I Feel Good.......
The joy of six!
Man of the match? Stevie Ireland, product of our academy. Let's hope all the money doesn't bugger up the flow of youngsters coming through.
I'm giddy.
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Tuesday, September 09, 2008
Friday, September 05, 2008
Can't Buy Me Love
So. What a difference a couple of weeks make. I can still remember the “Manchester City on the verge of financial meltdown” headlines that were bandied about by the bone-idle, generally London-centric press mid August. Probably reasonable conjecture at the time given the fact that Thaksin was looking increasingly vulnerable to comparative skintness and failing the “fit and proper person” test that the authorities have come up with, but none of it based on good old investigative journalism.
To be honest you don’t normally have to do much investigation work when reporting on City, there are moles all over the shop. Historically Manchester City has been known as a colander club by the football press, full of holes and leaking information like a sieve so it would’ve only required a modicum of effort for a journo to check some facts before firing up MS Word. But a modicum is a modicum and it’s so much easier to order another round and agree a line to take with all your fellow hacks than to get off your fat arse and do some proper work.
I would love to have seen their faces when the news broke that the Arabs were coming though.
Which brings me to the Arabs. Hmmmm. Not sure about this, not sure about this at all. I know that football has already changed irrevocably what with the introduction of the Premier League, Sky and the vast amounts of money already washing about the sport. I know that in order to compete in a meaningful way at the top of the tree a club will need to spend a hell of a lot of money (as well as having a knowledgeable and tactical manager obviously). I know that football clubs are increasingly having to be owned by multi-billionaires or even multi-trillionaires to be able to spend the money needed. I know that my club is now in this enviable position. But I also know that true, meaningful success can’t be bought and it seems to me that that is exactly what our new owners are thinking. Money = success. Well it ain’t necessarily so and I can see in the not too distant future our increasingly impatient owners forcing more and more “Galacticos” on Mark Hughes against his, and the majority of fans, wishes. I can then see Mr Hughes walking away from the job and Dr Sulemain bringing in a “world name” on a profound salary and sitting back while the trophies come rolling in – hopefully.
But success isn’t only measured on the pitch, what of our fabulous Academy? Probably the best one in the country and one that has produced countless Premiership, Championship and lower divisions players in recent times. One that has produced a number of current first teamers such as Micah Richards, Nedun Onouha, Michael Johnson, Stephen Ireland, Daniel Sturridge, Ched Evans and, of course, Shaun Wright-Philips. I just hope beyond hope that the link is not lost, I hope that in three4 or four years time I will be supporting a mix of locally-grown talent and world class footballers. The thing that worries me most though is the fear of the club losing its soul completely. Now don’t get me wrong I think City’s soul is already a couple of miles down the road and well on its way to oblivion, but this takeover could and probably will give it all the acceleration it needs. Manchester City as a world footballing brand has never really appealed to me and it never will no matter what Dr Sulemain, Gary Cooke and the rest of the visionaries may say. When I’m abroad and I see somebody wearing a City top I know that I could have a conversation with them about our club. It would be informed conversation. It’s not like a Manchester United or Chelsea “supporter”. Half the time if you meet someone in Greece or Spain with a Chelsea top on all they know about the club is a post-Abramovitch history. I fear that City will soon be a brand known the world over and that just isn’t right. Not right at all.
Mind you this is City, knowing our luck the oil wells will run dry and we’ll be back in division three with those other big-spenders Leeds. Icarus anyone?
Is it ever going to stop raining? Only asking because I can remember what the sunshine is like – just. God only knows what Robhino will make of the unremitting, pitiless drenching he’s going to experience when he finally pitches up at (Middle) Eastlands. The drear grey skies of Manchester will be an eye-opener for our Brazilian wunderkind. Let’s all hope he finds it a refreshing change from hot colours and climate of Brazil and Spain I mean, there’s only so much sunshine you can take isn’t there?
Well, isn’t there?
Eldest finally ties the knot in Santorini in a couple of weeks and there’s quite a few of us making the trek Greece-wards for the nuptials. It’ll be nice seeing the Sun again.
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Welcome Home
SHAUNY WRIGHT WRIGHT WRIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!
Incidentally me and Youngest were watching The Bloods (aka Doylsden FC)for the second time this season. A great game it was as well. £10 in, nice clubhouse with reasonably priced beer and food and passionate fans. And they won!
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
The Circle Game
I’ve started getting really interested in the “Scuttlers of Manchester.” For those who, like me, knew nothing of them, here’s a brief explanation culled from this article. Go on have a read. It gives us a fascinating insight into the turn of the 19th and 20th century Manchester and Salford.
“Scuttling gangs were neighbourhood-based youth gangs which were formed in working-class districts across the Manchester conurbation, from the independent county borough of Salford to the west of the city to the townships of Bradford, Gorton and Openshaw to the east. Contrary to Humphries' assertion that gang violence was underpinned by deprivation, the gangs were formed in a wide range of neighbourhoods, from the central "slums" to the more prosperous working-class neighbourhoods in manufacturing districts such as Gorton and Openshaw. In addition to fierce local rivalries between gangs from adjacent neighbourhoods, there were wider antagonisms between gangs from Manchester and those from the borough of Salford. Press reports suggest that gang conflicts erupted in Manchester in the early 1870s and flared periodically for three decades, before declining in both frequency and severity by the late 1890s. It is difficult to trace a causal relationship between levels of violence and downturns in the trade cycle. The years 1878-1879, 1884-1886 and 1892-1895 saw high levels of cyclical unemployment in Manchester, yet the most intense escalation of gang conflicts appears to have occurred in 1889-1890. Indeed, 1889 was a year of "exceptionally good trade."
“Most of the victims of such assaults appear to have been young males. However, the local press occasionally reported the severe beatings suffered by adults who attempted to intervene on behalf of youths who were being assaulted by scuttlers, and there is evidence that witnesses called to testify against gang members in court were subjected to widespread harassment. Assaults upon adults passing through streets which gangs claimed as their territory appear to have been less common, but occasional instances, sometimes motivated by racism and anti-semitism, were reported by the local press, and even young children in the company of their parents were vulnerable in such instances. Moreover, gang members, in common with young men in working-class districts more generally, were also periodically convicted for assaults upon women, including their "sweethearts," mothers, aunts and sisters-in-law. However, the perpetrators of such assaults may well have insisted that acts of violence against women should not be classed as "scuttling", since, in their own terms, they only "scuttled" rival gang members.
“Scuttlers were intensely style-conscious. Fashion was by no means a feminine preserve among young people in working-class districts, but it is significant that male gang members appear to have been much more concerned with their appearances than other young men in similar occupations. Style was used by scuttlers to signify "hardness". Gang members distinguished themselves from other young men in working-class neighbourhoods by wearing a uniform of pointed clogs, "bells" (bell-bottomed trousers, cut "like a sailor's" and measuring fourteen inches round the knee and twenty-one inches round the foot) and "flashy" silk scarves. Their hair was cut short at the back and sides, but they grew long fringes which were worn in a parting and plastered down on the forehead over the left eye. "Pigeon-board" peaked caps were also worn tilted to the left, and angled to display the fringe. This style of dress carried both status and risk, however, as any young man who adopted such fashions became a target for gangs from rival districts.”
It just goes to show that there’s nothing new under the Sun is there? I've got a funny feeling I would've been wearing anything but Scuttling gear if I had been around at the time. I bet my grandad would've known a few seeing as he was a Collyhurst lad, although he was probably a bit too young to have been involved properly.
It was funny over the weekend as Dearest and I caught an eighty two bus to Piccadilly for an afternoon and early evening of promenading around the streets of Manchester before food and drink and a bus or a train back home.
On the way down we passed Bengal Street in Ancoats. If you read the article you will see that the 'Bengal Tigers' - a particular vicious group of Scuttlers - named themselves after this street. As we stopped at the lights near the street Dearest commented that 'Bengal' was a strange name for a street in Ancoats. We then started discussing the Indian Empire and how that had more than likely prompted the patriotic naming. I then told Dearest all about the 'Bengal Tigers', the Scuttlers and how this was their area. She was amazed that such youth groups were extant all those years ago. In fact she was disgusted when she heard what they got up to.
"I can't believe they named a street after them."
Liverpool was grand. It really is a great city - as a lot of these northern post industrial cities are. Leeds, Bradford, Sheffield and the likes of Birmingham further down the country. I really would recommend city breaks to anyone who wants to understand and experience a little more of this great country of ours. We stayed in the Hard Day's Night Hotel, having got a reduced rate of £130 for one night (with no breakfast - that was £17 extra each). It really was plush although I think our reduced rate was reflected in the fact that we got the Ringo room. Still could've been worse, it could've been Pete Best.
So we did the full tourist bit. Beatles museum, open top bus tours and the Albert Dock. We did the 'Cavern' although it's not the original Cavern and spent Saturday night on Mathew Street in a cellar full of noise listening to some great music.
We learnt so much on the open top bus tour. It is a good way to grasp a basic understanding of the layout of a place and also some of the history and contemporary life of the city. We passed the original headquarters of the White Star Line with its balconies from which the directors would read out the names of survivors from the Titanic to the distraught crowds below. I love it when history shimmers tantalisingly in front of you and you can almost see the events unfolding in your mind's eye.
So, thoroughly recommended.
So the Beijing brouhaha is finally over and the tentacles of the totalitarian state are still coiled round everything they fear and the baton, along with the eyes of the World, passes to London for 2012. Twenty twelve - when I was a kid I couldn't believe that such a far flung date would ever arrive. Time eh? It's a bitch.
Twenty twelve, the London Olympics that are going to benefit ALL of the UK. That old 'trickle down' theory making a comeback and fooling no one. The London games will benefit who they have always benefited: corporations, crooks and chancers. You can define them anyway you like. The South East will, once again, get money thrown at it while the rest of the country pays. Once again the bodies that run our sports are being inexorably drawn to London.
One of the success stories in Beijing was our cyclists. This was due to the World class facilities we have in the Manchester and Cardiff velodromes. Velodromes that I was convinced would be utilised for the London games but no. On the same day that we won a record number of cycling medals they announce that London's new bigger and better velodrome had opened at a cost of £22m. How long before the UK's National Cycling Body moves from Manchester to London?
I've had to listen to smug gits on radio phone ins over the last week telling anyone north of Watford to start saving now so they can attend the games in four years time. Pricks. I wonder what the going rate for a hotel room in London will be by then? How much for a rip off hotdog, burger or beer in rip-off Britain 2012? In fact how much for the Games? A lot more than Boris and the rest reckon that's for sure.
OccupiedCountry: official cynical partner of the London 2012 Olympics.
Football columnists are full of crap. The amount of spurious conjecture that pours from their credit less keyboards would result in the sack if anyone in any other industry was so consistently, so spectacularly and so constantly WRONG!
Which brings me to Manchester City's new Executive Chairman (whatever that is): Gary Cooke. Gary Cooke was headhunted by our Thai ex-billionaire from Nike and boy does it show. Everything that is wrong with the power-fixated megalomaniacs lining up to buy a bit of the Premiership is crystallised in this price-of-everything-value-of-nothing tosser. Try this interview in the weekend's Guardian. . Here's a well reasoned excerpt:-
By his own admission, Garry Cook has radical views on football that not everyone will agree with, not least his belief that there should be a new top division of 10-14 elite clubs with no promotion or relegation. 'The fans,' he says, 'would find a way to get passionate about it.'
A Birmingham City fan, with a part-West Midlands and part-American accent, Cook previously worked in an executive role for Nike in Portland, Oregon, becoming president of the Nike Jordan Brand.
The Premier League is '10 years behind' the US in merchandising. 'This is the most powerful sports league in the world but also the most undervalued.' Manchester United had not 'even scratched the surface and if anyone's got a headstart it's them'.
As for City, he says their behind-the-scenes operation is a 'shock to me' explaining: 'You look at our brand and it's Thomas Cook. There's something not quite right about watching us in a bar in Beijing or Bangkok or Tokyo and seeing "Fred Smith's Plumbing, call 0161 ..."'
He was angry when a side of ex-players won the Masters tournament 'using our name and our badge when they had nothing to do with us - then, lo and behold, we congratulate them in the programme. You couldn't set up a band and call it the Drifters, so what are they doing using our name?'
*sighs, rubs temples and quietly weeps*
Here's some pics of Liverpool and Manchester.
Lennon. Beatles Museum. Liverpool.
Harrison. Beatles Museum. Liverpool.
Facsimile of the Cavern. Beatles Museum. Liverpool.
Mathew Street, Liverpool.
Brown Street, Manchester.
The old and the new. Beetham Tower, Manchester.
Student accomodation. Mancunian Way. Manchester.
Student accomodation. Mancunian Way. Manchester.
Contratemps in monochrome. Mancunian Way. Manchester.
Contratemps in grey and rust. Mancunian Way. Manchester.
Rise like lions after slumber...
That's all folks!
Sunday, August 03, 2008
The Odd Boy Sat Down by the Football Field...Pulled out a Slim Volume of Mallarme.
Hey, two posts in one day.
I just thought I would answer the reading question posed on JJ's blog in order to make a mockery of the so-called findings that most folk have only read six of the books on the list of the top one hundred.
Here goes:-
1
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien.
3 Jayne Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4
5 To Kill a Mockinbird - Harper Lee
6
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18
19 The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20
21
22
23
24
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31
32
33
34
35
36
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45
46
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54
55
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nightime- Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 HAMLET - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
So there! Thirty four out of the top one hundred. It makes you wonder who they interviewed to come up with an AVERAGE of six!
Life is for Living..
Well, here's an update on the Shughie and Ronald post below. And sad reading it makes too.It turns out that Ronald was found on the floor. The police are of the view that he hung himself and Shughie found him and cut him down but it was too late, Ronald was gone. Shughie then hung himself in despair.
They had been there for nine days!
It's TWLFWWLND I feel sorry for. She's having nightmares and flashbacks to what she saw when she opened that letter box. The smell was appalling and the pair of them were home to the usual things that move in as life's spark moves out.
Dearest attended the funeral - possibly the saddest she has ever experienced.
Father and son.
But life goes on and life's looking up just lately. The difference having a job you enjoy makes just cannot be over emphasised. I've just had my 54th birthday and have received some cracking presents including tickets to see John Martyn and Goldfrapp and a Beatles weekend in The Hard Day's Night Hotel in central Liverpool. Whoop.
Right, we've not had any pics for a while:-
Hamburg, Reeperbahn.
Hamburg, Euro 2008 Fan Fest and Harley Davidson convention
Biker Boy.
Breitenfelde Harley Owners Group, Hamburg Harley Days.
Harley Davidson detail.
Davidstrasse, Hamburg
Towards the West.
Fuengriola, Spain.
Wheels and Circles.
Marquee
Wind Farm, Scout Head Moor.
Wind Farm, Scout Head Moor 2
Crowne Plaza Hotel, Northern Quarter, Manchester.
Matt and Phred's Jazz Bar, Northern Quarter, Manchester.
That's all folks!
Tuesday, July 08, 2008
I Hate Myself and want to Die
Shugie* and Ronald*. Father and son. Still lived together 10 years after Mrs Shugie (Mum) died. Ronald wasn’t the marrying type. Not that he was sexually diverse or anything. If I had to describe that side of him I would say that he was asexual. Living at home with his dad was probably the best option for him. Comfort and no questions asked.Ronald had either had a brain tumour as a youngster, or meningitis. Opinions differ amongst those who were around when such things should’ve been remembered better. Still, time flies doesn’t it? Shugie worked in the same factory as me for more years than I care to remember. We ‘dealt’ with each other two or three times a week. He came across as a ‘nice’ bloke. (Doncha just hate that insipid adjective)? Cheery, positive. Always smiling. Always joking.
Ronald held down a decent job and eventually became a glider pilot with a penchant for photography. He would to call on us periodically and show us his airborne snaps every now and then. Bird’s eye views of the A34, Hollingworth Lake and Bakewell.
Shugie and Ronald. We used to live opposite them but we moved and for the past 24 years, we’ve lived about 50 yards away from them. Father and son.
Our next door neighbour at the time was ‘the-wee-little-fat-woman-who-lived-next-door’. TWLFWWLND was a cleaning fanatic. Polishing, cleaning windows mowing the lawn, spitting on hankies to wipe her daughter’s face, constantly redecorating.
Constantly fighting dirt and mess wherever she found it.
Dearest and I used to love inviting TWLFWWLND and Mr TWLFWWLND round to ours for drinks and mess. I think it was like a release for TWLFWWLND. She just let her hair down and had a laugh. The day after reality (for her) kicked in and the cleaning bug returned. In the last few years she has become a cleaner at a local, up-market furniture store. Isn’t it great when a hobby (or, indeed, an obsession) becomes your job? ;-)
Dearest and I invited Shugie and Ronald round to New Year’s Eve parties at ours and, at one time they used to come. (“I’ll have a small sherry please”). As years have passed though they have rarely ventured forth. TWLFWWLND used to pitch up year afetr year though. A woman geared for pleasure. And a nosey sod!
TWLFWWLND peered through Shughie and Ronald’s letter box on Saturday morning. Nobody had seen them for a couple of weeks and the mail was piling up. Shugie’s Neice had called round to ask if anyone had seen them. TWLFWWLND, being an optimist and a nosey fucker, figured a good rap on the door would sort things out. She rapped. She shouted.
She peered through the letter box.
The pair of them were dangling from the banister with ropes round their necks. How long they had been there we don’t yet know, but Shugie’s neice had been trying to contact them for a week – with no response.
Father and son. Dangling together. What unimaginable despair was coursing through their minds at the time?
Sometimes it feels like we’re living in Midsomer.
*Not their real names obviously. But bloody close!
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
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?
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.
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.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
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.
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.
There's a few of us off to the Acoustic Festival of Britain this weekend. Tents 'n' stuff! Wish me luck!
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
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? ;-)
Saturday, May 10, 2008
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.
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