I saw the BRITs...without needing to bother watching

I didn't watch this year's BRIT Awards, yet I feel as though I saw it.
I tend to find all awards ceremonies are back-slappy bores that take themselves far too seriously, especially the BBC's annual Sports Personality of the Year smug-fest.

But as I parked myself down for a night following my beloved Nottingham Forest from afar (Twitter refresh takes a bit of a hammering on such occasions) news of a 2-1 win was interspersed with the latest from the O2.
It's a strange modern phenomena that, through Twitter, we often become accidentally familiar with the minute-by-minute details of a host of things we wouldn't chose to follow.

Without flicking over for a single moment I could tell you that Taylor Swift's UK charm offensive continued to pay dividends with a performance that went down well, Sam Smith teetered on the brink of becoming the male Emeli Sandé but won yet another award and Take That seemed to underwhelm.
In fact, judging by my timeline, the allure of the second coming of the Take That lads has worn off - seemingly due to a combination of dubious tax arrangements and middle of the road material.
I even tweeted a lame 'Tax That' pun at this point. Yep, that's right, tweeting along to something I'm not watching or bothered about. Odd.
Still, at least the vitriol wasn't as universal as it was against Kanye. By general consensus most people would've preferred the whole of his performance to be muted, not just the rude-worded bits.

And then The Fall.
Within seconds, probably before most of the live audience had had chance to take in quite what had happened, I'd seen Madonna's moment.
It was an event made for social media - perfectly fitting into a Vine and ripe for countless parodies, hashtags and one liners.

I'd be tempted to feel sorry for Madge - the backwards tumble must've hurt - but you feel the whole incident probably did more to promote her album than any performance could've done.

The tabloids lapped it up with hastily rearranged pages. Sorry Sam Smith and Ed Sheeran, you boys are bumped off by a bump, upstaged by a stage malfunction and overtaken by material on the Material Girl.
The Sun, sharp as ever, won by plumping for 'The Fallen Madonna (with the big boob)' as its headline - again seen on Twitter later that night.

So there you go - Swift, Smith, Take That, Kayne and Madonna. All gleaned without even looking for it - all while my attention was primarily on events at the City Ground.
I'm sure some academic has a term for this somewhere - unintended consumption or passive audience engagement probably.
It's not the first time either. The Eastenders killer, Bake Off results, X Factor...there's a plethora of things I don't watch and have little or no interest in that I'm exposed to on Twitter.

Still, Forest won. And the goals were on Twitter, even if not quite as quickly as Madonna's mishap. And maybe anyone silly enough to follow me feels the same when I 'inflict' Question Time on them each week?

Different World Cup, same old story

The World Cup is upon us. On the eve of the tournament England are predicted to struggle and be on the plane home long before the silverware is dished out. There's still some debate on the best line up, the tactics that they ought to deploy, the leadership is under scrutiny and a high profile ex-captain and would-be star player is unavailable for selection after a high profile fall out.

No, we haven't time travelled. This isn't the build-up to last summer's football World Cup in Brazil, but the situation that faces the nation's cricket team (well, the nation plus the players we've borrowed from others) ahead of the tournament in Australia and New Zealand.

It's odd isn't it? Do other nations operate the same way to us? When we have a complicated but undoubtedly talented and experienced star, be it John Terry or Kevin Pietersen, we seem unable to manage them. Yes, it can't be easy but isn't it the job of the leadership of our sporting teams to manage big egos and star names? Can Arjen Robben, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Jacques Kallis or Shane Warne have been 'easy' to handle?

Still, just as John Terry was nowhere near Roy Hodgson's team in Brazil, 'KP' will be taking to the airwaves with the Test Match Special team instead of switch-hitting and strutting around the crease. Interestingly he won't be involved until the quarter finals, by which time he may not have pass comment on his former teammates...

In South America the tactics of Roy Hodgson and captaincy of Wayne Rooney were under intense scrutiny. Pundits were looking for a bolder, more attacking approach that made use of the talented young stars that had emerged into the ranks. Sound familiar? Down Under the Three Lions will be led by newly-installed captain Eoin Morgan who is talented but yet to live up to his potential. His England side contains the likes of Jos Buttler, James Taylor, Chris Woakes and Steven Finn - talented young players who are crying out to be 'let loose' in the shorter form of the game. They're the Raheem Sterling, Ross Barkley and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain of the cricket world. Morgan and the management need to find a way to make sure the nation's cricketing talent can be harnessed to get the kind of results their footballing counterparts failed to find last summer.

Those results will be difficult to find in the first two games. While our footballers faced Italy and Uruguay, the cricketers come up against both host nations straight away. Unlike the football, though, there will be chance to grow into the tournament - and Scotland, Bangladesh and Afghanistan should offer a more realistic prospect of victory. That may make it much easier to qualify for the knockout stages, but those first games are still important as the side looks to find its form and improve the way it plays the 50-over format.

To be fair to Hodgson, he adapted his style from the 2012 European  Championships, when he was thrown in at the deep end and threw together a defensive lineup. The cricket team's troubles have been in not keeping up the pace with the rest of the world. While other teams are littered with powerful hitters who continue to push the boundaries (quite literally) England still potter on with the same plan and tactics of 10 years ago. 45-1 off ten overs is no longer anywhere near enough - with teams plundering closer to double that on a regular basis. Likewise, we still seem to view 300 as a big total when others virtually see it as 'par', especially on fast, bouncy Australian wickets.

Whether it's death bowling, powerful six hitting, innovative stroke making, or 'finishing' with the bat we're behind our rivals - we badly need to score more runs and be much tighter with the ball at the end of an innings. It mirrors the football team's need to pass the ball better - especially compared to much better rivals on the continent.

And what of the contenders? South Africa are clearly cricket's Argentina. In AB De Villiers they have the nearest the game has to a Lionel Messi and, just like the South Americans, you feel that they may struggle to live up to the undoubted talent they have in their ranks to back up the star man.

They should be able to reach the semi finals but you feel one of the two hosts, both in decent form, should emerge as the winner, with the boys in the baggy green the more likely.

The Indians don't seem to enjoy playing in Australia, Sri Lanka are asking too much for their senior pros, West Indies are a mess again and Pakistan don't seem capable of consistent, quality performances.

England, meanwhile, will be left with a familiar debate to that of the football world. We'll have a debate about grass roots, about the direction and rules of the domestic game and we'll probably commission a review. It's all depressingly familiar.

And yet, despite England's difficulties and the long and flawed tournament format,  I'm still looking forward to it. Plus, on the bright side, we definitely won't crash out on penalties...

The strange attraction of Only Connect

There's plenty I can't explain about Only Connect, not least the answers, yet the main puzzle is why I like the show quite so much.

For those of you unfamiliar with the programme this is the quiz show for über brainboxes that began on BBC Four and migrated over to BBC Two. It's the show they put on straight after University Challenge just in case you didn't already feel inadequate enough as a human being.

It's infuriating,  impossible, ridiculous and yet one of the few shows I truly look forward to each week.

Firstly there's Victoria Coren-Mitchell. She's normally armed with a succession of lame jokes and lines that fall flat in a 'I can't look because I'm cringing so badly' way. She also gives off that smug quizmaster air of knowing the answers, which is easy when you've got it written on a card in front of you.

Still, perhaps she's so awkward because of the slightly oddball guests she tries to coax 'banter' from. The calibre of question attracts a host of smart Alecs who veer from affable geek to smug bugger on the personality Ph scale. Jonathan Wilson, a football writer who I greatly admire, has been on the show this series. He's made a living from obscure knowledge of the wide world of football and an academic approach to the history of football tactics.  He's super smart but his team lost. This week saw the elaborately named - and blue haired - Gail La Carbonara in a team which had captain with the most expressive eyes and loosest neck muscles ever. Still, they're all miles cleverer than me.

You know you're in for a tough quiz when, instead of being numbered 1-6, the questions to choose from are represented by Egyptian hieroglyphs.  And why do some of the competitors prononuce it 'hor-ned' viper and not just horned? There's undoubtedly a reason only understood by those clever enough to compete.

The quiz is split into four rounds with the first seeing contenders have to guess the connection between four clues. The second revolves around guessing the fourth in a series of linked clues, the third is a jumbled wall of 16 answers to be sorted into four groups and the last is the missing vowels round.

An example of how tough it can be came the other week when the connection between four clues was that they were all forms of Synecdoche . Yeah, that simple.  In fact this is a quiz so tough that you are regularly left scratching your head even when the answer has been read out. Synecdoche is, according to an online dictionary,  'a figure of speech in which a part is used for the whole or the whole for a part', an example from the show being that 'wheels' is used to refer a whole car despite, in fact, being a mere part. I would say 'you learn something every day' but quite when I'll apply this new found knowledge is, just like the question, beyond me.

The wall offers another source of frustration for my viewing experience. Not only is the thing littered with red herrings and devilishly difficult answers but it's also awkward to watch. By that I mean whoever edits the thing annoyingly devotes too much of the screen to the faces of the players, leaving us struggling to see the thing let alone pluck a rare answer from the memory banks.

The final round offers some respite in the sense that it's much easier to get an answer. Here batches of four themed clues appear shorn of their vowels for us to get.  It's still pretty tricky but you do have a fighting chance. Yet I've also wondered what the skills of this round have in common with the others. A team with someone sharp at missing vowels can charge past an opponent that has toughed out a fiendish connection or two and win. Is that fair? Maybe I worry about these things too much but it adds another layer of bemusement to my experience.

So why do I watch the show? It's a puzzle worthy of the Only Connect crew themselves. The link between a cringy host, impossible questions, bizarre format and frustrating editing? A cracking show that is infinitely more enjoyable than most game shows.

Maybe it's that rare thrill of 'knowing one' that carries you through?  Maybe it's the self justification for the obscure knowledge you possess (the first words of the post-2005 Doctors in Doctor Who, where and when Michael Portillo was MP, the years the monarchs called William came to the throne) that is behind the attraction?

Or maybe it's the sense that you're visiting some strange zoo which houses the super intelligent instead of members of the animal kingdom? This is their feeding time.

If you haven't already seen it I'd truly recommend Only Connect. You'll probably be, at best, baffled by the experience (if not you ought to be on it you clever sod). In spite of all the frustrations it brings I am still left fascinated and enthralled.  It draws you in and gets you hooked. Perhaps that's the cleverest part of all...

Promises, promises

We're about to be bombarded aren't we? If you listen carefully that low hum in the background is the sound of the stampede of election promises charging across the horizon as the political parties move towards May 7 and election day.

It's often, rightly, said that this is the most unpredictable election in recent memory. There is a very good chance that the SNP, UKIP, Greens, Plaid and DUP could all become important players to support a government after we've all cast our ballots.

One thing that is entirely predictable - aside from copious footage of Farage with a pint, Ed looking geeky and Cameron looking posh and awkward - is that we'll see the 'main' parties play out phony arguments based on promises they probably won't be able to keep.

The great irony of this election comes in the economy. George Osborne is proud of his economic record and wants us to believe he should be allowed to 'finish the job'. But in 2010 his party promised to 'eliminate the deficit' by now, something he has managed about half of. Funnily enough that is roughly what Alistair Darling was hoping to do as chancellor in 2010.

So here's the odd position. Osborne is now asking for a second term based on delivering Labour's 2010 aim, which he at the time opposed. But, of course, Labour will be telling you that Osborne has failed on the economy. They're asking you to vote out Osborne for doing what they'd have probably done if put back in in 2010.

Now I understand that the parties do have a different outlook on how to achieve their financial aims - the odd tax would have been different and the priorities may have meant different people felt the benefit in the pockets in different ways. But, when it comes to the deficit, you feel that the argument is more than a little silly given where we were in 2010. In fact, you do feel that things such as the deficit are a little too serious to be left in the hands of politicians sometimes...

And don't think the Lib Dems get off lightly from this. They're left in the odd position of defending a government that they were not the lead partner in. Their message is that they have 'softened' the hard-edged austerity of the Tories, while hoping we forget the now-infamous ditching of their promise on tuition fees. The tuition fee stick has often been used to beat the Lib Dems but they are also faced with the difficult record of having foregone some of their priorities for a badly handled referendum on the voting system. It never seemed that the Lib Dems even wanted 'AV' themselves and, given the fact this was rejected by voters, seems a concession hardly worth getting.

Of course outside the 'big three' the others have the benefit of never having had to have made and kept a promise. UKIP seem to have plucked a number from the air that leaving the EU would save and are using that to fund absolutely everything, for example. You do wonder, though, whether we might all be that much more cynical about grand promises if we really are entering an era of compromise and coalition.

There's no reason why compromise and coalition should be a bad thing necessarily - but it ought to be accompanied by more realism from the parties themselves. The manifesto should not be a fairy story that is torn up. It should be a rough checklist we can judge a party on by the end of an election cycle. As we've seen, if we do that for 2010 then there should be some red faces. It remains to be seen if the lessons of five years ago will be learnt at all. I've a feeling the answer is an emphatic 'no', especially as Labour and the Conservatives still battle on, hoping to return to the old two-party familiarity of the past.

Times Fables

So education secretary Nicky Morgan, in a desperate bid to prove she isn't a puppet operated by Michael Gove, has reached for the Gove box of daft ideas and plucked one out for us all to marvel at.

Like most Gove suggestions it's one that claims to be 'common sense' and unashamedly traditional in a bid to woo those who have gravitated towards UKIP.

In essence there is very little to fault about a lot of what Morgan has said in today's Sunday Times. Of course we should set high expectations for all pupils and of course we should aim to get them all to be able to master times tables as soon as possible. I agree that the basics are vital in setting children off on the right path.

So far, so good. But then the hype and the problem. Now Morgan wants to ramp up the pressure on teachers, pupils and heads in a 'war' on innumeracy (I'd vote for someone who launched a war on terrible clichés). If all pupils can't master the times tables,  read a novel, write a short story and pass questions on long division by 11 then the headteacher will be sacked.

Headteachers face a pretty tough job already and now they could face working conditions that mean they last less time in their post than the average football manager. I worry that the less bright children will be seen as a hindrance who could cost someone a job, a statistic rather than a person who deserves help to get the most out of their potential, however limited that may be. Do they not remember what school was like at that age?  There's always at least one kid in each class who is still mesmerised by the taste of their bogies or daydreaming about adventures with dinosaurs.  A lot rests on their shoulders to set aside the bogies and dinosaurs on one given test day and deliver the goods. I wouldn't want my job resting on that.

I also worry that schools face constant change at the top, leaving instability and rendering it difficult for parents to get to know their headteacher or for the head to get to know the community they are working in.

The tone today would have you believe the goals Morgan has laid out aren't taught or aren't aspirations at the moment. I don't think there can be any teacher in the country that doesn't aim to get their pupils to reach the standards on that list. Still, rather than help them further let's go to war with these teachers and threaten them with the sack, that's constructive.

One bizarre paragraph in today's Sunday Times reads: "At the moment, tests at key stage 2 contain questions on times tables and long division but there is no requirement for pupils to answer those parts of the tests correctly."

I know what they're getting at but the point of any test is that you may well get something wrong and there's very few tests at any level that 'require' 100% to pass.

I'm also worried about rote learning. Isn't this what we tried to move away from?  Memorise the times tables if you like but understanding how to solfe number problems is another thing. Read a novel, yes, but being inspired to explore books in your own time is surely better? All this comes after a call for children to learn key dates from British history back in the Gove era. What next? Being able to recall the Christmas number ones of the last 20 years? Reel off the Oscar winners at will, have the capital cities of South America at your fingertips and know the names of the rugby players who have competed on Strictly Cone Dancing? That's all pretty useful for a pub quiz but memory recall and intelligence aren't the same thing. There will be some children who consign their times tables swiftly and effectively to the memory banks but who can't apply their knowledge. Won't there be a temptation to leave these children alone since they won't get you the sack?

We also see that there's the latest obsession with our position on the world league tables. Of course it's nicer to be among the top performers but I can't think it's healthy to always compare yourself to others. Let's set our own goals and let Finland worry about their own children.

Still, if getting your basic sums wrong is a sackable offence then what about politicians who promise to eliminate the deficit in five years but only manage half?  Watch out George, your time's (tables) up...