September blog challenge

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

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

In short order, and on the list are:

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

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

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

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

So, which me luck and I hope this works.

Happy 150th birthday Rose Hill station

Our wonderful little railway station is having a birthday party this weekend. Rose Hill will be celebrating 150 years of service.

There’s a poem to mark the occasion that takes us through the deaths of monarchs and the reduction of the station to a terminus and the closure of the through line to Macclesfield in 1970, despite having survived Beeching's axe in the 1960s. It's been a battle, but a renewed lease of life more recently has made it a valuable community asset.

In the time I’ve been using the station it has transformed from somewhere that felt truly at the end of the line to a welcoming hub. It wasn’t too long ago that the poor service was rumoured to be a tactical worsening to suppress demand and lead to eventual closure. Instead we’ve had the steady improvement of the soft infrastructure led by the amazing Friends of Rose Hill station group - tree planting, a mural, the re-opening of the waiting room and so many other delightful improvements. The curation of the station into its present form has also been supported by Tony Tweedie, the station master, who embodies the very best virtues of public service. In turn that accumulated investment of love, and comprehensive data collation about who is using the station, gave a moral imperative to some resolute and successful campaigning for a higher frequency service last year.

I've done a few blogs about it over the years, this one here harks back to the campaign over the missing mystery service in the evening and the leaf train. But I also wrote here about how much better for my mental health Rose Hill is than Marple station.

We still have a crappy train operating company with their dire rolling stock, and I shall claim to speak for the permanently malcontented when I say I thoroughly dislike the 150 Sprinters as much as I despise the soon to be extinct Pacer units. But at least we have this station to come home to.

I can see a bright future for Rose Hill, but I think in ten years time it might all look very different again. Greater Manchester’s shifting demographics require an explosion in high frequency public transport services to places like this, requiring something new and exciting, like a tram train. The case for that network to expand to Marple and Rose Hill is a strong one. The reopening of the Middlewood Way towards High Lane may be trickier.

So, thank you to everyone who has got this station to 150, the passengers, the dedication of the Marple public in supporting something worth defending, to Tony Tweedie, but most of all to the Friends of Rose Hill.

The best business speaker I've ever seen is...

Kevin Roberts on stage (pic by Neil Price)

I get asked a lot who the best speaker I’ve ever worked with is. There are so many ways to answer that. Who works best in a small room doesn’t always light up an auditorium. A funny, wise and informative conference presenter can fall spectacularly as an after dinner performer – and I’ve seen Wayne Hemingway do both.

So obviously, it depends. But for emotion, danger, connection, wisdom, inspiration and, yes, entertainment the answer is Kevin Roberts, author of Lovemarks, chairman of Saatchi & Saatchi, head coach at Publicis and, like me, he left Lancaster Royal Grammar School in a state of disgrace.

I saw him again this week for the first time in ‘too long’. He was doing the keynote address at the Annual Hotel Conference in Manchester, curated by my old chum Chris Eddlestone, the self-styled Earl of East Lancashire. What struck me more than anything was his edge, an urgency to understand, keep up, interpret and act. But also to seek and maintain a higher purpose to whatever it is you do. He started by talking about millenials, the globally mobile digital natives – in particular how the hotels industry needs to think very carefully about what they want and need in the age of Airbnb. But, the algorithm can read the lines but only we can read between them and deliver emotional connections.

His talks are always full of visuals, names, quotes and bursts of inspiration. This is the Age of the Idea, he said, and the biggest one of them all right now is disruption. Kevin took a lifelong love of rugby from his time at our school (I didn’t). And I remember an evening at the Town Hall in 2004 where he invited his mate Sean Fitzpatrick to teach the first XV the Haka as part of a bawdy night of fundraising for a planned tour of Argentina. Raising money for privileged children, I think I called it at the time.

The mysticism of the All Blacks – the Haka is a part of that – does rather irritate me, just as Barcelona’s ‘more than a club’ creates the aura of semi-religious purity it so frequently fails to live up to. But if you’re going to do something well, then why not do it in such fine and grand style. I liked

Kevin’s comment about the England Rugby team’s purpose and ideal was to win the World Cup on home soil.

The All Blacks is to be the best rugby team that ever played the game. Wow. That’s really powerful. So he’s dead right when he says that no opposition is ever more intimidating than the legacy.

There’s also a dressing room “all for one” culture of humility that doesn’t tolerate dickheads. Kevin said that a Kevin Pietersen would never have been an All Black. So why the war dance then chaps? A dose of Kevin is always a good part of any day, week, year. Truly, the best there is.

It got me thinking about the old school. I wasn’t happy at school and have been an avowed opponent of the selective system all my life, up to, during and after, my own experience of its harmful effects not just on me, but on my friends and family who “failed” their 11 plus, scarring them for life. The bright lads from tough backgrounds who got through, but who seemed to drop out and drift away from the culture of cold showers, Latin, housemasters, Big School, prefects and rugby. 

As I said on BBC Radio Manchester this morning, I’m disappointed that selective state grammar schools are making a comeback. I am all in favour of improving schools and improving the life chances of our brightest and best. But the flip side of this elitism in state education is too cruel and a massive distraction from the important project of raising standards across the board.

The problem with so much of our debate on all aspects of education is that it's fuelled by anecdote, gut feel and, frankly, picking the evidence to suit your prejudice. I have not seen any evidence whatsoever that grammar schools contribute to social mobility, higher earnings or leave anything positive in a community for the 90 per cent who don't pass the entrance exam.

So, for what it's worth, the fact that Kevin Roberts and I went to the same school and have taken the paths we have taken in life has absolutely nothing at all to say to the debate about the future of education in this country. But he is a bloody good speaker and whatever they teach you at Lancaster, it isn't that.

My football predictions - how did I do?

At the start of the football season I made my predictions, here.

1 Chelsea (CORRECT!)
2 Liverpool (WAY OFF)
3 Manchester United (JUST OFF)
4 Manchester City (JUST OFF)

5 Tottenham (JUST OFF)
6 Arsenal (WAY OFF REALLY)
7 Aston Villa (SPOT ON)
8 Everton (SPOT ON)

So I got the top 8 correct, with Liverpool as the worst prediction of the lot.

9 Sunderland (OVERESTIMATED BY THREE)
10 Fulham (JUST OFF)
11 ROVERS (JUST OFF)
12 Wigan (JUST OFF)
13 Stoke (JUST OFF)
14 Bolton (JUST OFF)
15 West Ham (JUST OFF)
16 Portsmouth (OVERESTIMATED)
17 Burnley (OVERESTIMATED DUE TO DOMESTIC PRESSURE)
18 Wolves (UNDERESTIMATED)
19 Hull (SPOT ON)
20 Birmingham (MY WORST PREDICTION)

League Cup: Manchester United reserves (SPOT ON)
FA Cup: Liverpool (RUBBISH)
Champions League: Real Madrid (RUBBISH)
Scotland: Do you know what? I couldn't care less. (WHO DID WIN? FORGOTTEN ALREADY)

Nothing particularly controversial there. I did also say, correctly that from Rovers downwards it was all going to be pretty grim stuff. It was. I thought Gary Megson could be the first manager to get sacked, but he was actually the second. I thought we'd lose at Turf Moor but win at Ewood and was very very happy to be wrong about that. If, and it's a mad if, but if Owen Coyle had stayed at Burnley then I think they could have beaten us and they could have stayed up.

Elsewhere, nearly right with the tip for West Brom to win Championship, but woeful with any notion that Ipswich and Derby would come up with them. My prediction of Newcastle to be nowhere was almost as bad as the one that had Blackpool to go down. PNE were comfortable mid table, but it was a grim season for them in truth.

I thought Huddersfield and Charlton would go up, one still might through the play offs. But Dirty Leeds haven't stayed down, they're coming back. As yet undiscovered tribes in the heart of Peru could have tipped Stockport County to go down.

I was right about Notts County coming up, but not with Shrewsbury and Rotherham. And I had it spot on with Morecambe in the play offs. Glad my predicted farewell to Accy Stanley was unfounded.

In the Guardian Pick the Score I made 288, which could win me the work league, but the numbers aren't in yet!

It's enough to make me want to take up gambling

Dead cities

At a lunch I hosted last week at the Radisson Edwardian Free Trade Hall, a noted chronicler of urban affairs, Phil Griffin, contributed to the discussion with his usual colour and clarity. But can you guess which city he was talking about?

May I say if you take the longest possible historical view then it is that cities die.

There are examples all over the world of the corpses of dead cities.

And as we sit here in this room we are observing the death of a city in our lifetime. I think that is extraordinary. It has gone from being, when I was a child, one of the most prosperous cities on earth, to being virtually uninhabitable.

It is just horrific that it has gone from having 7 and a half million contented residents to being a dead place. However prosperous it thought it was it didn’t have a sense of its own decline.

It didn’t face the faults of its own internal mechanisms. One of which was that it was a mono economy.

Neither did it recognise when its cultural flagships were leaving town. That one of the reasons the city was as boisterous and prosperous as it was had actually just fled to the coast.

We have come to the end of the phase of post-industrial cities which began in earnest when Pascal Maragal said at the end of the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona that "we have reinvented the city as a cultural phenomena."

The gloves are now off. We can see cities dying before our very eyes. That is very cautionary.

Where was Phil talking of?

The. Magic. Of. The. Cup. (Over)

A week into 2008 and the first prediction shot down in flames: Rovers for the Cup. There has been a lot of giddy reaction from people at Oldham, Coventry, Sheff United and Huddersfield that the gap between the Premier League and the rest isn't so great. Without wishing to dampen anyone's glee (sorry, Neil), what it does rather highlight is the gulf between the big red teams and Chelsea and the rest of the Premier League is getting even bigger and the semi-final line up is likely to be the big four. The expectation that Everton, Rovers, Bolton and Brum City won't win the thing is proven by the fact that they couldn't even be bothered to field teams capable of winning against lower division opposition. It's such a shame.

This time last year, by the way, I was a guest at Everton when Rovers tonked the Toffees. Neil Tague, Insider assistant editor, was there yesterday with a some of that same crowd following Oldham, also in the FA Cup 3rd round. The message from Frank McKenna was that this tradition is now over.

My gritted teeth do not allow me to put my tongue in my cheek, but I sat in front of the telly and watched Rachel's Clarets try and duff up Arsenal reserves.

Back to life, back to reality

Sleeves rolled up, desk cleared and it's back to work. It was hard coming back yesterday, make no mistake, but we were all straight back at it and Lisa Miles, Neil Tague and our new chap Rupert Cornford knocked out a quality weekly news bulletin. I wrote up an interview I'd done ages ago with this bloke and tried to get my head around the impact of these on the North West economy.

In the manner of many papers and bloggers here are some relevant hopes for 2008.

1. The economy will stutter a bit, but won't crash and burn the way a lot of pundits are saying. In this neck of the woods a correction to overheating property prices and spiraling costs will be welcomed.
2. The government will stumble from one crisis to another and Alistair Darling won't be in office by the party conference season.
3. Liverpool will deliver a great Capital of Culture year in 2008.
4. Blackburn Rovers will finish 6th and scrape into Europe and get to the FA Cup final.
5. The old supermarket site in Marple will be turned into a farmer's market with a banking desk, deli and community noticeboard and drop-in centre.
6. This blog will get more focused. More stuff about where we live, what we've been doing and return to the discipline of a Friday list and a regular book review.