I ordered a number 36 from the local Indian takeaway the other night. When I went to collect the meal it was a king prawn vindaloo. “But I ordered a chicken korma”, I complained. “Sorry sir, we decided to change the menu”. Never mind. I made it to the cinema anyway. I’d booked a ticket for the controversial alien prawn apartheid Nigerian gangster gore-fest District 9. But instead I found myself watching the beautifully filmed, but spoilt by saccharine narration and intrusive over-dramatic score Disney flamingo gore-fest The Crimson Wing instead. The cinema said they’d got a good deal and decided to go with the big birds at the last minute.

OK, there was no curry surprise, nor one at the cinema. But these examples are no different to what the BBC did on Saturday. They announced at the end of the Radio 5 commentary on Ukraine v. England – controversially to be shown only live only over the internet, from £4.99, or at selected cinemas, from, I heard, £12 – that the highlights WOULD after all be shown on regular TV later that evening.

Call me old-fashioned, but if I’m going to watch highlights I prefer not to know the score. If I’m not going to watch highlights, and I can’t watch live, then the next best option is to listen to a live commentary. So I decided to find an excuse to be near a radio for 2 hours on Saturday. I volunteered to do some cooking. Had I known in advance that I’d be able to watch highlights, then I would not have cooked my goulash just so that I could listen to the football commentary. Most likely I would not have cooked my goulash at all. In fact, it’s fair to say I planned a large part of the day around the football.

For decades we have become accustomed to a television medium where transmissions – by and large – follow a “schedule”. Exceptions are rare. I’m still annoyed, for example, that the BBC suspended coverage of the enthralling 1980 world snooker final to show coverage of the SAS operation to end the Iranian embassy siege on both channels. Pointless. After 10 seconds, I’d got the point and decided to read all about it in the next morning’s paper.

I’m therefore astonished at the insipid media response to the BBC’s decision not to inform us a little earlier about the Ukraine-England highlights programme. There was some kind of media programme on the radio this afternoon (OK, I can be arsed to check the schedule in this morning’s paper which is 2 feet away – it was The Media Show, 1:30pm, Radio 4 – see how this scheduling lark works Mr BBC? Convenient, isn’t it?). At the start they mentioned the footie scheduling decision as if that was to be the main topic on the programme. But “But first…” turned into around 28 minutes of waiting (BTW, audiences hate this sort of trickery to keep you listening or watching), before some lame muttering to the effect that if the Beeb hadn’t accepted an embargo on announcing the highlights programme then we wouldn’t have seen it at all. Personally (as a license-payer) the highlights were worth not very much at all – £x, say – having listened to the entire game on the radio, and would have been worth quite a bit – say £10x – had I known about them in advance. If, as I read somewhere, the BBC paid £900k (+ broadcasting costs + annoyance to viewers who wanted to watch the News or the Football League programme which were displaced at short notice), then maybe the highlights weren’t such good value after all. Reportedly some 4 million of us tuned into the highlights. Maybe a lot of these switched on, as I did, just to see if the England game really was on. Maybe a lot simply put the telly on and watch whatever the BBC chooses to show, since this episode indicates that is obviously how Auntie believes we will consume moving pictures in the future.

I wasn’t a fly on the wall during the negotiations between the BBC and the company that bought the rights to the qualifier, but I would imagine there was a price the internet-streaming rights owner would accept to allow highlights without pre-announcement, and a (higher) price with an announcement. I bet the higher price wasn’t £9 million. Why didn’t the BBC simply say “Actually [I imagine that's the sort of word they would use], we can’t jerk our viewers around like that”?

There exists in the UK a list of sports events that must be made available “free to air” – the so-called “crown jewels”. This list is currently up for review. The problem is – a point taught in class 1, Economics 101: profit maximisation principles – you can make more profit by not satisfying demand, assuming all purchasers have to pay the same price and you can’t “segment” the market. E.g. 10m people paying £1 to watch a football game earns you £10m, but if you can get 2m to pay £10 you’ll rake in £20m. Maybe you’d be best off finding 50 billionnaires willing to pay £1m each…

The point is, we live in a very unequal society. Government (as usual) is trying to address the effects rather than the causes by mandating that some events must be free to air. The trouble is, it leaves the sports affected financially worse off. Kind of a poor reward for creating a popular product – and often helping promote a sense of national identity.

Maybe there’s a better solution.

Let’s bear in mind that “free to air” is an incoherent concept and really a synonym for “in the good old days”. BBC channels, strictly speaking, are not free to air, since you need a licence. OK, the BBC is in the ludicrously privileged position that if you have a TV the law assumes you watch the BBC and need a licence. In other words, the BBC licence fee is an unfair, regressive tax.

Maybe the BBC licence fee could be reduced. Maybe people should only pay for TV content they actually want. And whilst I like to watch sport, I am aware that many people watch none. In a few years we’ll all be digital with many more channels – BBC Sports 1 and 2, for example. Why not charge a basic BBC licence-fee and a supplement for sport? (The same may apply to other content, of course, e.g. access to the BBC’s archive via iPlayer).

So if free to air is a woolly concept, why doesn’t the Government simply relax the rule so that instead of “free to air” it simply stipulates that sports events must be available to multiple broadcasters?

Remember the mobile-phone spectrum auction that raised £22m? I’m not advocating such grasping behaviour, but we could use a little bit of the smarts that were behind that operation to devise a way for multiple broadcasters to show sports events, whilst maintaining the total income to the sports.

Here’s one way you could do it. You’d have an auction as now for the rights. Let’s say the winner – Sky, perhaps – bids £10m for a particular sports event. This has established the value of the event to a monopoly broadcaster, since Sky would have to assume they’ll be paying the full £10m. But now we’ll allow another broadcaster – the BBC, say – to share the rights for 50% of the price offered by Sky, which both would then pay. If ITV also wants to show the game, then all would pay 33.33%. If ESPN wants it as well, then 25% each. If someone wants to stream it over the internet for Brits abroad (if global rights are on offer), or to fans watching on mobile phones, then 20% each.

It might be even better for 2 bidders to pay 110% of the original price – 55% each or £5.5m in this example – 3 to pay 120%, 40% each or £4m – and so on.

Now, I reckon this would create a win-win-win situation:
- sports would maximise their income , whilst also reaching the maximum number of viewers (in fact, the market is being segmented, since the cost per viewer varies);
- viewers would have more access to sporting events and could choose the commentary and form of coverage they wanted – broadcasters would have an incentive to improve or at least differentiate their products;
- broadcasters could follow their various business models. E.g. Sky and ESPN could show a lot of sport to people who pay a premium, the BBC and ITV could show a selection of popular events, and so on;
- the Government gets out of making tricky decisions about the “crown jewels” every few years.

Certain events – the World Cup Final, for example – are already shown simultaneously on multiple channels. Viewers are able to choose their commentary and punditry teams. I remember how, when I was a boy, we used to argue over which channel to watch the FA Cup Final on – on our neighbours’ colour TV! Let’s bring those days back. Jumpers for goalposts…

OK, there are a few problems to sort out. E.g. side-deals may be needed to avoid too many cameras at sports events. But surely it must be possible to improve on the current situation where either sports lose out financially or many viewers have no access to key sporting events, like the Ashes – not good for the long-term future of the sport.

Whatever the rules, perhaps the BBC could spend our money a little more wisely in future than it did by agreeing to keep secret its purchase of Ukraine v. England highlights. FFS, BBC, For Footie’s Sake!

With so much sport to choose from, it takes something special to grab my attention – genuine rivalry, perhaps, like the Ashes. Or a special individual. I happen to think Lewis Hamilton is a driver of exceptional talent. My interest in F1, like that of millions of others, was rekindled when he burst on the scene.

I was therefore fuming when Hamilton’s McLaren suffered a puncture on the first corner of yesterday’s German GP, leaving him in last place for the rest of the race. Like millions of others I was interested to know exactly what had happened.

I was rather puzzled that Hamilton appeared to lose it at the first corner and not only ran wide but, at first sight, must have collided with another car (Raikonnen’s Ferrari was the candidate) on rejoining the race. OK, there’s a bit of “My boy can do no wrong”, about it, but such errors would be very uncharacteristic for Hamilton, who, as I said, is pure raw talent.

Sure enough, the plot soon began to thicken. It was announced that the Australian Red Bull driver Mark Webber, who ended up winning the race, was under investigation for an incident at the start. The BBC’s “expert pundit”, former under-achieving Scottish driver David Coulthard (if you’ve followed that Wikipedia link, then, like me, you’ll have been reminded that Coulthard’s last racing team was – you’ve guessed it – Red Bull) immediately announced that Webber had done nothing wrong. His comments suggested that his basis for this was that he “hadn’t seen a collision”.

At this stage we hadn’t seen any clear replays, so Coulthard clearly believes that he has the ability to monitor exactly what is happening over a few seconds to 20 cars speeding away from the start of a GP. No-one else can do this, especially whilst simultaneously commentating, so Coulthard is clearly superhuman and deserves every penny of the millions he earnt not winning many races.

Replays soon confirmed that Webber had in fact side-swiped Barrichello’s Brawn going into the first corner. Webber admitted in the post-race interview that he thought Barrichello was on the other side of him! Lucky he wasn’t on a public road, or he’d be facing a dangerous driving charge. Miraculously, the collision had little effect on Barrichello or Webber’s cars. On another day, though, Webber’s mistake would have taken out half the field.

David “Superman” Coulthard’s opinion was, of course, unchanged by the visual facts of what had happened.

Webber received a drive-through penalty, which was insufficiently severe to prevent him winning the race. What sort of sport is this becoming? When I used to watch, the penalty was a 10 second stop, as well as a drive-through.

What the stewards didn’t investigate, though, was what happened next. Webber bounced off Barrichello, and – no doubt shocked to have found a car already there as he headed to the apex of the first corner – also steered left where Hamilton happened to be going round his outside. It turns out Webber clipped the McLaren forcing him off the track and giving him the puncture that cost him the race.

But the Beeb’s narrative was what a “brilliant performance” by Webber. Sorry, I expect sports coverage to reflect at least some of what I feel about the event, not construct some dumbed-down narrative. Webber was lucky his car wasn’t wrecked after playing dodgems at the start; lucky F1’s punishment regime is a joke; lucky not to find himself behind Hamilton and Barrichello at the start (and vulnerable for a lap or two to Kers-powered overtaking moves by the Ferraris and Kovalainen’s McLaren); and lucky too, as it happened, that Brawn screwed up a Barrichello pit-stop, relegating the closest rival to the Red Bulls to 6th. Maybe there’s a reason the “brilliant” Webber had not won any of his previous 129 GPs.

Not only is the Beeb happy to give Webber more credit that he deserves, they are also apparently happy to do down the British talent:

“Hamilton had fancied his chances of scoring a podium finish after qualifying fifth – and a fuel-corrected third fastest.

But after benefiting from his Kers power-boost system to contest the lead with Webber and Barrichello going into the first corner, Hamilton missed his braking point and ran wide.

He got a puncture and rejoined last where for some reason the McLaren, which has a major aerodynamic upgrade this weekend, did not show the pace it had on Saturday.”

What’s this “fancied his chances”? Subtext: “but got egg on his face”, eh? And “benefiting from Kers”? – with the implication that he doesn’t deserve it. But he should benefit. The car has to carry the Kers gear around the track! And McLaren have made design compromises to put it in the car. And probably budget compromises too – working on Kers rather than other aspects of the car (only McLaren and Ferrari have effective Kers systems). I expect they thought F1 was serious about including this “green” technology, and that it wouldn’t be quietly dropped as is being done next season. And Hamilton was so far behind (he had to limp to the pits with his puncture) that there was no point flogging it. There may also have been other damage to his car.

Yes, much of posterity will believe this latest poor result was purely Hamilton’s fault. Anyone using the Guardian’s archive will get the same impression as at the BBC:

“Lewis Hamilton had a bad day after being forced into the pits shortly after the start with a puncture. He made a strong start from fifth but ran wide after turn one. He returned to the track but was bumped from behind almost immediately.”

Independent readers will see Kimi Raikonnen slurred by name:

“As for Lewis Hamilton, on a day when he and McLaren felt their year of woe would potentially end with a podium, he could not have anticipated it would end so disastrously and in such swift fashion.

From fifth on the grid, and aided by a push of the KERS button, the world champion made a storming start.

As Webber and Barrichello played dodgems, Hamilton appeared poised to take full advantage, only to overcook it and run wide into the sharp first-corner hairpin.

Returning to the track in fifth place, Hamilton’s right-rear tyre was punctured by the front wing of Kimi Raikkonen’s Ferrari, which was not to be the only incident of the day involving the Finn.”

Raikonnen has been wrecking a lot of other drivers’ races lately, but not Hamilton’s on this occasion.

Whilst the Independent is happy to report what a BBC commentator guessed had happened, the Times actually bothers to get it right:

“Defending world champion Lewis Hamilton finished 18th and last after an attack on the opening lap saw him involved in a collision with Webber that cost him a puncture.

Webber bashed into Barrichello’s car on the run from the start to the first corner, a collision for which he was punished with his drive-through penalty, but he overcame that with a dazzling drive to victory.”

After this, I woke up this morning expecting to hear the BBC revelling on England’s remarkable escape in the First Ashes Test – listening to the last overs of this had rather raised my spirits. But no, Auntie had decided “the angle” was supposed England delaying tactics. It did seem England had overstepped the mark (though part of Strauss’s explanation – trying to ensure the players out there knew how long they had to last – is very plausible), but this had no effect on the match – the Aussies lost no overs. The rule was 15 overs or an hour’s play whichever is the longer. Can anyone imagine the Aussies (or any other Test side) allowing the bowlers to achieve more than 15 overs in the last hour in similar circumstances?

Look, BBC, I pay my licence fee because – oh, sorry, you’re a monopoly – anyway, I expect what British viewers and readers would consider balance. Winning a GP after playing dodgems at the start is not “brilliant”, and to deserve to win a Test you actually have to look like being able to take the last wicket. If I want the Aussie angle, I’ll find out how to get their coverage over the internet!

…as the French say (sorry about the lack of a cedilla there).

A New Year resolution was to blog about any interesting news stories first thing.  But, plus ca change…

At the start of 2009, though, perhaps I may be forgiven for wondering in what areas of our lives the record is broken and where there really is a trend.

Take the financial crisis.  I sense a worm has finally turned.  There’s a growing caucus bold enough to argue that it isn’t all the fault of bad people (the causes of socio-economic disasters are never quite so simple).  Rather, trade imbalances – the dangers of which many have been warning for years – are the root cause.  So says Hank, and I presume Win alluded to much the same thing, though the Times’ report of his Radio 4 interview focuses on the bankers rather than the rest of those at fault (such as those responsible for overseeing the financial system perchance?).

Whilst the discourse around this crisis may be entering a new phase, I very much doubt we’ll avoid similar mistakes in future.  The FT article reporting Paulson’s thinking concludes:

“…avoiding crises in future will require global macroeconomic co-operation as well as better financial regulation and risk-management.”

This “global macroeconomic co-operation” is simply not going to happen.  Pie, meet sky.  If governments instead concentrate on defending their own economies against the positive feedbacks that have turned a US property debacle into Great Depression 2, then we’ll have a much better chance of avoiding GDs 3, 4 and 5.  We’re not going to eliminate booms and busts anytime this century or next, but focusing on minimising the effects – such as the knock-ons from personal and corporate bankruptcies – will help break the cycle of fear that exacerbates the situation.  A little more equality would also help.  In particular, enacting policies to prevent the wages of the low-paid ever again getting so out of line with their housing costs would provide more of a buffer against personal and systemic economic crises.  Hopefully a lot more will be said on this topic in 2009!

I sense, too, that in 2009 more of the political heat in the UK will be directed at Gordon “Superhero” Brown and – perhaps this is wishful thinking – the insufferably smug and incongruously arrogant (in that he doesn’t have anything to be arrogant about) Alistair Darling.  Away over the Christmas period, I was able to access the BBC’s World News channel (why are all the BBCs channels not on cable here?) and caught the interview Darling gave to a sycophantic Robert Peston.  Apparently Freddie G said the Government’s discussion was “less of a negotiation and more of a drive-by shooting”.  Spot on!

How dumb it now looks to be fining the UK banks with (among other things) 12% coupons on prefs. (a lot more than elsewhere, as DeAnne Julius observes).  This doesn’t increase their capital, it decreases it, since the first thing they’re going to do with any profits is pay off this particular debt.

I’ve just started reading Niall Ferguson’s The Ascent of Money.  (And a New year’s resolution is to actually finish it before starting something else).  He makes the point in his Introduction that he aims to improve financial literacy.  Laudable, but doomed.  After a spike of interest in the operation and pathologies of the global financial system, the current crisis will be forgotten, and the next generation will make similar mistakes.

The travails of the global economy has pushed global warming (GW) from the headlines.  But there is more chance of awareness helping solve GW, which is a one-time phenomenon (though there will no doubt be other even slower-burning environmental disasters to deal with).  I don’t agree with the scientists who, according to the Indy, apparently believe we need to start creating new problems.  Didn’t their nursery school teach them the folly of swallowing a spider to catch a fly?

We’re still at the stage of building a consensus for action.  Thinking is progressing, for example, in another book I’m reading (remembering my resolutions!), Oliver Tickell’s Kyoto2.

But something has changed. Global economy, global warming… Anyone spot a pattern here? Maybe 2008 will be remembered as the year the world really became global.

Then there’s the war in Gaza.  2006 revisited?  Not really.  The political climate is different – as if the fever of El Nino has given way to the chill of La Nina.  As we were reminded in Georgia in August, propaganda is now a key determinant of the outcome of these nasty little local difficulties.  Israel realises this, and has raised its game, seemingly with some effect.  Hamas’ position is untenable.  Continuing to fire rockets at Israel, while hoping an international outcry over humanitarian concerns will prevent Israel from achieving its objectives on the ground, allowing Hamas to claim a victory now, like Hizbullah back in the day, simply isn’t going to work this time. C’est pas la meme chose. Hamas will condemn the Gazan people to a nasty winter on CNN if it continues on its present path.

On the other hand, as I remember my MP wisely pointed out last year, there is scant hope for a change in the bigger picture in the Middle East, unless Obama can perform some kind of miracle.   Robert Fisk appears to be a commentator who knows what he’s talking about: cynical he may be, but unrealistic he is not.

What with war in Gaza and the house-price bubble in reverse, it does seem we’ve returned to 2006.  Not only that, Russia is messing with gas supplies to Ukraine.  Again.  But what’s their game?  This isn’t a record that can go round and round.  Every time Russia plays this card it becomes less effective.  Their customers accelerate their efforts to diversify supply and to build facilities to store fuel.  By the sound of it, Ukraine is less over a barrel (or should I say cubic metre!) than in 2006, and can last out for a while.  And if Ukraine ends up paying West European rates for gas, Russia has no lever at all.  You’d think the Kremlin would keep its powder dry.  Or is this latest spat leading to something more serious?

Tricky business, trying to work out what is really changing and what is simply a repeat of the past.

Here’s one observation, though.  Maybe some of the power of the British media is ebbing away.  I refer not to the John Sargeant affair, but to the SBBC Sports Personality of a vintage Year.  To my delight, Chris Hoy won by a landslide, but apparently was not the favourite:

“Hoy, who became the most successful male Olympic cyclist of all time after winning three gold medals in Beijing, said he was ‘absolutely stunned’ to be named BBC Sports Personality of the Year, after recording almost 40% of the public vote. In beating the favourites, Lewis Hamilton and Rebecca Adlington, into second and third place, he overcame one of the strongest fields in the prize’s 55-year history.”

Look, a simple opinion poll could have shown this would happen.  Believing Hamilton would win the award by a lap or two, sections of the media seemingly set out to promote Rebecca Adlington as a rival.  But the British public is not stupid.  Sure, Adlington did a Dame Kelly, winning 2 golds, but Hoy bagged 3 – the first Brit to do this since 1908, FFS – not to mention one in 2004.  Hmm, let’s think about this one, shall we…?

A final thought is that maybe 2008 will prove to be a watershed year, when Britain stopped being a nation of sporting losers.  But don’t bet on it.  Not until after the Ashes anyway!

Apologies to Nigel Williams.

As I start to write Andy Murray is 3-4 down in the first set of a Wimbledon QF against Rafael Nadal.  I was rather hoping the man from Majorca would have sorted the out the boy from Dunblane by now, but as is usual in a British sporting summer, rain stopped play earlier on this afternoon.  Nadal is taunting Murray with drop-shots, though, and the Scot couldn’t deliver with the only one he tried.

I thought it was just me who was appalled by the scenes in Murray’s previous match with Richard Gasquet, well me and the lone voice in the crowd that shouted out: “Come on Gasquet, do it for England!”.

But then I happened to browse through a copy of the Mail someone had left on a table in the cafe this morning.  A columnist in that paper (sorry, can’t find the article online) found Murray’s behaviour gross.  I’m not sure about that.  I was surprised that he had the energy to win the match, though.  I turned on towards the end of the 3rd set (when Murray was 2 sets and a break down) and from then until the end of the match he basically – sorry, there’s no genteel way to put this – jerked off after every point.

A lot’s been made of Murray’s anti-Englishness – “anyone but England” for the 2006 World Cup – and of course that doesn’t help turn me into a keen supporter.  David “Chelsea shorts” Mellor, who knows a thing or to about the behaviour of the media (and sport, his column in the London Evening Standard is always worth reading) was on the radio this morning challenging Murray to drape himself in the Union Jack.  I think Mellor meant if he beat Nadal, but I now I read he lost no time in doing this.  The bread-head.  Does he think we’re stupid?  A lot of people would have more respect if he had the Saltire tattooed on his forehead, if that showed how he really feels.

I hardly follow tennis, but young Andy got my attention when he decided to give the world his views on who should be in Britain’s Davis Cup team – besides himself, of course.  I expect Alex Ferguson will ask Wayne Rooney who to pick this season, then.  After all, Rooney has won a lot more than Murray.

So, not being a partisan supporter, the scenes on Monday evening appalled me.  Not because I’m anti-Scottish.  I hope I’m not.  I never had much time for Tim Henman either, so such Centre Court scenes were fairly unfamiliar.  Besides, Gasquet is French!   And it’s not because I’m offended by a bit of fist-pumping.  It’s because Gasquet didn’t have the option of trying to get the crowd behind him.

If life weren’t so short I’d form the Campaign to Abolish Nationalism from Sport – slogan: “Just CAN it!”.  For me, nothing ruins a World Cup like the host country out-performing – France 1998, say, or Japan/Korea 2002.  In fact, most of them!  Euro 2008 was so good partly because the hosts Austria and Switzerland never got going.  The best team won the tournament.  Yes, it may come as a surprise to many, but the idea of a competition is to find the best team or player.  To be honest, I don’t even think the host country should compete in the World Cup.

Let’s hope – though I suspect it will be in vain – that China don’t win bucketfuls of medals in the Olympics.   And if they do, I’m sure it is equally pointless to hope that the success is met by anything other than overt nationalism.  We don’t want a repeat of the 1984 Los “USA USA” Angeles games.  I hardly remember Atlanta except switching off in disgust at Linford Christie’s absurd disqualification from the 100m final simply for being good at the start.  In fact it was not until Sydney 2000 that my boyhood enthusiasm for the event was reignited.

Poor Gasquet, who admittedly needs to toughen up, was reduced to pleading with the umpire.  All to no avail.  After the match all he could say was that he’d love to play Murray at Roland Garros.  I hope he does.

The BBC must take a lot of the blame.  They had 10 million watching on Monday and were hoping for 12 million this evening.  Clearly they have a commercial interest in corrupting sporting values.  Their commentary team were finding the crowd’s treatment of Gasquet all very amusing.  Presumably not the same team who, when I turned on for Federer vs Nadal in the French Open final just a few weeks ago, I distinctly heard making snide comments about the French crowd.

Some of the BBC’s editorial decisions are bizarre.  Just before this evening’s match Federer trounced his QF opponent.  We were told to switch channels for the next match up, Murray vs. Nadal, and the Beeb’s coverage of an imperious win by Federer ended with… clips from Murray against Gasquet.  And the Corporation had the hypocrisy in a news bulletin last week to start wittering on about how the Scot mysteriously becomes British for Wimbledon, as if that’s the fault of me, the viewer.  You couldn’t make it up.

But who are these people who go to SW19?  They’re not being directly influenced by the television coverage.  I cringed with embarrassment when they booed Gasquet as he left for a comfort break and returned to the court between the 4th and 5th sets.  All within the rules, and predicted by the commentator.  Don’t they realise they’re being manipulated? – and that Murray – aided in advance by the media in general, and the BBC in particular – used them to tip the balance against a more skillful opponent?

Such behaviour isn’t British.  It’s certainly not cricket.

Nadal is 2 sets to 0 up, 5-3 in the third.  I don’t sense a repeat performance…