It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year.....

Christmas Eve, sat in the office staring out over the backlit Mancunian landscape. Bored. All my work is done, there’s nobody else in work off my section and the prospect of the rest of the day stretching before me like a desert to be crossed is not to be relished. Some cheery soul from another section has brought a mini ghetto-blaster in and is ‘treating’ us all to the same bloody Christmas tunes we’ve all been forced to listen to in shops, stores and supermarkets for the past two months.

Two words: bah and humbug!

On top of this I have the joy of utilising public transport in order to get home. My car has developed a few problems over recent weeks and a blowing head gasket is the last straw. Time to cut my losses and start the hunt for a replacement although I’ve decided to wait until the New Year in the hope that prices will fall even further. Here’s hoping.

So every morning I’ve been up and out of the house by 7:00 and, on a good day, sat at my desk by 8:00. A bus journey and a tram ride that have turned out to be pretty efficient especially considering just how congested Manchester supposedly is at that time of the morning. In fact the more I have experienced getting into central Manchester before getting a tram out to Trafford just proves how little congestion there is. It really does give lie to the myth peddled by the pro lobby that we were on the verge of meltdown if we didn’t vote the charge in. There’s a definite feeling of schadenfreude as I pass the hundreds of tattered pro-charge posters that are beginning to peel from their billboards, “I want lower bus fares that’s why I’m voting yes”, “I can’t be late for any more meetings that’s why I’m voting yes” and the biggest lie of all “I want to feel safer on the bus that’s why I’m voting yes.” I could never figure that one out. What would the charge pay for? Armed guards? A conductor maybe? Nah it was just CCTV so we could watch reruns of hooded thugs on Crimewatch. Terrorising and assaulting passengers to their heart’s content.

Unless you pay for a months pass upfront (which requires photographic ID and a trip to one of Greater Manchester Transport Authority’s few paypoint shops) it’s an expensive business as well. At straight prices my day’s trip to and from work comes to £11.40 although by utilising a day saver ticket I have managed to reduce that outlay to £7.70. Given that I’ll be off over Christmas and the New Year and that I can’t be sure when I’ll be car-bound again, investing in a monthly pass isn’t on at the moment.

The icing on the cake for us public transport users though is our fellow travellers. Be they angry, chatty, deranged or simply pissed they are a constant joy and it’s well worth the expenditure just to spend time in their company. Hyperactive kids with sugar rushes winding up their can’t-be-arsed parents. Can’t-be-arsed parents listening to Hip Hop and R & B through tinny headphones as their offspring piss off the rest of the bus/tram with screaming and shouting and jumping on and off seats. Effing this and effing that from the mouths of mere babes sometimes but, more often than not from just about everybody who converses. Bliss.

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Youngest and I went to Droylsden FC last night to watch the Mighty Bloods giant-kill Chesterfied Town in the fourth replay of their FA Cup 2nd round fixture. We’ve had two draws, an abandonment due to fog and an abandonment due to failed floodlights.. It was grand! A good crowd of 2,800 turned up and the prices were pegged at £5 and £2 concessions. The clubhouse was heaving. I reckon they pulled in a fair few quid behind the bar alone.

The win wasn’t a fluke either. Droylsden were well worth their victory. Organised and full of endeavour, it was good result against a decent team and we’re all set for the visit to Ipswich Town in round three.

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As I‘ve typed this I’ve become more cheerful. The music’s stopped for a start and the sun is shining brightly. The reason I’ve cheered up is because I suddenly had a flashback to this time last year. Christmas Eve 2007. Throwing it down from dawn till dusk and me traipsing the streets of Glodwick pushing soggy Christmas cards through recalcitrant letter boxes. I’m now counting my blessings. It’s funny actually, there was some discussion of Radio Five Live a couple of weeks ago referring to the Government’s intent on part privatising the Post Office and they had a caller who had been a postman for a while. He said he’d been made redundant from a previous job and was getting pretty desperate by the time he found work with the PO. He said he was very keen to do the job and was eager to please. He said he was overjoyed to be given the opportunity and was grateful to the PO for giving him a chance. However he soon decided he’d had enough and moved on. He said this was because the management style was Dickensian in its approach to staff. Intransigent middle and upper management who were incapable of original though laying down the law and increasing the workload on everyone else according to the caller. He said it was the most misery-inducing job he’d ever had.

And guess where he worked? At the same sorting office I did. And he named it on air. Now my wife believes me when I go on about ‘the bad old days’.

Merry Christmas one and all.

Picture This....

Just a few pics to celebrate the overwhelming 80% no vote in the Mancunian congestion charge farrago. Wa-hey! But now the yes supporters on the City council are telling us that's it! There is no plan B.

Well there feckin' well should be. You're politicians for God's sake. It's your job.

Now get on with it - and make sure plan B isn't as full of logical holes as plan A was.


Deansgate Bokeh.


Nighthawks 2008 (After Hopper)


Waiting for a bus. Manchester December 2008


Through the night.


Trunk. Daisy Nook.


Ent's Feet. Daisy Nook.


Steps. Daisy Nook.


Moving.


Close Encounters...


Mix n Match

See you soon.

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

21st Century Schizoid Man

Wahey, sat here typing straight from my phone. I've inherited one of those MDA phone jobbies. I have a phone and what can only be described as a mobile mini computer with internet access that fits in my shirt pocket. And the Internet access is free! It's also a 2 megapixel camera although the camera is CRAP.

I watched the John Prescott investigation into the class system on iPlayer tonight. My God but his wife's a snob. For a Northern woman, I hsve to say her vowels weren't exactly gutteral.

A Royalist who obviously disagrees with her husband on so many fundamental (in John's eyes) issues, it beggars belief that thay are still together.

John does come across as having a chip on his shoulder though. I would recommend anyone to watch it. It gives a kind of 'Ozzie Osmond' insight into the wonderful world of the Prescotts attempting to still come across as 'working class' and failing.

Right let's see if I can upload this direct from my phone.

Walk Between the Raindrops

Well it looks like Autumn's definitely settled in for the duration. Truly crap weather has been the order of the day for the past week or two. Scudding clouds, wet, damp, cold, windy. Crap.

Still, mustn't grumble. Could be worse I'm sure.

We celebrated the marriage of Mr and Mrs Eldest at Manchester's wonderful town hall the other Saturday and a great success it was too. They had an excellent Beatles tribute band, The Mersey Beatles, who play at The Cavern every week and they were uncannily accurate - 'John' especially. It's a great venue is Alfred Waterhouse's gothic creation, set in Albert Square, it's an architectral delight. Minstrel's galleries, fan vaulting, miles of eerie corridors and Ford Madox Brown's murals. A fitting culmination of marriage festivities. It's real life for the newlyweds from here on.

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I took a trip to the Lowry Centre in Salford Quays to see the wonderful 100 years of Guardian photography exhibition. In 1908 the Manchester Guardian employed its first press photographer Walter Doughty and has only actually employed a handful since. There's a great slideshow and discussion between the late Guardian photographer Denis Thorpe and northern editor Martin Wainwright here. There's some gob-smackingly good work there especially from two of my heroes Don McPhee and Denis Thorpe. Throughout the 1980s I would read the Guardian and these two unfailingly produced great work and had me forlornly trying to reproduce it with my trusty Pentax K1000 and home darkroom. Happy days.

What I did find out at the exhibition was that a familiar face to anyone in the North West, Bob Smithies - TV presenter along with Tony (aka Anthony, aka Anthony H) Wilson on Granada's early evening local news programme, was a Guardian photographer up to 1974. And a bloody good photographer he was too. The clever bugger also had sidline as the Guardian crossword compiler 'Bunthorne'. Sadly he's best remembered round here for a piece to camera he did at Chester Zoo where an elephant kept sticking its trunk in his crotch in search of buns. It still turns up on out takes shows to this day. A true polymath. Big up to you Bob.

So, with a nod and a wink to the above, here are a few of my recent efforts.....


Albert Square, Manchester.


D. I. S. C. O. Manchester Town Hall.


D. I. S. C. O. 2. Manchester Town Hall.


Fountain, Albert Square, Manchester.


The Newly Weds arrive at the town hall.

That's all folks.

Rainy days and Mondays always bring me down.

Back from Santorini where we all (30+ of us) enjoyed a fabulous week that culminated in the marriage of Eldest and Mrs Eldest. The sun shone and occasionally the rain fell, but it shone and fell on a happy band of Brothers and Sisters who made the most of a technicolour interlude away from the constant dull grey of the Mancunian summer of 2008. And guess what we came back to? Constant. Dull. Incessant.

And while we were away Western Capitalism collapsed. I don't know....yer take yer eye off it for a moment......

Still, I'm just glad I'm being given the opportunity to shore up these failing financial institutions and the blood sucking twats who have been doing 'very-nicely-thank-you' over the past 25 years or so via my tax contributions. Can't help but feel that Lloyd-George, Beveridge and Bevin had other ideas for that revenue though. Still......mustn't grumble.

Nice to see City settling down to being a team with magnificent attacking flair and one that has also embraced a defensive naivety that harks back to the good ol' days of the naive defensiveness of the Keegan era. It's good to see these new owners understanding that we need some absolute crapness in order to stay connected with the 'richest club on the planet'.

Here's some pics.......


Oia, Santorini. I defy anyone not to fall in love with this place. Gorgeously photogenic from top to toe. A wonder of the world.


Thira, Santoroni. Just after the sunset. Just perfect.


And the cruise ships head off to their next destination as the Aegian sun starts to disappear.


This just looks like Toytown to me. What a fabulously photogenic place. My eyes couldn't take it all in.


And again.


Obligatory blue church in Greece shot.


A ginnel in Oia, Santorini.

And so, there you have it. Eldest has now tied the knot as well as Youngest. Given the fact that have lived together for almost 2 years, I just hope the change that marriage brings about in the dynamics of a relationship doesn't ultimately rent asunder what that cool Greek guy put together on the top of that cliff last week.

Let's raise a glass to Eldest and Mrs Eldest....Hip Hip......

I'll leave you with a couple of photograph which are amongst my favourites of the past few months.....




I left my tonsils here in 1958.

They're 'regenerating' the part of Manchester that was the World's first Industrial City, although they've renamed it 'New Islington' as opposed to 'Ancoats'. Marketing eh? It's a bitch.

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.

I was so much older then...I'm younger than that now

Before.



During.



After



"Life...go easy on me....love...don't let me down.....

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?

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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?

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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.

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!

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."

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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.

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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.

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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!