Home Again

Yet another of those days I didn't want with Lucy staying with more rain and showers making it hard to get out and have some fun outside in the sun.

It is always lovely to be woken to Lucy calling my name and this morning was no exception. Once downstairs I made breakfast and coffee and we settled down to watch television snuggled together. Eventually we were joined by the other two gils and Lucy went off to play with them for the rest morning while I got on with lunch.

It had rained most of the morning, and so after lunch the ground was wet and there was a threat of more rain and showers in the air. The result was another afternoon at home with only a shopping trip to look forward to. There just isn't the money to do much else. I just wish there was. Thankfully the one thing I do have is lots of love and I hope the girls feel that. It is the one thing you don't need money to give to people, and it is yours to give freely.

Eventually dinner time came along, and with that out of the way bedtime approached for Lucy. Catherine had left us mid afternoon to sleep over at her friends. She is at the stage of having a busy social life, a stage Emily has gone through and from which things have settled down. Guess it is just a matter of time until Catharine does the same. It is all part of growing up.

I just really hope we can get out soon. It doesn't have to be sunny just dry enough to go out and enjoy a park or the countryside in some way. 

Back Together

Today was the day that the girls met up together after so long. I know Emily and Catherine were both looking forward to seeing their little sister again and they had both be missing her and asking about her.

Weather wise the best part of the day was the morning, and that unfortunately  was time we spent in the car travelling to get Emily and Catherine from up north and returning back to Rutland. They had both girls had been at their mum's for a long weekend. Lucy was so pleased to see them, and as soon she saw Emily she jumped into her arms. It was lovely to see them together again.

When we got home the weather had taken a turn for the worse and the girls spent the day together catching up with each other and playing around the house. In the end they all settled down to watch a movie together before they had their roast chicken dinner with all the trimmings. One thing for sure it makes the dinner table a lively place having the three of them and the time before bedtime, which went smoothly as ever with Lucy dropping straight off to sleep.

It has been great to have them altogether again and I just just hope that we have some nice afternoons or mornings while they are altogether. The weather forecast is hardly promising, but then again this is Britain, and anything is possible weather wise.

Lucy Retunrs

Today Lucy returned to Rutland for eight sleeps, as she puts it and after over a month of not seeing her or hearing from her it has just been amazing to be with her again and have her home.

We just had a quiet day watching films together and generally playing around the house, mainly due to the weather, that could be best described as showery.  It wasn't that we didn't want to go out, more that every time the sun came out a dark cloud was looming to make sure we would have got wet. In some ways it was just nice to spend time around the house and we enjoyed ourselves and that is all that matters.  

Tomorrow Lucy will be reunited with her big sisters and then the fun really begins, but having said that, the fact I hadn't seen her for so long made just being with her today rather special.

And So It Has Started

In what can only be described as an amazing opening ceremony the Olympic Games opened earlier in London with a speech from the Queen and the lighting of Olympic the flame. The whole thing made you proud to be British for a while even if we had to take the "make do approach" due to the double dip recession.

There were so many highlights including the transformation of the countryside and the forging of the rings which looked amazing. I just loved the James Bond and the Queen spoof on getting to the games and flying the helicopter under the rings on tower bridge. Just wish the Queen had a little more time to speak. It is quiet amazing that her father and grandfather before her opened the games in the past. The lighting of the cauldron and the cauldron itself were just wonderful. It is an amazing idea and a wonderful bit of art. 

The boring bit, for me was, a load of people walking around smiling and waving flags. They looked like they had a great time, smiling away, the television commentators were wetting themselves with excitement as the spotted potential medalist, but for me it leaves me a bit cold. Looks good but it just goes on and on and on, but I guess it just part of the show and it all can't be amazing. 

Back in late nineties I was in a play called Romero and Juliet, at the West Yorkshire Playhouse, directed by Michel Birch. There was a group of core actors with the speaking parts to which he added a cast of about 80 supporting young actors. At the time I could feel what he was trying to create but I never had a ture understanding or vision of what it looked like until I saw the same thing on a massive scale at the opening of the Olympic Games. Watching the first 25 minutes what was created by everyone taking part was such an impressive feat.

I thought it was interesting what  Sarah Lyall of The New York Times had to say, summing it up as a "slightly insane portrait of a country that has changed almost beyond measure since the last time it hosted the Games, in the grim postwar summer of 1948." The fact is she is so right, the Great has been taken out of Britain through the failures of successive governments and waste opportunities. 

All the same it showed we can put on a show and a good one at that, and I enjoyed it and many others did, going by the comments on Facebook and Twitter and that was the main thing, and so now on with the games.

Busy Times

Despite the lovely weather, a time when you should really be relaxing, it has been rather busy time. So busy that the blog is getting over looked at the moment.

There are family posts from a month or more ago that need finishing, others that are just titles and some that are almost finished. The problem is there is just not he time to do everything in life and then there is the pressure of life itself and all that goes with it sometimes that gets in the way.

Some things are exciting at the moment, while other things carry on to be disappointing. There are things in life you can do something about and those are the ones that are working out for a change and taking up some of my time at the moment I spend writing the blog. The other things, well, you just have to do your best and hope and wait and see if they fall in to place too.

What this means for the blog, I am not totally sure yet. I fear as we move into the autumn there will be less posts, not something I want but my lack of time will just mean fewer posts. I love writing this blog and rest assured it will carry on, but know I'm just working towards what I want in life for those that I love and that matter to me.

Over a Month

It has been just over a month since I last saw, heard about or even spoke to my youngest daughter, Lucy. To say that I have missed her is more than an understatement. I love her to bits as I do her sisters and always will.

I always wanted to watch her grow up and see ever step she takes until she left the nest and I feel that was taken away from me and some of the people around her that love her as much as I do. There might not be anything that can be done about that now, but I hope one day she realises this wasn't the life I wanted for her. I wanted her to live in a family with all the people that matter to her.

Now I have to live with the fact that she will be passed between her parents like a baton at a relay race. Passed so quickly that neither party utters a word to each other and I wonder if this can be good for her. There has never been enough talk to make things better for her. When talk does occur it just all ends in meaningless anger being thrown one way. It is not what I ever wanted. It is such a shame.

With the coming of the summer I hope can make the best of the time I have with her and her sisters, and make them all feel like they are part of a family. I know they love each other dearly, but I feel so guilty for letting them down. They can't do all the things sisters do together, good or bad, because they just don't have the time together. It's not what I wanted, none of it is, but life moves on.

Hopefully I will be seeing Lucy sometime next week, fingers crossed, but nothing is certain in this world especially seeing Lucy. I just can't wait to see her and give her a big daddy cuddle. It has been too long and they grow so fast.

Summer

After all the rain and the speculation about if we were ever going to get any hint of summer it came along today.  With temperatures rising into the mid and upper twenties, the sun shining and the skies blue, it felt like summer at last. Good thing for Emily too, who will return home later to see the best of it.

However all is not well, it not here to stay if the weather forecasters are to believed and at the end of the week temperatures return to where they were before and a few days later the rain starts falling again. So folks, it looks like we have to make the most of it while we can or lucky be rich enough, or know someone rich enough, to leave the country to find more sun this summer.

More Government Shame

I was shocked to read the story of Isimeli Baleiwai on the BBC website today. Isimeli, who was born in Fiji, has severed in the British Army for thirteen years, completing tours of duty in Bosnia, Northern Ireland, Iraq twice and once in Afghanistan, and he now finds himself about to be deported by the British Government.

While suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder after a tour in Afghanistan  Isimeli had a fight with a fellow soldier. Pleading guilty at a disciplinary hearing before his commanding officer he was fined £1,000.  Although this wasn't Court Marshall  the offence is a crime under military law and because of that it automatically carry over into civilian life, although many offences of this nature under military law would not be offences in civilian life. In addition to this the military process lacks some of the checks and balances of civilian courts, however that is not taken into account by the Labour Parties Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 which allows the transference of military crimes to civil ones.

The UK Border Agency apply rules that mean that applications for settlement by ex-forces personnel were considered the same way as all others and this it would seem involves consideration of a range of factors including unspent convictions, whether passed by military courts or resulting from police involvement. The result of this is that Isimeli who is married with two children to a British national has been given until the 9th August to leave the country. All this despite being described as an "excellent junior NCO" who is "charismatic, selfless and well-liked", by his commanding officer before leaving the army.

Personally I think it is wrong that we should treat an ex British solider this way who has fought for us for such a long time without taking in to account the circumstances behind any military crime and the system under the military are disciplined. Clearly someone suffering from a condition like  post-traumatic stress disorder after a tour of duty isn't going to be in the best of places and this can lead to irrational acts. They after all have done things and seen thing that most of us could never imagine doing and would never want to see. It is no easy number going out to a war zone and risking you life and watching you friends died next to you.

Isimeli is reported as saying "I was proud to have served in the Army and for that 13 years service I was seen as a British soldier but to the UK Border Agency, as soon as that uniform comes off I'm no longer a British soldier, but just a foreign Commonwealth person trying to reside in the UK. But at this point I had a British family, I had a British wife - two kids that are British - and I'd been given this letter saying that I wasn't good enough. I wasn't good enough to be a citizen of this country and yet throughout those 13 years I've paid my taxes, I've served Queen and country and I felt betrayed."

I am in total agreement with chief executive of Veterans Aid, Dr Hugh Milroy who said it seemed "completely incredible" Isimeli was being barred from the UK because of his brawl, before gong on to say "This is so minuscule as an incident, but the implications are massive.This should have been done and dusted and gone." He paid the price for his crime and given the circumstances, his long service to this country he should be allowed to stay. I urge the Government to look at the rules, regulations and laws covering residency of non national ex-service men and women and correct this clear injustice as soon as possible. Until then Isimeli deserves to stay in the country with his wife and children.

Call of Cthulhu

There are sometimes you just want to escape from the world and enter another. Many people watch television, others get lost in music and some read. I hear that book called "Fifty Shades of Grey" is popular with women at the moment. I like to lose myself in a good computer game from time to time and that game I have picked is "Call of Cthulhu - Dark Corners of the Earth".

"Call of Cthulhu - Dark Corners of the Earth" is a first-person survival horror video game set in America in the early part of last century. The game combines intense action and adventure elements within an atmospheric crafted world that immerses you in the game play. It draws upon the your skills in exploration, investigation, and combat while battling evil incarnate with a plot to die for.

The story is based on the Cthulhu Mythos of HP Lovecraft, an American writer of fantasy and horror. It takes you into a realm of unthinkable evil, psychic possession, and mythical worlds. His work is profoundly influenced numerous fantasy and science fiction writers, including Stephen King and Anne Rice, and the games shows it heritage. 

I have been playing for about five hours on and off today, and I'm told by the statistics that I'm about sixteen percent in to the game. I haven't jumped yet, but I can see it happening before long. It almost happened when a thing with claws and teeth that nightmares are made of jumped me on its way to murder its own child.  

It is certainly a good way to forget your troubles and lose yourself for a few hours. As a game I can highly recommended it, despite it's age, on game play alone. It really does take you into the story and the challenges and keep you playing.

The Return of Sainsbury's

The supermarket chain Sainsbury's have renewed their efforts to open a store in Oakham. This time they are planning to build on the site of Rutland College which closes it doors at its current site over the summer. Previously the supermarket chain Waitrose had shown an interest in the site but later pulled out.

It is clear that Oakham is at some point going to get a third supermarket by concern of Sainsbury's taking the site is that their stores tend to ugly and that it won't fit into the tourist image of the town. Sainsbury's stores seem to be designed by cooperate planners to a standard design that resemble food warehouses and lack any kind of character. They might be practical in terms of what the supermarket wants to do as a business and the image it wants to portray but they could hardly be called designer buildings. There seems to be little if any consideration in the design about the nature of the environment in to which it places it stores and no local design input to the process. 

The location of the new store will of course bring extra traffic and congestion to Oakham and all the other reasons against said over and over again in letters to the local press why the site isn't ideal. But nobody uses the store will care about that as long as the car parking spaces are big enough for their 4x4's. My opinion is that the site has already been approved in the minds of Rutland County Council and we are stuck with that, after all Rutland County Council have a habit of ignoring what the local people think if they are going to get something out of it. 

The thing I question, other than the design, is does Oakham really need a Sainsbury's rather than another supermarket chain in the town. It might not something we have a say in or something the Rutland Country Council has a choice over, they are not the people selling the site, but my fear is that it will be like the new Sainsbury's in Stamford that seems always to be empty when I visit it. Although there seems to be a lot of support for Sainsbury's in the town I think most people see it as competition to Tesco's and think it will lower prices locally. The truth is that prices are set by supermarket chains regionally and not locally. It not that it is Sainsbury's they are after as such, but someone that will offer cheaper food prices. In that respect the town would do better having a different chain of supermarkets that compete with Tesco's nationally. Sainsbury's is hardly know as a cheap supermarket chain despite it's ugly buildings.

Personally I think this site will be approved by Rutland County Council and Oakham will have a Sainsbury's within a year. The former Rutland College site has to be redeveloped. As someone pointed out to me, it would be better to have a supermarket there than even more new homes. Given the local outcry the last time Sainsbury's was refused and Rutland County Council's love affair with developers, planning permission will be approved this time. The only question that remains are Rutland County Council strong enough to ask for something that fits in with the town or will we end up with some kind of cooperate designed brick and steel box.

Finally one good thing could come out of this, a gesture by Sainsbury's to the people of Oakham, the gifting of Barleythorpe Road field to the people. This site is currently owned by Tresham college who are selling the old Rutland College Site. If Barleythorpe Road field were to be sold to developers would be covered in houses within a year. However, if the site was brought by Sainsbury's as part of the deal and given to the people it would persevere this striking green space for future generations to enjoy. This is so important to Oakham which slowly becoming a red brick and grey jungle, a trend that  Rutland County Council is promoting and encouraging. 

Good News from O2

Now for the next good news story, lot's of people on the O2 mobile phone network suffered a blackout when some of the core infrastructure failed leaving users unable to register their phones on the network. It also affected users of Tesco Mobile and GiffGaff which also uses the same network equipment. In total a third of all the networks customers were cut off.

In the press it has been reported that O2 says customers who pay monthly will get back 10% of their July subscription, the equivalent of three days' charges, while Pay-as-you-go customers will get back 10% on their first top-up in September. In addition to this all O2 customers, even those who were not affected, will also be given a £10 voucher to spend in one of its O2 stores. Tesco Mobile and GiffGaff are also offering customers similar compensation schemes although it is not strictly either companies fault. 

Now all O2 need to do is get there 3G coverage network sorted out before they introduce the 4G and make a mess of that. After all nearly everyone has a 3G capable phone while very few have 4G phones. It raises the question of why should the masses suffer while just a few benefit in that investment that should be put into the core 3G network services, before expansion into the new 4G technology.

Tesco's Cat - Good News

Now time for some good news post for a change. It turns out that Tesco's Cat in Oakham is still with us and is it her home resting after an operation after being very poorly. 

It would seem that I was given the wrong information about her fate while I was at the supermarket talking to one of the staff. According to current reports the staff at Tesco's have helped with the vet bills and she is on the mend. 

I'm so glad she is all right. She really does make the experience of going shopping more human and enjoyable. If ever an animal deserved the freedom of the Oakham it has to be Tesco's cat, she like most of the people in the county is friendly and approachable. Better still she almost universally loved and never fails to make people smile.

Free Music

It has been ages since I posted a like to any free music. I just haven't been on the look out for it for some reason. I guess, stuff gets in the way, and there has been a lot of that recently.

Now I have a chance to rectify that with a lovely song by Barnaby Brightcall called "Made Up Of", which you can download by following this link. You can added it to iPod collection and if you like it then why not look out for her album. I think it is a rather lovely song that we can all connect to at sometime in or lives and she has a beautiful voice.

Emily Jets Off

It going to be quiet around the house without Emily for the coming week. She has jetted off to Spain for a week with her friend Millie and her father to a small village near the East coast and to temperatures in the upper twenties and lower thirties. I know she is looking forward to seeing the sun.

What I find amazing is just how quick children grow. It doesn't seem that long ago she was Lucy sized and now she is jetting off to Spain with her friends. She really growing up now and despite the odd teenage mood she is turning into such a lovely young lady and she certainly has her head screwed on the right way. Next year she tipped to win the science award for physics along with her friend Millie, and she is highly sort after by the sports teams.

I know when I went away at her age I had a grand time and I'm sure she will too. It is all like a big adventure and very exciting. Catherine is not missing out completely on going abroad this year, and she off to Italy with her Mum in the autumn. 

A Lost Weekend - Cancelled

Ironically the "A Lost Weekend" music festival planned for the coming weekend has become a real lost weekend for music lovers in Rutland. The event has been canceled by the organisers on safety grounds because of the wet weather and the threat of further wet weather making the site unsafe.

I can understand the organisers safely fears with a waterlogged and unproven site next to such a large expanse of water as Rutland Water. The ground in the area is saturated after the rain fall we have had and you just have to look at the reservoir and wonder if it's not the end of winter given the water levels. It seems to be full compared to what it was like three months ago when hose pipe bans were introduced. 

Despite having lost out on the festival itself, and all the fun that goes with it, those people with ticket look likely to lose money on the whole event too. There are no details yet on the festivals website about refunds for ticket holders. My opinion is people might receive something back but not all of their money unless the organisers insured against bad weather.

The reasons for being only able to offer part of the ticket price back is simple and logical. The organisers will incurred  expenses on setting up the festival in terms of administration, ticket printing, retainers for the bands and so forth. These are all part of the cost of the festival which they will have reasonably expected to get back from ticket sales. So simply giving back all the money will be impossible as some of the money has already been spent.

Of course there are alternatives like making the tickets valid for next years festival and offering part refunding to others. Hopefully the organisers will come up with something that means people with tickets are happy and we have something like this in Rutland next year. 

Although I think it is right people should get all their money back, and I would expect this to be case, the fact is that is the first year the festival has run and the organisers have no pot of money from pervious years to draw on for full refunds. I hope I'm wrong but I fear I might be right on this one. 

The organisers now face a problem. If they go bust then that is the end of the festival and best people can expect people is part of their tickets refunded. If they try and carry on then they have a massive public relations job on their hands and people will still probably get only part of their tickets refunded. It will be interesting to see how this pans out but unfortunately for the festival the easiest option is the former.

UPDATE 18th JULY - It has seems that the organisers all giving all ticket holders full refunds. Details can be found here. This is great news for the public. I hope this experience doesn't put of the organisers off and mean we won't have a festival next year. It is such a great idea and set in a beautiful part of Rutland.

Freddy Returns

Last year was a good session for Southend United the team came together and performed so much better than anyone would have thought of at the start of the session. We even managed a streak of great form that saw the team at the top of the table mid session. The thing we lacked was the capacity to capitalise on that streak and we missed out on gaining promotion.

Now the manager, Paul Sturrock, is building his team on last years success with promotion in mind, with hopefully a session in league one the following year.  Of course the signing everyone is talking about is the return of Welsh International Freddy Eastwood who scored the winning goal when Southend beat a full strength Manchester United at Root Hall in 2007. Over the years he has become a Southend legend and he just moved to the club for another two years.

I can't wait for the session to start this year, it going to be a hard one, as always, but an exciting one too. The football in the lower divisiona is hard and competitive, but I'm sure with the manager we have we will do well. Last year we had a good team and it already looking that at the start of the session we will have a great team.So come on you blues....

Tesco's Cat

For updated news please check out the link below

Tesco's Cat - Good News

I'm pleased to say that she is well and resting 

Anyone that has shopped in Tesco's supermarket in Oakham will have come across the Tesco's cat sleeping in the sun, maybe just walking around outside or being fussed and fed by some of the customers. Many people think the cat is homeless but the truth is that it has a home but prefers the company and the treats it gets around the supermarket. Everyone I knew loved the cat.

If you have been at the supermarket recently you can't have failed to notice her absence from her useal sleeping spots in the sunshine. Today I ask about the cat and was told the sad news that it had to be put down. It would appear it had a growth that that turned green and she was taken away never to be seen again. 

I know a lot of people will be saddened by this news. Many people in the area have made friends with the cat, stroked her and fed her over the years. The cat really did make shopping more human and brought a smile to lots of shoppers. I hope all that met the cat have happy memories of her, like I do myself.

The Call of the Stage

It is funny once you have tasted life on the stage there is really no going back. The call of the stage is with you and thoughts of it never really go away. I had an amazing time on the stage below many years ago and it's bigger brother next door when I was in "Spend Spend Spend", a musical about Vic Nicholson who won the football pools, at the West Yorkshire Playhouse.

There is just something about acting that is magical and special and once you have a passion for the stage it never really ever leaves you. The power of seven hundred and fifty pairs of eyes on you gives you a feeling that is hard to describe. You from a bond with the audience that is gives you energy like you have never had before and when you take your bow you give it all back and a warmth comes over you and you feel humble and exhausted as they thank you with their hands.

Acting is not something to do lightly and just for fun, it very serious and takes a lot of dedication and time. Even harder to master is the ability to be able to act and do it well, and here is the secret that took me three years to learn, there are no tricks you just do it. 

Sounds simple until you see someone wanting to act and thinking they are good and failing so badly. It is not about being good or your desire to want to do it, have those thoughts and you will fail. You can't influence what people think or feel, all you can do is be true to yourself and the character you play. Think you are good and they will see how bad you are. Lie and they will see the lie. On a stage you are unmasked and people see all of you. You can't hide anything, the trick is not to care.

Getting to the point were you can open your heart, your loves and fears to hundreds of people isn't easy and can be quiet painful. You have to peel off your own everyday protective layers, one by one and discover who you are. Stripping everything away until you are completely venerable and not scared to be you.  Once you have reached that point, and only then, can you create a new character by putting on new layers that make the person you are playing real, derived from the character you interpret from the script.

I have seen people think they can act because they say understand it is, then I have watched them on stage on their own, with maybe forty people watching and two hundred empty seats, and they fall apart and fail. I will say this again it is all about doing it and nothing else. It is all magic, a black art that you just something you have do and not worry about. It is kin to love in that you do it and don't have to think about what it is, and like love you just you can't stop doing it.

Like any thing that you love or are passionate about those feeling and desires never go away. My love of the acting and theatre is strong today as it has always been. Sometimes life changes and not in ways your might want that stop you doing what you dream of in life but that doesn't change how you feel deep down. Those things matter as much as they always have but you have to suppress them for the sake of others. One day I going to return to the stage because I know deep down it is where I belong.

O2 Network Fails

There I was with a working telephone and then I didn't have a network at all that my phone could connect to. Normally the village indoors is served by just one cell so I went outside to check if I could get any service at all from the other masks in the nearby town. I could see two O2 cells outside the house but none of them wanted anything to do with my phone at all. They did care they were meant to be delivering me a service. 

Then I realised the scale of the problem. There are 23 million people using the O2 network in the UK and despite O2 saying the number or people that are affect ran into thousands it seems that the number is much higher than that. Everyone I know on the network doesn't seem to have a connection to the network despite the fact that the cells themselves are clearly active and working.

It clearly looks like they have a data centre fault, maybe a server or a cluster of servers that hold the details that allow phones to connect to the network are down. Until it is fixed all of us that are suffering from the problem will continue to experience a lack of service. It all reminds me of the Blackberry problem that has resulted in the company losing customers. I just hope that O2 can sort it out quicker than they did.

UPDATE - Network Issues Resolved - 09:00 12th July 2012

It would seem that O2 now have the old 2G network up and running and they are reporting that the 3G network is slowly coming back online. This means that both texts and calls should now be working. It would seem that people might need to reset their phone and any users whose calls haven't returned after that should switching off their 3G until it comes back on line.

UPDATE - 23:00 12th July 2012

It turns out around 7 million people lost their connection to the O2 network probably due to some kind of major software fault that affect the entire network. Overall it took nearly 25 hours to restore the network fully to the customers affected. In reports in the press it has speculated that O2 are concentrating resources on the new G4 networks rather than the existing network and this might be part of the reason for the failure. My opinion is they haven't got the 3G network right so why the hell were they given an licence to run a 4G network.

Moyles Leave Breakfast Show

Like many I was at a bit of a loss for words initially when I heard that the iconic Chris Moyles Show was to end on BBC Radio 1 today. With audiences of seven to eight million people it has touched the lives of many over the years and woken them up with a smile, and it has been described as the programme that has saved BBC Radio 1.

It his own typical style he shocked his audience by making the announcement live on air and for a while twitter went crazy with tweets about the show. Many people were saying how much they have enjoyed the show, how it was part of their lives and how much they were going to miss it. Others commented on his replacement and how dull the morning are about to become.

The thing that got me was the reason for the change in the breakfast show at the station. It seemed clear, although Chris Moyles wasn't pushed, he was at least nudged a bit along the way, but the boss of the station is keeping quiet on the one. There is a drive at the station to attract a younger audience for the station in the age ranges 15 to 29. This is an audience area that the BBC Trust feel the station is missing out on, although the truth is they probably have little interest in radio and would rather listen to their ipods.

Personally I find this approach to programming is ageist and that something to be condemned, especially given the shows breakfast slot. Radio 1 claims to be the station of new music, this would suggest that the BBC Trust think that only people in certain age ranges appreciate new music, which clearly isn't the case, you can appreciate new music at any age. What they should be concentrating on over the network is the types of music played on the different stations and let the audience find their own home within the network. 

Personally I think the BBC are making a mistake in getting rid of Chris Moyles from the breakfast slot while the show has such a massive audience in radio terms. I just can't see a replacement show getting the same number of listeners in the short or medium term, if at all. This is just an out date ageist approach to programming and that had it day back in the later half of the last century.

Paediatric ECMO Unit Closure

With the planed closure of the Children's Heart Unit at Glenfield Hospital comes the moving of the Paediatric ECMO Unit from the hospital to Birmingham and with it stark warning from a leading expert about children dying.

ECMO, Extra Corporeal Membrane Oxygenation is a method delivering oxygen into the blood It allows the organs to rest while they heal naturally. It does this by mimicking the natural function of the heart and lungs. Glenfirld Hospital has largest unit in the country and 20 years of experiance in its use on children and adults.

Kenneth Palmer, International ECMO expert has warned 20 years of experience will be thrown away and that about 50 babies and children will die over five years if specialist life support treatment moves from Leicester to Birmingham

In a letter to Health Secretary Andrew Lansley he said: "Leicester has one of the highest survival rates in the world. They could never have the same survival rate in another unit if you move it like this. I don't think you should destroy something that has been built up for 20 years just overnight like this"

He said Leicester and Stockholm were world-leading ECMO with survival rates about 10% to 20% higher than the normal rate in other parts of the world.  He estimated 10 extra children will die each year if the survival rate drops. The letter to Andrew Lansley went on to say: "You will take over 20 years of experience from one of the world's absolute best ECMO Units and throw it away... and probably it will take at least five years to have some kind of quality and probably 20 years to come back to top quality if it's ever possible."

It is a stark warning and every reason why the Children's Heart Unit should stay open and Paediatric ECMO Unit should in the East Midlands. This statement by a leading international expert just highlights another of the many of the flaws in the report by Sir Ian Kennedy into the future of Children's heart unit's throughout the country. If you wish to support the Children's Heart Unit at Glenfield Hospital please sign this online e-petition.

Stapleford Park

One of those places to pop and have a look at if you are passing is Stapleford Park just outside Melton Mowbray and on the way back into Rutland. It is the location of the luxury Stapleford Park Hotel, a grade 1 listed building, which has both a golf corse, spa and a sporting estate.

Thankfully you don't have to be staying at the Hotel to have a look around, as the grounds contain a Church belonging to the Church Conservation Trust which looks after churches that are no longer in use but are of historical interested. The church in this case being the family Church of St Mary Magdelene.

The church was built by the fourth Earl of Harborough. and it entered via  a tall, gracious tower, and above the door there is a carving in the shape of a peacock’s tail, the family crest. Once inside the building feels cool and spacious and you notice the oak pews that face each other across the aisle, unlike the more conventional forward pews you find in many churches. The monuments in the church are amazing, especially that of the first Earl of Harborough in a Roman toga with his wife and young son, that was carved by the Flemish-born sculptor Rysbrack, opposite this a 17th century tomb chest to Lord Sherrard, showing his eight children at prayer. 

The whole place is worth a visit just to see the grounds and the church. If you want to stay in the hotel you will have to get saving as the rooms are expensive but then Hotel is stunning inside and I should imagine it would be an experience of a lifetime for many. 

University Fees

As first year University students face tuition fees of up to £9,000 per year University applications from UK students for courses starting in the autumn are down 10% in England on last year, according to the figures reported in the press from the admissions service.

Clearly the decision of the Conservative led government to treble tuition fees to £9,000 is hitting young peoples plans to go to University. All this from a government that being propped up by the Liberal Democrats who for years believed and campaigned that University education should be free.

I use to be a  Liberal Democrat and I believe in free University education, but I understand that is not possible given what the Government have done to higher education. We have increased the numbers of people going to University to the point that many popular degrees are worthless. They aren't worth the paper they are written on yet alone up to £27,000 in tuition fees plus interest. The government policy has created this situation.

The higher education needs looking at and what we want of it as does the whole system. Over the years because of the repeated governments push of the value of University education qualifications less than a degree have become perceived as valueless. The result is we have university graduates working on the checkouts in the CoOp in Oakham.

I feel for them they were expecting a good job because that is what the government told them to expect. The fact is the UK only needs so many University graduates and if you produce more than you need some of them will never achieve what they have been promised in terms of jobs and pay. We are at the point now the job market is flooded with graduates. The system has failed them.

There is something fundamentally wrong with the education system in this country and I can't put my finger on what. I know it is not he teachers and lectures that are at fault they just do what they have to do and that is teach and they do it well. It's not the qualifications the students sit for, they might have changed but if so from outside pressure. The system is heavily interference by government that is where I fear the problem lies.

Well Done Federer

Lets start with a massive well done to Roger Federer for winning his seventh Wimbledon Mens Singles title and proving that he still is the greatest player of modern times. He deserved his win today over Andy Murray and worked hard to achieve it in a super final. 

Your heart, however, has to go out to Andy Murray who gave it his best right from the start. You could see how much this meant to him, maybe too much in the end, but he was just outclassed as so many people are when the they face Roger Federer playing at his best.  All the same I think we should be proud of him and with years of tennis to come it will be his trophy one day in the future.