The end of The Marple Leaf is nigh

We've put our house up for sale and are probably going to move out of Marple.

That's of little or no interest to anyone outside of our family and close friends, and we're not planning on going far. I'm remarkably unsentimental about it, but it does create a slight problem for my social media identities.

This blog started in 2006 when we moved here, my Twitter and Insta accounts followed.

The other thing is, blogs are sort of over aren't they? I have outlets for the things people want to read about, food, football and music and the sort of long post that gets lots of likes on LinkedIn. Having this outlet for political commentary probably prevents me from pushing hard enough to places where it contributes to a wider debate.

It's not a decision I have to make today, but I will throw it out there. The response will certainly influence what I decide to do. 

The blogathon story so far

This is going to be quick. After a busy week in Ireland and walking from Langsett onto the moors today, this is just about all I've got time for today.

With a week to go to the end of the month, I'll tackle some of the bigger issues relevant to what I'm trying to do long term. Then, there's a sweep of reviews of books and films that need updating. 

I could say something profound about time, what we do with it, who we spend it with and why there doesn't seem enough of it. 

Or an appreciation of friends who make those times special. Like James Torry who took that amazing picture of us today.

Maybe that's for another time. Goodnight.

Sunday rest

Today’s blog is a quick stock take. I’ve genuinely really enjoyed the discipline of writing something substantial every day this month. I’ve even started a bit of a grid to plan posts on working days and to avoid letting current events dominate. Case in point, I’ve not done one about 9/11, even though it had a profound and important impact on my life, as I explained here.

On September the 10th 2001 I looked around the Capitol building in Washington DC, visited Arlington Cemetery and gazed over in awe at the Pentagon building. Without illusions, but with great pride I enjoyed a few days steeped in the best traditions of a multi-cultural democracy. I flew home from Dulles Airport where I may well have been within feet of the murderous crew who hours later were flying the hijacked American Airlines Flight 77 to Los Angeles into the Pentagon.

As it’s Sunday, and we’re getting back to normal, I’m in my Mum’s living room in Lancaster, surrounded by love, tea and chicken sandwiches. We’re joined by Sally, my Mum’s best friend, who has been filling my life with laughter since I was born.  If it’s OK, I’m going to get back to them.

Why I'm still proud to call myself a journalist

I was even more excited than usual when I received David Parkin's Friday newsletter today. 

We'd met up on Tuesday in Stockport and I'd given him the grand tour of my adopted town. He did say it would get a mention in his lively round-up at the week's end.

So imagine my surprise when I saw the headline: "David Parkin meets a true showbiz legend". Aw shucks David, that's too kind, I blushed.

Of course, he didn't mean me. He was talking about meeting Irish comedian Jimmy Cricket last Friday at the Bradford Club.

He did give a very warm account of our trek around Stockport's cobbled streets. Warm, of course, is very much the operative word as we enjoyed the last of our English summer. 

David described me - and thus himself - as "fellow former journalist". In the sense that we aren't editors for well-respect business publications any longer, that description is true. But I enjoy David's company, his writing and his insights precisely because he is very much a journalist, a kindred spirit.

I've just subtly changed my Twitter biog and my LinkedIn description to reflect this sentiment.

I'm working for myself these days - and am available for projects. But the thing that always gives me the most pleasure, the thing I hope I can bring to anything I work on, always comes back to journalism. The importance of a story, the discipline of a structured approach to doing it, and an appreciation of the voices of others. Wrapped around all of that is the cornerstone of being fair and accurate. 

Both my undergraduate dissertation in 1988 and my MSc thesis in 2020 were described as 'journalistic'. On both occasions, it wasn't intended as a compliment, but I'm taking it as one. I'm not an academic, I'm a journalist, who is practising his craft in the academic field. I've done other jobs over the years that haven't been editorial, but the bits that have worked best have been around communicating a story and harnessing a network. Yes, when Neil and I talk between records on Tameside Radio, or when I've written a speech for someone.

I thought the same when I was at Dave Haslam's book launch last night in West Didsbury. Dave has sold his record collection, but it's given him the stimulus to write a short book about it. When I first came across him in the 1980s he was editing a fanzine. He's a classic polymath, skilled and diligent at whatever he does. But he's always been a journalist too and that's a skill he's crafted and a title he's earned.

I'll return to this theme again soon, but in the meantime, as David Parkin says at the end of his peerless weekly missive: Have a great weekend. 

Live blog - New Statesman conference - Regional Development in the Age of Levelling Up

I'm live blogging today from the New Statesman conference. Opening proceedings is the impressive Michael Heseltine with a keynote address. 

Highlight: He opened by saying how much he regretted getting rid of Metropolitan County Councils in 1986, but praised Greater Manchester's leaders for keeping the practice of them, in the absence of the structure. Manchester too is an example of what real devolution can achieve. He also reminded us that the ambition to reduce the number of councillors and the blockages of local government remains a pressing agenda. He was fairly optimistic and generous about Boris Johnson's recent speech on devolution because it reflects the need for better leadership locally. He ended his formal talk on a more pessimistic note, believing the White Paper on regional devolution is too late to be passed into policy in this parliament. In answer to a question from the audience, he bemoaned the ineffectiveness of business organisations, a subject that has long frustrated me, and how that has impacted the reality of Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs).

A fireside chat with Baroness Verma and Tom Forth from the Open Data Institute highlighted how important digital inclusion is to so many other agendas. I always like Tom's contributions to events and he makes lively observations of everyday life that really bring subjects to life. This time it was about kids jumping on bus company wifi, highlighting the power that comes from access to a scarce resource.

The most impressive and well-articulated contribution to the panel discussion on levelling up was by Lisa Nandy MP. I have heard her before making the same point about how much devolution effort effectively is about getting kids in Wigan better access to the assumed riches in Manchester city centre. Henri Murison from the Northern Powerhouse Partnership said in response that his priority is working to bring high paid jobs to places like Lisa's community, but none of that can happen without the success of a core city (like Manchester). She also made a powerful point about how the social richness and social capital of places is underestimated and misunderstood; their level of ambition isn't matched by government, something we talk about a lot in the People's Powerhouse.

You can't have a regional development conference without a discussion about transport. The talk pivoted around the 'car-based recovery' and the challenge of policy to find another way to get people around. EV charging infrastructure also seems a bit of a mess, patterns of funding aren't clear, with little recognition of how few people can access home charging. My head was turned by hydrogen fuel as a result of working with the team at Manchester Met, a sensible way to fuel buses is a gateway fuel, but I'm disappointed at the lack of knowledge on hydrogen cars amongst policy experts.

Innovation investment starts from the premise that the golden triangle between Oxford, Cambridge and London is a good thing and that we, therefore, need more of them. I took from a pacey and rushed discussion with Lord Bethell that there is more going on in the NHS and in private industry than is possibly given credit. Seamus O'Neill from the Northern Health Science Alliance made the point that the long term commitment to a life sciences cluster in the North requires big system thinking, and its importance can be part of how society matches challenges like global warming, anti-microbial resistance as well as how future viruses can be tackled. 

A common policy theme is how industrial and economic solutions to wider societal issues can solve two problems at once - giving a new sense of purpose and prosperity to a place, but making sure we can quickly reduce carbon and improve health outcomes. Gillian Keegan MP and Henri Murison mentioned this, with Henri making a strong case for Metro Mayors having the resources and levers to deliver skills and investment in their areas. Returning to the theme of sustainable developments, and that lack of joined-up thinking, she cited the failure to harness incentives to create a solar industry a decade ago.

After lunch, the discussion pivoted towards future devolution with a thinker each from both sides of the House, Devolution and Constitution Minister Chloe Smith MP for the Conservatives and Ian Murray MP for Labour. The latter made the point that Levelling Up was pretty thin and not much more than a slogan. Smith made some attempt to define levelling up as spreading opportunity for everyone, not hugely convincingly, or assuaging Heseltine's fear that the timing has slipped. Murray says the English question is now urgent, but that his job is to make it central to Labour's future offer. Obviously, Smith pushed back by saying the government is doing a number of things through the Community Renewal Fund, City Growth Deals, Towns Fund promoting alternative land use, Shared Prosperity Fund as a successor to European Funds, and of course, Levelling Up Funds. All of which adds up to change that people will benefit from, she says.  Here's the issue though, without fiscal devolution it feels like it's all just delegation with strings attached. 

That the pandemic has shone a light on health inequalities, as all the panellists on the next topic agreed, is obvious. But as an earlier speaker pointed out, health outcomes are governed far more by the economic quality of the lives people lead than their local NHS and care services. Both Debbie Abrahams MP (Labour) and Lisa Cameron MP (SNP) were pretty disappointed with the Social Care plan they voted against in parliament yesterday, partly said Abrahams, because of widespread misunderstanding of what public health actually is. Professor Graham Lord from the University of Manchester says the same pushing of resources through the same bodies, local government and public health, and expecting a different outcome won't work. 

The delicate world of running a rural region was put into sharp focus by Cllr Rosemarie Harris, the independent leader of Powys County Council and by the Labour Metro Mayor of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, Nik Johnson, who admitted he had the advantage of a world-class university, which she did not, nor indeed any HE institution at all. However, it is the potential of an industrially focused institution like Anglia Ruskin in Peterborough that excited him as playing an important partnership with businesses in agri-tech, he said. Powys covers 25% of Wales but has no university, she puts her efforts into working with partners in the neighbouring English county councils and both the Welsh Assembly Government and Westminster. Here's a thought though rural areas have heavier car use, carbon-emitting rural practices, water table damage and it can be very hard to tackle environmental targets. 

My final panel of the day was a lively bounce around skills and development. It's probably an iron rule of policy events that any such discussion has to at some point talk about Germany, but as Toby Perkins MP pointed out if you don't have a German-style economy and deep business engagement in policy, you can't just wish a new system into being. Sellafield's Jamie Reed (an ex MP) said addressing regional inequalities still has to recognise that capital is still hypermobile and places have to be competitive. 

So, that's a wrap. It was a good day to get out and meet people in person again. The New Statesman is on a real roll at the moment. This was a highly impressive conference, way better than their last one in Manchester before the pandemic. I liked how they managed to successfully blend speakers over Zoom with those on the actual stage. I expected far more of them to be remote, including big hitters like Michael Heseltine and Lisa Nandy, who it was good to see in person and working the audience effectively in ways you can’t do through a screen.  

The new redesign of the magazine is very classy and makes huge aesthetic sense. It seems much more in keeping with the literary and intellectual style of the product. The driver for it, as editor Jason Cowley explained, is to work across print and digital more effectively and push the expansion of The New Statesman internationally.  

If I’m being hyper critical, the caricatured bylines of the authors haven’t landed on me yet, but then I have probably just got very comfortable with how they were. Designers know what they are doing with this stuff and I'm sure it will all grow on me, but as ever it's a very well-curated and intelligent experience wherever it lands, and as we discovered today, in the live setting too. 

The 143 greatest songs, one per artist, a partial and personal list

What is it with blokes and lists, eh? A few years ago I hit on the crazy idea of putting together a list of my top 100 songs, with the rule that you can only have one per artist, the 2017 version is here, and the first attempt in 2011 is here. 

Spotify has given us the means to create and curate lists to our heart's content. On my Spotify, which I now spend an enormous amount of time on, there are lists galore. You can link to those here, and I'm leaving everything open for people to copy and share. But not collaborate, I can't let go. You'll also find every episode playlist for our Music Therapy radio show on Tameside Radio, if you ever wanted to get easy access to the songs. They're not always the right versions though, especially as I have a proper DJ as a partner on this project, who has a superpower for finding rare grooves and hidden gems. 

The 100 seemed inadequate. Especially as I discovered I can't count and that there were 112 songs on the 2017 version.

As if by magic, I stumbled upon the 143, a music blog curated by Andrew Collins, the former editor of Q and a prolific writer. He's utilised the same formula where you can pick just one song per artist. He started at 50, but it was a definitive, heroic, primal list of songs that were massively important to him. He kept going and stuck at 143. Where Andrew absolutely excels is the commentary around each song. That's a really impressive project and as you'd expect from a music writer of his calibre, it's a work of real quality that I don't think I could match.

And just to be absolutely clear, again. These are memories, some are deeply personal, some are dedicated to lost friends, to broken hearts and to better times ahead, but all are in some way connected to the sheer raw power of music. Maybe I will, but this is enough for now.

All of my Heart, ABC

We Could Send Letters, Aztec Camera

A Day in the Life, The Beatles

One Last Love Song, The Beautiful South

E=MC2, Big Audio Dynamite

Let Em in, Billy Paul

The Day Before You Came, Blancmange

Union City Blue, Blondie

There's a Reason Why, Blossoms

Tinseltown In The Rain, The Blue Nile

Subterranean Homesick Blue, Bob Dylan

Could you be loved, Bob Marley and the Wailers

Born To Run, Bruce Springsteen

Nobody Does It Better, Carly Simon

Father and Son, Cat Stevens

Ain't Nobody, Chaka Khan

The British Way of Life, The Chords

Under the Milky Way Tonight, The Church

Straight to Hell, The Clash

Let's Go Out Tonight, Craig Armstrong

Bloody Revolutions, Crass

Weather With You, Crowded House

Boys Don't Cry, The Cure

Instant Crush, Daft Punk

Life On Mars, David Bowie

Dignity, Deacon Blue

California Über Alles, Dead Kennedys

Enjoy the Silence, Depeche Mode

There, There My Dear, Dexy's Midnight Runners

Romeo and Juliet, Dire Straits

I Touch Myself, Divinyls

Jolene, Dolly Parton

MacArthur Park, Donna Summer

Ordinary World, Duran Duran

You Don't Have to Say You Me, Dusty Springfield

The Killing Moon, Echo and the Bunnymen

One Day Like This, Elbow

Getting Away With It, Electronic

Stan (Featuring Dido), Eminem with Dido

Paid in Full, Eric B. and Rakim

Missing, Everything But the Girl

Lost in Music, The Fall

Love See No Colour, The Farm

Do You Realize?? The Flaming Lips

Weekender, Flowered Up

Welcome to the Pleasuredome, Frankie Goes to Hollywood

My Sweet Lord, George Harrison

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, Gil Scott-Heron

La vie en Rose, Grace Jones

The Message, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, Gil Scott-Heron

Your Evening of Swing (has been Cancelled), Half Man Half Biscuit

Wrote for Luck, Happy Mondays

Zeus and Apollo, Hatchback

Silver Machine, Hawkwind

Temptation, Heaven 17

Beautiful Girl, INXS

Love Train, Holly Johnson

Open Your Heart, Human League

Visions of You, Jah Wobble

When You're Young, The Jam

Tomorrow, James

Hallelujah, Jeff Buckley

Annie's Song, John Denver

Ring Of Fire, Johnny Cash

Atmosphere, Joy Division

Cloudbursting, Kate Bush

The Gambler, Kenny Rogers

Sunny Afternoon, The Kinks

Aria [with Michael Gambon - Layer Cake speech] Lisa Gerrard

All Woman, Lisa Stansfield

Rattlesnakes, Lloyd Cole and the Commotions

Wasting My Young Years, London Grammar

Idiot Child, Madness

Madam Butterfly, Malcolm McLaren

Working Class Hero, Marianne Faithfull

Motorcycle Emptiness, Manic Street Preachers

Teardrop, Massive Attack

What's Going On, Marvin Gaye

Fade into You, Mazzy Star

Anchorage, Michelle Shocked

Irish Blood, English Heart, Morrissey

Express Yourself, N.W.A.

True Faith, New Order

New Dawn Fades, Moby

Girl, You'll Be a Woman Soon, Neil Diamond

Time Of No Reply, Nick Drake

Into My Arms, Nick Cave

Don't Speak, No Doubt

All Around the World, Oasis

If You Leave, Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark

Because the Night, Patti Smith

No Tears to Cry, Paul Weller

Being Boring, Pet Shop Boys

Reachin, Phase II

Cruel, Prefab Sprout

Purple Rain, Prince and the Revolution

Pretty In Pink, The Psychedelic Furs

Common People, Pulp

Losing My Religion, R.E.M.

Fake Plastic Trees, Radiohead

Open up Your Arms, Ren Harvieu

Run for You, Richard Hawley

Orange, Richard Lumsden

Please Read The Letter, Robert Plant and Alison Krauss

Gimme Shelter, Rolling Stones

More Than This, Roxy Music

The Greatest Love of All, Kevin Rowland

In Dreams, Roy Orbison

The Spirit Of Radio, Rush

Over the Border, Saint Etienne

The Word Girl, Scritti Politti

The Great Rock n Roll Swindle, Sex Pistols

We are Family, Sister Sledge

Run, Baby, Run, Sheryl Crow

Nothing Compares 2 U, Sinéad O'Connor

Itchycoo Park, The Small Faces

How Soon Is Now, The Smiths

Say Hello Wave Goodbye, Soft Cell

I Got You Babe, Sonny and Cher

Ghost Town, The Specials

Black Coffee in Bed, Squeeze

Suspect Device, Stiff Little Fingers

I Am The Resurrection, The Stone Roses

No More Heroes, The Stranglers

Ever Changing Moods, Style Council

Good Day to Die, Sunhouse

Give A Little Bit, Supertramp

It's My Life, Talk Talk

Let it Happen, Tame Impala

Reward, The Teardrop Explodes

Heartland, The The

Song to the Siren, This Mortal Coil

Up Against the Wall, Tom Robinson Band

Funky Cold Medina, Tone Loc

Wide Open Road, The Triffids

Red Hill Mining Town, U2

Lucky Man, Verve

Story of the Blues, Wah

And A Bang On The Ear, The Waterboys

Teardrops, Womack and Womack

Baba O'Riley, The Who

Seven Seconds, Youssou N'Dour and Neneh Cherry

September blog challenge

I need to get my mojo fired up and my writing head on. I've created a whole load of deadlines and expectations for the month, that will keep me motivated. However, I've also set myself the blog a day target as well. 

I've done this before in July 2019 and November 2020. I may even get around to covering some of the topics I promised to cover last time, but didn't. Like on our radio show, I do requests, but reserve the right to not do ones I don't like.

In short order, and on the list are:

• Academic writing v journalism
• Refugees
• Magazines
• Debate and disagreement
• Networks, why we need them, and why we don't
• 24 Hour News vs Slow news
• Family
• Friends
• All Those Things That Seemed So Important
• Aesthetics
• Devolution and Democracy
• Living with medical conditions
• Welsh Nationalism
• Some book reviews
• The 143 (not a bus route, a music list)
• Folk horror
• Kinder Scout, my complex relationship 
• Cumberland

Just to be clear, I don't often suffer from writer's block, but I am old enough to recognise that I work best under pressure. I should also at this point link to the Big Issue in the North, which published my feature on the BBC. I'd love you to buy a copy from their digital archive, here.

I also do a weekly column on music (mainly) for the Weekender section of the Tameside Reporter and Glossop Chronicle. One of the recent ones is here.

I was also involved in the Inset Day at Aquinas College yesterday, which prompted this piece on LinkedIn. 

So, which me luck and I hope this works.

A new column in the paper - Music Therapy

I've started writing a weekly music column in the Tameside Reporter. It's a bit of a plug for the show and a chance to share a few stories around the music me and Neil play every Sunday night. This one however is more about the therapy side of things. Hope you like it.

Link is here.

Vikas Shah's new book - impressive access, delightful insights

I've known Vikas Shah for about ten years. I first noticed him as he was doing a blog where he interviewed incredible people that you wouldn't expect a textiles trader from Manchester to be accessing, never mind uploading to a very basic looking blog called Thought Economics. In that time I've seen him grow in confidence, but never diminish in either energy or ambition. I've seen him fall in love and get married, get an MBE and deliver an incredibly powerful TEDx talk. This book then marks just another milestone in his fascinating life. In it he tries to do justice to the access he's gained by virtue of his own raw audacity and package the insights gained into a useful bundle, curated under such headings as identity, culture, leadership and entrepreneurship. The interviews include Maya Angelou, Marina Abramovich, Bertie Ahern and Carlo Ancelotti. And that's just the As. 

There's a lot of insight and some remarkably candid reveals, which I won't spoil, but having gone through them all, I still found myself being genuinely more stimulated and impressed by the interpretations of those insights that Vikas himself shares. Maybe that's a bias of my own pride in what he's achieved, but I rather think he's earned the right. 

Upping my podcast game, an update

I said I wanted to 'up my podcast game' a couple of weeks ago. Anyway, on that theme two recordings I did this month have landed today, rather proving the point that the production, marketing, social and framing of podcasts generally has been through quite the evolution.

First up, two of my hiking friends Mitch and Richard asked me to carry on a conversation that probably started at Kinder Downfall earlier in the year, just as we came out of lockdown one. They have an amazing podcast series about the world of work and it was so good to speak with them.  

Then the Higher Education policy platform and news hub WonkHE invited me on to the WonkHE Show pick through the week's news. Hope you enjoy it.

Happy New Year

I'm sorry I didn't blog in December, after doing a daily entry throughout November. I had a busy enough time getting out on the hills and trying to focus. I genuinely couldn't summon up the enthusiasm for an end of year reflection on 2020; everyone's said what needs to be said. I do owe a few music, book and film reviews but to be honest I've enjoyed the time to read and listen and immerse over Christmas without the pressure of doing a review. The radio show has been a good outlet for some of that, but none of it is massively contemporary anyway. I've also done a bit of journaling, which means it's ideas and thoughts that aren't fully formed yet. Anyway, take care and see you soon.

A month in lockdown - thank you for your company

First of all, an apology. When we were locked down at the start of November and I decided to blog every day for a month, I drew up a bit of a list of likely topics. Although I blogged every day, I'm afraid I went a little bit off piste and didn't do very well on tackling the list. 

Secondly, I wondered if it would make a difference to my visitor numbers. At first I was shocked to discover I had more visitors in October when I blogged just four times. It turned out I had a massive spike of thousands of visitors on the 2nd of October, when I was completely off the grid up a mountain. There doesn't seem to be a particular reason for this. I had a spam attack from overseas and a load of duff backlink attempts, but that was later in the month. Once I factor that out, there's been a steady flow of traffic. The most visited individual post was the one on Stockport and the planning issues coming down on us all soon. I'm pleased about that. I would have been disappointed if my biggest draw was Blackburn Rovers. 

My excuse for not getting round to all of them was some are linked to a writing project that I'm not ready to spill just yet and that in turn has also meant I haven't read many books this month. There were also some events to comment on, the small matter of a US election, the scrapping of Pacers and a few media and events things I was doing. And the outrage of Luke Unabomber and Instagram.

So here are the subjects I didn't get round to writing a blog on. I'll try and get through them, as I know what I need to say.

• Academic writing v journalism
• 24 Hour News
• The Strong Personalities Group
• Family
• Friends
• All Those Things That Seemed So Important
• Aesthetics
• Devolution and Democracy
• Living with medical conditions
• Welsh Nationalism
• Some book reviews
• Folk horror
• Kinder Scout
• Cumberland

We had our second two weeks of self-isolation, and it was OK

We coped. Elliot didn't get poorly, despite his positive COVID test and we never showed symptoms to contradict our negative tests.

The first isolation in September when Louis tested positive was tough, I'm not going to lie. It came as a shock and so we started in a state of unprepared anxiety, with ladled on potential guilt that we may have infected people we had walked with. 

This time we were ready, we knew we would be supported if we needed it, and bizarrely, we had a lot more to distract us - The American election was a bit of a rollercoaster, which we properly strapped in for, and then as soon as we were shut in, so too the rest of the country was following us by going into a new lockdown. So yes there wasn't the 'fear of missing out' we had in September, which might seem a bit selfish, but it's how it affects you.

It's the young I feel bad for. It's easier for us to press pause. They haven't the same sense of perspective, and it's putting off some anxious life events. We have to support them with kindness and sensitivity.

I had a trip into Manchester to look forward to on Thursday this week. The trip to Venus supermarket was spontaneous and I absolutely devoured my takeaway Lahmacun from their grill. Officially we are working from home, where possible. But some things require meeting face to face, safely, and we don't have a printer at home.

And here's another thing, it might only be reaching a few hundred people, but this blog is such a satisfying thing to sit down and do, usually in the evening. Recording a radio programme once a week also gives me the focus of discovering new music and finding a dozen songs or so to play, some of them linked and with a story. Hopefully that's been reflected on what I've written about, but I've got a list of further topics to get through in this month of blogging, and some more books to read. 

Downtown Den #111 // Michael Taylor in the Downtown Den

I had great pleasure in joining my old friend Frank McKenna in conversation last week. Inevitably, we're having to adapt to all kinds of new event formats during isolation, lockdown and working from home. This was an old fashioned two-way interview, conducted over Zoom.

We covered a lot, spanning the time we've known each other. The state of the regional media, social media, my first novel and the state of fiction, politics, mental health and my job at Manchester Metropolitan University.

The July blog experiment - what I learnt

I've been blogging for a long time, you would have thought that I'd have understood why I do it by now. But if you don't keep testing and probing you never learn.

So, I blogged every day throughout July. Some days it was an effort. In fact on one of the days I just uploaded a holding post saying how hot and fed up I was. Life's like that, isn't it?

But I did it to see if I got people's attention, which topics got the most traction, and to make this purely a numbers game, which were the most popular posts. Once I'd done that, what steer that would give me about what works on here and what kind of blog this might be in the future.

I did two blogs about faith. Why I'm still a Catholic and what that means on a daily basis. They didn't get much traction. I think partly it was because I didn't pump them much on social media as a result of my own lack confidence in expressing and defending my own faith position. Sad I know, but in a very crowded market of good quality Catholic bloggers, I know I'm miles behind and have very little to offer.

Blogging about national politics is similar, but I get good stats. I still think it's a crowded market and I enjoy the traction and debate that I get from it, but it's not going to break through. Plus, it's a little close to what I do at work. I've also said, this blog is for the other stuff.

The one topic I nearly always get good reach with is Blackburn Rovers. Given this was July and I only actually went to two friendly matches, I knew there was a bit of a season build up that might have dampened enthusiasm and reader interest, but two of them made it into the top 10. One angsty piece of confected outrage about the away kit made it into the top 5, but all that proved to me was the harder you try to be controversial the bigger the impact.

The other high fliers were a bit random to be honest, a long awaited lament about Mark Hollis (music), a piece about Stockport town centre and a return to a previously popular theme about post-50 male fitness and goal setting.

In second spot was our account of two years of dealing with the Criminal Justice System, which was highly political, as we anonymised some of the detail, but of direct personal interest too.

But the most read by some distance, and the one that was shared widely on social media was the one about Tony Wilson quotes and Manchester's tendency towards faux nostalgia.

It tells me two things, if I may say so. 1. I care deeply about this kind of stuff and that I have a voice in this debate about our city's identity.  And 2. If I blend those two facts, and think about what's current, then I have a right to carry on.

As you were. 

It's too hot and I'm pissed off

OK, I said I'd try and blog every day through July. It's been hot today. Blissfully the air con at work has been brilliant and I'm not boiling. That will no doubt change when I get on my train. But it's still hot, hard, and frankly I'm fed up.

There are also few things that have got my goat that I'm probably wise to hold my counsel for now. But I don't feel great.

Tomorrow's another day, an important day as it goes, which we've been spent a very, very long time waiting for.

Our family life, what you see and what you get

Birthday team photo 2016

At the centre of this month long experiment to do a blog every day of July is my own resistance to overshare.

When I started The Marple Leaf back in 2006 it was often confessional about parenting issues. I probably have overshared and there was eventually a reckoning for this when one of the kids got the piss taken out of him at school for something I’d written that a class mate’s dad had spotted.

When Twitter became a thing in 2009 I picked up a habit of sharing our weekly Saturday ritual of chaotic kid juggling between football, art class, lunch, shopping trips, going to the cinema, etc. I got loads of lovely feedback about that, much more than I did about pretty much anything else. In a trick borrowed from Twitter friend Jeremy Bramwell, I even numbered them kids 1 to 5. That’s stuck.

And how I pine for the days when we’d all do things together in such joyous family spirit. Take this week for example, kid 1 is in Ireland, I can’t tell you where kid2 is (it’s classified), kid 3 is in Cyprus, kid4 has gone to visit a friend in another city, while kid5 is off to his first concert. Rachel’s been to a Caritas event and I’ve been fulfilling my role as a Centrist (not very good) Dad at a workshop trying to reimagine our broken politics.

Younger and fatter, 2006

You never stop loving them, missing them, or making plans for things to do together. And I never stop worrying either. Given what happened to one of them in 2017, we always do what we can to make sure they get home safely.

On the plus side, the other thing we’re able to do now is afford a trip abroad with a portion of them while the others make their own plans. I think we’re still paying for our all-you-can-eat summer holidays for 7 to Croatia and Malta. But we have a plan this year to get away.

I’ve said before that as much as I enjoy watching Blackburn Rovers, the bond that really ties me to the season ticket and the commitment is that it’s time well spent with kid1 and kid3, or Joe and Louis as I call them. I know I wouldn’t go as much if they both moved further away to study, and maybe one of the reasons they haven’t is that too. 

The best we usually do is a Friday chippy tea, the occasional Sunday dinner, but life gets in the way. Last night three of us went to the cinema in Marple, I jumped at the chance to do so because I wanted to spend time sharing a moment or two. Not because I was desperate to see Danny Boyle and Richard Curtis’ summer feel good flick, Yesterday, but I do desperately crave such simple shared pleasures.

We’re watching them grow wings, they make us proud every single day. But you’ll notice that we don’t share as much of that detail as we used to. If you are reading this, and you cared enough and wanted to know about their wider lives, challenges and conditions, I think you’d probably know by now. Family get updates on those details on Facebook. But what we never do, either on here, or in person, is sugar coat it. Life is tough, keeping on top of it all is relentless, exhausting, but absolutely essential to everything we are and what our values are.

So, what you might occasionally see on here is a bit of the truth. Something selective, a trigger for something else I might want to say, but it’s not the whole story. It never is.

Mark Hollis - one half won't do

The death of Mark Hollis in February was a real shock to the system. Not because I knew him, or ever met him, nor that I was a lifelong devotee of his music. It was more about the outpouring of appreciation for a very special talent, and the manner of how he lived the rest of his life, seemingly in mysterious isolation. The appreciation of his work being gifted, rather than grafted.

Musicians approach fame and notoriety in different ways. Tragically, it appears to have contributed to the end of Ian Curtis, lionised and speculated on forever more for the tragedy and pain and the loss of all that creative potential. The mystery of Richie Edwards haunts all fans of the Manics, me included, tinged as well with deeper and more complex issues around anxiety.

The arch version of Mark Hollis' musical history is that the early stuff was a bit 'Duran Duran lite', but he matured, became a genius and then vanished. The tributes that flowed after his death were fulsome and touching. The best of them all was this here from Jason Cowley in the New Statesman, accompanied by a beautiful photograph by Kevin Cummins (above). In fact, I said at the time that I had sat down at the end of that week to write something about the amazing music, strange life and sad death of Mark Hollis, but Jason Cowley had saved me the bother.

But I actually loved the big sound of those early New Romantic anthems. It's My Life has been a favourite of that era ever since the very first time I heard it and assumed it was Roxy Music. Listening to the lyrics now too, piecing together what we know of Mark Hollis and his life, the ache of yearning, the trust of a pledge of commitment to a relationship seems all the more poignant - "one half won't do". 

I was talking to local switched-on cultural genius Neil Summers about him, including the embarrassingly similar memories of dancing to the pumping bassline and soaring optimism of Life's What You Make It. Neil had an idea to do a BBC4 documentary about the lost talent of Mark Hollis. He won't be the last, I'll bet.

But it was the exhalations of Elbow's Guy Garvey for Spirit of Eden that I suspect opened a doorway of discovery for many. I know it did for me. It is a work of extraordinary tenderness and beauty, a blend of styles far away from the bass and keyboards of earlier anthems, a fusion of prog rock, jazz and a touch of English folk. Brittle at times, but also majestic and life affirming. It's one of those pieces of music that you seem to find something new about it each time you listen. That the record company hated it when it was dropped on them in 1988 says as much about the music business in that era than it does about such a talent. That said, it was probably a clash that could have been foretold. His awkward interviews, his painfully bashful and very rare live performances, and his reluctance to take seriously the requirements to make a pop video were all indicators of someone not willing to play a game he probably thought to be ridiculous.  

You can't listen to any of Elbow's music without sensing the presence of Spirit of Eden all around it, something Guy acknowledges on a very special tribute to the record on BBC 6 Music, broadcast way before Mark Hollis departed, but repeated all too briefly in the aftermath of his death.  Please put it back on BBC Sounds. 

Snippets have emerged of the life Mark Hollis was living in the 20 years he was away from the music business, but I don't feel I want to know any more than the observations Jason Cowley shares: 

"There was nothing pretentious about Hollis in person: he was relatively inarticulate as a conversationalist but of course found himself supremely articulate in the language of music. Liberated from financial worry by the success of the early Talk Talk albums, notably in Italy and Germany, Hollis lived well and seemed to be content in his roles as father and husband." 

To seek more would be like a snooping voyeur, pressing our noses up against the window of something we didn't know what we were looking at. What we can know, and should celebrate, is that he had a musical gift. It's but one half, if that, of a life, of a whole person. The rest is mere speculation about someone who gave very little away, yet bequeathed so much. 

My mate Adil Bux #27

Due to the wonders of technology, but also due to sheer force of will and brotherly love I still manage to maintain a friendship that spans continents and dates back decades.

This is a series that celebrates friendship and tells a story about where that came from. And today's instalment is my mate Adil Bux.

I first met Adil back in 1988 in Perth, Western Australia, when he was a DJ and club promoter. In a crazy scene of bohemian characters, chancers and party animals I was drawn to this cerebral teetotal Muslim who shared a love of music and the wider hinterland. It was sort of my job to seek out characters, as a journalist, and his as a promoter and DJ to understand and discuss the wider music trends which I was mildly obsessed with at the time.

One of the things we did together was co-hosting a music show on 6UVS FM radio, where we'd generally talk, play records and interview pop stars. One was Kevin Saunderson from Inner City, who was massive at the time with his track Good Life. Hearing the opening bars of that track even now takes me back to the edgy highs of Limbo on a Saturday night.

Although we hooked up in London a couple of times when he was passing through, we somehow lost touch when he moved here in the late 90s and into the new millenium. There's a profile on him, here, in the West Australian, which covers most of his colourful life, including being a finalist in the EY Entrepreneur of the Year Awards in 2012.

The wonders of the internet brought us back together and with it two pieces of news - one that he was married to another old Perth friend of mine, Andrea Horwood, who was one of the first people to really show belief in me and who's determination and drive I have always admired. The other was that my old flat mate Roy Jopson had sadly died, a real life force who will always remain in our hearts, much greater than the horrible disease that killed him.

Now he has occasion to come through London a lot with his new business Nuut.com, we've made it a promise to get together as often as we can, as well as speaking on the phone and by all other means necessary. Sadly too, Andrea and he are no longer together. In 2017 I had a perfectly splendid day showing him around Manchester. We had lunch in Albert Square, and as it was in the days following the horrific attack on our young people at the Arena, respects were paid at Victoria station and in the flower bed of St Anne's Square. It was a symbol of all we shared that he knew so much of the heritage of the city, the music, but also politics and the twists and turns of our lives. Bizarrely, we topped it all off with a chance meeting with Graham Stringer MP.

Yesterday, we met up again and had a splendid lunch at Soho House White City, and we could have talked all day, even though him and his colleague couldn't always understand my accent. We talked about all sorts and laughed about even more. It's what friends are for. Safe trip home mate.

A blogpost a day - a month long experiment

I’m going to try an experiment with this blog. Before the days of Twitter I used to blog a lot more than I do now. It’s not that I’m less busy, far from it, but through July I’m going to blog every day. No matter how I’m feeling, whatever I've done, and possibly the window to do it will be on the commuter train on the way home. I’ve had a list of unfinished topics I want to expand upon for a while: the dominance of London, governance, Marple’s burgeoning restaurant scene, Stockport’s Underbank, being a Governor of a Sixth Form College, mental health issues, parenting, love, city branding, charity fraud, and possibly to get my writing mojo firing properly, there’s the small matter of my Masters thesis.

That’s in addition to the perennial subjects: commuting calamities, a few more in the 'my mate' series, book reviews, telly, films and my continued angst over which direction our progressive politics should take (and this month is significant). We've also got a couple of university open days to go to and not to forget Blackburn Rovers (we’re going to two pre-season friendlies in July). It might even lead me to better understand the purpose of why I do this, what I look to get out of it, and how and where it gets me into bother.

I'm doing this first one on the train back from a day out in London seeing friends. As usual the wifi doesn't work, that could be a subject for a blog, but I think I'm aiming higher than that.