Monthly Archives: February 2008

The problem with Golden Balls – always Steal!

TV, , ,

OK, other than the fact that it is rather crap, the biggest problem I have with Golden Balls is the Share or Steal at the end. Whilst I never studied Game theory, this is pretty much a Prisoner’s dilemma. However the payoff matrix is weighted in an odd format.

Assume that you have a 6th sense, you are sat in the chair and the amount is £50,000.

If you knew that your opponent who you will never see again is going to share what would you do?
If you share it’s 50/50, and you walk away with £25,000, but if you steal thats £50,000 in your pocket!

However if you knew that they were to steal, your f*cked. You’re going home with nothing, so what do you choose? Well if it’s share, you’ve just given your opponent fifty grand, but if it’s steal you could shaft them and ensure that they go home with nothing too.

So if you look back, on both scenarios steal was the best option, which means that you should always steal.

Lincs FM goes digital

Entertainment, , ,

Yesterday Ofcom announced that Lincs FM has won the licence for the Lincolnshire DAB multiplex (with MuxCo). Ok there was only one bid, and as the only countywide FM broadcaster it would have been hard for them to lose.

I’ve looked at the stations which they are going to run:
Lincs FM 102.2 (Lincs FM Group Ltd)
Compass FM (Lincs FM Group Ltd)
Lincs Country (Lincs FM Group Ltd)
Easy Radio (Easy Radio Limited)
Shuffle (MuxCo Lincolnshire Ltd)
UCB UK (United Christian Broadcasters Ltd)
Traffic Radio (Highways Agency)
and I’m pretty sure that I wont bother with any of them except Lincs FM and Traffic Radio.

When I was in Hemel, I was used to having over 10 good stations to pickup including X-FM, however since getting to Lincoln my choices have been BBC Radio 1-5, BBC Radio Lincolnshire, Classic or Lincs FM. As Radio 1 don’t play any music, I can’t understand either Terry Wogan or Ken Bruce and I would crash the car listening to the Today programme, I began listening to Lincs FM two years ago.
Whilst the music is a bit too much Radio 2, at least they play lots of songs. All the presents are local, the quizes are good to listen to, the traffic is really useful (even if it is to tell me that the A46 is closed, whilst I’ve been sat in it for 20 minutes in the fog on Monday), and unlike almost every other regional radio station they are owned by themselves. They don’t drop out to national quizes pretending to be local, don’t have evening shows shared with other stations (other than the Sunday Chartshow) and something like 95% is broadcast live.

So good luck with the DAB, just hope that one day I might be able to get a signal without holding my radio high in the air without breathing!

A tale of two tickets

Entertainment, , , ,

In the last few days we’ve bought tickets to two events, Supergrass at the Engine Shed and Hard Graft at the Drill Hall.
Supergrass tickets were on sale at £17.50, so for a pair it should cost £35. However I was also charged £2 per ticket booking fee and £1.50 postage taking the cost to £40.50. (Collection would have been £1.75)
Hard Graft were on sale at £8, so for a pair it should cost £16. However I was also charged 50p to pay via card, and 35p to have them posted.
So the question is, how do venues and promoters get away with charging so much in extras. There is no option to aviod the booking fee. There is only one offical supplier of tickets (Ticketline), so I can’t shop around for a cheaper fee, and is a first class stamp really £1.50 these days. Whilst the fees from the Drill Hall were reasonable. If I went to the booking office and paid with cash, there would have been no extras.
Ryanair have since been forced to quote prices with all unavoidable charges included (taxes etc), shouldn’t this also be the case for gigs?