Why is BBC Sports Personality Of The Year always so crap?

Every year it's the same. Two hours of television with approximately five minutes of actual sporting action shown. Mind numbingly dull interviews with the great and the good conducted by permatan Lineker, an increasingly mumsy Sue and that gangly bloke off the motor racing. A couple of pointless, monumentally unentertaining gimmicks almost totally unconnected to the subject of the show. And at the end, the winner is usually someone who doesn't actually have much of a personality at all.

It all could have been so different had Phil 'The Power' Taylor won. As well as being world champion a staggering 15 times, the darts colossus has the added appeal of being a genuine character, a throwback to an earlier era when sports stars were normal people unsullied by the machinations of PR and willing to remain themselves. Grinning, fist-pumping, cracking gags with friends in the audience - The Power was in his element, and his ample girth is comforting proof to everyone that you don't need the body of a Greek god to reach the top in every sport.

The contrast between Stoke-on-Trent's finest and the recipient of this evening's Lifetime Achievement Award couldn't be more stark. Presumably Mr Beckham was given this award at the tender age of 35 to ensure his high profile attendance - although unlike the rest of the audience he clearly insisted that all his immediate family were invited too before accepting.

I don't dispute that Becks is a fine ambassador for English football, and he was a very, very good, though not great player for many years. But this 'award' smacks of the BBC cynically pandering to the cult of personality rather than focusing on the people who have actually been the most significant sporting achievers of 2010. The ex-England international's Oscar-like acceptance speech played mawkishly to the gallery as usual and was at least 27 times longer than the airtime given to any of the 10 Personality Of The Year nominees.

Even so, the Sage would rather listen to Beckham's platitudinous ramblings continuously for a week than suffer another 30 seconds of James Corden. I came across this monstrously unfunny man stuffing his face in an Italian restaurant recently and nearly asked him how he has managed to build such a successful career when it seems the sum total of his talent is being a lairy fat bloke. A comedy routine based around the less than shocking revelation that darts players like a pint and trying to molest Sue Barker does not justify a slot on primetime television,and I was left hoping that Phil The Power would take exception to Corden's slur upon his profession and proceed to pepper him with perfectly aimed tungsten tipped projectiles until he cried for mercy.

Oh - and well done A.P. McCoy. Who are you again??

The Sage's Top 10 Albums of 2010

Dear followers

2010 has not in the Sage's humble opinion been a vintage year for music, with no true modern classic emerging to really set the pulse racing. Nevertheless, there's still been a number of excellent records released over the past 12 months that I would urge you all to check out if you haven't done so already.

Please see below a list of my Top 10 albums of the year, together with links to performances by all the artists for those of you who'd like to find out more about them.

As always, your views are most welcome!

Regards

The Sage

1 Beach House - Teen Dream

Blissful and hypnotic, this record may well go down as 2010's Fleet Foxes and give Beach House the genuine mainstream success they richly deserve. Teen Dream boasts a dynamic that is both epic and ethereal at the same time, with Victoria LeGrand's bewitching vocals soaring gorgeously over layers of reverbing guitar and floating organ. I haven’t stopped listening to this since I bought it in January. My album of the year.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZxrIbTMJr4

2 John Grant - The Queen Of Denmark

Imagine if ELO had grown up gay in the American Midwest and you'll have some idea what John Grant sounds like. After years of obscurity as the front man of indie underachievers The Czars, the Denver troubadour teamed up with his more successful friends Midlake to produce an album that combines sublime orchestration with bittersweet lyrics as its creator recounts his experiences as a small town outsider. Fans of 70s FM rock should really give this a go.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzWQSabtWLs

3 I Am Kloot – The Sky At Night

This trio of gnarled, scruffy Mancunians have chugged along on the margins of the UK indie scene for a decade now, but a Guy Garvey-produced collection of stately, elegant compositions gave I Am Kloot a richly deserved Mercury prize nomination. Jonny Bramwell's eloquent tales of outsiders, underachievers, drinkers and dreamers on the margins of society make him one of the best and most original songwriters around.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oqB3d6Pklw&feature=fvsr

4 The National – High Violet

Like I Am Kloot, The National have been around a while, but these Baltimore natives have become the darling of the critics this year with this outstanding album. A more world-weary, emotionally engaging American answer to The Editors, Matt Berninger’s sonorous baritone certainly sounds like he’s been round the block a few times and is the perfect voice to front his band’s meticulously structured, cinematic rock.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfySK7CLEEg

5 Vampire Weekend - Contra

There's an awful lot of preppy American Ivy League graduates churning too clever by half, jerky indie pop records these days, but Brooklyn's Vampire Weekend remain worthy of the hype. Yes, almost everything they do owes a huge debt to Paul Simon's Graceland, and they pretentiously pontificate on subjects like drinking horchata. But with melodies this joyous and beats this infectious, you can forgive them their indulgences.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaTgDgCSh-w

6 Tame Impala – Innerspeaker

Credible Australian rock groups are something of a rare commodity so it’s a welcome surprise that these natives of Perth have delivered arguably the year’s best debut album. Steeped in the sounds of 60s San Francisco psychedelia and early Pink Floyd, this woozy, reverb heavy record is trippy but accessible and those who enjoyed Animal Collective’s Merriweather Post Pavilion in 2009 will find Tame Impala to be very much cut from the same cloth.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jekYAm3fkA

7 Chief – Modern Rituals

Another outstanding 2010 debut came from California’s Chief, the latest in a steady stream of excellent groups to emerge from the West Coast in recent years. But with their chiming guitars and anthemic choruses, this four piece have as much in common with British bands like Coldplay and Doves as their country-rock contemporaries. Of all the albums on my list, Modern Rituals would probably appeal to the broadest range of listeners.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAODjl_pUbY

8 The Tallest Man On Earth – The Wild Hunt

Had Bob Dylan been cryogenically frozen in 1963, transported to rural Sweden and then revived in 2010, the next album he made would probably have closely resembled The Wild Hunt. Kristian Mattson’s song writing, voice and guitar playing are uncannily similar to the great man in his acoustic pomp, but this lack of originality scarcely matters when he can pen tunes as instantly catchy as The King Of Spain and Love Is All.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvWstzEUTfU

9 Sufjan Stevens – All Delighted People EP

Only Stevens would opt to release an EP that is actually considerably longer than most albums at nearly 60 minutes. Having long since abandoned his much-quoted plan to write a musical tribute to each of America’s 50 states, these sprawling, meditative songs are a heady brew of folksy banjo plucking, orchestral flourishes, electronic burbles and enigmatic lyrics peppered with biblical references that typify the Detroit maverick’s unique talent.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uvfg4hntSGA

10 Bellowhead – Hedonism

This 11 piece big band take traditional English folk songs and bring them bang up to date by adding elements of jazz, funk, rock and almost every other genre imaginable. Although Bellowhead are perhaps best appreciated at one of their riotously entertaining live performances, Hedonism is nevertheless a fine record, its dazzling musicianship combining with an infectious energy that’s a far cry from the genre’s woollen sweater and real ale stereotype.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQ9joSfUB5k

Recent BBC Reviews

Dear followers

Please see below my two most recent BBC reviews. Anna Calvi, out in January, is highly recommended for the more adventurous.

Regards

The Sage


Elliott Smith

http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/reviews/dwnv


Anna Calvi

http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/reviews/jjm5

Matt finish - former decorator wins X Factor

After a tortuous, endlessly drawn out two hours of toe curling hyperbole and schmaltz, we finally have a winner! And much to the delight of the Sage, it is not the horrifically untalented gaggle of British Biebers that is One Direction, but instead the relatively harmless, actually quite likeable Essex boy done good Matt who's going to be saturating the nation's airwaves over the next few weeks, even after the potentially fatal setback of wearing hideous bright yellow trousers for his first performance.

It's probably safe to say that Matt is unlikely to join Dylan, Presley and The Beatles in the pantheon of great artists, but what his victory does represent is a pleasing triumph for a genuinely good singer who has worked hard to break into the music industry. Simon Cowell's Frankenstein-like creation of One Direction epitomises all the worst aspects of the X Factor - the cynical manufacturing, the emphasis on style over substance and the blatant exploitation of naive, wide eyed schoolchildren. Mediocre singers, leaden-footed dancers and guilty of a cringingly forced on-stage matiness, their demise should be met with a universal sigh of relief.

The Sage felt a little more sorry for the engagingly shy and awkward Rebecca, who sang beautifully but blandly every week before mumbling benignly in unintelligible Scouse into Dermot's microphone. Of course, it would have been much more interesting had one of the contestants with an actual personality won the show - the sneeringly pugnacious Cher perhaps, or the soulful but grating Katie - but we all knew it wouldn't happen. As usual we were left with a collection of inoffensive nice guys, cooed at by a panel of judges abandoning any attempt at objective criticism to reach for ever more gushingly sycophantic superlatives. Matt was probably the least bad option, and the Sage wishes him well.

One final point on tonight's show - the highly distasteful public humiliation of the X Factor's less gifted auditionees is the modern equivalent of a Victorian fairground freakshow that does noone any credit. While the career opportunities for 19th century dwarves and bearded ladies were presumably somewhat limited, quite what possessed this wretched ensemble of the aesthetically challenged and borderline insane to participate in such an unedifying exercise in self-flagellation can probably only be answered by their psychiatrists. At one point the camera focused on Louis Walsh wearing an expression of pure pity and the Sage for one shared his view.

The Egyptian Experience - Part 2: Luxor and Aswan

After the mixed bag of Cairo, the Sage was grateful to swap Egypt's madcap metropolis for the far more laid back Luxor and Aswan. First however, there was the small matter of a 12 hour overnight train journey, which certainly tried the Sage's not inconsiderable patience to the limit.

Egyptian trains are not exactly the Orient Express. The carriages are old, tatty and oblige travellers to become closely acquainted with the local cockroaches. The toilets resemble the one Ewan McGregor dives into in Trainspotting, and before even answering nature's call you have to cough and splutter your way through the fug of cigarette smoke emitted by the hordes of fellow passengers lighting up in the corridors. Attempting to sleep was largely futile, especially for the Sage who was sat across the aisle from a fanatical-looking man who insisted on chanting extracts from the Koran to himself until 3am. Each glance of disapproval from the Western infidel was met with a steely gaze of disdain, so I decided discretion was the better part of valour in order to avoid being brutally decapitated the moment I shut my eyes.

At around 10am I emerged bleary-eyed into the Luxor sunshine - their winter maybe, but still over 30 degrees. Luxor, formerly known as Thebes, is a fascinating place. The capital of Egypt's New Kingdom in the second millenium BC, it's basically a huge open air museum with a host of wonderfully preserved ancient sites including Karnak temple and the Valley Of The Kings. After managing to stay awake long enough to enjoy a tour of Karnak, I hit the hotel rooftop pool and got chatting to a charming Swiss lady who informed me that Naomi Campbell was getting married in one of Luxor's temples the following week. Since returning to England I have read the wedding was cancelled due to details leaking out to the press. I can confirm The Sage had nothing whatsoever to do with this unfortunate breach of confidence.

After another day in Luxor, which saw the Sage successfully navigate a donkey from the banks of the Nile to the Valley Of The Kings without being dismounted, it was on to Aswan. Like Luxor, this is positively chilled out compared to Cairo, and is also arguably the place where the Arab world starts to merge into Africa proper. For the first time, you start to see black faces in the streets, members of the Nubian tribes that live all across southern Egypt and northern Sudan. From Aswan, I was able to visit the spectacular temple of Abu Simbel, a kind of Egyptian Mount Rushmore hewn from a rock face in 1300 B.C and then taken apart and rebuilt 100 metres away from it's original location in the 1960s to preserve it during the construction of the Aswan dam. Very seldom does a man-made structure take the breath away, but Abu Simbel is truly sensational - an Indiana Jones style fantasy temple which even the hordes of tourists scurrying beneath it like ants cannot totally divest of its atmosphere.

In order to visit Abu Simbel, you have to obtain government permission to join one of two police guided convoys that set off there in the early hours of each morning. By this stage of my trip, the police presence came as no surprise - in Egypt, they are literally everywhere. Outside historical sites, on the door of every hotel, at stations, on trains, on the streets - it's impossible to escape these heavily armed symbols of a highly authoritarian state.

While the threat of terrorist atrocities against tourists remains very real following a series of attacks in the past 10-15 years, this need for security does not excuse harassment, bribery and intimidation. Officers on duty at the pyramids try and extort money to take photos, I had my suitcase randomly searched at one hotel, and our guide was apprehended for carrying a bag that was supposedly 'a brand that could only be owned by police.' These kind of actions hardly make them a 21st century Gestapo, but it does leave something of a sour taste, adding to my overall impression that Egypt is a country where the present day is considerably less glorious than the past. Several Egyptians I spoke to long for a better society in their homeland, with free elections, greater civil liberties and higher standards of living, but few expect their situation to significantly improve in the foreseeable future.

As I sit at my desk here in Stockwell, I'm thinking that perhaps I've been too harsh on Egypt. Poverty, overcrowding, pollution, corruption, repression, street hawking - these are all inescapable elements of most developing nations, and governments across the globe face a struggle to address and overcome them. But the Sage believes in telling it like it is, and for all it's magnificent historical legacy as the world's first nation state and the home of one of the most captivating of ancient civilisations, what we see today is a country that frustrates more than it inspires.

The Egyptian Experience - Part One: Cairo

Dear followers

The Sage recently celebrated his resignation from the world of internal communications management by jetting off to the home of the pharoahs, pyramids and random shark attacks upon German pensioners to enjoy a brief escape from the resumption of the Ice Age in Britain.

Many UK holidaymakers visit Egypt to soak up the year-round sunshine in Red Sea resorts like Sharm El Sheikh, but being a man of culture and learning who would rather not have my limbs dismembered while demonstrating my doggie paddle, my trip focused predominantly on the peerless archaeological sites of this very ancient land. Inevitably though, visiting these places necessitated engaging fully with the modern face of Egypt, which was an altogether more mixed experience.

I flew into Cairo on 28 November. Cairo is vast - the largest city in Africa with anything between 13 and 22 million people depending on which statistics you believe. Huge concrete dual carriageways dissect a warren of shops, hotels and slum housing, with spiralling minarets jostling for position alongside neon signs advertising Western brands across a crowded skyline. A thin but inescapable layer of smog hovers malignantly overhead, created by countless cars belching out exhaust fumes as they career madly around the city with no apparent regard for their own safety or that of their fellow motorists.

On foot, Cairo is scarcely more appealing. The pavements are cracked, uneven and strewn with rubbish, not forgetting the occasional carcass of one of the many stray cats that stalk the streets wherever you go. Ragged children emerge from their makeshift homes behind fences and walls to kick a battered football around. It's advisable to check your life insurance cover before attempting to cross the road, and you can sense the polluted air infiltrating your lungs as soon as you step outside.

Then there's the people. Away from the tourist areas - no problem. While travelling on the surprisingly efficient metro or ambling around local markets, I might as well have been invisible, despite being the only westerner in sight. But the rest of the time, not only in Cairo but in Luxor and Aswan too, was a constant test of patience as I was assailed from every direction by a stream of hawkers and vendors who, rightly or wrongly, see foreign visitors as fair game cash cows to be milked dry of cash by any means possible. "Hello sir, where are you from sir, do you need a taxi sir, come and have a look in my shop sir..." While it's important to remember that for many this is the only way to survive in a country that's poorer than many realise, sometimes the level of hassle can become quite invasive. For example, as I got into a cab outside the city's enormous and labyrinthine Khan Al-Khalili bazaar, a toothless old man appeared from nowhere, shut the car door behind me and then extended a bony hand through the window to demand 'baksheesh' for the unwanted service he had rendered.

Yet all Cairo's negatives faded away when I had my first view of the pyramids - a truly awe-inspiring moment. I had assumed they were located a fair distance away in the middle of the desert, but as our minibus hurtled round a suburban corner they loomed up unexpectedly, towering majestically over the shanty towns below only a matter of yards from the fringes of the city. Up close they are no less impressive; their sheer size alone adding credence to the conspiracy theories that aliens masterminded their construction. Far-fetched perhaps, but it's hard to imagine how human beings living over 4500 years ago accomplished such marvellous feats of engineering without some help.

At 146.5 metres high, the Great Pyramid Of Khufu remained the world's tallest man made structure for an incredible 3800 years until it was finally surpassed by the spire of Lincoln Cathedral in 1300 AD. A true wonder of the world - and one definitely worth braving the trials and tribulations of today's Egypt to witness.

In my next blog, I'll be writing about my travels to Luxor and Aswan, in the south of Egypt.

Until then, all the best

The Sage