How to complain...The British way!

In Britain, we like a good moan and in fact somehow manage to find joy in complaining about something. If everything was right in the world and we had nothing to complain about I think we would actually feel a bit lost.

It actually makes us feel better to have a good old whinge about how everything is not fair and nothing ever goes our way.

It's how Britain complains as a culture that bemuses me - the letter writing culture. In the USA, if you don't like something, you march right on down there and you tell'em.

In some parts of the world if you complain, the likelihood is you won't live long enough to have the opportunity to do it again - people who would love the opportunity to be able to freely tell people they are wrong or that something is wrong.

So why is it that in Britian we think that the good old stiff, stern, snotty letter will get us the most attention? Why not go down there and kick up a fuss?

I think it's partly down to balls. It's all well and good writing a letter because you can read it over and over again. But actually going to speak to the person face to face would be much more of a problem. We would end up freezing up and fluffing our lines, whilst absorbing their corporate jargon (or whatever it may be), end up apologising and walking out, red faced, tails between our legs and a smacked bottom.

I rarely write letters, I think it's usually a waste of time. If I was working for a company and I received a snotty email I don't think my reply would be too dissimilar to "find something worthwhile to do with your time."

However, I did come across something this week, which has actually been bugging me for a while. Football ticket prices are absolutely shocking. The other day, I logged on to the Arsenal website to book tickets for the Leyton Orient FA Cup replay, thinking they won't be more than a tenner.

I was wrong - £34 at the cheapest price. I was so angry, I wrote them a letter. Observe...


"To whoever it may concern,


I have just found out, to my disgust, the price of the tickets for the FA Cup replay with Leyton Orient. I think it's absolutely disgusting that you are charging £34 per ticket to a game which is, in effect, a bonus to ticketing revenue for the season.

We have already gone all the way in the Carling Cup, had home games in all previous rounds of the FA Cup and four games in the Champions League, including the astronomically priced FC Barcelona game.

I am a student and would love to come and support my team, I love Arsenal, but I simply cannot afford to do it at these prices. I understand the club needs to make money from ticketing and has a vast role of staff to pay for...but making a cup replay £20/£10, like you have done with the Carling Cup, would hardly have broken the bank, and allows real fans, who might not be able to afford to go every week (for whatever reason), to go and see a few extra games a season rather than clogging your ticket centre up trying to get United or Chelsea tickets because it's the only game they can afford to go to and might as well make it a big one...

I highly doubt you will sell out this game, first reason being it's against Leyton Orient, and with no disrespect to Orient - it's hardly a high profile derby. The second is it's on a Wednesday night and night games can be a problem for some people. The third and probably most important is that it will be on TV anyway. It seems to me a very strange decision to make it even harder for yourselves to sell out by keeping the ticket prices so high.

I am not usually one to write snotty letters, but I only write to you because I care. I love my club and want to support it in all ways I can. All I ask is for something small in return. Don't get me wrong, it won't stop me from buying a season ticket as soon as I can afford it, but right now (and this will always be the case with thousands of fans), I have to limit the number of games I attend. So far this season - only Ipswich at home.

I hope you can understand my frustrated point of view.


Yours sincerely,

James Warner"

It sort of fades out at the end because by that time my anger had deteriorated. I was quite proud of my achievements but of course, that was sent on Tuesday and I'm still waiting for a reply.

The Return of The Rock

It has been about seven years since I last watched wrestling...around the time The Rock left the WWE (or WWF). It has gone down hill ever since. I'm not sure if this is because I have grown up and am not fooled in any way by the ridiculous moves and fake punches, or it just got worse and worse. I think it is probably a combination of the two.

There are so many wrestlers or characters, who I have seen from my few occasions of watching (when there is nothing else on), who are extremely irritating or I just don't like. Sheamus, The Mizz, John Cena, Randy Orton - probably the only ones I can name of the new generation - all of whom I dislike. 

I genuinely miss the feeling of excitement I used to get leading up to a Wrestlemania or even something as simple as saturday morning Smackdown. I have attempted to watch it since but it's not the same without the Stone Cold/The Rock/Triple H/Kurt Angle etc. rivalries.

Only one of them was ever needed to make me start watching wrestling again, though...The Rock! And now he's back. After I found out, I instantly went to see when late night Raw was on. 2am on Monday night? Oh, and I have Tuesday off! There is absolutely no way I am going to bed before 4am that night.

I will almost certainly never be as excited as I was when I was young, but the return of The Rock is about as close as I'm going to get.

By the way, I really wanted to write about Arsenal vs. Barcelona, but I knew I would be accused of bias (because Arsenal were amazing and are now the best team in the world by default) which I am trying to avoid. So this is why you have this to read instead.

'It's not what you know, it's who you know.'

As a journalism student I have sometimes found it difficult to do any 'actual journalism' in assignments because nobody wants to talk to students.

There are two reasons for this, the first is that many people feel students are not qualified enough and are a waste of time.

The other is that people tend to look to what they might get out of an interview, and with a student, it's not likely to be published anywhere.

However, using contacts, I have recently discovered, it's not as hard as it looks. If you persist, and ask the right people, anything can be achieved.

It all comes down to the 'six degrees of separation' theory which suggests that everyone in the world is connected through six stages, yourself being the first stage, and anyone you know being the second.

Using this theory I have managed to get an interview with Chris Moncrieff, and through him, in the next week I will be interviewing Sir Bernard Ingham, and Lords Norman Tebbit and Ian Paisley - quite a scary prospect, especially the latter.

At least two of these people once had or still has a very strong and close relationship with Margaret Thatcher. (Bernard Ingham was her Chief Press Secretary and Chris Moncrieff travelled with her around the world as a political journalist.)

 Maybe Mrs. Thatcher herself could be my next interviewee?

In a business where they say "it's not what you know, it's who you know", using the six degrees of separation, there should, in theory, be no problem for anyone who wants to find a story worth sharing.

Andy Murray will never win a grand slam...unless he gets a personality transplant

Over the past few years I have been closely watching Andy Murray, ever since he burst onto the professional scene as a budding young teenager in 2005 and took over from Tim Henman as the great British hope.

During the early years of his career, I was mightily impressed with his talent. His speed and ability to cover ground that sometimes might not seem possible and his increasingly low error rate made him one of the hottest talents in the world.

Less than three years ago, when the Scot reached his first Grand Slam final (US Open 2008), I was really encouraged by his potential. Probably being an optimistic fan, unlike the characteristics of your average British tennis fan - stemming largely from the expectation in the days of Henman - I felt like Murray could be the worlds best player by the time he was 25.

However, since that first loss in the final to Roger Federer, having seen Murray be completely destroyed, I have had huge doubts about his credentials as a Grand Slam winner.

In big games, Murray's temperament is a big problem. His inability to keep a cool head when things aren't going his way are a trait we have come to accept and in my opinion, he totally lacks the bottle it takes to become a champion. It is visible off the pitch, too, where interviews with the press are conducted in a moody, monotonous and disinterested voice.

Not only have I come to realise that he is unlikely to ever fulfil his potential, I have also come to dislike the guy. He has so much talent and so much potential, but his aloof and defeatist attitude have put paid, in my opinion, to any chance he might have had in winning one of tennis' major honours.

About a year ago, I made a small bet with a friend who still believes Murray can do it. You might have thought that, last week, I would have been worried about losing that bet as he looked almost unstoppable on his way to the Australian Open final. Unfortunately, the only emotion I had was a faint hope that he wouldn't, one again, fall at the last hurdle. Despite the bet, I do still want Murray to succeed because, after all, he's all we English tennis fans have to hang on to right now.

Of course, I was proved right in this case, and not to say I will be right for the rest of his career, but the game against Novak Djokovic has only served as confirmation in my mind that Andy Murray will never win a grand slam.