Scotland

It's amazing how the media are so interested in whether or not Scotland are going to vote for independence. There's barely been a mention of it until last week, but the good old 'impartial' BBC are at almost fever pitch about it now. I'm not sure why their reporting should be biased towards Scottish independence but there's certainly no doubt that every report they make is slanted that way. It would be nice to get a balanced view but if you want that don't rely on the BBC - perhaps they've been promised a load of money by Alex Salmond - he seems to be good at promising money the country doesn't have.
As far as I'm concerned the rest of the union has been disenfranchised. Any media reports should be confined to regional TV stations and a very brief report on the national news. It would be a different story if the other members of the union had a say in the huge implications this vote has on them, but unfortunately it is only the people living in Scotland who can have a say. Not really democratic is it? Can you imagine if the English had decided to have a vote to eject Scotland? There would have been an outcry.
So anyway, I suppose I'll need to get my passport up to date - the way it's looking there'll be border control on the A1 soon!

WiFi on Trains

An announcement on the news today (bursting with that artificial enthusiasm the presenters always use when it is supposed to be a 'good news' story which I hate).... The government has decided to use the money it has fined Network Rail to improve WiFi on commuter trains. Yeah, you know, the money taken off them for failing to improve services and thus making them even less likely to be able to improve anything as they have no money.
Well, I'm pretty confident that the last thing on a commuters mind when they are packed into a 30 year old carriage like a sardine which is running late for the 3rd time this week is "hmmm... wish there was faster WiFi on this train". Call me old fashioned, but I'd have thought trains with the right capacity which run on time would be a priority, not being able to check twitter in case some celebrity has told the world what they had for breakfast.
No doubt this scheme will go ahead for the sake of Britain needing to be on the forefront of technology (or some other trite soundbite) - and of course will benefit no-one but London's commuter trains. And will it make any difference to the normal working person? Well I suppose it means they can upload the pic they've just taken to instagram quicker, but does that really matter? Do you really need WiFi on a commuter train? I'd have thought that if anything WiFi is more important on long distance trains so that people travelling are able to work while travelling - no chance of that on a commuter train when you have your nose shoved in someone's armpit!
Anyway, it's never going to have any impact on me... I live in the North East (the region where the first steam engines came from) - no chance of any sort of modernisation for us. The North apparently ends at Leeds as far as any transport scheme is concerned!

Football

So the TV Channels have just about accepted that England weren't good enough. But will they change their schedules so that people who have no interest in football can get back to normal? Well what do you think? Of course not. After all - they've invested a lot of money in sending hundreds of staff out to Brazil to cover the World Cup and they need to show it was money well spent.
I've never understood why 'pundits' (in the case of football this is usually ex-players who have slightly more personality than a brussel sprout and aren't good enough to move on to coaching/management) need to travel to any sporting venue in order to watch the game on a TV and then comment about it - couldn't that be done for a lot less money in this country?? The usual excuse is so that they can 'experience the atmosphere'. What a load of rubbish....
And why are the England team not good enough? After all, the English Premiership is supposed to be the best league in the world. Well I would suggest the reason is laziness. Laziness of the premiership clubs who have so much money to throw about that they just spend the budget of a small country to buy some foreign superstar rather than concentrate on home grown talent. I hate to think how many opportunities have been lost because some bright sparks at top premiership clubs think a quick fix by buying an established talent is a better option than developing our own. Without developing our own talent how can we expect to compete on the international stage? But then again, it's all about money these days, not passion for the game. And that is probably the second reason England didn't get through... lack of passion.... Lets face it - if you're getting paid six figures per week you don't really need to worry too much about winning... although your agent will most likely have secured a nice sponsorship deal for you because of wearing an England shirt. No doubt many of the squad do have passion but certainly not all of them. And without passion you are not going to perform.
To my mind it's a combination of these two factors which mean England will not succeed until both are sorted out - sort out the first and the second will follow....