This has been front page news on ‘Manchester’s Number One Regional Newspaper and Website’ for a couple of days now.The headline is:‘Mum spooked by 'screaming' Halloween crisp’.A woman found a crisp that looks a little like a face – that’s the story.The quote from the lady herself: "I was a bit spooked at first but it is quite funny. I will keep it and show it to my friends. It's almost like it really has eyes - the detail in it looks like eyeballs.”Really, it is quite amazing.Have a look for yourself:
I’m spooked by it.Spooked that someone would give it a second thought, keep it, phone the newspaper, be willingly photographed with it for all to see:
Obviously I’ve doctored that image very slightly so as not to reveal the crisp finder’s true identity.I don’t mean to be critical at all, you must note before accusing me of such.I’m just saying I would have looked at said crisp and perhaps chuckled slightly.Then eaten it.That way, though, the world would never have seen it and where would we all be then, eh?
Those amongst you with some memory capacity may remember a while ago I had a bit of a rant about Guinness. It’s not that I don’t like it, quite the opposite, it’s more that I don’t like the way a lot of people treat it and the resulting effect that has on this most pleasurable of drinks. For a recap, or even a first sight, I shall direct you precisely here.
Now, I did say at the time that I would be updating regularly and recording my progress on my Manchester Guinness mission. That hasn’t happened because...well, it hasn’t happened. Unless you class seven months as ‘regular’. I suppose if I were to do it seven-monthly it would be regular.
Anyway, let’s not dwell on that because I have news from the Guinness investigations. I am here to report back. Firstly, let me reiterate something I stated way back in March: “Let’s be clear: This is not a review of Manchester’s bars and pubs. I don’t give a shit what the bar staff look like or if the place is nice and cosy; for the purposes of this research I will solely be interested in the state of their Guinness.”
I had the misfortune of drinking a pint of the black stuff here a while ago and it was without question one of the worst Guinness experiences I’ve ever had (the worst was in a tiny village in Spain where the lady had obviously never even used the funny black pump on the bar before and proceeded to pour a pint with a three inch head, then scoop the excess out with her filthy, claw-like hands. But that’s another story...). My notes from the day read thus:
Pour:5/10 – a cursory pause between delivery but with little meaning. Look: 1/10 – not even a Guinness glass and it was immediately obvious that it would be thin and completely unsatisfying. Taste: 2/10 – delivered little but a hint of that good old Guinness taste. Overall: 8/30
The tulip glass is a must for decent Guinness. Kro don’t even try to make an effort with a traditional bulged pint pot – this was delivered in one of those ribbed, American style things. One of these:
I am surprised to inform you that the pint I had in Odd wasn’t all that bad. The glass was straight, not tulip-like, and the pour was rather unrefined, but it wasn’t actually a bad taster. Got a bit thin towards the end though. Odd’s scores as follows: Pour: 6/10 Look: 6/10 Taste: 7/10 Overall: 19/30
The Northern Quarter’s supposed favourite boozer should, by the looks of it, be a Guinness drinker’s paradise. It looks like the sort of place artists and poets hang out – those most stereotypical of Guinness drinkers. Judging by the attire of the students who were in there, such stereotypes are something many still aspire to. The Guinness was average at best, thanks to a rather tobacco tinged after taste. Not uncommon with Guinness but that probably says more about the conditions under which most Guinness is served than it does of the drink itself, unfortunately.
A Guinness drinker's bar if ever I saw one (or maybe that was just the amount of Guinness drinkers in there that made me think that). It even looks good in other people’s glasses. No huge refinement on the pouring procedure but the look and taste give it the current top spot.
All of this may lead some of you to believe that I will never find my perfect pint of Guinness, existing as it does only in my mind’s eye and far from these critical words which I spout. Well, you would be wrong. It does exist, I’ve had it. And it is by that which all others are judged. It is not I who should be less critical but the publicans who should be more attentive.
It’s always nice to see a bit of recognition from a large company that they are very aware of their place in the world.Dixons, purveyors of electronic goods to the nation, have produced a series of adverts that are really quite clever.It’s a visual thing really so I’ll just leave you to it.You do have to have a bit of knowledge of the retail world in general, or at least have visited the Trafford Centre before, but it’s a pretty simple concept in essence.Simple, but clever.
This blog, as you may have gathered, is not about anything in particular. I just write about stuff that catches my attention, generally amuses or appals me. Sometimes it’s a bit tricky to find a decent subject on which to release my evident cynicism but this week I have been thrown a lifeline, this week it’s easy thanks to one Shayne Ward, or, rather, his fans.
Shayne, you may remember (or possibly wish to forget) won a television series called The X Factor a few years ago. He won by virtue of the fact that he can hold a tune and was fairly easy on the eye – seemingly all that is required on such projects, the winner merely being cast as a pawn to be manipulated in the game of moneymaking that motivates the people behind such broadcasting activities; free to be discarded once the last soulless pennies have been squeezed from their monotonous vocal chords.
You’ve probably not given Mr Ward much thought over the last two years, the marketing machine that plays him like a puppet not having infiltrated every possible media outlet for a while by virtue of the fact that he hasn’t released an album over that time. OK, but so what, right? Who cares? Well some people do, apparently, because The Shayne Ward Fan Club (they even get capital letters) have finally had enough of waiting and have taken to the streets in protest. They blame his record company, Syco (owned, perhaps not surprisingly, by Simon Cowell), for delaying the release and they’re not happy.
"We want the album, we want it now!" they chanted whilst displaying banners and placards bearing their hero’s image. "We, the fans, want a new album, we want a new tour and we want Shayne to be given the chance to shine like the star we know he truly is," one said in a frankly breathtaking expression of solidarity for the ‘singer’. These people, let’s not forget, have taken time off work to go out and express their feelings. My favourite quote was this one: “He's not just a pop star, he's the people's champion.”
Still, despite rather grand reports that the protesters ‘took to the streets of Manchester’, the collection of a dozen or so friends in a corner of Salford probably didn’t bother the general public too much and neither was there much of a bill for the Police’s time, one wouldn’t imagine. I wouldn’t be surprised if we see a bigger expression of public disgust when the album actually is released.
Corporate branding is something that people spend literally thousands of pounds on.Logos, public image, all that sort of stuff.You basically pay some sort of agency loads of money and they give you a logo and some words about missions and identity and awareness, maybe even a slogan, then leave you alone with it all.As you can tell, I’m something of an expert on all this.
Burnley (that’s a town, by the way, in Lancashire) have themselves embarked on such an exercise of attempting to improve their public perception, the result of which is proving to be something of a talking point. The logo they’ve adopted is the particular focus of the attention.Here it is:
Now, I’m no designer, and nor am I a corporate branding expert, so far be it from me to criticise...but...it’s a bit of a mess, isn’t it?I liked one comment:“Well the sign sums Burnley council right up...keep going round in circles and end up in a right mess."
To be fair, if you look at the Burnley website the animation thing does look a bit more impressive than the squiggle.A bit.
Social media – great, isn’t it? Facebook, Myspace, Twitter...how else would you spend those idle hours when your boss is out? Certainly not doing the filing, if you’re anything like me. Some people are actual experts in social media. Can you imagine? I can – I spoke to one once, in a pub. It was pretty boring, I have to say, but not altogether soul destroying. It can be a fairly interesting world, that of Social Media, if you look into it. I probably just wasn’t in the mood when I was in the pub.
Anyway, my social media musings are not without purpose, you may be surprised to learn, as word reaches us of an ambitious, but nonetheless inspiring, project involving social media, Manchester and a love story. Not a combination you might expect to see but one that a Manchester-based writer, and social media fan, presumably, has conjured to create what will be a sort of novel played out through the medium of social media and the internet. A Smovel, perhaps? (can you see what I did there?)
There’s more to this, however, as the great Mancunian public are being asked to contribute to the story by sending in photos of places and landscapes of Manchester that will then shape the settings of the story. Spanning a whole month (November, believe it or not), the story will be played out through the various Facebook, twitter and blog accounts of the main characters of the story, integrated into which will be the photos and situations sent in previously by you, the lovely public.
My discovery of ‘Hot Water Bottle Nose Man’ led me to another video which, in the tradition of bizarre and humorous videos, I felt I had to share. Don’t worry – this blog isn’t going to degenerate into a stream of ‘Look at what I found on YouTube’ conscious; I would like to think I had a little more decorum than that, but I’m making an exception this time because...well, this is really quite weird. And anyway, maybe a world record of the week wouldn’t be too bad a thing to blog about, would it? Let’s try it:
Today’s world record is sticking your forefinger into coconuts. This guy manages four, just about. I’m pretty sure number three actually breaks the finger, but such trivial details are nothing for a man after a place in Guinness’s book:
I’m not sure I can quite muster the eloquence to fully convey my feelings towards this, so I shall try by starting with the basics:There’s a man attempting to break a world record.The world record involves blowing up a hot water bottle until it bursts.This man, unlike others who have attempted this record (there are others?), is going to be doing it through his nose.I really don’t know what to say so I will just leave you with Mr Jemal Tkeshelashvili.
