All revved up with no place to watch

The BBC/Sky F1 deal announced yesterday (29th July) has left most fans of the sport feeling angry and disappointed. Some of the comments I've heard from people trying to stop me ranting about it have just made me more irate. Here's why:

At least if you have to buy Sky Sports to watch F1, you'll get to watch NASCAR too
This argument is based on the idea that if you like one motor sport, you'll watch them all. Would you assume a jump-racing fan to be equally enamoured with three-day eventing, on the basis that they both involve horses? Did cricket fans react to the move to Sky Sports by saying 'never mind, if I want to watch men hit balls with sticks there's still golf on the BBC'?
I am an F1 fan who happens to also enjoy touring cars on ITV4 and the occasional foray into Moto GP. I don't especially want to watch NASCAR. If I did, I would already have Sky Sports.

Football fans have had to rely on Sky Sports for years - stop complaining!
Sky Sports broadcast 115 Premier League matches each season. Include Football League, SPL, internationals and assorted cup games to more than double that figure.
If you're talking value for money, adding Sky Sports to my existing TV package works out at less than £1 per football match, but more than £10 for each of the 20 F1 races in a season. That's before considering the hundreds of millions of pounds that Sky have invested in football, which won't be matched for F1 (unless News Corp. up the ante on their rumoured bid to buy into F1 and let's face it, even with their recent scandals and shaky stock market performance, there are some serious spare bucks available now that the BSkyB deal is off).

It's just a necessary part of the BBC cuts
It's no secret that the BBC have been looking to offload F1, but there are economies available within the existing model (some good examples in a blogpost here by James McLaren). I could cope without the features on tyres, driver profiles and Eddie Jordan's insane conspiracy theories (in fact, Eddie Jordan altogether). Just pay for the race footage and get Brundle/Coulthard to commentate from a studio. If we want to know more, the Internet will provide.
The BBC are axing award-winning motor sport coverage in favour of continuing to allow Jeremy Clarkson to dick around with expensive cars and ludicrous machines on the increasingly indulgent Top Gear (a show that doesn't get anywhere near the audience share of F1, which regularly outstrips the likes of Eastenders on this measure). I'm not even going to start on some of the light entertainment dross that the BBC's produced in recent years (some examples: In With The Flynns, White Van Man, 2 Pints post Ralf Little ... in fact any show with Will Mellor).

F1 sponsors will be pleased by the advertising opportunities on Sky
Sky have already said that there won't be any advertisements during the race itself, but of course in many ways F1 is already one big advertisement, for the various sponsors and the car manufacturers themselves.
There will of course be advertising opportunities either side of the main event, but that would have been true on ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5 or any number of other of commercial channels that don't demand a premium subscription rate. I'd rather go back to the days of ITV advertising during the race itself (mostly clever Honda ads, as I recall).
I'm sure the sponsors would be delighted if all 6-7 million viewers from the BBC continue to watch on Sky, but that won't happen. The net effect will be that exposure to all of that in-race advertising from the sponsors is seriously diminished and that's not going to please them at all.

You'll be able to watch it in pubs and sports bars if it's on Sky
Races in the Far East and Australia can start as early as 5am - not a time that most pubs will be open, or fans inclined to watch in any situation other than pyjama-clad on the sofa.
European races are at weekend lunchtimes, the same time as Premier League football, so it's unlikely many bars would prioritise F1. (I did recently persuade a Cardiff pub to put the Monaco race on their big screen when I had a power-cut, but that was on a rare football-free day and they only had four customers).
Not everyone lives in a big city with plenty of possible venues. My dad, who has watched F1 since the 1960s, lives in rural Somerset where Sky do not provide a signal, leaving him stuck with Freeview and thus no means by which to watch half the races from 2012 onwards.

F1 is a niche sport for petrolheads and a few hangers-on who've jumped on the Hamilton/Button bandwagon
Simply not true. The F1 fans I know are diverse and loyal to the sport. For my own part, I started watching in the 1980s while still at primary school. My mother spent many a Sunday fruitlessly trying to get my father and I to sit up at the table for lunch. After around 25 years of following F1, I rarely miss a race. I don't own a car out of choice, because I am to road-driving what Pedro Diniz was to F1, but that doesn't dampen my enthusiasm for the sport.

Last word goes to Bernie Ecclestone, quoted in this Telegraph article recently: "It isn't possible that F1 could go on to pay-TV, we wouldn't want to do that". Oh Bernie. What did Rupert promise to make you change your mind?

Reviews: The Big Sheep and Cefn Mably Farm Park

The Big Sheep

Some big sheep at The Big Sheep

Located a few minutes from Bideford in North Devon, The Big Sheep is billed as "world famous fun" and "the best day of your holiday ... baa none!". We visited in late June, with a two-year-old in tow who is luckily a couple of inches short of 3 feet tall, as it's only £4.00 to get in for children "under 3 feet tall (& 12 months or older)". Anyone over this height can expect to pay £10.95 each (with a not-very-generous reduction to £10.45 for groups of 4 or more and 'less abled' visitors). We'd got our hands on some vouchers, so there was the added bonus of free toy sheep for the children (the two-year-old named his "Baa-Baa").
The animals were predominantly of the ovine variety, with activities centred on them throughout the day, including lamb feeding, sheep herding and sheep racing, which included competitors named Red Ram and Alderknitty. Visitors receive a timetable on arrival and the park is quite compact, so it's easy to get around to seeing everything. Many activities take place in outdoor venues allowing you to watch casually rather than committing to seeing the whole show, which is great for those with young children.
In addition to sheep, there was a duck herding display where children were invited to 'get involved', though this merely involved them standing behind some fences on the course, rather than interacting with the animals themselves. The first obstacle was approached approximately seven times before the ducks went where they were meant to - we couldn't decide if this was a not-very-funny part of the show, or just the shepherd's ineptitude. When he started threatening to get an adult from the audience up to sing 'Old MacDonald had a farm', we decided to leave, as it became quite uncomfortable to watch.

A paddling of ducks in the duck-herding show at The Big Sheep

Other animals included the most enormous rabbit I have ever seen, some very smelly ferrets and a bunch of goats who lived in a tree-top 'Goatel'. Horses also featured, with horse-whispering and pony rides on offer, plus tiny ponies Wallace & Grommit.
Our two-year-old was particularly interested in playing on the tractor ride, bouncing on the jumping pillows and whizzing down the slide in the soft play area, which was adjacent to the Ewetopia cafe. The food on offer was depressingly average - I had a fairly non-descript burger served in a takeaway carton with anaemic-looking chips.
The Big Sheep has a small gift shop, The Sheepy Shop, with the usual range you'd expect - the two-year-old selected some chocolate Lamb's Whoopsies as a gift for his grandmother, then demanded to eat most of them himself.
Plenty of other activities were on offer, including a brewery shop, the Twister ride and the incongruous Battlefield Live combat game, which had nothing at all to do with sheep or farming.
The Big Sheep is certainly more than the average farm park, but I'm not sure that the attractions really warranted the rather excessive price tag, particularly for adults.

Cefn Mably Farm Park

A greedy goat at Cefn Mably Farm Park

Cefn Mably Farm Park promises "all weather family fun" and is 15 minutes by car from Cardiff city centre. The entrance price is a reasonable £4.50 for adults and £4.00 for children over a year old. You can also buy bags of animal food for 50p each at the front desk. We bought three bags between two adults and a two-year-old (not the same one, I just spend a lot of my time with other people's toddlers these days).
It was immediately clear on entry that the park is currently undergoing extensive improvement work. The soft play area has already been improved, with the under-fives area in particular greatly expanded. The builders didn't get in the way on our visit (the two-year-old was delighted to see 'Bob' and his friends at work, so in some ways it was an added attraction).
The petting area is the first port of call on entry, with rabbits and guinea pigs galore that can be handled by the children. Following this, we had our first encounter with assorted sheep and goats, who weren't particularly bothered by the food we offered them, as a visiting toddler group had just been past and overfed them quite considerably. There's then an aviary with a wide assortment of birds, including a peacock who was displaying his impressive plumage as we passed by. Next, the cat enclosure. Yes, really. Cefn Mably is home to a number of rescued cats, who live very comfortably in an enclosure that's done up to look like someone's front room. Opposite this were the rare breed pigs and a small outdoor play area, with tractors for children to ride on, which they can then conveniently ride around the rest of the park and ditch wherever they like.
There are plenty of animals to see as you walk round the park - sheep, goats, horses, donkeys, ducks, geese and assorted poultry, including a turkey who unfortunately looks like someone's already started plucking him in preparation for Christmas dinner. As our walk progressed, the animals we encountered became increasingly hungry. One donkey bit another in an attempt to get at our food (resulting in a loud 'hee-haw!' that scared the two-year-old) and several horses were kicking the crap out of their gates to get our attention. I'm not sure quite what was in those feed pellets, but even the geese came honking up to the fence when they heard the rustling bags. This allowed for a charming level of interactivity with the animals, who will all eat out of your hands (though I drew the line at proffering my palm to the geese and there's a strict 'no hand-feeding' policy with the pigs).
A tractor and combine harvester were on hand for children to sit on (though our two-year-old was more interested in 'mending' them). There were also pony rides available on a little pony called Silver (£2 for just under three minutes), though most of the children apparently call him 'Pumpkin' because that's the name of the horse in Postman Pat.

Tractor at Cefn Mably Farm Park

We ate in the restaurant, which served a good range of hot and cold food, served on proper crockery. I was slightly hungover, so went for the less healthy option of sausage, egg, beans and chips, but for a meal of this type, it was unusually tasty with good quality sausages. There's no gift shop at Cefn Mably, but plans are afoot to open a Farm Shop with locally-sourced produce and a butchery, which I was quite excited about (no harm in the kids seeing what's going to happen to those cute baby piggies and lambs).
For the price, Cefn Mably is excellent value and particularly good for those with toddlers.

The Big Sheep: http://www.thebigsheep.co.uk/ (on Twitter: @bigsheepdayout)
Cefn Mably Farm Park: http://www.cefnmablyfarmpark.com/

Press Gang

November 1998. After a traumatic journey to London in a people carrier, via a few illegal u-turns on Oxford Street, six aspiring journalists from Cardiff University arrive at the NUS student media conference. The weekend, incorporating the student media awards, will include talks and seminars from people who work in the media, designed to inspire and assist us on our route to success in the industry.
Among my seminar selections are travel writing (even though I hate flying) and a session with the editor of Sky Magazine, because I want to hear what he has to say about his mysterious new project ...

Earlier that year we'd become aware of what was known as 'Project J', after two of our colleagues at the student paper had interviewed this editor about his career so far. Still in his twenties, he'd already edited Smash Hits at the age of 23, before moving on to Sky Magazine. Now he was promising 20 top tips for writing a great article and who better to learn from than the man who had edited magazines I loved?

Project J was nearing completion by now and he told us that 32 staff had been recruited, emphasising that 4 of them were fresh out of university, including one of our former colleagues from Gair Rhydd, the Cardiff University student newspaper. It made the idea of walking straight out of university into a job at a national magazine seem easy.

The highlight of the weekend was the awards ceremony, where we didn't win but did drink a lot of wine. I ended up staggering around East London with Matt, crying because we couldn't find a taxi, while another from our party got ridiculously pissed trying to keep drinking pace with Chris Moyles, culminating in an excursion onto the tracks of Docklands Light Railway ...



Hanging drunkenly off the podium on the stage at the 1998 NUS media awards, determined that our paper and radio station would get the acclaim they probably didn't deserve. I'm disgracefully shitfaced. Matt & Jon probably were too.

'Project J' revealed itself in February 1999 as Heat magazine. You might have heard of it? 'Original' Heat, however, was nothing like its current incarnation as a celebrity gossip rag shifting upwards of 500,000 copies per issue. It was a much more serious take on the world of entertainment, in many ways a slimmed-down weekly version of Sky, but without the best bits (Karen Krizanovich's advice column, for example). I bought Heat in 1999, partly out of loyalty to a former colleague and partly because I genuinely liked it. By January 2000, I was busy working in my 'stop gap' job at an insurance company when the call came. Did I want to write something for Heat? Bloody right I did. How was I to know that this translated as "do a vox-pop outside a Barry Manilow concert" and that, by now, the man who had spoken to us in London - Mark Frith, of course - was hard at work revamping a failing magazine.


I don't claim to have any journalistic integrity. Everyone loved Bazza. It was impossible to find a balanced range of opinion, so 'Sarah Walker' was invented in a desperate bid to include an alternative point of view (pic is my friend Gwyn)

The story of Heat is well-documented in Frith's book, The Celeb Diaries. In his entry dated 8th December 1999, he writes: "It doesn't help that I'm listed in the magazine as Editor but I'm not actually in charge. For the last year I've always had an Editorial Director above me and I've played deputy". This surprised me. I'd been led to believe in late 1998, by Frith himself, that Heat was his brainchild. Had he tried to impress a bunch of student hacks by overplaying his role? Or did he later decide to distance himself from the original, disastrous version of the magazine? Maybe I'm just remembering it wrong - I drank enough wine that weekend to pickle a horse.

What did I learn from Heat? That it's more desirable to be popular with everyone than well-liked by a minority? That to win that popularity, you need to dumb down? No. Journalism is a business and a business needs to sell its product to succeed. If that's the lesson I take from this - bearing in mind I still work in the insurance industry - then it's probably not a bad thing at all.

Mee and Me

Writing on the internet, sharing your words with anyone who cares to read them, wasn't an option during my childhood. Reading meant books or magazines (from Twinkle through Bunty, to Smash Hits and beyond).

I was a keen reader, particularly of old-fashioned stories - I dreamt of going to school at Enid Blyton's Malory Towers * or sailing with the Walker children from Swallows & Amazons ** (though even at age seven, I knew 'Titty' was not an appropriate name for a little girl). Looking back, my choice of books was very much influenced by my family, perhaps none more so than my paternal grandmother, who was custodian of my favourite book of all: Arthur Mee's Children's Encyclopedia.

The encyclopedia had been bought when my father was young and comprised ten thick brown volumes of over 7000 pages. My grandparents had taken good care of it and were pleased to share its secrets with me and my younger sister. Many of the stories in its pages had been sanitised, presumably to protect our innocence. The Oedipus story was featured in some detail, but the bit where he fucks his mum went unmentioned. That kind of dirtiness, though, would not have traumatised me as much as Gelert, the Faithful Hound, which my Welsh grandmother read to us on many occasions. The tale of Gelert made me feel unbearably sad, but despite that, it was my favourite story for a time and one that I've never forgotten.

Arthur Mee's book wasn't all about stories. It had science, history, religion, geography, literature and whole host of other content, presented as educational, but with heavily Christian and imperialist undertones. This was a world where Rhodesia, Tanganyika and Siam appeared on maps and it was acceptable to say that "the Albanian people are mostly rugged, illiterate peasants". There were 'nice' children's stories from the Bible and other, very weird, stories such as the one about a little boy who carves a lion out of some butter and becomes famous. In Mee's world, it was scientifically correct to use the title 'Queer and Lowly Creatures' for an article about sponges. If you wanted to learn about fjords, you only had two short paragraphs available to read, which were immediately followed by an eighteen page article on 'Gothic Architecture in England' that included numerous photographs of abbeys and cathedrals. It may have been the 1980s, but thanks to my grandparents I was acquiring the knowledge of a 1960s middle-class child.

Despite the encyclopedia's best efforts, I eventually worked out how modern life should be and got on with business of growing up. Its dusty pages lost their appeal as I discovered new joys - restyling my Sindy dolls as mutilated punks signalled the transition from childhood to grunge-loving teenager - but the books stayed on their shelves until my grandmother died a few years ago. Responsible for distributing her belongings, my father asked if there was anything in particular I'd like to have, maybe a piece of jewellery? There was of course only one possible answer, which is how I've been able to quote the content of those books today - over 7000 pages of history are now on the bookshelf in my lounge.

Reading Arthur Mee's Children's Encyclopedia with my grandmother, I learned how words and knowledge can be a wonderful shared experience. Perhaps that's why I'm now sharing some of my own.

Arthur Mee's Children's Encyclopedia was last printed in the 1960s, but can be bought on Amazon from independent sellers (but not from me - my copy's going nowhere)

* I ended up going, as a day-girl, to a school that had boarding houses. It was nothing like Malory Towers.
** I went on a boating holiday with friends in 2002. It was nothing like Swallows & Amazons.