Jetstream, my video blog, is still the longest running weekly episodic video blog in Chester Chronicle history, standing as it does currently at four entries.

But they have been well received and their audience is growing. This coupled with the content we fill the website with (www.chesterchronicle.co.uk/cheshire-jets) is generating many more web hits than the old Jets channel used to.

While it does not really enter the realm of the football club coverage, which has a lot more visitors, we are no longer relying on just one sporting entity to draw visitors to our site and, in my opinion, the Jets section is maybe setting the pace a little in terms of the diversity of content.

Competition of course is healthy but the main thing is that organising, filming and editing these Jetstream videos is making me ever more proficient in skills which I hope will ensure that I am able to sustain an entire career in journalism as digital markets grow and print products face new challenges.

And the fact I get to cover basketball, a great sport that I have always loved, is simply an added bonus.

Last week I was at the Echo Arena, a place sponsored by my employers for which I had a valid media pass. So I was caught off-guard when a tall gentleman (not a basketball player) with an earpiece (security) came over and asked what I was doing filming outside.

On one hand I was glad to see they take security so seriously at the Echo Arena. On the other, I am not sure what sort of security risk (as that was the reason he cited for needing to check me out) he felt a slightly paunchy man in a floral shirt standing in front of a camcorder with a clipboard posed.

I never got to the bottom of that so please, answers on a postcard.

Nevertheless I got my interview with one of the latest Cheshire Jets imports, Quemont Greer, and I have to say that despite the fact the club wants the publicity we provide, I still feel they are being incredibly welcoming in the access they provide to players and coaches.

I believe football could learn a lot from that openness, as players become comfortable with the media and rather than needing expensive training to bat back questions they will be able to provide eloquent answers without getting themselves into trouble.

In the summer I was courtside as Luol Deng starred for Team GB and now I spend Sunday evenings courtside with the Jets against the cream of the BBL Championship. I’m sure there are worse jobs in the world…

But now I’m breaking big news. I have been working on the Chester Chronicle’s new improved Cheshire Jets coverage and thanks to some technical assistance from internet wonder kid James Shepherd I can now reveal that the first two editions of the Jetstream Cheshire Jets video blog are now online to view at www.chesterchronicle.co.uk-cheshire-jets

This is already the longest running weekly episodic video blog the Chester Chronicle has ever broadcast and that is a record I believe may never be broken. Nevertheless we plough forward and new episodes will be uploaded to the website weekly along with match reports and all the great coverage that the Chronicle is now building a reputation for.

If you like basketball, if you like Cheshire Jets, and if you need to know what’s going on, you need…

THE JETSTREAM.

But watch the video and a few things spring to mind. Firstly it is sprayed onto the skin. Yes it might build up a thick layer and may withstand washing but it’s hard enough removing a tight t-shirt, never mind trying to get that off, surely it would split?

Secondly, If you are not a size zero are you really going to want to parade yourself down the street in something so fitted, that shows every lump and bump that clever dressing can compensate for?

But most imagine the thought process behind it. Perhaps – and this is speculative – they thought “We’re scientists doing research at university, it is important work in the main but pretty dry. How can we get an attractive woman to take her clothes off for us? Invite her to try out our new fashion innovation of course!” (This is a purely hypothetical situation. Any similarity to any persons living or dead is coincidental)

For some time I have been fighting basketball’s corner against the non-believers. We have a professional team in Cheshire who had a reputation for dominating the division back at the turn of the millennium.

But compared to the football team they did not get the attention such success warranted until now. I have worked hard to realise a vision of a full-page of Cheshire Jets coverage in the Chronicle.

With help from our number one techy, we have also revamped the Jets section of the website – www.chesterchronicle.co.uk/cheshire-jets - so it looks brilliant, if I do say so myself. In the coming weeks it will be supplemented by video blogs and match reports as the season gets underway, allowing fans to get closer to the team than they already are.

I am very proud of the new-look Jets coverage but then media people are always proud of their work, it is that unique arrogance that makes us good at what we do.

Hopefully the fans, who are the most important people in all of this, are proud of it and happy with it because if they are, it will be a big success.

Obviously everyone is very worried, surgery is a scary thing at the best of times., but it has all been brought into sharp relief by the fact he has just added a granddaughter to his flock (and it is not mine, before anyone goes panicking).

That has simply added another level of emotion and poignancy to the situation and has led to a highly charged atmosphere in the house recently.

Luckily though he is having his procedure at Broadgreen Hospital in Liverpool, which in my opinion is probably the best place in the world he could be.

Great facilities and great staff who know hearts inside out (handy) will make sure he received the best treatment and care available.

It is unlike me to do this as I usually have a light hearted pay-off but please, think on if you pass a British Heart Foundation shop or see someone collecting for the charity and give a handful of the scrap metal in your pockets.

You might just be thankful you did if you one day end up in L14.

Two local young players are part of the GB set-up and it is a big deal, when you consider how many players make up a squad.

But more exciting than that its the fact that the event offers me the rare pleasure of being able to leave the office for a job. The Echo Arena is a great venue and this will be the first time I have worked there, but to be honest I’m just glad of the fresh air.

Once an old mentor of mine, Mike Green (not the one currently working for the Chester Chronicle, if you know your local weeklies) regaled me with romantic tales of overnight jobs and travelling to London to cover marches and strikes by steelworkers.  

Now I would be as happy being sent to a job in a crack den or a sewage works, such is the opportunity for me to get out of the office.

Boo hoo.

I speak as a non-graduate who works in an industry which people keep telling him is a closed shop without a degree. Bunkum.

Somehow, somewhere along the line, someone decided that everyone had to go to university to be of any use and the whole country subscribed to it. Well I’m here to disprove that. If you are good enough, qualifications shouldn’t come into it.

I have to say in my experience, th most useful people in society are the ones who left school at 16 with some average qualifications or at 18 after their A levels.

Because these people go out into the real world when they are still young enough to learn and be shaped by it and they tailor their behaviour and skills accordingly.

People in university are mollycoddled in a school-like environment, often working a handful of hours a week and at the end of it they whine because they can’t find a job that pays more than £15,000 a month or they are told they do not have the necessary experience or a relevant degree.

We place no stock at all these days in manual skills. Some people have a manual intelligence that means they might be great as a mechanic or a tradesperson, but not great academically.

It’s a different type of intelligence but oh no, little Johnny has to go to Oxbridge rather than take an apprenticeship.

We undervalue these trades then complain when there is a shortage. The nation’s priorities must change. Remember, the recession was caused by university types (investment bankers) ripping off hard-working people (us).

University is not all it’s cracked up to be now is it?

Unfortunately while I am fairly laid back about timescale, feeling no pressure at all, it seems I have overlooked some major piece of machinery that has had a dramatic effect on my missus – the biological clock.

Apparently there is a time limit for these things, and the countdown begins not at a specific age, but when someone else has one. If I do say so myself we both have youth on our side but now there is a ticking noise accompanying every day as previously unknown deadlines loom.

We’re getting married…tick tock…I’d like to save to buy a house…tick tock…shall we go on holiday…tick tock…

But as I sit back and think about it, whatever happens, when you look at that little baby and think of having your own, the sacrifices, pain and discomfort necessary to raise it all pale into insignificance.

And those mini Adidas Superstar II’s are just adorable.