Spurs and the Olympic Stadium Move

Clearly we are delighted with this unanimous decision and are grateful to all those who expressed such clear support for the plans

Daniel Levy, 30th September 2010

I think the problem with the current situation that we are in now at White Hart Lane is that the project is currently not viable so we would have to go back to the drawing board and that would obviously mean looking at other locations again

Daniel Levy, 24th January 2011

I must first declare that John and I are both Spurs fans and so I have a pretty emotive reason for writing this. I am fully against the Stratford move, a scheme I see as completely destroying my club for the sake of some pound signs - pound signs a club that is currently very wealthy with no issues in the transfer market is apparently desperately in need of.

The reasoning Levy has moving from Tottenham is that the proposed 56,250 seat stadium that he spent 4 years and around £20 million on the the application process delivering, is no longer viable. Rubbish.

I work in this industry and I can tell you dear readers that such developments do not suddenly become unviable in a matter of months. Contracts, pre-contracts and designs are agreed and signed, viability assessments have been undertaken and would have formed part of the planning application.

The only things that have changed in the last 6 or so months are the cost of the materials and the dropping of house prices. But seeing as a good 150 of the 434 new homes would be for the social market, this is no sudden biggy. In addition, the market has been damp for three years now. Most of the site is commercial and a deal with Sainsburys for the supermarket has already been signed.

In 2009 the BBC reported that Spurs refused to disclose the cost of the project, but insinuated that it was similar to that of Arsenal. That is about £400 million.

In November the Telegraph reported that the amended plans for the development - involving the retention and renovation of historic buildings, spending more on the piazza and making a contribution to Transport for London - have increased the cost by £50 million. It was even mentioned that the club had hoped to deliver this for 'substantially less' than £400 million.

Rubbish.

The legal agreement associated with the planning permission - for those who don't know this is perfectly normal - is around £12 million. Such monies are totally normal and predicable within the industry and if Levy was surprised by the sum then he should be suing his consultants. The cost of the two historic buildings is tiny, as is the provision of increased play space, the terrace above the supermarket and the better designed public realm. The improvements demanded do in fact greatly improve the scheme from the original design.

None of this adds up to anywhere near £50 million;; none of this is 'added', just improved. To date Spurs have never once elaborated on the actual budgets involved.

So to Stratford. The plan is to spend around £250 million on demolishing a publicly funded £600 million stadium and building a new one. And build a new stadium at Crystal Palace. So, that ruins Tottenham, West Ham, Leyton Orient and Crystal Palace, not to mention regeneration projects at White Hart Lane, Upton Park and Selhurst Park.

And Danny had better be careful, because on past form that £250 million is likely to become a good £400 million and he'll have to start all over again somewhere else. Not to mention being surrounded by enemy territory with zero links to the community.

What Danny also doesn't like explaining is the time period involved. The bidding is to be allowed to use the site, not planning permission. So another 3-4 years is likely to draw up plans and gain planning consent for this vast waste of taxpayers cash and then another 2-3 years before moving in time. Spurs can hope to have a new stadium around 2020 on these conservative estimates.

Or, just build the current permission and have a new stadium by 2013-14. Levy talks a lot about viability and needing to take the club forward to compete with the 'big boys' (last year Spurs finished 4th, are currently in 5th, are through to the quarters of the Champions League creating a piggy bank in excess of £30 million, are one of the highest transfer spenders in the league and have just posted record turnover of £119 million), but seems happy to wait another decade before being able to do something he sees as urgent.

And yesterday he announces that no matter the Stratford decision, Spurs are off.

As far as I can see this is one giant Machiavellian scheme. A falling out has taken place over the TfL payments (the huge sums of a couple of million) and the lack of public funding for the regeneration side of things. Quite why there is a sense of expectation that the public purse should pay for Levy and his ENIC firm to make tens of millions is beyond me.

There is something other here, something else is going on. The time frames above are enough to show that something is not quite right. You wouldn't have a margin of error so tight that a reported £50 million (a figure no one knows where it came from or if it's even true) alteration in projected costs makes the entire scheme so unviable that you start all over again and put off the increased revenue that all the loans are based upon back for another decade.

You just wouldn't do that over an increase in 'costs' of 12%. A figure that I simply don't believe. This is the line from the Telegraph in November, a whole 2 months ago:

It has all contributed to the £50 million increase in a project the club had hoped would cost significantly less than £400 million

Hoped? No developer, let alone one of this scale, 'hopes' for anything. Software is used to calculate every floor and ceiling cost and income, the viability levels of every unit, every square foot would be worked out in every eventuality before wasting 4 years of everyone's time within seconds of getting the result you wanted.

So, what is he up to, this season ticket holder? Well to my mind there are three possibilities.

1, This is all somehow true and Danial Levy has become a total arsehole and decided to rip the club out of its heartland and is totally dismissive of a 'tiny, tiny number of fans'.

2, This is a plan to get a second site agreed and then the whole planning issue was simply to get a consent in place that could then be varied to have no stadium and more housing. Thus allowing ENIC to move the club for less cost, make more money redeveloping the site and then sell all of it for lots of cash.

3, This is exactly what all fans thought it was to start with - a bargaining chip to get a better deal for the development. That would be very high stakes indeed because in the current climate a council like Haringey simply hasn't got the money to give Spurs, money it could use to save itself.

My fear is the answer is number 2 with a hint of number 3.

Spurs will not get the Olympic site, I am certain of that. The presence on the Spurs board of Olympic board faces does not mitigate the fall out of wasting £600 million and all the knock on effects. That then leaves Spurs to play hardball over the approved development.

But what saddens me is that as a fan I feel hugely let down. It's like having a relationship that may well survive, but will never be quite the same again. I love my club, not it's board, but I did have a lot of respect for Levy. All of that respect has been flushed away and I fear that everything that makes my club what it is - it's history, it's location, it's community - is about to be flushed away as well.

We All Die In The End, But How

Yes, we all die don't we, but some of us not soon enough unfortunately. Death and taxes, that's how the saying goes. If there were two things that are going to really piss people off it's being taxed then dying and getting taxed, but there we are, what to do.

The ONS has released the stats for last year of how people died and here is a link of the rather dandy Guardian graphic of it. Oooh, colours and bubbles.

So what can we learn from such a morbid set of facts outlined in such a joyful manner?

Well, we can see that, contrary to Eastenders current form, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome is mercifully rare at 156 last year. A terrible loss for any family, we should really all be thankful that such events are now not the weekly event they were not that long ago.

That let's me have a paragraph long rip at Eastenders, a show I am pretty much force fed by 'er indoors. First off, it's tragic enough without having to dramatise it you sick bastards. Second, I know soapland is beyond the realms of normality, but Christ on a bike this is proper fantasy land stuff. And thirdly, at least convey a message, no? Not once has a 'how to prevent this' line been entered. They even had the baby in a moses basket, on a bed, by itself while the mum was out and the dad was in the shower the other day.

I digress.

A bizarre one is the 164 people who died of malaise and fatigue. What exactly is that when it's at home?

Now we have two facts - and they are absolute facts - that are close to the hearts of B&D. Last year, of the 491,348 deaths, 645 were from alcohol, 1340 were from drugs, and 398 were from 'opiates'. So, Mr Daily Mail, can we get a grip on the drug issue now?

Last year more people died from Asthma (911) than from drinking. In fact, 644 people died of falling down the stairs. Maybe we should all live in bungalows and two or more storey houses should be taxed until the pips pop.

So the biggest killer? That is heart attacks. More people die of actual heart attacks than lung, breast and prostate cancer combined. Which is shocking really and is certainly something that has affected John and I directly. Yet it seems to me to be really rather under-represented in terms of fundraising and celebrity endorsement. Women will walk around in their bras for breast cancer (a worthy cause of course), but you don't hear to many similar events for heart attacks.

I think women should walk around in their bras for far more things.

Or even, at random, pancreatic cancer. That kills over 7,000 people a year. When was the last time you saw money being raised for that bad boy? That's more than Alzeimers, more than Parkinsons, more than diabetes.

Slightly worrying then is the 1,500 or so people who managed to accidentally poison themselves last year, which when put in context of something like the 153 people run over by a car, is a little worrying.

Obviously many of these numbers are still open to interpretation despite the ONS's best efforts. Many will be linked, some people will have multiple factors. But these are the reasons for death on the bit of paper, so that's the statistic.

Death becomes a bit surreal when reduced to numbers really.

SO.....

Here are some links to some little known charities who take on some of the big killers that get so little coverage. You don't have to give anything, but that is your choice.

http://www.pancreaticcancer.org.uk/

http://www.pcrf.org.uk/

http://www.heartresearch.org.uk/

Sudden Infant Death Syndrome:

http://fsid.org.uk/


And

http://www.c-r-y.org.uk/index.htm CRY is a charity that raises awareness and programmes to advise, educate, prevent and screen against sudden cardiac death in the young. Such an event can be unknown to the victim and can strike suddenly and quickly. The link will also be in the links section of the blog.

The English Baccalaureate - Why This Country is a Toilet

This morning I had to get a train for the first time in 2011. I usually have to do this a couple of times a week and have to drive to the station because I live in the middle of nowhere (well not quite, but very nearly, for someone who grew up and lived in Inner London I still get thrown by seeing a sheep out of my window). The first road I get to is meant to be closed, as of Monday. I chanced it.

Not closed at all is it. Why did I chance it? Because the alternate route has road works for the millionth time in a year that results in suicide pacts being drawn up between drivers stuck in it (half a mile took me nearly an hour the other day).

I get to the station in good time to buy my ticket to find the earlier one at the platform and a nice notice telling me my train is cancelled. I have no time to get the one that is there, so I stand in the rain for half and hour. I buy my ticket and am informed that a one day peak travelcard is no longer on sale, or something or other, so it's either a regular card for £15 or an off peak and a return ticket, or something or other, for £13.60.

But it's okay he tells me, I've saved cash. Seemingly oblivious to the fact that my ticket last year was a pound cheaper.

Why is the train cancelled? Don't know, but it was yesterday as well. I ask as sarcastically as possible - which for me is pretty damn sarcastic - if it was the wrong type of rain. Strange how none of the the the other trains in a 48 hour period are affected I point out.

I could get a bus home from work, but then again since they extended it all the way to south London it doesn't work anymore, is regularly cancelled, and often stops randomly a very handy 2 miles short of its terminus.

I mention my transport travails because each time I endure one of them I declare that this country is a total shit hole and that I'm off. One day I'll probably have a full blown breakdown and get carted off.

Nothing works anymore. Petrol is sky high 'to stop us harming the environment'; bus fares are sky high 'to pay for the buses'; train fares go through the roof each year 'to make the farepayer shoulder the cost instead of the taxpayer', despite the operators getting vast subsidies each year so that they make a profit (you pay three times - your tax subsidises the profits, your tax pays half the fare and then you shell out for the ticket).

And I hate to break it to you all, but it's about to get much, much worse. Because the people who run the services you pay for and need, the ones who run the monopolies on behalf of a bunch of oligarchs who make hundreds of millions, are about to get even thicker.

The introduced English Baccalaureate is a way of measuring the results of the core subjects that you would expect, as a reasonable and rationale human being, a 16 year old to be able to get an A* to C grade in at GCSE. Indeed, you would expect a teacher who has several years, if not decades, experience and training and two degrees, one of which is in something rather intelligent like maths or physics, to be able to sufficiently teach a child to a C grade. A*, A, B, C, D, E, F, G. To get a C.

It transpires that you are wrong.

The state expects, please don't laugh, that a minimum of 35% of pupils get this A* to C in English, maths, two sciences (that's just science then, even when I was at school the three were a double graded subject, because that's fair), a foreign language and history or geography. The Left have screamed that this is unfair to poor kids because they don't take subjects like, you know, biology, French, geography. You know the boring ones that everyone else used to have to do as part of what was then known as 'an education'.

16% of pupils achieved this.


Here's some more numbers that will quite possibly drive you to a Boatang Breakdown:

In half of all schools, that 1,600 places, only 10% 'achieved' this.

270 schools scored....zero. ZERO.

I loved this on the BBC

Head teachers' leaders have said it is unfair to rank schools on this now, because the measure was not in place when GCSEs were taken last summer.


The Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) has complained it is a "retrospective indicator".


It says members are in favour of children having a broad curriculum, including languages, but that some pupils will be more suited to less academic subjects.

 Just incredible really. What has the retrospective nature got to do with the price of fish (if Dave had three fish and Sally had...)? And some pupils aren't 'suited' to 'academic' subjects.....

What is meant by that is that a very, very large proportion of this country's 16 year olds are not suited to English, maths, history, geography, French, German, Spanish, physics, chemistry and biology. I'm not really seeing what else there is at GCSE to be honest. PE? RE? Woodwork? 'Design'?

The average spend per pupil is now stated as around £5,200. That seems fairly normal, and if they are on free meals (as an indicator of hardship, deprivation, social exclusion etc) then the spend is about £7,000. Here is another snippet from the Beeb:

At the bottom was The Lafford High School in Billinghay, Lincolnshire, where just 8% of pupils reached that goal. The school, which has now closed, is second on the list of those with the highest spend per pupil for last year - £27,000.

That is a really rather sickening amount of money, because it doesn't go anywhere near a kid. I know for a fact that a very poor school near me is in a total panic and is very vocal in its anger at losing the school building cash. Why? Because it is up to it's eyeballs in debt and needed the money for that, the extra cash over the building 'cost' being creamed off to the overdraft.

This country is going to collapse in the next few years and getting annoyed at our farcical transport system will pale in comparison to what we will have to deal with. Streets will probably be filled with quivering bodies because people won't be able to understand why all the trains have been scrapped, or the buses have ceased to run and a ticket still costs a million quid.

Just when you thought social-democracy couldn't make this country any worse, they surprise you.

Two Things: The Tucson Shootings and Blogging

As John is ill and I've been absurdly busy, not a lot has gone up recently, but here we are.

There is something that is increasingly bothering me in this new year. No, not that people are intent on saying it's a new decade (wasn't that 2010? I mean the 90s started in 90, not 91). Not even Andrew Marr calling Julian 'Are you looking at me? Are you a spy?' Assange a libertarian. No,  the shooting that has happened in Tucson.

A Congresswoman was shot in the head. A Judge was whacked. A poor child was killed. Others lost their lives in a ruthless and disgraceful crime. But can someone please tell me why the fuck this is headline news on every single broadcast of every single day in the UK?

It's tragic, but it's a random shooting of, frankly and harshly, not very 'important' people, that is, it's not like the vice-President has been taken out.

This morning I had every TV news bulletin and every radio broadcast start off by telling me how awful it was, how it happened, who had been cuffed by da feds, who the people were, how the politician was doing, who saved her and how, why it might have happened. We even got told that Obama (blessed be his name) will hold a minute's silence today, as if the world will stop to mourn.

The media has gone all out, hacks being sent to the site to talk     gravely      and      slowly    about   how    the    tra   gic    ev   ents    un fol   d   ed.

We should be told, it should be on the news, but the headline act? Really?

It's a slow news week/fortnight/month but Christ, there's plenty of minor stuff that can be put on box without having to get the country to wallow in a sad even that has, at the end of the day, absolutely fuck all to do with us.

Not Only But Also

I had a quick butch at the Wikio rankings this morning and found that it appears to be all change yet again at the top table of the grease fuelled banquet. And somehow or other Anna Raccoon, the world's worst blogger and Dianaesque prick of epic proportions is apparently the number 2 ranked blog. Quite how that is true is beyond even my fierce intellect, but it further goes to show what a forest of decay and shit the blogosphere has become.

Ridiculed by the media, increasingly pushed out by the immediacy of Twitter, all the big dicks (and they are dicks) are falling dramatically with utter shite replacing them after swallowing bucket loads of shit over the years and crawling over their dying bodies as they fall to the ground.

Wikio is throwing up some increasingly weird results in the last few months, but I don't doubt the indications of the current trends. I wrote last year about that a giant change in blogging was taking place with a shift from right to left and the collapse of the libertarian sector (Raccoon is not a libertarian, I find her presence on the LPUK absolutely fucking hilarious and is in no small part down to her extreme chumminess with Andrew 'Guthrum' Withers having supposedly dumped Holborn's decaying corpse a while back once he had served his purpose).

This has now fulfilled itself. Dale has quit (thank god), Guido is all over the shop and the top ten rated blogs are all change.

We attacked those at the top because we saw them as just as legitimate target as any other widely read publication, in addition to their shameful brownosing and mutual wanking to sustain each other. What saddens me is that this once entertaining thing called blogging is now a dying, writhing shitfest. John and I have always said that we write here because we like to write, it's just something we like to do. We don't seek TV work out of it or to make any money. But it is still sad to see such a wave of crap rising to the top.

The Orwell prize is coming up soon, and once again that will show the decline in blogging. Some are okay, but two left leaning judges will pick what they like (oh look, Nightjack has shortlisted a copper reporting from the inside. What a fucking shock. Oh look, Hopi Sen, New Labour stooge number one, has got a nod again) and the list will be populated not by normal bloggers who write normal blogs, but by professional journalists who write professionally published 'blogs' on the BBC, the Guardian and other such sites.

We arrived on Wordpress at the end of 2006, before moving here in 2008. Most of the 'big boys' started in the year or so before us, most have now fallen. Thankfully in some cases. Others that started with us are long gone, some have dropped off the radar.

Since that time many have started with the sole intention of getting as big as they can simply for the sake of it, to climb and climb, to play every possible trick in the book in a quest for hits and 'hat tips'. We have been far from quiet in pointing this out, in reality to our own detriment. But it is those sites that are now getting exactly where they wanted.

The sad thing is that they now dominate together with massive, multi-author, professionally run blogs that are little more than think-tanks and pressure groups. It's become a soulless and increasingly irrelevant arena.

We'll keep on venting and writing and commenting no matter what, but I can't help but feel that the 'art' of blogging and the energy of the blogosphere has been lost.

On a sicky

I am on a sicky at the moment. Nothing worse. And I can't seem to shift it, with the cough being the primary lingering symptom. God damned illness. Awful stuff.

Even worse for you guys, as you have been deprived of Boaty & D love of late (my dearest Mr B has been tied up with a very busy schedule of late).

We'll be back on it soon. Thanks for your continued patience, you beauties.