It's like that

A little known fact about yours truly (even amongst some of the people closest to me) is that I have always had an appreciation and fondness for hip-hop music.

Right now I'm experiencing a real resurgence in my love of the genre and am actively getting right back into it - buying CD's a-plenty, and really enjoying listening to the music.

One artist I'm particularly impressed with just now is 22-year old east London rapper "Plan B" (real name Ben Drew). His debut album "Who Needs Actions When You've Got Words" was released in June last year to much critical acclaim, and it's fantastic.

He's touring this year, playing Norwich Waterfront on Feb 14th - I've got tickets, and can't wait!

Click here to check out Plan B's official (not to mention impressive) site.

Also, check out the video to the excellent track "No Good" beneath; if you're not feeling the tune itself, you may just admire the state-of-the-art "stop-motion" film technique that the video employs...

A fare deal?

Working as a press officer for a large motoring organisation as I do, I observe with interest the ongoing developments in the government’s policy on transport. At the present time, I am drawn to the proposed ramping-up of road charging (more toll roads, pay-per-mile driving etc) in the UK, of particular interest as it is one of the hottest motoring topics of the moment.

The strategy behind introducing such measures, of course, is to try to solve the problem of chronic overcrowding on this small island nation’s roads (there are 39 million vehicles in the UK at the last count, and rising). The theory is that, by hitting motorists in the pocket each time they drive, it will force people into contemplating whether their journey is absolutely essential, or perhaps whether public transport could be used as an alternative.

In the case of the latter, this would directly address the overcrowding issue (just look at how many cars are occupied by just one person next time you’re out in rush hour), not to mention make valuable inroads into the threat to the environment caused by vehicle emissions.

However, as we all know, public transport as it stands in the UK is, for many people’s needs, a totally unviable option. Poor coverage (you should try getting a bus to see my grandma in her village a mere 13 miles from Norwich) and ludicrously high fares are real barriers to the average citizen leaving their vehicle at home in favour of the bus or the train. Travel to most any country outside of Great Britain, and one is often stunned by how much cheaper a far better service is than back at home. The transport system in New Delhi certainly wins hands down when compared with the my local rail operator, One Railway, who provide a disgraceful service.

Looking at rail fares in particular, what steps can be taken to reduce them? Well, one important measure is to make sure that everybody who travels on a train actually buys a ticket, meaning that train operating companies ensure they have the best chance of covering their operating costs, and are at least in a position whether to consider to give some of their money back, effectively. Whether they do or not is, of course, an entirely different matter. (The fact that train fares are, arguably, so high in the first place due to a combination of a post-British Rail cartel of money-grabbing private operators and a fundamentally weak, roll-over-and-tickle-my-belly approach from the government to awarding franchises is a discussion for another day).

It’s called “revenue protection” in the trade, and it is the job of the on-train conductor to ensure that each and every person has paid for the right to be sat on the train.

It came as rather a surprise to me today, therefore, that on my journey to Blackpool to watch Norwich play in the FA Cup, I was able to travel from Norwich to London, and then from the capital to Rugby (Warwickshire) before I first saw a conductor, let alone was asked to show my ticket. Were I unscrupulous enough to consider fare-dodging, on the journey described I would have saved myself the not-inconsiderable sum of £151.00 (based on a open first class single fare), incidentally.

Hmmmm.

On a different note, by the time most people read this Norwich City fans will either be celebrating the prospect a rare appearance in the 5th round of the FA Cup, or nursing their wounded pride after being unceremoniously dumped out by a team from a lower division. I haven’t been travelling in high hopes, I’ll be honest.

To distract myself from my feelings of impending doom, along with reading the Independent and listening east London rapper Plan B’s excellent debut album “Who Needs Actions When You’ve Got Words”, I have been counting how many major football grounds I can see from the window of my Virgin train on the journey between London Euston and Preston, where I change trains.

So far, I’ve clocked up Wembley, Northampton Town’s Sixfields ground, and Birmingham City’s St. Andrews. There’s Crewe Alexandra’s Gresty Road to come and I think that I’ll be able to spy Wigan’s JJB Stadium too, if my memory of this route serves me correctly. Ooh, and as we speak, looking to my left as we crawl through the eyesore that is Wolverhampton, I’ve just spied Molineux. However, I’ve a suspicion that I might have been too busy typing to give myself a chance of catching a glimpse of West Brom’s Hawthorns a few minutes ago…

Er, I’ll get my coat… :-)

Postscript: I’m posting this Sunday after all, as I didn’t find an internet connection in Blackpool. City escaped with a draw - phew. Hopefully the quality will tell at home in the replay, and we’ll reach the last 16 of the cup - we‘re in the hat for tomorrow‘s draw, at least. Today, my train ticket was first inspected just after leaving Crewe, so I wouldn’t have been quite so well off if I’d fare-dodged in this instance - a first class single costing for this journey costing only a £37.00. Peanuts, clearly (I wish)…..

PPS: It's Monday, and the draw has just been made live on the BBC. If we can beat Blackpool, we get to play....(drum roll).....Chelsea away!

I knew it all along - Norwich's name is on the cup! :-)

The moral of the story?

A boat docked in a tiny Mexican village. An American tourist complimented the Mexican fisherman on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took him to catch them.

"Not very long," answered the Mexican.

"But then, why didn't you stay out longer and catch more?" asked the American.

The Mexican explained that his small catch was sufficient to meet his needs and those of his family.

The American asked, "But what do you do with the rest of your time?"

"I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, and take a siesta with my wife. In the evenings, I go into the village to see my friends, play the guitar, and sing a few songs...I have a full life."

The American interrupted, "I have an MBA from Harvard, and I can help you! You should start by fishing longer every day. You can then sell the extra fish you catch. With the extra revenue, you can buy a bigger boat."

"And after that?" asked the Mexican.

"With the extra money the larger boat will bring, you can buy a second one and a third one and so on until you have an entire fleet of trawlers. Instead of selling your fish to a middle man, you can then negotiate directly with the processing plants and maybe even open your own plant. You can then leave this little village and move to Mexico City , Los Angeles, or even New York City! From there you can direct your huge new enterprise."

"How long would that take?" asked the Mexican.

"Twenty, perhaps twenty-five years," replied the American.

"And after that?"

"Afterwards? Well my friend, that's when it gets really interesting," answered the American, laughing. "When your business gets really big, you can start selling stocks and make millions!"

"Millions? Really? And after that?" said the Mexican.

"After that you'll be able to retire, live in a tiny village near the coast, sleep late, play with your children, catch a few fish, take a siesta with your wife and spend your evenings doing what you like and enjoying your friends."

The moral of the story?

Know where you're going in life...you just might already be there...

Of national importance?

I have a confession to make, yet one I’m extremely comfortable with if I‘m honest - I loathe the TV show Big Brother with a passion. I can think of few ways I’d less rather spend any of my (rare) free time than to watch a group of largely mindless individuals whiling away hour after hour doing nothing of any use, interspersed with inane “entertaining tasks” set by the show’s producers, and garnished with a never-ending stream of verbal diarrhoea from said inhabitants. I would be disappointed if, in the general course of events, I genuinely couldn’t find a better way to entertain myself for an hour or so. But, hey, each to their own.

However, I surprised myself this weekend - for once, Big Brother started to fascinate me. Taking a keen interest in the media as I do, I found it incredibly interesting to see the whole charade pan out as it did across the newspapers and TV, as in fact it still is. I noticed on the front page of one of the tabloids today the call from the paper for Channel 4 “chiefs” (good tabloid word, that!) to resign, presumably because of the apparent sin they have committed in allowing Jade Goody not only to reappear on our screens, but to be allowed to behave deplorably in the process.

Absolutely priceless!

For me, there is a delicious irony in the media rounding so fiercely on Ms Goody as it is presently doing. She is an entity that was entirely created by the media in the first place - somebody who is on telly simply (no pun intended) because she was once on telly - a remarkable feat in itself. Moreover, however, Jade has served the creator of her Frankenstein’s monster of a celebrity very well, providing it with a wealth of absurdly hilarious moments over the years - not to mention some distinctly less-savoury ones - contributing to thousands of column inches that, in dubious honour to her, have practically written themselves, plus soaring viewing figures, most notably for the show that propelled her into the nation’s psyche in the first place. A journalist’s dream, that Jade lass.

But in the twisted media circus we must unfortunately suffer in these fair isles, there is no room for sentiment. Jade has served her purpose - and is now serving it again, albeit for different reasons. From the tabloid press to the broadsheets to the internet to television, Jade is once again headline news in a nation where sensationalist attitudes are both fed and encouraged by the media, and the journey from hero to zero can be over as quickly as the time it takes to pop to the newsagents to buy a copy of the Sun.

In my opinion, the issue isn’t racism here, though I feel that Jade’s bullying of a woman who dared not to conform to an existence she can comprehend saw her use totally inappropriate phraseology - referring to someone as “Poppadum” is as pig-ignorant as the French referring to the British as “Johnny Roast Beef“, and us calling them “Frogs“ in return. No, the worrying thing is that Jade Goody is far from a lone agent - she is merely the most famous, not to mention most visible example (thanks to the media) of a despicable one-eyed attitude that pervades large swathes of our society.

Ours is a society that is often far too ready to take an insular view of the world around us, and the different peoples that inhabit this small planet. We are scared by what we don’t know, or find unfamiliar, and instead of trying to educate ourselves, we often simply close our minds and condemn people and cultures as “bad” or “not right”. Rarely, however, is introspection a talent that we master; rather than reviewing our own behaviours and gaps in our understanding, often we instead try to delegate our own ignorance by offensively casting misinformed judgements about issues that, in reality, we're not really qualified to mouth off about. This is failing which is ultimately our personal moral duty to put right, or at least try to. Does travel broaden the mind? You betcha.

How can we be proud of our nation when we tolerate such attitudes? Jade’s ill-informed views and, frankly, total inability to embrace somebody else’s culture if it doesn’t fit in with the rules of life in Basildon is a sad indictment on modern life, especially in a day and age when ignorance of other cultures, nationalities and religions is pushing the world closer and closer towards self-destruction as each day passes. But she is clearly not alone in living in an ignorance-is-bliss, “not in my back yard”, “send them all back” state of mind. Far from it.

This will continue to be an issue for as long as I’m alive, I’m sure, though perhaps we’ll be spared having to suffer it again with Channel 4 acting as facilitator/mouthpiece for the diatribe of a stunningly under-educated loudmouth and her cronies. Indeed, if the nation, having just successfully voted in what effectively proved to be an impromptu referendum on the nation’s tolerance of racist attitudes, chooses to cease to watch the televisual garbage that is Big Brother altogether, then there would be no show, and therefore zilch media interest, and we could all get back to reading about something more meaningful in the papers.

The time saved, might I suggest, could perhaps be re-invested in educating ourselves about the world around us; if we do, and do it at every opportunity, then perhaps one day this beautiful planet of ours will become a far more peaceful place upon which to live.

Family movements

Reading the New Statesman the other day, I happened upon a fascinating article about the movement of families across the UK in the last century.

This site - www.spatial-literacy.org- allows you to type in your surname (or anyone's, for that matter), and see a map of where that family name can be found in the UK as per the 1998 general census, plus compare it with the whereabouts of the name after the previous census in 1881.

It also provides interesting facts such as which urban centre contains the greatest concentration of a surname (mine can mostly be found in Stevenage, of all places!), plus which overseas communities contain the largest expatriate community of a particular name.

To use:

- Log onto www.spatial-literacy.org

- Click on the "search for a surname" button on the right-hand side of the screen

- Click on the "start a surname search" link at the top of the screen

The rest is self-explanatory...

Hope you enjoy it - it was a fascinating experience for me personally :-)

Speak soon...

Laughed? I nearly bought a round....!

I bought a book today. It's one I've been eyeing up for a while on lunchtime visits to Waterstone's in Norwich, and I can't quite work out why I haven't bought it 'til now, especially when I can now say that is THE funniest thing I have ever read - period (as they say "Stateside").....

It's by one of my favourite, if not in fact my favourite comedian, Ricky Gervais. I could go on, but I won't, except to say BUY THIS BOOK!!!!!!!!! To help things along, it's on offer at half price in Waterstone's just now at a mere £5.oo. Not much money to wet yourself laughing, I'm sure you'll agree!

I was reading it on the khazi at work today (too much information I know, but it's a bloke thing :-), giggling like a loon. Those coming in the door to hear my ecstatic wheezing from must have thought they'd walked in to toilet where a deranged masturbator was going about his deviant business...

Anyway, here's a taster - judge for yourselves!

A very good day...

Setting up a blog has taught me one thing, at least - if you are to make it worth visiting, one key thing you need to get right as its author is to make sure you've the time to update on some sort of regular basis.

I'm working really hard to fulfil my new year's resolutions. One was to set up a blog in the first place; another is to re-organise my life so that I have enough time to do things that will really add value to my health, wellbeing and karma in general. Trust me, this work is already underway, but I am acutely aware that despite having already ditched one major commitment that I, Jon Day, lead a very busy life.

This is all a very long winded way of saying "sorry!" for not having updated the site since my first post, but I hope those who read this will understand. Not to mention cut me a bit of slack whilst I try my hardest to make time for this venture!

Today, meanwhile, has been a fantastic day for me, for the following three (pictorial) reasons:

These are pictures of RAC patrolman Dave Goodall, who went the very definition of the "extra mile" to wade into flood water at New Buckenham, Norfolk, to rescue not only our member who called him out, but also two non-members - stripped down to his underpants!

As you'll know, my job is to generate publicity for the RAC through the media, and I'm lucky to have been successful in securing extensive national and local coverage through both the newspapers, TV and radio on the back of Dave's heroics.

The managing director of RAC is so pleased that she called my phone this evening to personally thank me, and assert that "this is the best PR I've ever seen". Those kind of moments don't come along too often, so I am feeling very proud and enjoying the moment immensely. It makes all the hard work worthwhile (and believe me, my phone didn't stop ringing all weekend with national press interest!!)

I had the pleasure of spending this morning with Dave, as we toured round filming news items and doing radio interviews, and can say that he is one of the most decent, genuine blokes I've ever met - modest to a tee, and so calm in the face of some daunting media work, completely different to what he's used to. It ain't easy the first time you do it, believe me...

So, it's been a good day!

If you are interested in reading a sample of the coverage, click on the following link:

http://www.radiobroadland.co.uk/distributor/Local_News/article/-/fbbc1121-32c4-4833-98bf-d2bbe81ccc84

Oh, and the one that particularly pleased Debbie, our MD at RAC (in which the AA, our main rivals are criticised, and us praised in the same article!!):

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/topstories/tm_method=full&objectid=18470971&siteid=94762-name_page.html

Speak soon....

A fond farewell

A happy new year to all!

Welcome to my blog - the first of my new year's resolutions was to start one up, so I'm pleased to have chalked one off the list so early in 2007 (oh yes, there's more, but they're a secret!!)

My inspiration to start a blog came from three people, really. Firstly, my good friend Balaji, who first introduced me to the concept, when my comprehension of "blogging" was limited to simply knowing that I was reading the word more and more in the press.

Balaji's random ponderings make for very entertaining and often thought-provoking reading, and I urge you to dip in and out when the fancy takes you: http://www.puranijeansaurguitar.blogspot.com/

Secondly, it was my equally good friends Geoffrey and Debs, who came up with the fantastic idea of setting up a blog to complement our recent trip to Japan, Australia and Thailand together (which can be found here, for those who'd like to take a look: http://www.agentsontour.blogspot.com/

To be honest, before the holiday I'd begun to think that I was losing my passion for writing. Having written more or less exclusively about football for 4 years (most recently at my website http://www.yarmy.co.uk) , to be honest I've become sick of it, at least doing it on a regular basis. When a hobby becomes a chore, then it surely has to be high time to find a new one.

But filling spare moments in time abroad by writing about my experiences became a incredibly enjoyable, fulfilling and sometimes therapeutic experience, which is when the idea hit me - why not start a blog of your very own upon your return to Blighty? So here it is.

With regards to the Y'army site, it won't lie dormant forever. Despite my wish not to be anywhere near as "hands on" involved as I once was, we have some cunning plans regarding how to take it forward and (hopefully) make it as entertaining as it (hopefully) once was. Watch this space.

So, what will this blog be about? To be truthful, I don't know just yet. In my mind's eye, I see it as a platform for my - well, just what the title says - thoughts, musings and observations. Or perhaps I might simply write about something I've been up to, or somewhere I've visited. Who knows? We'll see!

You may not identify with the blog whatsoever. You may get very quickly bored and never visit the blog again! Or perhaps you might enjoy it. Whatever the weather, I'd love to have your feedback via the site, whether you know me well already, or just happen to end up here by chance or invitation.

So, what to write for the first post? Actually, it wasn't as difficult a decision as you might think.

A very dear friend of mine, the aforementioned Balaji, left England for his home in Kerala, India yesterday, possibly never to return, or at least not for his work.

Balaji has become such a popular guy in and around the fair city of Norwich, where it's been my pleasure to have worked with him for over a year, but also to share my cricketing Sundays with, have long chats with, go to gigs with, to name but a few things. To say that Balaji has touched many people's lives would certainly be no understatement :-)

I was dreading the big man leaving for home (I'm crap at goodbyes), but we agreed to not acknowledge it as such, instead merely as a "See you soon mate!". Fitting, really - I will always keep in touch with Balaji, and hold him very dear to my heart.

That said, my affection for the boy didn't preclude my corrupting him thoroughly during his time here (come on, what did you expect?!!), so gambling, smoking and drinking became regular pastimes for Bala - and although he was often at odds with his own moral conscience, I know he secretly enjoyed them all!





So, thanks once again for visiting. Expect plenty of posts both as the blog starts its life and as it matures that, hopefully, you'll enjoy reading as much as I, God willing, will enjoy writing :-)

Some of you may be curious as to the name of the blog. Well, if you are, please feel free to ask me and I'll explain...

There's at least one person reading who'll know exactly what it means already ;-)

Speak soon...