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Excellent news - the big broadcasters will soon be wasting less money bidding up for coverage of "premium sport". Now don't give me all that guff about how the money does wonderful things. It skews sport in favour of a few superteams in each sport, making it much harder for lower order teams to bridge the gap successfully. The broadcasters are paying far more than the costs of recovering their technical outlay - they are paying an economic rent on top simply to outbid the next guy.

So the fact that it is harder and harder to stop such broadcasts being available free, and by all reports live, on the internet, would suggest to me that the value of that economic rent is going to fall rapidly. And we, the consumer, will have a freer and more competitive market for sports viewing. And hopefully an American billionnaire will not feel the desire to buy my dear Liverpool FC.

Illegal net sport faces crackdown:
By Ian Youngs

Sports authorities are taking action to stop illegal live coverage of football and other events over the internet.

Almost all English Premiership matches are available to watch live and for free, as are other leagues and sports.

The coverage, mainly from Chinese sport channels, is put on peer-to-peer applications and can be watched anywhere in the world.

As well as football, some sites are also claiming to offer live cricket action from The Ashes in Australia.

Yesterday the two sides in the "leadership blogosphere" received a request from the Daily (Maybe), a green blog by a chap called Jim Jay in Cambridge, for a 400 word blog piece promoting our respective candidates to the "Green market". There's one from Matt Davies for Nick Clegg and one from me for Chris Huhne. Read them both at The Daily (Maybe) today, perhaps.

...but, because I think they are probably completely loopy, I'm not a Scientologist. But I'm damned sure that in a pluralist society where we accept as a Human Right the freedom to follow religions we don't agree with, that we ought not to let this happen without a fight:

Germany moves to ban Scientology:

Germany's federal and state interior ministers have declared the Church of Scientology unconstitutional, clearing the way for a possible ban.

There is probably much that can be said against the Church of Scientology and its strange beliefs and sometimes even stranger followers. But I'm not sure there's any specific charge that can be leveled against them in terms of exploitation and behaving like a cult that can't also be leveled at, say, Opus Dei or the Jesus Army. And I'm not sure how they get to this:

German intelligence agencies... claim the movement's structures and methods could pose a threat to the rule of law and "democratic order".

...any moreso than, say, Jehovah's Witnesses subvert democracy by refusing to participate in elections (indeed the greater charge might be leveled against them for holding up the processes of democracy by keeping canvassers talking for an hour and a half!). Indeed some of the activities of the Catholic church in Europe in response to the "moral relativism" of liberal democracy - demanding magistrates refuse to implement laws relating to gay partnerships and so on - could be said to pose a far bigger threat given the numbers of their adherents.

If it can be proven that they practice extortion, then sue them, but to ban them, presumably in order to protect people from their own folly, is a slippery slope that Europe would do well to remember the potential consequences of.

The BBC reports that Westminster council are putting out a leaflet to warn foreign tourists about clip joints. Experience says they should probably start with naive young British boys. For it's twenty one years too late for me!

My first Christmas out of school was in London, three months into a job with a jobbers' firm on the Stock Exchange. I had one mate that I knew of from school in London, who was studying at the Royal College of Music or somewhere like that. The night I got my Christmas/annual bonus we decided to go to the West End. We were determined to go to the Soho highlight of the day, Raymond's Review Bar.

Well we got to the Review Bar and some bloke out the front dressed up in dicky bow and so on said "I wouldn't go in there chaps, it's gay night on Fridays, I'll show you a better place". Oh dear! We dutifully followed him. Duke Street I think it was, and a downstairs bar. Only a fiver to get in - what value! But then...

The only drink we could afford was the nastiest cheap German white wine on sale at £30 per bottle I think it was. Then these two "young ladies" came to our table. We didn't really know what they wanted, but let them sit down and be sociable. We went to share some wine with them...quick as a shot the boss comes over and says "Oh, no, sirs, the girls only drink Champagne". So we agreed - at £50 a bottle (this is 1985 remember).

Anyway - we didn't stay long. And the guy came over with a bill for us...for £200 - exactly my bonus (so much for million pound bonuses in the city!). I had to write four £50 cheques - three of them post-dated - so I could use my guarantee card. And that was my Christmas bonus. Of course, I would rather have been in Mr Raymond's gay night all along!