London this and London that - it isn't the centre of the Universe you know

It frustrates me and it frustrates me greatly.

I have my personal gmail.com e-mail account and also my official Ceredigion Council .gov account. When I go through my official e-mails in the latter, I usually find myself faced with countless e-mails inviting me to conferences in London.

It drives me absolutely spare. They're all well intentioned yes, but getting an e-mail inviting me to the Barbican as an example, for a policy conference at an extortionate rate really does leave me wanting to pull my hair out.

Hello?
Check where you're sending the e-mail too - ceredigion.gov.uk. Yes, that's C-E-R-E-D-I-G-I-O-N. Look it up on a map. It's in mid and west Wales you know - not exactly a quick car ride down the M1 to our fair capital city.

Now don't get me wrong, I love London. I try and visit at least once or twice a year and will usually mix a necessary business visit with the opportunity to catch up with friends. I love the Underground in particular I must admit and as a historian, there's plenty for me to feast upon when I'm there (to my amazement, I still have yet to visit the Tower of London).

But let's get a reality check here. Councillors like myself here in the far west or my colleagues I'm sure down in Cornwall or up in northern England aren't just going to suddenly drop everything because we've received yet another invitation to an event...IN LONDON.

No, we're going to get on with the work that we've got here at home thank you very much.

Experimentation Maybe?
Why don't these organisers try something radical - and I mean really radical.

Why don't they consider holding their events, just once in a blue moon even, OUTSIDE OF LONDON? Is it such a ridiculous, revolutionary thought? How about Cardiff? Or Bristol? Or Shrewbury? Or for my south western friends, how about Exeter or the like? What about Sheffield or Leeds or Derby for those with a more northern geographic base?

Because for as long as I receive e-mails from the LGA and the like asking me to yet another event in London, the response will be the same as for those requests that have gone before - the 'delete' button.

End of rant.

Ceredigion's Non-Drivers Fight Back

I was slightly taken aback when I read this week's Cambrian News (a few days later than normal I must admit) and found myself being name checked in the letters page.

As the final paragraph of the letter written by E.A.Jones from Ciliau Aeron stated:

"I challenge all councillors and other decision-makers to join me in my journey on a bus to see what we non-drivers have to endure when wanting to tour around this county. They'd soon change their tune if they had to put up with what we have to put up with, apart from Cllr Mark Cole from Cardigan, whom I've had the pleasure of meeting many times on our buses and who makes full use of our public transport system".

It was a surprise to see a name-check like that in the paper and I'm not entirely sure who in this case E.A.Jones is although I'm sure I'd instantly recognise the face and anyway, it was pleasing all the same to see such kind words in the paper as was the case here.

Anyone who knows me will tell you that I am well known - indeed, famed almost - for not being a car driver. Yes, I'm 27 and I should be driving by now I know and I always say that I will get around to it sometime soon. But the pressure of work on my time commitments has meant that I've never had the time needed to put in for regular lessons. What I will one day resort to I'm sure is an intensive burst of lessons over a short space of time and get it all done in one go.

Public Transport is King
But until that happens, I will continue to do what I have done since I began my time in Aberystwyth University 11 years ago - use the bus.

I'm often asked 'how do you do it? Up and down to Council meetings in Aberaeron or when I worked in Aberystwyth up and back from there on a regular, daily 75 mile round-trip basis'? Well, like anything, it just became a normal part of my day-to-day routine. I also enjoy it. My travelling to and from work more often that not would become one of the few oasis's of calm that I would enjoy in the day. I'd make use of it by catching up on the daily or weekly newspapers or would even indulge myself in a light snooze if I'd been lacking in the required 40 winks the night before. From time to time I'd chat to fellow bus users and as the years went by and I became a 'regular' of sorts, these chats and discussions would invariably increase - particularly with my fellow regular bus users.

During my Mayoral year in Cardigan last year, I also got myself a reputation for fighting for local transport users when I wrote a stinging letter to Arriva Buses Wales after they botched up timetable changes by not telling the paying users in advance. The result being that users of all ages, but particularly the elderly, were waiting in the rain and wind in Aberaeron for a bust that had already left for Aberystwyth. As a result, the Head of Operations for Arriva Buses Wales came down from his HQ in Llandudno Junction in north Wales to meet with me in Cardigan and he apologised for their mistakes and the break down in communication.

Welsh Assembly Let-Down
Whilst public sector budgets are being squeezed, support from the Welsh Assembly for our rural areas that particularly require public transport services has been woeful. The Welsh Assembly presently distributes the Local Transport Service Grant unfairly as the formula on which it is based is on population and therefore disadvantages the rural area of Mid Wales.

It is an issue on which we are fighting and in the meantime, I will continue to proudly use our local bus services to show that as the letter above stated, there are some of us who understand these issues at first hand.

My Top 3 All-time Snooker matches - #2 Higgins Vs White in 1982

In the run-up to this year's 2011 Snooker World Championships, I've been looking back at the history of a sport of which I am a big fan and have chosen my personal top 3 snooker matches of all-time.

I blogged here a few weeks ago of my 3rd choice, so here now is the match which for me comes in at No.2.


The Hurricane Vs the Whirlwind

It was 1982 and it was the World Snooker Championship Semi-Finals. Competing was the hot-headed, tormented magician of the baize that was Alex 'Hurricane' Higgins. His opponent was the up-and-coming natural talent that was Jimmy 'Whirlwind' White.

This was White's first foray into the penultimate stage of snooker's greatest event and his opponent, in Higgins, was the 1972 World Champion who was searching to cement his place in the history books with another title and his first at the Crucible arena and live on TV, a decade later.

The quality of snooker played by both White and Higgins in this match as can be seen below was electrifying - both men at the top of their games. After the first session they were tied at 4-4. In the second, Jimmy White raced into an 8-4 lead but Higgins clawed it back to end the session at just 8-7 down. At the end of the third session, they were back level at 11-11 - two titans, one the young pretender and the second an experienced older hand at the game, going toe-to-toe in a clash of the ages.

The final session saw a gripping encounter reach a mesmorising climax. Jimmy White moved ahead into a 15-13 lead. In a best of 31 frames encounter, it meant he was just one frame away from reaching his first ever Crucible final at the tender age of just 20. But Higgins, a doubty competitor, fought back with a 72 break - his highest of the match to date, to reduce the deficit to 15-14.

The Break of the Century?
But Jimmy White raced into a 59 point lead in frame 30 but then, uncharacteristically for a player famed for his rest play, missed a pot with the rest to leave Higgins a fig-leaf of hope. As John Virgo said below: "Cue, genius".

What happened next has gone down in the pantheon of snooker history as one of the greatest breaks of all-time. With a number of the final reds all hopelessly placed on the cushion, Higgins had an uphill struggle to claw his way back into the frame. He made it harder for himself by falling out of position on many of his shots but that didn't stop him pulling off great shot, after great shot, after great shot. He cleared the colours for an incredible break of 69 to level the match at 15-15.

In the decider, his inner strength and determination carried the Hurricane through for an improbable but wonderful 16-15 victory the Whirlwind.

Here are those highlights...



Higgins went on to fulfill his dream of winning his second World Championship but his first at the Crucible, when he defeated 6 times champion Ray Reardon in the final 18-15 (the only final that Reardon lost) - the emotional scenes afterwards have since gone down in snooker folklore.

An iconic moment in snooker history -
Higgins wins his first Crucible final in 1982.

What if?

It was a remarkable match not only because of that one frame but because of the quality of play from both men throughout the earlier sessions.

What also makes it an incredible match for me and thus makes it a deserved No.2 in my top 3 countdown is the permutations of what resulted from it. Higgins with his victory, went on to secure that elusive Crucible crown. For White however, it would become the first of many heart-breaking visits to that famous Sheffield arena. It would be the first of 10 semi-final appearances for the Whirlwind - 6 of which he won to reach the final. Incredulously however, he lost each and every one. In 1984 he lost to Steve Davis 18-16 and failed to reach the final again until 1990 which was the first of 5 consecutive losing appearances. In 1991 he lost to John Parrott 18-11 but his other four final defeats were all at the hands of Stpehen Hendry. In 1990, he lost 18-12, in 1992 he lost 18-14, in 1993 he was humiliated in 3 sessions 18-5 and in 1994 he suffered the greatest heart break of all by losing another final frame encounter 18-17 having missed a simple black on his way to what should've been at last, his first world title.

How would history have panned out however, had Jimmy White not missed that red with the rest in the 30th frame of that 1982 semi-final? He would surely have gone on to win the frame and match at that visit and in doing so, secure a final place against Ray Reardon. There's no guaranteeing that he would have won that match against the Welsh legend, but it may well have happened for he had the raw ingrediants to make it so. Had he have done so, the pressure of falling at the last hurdle which was to afflict his career would've been vanquished instantly. He may have gone on with the confidence of being the youngest ever World Champion to cement his place in the game by winning many more.

Higgins on the other hand, would've gone home to Northern Ireland having seen another opportunity of breaking his Crucible duck gone begging. He may not have had another chance (indeed he never made another final) and his losing appearance in the 1980 final to Cliff Thorburn would've been his only attempt at winning a Crucible final. He would not have gained that iconic status that he achieved from winning that title 10 years after his previous victory and those pictures of his tears with his child as he held the trophy would've been erased from our memories.

It is in such small moments such as that missed red with the rest that futures can be transformed one way or another. For that reason and for the quality of the match itself and for the resiliant way that Higgins orchestrated that unlikely break of 69, this match well merits its place as my No.2 all-time greatest match of snooker.

Comedy Gold - Classic Noel's House Party 'Gotchas'

My humour is very much centred around that of the 1980s and 1990s. Not surprising really as it was this era that coincided with my childhood - they were very much my formative years.

The humour of the day rubbed off on me and such programmes as Beadles About, which was then then modern day equivalent of Candid Camera, held me in an awe-ful state of suspense.

In the 1990s, this could be witnessed every Saturday night on Noel's House Party. I'm not ashamed to say that I was a fan and why not? For a decade, it was one of the most popular Saturday evening entertainment programmes on the box. It had many memorable features including the Gunge Tank, 'Wait 'Till I Get You Home', NTV and Grab a Grand.

Then there was the Gotcha. Whilst Beadles About caught out unsuspecting normal people living their day-to-day lives, Noel Edmonds' take on it saw us see how well known celebrities reacted to what were apparently real though ludicrous scenarios whilst being filmed by hidden cameras as a part of the practical joke.

Along the way, there were some absolute classics...

I can always remember the Will Carling Gotcha. A giant of English and World rugby during the 1990s, he was nevertheless brought to frustrated distraction by a man in a big pink costume - Mr Blobby!



The Richard Whitely Gotcha on Countdown is just a visual joy to watch.



Comedian and Eastenders favourite Mike Reid also found himself in a head-scratching scenario which again is a joy to watch. "Chicken"...



Speaking of Frank Butcher, his lovely wife Peggy's alter-ego Barbara Windsor also suffered the Gotcha treatment on a bus tour of Basingstoke!



But it wasn't just individuals who were targetted, but entire groups of people. Then Premiership club QPR were caught out in a Clothes Show hoax! Where are Les Ferdinand and Trevor Sinclair now...



But what of the great DLT? Dave Lee Travis's Pub Team Challenge on Radio 1 challenged himself more than anyone!



There was Lionel Blair as well! On stage with Les Dennis and Vicky Michelle, what should've been a play, turned into a right farce!



Even multi-award winners weren't immune to the hoax. The Bee Gees were also caught out - but did so in a surprisingly reasonable manner!



Far-flung travellor Judith Chalmers also fell for the prank!



The final Gotcha went to Dale Winton and again, a wonderful naiivety on the celebrity's part made the ludicrous plot seem believable.

The line - "I don't believe it, the car's gone - that's a £45,000 car"!



But not every celebrity succumbed to the trick. The first ever gotcha failure was with eagle eyed Annabel Croft who spotted the camera!



But then, maybe she shouldn't have rumbled Noel because this is what happened to her...she got the gunge treatment!

My Internet Stat Porn Monthly Report (7) March

This is my seventh monthly round of blog figures for anyone who is remotely interested in who reads my little blog. These stats for the month of March come courtesy of google analytics.

At last, my blog has finally calmed down after a frenetic first 6 months of blogging. After a month-on-month continued growth, March saw the first overall fall back on the month before. It was nevertheless only a mild fall back and it was still an active month on the blog. Having blogged a record 42 times in January and 40 times in February, I was down to just over one a day in March with 33 posts.

So, here come the stats...

But despite a larger drop in blog posts, the viewing figures have remained only slightly lower than my February best. In March, I had a total of 3,764 absolute unique visitors to my blog - down marginally on the 3,926 in February but up from my previous records of 2,370 in January, 1,702 in December, 1,024 in November, 701 in October and 597 in September. The 3,764 visitors made 4,237 visits to my blog (compared to the 4,308 in February, 2,668 in January, 2,180 in December,1,396 in November and 1,107 in October) and viewed 6,121 pages (compared to 6,447 in February, 4,240 in January, 3,435 in December, 1,991 in November and 1,711 pages in October).

The top 10 stories by direct page views that you've read this month were:

1. 'The King's Speech' - The Book Vs The Film (SPOILER WARNING!)
2. Alan Partridge's Mid Morning Matters on North Norfolk Digital Radio! (episode 11)
3. It is with great regret that I must resign
4. Has Mark Webber Blown It?
5. Wales Can Do Better - A Welsh Liberal Democrat Conference Review
6. A Musical Tribute to John Barry OBE (1933-2011)
7. Labour's Leighton Andrews' Extraordinary Live TV Coco Pops Outburst
8. The Aberfan Perspective
9. Comic Relief (1988-2011) - My Best Musical Bits
10. The Pressure of Politics

A typical mix of politics, sport, entertainment, music and the movies then.

My 'The King's Speech' - The Book Vs The Film (SPOILER WARNING!) blog post has topped the monthly poll for a 3rd consecutive month but its readership has slowed in recent weeks so I doubt it'll make it 4 months in a row at the top. My Has Mark Webber Blown It? post is still going having made the top 5 of my most read blog posts for a 5th consecutive month despite having never made the top grade. My 'My Sports Personality of the Year - Phil 'The Power' Taylor' post however has fallen outside of the top 10 down at No.11 for the first time since it entered in December. These three are by a country mile my most read blog posts to date. These 'slow-burning' blog posts have really helped my blog stats to keep ticking over nicely. Meanwhile, Labour's Leighton Andrews' Extraordinary Live TV Coco Pops Outburst remains in the top 10 having been No.3 last month. Oddly, my The Aberfan Perspective blog post made a re-entry at No.8 having been my 5th most read blog post back in October!

I was pleasantly surprised to find a blog post of mine taking a Liberal Democrat Voice 'Top of the Blogs: Golden Dozen' accoldade for the third time. This is where the top blog posts read via the libdemblogs aggregator are accumulated in one place each week. This time, the post that made it was my It is with great regret that I must resign post and it made the No.1 spot that week! It was admittedly written with that specific title in mind to pull in the hits - and it clearly worked!

Of all of the blog visitors, 13.76% were through direct traffic (down from 15.71% in February), 51.05% came from referring sites (down from 53.51%) and 35.19% via search engines (up from 30.78%).

My top 10 referring/search engine sites for the last month were (with change from January):

1. Google (No Change)
2. Facebook (No Change)
3. Blogger.com (+1)
4. rialtocr.blogspot.com (+3)
5. Twitter (No Change)
6. Lib Dem Blogs (-3)
7. Lib Dem Voice (-1)
8. Yahoo (+2)
9. wood4thetrees.wordpress.com (New Entry)
10. Iaindale.blogspot (New Entry)

An International Blog!
The visitors to my little blog came from 88 countries this month - up from 85 countries in February and 68 in January (with a cumulative total of 120 countries having supplied visitors to my blog to date).

The top ten countries to date are as follows (with position change from February & % of total views):

1. United Kingdom (No Change) 49.6% (-2.8%)
2. United States (No Change) 15.4% (+0.7%)
3. Canada (No Change) 3.7% (=)
4. Germany (+1) 3.5% (+0.6%)
5. Ireland (-1) 2.8% (-0.5%)
6. Australia (No Change) 2.6% (+0.4%)
7. Thailand (No Change) 1.6% (-0.4%)
8. Poland (No Change) 1.4% (=)
9. Holland (No Change) 1.3% (=)
10. Brazil (No Change) 1.2% (No Change)

The % of viewers to my blog from the UK has continued to fall and has slipped underneath the 50% mark for the first time having been as high as 80% after my first full month last September. It has continued to be a very cosmopolitan blog.

Honourable mentions must also go to those 8 new countries that have provided its first viewers to my fledgling blog this March. Syria, Armenia, Kuwait, Panama, Zambia, Jordan, Niger and Mongolia have all supplied their first readers to my blog during the past month!

Fair play to them all, and to you all, for putting up with my ramblings!