The Downward Pull of Human Nature....AKA...When an Old Cricketer Leaves the Crease

Down to Salford Quays on Sunday evening to see the living (just) God that is John Martyn. Now I knew he was in bad health, losing a leg and all that and I knew he'd put on some weight. I knew, but I still remembered him as the railing thin acoustic 'fuck-you' folkie with the electric sensibility from the early seventies.

When they wheeled him on stage he looked like Falstaff and Orson Welles' love child. His right leg ended in a swaying wizard's sleeve of trouser leg while his left encompassed a straining thigh with a little white-socked stubby foot dangling from the cuff. With the white beard and fat face I thought he'd make a great Santa. I feared the worst - especially when he spoke, Most of it was unintelligible to normal ears. Broad cockney with sudden bursts of Glaswegian - semaphore may have helped. His bloated face was wreathed in smiles though when he strapped on a gorgeous Les Paul and launched into the whole of the Grace and Danger album.

Now I'm not the greatest fan of Martyn's Phil Collins collaborations from t'early eighties but I've got to say he won me over. He's got a great little jazzy band behind him that helps a lot obviously, but he can still do it even stuck in a wheelchair and weighing over twenty stone. 'Cooltide', Some People Are Crazy', 'Sweet Little Mystery' and 'Johnny Too Bad' stood out for me and the bass playing was exquisite. Mr Martyn can still sing and play a bit an' all.

After the 'Grace and Danger' album the old acoustic was placed in his chubby hands. Once again I feared the worst. The fingers looked too fat for the fretboard - playing lead runs and vamping chords on a nice electric with a four piece band behind you is a world away from sitting musically naked apart from your voice and a some wood and steel on your lap (or in John's case belly.)

I needn't have worried, he rattled off a masterful 'Jelly Roll Blues' followed by 'May You Never' and 'Don't Want To Know About Evil' before embarking on a truly heart-stopping 'Solid Air'. A couple of covers followed before he was wheeled off stage to a standing ovation. We knew we wouldn't be getting an encore so headed for the bar.

I've been listening to him ever since. A one off! We'll miss his like when he's gone. Bless the Weather.

I don't think I'll get the chance to see him alive again, although he has given up smoking dope and drinks in 'relative moderation'. On the other hand his description of a typical day back home in his Irish cottage doesn't sound too healthy. Up to devour a healthy Irish breakfast and then an afternoon in the pub before wheeling home for a slap up dinner replete with the finest wines known to mankind.

He reckons he's hard to kill and is looking forward to his 70th.

When he does go he should leave his liver to medical science, there's lessons to be learned from it I can tell you.

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Driving to work this morning and surprise surprise! Another main road into Manchester has been closed for 'essential' roadworks. Once again a trip that has never taken longer than 35 minutes became an hour. Coincidence? I think not.

Autumn Leaves

Mancunian Rain, Oldham Street. Towards Piccadilly, Manchester. November 2008

Went to see the Fleet Foxes last Sunday - what a band! Close harmonies that sounded like a cross between the Mamas and the Papas, Simon and Garfunkel and Crosby, Stills and Nash and enough of a folk-pop sensibilty to make their compositions interesting enough to bear repetition. Recommended. What made it even better though was paying student union prices over the bar. It was like going back to 2005 ;-)

Its John Martyn tomorrow night. Let's hope he survives until then.

Glad Obama made it - not that I think the World will change much - it'll just be nice to hear an American President articulate his thoughts without the rest of the World shitting themselves.

A 'black' President? Who'd a thunk it?

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Up here in Manchester we're about to balloted on whether we want a congestion charge. Well, not just a congestion charge to be fair but a congestion charge as part of a package to bring billions of investment into the region's public transport system. An extension of Manchester over-priced tram system, more buses and routes, more of everything really.

But only if we vote for the congestion charge which will be based on two charging rings. The outer ring begins if you cross the m60 heading towards Manchester and the second inner ring does the same if you cross the inner ring road. There's a bit of dispute about the charges, could be a maximum cap of £5 or £10 per day but, whatever they end up at, I'll guarantee they'll go up if we vote yes.

Now I have a few problems with this, not least the fact that I wouldn't trust any of the slimy bastards urging us to vote for it - a cracking argument to vote NO for a start. But, more worringly in my book is that with all this talk of 'public transport' we seem to be missing the fact that we don't have a public transport system and we haven't had since Thatcher convinced the masses that deregulation and privatisation would transform our tired and wheezing railways and buses into a sleek and shiny homogenous network that would whizz the masses wherever they wished to be at a fraction of the cost they were used to paying. Railway timetables would interact with bus timetables and vice versa. The new Uber-Transport system would be that quick, that efficient that only fools (and Cabinet Ministers) would choose not to use it.

Ah yes I remember it well.

What we actually got is what we have now; expensive, filthy, unreliable and full of the sort of shell-suited tossers who have never had a lesson in common courtesy in their entire celeb-obsessed lives. And not public - except for the public subsidy these private companies receive from those of us who get up in the morning and go to work. The very same who are being asked to pay the charge.

Another aspect of the whole kit and caboodle is that it's just blackmail. "You can have all this investment but only if you vote for the charge." Why? We either need the investment or we don't. It shouldn't be bedecked with feckin' conditions. Having said that if it needs investment then who better to invest in it than the private sector? You know the fat cats who own it? Why ask me for a sub?

And don't get me started on the "Vote Yes" campaign. For the past two months or so we have been subjected to a highly expensive biilboard campaign beseeching us to vote yes. None of those portrayed in the ads will pay the charge because they go to Manchester outside of the two charge windows morning and evening. The only ones who actively embrace the charm that is driving to Manchester morning and evening are people going to and from work - the ones who are already taxed on their car, the fuel they put in it and the right to earn a wage.

Mind you it's all being done to save the planet apparently. Well fair enough. I would whole-heartedly back anything that was truly being done for the all the right reasons and keeping cars and vans out of Manchester should be supported if it will help save the planet. But, if that's the case then the fact that the investment has got to be paid back from the charge would seem to indicate that they don't think people will stop driving into Manchester. It's not helping to save the planet, It's a CONgestation charge, that's what it is.

So, you can probably guess which way I'll be voting considering I live within the outer ring and work within the inner.

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Some evil bastard stole my Mother's purse while she in the local supermarket. £70 he/she got away with. It's probably gone straight down his or her neck or into his or her arm. I'm beginning to get that pissed off with life I'm considering taking the Daily Mail on a regular basis.

*Rises from chair and goes to lie down in a dark room muttering and cursing........*


Cornerhouse cinema. Manchester. Dusk, November 2008


Traffic Bokeh. Deansgate, Manchester November 2008


Aliens return to Old Trafford to collect Wayne Rooney after his Earthly sojourn. 2m cameraphone.


Bloody Christmas again! It's barely November!


Albert Square, Manchester. November 2008


The North Pole, Cathedral Gardens, Manchester, November 2008


The North Pole, Cathedral Gardens, Manchester, November 2008


The North Pole, Cathedral Gardens, Manchester, November 2008

Ch Ch Ch Changes

Well, one day to go and Obama feels as though the goal is in sight. God knows why you would want to take the Presidential helm as the recession starts to bite but I guess the Democrats understand what they're in for and are prepared for the flack.

I reckon McCain is twitching at the thought of sneaking through and snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. I bet there'll be no 'hanging chad' controversies this time round, they'll just hand state after state to Barak, breathe sigh of relief and hunker down until 2012.

There can't be any other reason for choosing Palin as running mate can there? Surely that was the act of a Party hell bent on losing the election? From the minute she opened her mouth any reasonably intelligent person would've recognised an 'unfit for office' personality shining through. Surely?

The Republican election machine would have avoided her like the plague had they wanted to win on Tuesday. What must be worrying them now is that the pollsters have been lied to and when it comes down to the wire the colour of Obama`s skin will sentence McCain and the Republicans to at least four years of attempting to guide the economy through the mother of all recessions while simultaneously trying to extract the forces from Afghanistan and Iraq while pretending to have won both wars. And all with a thoroughly discredited and exhausted ideology. More of the same.

The present incumbents are also worried that a shock McCain victory will result in widespread civil unrest. The National Guard, local law enforcement and even the army are reportedly on high alert if the unthinkable should happen on Tuesday.

It's going to be interesting. In the meantime the World waits....

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I’ve not been one bit surprised by the furore coming out of the tabloids and the mouths of politicians about ‘Manuelgate’ this past week or so. Personally I found it puerile, witless and sadly typical of Ross and Brand’s approach to broadcasting. But what annoys me even more about the pair of pricks is that once again we now have the vested interests behind the politicians and tabloids attempting to stir up the old ‘BBC is a disgrace’ farrago. ‘It’s license fee payers who are shoring up this left-wing monopoly’ is the overt exclamation from the rabid right and their fellow travelers while the sub-text (and, indeed, sub-plot) is that it should be sold off, privatized if you will, and who better to buy it than Murdoch or some other rapacious arsehole who would reduce this fine institution (for all its faults) to a pale shadow of its former self.

So, thanks a lot you pair of preening poseurs, with a bit of luck Dave channel might start to look like a decent career choice for you in the not too distant future. And I don’t for one minute regret that my attitude to the ‘joke’ marks me down as old-fashioned or whatever, if that’s comedy then we’re all going to hell in a handcart.

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Manchester City? What is it about this footbball club that constantly coaxes the phrase "typical City" from the throats of its supporters? We're now supposedly the richest club on the planet and we can't beat Bolton, Newcastle, Wigan or Middlesborough. And that tag "Richest Club on the Planet" is now being used to either take the piss (the richest club in the world still couldn't overcome lowly Bolton, Wigan, Middlesborough) or damn us with faint praise (City hammered Portsmouth 6 - 0 but so they should, because they are the richest club on the planet.)

Well let's just hope we can buy ourselves out of a relegation battle as apparently easily as we can buy ourselves into a top four finish.


Quay West building, Salford Quays


Bridge over the quay