TOO YOUNG TO BE IN COURT?

The age of criminal responsibility. When is a child old enough to understand that they are doing something wrong and should be prosecuted for it? The debate has resurfaced this week after children’s commissioner Maggie Atkinson called for the age to be raised as she believes under-12's cannot understand the full consequences of their actions - something that has clearly angered the mother of murdered toddler James Bulger, Denise Fergus. I agree with Fergus to the extent that what Atkinson said was wrong, but it is wrong to say she should be sacked for her comments.

We find ourselves in a similar situation as when chief drugs adviser Professor David Nutt was fired for his comments against current cannabis policy. Someone in office has said something controversial and they are being pilloried for it. By all means have the debate, but we live in a free speech society where people should be allowed to make their opinions known. Tory frontbencher Ken Clarke said she should “not resign for expressing an opinion on a perfectly serious quite difficult subject”. Well said that man.

But aside from whether Atkinson should resign or be sacked, when do children become old enough to stand trial? During my court reporting at university, I often see children who can hardly see over the dock at Sheffield Magistrates’ Court and Sheffield Youth Court. I remember one case where a little boy who looked particularly mischievous started playing with his mobile phone in court to wind up the usher. Maybe they see it as a game at that age. But then again, many older people facing trial also see it as a game, and that doesn’t prevent them being taken to court. I think back to when I was 10 years old, and I certainly understood the difference between right and wrong at that age. It’s likely that Jon Venables and Robert Thompson did too.

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You may have missed the news over the weekend. There was a mass invasion of Georgia by Russia, planes bombed the capital Tbilisi and President Mikheil Saakashvili was assassinated. Surprisingly it didn’t make the front-pages this morning and there aren’t many pictures available. In fact, that’s absolutely unsurprising. Because it was a fake. The Georgian channel Imedi thought it would be funny to play out a very realistic 30-minute report on a Russian invasion as a little joke to its viewers.

Unfortunately not all of them saw the funny side, and there were reports of protests outside the TV station, people suffering from heart attacks, mobile phone networks crashing and cinemas emptying as children were called home by parents. It could be seen as a) a massive success in viewer figures for Imedi; b) an excellently-executed piece of propoganda by a political party; or c) absolutely hilarious. Now, whilst the real war between Russia and Georgia only finished two years ago, it probably wasn’t seen as being that funny by the majority of viewers.

But jokes have been made on this subject before. In the words of Hugh Dennis from Mock the Week, who gave this example for ‘questions that were rejected from this year’s exams’: “Vladimir has 10,000 tanks and you have three. Why would you start a war?” Making jokes about wars and producing fake reports on invasions may be quite comical to some - especially directors at the Imedi television company, perhaps - however, there are some subjects that maybe shouldn’t be touched. I’m sure someone at the Kremlin had a little chuckle about it though...

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It goes without saying that whoever you support, David Beckham is a footballing legend. 115 games for England over 13 years is a remarkable achievement, which makes it all the more sad that an injury to his left Achilles tendon looks like it’s ruled him out of playing in a fourth World Cup. Beckham, 34, is currently on loan at AC Milan from Los Angeles Galaxy and was expected to be in the England squad this summer, but now there is even speculation his career could be over. That seems somewhat farfetched, but we won’t know until he has been given the full medical diagnosis.

Beckham is one of those players who has suffered lots of stick from certain fans, but the reception he got at Old Trafford playing for Milan last Wednesday shows how well-loved he was too. I still think he has the best ball distribution of any player in the world - and whilst he might have lost a bit of his fitness and pace in recent years, you cannot put a price on such an intelligent football brain as his. England have cover on the right-wing from the likes of James Milner, Aaron Lennon and Shaun Wright-Phillips - and it’s unlikely Beckham would have started a game in South Africa - but his presence around the team counts for a lot, and it’s a great shame that he won’t be playing.

BULGER: SHOULD WE KNOW MORE?

The death of James Bulger provided us with one of the most disturbing court cases of all time. And now it's come back into the media spotlight once again. The case of the two Edlington boys in January had eerie parallels to Bulger [pictured, Daily Mail], but fortunately nobody died that time. However, now we hear Jon Venables - one of the two-year-old’s killers - has gone back to jail. Few people know why, although there are various rumours such as him breaching his order to stay away from Merseyside by clubbing, working as a bouncer or watching Everton FC. Some papers say he has been charged with holding images of child abuse. The tabloids are having a field day trying to work out what's occured. But the real issue here is: should we be told by Justice Secretary Jack Straw what's happened?

The family clearly ought to know and should not have been kept in the dark this long. Straw, to his credit, will sort this out by going to see them. The debate now is how much the public should be told. If he goes to trial for any of these crimes, Venables is unlikely to get a fair hearing at the moment. He will certainly need another new identity, which could end up costing the taxpayer hundreds of thousands of pounds. But this case has such huge public interest that people will want to know. Straw says he's currently not going to say any more. He is most probably scared of the "lock-him-up-and-throw-away-the-key" lynch mob, as well as prejudicing any further court cases, which is fair enough. But I think we should know what Venables has done so we can learn from the mistakes made by officials during his rehabilatation. One thing is for sure - this debate is not going to die down anytime soon.

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Well done to the Lalani family for their business success story. It seems that 99p Stores have found an excellent model to get through the recession - cheap "fizzy drink and loo roll", as The Independent puts it. It’s doing well by buying up empty Woolworths stores and undercutting big supermarkets with cheaper prices(under £1, of course) - projecting sales of £1bn over the next six years. Their 129 stores must have an excellent stock of one pence coins in the cash registers too.

The business model is an interesting one - and there aren’t many shops that can claim to undercut Poundland, but Nadir Lalani and his sons [Hussein is pictured, credit William Reed Media] have made an excellent effort. They’re creating jobs in poorer areas of the country, people are buying essential items for cheaper and the Lalanis are getting customers into high-streets so everywhere benefits. Many customers say they visit 99p Stores before doing their weekly shop at a supermarket, to pick up any products sold at a lower price, and can save lots of money doing so. Good work, Mr Lalani.

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These are desperate times at Roots Hall. Today the assistant manager Paul Brush [pictured], who has been with the club for seven years - and led them with boss Steve Tilson to two cup finals, a league title and two play-off appearances - has been sacked. Southend United meanwhile are in the bottom four of League One and facing relegation to the bottom tier. Oh dear. I went to watch the Shrimpers at Hartlepool on Saturday and we really did look like relegation material. It was a freezing cold day in County Durham and the Blues were rolled over by an equally poor side. It only rubbed it in that Roy O’Donovan grabbed a hat-trick against us - more goals than he managed in his entire Southend career earlier this season.

So where do we go from here? Chairman Ron Martin has taken a lot of flak from the fans recently after reports that the players had not been paid for two months in a row. The club seems to have no money to spend on players and is trimming the wage bill. Tilson and Brush have been a great partnership for fast-approaching a decade now, and I won’t be surprised if Tilly walks now Brush has been pushed. The priority is now to keep this club in League One. That starts this Saturday against relegation rivals, Exeter. Every player needs to give his all in every game now, as I don’t want to be watching League Two football next season. Ron Martin claims it would be “fatal” if we got relegated. So please stay up, lads.

CAN BIG DAVE DO IT?

Is it time to panic, David? All is not as we expected. Labour are fighting back. With Gordon Brown expected to name the election date shortly, the odds on a Tory majority are getting longer and David Cameron is getting worried. At a conference in Brighton yesterday, he conceded that the party has not yet done enough to convince voters to elect them. The polls show the Tory lead is now just two points ahead of Labour. Surely the electorate won’t let Rupert Murdoch down after The Sun so dramatically switched allegiance to Mr Cameron [pictured in the Daily Mail] last year? It could happen.

The main reason for the lull in an otherwise continuous advancement in support for the Tories over the last few years seems to be that people still don’t know what the party is about. So much of politics is about image and press relations nowadays that voters are missing out on how different parties will affect them at ground-level. It has been something of a running joke over the last few years that nobody knows Cameron’s policies and he just seems like a nice chap. However, the recent ‘I’ll cut the deficit, not the NHS’ posters tried to combine the good image he has built up with some real policies.

So what will happen in the next general election? Labrokes are offering 4/7 on a Tory majority, 7/4 hung parliament or 10/1 Labour majority. Nick Clegg still holds an interesting role in helping a party into government, although it is questionable whether Cameron would agree to a Liberal Democrat coalition if it was offered. If the Tories want to get in, they must maintain the good image they have been building up over the last few years but now ensure this is matched with some real, hard-hitting policies. That is what will get them into parliament. At the moment it looks like 7/4 is a good price.

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The future of the BBC is currently as uncertain as ever ahead of a general election. We have had a good indication that the Tories want to scrap the BBC Trust (its regulator), oppose top-slicing the licence fee and want to cut down the whole organisation. The Guardian today looked at the various cutbacks that could be made, including spending more on BBC2 drama and documentaries, improving local radio for older listeners, scrapping 6Music and the Asian Network and cutting down BBC Online and BBC Magazines.

There has been much discomfort from listeners over the proposed closure of 6Music. Pitched as an alternative station like XFM was when first launched, it hasn’t attracted the listeners they expected. Their target market of 20- to 40-year-olds is already well covered by Radio 1 and 1Xtra; stations which also fulfil the BBC public remit of providing live music to a younger adult audience. I therefore think it would be the right decision to close it.

But the closure of the Asian Network could be too politically sensitive for them to go through with it. Although it is not getting good enough listening figures, it is the only major part of the BBC that gives the corporation a direct link with many ethnic minority licence fee payers and should therefore stay. The third point on radio - about improving local stations for older listeners - sounds fair. The BBC needs to keep that older market who tend not to listen to their national radio output so much.

I have a friend who works at BBC Worldwide and asked her last month what she reckons on its future ownership and structure. “Who knows?”, she said. Nobody does know what will happen to it. The sale of a few titles from its magazines arm such as Radio Times or Olive sounds like an interesting idea, but surely when RT is doing so well at the moment they won’t drop it. The commercial part of the BBC has always been a divisive topic, but they must ensure that cuts or funding reallocations across the organisation are always done with the consumers’ interests at heart.

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Boring. I’ve had enough of Wayne Bridge v John Terry. Sort it out, lads. If you really don’t like another footballer, some players believe the best way to settle it is just to punch them and get sent-off; like Jean-Francois Christophe did to Nicky Bailey during Southend v Charlton last Friday! I would never advocate violence, of course, but Amir Khan would have been proud of the Shrimpers midfielder for that one - right in the stomach. Isn’t refusing to shake hands just a little bit childish? Chelsea v Manchester City on Saturday was certainly the only time I’ve paid attention to the player presentation ceremony and it didn’t disappoint for drama.

I feel sorry for Terry. He obviously made a big mistake in sleeping with his team-mate’s ex-girlfriend, but apart from that he has been a great role model in the English game and a solid captain for Fabio Capello. It’s amazing how one mistake can ruin your career. Bridge is being unprofessional for not going to the World Cup, in my eyes. He is clearly unable to forgive and forget, and sees private and professional lives as convergent. It’s time to sort this out before it derails our chances of glory in South Africa this summer. Bridge is the best left-back we’ve got if Ashley Cole remains injured and his private life - or Terry's - should not enter into it.

NAP TIME - FALLING ASLEEP AT 2PM

I do like a good rest, but I’ve never taken a daytime nap before. New research suggests that you can improve your productivity and capacity to learn by having a 90-minute nap at 2pm. I know that this is commonplace is countries like Spain, where they have a siesta at schools and workplaces, but it’s never something that’s really caught on over here. But can a nap really improve our brain power, memory and ability to retrieve short-term information? Apparently yes, according to the University of California. Interesting stuff.

However, I’m not sure if I’d like to lose one-and-a-half hours of my working day, only to make them up later in the evening. Surely if you were working 9am to 6pm and took out 90 minutes through sleeping, you would not be able to make this up in productivity for the rest of the day. Is it not just better to ensure you get eight to nine hours a night and therefore wake-up feeling refreshed, ready-to-go and not like you want to stay under the covers for the rest of the day? Maybe whilst I’m at university it would be a good time to try out a nap one day. Please let me know if you’ve tried it before!

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Hurrah! After years of campaigning on my blog, we finally hear today that train fares could be set for a big shake-up. Whilst I do not accept full credit for this, it’s good news at least! The Association of Train Operating Companies (Atoc) is going to look at the increase in ticket types, price caps and funding balances between taxpayers and passengers. Hopefully this will mean cheaper fares for all. Just this weekend, yet again I exposed the bizarre nature of split ticketing. I went to watch Southend United in Milton Keynes and travelled there from Sheffield by train. A normal return fare would have cost me almost £40, but after splitting my journey at Derby and Tamworth, it ended up being only £19.60 - much more affordable and a nice slice of consumer surplus for me.

Commuter watchdog Passenger Focus says only 45% of rail passengers feel their train ticket represents value for money, and when you look at the cost of walk-up fares on trains from London to Sheffield - which are around £50 to £70 even on a railcard - you can see why. Commuting to London from where I live in Essex can cost up to £20 a day, which is just ridiculous. But that’s not what I’ve been most annoyed about with train fares. It’s the stupidity of a system where if you research it long enough, you can halve your journey cost - yet for people who don’t know about splitting fares (where you buy your ticket in separate segments for the same journey) they will be out of pocket. It doesn’t work like this when you fill up your car with petrol, or take the bus, coach or plane. So I hope Atoc can sort out this ridiculous system and make it much simpler for everybody.

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I might surprise you that visiting Milton Keynes on Saturday provided me with the inspiration of writing an article about the worst football grounds in the country. But whilst Stadium MK [pictured on Sky Sports] is a potential venue for England’s 2018 World Cup bid, the 22,000-seater ground is soulless and feels like it’s just been plonked in the middle of a European industrial estate. When you can’t even half-fill a ground that big, it’s going to make for a poor atmosphere. Whilst I don’t think I’ve ever experienced such ample leg-room (compared to Charlton Athletic’s The Valley, where my knees were squeezed just below my chin, MK was amazing), a ground is all about the atmosphere and feeling inside it. I don’t mind so much about the design, although that’s important to some people too.

So where else have I been that I would rather forget? Don Valley (Rotherham United) and The Withdean Stadium (Brighton & Hove Albion) are both pretty bad, as they’re surrounded by large athletics tracks, which makes me feel West Ham United are unlikely to move to the London Olympic Stadium if fans can’t be next to the pitch. Other awful grounds in the Football League include Hereford United (far away from the pitch, no atmosphere and a generally poor experience), Gillingham (you shouldn’t be allowed to place fans on scaffolding to watch a game), Carlisle United (because it’s so far away from home and the pitch is usually like a sandpit due to the weather up there) and Crystal Palace (because the fans I’ve met there are generally unfriendly, there are massive posts obstructing your view and the away end isn’t even behind a goal). Please let me know if you’ve been to any worse grounds than the above! And don’t even mention Roots Hall...

A DI-VINE JOKE TELLER

I love telling a good joke. Even if people don't appreciate it. Tim Vine is a fantastic comedian who I met a couple of times whilst working at Premier Radio and has an incredible joke-telling ability. In fact, I interviewed him once too and can remember thinking what a top chap he was. So it’s fantastic to see him on tour at the moment and getting rave reviews in every newspaper. He once held the record for the most jokes told in one hour and has an amazing ability to fire off quality one-liners that are so quick it’s often difficult to appreciate how technically clever they are. For example: “The banks are doing a sterling job” - or “I went to visit the binoculars shop. They saw me coming.”

I went to see Marcus Brigstocke and Andy Parsons on tour last year and both were very funny, but also very different to Tim Vine’s sense of humour. Whereas Brigstocke and Parsons enjoy poking fun at people and politics, and make their comedy relevant to current news, Vine is better at spur-of-the-moment stuff to keep you consistently entertained. As the brother of a BBC Radio 2 presenter, he’s got stiff competition to become anywhere near as famous as Jeremy, but these are promising signs of a career that could now flourish. Tim has been around for a while - I remember seeing him on the comedy circuit with Adrian Plass many years ago, but listening to his endless repertoire of jokes is both funny and solid proof of his great talent. And he doesn’t swear or use innuendo. There aren’t many comedians as clean as Tim Vine...

Here’s a few he did earlier (courtesy of Murraysworld.com)....

“Exit signs - they're on the way out aren't they?.”

“You see my next door neighbour worships exhaust pipes - he's a catholic converter.”

"So I was getting into my car and this bloke says to me: ‘Can you give me a lift?’ I said: ‘Sure, you look great, the world's your oyster, go for it.’”

And Finally - “I saw this bloke chatting up a cheetah - I thought: 'He's trying to pull a fast one'.”

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I think about time quite a lot. 20 minutes to do this, 10 minutes to do that. The Mail on Sunday reported yesterday that our leisure industry is pushing ministers to move the UK into the continental time zone. At the moment, clocks go forward an hour in March and then back to GMT in October to provide more daylight during winter mornings. But estimates suggest the move to bring us in-line with many popular European holiday destinations could bring £3.5billion more in revenue to the tourism industry, which is a phenominal amount for simply meddling slightly with our time system. It’s also claimed an extension of daylight saving would reduce accidents, crime and obesity. Obesity? Will someone please explain that one to me. More time to go running in daylight and less time indoors maybe?

Concerns from the Merchant Navy over this change potentially eroding our history - and the fact that we’re based on the meridian anyway - seem small when you think about the impact this could have on our tourism trade. Those long evenings spent outside in French and Spanish coastal bars could be on their way to Clacton and Margate. Well, maybe it’ll be a bit colder over here, but at least the sun will still be out later. The debate about whether what the time is actually matters was brought up a decade ago when Channel 4 were deciding if they should put a clock up in the Big Brother house. Time is an essential part of life. We could implement the time change and wouldn’t notice the difference, but suddenly when we realise it’s 10pm and still light, we just might. Bring on the summer!

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I know what it’s like to support a club in a financial mess. Southend United are still in talks with HM Revenue and Customs to avoid a winding-up order. Although their £2.1million overdue bill was eventually paid last year, there is now disagreement over an excess payment of £200,000. It could be worse though. Portsmouth’s debts are so big that they are believed to now be dwarfing revenue, which is not a good position for any club to be in. Their very existence is in doubt, so it was nice to see them beat south-coast rivals Southampton in an explosive FA Cup game on Saturday. Letting the football do the talking.

When your football club is on the verge of disappearing altogether, it makes you appreciate the very nature of Saturdays at 3pm that little bit more. Pompey fans would rather be supporting their team in the Championship than not at all and it was great to see them finally have something to cheer about at the weekend. It’s critically poor mismanagement at the top level that has caused this and four owners in one season is about as many managers Newcastle usually get through. This tells its own story, and I only hope that somebody a little more cautious will get them back on their feet. These are worrying times for fans of Crystal Palace, Cardiff City and Chester City too - all have financial problems and there’s one set of people that have spent lots of money on the clubs and simply don’t deserve this. The fans.

PICTURES: BBC London / Stock Xchng / The Guardian

ONE HAPPY EUROPEAN FAMILY?

Mandy has finally admitted it. We have benefited from not joining the European single currency, says Peter Mandelson, contrary to what he once believed. Gordon Brown was right to block the move and “no sensible person” can now see the point of adopting the Euro, according to yesterday’s leader in The Sunday Telegraph. The major issue is that countries like Spain and Italy cannot let their currency devalue to make their exports more competitive and diminish their debt. Conversely, we can.

I’ve always opposed Britain joining the Euro as I cannot see the use of rich and poor countries across Europe with such different economies and interest rate requirements being joined at the hip. It’s not a pride in my home country’s currency - more, a realistic view of how we can be more competitive. I remember being asked to debate in sixth-form that we should join the Euro and found it tricky to do so, as I actually thought it would be bad for our economy to become much more interdependent with other European countries. As I still believe now, this would then take us even longer to exit the recession and make us more prone to going back in soon. So, no thanks. For now.

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As a clarinet and saxophone player myself, I’ve taken much inspiration from a variety of musicians over the years. So it’s always sad to hear when a jazz legend dies - and after Johnny Dankworth passed away on Saturday, I decided it would be a good time to look back at his music. BBC Radio 3 said he was a performer of “invention and fire, but with a particularly light and attractive tone” - something that seems a good aspiration for any jazz player. The saxophonist and clarinettist was inspired by Charlie Parker - who better? - and made his name through an avant-garde, yet accesible, style.

Listening to other musicians is a great way of improving your own playing. I find I pick up so much from hearing some of my favourite modern jazz artists like Soweto Kinch and YolanDa Brown, but also playing some more traditional CDs by the likes of Benny Goodman and John Coltrane. Coltrane and Kinch were/are certainly far from the norms of their respective eras, trying out new styles and fusions that not everybody appreciates. But, like Dankworth, they dared to be different and are respected for their originality and forward-thinking musical natures.

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If you regularly read my blog, you’ll know I’m proud to be a southerner living in the north and that the significance of the divide had never occurred to me before I arrived in Sheffield. But whilst the north of England often comes in for some stick from the southern-based media, there’s something that Mancs, Scousers and Geordies certainly have over their counterparts down the M1. They really are passionate about their football. It’s such of way of life in areas like the north-east and Yorkshire and I’ve enjoyed seeing this first-hand over the last few years.

I had the privilege of going to see Liverpool v Everton on Saturday and it was a great experience. Watching 40,000 fans sing ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ and screaming for every ball and tackle showed me how much the beautiful game means up north. It’s not as if this was something new for me - I’ve followed Newcastle for years and they have arguably got the best fans in the country - but you just don’t get the same feeling from London club supporters; even top-four Arsenal and Chelsea. It doesn’t seem to matter as much. I can’t really compare Southend with Premier League sides, but although I do love the Shrimpers, there is something uniquely embedded in the northern football culture that makes it special. It’s a community, a really strong community. Maybe that’s why 70 per cent of this season’s 20 Premier League sides are based above Watford and BBC Sport are heading to Salford soon?

PICTURES: Daily Telegraph (x2) and BBC Liverpool

BLAIR GIVES AN ASSURED PERFORMANCE

“Even if you look back now it was better to deal with the threat,” he said. Whether you agree with the Iraq War or not, Tony Blair put in a superbly slick performance at the Chilcot Inquiry on Friday. It was gripping television and reminded me how far the government’s credibility has fallen since he handed over the reins to Gordon Brown. The Campbell-Blair duo were master wordsmiths and able to make anything sound reasonable. Friday’s hearing was a nod back to the days of Labour’s communication strengths in the late nineties and early noughties.

The Times acclaimed his pure image, power dressing and personal grooming, which made him seem strong and authoritative in front of the inquiry panel. In fact, Blair [pictured, BBC] ended up asking the panel questions, such as what would have happened if Saddam had been left in power, and he had clearly done his homework. The difference between Brown and Blair is that the latter knew how to convince people of anything, which made him a strong leader. It’s no wonder Labour were so strong ten years ago, but are now being overtaken by the Tories. Bring on the election...

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“The citizen little realises the vast machinery put in motion for him in exchange for his morning penny,” said Lord Copper in the 1938 novel Scoop, by Evelyn Waugh. Now the challenge 72 years on is to make readers realise the value and effort involved in online newspapers, and charge for the content. Occasionally somebody comes up with a great idea for making this happen - so step forward Peter Preston [pictured, University of Sheffield], in yesterday’s The Observer.

He said: “Watch as 10 million Sky subscribers get an offer they can't reasonably refuse. How about beyond-the-wall access to four big British papers [for] as little as 50p extra a month? £6m a month for that is £72m – in a trice the losses on Wapping's more upmarket offerings are turned to profit.”

What a fabulous idea. Sky has already proven it can get customers to buy phone and broadband with televisions, so why not newspapers? News International owns The Sun, News of the World, The Times and The Sunday Times, so a 50p monthly fee to read those online could work wonders. It seems simple enough and could save those four papers. Where it leaves everyone else is another matter, which gives weight to the argument that all newspapers should work together online to ensure their joint survival.

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I do feel a little bit sad for John Terry [pictured, BBC]. We all make mistakes, and - as Tiger Woods knows - a sexual slip-up can have a damning effect on sporting careers. We know why the super-injunction was passed over the media - he wanted to protect himself and his family from adverse publicity - but the use of these in court is becoming a problem. Even the government say they are “very concerned” about it. The fact is that if you are a public role model (and have been voted ‘Dad of the Year’ by a sauce manufacturer), the public have the right to know if you’re not as good a role model as was once thought.

The other issue is of how this affects Terry’s England captaincy. He has been a strong leader of the national side over the last few years, but there are other players who could take the captain’s armband. Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard would both be possibilities. Putting both Terry and Wayne Bridge on the plane to South Africa must be causing a headache for the England management, but if they had to choose either, I think Terry will get the nod. But we’ll have to wait and see.