Never In All My Life

Pigeon people

2008-08-10T22:07:00.008+01:00

Recent market research has highlighted a public consensus that there just isn't enough pigeon content on these pages. I aim to rectify this now with perhaps the most shocking, gut-wrenching, nay horrifying pigeon scenes yet. I recently visited Ye Olde Yorke and stayed with writing's Dan Gray, 26, Edinburgh resident, to trace the footsteps of his youth and enjoy the questionable pleasure of a Middlesbrough F.C. pre-season friendly at Yorke Citie Effe Cee. But thrown in amongst all of that, while innocently supping pints of ale by the River Ouse, we were subjected to an episode of unprecented and unfathomable trauma.

This pair of loons see fit to quite genuinely feed pigeons in the street. They allow the feathered fucks to clamber all over their naked hands, sometimes even carressing their backs while they nibble away at their pores. This constitutes recklessness on a gargantuan scale, and they were outrageously brazen about it all. Other punters were forced to flee the scene - many of them visibly upset - and yet all these cretins could say was: "They're harmless... they're harmless". HARMLESS! What a hideous lack of awareness. What total insanity. And what a flagrant disregard for humanity, seemingly going totally unmonitored by the authorities. As ageing's Dan, 42 in December 2023, is so fond of saying: this is how Nazi Germany started.

The bizarre series of events was topped off by the bemusing presence of the pair's complimentary BBC Radio Five Live sports bag resting on the table throughout. This served to escalate the surreality of this situation even further, which quite extraordinarily, was somehow possible. As I struggled to retain any sense of composure and writhed uncontrollably, Dan displayed enough calmness and professionalism to capture these images. They must now be widely circulated so that these bad bastards can be identified by the relevant authorities, sending a clear message to the population that feeding vicious vermin is a downright bad idea. Rather than being ashamed of their actions, they seemed evidently boastful of the fact they were setting civilisation back about twenty years. Sick. I don't want to be part of this pigeon festival. They must be punished.

Spoonerism

2008-07-14T23:28:00.002+01:00

This spoon was awarded to me by Laura, 23, friend of kittens, from Sunderland, while on a visit to the home of her and Michael Sebastian Laverick, 24, this weekend just gone, yes, that one there just passed:

That handle does indeed say 'Property of Ramsay Street' in the traditional Neighbours typeface. Now I remember why I have friends. Incredible scenes. I am led to believe this is official Neighbours merchandise from the 1980s, and therefore bound to have been individually hand-crafted by evil's Stefan Dennis, 49. Never in all my life.

This has brought the memories of being a young Neighbours acolyte literally flooding back. Indeed, I'd go as far as to say that if I'd had this spoon fifteen years earlier, my childhood would have been something resembling a memorable experience. Instead it was a sorry tale of what might have been, but emphatically never was. I remember the time I took the revolutionary step of trying to introduce the Neighbours sticker album into the primary school playground culture in 1993, only to fail miserably. It turned out I was the only one in my school collecting the stickers, which naturally made 'swaps' a nightmare. If I tried shifting that spare Lou Carpenter 'foily' once, I must've done it a thousand times. In the end I had to make do with swapping it for a standard, non-foily sticker of Cobra from Gladiators (another album I was collecting at the time). This was a miserable chapter of failure in my life, and I can only think that having this Neighbours spoon back then would've provided some form of consolation. And by the way, if anyone's got the top half of Annalise Hartman for swaps, please let me know.

Pigeonocide

2008-07-07T20:39:00.006+01:00

This is a photograph of a seagull eating a pigeon in a Newcastle street, as captured and texted to me by this blog's Edinburgh correspondent Dan, 26, socialist author, just moments before the seagull flew off with the little shit in its beak. Barely credible, nay, incredible scenes.

My pigeon hatred has been well and truly documented into oblivion on these pages, but my hatred of seagulls is nearly as strong. Anyone who spent numerous depressing Sunday afternoons in the North Yorkshire seaside town of Whitby during their childhood, like me, will know what it's like when the squawky scumbags viciously and ruthlessly lay siege while you're innocently trying to eat some chips. Some of these seagulls carry knives, and they need clearing off the streets, just like the pigeons.

Let them kill each other. It's dog eat dog out there; quite literally, as the above photo shows.

Our earthly micro-pleasures

2008-07-03T21:44:00.002+01:00

Getting your hair cut is a highly stressful experience which generally lacks any semblance of fun. For real men like me who are prone to visiting real barbers' establishments, and therefore don't have the luxury of an appointment, it invariably involves an agonising wait for your turn during which you're forced to leaf through a copy of whichever fascist rag is going spare from the awful selection of daily newspapers these places buy. Then there's the agonising process of being called up to the chair, where you're faced with a massive mirror, tied up in the big cloak thing, and then have to muster the words to put your order in. This all makes for a 99.7% torturous haircut experience. Awful scenes.

Earlier today, however, I was reminded of the micro-pleasure that comes at the end of every haircut and serves to make the whole episode worthwhile. The fleeting yet insanely pleasurable sensation that came when my barber Chris, 37, of unknown parentage, used the little electric razor to tidy up the back of my neck and remove the stray hairs was quite, quite incredible. His faintly ticklish and immensely satisfying vertical and horizontal navigation of the necktal region almost left me gasping with gay abandon. If I believed such things were possible, I could've literally died and gone to heaven.

This is a fine example of the type of micro-pleasure that sometimes crops up in life to provide momentary relief from the humdrum suffocation of everyday experience. It's extremely rare that a micro-pleasure is actually designed to provide pleasure, and nor will it make any great contribution to the plot of your day, but without them we would be at a great loss. The other micro-pleasures which almost, almost make my existence worthwhile include:

breaking the top layer of biscuit clean from a Bourbon Cream before scraping the cream into the mouth with my teeth;
filling the Padmobile up with petrol and manipulating the handle of the nozzle so expertly that the price on the display comes to a precise pound, e.g. £20.00;
cleaning my ears with cotton buds ('Warning: Do NOT insert into your ear canal') following a lengthy head cold, and having to use half the pack;
waking up to find I've been sleeping on one side for too long, and then rolling onto the other side and feeling all the weight shift across my torso. Heaven, just heaven;
wrapping home-made sandwiches extremely tidily and tightly in fresh cling film (very difficult);
employing a surprise Facegrab™ on yet another unsuspecting victim. For those who are uninitiated and unaware of what a Facegrab is, (a) "get a life!" and (b) learn here.

The mind literally boggles

2008-06-24T23:15:00.002+01:00

I am sure the reader (that is, the only one who doesn't just scroll down for the pictures) will have noticed by now that I am quite unhealthily fond of intentionally abusing the word 'literally' for my own amusement. I've been a fan of this for quite some time, but in recent months it has become something of an obsession to listen out for misuses of the word, and also to make mockery by misusing it myself in highly inappropriate contexts. This is, of course, a wonderful and not-atall-tiresome routine, and one which could fairly be characterised as the greatest form of irreverent semantic satire (an up-and-coming genre, just you watch). I tell you, it's literally a barrell of laughs.

The degree to which the word 'literally' is literally abused is quite astonishing. One of the main reasons for it seems to be that many people incorrectly assume they can use it for emphasis, e.g. 'I am literally fuming about this...' (to which I would reply: 'Then please excuse me, as I must leave the room so as to avoid any lasting respiratory damage.') As the word is most commonly abused verbally, many of my favourite examples of its misuse have been provided while watching television. For example, during an episode of the latest series of capitalist CockneyTV series The Apprentice, I was stunned to hear one of the contestants Claire, 29, talking about her imminent appearance in the boardroom. "I can literally feel the guillotine inches from my neck", she claimed dubiously. This is wrong on SO MANY COUNTS (specifically two). (1) One, there wasn't a guillotine in sight, sadly, and (2) Two, even if there was, if it was inches away from her neck she would certainly not be able to feel it. In my experience, a guillotine is not truly felt until it slices into the skin on the neck and blood starts to spurt out like the juice when someone bites sharply into an over-ripe tomato (great fun).

One of the best examples I've heard about, but sadly didn't witness myself, is Question of Sport captain and silly-sport-rugby's Matt Dawson's contention that he was going to "literally grab the bull by the horns" by answering a question on the programme's picture round. Indeed, dim sportsmen are prime candidates for this crime, and it was one such dim sportsman who inspired this post. Just over a week ago, during ITV's coverage of Euro2008, pundit and ex-Boro captain Andy Townsend, 44, literally came out with the most blind and ill-conceived use of the word 'literally' I've heard. While describing the Turkish defence's tight marking of the Czech Republic's strikers, he said: "Look there... Servet [a Turkish defender] is literally, literally up his backside." As soon as I heard him say 'literally' twice, I knew he was in trouble, but I still didn't think he could get it quite so wrong. Surely ensconcing oneself within an opponent's rectal passage would constitute a foul in the modern game? You might have got away with it twenty years ago, but not today; especially not with these soft European referees who blow their whistle if you so much as tickle someone's chin. I was literally laughing my socks off. So next time I buy socks I'll make sure I get some with well-elasticised ankle grips, to make sure that won't happen again.

Falling down stairs doesn’t only happen in the movies

2008-06-13T17:58:00.000+01:00

There were Incredible Scenes™ today at work, where I was given essential Health and Safety training to prevent me from succumbing to the pitfalls of working in an office environment (however, as far as I can tell, my office is not located within a pit anyway so the pitfalls are hardly relevant). The session was replete with a fantastic educational video to literally drive home the Health and Safety message. And then get invited in for a coffee by it. Weehhyyy, AND THE REST, phwoar, she can bend my knees and straighten my back any day of the week, etc etc.

This video is sure to go down somewhere in my official Top 7 Educational Videos of Comedic Value, thus affording it the heady status of being grouped with such wild pleasures as a GCSE Biology video on sustainable crops in which a man said: “Peas; I could talk to you for hours about peas.” Today’s video was presented by a little-known BBC South West newsreader operating under some great misapprehension that viewers would automatically know who she was: “You’ll be more used to seeing me in the newsroom...” Actually, luv, I’m much more used to never seeing you at all.

In the video’s early stages came the marvellous line: “Falling down stairs doesn’t only happen in the movies”. This statement was astonishingly prophetic. Just moments later, the female actor on the screen took an agonising tumble down some steps in a manner which can only be described as ‘akin to when Helen Daniels fractured her hip by tripping over some loose carpet and falling down the stairs in Neighbours in 1996’. The guffaws in the room were stifled, however, when the narrator continued and informed us that “this lady’s fall ended fatally when her head’s impact on a step led to a brain haemorrhage”. Frika. I will never descend a flight of stairs in the same way again. And nor should you, if you’ve any sense about you.

A window will never be opened in the same way either: “This man fell to the ground after leaning too far while opening a jammed window on the third storey of his building.” Other things I learnt include the following: never use a swivel chair as a stool; never attempt to floss with a live electronic cable; don’t try to staple your eyelid to your chin. Clearly, public sector offices are very dangerous places, but nobody warned me of this fact. If I’d wanted an element of risk in my life I would’ve gone for a job as an extreme/'Xtreme'/'Xtrm' sports instructor (and then hated myself for eternity). I may have to move jobs. People moving jobs doesn’t only happen in the movies.

See all evil

2008-06-08T18:22:00.004+01:00

I literally, literally leapt out of my skin when I stumbled upon this fat feathered fuck outside Flat C yesterday afternoon.

It was so fat that it didn't appear to have any legs, or whatever 'it' is 'they' have. Despite my presence, it hardly flinched, and simply watched from the corners of its evil little eyes. Very haunting and paranoia-inducing, I'm sure you'll agree.

Driving me crazy

2008-06-05T22:18:00.002+01:00

Manchester was this morning the scene for a go-slow protest against rising fuel prices involving around 500 bikers and 40 truckers. What a load of knobs. Yes, petrol prices have risen quite dramatically recently and, yes, the small, independent hauliers are being hit hardest by the situation, but I find it frustrating that these types of people can only ever get worked up about matters surrounding motoring. Motorcyclists are particularly annoying; they are a danger to everyone and wear annoying clothes. These two simple facts should preclude them from possessing any form of influence. Rather than constantly moaning about tax, all of these people should channel their energies into campaigning against the more pressing and pertinent matters of significance and gravity, such as the distortion of the global economy to ensnare whole continents in poverty, and Fern Britton's great gastric betrayal.

Despite owning a car myself, I'd say drivers must be one of the most reprehensible social groups around, and I fear being lumped in with them. I don't want to be literally bundled together with such motoring acolytes as fascism's Jeremy Clarkson, but it seems I am given little choice by the media. Evidence of this fact could be found on the front page of yesterday's Daily Express - in my eyes what can only be described as 'the world's greatest newspaper'. Although I must say I've been immensely fond of the Whitby Gazette ever since spending some time there on work experience. Anyway, the Express declared: 'POTHOLED ROADS ARE A NATIONAL DISGRACE'. This was the front page news, somehow ahead of all the terrible things happening in the world and even its articles outlining why it believes it was gypsies and asylum seekers that killed Diana in that tunnel that night in Paris.

Of all people, I should really be more concerned about potholes than most because the Padmobile is so rusty and dishevelled that it no longer displays any evidence of suspension. However I realise there are worse plights in life than the way in which I lose a filling every time I drive over a pothole. In the Express' article, I was concerned by the manner in which there was repeated use of the term "...drivers said", as if drivers are one unified national voice of distaste, regardless of all our differences and my unique qualities. In reality, it transpires that these quotes being attributed to 'drivers' are merely the individual opinions of the president of the AA. Therefore, for the avoidance of any doubt I have decided that from now on I will regard myself as someone who drives, but certainly not a driver. So now you know.

You Woke Up My Neighbourhood

2008-06-02T22:21:00.002+01:00

Contrary to popular belief, my nemesi (pl.) pigeons are not the only thing terrorising me here in Flat C. I've never mentioned it before, as I generally don't like to cause a fuss, but there is another menace attempting to jeopardise my contentment in the ganglands of south Manchester. And no, it's not the guns; I can handle those, so long as they're not too heavy, excessively hot, or real. The problem is the girl living directly beneath our flat who stages painfully loud and quite literally blazing rows with her boyfriend. She is an utter nutter. These one-sided rows (he rarely responds) often last a number of hours, or if not, will occur several times a day. Ever since moving in last September, I have been regularly disturbed from my most important domestic functions - sleep, gambling, and darts - by what can only be described as primal barking from her below, a.k.a. The Shrieking Hound. Better seen and not heard, alright luv? Best regards, Richard Littlejohn.

This morning took the biscuit, and I mean that quite literally (I'm hoping to get the Chocolate Hob-Nob back when the morning returns tomorrow). The day was booked off work in order to enjoy an extended lie-in and day of recuperation following a weekend in Edinburgh for the marriage of friend and serial commentee on this here so-called blog, Dan, 26, orator. After such a meandering journey of emotional excess and drink-filled days and nights, I surely deserved to surpass the 11am mark. Instead, I was awake by 8am because of that bloody girl and her white noise. Who the hell decides to have a row at that time of the day? I couldn't have been more rudely awoken unless I'd been bashed over the head with a massive phallic ornament with speech capabilities and which repeatedly uttered in my ear such wild obscenities as 'tits', 'nutfuck' and 'quackerknacker'.

It's very hard to convey precisely how ridiculous this woman is. But it's worth noting that on one occasion she began her barking at 3.30am and continued all the way through until around 8am. Incredible stamina. It's often quite hard to decipher what these rows are about, but I would suggest it's something similar to 'nothing'. She often runs like this: "You're HORRIBLE! HORRIBLE SHIT... you are SO horrible! You do it again, you do it AGAIN... do it AGAIN, AGAIN; AGAI-AGAI-AGAI-AGAI-AGAI-AGAIN!!" What her poor, suffering boyfriend keeps doing again and again has been a mystery, but this morning she went slightly off script and delivered this insightful gem: "You were on Facebook for THREE HOURS, and you didn't even LOOK AT ME!" Priceless.

I'll never comprehend where people find the energy to get so angry as her. It seems far too much of an effort to me. Plus, in a true 'boy who cried wolf' style, when she's got a genuine problem in life her cries for help will probably go ignored. There is a school of thought which dictates that we should let our emotions hang out (literally) and release our angry feelings, but I say bollocks to that. 'Bollocks to that.' Bottle it all up whenever possible - that's my policy. Firstly, it doesn't ruin other people's lives, and secondly, it also helps you remain more sane. When annoying things happen to me, I always try to ensure I retain some perspective rather than (literally) lose my head. For instance, a couple of weeks ago my car window was put through by someone - I strongly suspect a pigeon - and, although it was irritating, I didn't scream and shout. That's how bloody great I am. I instead thought about all the far worse things which have happened in life, could have happened that day or which will happen in the future, such as deaths in the family, a lasting debilitating injury, or Boro releasing Emmanuel Pogatetz from his contract. While some say it's a character flaw to be incapable of displaying extreme emotions, I can now inform you that they are wrong. WRONG, I TELL YOU! Now PISS OFF! OUT! GO AWAY! ARGGGGHHHHHHH!!!111!1 FFS.

Electioneering

2008-05-07T23:14:00.006+01:00

In view of the paucity of news-jiffies on these pages in the past half month, I'm aware there is much of a public clamour for my opinions regarding last week's local election results. I know this because of the floods of text messages I've been inundated with in the past six days saying things such as "what do you think about these election results then Big Dill?", "the British electorate is a braindead scumfuck collective!", "have you heard that Pedigree Chum has gone out of business? They have called in the retrievers", "Riggott? What's the team?" and, most prescient of all: "Lovely stuff".

For me, the most notable thing about Labour's disastrous showing in the polls is that its tried and tested means of attaining electoral success for the last 14 years has now seemingly become its downfall. With great success, the New Labour project has prided itself on out-Torying the Tories in order to bag the support of the all-important, inherently self-centred Middle England vote. And yet now, it appears the abolition of the 10p tax rate was one of the major contributary factors in the erosion of the party's share of the vote. It's a step too far when it hits people in their own pocket - surely this is the most obvious electoral rule? In many ways, it serves Gordon Brown & Co right for introducing this shamefully Tory policy which demonstrates complete contempt for the lowest earners, in addition to a general lack of sense when it comes to taxation. You have to laugh when you fall off a sofa/when a Labour government increases tax on the lowest earners and cuts it for those earning more! What an utter bunch of bastards. And stupid bastards at that.

The current groundswell of support for the Conservatives is equally preposterous, though. Quite how a party so entirely flaccid can muster any kind of public support is beyond me. It's an essential function of the Opposition to be opportunist, but they somehow manage to appear opportunist while failing to capitalise on the real opportunities. It's a poor do, but that's just how thoroughly incompetent they are. Imagine what they'd be like in government. Nobody's very sure what they stand for these days, if indeed they stand for anything. If their policies had to be described in terms of posture, I'd say that nowadays they are more akin to a rather dapper, privately educated man leaning nonchalantly in the street, perhaps against a disused lamppost, trying to sieze on any old passer-by but failing to make any real impression on anybody (although people do look back over their shoulder at them fondly, most probably because of David Cameron's lovely waxy Oil of Olay, nee Ulay face). And on top of all these shortcomings, it's always worth just getting back to basics and remembering the simple fact: they're bloody Tories, and therefore rotten to the very core.

And then there is Boris Johnson in London. I think the fact Londoners have elected him as mayor should be seen as far more embarrassing for democracy than when Hartlepool elected its monkey mascot in 2002. That was widely regarded as having made a mockery of the government's newly introduced directly-elected mayors, but the fact is the monkey had much more of a clearly defined policy agenda than Boris Johnson has, even if it was just to give free bananas to school children. Johnson had no credentials whatsoever for the job, aside from the loveable buffoon persona he's somehow developed through his constant TV panel show appearances in order to mask his often worryingly bigoted views. But then again, what do you expect of Londoners? London and the rest of the south-east was responsible for 11 years of Thatcher government and for ensuring the ensuing 18 years have been defined by a Thatcherite political agenda. A large portion of the blame for all of society's ills today can be laid at the door of the people who so warmly embraced the rampant and brutal individualism of Thatcherism. Now they have the mayor they deserve, and they will surely rot in hell, a.k.a. London itself. Which is quite handy for them really, as it means they won't have to commute. For once.

One down...

2008-04-20T23:32:00.003+01:00

Further to earlier pigeon related discussion, it is with some delight that I have found this in the gutter outside my flat.

And it wasn't even anything to do with me. I think there must be a Good Samaritan in the area, intent on performing good deeds for other residents. As for the pigeon, if you take a nap in the gutter what do you expect? I particularly like the fact its body has been flattened but the head remains intact.

It Aintree-ally all it's cracked up to be

2008-04-07T23:32:00.002+01:00

As a general rule, there can be few spectacles greater than that of horses running for the pleasure of humans. A day at the races frittering away petty amounts of cash is a long-standing source of pleasure for me, and can rarely be matched in terms of a great day out. But when I went to Aintree on Friday, the day before it hosted the Grand National, it sadly failed to meet my high expectations.

With over 50,000 visitors there that day it was by far the biggest racemeeting I've ever been to. It was awful though. It seemed that 95% of the crowd had never been to a racecourse before, let alone studied a form guide, and were so detached from the real event that the whole thing passed them by. Instead they were too obsessed with sporting what can only be described as a hideous dress sense and a total disregard for humanity. It was also 'Ladies Day' and there were some real sights on show - the amount of fake tan smattered about the place made me feel something of an albino. I've decided I'm not cut out for major sporting events and in future would rather do the low-key circuit, like Saturday afternoons at Uttoxeter. Which is exactly what I'll be doing this weekend. Kiss my face.

Tosh

2008-04-03T22:59:00.002+01:00

Since the start of February when I began my new job, which is so secretive and sensitive that I can't talk about it, I've been on a number of pointless training courses. The latest one took place on Tuesday this week, when I was called to a secluded hotel location in order to learn how to 'value diversity'. It was exactly the sort of human resource development claptrap I'd always hoped I wouldn't have to be subjected to, but it seems even in the public sector you're not safe from 'innovative and edgy' private companies delivering 'behavioural skills training' bollocks.

Aside from the fact I learnt what can only be described as nothing, the two women leading this day-long session were surely on steroids. They bounded around the room, gesticulating and screeching while speaking, as if they were petrified of losing the attention of those present (ha! As if). I was, quite literally, a fish out of water, but thankfully the 'executive de-stressing instruments' they'd put on the desks in the room saved me from lasting insanity. I spent a good forty minutes destressing with a miniature sponge globe in what can only be described as my right hand while watching the two women act out cringeworthy role plays about diversity in the workplace.

My favourite bits of the day were probably all the times we were asked to stand up, split into groups and gather around flip charts for 'thought showers'. I'd heard of brainstorming, and even blue sky thinking, but these thought showers are new to me. Mind you, I suppose they must be considered more hygienic than thought baths, where you become so submerged in contemplation that you're effectively sitting in your own dirty thoughts and your skin ends up going all wrinkly. Anyway, what a load of nonsense. I don't even need telling about diversity - I invented it. I am it.

A Happy Death

2008-03-27T23:01:00.006Z

I've never particularly looked forward to my death, but one possible reason for starting to get excited about it is that I've realised it means people will start to say nice things about me. And that's what we all want, really, isn't it, hmmm? Isn't it?

I'm increasingly fascinated by the way people can die and suddenly be referred to in exclusively glowing terms, regardless of the trails of sin they might have left behind. Dead people always seem to be the ones who were "the life and soul of the party", the ones blessed with "infectious laughter", and who "never had a bad word to say about anybody". I'm yet to meet anyone in real life who can boast all of these qualities. It could be that I mix with the wrong sorts, but I sense it's more likely to be due to the fact that nobody is that good; dead or alive. Let's get real and pin down the dead for what they really were. Sometimes they did good things, and yet sometimes they made mistakes - just like everyone else.

One of my favourite sickening posthumous tributes is the one where people claim the dead one "would light up a room when they walked in". I'm quite, quite certain that I've never managed to do this. And certainly not unless I know exactly where the light switch is. When I walk into rooms I generally find everyone suddenly stops talking amongst themselves and opt to look at their shoes instead. No illumination is involved. If you do happen to know someone capable of lighting up a room when they enter it, however, please point me in their direction as they could prove very handy to call for in the event of a power cut.

In many ways, all of this amounts to yet another sensible reason for faking your own death in a similar way to canoeing's John Darwin, 57. Just so you can be certain of actually getting to hear all of your tributes, rather than having to rely on Heaven and such things existing. And even if it does exist, do they have audio facilities? Does the Earth coverage have a 'closedown' like television in the olden days (the 1990s)? These are the pressing questions. It's probably best to just stick around and enjoy the praise first hand. It would be a bit like the episode of Arrested Development, if you've seen it, where the grandfather pretends to be dead and hides in the attic of his house. He ends up watching his own memorial service taking place in his living room through a ventilation grid, and is greatly moved by the emotional tributes from his family. In essence, the moral of this story is that if we really do mean the things we say about the dead, we should start to tell them when they're alive. Distorting the truth post-death doesn't help anybody. Yet more 'How To Be A Good Human' tutorials coming up soon, by the way.

Incontinence news flash

2008-03-24T16:29:00.003Z

From Saturday's Middlesbrough Evening Gazette:

Police hunt flasher ‘wearing nappy’

POLICE are hunting a serial flasher who has exposed himself to young girls on Teesside while wearing a nappy.

At least three reports have been made to police about the man, who has struck in the Eaglescliffe, Yarm and Ingleby Barwick areas.

In each of the “unusual” incidents, the man - thought to be in his late teens or early twenties - is understood to have pulled down his trousers to reveal a nappy.

I like this idea of a flasher 'striking', even though as a verb it doesn't particularly suit the action. I think it would be fair to say clocks, bolts of lightning and goalscorers have struck, but should the act of pulling down one's trousers really constitute a strike? If anyone was to ask me how many urinals I've 'struck' in my time, I'd politely inform them I'm a peaceful man and certainly not a vandal.

And by the way, I don't want to see any comments on this news item along the lines of 'typical Middlesbrough' or some such nonsense. I'm sure this happens everywhere, and if not, he must be from out of town.

I also like this bit later in the article, though: "The police spokeswoman said: “Police have liaised with the school in relation to the matter. There is absolutely no indication that he has done anything further than exposed his undergarments." WELL THEN, what's all the fuss about...?

Snow business like snow business

2008-03-23T14:18:00.003Z

A morning covering of snow here today, in the so-called north east, as Mr Dillon, 24, enjoys a weekend break at his mother figure's abode, and has decided to refer to himself in the third person for no reason whatsoever. How funny, when you think, just a week or two ago it seemed 'spring', as those at the Met Office, such as Dan Corbett, call it, had quite literally sprung. And what an excess of commi (plural) in this paragraph.

I suppose snow today shouldn't be all that surprising. That'll be the global warming of course. Oh wait, that's wrong, no it won't. It's probably the credit crunch. And if not that, it can only be either the BSE or bird flu. If none of these, then what is it? It must surely be linked to some kind of terrifying global phenomenon. Things like this don't just happen on their own.

Credit hunch

2008-03-20T20:38:00.005Z

I've really quite enjoyed observing this week's global economic crisis. There is a certain satisfaction to be derived from seeing footage on the news of all those people with ridiculous jobs in the City panicking and throwing their arms around. I've seen grown men screaming into phones desperately as their beloved free market system goes askew all around them, and yet they're completely powerless to change anything. There is beauty in this pissing into the wind.

And they say nurses have it tough

Whirlwind capitalism is spinning out of control, and yet it is of absolutely no surprise. How else could it possibly turn out? Economies based increasingly and perilously on credit so people can spend money they don't have on shit they don't need. An artificial impression of wealth conjured from systematic and practically enforced borrowing, which in turn ensnares millions of the lowest earners into the cycle of unwanted debt and therefore safeguards the future of the very system that dishes this hardship upon them.

We have enjoyed an unprecedented period of 'economic growth', despite the fact there is no such thing. Real value and real wealth comes from the Earth's resources and human manpower, not artificial inflation. We function, quite literally, on a false economy. And to think all of our domestic and geopolitical power structures are based wholly on this farcical, so-called 'liberal' economic ideology, which effectively imprisons many financially and is simply inefficient.

It all looks awfully tiring to me, but it seems many people want to spend their lives panicking and screaming down phonelines. I'm sure I'm better off out of it all, even if not in a financial sense. They could just be left to have their fun, but personally I'd suggest we tear them down, and let's start all over again.

O Valencia!

2008-03-17T23:24:00.002Z

With your blood still warm on the ground
Valencia
And I swear to the stars
I'll burn this whole city down

That's The Decemberists, that is. I've spent a large portion of the day in bed today, and am now just about ready to return there again, as part of my bid to recover from a weekend away in Spain's third largest city for the stag do of my good friend Daniel Gray (Hartlepool, 26). After three days of solid alcohol consumption in quite literally a party of twelve male animals, and only two hours' sleep last night due to a criminally timetabled return flight this morning, at present it feels like the effects could be lasting and damaging. I'm sure they won't be though, and the throbbing ache in my right side will disappear eventually. And then I'll be left simply with many fond memories of a fine, fine trip in tremendous company. LADS ON TOUR FFS TBF TBF!!111!1, copyright Matt Kilsby (Bolton, 25).

Literally an animal

It was, in reality, a civilised enough affair characterised by decency in its purest form, and one which didn't feature any of the stereotypical stag-do shenanigi (plural). Apart from the bit where Dan was tied to a lampost and set on fire, which he doesn't even remember. I liked Valencia as a city (it's only when it tries to masquerade as a hamlet that I have qualms), and found its slightly dischevelled looks largely endearing. It's the Falles festival there at the moment, which sees large papier-mâché structures erected throughout the city's different communities and then eventually burnt to the ground. They were all a bit ugly though, and looked like something from Disneyland [photo of Matt Kilsby at Disneyland]. Fit for burning FFS TBF. This all meant the streets were bustling with people, many of whom seemed to spend every waking second setting off fireworks at your feet and making you jump. Wartorn Valencia. I didn't see war's Rageh Omaar (Somalia, 40) though, which is a shame when you think about it. And still a shame when you don't, for that matter.

On Saturday night we went to La Mestalla to take in some top-flight Spanish football in the form of Valencia v Sevilla, which saw the visitors gain a well-deserved 1-2 victory. We sat on high (literally) in the stupendously well-priced €15 seats in the top tier of the steeply-stacked stands which, despite leaving you a huge distance from the pitch, made for quite an awesome (dude) spectacle [photo]. Plus Valencia were really bad and made me feel far better about supporting Middlesbrough. If I'm honest, which I occasionally am, this was about as cultural as the trip got. If you want a full representation of the venture, just imagine this photo stretched (literally) over a 72 hour period. I'm off to bed again - and possibly for a similar period, if they'd let me.

Heartbroken

2008-03-09T19:47:00.004Z

Boro have caused me a lot of anguish over the years but I can confidently say I've rarely felt as low and shellshocked as I do right now. I've been home for our FA Cup quarter final against Cardiff City - a game that presented us with a glorious opportunity to make the semis at Wembley and, given that all of the top teams had already been knocked out, maybe even win it. It was all set up for us so well that Boro could only fail.

I can't really remember being so angered and disheartened by one performance. It's the raised hopes beforehand that make it all the worse. We were played off our own park by a side a division below us in an FA Cup quarter bloody final, and were so half-arsed, inept and threatless throughout that we could still be playing now and wouldn't have scored. It's absolutely criminal. I hate football and I hate footballers even more.

Pie are squared

2008-03-06T20:02:00.003Z

That's maths that is: generalising and oversimplifying things as always. Pies are not always squared, sometimes they're rounded or rectangulared. I always cut mine up into 3.142 pieces, mind. Mmm, π is good.

Anyway, did you know it's British Pie Week this week? I was wholly unaware (as opposed to being unwholely unaware, in which case I would be slightly aware, but not altogether so) until dinnertime today when conversation in the workplace turned to the fact, and I was ordered to announce my favourite pie filling and format.

There were audible gasps upon my contention that the finest pie filling/format combo is steak and ale pie served in a bowl and topped off with a crisp puff pastry lid. This is heavenly because (a) the sensation of breaking up the puff pastry with a fork and sinking it into the simmering ale-filled juices is hugely liberating, and akin to riding a horse bareback through the countryside (which I often enjoy doing), and (b) the presence of the dish rather than complete pastry encasement means the 'filling' performs like a stew and allows for full and flavoursome ale insemination.

I've had this debate many times. Some people just don't like flaky puff pastry, whereas some can't cope with the idea of not being able to hold a pie in their hand. My friend Deano, 24, from Preston, has even suggested it is somehow 'un-Northern' to enjoy the bowl/puff pastry format, which in my mind is a hugely misguided view and amounts to Pie Fascism. Don't get me wrong; I enioy a shortcrust encased hand-held pie as much as anybody. But when seeking the zenith of pie-based culinary sensations, I'm puff all the way.

Lift me up out of this illusion

2008-02-25T21:33:00.004Z

Life occasionally throws up sets of circumstances of such alienating capabilities that you wonder how it was ever possible that you were placed on the same planet as the rest of the general public. One such set of circumstances arose on Saturday night when I found myself drinking in The Printworks: a horrific, garish mecca of braindead consumerism. I'm simply not designed for such places. I knew it had nothing for me before I went in - it boasts a succession of awful themed bars and charmless international food chains like Hard Rock Cafe, Nando's, Henry J Bean's and Tiger Tiger, all of which burst to life at night by attracting hordes of vain, conceited lemmings to 'Manchester's premier entertainment venue'.

'The entertainment venue from hell' (copyright Richard Lewis)

My peers seem to derive unwavering pleasure from descending upon these kinds of places like flies to massive neon turds. Manchester has many fantastic taverns and ale houses, but instead they choose to go here. My excuse for being there was that Kieran - visitor for the weekend - had arranged to meet an old friend for a quick drink, and an awful 'Irish' bar called Waxy O'Connor's was their location of choice. I stood outside in the 'shopping mall bit' with Matt, 25, and sipped an agonising pint of Guinness from a plastic glass while looking on as gangs of inane, permatanned simpletons with no notion of taste or decency swarmed in, often shrieking. It was intensely sad; more depressing than genocide. The revolution is a million miles away. Human evolution seems even further. There is no hope.

Morrissey once sang: "It's not low-life, it's just people having a good time."

He was joking though.

Lacking in Klass

2008-02-21T22:33:00.000Z

I hate many things, but one thing I do like is a good hate figure (as in I like having them, rather than I actually like them as people, which would just completely defeat their purpose). There's Hitler... Peter Sutcliffe... John Redwood... 'Wolf' from Gladiators... The Demon Headmaster. I could go on. One of my present hate figurines, however, is talentless ex-Hear'Say mime-tart and magazine-show television presenter Myleene Klass.

While sensually devouring my generously proportioned bowl of Frosties before leaving for work this morning I saw a TV advert for a new album she's releasing for Mothers' Day. 'Myleene's Music For Mothers' is an assortment of well-known classical piano pieces, kindly repackaged by Myleene for mothers everywhere. The sole reason she qualifies as some kind of maternal spokeswoman and is blessed with the honour of exploiting the guilt-trip-fed Mothers' Day market appears to be that she's recently become a mother herself. She's even released a book about it: 'My Bump & Me'. Jesus Christ. Does she want a medal? Isn't becoming a mother just what egotistical women do? I'm pretty sure everything that needs to be said about it has already been written. It would be like me spending a Sunday morning mowing the lawn and washing the car by hand - activities performed exclusively by egotistical men - and then releasing a book about it. Wholly unnecessary.

With her relentless efforts to reinforce female sterotypes and exploit her femininity for her own benefit (when it comes to fluttering eyelids, she's the expert), I feel Klass has single-handedly set feminism and gender relations back at least thirty years. However I must confess my hatred of the woman first surfaced when I saw her appear on The Daily Politics with conservatism's Andrew Neil to talk about why she thought it was wrong for public authorities to offer translation services to immigrants: "They should be learning English! If we translate everything for them then soon we'll be the ones needing translation" etc. And of course, 'we' wouldn't like that - it's ridiculous to try and make life easier for people. As if her logic wasn't flawed enough already, she then revealed her parents came to Britain as immigrants decades ago and had found it difficult to settle here because of the langauge barrier (BUT THEY MANAGED, so everybody else should do too). Maybe they might have managed it even easier if they'd had the benefit of translation services... just a thought. Daft tart.

And one other thing: would you ever trust these eyes? It's impossible. I wouldn't trust her as far as I could throw her.

Five (barely) alive

2008-02-18T21:14:00.003Z

I’m afraid this post will be one of those where I recount a recent activity in laborious detail, rather than one of the ones where I concisely articulate the human condition. It has to happen every now and again.

This weekend saw the second annual football grudge match-based university reunion, sponsored by Unibond, take place in England’s East Midlands. While proceedings were mainly centred on Nottingham, the fixture itself was staged in Derby on the advice of the police (Sting hates 5-a-side and happened to be in Nottingham that weekend). Sadly this so-called advice neglected to offer any meaningful tactical instruction to the Johnson Road side, of which I am part but certainly not whole, as it crashed to a second successive heavy defeat to the Rest of Lenton.

I write this 48-hours after the game – an ill-advised marathon 80 minutes of 5-a-side – and I feel overwhelmingly crippled. Despite doing a bit of unprecedented public jogging in the last couple of weeks, in the hope that it would return me to peak fitness for this showdown, it didn’t help a great deal. I’ve been experiencing spontaneous attacks of cramp in my left calf ever since, both of my feet are black and blue, and when I sneeze it causes severe pains in my pancreas. And all for nothing.

Football aside, the weekend was a fine collusion of humanfolk. We sampled a delightful post-match meal at a Thai/Malaysian restaurant in Nottingham which, despite failing to provide an option of steak and ale pie with puff pastry lid and chips the size of bricks, surpassed all expectations. Well done to Mark for putting his cuisine neck on the line with that choice. An evening of drink wound up in Chambers, a terrible Irish-themed karaoke bar and an old university haunt of ours. It seems that despite the introduction of the blanket smoking ban, some places are getting around any potential clean air problems by pumping vast amounts of dry ice into the room, just to make sure nobody can see, breathe, or taste how bad the beer is.

On my way back to Manchester on Sunday I stopped off in Sheffield to witness Boro’s drab goalless draw with Sheffield United in the FA Cup. Given that we had a record away following of almost 6,000 supporters, it was a bit of an anti-climax: you'd have thought the players were the hungover ones. Thankfully this was compensated for in some ways by a monstrously good sunset drive over the Peak District to get home. I took the A57 ‘Snake Pass’ route, which winds up and around the peaks, and it proved insanely beautiful – so much so that the Peak District has risen in my official National Park-credentials estimations. The southern bits I’d visited before pale in comparison to the delights at the top end, which just adds further weight to the mantra 'north is best'. To think that only 32 miles separates these two famous old industrial powerhouses, and yet they are separated by such sparse and intoxicating countryside. What beauty: what downright variety. You wouldn't get that down south with your piddling picture postcard villages, and broads and whatnot.

Bang bang you're dead - hole in your head

2008-02-13T22:48:00.005Z

I'm not entirely sure why, but it seems that wherever I go rampant levels of gun crime follow. During my three years at university in Nottingham, great concern surrounded the city's escalating levels of shootings and the city was portrayed in the media as the 'gun crime capital of the UK'. Now I'm in Manchester and the situation seems to be mirrored.

Reports of gang-based shootings surface several times every week, and just last weekend a 16-year old boy died in hospital a couple of weeks after being shot in a William Hill bookies a short walk from where I'm living. On Saturday, while taking what seemed to me an innocuous enough shortcut through the park after dark, we were stopped by a policeman and warned never to do it again: "These gangs will shoot each other for your stuff", he said. I think I'm quite unlike the 95% of the population who are guilty of spreading panic and hysteria about the lack of safety on the streets. If anything, I'm probably guilty of being a bit too blase when it comes to things like that. I always assume any potential ruffians and ne'erdowells will see my imposing figure and elegant yet assertive gait and just scarper from the scene, saturated with fear. I'm probably wrong though.

Gangs aren't anything new in Britain, but their distressing youthfulness and the number of guns in there hands is. I don't want to come over 'all Ross Kemp', but it really makes you wonder what is driving startling numbers of young men and boys to chase around killing each other within their own communities. Is it that gangs offer the chance to be 'part of the pack', and a rare opportunity to enjoy some form of shared identity? When the individualist mindset rules to such an extent that any notion of society is widely regarded with suspicion, it should be of little surprise when the apples at the bottom of the pile turn rotten. If you grow up shackled in chains of poverty and, as a result, are excluded from the privileges many take for granted, it's a recipe for disaster to be told to just look after yourself regardless of the consequences of your actions on others (the dominant British ideology of the last thirty years). Thatcherism has a lot to answer for: 'Thatcher Fucked The Kids'.

Who shall we choose for our morality?

2008-02-06T22:19:00.000Z

I'm thinking right now of Hollywood tragedy.

In order to keep my finger on the frankly annoying pulse of British youth, I always try to make sure I see children's television news programme Newsround on BBC1 every weekday at 5.25pm. When I'm not agitated by the programme's fundamental error of giving a voice to pre-teens, I thoroughly enjoy how they try to make current affairs accessible and fun for youngsters. It's been particularly good viewing in the last couple of days as they've desperately tried to describe the ongoing US presidential nomination races, and particularly the events of 'Super Tuesday' (also known as Pancake Day).

They've been describing the polls as "a big competition to decide which person can become President" and "who gets to live in this massive house" [while pointing at the White House]. For those still unable to grasp the concept of an election, they've gone on to say "imagine The X-Factor times a hundred". They saved their most apt analogy, though, for earlier today, when they summarised proceedings in terms of a prolonged wrestling match with Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama in the blue Democrat ring and John McCain (the man we have to thank for microwavable chips), Mitt Romney (who sounds like a substitute CD-ROM designed for people wearing mittens) and Mike Huckabee (a blatant religious fascist) in the red Republican ring. Strangely enough, the accompanying cartoon graphic on the screen had each prospective nominee wearing boxing gloves and throwing punches, which means either the Newsround VT team don't know what wrestling involves, or I don't. I THINK IT'S THE FORMER.

Despite this clear error, I still doff my flat cap to Newsround for coming up with one of the most appropriate metaphors for American politics ever known. Professional wrestling is a false, stage-managed charade performed by actors with no real purpose in life other than to create wealth for those with a financial stake in the wrestling process. I'm sure you understand what I'm getting at here. Don't get me wrong: I'm as delighted by the prospect of seeing the back of George W. Bush and potentially the rampaging elephant beast (the Republican Party) itself as the next person is. But any hope that any one of the contenders for either party will offer some form of 'change' if elected President is, of course, massively misplaced. Experience should have taught us that by now. Regardless of who becomes the next President, the United States will continue as the globe's leading bastion of dysfunctional democracy and its political process will continue to operate in a body scissors lock of private, corporate gain which dictates the political agenda and ensures wealth remains in the hands of the few. As usual, Bill Hicks summed this all up best.

Example #1:

I'll show you politics in America. Here it is, right here.
'I think the puppet on the right shares my beliefs.'
'I think the puppet on the left is more to my liking.'
'Hey, wait a minute, there's one guy holding out both puppets!'

Example #2:

It's just a handful of people that run everything, and that's provable.... I have this feeling that whoever's elected president, like Clinton was, no matter what promises you make on the campaign trail - blah, blah, blah - when you win, you go into this smoky room with the twelve industrialist, capitalist scumfucks that got you in there, and this little screen comes down... and it's a shot of the Kennedy assassination from an angle you've never seen before, which looks suspiciously off the grassy knoll.... And then the screen comes up, the lights come on, and they say to the new president, 'Any questions?'

'Just what my agenda is?'

Home from home

2008-01-28T21:13:00.000Z

Having last week endured a three day trip to our capital city, which is called London, it was with some considerable glee and a spring in my step (not literally, although just imagine that: steps made entirely from springs, and thus whole staircases of bounciness. Great fun for those of a certain disposition) that I returned to Manchester. The relief was tangible. No really, I could actually touch it (it felt moist and quite heavy, like a damp dog with a brick encased in its chest).

Much like a dilapidated crack house or a sadistic S&M parlour, visits to London invariably prompt a quotation of the famous old line: it's a good place to visit but I wouldn't like to live there. Its vast and inhospitable sprawl, its overcrowded streets, its depressing public transport experience, its excessive prices, not to mention its BASIC ATTITUDE PROBLEM, all make it a quite impossible place of residence for a gent like me. I can't quite fathom why people are drawn to it so much, almost like moths to a packet of bourbon cream biscuits. I did say almost. I don't get it, it makes no sense. The logic of agreeing to meet inflated property values and rents, to pay excessive amounts for basic convenience items such as bread, milk and pints of ale, and to travel for over an hour to reach work because the buses and tubes are so snarled up, is completely lost on me. Why pay more for a lower quality of life? Why shell out for such misery?

When I arrived back on friendly soil and emerged from Manchester Piccadilly station into a delightfully brisk and crisp late-winter's afternoon, I was filled with a warming sense of familiarity. It was the first time I'd arrived back in Manchester since moving here and sensed real homeliness. It was quite an epiphany for me. When I refer to all of my city experience, I'm convinced it is the city most snugly fitted to my needs. It is large, vibrant and varied enough to offer everything I'll ever require to maintain a decent level of sanity, and yet is also compact enough to feel accessible and conquerable. You can walk from one end of the city centre to the other in little over ten minutes, and I like that. Furthermore, like all northern towns and cities, the good, honest folk found in its streets are disarmingly friendly and approachable. Unlike London, if you approach somebody in a Manchester street and ask where one might find the nearest skinny jeans retailer they wouldn't just look at you disdainfully and then walk off without reply. Unless you happen to ask me, which would just be plain unlucky (I would never do anything to advance the popularity of such a ghastly garment - I have certain standards). When all is said (but not done), Manchester is a far more humane settlement than London can ever hope to be.

Unbloodybelievable

2008-01-20T17:53:00.000Z

Inside the shop. Is nowhere safe?

Right up my street, it takes the biscuit etc.

2008-01-18T19:06:00.000Z

Given that two of my chief passions in life are bourbon cream biscuits and the Manic Street Preachers, it's tantalising to think that this band play down the road from Flat C every Thursday night.

It's just a shame they're "Live Rockin' Blues & New Orleans" really (complete with Needless Capitalisations and all). What the hell do they mean by 'New Orleans' anyway? You can't just put the name of a city in the hope it aptly describes a band's sound. I could understand with certain place names - like Manchester (the pitter-patter of rain on glass), the Pennines (swirling and echoing gusts of wind) and London (annoying people cackling into mobile phones) - but New Orleans means nothing to me.

Literal graffiti labelling

2008-01-13T13:28:00.000Z

Literal graffiti labelling is the latest craze set to sweep the nation. It appears to involve people marauding about in search of works of graffiti in public places and then adding to them with very factual and nonfigurative summaries of their meaning. As all the greatest social phenomena tend to emerge from Middlesbrough, it's of no surprise to me that the first example I've come across was in the men's toilets of Middlesbrough railway station at 12.30pm yesterday, having travelled back and 'detrained' for Boro's match with Liverpool at the Riverside. I noticed this message written in black biro on the wall:

I'm here every Monday 1630 - 1700 to suck cock. Very genuine.

Immediately beneath this somebody else had scrawled, in blue biro:

GAY FUCKER

This man's observational accuracy can not fail to impress. He has - quite correctly you would think - identified that the original author is of a homosexual persuasion and fond of fornication, and has subsequently documented this fact in a very simple and literal manner. It's almost a public service, when you think about it.

I eagerly await further examples of literal graffiti labelling in public places. Messages such as "fresh pancakes served here every Tuesday after 3.30pm" could be replied to with "BATTER TOSSER".

"I will administer tetanus jabs here on Thursday mornings" could realistically be suffixed with "YOU PRICK".

I could go on, but won't.

In search of The North

2008-01-08T20:04:00.000Z

There are any number of terrifying things to potentially encounter in life: notorious mass murderers strolling in the the streets; a pigeon scrambling about on the other side of a single-glazed skylight; groups of small children given permission to sing aloud in public. I could go on, but won't. And yet none of these is remotely as terrifying as something I've been forced to encounter on numerous occasions in my short, illustrious existence: people from the south who don't know where Middlesbrough is. Most upsetting.

These dim southern tosspots can be found with alarming regularity in our towns and cities - often propping up the bars in trendy, refurbished public houses with laminate flooring - cradling copies of the Daily Express and sporting smug, inane grins. It seems there is some form of bliss to be garnered from geographical ineptitude. Well, as Rage Against The Machine once said: "If ignorance is bliss, then knock the smile off my face."

When you tell someone from the south that you're originally from "near Middlesbrough", the initial reaction is usually for their retinas to cloud over and their attention to shift elsewhere in the room. In recent months, however, there has been a slight increase in vague recognition thanks to the so-called findings of the bourgeois television programme Location, Location, Location: "Oh, the worst place to live in Britain!" I suppose this can be considered some form of progress. It is at least slightly better than "is that Scotland?" (no, that's Midlothian) and "is it just outside London?" (no, that's Middlesex, MIDDLESEX!), both of which I've encountered. The worst one ever was: "Do you really consider yourself a northerner, then? It's somewhere in the middle isn't it? You know... Middle-sbrough" (no, no, no, nuggetfucking NO).

I'd suggest that the southern geographical awareness of those of us from the north is infinitely superior, mainly because that half of the country is forced down our throats by the London-based media, but also because we're generally less self-obsessed. I know where lots of inconsequential places in the south are: Weston-Super-Mare; Basingstoke; Tring; Diss. Again, I could go on, but won't as I consider this short list to be proof enough.

At the moment I'm reading Stuart Maconie's excellent 'Pies and Prejudice', which is all about the north and northern identity (see, I told you we're less self-obsessed). In it, he describes this same, peculiar southern mentality:

To many a south-based viewer... 'Up North' is a long way away. You wouldn't want to go there. It's a long trip, as in 'West Ham face a long trip to Hartlepool for the third-round tie'. Note it's never the other way round. It's OK too to be blithely approximate about northern geography. Some years ago, we northerners chortled when Des Lynam suavely announced on Final Score: 'Chesterfield 0, Chester 0. So no goals there in the local derby.'

Good work, Des. Good work.

Please don't put the radio one

2008-01-06T16:45:00.000Z

On those terrible occasions when the front falls off the radio while I'm at the wheel of the knackered old Padmobile and I find myself trapped listening to BBC Radio One, I'm provided with a glimpse into the unsavoury psyche of the general public. This can be a most disheartening experience, and not one I'd wish on anybody. It's not just the insufferably cretinous Radio One disc jockeys and their propensity to be utter, utter gobshites that makes these episodes so grim, but also the music. If popular alternative music is best represented by the likes of The Fratellis, The View, The Pigeon Detectives and The Wombats, then these are very dark days indeed. There seems to be some kind of consensus that we're witnessing a Renaissance-like purple patch of great guitar bands at the moment, and I find this very confusing: mainly because there are just as many diabolical so-called 'indie' bands around as there always have been.

When I was a teenager in the late 1990s, lying alone in my darkened bedroom drinking Dandelion and Burdock and scrawling notes on my Manics album sleeves (imagine that: a shirt with The Holy Bible album artwork on its sleeves. I was the envy of town), I was being at once educated and inspired to change the world. Or at least think about changing it. I can't imagine what any of the aforementioned present-day bands could inspire anyone to do, or think about doing, other than to repeatedly pump a fist in the air and dive headfirst into a rosebush. Their assortment of terminally laddish ditties are designed for beer-hoying monkeys and truly represent the arse-end of British guitar music.

I'm even more perplexed by this obsession with the 'talented, creative and innovative New York-based DJ and producer' Mark Ronson, who I happen to think should be assassinated. It is neither creative nor innovative to take established songs and simply add different beats and an excess of brass instruments, making them slightly different from the originals. Who buys this stuff? Derivation is not creation, it's an abomination. See, this torturous Radio One experience has affected me so much I'm rhyming in triplets now. The likes of incestuous London types Lilly Allen, Kate Nash and Jack blooming Penate top off this deadly musical cake with a particularly awful and poisonous layer of mockney icing. The increasing trend of these failed stage-school students switching to music for the easy bucks is possibly the most depressing phenomenon of all. These people do not love music - not even their own (so at least they've got something right). Furthermore, the overwhelmingly irritating Nash sees her main selling point as being that she 'keeps it real'. Quite why anyone would be interested in her stage-school-didn't-quite-work-out-for-me reality is beyond me. I want my pop stars putting on a show, hamming it up and being so overtly pretentious and spectacular that they remove me as far from reality as is humanely possible.

Thankfully, my impeccably cultured taste in music means I never listen to any of these people anyway - so I never get worked up about it, as you can tell. Mind you, all this is nearly enough to make me feel 'leftfield'. And I don't want to be leftfield. I want to be... the field.

Wazaaa

2008-01-05T23:59:00.000Z

A good day for sport in Middlesbrough today. Not just because of Boro's professional navigation of a troublesome FA Cup 3rd Round tie away at Bristol City, but also because of the emergence of the town's darts sensation Glenn Moody, 43, pictured below, live on television.

It was all part of the BDO World Championship, which started today. As an aspiring professional darts player myself - I like to think my eventual arrival on the darts scene will transform the game's image - I'm always intrigued by the manner in which new players make their initial impact. Today's evening session saw this bizarre, unknown character grinning and nervous-ticcing his way through a match against his highly-fancied Dutch opponent, and ending up beating him impressively. When it was revealed he is from Middlesbrough, my heart skipped a beat.

Following the game, Glenn took part in a bizarre interview with the BBC's Ray 'Stubbsy' Stubbs:

Stubbs: What was it your fans were shouting during the game?
Moody: 'Wazaaa!'
Stubbs: What's that? Is it someone's name specifically?
Moody: It's just something the lads all shout down the pub. Wazaaa!

A new idol is born. For me, anyway.

Train In Vain

2008-01-02T21:49:00.000Z

Following a New Year's resolution to heighten the sex appeal of Never In All My Life's content, I thought I'd open 2008 with a post bemoaning Britain's privatised railway network. Do stop me if it all gets a bit too steamy.

What a shambles it is. When British Rail was broken up and sold off by the Tories in 1993, it was on the premise that the private sector would provide the necessary finances and a market-driven approach to produce an efficient service for passengers. Balderdash. With 25 different franchises making for a confusing network, ridiculously expensive ticket prices that can vary wildly if you have to use two different train operators for one journey, unreliable and severely overcrowded services, and profit being put before rail safety, the whole thing is a joke. Naturally, nationalisation is the most sensible and rational solution. Although the much maligned British Rail was in decline before it was broken up, this was hardly surprising given that the whole state-owned rail system had been deliberately and systematically undermined by a Conservative government preoccupied with advancing the automobile industry and that saw the railways as an expensive hinderance.

It's difficult to turn rail services into a profit while also providing an adequate public service - and that's why you shouldn't try to do both. By their nature, the main purpose of public services such as public transport should be to provide efficient, reliable and affordable services, regardless of profit. Recently, the 'unprofitable services' of the festive period have meant private operators not running any trains atall: not really a public service then, and quite embarrassing when compared to the still-excellent festive rail services enjoyed across Europe, even on Christmas Day. Perhaps most laughably of all, despite escalating ticket prices and shoddy services our 'privatised' rail industry still requires government subsidies to the tune of £4.5billion a year in order to prevent the franchises from collapsing. See, despite only having to operate when they think there's a profit to be had, they're still incapable of running the whole thing. They couldn't organise a... cat.

I've had a fresh bee in my bonnet about all this since last Friday when I had to endure a torturous six-and-a-half-hour train journey to Birmingham for a meetup with university friends (aka Unibond '07) and some of their spice (if the plural of 'mouse' is 'mice', surely 'spouse' must become 'spice'?). After forking out for an extortionately-priced ticket that anyone on the continent would baulk at, my first scheduled train was suddenly cancelled, and the following one was delayed by 98 minutes, which is long enough to soft-boil 32.666 eggs consecutively. Already aghast that private companies could possibly have failed to deliver anything resembling an affordable, reliable and efficient service, I was further incensed when the 98-minute-delayed train finally rolled in with just three carriages. With two trains' worth of passengers piling into this measly accommodation, it made for a most uncomfortable journey for all concerned. It all meant I was so late for Unibond '07 that the university lot - including the high-profile presence of Jess' American boyfriend Alex - only got to enjoy my company for just over three hours. So it's not me you should feel sorry for, it's them. In total, that trip involved 9.5 hours of travelling and 3.5 hours of socialising, which isn't what I consider to be a favourable ratio. Certainly not as favourable as my mechanical torch (as mentioned in my post on Boxing Day), which offers 30 minutes of light from just one minute of frantic manual handle-winding - that's what I call a favourable ratio.

Good knight, and good luck

2007-12-30T17:10:00.000Z

For the 24th year running it appears I've been overlooked in the New Year Honours list, published yesterday. But having learnt not to take the repeated snubs too personally, I'm not that bitter about it. Others are far more deserving of the accolades. There's Michael Parkinson, 72, chat show host: presumably knighted because the Queen and Gordon Brown both like to watch him have a chat with Billy Connolly on a monthly, recurring basis. There's Kylie Minogue, 39, but with a bottom not a day over 28, awarded an OBE for being so ruddy bloody brave. And er... some posh rugby sods... and for some bizarre reason, a load of people from 'the world of retail' (where is this world? Can we go there or is it some kind of abstract, metaphysical nonentity that exists only beyond the boundaries of my perception? Or are they just on about Woolworths, Clinkards and Thomas The Baker and all that? If so, I've been to those places and understand it all now).

In preparation for when I'm eventually invited to receive a knighthood, I've already planned how I'll go about refusing it on a republican point of principle. This will see me rank alongside other great refuseniks like JG Ballard, LS Lowry and David Bowie. But rather than a simple and traditional refusal via a written medium, I've decided I'll actually turn up and cause an almighty scene at Buckingham Palace by rejecting it in the Queen's face. Having feigned delight and pride in the weeks leading up to the ceremony, nobody will be any the wiser as I proceed to the front of the room, kneel at the feet of Her Majesty and quietly bow my head. And yet, just as she wields her big massive sword and gets ready to caress my shoulders with it, I'll scramble to my feet, turn on a sixpence and sprint out of the room at full pelt.

This will be monumental. If I get carried away with myself I may even just carry on running all the way out of the palace, down The Mall, through Admiralty Arch and into Trafalgar Square where I'll perform a lap of Nelson's Column before turning down Northumberland Avenue towards Embankment, and somersaulting into the Thames. I believe this headline-grabbing act can serve as a catalyst for the glorious, democratic, socialist revolution I've been plotting in my head. It will be a grab at the collar of the docile masses. A cattle prod to the buttocks of the puppet people. Society will gradually reassess its true purpose and stop routinely destroying itself, and my utopia will finally see its fruition.

Anyone who accepts a knighthood, and any other honour for that matter, has to be an egomaniac. What next? Their own blogs?

So this is Christmas

2007-12-26T22:04:00.000Z

The annual festival of repeatedly setting the table, repeatedly washing the pots, people exchanging gifts of what effectively amounts to bric-a-brac, and going to bed drunk with heartburn is over. It was alright: nothing terrible, nothing special. The whole thing was lit up by the mechanical torch I recieved, which doubles up as a universal phone charger. I'll believe it when I see it.

Some say the devil is dead

2007-12-20T22:20:00.001Z

I'm so misunderstood. My life has developed into an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm recently, with me cast as Larry David and stumbling through an assortment of embarrassing yet understandable misunderstandings. Two of them involve my place of work, which is presently the council department dealing with children in care, based in Manchester's arty and humourously named Chorlton-Cum-Hardy (well, how else would you manage it?).

On Tuesday me and my boss Maureen, 55, originally from Ormskirk, spent the afternoon sealing 1,127 brown envelopes together. We get on very well and conversation always flows quite freely, so the task wasn't as bad as it might sound. When our discussion turned to Irish heritage I raised the topic of the popular but controversial Irish folk band The Wolfe Tones, who I've spent many family car journeys listening to as a child and, more recently, many evenings sitting and rewatching their hilariously cheap 1980s video release whilst giggling wildly. They're so fiercely Republican and anti-British that they're often banned from playing in England, but they're extremely funny, and that's the reason I'm fascinated by them. I started naming some of their songs and when Maureen, 55, claimed to have not heard 'Some Say The Devil Is Dead' I began to sing it aloud. It's a fine tune and goes like this:

Some say the devil is dead, the devil is dead, the devil is dead,
Some say the devil is dead and buried in Killarney.
MORE say he rose again, MORE say he rose again!
MORE say he rose again AND JOINED THE BRITISH ARMY!

('Devil' is pronounced 'divil', as you can hear here).

Thinking back, I remember Maureen glancing around the office uneasily immediately after my rendition, but I was so lost in the moment that I didn't realise everyone else had heard me. It was only yesterday morning, when I opened a Christmas card from Fergus, 58, who works on the other side of the office, that I realised my outburst had gone further than Maureen's ears. It read: "Some say the devil is dead? What's that all about? Merry Christmas." I approached him at pace to clarify the matter but before I could even begin to explain myself, the full horror of his impression of me became clear when he asked if I was "one of these IRA types". I'm just thankful I'm only a temp and can shrug off this reputation when I leave in mid-January to go and start a real job, where I'll no doubt be somehow misconstrued as a holocaust denier within a week. The suggestion that I have links with the IRA is preposterous because, as I pointed out to Fergus, it would take a great deal of effort to be sectarian when you're agnostic. We agnostics are far too noncommittal to be capable of espousing the necessary levels of hatred. He nearly soiled himself. He had Kenco coming out of his nostrils.

Maureen, 55, is also at the centre of another misunderstanding in that everyone who works on our floor is convinced we're lovers. This stems from the fact that we spend every working hour together and because she's so generous in letting me get away with doing no work that she even lets me accompany her outside for cigarette breaks, despite the fact I don't smoke. We process through the open plan office saying we'll be "back in ten minutes" and then eventually reappear, flustered and breathless, having ascended five flights of stairs. Fresh from the joys of a cigarette, Maureen's face is usually a picture of contentment. It's all a terrible misunderstanding. Mind you, every middle-aged woman needs her sectarian toyboy... right ladies? In seriousness, she is very good company and regales me with endless stories of her history in trade unionism, her being arrested four times for obstruction in the 1970s, and constantly assures me I'd "blush" if she told me everything she got up to in her youth. When I declared my admiration for Tony Benn she described me as "a man after my own heart" and revealed that she adorned her bedroom walls with posters of him when she was a teenager. Marvellous. We just don't have teen idols like that anymore.

I'm aware this is dragging on, so I'll keep my final Larry David moment brief. I'm hoping to be able to forget all about it anyway (that's why I'm recording it here, in writing, for eternity: my reasoning is not what it once was). While walking to Sainsbury's a few hours ago to buy some wine and chocolates for Maureen's Christmas present (honestly, it's all a terrible misunderstanding) I noticed a car waiting to pull out of the supermarket car park without its headlights on. Aware of the dangers this could pose in busy traffic on a dark winter's night, I thought it best to alert the driver of the vehicle to the situation. As I traversed the pelican crossing, walking a matter of yards in front of the car's bonnet, I turned to them and made what I consider to be the internationally-recognised signal for "excuse me, you appear to have forgotten to switch on your lights" by raising my hands in tandem and opening and closing my fingers repeatedly. The response from the two middle-aged women in the driving and passenger seat was a blend of bemusement and disdain. I quickly realised that my internationally-recognised signal could easily, albeit wrongly, be perceived as "awiight ladies, oi oi, lemme 'ave a honk of yer jugs then". It was all a terrible misunderstanding... I immediately recoiled in horror and desperately hoped they wouldn't make the leap of judgement that I was some kind of delusional, dirty traffic policeman on day release. I then had a brainwave and decided to stop simulating a sexual act in the middle of the road and just pointed at the car's headlights instead. They immediately grasped what I was trying to say. So there's a tip: whenever hoping to save someone's life by telling them they're driving in darkness, point at the bloody lights. Unless they're clearly swingers. And you're game.

I shouldn't be allowed out.

The vermin allowed a thought to pass them by

2007-12-19T08:11:00.000Z

Further to the earlier pigeon-related post, it seems that wherever I go I can't escape the wrath of our feathered foes. The stairwell pictured below is a fire exit at work, and two pigeons have managed to get through a small gap in an open window but don't seem able to get back out again. What fools.

Thankfully there is a locked door between them and where I took the picture, so they can't physically attack me, scratch my thighs and gouge my eyeballs out. But the place is a mess of feathers and what can only be described as pigeon shite. They're trapped in there forever, with no supplies, which means they're destined to suffer a slow, torturous death. So that's good then.

N.B. I notice I've done consecutive Manics lyric-inspired post titles. Unthinkable (until now, when I've quite clearly done it). Further proof, if needed, that there is an appropriate Manics quotation for every possible event in life.

If I can shoot rabbits then I can shoot morris dancers

2007-12-17T21:58:00.001Z

Over the weekend we had a visitor in the unruly shape of Tom, 23, from the south, and in between walking him around Manchester's Christmas Markets and listening to him saying how cold it is in the north, we stumbled upon a morris dancing display. I still find it hard to understand what morris dancing, that wonderful example of good old 'English eccentricity' involving choreographed stepping and shuffling around while waving handkerchiefs and sticks, is really all about. At first glance it appears to be some kind of satanic ritual calling for the domination of evil in all of its most pure and potent forms. However upon further observation, it quickly becomes clear that it is nothing but a vehicle to advance homosexuality via the medium of public dance. These men skip about, dancing towards each other in a tantalising fashion before suddenly spinning away and grinning slyly, backed all the while by very dainty music. It is abundantly clear that morris dancing is purely a dancing means to a sexual end for these men, 50. Employing their white hankeys to symbolise their physical surrender to one another, their dancing is mere foreplay to the grand finale of a group orgy back on the tourbus. NOT THAT THERE'S ANYTHING WRONG WITH THAT.

Camp as houses.

However... having decided it was all about sex and nothing else, I then discovered it wasn't, afterall, anything of the sort and I had, incredibly, been totally mistaken. While observing proceedings and trying to avoid the gaze of the man walking around with a hat to collect money to fund this sordid ritual, I noticed a younger squad member standing at the side. On the subs bench, if you like. He only looked about 25, but was still kitted out in the full regalia: clogs, tassles, and all. There were, however, some crucial differences: he had a skinhead and was wearing a long, double-breasted, black leather trench coat, which clearly renders the man a fascist. And thus, this quandary is solved and the secret of morris dancers unearthed. I'm just surprised I hadn't picked up on it before given that those who take part are universally white, and seemingly at pains to appear overwhelmingly joyous - a surefire sign that somebody has something to hide. So there we have it. We allow these white supremacists to dance through our streets, throwing cash into their hats and applauding wildly in the absence of knowledge that these men, 50, are merely the friendly face of the BNP. Of course, we must let them perform in the name of freedom of dance, but equally we must confront and squash them, through rival dance if need be. Dance is the only language some of these fascists understand. And sex, of course. What depraved little men.

Important libel disclaimer: Not all morris dancers are fascists, just most of them.

Download your personal Christmas card

2007-12-13T22:18:00.000Z

You wouldn't believe the price of Christmas trees this year. Much like the soaring price of bread, they're going for previously unthinkable amounts of cash. Market forces are at work, and in some ways it seems a shame that tree fans are being held to ransom at what should be a time of goodwill. But then again, Christmas is, afterall, nothing but a lurid festival of commerce and materialism designed to keep our artificial capitalist economy afloat, so perhaps it's fitting. Anyway, the tree has gone up in Flat C and yes, it's a real one.

The inhabitants (and a tree)

To celebrate all of this, I hereby invite you to download your own personal Christmas card from me and flatmate Anna, 24. It might not look very personal, but once you print it out on some white A4 paper, fold it in the correct way, and fill your name in on the dotted line, it will be. If you're still in any doubt as to your card's sincerity, feel free to send in your name and we will, after considering your reputation and character, respond to either confirm or deny the sentiments expressed within it.

1) Download your to-be-personalised card here.
2) Adhere to these simple folding guidelines:

3) Fill in your name.
4) Display prominently in your home or place of work - away from naked flames. And scantily clad flames too.

As you may have spied, the tree is overseen by a Gareth Southgate angel:

Middlesbrough manager Southgate (pictured), 37, married, once beleagured, deserves his place at the tree's summit and special tinsel hair because of Boro's glorious shock victory over top-of-the-table Arsenal last weekend. I just hope he's still in the job at Christmas.

The Pigeon(s)

2007-12-10T22:49:00.000Z

Although most aspects of my 79 days of living in Manchester have been nothing but pleasurable, there are a couple of causes for chagrin surrounding my place of residence, otherwise known as Flat C. One of them is thus: it has transpired that our building is the number one hideout for the entire pigeon population of south Manchester. They while away the hours of the day on our roof - often in large gangs, wearing hoodies, swigging from bottles of cider and holding their hands down the front of their trousers. I remember when we moved in, I arrived first and while familiarising myself with the flat - exploring and opening cupboards and then closing them again, as you do - a pigeon suddenly flew into the windowpane, giving me a fright and sending me into tumult. I hoped this was an isolated incident, but it isn't and they plague us every day.

They flap and trot about, making quite a lot of noise and shedding feathers onto the Padmobile lying below. Whenever I deem it sensible to leave the flat, I hear them insult me. Yet when I glance skywards to let them know I heard what they said, all they do is smirk. I feel the pigeons are slowly grinding me down. I worry that their long-term intention involves driving us out of Flat C and taking over the property. I fear a coo.

The kitchen window (ignore the grime - it was already there when we moved in)

If there are any answers to all of this, I'm not aware of them. Short of calling in Tommy Saxondale with his pest control expertise, it would seem we are powerless to deal with the vermin in a legal way. I may have to resort to vigilante methods, such as leaning out the 'Velux' (yes, it's a brandname) window in the guest bedroom and throwing darts at them. Come to think of it, I remember once reading that if you feed uncooked rice to pigeons, they die on the spot because it clogs up their throats. Brilliant. I will try sprinkling the roof tiles with Basmati and provide an update from my prison cell.

"You can't kill it, but you can't live, live with it either, never, no human being can go on living in the same house with a pigeon, a pigeon is the epitome of chaos and anarchy, a pigeon that whizzes around unpredictably, that sets its claws in you, picks at your eyes, a pigeon that never stops soiling and spreading the filth and havoc of bacteria and meningitis virus, that doesn't just stay alone, one pigeon lures other pigeons, that leads to sexual intercourse and they breed at a frantic pace, a host of pigeons will lay siege, you won't be able to leave your room ever again, will have to starve, will suffocate in your excrement, will have to throw yourself out of the window and lie there smashed on the pavement, no, you're too much of a coward, you'll stay locked up in your room and scream for help, you'll scream for the fire brigade, for them to come with ladders and rescue you from a pigeon, from a pigeon!"

Patrick Suskind, 'The Pigeon'

See, they're so evil they even made Suskind forget how to punctuate properly.

I want to fly and run 'til it hurts

2007-12-06T23:11:00.000Z

The fascinating story of so-called canoeist John Darwin's disappearance and reappearance has been literally unfolding before our eyes this week. Provided you've read about it in a broadsheet newspaper, that is: if you read about it in a tabloid, no unfolding will have been necessary and, although you may consider this to have been far more convenient, I can assure you you've missed out on a great deal of unfolding fun. The story carries a whole extra dimension of hilarity (as opposed to an unwhole extra dimension of hilarity) for me because the Darwins' plot was seemingly conjured and initially executed in Seaton Carew, a matter of miles from Middlesbrough. Seaton Carew and Panama could not be more different. I'm referring, of course, to the fact Panama serves as a secretive tax haven for wealthy foreigners to obsess about preserving their personal fortunes with no regard whatsoever for the greater good, whereas Seaton Carew is a noted Marxist commune. Other than that, they're identical. For a start, Panama City is also by the sea and I'd imagine this will have helped the couple settle.

The public are reacting to the story with a combination of awe and disgust. I say: 'Fair play'. Have we not all considered faking our own deaths at some point or other? Just downing tools on the spot and disappearing from view without anyone's knowledge can be an immensely attractive notion. When life becomes too much to deal with - a spring breaks in your mattress, batteries cease operation in the TV remote control, or you arrive at an escalator and find it's been turned off - we've all thought about it. I have no problem with the odd faked death if that's what somebody deems a sensible thing to do. Most people fake their lives on a daily basis anyway, so why should a faked death be deserving of any more moral outrage? When it comes to people choosing between faking life or faking death, I'm not in a position to pass judgement.

I've been thinking a lot about how I'll fake my death when the time comes. I can't see me taking the John Darwin, 57, of Panama, route of bashing up an old canoe and arranging for it to wash up on a beach. I'm not one for extreme sports, so a canoe-induced death just wouldn't be feasible. I would imagine I'll go for something far more mundane, so as my fake expiration might retain a shred of legitimacy. Perhaps I'll be making a round of tea for the family but disappear from the kitchen in the process, leaving behind three cups with milk in and two with none, plus a careless damp, sugar-coated spoon sitting on the worktop. My family would know I'd never abandon tea-making duties and leave matters in such a mess without there being some set of genuinely tragic circumstances. Not without licking the spoon first. 'Making tea, presumed dead' - living it up in Stockholm. That's where you'll find me.

Helvetica-ca-ca-ca-ca!

2007-12-04T19:40:00.000Z

With a knowledge of films that is notoriously scant, there are a multitude of 'classic' motion pictures I've yet to lay eyes upon and perhaps never will. This is thanks to my stance that film is largely an overrated medium, particularly when originating from Hollywood. However I am delighted to report I have recently been to see the film 'Helvetica', which is the name of a typeface (rather than a name for a fictional posthumous kingdom for sinful veterinary practitioners guilty of crimes such as calling hamsters nasty names, spitting in the faces of kittens, and using puppies' heads as pin cushions). Since its inception in 1957, Helvetica has spread so far and wide that it is the ubiquitous font of our time.

The film documents the history of the typeface and its widespread use around the globe, featuring interviews with all the hottest names on the lips of the typographical fraternity. It offered a window to the secrets of the industry and the torturous process of designing a typeface. Uniquely fascinating stuff. The blurb in the cinema literature posed the appetising question: "Is it fascist or socialist; pedestrian or inspired?" Discovering the answer to this quandary alone was enough of an incentive to attend. Although, for some reason, the question was never answered in the film. Regardless, I have arrived at my own conclusion that Helvetica is a decidedly fascist typeface and should be resisted by all. Its domination of the typographical landscape - it is used for the logos of an unfathomable number of global brands/high street chains - is akin to the ruthless globalisation enjoyed by the likes of McDonalds; spreading characterless uniformity worldwide and generally getting where it shouldn't. Clean cut and modern, Helvetica is regarded by many typeface pundits as the all-time typographical zenith. What nonsense - I regard it as dull, immoral and despotic. If we're not careful it will drive other good, honest, hard-working typefaces like Verdana and Tahoma from the marketplace. I hereby declare an official Never In All My Life-endorsed boycott of Helvetica. You won't find any of it on this page.

Aussie by numbers

2007-12-02T00:27:00.000Z

I'm intrigued yet mildly appalled upon hearing the BBC is set to replace Neighbours - which it will lose to 'Five' some time next year following a protracted bidding war - with a brand new Australian soap of its own. At first glance it seems a terrible idea, and one which can only fail. At a second glance, again, it seems a terrible idea which can only fail.

Do the BBC's programming bigwigs seriously think we, the discerning viewers, will put up with any soaped-up Australian claptrap? That our appetite for antipodean drama is so rampant that they have to try and construct a carbon-copy format in order to fill the void? If they think the top quality drama, captivatingly cringeworthy dramatic devices and sheer magic of Ramsay Street can be simply replicated, they're very much mistaken. I forsee a flop of Eldorado proportions.

Some of Neighbours' characters and storylines over the years have been of such a calibre that I've occasionally considered them more important than my actual life. Who can fail to have been engrossed by Karl's ongoing love/hate relationship with the medical profession when we all know, deep down, he's the finest GP that side of the Tropic of Capricorn? Who among us has never wept, alone, while rewatching the slow and painful death of Madge Bishop? I sweated profusely the time Cody Willis was innocently gunned down in the confines of her own living room because some drugged-up nutcase was on the rampage in the street. Shivers ascend my spine every time I think of the unbridled thespian power of Susan's response to hearing of Karl's impending fathering of a child with mistress Izzy in 2004: perhaps the finest Neighbours street scene ever ("from now on Karl, expect nothing from me but hatred"). Watch it now. Sometimes I awake in the morning and realise that overnight I have dreamt of possessing an Erinsmail account. When I famously hooked up with Joe Mangel (a.k.a. Mark Little) at All Tommorow's Parties earlier this year I was starstruck beyond belief by his oafish, plebian charm: "This fucker's got a camera." Brilliant.

Will 'Out Of The Blue' ever be capable of stirring my inner essence in such a way? Not likely. I'll be flicking over to 'Five'.

The National Front Disco

2007-11-28T23:36:00.000Z

In the event of Morrissey being invited to address the Oxford Union, the scenes outside the building would be most intriguing. Would it be merely a collection of avid fans fussing about the place, or would it be more akin to the protests that greeted fascist BNP leader Nick Griffin and supposed historian David Irving when they were invited earlier this week? His most recent comments to the NME would make the latter a possibility.

For some reason, opinion on the merits or otherwise of offering a platform to fascists at the Oxford Union appear to have been restricted to only two distinct viewpoints: (a) that it's disgraceful to 'legitimise' their views, and the protests are justified, or (b) that it's all part of free speech in a functional democracy and the protests aren't justified. There hasn't been enough mention of the fact that both views are correct. It would be a disgrace if, for instance, Nick Griffin walked away from the debate with more legitimacy than when he walked in, but that would say more about the debating skills of Oxford Union members than the premise of inviting him in itself. Depriving him the platform would only be counterproductive - the best way to deal with fascists is to allow them into the open for their fear and hate-ridden, irrational views to publicly unravel themselves. But equally, the loud protests outside were also essential. Letting them speak, but at the same time rallying against them in a visible way, is positive all round. It's all about registering opposition but not feeding their cause. It's better than forcing them into a neo-Nazi undercurrent where the hate and lies the BNP's appeal is based upon will go uncorrected.

In reality, the scenes earlier in the week were vaguely reminiscent of an operational democracy, which is quite a rare concept in this day and age. Regardless, apart from some satisfaction for Nick Griffin himself, the benefits of addressing the Oxford Union for the BNP are limited, mainly because not a lot of people pay attention to what happens there. I'll be more alarmed when I wake up, switch on the telly and find him sprawled on the red GMTV settee, sipping from a cup of coffee while being lightly carressed by Fiona Phillips ("I do understand Nick, really I do... You're so brave"). Actually, sticking to ITV's morning schedule, I'd like to see Nick Griffin on Jeremy Kyle. Kyle would destroy him, if only through fear of being out-fascisised (not a word) by someone.

As for Morrissey, I find it peculiar that many of his most avid fans are desperate to unconditionally leap to his defence when he comes out with comments like he has. I'm quite wary of claiming to be avid about anything - it takes a lot of effort - but if I'm avid about any number of things then Morrissey and his music would be one of them. The crucial difference, though, is that I'm not blinkered enough to cry foul when a magazine suggests he might be, you know, slightly xenephobic for saying there aren't enough English people in England anymore. Any talk of 'identity' along nationalistic lines baffles me, to be honest. Although the NME is a shitpiece publication these days and I don't doubt for a minute that their intentions are anything other than sinister in the way they've used the interview, Morrissey's words speak for themselves. Silly boy.

N.B. The National Front Disco is a brilliant song.

'Mama, I saw a star last night'

2007-11-26T22:51:00.001Z

It was Patrick Wolf appearing live (as opposed to appearing unalive, © Morrissey) at the Lowry in Salford Quays and it was completely unlike any of the previous five times I'd seen him. Filled with really different and often improvised versions of all his songs, the set couldn't have been more different to those during the 'The Magic Position' tours. I had become slightly alarmed at his ever-increasing band, the reliance on his laptop and gradual ditching of instruments in favour of parading about like some kind of karaoke pop star. He almost became Har Mar Superstar at one point and it was unsettling.

Now he's back playing completely alone and switching between all manner of instruments. Between songs he quietly wandered around the stage and switched to either his violin, ukulele, piano or guitar (shock horror) as if he'd unexpectedly discovered them lying there and decided to pick them up. It was Patrick Wolf in his purest form. Splendid and tremendous. I'll be seeing him again on Friday when he travels to the salubrious surrounds of Middlesbrough's Institute of Modern Art (mima). Patrick Wolf playing in Middlesbrough town centre isn't something I was expecting. It's a clash of civilisations that should prove seminal.

Gareth Manager's Darkplace

2007-11-24T22:10:00.000Z

I am concerned for the future of Middlesbrough FC manager Gareth Southgate, 37, married. A perfect captain and Boro legend as a player, he was later catapulted into a job he hadn't gone looking for, but accepted after others had turned it down and his chairman turned to him. Thrown in at the proverbial deep end of football without proverbial armbands or even any proverbial trained lifeguards on standby, he has made a decent fist of it but now, as Boro teeter on the relegation zone on the back of a woeful run of form, everything is in decline. I'm back home for the night after travelling over to see us trounced 3-0 at home by Aston Villa - yet another wholly soul-destroying football experience in a ground barely two-thirds full.

Chin up

Many supporters have turned on club legend Southgate, 37, married, firm socialist, and it breaks my heart. Regardless of how low Boro sink under his guidance, he should be immune from the kind of abuse that normally comes with footballing underachievement. As a true gent, a man of great intelligence who knows his way around a V-neck jumper and, crucially, the only man ever to lead Boro to cup victory in 131 years of the club's history, he deserves unswerving respect. Yet today at the game, when the Aston Villa fans were goading their ex-player at 0-3 with a rendition of 'Southgate, what's the score? Southgate, Southgate, what's the score?', many of the Boro supporters around me joined in. These people are cretins, and it is impossible for me to relate to them (no matter how long and hard I scour my family tree). I sincerely hate them, and think they should all be shot in the spine.

Support your local coppers

2007-11-21T23:58:00.000Z

I was reading Monday's copy of The Guardian today (it's good to be the last to know) and absorbed with some interest an article about our decreasing use of low-denomination coins, a.k.a. coppers, or as cockney pseudo hardknob Danny Dyer would probably refer to them in an artificially gravelly voice on a budget satellite channel production, 'the bacon'. Apparently people have become so carefree with pennies that £65m worth have gone missing (that's pennies alone. Not Penny's alone - that means something altogether different. And anyway, aren't we all alone when finally confronted with our inevitable death?) and 5.9m of them are down the backs of settees. Not mine though - I've checked and I could only find four. Maybe the other 5,899,996 are down yours. When all of the tuppences estimated to be missing are also included, it's another £25m, totalling a cumulative £90m in lost coppers. Frika.

The timing of this article is most interesting, given that I've recently started my own copper-retention system by emptying them from my pockets into a disused milk bottle. The long-term aim is, of course, to collect so many that it'll eventually be worth taking the coins to empty into those machines you find at places like ASDA. It weighs them all and then gives you a receipt which can be spent in the shop: an ingenious idea. I remember my Auntie giving me three handbags of coppers she'd collected over a 15 year period in her Chorley home and saying I could redeem them for personal use. Having taken them to ASDA and exchanged them for a receipt worth £58, I promptly secured a sizeable haul of beer, light pastry items and wet wipes. Extremely worthwhile.

All of these people striving for plastic dominance at our checkouts and all those responsible for proposing the silly Oyster Card-like system for low-value convenience products should hang their heads and respect the coppers. Obviously they have their downsides, such as making your hands smell and weighing your pockets down to an extent that persuades you you've developed a hernia (and I don't just mean a photo of one), but they're also oddly comforting. Have you ever sampled that climactic, perverse thrill of being asked for 42p for a Twix in a shop and managing to give the exact amount after counting up piles of pennies? It's usually followed with a wild smile from the till operator who, thanks to such copper deliveries, no longer has to be plagued with fear about asking their miserable, abrupt supervisor for new bags of change. It's a sensation almost unmatched in modern civilisation as we all grow increasingly detached from our common essence. Coin circulation is one of the last bastions of human interaction, however indirect it may be. The constant exchange of bacteria and dried skin we anonymously exchange keeps us all connected. If these bad plastic bastards have their way then even that will die out.

"That's the weather... for now"

2007-11-14T17:02:00.000Z

I find the best thing about the emergence of 24-hour news channels is the proliferation and increased celebrity profile of our weather forecasters. I say 'our' because I truly believe they should be considered the property of the populace. In my utopia we would elect our forecasters, they would represent us and we'd then be able to hold them accountable at the ballot box. Almost like democracy today but with a bit more effort made to adhere to the most fundamental principles. My system would operate very smoothly because although forecasters may get it wrong from time to time, one thing can be assured - they never lie.

My favourite current forecaster is the BBC's Dan Corbett. Where some presenters seem almost fearful of making an impression, Dan just goes for it and imprints himself on the forecast so much the weather map had might as well consist of a massive version of his face. He first sprung to my attention in 2004 when my whole university household in Nottingham found itself entranced during his appearances. To this day, if we hear the line "and here's Dan Corbett with the weather" in Flat C, everything else stops. And with good reason.

"That's the weather... for now" (for now? What, you can do more?)

The Corbett weather experience is unrivalled in terms of its captivating powers - it's like a whistle-stop national tour of bizarre hand movements, phrases and meteorological analogies. All accompanied with a slightly camp form of received pronunciation. Brilliant. Clouds never just 'move in' or 'build up', in Corbett's world they "bubble up" (along with bubbling finger signals). And they always "squeeze out one or two spots of drizzle" with him. A couple of weeks ago there were "a few showers knocking on the doorsteps of Northern Ireland." He described one cold front moving in from the east as "this big rainy boomerang" and later, when using radar images to show stormy weather, admitted "it looks like we've gone mad with some crayons". You just don't get stuff like that from Peter Gibbs and Robert McElwee.

His clever use of physical movements to keep you engrossed all the way to the end is a mark of Dan's genius. He swoops about the map, often ducking, and simulates projected cloud movements with sharp whips of the hand. I love the way he makes you feel like you're involved too. "Just watch this..." he says, as if preparing you for the havoc about to be unloaded by a particularly vicious area of low pressure. I also love the way he interferes in your daily itinerary by proposing what you might do at a certain time. "Some spots of drizzle bubbling up in Cornwall tomorrow morning - perhaps if you're taking the kids out for the day you'll pack the umbrella and some light cagools just to be safe." Yes Dan, I might, but frankly I can't fathom why it's any of your business. "For those of you up early it could be a mucky drive to work." Mucky? Do we all reside in fields? Anyway, I'll get there eventually - just stop interfering and live your own bloody life. But no, I love it really, just knowing somebody cares.

Sadly, it would seem the powers that be at the BBC don't hold Dan in a similarly high esteem. He rarely features on terrestrial news bulletins and instead often languishes in mid-afternoon slots on News24. A batch of young, poster boy bores are preferred ahead of him for the most high-profile slots. I'm talking about Alex Deakin, Matt Taylor, Darren Bett and Thomasz Schaferknaker of course. It's all symptomatic of the mediocrity we're seeing across television these days. Clearly, the meterological hierarchy are intimidated by Corbett's immense charisma. He is the twinkling diamond in an otherwise pedestrian weather team.

As for the other channels' approaches to weather forecasts, I'm less qualified to comment. I avoid watching ITV News on a point of principle (i.e. wanting to know the news) and thus am only familiar with the so-called work of Siân Lloyd. Unlike the BBC lot, she's not even a meteorologist and purely a presenter. I notice the otherwise excellent Channel 4 News has left the forecast in the hands of the newsreaders, which is plain nuts. Meanwhile, the one positive thing Rupert Murdoch has ever done for the world is evident in the work of Francis Wilson on Sky News. Although extremely well-learned and highly respected, he seems completely disinterested in his work, despite devoting his entire life to it. Which I like.

My unhealthy interest in the identities of our weather forecasters has been ongoing ever since I wanted to be one myself. Between 1991 and 1993 I was convinced it was my destiny to work beneath Michael Fish at BBC Television Centre. I set about developing a sound base of meteorological knowledge in my spare time so as I could immediately impress Fish when finally invited for an interview. I got practice in by drawing my own exciting weather maps - where there'd be scorching hot sun in the midlands and snow blizzards in the north-east - and delivering the forecasts before family members. I even gave a talk on the different cloud types at primary school (from stratocirrus to cumulonimbus, I covered it all). By the way, this was after I wanted to be a priest and hosted fake masses (1989: proof of the scarring capabilities of a Catholic upbringing) and before I was obsessed with being an estate agent (1996: yet more proof of pure irrationality). Just so you can grasp the chronology of it all.

Priest/weatherman/estate agent... quite an odd trio isn't it? Clearly I was a total megalomaniac in my formative years. And that's the weather... FOR NOW!

The buildings behind vertex of Engels

2007-11-12T16:55:00.000Z

I've broken into an uneasy sweat since arriving at that title, but we'll plough on regardless. On Saturday I partook in a guided Friedrich Engels walk through Manchester city centre with a horde of other left-leaning hedonists hellbent on communal strolling. The reason such an event can take place in Manchester is because he lived here for more than 20 years (in different spells) and he and Karl Marx even penned sections of The Communist Manifesto together in the city. We saw the bay window and everything (well, just the bay window actually). This is was what was quite funny about the walk in general - we heard all about Engels' life and times in Manchester, all about the slums and terrible working conditions he observed while building his perceptions of class, and thus the city's integral role in developing socialism, but in reality the vast majority of the landscapes he knew are long gone. It was very good though, even if we could've just had the talk in a portakabin with a nice mug of tea. I thought our entertaining Manc guide was pretty good too, despite seemingly being at pains to stress he doesn't care for socialism much. There's an article about him and the tour here .

This matinee entertainment/reason not to be in the pub was the discovery of radical historian Dan (a.k.a. Red Dan) who was down from Edinburgh for the weekend. His hosts Matt and Helen performed admirably in guiding us from good tavern to good tavern throughout the weekend, which is very useful when you're new to somewhere as I am. My Manc' public house knowledge has expanded immeasurably. We were also joined on Saturday by Dan's blog boss Grammar Gez (GrammarBlog) and Anna, 24, from Lincolnshire. Fine company all round. Those of us who stuck around for the late segment of Saturday's itinerary were lucky enough to catch noted Italian rockers The Refounders as their European tour pulled in to the back room of a pub populated by eleven people. The singer's main performance trick involved fizzing up a can of John Smiths Extra Smooth and cracking it open at his crotch, allowing a frothy mess to burst forth. Their incendiary encore of 'Great Balls Of Fire' was life-affirming. They'll go far.

Sunday afternoon meant the football (hiss), and for once it didn't manage to spoil another otherwise perfectly good weekend. It didn't exactly contribute anything either... but one step at a time, my child. Boro played out a dour 0-0 draw at Bolton Wanderers, a satisfactory enough result but a game capably described by today's Guardian as "rubbish in which the odd moments of skill and control winked like pearls on a cow pat before being buried by another steaming pile." Which sounds markedly similar to the rest of my Boro-supporting life, funnily enough, so I'll take it. Here's the blog's obligatory (oblogatory, even) Stadium Snapshot to prove "I was there". The rest of this post was just made up really.

Demonstrable Humour

2007-11-08T23:43:00.000Z

Socialist comedians, when funny, are something to treasure, so it was with a spring in my step and my legs folded into an awkward arrangement due to a shortage of theatre leg room that I went to see noted-lefty Mark Thomas last night. He was extremely funny. The whole show was based around stories about the various games he's played with the downright daft Serious Organised Crime and Police Act (Socpa) since its introduction in 2005. Sopca has made it illegal to protest or demonstrate in a designated area surrounding the Houses of Parliament unless you apply for and are granted police permission. Thomas set about applying to hold as many ludicrous demonstrations as he could ('Ban Surrealism', 'Ban Static Mimes', 'Reduce Police Paperwork'), making a mockery of the law and generating masses of police paperwork in the process.

When laws are as ridiculous and grounded in pettiness (Sopca was introduced mainly to exclude a sole source of government embarrassment, peace campagined Brian Haw, afterall) as this one, the best thing to do is push them to the limit. In one day Thomas applied for and then held 21 demonstrations, gaining a place in the Guinness Book of Records. He's has held so many protests in the last 18 months that he's on first name terms with most of the staff at Charing Cross police station and has persuaded many of them that the law should be changed. Which it now apparently will be. Good work.

At the end he invited on stage Karen Reissmann, a psychiatric nurse in Manchester who was suspended and later sacked after criticising the funding, operation and growing privatisation of her Mental Health Trust. She's at the centre of a growing campaign to be reinstated and an indefinite strike by other psychiatric staff began today. It's an unbelievable cock-up on the part of the Trust to sack a long-serving member of staff for an expression of rational dissent. She spoke very well about her campaign and lamented that it's under a Labour government that we're seeing underfunding and increasing privatisation of the NHS, together with sustained attacks on trade unionism in general. How true.

Certainly something to cream over

2007-11-06T22:47:00.000Z

Bourbon Cream USB drives! Never in all my life.

Mind you, it was about time. I can only imagine the immense temptation when using such a device to plug it into your own mouth rather than an available USB port on your desktop or laptop computer must be difficult to resist. I fully expect to see a steady flow of 'GIRL, 15, SWALLOWS GCSE COURSEWORK FILES WHOLE' headlines in the ensuing weeks. Followed by follow-up feature stories of ''IT MIGHT NOT BE ITS INTENDED USE BUT I DON'T REGRET A BIT OF IT' - BOURBON GIRL SPEAKS'.

But as usual all great, pioneering ideas must be soiled with over-indulgence and recklessness. Hence this evil specimen:

Speaking of which, I'd like to thank Welsh-but-English-really friend, former housemate, and sweet-and-sour-carrot-monger Jess Who Likes American Things Now for alerting me to the existence of these bizarre little creatures. Speaking of which, I'd like to thank Jess Who Likes American Things Now again. Guffaw.

Ferry Across The Mersey

2007-11-04T20:03:00.000Z

I've seen a few bad tribute bands play on ferries, thanks to a series of nightmare Stena Sealink family holiday trips across the Irish Sea in my youth. But as of last night I can finally say I've seen a genuinely good band on a boat. I went to witness the excellent British Sea Power play aboard the Merchant Vessel Royal Daffodil as it sailed up and down Liverpool's River Mersey.

Boarding the MV Royal Daffodil

This novel offering was billed by the organisers as "three hours of maritime mayhem". So as someone who doesn't care much for water and generally supports law and order over wanton chaos, it sounded right up my, er, river naturally. Thankfully the event passed off without any form of aquatic anarchy rearing its ugly head and I managed to avoid falling overboard and having to thrash about in the water like some kind of demented psycho-merman, or anything else bad that could've happened. Luckily the gig didn't start until 10pm, which meant I could still fulfill my Boro season ticket duties (because I enjoy the pain) in the afternoon. It meant a frenzied dash back across t'Pennines for me and Tall Foz in the Padmobile so as to get to Manchester in time for a suitable train to Liverpool. Which we managed, just about.

Although playing on a boat is a nice idea and everything, in practice her (apparently it's a she) extremely low ceilings and arced floor made for less than ideal gig circumstances. I think about 97% of the crowd couldn't see the band. I could though, so that's alright.

BSP were dead good an' that, obviously. My ribcage got crushed, which is often a good sign. They played lots of favourites, but perhaps the most perfect moment was during 'Blackout', undoubtedly one of my favourite BSP nuggets. All the way through the song the boat was performing one of her slow turns and the banks of the Mersey and the city's skyline slid across view through the windows behind the band. It was one of those moments where you feel like you're in a film - which doesn't happen to me that often. The last time I was in one was when I got caught in driving rain on the A1(M) at Wetherby in 2003 with 'Motorcycle Emptiness' playing from the tape deck.

That film got panned by the critics ('A cinematic abomination' - Barry Norman. 'A goat with a handheld camcorder could do better' - MOJO), but this one was great and I think my thespian career may be about to take flight. In fact the only way I could imagine it being any better was if the Mersey's banks - which mean little to me, if anything atall aside from saying "oh look, that building was on the Brookside credits" - had been replaced by those of the Tees. To watch British Sea Power play 'Blackout' against the stirring industrial skyline, with the floodlit, iconic Transporter Bridge gliding into view, and a feint whiff of sulphuric acid... that's the dream.

May I inherit your inherent selfishness?

2007-11-01T12:25:00.000Z

Today would apparently have been the day of the general election had Gordon Brown gone through with his plans for a snap election (whereby, I presume, traditional democratic procedures are ditched in favour of a big game of cards... oops, cracked that one before). The media's immense disappointment at the decision was tangible. Faced with the prospect of having to find something else to fill their front pages with, and something else to cover as a diversion from the despicably hypocritical fanfare afforded to the Saudi King and his entourage by our government in the last couple of days, they quickly turned on Brown.

Old Etonian wonderchild David Cameron's Tories are marking the date with a poster campaign, which is an idea I appreciate, if not for the reasons they hope. Honeymoon period slowly dying out? Still detached from the electorate? Here, might as well try another poster campaign. It reminds me of the 'Speed 3' episode of Father Ted where the problem of Dougal's runaway milk float is proving difficult to solve and, after copious amounts of masses and brainstorming sessions, with no ideas left on the table, one of the priests says "is there ANYTHING to be said for another mass?"

Around the time of all the election speculation I became disturbingly tribal towards Labour. I'm so petrified by the British public's stupidity and apparent willingness to sleepwalk back into the arms of Tory government that I found myself defending Gordon Brown's every action. Saying things I didn't quite believe and supporting cynical party-political manouvres I'd normally lambast as being symptomatic of the death of mainstream politics in this country - all because the alternative is so much worse. When everyone was saying Labour would win an autumn election I thought 'go for it, needs must'. Then when Brown called it off amid suggestions it'd be a closely run thing, I concurred 'best not to take any risks'. The mock disgust at Brown's "playing politics with the public" from the opposition and sections of the media was laughable. Almost as much as his denial that the polls had influenced his U-turn. But what exactly did we expect him to say?

The most depressing aspect of all the election tomfoolery was the obsession with inheritance tax and its apparent vote-winning potential. The opinion polls swung to the Tories practically overnight after proposing they'd raise the tax threshold to £1m. There seems to be a blanket perception that inheritance tax is unfair, when in reality it's an extremely sensible and rational mechanism that at least hints at an intention to aid social mobility. It has a semblance of redistribution about it, however small (only 6% of British property value is currently paid in inheritance tax, afterall). The public's obsession with the tax and its trivial impact on the pockets of Middle England reinforces how much our mindsets are dictated by irrationality and selfishness. Admittedly, the taxation rates needed to be tweaked and scaled more sharply to affect super-rich property owners, but Brown's fawning response of copying the Tories was downright depressing. Never mind though - I'd still prefer his big rubbery, miserable face in Number 10 than Cameron and his slippery Oil Of Olay sheen.

Such A Little Thing Makes Such A Big Difference

2007-10-30T11:53:00.000Z

Such a little thing / Such a little thing / But the difference it made was grave / There you go, wielding a bicycle chain / Oh, why won't you change? / Change and be nicer?

Sorry, got sidetracked there. That's a picture of the little device that means we've got internet access in Flat C now. Due to a set of circumstances whereby we managed to move into a residence with no phoneline installed, and then Virgin Media proved to be a Useless Twat Collective, we've had to 'go mobile' with '3'. I promise it had nothing to do with celebrity endorsement of the company from June Sarpong MBE, irritating purveyor of bad television and owner of a voice that sounds like the strangler has got a good grip on her neck but is yet to press ahead with proceedings (I've never quite been able to go through with it). It was just a necessity to finally get online, even if it is proving to be much like the staff in an Argos store (temperamental and not as fast as advertised).

I'm presently exploiting the benefits of mobile internet by sitting in bed. I've fallen thoroughly ill in the past 24 hours with a heavy cold - I would call it flu but people always say you're lying unless it lasts about two weeks. I suppose it's more like a snack-size flu; the type you'd find in a Christmas selection box of, erm, illnesses. Yesterday I bought my first box of Kleenex since 1996 and then had to suffer the ignominy of walking through the city centre and sitting on the bus home with the box in my hand, with a fresh tissue sitting proud from the clever dispensation system on the top of the box, permanently aroused. The looks I got were not so much dirty as heavily soiled. I felt so ill last night that when I tried to start writing a blog about pies I soon lost interest and gave up. So there's something to look forward to when I'm better.

I'm determined to spend the majority of the day in bed. Illness etiquette dictates that "staying in bed is the only way to get rid of it". Or at least that's what the mother figure always told me when I was skiving off school in the hope of starting a new league season on Premier Manager 3. Then again, this is the same mother figure who always tries to get me to put some shorts on because "they'll thicken up your legs", so perhaps I should be less quick to take heed. But regardless, it's nice to lounge and I'm lying here listening to the second Andrew Bird album, Armchair Apocrypha, in preparation for seeing him live next week. The world is on hold. Do not disturb.

Où est mon maître, le Prince Rebelle?

2007-10-28T11:50:00.000Z

There's something massively rewarding about seeing Jeff Buckley's drummer Matt Johnson - all-round serious musician and drummer on one of the finest albums ever made in 'Grace' - transform himself into a dancer for the encore of 'Get Happy', leaping around doing forward-rolls at the feet of Rufus (in drag).

A workplace fraud with dangers

2007-10-25T18:38:00.000+01:00

Work has found me once more. I don't like it, but I'll have to go along with it. I've found myself incarcerated in a darkened basement room of Manchester town hall this week as part of a new temporary employment arrangement with Manchester City Council. Each week will see contestants - erm, I mean me - catapulted into alien office environs on different work placements, performing menial tasks for a cash prize. At the moment I'm with the Fraud Investigation Group, transcribing taped interrogations of alleged benefit fraudsters. Naturally my pledge of confidentiality precludes me from revealing any particulars about the ongoing cases here (give me a call), but what I can say is they're scoundrels, scavengers and leeches the lot of them.

I get to listen to a succession of characters explaining - usually in their thickest Mancunian accents - exactly why they didn't consider having thousands of pounds stashed away in a bank account relevant information when filling out a benefit claim form. "I jus'... I jus' di'n't think it woh necessary yeh knoh?" Yeah, I knoh alright. This country is going to the dogs; mind you, an evening's entertainment at the local greyhound racing track has never done anyone any harm. But no, seriously - some of these people are unbelievable. At least stash your thousands under the floorboards of a delapidated outhouse if you're serious about this whole benefits thing.

One joy of temping is that there's no pressure to develop genuine or lasting relationships with your colleagues. Permanent staff regard 'the temp' as an extraterrestrial being to be, rightly, approached with a great deal of caution. The fact I won't be in any one place for very long means idle chatter can pass off without later recriminations for any perceived conversational contradictions. I could paint myself as a risk-taking, surf-loving, wall-shagging extreme (sorry, Xtreme) sports knob if I so wish. In fact I might try that. And then alter my persona with each council department I'm placed in, until I'm eventually sussed out by those famous 'town hall bosses' I always read so much about (but am yet to see anywhere, whether bossing the corridors, the toilets, or just the staff) and marched from the building.

When I'm not preoccupied with trying to work out how I'm supposed to transcribe alleged fraudsters' wholly inarticulate noises such as 'urgh-hurgh', 'hmmffph' and 'jaffaquack', I occasionally pick up on tidbits of the office conversation from those with real jobs. I can tell you all about the relative ages of the members of Take That if you're interested. Yesterday I picked up on a conversation about the pitfalls of men wearing white underwear - namely that when you sweat, the white goes a bit yellow. Yes, we all know that, but does nobody else perform a quick circumnavigation of the hips with a roll-on anti-perspirant each morning? Clearly not. At one point today I became so bored with people repeating themselves on the tape I was transcribing that I found myself transfixed on the woman eating a grapefruit the size of a brain tumour on the other side of the office. But regardless... it's twenty-seven times better than the call centre, I'll tell you that for nothing.

PS: In other news, following a protracted saga too infuriating to describe here, I should have the internet in the flat after the weekend. Which is a relief.

He didn't disappoint me

2007-10-21T18:25:00.000+01:00

Rufus Wainwright, that is. I was finally afforded my first audience with the great man on Thursday night when he frequented Manchester Apollo and delivered a spellbinding set. I've been waiting to see him for a couple of years, and in truth he surpassed my expectations. I didn't realise he'd be quite such a showman, so varied, and quite so funny with his between-song patter. He puts on a proper musical extravaganza: solo; big band; spangly suits; lederhosen; and a ridiculous encore of Judy Garland's 'Get Happy', mimed in drag with fishnet stockings and all. True entertainment spread over two hours' stage time with a twenty-minute interval.

Some may find Wainwright slushy, but I consider him a songwriting genius. And one who will probably only be fully and truly appreciated once he's dead, as is often the way. I'm thankful that I'll get to repeat the experience next weekend. I've managed to make the mother figure into a Rufus fan too and, as a result, am taking her to see him in Harrogate, where we'll be close enough to be showered in spittle from our front row seats.

The year's last, loveliest smile

2007-10-17T12:58:00.000+01:00

Autumn is perhaps my favourite season of the year, closely followed by winter. I like the general feeling of nature's maturity and impending decay and gloom. And the fact everyone else seems to be brought down a peg or two from their misguided summer bounciness. Additionally, I appreciate the autumnal colours brought to our leaves, whether they be squashed on the pavements or lounging nonchalantly atop a branch.

Platt Fields Park, Manchester, this morning

I was reading the other day about the fact that this is one of the most colourful seasons we've had for years. The spell of still, mild weather we've been having - as well as the wet summer followed by a dry autumn - has provided ideal conditions for producing such golden colours as those depicted above. The stillness means we can enjoy this year's autumnal feast above our heads rather than below, and I think it makes for delightful viewing. If we get a few gales then it'll all be on the floor, of course, but then it means we can skip along gaily kicking the leaves into the air and giggling wildly. So it's the best of both worlds.

Eidy does it

2007-10-15T13:10:00.000+01:00

Upon setting off for Manchester city centre late on Saturday night with Mark and Deano, visiting from Nottingham, our bus travel plans were somewhat scuppered by the discovery of immense sets of traffic jams in every conceivable direction. It turned out we were coinciding with Eid, the Muslim holiday marking the end of Ramadan, when seemingly the entire Muslim community takes to the streets in automobiles. It meant we had to walk all the way into town but, putting such personal inconvenience aside, also provided quite a fascinating observation of public celebration on a mass scale.

When we walked up to Rusholme and the Curry Mile the road was a sea of cars with people hanging out the windows and horns being liberally honked. The queues went back at least a mile in either direction. I find it slightly peculiar that the elected method of celebration is to go and sit in traffic jams for hours on end, perhaps advancing the onrush of global warming in the meantime, but I suppose it made for quite a scene. Some people had the right idea, though, and had hired limousines for the occasion. Where such a sight is now normally a telling sign of a horde of desperate, attention seeking teenagers on the rampage, in this case it was all about rational decision-making. Once you've accepted the fact you're going to sit in a traffic jam for hours on end, you'd might as well make an event of it. It's better than trying to read a paper at the wheel, like I've tried. Surprisingly few had opted to mount a bicycle and sneak up the sides of the jam - so there's a tip for the next Eid, take your bike. Or maybe not.

The Curry Mile's restaurants and take-aways were bustling with people getting their fill, and the pavements packed with revellers, some of them bouncing up and down chanting in unison. Bizarrely, vanilla Cornettos appeared to be the main luxury foodstuff of choice; we saw whole groups (as opposed to, erm, unwhole groups) walking along with a Cornetto each, which was quite funny considering where we were (Manchester), which month of year it was (October), what time of night it was (11.46pm), and how expensive Cornettos can be these days (up to £2 at tourist 'honeypot sites' (copyright GCSE Geography syllabus)). One thing's for sure, if I went back to Rusholme right now this here Monday afternoon, Cornettos would be in short supply. "Just one Cornetto, give it to me..." Clearly that advertising campaign worked wonders.

Of course the most striking thing about all of this was the extent of common identity and shared public celebration on display. It reminds you of just how disconnected most of society is normally. I can't think of many instances whereby a secular population would take to the streets in a similar vein in this country. It would probably only happen if England won the World Cup or something, heaven forbid. The football World Cup of course, not this rugby one people seem to be bored enough to be talking about.

Control

2007-10-11T12:44:00.000+01:00

I went to see Control, the new film about Joy Division and the suicide of Ian Curtis, with Anna and Jimi on Tuesday night. Although quite heartbreaking for obvious reasons, it’s bloody excellent. I’m often not keen on the idea of screenplays based on real events, especially when it comes to legendary bands and the like, but Control does really well in capturing the enigma, mystique and iconic aura of Curtis and Joy Division. With all of that juxtaposed with Curtis’ home life with a wife and child in Macclesfield, you get a fuller picture of his life and all of its (internal) conflicts. It’s true what all the reviews have been saying, too; the film is beautifully shot, wonderfully grey, and Sam Riley plays a scarily accurate Ian Curtis. As an aside, for some reason they filmed most of it in Nottingham and I recognised two white high-rise tower blocks as being those near Lenton crossroads, extremely close to where I lived at university. Which was nice.

With films like this I always think how odd it must be for the people still alive to see an actor playing them on screen. And, even more so, to have such a torturous episode as a bandmate’s suicide turned into a film. Peter Hook is quoted in the latest Observer Music Monthly:

“When I saw the film in Cannes earlier this year, after Ian dies ‘Atmosphere’ is played, and it’s bloody heartbreaking, it really is – it’s like going through it all again, to be honest. Especially with all the problems with New Order. I’m going through hell and people start to applaud! It’s bizarre having your life flash back like that for other people to see. It's like when everyone laughed in 24 Hour Party People when we lost money on every copy sold of 'Blue Monday' because of the expensive sleeve. I thought, 'You bastards - that's my life, that is, that really happened!'”

Electoral droll (what?)

2007-10-08T17:15:00.000+01:00

In what now appears to have been some sort of pre-emptive compensatory reminiscipackage for the fact Gordon Brown won’t be calling a snap election (whereby, I presume, the conventional democratic procedures for electing Parliament would be ditched in favour of a massive game of cards with very basic rules), on Friday BBC Parliament screened the full 12-hour-long BBC coverage of the 1987 general election night. And I’m proud to say I watched it. Clearly the channel’s Head of Programming was in the know while media speculation about an announcement early this week of a 2007 election was reaching fever pitch. BBC Parliament gave the people what they wanted. Well, at least what all the unemployed people with the time and inclination to watch it wanted. Well, those of them with access to extraterrestrial channels like BBC Parliament, that is. And enough masochistic tendencies to manage to derive something almost resembling pleasure from witnessing Thatcherite success and domination in a very real way.

It made for hugely interesting viewing. What started off as just something to watch while eating my dinnertime ham and coleslaw sandwiches developed into a four-hour televisual marathon with the kettle working overtime and my even going so far as to remove my shoes. By 3.45pm, with the Tory majority projected to pass the one hundred mark, I’d seen enough and left the flat. Which is the daytime equivalent of sloping off to bed at 3.45am on election night, depressed at the prospect of five more years of Thatcherism. The coverage was led by the same Holy Trinity as it would be today: David Dimbleby with his customarily detached attitude and hyper-Englishness; Peter Snow excitedly producing and describing his abstract graphics on a big screen; and election analyst Professor Tony King of the University of Essex giving electoral projections and rationalising the British public’s buffoonery (“what we’re seeing here, David, is… [a load of shortsighted southerners voting in the name of nothing but personal gain - Ed]”, he [should’ve - Ed] repeatedly said).

There was a brilliant moment when the baton had been passed to the now deceased Robin Day (fine precursor to Paxman in the interview bully stakes) to interview some party figures, only for Labour leader Neil Kinnock’s seat declaration to be suddenly made. They cut straight back to David Dimbleby, who was looking extremely sheepish and wiping some kind of sticky residue from his lips in an embarrassed manner. Fellatio from Tony King in the election studio? He claimed he’d been “half way through eating a Mars bar”, and I suppose I’m willing to believe him given that he had something vaguely half-Mars-bar-sized hidden up the left sleeve of his jacket. All in all, it was fascinating seeing famous old faces and the twenty years younger versions of people still familiar today. I saw John Prescott sounding far more eloquent and articulate than he ever does now. David Mellor and Norman Bloody Tebbit each increasing their majorities. John Redwood and Diane Abbott looking and sounding no different whatsoever. Plus Labour’s Paul Boateng making quite an incredible speech after becoming one of Parliament’s three first ever black MPs that night.. He might seem like a slight pillock in reality, but his speech, delivered in the spectre of Apartheid, was gloriously over the top and quite rousing (“today Brent South, tomorrow Soweto!”).

Even more interesting was just how clearly Britain was divided on Northern v Southern lines in that election. It’s abundantly clear where the bulk of blame for eleven years of Thatcher and eighteen years of Conservatism should lie. Yet another reason to dislike people from the south east, on top of their general egomania and fondness of glottal stops. They cast their votes with no social conscience and while drunk on the artificial boom of Thatcher’s economic policy, wreaking economic and social devastation elsewhere. They kept that woman in power and Britain is still suffering the social consequences. “Who’s responsible? Pat Butcher and her associates fucking are”, to (almost) quote the Manics, which is (almost) always a useful thing to do. Another major reason for Labour’s spectacular failure in toppling Thatcher, despite a promising election campaign, appeared to be its defence policy of unilateral nuclear disarmament, which seemingly rendered the party unelectable. The fact that the two major parties were separated so glaringly on an important policy matter is what was most striking about it all. It’s totally inconceivable that there’d be such a policy gulf today, which is a shame really.

P.S. If this post reads as though I became so fatigued as it went on to the point that I could no longer be bothered, then your reading would be correct. I'd love to provide more 1987 election analysis in the style of Tony King, but this internet cafe existence doesn't lend itself well to elongated bloggery, I've got a headache, and Neighbours starts in twenty minutes, so I'm off and that.

Bye, Bye, Buy Buy (Baby Goodbye)

2007-10-03T11:46:00.000+01:00

The demand for celebrities to sell their bodies for quick cash by associating themselves with huge advertising campaigns is one of the saddest and most damning indictments of our celebrity-driven capitalist culture of consumption. Perhaps most saddening because the proliferation of these types of campaigns means they're obviously working, and people are actually more likely to buy stuff they don't need with money they don't have just because they see a familiar face endorsing it. Worse still, it seems to be inconsequential who is doing it. Any talentless oik who's never done anything for the advancement of the human species, and never will, can get a well-paid gig swilling a cold drink on TV and looking happy about it, or falling onto a DFS sofa giggling with gay abandon in a way that nobody ever does in real life.

It would all be more understandable if heroic and well respected people were advertising stuff; I'd be more likely to sit up and take notice. For instance if they managed to digitally manipulate George Orwell to appear in TV adverts for foot spas, I'd think long and hard about getting one (so long as his script assured me each foot spa wasn't an instrument of government surveillance). Or if Morrissey showed up claiming that Churchill was the best option for car insurance ("and if a double decker bus/crashes into us/to claim with Churchill/is such a heavenly way to claim"), I'd be in raptures. But that's not the way it works. Instead, they just pay lots of people I, justifiably, have little or no respect for to try and sell stuff. Sharon Osbourne (estimated worth: £100m) parading up and down the aisles of ASDA and frittering away her money at Gala Bingo. Duncan Bannatyne (estimated worth: £200m) posing with a Blackberry. Footballers are often the worst culprits: Steven Gerrard (reportedly on £100,000+/wk at Liverpool) replaced Michael Owen (£100,000/wk at Newcastle, who'll pay anything to anyone) as the face and monotonous drone of Persil; Gary Lineker and his pissing crisps; and, of course, David Beckham (estimated worth: £87m) who's advertised too many products to list on these pages and whose advertising philosophy begins and ends simply with the word 'yes'. All of these people are clearly of such low fibre and self-worth that they see nothing wrong in what they're doing.

I'll agree with by far my favourite dead or alive comedian Bill Hicks on this: "by the way, if anyone here is in marketing or advertising - kill yourself" (this clip is required viewing). Although, when I was reading the most recent Hicks biography, Bill Hicks: Agent Of Evolution, his best friend and the book's author claimed that when Hicks was dying of cancer he said he would do an advert for Aloe Vera gel. This was because he convinced himself one of the reasons he had cancer was that he'd never exposed himself to enough sun, so started sitting outside, getting sunburnt, and then needing Aloe Vera (I wonder if she ever says hello back?). He genuinely thought the product was brilliant, and believed in it. This is an interesting new slant on advertising endorsements. If you fully believe in a product and think it advances humankind, is it OK to advertise it? The emergence of Stephen Fry's adverts for Twining's Tea must be a case of this, and I'm willing to go with it. There are a few things I'd agree to sell if I ever get offers on the back of the immense fame and notoriety I'm building through this blog. I'd certainly do adverts for Bourbon Creams, and could easily be tempted to sell wet wipes if the terms were right. I think both of those things make a positive difference to people's lives and even have a hand in progressing our evolution. Asda, Gala Bingo, Persil, Walkers Crisps et al don't, that's the difference. I rest my shaky case.

The best things in life are free

2007-09-30T13:53:00.000+01:00

A pair of chortles were provided by my first instalment of the local free paper, the South Manchester Reporter, when it arrived yesterday morning. The letters page is a splendidly archetypal catalogue of intensely regional gripes and pithy observations sent in by moaners and eccentrics. I quite liked the following letter from E Graham, Ladybarn, about the shortcomings of the length of the new platform at Mauldeth Road railway station. It’s not in the same league as Alfred H Lister, Guisborough, in the entertainment stakes (that would be ridiculous), but I’m always up for an unprovoked and seemingly arbitrary dig at Michael Palin so I liked it.

‘Walk to platform is far too long’

I look forward to using Mauldeth Road station after its refurbishment but was miffed at the distance from the road to the platform, even allowing for slopped access for the less able.

It is long enough for Michael Palin to present a programme on it.

Why didn’t they extend the platform to the bridge so the train could halt nearer the road, so reducing the trek for passengers? Couldn’t they construct a flight of steps closer to the road?

E Graham,
Ladybarn

I picture E Graham grabbing his/her head in both hands immediately after concluding the letter and screaming ‘Why?!’ repeatedly, and listening for a response in an empty room. ‘What have I done? Why do they make me walk this unnecessary distance?!’ Plus it really does say ‘slopped access’, which makes it all the better.

The ‘Love 2 Love’ personals page (tagline: “…fast, fresh, fun on your phone!”) threw up this gem:

Short M, 37, with no hair, wooden leg, one glass eye & twitch in t’other, looking for F, 30-45, n/s. Box 198094.

Even though it’s presumably a joke, I just love the fact he went to the effort to send it in. Maybe I'll respond.

My temporary deliverance

2007-09-28T16:50:00.000+01:00

As part of my bid to temp (read: work with no commitments or rights; right up my street) for a couple months on arriving in Manchester until getting around to applying for proper jobs, on Tuesday I ended up starting work for DHL. No, not Lawrence, the Nottinghamshire author, but the parcel delivery company. Although given D H Lawrence's concern with the duhumanising effects of modernity, it could easily have been (did that link work? I'm not sure). Anyway, I then ended up ending work for them on Thursday. I was meant to be there for four weeks, but couldn’t last more than three days. Is that bad? I don’t think so; in fact I think it’s great, mainly because it means I’m not there anymore. I was intending on getting some straightforward, dull office work and avoiding call centre work altogether, but I somehow ended up not wanting to turn down work, agreeing to it, and thinking “it’s only four weeks”. Within twelve hours of that ill-fated decision I was offered two far more attractive propositions in straightforward, dull office work by a different agency. Typical. I felt obliged to stick to my DHL agreement because of the fierce rapport I’d developed with my recruitment rep Lisa, 25, of Sunderland, while registering at her agency.

Even though it wasn’t altogether horrific, I couldn’t face four weeks of it. I was one of the people you call if you miss a parcel delivery and find a card through the letterbox telling you to call and rearrange delivery. I think the main stumbling blocks between working there and my personal contentment were that I’m not a massive fan of (a) telephones, and (b) speaking to people. The day was a vicious cycle of being disenchanted with the boredom but simultaneously not wanting anyone to phone up, thus increasing the boredom. Everyone has to earn money somehow, and I’m sure call centre work is more suited to most people than it is to me, but frankly I would rather starve than do it any longer than I did. Looking around at the drained, pallid expressions of my fellow recruits, and witnessing the misplaced power trip of my ‘Team Leader’, made for a soul-destroying experience. But that’s all part and parcel (boom boom) of the job. Really the worst bit was that I didn’t even need to be there.

I’ll get back on to my mate Liz, 27, of Longsight, at the other agency. She was most disappointed upon hearing of my defection to a rival, and she’ll sort me out. I’ll be like some particularly worthless hooker within weeks, whoring myself around the city’s temporary employment opportunities at the whim of my pimp (Liz). And she’ll be feeding me crack to keep me reliant. It’s all a downward spiral from here on in (which, by now, I’ve often thought should've become just one word: hereonin. But it hasn’t, and probably for a good reason).

PS: Due to the absence of an internet connection in our flat thus far, all these blogs are being penned in various Internet cafes. Please accept my apologies for any decrease in content quality.

Top drawer giggery (and a kick in the balls)

2007-09-24T10:48:00.000+01:00

I saw two of the best gigs I've witnessed for quite some time at the end of last week. The first was Patrick Watson at Night and Day Cafe in Manchester on Thursday with Jimi. His album 'Close To Paradise' is lovely, and its loveliness is aided by the fact I've pinned him down to being halfway between Jeff Buckley and Devendra Banhart, which is always a nice place to be. His voice was just as good live and his band perfected the art of providing backing whilst not being too intrusive.

The venue was great too. It's in the arty Northern Quarter and is quite a long, narrow, darkened room with a stage at the far end. Nice and intimate. It feels a bit like you're in a cellar bar, except you're not. I'm sure I'll be a regular enough visitor while I'm here in Manchester; although, humourously, I've already had a trip back home for my very first weekend to see the Boro game and The Young Republic at the Knights. I met David amongst the braindead Friday night crowd in The Star and then we 'hooked up' with Dan and Rob in the venue (no hooks were actually involved though, it's just a phrase. It's not like we physically connected our clothing to form some kind of big human chain).

What a fine live band they were. There's eight of them and they all crammed onto the Knights' stage with their guitars, violins, glockenspiels and all. They seem to be building up to something a bit special, so it was great to see them visiting Middlesbrough. And they seemed pretty happy too as they accepted rapturous applause from their first ever sell out show. They deserve to be very successful, but whether they are or not will depend on the taste of the general public, which of course is rarely to be relied upon. Their melodies and multi-instrumental power were quite mesmerising though.

After two great highs, the Boro game on Saturday managed to bring me down a few pegs thanks to a frustrating last-minute equaliser from Sunderland after we'd controlled the game from the second minute until the second last. If only it'd been from the first until the last, we'd have won 2-0. "But hey, that's football", apparently.

Under slate-grey Victorian skies

2007-09-19T11:44:00.000+01:00

I've been in Manchester for four days now and am settling in well. Young Holden (Anna) has even already found time to go on a litter picking expedition in the immediate vicinity of our building. It seems that our little car park and path way is where the wind chooses to deposit all the litter from the southern half of Manchester, so she's in her element. It's a very different litter culture to what she's been used to while idly picking up bin bags strewn alongside narrow country roads in her Lincolnshire Wolds, but she seems to have adapted well to city litter. The roof of our flat seems to be a bit of a pigeon hidehout too, so I feel a bit like Jonathan Noel from 'The Pigeon' by Patrick Suskind every time I go out the door. The overcast skies and spots of rain always provide solace though.

As Manchester's primary student area, Fallowfield seems to have a lot of students, which has come as a bit of a surprise. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but it's come as a minor culture shock to be amongst it all, and staggering to think I'm five years older than all of these Freshers prowling the streets. Yesterday I made the mistake of trying to glide past the main Freshers' Fair and was met with a barrage of fliers for themed discos and toga parties, all rebuffed with a stern "no thanks", naturally. It seems quite a few of the pubs/bars where I'm living are your standard, soulless student affairs, but thankfully 'The Friendship Inn' has provided some sanity. It's got a wooden bar, a nice old-fasioned carpet and serves Olde Trip, so I've declared it my local. Plenty of great alehouses in the city centre though, and I'm looking forward to gaining a comprehensive understanding of them all.

Go back to bed, Britain...

2007-09-12T15:37:00.000+01:00

...your government is in control. Last week's considered advice from a grand fromage in our judicial system that every resident of Britain should be included in the national DNA database should set alarm bells ringing in everyone's years. I'm not sure it has though. The UK's database - already the largest in the world - currently includes only those who've had direct dealings with the police. According to this top judge, that is a problem because fledgling criminals can go free and undetected for longer than if they were already on file. This kind of talk is music to any government's ears. (That's two mentions of ears now: I seem to have developed a bit of an ear theme so far. No doubt in the knowledge that, if I was on the DNA database, the government would be able to clone my lobe or something.)

I find it astonishing that so many people appear to be apathetic when it comes to civil liberties. Especially when so many people, from all across the political spectrum, are so quick to state their distrust of the government: "Eeee, I don't trust any of that lot me." I think this general distrust must be centred on relatively inconsequential things like sleaze and the extra-marital affairs of our politicians, because from what I can see the majority of people just shrug their shoulders when it comes to the idea of handing over our identities for 'security' measures. Why, if we don't trust governments, do so many people support identity cards and other identification measures? It Makes. No. Sense.

The lack of media opposition to suggestions like these is also worrying. Whenever identity cards were discussed, the main reasons for concern cited were usually surrounding the scheme's cost to the treasury rather than the more prescient, general principle of resisting a slide towards a police state. Completely disproportionate responses to crime and terrorism (the latter always being the most powerful tool for scaring a populace into compliance) like this aren't being opposed enough. Rule One of operating a functional democracy is that you don't grant your government total biometric information about ordinary citizens who are yet to commit a crime. It can only go one way. Even if we think a particular government wouldn't abuse a database of its citizens for undemocractic purposes, who's to say a future one wouldn't? The civil liberties record of our current government, and the one before it, has been increasingly authoritarian and our true vigilance is required to resist that trend being furthered. As George Orwell said (couldn't leave him out, really), "to see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle." Wake up.

"There's a black fella..."

2007-09-10T20:07:00.000+01:00

I've stumbled across a good YouTube clip of Bernard Righton, a reformed and politically-correct version of dead hate-comic Bernard Manning, and the creation of ex-Fast Show and Cold Feet bloke John Thomson. I heard some clips of him a few weeks ago on a Radio 2 documentary about Steve Coogan, who Thomson toured with in the early-90s and compered for in character as Bernard Righton. It's funny.

The death of the odious, bigoted and unfunny Manning in June of this year brought all the usual "he's just a different generation" nonsense back to the surface as his celebrity friends closed ranks in the media. "He was a perfect gent who loved his family and would never swear in front of his mother." Just a pity he hated people because of the colour of their skin then really, wasn't it. I'd say the world became a slightly better place when he died. But now I can hear my producer saying in my ear that to actively glorify the death of someone is a social faux pas, so I'll stop.

At least Bernard Righton lives on and, given the fact he tackles the same subject matter, might even be able to exploit Manning's market.

Bernard Righton (YouTube): "There's a black fella... a Pakistani and a Jew having a drink in a nightclub. What a fine example of an integrated community."

White van man

2007-09-07T20:36:00.000+01:00

I've spent much of the last 48 hours in unfamiliar territory as a white van man, scourge of the streets. I was helping my sister move a load of office furniture between Ripon and Middlesbrough and, as part of my role, got to hire my first ever van. Quite a milestone. I think it's what it must be like to find yourself placed in alien situations and filmed for the purposes of a television programme, like that time Michael Portillo just about looked after a family of Liverpudlian children for the BBC, or an episode of 'Faking It'. I wasn't actually filmed, but when alone I quite often pretend I'm the subject of a documentary anyway, so I just did that again:

"Paddy is driving northbound on the A19. It's twenty-five minutes since he left Ripon and around twenty minutes until he's scheduled to arrive in Middlesbrough. Although everything seems to be going smoothly with the van, he still has a few reservations about this way of life..."

I'm not sure if I was a convincing white van man. Of course, the stereotype is that these characters charge up and down our road network, leaning out windows shouting "oi oi!" for no apparent reason, resting a forearm on their van roofs while stationary at traffic lights, constantly rearranging their crotch, and giving free advertising to the Daily Star by leaving a copy on the dashboard. I tried my best to live up to the role, but failed miserably. Where normally you'd see a particularly robust-looking set of female breasts pressed against the windscreen thanks to Page 3 of the Daily Star, today my van featured a neatly-folded copy of The Independent left open on an article about what some regard as the potentially harmful effects of increasing the availability of the international baccalaureate in our country's sixth-forms. Honk honk. Furthermore I kept the windows wound up at all times, sang along to a Kate Bush CD I'd taken with me, adhered to all national speed limits, remained within the designated lines at either side of my lane, and allowed my crotch to sit unaltered. I almost considered pulling into one of those roadside Portakabin cafes and ordering a mug of tea for 30p, but decided against it for fear of feeling misunderstood by the other drivers.

"Paddy is taking a well deserved break after lumbering a seemingly ceaseless amount of Ikea furniture up a staircase. After a day spent living a life he never imagined he would live, he insists he's found the experience a worthwhile one..."

Pat calling the kettle crap

2007-09-06T00:20:00.001+01:00

"Come and look at this" murmured the Harrogate-based alpha brother while beckoning me into his kitchen. The visual feast I was expected to provide a reaction to was a brand new kettle he'd bought, with a puzzling feature whereby it doesn't seem to take time to do anything. Rather than needing a standard three to four minute boiling period, you just fill it up, flick it on, and then it pours the water out at a boiling temperature within seconds, producing quickfire tea. I'm not quite sure how it works. I'm no scientist. Or electrician. Or interested. But it emerged that this freaky little instant-boiling device had set him back £63: for a kettle! That's just so Harrogate.

My brother wasn't happy with my luke-warm response (I take a while to boil up [*ba-dum-pa-tssssshh*]). I complained that it was a ridiculous purchase and an example of the kind of nonsensical gadget fetishism that kept the western world's false economies artificially afloat. You can do the same job with a 50-year old pan and a hob oven top if you're willing to wait a few minutes. I don't see removing the processes of life as being necessarily a good thing. We should really delight in process, so that the product is all the more appreciated. There's a certain therapy to putting the kettle on and being able to wander off and conduct some vital life-admin around the house, before returning like clockwork to witness the boiling point and having built up an even greater thirst than you started with. Then, quenching that thirst with a carefully-crafted cup of tea is just heaven. I've often read the back page of the Evening Gazette in the time it takes for the kettle to boil. Or made a toilet trip, made a chess move, or cut down a small tree. To remove the period of waiting time is also to remove the pleasure. It's teamaking for the iPod generation and it's sickening. What next? Nourishment without the pleasure of taste, without chewing and being able to manipulate the foodstuff from cheek to cheek for lasting thrills? Consuming literature without the sensuous licking of ones finger in order to turn from page to page to page (to page)?

His considered assessment of my reasons for being unimpressed by this iKettle was that I was "just jealous". This was the final straw. I pointed out that surely he meant I was envious rather than jealous, since jealously (in its unspoiled semantic form) means being fiercely possessive and guarded towards one's property. People have gradually distorted its meanings and just substituted it for envy. So, since I don't own an iKettle I'm unable to be jealous of it, but could feasibly be envious, even though I'm not. So there. I don't think the alpha brother wants to speak to me anymore.

Trailing Scandinavia

2007-09-04T23:47:00.000+01:00

As a general fan of all things Scandinavian I was always bound to quite like Danish band The Kissaway Trail, who I witnessed appear live ('as opposed to appearing unalive', © Morrissey) just a couple of hours ago. It's not just the music, what with its often dreamy arctic soundscapes, that sets Scandinavia apart. It's also the social conscience of its politics, its emphasis on the welfare state and a sensible tax system, its climate with joyously dark winters, its laid back culture, its crime and litter free streets, its water features (I love a good archipelago), and its Norwegian ex-Boro star Jan Aage Fjortoft. I'm still hoping to end up living in Sweden one day. A five-day trip to Stockholm is my only experience of Scandinavian life thus far but despite coming back with no money to my name due to the extortionate prices, I fell in love with the place. Mind you, they've elected a centre-right government and its Foreign Minister Anna Lindh was stabbed to death in a department store just a few months after I left, so it sounds like it's all gone to pot ever since my visit. I might just stay over here afterall.

Anyway, this band right. They combine the aforementioned Scandinavian tendency for dreamy and wintry indie sounds with some highly catchy pop melodies. The layered cacophonies and song structures of Arcade Fire and the youthful charm of fellow Danes Mew. I remember first hearing their song 'Smother + Evil = Hurt' (kindly skim over the crass title) on a DrownedInSound podcast nine months ago and really liking it, so I was delighted when this gig was announced. I enjoyed them immensely: they had a fine energy that really filled the little room they were playing (capacity 130). It was at The Knights in Middlesbrough and I went along with Welford and David B. The Knights has hosted a few brilliant gigs since March this year thanks to a new local promoter doing it purely through love of music. It's a great venue for gigs like this: an intimate, social club atmosphere lends itself well to a good honest gig experience, devoid of the pretensions and scenesters you'll find at your average diluted gig/club night combo that seems to be all the rage nowadays. The ticket prices are kept to a minimum with the aim of covering costs rather than profiteering. There's a little cultural revolution going down on Southfield Road - it's brilliant. And The Kissaway Trail could be brilliant in many people's eyes (ears?) soon too.

Manufacturing Dissent?

2007-09-02T23:09:00.000+01:00

Subversive truth warrior or cynical distorter of facts? Opinion of highly successful and staggeringly rich documentary film-maker Michael Moore is often split between the two extremes and not often anywhere in between - and that's just within the left. I've been reading about the makers of Manufacturing Dissent, a film released this year which claims Moore's films deliberately mislead viewers by distorting facts to suit a preordained agenda, and are thus at odds with the basic principles of documentary-making. It's not the first film released in criticism of Moore and the claims within it are certainly nothing new either. The only difference is that the makers of Manufacturing Dissent aren't your average conservative Republicans on a mission to discredit a major thorn in their side. Instead, it was made by two 'left-wing progressives' who originally intended a straightforward biographical film but say they found Moore so uncooperative and evasive (just like many of the figures he mocks in his own films) that it led them down new paths.

The thing is, from the sound of it (I should point out I haven't seen this film and am just spouting off on the basis of second-hand information - but what's new?) most of the criticisms centre on Moore's personality, which shouldn't be relevant. The film is packed with former colleagues talking about the unpleasantries of working for Moore. Arrogant, egotistical and difficult to work with? Probably. Is that important? Not one bit. Next. The more telling criticism, that he distorts truths or even creates his own untruths, is more important. There's been plenty of talk since Farenheit 9/11 about the alleged flights transporting Osama Bin Laden's relatives from US soil 48 hours after the collapse of the World Trade Centre, and whether or not the Bush administration was directly involved, as Moore claims. Throw in lots of other lines like selective historical references and manipulative editing and presentation of footage and you have an idea of where a lot of the criticism of Moore's films is centred.

The thing is (second time I've said that), any of the perceived factual inaccuracies and supposed manipulations are on a decidedly minor scale in comparison to Moore's greater objective. They don't affect the legitimacy of his overall statements. Of course documentaries should seek to do what they say on the tin: documenting the truth. Naturally, for his films' agendas - highlighting corporate-induced economic devastation (Roger & Me), liberal gun laws (Bowling For Columbine), and illustrating the US' disastrous foreign policy and destroying the erroneous perception of Iraq's links to the September 11th attacks (Farenheit 9/11) - he seeks supporting information. He's a polemicist, but are his occasionally selective versions of events any worse than what all the major American news networks do on a daily basis? In a US media culture consumed with vested interests and resultantly a selective news agenda, maybe the only way to succeed in the manner Moore has was to play them at their own game.

I see Moore's influence in the past five or six years as overwhelmingly positive. There's no denying he's a master of effective and emotive filmmaking. Personally, I don't care much for many of his methods, but I recognise the end he's striving for is a noble one. There's been enough cause for dissent in the past few years that it didn't need manufacturing. But sadly, apathetic people do need prodding into dissent, and that's what Moore does. Expertly. The fact he's become rich in the process is an irrelevance. His films and books made dissident politics accessible to a wide audience. I remember people I knew with no previous interest in politics whatsoever reading 'Stupid White Men' and watching 'Bowling For Columbine', engaging with what they were about, and looking into the topics further. That's quite an achievement really. Yes, you'd be far better off reading Noam Chomsky for a more comprehensive understanding of some similar issues, but it's not realistic to expect every man in the street to do that. Although he's had his shortcomings, Michael Moore's works are still refreshing, positive, and vital.

Travelling Transpennine

2007-08-30T23:47:00.000+01:00

I've been over in Manchester today finalising arrangements and thrashing out personal terms on a move there. The deal is(n't) subject to a medical. From mid-September I'll be sharing an abode in Fallowfield with one of my ex-uni housemates Anna. It is the first deal of its type in British lettings, whereby any of the third year 37 Johnson Road, Lenton, Nottingham crew have renewed living arrangements. Anna's a very good person to live with because she's easy going and we share an interest in lounging. In fact, she's the undisputed Queen of Lounging, and for this reason has often been compared to Celebrity Big Brother star Jackie Stallone. When I start a job there I fully expect to come through the door on an evening and find her propped on the settee in her trademark manner, with the legs bent and the feet tucked away neatly against the cushion while tackling a Sudoku. I'm sure she'll wander over to join me for a game of darts occasionally though. In seriousness, she's moving there to start her course in social work, which is a highly admirable vocation.

There's a cocktail of reasons for making the move: I've had a soft spot for Manchester for quite a few years, in which time I've harboured dreams of living there and perhaps bumping into Coronation Street's Deidre Rachid as she enjoys a cigarette in Piccadilly Gardens. My Mancunian pining was furthered by the fact my decision on a university destination in 2002 came down to a straight choice between Manchester and Nottingham. I picked Nottingham and had a ruddy good time but, as is often the way, my curiosity about Manchester lingered on. In my eyes it's a good, proper northern city with some delightful architecture, vibrancy, good industrial heritage, and my perfect climate whereby autumn lasts throughout winter and spring, and if lucky, summer. I'm quite keen on getting away from home too. It's been enjoyable and useful spending two years back here but it's become more frustrating recently and it's time for pastures new. I'll miss Teesside, but I'll still be back every few weeks for Boro home games to get my fix. Finally, and perhaps most crucially, I want to be closer to Morrissey (who lives in Rome, but shush).

The flat we signed contracts, laid down deposits, and postdated rent cheques for today is pretty nice. It was a relief to find somewhere decent because we were a bit late on the market, as demonstrated on our day of flathunting early last week when we saw some real dives. The worst of all was owned by an Open University tutor called Doctor Chris, who turned up in loafers and a fluffy white jumper to show us around. It was genuinely the worst flat I've seen in my life. Every door was an inhospitable, heavy swing-effort with metal panels to push them open, like the ones that usually lead to fire exits in shopping centres. Every room connected up in the kind of circular arrangement that would drive anyone insane. All the furniture looked like it had been used as landing gear in a monster truck display in the 1950s. Doctor Chris led us through the tiny, mouldy kitchen which smelt of rotten cabbage, and then to the bathroom, where he apologised for the fact the extractor fan had stopped working - as if that was going to swing our decision. Doctor Chris was taking the piss. We made our excuses and left. At the time we were a bit worried that this was the level of homestead left on the market, but now we can look back and laugh. All's well that ends well.

Geordie genes

2007-08-27T19:35:00.000+01:00

Yesterday's Tees-Tyne derby at the Riverside provided its fair share of emotional rollercoastery. It was Mark Viduka's first visit back after his gutless transfer to the Geordies and, as dreaded in all of my darkest pillow-pummelling nightmares, he scored against us. Worse still: it put them 2-1 up with 13 minutes left and had looked like being the winner, a fate which would've been harder to stomach than a breaded razorblade - or indeed anything else that must be quite hard to stomach, such as glue. To my relief, and thanks to a delightful equalising volley from Julio Arca, it all ended 2-2, which was a fair enough result. And also one you have to be content with after being quite close to losing.

The attacking void left by Viduka's despicable defection has, of late, been filled by our new signing Mido: a more enthusiastic, energetic, eight years younger, and Egyptian version of him. He's got two in his first two games and it looks like he could prove to be something of a Boro legend. Until he leaves too, of course. Yesterday he was the subject of some quite appalling chants from the Newcastle fans, who continue to shroud themselves in increasingly large swathes of shame with each visit they make. You'll find racist and bigoted elements in any large congregation of humanfolk, but the fact the majority of their 3,000 fans joined in with "Mido - he's got a bomb you know" shows just how many numbskulls were present in their throng. And when some bright spark discovered that 'Mido' rhymed with 'paedo' they sang "Mido is a paedo" too, which was nice. They've been getting worse in recent years and, frankly, everyone who joined in with either of those chants must be a scumfuck. Anyway, when Mido scored our first equaliser he ran straight to the Newcastle fans and responded in the best manner possible:

Exactly.

Sausage assault

2007-08-23T22:31:00.000+01:00

No, not what you're thinking. I was watching GMTV early this morning (forgive me Lord for I have sinned) when they interviewed the 12 year old boy who was arrested and taken to court for throwing a cocktail sausage at an older man. These kinds of stories always make it into the news because they're (a) amusing, (b) baffling, (u) unusual, and (gffuqnd) good for filling up quiet news days. Especially when it's the Silly Season, i.e. now.

Obviously, it's slightly ridiculous. For a start, if hoping to maim a man, your standard cocktail sausage is not the best means with which to strike: they're rubbery and will just bounce back off their body. I've done worse and escaped the law. I mildly concussed my brother in 1994 after launching a stale scone at him because he destroyed my Lego village in a fit of pique. It was a pre-meditated attack, and I even launched it vertically so that it would gather velocity on the way back down. Sanity prevailed and I escaped a court appearance, for which I'm forever grateful.

Despite knowing how GMTV operates, I was still stunned when the presenter, Kate Garraway, came out with this line: "Yes we may laugh about this story at first, but the clear message from a lot of our viewers via the emails and texts is that a cocktail sausage can be just the start, and lead on to much, much worse." She then managed to link the story to the 11 year old boy who was shot dead in Liverpool last night. You've just got to admire such instances of wanton sensationalism, outright stupidity, and apparent lack of irony when they come in one handy bundle.

It reminded me of one of my favourite scenes from Father Ted, where the old woman accosts Ted to vent her fears about Craggy Island's imminent descent into a criminal dangerzone after the theft of a whistle (Old Grey Whistle Theft, Series 2):

"Hello Father. Did you hear about the whistle being stolen? I never thought I'd see the like. What next? Somebody'll be murdered, and then where are we? Drive-by shootings in the night: it'll be like 'Boyz N The Hood'. And then we'll have whores selling their wares in the street. And the pimps'll be using crack to keep the whores under control. I'm going home now Father to lock myself in the basement 'til they catch that fella. Goodybe to ya Father." (YouTube clip: 1:07 onwards)

Goodbye to ya Father.

Gig cancellation Antics

2007-08-22T21:25:00.000+01:00

There was a new experience to tick off in my imaginary I-Spy book of 'New Experiences' last night in the form of going to a gig that turned out to be cancelled. And cancelled just half an hour before the band, Interpol, were due on stage. I didn't have a ticket originally - it was sold out - but I took up the offer of a spare one from David/D.B. (visit his superb People's Republic Of Teesside blog). I was looking forward to seeing them, especially as I'd never done so previously. But alas, after leaving the pub and walking up to Newcastle Academy at 9pm, theoretically just in time to see Interpol, we were greeted by a security type figure and told that the bassist had been rushed to hospital just fifteen minutes earlier. Although we hadn't gone in the venue ourselves, lots of people had done and were then told to leave. Never in all my life.

Thus it was something of a wasted trip north, but you have to be philosophical in such situations. What harm can an evening drive do anyway (apart from the fact I got another parking ticket too, so look out for 'Permitgate: The Sequel')? There is talk of a possible rescheduling, which would be nice, but we'll see. Myself and D.B. made the best of things and just headed off to a quiet pub and had a good old-fashioned chat. Slightly disappointed, yes. Bemused, even more so. But hell, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Or something.

Nicky Wire: What are you doing?

2007-08-15T23:12:00.000+01:00

I've always known he was a Spurs fan (well, not always of course, but ever since I first got into the Manics. Which is really when I consider my life to have started, so yeah, I'll go back to my original lexichoice: always), but this is awful. I don't like to see my heroes acting in this manner. This is the equivalent of Morrissey being photographed spitting in the street and then scratching his crotch and burping. I suppose I should be grateful Nicky hasn't donned a Sunderland or Newcastle shirt, but I bloody hate Spurs too. The White Hart Lane lot are so cocksure, so consumed with self-importance, so convinced they belong to football's higher echelons, and somehow so misled that their club represents the way football should be played in its purest form, that they're hard to like.

I admire Wire's encyclopedic knowledge of football, really I do. In fact I've often become quite excited whenever he's opened up about his love for the game during interviews, in between referring to 1960s US politics and slagging off other bands. I think the fact they're all football (and other sports) obsessives, and the way that doesn't particularly correlate with everything else the Manics are seen to have represented down the years, is brilliant. But photos like this are vile and unnecessary. He only started supporting them because he thought Glenn Hoddle was good when he was young. He simply can't be a real Spurs fan because he's from Gwent, Wales for Pete's sake. Who is 'Pete' anyway? Sampras? This is a rant by the way, so I'll carry on. The above photo was printed in the official Tottenham Hotspur magazine, along with an interview in which he gushes about Tim Sherwood (who played for Spurs at the time) attending gigs when Everything Must Go came out: "He was great - a proper Tottenham boy." Oh, please. I've had a quite miserable enough evening football-wise after watching Boro slump to defeat at Wigan on TV, and now this.

N.B. This has all been a bit negative towards the man (but not without reason), and so I'll provide a fine old Wire quotation by way of balance: "I do consider myself to be something of a pretentious wanker." (1993)

Baby Ballroom: The Championship

2007-08-13T22:43:00.000+01:00

Thanks to my current policy of hardly ever watching television, I was unaware this series existed until it was about to finish altogether. But my lack of viewing does not alter the fact that it was actually broadcast: this isn't one of those "if a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" or "if you put a broom in the cupboard and close the door, does it disappear?" situations. I'm fully aware that, even though most things I'm not aware of aren't worth being aware of, Baby Ballroom: The Championship was a very real nightmare.

I thought even ITV might be able to avoid sinking quite so low in filling up its Saturday evening family entertainment slot. The premise of the show was that dance-happy sprogs between the ages of six and eleven are invited to try and impress a panel of judges and compete for the title of Baby Ballroom Champion. It is utterly sick.

See what I mean? Just incase you're not aware, this is Joshua Malone (10) and Kimberley Jones (10), both from Liverpool. The show's website publishes one lonesome fact (probably definitive) about each contestant. The 'Joshua fact' is "he loves walking his four pet labradors" and the 'Kimberley fact' is "she's a big fan of Shakira's Hips Don't Lie." The desperate lack of punctuation in Kimberley's fact means I'll have to assume it means she's a fan of a song called 'Hips Don't Lie' by Shakira. Or does it just mean she likes Shakira's hips, and then always shouts "don't lie!" immediately after stating the fact, as some kind of pre-emptive retort to the common response of "oh, I can take or leave them"...?

Regardless, the point I'd started making in that paragraph, before it got too long and I had to begin this new one, was that those facts sum up what kids aged between six and eleven should be interested in during their years of innocence. Not being pressured into appearing on national TV by their no-doubt pushy parents to take part in a glorified popularity contest that will see them routinely criticised and their self-esteem cut to ribbons. It's reality TV sunk so low that it's right down on the seabed with all the dead plankton, and Ant and Dec. Actually I think I should've just said all the dead plankton: a phrase that is quite inclusive enough. When I saw the advert for it with my eleven year-old niece, even she said "don't you think that's wrong?" I facegrabbed her immediately and said: "Yes, my child, it is very wrong. INTERMINABLY wrong!" I think, amid all that, she gathered that I was concurring with her sentiment.

So I convalesce, and I ease the stress

2007-08-12T19:50:00.000+01:00

I went to one of the most bizarre gigs I've ever attended on Thursday night. It was held in the lounge room of the CIU (Working Men's Club and Institute Union) convalescent home on Saltburn seafront, where former miners usually spend their recuperative days supping pints and playing Dingbats. That's not what made it a bit weird though - it was more that I was just about the youngest person there. The crowd consisted mainly of women aged 50+, most of whom were the types you'd associate with things like church coffee mornings and houses with commemorative plates hung on every available perimeter wall. I hate to stereotype, but it's generally what 23 year-old males from the north east of England do, so I did anyway.

On the tables dotted throughout the room they'd provided a few nibbles in the form of crisps that had gone soft, and little blocks of cheese. Where you'd normally find the artist's merchandise stall, there was instead a Saltburn Convalescent Home merchandise display selling, fantastically, solution for the cleaning of dentures. It was very much a living room atmosphere (but with loads of pissed-up pensioners) and they kept the big light on throughout the gig. When it all got a bit sing-a-long towards the end and various grey heads were seen to bob, I was half expecting Noel Edmonds to burst in with a camera crew as a surprise for an elderly guest, like he used to on his yearly Christmas Day afternoon slot.

The lady I'd gone to see appear live was Middlesbrough-born folk singer Claire Hamill. She signed her first record deal in 1971 and came to be best known for joining Wishbone Ash and having one of her songs covered by Eva Cassidy. I'd never heard of her before last week, but I was intrigued when I heard of this homecoming gig, and then quite excited when I listened to her songs on Myspace and I decided she reminded me a bit of Kate Bush. She didn't in the live setting though. She was enjoyable enough, but its the setting of this gig that will linger in the mind the most. Mental (nearly).

Abstract letter-penning

2007-08-09T09:20:00.000+01:00

I almost choked on a Jammie Dodger in the bath last night when I read the following letter, which appeared in the 'Your Say' page of yesterday's Evening Gazette, my local rag.

'Cleverness of laughing clown'

IT TAKES a clever person to hold a serious job and now and again act like the fool.

Like when Socialist Denis Healey, on the campaign trail here in Guisborough, was beckoned by myself and asked perfunctorily about his health. He replied thus: "I am full of beans." He then took my wife's hand and patted his tummy with it.

For those of you who did not know that Denis Healey got a double first degree (Hons) at Oxford, you do now. Oh, and I wondered whether or not Denis Healey had heard about the law of raspberry jam, that is the farther you spread it the thinner it gets. Not unlike culture.

ALFRED H LISTER, Guisborough

What? I've read it at least fifteen times now and still can't identify the basic idea or message the author is trying to communicate. It's a completely baffling contribution, but having said that, I like the cut of Alfred H Lister's jib enormously. The tone of the letter suggests to me that he is an elderly man. I don't want to appear ageist or prejudiced against those from Guisborough, but I wish I was old enough and from Guisborough enough to be able to get away with nuttiness like this. It's like an abstract work of art, which you can't grasp the meaning of immediately, and then when you analyse it further it becomes still less and less clear what it's saying.

There's almost a basic point about Healey playing the joker, despite having a double first from Oxford, I can see that much. But then why bring the jam conundrum into it? What has it got to do with anything? 'Not unlike culture'? Alfred H Lister is evidently a loose cannon with no regard for letters page etiquette and convention, and I'll certainly be keeping an eye out for any future contributions from him.

Permitgate: The Response

2007-08-07T20:54:00.000+01:00

I'm sure you've been on tenterhooks ever since. Here are some edited highlights:

Dear Sir / Madam

Your letter of challenge has been carefully considered and in particular the issues you raised concerning parking on Harrington Drive. However The Penalty Charge Notice was correctly issued and there is no valid reason why it should be cancelled on this occasion as your vehicle was parked in a residents parking space without clearly displaying a valid residents parking permit.
...
The attendant noted that there was a sign situated within 5 metres from where your vehicle was parked denoting the restriction and displays the wording 'permit holders only'. Your vehicle was then observed for a mandatory period by the Attendant in order to allow the driver opportunity to obtain a permit from a nearby property. However, no activity was seen at the vehicle during this time. Therefore the Penalty Charge Notice was correctly issued in accordance with the Road Traffic Act 1991 and remains payable.
...
Please note that it is our policy to respond to only one letter of appeal against any individual Penalty Charge Notice.

I'd much prefer it if, when demanding my money, these people displayed a better grasp of punctuation. It's residents'. A true bunch of cunts.

'Bring On The Dancing Horses...

2007-08-05T23:43:00.000+01:00

...wherever they may roam'.

This night, I have been to witness Echo And The Bunnymen appear live at Stockton Fringe Festival, where they were quite superb, what with all their timeless indie classics and bouffant hair. I found it extremely heartwarming to watch them reel off an effective Greatest Hits set with justified shamelessness. They exist as an Ode to a lost era of indiedom, when bands were far more lastingly iconic than most can hope to be today, and when I was but a linen-encompassed bundle of irritance, i.e. a baby. 'Bring On The Dancing Horses', 'The Cutter' and 'Killing Moon' were undoubted highlights, and worked up the crowd (a blend of forty-somethings harking back to their youths and fresh-faced types still plotting theirs) until, staggeringly, a security bloke set about telling them to "calm down". He even pointed down to the ground while saying it, the daft cretin.

Stockton Fringe is a free, three day festival arranged alongside Stockton International Riverside Festival, the street arts shindig. Although, in reality, the Fringe was probably a bigger event this year thanks to a more high profile line-up than it's had previously. Friday was headlined by The Ordinary Boys and Saturday by Badly Drawn Boy. Hardly inspiring stuff in my view of course, but much like Middlesbrough Music Live, free events like this have to be appreciated when they're on your doorstep. I went down on Saturday and Sunday with Welford and we had a ruddy good time on the site by the Tees, which, with its slow, soulful curve through Stockton, we agreed was highly reminsicent of the Seine as it cuts through Paris. But with less tree-lined quays and more stark concrete façades.

One of the best things about events like this is that some of the better local bands get a chance to play bigger stages. I'm very fond of Middlesbrough's own Idiot Savant. They're dark, harsh and manage to sound both tuneful and tuneless at the same time, which is something I always quite like. They're a very good band, and could be a great band if they'd just all stand up.

Idiot Savant

We Start Fires are from Darlington, which is never nice, but they managed to make a bit more of a name for themselves nationally and are always good to see live [photo]. More recently, East Cleveland's Dartz! [photo] have also been getting a bit of a national following and, although I generally find that kind of slightly-emo (whatever that is) tinged pop nuggets slightly uninspiring, it's obvious they're talented. The weekend also saw us take in a couple of woeful stand-up comedians, the worst of whom was a woman from Yorkshire who tried to crack a succession of vagina gags to an early evening family crowd, with an annoyingly high-pitched delivery. She fell a bit flat and was well and truly flapping by the end.

Lowbrow bloggery

2007-08-03T12:45:00.000+01:00

Since blogs are a refuge for egomaniacs and solipsists (hello), I occasionally feel compelled to check the site stats and see if the reader (singular) is still there. Recently, I've become slightly concerned at some of the means by which total strangers are accessing these pages. When you see someone has come here off the back of a Google search, you can look at the URL and see what they searched for. Aside from the inevitable phrases that keep popping up like 'definitive social commentary', 'gut-quaking humour' and 'where now for Paddy Dillon?', some of the ones that pop up are quite a damning indictment of my blog's content. On at least three occasions I've got hits from people looking for 'big balls door knockers' (hey, we've all been there). This week someone stumbled here with the phrase 'karl kennedy aka the fletch legend'. It was never meant to be this way. But perhaps worst of all, quite a while ago I had a visitor from Suffolk who used the term 'Patrick Wolf, crotch'. When your blog is attracting web-surfing sex people to its pages, you know it's time for a change of direction.

News Jiffy

2007-08-01T22:38:00.000+01:00

The standard of news delivery in Britain appears to be in freefall. It's becoming increasingly irritating in both its televisual and print formats, but for the moment I'll stick to just laying into the news broadcasters. Aside from the most obvious and distressing trends in TV news presentation, such as the rampant dumbing-down of content, lack of real information, and a continual increase in employment of silly graphics to drive home basic points (like Gordon Brown riding a camel to illustrate he'd 'got the hump' with Tony Blair), there are other real and pressing concerns regarding news broadcasting.

It took me long enough to deal with the idea that the BBC News studio doesn't really exist and Huw Edwards and Sophie Raworth are just sitting before a green screen. You'd expect such shenanigans from ITV, of course, but when your public service broadcaster turns to virtual backdrops it warrants a shake of the head. Secondly, the recent obsession with allowing newsreaders licence to leave their seat and roam around studios is deeply regrettable. When I'm being told about a potential resolution on peacekeeping forces in Darfur I want to be told by someone who is seated at all times, and whose legs and hands I can not see. The sight of ITV News' Nicholas Owen parading and flaunting himself around a semi-circular virtual dancefloor serves to lighten the gravity of bloodshed in Sudan and is monumentally inappropriate.

Having dealt with some of the aesthetic crimes, we can move on to the auditory concerns of news, i.e. what these people somehow credited with the task of newsgiving are actually saying. When the impregnable Andrew Marr left his post as BBC Political Editor he was replaced with a man who seems to be of the impression that none of his viewers have ever watched a news broadcast before: Nick Robinson. The man who condescends and wears gimmicky glasses for a living. He pauses and emphasises to such a degree that you wonder if he himself really knows what he's on about when he's standing outside Number 10. Worse still, he seems to emphasise the wrong words, which is dangerous and causes confusion (I mean 'causes confusion'). Any self-respecting correspondent doing a live link should offer their words in a straight-laced and pallid manner. They should speak in a way that doesn't distract the viewer from absorbing the facts. Lindsey Hilsum of Channel 4 News has got the right idea in this respect.

Hilsum, a veteran of warzone reportage, also excels in her content. She begins by offering up the bones of the story, and then gradually fleshes it out with background information without resorting to sensationalist and emotive eyewitness accounts. Too many correspondents are eager to tell you how they feel about things. I was listening to the podcast of Radio 4's From Our Own Correspondents today and reliable old hand John Simpson, the man who'd have you believe he single-handedly liberated Kabul from Taliban rule (and who would doubt him?), had this to say:

I've never been a great one for the kind of reporting that tells you how the journalist feels when something terrible happens. It seems to me that we need news reporters to be crisp, accurate and unexcitable, like ambulance crews. And you certainly don't want an ambulance man leaning over you and telling you how he feels about your injuries.

Absobloodylutely Simpson. Those of us who recall seeing Philippa Forrester break down in tears while covering the solar eclipse of August 1999 for the BBC will appreciate what the man is saying. As someone who is generally quite afraid of public displays of emotion, it wasn't nice to have to watch her trying to describe how it felt to be there. Honestly, you leave these people to their own initiative and they crumble... that's the lesson here. If news presentation keeps encouraging individual anecdotes and emotion-bulletins from our correspondents, the day will come when even the great bastions of present-day reportage like 'Scud stud' Rageh Omar, loveable news pixie Jeremy Bowen and, heaven forbid, Lindsey Hilsum are all dabbing their cheeks live on camera.

Next week: Weathermen.

Red sky at night

2007-07-30T23:00:00.000+01:00

Shepherds talk shite.

Hibernation to Hibernian

2007-07-30T21:59:00.000+01:00

Having been deprived of any football-based titillation or, more commonly, consternation since mid-May, it's (almost) a pleasure to report my first football fixture attendance of the new season. I went up to Edinburgh on Saturday to see Boro take on Hibernian in a pre-season friendly at Easter Road, where we lost one-nil thanks to a late - nay, last gasp - goal. Not that it really mattered. These are generally dull and lacklustre affairs, with the main purpose only really being a stretch of the legs for the players who've no doubt spent their entire close season awkwardly hunched over Scrabble boards. Maybe. Plus, pre-season friendlies mean us fanatics get to see some of Boro's summer acquisitions in action for the first time, particularly our tantalising Turk Tuncay (pron: Tun-chai, pronunciation fans). He looked pretty good from what we saw of him, since you asked.

I was accompanied by Dan, Edinburgh resident extraordinaire and fellow contributor to intrepid Boro fanzine Fly Me To The Moon. Despite the fact we'd only met once previously in a face-to-face/tête-à-tête manner, he was kind enough to agree to let me linger overnight on the favourably long sofa in his living room. It was long enough that I didn't need to dangle my handsome calves over an arm rest, and could actually lie straight, as if in a coffin. But one you wake up again in. Great hospitality from the host (rather than hospitalisation, which befell the host for my last trip to Edinburgh). I found out on Friday night that Foz from down this way was also up that way for the weekend, and we met up with him and his decidedly Scottish uni friend, Ewan, inside the ground. Very nice chap wearing a good jumper. Over the course of the day and night, many public houses were frequented and many pints of ale and bitter consumed. I won't bore you with the details - except that it was a delightful experience - or I'll begin to resemble William Hague and his dubious, drunk-demographic-targeting claims all those years ago. It wasn't like that: I'll never be as hardcore as Hague. We did visit a pub called John Leslie's though. Although, sadly, it was neither owned nor frequented by the celebrity Hibs fan and woman-botherer. Maybe they named it that in a bid to attract that vast, marketable drinking group - the accused (hello, lawyers) rapists. Didn't see The Proclaimers either. Not that they're rapists.

Here's another picture of a football ground to look at, since that's been the most telling function of this blog since its inception. I know it's what keeps the reader (singular) coming back time and time again, rather than all this lexical gibberish.

Listen to this, right

2007-07-27T23:45:00.000+01:00

This isn't necessarily news to anyone, but the human design - especially from a physical and bodily perspective - is ultimately flawed. This was confirmed to me earlier today when listening to the local radio news bulletin and finding myself staring at the apparatus commonly used to receive radio signals (i.e. the radio) when they played interview snippets from new Boro signing Luke Young's unveiling before the press. Actually looking at the radio, while listening: as if doing so would increase Luke Young's audibility. This is, frankly, nuts.

It's a telling example of how the body's sensory system can go haywire. And it can happen to anyone - this is not a matter of stupidity, for once. I've previously seen supposedly fiercely intelligent people doing the exact same thing: looking at radios, when there's absolutely nothing to see of any note. It's like people who try to eat perfume and listen to flowers. I suppose we're a bit like when WindowsXP was first launched and was full of bugs, but was increasingly fixed as they updated it and stuff. Human evolution is just the same process: weeding out errors in our sensory system and gradually adapting so that such absurd actions can be avoided by future generations. This kind of stuff can often be quite unsettling as it throws the understanding of our capabilities into great tumult and means we begin to question our self-proclaimed human intelligence. I can smell uncertainty.

Camera ObsCuba

2007-07-22T23:37:00.000+01:00

After being cajoled into lending my four month old camera to the mother figure for her holiday to Cuba last week, she returned yesterday morning and informed me she'd lost it through, of all places, a hole in the floor of a Cuban bus. Never in all my life. Naturally, I threw a minor hissyfit (it hit her in the face - fnar) before eventually seeing sense and bellowing "it's OK, mother, the best things in life aren't things." [interlude] "You can buy me a new one".

It means there's a Cuban peasant child (though relatively poor, also highly literate and comprehensively vaccinated) playing about with my camera somewhere. It's still got the photo of me and Joe Mangel (a.k.a. Aussie Oaf Mark Little) taken at All Tomorrow's Parties on it, because I 'protected' it so I could have it in a portable format for occasional screen caressing and whatnotwhat. They're probably thinking: "Who IS this guy, hanging around with charismatic international superstars just for fun?" And then they'll probably be doubly impressed when they find out Mark Little is an international superstar aswell.

On the one hand I should perhaps commend the mother figure for the enthusiasm with which she entered into the spirit of all things communist-Cuban, stripping herself of needless personal property and laying it down for use by the state as a whole. But on the other hand, I'd confidently say that if I was ever to get on a public bus and notice a gaping hole in the floor, I'd say to myself: "I shall make it my mission, for the duration of this journey, that nothing falls out onto the road, PARTICULARLY my son's Sony Cybershot W-50." Never mind though; I replaced it in Middlesbrough yesterday afternoon with a Cybershot W-80. They've stopped making the W-50, and the W-80 is it's improved replacement boasting a "face recognition" feature, whatever that means. Sounds a bit Orwellian to me, I think I'll turn it off. Anyway, during a barbecue at Lav and Laura's earlier today I put it to good use with a photo of a great set of baps. *snort*

What's love Yacht to do, Yacht to do with it?

2007-07-22T22:35:00.000+01:00

It was Lav and Laura's engagement do at Sunderland Yacht Club last night. When everyone got their invitations I was slightly shocked that Sunderland should boast a yachting establishment, but that shock quickly turned to saliva-strewn anticipation when I was told we'd have (/get the chance) to wear sailor suits, and thus I'd finally have an excuse in this life to pay a little Holy Bible-era James Dean Bradfield homage. Turned out to be a savage joke though - more's the pity.

I drove up with Jimi on the afternoon and we were later joined by Jen (all the way from France), Welford and Sophie to complete the entourage originating from our neck of the woods. It was a fine evening of jovial spirits, good music and an extremely well-timed finger buffet. I found the chicken legs to be particularly scrumptious. Perhaps the only minor glitches of the night surrounded the administering of audio titillation via the PA, where anyone could wander over to the laptop and line up the songs from Lav and Laura's carefully selected DVD of tunes. Unfortunately, on one of my visits I hit the wrong thing at the wrong time in Windows Media Player and a painful silence filled the room. Worse still, the Lovejoy theme tune - arguably the finest TV theme in existence - was somehow omitted from proceedings. But this wasn't about negativity and it certainly wasn't about Ian McShane (just imagine if it was...), it was about Lav and Laura and their joyous engagement. It's alien territory for us to be seeing the first of our flock taking the steps towards officially nesting up elsewhere through the sacrament of holy matrimony, but if the chicken legs can be as tasty at all these engagement shindigs then the more the better.

Permitgate: The Appeal

2007-07-20T02:18:00.000+01:00

In more car news, today I posted off my appeal for a parking ticket I got in Nottingham last weekend. Despite us actually having two visitor's permits for mine and Anna's cars, I left mine outside for about fifteen minutes permitless because we weren't sure where one was and I'd handed the other one over to Anna when she arrived. "It'll be OK for ten minutes," we said. It was extremely unfortunate that an over-zealous parking attendant had the temerity to do his job properly in that short space of time. So it's a £60 fine, or £30 if I pay it within 14 days, if the charge stands. Hopefully my hastily penned and slightly economical-with-the-truth appeal will do the trick and end this sorry mess though. I shall fight on the beaches, I shall fight in the streets and in their respective council-maintained parking bays; I shall never surrender:

Notice Serial No.: NG70225541
Vehicle Registration: P730 JOX

Dear sir/madam,

I am writing regarding the parking ticket attached to my car windscreen on Saturday 14th July just minutes after arriving to visit friends who live in Harrington Drive, Nottingham. Upon arriving I went inside the house to greet my friends and was told I needed to display a visitor’s permit, so they went to find it. Although it wasn’t found immediately, it was less than ten minutes later that I went back outside to display it, only to find a penalty charge already on my screen. Please find enclosed a photograph of the valid visitor’s permit in my possession for the weekend.

Although I appreciate the technicalities of the situation and must commend your parking attendant for their admirable efficiency in the workplace, I would ask that you rescind the penalty charge. It was merely an unfortunate coincidence that the attendant arrived within the short period it took my friends to find the permit. It was displayed for the rest of the weekend until I returned home. As a visitor to Nottingham, the incident put a dampener on my trip and leaves a negative impression of your city. I hope that you will recognise the basis for my enquiry and look forward to hearing of the fine's cancellation.

Yours faithfully,

P. Dillon

To be continued.

The Great Carwashed

2007-07-18T22:22:00.000+01:00

It's not that I want to constantly bore all blogees with the mundanities of my everyday life, but yesterday I went to the carwash. And pleasantly, what could be considered an obligation or possibly even a chore turned out to be quite a therapeutic experience. Come on down to the next paragraph and I'll tell you all about it.

I like the way you have to completely seal yourself away inside your car when you go in these things. Making sure the doors are closed properly and that the windows are fully wound up, cocooning yourself away from the world. You're effectively doing the same things you'd do if you noticed a masked band of hooligans and scallywags charging towards you, or if a friend you didn't really want to speak to was knocking on the offside front window. Once I'd entered the activation code and then proceeded forward to the correct position below the vast veranda of vehicular cleanliness, I turned off the engine and put the iPod onto 'shuffle' while I waited. The first song to come on was the exceptional Red Right Hand by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. Truly a song to bring the carwash experience to life; those dark vocals and terrifying stacatto keyboards along with the stark tolling bell throughout combine very effectively with the windscreen blackouts and constant turbulence provided by your average 360° hydro-dynamic brush wash. I think taking the Padmobile through the carwash is the closest I'll ever get to going through rehab. I felt cleansed when it all ended, and I think it was all the better for the fact it was actually really sunny behind those big black brushes.

He's a ghost, he's a god, he's a man, he's a guru
You're one microscopic cog in his catastrophic plan
Designed and directed by his RED RIGHT HAND

Much Ado About Nottingham

2007-07-16T19:06:00.000+01:00

I had a nice weekend returning to Nottingham as part of what will no doubt be termed in history as Unibond '07 v1.2. I hadn't seen most of the university crowd since January, so it was about time we reacquainted ourselves. It also meant I got a chance to formally reacquaint myself with the fine Ye Olde Trip To Jerusalem public house and its Hardy & Hanson's Olde Trip ale on Friday night, which was nice. I needed a decent pint after a bit of a nightmare journey down in the Padmobile with the M1's rush-hour traffic and wet conditions. But not before devouring the tasty fajitas (pronounced: 'fadgy-tas') presented before me upon arriving at Orla's house, where her and Mark had invited the non-Notts lot to stay. We had a nice night just going around a few pubs along with Toby, Deano, Adam and Stu (plus at one point we were joined by some of Orla's friends, and one of them apparently said "who's he? He looks elusive" about me. I liked that).

On Saturday Anna and Tom arrived and we spent the afternoon in the baking heat at Wollaton Park, attempting to play football but not doing very well. When I suggested an easy-going game of heads and volleys I made the mistake of inserting the rule that anyone who concedes five while in goal must submit to a firing-squad situation whereby they turn around and let everyone else have a free shot. I was the first to let in five. However, amid a dispute over the exact terms of the rule (it should be five in one continous stint in goal, plus no yardage was agreed anyway) I managed to get away with restricting them to shooting from about fifteen yards away and nobody got me. It might not be in the spirit of the game, but such gamesmanship was absolutely necessary. Some of this lot can be quite sadistic.

The evening plan was to do something a bit different to the usual routine and go and see some outdoor theatre at Newstead Abbey, where Much Ado About Nothing was on. I've never been a fan of Shakespeare ever since having to tortuously study it for GCSEs and A-Levels, but with a picnic and a nice night in store it was a nice idea in theory. The actual performance passed me by somewhat, mainly because we arrived a bit late and I was kneeling behind a bench at the back and trying to open the sausage rolls quietly. But also because it wasn't very interesting. Tom spent most of the first half lying alongside me playing Lemmings on his mobile phone. We can be quite the philistines, but proud of it when it comes to Shakespeare. Seriously, as 'comedy' goes, Much Ado About Nothing seems on a par with Dinnerladies or Lee Evans. It was still nice to be out in the fresh air on a fine summer's evening though, just eating stuff.

Captive audience (copyright Mark Booth)

Sunday was rainy and any outdoor plans were somewhat squelched, so we spent most of it in the living room having cups of tea and watching 'When Sport Goes Bad' and 'Sports Disasters' on Bravo. As a more accurate microcosm of our time at uni, that was truly just like the old days.

True lefties do not exceed walking pace

2007-07-09T23:19:00.000+01:00

I quite enjoyed the story last week about French President Nicolas Sarkozy being criticised in sections of the French media for his 'right wing jogging'. He's supposedly the first ever French head of state to exercise publicly, with previous incumbents having generally only indulged in a dignified pavement shuffle. If we think of jogging as right wing and the speed of our movements as a theoretical sliding scale of socio-political standpoints, just imagine the amount of ground to be covered in a twenty minute bleep test. You start with a kind of libertarian, intellectual stroll that combines elegance but also a little bit of swagger in the hips. Then you break into a slightly faster walk that suggests you have something to do and you'll be damned if anyone's going to stop you (sign of a determined leader). As the beeps gradually speed up you break into the aforementioned 'right wing jog'. Then things really get urgent and you progress through 'authoritarian running' and then onto 'outright fascist sprinting'. Fascist sprinters are nothing new mind you. So now you know the real reason for the acrimonious denouement to Linford Christie's athletics career. And of course it's no surprise to see Kriss Akabusi making a living on the 'motivational speaking' (read: neo-fascist monologues) circuit these days.

News of some French people saying jogging is right-wing has inevitably attracted scorn and giggles from around the world, but I can see where they're coming from. I've always been deeply suspicious of individuals who deem it sensible to parade themselves up and down our fine streets in their despotic fluorescent thigh-flaunting shorts, theocratic headbands and dictatorial headphones. We should introduce some kind of Jogging Police to stop these bad bastards in their tracks and take them off our streets. That'll show them who's right wing.

Ordeals*

2007-07-07T16:45:00.000+01:00

The past few days have provided some animal-based torment while driving the Padmobile. I've had two separate ordeals of distress whereby everyday creatures have thrown themselves before my bonnet in apparent suicide bids. Yesterday morning I was driving down the A19 when, out of the corner of my left eye, I saw a pigeon flying up from the side of the road. That happens all the time with birds, and usually they're perceptive enough to fly high enough and avoid a collision. This slightly portly pigeon didn't manage it though. I tensed my shoulders and squinted as it went straight into the front of the bonnet with a horrific clunk. I glanced out my rear-view mirror to see the car behind being showered in more feathers than you can imagine. It was like the Padmobile had carried out some magical act upon the piegon's person, dispelling it in a puff of feathers. In fact, that's exactly what had happened.

Nobody cares much for pigeons (and Patrick Suskind's excellent novel, 'The Pigeon', documents why expertly). But this next story is bound to get the tears flowing. On Wednesday I was driving along a country road, music on loud, the wind in my hair, drumming the circumference of the steering wheel. A picture of urban cool. Then I spotted the little rabbit (everybody likes rabbits) about twenty yards ahead, toing and froing in the middle of my lane. I applied the brakes in an urgent yet safe manner, but it was too late for me to do anything - it was all up to the rabbit now. It hopped a couple of steps towards the middle of the road (good idea), but then stupidly turned back (bad idea). I looked up to the sky and waited for the inevitable thud of its head being separated from its neck by the underside of my engine. I'll admit, at this point my eyes had slightly moistened. Time was moving in double slow motion. An orchestra piped up in my left ear with strings at a fearsome pitch, just waiting to break down to a mournful diminuendo when the carnage materialised. The rabbit disappeared from view beneath the car. Now was the time - I tried not to listen.

But nothing. A startle only as I woke from my momentary slumber at the wheel and looked behind through the mirror. There it was. Alive, hopping to the safety of the grass verge, flicking a 'V' at me. It was like a scene from a film, or an episode of the Animals Of Farthing Wood. I cried all the way home.

*based on true stories.

The Thick Of It

2007-07-07T15:58:00.000+01:00

The Thick Of It is the best British comedy going at the moment. It's like a more modern and savage Yes, Minister, and the two 'specials' screened since the turn of the year have been a joy to behold. Last week's second part was a particularly telling and well-timed ode to the art of intra-party political gamesmanship, charting all the party figures as they shuffle about in a desperate bid to back the winner of the race to be the new PM, regardless of who it is. All for personal gain, and all completely engrossed in their own bubble. Hilarious, and also extremely realistic. Armando Ianucci is still excelling himself. The first series was brilliant too and I hope they make a second, but that all depends on the outcome of the charges against Chris Langham.

One of the series' main attributes is its breathtaking use of swearing. Not piss-poor, unimaginative swearing for cheap laughs, but superb, highly aggressive and imaginative swear-filled rants for erm, expensive laughs. The scriptwriters even have a 'swearing consultant' based in Leicester, who they send their scripts to for a bit more colour to be added. It's just got a great script in general actually. My favourite line the other night was "you're on the last chopper out of Saigon while I'm being fucked in the arse by Ho Chi Minh." Part One featured a mesmerising put-down by the new Press Officer (and Malcolm Tucker clone) Jamie based around operating an iPod Nano via a political advisor's penis [watch video clip].

Political comedy doesn't seem to be a ratings winner in this day and age, but this certainly should be. Then again, there's no tiresome catch-phrases and it's not Catherine Tate, so it's hardly a surprise that it's savoured by relatively few people. It's all repeated on BBC2/BBC Four at various times in the coming week though, so watch it if you haven't already. Anwyay, I think I've waxed lyrical quite enough. "Wake up and smell the cock!"

My latest work

2007-07-02T20:41:00.000+01:00

I have never claimed to be a painter and never will. But as a one-off effort, I think its shortcomings can be excused. I was painting with my niece the other day and decided to copy an iconic photo of Boro cult hero - and probably my favourite player - Emanuel Pogatetz. Just look at the physical sacrifice the man is prepared to make for Middlesbrough Football Club. It makes him hard not to love.

The original photo is below. As you can see, I had alot of trouble with the referee's head (but at least it's not orange like it was at one stage). I can say with quite some confidence I'll never try painting a bald man again. A truly abysmal effort. In fact Pog is the only one I've vaguely replicated.

The Smoking Ban

2007-07-01T19:00:00.000+01:00

With today's arrival of the complete smoking ban in England's enclosed public spaces, I've been trying to think of ways around the ban for all of our unfortunate nicotine addicts who would rather stay indoors than venture out into the squally showers we've been experiencing recently (as an aside, I'm delighted to report the return of the oft-missed word "squally" to our national BBC weather forecast earlier today. I feared it was lost forever).

The best and most viable method for smoking inside pubs/clubs/libraries I've come up with is an adaptation of an idea by comic genius Chris Morris on Brass Eye. If you've seen it you'll know what I mean; the bit in the 'Drugs' episode where he fools Claire Rayner into believing people are taking drugs through dogs in Japan. Our smokers could simply substitute the cannabis for a straightforward cigarette and leave their dog to smoke it outside the door of the pub (or wherever) while they inhale at the other end of the device while propping up the bar. That way they get their fix but also retain the air cleanliness indoors. Admittedly, there will be a certain surreality in having to climb over hordes of smoking dogs just to get inside Wetherspoons for a pint, but it's a goer nonetheless.

If you haven't seen Brass Eye, this is the clip I'm on about:

I don't smoke, that much is clear, but I'm not particularly fussed about banning it in pubs either. In some ways I think it almost adds to the atmosphere, so long as it isn't too overbearing. Pints of ale, soggy beer matts, metal bars to rest a foot on while ordering, fruit machines, dark mahogany bar stools, smoke in your face... they all go hand in hand. But not no more they don't. I'm probably less bothered by it than most because I was used to people smoking around me as a kid. Which is less acceptable these days of course, but it didn't really harm me. Apart from not being allowed to take up the trumpet to add to my pianist and violinist repertoire as a child. It was no consolation to be told they had my interests at heart. I suppose nobody wants a miniature Roy Castle on their hands.

New government (?)

2007-06-29T20:28:00.000+01:00

I must confess to harbouring a smidgeon of optimism about the new Gordon Brown government. Not optimism in any forceful or monumental way of course, just a slight feeling that certain aspects of governance will be more appealing than the Blair years. So while I'm not holding my breath for the sudden emergence of a system of wealth redistribution and handing the means of production back to the masses, there should at least be a few pointers in a favourable direction, even if in reality they only scratch the surface. Firstly, it'll just be quite nice to have a bit more politics in our politics. Brown is a serious and old-fashioned politician, and no amount of media training will really be able to change that. He isn't capable of putting on the grand PR stageshow that Blair mastered, and this is a good thing. I'm also hoping he'll pay a bit more respect to parliamentary processes than his predecessor, and operate via a proper, functional Cabinet rather than handing excessive powers to a cabal of unelected political advisers. I'd like to think Brown will be slower to lick between the toes of the US. Of course, we'll always be cosy, but he must avoid pandering to their every whim in the manner Blair was so fond of. I think he will do - mainly because it's clear that it even makes electoral sense post-Iraq. Rather than shoulder-to-shoulder, we could be more shoulder-to-pancreas, or something. These are the little smidgettes that make up my cumulative smidgeon of optimism.

On the other hand, the general direction of New Labour will be the same as always. We look set for an equally draconian and reactionary Home Office and just as much jumping into the pockets of big business. The cabinet appointments of the supposedly hardline Jacqui Wilson as Home Secretary and the introduction of ex-CBI fuckpot Digby Jones as trade and invesment minister tell us that much. Don't get me wrong, I'm well aware the plus points of change with the Brown government are far outweighed by the chains of continuity that will hang around its neck.

This Weather

2007-06-25T22:58:00.000+01:00

June is providing a joyous autumnal spell and I simply can't get enough of it. The photos for the animation above were taken from the window of my bedroom at Dillon Towers a couple of hours ago. The winds have been howling all day and the rain has been incessant, which is a welcome surprise given that I'm usually scrambling around for suncream and hay-fever tablets at this time of year. Long may this mini-autumn continue - I like the drama and unsettling qualities of a good storm. Yesterday, there were tornadoes in Middlesbrough and Guisborough, which is maybe going a bit too far with the theme. Less of that thanks, this is Britain afterall. Although it's about time something decimated Guisborough, soulless wasteland that it is.

I've just come out of an extended bath session and I feel immeasurably content. I lay submerged in my foamy trough, reading the paper with a cup of tea and a little pile of Bourbon Creams on the side while listening to the wind whistling on the other side of the wall. Instances of sheer bliss such as that are few and far between, and if I could choose to be suspended in any moment for the rest of time, it would be that one.

Deep in the forest

2007-06-24T19:40:00.000+01:00

Last night I went to see Travis play on their forest tour with the mother figure. Way back in March, it was her joint Mothers' Day/birthday present that she'd get the chance to be accompanied by me to see a band she really seems to like in the tranquil surrounds of Dalby Forest. I wasn't particularly looking forward to it, but she was. That's the kind of band Travis are though; they're so abominably NICE that Mums just can't avoid liking them.

I ended up quite enjoying myself though, it was a great setting for a gig. We drove four miles into the forest until reaching the clearing where they'd plonked the stage. We really were in the middle of nowhere, and the silhouetted skyline of trees surrounding the crowd was a beautiful thing. Unlike those at Glastonbury this weekend, we even avoided getting wet. My concern beforehand meant I went as far as taking what some people refer to as a 'kagool' with me. Which just goes to show how worried I was - It's generally accepted that only the insane or worried wear kagools. I don't really own one, but I managed to dig an old one out of the cupboard from all those miserable family holidays in Ireland ten years ago. I hate the way it gets hot and sticks to your skin, and the fact the sleeves don't reach my wrist. Anyway, thankfully the bright and clear night meant it wasn't required and stayed in the car.

If I'm honest, I even quite enjoyed Travis' set. In fact when you compare them to the support band, The Harrisons, they're positively mindblowing. Sad, talentless excuses for bands like The Harrisons are a plague on the musical landscape, and there seems to be more and more turgid, flatpack post-Arctic Monkeys imitators like them popping up by the day. Travis had the crowd in the palm of their hand while they reeled off all the hits (I'd forgotten how many they'd had), with Fran Healy and all his loveable, NICE between song banter. When they ended with 'Why Does It Always Rain On Me' (of course) he said he wanted the whole field to jump up and down for the chorus. And they did, all the way to the back. It was quite a sight actually.