Movin' On

I'm becoming addicted to Spotify. I'm becoming addicted to iPlayer. What the hell did I do to entertain myself before the explosion in digital technology? How the hell did I entertain myself in the days before the online home computer? Could I live without it now? Well at a pinch yes but it would be a bloody boring and narrow existence. I can use my PC to watch films and TV shows, listen to the radio, listen to music, record music, capture and edit video, edit and print still photographs, write, keep in touch with people all over the globe.....the list goes on.

It really does beggar belief just how quickly the advances in technology have been dropping into the inbox since the heady days of the Sinclair ZX81, Sinclair Spectrum, Commodore 64 and the Atari ST. But even then, looking back at the leap from the rubber key-padded ZX to the 128Mb of RAM and built in midi ports of the ST, the advances were just as phenomenal. As the hardware improved so did the software. The games got better and especially in the music world, the Atari ST took off with many musicians using this machine and software such as Notator and Creator to create with. It became a familiar fixture in the studio and helped produce albums from the likes of Fatboy Slim, Mike Oldfield and Jean Michel Jarre.

In the 1940s the president of IBM was of the opinion that there was a world market for five computers. At this moment in time I have a PC, and netbook, an old laptop and a mobile phone running Windows mobile with access to the Web. I'm not alone either. The Western world is awash with the things and Western culture is being shaped by them.

I wonder where we'll be in the next ten years?

---

We're off to see a band tonight – The Ukranians at a local Ukrainian club with an Ukrainian friend of ours. Should make a pleasant change and it should be pretty much analogue all the way I guess. Unless they have a drum machine or something, but I can't see that going down well with the audience. They're fierce about their traditions and don't take kindly to anyone taking liberties with them.

Mind you, I will be taking liberties with the Ukranian beer. Obolon is a great drink and, at 5.2% you don't need that much of it to feel in the party mood. So, should be a good night and tomorrow, well I just might have a thick head. It's a hard life but someone's got to do it.

---

This post was brought to you by Spotify which played the following tracks as a wrote it:-

The Flaming Lips – Do You Realize??
The Beta Band – Dry the Rain
Stephen Stills – Colorado
Racing Cars – They Shoot Horses Don't They
Kings of Convenience – Know-How (feat. Feist)
Jesse Malin – Broken Radio
Groundhogs – Mistreated
Prefab Sprout – Electric Guitars
Steely Dan – Bodhisattva
Skin – Simmer Down
Coldplay – Viva la Vida
Super Furry Animals – (Drawing) Rings Around the World
Johny Borrell – Carrickfergus
Steely Dan – Any Major Dude Will Tell You
Jake Thackray – On Again! On Again!
Rancid – Fall Back Down
Ryuchi Sakamoto – Etude
Okkervil River – For Real
Stevie Wonder – For Once in My Life
Grace Jones – Bullshit
Weather Report – Birdland
Joni Mitchell – God Must Be A Boogie Man
Creedence Clearwater Revival – Bootleg
Sly & The Family Stone – Dance to the Music
The Human League – Seconds
Crosby, Stills & Nash – Marrakesh Express
Jethro Tull – Mother Goose
Blur – Tender
Nirvana – Come as You Are
Half Man Half Biscuit – David Wainwright's Feet
Radiohead – High and Dry
Coldplay – Viva la Vida
The Killers – Human
Robbie Robertson – Somewhere Down the Crazy River
Tom Waits – Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis
U2 – Bullet the Blue Sky
Hugh Masekela – Polician
Thomas Dolby – Dissidents
Groove Armada – At The River
Alice Cooper – Elected
Scritti Politti – Wood Beez
The Orb – Little Fluffy Clouds
The Decemberists – Eli, the Barrow Boy
Seth Lakeman – Solomon Browne
Leonard Cohen – Dance Me to the End of Love (Live)
Free – Oh I Wept
Lloyd Cole and the Commotions – Forest Fire
Leonard Cohen – Democracy
Kate Bush – Them Heavy People

Places in my Past

Somewhere on the internet I came across some photographs of the seige of Stalingrad with 'windows' that allowed you to peek through from today to the past. Hard to explain really and I've been unable to find the link since but I thought I'd try it with some pics from my local area.


The Crown and Cushion in 2007 and late 19th century.


The Co-operative Industrial Society Grocery store and opticians. Now a carpet shop.

Into The Mystic.....

Have I just experienced the next great leap forwards in the way we access and listen to music? Whilst thumbing through the latest edition of The Word skimming the eulogies to John Martyn I came across a reference to Spotify. My interest piqued I signed up and sixty seconds later I am listening to whatever I can find that I fancy listening to. I can make up playlists for myself and even share them with like-minded acquaintances who can add their own suggestions. The free service is great with small adverts rearing their ugly heads every fifteen minutes to half an hour or so. Even then it appears that most of them are public service announcements. At the moment I'm listening to Springsteen's Seeger Sessions album (and a fine thing it is too) for free. Furthermore I can listen to it again and again – for free. Now apart from the fact that I haven't got any 'product' in my hands, no CD or LP cover, no CD, LP, cassette, mini disc or whatever, essentially I 'own' the music. The only thing I can't do with it is download it to play in the car or whatever. Mind you I could feed the output into my mini disc recorder and grab it in real time but that would smack too much of taping the Top Twenty when I was a kid.

I guess I could set up my mobile to use it as I get free unlimited Internet access on it, but I've never really adapted to listening to music through headphones whilst working and I probably won't be in the near future. It does make we wonder what the future holds for HMV on the high street though never mind the independents – if there are any left.

---

It's amazing what a good PR person can do for a reputation in steep decline and no one can deny that Jade Goody's was in a steeper decline than most in the immediate aftermath of the Shilpa Shetty Celebrity Big Brother controversy. We saw the reality of shallow, ill-educated, sleb-obsessed wannabes resorting to type and the nation didn't like it. We even had questions in the House and the show's sponsors pulled the plug.

Goody knew she had killed the Golden Goose and a frantic rearguard action consisting of tearful, snotty interviews in which she apologised again and again and insisted she wasn't a 'racialist' time and time again was soon being broadcast every time you turned the TV or radio on. At the time it didn't seem to be doing the trick until Max Clifford stepped up to the plate. From then on the remorseless return of Jade Goody was on track. Would it be nasty to suggest that the cancer was turned into an opportunity to re-entrench the Goody brand even more and, who knows maybe attract new, pitying supporters? Would it? It's not much of an opportunity now though is it? Not now it's terminal. Still, at least Ms Goody has the nation on her side again.

Unhappily though that is not the end of the Goody media frenzy. We are now to be spectators at her very public death. Not only that, the tabloids are full of photographs of 'brave' Jade, her vacuous boyfriend and her horrific mother. The fact that she only has months to live was headline news on BBC Radio Five on Saturday morning. God knows what Lord Reith's doing in his grave but I'll wager he won't be giving the thumbs up.

---

I was directed to a blog written by Boo Hewerdine in which he talks about a game he likes to play when he's on the road. You take a group's name (or an artist I suppose) and you drop one vowel from the name to make a new – better and funnier – name. The examples he comes up with are Chin Crisis, White Tripes, Tin Turner, Codplay, Airport Convention, Little Fat, The Lying Burrito Brothers, Take Hat and the truly exquisite Grateful Dad!

C'mon, can you improve on that?


Towards Manchester


Scout Moor


Trees and snow


Scout Moor triple exposure.

That's all folks!

First of the Gang to Die....

Way back in August I referred to a phenomenon from the nineteenth century known a 'scuttling'. A purely Mancunian word to describe a particularly Mancunian approach to juvenile gang warfare. It's not that gang warfare didn't exist in other industrial cities, it's just that the Mancunian approach concentrated on violence without the petty theft that often accompanied it in other areas. Oh, and the fact that it was called 'scuttling' and the perpetrators were called 'scuttlers' was uniquely Mancunian also.

As a result of that post and a fairly long quotation from an online paper on the subject, I received a comment from the author of the paper – Andrew Davies, a senior lecturer in history at the University of Liverpool and one time resident of Salford. In an Obama-like internet call to arms Andrew thanked me for the post and informed that his book – The Gangs of Manchester (The Story of the Scuttlers) had just been published. I bought it. I read it. I enthused about it. I became a bit of a bore about it (probably) . And now I've got other people reading it and hopefully embracing the history that's all around them.

The places referred to in the book are part of my very DNA. My entire childhood was peppered with the names of faraway places like Ancoats, Miles Platting, Harpurhey, Collyhurst, New Cross, Gorton, Ardwick.....and not one of these places more than four or five miles away from my home in what seemed (at the time) like the countryside of Failsworth/Woodhouses. But they were all, even in the late Fifties and Sixties talked about as though the very Devil himself lurked within. Teddy Boys, Tinkers and Bogey Men were all to be found from Newton Heath onwards as you headed towards Manchester and woe-betide any poor unfortunate who dared cross the edge of Failsworth into the badlands.

The book opens with a trip back to the the night of Sunday, August 3rd 1890 as a gang of youths from Harpurhey march towards Manchester, armed with the Scuttler's stock-in-trade weaponry of knives and heavy-buckled belts to meet the most notorious gang in Manchester – The Bengal Tigers. As it happens the Harpurhey crew (posse?) were victorious that night though four of them were sentenced, two to five years' penal servitude, one for twelve months and one for six months.

A fifth – John Ford – had an alibi and was acquitted. John Ford. The name jumped out at me from page three. John Ford. Harpurhey, John Ford. My maternal grandad was called John Ford. He was originally from Harpurhey. His family had been there for years . His family had a habit (or maybe a tradition) of naming their first born sons John. Just like I did when I first became a dad. Now the John Ford referred to couldn't have been my grandad as he was born in 1910 or thereabouts but it is possible, just possible that the acquittee is some relation. I'll be rootling around Ancestry dot com over the coming weeks.

Apart from the frisson of excitement at the name though, there is much working class and proto-underclass history in these pages. The squalor of the living conditions, the mindless repetitive work, when available, the draw of the pub, the lack of education, the lack of constructive leisure activities, the lack of aspiration.

Fascinating. Get it bought and read and stop believing the Daily Mail when it keeps telling you that youthful gang violence, stabblings and murder are a unique product of the modern world , the likes of which we have never seen before.

In the Bleak Midwinter....

I've treated myself to one of these. An Acer Aspire Netbook. £150 for a 120Gb hard disk, 512Mb RAM and a Linux OS. Out of the box and onto my wireless network within minutes. It comes with a media player, OpenOffice for MS compatible word processor, spreadsheet, presentation graphics etc., photo editor/viewer, games and...well pretty much all you need for surfing on the go. I got it from ASDA a one week deal apparently, they normally retail at £230ish. So a good deal.

It will be ideal on holiday. I can use it to backup my photographs or even dump them into some online storage. I use Carbonite at the moment so that is an option. I've been wary of losing pics ever since I realised that all my snaps of Peter Green from about five years ago had disappeared along with quite a few others, probably the victim of a disk crash or, more likely an accidental loss due to a reload of an OS. I've been a lot more careful since but even so, when I'm holiday I'm always conscious of the fact that the only copy of my photographs is on the camera.

We're off to Barcelona in March and the hotel has free wi-fi so this little bundle of fun should keep me entertained when the sightseeing, eating and drinking is over.

---

Looks like the Artic weather is on its way, the snow flakes are beginning to float by my window. (16:15 Sunday 1st Feb). The forecast for next week is snow and ice brrrr. I'm just glad that the car I've got now has a decent heater so the journey to work (which will presumably take longer because of the snow) should at least be comfortable.

Later

Just back from the pub and the streets have a good 2 inches that appears to be freezing. We were hoping to be snowed in in the pub but there you go.

The day after.

I woke up this morning to a good 3 to 4 inches. Off to work with no problem until I found myself behind three buses all on the same route, all with the same route number. Result? Well congestion, and lots of it. It took ages before the vast queue of traffic could, bit by bit, overtake it. What got me was that two of them were from the same bus company – competing with each other to pick up the non-existent passengers.

---

All day I sat looking out of the window at swirling snow. At times it looked like we were in some huge snow globe. Most of the time the flakes appeared to be heading upwards. I feared that driving home could be a problem but with this being the soft, southern side of Manchester, none of it stuck. It wasn't until I got back to the frozen north that the roads became perilous.

It's now 9-o-clock on Monday evening and it's been snowing for a good five hours. Tomorrow will be fun.


Scouthead


Dovestones


Hilton Hotel (Beetham Tower) Central Manchester


Manchester Beer Festival. Random stranger.


Hilton Hotel (Beetham Tower) Central Manchester.

That's all folks!

One Day Without You

So that great listing galleon of a man has finally accepted the inevitable, had one last tipple, written one last heart-wrenchingly beautiful masterpiece, tucked into one last 'full Irish' and died an old man's death. Pneumonia I believe. Well I can relate to that. It has been killing folk who would've normally died many years older for more years than I care to remember.

A completely prosaic death for a bloke who adored living 'outside the system'. A bloke who rejected 'normality (whatever that is!) A bloke who ticked every Bohemian checklist going. A bon vivant outsider who could document the stresses and strains of life that the rest of us could recognise. A Rock 'n' Roller.

Well I'm sorry John (Iain actually) but that wasn't a Rock 'n Roll death. Not a car crash. Not a plane crash. Not a drugs overdose. Not even an accident as a result of indulging in some sado-masochistic sexual fantasy. Nah, not you, you rebel. Pneumonia in some impersonal block, with a weeping leg, soiled sheets and a nurse who probably couldn't give a fuck. A normal death.

I tell who will be 'giving a fuck' though John, all those labels you lent your name to. All those bootleggers who sat on their goods knowing that you would probably shuffle long before they did. Money in the bank they reasoned and now their ship has come in.

But in spite – no, probably because of all that, I just couldn't love you more.

---

In his last interview which you can read here, he was asked what life had taught him. He answered:

“It's taught me two things. One is that I honestly believe no man who has ever lived has had more fun than me. The second is that living full on is the best fucking way to do it and I would absolutely do it all again in a fucking moment!”

Bravado? Or honesty? Well it doesn't matter now does it? He's just carbon. Carbon without the guitar skills and raw musical honesty. Just a cadaver lay in some Irish morgue waiting for the final rituals. Just a memory.

But what beautiful memories.

I Started Out With Nothing And I've Still Got Most Of It Left...

Y’know, God knows I find the amounts of money swilling round the Premiership offensive and the amounts of money swilling around my club in particular. I find the over-inflated wage packets of even the most mediocre players distasteful, the ostentatious displays of wealth unpalatable and the media’s obsession with the top echelons of the footballing world irritating.

And it’s all Manchester City’s fault. Apparently.

Our vast wealth is distorting the market it seems, so much so that the traditional big hitters are not happy. The not-so-big-hitters are not happy and the (mainly southern) media are positively livid.

Take this vitriolic bile from the Daily Telegraph:-

“Send in the clowns - it's another episode in the sad saga of Manchester City

Long-suffering fans of Manchester City (are there any other kind?) like to bolster their spirits by croaking Blue Moon – or those two lines of the song they can remember.

By Michael Henderson

Under fire: Manchester City executive chairman Garry Cook (right) has come in for some criticism over his handling of the potential Kaka transfer to Eastlands.

But it is another Rodgers and Hart classic that defines the club's character: Glad to be Unhappy.

"Look at yourself", goes Lorenz Hart's introductory verse. "If you had a sense of humour, you would laugh to beat the band". They might not be chortling in Miles Platting right now but everywhere else people are roaring. At a time of global uncertainty you can always rely on 'Cit-eh' to don red noses in the noble cause of cheering us all up, and they have not disappointed.

Being a laughing-stock in England was never enough for a club of such overwhelming ambition. Now, after a week of buffoonery unparalleled in the history of football, they have finally achieved the international recognition they craved for so long. Manchester's little-regarded other team is now a laughing-stock throughout the world!

Take a bow, Garry Cook, but please, keep that blessed cap and those precious bells, for they suit you so well. Goodness gracious, has there ever been so preposterous a figure in English football? Michael Knighton, possibly, but the portly ball-juggler never actually got his mitts on the Reds. Cook, by contrast, has anointed himself as a modern-day Diaghilev, chief impresario at the Theatre of Base Comedy, as Stuart Hall once dubbed it, and nobody can say he has let the audience down.

Comedians to the world! Even the great Morecambe and Wise couldn't pull off that trick. Yet, by reducing Mark Hughes, a manager of some promise, to the rank of errand boy, endorsing a transfer policy that values Craig Bellamy at a cool 14 million smackers, and now, after the humiliation of Milan, hurling insults at one of the world's grandest clubs, the former sportswear salesman has won the gratitude of millions.

One can just about forgive him for talking of 'the City project', and even something called 'the broader community'. These salespeople imbibe such claptrap with their mother's milk and besides, not all the fans seem to care one way or t'other. The City supporters were not greatly bothered by Thaksin Shinawatra's millions and now that billions are sloshing their way from the oilfields of Abu Dhabi, they think that's quite a wheeze, too.

But when the mouthpiece of a club synonymous with high-spending failure accuses Milan of lacking 'sophistication', it is surely time to start counting the spoons. To demean the club you represent so shamelessly in public does not merely insult Milan; it insults the game itself. Even a candy-coated charmer like Cook must know he will never again be taken seriously by anybody in the game.

The mood may be changing because it is clear that a growing number of City fans are deeply ashamed of their club's conduct.

It is also clear that the Land of Plenty that Cook claims to see is so far away that you need a visa to get there, and not many leading players are prepared to have their passports stamped.

Kaka did the football world a huge favour when he knocked back Cook and his associates. It is now time for Mark Hughes to do the game another good turn. If he stays at Eastlands Hughes will be forced to walk the plank sooner rather than later, so he may as well leave now, on his own terms.

Hughes is an intelligent man who should, in time, become a successful manager, but he will never be allowed to manage independently at a club like Manchester City. Were he to walk out now nobody would hold a thing against him. It is the best course, and he shouldn't think twice about it.

Cook, meanwhile, can get on writing his memoirs, which are provisionally titled Golfing with Thaksin. He can also get on with the delightful business of recruiting some more 'humanitarians' for the 'project'. That, apparently, was the thing about Kaka, not his ball skills.

On Wednesday night it was reported that City were preparing to make an eight-figure offer for Archbishop Desmond Tutu. 'The dynamics', said a club spokesman, 'feel right'.”

Now by any standards I would call vitriolic, indeed I could probably go further and call it downright nasty, so nasty in fact that it elicited this response from a Manchester United fan:-

“I must admit, as a Manchester United Supporter I find this article absolutely disgusting.

Fair enough if you dont agree with the way City are going about their business, but this was some of the most shocking journalism I have ever seen. First of all instead of providing your opinion backed up with facts to prove what you have said, you have just talked complete drivel, and secondly you have completely insulted every person associated with the club. I as a Manchester United fan obviously don’t see eye to eye with the fans, but at least our banter has a purpose (as local rivals) and isn’t just an attack on a random football club.

With us deep in a recession i think your job should go to a journalist who can actually provide an argument worthy of discussion as quite frankly i am suprised you are not just making the tea in that office.

As for “hurling insults at one of the world's grandest clubs”, weren’t Milan docked 15 points for their part in Serie A’s match fixing scandal a few season’s back? Still this guy is a journalist ‘in-the-know’. Here’s what he had to say before the Manchester Derby when the Munich Disaster was remembered:-

"Manchester City have sent out letters to those fans who will attend the game, asking them to behave, but that's rather like asking the wind not to blow. It is likely the silence will be broken. If so it would be nice to think that the offenders will be exposed and punished appropriately "

No word of an apology after the impeccably observed silence. Mind you, a little further research has revealed that he was born in Manchester and now lives in London. I suspect his leanings are toward a certain football club from Trafford Park.

Sadly though, the article is representative of the media’s approach to Manchester City’s new found wealth in general: bitterness and outrage. It would be a different kettle of fish if it was Manchester United, Chelsea, Liverpool or Arsenal. The cosy ‘top four’ that the press feel comfortable with, the Status Quo the ‘which one of top four will win the Title, Cup, Champion’s League this season?” Moreover, I think the bitterness and outrage would be the same if it was Hull City, Everton, Sunderland, West Brom or Aston Villa. Not fashionable you see. Not glamorous enough. Provincial.

The offer for Kaka was obscene according to the media – how many hospitals and schools could be built with that sort of money? (Not many actually but even so, isn’t it the Government’s job to build schools and hospitals? Not Arabic billionaires certainly. And furthermore how many schools and hospitals could we build with the money being wasted in Iraq and shoring up banks?)

Now I happen to agree that the offer was obscene (and incidentally too much too soon), but I don’t remember the same charges being hurled at Real Madrid when they came in with a destabilizing offer of £80m for Ronaldo in the summer and I certainly don’t remember bile-filled journalistic rants about the obscenity of Rio Ferdinand costing £30m six years ago when United made him the World’s most expensive defender. And what of Chelsea’s elevation in the wake of the Abromovitch buyout? Did that result in an outpouring of bile on a level with what City are experiencing? No it didn’t.

But, onwards and upwards, with a bit of luck this may inculcate a siege mentality in our over paid precious ones. A bit like Sir Alex manages to create.

Went to see Richard Thompson on his 1000 years of popular music tour last week. Excellent and thoroughly recommended. A two hour journey from the 12th century to Nellie Furtado via Henry Purcell, Richard the Lionheart, Renaissance Italy, Old English Folk, The Ink Spots, Abba, The Kinks, Gilbert and Sullivan, The Corgis and the Easybeats. I forget just what a superb guitarist Mr Thompson is and the way played all these different styles on one or two acoustics (and on one number a hurdy gurdy) was pretty damn impressive.

Went to see Seasick Steve last night with Dearest, Eldest and Mrs Eldest and Youngest and Mrs Youngest. Once again thoroughly brilliant night. Just Seasick and a drummer and a percussionist. Just perfect.

Tomorrow will be a walk round Manchester camera in hand before pitching up at a beer festival near Victoria Station before meal and then more beer (probably).

It’s a hard life but someone’s got to do it.

High Hopes

Just a quick 'Yay' for Obama - America's first ecru President.

Don't let us down Barack...And rescue those in need from Hard Times.

Here's another Kate and Anna McGarrigle version from the days when Rufus Wainwright was still pubescent. Come again no more.



Have some pictures from proper photographers:-

Hope?

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

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?

---

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.

---

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....

---

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.

---

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.

---

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.