Paninaro - oh, oh, oh

For no other reason than the sun is out, and maybe thoughts have turned to great holidays, I found myself humming along to this 1986 Pet Shop Boys classic tune over the weekend. Paninaro - a youth cult named after a sandwich, as this piece from Vice says. It’s even inspired a tribute t-shirt from Casualco.com which predictably sold out within hours.

At the time I felt the Paninaro look was a real coming together of styles. The whole football dresser thing had gone a bit stale - splintering off from Italian sportswear into flares and cords up north, and slacks and big jumpers in the south.

I was a first year student at the time and heading for a summer in the USA and Canada. It's probably the look that fixed my own personal preferences for life.

Today, as a man who should probably know better, I've still got several items of that look even now - checked and cotton/ light denim shirts, plain blue blazer, the best jeans I can afford (then, Levis 501s; now, selvedge denim), brown sturdy shoes (then, imitation Timberland; now, Mephisto), a Breton striped t-shirt, and my staple for all time, a two-button Lacoste polo shirt. In my younger days I liked a bold sweatshirt, though now I prefer British knitwear from Sunspel and John Smedley. Back then my pride and joy was a white C17 parka with orange lining and two badges on the sleeve - Juventus and Fac51. Oh, and backpacks. I've always loved a good backpack: Karrimor, North Face, Patagonia.

As I said in this piece about the Northern Monkeys book: "It didn't have a name then, but this was the emerging Paninaro look. By the time of our third year in 1987-88 my mates were well into looking smarter too - we liked Chevignon, Chipie, C17 and Timberland for a night at the Hacienda or the Venue, way before the Madchester druggie rave scene."

The deeper satisfaction of all of these items is still layering on a look, grafting different pieces from unlikely sources. Probably my favourite clothing brand now is Albam, which can definitely trace a creative lineage to this time and place. And to quote Paul Weller from this time, 'our favourite shop' is either J. Simons or Oi Polloi. However, I can't afford to just waltz in and pick anything I like. And there's no fun in doing that either.

I've told tales before of the treasure trove that was Shop 70 on Lamb's Conduit Street in London's Holborn, from where I bought a Stone Island hooded sweatshirt, which I still have, and (tragically) a CP Company duffel coat that I don't.


In its stead, and as a cocked cap to the video above, I found my current favourite coat, my Adidas Originals yellow rain jacket, which I discovered in... Well, that would be telling, I just wish I'd bought the matching blue one as well.

The season's over - the view from the Riverside

We've recorded a BRFCS / Rovers Chat end of season podcast, which was a real blast.

It's got Rich Sharpe from the Lancashire Telegraph, Tom Schofield from Rovers Chat and the 1875 podcast, Scott Sumner from 4000 Holes me, Mike Delap representing BRFCS and superbly pulled together and edited by Ian Herbert.

We even try a Blackburn Rovers-themed "Defend the Indefensible" round.  It's all so massive we've done it as a two parter. Part 1 and Part 2.

In his typically modest and understated way, Ian has thanked publicly all of our panelists and guests this last season who all give their time for free. Their support is greatly appreciated. I'd like to thank him, it's no small effort getting us match fit and ready to be vaguely coherent. Hopefully you enjoy listening. Please spread the word if you do... The link on iTunes is here.

I think I've pretty much exhausted everything I can say about this great, great season. It's really been a lift and I'm chuffed to have made some good pals along the way. There's more than just the team to be proud of, as I say on the podcast the club is in good shape behind the scenes, the media is as good as it has been for a long time - Rich Sharpe at the otherwise dismal Lancashire Telegraph is a true pro - the social media team at Rovers are top drawer, 4000 Holes fanzine is really good (though the quiz is too hard) and I always look forward to Jim Wilkinson's Blue Eyed Boy blogs - very, very special.

I did promise to mention the home games after last week's blog about the away trips. We usually go the same way, we always park in the same place, we try and get a pie from Leavers, but in its own beautiful way, every day is different. As a fall back, an overpriced Hollands on the ground is alright, I suppose.

Best performance: Shrewsbury. That was great, it had everything including a dreadful referee. But we properly marked out our intent that day.

Best atmosphere: First half against Wigan. Amazing.

Most ashamed to be a Rovers fan: Never. I even can't be bothered to summon up the energy to be angry about the dicks that invaded the pitch before the end of the game on Saturday. I know we did it at Doncaster, on the whistle, but Saturday was a bit different and not very spontaneous. Quite liked the righteous disgust from the rest of us.

Best pre-match scoff: Leavers on Bolton Road is still the king of the pie. I'll take whatever they have by the time we've got there, potato and meat for Joe, or chicken and bean for Louis. I like their traditional meat pie best.

Best visiting supporters: You'd expect the North West clubs to bring a few, and they did, contributing some real energy to the season, Oldham and Wigan both did so. But Plymouth brought a fair old contingent for a Tuesday night when they were bottom of the league.

Most shithouse team: Northampton Town at home, as they were away. I'd sign John-Joe O'Toole just for the devilment.

Best team we played: The teams that beat us at Ewood deserve respect for doing just that - Doncaster and Wimbledon - but Bristol Rovers were robbed, frankly. They should have beaten us fair and square, they were brave and athletic and maybe like a few others (Southend, Peterborough), just lacked that consistency and X Factor - we've been so blessed with Bradley Dack and Charlie Mulgrew to pop up with some magic when it's needed.

Best thing about League One: We won most weeks and I'd forgotten how that feels.

Worst thing about League One: the referees have been absolutely dreadful. Most are unfit, all are inconsistent, they are either ludicrously fickle or stupidly stubborn. It evened itself out over the season though.

Best known faces in our stand: Tim Farron MP, fashion guru Gary Aspden, Councillor Dave Smith and former Deputy VC of UCLAN, Alan Roff.

Best thing about BBC Radio Lancashire when we jump back in the car: Tony Mowbray's interviews. I could listen to Mowbray all day. He describes a game I actually watched and he doesn't whinge or come up with lame excuses. He has genuine enthusiasm for the game and conveys that real authentic belief in his squad without ever coming across as one of the lads. He's probably the best Rovers manager at the post-match interview that I can recall. Dalglish never gave much away, Souness was great, but often lost his rag, Allardyce and Hughes very predictable, Bowyer dour, Lambert incomprehensible, Kean and Coyle spouted nonsense. Tony Mowbray is peerless, actually.

Second best thing: Morecambe boss Jim Bentley's interviews. "Three lads out there lost limbs today. Two actually died."

Grimmest day: Hull at home in the FA Cup was awful, but it turned out I was seriously ill at the time. Spent the next few days in hospital.

Best day: The build up on a glorious sunny day to the last game against Oxford was special.

Thanks to everyone again. All the people who sit round us make for a great occasion too. The old fellah behind with his dry asides, the young bloke who is so well-informed about other results he seems to have Jeff Stelling in his ear, then there's the loud bloke who berates the linesman every match and some berk who screams "Referee, get him off, he's an animal. He could have killed him!"

None of this would be the same without you, Rovers fans. It was even worth getting a speeding ticket on Grane Road on the way to the early Wigan game. Roll on next season.

Stockport local elections round up - a few thoughts

So Stockport still has a minority Labour administration. There were a few gains here and there between all the main parties, but through all of the triumphs and disasters for all three parties what we have is a return to pretty much where everything was before.

Labour will be particularly delighted at the gain in Cheadle Hulme North by the narrowest of margins (2 votes!) as well as a further consolidation in Manor on top of securing their heartland seats in their core six wards, two with new candidates. A by-election in Edgeley and Cheadle Heath to re-elect a sitting Labour councillor will be held in three weeks time.

The Cheadle Hulme North result is the most dramatic one of the night, a result that prevented a breakthrough to the Liberal Democrats possibly becoming the largest party. Labour's joy there will be tempered by disappointment in Offerton, which a new candidate held for the Liberal Democrats.
It was generally a bad night for the Stockport Conservatives, failing to take Marple South & High Lane and losing Hazel Grove.

What follows is analysis and commentary, I have no skin in this game any more.

Candidates and campaigns matter
The only differences between the results in 2014 and 2018, the same cycle, were the Labour gains in Cheadle Hulme North and Manor. Labour actually fell further behind in seats it came close to winning in 2014 - notably Offerton and worse still, Bredbury & Woodley, where the Conservatives took 2nd place in a seat Labour were 182 votes off winning in 2012. Identifying a seat as a key target and having an energetic candidate working the patch makes so much difference to the result. But the longer it goes neglected, the harder it is to persuade voters that the party is serious.

The more local the campaign narrative, the more it suits the LibDems
In wards where the local campaigning narrative is about intensely local things, then the more likely the Liberal Democrats will win. At a time when allegiance and voting habits are driven by how people feel, it's not to the LibDems advantage to have people think nationally. The Conservatives can't run a campaign to stop the left wing lunatics running the Town Hall because they're in no position to influence it even if they won. Plus, it's also not true. It's a fantasy of the Westminster bubble to make the elections about Brexit, or a trial run of the General Election. The composition of the ruling group never featured on the LibDem strategy. Just bar charts, local credentials and claims to be working for you all year round. They can do this effectively because it's what they are known for, it's their brand.  The other parties tried to compete on this terrain and failed, except in Cheadle Hulme North, where the LibDem habit of borrowing voters backfired. There's a new conversation on the doorsteps which Andy Burnham's landslide to be Mayor has changed.

It's about building for the parliamentary seat 
It depends how you define success. Note that the Liberal Democrat successes were in every single ward in the Hazel Grove constituency, which they lost to the Conservatives in 2015 and failed to make up ground in 2017. They once held all three seats in Manor ward, which is in the Stockport parliamentary constituency, now they have none. They have retained an office in Romiley where full time staff work alongside the candidate (now a Councillor) to mount a campaign worthy of a General Election. A narrow loss probably suits this objective.

But boundary changes change the optics
A new parliamentary constituency of Marple and Hyde has been recommended by the Boundary Commission and may well be formed in time for the next General Election in 2022. On the number of seats by winning party, per ward, it's LibDem on 4, Labour on 3 and Conservative on 1. But calculated on vote share across the 8 wards that will make this up, it will be a tight three way fight, but it will be a Conservative seat with them leading 8889 votes to 8280 LibDem and 8099 for Labour. However in two of the Tameside wards the Liberal Democrats failed to field a candidate and in all but one of the seats Labour failed to win, they came third.

A word on turnout
Most people don't vote. The contested wards saw turnout hit 50%, where getting 1800 votes still didn't win it. But while Davenport & Cale Green had 28% heading for the polls, it dropped as low as 22% in Brinnington and Central. 

No appetite for independent candidates
The Heald Green independent trio remain an anomaly. Attempts elsewhere, such as Marple North never got anywhere. And John Pearson got 49 votes in Manor for his anti-austerity crusade, 10 more than he did in 2016.

What will happen at the council?
There's always the possibility of defections changing the balance, this is Stockport afterall, where egos and emnities can run deep. But ultimately it will be back to business as usual and filling in all those pot holes the candidates have spent the last six months pointing at.

We had joy, we had fun, we had a season in League One

In our darkest hour, we vowed to thee, my Rovers, that we would support our club in the hostile and unfamiliar terrain of League One. And we have.

Best place to visit: Shrewsbury. I like Shrewsbury, it's a really smart centre, decent places to eat and drink and though it's a hike from the stadium to the station, it's a more pleasant stroll than some of the other places we visited. And me and Rachel had a great pre-match catch up with our friend Father Tony McGrath.

Worst train journey: going to Peterborough away was like my morning commute stretched into three hours; hot, crowded, cramped, and never ending. Coming back in a great mood it started well enough as we were sat with Tony Leake, the former referee, then we got to Nottingham where we were joined by idiot Bolton fans, then Sheffield where noisy pissed-up Preston joined the party. I'm seriously too old for that crap.

Best away end atmosphere: so many contenders for this, Doncaster, Blackpool, Bury and Rochdale were all bouncing. But maybe because it was the distance involved and the constant noise, and the positive support throughout, I think Peterborough away was when it felt brilliant to be part of a fanbase that was connected to an improving team. Which brings us to...

Best performance: Nick Hornby's theory is that winning 3-2 is the best ever result because of the emotional journey, especially if the other team score first, and so Peterborough away proved. The second half spell, crowned by the sweeping move which led to the goal of the season from Dack was magic.

Most ashamed to be a Rovers fan: some berk shouting "MK Dons" at Wimbledon is just embarrassing, but being kettled with the Blackburn EDL at Bradford was a grave mistake. Having to walk to the match alongside people who should be locked up was truly depressing. The racism was disgusting, the wanton violence from scrawny scrotes who couldn't punch their way out of a wet paper bag was pathetic, but the looks of horror from the police and ordinary members of the public in Bradford city centre was truly shaming.

Best pre-match scoff: a few contenders here, but The Inn on the Green in Bristol with my pal Neil Tague was decent bar grub. Best take away was a massive piece of fish at Fleetwood, slightly edging it over cockles on Southend pier.

Best stadium: The stadiums in this division aren't great, if I'm honest. Including Ewood I've been to 20 grounds this season, 8 of them for the first time. Many are identikit new boxes on the edge of town like Scunthorpe, Walsall, Shrewsbury and Northampton. Or attempts at modernisation that create a mish mash of styles like at Bradford, Bristol Rovers, Peterborough and Fleetwood. The other failing of grounds at this level is the optimistic design. Swathes of empty seats in towering stands like at Coventry, Blackpool, Wigan and, ahem, Ewood, aren't great either. But for the proximity to the centre, a great view and a decent atmosphere, the best League One ground is New York Stadium, Rotherham.

Best station to ground signage thanks to visiting supporters trail of crude drawings on snow sprinkled car windscreens? Definitely Wimbledon, where every other car from Norbiton station to Kingsmeadow had been adorned with either a "BRFC" or a cock and balls. Thanks, lads. Which brings me to...

Worst ground, Kingsmeadow, the temporary home of Wimbledon isn't fit for purpose, as I said at the time. Best of luck on your journey back to Wimbledon, chaps.

Most shithouse team: Northampton Town, home and away, but especially away. Frustrating, hard to play against and celebrated a point like they'd won the league.

Best performance by a former player: Jack Byrne for Oldham was more Richie Smallwood than Richie Smallwood and more Peter Whittingham than him. A crime we never got the best from him. Terrific player.

Best team we played: I've been surprised how athletic and how fit most teams are at this level and no game has been a breeze, whatever the result. The main difference is that mistakes are more plentiful than the Championship, but for me the team that asked the most questions of us on the road was Scunthorpe.

Coldest: Blackpool was absolutely freezing.

Wettest: Rochdale.

Hottest Bovril: Rochdale, scalded hands.

Best cheeky diversion for one of life's delights: The Brick Lane Beigel Bakery after Southend.

Game I'm glad I didn't go to: the trip to Gillingham sounded dire, both times.

Game I wish I had gone to: I only missed six aways and three of them were midweek night matches, I refuse to go to Milton Keynes and had other plans for Charlton (I know). Plymouth was a stretch and the night matches at Gillingham, Portsmouth and Oxford just weren't practical. But I really think that win at Portsmouth was another positive turning point and I was gutted not to be there to see it.

Best flag day: We only had one outing for the flag at Doncaster (above). I sort of considered the pithy and curt "how does it feel to treat me like you do?" as a direct cock at the club in general and the owners in particular, so it's been folded up in a bag since Brentford last season. It wasn't until recently that I found myself listening to the song from which it comes (New Order's Blue Monday), that I reckoned you could view it another way. To "treat me" like you do. And we have been treated. Dack's magic, Charlie's leadership and his goals, the King of Ewood rarely giving the ball away, Danny Graham's poaching. It has been a treat.

Best thing about this season: Yes, winning again is great. But football is nothing without the fans. It's been a real blast to be fair. So thank you to you all for your contribution to the good times on the road this season: Robin Sager and Sam Taplin, Dave Smith, Mushtaq Khan, Andy Currie and Alex, Baz Dootson, Matt Dunham, Neil Tague, Stuart Shaw, Ian Herbert, Linz Lewis, Mikey Delap, Stuart Grimshaw and Matthew, Kamy, Jim Wilkinson, David Robinson, Kevin Bradley, Paul Oldrieve, Tony Leake, Danny Davis, Andrew Stirrup, Ian and Jan Currie, Andrew Currie, Matthew Currie, James Barrow, Tony Brierley, Steven Lindsay, Mike Kendal, Alec Craig, Trevor Curson, David and Pam Southworth, to all the Rovers fans who we've had a natter with on trains, concourses, stations, pubs and podcasts and most of all to my fantastic lads who've been on this trip with me, Joe and Louis.

Next weekend: Fortress Ewood?

A few thoughts on the local elections in Marple South and High Lane Ward

Here's a bit of a summary of my thoughts on the local council elections in my ward. It started with some tweets I rattled off in frustration at what was landing on my doormat, I hope I'm relaying the sentiment.

"Good grief local politics is so very shabby. Horrible race to the bottom to oppose speed bumps. Has no-one the courage to stand up for road safety? Dog whistle, dog dirt politics at its worst."

So started a tweet on Sunday morning, that became a thread and a bit of a rant. Sparked as it was by a truly appalling Liberal Democrat leaflet. It cut to the heart of everything awful about local politics. Jumping on bandwagons, lack of nuance, failing to lead, saying anything at all to get an angle.

At my snarkiest I summarised my disgust thus: “Yes, I went into politics to really make a difference. I got rid of some speed bumps. Saved the suspension on some boy racer’s Subaru. Three children died, mind, but it’s a price worth paying to get elected.”

But it also brought me back to what I think the role of a local political representative is. Being elected should be about leading a community, not following or reflecting back the supposed popular will. And claiming local credentials as the NUMBER ONE reason to vote for someone is beyond laughable. Yes, when I stood in an election I told my story. People have a right to know, but THIS! This is treating the electorate like fools. A BIG reason to vote for him? No, Colin. You had three goes and that’s your best?

Sure, all politics is local. But it also doesn’t have to be parochial. And so I've also nothing but derision for Liberal Democrat rubbish about the Burnham Tax.

Then the Tory leaflet arrives.

I'll be honest, I'm not thrilled about their stance on the green belt and speed bumps, but at least they explain their alternative. As a piece of political communication it is very effective. You get ten "positive reasons" to vote for them with strong visual indicators. I'm not surprised at this, one of their existing councillors, Kenny Blair, is probably the best local councillor I've ever had represent me; smart, considerate and dedicated.

We delivered the first Labour leaflet for the candidate, Chris Wallis, a guy I really like. Local politics needs enterprising, popular, funny, energetic people like him.


But I'll be honest, the more Labour nationally frame this as an endorsement of an alternative government, the less inclined I am to vote for them. The more this is about the make-up of a competent and forward looking Labour council in Stockport Town Hall, then I'm happy.

But when it's amateurs against professionals out there, you just have to ask yourself who you'd want on your side as your local representatives. 

V is for Victory

The Friends of Rose Hill station are delighted to announce that, following all of our efforts, the 17.34 from Piccadilly has been reinstated to run into Rose Hill instead of Marple in the upcoming new timetable.

"Through Northern, Network Rail are offering the service to Rose Hill until 31st August with discussions ongoing as to a proposal after that with the train running to Rose Hill as well as the Work Train. This would result in the return service being retimed earlier. Let’s hope that a satisfactory permanent solution will follow."

This is a real victory for common sense and a massive tribute to the power of small groups of dedicated people who can take on distant bureaucracies.

Save me, from the makers of desperate TV

The most important element of any storytelling is how it ends. A very close second is how it starts. How it grabs your attention and says powerfully that this is worth sticking with. But the ending is everything. And have you noticed how many TV series now seem to end on a promise of more to come? It’s a hopeful wave at the possibility of a new series, or a disappointing whimper. The desperation to milk a format means that no happy-ever-after is an option. There has to be a loose end that remains flailing in the wind, even looser and freer than before, begging for someone to have another go to tie it up properly, rather than chuck it in the plot stream with all those other red herrings.

Spoilers follow, but the main point is a build up to tomorrow night’s Season 8 conclusion of The Walking Dead, a make or break moment for a declining franchise.

So it was been with the best series I’ve seen recently - Sky Atlantic's Save Me - where the conclusion is entirely unsatisfactory, yet utterly in keeping with everything that’s gone before. A roller coaster of a story, of (most remarkably) wit, redemption, true horror, twisted morality and a deeply depressing and unsettling glimpse of humanity’s narcissism and depravity. Second series? How can there not be?

Marcella left me with an entirely different feeling as Hugo Speer leaned over a dishevelled homeless person, talking about a secret unit of the police. Everything that had gone before, the ham fisted signposting of the supposed suspects, the wasted time on dead end story lines and the preposterous liberties with police procedures. All of it had me screaming inside, please end this. No more, no more. And then she finds a way to disappear, to vanish, but the so-secret-we-must-never-know-about-them-police find her. It seems to be a shrug. Less of a plea, more of a well, if you really must commission a third series, here’s your angle, but we really don’t believe you’ll go for it.

Poor Anna Friel, after bravely traversing the Sahara desert and battling rogue mercenaries in Odyssey, as a more Poundland version of Homeland, her next attempt to match Claire Danes (Carrie in Homeland) as the worst mother on television is so psychotic, so off the wall, even the makers seem to have given up. But this is ITV where nothing too absurd can ever be discounted.

BBC’s Come Home won’t ever come back. It was a bold attempt at addressing that most taboo of all last taboos, the crap, selfish and reluctant mother. I don’t know what it is with BBC series set in post-troubles Northern Ireland, but while The Fall was rapey and exploitive, Come Home was populated with snide and manipulative women all either lacking empathy or only capable of making poor decisions against the interests of children and hard working men. The only exception was the absolute beast of a criminal wife beater, but even with him we were invited to price in the possibility that he was driven to it.

And so to tomorrow night’s season 8 conclusion of The Walking Dead. I could write pages of fan theory and meta analysis of TWD, but all the failings of this series crash on the rocks of the basic season architecture. It has found a rhythm of predictability that has rendered it wholly absurd. As other critics have pointed out, it is a series with too little story and too much time to tell it. I said at the conclusion of Series 7, or half way through series 8, that nothing really happened since Negan killed Glenn and Abraham so brutally. There have been some interactions between the warring factions, but the same stand off pretty much still exists, it needs a dramatic stand-off with a firm conclusion, a seismic peak moment of television that the makers have deemed can only happen in 4 out of the 16 episodes of the season - the first, the last and either side of the mid-season break. It means there are 12 weak and plodding episodes that inch us closer to those points. There is no possibility of any major character being killed outside of those four episodes, stripping them of any tension or surprise. As ratings have slumped there is now a consensus that the stables need sweeping. Even in interviews with the producer who says this next episode will be an ending to all current storylines. I’ve had the advantage of reading the graphic novels up until the arrival of these crazies called the Whisperers (who wear zombie skin) and am up with the debates about who they might be, and if they might end up making an appearance in the TV series, or if they’re already around. There’s also the build up to the point about what to do about Negan. In the comics they keep him prisoner in Alexandria, skip ahead and several communities live peacefully for a while.

Here's what we know is going to happen: Morgan (Lennie James) is going to cross over into Fear the Walking Dead, there is going to be a severe change of plot and tone, something with the helicopter will be an important part of the transition. There is another community out there.

Here’s what I think should happen: Jadis, or the Oceanside women, should conduct a massacre of whoever they find as a way of marking their border, just as happened in the graphic novel. The mysterious helicopter needs to open a door into a much more imaginative post-apocalyptic social order than a dictatorship, linked to the appearance of Georgie. We're done with idiots like Negan and The Governor. Frankly, I'm done with Rick Grimes. A far better leader is emerging in Maggie, who still hasn't had her baby. She needs to execute Gregory once his cowardice and treachery are made tragically apparent. Eugene needs to go. He will probably redeem himself with some kind of sabotage of the Saviours weapons, but he'll still go.

Will that happen? I somehow doubt it, but it needs to, to actually prepare the way for what needs to happen in Series 9. The end of The Walking Dead for once and for all.

Still upbeat after clash of the Rovers at Bristol

It’s never a pleasure to come off a game when you’ve looked at the clock and it’s 1-0 and it’s 90+4, and then in the blink of an eye and the swing of a boot it’s 1-1. And at this stage of the season I’m not in the mood for fair results overall or laments over wasted chances. Part of me wants it to end. Another just wants this season to go on and on. More new grounds, more trips with my lads, more lunches with friends in nice pubs and cafes in parts of England I haven’t been to before. But also that feeling of pride that I’ve somehow got back in this football club.

I can’t feel anger at these players, only disappointment at a result. Sure Derrick Williams should have scored. Payne could have done more with the ball running at defenders. As a team they would have looked at how they might have done more to kill the energy of the game at 1-0 and into the last few minutes. Could have, should have, would have. But this team is still noticeably better than most teams they share a pitch with, and they seem to be able to avoid defeat remarkably well. As a club, we are clearly still in a very decent position. Last week against Southend was a horror show in the last few minutes, but we won. Today we looked comfortable on the ball, stronger going forward, but just missing a bit of brilliance from Dack and Armstrong. I think we owe them an enormous amount and the pressure to perform miracles must be huge. But any analysis of a football match can’t just take into account one team without acknowledging the ability of the opposition to also influence the result, so fair play to Bristol Rovers for chucking everything at us right to the end.

Some of our fans don’t half come out with some nonsense, but I’m going to hold back from repeating the extremities of what I heard from people today as I’ve no desire to fuel this debate as it’s just not helpful. But I will confess to being disappointed that the whole mentality of the team is that we’re edging closer to the finish line, rather than flowing out in pomp and with a swagger.

I enjoyed another good day out today, except for that shot from Chris Lines at 10 to 5. The Inn on the Green on Gloucester Road was a fine spot to catch up with my pal Neil Tague. I used to live in Bristol but on the opposite side of the city, and have never been to the Memorial Ground. That’s the point about this season being about discovery. It also brought back a few memories of the first long distance away trip I did on my own – the second day of May 1981 – when we missed out on promotion despite winning at the old Eastville stadium. Subsequent trips were to their temporary home at Bath City’s Twerton Park.

It’s a funny wee ground. The stand behind the goal looked like it was on loan from Chatsworth Country Fair, the terrace behind the other goal looked packed and raucous, and I liked that they call it the Tote End as a nod towards their history at Eastville. Our terrace in the corner lacked a bit of atmosphere, but the view was OK. It’s odd that a city like Bristol doesn’t have a more successful club, maybe the “Gas” getting a new stadium might be the spur that worked for Swansea and Brighton.

That makes it another new ground I’ve watched football on, the 156th. I’m still on 83 clubs out of the current 92 (the Punk 92), and I’m up to 78 of the current 92. Onwards to Doncaster. I still think we’re going up.

What I'm going to say on the BRFCS podcast, what I've said and what I never say any more

Louis, Danny Graham, me, David Southworth

Next week we're going to be recording a Blackburn Rovers supporters podcast, it will be a marker for where we are up to with just four games to go, having played Bristol Rovers at the weekend.

I'm as one with King of the Ewood Bloggers Jim Wilkinson that this has been a heck of a good season to be a Blackburn Rovers fan. After all the disappointment of recent years, to be 'on our way back' feels so much better than the slow decline we had endured. We have the most exciting player in the division in Bradley Dack. So whatever happens in the next few games, I will probably see our team notch up more points in a single season than they ever have before. Think about that for a minute. The promotion of 2001 was completed with 91 points, the Premiership win with 27 wins and 89 points (from 42 games) and the last time we were at this level it was with two points for a win, but we would have got 84 points in new money.

So, as well as a few thoughts from Bristol, I'll say a version of all of that.

I'll also be reminded that earlier in this season I called Danny Graham 'useless' after the Plymouth home draw, that I said Mowbray over complicates things and the team is 'overcoached', that we play to the style of the opposition too much and that the team has a soft core. Well, all of that (and more) is true on a bad day. Blissfully, we have had far fewer bad days.

I also have said how much I was annoyed by Elliot Bennett’s fist pump. To me it seemed like a snarl at the fans. It’s become a thing now, a symbol of his connection with the fans. What do I know? As the old gent behind us says when someone does something other than the simple obvious thing.

As I said here, I never speak to the players, I literally have nothing to say to them beyond 'well done'. I certainly can't deign to discuss the game they've just played in. When I do it usually ends awkwardly. From the time when I collared Noel Brotherston on Blackburn station on his way to meet the Northern Ireland squad (1981, I'm thinking) and I suggested he was saving himself for his country. Frankly, he should have given me a Belfast slap, never mind a couple of comps for the next away match. There have been exceptions, like when David Dunn came to a dinner as my guest. I like listening to players give their view, but they're usually so guarded.

We had our picture taken with Danny Graham after the Walsall game (above). He seemed like a really nice bloke, to be fair as most of this squad do. I'm amazed though that I managed to get that close to him without him grabbing my shirt, tangling his legs around mine, or him using his backside to shove me out of the way.

So, hope you enjoy the podcast and here's to three points at the third ground I've watched Rovers at the other Rovers. Do they still play in blue and white quarters?

Northern Rail goes all Kafka on us (updated)

Friends of Rose Hill station make the place so appealing, what are Northern playing at?

I wrote over the weekend about the proposed new timetable for Rose Hill station, at the end of a branch line in the bottom right corner of Greater Manchester. In there, I expressed my delight at the new timetable in May and how half hourly services throughout the day, up until after 9pm were a massive improvement on the status quo.

However (and there's always a however with Northern Rail, the train operating company), there is no train at the absolute peak time. Instead, at 17:34, a train will leave Manchester Piccadilly, go to all the usual stations on our line, stop at Woodley for NINE MINUTES then divert into Marple instead (source, Real Time Trains). At first I put this anomaly down to a data error, but no, it's apparently because they *might* need to park a works train sometime between 1800 and 1810.

I've tried to offer Northern a chance to respond, but they clearly don't care about some berk with a blog. I got the bureaucratic fob off of a 20 day response time to my "complaint".

It isn't a complaint. It's an enquiry.

They told me to phone. I did, I got cut off. I phoned again. No one answered.

Our local heroes, the Friends of Rose Hill Station have done some digging and have had a reply. It actually defies belief. I'm going to quote directly from a note I was copied in on.

It is because Network Rail have a Railhead Treatment Train (RHTT) path on the Rose Hill branch between 1800 and 1809. Note, it is a PATH, not a TRAIN.

It has apparently always been there but the proposed new timetable departure at 1734 would conflict with it. This is why the 1734 departure will travel to Woodley, sit for ten minutes there and then pootle on to Romiley and terminate at Marple, 40 mins after leaving Piccadilly!! This is so surreal that I find it difficult to get my brain round it. It poses the following questions (and I'm sure there are more questions):

1. Why has Northern Rail waited until now to raise this? The 1734 Monday to Friday departure was in the May 2018 consultation timetable issued last year.

2. Has an RHTT ever traveled up the Rose Hill branch? Have any neighbours ever seen or heard a railhead treatment train on the Rose Hill branch around 1800 Mon-Fri? Does anyone else have any knowledge of such a train?

3. Would the good folk of Surbiton or Bromley calmly accept such a pathway for a phantom train to prevent one of their peak time trains from being timetabled? I think not and nor should we.

4. Why can't Northern Rail shift their phantom RHTT path to 2140, after the last Rose Hill train will have been and gone? Most RHTT's run at night.

5. Has Network Rail got it in for Rose Hill? After their five year unjustifiable refusal to give us permission to clear part of the disused platform, it feels like an anti-Rose Hill vendetta.

We need to reverse this stupid decision. Who is this railway run for?

UPDATE: Northern Rail have officially confirmed this account to be true, but say they hope to have the problem sorted in time for the December timetable change.

Strange moves on the railway - how new timetable for Marple and Rose Hill makes no sense

Us hardy commuters of Northern Rail have had to put up with a lot over the last few years. As working patterns change, cities grow, so does the popularity of taking the train to work in the morning. This has led to overcrowding at a time when the rolling stock is well past its sell-by date. The government issued Northern with a new franchise on the condition that the hated Pacers be replaced by 2020, and we have been assured that’s happening by the end of next year. What is more likely, however, is our lines will get the refurbished Sprinter diesel units which are still pretty noisy and have a higher doorway, which makes them hard to access for less mobile passengers.

We've also had to grin and bear it through regular strikes over future staffing levels on new driver only trains. Yes, the limited services are a disruption, but we cope. But it rather exposes a worrying intransigence on the part of Northern Rail management and the RMT Union that they can't sort this issue out.

I digress, but that’s important context. In May there is to be a new timetable, thanks to the Real Time Trains site we've had a glimpse before they are officially announced. It looks like the morning services are broadly the same, and there is a massive improvement in the frequency of trains in the evening. Currently, if you go to an event or work late, the next (and last) train after the 18:35 isn’t until two hours later, or you get one to Marple and hike up the hill. That’s changing and there will be two trains an hour up until 21:09. Inevitably the frequency of that service will result in more park and ride passengers utilising Rose Hill in the morning. The tweaks however don't make much sense. There will be a gap in service in the absolute peak time from the frustratingly early 17:10 (which was the 17:20 and will have worked well for people who finish work at 5) until 18:09! But there will be a 17:34 out of Piccadilly via Hyde, but running into Marple instead of Rose Hill.

As fellow commuter Catherine Waddington first suggested on Twitter this just has to be a mistake as it seems to clash with other Marple trains minutes apart and the return to Piccadilly is right behind a service from New Mills. I’m intrigued as to the planning process that has informed these changes. The wonderful Friends of Rose Hill Station conduct a survey on numbers, but I’m not aware of any detailed enquiries into why these changes are taking place in the shape they are.

Also, Piccadilly station will soon have the electronic barriers on platforms 1 to 3 which will make it even more crowded at peak times. Already my season card doesn’t work in barriers because my phone has damaged it, and I’m not convinced that everyone will have the ability to purchase a ticket by the time they get to Manchester and the rules are tightening on people who don't. Or maybe they’ll open the barriers as a free for all at peak times meaning the fare dodgers will take their chances like they do on Metrolink.

In the interests of fairness I've put these points to Northern Rail's press office on Friday morning, but they hadn't replied (it's Sunday now). I will update if they do.

Finally, it's difficult to understate how important to our service the local Friends of Rose Hill Station have been, improving the environment of the station and campaigning for improvement to services. Please sign up to receive updates and subscribe to support the excellent work they do on our behalf.

Honesty and sense on the law, killing burglars and Richard Osborn-Brooks

I was thinking of writing something about the death of the burglar in south London, killed by 78-year-old Richard Osborne-Brooks. But Stephen Bush in the New Statesman has saved me the bother.

“Good morning. The death of Harry Vincent, killed by 78-year-old pensioner Richard Osborn-Brooks, has taken on a political dimension after the Justice Secretary, David Gauke, said that people should feel to defend themselves in their own homes. (Osborn-Brooks has been arrested and charged. The Sun is running a petition calling for the charges to be dropped.)

“Of course, the truth is that homeowners – and renters too for that matter – are allowed to defend themselves provided they use “reasonable force”. And, of course, if I phone up the police, tell them I have killed someone in my flat but they were breaking in, for obvious reasons, the police have to investigate rather than take my word for it.

“Don’t forget that Tony Martin, the farmer who shot and killed a burglar in 2000, the last time this issue was on the political agenda, told the police that he had fired in self-defence but a jury found that he had laid in wait for the robbers and fired without warning.

“In this case, if it turns out that Osborn-Brooks’ account of events is true, the charges will likely be dropped – not because of a petition in a tabloid newspaper but because that’s how the law works, though I doubt that will stop the Sun from declaring victory should that happen.

“We hear a lot about fake news, as if this were a problem that cropped up only in the 2016 and 2017 elections. There is a real problem with news stories that have at best a sketchy relationship with the truth being spread by new blogs on the Internet. But there is also a real problem of news stories that have at best a sketchy relationship wit the truth being spread by old newspapers on the Internet and in print. How disappointing that Gauke couldn’t do what a Lord Chancellor should, and explain how and why the law works, rather than bending in the wind with the tabloid mood.”

J. Simons of London, the Godfather of British male fashion

I can't remember whether I ever actually bought anything from J Simons, possibly a pair of Bass Weejun loafers (which I still have and really love), but I still can probably cite it as the motherlode when it came to my fairly fixed style of clothing and how it has gently evolved. In the early 90s we'd wander in to this treasure trove of a shop next to Covent Garden and the owner, John Simons, would talk us through great stories such as the red stitching on the seams on Levis jeans, the origins of penny loafers and the Harrington jacket.

We didn't know it at the time but we were in the presence of one of the giants of the mod era. A real cultural figure in London. So I'm really looking forward to seeing the full version of the film trailed above, featuring notable sharp dressers like Robert Elms, Paul Weller and Kevin Rowland, and someone who featured heavily in my 1988 undergraduate dissertation on the New Man - ad guru John Hegarty. It feels like a fitting tribute to the contribution of one of the giants of British male fashion, who took the best bits of Americana, Italian quality and a classy British street attitude and made something special.

I love his shop in Marylebone. Next time I'm down I'll be paying him a visit. I might even buy something this time.

The source for this nostalgia trip was a lovely piece in GQ, here.

New era for New Charter - building the Northern Powerhouses

Tim, Gill, Bridget, Fay, Ian, me and Mark. 

We held the last ever New Charter Group board at the end of March. It's been a real privilege to serve alongside such a smart and energetic board of directors, giving support and scrutiny to a really capable and talented executive team.

I've known the chair, Fay Selvan, for a while longer than we've worked together. She's one of those people who fizzes with ideas and just exudes passion and concern to make a difference.

It's been an incredibly challenging period for social housing. When I joined the board the government capped rent increases, which drove a coach and horses through the business plan, and a bond issue. It necessitated a cost reduction programme across the organisaton, yet we still hit all our targets and metrics. It was clear too that well-run, socially focused social housing organisations had a real role to play in mitigating austerity and meeting the challenges of the lack of new homes being built. Slowly, surely, the tide has turned and government ministers have grasped who has the capacity and structure to deliver. Yes, we're still here, Sajid.

When I was interviewed to join the board I made it clear I wanted to join an organisation that could be part of the change. The endgame has been a merger with Adactus to form Jigsaw Homes Group, with homes stretching across the North West, but still with a vitally important root in Tameside.

I'm still going to be a director of the New Charter Building Company and a trustee of some of the charitable projects, and while things might take a while to settle down, I'm confident that we can continue to play a really important part in building our Northern Powerhouse.

My social media fast - Twitter is toxic, Facebook is sinister, but I'm not quitting

Being off social media during Lent has definitely given me time and space for the reflections I intended. I hope I've made much better connections with true friends, prioritised what is truly important and discarded what is trivial and makes me unhappy.

That it's not the be all and end all is obvious. But it's all made me realise its inherent benefits as well as the obvious downsides. Some to do with system design, others to do with human behaviour.

I'll start with Facebook first. A really good friend who works in law enforcement describes it as the devil. It seeps into lives and corrodes from within. When in the wrong hands it is a tool for great evil. It has also been deliberately designed as a mind control tool, as we found out recently with the Cambridge Analytica revelations. But that's also because it makes us lazy. We rely on it too much to tell us who to be friends with, whose posts to follow, what to like and comment on. If it doesn't happen on Facebook it hasn't happened. So it makes you disconnected from the daily lives and concerns of people you care about, but have view of their lives seen only through this very distorted lens.

On the upside, I quite like seeing my Mum's posts about cats. I actually think it's a perfect tool for organising close groups of connected people - like in my fitness classes. I also appreciate it as a conduit for family news and sharing stories from friends abroad, who it has been harder to stay in touch with over the last few weeks. I used to be strict about Facebook friending, then I stood in an election. I started taking all kinds, but I think I'm going to tidy up and make it about real friends, old friends, friends abroad and family. And no politics.

As if to prove the point, the first post I've just seen on Facebook is a delightful post by my brother-in-law Dave Tinkler in the Lancaster Past and Present group, of a newspaper clipping of his Dad (RIP) when he was on his National Service.

The platform I've missed the least as a sucker up of time and energy levels has been Twitter. I used to love Twitter for its serendipity. I'd smugly boast that Twitter amazed me with wisdom from people I don't know, while Facebook would appall me because of people I did. I now think pretty much the opposite. People have got a bit more used to Facebook, but have got massively self-important and shouty on Twitter. I say most people, I noticed a while ago how much the algorithims were shaping your timeline now that I follow so many people. It's meant to be helpful, a filtering, but it just keeps pushing more and more angry Corbynistas, Centrist Dads, antisemites and Mancunian boosterists. The politics of the loudmouth has ruined it. You are required to work hard at your followers and timeline, which seems like further demands on time I don't want to give up.

However, Twitter is a decent platform for being part of an emerging trending news event. It's also a powerful tool for driving traffic to a website and for sharing content. I've done the odd blog on a Sunday through Lent and the page views are right down. Being able to tag people, target the marketing and share stories from events I've been involved in has always been really useful. Not utilising it would be a folly. But again, it requires time and effort to make it focused and useful.

I've just had a look at what's been going on, and I've rightly missed a few chances to punt my own events and debates and support colleagues who were speaking. I've not replied to comments about blogs, either about football or political things, but also local Marple matters. I've dropped about 12 followers.

Finally, I had one person, just one, ask me at an event why I'd been so quiet on LinkedIn lately. I've just looked and I've had 92 requests to do the linking in thing. Six from people I work with at Manchester Met, a smattering of old contacts in business, and hardly any with a personal message. It really showed up the paucity of relevance of LinkedIn. It also reminded how much more important it is to actually go out and meet people.

Jeremy Corbyn simply doesn't get anti-semitism - that's why he's unfit to lead

Corbyn with his friend Jackie Walker, currently suspended for Antisemitism

I should have spotted an early glimpse of Labour's antisemitism crisis in Stockport Labour club in 2014, when I passed a positive comment about the effectiveness of Andrew Gwynne, the MP for Denton and Reddish. The retort came that he was "dodgy on Palestine". Apart from questioning then how often this came up on the doorsteps of Dukinfield, I wondered what kind of Labour activist even knew what Andrew thought about the Middle East and why it would be the first thing you'd say about him. The same activist seemed animated to discover on another occasion that a prominent local Liberal Democrat "might be Jewish".  All of this pre-dated Jeremy Corbyn as leader and could at a stretch have been described - or even dismissed - as an "isolated pocket".

There was a telling moment in the Vice documentary about Jeremy Corbyn when he got incredibly prickly about Ken Livingstone. His response was an irritable repetition about Ken being suspended for "inappropriate" comments. He both refused to, and was unable to, explain what that was. In the whole rumble about antisemitism he would continually condemn "antisemitism, and all forms of racism". It showed that Corbyn actually doesn't understand it at all. He had no appreciation of why Ken Livingstone had caused such grave offence, no awareness of the intricacies of his crass and cod historical scholarship of Nazi Germany, or of why the dripping of poisonous revisionism of history is a trope to minimise the memory of the Holocaust.

To Jeremy Corbyn racism is generally perpetuated by white people on minority ethnic people, usually blacks and Asians. It comes largely in the form of racist jokes and comments about other ethnic groups, escalating to discrimination, racist graffiti and outright violence. Of course he's against it. In his world only the virtuous left wingers like him are against it quite as seriously as him. The Tories and the right wing of the Labour Party aren't, either because they don't care, or they feed off the divide and rule of cynical neo-liberalism. I don't know, I'm guessing.

People like him don't do things like that, so the very notion that anyone on his side does so is absurd. So, it follows, the accusation that anyone does is almost certainly a cover for something else. Or to quote the Unite union boss Len McCluskey, a smear: "I believe it was mood music that was created by people who were trying to undermine Jeremy Corbyn."

You don't have to look very far before you find a strong body of opinion amongst the Corbyn adoring left that this is a "smear". There are opinion polls which back this up. If Jeremy says something, then it's true. If you contest it, then you *must* be acting in bad faith against him and weaponising an issue that simply doesn't warrant a serious consideration.

As the most recent exposition of Labour's problem with the Jews emerged in late March, Tom Peck, summed up the reaction in the Independent:  "#PredictTheNextCorbynSmear, in which his supporters turn this antisemitic anger, which Corbyn himself appears to be genuinely upset and angered by, into a joke."

Apart from quoting a bit of Shelley at Glastonbury, I genuinely struggle to remember literally anything Corbyn has said in any of his rather rambling speeches to his following, but it is impossible to imagine him actually speaking the words in his open letter to the Jewish community. For a politician who’s brand is supposedly straight talking and honest, that is a serious charge.

In the open letter he says: "While the forms of anti-Semitism expressed on the far right of politics are easily detectable, such as Holocaust denial, there needs to be a deeper understanding of what constitutes anti-Semitism in the Labour movement. Sometimes this evil takes familiar forms - the east London mural which has caused such understandable controversy is an example. The idea of Jewish bankers and capitalists exploiting the workers of the world is an old anti-Semitic conspiracy theory. This was long ago, and rightly, described as "the socialism of fools"."

Instead, when he was finally pinned down by Jewish News to be asked about antisemitism on the left, we got the usual waffle - "all forms of racism" and "all abuse is wrong". But most tellingly of all, "I’ve obviously locally met people from the mosque and so on to deal with that and indeed Muslim women groups because they have suffered the most in exactly the same way as many Jewish people have suffered abuse as well. Abuse is wrong whoever it is against. "

HE DOESN'T GET IT AT ALL.

Frankly, he's still in the realms of street attacks and Twitter abuse. A one-dimensional characterisation of how racism plays out. Intellectually, he can't seem to get his head around the insidious nature of left antisemitism and where it comes from, what it fuels and how it ultimately destroys communities from within. Which is why the lazy conspiracy world view, that a cabal of Zionists, Tories and Blairites (the few) control the world, has taken such deep root in this swamp of soundbites and easy answers.

But this, by Neil McCrae, starts to posit the question that no-one actually wants to ask. Why now, and where has this come from? It sort of comes full circle to the original view about what we traditionally think the racist enemy looks like and how they behave. "They are aghast at the resurgent ogre of anti-Semitism, which ranges from casual remarks to blood-libel conspiracy theorists, Holocaust-deniers and that ugly combination of hard Left and Islamo-Fascists who want Israel wiped off the map. Will this change anything, I wondered? Walking back over Westminster Bridge, I overheard an answer to my question: ‘He won’t bat an eyelid’. After all, there is a voting bloc twelve times larger than the Jews to harvest."

He's obviously talking about the Muslim community. George Galloway built his Arabist political rebirth on this rumbling, adopting the rhetoric and language of the middle eastern dictator. As the writer Nick Cohen put it back in 2016, "George Galloway, who, never forget, was a demagogue from the race-card playing left rather than the far right, made the private prejudices of conservative Muslim voters respectable."

I don't think Corbyn's up to this. His judgement, his intellect and his moral range are too limited. Despite his pretence at being this man of peace, he rarely seeks to find common ground, just to take sides. The "dodgy" company he keeps doesn't contradict this. Seeing him parading around with his long term friend Jackie Walker (picture, above), was open mockery of concerns in the party and explains the limp response that follows. It was she, lest we forget, a vice-chair of Momentum, who has been suspended from the Labour Party twice. Firstly because she claimed the “chief financiers of the slave trade” were Jewish; secondly some nonsense that Holocaust Memorial Day didn’t commemorate victims of other genocides (it does). (Hat tip, Tom Peck again).

It would be generous to say that the leader of the opposition, and his team, have been asleep at the wheel, thinking at best that they can sweep it away. Now, they even appear to be blaming the previous General Secretary of the party for not acting quickly enough to implement the findings of his whitewash report. It's been a depressing and sickening time to see this divisive, inelegant and hateful debate linger on.

Manchester's response a year ago showed how the issues that divide this country need to be addressed by inter-faith and inter-community dialogue and by calling out hatred and warped ideology early. There are lines to be firmly redrawn around support for terrorism and racial hatred, and not looking the other way because it is on "our side" or that every debate is viewed through the prism of supporting "Jeremy".

And I sort of count myself in all of this. Instead of rolling my eyes at the Andrew Gwynne detractor, I should have confronted directly what was staring me in the face.

The Long Good Friday - a timely revisit

(Rex Features)

Good Friday seemed like a good day to rewatch one of my favourite British films, The Long Good Friday.

I still regard it as Bob Hoskins' finest performance, displaying an immense range of emotions and behaviours over a turbulent two days for gangland kingpin Harold Shand; be that perception and confusion, humour and menace, or ultimately power and vulnerability. Helen Mirren brings far greater substance to her role as his wife than many leading female performers are afforded in the gangster genre that was inspired by it.

I love that it was written by a journalist from the Stratford Express, Barrie Keeffe, who filled his tapestry of London 1970s life with characters and observations informed by keeping a wily eye on the East End crime beat, daring to dream of dramatic possibilities and emotional shortcomings of his source supporting characters; greedy, sneaky and short-sighted.

Although The Long Good Friday feels like a film firmly fixed in a very particular time and place it is in so many ways a film about the future, complete with the lamentations of the elements of the past that are being sacrificed. In particular, Harold Shand's vision of a new London is remarkable for its accuracy and vision, tainted though it was by hooky money and corrupt politicians.

(Rex Features)

If anything the film underestimated the long term future potential of the regenerated East London of Harold's ambition. But as I'm sure Jack Brown's PhD thesis on the rise of Canary Wharf will no doubt reveal, those early ideas were real enough and firmly rooted in the reality of the rhythms of political life at the time. The film was released in 1980, while Michael Heseltine created the London Docklands Development Corporation a year later.

The Long Good Friday has inspired an explosive genre of British crime films, most of them laughably bad because they come up so short. In fairness, some have been very good but for different reasons: Lock Stock played largely for laughs, Snatch for style, Crying Game and Mona Lisa were impressive subplots to the big picture. But it’s also why I was so disappointed by BBC's dull and plodding McMafia which missed a chance to slot into an epoch defining high concept. I'd say Sexy Beast and possibly Layer Cake (also featuring a future James Bond) grasp the changing back story of London villains, the latter depicting the collisions between the legitimate corporations and the internationalisation of the drug trade and its game changing effects on crime and society, Michael Gambon playing Harold gone legitimate, but still with a stake in the game. As good as Sexy Beast is, as a commentary it feels like a retreat.

And then there's that ending. Having dispatched the New York Mafia with a flea in their ear, that last journey before the single frame of black (Sopranos fans take note) contains some of the most expressive facial acting I can think of in any film ever.

Are Sundays cheat days in Lent?

Apparently, they are not. My social media abstinence is holding. It is definitely giving me time and space to think, pray and read a lot more. But I am breaking it a little on Sunday just to update the blog, which has a trigger to Twitter. 

What's the purpose of towns in the digital age?

Ann Coffey MP for Stockport, and me

I don't get asked to speak myself so much these days, even though I'm probably involved in more speech writing, briefing and events organising than I have ever been.

It was a real delight to accept an offer from Stockport's first rate Labour MP Ann Coffey to speak with members about the big issues facing towns.

In the welcoming confines of Heaton Moor United Reform Church, I talked through three big challenges that digital has thrown at us all, which sparked a fascinating discussion. It wasn't a speech as such, there was no list of demands for the council or a future Labour government, but some themes for us to think through with a bit more evidence, knowledge and humility.

Firstly, I looked at the specific profile of Stockport's economy, drawing on some of the work of the Stockport Work and Skills Commission and what skills the jobs of the future are going to require and how everyone can build the resilience to keep learning and adapting to change. This, I suggested, was an opportunity for plenty beyond what we'd call the skills ecosystem: families, small businesses and trade unions, who I still feel have missed on an opportunity to engage with members in better equipping them for the 21st century.

Secondly, I tried to reconcile what these employment trends will mean to how we use land, building and open spaces. In short, what's it going to mean for where we shop, live and spend our leisure time? Where are new homes going to be built? And what will be the purposes of town centres if big box retail is in such sharp decline - Marks and Spencer is soon to depart Stockport - and how can this be far better integrated into how we imagine a Greater Manchester, surely better transport links is a priority?

Thirdly, digital has demanded a re-thinking of how public services are delivered. Yes, Stockport has done some transformative work, but if we look further east to Estonia, a small country of 1.5 million people we see the laboratory of a digital society. What then for the old debate on compulsory ID cards?

I have to say I really enjoyed it. The local members were very knowledgable and more than anything we had a good trawl through the issues. More of this, please.

Lynsey Hanley's Respectable, crossing the class divide

There's such a tenderness and sense of love running through Lynsey Hanley's memoir cum sociological journey through Britain's class structures that you sort of miss the anger at first. But it's there.

I'm a few years older than her, but I found it relatable. A few years earlier my devouring of the NME led a straight line to George Orwell, Bertrand Russell, Marx, Dickens and the Lakeland poets. It was an alternative education that prised open a cultural door. A universal intellectualisation of low and high culture that you can place in a time and place.

For a while my own connection back to a trace working class identity was football. But when I mentally scroll through my friends I go with, those I have accumulated along the way, then our shared experience is of a particular type. You can share the same view of a pitch and 22 players, but there's the Sky Sports Soccer AM view of life and the When Saturday Comes one, and many others beside. A constant thread on this blog is irritation at other fans, which rather proves the point. 

But this is an enjoyable read, if a challenging one at times, made more pleasurable through the elegance of her prose, even when I don't agree with the point she's making. Quite starkly, for example, on page 100, I had to stop and check I'd read it right: "working class school children must reject the values of their parents and community if they are ever to be a part of society." In a single sweeping statement about the assumptions of the education system, it blows apart every working definition of what it is to be from a working class community and, more pointedly, a strange meaning of what "be a part of society" constitutes. I found myself asking then how narrow were the parameters that she was defining both class terms.

But here's the thing. She can really write. Take this, on transferring class: "I have this feeling all the time, and the greatest fear that accompanies it is not of losing the substantial privileges that come with being middle class, but of knowing that, if I had to go back, I'd fit in even less now than I did back then".

She takes on board some underlying themes-in-motion that pre-occupy me in my day job. The difference in character of the university I work at, compared to the rest of sector. It plays itself out at varsity events where the boorish Russell Group students chant 'your dads work for our dads'. The challenge of widening participation and the link from study to work and whether this is really producing a new transfer class, or notching up the skills levels right through all social strata.

Three things, I think, require further scrutiny and evidence to take her observations on. 

One, has her journey been just a transfer of class, or also a transfer of place? London's norms; London's intellectualism and London's economic options still open up more opportunities to be with people like you and become even more marinaded in the spice of cultural life.

Two, the impact of property prices on social mobility, both negative and positive. To have got on the property ladder in London in the 80s and 90s is to have won the lottery of life. Even those who are cash poor, but asset rich, have a massive inbuilt route to stability. To have missed it in London is the subject which dominates so much of our public discourse.

Thirdly, the baking in of social norms and class status through consumption of media probably needs updating. I'm fascinated by the way internet has reconnected people and created a nostalgia industry already enriched by books and TV programmes (usually featuring Stuart Maconie), but made more personal through a Past and Present Facebook experience.  It gives us a way of never really leaving, of measuring success against others - in and of itself a particularly middle class thing to do. If the Daily Mail shaped attitudes of the angry, self-righteous and defensive middle class, and the Guardian it's liberal equivalent, then what's guiding the emerging generational touchstone? Twitter as opposed to Facebook?

This is a terrific body of work from an important writer I'm looking forward to reading more from. 

Winter telly. A quick reprise and a constant theme - get on with it!

Anna Friel in Odyssey

We've enjoyed stoking up the coal fire and indulging in some decent TV during these cold nights, and I've sneaked in a few while I've been travelling.

At the moment though the biggest problem with so many series is pace. Either too much crammed in, or frankly they've been padded out to a ludicrous degree. I also appear to have too many TV series on the go. It was probably like this in the pre-boxed set days when the papers would run a 'wise-up on the soaps' column. But this crop largely have strong female leads, or co-leads.

Strike (BBC) is well conceived, brilliantly cast, superbly acted and far too busy. That Robert Galbraith knows how to write, I wonder what else he's done?* The storyline was ambitious and brave, lots of interlocking bad people. But if anything there wasn't enough time to comprehend who was who and what they were meant to be doing. There was supposed to be a twist at the end, but instead I just wondered if I'd missed something and was curious as to why Neil Maskell appeared to be playing two different people.

Collateral (BBC) suffers from being a political broadcast on behalf of Jeremy Corbyn dressed up as a TV crime drama. David Hare railing at the dystopian nightmare of a Labour opposition led by Yvette Cooper and a military full of sociopaths and imbeciles. It's a shame because compared to pretty much all of the other dramas mentioned it has good pace and some strong central performances, Carey Mulligan's Kip Glaspie is a model of sass and smart policing.

Homeland (C4 - US) we're currently storing up the recorded episodes of Homeland, now surprisingly on its SEVENTH season. The first episode saw the unlikely scenario of Saul moving almost seamlessly from jail to the Oval Office. The success of Homeland when it started was pushing the boundaries of a spy drama of a stable but frightened America against a hostile and uncertain world. Now it seems the roles are reversed. Trump has allowed that door to an uncertain America to be opened and basically anything goes. At first I thought they’d dropped a clanger with a Hillary Clinton type in the White House, but it doesn’t matter. It’s still an isolated and paranoid President who doesn’t listen to advice and is being manipulated by darker forces. Yet the raw power of Homeland is still the incredible acting, notably from Claire Danes, and especially in her heightened meltdown situations. We’re three episodes in and it is finding its feet again.

Odyssey (NBC) - one reviewer dubbed this interlacing American military conspiracy drama as more Poundland than Homeland. It never survived the first season, which we're ticking through, but I found myself rooting habitually for Anna Friel's Odelle more comfortably than I often do for Carrie in Homeland. There are some interesting and well-written untypical characters (Bob, Shakir, Aslam and Luc), as well as cardboard cut out bad guys from the military industrial complex.

Marcella (ITV) - paradoxically the first season of this Anna Friel drama saw her playing a character cut from the Carrie Matheson school of tortured genius and mental breakdown. Much of the story arc was preposterously interwoven, but it certainly had danger and pace. It's a triumphant end rresult, on the whole. Marcella is a difficult character to pull off as she battles fugue blackouts, distrustful colleagues, her snide gaslighting husband playing with her mind and the staple of ITV drama to create ever nastier and creepier bad people.

The principal selling point of Keeping Faith (BBC Wales) is lead character Eve Myles and, like 2016's Hinterland, it was filmed back-to-back in Welsh and English. Three episodes in and her husband has vanished, but nothing much else had happened. It badly needed some actual drama, which came in the fourth episode, but still managed to intersperse plot shifts with a very long series of pop videos where the director indulged lingering scenes of Faith staring into the distance while a melancholic folk song layers on quite how troubled and sexually alive she is. This is apparently because of the difference between a TV hour on S4C, with adverts, and the BBC, with no adverts. Hence each episode is padded out by 8 minutes. *rolls eyes*

I wasn't always sure whether Requiem (BBC Wales) was a compilation of horror's greatest hits, or just another twisted psycho drama. But it was terrifically atmospheric and very, very creepy. All that was missing at the end were torches, hoods and animal heads, though the casting director missed a trick with the family from Deliverance who popped up in Keeping Faith.

I watched one episode of Shetland (BBC Scotland) while I was on the train. It was everything you’d expect of a Nordic noir, but my first impression was the obvious missing ingredient of place. London as a location can be cruel, unforgiving and unexpected, because there's so much life there. Shetland is just shown as bleak. Everyone talks about getting away. It's small and closed. That's it. I just don't think they tried hard enough to make Shetland interesting. I've written before about how well Hinterland managed to really get under the skin of the Welsh people and landscape, I await with interest how this gets on.

* I know.

Albania, Albania, not nearly as repressive as Romania

Last year I heard Robert Elms eulogising and reminiscing about the Albanian Shop on Betterton Street in Covent Garden on his own Listed Londonder slot on BBC Radio London. It's always worth a listen to a historical and socially curious podcast, but it still surprised me that with his intimate knowledge of London’s nooks and crannies that he would have been drawn to somewhere familiar to me.

My own interest was that I visited the shop in 1983 as a diversion from a school trip, where as an accompanying sixth-former, I was allowed to do my own thing, which was supposedly to visit the British Museum. I was mildly obsessed by this secretive closed Stalinist society back then. If I remember rightly I bought a wildly hyperbolic history of Albania (which I still have, left), an enamel badge and a small silk flag (which I don't), I also acquired some free Albanian produce - tomato puree, pickles - none of which were ever consumed.

I do have a vivid recall of my teachers looking at me with a mix of bewilderment and fear when I told them what I'd disappeared to do.

The root of this teenage fixation may have been Alexi Sayle who recorded the Albanian World Cup Squad's official song for the 1982 World Cup. At the time oppressive Stalinism was still a bit of a joke. Albania an entire mystery, but Sayle at least was speaking from experience having been taken Eastwards on holiday by his communist parents.

The other day I wandered down Betterton Street and couldn't quite place where it was, and what is there now.  It's another symbol of London's quirkiness that it has probably lost forever. Not just the shop, a Cold War relic, but that anyone could sustain an eccentric enterprise amidst such sky land prices now.

My Manchester - remarkable photographs from the 1980s

Manchester Confidential have produced a remarkable photo gallery of Manchester in the 1980s. There are tinges of glamour and a slight fizz of action revealed within them, but on the whole they stand as a record now for how much the city has changed for the better.

The commentary alongside from the peerless Jonathan Schofield also captures the time remarkably well. It was the Manchester I fell in love with in the 80s. The city I chose over all others to come and study and eventually to return to twelve years later. I'm still now.
 
Jonathan quotes one writer Charles Jencks who viewed that older city: 'Look again at those buildings. As examples of frozen energy they fill you with amazement. Some Mancunians must have been giants. What dreams did those people have? And do they still have them?'

The road to being Wigan's peers - the BRFCS podcast

We recorded a podcast after the Wigan game, where I hope we got across how most fans are feeling after the draw at home to our promotion rivals. When our second goal went in it truly felt like we were the invincibles, guided by the magician that is Bradley Dack. When Wigan's second bobbled in it started to feel like a defeat.  I still think we'll go up, probably in second spot though. I'd much rather have the points in the bag now than the games in hand. 

The other positive I'll take from the game is that we have for the first time since 1996, or maybe 2001, the best player in the division playing for us. Dack is fantastic to watch: brave, tricky, generous and remarkably honest. I've never seen a player get fouled so much, but he always tries to stay on his feet.

These podcasts are great fun. Ian Herbert puts in great effort to make them a cut above what most people would expect from a fans ramble. Please share widely and give us a rating.