TV View:We were listening to Alastair Campbell last week complaining about the impact 24-hour rolling news has had on the media, in an interview to promote his diary with the 24-hour rolling news channel Sky News, who showed rolling snatches of the promotional interview for most of the next 24 hours.
True, the impact might be negative at times - eg, when there aren't actually 24 hours of news to fill 24 hours, so they keep showing, say, that French long jumper being hit by that Finnish eejit's stray javelin, when once was more than plenty - but sometimes the benefits can be quite tremendous.
Where else but on a 24-hour rolling news channel could you see live coverage of the Beckhams leaving for America, the Beckhams arriving in America, the Beckhams being unveiled to America, the Beckhams saying hello to America, and such like?
What was a touch disappointing, though, about Sky's coverage was the ever so slight hint of cynicism about the whole venture, with some even suggesting it was all about money and nothing to do with football. Imagine?
It was some relief, then, that Sky's Jon Desborough, when chatting to Beckham pitchside after the unveiling, didn't go down the Gary Lineker route (Gary asked Jose Mourinho, "What attracted you to a club owned by a billionaire?") by asking, "What attracted you to a mediocre American team that will be paying you $250 million over five years?"
The day before, Jeremy Thompson (the 2006 Royal Television Society's Presenter of the Year, so he really should know better) had caused controversy when he tried to give an idea of the standard of football LA Galaxy play, likening them to Scunthorpe United.
We can only assume the switchboard lit up because, the next day, the channel's Nick Powell half apologised for Jeremy's remarks, pointing out Scunthorpe had, in fact, been promoted last season.
Perhaps this explains why Beckham told the crowd at his unveiling, "This is the biggest challenge I've taken in my career." Although his coach, Frank Yallop, claimed, "David is the last piece of the puzzle in getting our season moving in the right direction," - which, when you're second from bottom, means up.
The only bad thing to happen in an otherwise smooth unveiling was the raucous booing of the Los Angeles mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa, by the 5,000 crowd, hand-picked we were told.
"DO WE LOOOOVE DAVID BECKUM?" he hollered at the crowd.
"BOOOOOOOOOOOOOO," they replied.
Anyway, Alexi Lalas, club president, welcomed David to "the Galaxy family" and declared, "Let the games begin."
The next games, incidentally, are in a little friendly tournament against Tigres UANL, Suwon Bluewings and Chelsea. They're calling it the "World Series of Football". Seriously.
When David was being showered with that tickertape stuff the air was filled with very loud rock music, and you had to be relieved Jimmy Magee wasn't on duty for RTÉ's rolling news.
You might remember Jimmy had a ferocious 12-round battle with the music blasting out of the PA at Bernard Dunne's last fight in The Point, the music winning by a technical knock-out, and he was at war again on Saturday at the National Stadium, where John Duddy was in action.
End of round six: "And now we have that music, there's music everywhere now - you go shopping, you go to church, you go to bed, you go to boxing, and you're DEAFENED."
Jimmy seemed particularly troubled by Brush Shiels's rendition of The Fields of Athenry, which proves there's nothing wrong with his ears, but he battled on gamely, a bit like Duddy.
"He's a good-looking fella, Duddy, but if he takes many more of these punches he won't be good looking for long, he'll be a Boris Karloff," he said, before the Derryman finally saw off Alessio Furlan, leaving him with a face only a mother could love.
For us, though, the real hero of the night was presenter Darragh Maloney, who, while chatting to Mick Dowling and Jim Rock, must have feared the worst when he heard Living Next Door to Alice starting up behind him.
And yes, worst fears were realised: when they got to the chorus 3,000 Derrymen bellowed, "Alice, Alice, who the **** is Alice?"
Darragh stared hard at the camera, managing to avoid blinking, in a display of gallant professionalism. During the next ad break, though, we'd guess he offered to go 12 rounds with the Stadium DJ.
