. Kolkata were an obvious first choice because one of their owners is Bollywood megastar Shah Rukh Khan and let's face it, everyone loved Knight Rider , in spite of David Hasselhoff's hair. They have some great players, including captain Sourav Ganguly. The bookies favourites are Chennai Super Kings , so they would have been a fair choice too. But no, I've gone for the underdogs: Rajasthan Royals because they're the outside bet, Shane Warne is captain and Dmitri Mascarenhas, the only Englishman in the league, is playing for them. All matches are available (in the UK) on Setanta which means you're not tied into an annual contract. The only problem being the time difference, so the games are on during the day - perfect weekend viewing, however. Pick your team!

It's true, I've turned into a cantankerous old git and it must stop. I think the problem is that I try to follow politics and current affairs too much and, in general: 1. how the British Government operates annoys the hell out of me (bloody spin, useless, target-led management, policies geared towards sound bites and column inches rather than actually fixing things, the you disagree with me therefore you're wrong attitude of ministers, etc.), and 2. the way the press reports the news does the same (dangerous sensationalism, the fake patriotism of the gutter press, 24hour news with pointless and endless speculation, sticking the boot in when people are having trouble instead of showing support). 3. stuff like Tibet and the mess in Zimbabwe I could continue, but we'll all end up in another of my endless rants and that is not the purpose of this post. It all stops now. This blog is for interesting and witty posts on a range of subjects and there is to be no more whinin...

Here's a question: just how far up his own arse has Thabo Mbeki shoved his head? According to the South African president, there is no post-election crisis in Zimbabwe. This guy is a moron if he thinks the current situation in Zimbabwe is not a crisis. Of course, I shouldn't really be surprised, the members of the African Union have been a collective joke with regards to Mugabe's rule over the past few years. He may have been a hero in southern Africa 30 years ago, but now he's just a thug who has managed to bring what should be a successful country to its knees while making sure he and his cronies do very well out of it. If you're interested in what's going on in that country at present, then point your browser at the This is Zimbabwe blog. Yes, it is depressing to read what the people who live under Mugabe have to deal with, but their incredible resilience is so uplifting. It also shows stark contrast with the political apathy of a large chunk of the UK's...

OK, so this isn't my perfect plan to fix the bad bits of life in the UK - and if you believe all you read in the tabloids (which I hope you don't) there are a lot of them. No, I've just read this story on the BBC news website. It's about a group of people who turned their estate from a place where people were to afraid to go out at night, into a proper community where people like to live. I love stories like this, it shows that there are great people out there and that you don't have to live with graffiti, drugs and violence. It also shows that if you talk to the relevant authorities, it is possible to get things done. That's what we pay them for after all. Absolutely spot on.

Yeah I know, more cricket ramblings... So I've just listened to this interesting discussion on Twenty20 cricket and its possible impact on the future of the game. Twenty20 (or T20) was introduced by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) back in 2003. Some nations (Australia in particular) scoffed, regarding it as some sort of playtime version of the game. They're taking it more seriously now. This form of the game has been hugely successful domestically , playing to sell-out crowds across England and Wales - unheard of for the counties . The inaugural World Twenty20 went down a storm in South Africa last year, and now the Indians have taken the lead. Firstly, the rebel Indian Cricket League (ICL) was set up promising big bucks to those who would brave international bans (ICL was not sanctioned by the International Cricket Council (ICC), cricket's governing body). Then the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), the Indian equivalent of the ECB, set up its o...

...and other such sites. I know a lot of people (usually company execs) get a bit miffed at the YouTube thing - their precious content being screened for free - but in some cases if it wasn't for such websites, half of us would have no access at all. Here's the latest example which has really peed me off - any one noticed it's getting much easier to annoy me these days! :) If you've seen this blog before you'll probably have realised I'm a cricket fan. In the UK that means not getting to see much cricket on the telly because Sky has bagged all the rights - I have seen approximately 35 seconds of England cricket over the winter. So, I thought I'd sign up to ECBtv and pay for access to highlights. Nope, not allowed. I live in the UK, therefore I'm obviously not entitled to even pay to watch my own national team play. Make sense? No, not to me either. Surely I can't be the only person who thinks this way. I mean, organisations that seemingly go out of ...

New French President Nicolas Sarkozy has just spent 2 days on a State visit to the UK. He's a bit of a card isn't he, looking as nervous and uncomfortable as I would in such a glare of media and royalty, while his infinitely elegant wife looked on, calm as you like. But get him in front of a microphone and Monsieur Le Président comes into his own. Watching clips of his addresses to Parliament, at the banquet at Windsor Castle and at the Mansion House was like watching the nicest person you've ever met tell your mum all your best features. Beyond the flattery though, one thing does look reasonably hopeful, and that is he seems keen to improve relations with his neighbours over the channel and this can only be a good thing. He may seduce us with words of his deepest respect for the UK and its new-fangled ways, but there are a number of things we can learn from France: modern nuclear power for one, and bloody good trains for another. It was also nice to see the President call...

Heathrow Terminal 5 (or 'T5' if you're into that sort of thing) opened today in what was a very British display of disorganisation, cock-up and chaos. The £4.6bn (€5.9bn; $9.2bn) terminal had already seen hundreds of volunteers through the doors to test the systems and make sure everything was working as per spec. By close of play this evening however, only one of the 18 passenger lifts was working, over 30 flights had been cancelled and anyone wanting to fly tonight was going without their hold baggage. Beautiful. Heathrow operators BAA seem keen to open a third runways at this place too. I can't wait to see what sort of mess that'll turn out to be. I tell you what, why don't we stop trying to squeeze the entire population of the globe through that horrible shambles of an airport and have more direct flights to/from the regional airports. You know, have British Airways act as an actual national carrier, instead of a feeder airline for its Heathrow/Gatwick opera...

Remember that? Or at least, when you could state a point of view without being treat like you'd just shat on someone's front lawn.

For those of out there who have one of these phones (or are thinking of getting one) the GPS functionality appears to be a nice little bonus. However, if your phone is anything like mine, it probably had the worst possible settings by default, making signal acquisition and absolute nightmare - easily taking 10 minutes to get a position lock. Nice and easy to fix though: Go to the Positioning settings through the menu (Tools/Settings/General/Positioning), select Positioning server , and then Access point . If you're with 02-UK you'll have 3 options: O2 MMS, 02 Mobile Web and O2 WAP (I guess other networks offer a similar choice) and the current setting will probably be WAP. This is far too slow, so change to O2 Mobile Web which uses GPRS or 3G. Bingo - much quicker initialisation of your GPS and suddenly it's a useful gadget.