Fond as I am of writing about the questionable antics of Manchester’s current inhabitants, the following provides a welcome note of interest and (dare I say it) education on the topic of this fair city.Regular, observant readers may remember I wrote a few months ago about Manchester’s now infamous bollards; a traffic control measure brought in on Cross Street to limit access and ruin the vehicles of those unable to heed warnings.
This film, from 1901, shows the same bit of street.It’s a little different back then, as you will see, and makes for fascinating viewing.I particularly like the proliferation of hats and moustaches.
Oh Twitter, you little scamp. Once again, you’ve thrown up something that any respectable blogger of Manchester-related gossip and tat can’t refuse. I’m not sure how many of us Manchester bloggers of gossip and tat there are, but surely the creation of an account by one Jen Thompson can’t be ignored. Jen who? I hear you ask. Perhaps if I referred to her in her more familiar, tabloid guise you might be less quizzical – it’s Wayne Rooney’s £1200 a night ‘friend’. Here she is: I should make it clear at this point that the account I’m referring to is supposedly from Jen herself. It is highly possible (likely) that it’s not her at all but, it has to be said, judging by the content on it, if it was a fake it’d be coming from an individual with either too much time on their hands or an unhealthy obsession with either professional footballers or the ladies they choose (pay) to spend their time with.
So anyway, what’s she talking about on Twitter, this young lady thrust into the limelight thanks to one of our nation’s World Cup heroes (cough) with a wallet and libido apparently larger than his family values? Well, herself, generally. She seems to spend a lot of time sending messages to OK and Hello magazines and pleading with the public at large to ‘follow’ her, promising to reveal more ‘true stories in her own words’ before the News of the World get a chance. She also seems to spend rather a lot of time fending off messages from users with the surname ‘Rooney’.
Her latest stunt was to reveal the following:
I have 100% Slept with @RioFerdy5 (Rio Ferdinand) before I slept with Rooney I thought he was single and he set everything up with Wayne...
Adding for good measure:
Marvin from JLS as well is another
It’s almost like she’s been flicking through a copy of Heat Magazine and choosing the (successful, wealthy and attractive) men she likes the look of. What’s that? Oh, that is what she’s been doing! (I don’t actually know this for a fact but then, as far as this subject goes, facts don’t seem to be entirely important).
Rio’s response to this, being a prolific Tweeter himself, was short and concise (Note – He uses the word ‘Tweeps’ here to refer to the people who follow him on Twitter – his Twitter friends - people – peeps):
Hahahaha!! Tweeps u lot have disappointed me being so gullible with the latest stupid rumour! Don't believe the hype. There are some Vindictive people out there.
Generally I am left with a melancholic air of sadness, embodied by ‘Miss Jen’ herself who, in her desperate attempt to get her Twitter account noticed, sent a message to someone from a Big Brother series (8 or 9 I think, if that matters) asking him to spread the word about her account and help get her some attention. His response was along the lines of ‘I’m sorry I really don’t know who you are,’ and, when she told him, he replied saying, ‘Well I don’t really want to get involved, and I don’t much care either.’ Snubbed by an ex-Big Brother housemate – it doesn’t get much lower than that.
Two little treats here, both notable for differing reasons but with an obvious common theme. It’s our friend El Hadji Diouf again with his extraordinary taste in cars and gleeful disregard for parking laws. What I hadn’t appreciated previously, when I’ve talkedabout these before, is that there was actual video footage of these incidences. The first one here is, as I said, notable obviously for its main content but the details are also worth a mention – anyone catch his number plate as he drives away? Nice, or should I say, fancy.
This is the best one though, purely for the reason that it proves that this monstrosity of a vehicle actually exists. It’s...well, I am without words I’m afraid, not only for the look of the actual thing but for the way it appears people seem to treat our footballing friend. Note to El’s friends: Just because he acts like a school kid who’s got one up on a teacher by making fart noises at the back of the class, doesn’t mean you have to encourage him.
Simple but funky little Warehouse Project 2010 promo here:
Don’t forget to buy your Warehouse Project tickets well in advance – all shows seem to be selling quickly this year. You can buy Warehouse Project tickets here.
That previous (rather long, in hindsight) post about Twitter and, particularly, Mani, reminded me of something else I meant to mention here – the end of a fellow Manchester blog, one that was a little more controversial than the meandering observations you will have found on these pages.FUC51 is (or rather was) a little play on words – or letters, more accurately.A blog about an era of Manchester’s history, when the Hacienda was still a club, not some ‘apartments’ (flats), and Factory Records released everything they did with a FAC number – The Hacienda was FAC51.Peter Hook, bass player with Joy Division and latterly New Order, the bands that largely funded the Factory Empire, recently opened a nightclub in Manchester called FAC251 – itself a play on letters and more than a little nod (more of a neck-cracking head butt without a target) towards the Hacienda days. FUC51 was set up to air the views of some who opposed Mr Hook and his cronies’ tendency towards wallowing in the past and, more pertinently, trying to milk the nostalgia for everything it’s got; a stance that, says FUC51, give the press and the rest of the country (World) an excuse to assume Manchester is stuck on a one trick loop of bow-legged swagger and ‘fookin bangin’ tunes, paying little respect or due attention to the new music being produced here and ignoring the fact that some people might not be trying to recreate the Madchester days or, even, that it doesn’t have to be the case that if you’re from Manchester and you play music, you must be influenced or compared to Joy Division/New Order/The Smiths/Stone Roses et al.
Are we all up to speed now?Good.FUC51 spent its life in a very different way to many blogs, this one included, in that people actually read it and took notice of it.They even wrote a piece in the Guardian detailing their plight (although, as the blog was always, and remains, written entirely anonymously, it’s possible it was run by, or at least received contributions from, a Guardian journalist, giving them something of a foot in the door.How will we ever know?We won’t, probably) and apparently had Peter Hook himself in quite a lather over its content and general message.So why am I writing about it?I’m not sure really.Just marking the end of an era.
Well well...I had thought my recent excursions on here into the world of Twitter might be mere one-offs, and Twitter would barely get a mention henceforth. The beginning of this week, however, has produced a whole three newsworthy tales from the strange world of Manchester’s Twittering celebrities.
First up, we have Mani – ex-bassist with the Stone Roses, now of Primal Scream and collaborator with Peter Hook on the FAC 251 project, as well as playing bass with Mr Hook in a self-dubbed ‘super band’, called Freebass. Recently, it seems, Hooky (as he is affectionately known amongst Manchester’s whimsical community) called time on Freebass, just before the upcoming launch of their first album. Mani – a bassist with a Twitter account and a chip on his shoulder – wasn’t too happy, judging by the following messages Tweeted over the weekend, all of them directed at Peter ‘Hooky’ Hook and the Freebass project:
"used to adore the man, now he's a self centred sellout reduced to hawking his mates corpse around to get paid. And he can't play" "I'm fine, dunno about the vulture who is ravenously devouring the last morsels of putrid flesh from Wilson/Curtis bones [...] I'm getting back with the "real"players tomorrow thank fuck. Can't be doing with talentless nostalgia fuckwit whores." "and I haven't even started on the cunt’s amateur night, one trick pony shite 2 string bass playing yet either. Used to laugh [...] we were all laughing behind his back watching the stupid wank struggle to do the same old shit he's done for the last 30 years !!"
There were more but...well, we lost interest to be honest. The language, of course, is Mani’s, not our own, so you’ll have to excuse us that. Interestingly, barely had the week begun when a public apology had been issued from Mani and duly accepted by Hook – after it had appeared in all of the local and national press. What’s that smell? Can you smell it too? Hmm...smells like a PR stunt to me.
Next in line could slightly tenuously be referred to as a furore and is still, as I type, developing its legs. By the time I’ve finished typing it may either have been completely forgotten about or, equally, caused the biggest celebrity stir since...well, something big. The former, I suspect, but nevertheless Jason Manford deserves a mention for his openness and lack of apparent fear through his Twitter account. It’s a reasonably long and complicated story but I will try to condense it so as not to waste any more of your time than is reasonable:
Jason did a gig over the weekend for the Help the Heroes charity, in which he made a comment about the lack of support from the government for those going out to war and, crucially, returning injured. Watching the cut of the show today, which is due to be televised, his comment questioning the government has been removed in the editing process – something he Tweeted about:
“Just watched my bit at the @HelpforHeroes gig. Can't believe some shithouse edited out the bit about the Government. Free Speech my arse!” “I said it's disgusting that they sent soldiers out, they come back injured & have to rely on charity. 1 in 4 homeless people are ex-services.”
Quite right Jason. I especially like the use of the word ‘shithouse’.
We’ve saved the biggest fuss for last - a story that has spread from Canal Street to around the world in a matter of hours, largely, if not wholly, thanks to Twitter. John Amaechi is an ex-NBA basketball player who now lives in Manchester – he’s from here originally. He’s a public speaker now and famously the first NBA player to come out as gay, albeit some years after his retirement. That explains the speed with which the story spread, incidentally – his connection with the NBA - but it doesn’t take away from the incident in question. He was (apparently, we have to say for legal reasons) refused entry to a bar on Canal Street because he was, “big and black and could be trouble.” Here’s his original Tweet:
“I can't believe it. I got barred from entering a bar (Crunch Bar in Manchester) because I was "big and black and could be trouble." Wow.”
The story has since been on the BBC news and of course all over the internet and the apparent final word came from John himself, on his blog, where he has posted a three page statement from the bar. A statement, incidentally, that he quite clearly states he in no way endorses, agrees with or recognises as any moral conclusion to the matter. You can read all about that here but we’d rather end with a picture of the man himself; one he uses as the title to his blog – a page that, when you arrive on it, is dominated by this. I love the apparent vanity. I might adopt a similar format for this blog...or maybe not.
In the course of the small amount of ‘research’ I did for yesterday’s musings on the weather, which mainly involved reading Twitter and clicking a few links (intrepid journalism this), I came across something else loosely weather-oriented. It also involves a form of transport, in this case boats; large forms of transport, namely planes, being something I’ve been vocal about on here before – namely my dislike of travelling in them. I’m not too bad with boats – at least if a boat’s engine fails, you just stop. If a plane’s engine fails, you fall out of the sky. Still, I’m not entirely enamoured by anything that involves me getting on something without any get out clause. You can’t get halfway to America on a boat, for example, and decide that, actually, you’re not that keen on being on water that much after all. Same deal with planes.
These videos, therefore, do little for my rational, sane mind when contemplating travel by sea. The first shows the inside of a boat that is experiencing some rather rough seas (stick with it (or fast forward) – it gets good after about 1:20). Nothing a few nuts and bolts wouldn’t fix, you might imagine, but a little extreme none the less. The second video...well. Three words from me: No. Thank. You.
Our dubious, rather reluctant love affair with Twitter continues this week with a startling episode on a Tuesday afternoon. I say startling but that actually renders me grouped with the people I was just about to talk about – those Twitterers with a penchant for near hysterical statement; flippant, off the cuff comments that still leave me wondering ‘did you really think about that before you said it?’
The answer would probably be no – Twitter isn’t about thinking about what you say, it’s about speaking your mind, then moving on, forgetting about it – not blogging about it. I, on the other hand, am not a true Tweeter, evidently, as I do things like write about other people’s Twitterings on here. I can live with that.
The prompt for this episode came from the oft-discussed and infamous weather systems of Manchester. Our offices are in Manchester (handy for a website all about...err...Manchester) and, on aforementioned Tuesday afternoon, large grey clouds were gathering over this very hamlet. A storm was evidently imminent. A flash across the sky – a rumble of thunder – then a large deluge of water from the skies. My Twitter account – kept open to review the musings of those talking about various things, including, unsurprisingly, ‘Manchester’, sprang to life.
“Thunder storm in Manchester” one of my esteemed Twitter ‘friends’ had written, some 20 seconds after first drop touched ground. “Really?” I felt like writing back. More inevitably followed – many along the same lines but some (the reason for these paragraphs) a little more...how should we put this...hysterical? Attention seeking?
“End of the world weather in Manchester,” said one. “Manchester is flooding...send help,” another. Perhaps my favourite: “What happened to the weather in Manchester?” Err...it changed? That’s pretty much what happens with the weather. Especially in England. Especially in Manchester.
The recent creation of our Essential A-Z Guide to Manchester, for new students and the like, led us to discover the apparently legendary, and certainly infamous, Owens Park, a halls of residence belonging to The University of Manchester. The reason for its infamy is quite simple – it is one of if not the biggest hall block in Manchester, housing over a thousand students under one roof. Put new, young students under one roof together, give them a couple of grand of student loans and keep their parents in a different post code and what do you get? Mischief is the answer, generally, on a grand scale in the case of Owens Park, it would seem.
Drinking unsurprisingly takes up a lot of the headlines regarding the block. A number of internet forums and websites devoted to the halls block cite ‘nightly fire alarms’ as a particular feature, set off either by crazy drunken students being naughty or, perhaps, crazy drunken students burning toast. Either would do it.
On a meander through the internet doing a little Owens Park research, we discovered something called the Owens Park Tower Challenge. Owens Park has 18 floors and one ingenious wag apparently took this as a challenge; the Owens Park Tower Challenge involves drinking (surprise surprise) a shot of something (sambuca seems popular) on each floor. And then finishing on a triple shot once you’re on the ground, just for good measure. YouTube naturally contains a colourful variety of material on this topic – it’s eye opening stuff. Or at least it would be for anyone who hasn’t been a fresher at university before. In that case, it looks like any other Tuesday night on campus. Here’s a little taste of what the Owens Park Challenge is all about:
The double shot of 85% absinthe at the end, washed down with some Smirnoff Ice, might be what tipped him over the edge. Don’t try this at home, kids.
Disclaimer: We by no means suggest you try to consume this much booze in one go. If you’re a student coming to Manchester this September, staying in Owens Park or elsewhere, look after yourselves. If you’re a parent of a student coming to Manchester this September, you probably shouldn’t have watched that video.
