Goodbye 2009

Phew. That Christmas good stuff kept coming and I felt as though I skidded into work this morning battered, bruised and slightly liver deficient. Fun, as with everything else, has to have its downsides, however, so I’m prepared to accept them for now.

Anyway, a 2009 roundup was promised so a 2009 roundup you shall get before this thing we call zero nine becomes the twenty ten. The last year has seen us comment on all manner of things so we thought we’d look back and reflect on twelve topical months.

We have on occasion felt the need to mention Manchester’s ever present, and increasingly irritating, relationship with those things called ‘celebrities’ this year. Raymond Blanc had a little go at our gastronomy in February, declaring, after his attempt at a high end restaurant failed, “I cannot believe that Manchester, the second biggest city in England, can't sustain a quality restaurant.” Maybe we can Raymond, we’re just waiting for the right one to come along. March saw the launch of our ‘Where can you drink decent Guinness in Manchester’ campaign, which is still ongoing and inconclusive thus far. Our last progress report was in October.

Other public figures who caught our eye this last year included Cristiano Ronaldo, and his rather bizarre pastimes at home in Cheshire, Hazel Blears braving the Salford badlands, Rio’s foray into the world of fine dining, boxing giants and of course the choice parking techniques employed by El Hadji Diouf. Let’s just remind ourselves of one of his finer efforts again:


Superb – such wonderful disregard for parking laws, and matters of taste. Another individual who provided us with some unexpected material and a peek at the unbridled passion that sits behind the phenomena that are X Factor winners was Mr Shayne Ward , who came to our attention by virtue of his local fan base, who had taken to the streets to protest at a lack of action from his record label. They were quick to jump on our somewhat cynical take on proceedings (cynical? Us? Never...) and excerpt some wrath to set the record straight. Duly humbled by their fervent response we backed down and added the requested Y to his name.

We’ll leave 2009 with one of our most frequent topics of the year, Manchester’s now infamous bollards being the subject of a full three entries over the past twelve months, all, you should not be surprised to learn, concerning various challengers of the age old ‘large metal bollard beats car’ rule. The rule still stands, naturally, as evidenced in the classic footage below, but rest assured we’ll be back in 2010 to monitor the progress of those out there determined to test it. See you next year!

Happy New Merry

As the year begins to draw to a close (last day of work before Christmas – woo hoo!) I will leave you with some festive thoughts from the good people at Greater Manchester Police:



Nice. I'll be back before new year for a little 2009 round up. Now, where's all that Christmas good stuff...

Man vs Machine

It’s the battle of the year that is gripping the nation. Traditionally the naff, the festive and the Beatles have triumphed in this competition of musical popularity and, more recently, the winner of a certain television show has enjoyed an almost guaranteed rise to the top. I am, of course, talking about the UK’s Christmas Number one record, an inexplicably important achievement that each year has the nation on supposed tender hooks. X Factor winners have been easily achieving the coveted spot in recent years because...well, because they sell loads of records. This year, however, as I’m sure you’re aware, there is in progress an attempted coup; an effort to make sure this annual farce doesn’t continue unchallenged.

Rage Against The Machine were on Radio 5 live this morning, performing their song, Killing in the Name, the chosen foe to Joe McElderry’s cover of whatever song it is he’s recorded. They had promised not to swear on the radio, the song famously centring on a repeated hook that uses the word ‘fuck’. The message rather unsubtly conveyed through the song is one of defiance so it should be of little surprise to those of us with beating hearts that Rage decided to ignore the BBC’s pleas and proceeded to play the song as it was originally intended regardless. It took four repeats of aforementioned hook before the feed was cut.

The story is not simply one of man against the machine, however, as there are many pointing out that Simon Cowell, the man obviously behind The X Factor’s efforts, also has a stake in the company that owns the rights to Killing in the Name. There are also jaded cries from overly self-aware music commentators (hello NME) that it’s all a little too ‘we’re mad, us, aren’t we?’ and that real lovers of music, as those backing the campaign claim to be, shouldn’t be concerning themselves with things like the Christmas number one or The X Factor. They’d probably prefer them to be sobbing in their bedrooms to Smiths albums or debating the recent ‘Top 50 albums of the decade’ list. Ooh, Jay Z’s so cool, isn’t he? This hip hop is so current.

Sorry – I got sidelined by my dislike of the music press then. Err...where was I? Oh yes, Joe McElderry or Rage Against the Machine? Which will it be? Does it really matter? Does anyone even care? All will be revealed on Sunday...and then forgotten about on Monday when Jordan falls over.

Football Parking

Footballers are a funny breed. Young men paid astronomical amounts of money to kick a pig skin around a patch of grass. Easy job really, if you think about it. You just have to be quite good at a relatively basic activity. So what do young men do with astronomical amounts of money when they’re not kicking things around or going to night clubs and getting into fights? Enter, at this point, El Hadji Diouf.

Mr Hadji Diouf (we’ll call him El from now on) is reasonably typical of your modern footballer in that he likes to spend a portion of his wage on automobiles. Everyone likes a nice car, right? And if you’re being paid lots of thousands of pounds a week, why not spend a little of that on a nice car? So he did:

Ouch. My eyes are hurting. Not from the shine, which is considerable, but from the unfathomable awfulness of the thing. El is in the news a lot around these parts as he has a penchant for parking his tacky beasts with scant regard for the local parking laws. £80 parking fines are as common for him as a trip to the petrol station it seems and they are collected with an apparent arrogance that is beginning to wear a little thin with the good people of Manchester. Here is another of his garish purchases, parked with the least of appreciation:

His misdemeanours smart for most not because of the lack of taste on display but the lack of respect – respect for the law and for the ordinary citizens of this country, most of whom obey local parking laws. £80 is, of course, but small change for El, so fines aren’t really going to wake him up to the impact of his indiscretions. But what will? While I think about it, here’s a picture of yet another of his contributions to climate change:

That really is a lack of decorum personified. I’ve still not thought of what could be done to help El see the error of his ways. Let’s have a look at another one:

That’s not so bad, I suppose. Apart from the customised lettering, attention seeking number plate and over the top wheels and skirt. At least the colour’s a little less...err...less. Maybe it’s waiting to be dipped into a vat of metallic purple paint, or something. Anyway, as for an appropriate stimulator for El’s conscience, I’ll have to think about that for a bit. Any suggestions?

Peter Kay's Space

Continuing with a sporadically running theme that ponders the question ‘Is this really news’, I turn your glance once again towards our region’s favourite daily, The MEN.

It seems a certain comic is in high favour at Evening News towers, judging by the sickly amounts of praise that gets thrust his way, but this latest piece is surely either, a) a joke, b) being paid for or, c)just a really shit article. “Peter's Royal show room not fit for a king,” the headline exclaims. The Peter in question is Peter Kay, the comedian from Bolton, who is given quite enough column inches this week in another front page article about the amount of tickets he sold recently (lots).

The story being unashamedly thrashed out here refers to the dressing room allocated to ‘king’ Peter at the recent recording of the Royal Variety Performance, that bastion of the nation’s top (cough) light entertainers. Peter, so far as the MEN are concerned, was not given a big enough room in which to prepare. That’s it – that’s the story. I’m not joking. Here is the offending room:

It ‘contained little more than a couple of chairs and a sink’ the article bemoans. I’d have thought one chair and sink would be quite enough. In fact, what does he even need a sink for? He needs somewhere to dump his bag before telling a few jokes. I’d have given him a locker.

Extreme Beer

A Scottish company is attempting to take beer into new territory – extreme beer, possibly. BrewDog, the company in question, have released an 18.3% brew, being sold at the princely sum of £10 (for a 330ml bottle) from their website and in just five specialist beer shops in the country. But they’ve had some grief from industry watchdog The Portman Group. There’s a slogan on the bottle, apparently, that might encourage people to indulge in a touch of excess from time to time. Not the sort of thing that watchdogs like, apparently.

I quite like BrewDog though – a quick fumble around their website reveals a company with a sense of humour and a passion for what they’re doing. They also have some good names for their beers: they followed Tokyo* (the one that felt the wrath of the watchdog) with a low alcohol ale called Nanny State. Nice touch.

They’ve also upped their game again recently in the extreme beer stakes with a new creation at 32%. That is some seriously extreme beer but the alcohol content isn’t the only thing of note with this particular brew; it’s got a pretty special name too: Tactical Nuclear Penguin. Love it.

Team Jedward

Roll up, roll up, the circus is in town. It was inevitable, I suppose, what with Pure hosting a weekly X Factor rejects show. There’s no easy way to say this so I’ll just get it out there – Jedward are coming to town. That’s right, the odd, bouncing Irish pair will be fulfilling their X Factor contracts and coming to Manchester to ‘perform’ live, in front of a heaving, lubricated Saturday night audience in Pure. God help them.

Let’s list all the things we know about Jedward:

1. They’re Irish.
2. They’re twins.
3. Simon Cowell doesn’t like them.
4. Louis Walsh pretended to like them.
5. Most people want to hit them.

I’m out of knowledge there I’m afraid, probably due to the fact that my awareness of the subject has been gleaned mainly by glancing over the front pages of the red tops when I’m in the shop. I glance at the Mail while I’m there too, just to see how the world looks from that particular viewpoint. Scary, seems to be the idea. And angry.

So anyway, Jedward are on their way this Saturday 5 December to do whatever it is they do that people find endearing or, perhaps more baffling, entertaining. Still, it seems it’s cool to ironically support such atrocities of association to the concept of music, so we might as well join in because, you know, it’s cool, like. Innit. Go Jedward!! 1!1!