Pets worth extra rent
£8billion for the English top f light. A record 200 live games per season are available when rights for 2019-2022 come up for grabs.
Amazon’s entry to next month’s auction would pose a major headache for Sky and BT, who want to rein in their spending after paying a combined £5.14billion for domestic Premier League rights in 2015.
They agreed to share each other’s channels last month in a move thought to show they have little appetite to pay more this time.
They could be easily outgunned in a bidding contest with Amazon, who are valued at £ 430billion – 10 times the size of the British companies combined. More than one in four tenants would be prepared to pay extra on rent to live with a pet.
A survey by property firm Your Move found Brits would be willing to stump up an average of £24 to have their pet share their home.
Spokesman Martyn Alderton said: “Being able to live with a pet is a huge incentive for some tenants.”
The 54-year- old, who has worked with some of the UK’s top bands including New Order, The Streets, All Saints and Muse, has just published his first gritty thriller to critical acclaim.
Set in the dark and grimy 70s Glasgow of Alan’s childhood, Bloody January follows maverick Detective Harry McCoy as he struggles to uncover the reasons behind a murder-suicide.
The novel, which is already a hit with Rankin and McDermid fans, is a huge career change for Alan, who has travelled the globe with some of the biggest names in the music business.
But the author, who spent 20 years as creative manager at London Records and Warner Music, says penning the novel has been as intoxicating as his time rock‘n’rolling on the road. ‘
He said: “Yes, I’ve had some crazy, mad times in the music business and there are tales that will remain untold but nothing beats the satisfaction of sitting down and creating something from scratch and the thrill of holding the book you have written in your hand for the very first time.”
The stor y beg ins w ith an 18-year- old boy shooting dead a young woman in the middle of Glasgow’s Buchanan bus station. he teenager then commits suicide.
From the start, Bloody January is less a whodunit than a “whydunit” as the jaded Detect ive McCoy, accompanied by wet-behind-the-ears new recruit Wattie, begins a murder investigation that will take him from the city’s criminal underworld to the highest rungs of society.
Alan, who grew up in Elderslie, Renfrewshire, says although McCoy is the main character in his book, Glasgow is the real protagonist.
He said: “To me, Glasgow will always be the most thrilling city on earth.
“The novel centres on all the places I used to go as a child. It is