AND FINALLY: The Red Chair

This one did not make last Friday's BBC1 Graham Norton show.  But we think it worth telling. One suspects that Mr Norton, and his production staff, are not soccer fans.

A couple of weeks ago, BTN editor-in-chief Malcolm Ginsberg was in Seoul for IATA.

It coincided with the Spurs v Liverpool European Cup final, with a local time kick-off at 04:00.

Although Ginsberg was staying at the Intercontinental, no one there had heard of Son Heung Min (a South Korean Tottenham player) and there was nothing on the myriad of TV channels. The nearest Irish pub was 10 miles away.

The editor-in-chief tried connecting his iPad, but that failed.

So he FaceTimed his wife, who propped up her iPhone to watch the TV at home.

It worked. It was just like seeing a match via IFollow (a TV soccer service).

The only problem was at half-time.

The good wife asked if he wanted a cup of tea! Not easy from 6,000 miles away!

Post script. The reason for the story was that Ginsberg and his wife were successful in the draw for the last of the Graham Norton series on the Friday just gone. Red Chair suggestions were requested. The football story was turned down, but to make things worse something went seriously wrong with the seating assignment. Nearly 100 so-called production staff were admitted first, followed by hordes of priority guests (maybe 400), with the patiently waiting seat winners for the most part turned away. BTN was four from passing through security! 

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