Sick as Parrots

So it’s all over – the much hyped clash of the titans, the best footballers in the world, the two best teams in the world, the game the world has been waiting for – and Manchester United didn’t even turn up in the end.

Old Trafford was a buzz of activity yesterday – stalls, usually only out on match days, selling flags, t-shirts and Eric ‘God’ Cantona banners, were doing swift trade, the pubs around the ground were heaving and the Travel Lodge at the end of the road had flags and scarves flying from many of its windows.

I can’t help but be intrigued by the apparently blind devotion with which some people follow their football team. The people on the news yesterday who spent enormous amounts of time and money getting to Italy and staying near to Rome who didn’t even have a ticket and were, apparently, happy to just watch the game on a TV in a bar (which wasn’t serving beer by then). I appreciate there is a heightened sense of atmosphere in such places – Old Trafford and Rome last night - but still, it’s just a football game on a TV, isn’t it?

Anyway, if it keeps them happy then good luck to them. Needless to say the city is in a sombre mood today, the flag stalls gone and their owners no doubt cursing the lack of victory parade through the city streets. Old Trafford stands defiant but without the red-shirted devotees who were present yesterday. When I passed today, a man had taken advantage of the lack of people and was playing with his remote controlled car on a piece of waste ground out the front that would, had the trophy returned to Manchester, have been filled with burger vans, scarf sellers and beery, jubilant fans. Instead of the sound of thousands singing victory songs in unison, the air around Old Trafford today was filled with the pathetic buzz of a tiny motor; perhaps an equally fitting tribute, given the circumstances.

What's the Story?

You’ve got to admire some people’s entrepreneurial spirit. In these testing financial times, with pubs and restaurants closing daily all over the country, one plucky Manchester company is bucking the trend and actually opening one up – nay, re-opening a former victim of the aforementioned financial meltdown. The Farmers Arms in Burnage is now in the hands of the apparently thriving Levenshulme Pub Company, an outfit that already owns two watering holes in, unsurprisingly, Levenshulme.

So how does one go about trying to make a success of a once-bankrupt pub? What could possibly be tried that hasn’t been tried before? Well it’s simple – find a tenuous link to the surrounding area and flog the hell out of it. Ladies and gentlemen The Farmers Arms presents the Oasis Music Lounge - a place for fans to come and listen to the music of their favourite band (because, obviously, you don’t hear it anywhere else in Manchester) in a room a bit closer to where the Gallagher brothers grew up than most other pubs in the country. Have Messrs Gallagher ever been in the Oasis Music Lounge? Well, no. What about The Farmers Arms? Probably...possibly...who knows? Who cares?

To be fair to the Levenshulme Pub Company, they do have some unique features in their new venue – some photography of the band taken at their gig in Eastlands and some undisclosed memorabilia, and despite the obvious tenuousness of this venture, I wish them well. It’s good to see people trying things out and taking a bit of a gamble instead of just moaning about why it wouldn’t work and never doing anything about it. I might even pop down myself. What are the chances of Wonderwall being on the jukebox when I walk in?

Rich Chocolate

Those of you out in Manchester at the weekend, perhaps jogging your way around these soggy streets on the Great Manchester Run or waiting to see a certain Mr Bolt run like a, well, bolt, might have noticed a new addition to Deansgate’s snacking options. Just opposite the Great Northern complex a new sprig has sprung in the form of The Chocolate Cafe, the second of a chain whose flagship outlet sits in the relative tranquillity of Ramsbotton. It specialises, you won’t be surprised to learn, in chocolate-based foodstuffs.

Essentially, however, it’s a cafe – you can get toast and scones and tea and coffee, stuff like that. They also do jacket potatoes with one topping for the rather breath-intaking price of £4.95 and, even more intake-inducing, cold sandwiches for £6 a go. That’s pretty steep by anyone’s standards but the toasted sandwiches surely take the WHLN Prize for Food-Induced Hyperventilation, sitting pretty as they do at the lofty heights of £7 each.

Their gimmick is the chocolate pizza – a chocolately take on the traditional dough, tomato and cheese format, substituting the likes of ham for fudge, olives for chocolate buttons and pepperoni for those little discs covered in sugary balls – jazzies they’re called, apparently. They look a bit like this:

So that’s all very nice except when you discover that a six inch ‘pizza’ with three toppings will set you back seven quid. It’d be interesting to find out how much chocolate you actually get for your seven bucks, but interesting enough to spend £7 finding out? Possibly – I’ll let you know.

Expensive MPs

MPs, Kit Kats, manure, swimming pools and housekeepers. No, not the plot for a horror film (or a porn film, Mr Smith) but just some of the things that MPs have been spending our money on over the last year or so. That’s right – OUR MONEY! Isn’t it outrageous? Well, yes, it probably is and they should be punished in some way. Maybe that horror film isn't such a bad idea.

There’s a certain irony in the level of outrage being thrown around though, especially by people who collect expenses from their own work – I bet there’s the odd Kit Kat in there too, as well as lots of other things. OK, so it’s not public money they’re spending, directly, but you’ve got to in some way feel for the public nature in which the MPs expenses are being aired and scrutinised, haven’t you? No? All right, so you haven’t. Let’s look at Salford’s finest as an example, the Right Honourable Hazel Blears:

Charges against included claiming for three different houses in one year and spending £5000 of OUR MONEY on furniture in just three months. She also claimed the mortgage payments on a flat in London, the hotel costs incurred when she sold the flat and didn’t have anywhere to stay, and didn’t pay tax on the £45,000 profit she made on the flat when she sold it. Hang on a minute – she bought a flat with OUR MONEY, sold it and pocketed all the profit? How does that work? Are these expenses some sort of investment scheme for our elected representatives to use to dally on the property market and see what profit can be made? Here’s a thought – if the flat had lost value by the time she sold it, what’s the betting she would have used expenses to pay off the deficit?

Give us back our money, Blears!

ID Manchester

It seems Manchester is to become national guinea pig and be the first city to trial the Government’s latest attempt to glean money from us at every available opportunity and monitor our every move while reducing us all to mere statistics – that’s right people, ID cards are coming to town. Here's a little unofficial FAQ, in an interview style that seems to be inexplicably popular amongst apparently ‘on pulse’ publications these days, on the whole ID card issue:

What is it?

It’s a card that confirms your identification. Your name, date of birth, eye colour, height, dress sense, taste in music, sexual preferences, inside leg measurement and favourite type of sandwich. (some of those might not be true)

Do I have to have one?

Not yet but if the current group of Labour MPs who are in charge of our country decide they like them, you will.

I don’t want one.

Tough shit. If they have their way, you will have to.

Fine, I’ll get it and just chuck it in a drawer then.

Sorry, did we mention you will be charged £60 for the pleasure? That’s not optional either, by the way.

Bastards. So what’s the point in it?

Good question. Very little, say opponents and Tory/Lib Dem MPs. It will basically do what a driving licence and/or a passport does at the moment – i.e. it confirms who you are. The only big difference will be the compulsory aspect. And the fact that it’s nice and neat and fits in your wallet. A bit like a driving licence.

So what’s the point of the trial?

Supposedly to ‘see how they go down’.

But I don’t have to have one yet?

No, it’s a voluntary trial.

Are they charging for them?

Yes, £30 in the trial.

So I have to pay but it’s not compulsory?

No.

Ha ha – screw you suckers, I’m just not going to bother then!

Quite. You and the rest of Manchester, probably.