Hello, is that West Ham?

I sent my mate Trevor a message a couple of weeks ago fearing the worst over the rail strikes and backing out of a trip to London for the League Cup game against West Ham at the London Stadium. Having slept on it I then sent another - 'I'm coming down for West Ham, life's too short'. We haven't seen each other for ages, to reminisce on Sunday football at Wormwood Scrubs, great awaydays and tours to Devon. Our mate Martin's funeral in Ireland being one poignant occasion before we all got told to stay at home.

Come what may, I was going. Even though the rail strike was off, Avanti Trains are hideously unreliable but I decided to embrace the challenge. 

I was so glad I did.

Seeing friends in the old familiar bonding environment of a Rovers away match in London was special. Meeting their friends, their sons and other friends' sons was an added bonus.

Some things change though - it used to be a bit of a standing joke that wherever the Rovers were playing in London and the south, the London branch would somehow conspire to find the worst possible place to meet. It was the kind of 90s education that gave me a unique insight on life and rough pubs. 

Meeting for artisan pizza and craft ale in a microbrewery in hipster Hackney Wick wouldn't have been part of the old plan. 

I also avoided shabby Avanti and entered London via Reading, Paddington and the spectacular new Elizabeth Line, zooming over to Stratford in no time at all. 

My hopes and expectations of the match were to not get humiliated like we did last time we played the Hammers in a cup competition. I think taking the lead, giving it a right good go, and bringing our Chilean wonderkid on for a late equaliser, then winning on penalties smashed all expectations. It was nail-biting at times seeing them playing out from the back, but truth be told JDT is deadly serious about what he wants the whole squad to do. The project.

I thought there was much about this new ground to be impressed by, but it's nowhere near as good as the new Spurs stadium. The stewarding was terrible. I had a backpack that they didn't even look at, though I offered, and I got a full-body search. It was obviously going to be a smaller crowd, so why not create a bit of space between the away fans and the West Ham schooligans who think Green Street is an instruction manual? Maybe a Rovers fan wouldn't have had his head cut open by a flying object if common sense had been applied. They've got a real problem there, but all we got was blocked entrances, no stewarding of seating and a bit of a shambles.

It was a visit to ground number 77 of the current 92 and the 169th venue I've watched football on.

Lunch of the month for July - a well travelled month

This is one of the hardest picks yet. Having been on a bit of a gastro break in Porto, the playing field isn't exactly level, so I'm going to exclude the dinners and just show a few pictures from snack lunches in the city, or at the beach.

Clockwise from the top left we have octopus and potatoes, simple backstreet Porto food, a chicken sandwich from a market stall at the south side of the Ponte de Sao Joao bridge and a juicy burger from the beach bar at the oceanside lido at Leca de Palmeiras.

Next row, left to right is some astonishingly gorgeous Kampuchean Fried Chicken from Kambuja at Stockport Produce Hall, just enough to scratch the itch and not send me into a coma for the afternoon. Next was the spiciest of them all, a firey Sri Lankan fish kottu at the Blue Dot Festival, and a lamb shwarma from the Edgeley branch of the Levenshulme Bakery. Oh my. 

On the bottom row, left to right, starts with a mixed shwarma from the Antalya Shwarma in Hyde, which like Edgeley's finest kebab, is raising the bar for district kebab action. Next was a delightful roast lamb lunch I had at a country house in Sussex that I'm not really meant to talk about. 

And finally. Last and not least, but best. The Samosa Chaat from Ambala sweet centre on Euston's Drummond Street. I worried HS2 would knock it down, or damage trade, but it hasn't. Lovingly made, terribly photographed, but my lunch of the month for July. Sorry it's not a Manchester winner, all of these were all awesome in their own way, but this was the best.

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. 

Gangs of London - over the top and magnificent

So I see the poster first: Gangs of London on Sky Atlantic. Here we go, I thought: Yardies, East End villains, football hooligans, footsoldiers and a few Russians for good measure. I think that's because I've probably watched too many dreadful British gangster films than are good for me. 

I was wrong though. Judged alongside the dross of St George's Day, anything touching on the Essex Range Rover Murders series, Footsoldier, anything with Danny Dyer in it, then Gangs of London was (is) a masterpiece. And so as much as it plays in a higher league than that, it actually stands fairly well in a tradition of British gangster films that depict the shifting ethnic, economic and cultural tectonic plates in organised crime. It starts with Harold Shand ragging off the New York Mafia in Long Good Friday, before stepping into the cross hairs of the IRA.  In a similar way Gangs of London introduces all manner of feuding bad guys, briefly at peace as the increasingly globalised nature of crime interlocks and sustains everyone. None of them behave well enough for you to pause and spare a moment of sympathy on any of them, though to be fair, the Nigerians don't even try. In short order we have Albanians, Pakistanis, Irish, Chinese, Kurds and Welsh Travellers. They all love their families and will do anything for them, but don't particularly care much for anyone else's family. 

Though these epics aren't meant to be documentaries, their background noise has to have a foothold in current events and a form of reality. Two of the best and most terrifying books I've read in recent years have been Misha Glenny's McMafia and Peter Walsh's Drug Wars. The former was used as the source material for a dreary BBC series which was big on locations and short on any actual action. 

Gangs of London is sprawling in every way. All eight-part box sets are. This had nine. None were wasted. All were stunning visually, horribly violent and of course, had some utterly ridiculous plot twists and character behaviours. Stylistically it was epic and cinematic. Big scenes, and expansive, musical scores to lift the sometimes wooden acting. I loved the influences all the way through, not least from director Gareth Evans' dalliances in Asian martial action films, notably the pumping Indonesian powerhouse The Raid. Described variously as Peaky Blinders for the 21st century, Game of Thrones dressed by GQ, or Succession with aggression, every frame. 

I've watched them all now - I won't drop any spoilers - but episode 5 was the best. A squad of Danish special forces mercenaries against the Welsh gypsies. For once I picked a side. I've said before about the presence of Mark Lewis-Jones, a great actor who brought remarkable earthy verve to contrast with the relentless march of murderous slick precision. It was a brutal, overwhelming, ear-splitting movie-style set-piece battle. Louder than War, indeed. The whole enterprise is hardly a love letter to London - a sink of depravity, money laundering and blistering double standards in a city that festers with corruption and cruelty - but there's something about the away match in Wales where Gareth Evans is in his prime, using the location beautifully, despite the leap in faith required to work out how they all got there.

 

You don't watch gangster movies or box sets for the tug of the heartstrings or to snug up sympathetically and share a character's tears. And if you do to Gangs of London then someone will very quickly laugh in your face and remind you why that's a terrible idea. The acting too is at times ridiculously understated and the carnage simply unimaginable. But for so many reasons this lockdown has given us plenty of reasons to totally suspend what we could imagine. 

Two books about London, one good, one bleak

Reading Robert Elms' memoir of his life and of London, I was struck by the passing of both the London I knew and left, and the London I visit and still love.

There's a significance to the timing here. My first born son, Joseph John Taylor, was born in the Homerton Hospital in Hackney on this day 21 years ago. We go back every year or so for a mooch about, but it's much more my city than his. But it's not really mine at all now.

First off, I like Robert "Dutch" Elms and his chirpy BBC Radio London show that I still listen to occasionally on the weekly podcast. Although he's a good few years older than me, his hinterland and curiosities match many of my own, including my favourite street in London - Lamb's Conduit Street - long lost oddities like the Albanian Shop in Betterton Street, Pollo and Stockpot, but also national treasures and Soho staples of my 20s like Bar Italia and the Groucho (wasn't a member, loved going), and the glorious Mangal Ocakbasi in Dalston.

He's got a real grasp of London people and their stories, the places that don't have a blue plaque but were significant for what went on there. Three jumped out at me, a scummy hotel in King's Cross that was a base for the violent nuisance of the far right; the old drinking den in St Giles that was burnt down in Britain's biggest mass murder in 1980; and the flat in Stoke Newington - bang opposite where Joe was first taken home 20 years later - where the Angry Brigade had a bomb factory.

It's full of observational delight, as well as his own life story; but it's his family stories that were intentionally touching, particularly his love for his late mum who sounded wonderful and proud, and the Dad who died at 40 when he was such a young lad of whom he yearns for more knowledge. It comes later when he meets veterans from the Spanish Civil War who knew him as a trade unionist and a good comrade.

He keeps layering on the love, and the laments, but then towards the end, he gets angry as he confronts London's unsustainable housing situation - the unaffordable and soaring prices. He makes the point that anyone who has bought a London property in the last 30 years has won a version of the lottery, but once you've left you can never go back. That was my thought as our removal van chugged up the A10 from Stoke Newington before Joe even reached his first birthday. His kids have grown up in Camden Town, but won't be able to live there unless he leaves the house to one of them and move to his place in the country. And after reading the love letter to his London, that won't be likely.

It also made me recall another book I read in the last couple of years that left me quite depressed and unable to articulate with any enthusiasm why that was. Ben Judah's This is London was powerful, hard hitting and packed full of stories of London life. It painted a picture of a cruel and unforgiving city of broken dreams and exploitation of the disparate desperate like the African office cleaners of Barking and piled high Romanians sharing cramped rooms in Neasden.

Ben Judah is a young journalist, he was 27 when this was published, so the force of these stories comes from the stoic pursuit of the testimonies he extracts from the lives he seeks to chronicle. For Robert Elms this is his life's work, which I speculated he might write after I enjoyed his previous tome, The Way We Wore. 

Quite where a teeming and sprawling city like London goes after the Covid-19 pandemic is anyone's guess. There's no alternate reality that the London of Robert Elms contradicts the city of Ben Judah. I just know I was lucky enough to have experienced the delights of the former, without suffering anything of the dystopia of the latter. This is a day to count our blessings, certainly for me.

Millwall Away

When Tony Mowbray said that Blackburn Rovers’ 2-0 win at Millwall was a terrible game of football, he was obviously right. But it reinforced to me once again how these days are about so much more than the 90 minutes that we forked out decent money to see.

Even the heading for this – Millwall Away – conjures up an adventure, a sense of danger that any football fan will relate to. We were as far away from any of that as we ate artisan snacks in Borough Market before the game, sharing stories with friends old and new in the Market Porter.

Yes, I was delighted to see Rovers win, I always am. But it reminded me of many of the games last season where I felt we were a better footballing side, but had that slight doubt we might not be physically strong enough and could come away empty handed (Walsall, Northampton, Oldham). 

Sure, Rovers contributed to the dire game; lots of mistakes, hoofing up to Bradley Dack (who was off the pace) and Joe Nuttall (who needs match practice), no shots on target until the bitter end and some pointless passing around. But I always take something from a game and for me it was the solid defensive pair of Darragh Lenihan and Jack Rodwell, and once again the role of Lewis Travis in picking out some terrific forward passes and properly mixing it when required.

What will live with me longer in the memory though was the experience of visiting The Den. I went to their old ground a couple of times, even meeting Jack Walker outside on the second occasion and getting a quote from him for the Lancashire Evening Post. I didn’t meet anyone like that this time but Matt Smith (Doctor Who) was stood just behind us. Such is the mythology around Millwall that I did vaguely consider asking him for a lift out of there if he had his blue phone box with him. I’m not going to lie, it is intimidating, it is grim. Everything about getting to the stadium; the heavy police presence, the cages guiding the walkway to the stadium, the fact visiting fans are placed only in the upper tier all create the feeling of being in a state of siege. That in turn encourages a certain type of swaggering dickhead among visitors and ours were no different. We also saw a gang of Dutch lads at London Bridge earlier in the afternoon, and I spoke to another group of PSV Eindhoven fans on the train from South Bermondsey. I doubt there’d be the same attraction for this kind of football tourist to go to Brentford or Charlton.

That makes it another new ground I’ve watched football on, the 158th. I’m on 84 clubs out of the current 92 clubs (the Punk 92), and I’m up to 80 of the current 92 grounds.

Heap's Sausages in Greenwich - a delight

I've said before that one of the best ways to experience London is by its cafes. As I found in Holborn, Pimlico and Bethnal Green, they reveal all the deep layers of London life in each one, multiple generations as well as shifting demographics.

Last week I was in Greenwich at a conference, so I skipped the option of the predictable hotel breakfast and went on the hunt for a local cafe. I struck gold with Heap's, a sausage specialist and delightful haven just around the corner. The sausages and bacon were as good as anything I've experienced, rich in flavour and the eggs were cooked to perfection, which is rare.

There were other options available, but nothing that really fitted the old school bill. But this at least had that artisan nod to some firm London traditions.

A wander around Holborn and Clerkenwell

London is a great city for flaneuring. There's probably nowhere quite like it. And so having an hour to kill is always an opportunity.

After a smashing fish and chip lunch with John Dixon at the Fryer's Delight on Theobold's Road, I took in a few old haunts. I worked for magazine publisher EMAP in four different buildings around Holborn and Clerkenwell from 1989 to 1993. Robert Elms described Holborn as his favourite part of London when he was his own Listed Londoner on BBC Radio London recently. I can see why. It's a really fascinating part of town, with plenty of traces of the strong Italian character, including two splendid Catholic Churches in contrasting states of health. All of this rubs alongside the diamond traders in Hatton Garden.

While businesses in office buildings come and go. I was pleased to see some of the old pubs, cafe's and delis are still going strong. But what pleased me most were the characterful newer businesses. Nowhere stays the same for long in London, but it was good to see so much has remained true to these roots. Exmouth Market is an artisan food paradise but unsurprisingly the pie and mash shop has gone. Lamb’s Conduit Street has also upgraded its reputation as the home of strong independent menswear, with Universal Works and Folk the standouts. However, to see the magnificent Shop 70 now a Ryman seems a travesty.

Hatton Garden and Leather Lane are actually very similar to how I remember them, full of life, colour and lurking intrigue. There was no trace of the old publishing village we inhabited, the Guardian having long gone too, though I'm sure there are salesmen of a different kind keeping the City Pride in business. MEED House on John Street is now residential, 67 Clerkenwell Road and Abbots Court are still offices, but there's not much to show of the “most advanced publishing system in Europe” we were told we had on Bowling Green Lane. The receptionist told me they still get mail for EMAP.

There's a gallery here, if you want to see the pictures.

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

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

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

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

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

The Long Good Friday - a timely revisit

(Rex Features)

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

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

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

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

(Rex Features)

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

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

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

Lynsey Hanley's Respectable, crossing the class divide

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Albania, Albania, not nearly as repressive as Romania

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

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

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

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

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

Wimbledon, Wromantic, but wrong

Worst view ever . Away terrace at AFC Wimbledon

Who can't be impressed by the story of the fall and rise again of AFC Wimbledon? I know I am. For a tiny supporter created club to have born again after their club was handed over as a franchise to Milton Keynes takes some doing. That they now compete at the level of League One is remarkable.

I usually just roll my eyes and cringe with embarrassment when my fellow away supporters try and find the most offensive thing they can say in order to taunt opposing supporters. On top of the usual tedious claim that a place "is a S*** hole, I want to go home" (to luxurious East Lancashire, no doubt), this season we've also had comments on the ethnic make-up of Bradford, that Blackpool are poorly supported and using MK Dons to taunt AFC Wimbledon. As the bloke trying to start an MK Dons chant was right in front of me at the Cherry Red Records Stadium, I felt compelled to call him out and say "enough".

I say all of that because I really didn't enjoy the away fans experience on our trip to Kingston to watch our 3-0 win over AFC Wimbledon this week. The view in both halves was probably the worst I've ever experienced. In the first we were tucked behind the dugout and could get no sense of the game at all. It was like standing on a packed concourse of the Riverside. In the second we moved to a piece of flat land in the corner where Rovers were attacking and couldn't see anything in the half we were defending at all.

So we must all surely wish the club well in their quest for a new stadium in Wimbledon. Kingsmeadow isn't acceptable for football at this level. Apart from anything else a team can't expect to grow on crowds capped at 4,000, let alone sustain a presence in this league. Neil Ardley mentioned the difference in budgets of the two sides and though they beat us at Ewood, the gulf in quality was really evident in the return match. The style of play was akin to a 90s Wimbledon tribute act, but one that Mulgrew and Lenihan were more than capable of absorbing and coping with, despite another woeful refereeing performance.

The two pieces of action we did have a decent view of were the two goals. I've been shouting "shoot" at Elliot Bennett all season, when he's found himself in such scoring positions, so to see him lash one in for the first time this season was a delight. I still don't get his angry celebration though. It seems contemptuous of the fans, in defiance of us, rather than an expression of communal joy.

With a trip to Walsall chalked off on the Saturday before, this marks another two new grounds. I make it the 154th and 155th grounds I've watched football on, I'm now on 83 clubs out of the total, (the Punk 92), and I'm up to 77 of the current 92.

Golden Arrow, or golden funnel? and blocking on Twitter - my (polite) questions for Andrew Adonis

I asked Andrew Adonis two questions on Tuesday night. The first was about the progress of the Metro Mayors, of which he has been a staunch supporter. The second was the one that got a roar of laughter from the chair. Will you unblock me on Twitter? It's on the video (above) at about 55 minutes in.

His inaugural lecture was entitled 'Never forget - Rome fell, what London needs to do to remain the world's greatest city'. There's a link to the whole thing here if you don't want to watch the video. As it was curated and presented by Dr Jon Davis from the Strand Group at King's College London, my inspiration and muse as the nation's foremost academic entrepreneur, the lecture was lavish in scope and impressive in range, particularly about London's history and power.

Here's a taster: "Consider for a moment what has made London so great. Political stability and military security unmatched by any nation in Europe – indeed the world – for 330 years since 1688. Huge and generally secure international trade also since the late 17th century, first by British naval dominance and the British empire, and more recently by the European Union and a benign international regime for trade. When the French captured Amsterdam in 1795, much of the city’s wealth fled across the Channel, as it did from Antwerp during the Napoleonic wars and from Paris itself and other cities of continental Europe during the wars and revolutions of the 19th and 20th centuries."

He built up to a vision for an ambitious infrastructure project - the Golden Arrow - connecting all points North to our nation's capital.

"I suggest turning the “golden triangle” of universities in London, Oxford and Cambridge into a “golden arrow” of urban innovation, which includes Liverpool, Manchester and Leeds as the “shaft” of an arrow uniting the North, Midlands and London. This is possible because of HS2, which will treble transport capacity while also cutting the journey time between these destinations to under an hour. This will boost economic activity and help fix the housing crisis by bringing more homes within easy distance of London."

It includes, by the way, the case for better east west connections, but the purpose is to grow London. And that's my problem. I've never quite bought the argument that HS2 is necessary to free up capacity on the present West Coast line. In 2013, my own reservations about it were that the link would become a talent funnel. It's arrival hastens the need to develop a thriving necessary Northern Powerhouse with a clear and distinct interlocking purpose. As I said back then: "The shorter journey time to London starts to shrink the reach of the talent pool. As Manchester and Leeds are two hours from the capital then it makes sense to have a physical presence in the North. Cutting journey times to an hour undermines the case for that. I think the flight of senior corporate finance professionals from Birmingham to London has been evidence of this."

No other country has all its core economic, political and cultural power so concentrated in one city. Developing alternative constellations that connect better with one another, and basing the case for doing so on a social benefit model is a pressing issue. It's refreshing that a discussion about London's future takes into account the North, and the Midlands, as he did so admirably, but my weakness, my most grievous fault, is to look at each problem through the other end of this telescope, from Manchester. I want a shift in this metropolitian London-centric thinking. Expecting it at a lecture about London was a stretch, I get that, but I'm not convinced that trickle down will work any more effectively when we've got a dirty great train line.

I have form for saying I like Andrew Adonis and very much enjoyed chairing an event with him, which I wrote about here. I thought he was treated appallingly by Ed Milliband, who gifted the Tories a 2-0 lead on the Northern Powerhouse, which then cost him the 2015 election. Adonis is a thinker, a strategist, someone for whom thinking big about knotty challenges is exciting.

But he's also been wrong. He was wrong to push so vigourously the case for no-power city Mayors in 2010, when the case for Metro Mayors needed to be made. He is also wrong-headed in his assault on the UK's university sector, which he presumably thinks he is saving from itself. No, our university should not revert to being a poly again. And I'd cordially invite him to Manchester to show him exactly why.

My second question is linked to that point. It was simply, humbly, kindly, that he unblock me on Twitter. It has been hard to disagree well in this febrile, nasty environment. And if I've been rude, then it is with regret and I apologise. But I believe we can engage, respectfully, as I hope this blog has demonstrated.

The Jam - About The Young Idea exhibition

I went to The Jam exhibition in London over the summer, a real indulgence of nostalgia on a sticky hot day. It reinforced to me the power of Paul Weller's cultural influence on my teenage upbringing, the vast range of musical and political nuggets he helped me absorb during those incredible formative years.

I'll get my moan out the way first. The sound from each individual room blasted out so loud you were never far away from competing tinny blasts of Town Called Malice or Funeral Pyre. But then comfort zones were never part of the Jam experience. Weller always challenged your ideas and safe preconceptions. He was always keen to unsettle your assumptions - including his dismissal of punk posturing by the throwaway line that they would be voting Conservative in 1979. In so many ways the exhibition  took you back to Jam gigs where feeling safe and comfortable was never part of the deal. They were a boiling, heaving mass of adolescent fury and emotions. Some solid bonds, but the flames grew higher too.

I took two quite staggering points away with me that I never knew before. Paul Weller's school report where his lowest mark was in music. The second was the sheer force of personality of John Weller, his father. Sure, I remember him introducing the band, but a short film and the clippings really highlighted his powerful role in pushing the band and his son.

Just like I mentioned when I reported from a From The Jam gig in Preston a few years ago, I was as fascinated by the audience of fellow Jammers. I was there in a dark suit and clicky brogues, as described by Quentin Letts of the Daily Mail earlier in the day, but there were well turned out geezers in Sta Press and Ben Shermans, Fred Perry and Levis and a few in suede desert boots. Then there was Peter York milling about, looking as dapper as he always does.

But The Jam was so much more than just a great band and a look, I loved how Weller opened my eyes to ideas too. So I was pleased that due prominence was given to Orwell books and Shelley's poetry as there was to the musical influences and the clothes.

It's at Somerset House in London and has been extended until the end of September. I'm sorry it's taken me a month to write this up, but I've been dreaming of a quiet life, the one you'll never know.

Why a rush to English identity is a mistake @ProgressOnline

Here's a piece I've written on our very Fluid English identity. It was sparked by a piece by Eddie Bone from the Campaign for an English Parliament, who I disagree with.

Regency Cafe and Pimlico - contrasts aplenty

I took a trip down memory lane last Friday to Pimlico, central London, where I shared a flat with my mate Chris Lodge through 1991 and 1992. On the last trip I looked at the shifting urban geography of east London on a wander around Bethnal Green from The City. Westminster offers more subtler and more nuanced contrasts, but they are there.

The first sign that greets you as you stroll out of Pimlico tube station highlights the concerns of local tenants of the Peabody social housing estates in the area that they are being forced out. The shops across the road from the flats were a laundrette and a posh off licence doing a promotion on champagne, as if to highlight who lives here, cheek by jowl. I glance in a local estate agents would tell you that a small house off Vincent Square would cost you £2.5million.

I wandered across Vauxhall Bridge Road, where our flat has long since been demolished, and into Vincent Square. Here are the "soccer" pitches of Westminster School, behind locked gates. 

Within a short walk are the chequerboard rows of tenament blocks of the estate between the square and Horseferry Road and Channel 4's modernist HQ. Designed by Edwin Lutyens and built on land given by the Duke of Westminster in the 1930s. There's a great blog on the design of it, here.

The purpose of the trip, as it is on other visits to different London locations I used to know, was a stop over at a classic London cafe; this time Regency Cafe, one of my old favourites. It was also the location for a pivotal scene in one of my favourite British films of recent years, Layer Cake. The menu was better than I remembered and the customers packed it out. I only had time for cup of tea and a pudding but saw enough to tempt me back. 

I've just checked the scene and I even sat at the same table that Daniel Craig did. It was a long table for six and just like the last trip to Pellicci's, you share a space with strangers - it was another fascinating encounter, a lad who used to work in the area with similar fond memories and an uncanny knowledge of the Blackburn Rovers team of 1995, especially for an Arsenal fan. London tends to throw up these opportunities for stories and shared experiences.

I nipped into a lunchtime Mass at Westminster Cathedral before a meeting with the team I'm working alongside on a new project. Again, the brief service was an experience of incredible social richness and diversity.

Back in the day Pimlico was an area of acute contrasts, it is even more so now. Amazing that working class London still clings on alongside incredible wealth.

Lunch at Pellicci on Bethnal Green Road

I love London cafes. They're a disappearing facet of a city that is changing before our very eyes. Some of our old favourites from when I lived down there seem to have gone, like Alfredo's on Essex Road. Today my bessie mate John Dixon took me on a stroll to one I'd not been to before - E Pellicci in Bethnal Green Road, just around the corner from where the Kray twins stalked their manor from their home on Vallance Road.

Yes, my escalope was tasty. John's egg and chips were spot on too, but it wasn't just about the food. What made it so special was a slice of London life - it was rammed, so you just pile in and share a table, pairing up with a smart metropolitan couple and then we were joined by an 88 year old Eastender and her daughter. We talked about food, change, life and salt levels in white bread.

The staff worked the place hard, they kept checking you were alright, it was busy and noisy and full of love. They got everyone singing happy birthday for a regular punter, it was warm, funny and cosy. John got given a cake as it was his birthday too.

In a moment of drama I dropped my glasses down the side of our table, then realised I didn't have my phone either (I'd left it at John's office, it turned out). The staff turned the place upside down looking for it, offering to locate it, even as the place was filling up to the brim. So no selfie, no picture, so I'm trying hard to throw as much of the colour of the place as I can - wood panel walls, a tiled bar, chrome exteriors. But its character and colour was a mood, a feeling and a wonderful authenticity.

Queuing up as we were leaving was the Young Soul Rebel himself, Kevin Rowland, just thought I'd mention it.

Next time I'm in visiting my friends at Intuit UK in Victoria I think a trip to the Regency Cafe is in order.

The Salford question - the answer is still Manchester

I've just been on BBC Radio Manchester talking to Mike Sweeney about whether Salford should call itself Manchester.

We covered a lot, summing up I'd say: The University of Salford attaching Manchester to its brand was wrong and wasn't thought through properly. The BBC, however, should make far more of the fact that Media City is in Manchester - a part of Manchester called Salford Quays - just as White City is in London, a part of London called Shepherds Bush.

Manchester's local leaders are in France this week at a show called MIPIM, promoting a global metropolitcan city - not Tameside, Salford, or Trafford  but Manchester, which is known globally. There is a global football brand known the world over - they are Manchester United, not the Trafford Red Sox.

If you were a Londoner from Islington, you'd be proud of it. But you'd be a Londoner first.

Mike asked me where I'm from and I said: "Marple - where Manchester meets the Peaks." It's a question of identity I think we need to consider. Notice I didn't say Stockport.

This is a debate that has been sparked by Evan Davis and his excellent programme Mind the Gap - London Versus the Rest and some additional points made in the pre-publicity for tonight's programme, aimed at getting a rise out of Ian Stewart. I blogged on the first episode - Mind the Gap - forget gimmicks like Manpool, the cities of the North need to be better connected.

Mark Timlin, British hard boiled crime fiction at its best

Through the 90s I devoured crime fiction, falling particularly for an American writer called James Crumley and a South London hard boiled voyeur of London's underbelly by the name of Mark Timlin. 

Even before his Nick Sharman private eye novels were made into an ITV drama with Clive Owen, they had something characterful and true about them. I liked the sense of humour and naughtiness of them - name dropping TV series Sharman watched like Magic Rabbits and Invitation to Love - both series-within-series on Brookside and Twin Peaks respectively, he also hat tipped Crumley, which I thought was a nice touch. Timlin also had a delicious way of describing food, sex and clothes, something that is easy to get so wrong.

I stumbled upon Guns of Brixton recently having been bitten again by the crime genre bug thanks to a Val McDermid event at the Manchester. Literature Festival and from reading Kevin Sampson's expansive Scouse gang epic The Killing Pool.  What, I wondered had become of Timlin? Like all his previous books Guns of Brixton it is named after a song title. It turns out it was originally published as Answers From the Grave in 2004.

It is full of the familiar observational social nuances that Timlin has always been good at. By spanning generations, like Kevin Sampson's tome, the changing nature of London criminal activity and morality provides a constant backdrop as well as his trademark bloodbaths and a cameo from Nick Sharman.

But, and there is a but coming; much as I enjoyed it, and sat up late one night to finish it, I felt it lacked polish. All the ingredients are there, it just needed an edit, someone to push a funny, deep and powerful writer to be better. A couple of silly errors towards the end, confusion about which character was speaking when and a lack of impact about a couple of plot twists. All that said, I've also knocked off John Grisham's latest, The Racketeer, this week. Formulaic, no character depth, but slick as you like. I'd have hated Timlin to have become like that, but Grisham doesn't half have pace and polish.

I hope there's more from Mark Timlin. I'm going to enjoying filling in the gaps.