daveydave

Well... I like him even less than I did yesterday, which is saying something. I've never made much of a secret of the fact that I dislike News International. The organisation has far too much influence for my liking - although a good point has been made on this evening's news: that the influence is probably more in the minds of the politicians than anything else - did everyone who reads the Sun vote Tory last year? Doubt it. Regardless, the politicians in their infinite wisdom, curry favour with the Murdochs and no doubt BSkyB was a sweetner for News International's support of the Tories last May. On to the News of the World. My initial response on hearing about its imminent closure was one of satisfaction. A deserved kick in the eye for News International given the appalling revelations that have come to light. However, when you sit back and think about it, that act has done nothing towards atoning for the wrongdoings of the past. The editorial team currently at the News o...

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...

...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 ...

We all know that Sky has done its bit for sport - for good and ill. Those who choose to pay for the premium sports services that Sky offers undoubtedly enjoy very fine coverage of a wide variety of sports. However, for those of us who do not like to pay £600 a year for telly, there is little regular coverage outside of football. Yesterday, there were two semi-finals played. Had they been FA Cup related there would have been an almighty uproar that there were no highlights shown on any terrestrial channel. Because they were cricket matches, no one will bat an eyelid. It's sad really, cricket is supposed to be the second most popular game in this country and yet, during the season, it does not warrant a weekly programme along the lines of Match of the Day. Channel Five broadcast very enjoyable highlights from England test matches, but there is a whole county structure in place that never gets any real coverage. Can you honestly see Match of the Day only being broadcast when the nat...