OK, Brucie, let’s look at what happened regarding racist attitudes 25, 30, 40 years ago.

Racist thugs met up in pubs at weekends and shortly after last orders was called, they then went out for their entertainment of the evening – to go ‘Paki Bashing’.  This, Brucie, is why Asians find the word ‘Paki’ offensive because as these hooligans kicked and head-butted their victims, the violence was accompanied with shouts of ‘you Paki bastard’ and the like.

25/30/40 years ago black people had to put up with racist comedians like Bernard Manning and Jim Davidson.  They called us Chalky, Sambo, Nig Nog, Coon, Nigger.  These comedians thought they were very clever and they packed out a number of clubs.  The only problem was the National Front, a pre-cursor to the BNP, and the Police force, would use the same terms to describe us.  Funny enough the Police and the racists would up their usage of these remarks when they were kicking the living crap out of you on the street or in a police cell.  That wasn’t funny.  Oh no.  We didn’t quite get the joke.  Maybe we weren’t humourous enough, Brucie?

‘Everybody had a nickname’ trills Brucie.  ‘The Americans called us limeys.’  Maybe they did, Brucie, but no Americans came to these shores, got themselves drunk in pubs and then went out ‘Limey Bashing.’ 

Maybe Brucie also finds it humourous to have monkey chants in football stadiums and for the crowd to throw bananas at footballers like John Barnes?  I’m sure he used to chuckle at the Black and White Minstrel show too. 

He says ‘Anton is such a sweet guy.’  Would he be so sweet if he called your wife a Paki or a terrorist, Brucie?

While all this was going on the silence of Strictly Come Dancing judge, Alesha Dixon, is deafening.  I used to really respect you, Alesha.  I liked you in Misteeq and regarded you as an articulate, sassy, intelligent woman.  I was supporting you for being a judge on Strictly.  Buy why so quiet on this Paki issue, Alesha?  Do you think Anton Du Beke should be sacked?  Do you think the term Paki is acceptable?  Or won’t you comment on the controversy because you now have a fat BBC contract and you don’t want to jeopardise your brand?  If that’s the case then that’s a shame.  I kinda liked you when you appeared on the This Week political programme.  You talked a lot of sense and you spoke about issues that concerned you.  As the only ethnic minority on the Strictly panel I find it disappointing that you have nothing to say about the Paki issue.

One last thing.  Brucie, no-one is laughing.

I believe the BNP should take their seat at Question Time. Shouldn’t our so-called politicians be drooling at the opportunity to uncover the true nature of the BNP? Why are they running away from this chance? You would think that after the great expenses scandal that politicians would want to do something to redeem themselves. Wouldn’t uncovering the nasty agenda of the BNP help them back into the public’s regard? They shouldn’t be worried about damaging their reputation if they appeared alongside a BNP panellist together with David Dimbleby. After all, politicians don’t have much of a reputation anyway.

Only through skillful debate will the BNPs racist policies be exposed. And what better way to lay bare the vile nature of the BNP on BBC’s flagship current affairs programme. It will make great TV. Can you imagine the audience cheering, hissing and booing?  It’ll be like panto in suits. It’ll be much better than the Sky News proposed election debate with David Cameron, Gordon Brown and that bloke from the Liberal Democratic party. For the life of me I can’t remember his name. 

We can’t hide away from the fact that tens and thousands voted for the BNP at the last local and European elections.  It hurts me to say that they received 6.2% of the national vote. They now have two representatives sitting in the European Parliament and they will probably claim as much expenses as possible. Wouldn’t it be good if those voters watched a BNP member’s views and policies challenged expertly on Question Time and taken apart? What is there to be scared of? Or haven’t they the stomach for the debate?

If a BNP member does appear on Question Time then I think the fellow panellists should include the Manchester City footballer, Emmanuel Adebayor, Tony Benn, Boris Johnson, Ann Widdecombe and someone fat enough from the Liberal Democrats to stop the fighting if it kicks off – a guaranteed ratings winner.

Question Time would not be the first BBC current affairs programme that invited a BNP member. Andrew Marr interviewed Nick Griffin on his Sunday show. What’s the difference? 

So come on you spineless, jelly-backed politicians. Debate with the BNP. Expose them!

I agree with Sir Terry Wogan that reading the news is a piece of cake.  A doddle.  Unlike correspondents in the field newsreaders don’t have to dodge bullets, crap in the bushes, relate what’s going on in their immeadiate surroundings while listening to a firefight and have a comfy chair to sit on.  Yet the Kate Silverton’s, Mark Austin’s and Natasha Kaplinsky’s of the news world get paid far more than your average Afghanistan war reporter, your undercover Iranian hack or your Somalian coastline correspondent.

Leaving the BBC for 5 News, Natasha Kaplinsky was paid in excess of £300,000 a year to present the news.  Six weeks after she made her debut she promptly announced she was pregnant.  I wonder if 5 News will conduct pregnancy tests before they splash out similar cash to any future female news presenters.

In this country we place too much regard for our newsreaders.  Trevor McDonald got a knighthood out of it.  For what?  Proving he can look all so very sombre while reading from an autocue?  Displaying a nice line in tie wear?  Now he’s this celebrated icon of broadcast news and presents occasional programmes about rich people living in the Caribbean.

If the BBC continue with their ageist policy then they could get rid of the likes of George Alagiah, Huw Edwards, Fiona Bruce or Sophie Raworth and replace them with eleven-year-olds who attend a school near BBC Television centre.  Place cushions on their seat, wash the chewing gum out of their hair, brush and powder them and tell them to read the autocue.  We could even make it part of their media studies.  Get a teacher to be the studio floor manager so they’ll be more comfortable.  They could really do it.  Can’t be that hard. 

At Sky News they could do something similar, although in their defence at least Kay Burley walks about a bit when she presents the news and Jeremy Thompson is first on a plane whenever some disaster befalls the world.  But let’s stop thinking that reading the news is some incredible, mind-boggling work of the highest skill.  Just think of it as reading a rolling newspaper ten yards away with very big letters but having to do it wearing your best make up or suit.

It’s difficult to consider that while Bolt was lowering the 200m world record to 19.19, he was running against world class athletes with four of them getting under 20 seconds.  Very fast.  But they were 7, 8, 9, 10 metres away from Bolt.  It was like watching a thoroughbred race against ponies who have just recovered from swine flu, or a BMW pulling away from a clapped out Ford Fiesta on the autobahn.

Watching Bolt perform in major finals is truly memorable.  For 9 seconds or so, or 19, you can forget about the wars, the recession, the bills, your wife leaving you for a woman, the attractive girl who went out with your best mate, your bet on that greyhound going horribly wrong, your belly straining over your belt, reading another story about Jordan and Peter Andre.  For those few seconds life is good.

Those moments appear rare in life.  For me they include Pele scoring the opening goal in the 1970 World Cup Final.  Viv Richards hitting a masterful 292 for the West Indies against England at the Oval in 1976.  Liverpool winning the European Cup for the first time in Rome, 1977.  I’ll never forget Muhammad Ali knocking out George Foreman in the ‘Rumble In The Jungle’ fight in Zaire 1974.  Daley Thompson winning a second Decathlon gold in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.  Maradona waltzing through the English defence in the 1986 Mexico World Cup Finals.  Michael Owen scoring his wonder goal against Argentina in the 1998 World Cup Finals.

So Sir Usain, thanks very much for those moments.  They will stay with me forever.  Man!  It feels good to be the son of Jamaican parents this morning.

Let me consider the films of the past that would now have an 18 rating because of this absurd proposed censorship.

101 Dalmatians (remember Cruella DeVille?)

The Little Mermaid

Pinocchio

Peter Pan

Lauren Bacall would have never been seen by anyone under the age of 18.  Nor Humphrey Bogart.  Young people would have been denied access to see To Kill A Mockingbird starring Gregory Peck.  No teenage boy would have been allowed to see James Bond introducing himself in a casino.  Young girls would have been banned from seeing Kate Winslet and Leonardo Di Caprio do their Top Of The World thing in Titanic.  Under 18 fans of Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn, Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, John Wayne, Robert Mitchum and other Hollywood mega stars would have had to sneak in via a side door in the cinema to see them (something I did to watch Bruce Lee in Enter The Dragon)  When I was 15 I stole in to watch a film starring some porn actress named Chesty Morgan (I think) Hand on my heart, I can swear that the film never made me think I would have sex in an alpine ski lift.

Do these people who want to tell us what to do really believe that kids will refrain from smoking if they cannot see it in a cinema?  It won’t work.  They will smoke anyway, just like they will have underage sex, drink booze, have sulky moods, wear their jeans below their knees and play their music loud.

What next for the know what’s best for us do good squad?  Maybe they will reclassify films like Toy Story because it has cartoon characters crossing a busy road without looking both ways along the street?  The Wizard of Oz could be reclassified because Dorothy and Scarecrow have too close a relationship?  Star Wars might be a candidate for re-censorship because asthma sufferers might feel all evil-like after watching Darth Vader?

So members of The Motion Picture Association of America and Liverpool Primary Care please find something else to do in the evenings.  Get out a bit and socialise.  Perhaps make a new friend.  Watch Dot Cotton in Eastenders.  Give a job to one out of the five young people who are now unemployed.  Do anything.  I don’t care.  But please stop lecturing us and patronising us on what we can and cannot watch.

It was management where he really made his mark.  He joined Ipswich Town, a small town town club, in 1969 and went onto success there that market town clubs today can only dream of.  I wouldn’t even dare to fantasise of my team, Crystal Palace, coming runners up in the Premiership, winning the FA Cup and UEFA Cup.  Robson made wishes come true.  Unlike the sheik-given mega millions that Manchester City are spending today (let’s see if they come runners-up in the Premiership) Robson never had the financial power to spend in the transfer market.  Instead he implemented an unrivalled scouting system and was a trailblazer in signing continental talent for little money.  Creating a superb team with little resources was Bobby Robson’s greatest achievement.

He went on to manage England and it was only the outrageous cheek and skill of Diego Maradona that stopped England qualifying for the 1986 World Cup semi finals.  His side performed badly in the 1988 European Championships but they came oh so close in the unforgettable 1990 World Cup Finals.  I remember Robson’s poise and decency following that desperate loss to Germany in the semi final.  Dignified, he went over to the German coach, Franz Beckenbauer, and shook his hand warmly.  He then consoled his own players.  A hug for a desolate Paul Gascoigne and embraces for Gary Lineker, Stuart Pearce, Peter Shilton, David Platt, Glenn Hoddle, Chris Waddle, Des Walker and the rest of the team.  All this coming after the media savaged Robson after his side went through the nail-biting qualifying rounds.

He could have easily retired after the heroics of the 1990 World Cup.   Slippers, newspapers and a comfy armchair never suited Bobby Robson.  He went on to manage in Holland, Portugal and Spain and won championships and more silverware.  No English manager before or since has matched his success on the continent.

He finally returned to his birth place, the north-east of England where he realised his dream and managed his boyhood club, Newcastle United.  In his years there, they finished third, fourth and fifth in the Premiership.  His reward?  The sack.  Newcastle have now been relegated and third, fourth, fifth place in the Premiership is fantasy land for their supporters.

His last job in football was an advisor to the Republic of Ireland’s football team.

Everthing he did was touched with decency and dignity.  His love for the simple game was unmatched and he loved it more than the money he made.  As I read of the latest players to hand in transfer requests to try and get a deal playing for Manchester City (yes, I’m talking about the likes of Joleon Lescott) Bobby Robson’s attributes are now very rare in modern football.

Why haven’t FINA blocked the technology advance in the pool?  If the science accelerates with the design of swimming outfits we might as well have manufacturers placing their latest outfits in catapults under the water, unleash them and see what costume touches the wall first.  They’ll be no need for swimmers.

This technology advance is spoiling other sports too.  Lewis Hamilton won the Hungarian grand prix last weekend.  He’s had a terrible season so far and it was a surprise to many that he climbed to the top of the podium.  But was this new found success due to him being a better driver?  No.  Hamilton himself said it was due to the work put in by all the engineers, computer experts, wheel technicians and everybody else that contributes to a Formula 1 car being placed on the starting grid.  Jenson Button leads the Formula 1 championship with Mark Webber in second place.  Lewis Hamilton trails in eighth place but these positions have nothing to do with the drivers.  It depends on how good your car is.  The technicians and engineers might as well race the cars on remote control and just allow the drivers to appear on bank commercials.   In their spare time perhaps they can earn extra money by assisting at go-kart tracks.

The march of technology is affecting many other sports.  In cricket, batsman wielding these new super bats can now hit a cricket ball out of a stadium and into orbit.  In golf, the raw power of Tiger Woods has been negated by these new super-tech driving clubs that allow anyone to drive a ball from the cliffs of Dover to the port of Calais.

It is time to reign in technology in sport and if it is allowed to flourish, sport will not be as we know it.

Forty years later the whole world might as well have watched a cartoon because as the whole Apollo 11 mission unravels with time and common sense. I can now see it was the biggest hoax of the millenium. Let me try and back up my theory.

How did the astronauts survive passing through the Van Allen Radiation Belt that is 500 miles above the earth? Some scientists say you would need six feet of solid lead to ensure your body doesn’t disintegrate. Oh, and also there are Solar Flares, Solar Winds and Cosmic Rays for the astronauts to defy. Remember, all they were dressed in was Michelin suits and they were travelling in a tin can that was less robust than a Volvo estate.

From the live broadcast there are no stars in the lunar sky, none at all. Very strange when you can see quite a few stars from earth, even with streetlights about.

There is no blast crater that would have been made when Apollo 11 made its landing? Was Apollo 11 a glider?

The American Flag is waving despite there being no wind on the moon’s surface.

The television images are very grainy, despite the satellite technology of the day (perhaps they made the live pictures grainy so we wouldn’t spot Steven Spielberg directing)

Although there were cameras fitted to the astronauts’ chests’  and they had no way in focusing and adequately lighting their photographs (the astronauts were wearing these cumbersome gloves) all still images of the Apollo 11 mission are perfect. Was Annie Liebowitz up there with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin?

Why, when technology has accelerated fantastically in the past 40 years, has there not been another mission to the moon?

It’s the biggest con of all time. The world was in a grip of a cold war between the USA and Russia. Russia first launched, Sputnik 1, an unmanned satellite, to explore the upper atmosphere in 1957. Most of the Sputniks failed woefully.  Sputnik 25 failed to escape from the earth’s orbit for its trip to the moon and decayed on January 5th, 1963. They gave up. The Americans thought the Russians were attempting to launch nuclear weapons from space so they began their Apollo programme. They become a little over-excited though when they told the world they were about to send men to the moon.

It didn’t happen. It was a PR stunt. Spin doctors today deem the people who organised the hoax as Gods. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin should have won Oscars. If you like that kind of thing go and watch Capricorn One, a film about a hoax Mars Landing, or Star Wars.

Don’t believe the hype!

While sat in the editor’s chair of the Sunday tabloid, Andy Coulson claims that he was unaware that one of his journalists was phone tapping a member of the Royal Family a couple of years ago.  This led to a conviction and prison term for the offender and Andy Coulson offered his resignation.  He re-emerged as chief media advisor to David Cameron and despite many of the recent phone tapping allegations occuring on Coulson’s watch, Cameron refuses to sack him.  It seems inconceivable to me that an editor of a national newspaper is totally blind in the methods his journalists employ to dig up their scoops.  How can a possible future Prime Minister of the country have such a murky, controversial figure advising him?  Maybe he’s teaching Cameron how to wire a tap on Gordon Brown’s mobile?

My theory is that Cameron refuses to give Coulson the boot because he is scared to.  Coulson was employed by News International, parent company of News Of The World, and my belief is that he was parachuted into his role at Tory HQ not as media advisor but as the silent leader.  David Cameron takes his orders from Coulson.  Coulson ultimately bows to Rupert Murdoch, chief and owner of News International.

Even the Police are fearful to fully investigate the recent phone tapping allegations, concluding that there is no further evidence to go on.  They made a statement to that effect after they spent just a day looking into it.  Maybe the News Of The World have something on high ranking police officers so they are reluctant to press for a criminal investigation.  If it was Joe Public they wouldn’t hesitate to probe deeper.  I’m not holding my breath to see if the Crown Prosecution Service will act against the NEWS OF THE WORLD.

Our main political parties have been cowed by the likes of News International for too long and if David Cameron does walk into 10 Downing Street next year, he will not be doing the country’s bidding, he will be an agent and employee of Rupert Murdoch.

Michael Owen cost Manchester United nothing apart from his wages and no matter what you say about him, when he is fit he scores goals.  Not as fleet-footed as he was once was, Owen has developed into a classic goal poacher and the main reason he didn’t thrive at Newcastle was because they created so little chances for him.  Now playing alongside the likes of Wayne Rooney, Michael Carrick, Rio Ferdinand and Ryan Giggs, Owen should prosper at the opportunities that will be created for him.  He is still only 29, only a year or so older than the 56 million pounds worth of Kaka.  Owen has taken a drastic pay cut to join Manchester United and it’s nowhere near the £120,000 a week that the recently departed Carlos Tevez asked for.  And my money is on Owen to be more productive in front of goal than Tevez.

Before joining Newcastle, Owen had a season playing for Real Madrid where he was criminally underused.  He had to be satisfied with the substitute bench for many games but he still scored 14 goals.  For a short spell he formed a lethal scoring partnership with Brazil’s Ronaldo and supplied by the likes of David Beckham, Luis Figo, Zinedine Zidane, his scoring ratio per minute he played was the best in La Liga that term.  He made his name with Liverpool and I’ve heard Liverpool fans express their anger at Owen signing for the ‘enemy’.  But Liverpool manager, Rafael Benitez didn’t want him.  Sir Alex Ferguson stepped in and made an offer.  Was Owen going to say no?  It’s an incredible opportunity for him.

If he starts the season well at Old Trafford, Fabio Capello, the England manager, will be forced to look at him again and consider including him for next summer’s World Cup squad in South Africa.  Perhaps there he will get close to Bobby Charlton’s English scoring record of 49 goals.  At present he is on 40. 

I hope Michael Owen does perform well in United colours and prove his doubters wrong.