Y Factor a great success

The Y Factor was an enormous success on Thursday night. Dean Gormley of law firm Halliwells was crowned as winner after wowing judges, even the super-cynical Terry Christian, Rowetta, Sean Fitzgerald and Angie Robinson and an audience of over 450 professionals with his rendition of Suspicious Minds. Emma Leathley of Clearwater came second with her excellent Manic Monday.

Overall, the event raised nearly £40,000 for Mencap.

A DVD of the night, plus unseen extras, will be available soon after some wizardry from Chris and Alan at Zut Media. No doubt it will include raw footage of Phil Tarimo of Investec who provided "one for the ladies" with You Can Leave Your Hat On. The hat, and the trousers, did indeed stay on... but the shirt did not.

An absolutely blinding night. I understand Dean is still wearing the Elvis outfit.

Feeder club

It is customary for the perpetually vacant manager's job at Newcastle to be linked with whoever is in change at Blackburn Rovers.

According to a "rumour" in today's Fiver: "Dennis Wise and Mike Ashley think Paul Ince is the perfect puppet for the Newcastle job."

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

Must have been how he snatched a point from Hull City, a week before Wigan stuffed them 5-0.

The intense humming of irritation

I read here that the new iPod Touch will have an inbuilt speaker. Boz won't be happy.

Fire at Hawk Green Cricket Club

Rotten news that the cricket club pavilion at Hawk Green has been torched. The jist of the story, here, seems to smell foul play. It would add insult to injury if it was.

Marple's best pie

It was an early exercise of this blog to find Marple's best pie, link is here. We went for Grenaby Farm steak.

I'm delighted that the excellent Marple Food and Drink Festival have created the Samuel Oldknow Pie Competition, which you can find out about here. The festival is one of the things that makes Marple such a lovely community; combining all the best aspects of shared experience - eating, drinking, family time and supporting people with honest values. And filling Nick Lindley's boots. ;-)

We sampled something of this spirit in Barga on our holidays. We went to the annual Fish and Chip Festival organised by AS Barga, the local football club. There's a strong connection in the town to the west of Scotland and English is spoken with a Glasweigan accent. We did not find any deep fried Mars bars, however.

The website for the Marple Festival looks good, as you'd expect from Stuart Manley of IF Consultancy. I will accept the decision on the pie as binding, but will be making representations for myself and Ian Wolfendale to join the panel of judges.

Touched Up

Apple have fixed the bug on the iPod Touch. I can now sync it with Outlook calendars and address book. Still can't blog from it though.

Wire in the blood

The new issue of The Word magazine was waiting for me when I got home this afternoon. I do enjoy the cultural musings of David Hepworth and tend to like his unorthodox recommendations: Willie Nile, for one. There's a banging interview Hepworth has done with David Simon, the writer of The Wire, quite possibly the greatest TV series ever. We are currently up to episode 6, series 4 on the boxed set. It's not just the sprawling cast of characters, the changing backdrops to Baltimore's layers or the moral maze that blurs the lines between the cops and baddies. It's the scale of it. I'm envious that there's a screening in London of the last 5 episodes with Simon hosting a Q+A afterwards.

As a piece of work, it's amazing enough, but it's also epoch making in the way it's consumed. In the US and the UK followers have got hold of it in the most unconventional way, through downloads, Sky Plus and DVD. This is Simon on its unexpected popularity in the UK:

I'm stunned. I can't figure you people out.

We have the final series on order.

Coming Around Again

My Mum always reckons she wells up when she hears Carly Simon's Coming Around Again; she says it reminds her of when I went off on what people now call a "gap year". Oddly, it came on the radio this afternoon when I was taking Elliot to school for the first time. The last of our babies growing into boys, and then men. He looked so smart in his school uniform, but so young too. Anyway, for the benefit of all family members popping onto The Marple Leaf, he was very happy and excited. He was a bit nervous as we waited at the gate, but went in with no problems at all. When I picked him up a couple of hours later he was so proud and pleased and he ran round to the junior yard to meet his brothers and show them his smiley sticker.

And as I got Joe's stuff together for him this morning I noticed he had a certificate and a badge announcing he's been elected class councillor. Not that he thought it important to tell his Mum or Dad, or anything.

Honestly, I gasp at our lads sometimes and how they cope with the tests of life with such apparent ease. Being a Dad causes me more angst than anything at work or in any other sphere of life. But it also gives me highs I've never experienced either. Every day.

Come and see the Y Factor

I'm involved in the Y Factor event next week, where we're raising money for MENCAP.

Ten corporate financiers will be performing a song with a live backing band at the Chicago Rock Cafe in Manchester on Thursday the 11th of September. Having done it last year, it's a great occasion and quite nerve racking.

The full link is here, for tickets and information on the singers.

Creative industry

The subject of creationism has been thrown to the fore with Sarah Palin's candidature for the US vice-presidency. If you can bear the smug tone, Oliver Kamm blogs well on it here, concluding that anyone who approves of teaching a pseudo science that the earth was created 4000 years ago is not fit for high office. I don't think she believes it for a moment, but such is the force of creationist drivel in the Republican party she has to be seen to tolerate it.

A few of us at work have also been sent a massive book called The Atlas of Creation by an Islamic creationist called Harun Yahya. It is absolutely bonkers.

Damian Thompson, author of Counterknowledge, and editor of the Catholic Herald, sums it up very well:

Insightful? Let me tell you a bit about Harun Yahya. It’s the pen name of a series of writers flooding the Islamic world with books and DVDs that present Darwinism as part of a diabolical conspiracy. This is a particularly poisonous form of counterknowledge.

British universities are filling up with science and medical students who reject the single most important discovery in biological science. Sooner or later we’re going to have to face the consequences.

Full blog is here.

They're flooding the whole world with this nonsense by the looks of it. The book is enormous, it is expensively produced and it is frightening that people believe it.

Middle Eastlands

As usual, Real Journalism's David Conn does a cracking job summing up the "Manchester City bought by the oil trillionaires" story. Can't add to it. Superb. Link is here.

What's the betting someone is looking to hire a camel for the next home match, that they'll be selling sky blue and white tea towels as Arab head dresses? I've even had one City fan goading rivals with reminders that every time they fill their car with fuel, it's helping Manchester City.

But I've not heard anything yet from this blue. Or this one. To quote one blue pal today - "I still think there's a catch somewhere."

Footballers behaving badly

Jamie Carragher was going to get Lucas Neill "done" by some of his Scouse mates after Neill broke the leg of the World's Greatest Ever ScouserTM. There's a link to a slightly strange football website here which could take you on a bizarre journey of discovery.

Revolting passengers

I had to laugh at this (passengers revolting at Manchester Airport). Well, not a laugh exactly, but emit a slightly weary "huh". I really dislike air travel, especially from Manchester Airport. It is made worse by the attitude of so many Manchester Airport staff. They seem to think you have to suffer to earn the right to fly. We had a couple of stray bags at the end of our holiday. It wasn't the end of the world, but it delayed us another half an hour. Then of course, because taxis won't take an order until you've got ALL your bags, because they get charged so much to park, things dragged on. The attitude of the staff was the worst part of it. They couldn't have cared less.

Late today - congestion to blame

Today was the first day I have driven into work since I came back from holiday because I'm working late tonight. The 12 miles from Marple to Manchester took ONE HOUR AND 46 MINUTES. Suffice to say I was late. Most of that time was spent snaking along the two and half miles on the M67 from Hyde to the M60. No congestion charge would make any kind of difference to that, as it's outside the zone. The route along the A67 was pretty quiet.

And I could find no information on BBC Radio Manchester about what was causing the jam.

Blogging - what next?

Coming back from holiday - and following an August lull - there seems to be a certain amount of soul searching and wonderment about blogging amongst the local blogerati. Manchizzle goes so far as to ask: Is blogging dead?

I got into doing this out of curiosity. Part of my day job is to understand how people consume media and how we then deliver it to them. This blog has helped in that. But it's also subtly changed over the two years I've been doing it, both in its look, but also in tone. I have separated my work from this blog. I don't put stories from Insider on here, for example. I'm careful about what I say about my family. But I'm committed to it more than ever.

So, two years on, what next? I always find it amazing that people manage to publish long and well put together blogs on politics, or as extensions of their personal interests - be they music, football, writing, poetry or local history. I would find that achingly narrow. The blogs I return to - and link to - are generalist and personal. They reflect as well as possible the hinterland of the writer. Nigel Hughes does this very well, but he's also shifted away from his day job a bit; Dave Hill separates his Guardian work from his local Hackney stuff; I sense that Laura Wolfe is working out her direction - running a business, her family, Man City. The much missed Dougal Paver threw everything at his, but stopped entirely because he's a public face who didn't want to self-censor his deeply held views on Norweigans and environmentalists. I think I've settled down with my core now, though I occasionally need to be reminded not to overdo the Blackburn Rovers stuff.

I don't hanker after comments, but I like it when I get them. I know from the stats that there's a small loyal following and I like the fact that the blog not only helps me entertain and keep in touch with friends and family, my occasional nostalgic ramblings have also flushed out a few old friends from as Stringer Bell would say - "back in the day" - Nick Morrell, Andrew Worth and Andrew Blacktop.

Anyway, to try and revive the momentum and explore the reasons and the purpose for blogging, a Manchester bloggers blog has been set up here. And the Manchester Evening News blog has organised a get together, the details of which are here. I would suspect the bulk of the blogerati are younger, less grumpy, trendier, more left wing and therefore considerably more interesting than me. They may even inspire a new direction for the Marple Leaf. I'll let you know.

Delayed this morning - congestion to blame

Getting into Manchester city centre from Marple this morning was really difficult - due to heavy "congestion". Trouble is, I was on the train. The driver announced that we were stopped at Ardwick because the approach to Piccadilly station was congested. Maybe this is why the promise of more peak time services on our line has been quietly dropped from the proposed transport improvements, here, in favour of longer trains with more seats, which are desperately needed.

The train was delayed again today, but unlike yesterday, it was bigger and better able to carry the hundreds of passengers crammed in like sardines. One bloke sat in the toilet for the duration.

On Keith Andrews

I've never seen the bloke play. I only know what I've read about him. He was in and out of the team and Wolves and did a good job at MK Dons.

Paul Ince's faith in the ability of his former skipper to make it in the Premier League will define his tenure as Rovers manager. If he does play then it's going to be at the expense of internationals like Vince Grella, Steven Reid, Aaron Mokeona and Johann Vogel, and for Ince's new best mate - Dunny. If he plays well and competes, and adds something to our game the transfer will be hailed as a masterstroke. If he fails to break through then Ince will be seen as showing poor judgement, blind loyalty and looking out for an old mate.

Like a lot of Rovers fans I've mocked this transfer, but when you listen to Andrews himself admitting he's going to be lucky to get a game, you start to hanker after the days when a hard working grafter can work his way up to the top division. I'd love it to work out.

Charge debate

Surprising early poll news here seems to confound my firm belief that the TIF bid will be trounced in the polls in December. However, I think this is extremely optimistic on the part of the pro-TIF lobby. I don't think the question that the MORI poll asked will bear any resemblence to the question that will be set in the referenda.

Football predictions

These are my predictions for the Premier League, which I did before the start of the season (honest)

Chelsea
Man U
Liverpool
Arsenal
Villa
Spurs
Portsmouth
Man City
Middlesbrough
Everton
Rovers
Newcastle
West Brom
Sunderland
Wigan
West Ham
Fulham
Bolton
Hull
Stoke

Cup: Villa
League Cup: Middlesbrough

I think Preston Burnley and Blackpool will all comfortably finish in mid table.

Back on the train gang

First day back. First train to catch this morning and guess what? Yep. Rose Hill train cancelled. Luckily a chap at the station bundled a couple of us into his car and we headed for Marple instead. Nice touch that, more than made up for the disappointment of the train.