Damn This Traffic Jam...How I hate to be Late...

This morning I travelled the eight miles from my home to my place of work in 29 minutes. Now, considering my house sits within the outer ring of the proposed congestion charge area and my workplace is in the inner ring of the proposed congestion charge area I can, on this evidence, only come to one conclusion. Manchester is not very congested.

Yes it gets busy at times - usually due to a breakdown, accident or - more often - a road closure or lane closure, but, on the whole traffic moves. It's not like that there London. The only time in the past couple of years that Manchester has been gridlocked was when bus companies flooded the more profitable routes into the city in an attempt to drive each other out of business. Yes it was public transport what did the damage m'lud, public transport.

So, what's it all about then? The congestion charge? At today's prices it would cost me £5 a day to drive to and from work - on top of petrol, insurance, tax and garage bills. £100+ a month for the privelege of not having to walk a mile to the train station to catch an unreliable train service into Manchester Victoria before catching a tram to Trafford Bar or Old Trafford station. £100+ a month instead of £27 a week for 7 day saver card that will allow me to travel via bus, train or tram: I make that £100+. No contest. Nice warm car with Radio Four, Five or music of my choice or a freezing cold slow and unreliable bus, train or tram with somebody else's tinny racket filtering through their MP3 player's headphones - if I'm lucky, more often than not - in my experience - they just play their music out of their pitifully inadequate mobile phones.

Oooops sorry...I nearly forgot, public transport will have improved that much by 2013 it will be unrecognisable. It will a pleasure to use. Fast, safe, cheap and reliable.

Ha ha ha hee hee hee hee ha ha ha ha ha hee hee hee ha ha hee hee hee hee ha ha ha ha ha hee hee hee ha ha hee hee hee hee ha ha ha ha ha hee hee hee ha ha hee hee hee hee ha ha ha ha ha hee hee hee ha ha hee hee hee hee ha ha ha ha ha hee hee hee ha ha hee hee hee hee ha ha ha ha ha hee hee hee ha ha hee hee hee hee ha ha ha ha ha hee hee hee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I predict massive losses by the Labour Party in the area come the next local elections and more importantly the next General Election. Not only is the Party unpopular on a national level, locally it has just put a noose around it's neck and the electorate are just waiting to kick away the chair. The argument in favour of the congestion charge lacks rigour - a charge that is supposed to be applied in order to cut congestion and stop traffic heading into Manchester is also the charge that will fund the improvements in the public transport system. Hmmmmmmmm.......Run that by me again.

I wonder what plans they have for those of us who live within the 'zone'? Prisoners in our own homes until 9:30am.

Pity the poor worker. Once again bearing the brunt while the hideously rich carry on just like before and the bone idle and feckless lie in bed.

Where's me tablets?

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I'm off to Hamburg next weekend on my eldest son's stag weekend. I'll be the oldest there by twenty years or so and when I get back I'll probably be the oldest by 40 years or so. The things you do for love.

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The Acoustic Festival was a good laugh - apart from the ever-present wind and the rain. We lost the gazebo on the last day, but that was better than losing the tent like a lot of others did The highlights for me were Glen Tilbrook, Donavon, Midge Ure (surprisingly good -Vienna on acoustic guitar anyone?) and the incredible Gordon Giltrap.

The beer tents sold Spitfire and Oranjeboom at £3 a pint and the food stalls were eclectic and reasonable.

Would I go again? Yes. In a Winnebago with all mod cons.

Piccy time.


Makes you feel safe doesn't he? Cameraphone.


Shed Door.


Donavon brings good vibes to the big tent.


Power mad.


Bin, chips, bike.


Spitfire sunset.


Sun, beer, music.


The tangerine cowboy hat.


Warm.

That's all folks.

Advice for the Young at Heart....Soon you will be Older

A couple of months ago I purchased a decent-ish spec system unit to attach to my 19" LCD panel and finally kiss goodbye to my IBM T21 laptop with the missing keys. It cost me £137 for a dual processor 300Ghz box with 2Gb of RAM, a 250Gb hard disk and Vista Home Premium. Bargain.

I splashed out for this for two reasons. First of all I needed adequate disk space to mirror the external 250Gb hard disk I have all my photos and music on and, secondly, I needed a PC that could handle my M-Audio MIDI controller keyboard without any latency.

Well, the adequate disk space is sorted but, when it comes to the smooth running of decent sound recording software, it's a complete and utter failure. The Vista drivers just can't handle realtime simultaneous playback and recording. The message boards and forums are full of aggrieved musicians detailing their heartache and subsequent return to XP. I've tried the onboard Realtek soundcard and two M-Audio Audiophile 24/96, top-of-the-range jobbies.

I sit there playing an augmented fifth, major seventh or even a bog-standard C major and it's a good tenth of second before you hear what you've just played. And I'm not on my own. 99% of the dissatisfaction with the OS is down to latency issues.

So i guess until we see Service Pack 5 or so, music recording on a Vista PC is a no-no.

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So it's back to my tried and trusted Yamaha MDS4(pictured above) and, furthermore, whatever I record over the next few months will be basically acoustic. Guitar, slide guitar, mandolin, harmonica, dulcimer, percussion and plenty of vocal harmony. All I need to do first is transfer all the stuff I've already got recorded on the 4-track Mini Disks that the machine takes to CD or my free space on my gmail account to ensure it doesn't disappear forever. You can still buy 4-track minidisks, but they cost an arm and a leg.

So, recycling. That's the future. Honest.

And the funny thing is, given all the upheaval and heartache of the past 24 months or so - redundancy, loss of a parent, new job x 2 etc., most of the songs I have put together have been quite jolly - for me. I don't know why. Or perhaps I do. I don't know.

I've set myself 6 months to record and mix six songs/tunes and get them up on my MySpace site

Targets. That's what I need. Well, targets and money. Lots of it.

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There's a few of us off to the Acoustic Festival of Britain this weekend. Tents 'n' stuff! Wish me luck!

The Sound of the Crowd

If you're not a Scot (or a Mancunian for that matter), you may be forgiven for not knowing that Glasgow Rangers are taking on Zenit St Petersburg at Manchester City's stadium this evening with the EUFA cup going to the winners.

This has resulted in the biggest invasion of England by Scots since the diminutive Bonnie Prince Charlie made it down to the Midlands back in the day. They started arriving yesterday and last night the centre of Manchester was awash with blue. As I drove to work past the stadium this morning at 8:30am there were pockets of fans wrapped in Union Jacks and swigging from cans of lager.

I got in work at 9:00am and noticed coaches of fans arriving and parking up near Lancashire Cricket Club - miles away from the centre and the ground. All day they came; ejaculating well-oiled 'Gers followers who promptly urinated wherever they could before heading towards Manchester centre clutching cans, bottles, flags and banners.

By 1:30 pm they were marching down the road outside my office and I took the video above with my mobile phone (hence the quality). I had to leave work early to ensure I could get home as my journey takes me onto the Manchester inner ring road and past the ground via the designated route from the City centre. A bit of delay but not much and it was great seeing all the supporters enjoying themselves in the sunshine.



Here are some of them in Albert Square enjoying the sunshine.

The atmosphere has been great all day with upwards of 150,000 entering the City and clearing the shops of every drop of alcohol they could find. Sadly, as the game kicked off, the big screen in the fan's zone in Piccadilly failed and it 'kicked off' there as well. As I write riot police have been brought in and fans are throwing bottles and traffic cones.

The sad thing is, this will be a minority of dickheads. The same type of dickhead you get following any football club.

It's been a great day for Glasgow and a great day for Manchester Sadly this minority of dickheads will probably be getting all the media attention tomorrow.

+++ UPDATE +++ +++UPDATE +++ +++ UPDATE +++

For some reason I can't leave a link to this so you'll have to cut'n'paste.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/manchester/7401814.stm

QUOTE "Fans who had been waiting in Piccadilly Gardens all day were unimpressed [when the big screen in Piccadilly failed].

One said: "This is absolutely ridiculous - there's Rangers fans throwing balls** and cans at each other because the game's not on.

"We've been sat here since 12 o'clock waiting on the game coming on. The coverage started at seven o'clock and then five minutes later the game's off.

"It's an absolute shambles, shame on Manchester, shame on Manchester - it's let the country down." UNQUOTE

"Shame on Manchester"? How much have I as a taxpayer forked out to accomodate fans who have turned up without tickets regardless of advice given? I've forked out to provide facilities and policing and ambulance services and probably hospital beds for people who quite frankly had been drinking since early morning (see above).

Glasgow Rangers, you were great today. Tonight, a minority of dickheads were a disgrace.

And now I hear a Zenit fan was stabbed outside the ground.

I thought today was going to be different to my experiences with Manchester United playing Celtic. I thought it was going to be a cheery affair.

Ah well.

Still, thanks for the slagging off. We tried but obviously we're crap

After all, it's a doddle dealing with 150,000 in an area that can hardly cope with 50,000 om a Saturday.



Shame on Manchester?

**Lost in translation? ;-)

Life Gets Tedious Don't It?

If I hear anyone else pontificate about how exciting this season's Premiership run in is I will scream and scream until I'm sick.

Who, apart from United or Chelsea fans gives a toss which one of the World's richest clubs wins? Exciting? I don't think so. I bet anyone with a modicum of football interest could have predicted which teams would be sat at the top of table without a problem.

Keegan was right, the Premiership is boringly predictable and the only way that the monopoly at the top can be broken is via the mega-rich billionaires of the world buying into clubs and funnelling astronomical sums of money into them. Even then the more unfashionable clubs (Reading and Manchester City for example) will struggle to attract true world class managers and players as the gravitational pull of the 'big clubs' exerts its influence.

Ho hum.

So the Premiership becomes a three mini-league bore-a-thon whereas the Championship provides all the footballing excitement and truly is exciting.

But for how much longer?

As of this season the club that comes bottom of the Premiership receives a payment on a par with what the winner of the Premiership got a couple seasons ago. A cool £30 million give or take a few pence.

£30 million.

Now how will that amount of money affect the rest of the Championship? How are the likes of Swansea or Nottingham Forest or Barnsley or Pymouth Argyll expected to compete against teams that come down with a minimum of £30 million in their back pocket?

I think it will trigger another 'mini leagues within a league' as the Championship mirrors the Premiership with a top six or so of clubs that yo-yo between the Championship and the Premiership picking their hefty promotion/relegation payouts on the way up or down. Next there will be a mini league consisting of the Ipswiches, Barnsleys, Prestons and the like who float in the middle. At the bottom there will the Championship's equivalent of the WBAs and Watfords; constantly winning promotion and relegation but never able to break through to the top of the league on account of the gulf in money.

Depressing isn't it? It doesn't stop the fans dreaming though does it?

So, good luck to Stoke next season and let's all cross our fingers for Hull City who, not so long ago were fighting to stay in the Football League never mind fighting to achieve Premiership status.















Have a good un.

Always Crashing in the Same Car

Hmmmmm....TimesNewRoman tagged me - the sod!

Now, if it had been anyone else I would've ignored it, but, well, we go back a long way. So here goes:-

1. What was the last 1980s song you heard?

"Downtown Lights" The Blue Nile. Beautiful. Beautiful and beautiful. What more can I say? Beautiful. Machines and human voices can emote. Beautiful.

2. What was the last thing you saw on You Tube?

Peri Urban "Over".

3. What was the last entry on wikipedia you viewed?

The Scuttlers of Manchester.

4. Last computer /video game completed?

Football Manager when City were in the third division. Certainly not the fuckin' Division 1 it's now known as. Bought some cracking foreigners for a pittance and employed a 4-4-3/4-5-1 continental approach that threw the opposition completely. Promotion in the first season. Sacked within three weeks of season two. So that counts as completed. 'Cos, once your sacked you have to start again. I felt at one with Peter Reid, Brian Horton, Frank Clarke, Alan Ball, Joe Royle and the rest though. Sven too....probably.

Empathy. That's the word.

5. What did you last Pig Out on?

A ChilliBurger from Prima Pizza on Easter Sunday. Not for any religious reasons mind it was all down to an all-dayer with our lads culminating in an inability to cook for ourselves when we got home. Wrong though. Doesn't help the blood pressure.

6. What is the last undeleted text message on your mobile?

"Have a virtual pint instead"

7. When did you last have a conversation with someone other than a family member?

Errr..today at work Does that count?

8. Aside from where you live, what is the last village/town/city you visited?

Birmingham to see Seth Lakeman, Tunng and Sharron Krauss last weekend.

9. What was the last Competiton you won?

Peel. Isle of Man 1964. Talent competion. I was ten years of age and I sang "Chicago" unaccompanied.. A song I had only heard Sinatra sing. But, given the fact that is pretty much all we heard in our house at the time unremarkable.

10. What were the last 3 Blogs you visited?

Well..TimesNewRoman obviously. Yorkshire Pudding and Alastair's Heart Monitor.

Pretzel Logic

Hmmm....strange weekend. I (well we...) went to Birmingham. For me it was the first time since 1972. For the rest of 'em it was the first time.

It was great. The architecture in the heart of the city is beautiful. Well done Joseph Chamberlain (Neville's Dad or Grandad or Uncle or some other significant other.) The last time I went it was a dump. Mind you so was Manchester at the time. Concrete concrete and more concrete. Having said that, so was most of the rest of Post-war Britain. A housing shortage, an exotic (Bauhaus) view of the future and a climate geared up to anything but = disaster. Cue Hulme.

It really is a stunning transformation. Birmngham shone and we enjoyed ourselves thoroughly.

We actually went to see Seth Lakeman and Tunng at the the wonderful Birmingham Town Hall, which is basically a copy of the Parthenon. It sits on a hillock as well.

We had seats on the front row. In the middle - more or less. Ha! I was snapping away because I had read the small print and I knew there was no restriction on photography. The support acts came on and I took piccies with no problem. Seth Lakeman came on and after the first number a security guard came up to me and said "no flash photography"

"I haven't flashed" I replied (I hate it btw. ).

"Are you sure?" She said.

"Errrrrmmmm yes" I replied as flash bulbs that would never illuminate the stage lit her face up from angles she would've wished they hadn't had she seen the results, and all of them from rows behind me.

She was perplexed.

She looked at my camera (a DSLR) and I made out it had no flash on it. It does but it's cleverly hidden and is generally crap anyway.

So, faced with the fact that is obviously not me taking FLASH PHOTOGRAPHS with my fancy camera from the first row, she retreated with decorum saying "don't take too many pictures."

So I took hundreds.

Most were either a)crap or b)repetitive though, so here are a few as opposed to all. There's a couple with no link to Birmingham at all also.

















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That's all folks!

Lo and Behold

Well that was a turn up for the books. As I peeked out of the bedroom window at 6:30am on Easter Sunday I saw a good three inches of snow covering everything. Deep. Crisp. Even.

So up I got, packed the camera and walked round to our local beauty spot. Everywhere I looked I saw photo opportunities as this Mancunian suburb of mine put on its best clothes and smiled for a picture or two. I took my obligatory shot of the Manchester city centre skyline from a nearby vantage point and slid my way to Daisy Nook.

I was out for just over two hours and I walked for about five miles. All-in-all a great way to start the day. As the sun got higher the snow began to melt and I felt it was time to head home to bacon and eggs and a steaming mug of tea. Bliss.

Not many people about - just a few hardy souls with dogs to walk and other poor sods with jobs that make them work on Easter Sunday. Even postman get that off. An old fellow with a bright red face and a week's stubble told me to hurry up as the snow wouldn't last and I should take as many pictures as I could. So I did. Snaps below.

Incidentally Goldfrapp's new album is a pastoral masterpiece. Download it now.
















Thought I'd try a different treatment on this one.

Sign in Stranger

So, a chapter closes and the Royal Mail Group sails off into the distance. I have started my new job as an Oracle systems administrator and I'm loving it. I have been welcomed, given all the help I need and treated like a human being worthy of a modicum of respect.

Praise be.

I am stationed on the 10th floor with some fabulous views over the city, the Pennines and the Cheshire plain and life just feels right.

In fact the only blot on the horizon (literally) is the view on the left for, as I look out of the windows I also have to look at Old Trafford in all its hideous glory. Still, it's a small price to pay.

I enjoyed myself this morning as the Royal Mail have sent me a questionnaire so they can "better understand" why I left. Cathartic I can tell you. A written explosion of all that's pent up within me over the months. Inadequate, insular, Dickensian.....I could on...and probably will one day. But not now. Happy thoughts, happy thoughts.

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I'm currently reading marvellous Post-War history of Britain "A World to Build". It's part of a projected series entitled "Tales of a New Jerusalem" that will eventually take the reader to 1979.

It's wonderful.

For the most part the author relies on the archives of the Mass Observation Project and, as such, is based on the diaries kept by ordinary folk - as well as the usual suspects - from all over the country. As a result of these apparently prosaic setting down of ordinary thoughts, a truly illuminating history shines through. We discover just how much of a damp squib the VE Day celebrations were everywhere except the West End of London for example. The little things that occurred on momentous days in history. The ending of a relationship, a man striking matches trying to find a shilling he has dropped and complaining that they don't last long enough. The wonder of seeing well-lit streets after years of blackout.

It's hard to believe it's the same country we inhabit. Consider this:-

"Britain in 1945. No supermarkets, no motorways, no teabags, no sliced bread, no frozen food, no flavoured crisps, no lager, no microwaves, no dishwashers, no Formica, no vinyl no CDs, no computers, no mobiles, no duvets, no Pill, no trainers, no hoodies, no Starbucks. Four Indian restaurants. Shops on every corner, pubs on every corner, cinemas in every high street, red telephone boxes, Lyons Corner Houses, trams, trolley-buses, steam trains. woodbines, Craven 'A', Senior Service, smoke, smog, Vapex inhalant. No launderettes, no automatic washing machines, wash day every Monday, clothes boiled in a tub, scrubbed on the draining board, rinsed in the sink, put through a mangle, hung out to dry. Central heating rare, coke boilers, water geysers, the coal fire, the hearth, the home, chilblains common. Abortion illegal, homosexual relationships illegal, suicide illegal, capital punishment legal. white faces everywhere. Back-to-backs, narrow cobbled streets, Victorian terraces, no high-rises,. Arterial roads, suburban semis, the march of the pylon. Austin Sevens, Ford Eights, no seat belts, Triumph motorcycles with sidecars. A Bakelite wireless in the home, 'Housewives Choice' or 'Worker's Playtime' or 'ITMA' on the air, televisions almost unknown, no programmes to watch, the family eating together. Milk of Magnesia, Vick Vapour rub, Friar's Balsom, Fynnon Salts, Eno's, Germoline. Suits and hats, dresses and hats, cloth caps and mufflers, no leisurewear, no 'teenagers'. Heavy coins, heavy shoes, heavy suitcases, heavy tweed coats, heavy leather footballs, no unbearable lightness of being. Meat rationed, butter rationed, lard rationed, margarine rationed, sugar rationed, tea rationed, cheese rationed, jam rationed, eggs rationed, sweets rationed, soap rationed. Make do and mend."

Recommended.

I had a 'lump in the throat' moment reading it the other day though as I found myself thinking 'I'll lend this my Dad he'd love it'.

Times like that bring back the reality. Ah well. Life goes on and the last gift of love is remembrance.

Right I'm off to watch Sven's Blue and White army take on ex-City player Gary Megson's Bolton Wanderers on the Big Screen in my local with many other like-minded folk. After the match we've got a curry ordered from a great Indian vegetarian we've discovered in Ashton-under-Lyne. So it's Chana Masala with Jeera rice and a Naan for me as I settle down for an evening of TV watching.

Here's some more photographs:-

























That's all folks!