Shhhhhhhhhhhh

Hello everybody, I'm back from my holidays, all refreshed and newly married.

It (the wedding) went very well, thankyou for asking, and I'd just like to thank Rev Stuart Wood for a couple of little United-related surprises which he organised to make the day a particularly memorable one for myself and the new Mrs Gooding.

As anyone who has planned a wedding will probably confirm, they tend to be all-consuming affairs, especially in the immediate run up to the big day, and as such I've not been keeping a close eye on events at the Abbey in the last week. However, a quick perusal of the official site would suggest that nothing much has gone on anyway.

You can tell it's quiet because the CEN are doing what they usually do when there's nothing happening, which is to interview someone - in this case Paul Carden - once, then chop it up into bite-size chunks to spread out through the week. Thus we have; REASON SET TO SIGN UP - CARDEN, CARDEN PLEDGES TO COMBINE PLAYING AND COACHING (a radical step for someone who is, afterall, a player/coach), and PROMOTION WELL WITHIN U'S REACH SAYS CARDEN. I can't wait for tomorrow's headline, which I predict will be something groundbreaking like FIXTURES OUT SOON - CARDEN or WE WILL PLAY SOME FRIENDLIES REVEALS CARDEN. Stay tuned news fans.

Anyway, it seems the Reason deal is all but done, which is obviously a positive step. Let's hope they're only keeping McMahon hanging around as a back plan, in case it all falls through at the last moment. If we're having a new, slimline, squad for next season I hardly think we need six central midfielders competing for two places.

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AOB: Video Nasty

I was disappointed to see in the news today that the BBC trust have blocked the corporations plans for a £68million network of local video news sites.

The plans met with widespread criticism from local newspaper bosses, who are probably now sitting back in their exclusive private members clubs smoking big fat cuban cigars, brought with the profits generated by the countries thousands of poorly paid, downtrodden, local journos. Or something.

Anyway, I thought it was a great idea, and totally agree with the ever-pertinant Dave Lee (bonus points for mentioning U's Blog) and Roy Greenslade that the regionals need to pull their socks up when it comes to embracing the web.

Look at the CEN's video output: The news and sport videos rarely bring anything to the story that you couldn't have gleened from reading the text or looking at the pictures. Whats the point of watching a five minute video of Gary Brabin sitting in the Harris Suite answering questions when I could just read the article in 30 seconds and find out the information that way.

I strongly believe in the value of local news, and that there is a place for video within that, but the visual output needs to be original and interesting, and at the moment most of what is served up by our local papers is neither. Unfortunately most prefer to do things on the cheap, rather than providing their staff with the tools, training, or extra manpower to make something that they can be proud of.

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Paranoia sets in

Much as I don't like to sound like a Newcastle fan (Hahaha, Joe Kinnear, hahahaha), it has seemed like the media is working against us this week.

Maybe the fact that the team haven't been winning much lately is making me paranoid, but everyone seems to have been sticking the boot in. First we have Pravda going on and one and about Histon Village being above us in the table by an enormous margin of one point, a point just about gained against a ten man Lewes side who are surely the worst team ever seen at this level (yes, worse than Droyslden).

Fair play to Histon, who have started really well this year and seem to be going the right way about avoiding "second season syndrome", but I must have missed the news that the season finishes in September now. If they're above us in May then they'll have something to crow about, but until then the CEN should stop trying to make something out of nothing, and well done to Danny Brown and Dan Gleeson for not being drawn on the subject this week.

Then we have Setanta, who conducted a full on Oxford United love in before, during, and after Tuesday's game at the Kassam. "We thought they might crumble again, but thankfully they got a third" said Steve Bower during the post match summary. Thankfully for who exactly? Not for me or any other fans of the real U's, that's for sure. And by the way Steve, I'm not certain exactly how you pronounce the name of Oxford's number seven, but I'm fairly confident that he's not Yemi Od-uu-bad.

Of course, Bower is still more literate than the witless Paul Parker, who continues to display an overt anti-Cambridge attitude. At one point he accused Felino of diving in the box, then went very quiet when replays showed the defender had trod on his foot and brought him down. How these imbeciles get on TV I don't know.

To make matters worse, Radio Cambs have re-employed the smug, P*sh supporting, not-half-as-funny-as-he-thinks-he-is, numpty that is Paul Stainton to front their sports coverage. I think I might just stick to Teletext in future.

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