NORTHERN PLANNER

I like this post on the Howies blog about songs to makem you run faster, and the selection was good too. I can’t run anymore (thanks to worn out hip cartiledge) but I do swim, so I demand someone makes a decent personal music player for the pool. Or is there one already?

Her indoors has her birthday four days before me, so we had a big birthday bash at the weekend , leaving yesterday as a nice quiet day. I finally got to watch The Thick Of It, which was absolute genius.

I got lots of books, CD’s and stuff which was jolly nice.

Mrs Hovells is very good at choosing clothes.

Good wine is one of life’s greatest pleasures.

As is Mrs Hovells’s lasagne. Is there anything more heavenly than the smell of slowly frying garlic?

So the first experiment in truth.

.

First of all, it’s a broadsheet, something I’m no longer used to. It felt a bit unwieldy at first, I wouldn’t read it on a train, but it felt delightfully grown up to hold an old style serious paper again.

The Telegraph in brilliantly written. Apart from maybe The Guardian (though I’m biased there) I find it the best written paper in the UK. The sport section is probably the best there is, full of stuff that’s written with the same rigour and attention to detail as the front page stuff. This is not common.

I was mortified at the size of the international section. With only five pages covering not very much, I don’t expect Telegraph readers to know much about life beyond these shores if this there only source of information.

I found the front of paper well balanced and easy to get through. There was just enough detail, but not too much to get through. Overall, the tone seemed fairly well balanced, I felt I was reading facts as opposed to opinions, although I got annoyed at two things and interested in another:

1. The front page headline says, "Brown pledge to challenge Bush over war on terror", when actually he just said that he would speak his mind.

2. On page two, there’s an article about a cabinet minister who has taken a child out of state school and into the private sector. The text begins with ‘LABOUR faced fresh accusations’, not ‘THE GOVERNMENT’.

I was very surprised at the lack of opinion articles. Some would call this a good thing, since a newspaper is, well, about news. I on the other hand quite like this, if it’s not at the expense of space for facts. They have a neat trick of pointing you to comment and opinion online, but when the web can give you instantaneous news, I wonder if the future of papers is more argument in paper and more facts online.

That said, I enjoyed Janet Daley’s article, titled, ‘If the eco snobs had their way. none of us would go anywhere. The thrust of her argument is that just as more people can afford travel, eco issues will price it back out of their reach. She doesn’t think it’s fair that only the rich will be able to afford extensive travel in the future – but my answer is that it’s only know we’ll be paying the full price.

What really worries me is this, "It is certainly possible that the premises of the environmental campaigners are sound: that we are in mortal danger and this is the result of human activity". POSSIBLE!!!??? Isn’t the only argument how bad, not if? She does go on to mention that she’s not a scientist, so won’t put forward a scientific argument (which doesn’r really help her case?), but the  she uses Malthus’ 19th century predictions that only plague, war or natural disaster would save the world from mass starvation in the next fifty years.

Of course, technological innovations saw them through with new intensive farming methods, and she argues that innovation and technology can save us again (if there’s a problem at all) . But for her to argue against doing what we can now, instead of hoping for nuclear fusion or a hydrogen fuel cell seems like madness to me. We got lucky back then, who’s to say that we will this time? This breathtaking complacency astounds me. Of course, we’ve all been wrong before, but her argument seems similar to someone with a lump on his testicle not seeing the doctor, that way he won’t have to worry about having cancer and even if he’s got it, there will be a cure anytime soon, Won’t there?

I enjoyed disagreeing with her, so despite the thin comments, I’ll be coming back to the Telegraph for opinion to test my own bias. I’ll also flick through for some quick news too, it seems fairly well balanced.

One last thing, aesthetics. The typeface and layout make it feel stuffy, old and backwards. or maybe that’s the point.

Next northern planning summit is in Leeds January 18th.

It’s at Arts Cafe and we’ll have grown a bit. 7 While everyone else is having coffee, we may indulge in something a bit stronger. Simon Griffin from Love in Manchester will be joining us, which may mean an expedition over the pennines in the near future, it’s only fair. I’ll be looking forward to grilling him about Yorkshire Tea.

JamesB may be staying at mine. Don’t know what he’s expecting (although there is vague mention of full English), the first time we met ended up sleeping in his own garden. We haven’t put the tent away from summer yet, might not bother now just in case.

Scott’s got these mini city models in the office. I’ve gone on about architecture before, as has Famous Rob. It’s funny how no matter the high street’s may get homogised up close, the individual character shines through when you step back a bit. It’s just a bunch of shapes, yet you instantly recognise:

Paris

New York

London

Before Mr Agassi came along, my favourite tennis player was Lendl. Odd, when there was the delightfully mad John McEnroe or Becker’s Wagnerian serve to choose from, but there you are.

I admired about the way he always worked on his weaknesses. He had an endurance problem so he modified his diet to become the fittest player ever, McEnroe kept exploiting his weak backhand, so he developed on of the best topspin backhands of the era. Even his weak volleying improved to the point he was unlucky to not win Wimbeldon.

Sometimes it’s not the things that you’re great at that lead to success, it’s improving those weaknesses that hold you back.

The two Robs have got me thinking as usual. See the post below, The Kraken has awoken and they’re  getting all agitated about the media and politics. Quite rightly in my opinion.

BUT, who am I to comment as someone who only reads the Guardian every day. Am I objective? Doubt it. So in the interests of balance, I’m going to read a different newspaper every day next week and comment on what I find. Not only will I be able to test my limp wristed liberal tendencies, I may well learn something.

So:

Monday is The Telegraph

Tuesday is The Mail

Wednesday is The Mirror

Thursday is The Sun

Friday is The Times

I’ve left out The Independent because I read it sporadically when I fancy a liberal comic. The Star is not a newspaper and I read my Mum’s Express when I go stay. I’ll post as I go along.

Sometimes a few numbers can throw up all sorts of juicy questions and directions.

Here are some excerpts from the 2007 edition of the wonderful Schott’s Almanac:

Foreigners within populations as a percentage of total population, which maybe sheds some light on the emotional immigration arguments in the UK:

Luxembourg  38.6%, Australia 22.8%, Canada 18.2%, Germany 8.9%, Spain 3.9%, France 5.6%, UK 4.8%

Top global locations for Googling ‘porn’:

1. Birmingham UK  2. Manchester UK  3. Brisbane Australia  4. Melbourne Australia  5. Delhi India

Items lost in hotels:

1. Mobiles and chargers  2. clothes  3. toiletries  4. false teeth (!)  5. laptops 

Percentage of Uk dwellers who believe they are living comfortably:

1986   1994   2002  2003  2004

24      29       39      44     40

By analysing the entire text of individual works, amazon.com created a service that enables purchasers to compare readability and complexity of the books they’re browsing, here are some selected stats:

                           Zadie Smith On Beauty    Dan Brown DaVinci Code   Levitt  Freakonomics

Fog index*                       8.7                                   9.1                                  11.1

Complex words                  9%                                     12%                                14%

Helen’s started the ball rolling with her thoughts on Tuesday’s ‘This Life’. Beeker’s joined in the comments as has Paul. Opinion seems divided, but go and have your say. I thought it was too contrived and forced.

Rob has bitten off more than he can chew. Instead of revealing 5 things like the rest of that got tagged, he’s rashly promised to answer any ten questions you want, maybe the least thought out post in history.

The only catch is that he can choose which ten to answer. Since there is more than ten juicy ones already, Famous Rob Mortimer thinks we should leave it there so he has no choice at all (he’s not as nice as he comes across obviously).