with Bishop's Stortford. As Bath City had thrown away a 2-0 lead at a key point in the season, I was finding it difficult to write something that was truthful without being totally depressing. To lift the mood I turned on BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra to hear the commentary of the NFL playoffs. It was the AFC championship game between the Indianapolis Colts and the New York Jets. The coverage was from the Westwood Radio Network in America (to me, after years living in the UK, the commentators sounded REALLY LOUD AND REALLY FAST!!!!!) with the BBC's Arlo White adding insights and statistics from a studio in London during the American network's frequent commercial breaks. As is the norm on during Radio 5 Live, Arlo invited the listeners to get in touch by text, on Facebook, or through Twitter.I don't usually take up these invitations. It is a pretty rare event when I find any of these listener comments at all enlightening. Why would I want to inflict my own ill-informed, potentially biased opinion on the entire nation (especially when I have this blog to do that through, 
anyway)? Unusually, though, Arlo White gave his own Twitter address, @arlowhite, and it just so happened that I follow Arlo White on Twitter. One of his recent tweets was just there in front of me on the computer. Without giving it much thought, I sent the following tweet: '@arlowhite as an American in exile, its great to get the coverage of the playoffs. Keep it up! (next year the Falcons will win it all). '
anyway)? Unusually, though, Arlo White gave his own Twitter address, @arlowhite, and it just so happened that I follow Arlo White on Twitter. One of his recent tweets was just there in front of me on the computer. Without giving it much thought, I sent the following tweet: '@arlowhite as an American in exile, its great to get the coverage of the playoffs. Keep it up! (next year the Falcons will win it all). 'I was determined not to be up too late writing, so as soon as I sent this I buckled down to try and grind out a description of City's defensive collapse in the second half. I didn't get very far, because within twenty seconds or so I heard Arlo's silky-smooth radio voice to my right say: 'NedvedsNotes on Twitter says, "as an American in exile, its great to get the coverage of the playoffs. Keep it up! (next year the Falcons will win it all)." Discuss. I don't know about that.'
Well, I just about fell out of my chair! I know this new media thing is supposed to be instant and interactive, but I hadn't really written that tweet with an expectation that it would be read on air! For some reason that I can't quite explain, contributing even a short, anodyne comment to a national, but niche-interest, radio broadcast made me feel very good about myself. I didn't even mind the way Ar
lo's co-host grunted dismissively at my suggestion that the Atlanta Falcons would be contenders next season (they probably won't be, anyway). Maybe that's why the BBC encourages interactivity so much - it makes the participants feel good. After all, that's what CBeeBies has been doing for years when it holds up homemade birthday cards that the parents of toddlers have sent in each morning. Nobody watches those and says, 'that birthday card for Jeremy, aged three, who I've never met, made my day!'
lo's co-host grunted dismissively at my suggestion that the Atlanta Falcons would be contenders next season (they probably won't be, anyway). Maybe that's why the BBC encourages interactivity so much - it makes the participants feel good. After all, that's what CBeeBies has been doing for years when it holds up homemade birthday cards that the parents of toddlers have sent in each morning. Nobody watches those and says, 'that birthday card for Jeremy, aged three, who I've never met, made my day!'I can't say that writing about the Bishop's Stortford match got any less depressing after this. It helped to get me through a fairly gloomy bit of writing at least. If City have many more matches like that, listen out for comments on 5 Live from 'NedvedsNotes!'
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