Reflections on 2010

If you really try you can cram a lot into a year but strangely when it comes to an end it still feels empty. This post could be an excuse to list all the awesome things I've done this year to make my life sound more interesting than it is and remind me that I haven't totally wasted the last 52 weeks. In a way I'll actually attempt to do just that, but maybe not quite so explicitly, so I'll just list my highlights...

1. Running the Great North Run

Sadly, this running malarky has undoubtedly had the largest impact on my life this year. I'm not going to bother totalling up my mileage but I think it would come to a few hundred miles since January and the disgusting state of my feet testify that. It would be fair to say that having completed my first half-marathon I gained an actual real-life hobby. I don't think I've ever had one of those that wasn't enforced. In running the Great North Run I also managed to raise some money for charity. I think, for me, it was nice to see those people who actually are around to support you, certainly not just by donation but also by remembering I was doing it and that it was quite important for me.

2. Meeting David

No, I've not turned gay. David was a work colleague who is greatly respected within certain circles. He's been everywhere - twice - seen everything and bought all the metaphorical T-shirts you can buy. He retired this year after 40 years of policy making. The first time I met him as he moved into my room at the Treasury, someone turned to me smiling and said "you're incredibly lucky to be sitting next to this man so make the most of it". At the time I totally dismissed this as ego inflationary tactics, but as the year rolled on I realised it was an enormous understatement. David is one of a very very small list of people I look up to. I don't mean this arrogantly in the slightest, but as a stern cynic I never look at people in awe purely because of who they are or because I'm told they're great. If anything that puts me off them. David and I worked together on some very challenging policy areas and I don't think I'll ever forget his constantly calm approach, the way he cared greatly about the legacy he was leaving behind for us young guns or the time he desperately tried to get me to hire a bike with him in Dublin to go site-seeing despite his broken foot. Most words of thanks go unsaid and I'm certain he will never see this but I know David has been a positive influence on my year and I'm sure his wise reflections will stay with me for years to come and for that I'm very grateful.

3. The General Election

This is an easy one considering my work. The twists and turns of the election and the drama of a hung parliament unfolded themselves right on my doorstep. It's something I don't think I'll experience again on the same scale, perhaps as I may have moved my career on to pastures new, or because the next election will be tame by comparison. One of the standout moments in the height of the drama was the full blown argument live on Sky News between Alistair Campbell (Tony Blair's old spin doctor) and Adam Boulton (Sky News political correspondent). I'm not sure how I put up with the drone of news helicopters above my office for a month, but luckily the lack of government to advise meant I wasn't too rushed off my feet.

4. Seeing Leeds promoted and beating Man Utd in the FA Cup

The recent demise of Leeds United is a popular but poorly chronicled collapse, the lowest point of which was undoubtedly the failure to beat Doncaster Rovers in the League One playoff final of 2008. I was at that game and left utterly disheartened that we had to suffer another year in that godforsaken division of tin pot clubs and really poor football. Finally, this last summer, after three years in the wilderness of League One football we got promoted to the Championship which I maintain is actually the most exciting league in English football.

I won't focus on football anymore, but beating Man Utd has to be a massive highlight. I can remember shouting at the TV watching the game alone (often the best way considering what comes out of my mouth). When the goal went in I think I tore a few vocal chords.

5. All My Sons and Bocca Di Lupo

I went to see David Suchet in All My Sons at the Apollo Theatre with my mum. I'm not a massive theatre man, but I was completely gobsmacked at how good the whole production was. I think he won a few awards as the best leading man in the West End, but I have absolutely no basis for comparison and won't pretend I know. Going to Bocca Di Lupo afterwards was amazing, it's a restaurant I'd heard a lot about and had to book nearly a month in advance and it didn't disappoint. Obviously these trendy places can raise expectations, but it met every single one. We sat at the chef's counter and watched all the dishes go out in front of us before we chose what we thought looked best.

Adele - Make You Feel My Love

This is excellent.

I'm on the Prince's Trust mailing list as I like to keep abreast of what they're doing (and they also throw really good annual parties), and thought this take on 12 Days of Christmas was pretty clever.

I'm a member of YouGov, which is a really good opinion panel who often tackle the big issues and they pay you for your views (you can join on this link). In a poll I took yesterday they were asking whether Vince Cable should vote for or against the proposed tuition fee rise in the debate next week. It's obviously a tough one, but I'm not sure he should be asking me.

You can click on the picture to make it bigger.

"Courage is contagious. If you demonstrate that individuals can leak something and go on to live a good life, it’s tremendously incentivizing to people."

- Julian Assange (Wikileaks)

This is one of my favourite Never Mind the Buzzcocks scenes.

Most magazines are full of Kate Middleton. Some of those are trying to copy her elegant yet youthful style. Well...whatever, they've forgotten William - who looks slick most, if not all, of the time (it's quite easy when you can get your clothes cut by some of the best tailors in the world). Esquire's given us a breakdown on how to achieve this, and it's not cheap. I would never substitute a Gieves & Hawkes suit with a Paul Smith though, and if you pay a full £360 for Church shoes you're a mug.

"Men at some time are masters of their fates:

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,

but in ourselves, that we are underlings"

- Cassius in Julius Caesar (Quote Act I, Scene II)

So snow is on its way to London, having touched much of the North and West overnight. No doubt this will cripple the transport networks and make most pavements into temporary ice rinks, but at least everything looks amazing in a dazzling blanket.

Cool pic

It is now completely clear that the next England manager should be Harry Redknapp whenever Fabio Capello leaves the post. It would be ludicrous if he would never get the opportunity to manage the country - his country - given his superb experience and proven record for how he gets the most out of players.

That said, the English FA have nearly always made a 'safe' choice, giving the job to somebody who won't rock the boat. Unfortunately that rules out some of the best managers there are, and have ever been (Clough, Redknapp...and perhaps outlandishly...Mourinho?). I have no doubt that given the opportunity after 2012, perhaps after he has taken Tottenham as far as he can, Harry would take it with both hands.

This is all frivolous speculation, but important to get it in early.

People Are Awesome

Twitter can be totally bizarre and at the same time fascinating. Especially when you look at the interaction between politicians on it. I've just seen Sally Bercow and Nadine Dorries tweet each other as if they were teenagers after they met in Westminster - all splashed out in the screen in front of me. During Prime Ministers Questions on Wednesday, the PM attacked the Labour policy of using spin doctors like Alistair Campbell during their 13 year reign, only for Alistair to instantly release a flurry of defensives from twitter while the PM was still at the despatch box having the debate (I know because I happened to be checking both at the time).

It is such a great tool for spin, reaction and counter-reaction that for anyone interested in politics not to be signed up is a massive loss. Incidentally, one of my favourite 'people' to follow is EyeSpyMP, who update their followers whenever a topical/popular/unpopular/hilarous MP is seen out and about, chiefly in London.

This is quite geeky, but I thought this picture from the International Space Station was pretty cool. Obviously it was taken over Italy.

As I've posted before - slick. I'm not going to lie, I'm reasonably happy about this engagement. Unhappy that she's off the market, but it's finally a piece of good news in a pretty depressing world.

Berlusconi Watch

I can't actually believe this. It's real.

It's perfectly acceptable to like Take That. There are some people who will like them in an ironic sense, clinging on to their youth or liking them 'because their girlfriend likes them' and it's a laugh. Not me. I drop dead serious like Take That, especially now, as they're men not boys. I love Gary Barlow and his constant battle with his collapsing metabolism, and Mark Owen's faux-philosophical views that were cemented when his solo career flopped and he took up semi-professional football. I love the way Howard and Jason have evolved from little more than backing singers and the whole band struggled with the dance moves when I saw them on their come-back tour in 2005. Their new songs are superb, if only over-used at award ceremonies as walk on music...but that's because it's good old fashioned popular music that makes people feel good. There's nothing wrong with that.

Bin the excuses, they're awesome.

You Do Something To Me

One of my favourite songs performed live, by the original Paul Weller with Adele.

First casualty of the house move: I haven't re-directed my Esquire subscription. DAMN! I thought I'd remembered everything...looks like I'll have to buy the awful newsstand version like the rest of society. Sickening.

What I'm listening to...

Without doubt The Maccabees are my favourite band at the moment. This is a cool clip of a great live set.

I'm feeling a bit porky since doing my half marathon a few weeks ago. Basically I let loose a bit on the diet and had a few drinks to celebrate. I've decided to start back on the regime to rid myself of the love handles. To motivate myself I've been looking at the pictures from when I was massive. I actually burst out laughing at them sometimes, especially the thumbs up one, I bloody love it.

Note that, in these pictures which were taken on separate occasions (but unsurprisingly both in restaurants), I'm wearing exactly the same clothes because they were the most flattering ones I had. Sexy.

The Truth of Motherhood by Lucy Sweet

THE TRUE COST OF MOTHERHOOD

Freddo bars- £15
Emergency coffee - £50
Food (from a carefully budgeted list) £80
Food (too busy to make a fucking boring list) add £50 extra
Soft play entrance fees - £10
Informal compensation payment to the parents of the child your kid injured with a large padded rectangle - £100
Haircut after child glues his own head to the table - £10
Unnecessary nursery trip to Bollocks Country Park - £20
Birthday present for some kid you've never heard of - £10
Emergency dash to the pub to talk to friends about useless husband - £20
Wine for Mummy - £40
Pornography for Daddy - £4.99

TOTAL: £500.99

A lot, isn't it? Now I know you could say that your child doesn't need to go on that nursery trip or have their hair cut (it's only a bit of glue, after all). But the rest is so essential that I don't think even the sharpest axe could find room to make cuts. Over to you George - but remember - if you touch my Freddo bar, I will hunt you down and destroy you.

Movie Title

Excellent spoof

Best Halloween costume

"Pop up guerrilla shops, flashy flagship stores, massive shopping malls- they’re all lost on us. The average British person staggers around open mouthed holding a piece of paper with ‘BUY TROUSERS’ written on it, and ends up sitting comatose in Nandos with 10 Yankee candles and a subscription to Sky"

It's that time of year again, I'm backing Rebecca to win X-factor.

A pretty good graphic to see the overall spending envelope. You can click on it to make it bigger.

The Broken Generation

The challenges facing 20-somethings these days are considerable. It is, let’s not forget, the generation who have seen little benefit from the generosity of previous decades. A generosity seen through unregulated booming house price growth, universal further education grants and the last scrapings of the projected state pension pot gifted to elder generations.

It is, debatably, the price of liberal thinking and universal equality causing a clash of the age-old titans: economics and ideology. Unfortunately, the credit afforded ideology has dried, with the menacing bailiffs knocking on the doors of No.11 Downing Street for collection. It seems the cupboards are bare of silverware, as the words of the outgoing Chief Secretary to the Treasury Liam Byrne to his successor resonate; “I’m afraid to tell you there’s no money left”. These words, no doubt penned in the spirit of Westminster wit and black humour, are nonetheless ill thought through. They only remind people of the fact that a Labour Chancellor nearly always runs out of money, and as a result takes the country to the brink of bankruptcy in a giddy joy ride of ideological spending.

This is the time when regardless of what the elder sibling was given as a child, there are no hand-me-downs for the youngsters. There is no right of passage and any concept of precedent has disappeared. It’s the greed of the previous overspending generations that have made it virtually impossible for young people to get onto the property ladder. It’s a sorry state of affairs that the average age of the first time buyer in the UK, unaided by their parents, is now 39. How can you expect the youth of today to save for the future against no security? How can there be any social mobility when the disparity between the landlord and the worker is widening so easily? The rich stay rich and the young stay poor.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t actually believe in universal handouts. I think the role of government should be to set the correct environment to support those who want to work hard and achieve. I know we have a steep hill to climb to claw our way out of the deficit, but stacking the odds so greatly against the workforce of tomorrow is dangerous.

The state of British universities and education policy is something that interests me considerably, as I’ve blogged previously. Lord Browne’s recent report on UK further education actually fell more or less in line with my views and expectations I set out a couple of months ago, specifically regarding the need to open further education up to the free market (to a certain extent – I wouldn’t advocate the US model). However, on top of the poisonous environment facing the youth of today, it appears the failings of historic education policy has not been addressed; too many people attending too many universities. It spreads the cash out very thin, meaning the quality reduces to a detrimental extent, certainly at the ex-polytechnic institutions who lack the commercial options that the Oxford’s and Cambridge’s have built up over 800 years. What’s created is a two-tier system, whereby the poor can’t afford to go to university and the rich will


As a result, what’s facing this broken generation when the music stops and the house lights come on, is a post-graduation hangover of £20,000 debt, with narrowing prospects of a decent job. You know you won’t get a pension to support you in your later years but you can’t get on the property ladder to save any equity to compensate that. Your future has been mortgaged to save the generation who sold the family silver.

Tomorrow’s Spending Review will be delivered with the deliberately standard lines; that the Government has inherited this situation and the cuts will be tough but fair. What, I ask, is fair about stuffing the youth of today and tomorrow by suffocating any flickering flame of aspiration? When opening such a Pandoras box of pain to tackle this frightening economic situation, those at the helm should at least follow suit and leave hope firmly locked inside.

Merkel says German multicultural society has failed

Bit of deja vu here, although joking aside is a very brave speech to make.

This is, potentially, my new street.

"There’s a horrible inevitability to the Apprentice. It just happens without you really wanting it to, like Christmas, or a smear test. Every year, every single braying arse wipe you’ve ever overheard on the train yelling ‘Look Geoff, it’s a no brainer’ applies for the show. Every Autumn, Sir Alan finishes shaving his forehead, puts down his copy of Razzle, adjusts his tie and welcomes them all into his boardroom. In a Nuremberg rally of black Burton suits and grey jackets from Mango, they shuffle in, plopping pellets of misplaced self-confidence all over his shiny floor."

- Lucy Sweet on The Apprentice

This is England 86 is one of the best things I've ever seen on TV. I loved the Shane Meadows movie This is England, but this is something else.

Masterchef

Masterchef is back - I love Gregg Wallace. I can't wait for some more classic one liners.

Mollie King

Words unnecessary.

Oh...this guy just qualified as a Search and Rescue pilot in the RAF. The only thing I've qualified for is triple points on my Nectar savings card.

Two Greats....Bizarre but brilliant

The Blitz started 70 years ago today. 43000 British civilians were killed in the months the raids lasted - a further 50,000 were seriously injured. 1.4 million were made homeless from the destruction. The RAF battled the skies outnumbered a paltry 8 to 1 and shot down 3 times their numbers. We stuck it out until Hitler changed his focus to the Eastern Front. We re-grouped, the Japanese and Americans joined to make the war truly global and we won the war in 1945.

No, my blog hasn't been hacked and spammed with top quality British comedy from over the years...it's just me. Enjoy the below.

Unbelievable

Bar fall scene

Women Know Your Limits!

Directions

Driving Lessons

Job Centre

Just a really great website

POLICE were last night investigating the murder of a British spy whose decomposing body lay for two weeks stuffed inside a large sports holdall in the bath of a smart London flat

This has me gripped, unsure if we'll ever 'know' what happened though.

Bit morbid.

Most sites would do '10 things to do on holiday' or '10 best places to dine out in London'. Maverick.

Movies make smoking look cool - I think that's fair to say.

I've often wondered how cool I'd look if I smoked, but then again I can safely conclude that I don't look like Sean Connery in a tuxedo, and never have the essential accompanying music or script to bolster my presence in a room. Also, you rarely see James Bond having to step outside of a Monte Carlo casino when sparking up, just to adhere to a smoking ban.

Smoking has never really bothered me, although the last few days have really caused problems for me. Last night I not only got a nasty piece of wayward ash in my eye in Borough's Brewer's Wharf, but after a birthday party in Battersea I had to break up a night bus queue fight when an overenthusiastic gentleman kept jokingly asking me for a cigarette, and an irritable bystander told him to stop annoying me. Although mildly annoying having to fake a laugh every 2-3 minutes, it wasn't really causing me any problems. If anything, from my experiences of night buses it's best to keep things as jovial and light-hearted as possible as relations can briskly take a turn for the worse. This instance was no different. I've never, sadly, had to break up a fight over me though - as in, a fight between two parties looking out for my best interests. I can confirm that at 2.31am on Clapham High Street, this was a life first.

So that, combined with having to run through everyone lighting up outside Victoria station before work, standing on enclosed terraces that sail close to the legal wind making sure my clothes absorb absolutely all of the 2nd hand smoke floating around and the majority of girls who smoke also have tattoos and zero life prospects, means I don't think I'd miss it at all.

Perhaps we should confine smoking to the old movies that capture its cool, and don't let it be ruined by the reality in its ever polluting role of what you want your life to be like.

Tomorrow is the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain. I know this because in a surge of jingoism they've put a Spitfire outside my office (I'm not joking). Anyway, worth noting with a stirring Churchill speech...

@itsbadtaste

Esquire have launched a new twitter account called It's Bad Taste. People tweet in suggestions. You get the idea...some favourites below:

Using the word 'ciao' if you are not Italian. Mings

The word 'flex', when used instead of 'wire' or 'lead'

Slip-on trainers by Lonsdale

Cut and shut girls' names - like Charlisa or Leandra

Having your own tankard in the pub

Speaking into your mobile phone as though you are blowing onto a spoonful of hot soup. Put it to your ear, fool

Holding your cutlery like a pen. Seriously? Eat in private, or learn to eat with a pen. You choose.

Shoes from Base. Have a word with yourself

Kipling luggage. Save face and leave it on the carousel at the airport.

A box of tissues on the parcel shelf of your car. I want a lift, not a wank

Men wearing watches inset into extra wide leather straps. Cocks.

Toby Young may not be to everyone's taste, but this project is pretty interesting (if you're at all interested in education).

If I was to be mad enough to raise a grizzly bear from birth, I'd start to keep my distance when it got bigger than me, which would probably be a few years after my friends would start keeping their distance from the both of us.

So, considering these animals have a track record of a wild five minutes of betrayal resulting in their master's deaths, what would you want to call him? Well, this guy's gone with Brutus, because obviously that name hasn't got a track record...

Have I caught the running bug?

People always say there's a running bug, once you've started out you won't want to stop. I'm wondering whether I've caught the bug or not considering some of the ludicrous effort and pain I'm going through, most of the time just to get to work.

I've never been a natural runner, I have stumpish short legs and broad shoulders. Never been wirey and never had the discipline to train for the sake of training. Does that mean I'm immune to this bug that people talk about? It's true that when I started 'running' (the snobbish definition of which aggrandizes as my distances increase), I seriously struggled to push myself further than 2 miles or so. Now I can run at least four times that length - I would say comfortably, but in truth any run over 5 miles is uncomfortable. It makes me think the sense of achievement is what fuels people. Essentially, there is nowhere to hide when running, nobody to beat but yourself. You quit, and you quit on yourself, you complete and you're left breathless at the finish with only yourself to thank - fulfillments desolate attic.

This is no sport for those in search of celebrity or admiration, there is no crowd, no applause.

I'd never been a believer in those who say that post-gym feeling is better than any artificial drug. I always used to find going to the gym so dull, and those who are obsessed with working out, a bit odd. I still do to be honest. However, the feeling of being totally exhausted and recovering is amazing. The sensation of my legs aching all day is bitter sweet (chaffed nipples are just bitter). I love it.

The ultimate test will be whether I continue my running after the Great North Run in September, which will be my first half marathon. I'm already eyeing the Bath Half in March as my next, which answers that question. Perhaps it's a sense of losing something gained, as in health and fitness. I just have to weigh up if the stinging nipples, blistered feet and aching knees are worth it, although I think they probably are.

Awkward Family photos

I'm having a slightly unhealthy obsession the Awkward Family Photos website at the moment, I've been reduced to tears by a few;

"Too many tweets makes a twat" - David Cameron

I've started using Twitter again. I'm not going to go into detail as to why I stopped, but it's the same reason one evening virtually my whole blog had to be deleted until it was 'clean'.

I'm not really sure about the true merits of Twitter and how powerful it can be, but it's quite fun and more often than not is good for comic one-lines (something Keith '@thekeithchegwin' Chegwin knows a fair bit about).

Something I've not got the hang of, is the tagging/hashing that occurs and can develop a 'trend', although one of my favoured pastimes is to create the most comic ones...purely for my own entertainment. Sad I know.

Anyway, just to make this post of some use to the already pitied reader, if you're on a Mac you can get the hash key by holding Alt and tapping 3. I didn't know that and had to google it. #Happyhashing

I'm getting fed up of people constantly blaming the state for society's woes. This might sound like a big push for the Big Society, but it is time for people to take some fucking responsibility.

The horrible case of this girl being starved to death is 100% the fault of those who were supposed to be caring for her, i.e. her parents. They are disgraceful people who should be locked up for the rest of their lives, without doubt, and that's the end of the pandering to the softy softy moral high ground.

We are so lucky in this country to have a welfare system, which picks up the majority of people when they fall down, whether it be the jobless, ill, poverty stricken, etc. We can't use that as a scapegoat when society gets lazy, pathetic and dependent on the state.

Words I hate:

"Vino"
"Cute"
"Hun"
"Fancy"

Spent Friday night at Newmarket races with a select few. Awesome night.

Nice to know SOME important people read my blog

Hat tip to Vince Cable, who I get the train to Westminster with on some mornings.

Some of the ideas on the Spending Challenge website are an absolute treat!

Been quite serious of late so here's a pic of Holly Willoughby.

The state of UK Universities...

Last year I heard Lord Patten speak on the future of British Universities. His opinion was that the elite universities can still pack their punch among the best in the world, with other world class institutions in the US, Continental Europe and some in developed pockets of Asia. What he was fearful of (and I share his view) is the decline in the all round quality of University education in the UK.

The Labour vision of seeing 50% of young people being 'university educated' has starved the country of skilled workers, flooded the education market with substandard - apparently academic - qualifications and left millions debted up to their eyeballs competing for the same number of jobs, albeit temporarily off the dole queue.

This is a con. The brutal fact is, exams and qualifications of any kind are separation mechanisms to sort society into broad paths. Supply and Demand does the rest and provides the jobs. The 50% target is fantasy, and people naively believe gaining a degree from any university will buy them a better life, when it could potentially set them back many years. Unfortunately, admirable crusades on social mobility by governments are expensive, and shamefully this cost has been pushed on to the young who don't know any better when at 17 they are confronted with a choice of the bright lights of university or the cold and unloving land of work.

Actually, the cost of education should be pushed on to the students themselves, but in exchange there must be value for money. Value for your debt. Currently, UK universities and students are caught in the no mans land of a lack of government funding and a drive to stay afloat from capped fees. The investment in students per head has reduced dramatically and with no free market to quench the thirst, there has been widespread cost cutting in the majority of universities. Only those extremely rich universities - namely Oxford and Cambridge - can afford to maintain what is a world class education for the same as those going to Bradford University or Liverpool John Moores.

So what prospect have you if you leave with a degree from a decent university? Well, luckily for you where you went and what you did still means something, and there will be jobs out there for your to throw your CV at. This whole farce has put more pressure on recruiters to separate the wheat from the chaff, and this is sometimes brutal, but it's just a nasty side-product of too many applicants from too many universities. In my opinion, whether hindered and stuttering at the beginning, cream will always rise to the top. Somehow, someday, the academic tend to align themselves where needed, the entrepreneurial will start their own venture from whatever position and the majority of those skilled workers will fine their role. Why then, is there a need for people to be indebted so early in their lives?

This is just another ingredient in a United Kingdom living on debt, and far beyond its means. The time has come to realise that a university degree is merely diluted when every other person holds one. There is a genuine need for those unsuited to a university education to skill up and seek alternative routes to success, without the unnecessary debt.

Lord Patten endorsed the opening of the UK higher education market, allowing universities to charge what they wanted for an education. This may not be necessary, although as he said, how long will it take for the UK to fall from providing the best education in the world, to the second, and maybe the third...?

The 2010 World Cup will, I'm sorry to say, go down as a massive let down for me. Putting England's woeful showing aside, the quality of the games in the majority were average to poor, with no lasting classics to come out of the tournament. Actually, the best thing was confirming that David Beckham just gets better and better with age.

Midnight. Poolside. Drinks. John Mayer album. Winning combination.

Most films about sport fall short of the mark - way short of the mark. They're riddled with ridiculous stories of success and focus on thoroughbred stars who have no real connection with peoples memories. They fail to touch their audience with the genuine passion that can only be felt during the real, horrible, beautiful drama of sport.

As fans, there are always those characters who will remain forever fond in people's memories. Many of whom forge an immortal link with their following, long after they've sadly passed away. Brian Clough was one, Bobby Robson was most certainly another. Then there come eras in sport that are never forgotten; phrases like 'Golden generation' are sloshed around in pubs up and down the country and famous victories narrated over again. Rarely do these feature famous losses, and rarely do losses remain so fond in the land of 'what if?', but all of the above is crystalised in One Night in Turin.

Quite easily the best film about sport I've ever seen:

I walked into a great Cambridge bar on Saturday night and this was playing. I'd forgotten what a great 'bar song' it is.

Following on from the below, I've just reminded myself how much I love The Thick of It, and how closely it actually mirrors real politics. The above clip is so close to the infamous Mrs Duffy case seen only a couple of months ago with Gordon Brown. Comedy stuff.

In case you were ever wondering about how many series' there actually are of The Thick of It (as I've been pondering why it seemed to leap from series one to series three)...

"The first series was only three episodes. It was successful enough for a second series of three episodes, six months later. All were originally aired on BBC4. All six were subsequently shown as a run on BBC2, then followed by a DVD, "The Complete First Series". Then the specials, followed by their dvd release, then series three (now 8 episodes), followed by its DVD release; and now this box set.
Perhaps here worth mentioning that an eight-episode series four has already been commissioned and is due for recording and broadcast later this year..."

Thanks for that Play.com

So, as suggested in the video below, we've been asked to come up with ways to save the government money. One of the best ones I heard today in a meeting was to hire out the HM Treasury courtyard (above) for weddings. Brilliant!

Dave's been asking us what to do. Any ideas guys?

G20 protests