The Devil Wears Ciro Citterio

The foundation of my love of music was the media that provided the running commentary on the styles, scenes and sounds I grew up with.

Without the New Musical Express, The Face and i-D music would still be good, but it would exist in isolation, without context and without colour.

It was also the rock on which my love of magazines, writing and journalism was built. 

Last weekend I ripped through Ted Kessler’s brilliantly titled book Paper Cuts - How I Destroyed the British Music Press and Other Adventures. This is a longer version of the punchy review I did for the local papers.

The last ever editor of Q Magazine when the music monthly closed at the start of lockdown in 2020, Kessler shares the potent mix of his remarkable life story, interwoven with a rich commentary about the decline of the music press.

The other eye I had on this tale was my own early career choices. I often think about this world as a parallel universe down another fork on my life’s road. I started out writing about music, fashion, films and clubs but took that different path in my early twenties. Many other young journalists probably also compromised on their ambitions, but I do count myself lucky to have landed in an exciting sector. I made my home through the 1990s reporting on the television business and its technology, rather than music, stars and showbiz, later moving to Manchester to edit Insider, the best business magazine in the land. One of the reflections I used to share with journalism students at UCLAN was the access I had to real decision makers and headline makers was so much greater in the business press than I suspect it was in consumer media.

Although I’d interviewed some high-profile celebs in that phase (Ben Elton and the rapper Tone-Loc were favourites, various long-forgotten Australian pop stars, not so much), some of the PR-guided set pieces were excruciating and over-controlled. You really felt you were in their pocket and constantly on parole for good behaviour. Ironically, my best-ever scoop was about the revival of Countdown Revolution, a much-loved TV music show.

As I mentioned in this piece a couple of months ago, I have at times lamented that early choice. But deep down I probably always knew the money wasn’t good enough and the precarious nature of jobbing journalism for cool papers and mags was more than I could bear. Certainly, both Ted Kessler and Miranda Sawyer have confirmed their own financial precarity was a trade-off for an interesting life. 

Journalism is a hustle. You have to constantly negotiate access to a much sought-after interview, or work out the trade-offs required to stay in the game. The business press was a different kind of dance, but there were games to play and the advertisers had more power; too much if you weren’t vigilant. 

To be any good at journalism, in any field, you need courage, access and a genuine love for what you are writing about, if you don't then you are dead, because the gatekeepers have an antenna for it. Writing talent, as Ted Kessler describes, particularly for a high-output media like a weekly paper, isn’t as important. You just have to be able to knock out the copy sometimes.

I enjoyed Ted’s accounts of his own on-the-job learning, well remembering the brutal dressing-downs I had through my early career. I didn’t use words wisely, I was way too slow, and it took a while to balance the relationships that could taint a fair and accurate view of our world.

His tales of press trips and moments of genuine wonder are beautifully told, John Harris and him at an early Oasis gig, the energy of the Happy Mondays, but there was always a tension. These people weren't your friends and could snap in an instant. Maybe it’s also because the stakes were so high and the negative consequences so catastrophic. When he spends time with Radiohead and the editor ditches it as a cover story, relegating it to a chippy inside spread with poorly chosen photos, it triggers a grudge that lasts for a decade.

He gives Paul Weller’s Stanley Road album 6/10 in the NME and Weller invites him down to Surrey for a straightener in the car park of his studio.

I don’t ever remember being offered out by a grumpy TV facilities boss, but I upset plenty of people over the years. Sometimes it was my own fault. I can think of the press officers at major corporations, who were also our advertisers, who thought I was an idiot. I then decided I would go out of my way to deliberately annoy them by doing stories so offensive, so detrimental to their reputation, and so egregiously hostile, that they threatened to withdraw all advertising from my publication, and its sister titles, which were hanging by a knife edge anyway. It was high stakes but boosted my credibility and their requirement to take me seriously. And I was right, by the way, the story I worked hard to get published about them was true. And rather a troublesome idiot than a lickspittle, of which there were plenty elsewhere.

But as I matured I knew better and learned how to earn the right, to play the long game. If you’ve got a good reputation, if you do the work, serve the readers good stories, and try to be different, then your respect yields better stories. In later years, while working on a different magazine, that same advertiser flew me to Rome to interview the head of the Vatican’s TV station, and also to the World Cup in France 98. Though to prove where I stood in the pecking order it was only Bulgaria v Nigeria.

For an industry that holds its annual trade exhibitions in Las Vegas and Amsterdam, I enjoyed those years and had a good innings hanging around things I never fully understood, finding the personalities, spotting trends, and separating good new products from dross.

I was asked recently what my favourite ever story pitch was. It’s easy: “Hi Roger from Quantel here, how would you like to come to the Cannes Film Festival on our private jet?” That was a big deal. Competitors upped their game after that. Spending time with smart people brings insights, insights bring readers, readers bring credibility, and credibility gives you the freedom to be brave. Plus, though I knew Cannes was incredible from trips to the MIPCOM and MIPTV markets, the film festival was next-level insanity and glamour.  

But I think the real reason I really enjoyed Ted Kessler's Paper Cuts was that it was also about the decline of publishing, the collapse of the magazine industry as we knew it, and the self-inflicted wounds that legions of halfwitted publishers administered in the name of brand strategy, diversification and efficiencies. I went through many of the same kind of corporate bollocks that Ted Kessler outlines; strategy days, meetings about meetings, overreacting to anecdotal evidence in reader surveys and off-the-cuff comments from people making an excuse not to advertise. I've lost count of the pointless memos, botched redesigns, paranoia, new managers with the latest bright idea and the sharpening of knives by young bucks on the rise. There was also a clash of priorities between advertising, editorial and corporate merger strategy.

Ted Kessler’s characters, some tragic, leap off the page. Maybe he was blessed with big names and personalities, but for his Steven Wells (RIP), we had Oscar Moore (also, RIP). Yet it remains true that no one has yet written a savage portrait of working in the business press in the way Kessler does about his world, or Laura Weisberger's novel about Vogue, The Devil Wears Prada. I just don't think my magnum opus (The Devil Wears Ciro Citterio) would be quite the rip-roaring page-turner. 

The irony is not lost on me, by the way, that other hardy veterans may have well interpreted my own enthusiasm for events, video and podcasts as equally vomit-inducing careerism and therefore evidence of my own blatant hypocrisy. In a later career incarnation, I sat on the board, advocated change, and embraced the internet. As one of my American journalist friends said, "oh my God, you've become 'they'."

But you only have to look at the absolute bin fire that is the local newspaper industry to know what happens when you get the big calls wrong, promote the wrong people and fall asleep at the wheel. 

But for all of that I have never stopped being a journalist, and a supporter of journalism, and loving the company of journalists, not just because of stories from back in the day, but because of all the stories they tell so well. 

Paper Cuts is stuffed full of hilarious stories of wild encounters that us journalists love retelling. Trips to Cuba with Manic Street Preachers to meet Fidel Castro and dinner with Florence (but not her Machine) at the height of her success, a fair few involving Manchester music legends, Shaun Ryder, the Gallaghers and then there’s Mark E Smith of The Fall asking about the name Kessler: ‘Jew, Or Nazi?’ A story Ted Kessler’s dad bizarrely recounted with morbid glee.

But for all its depictions of a downfall of an industry, and the sad story of his Mum’s passing, the book also ends on an optimistic note. Kessler’s own Substack newsletter The New Cue fizzes with the same energy for new music and a rich heritage. It may not reach the heights of NME in the 80s, but it’s a platform for writing that matters. I hope they get the access they deserve in a world where social media gives artists the ability to totally control their brand and message, but often leaves too little a crack for the light to get in.

Rose Hill and the Hyde loop must stay open - fight the power

I was really cross when I heard of plans to suspend train services on the route from Rose Hill Marple to Manchester Piccadilly via Hyde from September to December 2020. Northern Trains, also sneaked out the news in a letter to MPs. Given they are now run by the Department for Transport’s Operator of Last Resort, part of the state, in public ownership, it was particularly galling.

The reason they give is hollow, supposedly it's due to insufficient staffing caused by the need to train for new rolling stock and new recruits. During this period there will be no trains at Rose Hill Marple, Woodley, Hyde Central, Hyde North and Fairfield stations. As a result, frequency will also be cut at Romiley, Guide Bridge and Ashburys. 

For what it's worth this blog fully supports the campaign to stop these plans and is delighted to be supported by the Goyt Valley Rail Users’ Association and all our local MPs along the route, Tory and Labour, and by local Councillors.

Rachel Singer, Chair of the Friends of Rose Hill Station, said “The withdrawal of service is not just inconvenient, it will cause distress and a severe sense of dislocation and disruption to life for many who use the service when we are all struggling to re-establish some routines as lockdown eases. We are also concerned about the many local school pupils who will not be able to use the service just as they return to school at the start the new session. Many of those affected will switch to travelling by car, causing more pollution and congestion. Others will be forced to use less convenient bus and rail services, increasing the pressure on these services and making social distancing harder. Some people will decide not to travel at all, undermining the Government’s efforts to get the economy growing again”.

Chair of the Goyt Valley Rail Users’ Association, Peter Wightman, added “Northern are asking passengers to find other ways to travel, pointing them to local bus services, and to rail stations on the routes from Glossop and from Sheffield via Marple. But this comes when bus services are being reduced, and passengers are already being asked to try to avoid the rail route from Sheffield via Marple due to overcrowding. With capacity on alternative routes being limited due to social distancing, overcrowding may force passengers to find another means of transport, or make it impossible to maintain social distancing.

“The longer this closure goes on, the harder it will be to persuade passengers to come back to rail, working against the aim of making our transport system more sustainable. This also undermines the government’s commitment to rebuild passenger confidence when it took over the running of services across the Northern rail network in March.”

The user groups point out that several thousand people have signed petitions against Northern’s plans in less than a week, and they have created a storm of opposition on social media. The groups are committed to fighting the plans until they are scrapped. 

Hands off Wales - Wyn Thomas, a quick review

I spotted this hefty tome at the Hay Festival, a couple of years after I had a brief flurry of interest in the militant Welsh nationalist movements of the 1960s and 1970s. Like a lot of purchases from festivals and readings I never got round to reading it. I was however inspired to do so by a recent binge of Welsh language TV series and films.

Though my Dad is Welsh born, and he spoke Welsh as a child, before moving to Lancashire, I'm not as in touch with that side of my heritage. As anyone who has ever visited this blog before will note, I'm a very proud Professional Northerner. But in so being I do recognise the cultural and economic injustices that have blighted Wales and what it has as a special nation.

I dropped the author a note of appreciation this week and rather than compose a long blog review, I just thought I'd share some of the same observations here.

So Hands off Wales, an ambitious and impressive work by Dr Wyn Thomas takes a wise and particular view on a time and place, and pauses to consider how history views political movements over time.

It is a far richer and more thorough analysis than that of two earlier books I stumbled upon, Ray Clews To Dream of Freedom and John Humphries' Freedom Fighters. I developed some real anger and frustration about the militant movements for Wales from reading those. As I said at the time: “But it also served to deepen my anger at John Jenkins from MAC and his high minded lack of accountability for the bombs that maimed an RAF officer - he claims it wasn't "our boys". Neither was the one left in a locker at Cardiff station. But that's the problem with autonomous cells and leaderless resistance, people do their own thing. Nutters who don't and can't make moral judgements.”

I also said on the Free Wales Army: “It also really annoyed me that the FWA were cited as "anti-communist" and "nationalist" but were probably to all intents and purposes neo-fascists. The uniforms, the oaths, the rhetoric. Clews makes no comment about them receiving correspondence from the National Front leader John Tyndall, or their links to the IRA.”

Thomas's conclusions are better nuanced and more considered, as I’d expect, but the showboating and virtue signalling of politics today and the ability to create pop-up movements does lead me to think the last chapter on Welsh nationalism and political identity is far from written.

Indeed, Thomas has also written a biography of John Jenkins, the leader of one of the terror cells, and who now lives in the same village my Dad grew up in. His next work is a real analysis of the scandal of Liverpool Corporation's flooding of Tryweryn. On this evidence, they should be very worthwhile texts to study. But there is more to come, I feel.

I enjoyed the detail and the interplay of personalities in Hands Off Wales. I found myself wondering whether the injustice of Tryweryn and the hollowing out of communities are two sides of the same bad penny Wales has inherited, but also left wondering what political history will make of Welsh attitudes today, the support for Brexit and the uptick in support for Plaid. I guess we’re in unchartered territory now, we all have fears of what kind of dystopian world could emerge, but we’re still holding on to hopes that something better should.

Finally, it's also been inspiring as a piece of historical scholarship. As I plough on with my own magnum opus on a subject particular to my own sphere of interest, this proves that good clear and lively writing is essential to bring a subject and personalities to life.

New Statesman - an appreciation

From an early age I've always had a magazine that I have consumed avidly and which pretty much defined my world.

At various times that dubious and fragile honour has fallen to the NME (mid-80s), New Society, Marxism Today, Arena, The Face, When Saturday Comes, Loaded, Monocle and The Word. In recent years I've drifted a bit, as I think magazines have.

In all of that time, I've dipped in and out of reading the New Statesman - particularly when it absorbed New Society in 1988, before erasing trace of it 8 years later. It sort of baked in my politics around the 1987 General Election, but I think it probably lost its edge when Labour were in power. At that time, I found The Spectator the better of the political weeklies.

Yet now I look forward to my regular Friday treat of the New Statesman. It’s not only really helpful for work, providing the best insights into British politics, but it’s also a great commentary on a really rich cultural hinterland.

The present editor Jason Cowley has been in the job for a decade. When he was announced I remember a rather snooty backlash against his appointment, given he was a bit of an outsider from the political commentariat and had been editing Observer Sport Monthly, before a relatively short stint at literary journal Granta. Yet it was pretty clear that he's proved those doubters wrong and taken the title in a really bold direction.

In the 2018 end of year edition, he talked about what his original plan was:

"Take the New Statesman upmarket; make it more politically sceptical and unpredictable; free it from the clutches of the Labour Party; publish longer and better-written pieces; burnish its literary pages; create a dynamic website; and discover and nurture a new generation of political writers."

What I think I appreciate more than anything is the careful blend of freshness and intellectual discomfort that it brings.

Of course it's a bit London-centric, all of our media is. I've spent a lifetime trying to do something about that, and I wish they'd make more of an effort. Having a conference on the Northern Powerhouse in Leeds in February is good. More, please.

But I don't think I've read a better series this year than Matthew Engel's tour of Europe. It proved hugely useful to us before our trip to Estonia and I really liked his last essay on train travel.

Kate Mossman, ex-The Word,  is a wonderfully deft culture writer and a perfect accompaniment as a columnist to Tracy Thorn. Having John Gray doing expansive moral philosophy pieces is a real coup. I always enjoy Anna Leszkiewicz's media columns, but her piece on the future of television was the best synthesis of the issues for the business, showing a real grasp of what lies behind the rise of Netflix and the challenge to the conventional TV channel model. I also think the political commentators Stephen Bush, George Eaton and Helen Lewis, all do a particularly good job of  providing steady, solid political commentary on the chaos of our failing system.

It's not just because I agree with everything. I'm at odds with Paul Mason on many things, but he does reserve his best strategic analysis pieces for this outlet than any other he writes for. I also welcome Grace Blakeley joining as an economics writer, because she reflects a particular thread of UK leftist thought that is at the  heart of the debate that has been opened up by Mason and Yanis Varoufakis.

The great skill of an editor is to curate a publishing space that can welcome new voices and nice surprises. There's a fairly high bar here, where the age ranges of the contributors give you a sense of a world observed from a wide perspective. I like seeing Howard Jacobson popping up as a reviewer and guest diarist alongside towering figures like Michael Heseltine, Gina Miller and Mike Brearley.

As well as the writing I enjoy the political podcasts with Helen and Stephen, while Jonn Elledge's CityMetric podcast has a marvellous geeky streak that I just adore. Whatever it is they do, you pretty much know there's a high standard of insight and commentary you come to expect. I even think they make a decent job of the advertorial supplements, which newspapers manage to make unreadable, whereas the NS ones are usually very useful.

When I used to lecture at UCLAN on the magazine journalism course, I used to emphasise the importance of knowing the reader, creating a clear personality of what the title is about and how it improves their life. As the editor of a business magazine group for twelve years I aspired to make our titles this relevant and with that single minded commitment to high quality. When you have writers, designers, sales staff and a publisher who share that vision, then you are on to a winner.

It's been a challenge for magazines to transition to digital and to keep on innovating with events and podcasts and other brand extensions, but I think they have everything at their disposal to do so.

Congratulations on 10 years Jason Cowley, you’ve done a top job.

Policing the boundaries of a community

When I pitched up in Manchester in 2000 to edit North West Business Insider, a well-established regional business magazine, it took a while for the scale of the responsibility to sink in. I barely had a contract, let alone an instruction manual. And certainly no-one took me into a back room and handed me the keys to the secret files.

On the one hand, the sales team had one set of expectations - come up with good ideas that they could sell advertising and sponsorship around. But the far harder responsibility was to make the publication and the brand relevant in the long term. The previous editors all bequeathed me a mixed set of expectations: one was to be accessible, commercial and of good quality; another was to be spiky and brave; and the third was to have a witty, yet powerful voice. All of them had a sense of what would attract readers, which is what the advertisers needed to be sure we had. I was also fairly wedded to strong magazine aesthetics and thought the design was dated and needed refreshing in time.

But this piece isn't a memoir, or a reflection on the nuances of magazine editorship. It is, however, something that's been burning inside me for a while. One of the mantles I was handed was a deeper moral duty, part of a wider purpose as a community clarion to take very seriously what it meant to transact good business in the regions of England. It came with a responsibility to expose crooks and chancers. The magazine was a sustained success because it was part of a community. In so doing we were happy to celebrate the successes of businesses and entrepreneurs who were doing well, who were working hard in pursuit of a common good, but also we were all trying to explain the new rules of an ever-changing world. But that community was also sustained by resolute policing of the boundaries. 

Grimly, sadly, sometimes we'd get taken for a ride. Before I arrived, we had featured a character in the list of the 42 under 42, an annual roll call of new emerging talent. He called himself Paul Raymond Versace, yes, after the fashion label. He popped up as a charitable philanthropist and posed for a photograph with the great and the good of Manchester's business community. His inclusion in the Sunday Times Rich List, and disgracefully, our own, triggered a number of incredulous phone calls from people with an altogether different view of this character. He was using his media and charity connections for personal advantage, opening doors and building credibility. With the help of good sources, and in a fairly short space of time, we had enough to piece together a damning story. Some of the national press waded in with far less subtlety, and he was placed right out of circulation.

Other tip offs followed and we started to get a reputation. I'll be honest, our rival publication, EN magazine, also got stuck in to a few targets and upped their game. Simon Donohue from the Manchester Evening News did a blistering series of articles exposing Reuben Singh. I got a bee in my bonnet about the fact that chancers were turning up to meetings at banks with a clippings file of positive media stories, sometimes with the name of my magazine included. I became obsessed, even chasing down two stories when I was on holiday in Marbella with my family. I formed an alliance with Sue Craven from Armstrong Craven, who remains a good friend to this day. She would help me understand detailed research reports, on labyrinth corporate structures, which helped me to get my head around credit reports and see what the data was saying. One was on a target called The Accident Group, which I long suspected was a house of cards. It turned out to be far worse than that.

A lot of this became self-sustaining, lawyers, corporate finance advisors and property agents would use their intelligence and their networks and tip me off about the latest shyster doing the rounds. 

There were gangmasters, VAT scammers, celeb chasers, phoney football agents, jolly chaps telling stories in the Stag's Head and asking the lads to chuck in a cheeky 50k for a deal that wouldn't happen. You literally couldn't invent a fictional character like Paul "The Plumber" Davidson, but he proved to be the gift that kept on giving. Our hounding of him won us many friends.

In all of these cases, the front of the brain would compute one set of responses, the back of the brain was screaming a different set of messages. Sometimes I'd spend far too long looking for evidence on someone I wasn't sure about. Often it wasn't the money, but the tales of sex, or drugs. I had good lawyers and solid media law training so I knew when to stop, when to draw the line, it was beyond me to expose Manchester's Harvey Weinstein, were we to have found one. In those instances where you know something isn't right, you just had to exercise the one remaining option left, ignore them. Let someone else do their propaganda for them.

Time and again I'd see the same patterns emerge. Grand gestures around charitable giving, associating with genuinely successful and credible people, the desperate seeking of honours and the ostentatious wearing of the badge of corporate social responsibility, which my late great friend Walter Menzies called "the icing on the shit".

That was a different time, but it's not a different place. The resources and reach of the media have been transformed in recent years. I lost my capacity to do anything meaningful over time and created a satirical outlet instead. 

So where are we now?

I've never known a time when businesses in Manchester and the North West have needed someone, something, to police the boundaries more than now. 

I'm firmly on the record for welcoming a Mayor of Greater Manchester. But as much as such an office holds power and leverage, so too it needs protection from those that see it as a quick route to credibility, power and glory. I believe in it too much to see its credibility and moral authority undermined. Same goes for business organisations who have incredible convening power. I have a few opportunities working at a university to promote good work, networks and sound causes. But I'm well out of the media game these days. And I'm not even sure the business press, online and print, is up to it.

But just as campaigns and political movements have been transformed by technology, so too can scrutiny and community protection. I don't know how, I don't know who, but I'm very open to ideas.

Our new Met Mag is out now - it's a cracker

I've said before, there's something special about a freshly printed magazine arriving in the office ready to hit the streets. That was the sense right through the comms team at work as the the sixth issue of Met Magazine, the magazine of Manchester Metropolitan University was published. This edition has been an incredible team effort and a real celebration of our greatest assets and achievers – our students.

I was pleased to contribute to the a feature about Students’ Union Presidents past and present, interviewing Paul Scriven, a LibDem peer and Councillor in Sheffield who was President in the early 1990s. It's quite a thing to hold a post like that and as Paul explained to me it shaped his future career in so many ways. I found him to be an absolutely fascinating character, both in the personal struggles he's fought, but his sheer tenacity and decency. There were a few stories that didn't make the cut which I'll use elsewhere.

When I was editor of Insider I used to pick the best interview assignments for myself, but then realised certain people would respond better to a particular writer. So, now I get the politicians and someone else gets the rock stars. Alongside my own modest contribution is one I'm going to confess to a bit of envy that it wasn't me that got to do it. We also cover two diverse and hugely interesting feature interviews. The first is with Guy Garvey, songwriter and lead singer of multi-award winning band Elbow and now a visiting professor at Manchester Metropolitan. He talks about his creative influences and his love of Manchester and its students.

The other big interview is with Nicola Dandridge, Chief Executive of the recently-formed Office for Students, an important regulator for the higher education sector.

As part of our work with MPs, I was also keen to commission a piece from Afzal Khan MP for Gorton and one of the many Manchester Met graduates now sitting in the House of Commons. It is important that people know what we are doing and the impact we have. Met Magazine is a powerful platform to profile our stories and I hope colleagues and friends will share the content and help us to show the way that we change lives for the better, and how we shape our world.

Visitors to campus can pick up the latest edition at reception areas, or if you prefer to read an electronic copy, you can find our new-look digital version. This is a new web version which includes videos and a fantastic podcast featuring an interview with Guy Garvey.

But message me through this site if you want the joyful experience of a beautiful and classy copy of the proper print version.

Martin Regan RIP

I was shocked and saddened to be told yesterday that the journalist Martin Regan had died. Even though we had a period of time where we were slightly bitter adversaries, I never failed to admire his dry wit and two-fisted editorial style.

When I took over as editor of Insider in February 2000 I was pretty stunned to get a congratulatory email from a predecessor and avowed rival. At that point Martin had fallen out with everyone at Insider and taken his EN magazine with him to a new venture, Excel Publishing. He used to point out that we were in fact a property magazine and in that first barbed introductory email he said he'd look forward to reading about "the next thrilling article" about "Eileen Bilton, industrial B1 workspaces in Runcorn and the price of sheds in Skem."

When we produced a 10th anniversary edition and I plundered back issues for nuggets I realised just what a fine writer and observer he was. His was a more acerbic and angry style than mine - and he never held back from telling me how he detested my embrace of corporate social responsibility, regarding me as an insipid Blairite - but if I was going to take barbs from a watchful opponent, then I'd better not be intellectually lazy or loose with facts. It was a strange but stiffening influence.

Over time we had a couple of lively legal disputes. One was his fault, one was mine. One attempt to get him to settle was met by the declaration that he'd rather cut off his own head than ever apologise or back down. But eventually over a long dinner at Nick Jaspan's house we crossed a line and moved on from such needless and wasteful squabbles. He was a man with a hinterland, a chess master, author, art collector, football lover, a writer and a father. He took more risks than most journalists and it made him all the more fascinating as a result.

At the Open golf championship in Birkdale in 2008 we were on the same hospitality table. We talked about the spoof Roger Cashman column which I'd started doing. I liked how he let me know he enjoyed it, without ever actually admitting it and we swapped notes on a few chancers and characters from around town who eventually found their way into Roger's imaginary orbit.

While I was serving my tedious year-long notice period I'd see Martin a lot more, initially on the street in Chinatown where we'd share a few more stories and tales of publishing comings and goings. We were both ready for something new and that personal competitive pride had ceased to be any kind of factor in our relationship. 

Last summer I noticed he'd appeared on Twitter and was continuing with his pet rants about economics, politics and Manchester City. He was a natural for such a sparky environment, targeting the swirl of bullshitters that social media attracts. I helped him out, suggested he used that marvellous picture of him holding a fat cigar and pointing, instead of an egg, and that he boost his followers by joining conversations and picking fights. He soon got the hang of it, and I enjoyed chatting to him again.

Last year a national newspaper called me about a businessman I'd once written about and who features as a cameo in my book. I was slightly guarded and cautious, but also tipped the wink that Martin might be willing to talk a bit more than I had as he knew the character better (there had been litigation, I believe). When the journalist called again, his tales of what Martin had spilled were typically robust, ripe and utterly unusable. He hadn't held back! 

As I've got older I've tried to make my peace with everyone I've ever fallen out with. It's for days like these.

I really liked Martin Regan, and I'm really sad he's gone so bloody soon.

When Mark Guterman called about his appearance in 40 by 40

I got a call at the back end of last year from a businessman who I included by name in my 2015 novel 40 by 40. I don't know Mark Guterman well, but met him a few times, through various friends, when he was the owner of Wrexham Football Club. That experience didn't end well for him, or the club. The point of including him was as a warning to the central character about the risks of buying a football club and the fans coming after you if it goes wrong.

Mr Guterman's polite enquiry seemed to be about how a work of fiction can include real people. He also wanted to put me right on his ownership of Wrexham and how it was represented in the book. I explained that what was always important to me was to capture accurately the time and the place - Cheshire 2008. It's not pivotal to the story, but it includes a reference to "the boys" who piled in to join his investment consortium to buy Wrexham. I heard this quite a few times myself at the time. The truth was, Mr Guterman stressed, there were no boys. He did it all by himself, but with some involvement from another investor who he fell out with, Alex Hamilton. There was no consortium and no deal done at the bar of the Stag's Head in Great Warford or after a round at the Mere Golf and Country Club.

My argument, which stands, is that the book wasn't inaccurate. The purpose wasn't to report accurately on every deal that got done and who was involved, but to reflect the myths and bravado of the time too. As Tony Wilson used to say, "faced with the choice between the truth and the legend, always print the legend."

Out of the blue I've had a few more calls and reviews about the book recently. No literary agent has called begging to sign me up, no producers asking for the rights to adapt it for TV, or Hollywood, or a major publisher offering me a mega-deal on the follow-up. Just readers who enjoyed it, who liked the story and more than anything, the linkage between the real world and the one I invented.

It's still available at Amazon for £5.99.  

Writing my first novel - the how, the why and the when

Each generation has an era defining time. The summer of love of 1968, the Arab Spring, the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Ours wasn't a summer of love though, more an autumn of fear. 

In 2008 it felt like the world was truly turning upside down. I can remember vividly the day when my savings account in a bank in Iceland was wiped out. How friends saw their businesses turn to dust. When our advertisers pulled plugs on everything.

I sat and watched it from the editor's chair, hearing stories of real drama, real fear and that feeling that this was a seismic, epoch changing time. This was our time and my novel, out now, is my attempt to tell this amazing tale.

I've always wanted to write creatively. Journalism is great, but sometimes news journalism doesn't give you that sense of perspective. As time went on and my job was more managerial, I had fewer and fewer outlets for that long form, investigative, exploratory story telling of human struggle. The kind of thing Michael Lewis is the absolute master at. And the kind of thing that if we managed to do three of them a year we'd enter them for awards, creating the illusion we do this all the time. 

But I also quite like comedy writing, but have never done anything about it, despite having always knocked out the funnies page. Way back when I was a student at the University of Manchester I used to contribute stories to the Mancunion diary page at the back - often about Derek Draper, if I remember rightly. Wherever I worked, I always fell into the "back page" role rather well. I also developed fictitious characters to tell truths: Arty Tosh, Corporate Raider and Lucretia De Bitch.

In the course of my time I also wrote a column called Roger Cashman. He was a grotesque caricature of a greedy and sexist Cheshire businessman. He became a minor sensation on Twitter, even finding a nemesis in his wife, Doris, which was absolutely nothing to do with me. 

For a while I kept it a secret that it was me. The chairman of the board highlighted it as his favourite part of the magazine and I had to come clean. We'd even get occasional letters of complaint, but more questions as to whether he was for real. My reply was always that he may or may not be real, but that everything he said was true. 

But Roger Cashman is dead. He disappeared over the edge of his boat off Puerto Banus in 2011, only for someone to try and scam his Twitter account for personal gain in 2013. He is dead. Long live Roger. Another truth about business, cowardice and crime.

And so it is with my first novel - 40 by 40. The premise is simple. Here's our guy, rich, bored, on the brink of greatness and huge wealth in order to stave off a mid-life crisis. Setting himself up for a life of reality TV stardom, more easy money, sex on the side and of course the dalliance with football club ownership. You know that moment in Goodfellas, at the end of act two, when Ray Liotta's character has it nailed: "We were wise guys, Goodfellas, we had it all." Well, that's my central character of Roger at the start.

WARNING. Roger Cashmore is appalling. A monster. From the first words - "You can't go wrong with sick white children" - the calculating cynicism of charitable giving writ large - to his dismissal of his wife's concerns, his self-centred avarice, lack of loyalty and the essential split personality - wanting to be taken seriously by those he fears most. All of it makes him hard to love. But I hope you will end up rooting for him, hoping for a redemption of some kind, even if he doesn't get what he wants. 

I know I did so with Jordan Belfort in Wolf of Wall Street, Steven Stelfox in Kill Your Friends and John Self in Money.

The jeopardy is the real world. This is 2008, we know what's going to happen in April when the tax rate changes. In September when Lehman Brothers crashes. In October when the UK government has to bail out RBS. And when Man United win the Champions League Final in Moscow in May, or when Manchester City get taken over by Arabs in September. That much we know, but where were you? How did those real events make you feel? Oh, and who do you think was behind Panacea in Alderley Edge getting burnt down?

I also wanted to weave in real people, real situations I witnessed - MIPIM, a conference where Jon Moulton spelled it out, a decadent birthday party I went to as the world crumbled. No real person in the book has words put in their mouth that they didn't say, or is placed in a situation that misrepresents them. They are as part of the physical backdrop as San Carlo Restaurant in Manchester, the Europa Hotel in Belfast and the Alderley Bar and Grill.

The one exception I ought to clarify is Simon Binns. Part of Manchester's business scene at the time was a spiky newspaper called Crains. To airbrush that from the picture of the year would be dishonest, much as I despised it at the time. With Simon's help I actually wrote a scene with him in it, having lunch and interviewing the main character. Although Roger is phenomenally rude about Simon, I think I know him well enough to know he'd take the confected affront at his nosiness and contrary opinions as a compliment. It was certainly intended as one.

The book isn't just a ramble through the archives either. I spent a bit of time talking to people who dealt with builders, helicopter leases, TV companies, banks, lawyers, phone hackers and football club owners. Explaining how quite complex financial instruments worked, but also how criminal gangs sometimes operated. I couldn't resist weaving in a reference to the Learning Journey I did to California.

In the credits I do thank the following fine folk for helping me with the research: Nick Carter, Alec Craig, Andy Shaw, Steve Hoyles and Eliza Manningham-Buller, the former head of MI5. But there are many many more.

There will be inevitable speculation about who the characters are based on. None of them are a direct lift. None. Some are just inventions, some are amalgams of at least two or three people. An acquisitive Indian food conglomerate called Chunky's doesn't leave much to the imagination. But it's a work of fiction - a way of telling a truth through invention.

I would say it's one of the most incredibly exhilarating and challenging things I've ever done. But then I said that about being part of an MBO, setting up a new business and standing as a parliamentary candidate. It's all true.

I'm now working on the follow up. It's called We're All In It Together, set in 2010, and Roger is standing for parliament in a challenging seat. Not that I'd know anything about that.

If you fancy coming to the launch on Friday, click below and reserve your personalised copy.

Updated showreel - hope you like it

A showreel for Michael Taylor, versatile and energetic events host,
journalist and producer. Includes interviews with Lloyd Dorfman of
Travelex, Fred Done of BetFred, Dame Eliza Manningham Buller former head
of MI5 and author Cass Pennant. Clients include: Deloitte, ICAEW,
Downtown in Business, GrowthAccelerator, Ear to the Ground, Rapport
Events, Journey9, Daisy Group, Grant Thornton and Insider Business TV.

Fergie - the greatest

OK, so everyone is praising Sir Alex Ferguson today, and why not. What he has achieved has been staggering. The picture above was taken at Gulliver's on Oldham Street in 1986 shortly after he'd joined Manchester United. He accepted an invitation to come along with his number two Archie Knox and talk to a Football Supporters Association public meeting - we attracted about 100 people. It shows how much football has changed in all that time.

He also did an interview for North West Business Insider when I was editor in 2009. In that piece he discussed retirement, saying it may come in three or four years, well, it's been almost four now. Here's what he told Jim Pendrill, who did the interview:

“Since I said I was going to retire and changed my mind I think people think I will be here forever,” he says. “Some days I wonder myself. It could be three or four years, other mornings you wake up and think ‘have I done enough’. Then you get to the training ground, see the lads and you know how much you love it.”
But when Ferguson does finally decide to walk away he won’t disappear overnight: “I have been on the treadmill for so long that when I come off I cannot just stop.”
He says he is comfortable with some kind of ambassadorial role at United, but adds that “you never know” what’s around the corner.
But finding the right moment to go will be tough. “I have a new team and want to see that mature, so picking the moment is difficult,” he says. “One, getting off the treadmill; two, because of how much I’m enjoying it; and the third thing, which may decide everything, is my health. So far I’m not too bad.”

Interesting too that he paid tribute to the Glazer family. That may not go down too well amongst the faithful, but as foreign owners of football clubs go, they aren't the worst are they?

The new Michael Taylor Events blog

I've started a new blog that records the events I work on. It's now no longer a secret that I'm leaving Insider this year. The story about that is here. While the name of this new blog is not the identity of my new business or anything, it is intended to record what I've learned from each event, what worked and equally what didn't. If anyone wants to have a look, it's here. If anyone wants to talk to me about making their events better and sharper, email me here.

Inside Out - BBC North West programme on Peel

I was delighted to be asked to contribute a few comments to the BBC North West Inside Out programme on Peel Holdings this week. In a nutshell I said the North West is very lucky to have a business like Peel, led by a driven and determined character like John Whittaker, but that their success comes with a ruthless streak. They tend not to lose. I also mentioned he is a devout practising Catholic. Maybe I sound a little like the Indian mother on Goodness Gracious Me, always spotting her own.

My one and only on the record encounter with John Whittaker is recorded for all time here in the May 2010 edition of North West Business Insider. I rather regret not making more of this encounter and putting it up on the web. The theatre of the clash between JW and Sir Howard Bernstein seemed exciting at the time, and we milked it as a news story and demonstrated how we accessed such big hitters. I wish in a way I'd delved into the great man a little more while I had the chance and splashed it some more. Hats off then to Property Week editor Giles Barrie for doing just that with his opportunity here, but I notice that he too has chosen to hide it behind a paywall. Sometimes it's better to save these things for the printed product, I certainly thought so at the time.

I also have to commend David Quinn and Arif Ansari for an excellent short film. It was fair, balanced and gave a number of valuable insights into the business. The only shame for them, like me, like Giles Barrie, is with Peel you just don't know what to leave out - but part of our challenge is always what you omit as much as what you include and how the story is then told.

The Boys are Back in Town - QSG book reviewed

The Quality Street Gang is part myth, part untold story of street legends. Who was in the QSG and who owe their respectable fortune to such early adventures is still the subject of rumour and conjecture.

This books is a welcome addition to the narrative of Manchester's colourful social history. That shouldn't be seen as an endorsement of what they got up to, or even that Jimmy Donnelly comes across as a nice guy, because he doesn't really. But it has some good insights, even if a lot has been left out.

The style of the narrative has a good pace to it, the stories are well told. That doesn't come as a surprise given it's been written and edited by Peter Walsh, author of the authority on Manchester gangs, Gang Wars.

I always maintain an understanding of the criminal margins of society give a valuable insight into how social order is kept.

In all the time I've been the editor of Insider I've always kept an eye on the "alternative business networks". It's surprising how often they touch the mainstream - the clearest account in this book is the tale of Kevin Taylor, the man who was accused of corrupting former deputy chief constable John Stalker. All nonsense, as it turned out. But Donnelly then tells another tale. His next door neighbour in Manchester was chief constable Michael Todd, who asked for help from Donnelly when his case was robbed. Bizarre.

The extract from Insider is here.

The Milo books site is here.

Preston bus station - a work of genius?

Pic from BDP

I've never been convinced by the argument that Preston bus station represents a work of architectural marvel. For something so substantial and so ambitious to work it has to at least connect with the users of that space. It was misunderstood and misused at street level. It became neglected by an ignorant authority. The marvel of it from the outside is of the curves of the car park above. It is a structure that divides opinion, for sure.

An exhibition at the CUBE gallery celebrates some of the amazing work of architectural firm BDP, for it was they, from socialist/modernist roots to a globalised future. It is a quite marvellous presentation; really educative and quite seductive. But don't take my word for it, read Neil Tague's blog on it here.,

Now here's a thing. Back in my teenage 1980s a friend of mine, Russell Colman used to invite a few of us to stay at his house. It was always good fun and we had some laughs, as teenage lads would. His stepfather would put Radio 4 on in the morning and the well appointed cottage was full of good books and copies of this hitherto undiscovered magazine called Private Eye. I would go so far as to say that Eye changed my life - it gave me a cheeky urge for satire, inspired me to do my own fanzine, to pursue journalism and not to take politics and the powerful too seriously. I never got round to expressing anything resembling respect or gratitude towards the master of the house, teenagers tend not to.

The man was Keith Ingham, architect of Preston bus station, who I learned, died in 1995. There's a professional obituary of him here.  I never had the inclination or the manners to say this at the time, but sorry for abusing your patience, Mr Ingham, and thanks for introducing me to the Eye.

Doing it for yourself

The unemployment figures make for harsh reading. According to New Economy, the Manchester agency tasked with promoting economic activity, the rise recently has been especially harsh in the young.

"The number of jobseeker’s allowance (JSA) claimants in Greater Manchester grew by 1,170 and was recorded at 82,310 in September 2011 – a monthly rise of 1.4%. National and regional JSA numbers also increased from August to September – by 0.2% and 1.4% respectively."

To bring home the human side of it, there's a journalist of my vague acquaintance - Nick Hyde - who has joined those ranks. I don't know him well, but he's written a calm and collected blog about it, here, which has taken some guts.

I detect too that he's got a few irons in the fire. More and more the self-employment and start-up business route is appealing to people like Nick. Not just to those who have had unemployment forced upon them, but for those for whom grinding away at the same thing just doesn't seem worth it any more.

A venture capitalist of this parish, Richard Young, is even looking for experienced managers to back in start-ups, something many private equity and venture funds seemed to have given up on a long time ago. He's come up with the phrase "management breakout" and I wrote a bit about it here. I tend to squirm at some of the rhetoric around start-ups and new business. There is a tendency to make a serious endeavour into something like the Apprentice or the X Factor, but there is an opportunity here for investors even if banks aren't there as they should be.

Much as I'm sure the likes of Nick want to avoid hanging round the house reading books, I can heartily recommend a great new title by Luke Johnson. Start It Up - why running your own business is easier than you think reads like a real go-to-it guide for anyone thinking of making a leap on their own. Plenty of people dream, but few take the plunge to do it for themselves. There are inspirational stories of people who made the leap, but also useful pointers on what to avoid and what not to do. It's also rare for a business book in that it's very well written.

I've always had a massive admiration for the self-employed. Walking around the streets of Marple early in the morning, while walking the dog, I see plenty of them getting into their vans and setting off on jobs as plasterers, window fitters and builders, etc.  This is the army of hard working grafters that keep the economy ticking along. My Dad was a self-employed milkman until he sold up last year, though we made sacrifices as a family, that independence of spirit and that control over his own destiny was a freedom he loved and gave him the chance to diversify with his farm.

The economy is dreadful, there is clearly less money around, but I think there is a boldness and a zeal out there. People will struggle, they will be hungry, but they will also get up, attack the day and try and make the best of things. They are the true heroes - you hear politicians pay lip service to them, but I really wish the media would recognise this growing movement. They need all the encouragement they can get.

My mate #14 - Ian Currie

My random shuffle of my address book has come up with Ian Currie, the latest addition to the roll of honour that is the my mate series on this blog.

I've known Ian for 11 years. He's a fellow Rovers fan and has season tickets close to where we used to sit in the Blackburn End upper tier. I fondly remember celebrating together when Rovers were promoted at Preston in 2001.

Until a couple of years ago he was in business with another friend of mine, Richard Hughes. Here's a profile I did on them back in 2005. The fact that the two of them have split was a source of some upset. I like them both very much and admire their dealmaking skills and their ablity to add value to businesses. It's not the time or the place to go into the reasons for the split here, but they were a formidable double act in their heyday and I'm proud to count them both as friends still.

Ian and Richard also grew a much coveted client base who they introduced to investment opportunities. It's a matter of public record that their wealthy backers included some old northern family trusts as well as footballers and entrepreneurial business people. Ian is also close to Sam Allardyce who is an active investor; I still kick myself that I royally cocked up a diary date to have lunch at Ian's house with Sam, he rang me as I was arriving in Chester, when I should have been in Lancashire. That link between the two dates back to when Ian was a director of Bolton Wanderers, a purely business arrangement that he enjoyed while it lasted. I imagine Phil Gartside, Bolton chairman, isn't the easiest guy to work with and eventually Ian left the board. We have enjoyed some sweet victories at the Reebok since.

Ian is also a great supporter of good causes (not just Rovers) and particularly of the Prince's Trust, the Royal Manchester Children's Hospital Charity Appeal and of the Lowry at Salford. We worked together on an event a couple of years ago with Theo Paphitis, another close friend of Ian - a report is here. We also played on opposing sides at the Reebok at this match in May.

By a remarkable coincidence there's tabloid speculation today suggesting Ian has been over to India and is about to be invited onto the board at Blackburn Rovers, something I suggested here back in February. This would be a very good move for Rovers, but I'm confident Ian and his pal Ian Battersby would require assurances that things are going to change and they won't be "yes men" to people who are taking our club down. I certainly hope so.

Going to jail with James Timpson

This blog isn't about work, but I do want to include a link here to a piece I wrote in Insider. I went to visit Forest Bank prison in Salford with James Timpson, the managing director of his family owned shoe repair and key cutting business. It was one of the most unsettling, yet inspirational days I've ever had. It opened my eyes to life inside the prison system and to the extraordinary things that people can do to change broken lives. You can read it here.

The star turn at the Property Awards - and me and Rory

Rory Bremner was our star turn at the Insider Property Awards last week. I know what you're thinking. He's a has been. Do you know what? I thought that too. I don't know why, he's still on TV isn't he? We occasionally hire celebrities for these awards events and they do a fantastic job. And I see the odd one who betrays the central truth of these occasions: it's easy money and they hate doing it.

Rory is a very smart guy. And I think for the very reasons I outlined above, he knows that the same-old, same-old won't do. So this is what happened. I spared him the crowd control, the charity appeal and the housekeeping and hosted those bits. I tried a new technique for crowd control - and getting 900 people to stay quiet is tough. I didn't "shush" at all. It's seen as rude by some people, and so I tried pauses and extra ad libbing. No-one is listening at the very start anyway. But at 9:45 Rory bounced onto the stage and did a good half hour of comedy. Not just his impressions, which are all spot on, but a series of one-liners, quips, barbs and topical observations. This being Manchester Ryan Giggs featured heavily. He was brilliant. He exuded star quality. It was a pleasure to watch him work (for us).

When it comes to the awards themselves there's another unspoken pact between audience and presenter. He knows it's important to the winner. They know he doesn't really take it that seriously. They also know that it's important in their world and want to win. But it doesn't do to be seen to be taking it too seriously. The real skill comes in the detail and brevity of the script that the presenter works to. In this case Neil Tague, who I work with, provided a punchy and informative script that walked that line with great aplomb. If you can get to the end and a BAFTA award winning comic doesn't feel it necessary to say - "or so it says here" then you've done a first rate job.

So, we've had all kinds of people thanking us for the show. One thing that keeps coming up is how good Rory Bremner was - his jokes and his impressions, but also his research and familiarity with the North West and the property world. Well, take that as a compliment Rory, but take it as an even bigger one, Neil Tague.

The only way is Wood

Tony Wood has some incredible stories to tell. He's worked alongside and inspired some of the best creative talents this country has produced. He knows about what makes a special creative space where good ideas can fly. And at Lime Pictures, where he's the creative director, he's now making what he thinks is the most ground breaking television he has ever been involved in.

But here are some things you might learn if you come to this event in Manchester next month. Like, how he won over 100 awards in his time with Coronation Street, including a BAFTA in 2004 (pictured, left with my pal Richard Bell and me). Why Jimmy McGovern walked out of Brookside twenty years ago this month. What it was like working with Chris Evans, Guy Ritchie and Mathew Vaughn on the TV series of Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. How the highest rated kids TV drama in the USA is made in Liverpool.

And now? The Only Way is Essex. What's that all about?

There's an evening event I'm involved with next month - part of the MPA World Class Series on May 18 at Deloitte - hence the picture above. I'll be interviewing Tony in front of an audience. Come along. Details here.