Reporters covet standups rather than the voiceover narration of news footage because it puts their faces on the air.

To that end, the home supporters were in good voice to begin with, but it was Newcastle who started the game in the ascendancy, with Barton putting a diving header over the top from Jose Enrique's cross.

As the farms give way to the residential subdivisions and industrial estates, the centuries-old traditional Filipino houses, slightly raised above grounds and standing on stilts, are abandoned in the quest for more living space.

For slaughterless wars I beat the drum.