International Vox

A short vox-pop recorded the night before a breakfast show for CJS with the views of ex-Welsh internationals on whether or not Wales would beat France in the six nations.

St Athan Radio Feature

Below is the webstory for this radio feature.

It features four people from difference areas of work who have a strong opinion on whether or not the £16 billion defence training facility at St athan will actually be built, when and why it should/n’t be built.

Taxi Feature

A feature with again with all links recorded as live for a breakfast show at CJS.

The feature is from the perspective of taxi drivers getting their views on how Friday night will be with Wales hosting France in the six nations for the first time in Wales on a week night, as the rail lines were not putting on any additional services and parking is a huge problem in the city centre with the roads being closed on matchdays/nights.

Rugby Grant Radio Feature

This post has my radio feature done in CJS, in a night before a breakfast show about a grant given to a number of clubs around Wales.

All links done on location (as-live).

Not much scripting due to a pressure deadline.

300 hundred jobs go at RAF St Athan – could the proposed £16 billion academy help?

St Athan’s military history

With the news that over 300 jobs are to be cut at RAF St Athan, the stronghold at the Vale seems to be coming to extinction. But, the Goverment announced plans in 2005 to build a £16 billion pound military training academy to bring St Athan’s military prowess back to what it once was.

St Athan’s history as a military base stretches back to before the Second World War, with its maximum capacity reaching fourteen thousand at the height of World War Two.

But since the war, the number of people working at St Athan has been falling gradually.

A project which aimed to provide thousands of jobs at St Athan, project Red Dragon, initiated by the Defence Aviation Repair Agency, actually provided less than a hundred jobs because most of the work went elsewhere.

View Larger Map

So, when the MOD announced plans to build the Government’s largest Private Finance Initiative (PFI) at St Athan, in the form of a Military training academy, hope was restored with the promise of between 5,000-10,000 jobs.

But that was in 2005. Now three years later, a year behind the original building schedule and the MOD haven’t given the go-ahead.

What are the real job figures?

Commander Bailey is part of the Defence College Implementation Team at RAF St Athan. The team’s job is to lay the groundwork and help setup the relocation to the proposed new facility across the road (see google map above). He refused to speculate on whether or not he thought the facility would still be built, but he did give information on the jobs that would be available at the proposed academy:

However, this information is slightly confusing.

The only way new trainees could get work at St Athan is if the 3,500 trainee’s relocating refused to move, so they’d lose their jobs and new work would become available.

The 1,600 civilian training instructors Bailey talked about would be employed by the consortium building the facility, Metrix, so these wouldn’t guarantee jobs either.

However, there could be jobs in the 1,400 military posts, and there’d also be work, around 1,500 jobs, in the constructing the academy. When you break it down like this, the numbers originally quoted (between the 5,000-10,000 range) seem a little vague.

There’s been a lot of opposition to the proposed project from sites such as anti-metrix, STAG and no2academy, as well as many demonstrations:

Steven Thomas is the Director of the Welsh Centre of International Affairs, and has been opposing the project since day one for a number of reasons. He spoke about how the original job figures have been scaled down:

More pressure against the project

There’s been much talk about the facility at the Welsh Assembly also, with the overwhelming majority in favour of the base going ahead. One politician whose been voicing her concerns over the proposed facility is Jill Evans MEP from the Rhondda Valleys.

Mrs Evans expressed doubts regarding the job figures since they were originally quoted, and as a pacifist she’s against the project. Although Mrs Evans does recognise that jobs are needed in Wales; she doesn’t think the money should be spent on such a facility now:

So along with the actual job figures, we also don’t know if the proposed military training facility is even going ahead. At the moment, the MOD and the Vale of Glamorgan have agreed forward planning, but the MOD hasn’t confirmed whether or not they’re going to commit to the project.

Is it happening?

Although Steven Thomas is against the project, he was still confident that it would go ahead. He said: “I still think they (MOD) intend that it’ll go through. And differently from other people who’ve been against the project, I don’t think the economical impact of the past 24 months is enough to put them off it the project.”

But at the moment maybe we shouldn’t be dwelling on the actuall job figures – with the current economical climate, arn’t any jobs better than none?

Alan Davies is a retired army Major, and doesn’t see why a military training facility couldn’t be built so close to the capital. He’s far more positive on the economical impact that the work created at the proposed base would have on the Welsh economy, and he does see it happening in the future at St Athan:

So, even though there has been much protest agains the proposed academy, there is evidence to suggest jobs, however many will be created. And the surrounding area could benefit economically from such a large investment.

But at the moment, we haven’t heard any definite news on whether or not the base will go ahead, people for and against the base are split as to whether or not it’ll go through.

With the recession having already taken its toll on St Athan, next year could be a decisive one in its rich military history.

Paywall, newpapers and the future for print

Thoughts and views on how newspaper can adapt to make decent profits on the world-wide web.

Being a  broadcaster, why would I care about all these lectures about how ‘print is dead’? Well for a start, I’m not that naïve.

As broadcasters, we’re giving up our audiences to the outrageous growth of the internet, although not as alarming as the decline in papers, with ITV regional going in 2012 things are pretty bad.

Alternatives

 

Iplayer, 4od, the itv one e.t.c along with MSN, BBC Online, and google news, show that people don’t need to buy papers anymore and even bloggers are even pulling in a decent crowd.

But as the author of this video lets us know, should we be trusting bloggers instead of professional journalists?

The quality, content and quantity won’t be nearly as good as a professional journalists work, however, they do sometimes have as much or even more knowledge as a journalist (for example BBC’s technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones knows that he isn’t as techy as some bloggers).

But isn’t the point of journalists to tell us what we don’t already know?

For those of us in the minority, who do know more than the basics, then niche bloggers are A way forward - but they shouldn’t be seen as replacements for journalists.

Theres a great intro into niche blogging here (by a blogger).

So how are the newspapers going to get round the ‘free internet journalism’? 
Here are some of my ideas as discussed with The Times’ Joanna Geary:

1. Subscriptions, micropayments and 24 payments -

Well most of the newspapers have thought about the subscriptions and 24 hour payments – these seem to be the most reasonable way of getting it to work as discussed by James Harding at the Society of Editors.

But what about micro-payments?

Apps and iTunes have revolutionized the way of paying and getting things fast, I would think this could this work for news, but evidence suggest not.

However, in these troubled times, shouldn’t they be trying everything? 

The FT have considered it and so have google.

My example would be; if you (a newpaper) had a front page with all the headlines, but then people would pay say 1-5p a piece of news?

But it could prove quite confusing at the start, and profits would be quite small.

 2. Newspapers working together -

Bickering isn’t going to solve anything, so in this drastic time where print is a sinking ship, they should be working together – but it’s a dog eat dog world out there.

What if then they all decided on an initial platform to get them off to a stable start online, an idea that could at least save more redundancies.

The main competitor is of course things like google news and the BBC online news - but unless you top slice BBC to the other journalistic companies, or limit them somehow or get google in on the act with you, it seems an impossible task.

3. Merge Paper and Internet -

It’ll be impossible to make the nationals niche (it defeats the object) – so as a cheat way to keep them safe for now, how about a simple code that would go with the 24-hour subscription discussed earlier?

I.e. when you buy a paper in the morning, stories develop throughout the day, so to make money without buying further stories online you simply type a code which would be put on each paper into the website and you have access to the news all day on that papers website – giving you access to all the devlopments of the days stories.

Confused?
You could always try these ideas I suppose:

(Many thanks to Joanna Geary of the times online)

Explaining Protein Shakes

Many people who train hard need supplements to help them achieve goals, there essential to the modern-day athlete – professional or amateur – here’s why the most popular is so popular.

It’s hard to stick to a stricked diet without the aid of supplements these days with the main reason being, that if you train, its hard to actually eat as the amount of correct nutrition that you need in order to grow.

What you'd expect to find on the shelf

And its to expensive to eat 200grams of protein a day in meat or fish form. 

Another example is if you’re aiming to lose weight.

You’re going to find the initial dieting quiet hard so sipping protein shakes as snacks every few hours is going to give you the right type of nutrition without you putting on extra pounds.

The most available in the market is protein, and here is a quick rundown on the two types which are of the greatest use if you excercise regularly:

Whey protein

Whey is the fastest digestible protein source available and in its purest form, it has no fat, cholesterol or lactose.

The protein is extracted out of milk in the cheese making process, its then filtered down, its then dried to rid the water and turned into powder (thus mixable with liquid).

To be honest, it’s not hard to mix a shake, but I saw this on youtube and thought it was worth it just in case:

Anyway, back to reality….
If you train regularly, the ‘window of opertunity’ talked about in nutrition for dummy’s lasts for up to 2 hours, however, it’s the first half an hour after training that is most important to re-fuel you body – so that you don’t risk excess damage to your muscles and so that they get the right fuel to re-build.

As it’s the fastest digestible source of protein, its the perfect time to use it after training as your body can use it straight away to re-build.

Protein is the bulding block of your body, so you need as  much as you can if you train, want to grow or want to lose weight.

After training your metabolism is higher than normal, so you can take in more than you’d usually be able to eat and you’ll use it as fuel rather than store the extra as fat (which is what would normally happen if you had a huge meal that’s way to much than you actually need).

The only other time a Whey shake is necessary would be in the morning where your body needs to be woken up with some decent nutrition.

Casein Protein

Casein is basically the opposite of Whey i.e. it is a slow-release protein.

As Casein has this slow-release property, its ideal for taking before bed, or as a snack between meals as its property can last for several hours.

Its made in the same way as Whey through the extraction of milk and after training you can mix both, as the Casein lasts in the body for a while after use, and the Whey is digested straight away it seems like a perfect combination after excercise.

But there seems to still be some confusion as to which one you should take if you were to train.

Whey is the obvious choice to save money as Casein is more of an optional extra.

However if your still not sure check this.

Technology in the news

(Ironic really, no links, videos or media in this article. Silly due to its name…)

It’s sometimes refreshing to hear someone agree with your thoughts.
As someone who’s doing the technology patch here at CJS, I’ve often found it quite hard to consistently find stories which come under the Science and Technology patch. I eventually got under the illusion that it was a subject that when news came around under this topic, it was usually more of a ‘feature’ type-kinda news than breaking news. So when the BBC’s technology reporter, Rory Cellan-Jones, admitted that he’s usually limited to once a week on the 10 o’clock news, I felt a lot better.

It’s strange how many people have talked of  Twitter’s great importance in the new developing world of news. So, inevitably a BBC technology reporter was going to say similar things. Although modest about his knowledge of the newest technology, many people doubted his wisdom a year ago that Twitter would be the force it is today. Who’s laughing now? Twitter is the most powerful rising media source out on the internet at the moment. Jones couldn’t tell us what he thought would be the next big thing though. Not that anyone could at the moment. The web is developing at a rate that key journalists in the field like Jones can only keep up with it – rather than being a step ahead.

It was partially refreshing also to hear another BBC employee talk of how they’d moved patches in their career. I use the word partially with good reason; for recently we had Mark Byford, the BBC’s Head of journalism, talk of how he had no experience in the journalism world but has managed to rise through his law background, to deputy director of the BBC. In a way its good to see that anyone can rise to the top through hard work; however you could also argue that isn’t it slightly hard on those who come from a journalist background to be beaten to the top job by someone with no academic background in the subject? Similarly knowing that Jones has moved from the Business patch to Technology patch is refreshing, because switching fields is something that keeps a journalist interested - however, Jones himself on numerous occasions talked of how he didn’t really know much about the field before joining it. He even admits he’s slightly behind now (although his knowledge far surpasses the average consumer of technology – which is where he needs to be), even though its only tech experts that could really challenge him. So, as I have said, I use the word partially with good reason.

Another talk from a key journalist in a branch of the industry that we will all need follow if we as the new breed of journo’s are to keep the industry alive. But, we already knew most of this already didn’t we?

The bus of destiny…

The bus of destiny. Its a shame that we can’t do things like Daniel Meadows did with his big red bus. I certainly would have enjoyed it – travelling around Europe and Britain taking pictures of people and just having fun. Unfortunatly….this is almost fantasy to us now. Sure I could have saved up, had a gap year, travelled around Europe…but it wouldn’t have been the same as Meadows’ experience. Leading up to the highlight (so far!) in his life, Digital Storytelling, its obvious that he is creatively very talented.

To appreciate his work you must appreciate his background. An attractive proposition for BBC Wales, getting people around our close-knit-comunity country to share their stories that are close to their hearts.

For me there is a problem with this creativity. Coming from a musical background, I’ve learned to appreciate all types of art – not quite ballet though. Pictures say a thousand words, and voices over them create the deeper story. Here’s the problem. Where does the money come from.
Throughout the digital storytelling campaign in Wales, a small number were involved in remote areas. That is great that small communities are getting the attention they deserve. But on a larger scale, where and what was the business drive of such an innovative project through our BBC?

As I say, this isn’t a criticism, it’s just something I don’t quite understand. For there are two main things that make up any basic journalistic story; the text (or substance of the actual story(can be speech)) and the picture (still or moving). And through seminars and Meadows I’ve begun to appreciate the importance of a good picture (again still or moving). But the world is money driven. We are money driven people. Do we have time to dwell on the ‘small stories’ and creative interests? Can creative genius always give us the audiences we need to survive in a journalistic world that is crumbling around us (to quote Peter Horrocks)? No it probably can’t.

The bus created Meadows’ destiny.
It’s a cruel world where art is comes second.

Nutrition for dummy’s

There are four main food groups that must be understood in order to provide yourself with nutritional knowledge if you train or if you want to lose weight – and when you should eat certain types of food ar just as important..

 

What do you think the ratio is between training and nutrition i.e. which one is more important to get fit, training or nutrition? 50/50?

It’s more like 75/25 in favour of nutrition. Shocked?

It’s only at an elitist level that the ratio sways towards the direction of intensity of training and even then nutrition is still as, if not more, important than the training. 

So what changes to your diet could you make and why?

1. Wholegrain foods -

Brown carbs, such as whole grains, in bread, couscous, rice, pasta, noodles, muesli, porridge oats and bulgar, are better for your energy than the white variety.

The reason being, say you eat a white bread sandwich, the white carbs cause an upsurge in your blood sugar levels, which force your body to try and take in all the energy from the meal in one go.

Your body can’t do that. So what happens is you get a spike of energy then an energy slump – hence why at half 3 you’re looking for your mars bar and a big coffee…(For more on wholegrains… and here)

How can I get it in my diet -

Simply swap the white carbs you have to brown, easy enough – because carbs should accompany every meal you have during the day.

2. Fruit and veg - 

An obvious one and it isn’t hard to get them into your diet.

Essesential vitamins and minerals in fruit and veg prevent cancer - although many foods claim to have this particularly good claim, have you noticed how their always some form of fruit or veg?

Dont believe it? Check here and here.

Superfoods have had big headlines because of their anti-toxin benefits. See their potentials in this video:

How can I get it into my diet -

Getting an apple, orange, banana as a snack isn’t hard – a breakfast of muesli with fruit, dried fruit yogurt and honey is the best thing you can have for a proper diet – pineapple with a bit of cottage cheese before bed is perfect too.

3. Protein -

This food group gets some bad press (mainly due to the Atkins Diet) - but if you want to get fit, it can be a hugely beneficial.

Up-ing the protein content in your diet is good for weight-loss as it can be more filling than more carbs and fat, and comes in a variety of forms.

If you want to build muscle you need at least 1g of protein per pound of bodyweight so that these and these kind of things don’t happen, and so this does - growth and not deterioration.

Protein repairs your muscles; it is the building blocks of your body, and without a significant amount you deplete and your body turns against you.

Vegetarians are often ill because of the lack of protein in their diet (if you’re a veggie and need some protein sources look here). 

Meat, eggs, fish, cottage cheese, nuts, seeds and different types of beans are the best sources of protein.

If you want the leanest types of protein you want eggs, chicken, turkey, cottage cheese, any type of fish (but not much (don’t take this to literally) tuna because of the high mercury content).

How can I get protein into my diet -

Protein should be in every meal you have. It should be the core of your meal i.e. you wouldn’t have a roast without the chicken e.t.c.

4. Water -

If you want a healthy lifestyle you need to up your water intake, the guidelines state that you should drink around 1.2 litres a day, but really it should be around 2.5-3 litres.

If you regularly exercise you’ll simply suffer unbelievable headaches, poor skin and you’ll be very tired unless you drink around the 2.5 litre amount a day.

Fizzy drinks such as coke are a killer. They spike your sugar levels like white carbs, which makes you hungry later in the day meaning you eat more and so the cycle goes on.

Tea and coffee shouldn’t be seen as a substitute for water, although they have benefits.

Coffee is recommended for giving a boost, and many different types of tea can help you sleep or anxiety (check down the bottom here).

The importance of water in your body can be scene in this short film:

 

How can I get it into my diet -

Well you’ll have it in already, just try and keep a tab of how much you drink everyday to make sure you have enough.

5. The window of opportunity after exercise -

I don’t need to say that obviously both the diet and excercise go hand in hand (although I did say diet is more important, you need to excercise too!).

After training, what you eat in the half an hour window is almost more important than the rest of your diet.

For example, if you go for a run in the morning, then go to work without eating anything, an hour into your working day your going to be physically and mentally drained; you should have eaten a decent meal after training!

After excercise is the only time in your diet that you can eat ‘rubbish’ i.e eating white carbs and chocolate gives you the insulin spike we discussed before.

But this time because you’ve been training, your body can handle it and your energy sources are replenished without putting on the weight your trying to lose as your body uses the food as fuel to heal your body; it WONT be stored as fat.

What should I eat after excercise -

If cardio training (i.e. running, boxing, swimming) you need around 25g of protein and about 75g of white carbs.

If weight training you need more protein but just as much carbs say 50g of protein and 100g carbs (protein shakes are prefered as they have the quickest digestible type of protein, whey).

Diets - Lose weight, Veggy diet, Healthy diet, Muscle diet; Protein source content percentages.