Way Down in the Hole

I may be no economist, I may have a fractious relationship with basic arithmetic and I may be past my prime, but ask anyone who knows me and they will attest to the absolute fact that, ever since Baronet Gideon Osborne's emergency budget I have been asking how cutting jobs in the Public Sector will magically create more jobs in the private sector?   I can't grasp the whole 'throw people out of work to kick start the economy' argument.  I don't understand how taking a wage packet off someone will encourage them to spend.  I don't understand how taking away someone's tax-paying ability and replacing it with benefits helps to cut the deficit either.  

That's what I've been saying.  

And now we sit staring into the abyss of a 'double dip' recession.  Well done Gideon and by the way, how's your fortune bearing up?  I hope you've got it safely tucked away somewhere where the vagaries of the current economic climate can't buffet it too much.  We wouldn't want you to have to worry unduly about your own finances given the difficult job you've ended up giving yourself with your 'there is no plan B' mantra.

Only it's looking increasingly likely there is going to be a 'plan B' after all.  Only it won't be called 'plan B' because that would make someone look a pillock wouldn't it?  There will be a 'not plan B' because more and more clever buggers who know about these things are queueing up to tell Gideon he needs a plan B or else we're really going to end up deep in the mire.  I hope the Baronet listens because I have more faith in people trained thoroughly in these matters rather than a Chancellor who only got the job because he knows the Prime Minister.

Still, what do I know?  Disposable incomes falling fast, unemployment rising daily, Sure Start Centres closing, libraries shutting, sports facilities being priced out of reach of many, riots on the streets, budgets slashed, savage cuts in welfare, waiting times increasing, prices increasing, economic growth static, inflation rising and Libya alone costing us £1.5million a day........that's about £270million so far .......we've never had it so good.

Speaking of Libya I like the way the powers that be keep referring to the money being wasted spent as coming from the 'special reserve' as though it somehow isn't taxpayer's money and shouldn't be thought of as being put to better use funding social care or even paying off the deficit a little less painfully.  No it's a 'special reserve', it's not for the likes of us to be bailed out with.  Who do we think we are?

Then again, I'm the sort of thicko who can't grasp the fact that offering hospitals to foreign companies isn't privatising the NHS.  I'm the type of brain-dead arsehole who doesn't understand there's a glaring contradiction in recommending that police officers in office jobs should be replaced by civilians when the same government is attempting to convince us that 'back office' jobs can be got rid of.  I'm the type of dumb schmuck who isn't intellectually able to grasp the fact that you don't need a mandate to push through any-old ill-considered, knee-jerk legislative pish you want to.

And it's going to get worse.

So I'm off on my hols - 2 weeks being cinderised in the cauldron of Kos.  iPod full and charged, Kindle loaded and charged.  There's free wifi so I'll take along my Netbook.  Boredom shouldn't be an option.

It'll feel good pumping some cash back into Greece's depleted coffers.  A Greek spokesperson has predicted a 'tsunami of poverty' once the tourist season is over.  Cuts in social spending , the first thing the European Central Bank demands when loans are requested.  Impacting those least able to deal with it.  

There was a lot of talk just after the riots a few weeks ago that, in a democracy, rioting has no political legitimacy.  That is true.  But a nation that consistently votes against the type of cuts that are forced on them because the over-ambitious, greedy tossers at the top of the food chain saw an easy way to accumulate a fortune will soon deduce that they don't live in a democracy.  Once that tipping point is reached the ideological vacuum that follows can be filled with all sorts.  We live in interesting times.

 

 

We've had a few odd instances with my Mother recently.  Most of the time she's as fine as can be expected, but every now and then deep confusion reigns.  She's no longer safe to go outside alone as she hasn't a clue where anything is.  She trundles off to the lounge each afternoon for a gab , sing song or bingo and generally bobs along with no real problem.

The other week Dearest called round to see her to do some shopping.  My Mother told her she was lucky she came when she did as she had just been to the butchers for some sausages.  Now there hasn't been an independent butchers in the locality for close on twenty years.  The only place sausages can be purchased are Tescos or Morrisons - both way beyond my Mother's walking distance.  Dearest just smiled and nodded and asked if there was anything else she wanted apart from the usual.  Mother said no so Dearest went to the fridge to see what she was running short of.

There on the top shelf were ten sausages wrapped in plain paper.

"Were have you got these sausages from?"

"I told you, the butchers."

"Which butchers?  There's not a butcher round here and these obviously aren't Tesco or Morrison's sausages."

My Mother's getting a bit annoyed now.  "I'm sick of telling you: I got them from the butchers 'round the corner!"

"Well where are you going to cook them?"

"I'll grill them."

"You haven't got a grill."

"I have, I do my toast in it!"

"That's a toaster.  You can't cook sausages in a toaster."

At this point Mam gets really angry so Dearest beats a retreat and goes to do her shopping.  When she returns she asks around if anyone knows where she got the sausages from.  One old dear tells her that my Mam had gone out the day before.  She had caught a bus to Manchester and bought some sausages.  She said she had seen her leave.

This was worrying.  As Dearest left the lounge she could hear the other residents saying she shouldn't have told us about my Mam as she wasn't supposed to go out alone.  In effect they were accusing her of 'dobbing' my Mam in.  It was hard to believe that she had been out at all never mind get herself to Manchester and back, but the sausages were in the fridge.

The sausages were in the fridge.

We racked our brains.  We asked around.  Nobody knew.  We were faced with the worrying prospect that my Mother was wandering about the streets at will.  

I was having sleepless nights again.

A week went by and the warden - who had been on leave - called me into her office as I was leaving one afternoon.  My Mother had got the sausages from the onsite restaurant.  Thinking it was a shop she walked in and asked for ten sausages as I was going to be coming for something to eat after work.  She said she needed ten because I had a large appetite.  The cheeky bugger!  

She goes in the same place most days for her dinner - but on this occasion it was a shop.  It's hard to grasp what's going on in her head.

The sausages have been discretely disposed of and life has returned to 'normal' again.

 

As I write she has just phoned to let me know she is staying in her flat tonight.  She says she'll go home tomorrow.

Now, where's my medication?

I used to be the main express..all steam and whistles heading west... I was sat in my office gazing at the slate grey scudding skies of summer and musing - as one is want to do when the task in hand is tediously uninspiring - on life, the universe and everything.  I became aware of the dull pain in my left hip, probably the beginning of some form of arthritis according to the Doc.  I was also conscious of the fact that I would soon be needing the toilet again as the diuretic prescribed to help with my blood pressure took effect.  I removed my glasses to clean them and realised I was helpless without them.  I was struggling to keep my eyes open after another restless night and I knew I had hours of tedium in front of me.  Suddenly a thought hit me! I'm past my prime. In fact I'm well past my prime.  My prime must have been way back because, the more I thought about it, the more I couldn't actually pinpoint when my prime was.  This was disconcerting.  Had I ever had a prime?  Does anyone ever have a prime?  I know that Miss Jean Brodie was confident in her assertion that 'she was in her prime' but I seem to recollect that it was more an act of desperation - although I could be wrong, my memory certainly isn't in it's prime. I'm coming to the conclusion that a prime can only be recognised after it's gone and then it's more of a 'I must've been in my prime then' assumption.  I guess I was in my prime in my late 20s - early 30s when I was playing table-tennis, squash, football on a regular basis.  When I would be enjoying some rough and tumble with my kids and when I was working long hours and walking 6 miles a day to get there and back. I didn't feel in my prime though.  In fact I was knackered most of the time and, if you add the battle to pay mortgages, feed and clothe children and the myriad quotidian drain on resources we encountered you wouldn't want to describe it as a prime.  Not by any stretch of the imagination.  In fact I can remember dreaming of some later time when I would be comfortably off and still have my faculties in tact, a time when I would be in my prime. And then you get on with life and before you know it that elusive, mercurial, whimsical 'prime' has passed.   Bugger! Recently I have been re-acquainting myself with old tapes I (with others) recorded about twenty years ago.  In the midst of much weird stuff, straight stuff and shockingly poor stuff were many ditties that had completely slipped my mind.  Imagine my feeling of synchronicity when I came across a demo for a track that looks back on my prime!  My prime at that time I took to be when I was 18 and the lyrics reflect a wry piss take of the fashions and music of the time as well as a yearning for times past. Funny isn't it, but now I'm looking at twenty years ago, when I would have been in my late 30s recording this demo and considering the possibility that too was a 'prime'.  Certainly compared to the way I feel nowadays.  All I seem to experience is a loss of faculties and general decay.   Mind you, in about 20 years, if I'm still here, I'll look back at 2011 and think "I was still in my prime back then" Anyway, here it is: 'A Long Time Ago Demo'.  Just me and Bella my Fylde acoustic.

 A Long Time Ago Demo by Occupied Country

Some pics:-

The Manchester Day parade

The Manchester Day parade...the Gallaghers apparently

View from Cloud 23 bar on the 23rd of the Beetham Tower

View from Cloud 23 bar on the 23rd of the Beetham Tower looking north across the GMEX roof

View from Cloud 23 bar on the 23rd of the Beetham Tower looking North towards the town hall and library

View from Cloud 23 bar on the 23rd of the Beetham Tower town hall and library

Tram stop

The Hulme arch - symbol of regeneration

City of Manchester stadium

City of Manchester stadium with the moors behind

Cloud 23 seating

John Ryland's magnificent library with added street furniture

Making Movies

I'm trying to understand video editing software.  The simplest one I've come across is the bundled Windows Movie Maker (or whatever it's called).  It seems logical and is all I really need to make some coherent little films of my family - Littlest in particular.  What it won't do though - and I know this from a) bitter experience and b) a trawl through the forums on t'Internet is save any videos if there are quite a few captions on it.  It simply crashes.  Thanks Bill.  Now, I like to *ahem* enhance my meagre offerings with pithy comments and, on occasion, a cheerful aside to add a bit of interest to the generally bland 'home movie' style of my errrrmmmm....home movies and I have spent quite a long time editing so the comments and captions appear at the right moments.  It's only when you come to save your epic though that you find out the software can't handle simple things like exporting the project.


So this Bank holiday weekend I decided to see if I could acquire a reasonable priced package that would allow me to edit and caption my movies.  After mooching around I found myself in PC World (I know.....) where I came across Adobe Premiere Elements 8 for £29.  That'll do I thought and was soon on my way back home with my 'complete solution for my videos' under my arm..


Later as I opened the box I was surprised to find a basic instruction manual, a leaflet with an advert for Adobe Photoshop whatever on it and bog all else.  I looked around in case the software had silently fallen out of the box but it hadn't.  I scrutinised the small print on the box:  'Contents - Adobe Premiere Elements 8 Software'.  I scrutinised the inside of the box:  nothing.


So eventually I get back in the car, drive all the way back to the soulless retail park with more car parking than retail outlets and queue for feckin' ages at the 'Returns and Customer Enquiries' counter.  As you can imagine - this being PC World - the queue was massive and, incidentally, nobody was singing Que Sera.  Eventually I fetched up in front of Gavin, my very own customer care champion and explained the position.  To give him his due he was very polite and didn't try to infer that I had stolen the software and was trying to blag another copy.  No, he apologised profusely and went to get a replacement box which on opening was also devoid of software.  He tried another - a pattern was emerging.  Gavin would need to see his line manager who just happened to be passing.  "We've got a problem here Jason, there's no software in this shipment of Adobe Premiere."


Jason was at first quizzical but then assured.  He picked up the phone to the warehouse and a minute or so later the problem had been solved.  All the software was taken out of the boxes and stored in the warehouse in case of thieves and ne'er-do-wells.  A minion was despatched forthwith to bring my copy.  Gavin was relieved and, when Jason was out of earshot confided to Janice that he didn't know software was taken out of the boxes on account of  pricks.  I was more than surprised to hear that Janice didn't either.  Nor Ian, Chris, Mike or Kieron. 


Surely I wasn't the only person who had been allowed to leave the bloody shop without my copy of the software?  Was I?


Anyway I spent the evening messing about with the program.  It's not simple at all.  In fact parts defy my particular logic but that probably says more about me than the programmers.  In the end I married some footage of poppies and other flowers taken in Kephalonia with an instrumental I wrote and recorded back in the early 90s.  The music was an attempt to reflect the summer of 1914.  I envisaged long focus shots of young Edwardian men and women perambulating in a local park dressed in their Sunday best.  The air heavy with seed as the late afternoon sun haloed their backlit heads and all was well with the world.  It ends on a discordant echoed chord to signify the end of innocence.  It seemed apt.

In other news my mother has broken her wrist after going to catch a bus somewhere (or so she seems to think).  Coherence really isn't her strong point at the moment.  Will this be me in twenty or so years?  I bloody well hope not.  If only I could drink less, eat more healthily and exercise more I could have another thirty or so years in me.  Mind you it would probably feel like forty.

I've bought her a wheelchair as she has periods when she really isn't good on her legs and, with the help of Social Services we're getting along OK.

I watched that John Simm/Jim Broadbent drama the other week.  Broadbent playing a character with Alzheimer's to perfection.  There was one scene where John Simm (playing Broadbent's son) reminds him his wife is dead.  Broadbent can't believe it and howls his anguish as though learning for the first time that Edith was gone.  It was beautifully played.

About thirty minutes later my mobile went.  It was my Mother.

"Can you phone your Dad and let him know I'm staying here tonight.  I've tried him on the landline but I can't get through?"

Now in the past when she's forgotten my Dad's dead I've gently reminded her but on this occasion, after the drama I decided to go along with it.  I told her not to worry I'd see to it that he got the message and that she should get some sleep.  I figured she would have forgotten in the morning.  And she had.  

And finally some silverware has arrived to stand proudly in the dusty trophy cabinet at Eastlands.  About bloody time too.  Dearest and I had a great evening out watching the team parade the FA Cup through the centre of Manchester.  The torrential rain that had been pouring all day like some natural metaphor for our years of gloom suddenly stopped and the sun shone.  Yay!

Blue

Contre Jour

Tony Auton Rocks Out

Victor Brox sings the Blues

Little Monster

Palma Nova

Underground

Home is where the Music is



When I was a young pup and 'twas bliss in that very dawn to be alive', I would sometimes take a relatively expensive leap in the dark and fork out for an album that I knew absolutely nothing about. I was hungry for the new. You didn't get much opportunity to hear new stuff back then. The Peel programme was an obvious source but, generally it was too much all at once. It seemed as if the entire thing consisted of unheard of and challenging material.


Most of the time I could get by on what I already had - or what my mates would lend me - but, occasionally, just occasionally, I needed something else. I would forego a weekend on the razz with my mates and invest in the unknown.

Many a time I missed the target - forgetable albums from forgotten 'pushers of the envelope'. But, on two occasions I hit paydirt.

Curtis Mayfield. Roots. Was a revelation. I loved it and love it still but I'd already heard some of Mayfield's stuff so it really wasn't out of the blue.

Early in 1972 I would have been 17. When the 'Neu Musik' bug hit I would head off to Manchester on a Saturday morning, pound notes in hand, loon pants flapping in the wind and platform soles adding a good four inches to my snake hipped frame. First stop would be the second hand record stalls on Church Street - now sadly gone. There was no Vinyl Exchange back then - shame, I would've been one of their regulars. After that, down to St Ann's Square to 'Paperchase'.

Upstairs it was a regular provider of stationery and suchlike but, for those in the know, downstairs was an impossibly cool record shop. Everything about the place oozed uber-chic. It was only the absolute certainty of the young that gave me balls to even enter. Looking back it wouldn't have surprised me if Jack Black had been disdainfully sneering at all and sundry from behind the counter but usually it would be an unattainable hippie Goddess with impeccable musical taste and flowing, etheral locks and huge eyes. A few years later I nipped in while in Manchester with my Grandad to pick some esoteric rarity up when I heard my Grandad ask the vision behind the counter if she had a copy of 'Morning Has Broken' by Edward Woodward. I never went back.

But I digress. On this particular day I bought an album that soon went out of print and, after years of trying to find it on CD or anything has finally just been re-issued. Hugh Masekela's 'Home is Where the Music Is'.  If you have a Spotify account then here you go: Hugh Masekela – Home Is Where The Music Is,  If not  you'll have to make do with the samples on Amazon.  I was going to post a track using Soundcloud but David Geffen won't let me.

It was the cover artwork that first attracted me.  Modern representations of Africans that seemed to me then - and now - vital and honest.  I hoped it would reflect the music within the sleeve and I wasn't wrong.  The opening Fender Rhodes riff on 'Part of a Whole' had me hooked and from there on in it wasn't hard for me to wallow.  It has become a part of my personal soundtrack.  I can't really remember a time without me knowing every solo, bass line, drum break and exquisite ensemble interaction.

The original's in the loft with a few hundred other long players.  The CD reissue has most - but not all - of the album sleeve's artwork and the 1972 back cover portrait of Mr Masekela is now the front cover, but you can't have everything as countless adults have been telling me all my life.

And what a line up - Masekela and Dudu Pukwana, Larry Willis, Makaya Ntshoko, Eddie Gomez with Caiphus Semenya providing a lot of the material and producing as well.

January 1972 it was recorded.  I'd just started working as a wages clerk in a local builders.  I just knew that one day I'd be sat where Larry Willis was.

Memories.......

Just before last Christmas I wrapped myself in copious layers and braved the frozen Northern air to meet up with Eddie the Slim.  We were off to a gig.  I am Kloot were playing at Manchester Cathedral.  I quite like I am Kloot and was happy to fork £18 or whatever it was to see them, but I must admit to being more intrigued by the notion of the Cathedral as a venue.  

Dating from the 15th century this Gothic magnificence is as fine a place as any for the more understated type of gig.  AC/DC would probably find it restricting but Hayseed Dixie would be just right.  On this particular night Kloot were just perfect.  Low key songs of angst were sombrely suited to the gloomy interior.  The only drawback was that it was cold, but then again outside it was bloody freezing and snow was blowing.

Two impromptu and extremely busy bars had been set up at the rear serving a range of bottled beers which added to the overall ambience.  I was a little fearful that there would be no alcohol on account of the Lord and everything so that was an added bonus.

It was a great night apart from one little grumble.  The toilets were an absolute disgrace!  Not, I must add, due to the defecatory habits of our fellow gig-goers, but the facilities on offer.

Three distressed cublicles leaning against the east wall devoid of light and tap water.  Moreover, three UNISEX distressed cublicles.  Standing in the queue as the snow whipped around, slowly shuffling forward with a sense needful dread was not a pleasant experience I can tell you.  Finally getting in one of the damn things was akin to a particularly tough Krypton Factor task.  Pitch black for a start.  Any light would have be acquired by opening the door as you took to the task in hand with a shuffling queue of onlookers to witness your every move.  To add an extra frisson of excitement to the whole enterprise, each cubicle was pitched at a slight angle.  It was a memorable enough experience standing up, God knows what it must've been like squatting above it. And no hand washing facilities either.  

And there was me thinking cleaniness was next to Godliness.

Post gig we retired to one of Manchester's finest hostelries: The Hare and Hounds on Shudehill - Just round the corner from The Band on the Wall.  A Joseph Holts pub and a mighty fine one at that.  The interior is all Victorian tiles and mahogony.  It's a compact little place and a pint of Joey Holt's bitter will set you back about  £2:00.  The trouble with Holts' beer is it doesn't travel, so to try it at it's best you'll have to come to Manchester.  Worth it though.

Slim and I were on our second or third pint when a couple in their early thirties sat at a nearby table.  They overheard us talking about the gig and assumed we had been to see Weller at the MEN Arena.  They had and started telling us about how great he was.  In between this they somehow manged to convey the fact that they had a three quarters of a million pound house in Worsley and had dragged themselves up from the backstreets of Salford.  It was obvioulsy a tale perfected in the constant re-telling and we wondered how many other poor buggers they had bored rigid.  Swanking my Mother would've called it.

During the husband's critique of Weller's performance he pointed out the the Modfather had performed quite a number of Beatles' numbers.  This upset him apparently: "why does he have to spoil it playing shit by them Scouse bastards?"

Shit. From. Them. Scouse. Bastards.

Arsehole

Who knows where the time goes......

Ooooh..I wonder where that month went?  Another one down the pan, zipped by like a nanosecond and now gone forever.  When I look back in a few weeks, that month will be a vague mish-mash of memories only a few of which will be readily retrievable:  a lovely sunny afternoon in our recently reclaimed garden with family and friends enjoying the returning Spring.  A trip to Majorca with Youngest, Mrs Youngest and Littlest to laze around be run ragged chasing a toddler hither and thither.  A sun-dappled afternoon sat in the local watching Manchester City reach their first FA Cup Final since 1981 and doing it by beating our cross city rivals rather convincingly in the end.

So, quite memorable all told.

A month in which the Libyan situation was upgraded from 'a piece of piss' to 'uh oh this is a mess isn't it?'  A month in which the probable true amount of radiation leaking from Japan has - more than likely - been seriously under reported.  A month in which I have attended far too many leaving does for colleagues whose re-employment prospects are bleak to say the least.

A month in which Andrew Lansley has signalled a 'listening period' before he carries on with his non-mandated privatisation of the NHS.  A month in which the twine binding the coalition continued to chafe and fray  A month in which taxes went up, food prices went up, petrol prices went up and the value of our wages dropped.  A month in which Baronet Gideon Osbourne steamrollered on - disregarding many prominent experts advice - with his 'roll back the State' agenda.  We're all in it together y'know.

It's gone now though.  A fading memory.  I wonder what'll happen next month?  Well I know I'll be flying to Barcelona for a week the day after the Cup Final and I also know that I will be pithily unarsed about the upcoming betrothal.  Other than that though, who knows?

 

"And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We're captive on the carousel of time
We can't return we can only look
Behind from where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game"

One thing that could happen next month is that Stoke City could find it beneficial to them to throw a match. 

Here's how:-

 

Manchester City win the FA Cup Final leaving Stoke Runners Up.  Winning the FA Cup guarantees an Europa League place but, if City achieve a league position of fourth or higher then their Europa League place will go to the FA Cup Runners Up - Stoke.  City should have played Stoke in a league game on the same day as the final.  The rearranged fixture will be played the week after the Cup and if Stoke lose, City could bag 4th spot thus allowing Tony Pulis's boys a crack at Europe next season.

 

Harry Redknapp isn't happy.  Oh no, he isn't happy at all.

I Can't Tell the Bottom from the Top.....

When I first started this blog back in 2003 (sheesh....), within a matter of days Tony Blair and Dubya unleashed shock and awe on the inhabitants of Iraq.  Now I've just started re-blogging and the latest New Labour acolyte Cameron is on the verge of sending the in jets to 'protect'  the opponents of Ghaffadi.  Now, I'm not an advocate of doing bog all, he's a twat; but he's always been a twat and, furthermore, a twat that we've had no problems cosying up to when it suited.  We've sold him arms and turned a blind eye to the abuses he inflicted on his people.  Sure he was branded a fully fledged member of the 'axis of evil' post 9/11 but he always held that lucrative trump card: oil.  Just like Saddam in the days before he became too unruly for even the neo-cons on Capital Hill.

So the waiting game has been played.  Like the other Arab states Tunisia and Egypt, it was assumed by the current Government that the opposition would take control after a brief and relatively bloodless struggle.  William Hague the all-seeing and all-knowing confidently regurgitated a rumour that the Colonel was on a plane to Venezuela, giving ill-informed and ill-conceived journalistic speculation a leg up the credibility ladder.  Mind you he was probably too over-eager to smear Chavez to check the veracity of his sources.

And then we find that 'Diplomats and members of the SAS' have been detained by Rebel forces after entering the country illegally armed with numerous fake IDs and passports.  Buffoonery of the highest order if you ask me.  So now the waiting game has proved pointless and the moment that Ghaffadi mobilised his goons and started to look like he'd still be here at Christmas it became apparent that some form of intervention would be inevitable. 

I've heard people saying they are weary of the situation in Japan being constantly broadcast on our channels.  It's too depressing now, we've had enough.  Misery overload and all that.  Let us just donate some cash and switch over.  The images are too distressing - even on the sanitised stations of the Western media empires.

There are also heart-breaking and heart-warming examples of the basic resilience and common humanity that the vast majority of ordinary folk on this planet have deep, deep reservoirs of.

But, yes, all the bad news certainly makes it difficult to be one's usual cheery self.

The nearest ATMs to our house are at a monolithic Tesco Extra.  Three of 'em all next to each other at the entrance to the store.  The other evening, on my way home from work I parked up and ambled over.  There were queues at all three.  I took my place and for once I felt quite happy waiting my turn with the other ten or so needers of cash.

The next thing a lady in her later years joined the queue next to mine humming and half remembering the words to 'Que Sera Sera' - the fatalistic Doris Day hit from way back when.  She (the lady not Doris Day) carried on until she came to the 'Here's What She Said to me....' lead in to the chorus.

I joined in.  'Que Sera Sera...Whatever will be wil be...the future's not ours to see.......'  God knows why.  I don't normally do that sort of thing.  But y'know what?  Pretty much everyone else joined in too!  How good is that?  Three queues of us singing Que Sera Sera smiling, unprompted and probably quietly gleeful.  I know I was.  I thought it was absolutely wonderful, a moment to be savoured.

It didn't take long for the magic to move on after the chorus when words were harder to remember and the 'ooops what ARE we doing' embarrassed Englishness reasserted itself and the grim reality of the World around us kicked Doris into the long grass.

Serendipity that's what it was.  Serendipity, my favourite word.

A memory asserted itself unbidden the other day as I gazed over the sprawling North Cheshire plain, chewing a flaccid baguette containing long wilted lettuce and the meat of something mammalian yet unfamiliar.  Turkey?  Beef?  Ham?  Who knows?  Anyway, for some reason, my brain has a habit of retaining information about when I've looked a bit of a prick in glorious Technicolour whereas my triumphs are rendered in scratchy super-8.

As I folded the rest of my lunch back into the bag it came in and stuck it in the bin I remembered sorting out a PC problem for a very girly girly-girl who used to be a secretary at my previous place of work.  I've always thought of it as a technicolour moment but, looking back who knows?

Everything about her was girly pink.  Nails, bag, shoes.  She LOVED pink.  Her hair was always immaculate.  She was pristine.

She was pleasant enough but came across as a bit of a Celeb-obsessed, Heat-magazine reading one dimensional creature who would phone in sick if she broke a nail.

She was going for lunch when I arrived to fix her PC but, against all procedures gave me her userid and password in case I needed to log on as her to check whether the fix worked.  Her password was 'Mimsy'.

"Aaah" said I, completely re-assessing my erstwhile lowly opinion of her cultural world, "Beware The Jabberwock my son, the jaws that bite, the claws that catch........."  She looked bemused and, frankly, a little pitying.  "The Jabberwock," I said "y'know from the Lewis Carroll poem Jabberwocky?"

"I've never heard of it," she said.

"But......your password.....

Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

All 'MIMSY' were the borogroves....Mimsy.  That's your password.  I've never heard the word anywhere else so where would you get it from if not Jabberwocky?"

"It's my dog's name."

Turns out she had a little, arsey, scrap of dog, a Pomeranian or somesuch that was probably carried everywhere by 'Mummy' in it's bright pink collar with matching coat.

I've been out in the garden today.  Mowing the lawn and generally tidying up.  The Spring sunshine was welcome I can tell you.  Hopefully we'll be getting a bit more sun next week as me,  Dearest, Youngest, Mrs Youngest and Littlest nip over to Majorca for 5 days R 'n' R.

I've charged my Kindle, my iPod has been replenished and my camera lenses polished.  I'm looking forward to it and also the Summer to come.

We had the garden's drainage problem sorted last year and really enjoyed using it to the full again.  One evening at about 9-o-clock as a gentle Mancunian rain pattered and brought relief from the humid weather we had been experiencing, I stood on the patio and took this snap.  It reminds me of a perfect moment.  Let's hope the poor buggers at the mercy of events unfolding find some perfect moments of their own again after time has healed.

The Sunday Papers

Here's a cracking spoof review of Man City's game with Aris on Wednesday night.  Well, I say spoof, some wags are sure it's taken from The Daily Mirror verbatim:-

"Manchester City's £1bn squad again failed to impress as goal-shy Edin Dzecko and £200k-per-week flop Yaya Touré scuffed them into the next round.

Despite packing his side with expensive attacking flair, Roberto Mancini watched in dismay as his handsomely-paid charges once again failed to inspire, scoring only three times and never looking likely to concede.

A defensive error and a lucky deflection gave an undeserved gloss to a scoreline that cannot disguise the fact that a side that everybody predicted would take time to gel has, in fact, taken time to gel and is now, surprisingly, beginning to gel.

The absence of Carlos Tevez's name on scoresheet will concern those observers whose tactical analysis extends no further than insisting that City only win when the busy Argentinian gets a goal, while the failure of Mario Balotelli to do anything that could be slowed down and endlessly replayed as evidence of his suspect temperament offers further proof that he is yet to justify his enormous price-tag.

Mancini cut a forlorn figure in the dugout as he contemplated a trip to Kiev in the next round of a tournament that, although regarded as beneath contempt by the punditocracy, his side must now win if he is not to be branded an abject failure and hounded out of office come the end of the season."

Quality.  :)

I Just Died in your Arms Tonight....

A group of us watched a man die a lingering death on Friday evening.  Given the location I guess we kind of knew that it was a very real possibility but even so it's still a shock when it happens.  Right in front you.  Up close.

Looking back I can recall the exact moment he realised he might not get through and began to do all the things you shouldn't do when you're deep in it.  Shallow breaths, talking too fast, imploring those around to help.  All to no avail.  It was shocking.  

Yes the Frog and Bucket on a Friday night can be an unforgiving place.  Lose the audience and you are Royally fecked and, without a doubt Paul F Taylor was Royally fecked on Friday.

Personally I'm of the view that if you lose a comedy club audience on a regular basis then it's time to consider a different career path.  Comedy club audiences are - on the whole - packed to the rafters with people receptive to comedians.  They want to laugh, that's why they are there.  It should be easy to make them titter.  Even if your material could do with an overhaul, your delivery tightened a little, the crowd are on your side.  Your performance may be a little flat, the laughs a little thin but generally you'll get a clap for trying.

It takes a special skill to get an audience to cheer when you say it's time to go, a very special skill indeed.  He waved as he went.  Or was he drowning?

I've been re-reading Stuart Maconie's excellent 'Pies and Prejudice' recently.  I love his description of his arrival to and investigation of Oldham.  I think he's bang on with his impression of the place - bars, pound shops and very little else; apart from the portable 'field hospital' the Health Authority provides on a Friday and Saturday night to stitch up and placate the local drunks.  It stops them clogging up A&E y'see allowing more serious cases to be dealt with without the ever-present possibility of things turning nasty. 

It's different now though.  You can't get to Oldham by train (I know, incredible isn't it?)  It will eventually become a 'stop' on Manchester's Metrolink tram system by which time it's decline will probably have become irreversible.

I don't often go to Oldham, there's no need.  It has absolutely nothing to offer that can't be found elsewhere.  It used to have a famous market - Tommyfield.  Coach trips used to head to it from as far as Leeds and Bradford.  It's a car park now and, thanks to the Council, the 21st century market consists of a dozen or so portable stalls scattered along the side of a couple of windswept streets.  It has no cinema, no unique shopping, no fabulous eateries.  Nothing.  The only distinctive thing in Oldham is the Coliseum.  But how often do I go to the theatre? 

Dearest works in the centre of Oldham and, it being one of her working Saturdays I got a bus up to meet her for lunch.  We went to the Three Crowns for a helping of their home made meat and potato pie with red cabbage and I have to say it was excellent.  Thick chunks of steak with lovely spuds and gravy all topped off with a thick pastry crust.  It set me up for my trundle round the town.  I was going to try to see it from a tourist's perspective so  I discarded my cynic's specs and donned an eyes-wide-open pair.  First stop:  the Georgian heart of Oldham, Church Lane.

Church Lane Oldham

It's a lovely little lane Church Lane.  It runs all of 100 yards from the Army recruitment centre (I guess Kandahar does have some things Oldham doesn't) to the parish church.  It consists mainly of Georgian terraces enhanced by the period street lamps that some heritage-fixated councillor insisted on back in the day.

A dour Saturday afternoon was perhaps not the best time to be examining it anew for I have seen this place back-lit by an autumn sun and been thrilled at the view.  It has character and it's a pity it's out of the way of the town centre itself.  It seems forgotten somehow.  A fading memory of times past.

Lancashire House, Church Lane Oldham

The lane itself is predominately occupied by the legal profession who, to be honest, must do very well off the local clientele. There's a church run cafe that, so I've heard, produces some fabulous dishes that don't hit the pocket.  Their cooked breakfasts  are 'to die for' apparently.

Most of the buildings are listed and the council  has made it a conservation area which is great but it's only a 100 yard conservation area.  Well, maybe a bit more.

At the top of the lane is Oldham's Gothic parish church.  The current building was erected in 1830 although there have been churches on this spot since 1280.  It was designed by a Manchester-based architect Richard Lane who employed Alfred Waterhouse as an apprentice.  Alfred would go on to design Manchester Town Hall, the Natural History museum in that there London and a whole host of Gothicry all over the place. 

At the top of the lane we turn right onto a flagged walkway which takes us past the west side of the church down to the cenotaph by the Greaves Arms and opposite the original town hall.  It was on these very steps that the new MP for Oldham - a certain W Churchill gave his first speech as Oldham's Tory MP.  The town hall is a Grade II listed Georgian neo-classical construction built in 1841

Oldham's original neo-classical town hall

Turning left we leave the town's civic heart and amble down Yorkshire Street.  We could have turned right and ambled up Yorkshire Street to the Spindle's shopping centre but there's only so much a man can handle on his day off.  

This was the street Maconie walked up from the now redundant train station.  It's no wonder his impression of Oldham was bleak.  You could successfully argue that Yorkshire Street is Oldham's premier street.  It's only rival is Union street which runs parallel on the Glodwick side of town.  Apart from the Oldham Coliseum, you won't find any culture hereabouts.  This part of the street resembles the Wild West at weekend.  It's here where the Triage tent is erected every Friday and it's not hard to see why.

 






 





Drink offers.  2 for 1 kebabs and curries.  Poundland, betting shops, Poundworld, clubs for drinking, clubs for lapdancing, Poundstyle (honestly), bars, chain pubs, 'It's all a pound!'  Cash converters, 'Don't ask the price it's a pound', 'We'll sub you 'till payday' finance operations, KFC, MacDonald's, Chinese, Primark, Discount shoe shops and all the other tell-tale signs of a town on the skids.


Where the historically authentic, we-know-our-heritage cobblestones have gone missing (thrown in a riot after closing time perhaps?), the powers that be have replaced them with dollops of tar.  Dollops of tar!  Dollops.  Of.  Tar!  I think that tells you all you need to know Oldham's  aspirations. 





The really sad thing about the place is that it could rebrand itself because it does have a lot to offer.  It lies snuggled at the foot of the Pennines.  Within it's Metropolitan Borough walls it has an absolute gem in Saddleworth.  The Peak National park is 20 minutes away at Dovestones Reservoir and the whole of the bleakly beautiful 'backbone of Britain' is on it's doorstep.  Get a grip Oldham.


I carried on my walk down to the Mumps area of the town - doesn't sound very inviting does it?  Maconie describes it thus:-


"I disemabarked from the Manchester train at Oldham Mumps Station.  Perhaps I'm overly delicate but for me it doesn't bode well when the town's main station shares its name with a uniquely unpleasant childhood glandular disease that wreaks havoc with the testicles"



This is the Mumps area of the town.  Lovely eh?  The street on the right is Yorkshire Street.  On the left is Union Street.  Union Street is a hopeless mish-mash of fast food emporia and taxi firms at one end, with the offices of the Oldham Evening Chronicle at the other.  There used to be a railway bridge at the Mumps end of town that rather like the 'Welcome to Bronte Country' signs near Howarth had painted on it: 'Welcome to Oldham.  Home of the Tubular Bandage'.  It's gone now.  It had to make way for the coming Metrolink.    Here's a lovely time-lapse video of its end.





As I trundled up Union street I was beginning to lose the will to live.  There is honestly nothing about this place that - at present - attracts me.  To use a phrase from the lips of the fictitious Malcolm Tucker, Oldham is an omnishambles.


Union Street has less to offer than Yorkshire Street and yet, come the tram, will be the place most folk see when they emerge from Mumps Station.  A lot needs doing before then most definitely.


There is talk of making this Oldham's 'cultural quarter'.  We'll see.  At present it is still home to the library which has recently moved into a state of the art building that also houses an art gallery and various function rooms. 


The Local Studies Library I know very well.  My dissertation was on the Mule Spinners of Oldham during the turbulent years leading up to the Brooklands Agreement in 1893.  There's many a Saturday afternoon I spent here trawling through uncatalogued minutes and correspondence of the various Trade Union bodies, Cotton Master's stuff, old newspapers and other historical paraphernalia.  It were bliss.  'Appen.


The library itself is also a stark reminder of the aspirations of the Victorian age.  Not everyone I know but can you imagine a public-subscription (with or without the help of Carnegie) library being built in this day and age? 




 


I retired to one of the many pubs doing a desultory trade on a Saturday afternoon and reflected on my experience.


It might be a while before I'm back.


Now, where did I put my cynic's glasses?