This is How by MJ Hyland reviewed

When I reviewed Kevin Sampson's excellent move into crime drama, I applauded him for developing the layers and foibles of an important central character - the city of Liverpool. MJ Hyland does the exact opposite with this powerful and stark story of a young man. It isn't timed or placed - but I put the first part in Lytham and the second in a large institution in Manchester. You quickly realise once you've done so, that it really doesn't matter.

Without spoiling the plot it has a big turning point about a third of the way in - and essentially hinges on the first person account of the central character Patrick Oxtoby, an early twenties loner on the rebound from a break-up and distant from his parents.

Stripped to its raw dialogue, with sparse descriptions of places only as they enter two very narrow worlds as the central character sees them (high functioning autistic?) - it is a remarkable book.

Maria's writing style is direct, tight and relentlessly focuses on the state of mind of Patrick. Good writing takes you through that range of emotions - irritation, sympathy, disgust sometimes, but you do root for him.

I met Maria at a Manchester Literature Festival event I chaired a couple years ago and enjoy her how-to pieces which you'd expect are good, as a lecturer in the school of creative writing. I am thinking of registering on her weekend writing course and it's clear she's got great technique. No word is wasted.

So, this is another notch off the 2014 reading pile. I'll get a few other reviews up soon.

Happy Valentines #Love4MCR video produced by UKFast

This was great fun, loads of friends in this. Check out the Dad Dancing at about 1:20.

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.

Downtown Around the Table with Daniel Korski - David Cameron's enterpris...

A eulogy of love in memory of Hazel

It was the funeral of one of my best friends today. Hazel was my Dad's wife and his soul mate, she was Nana to our boys and my step-Mum since they married in 1983. I read the eulogy at St Paul's Church in Scotforth. Here it is.

--> We are here today to mourn and to celebrate the life of Hazel. Someone we all miss terribly. Someone it was a joy to love. I want this eulogy today to be about that.

About love.

What we all feel today is grief. It hurts. It twists, but the reason it does is because there’s a cost attached to a force much more powerful than our pain. Because that grief, our grief, is the price we pay for love.

The love of a wife. Of a mother, a sister, an auntie, a friend, a Nana, a mother-in- law.

And for me and Joanne, a wonderful step-Mum. Hazel was an inspiration to Rachel and I as we embarked upon that most thankless but rewarding of roles in modern family life.

A daughter, let’s not forget, who made her parents, Bob and Agnes, so very, very proud.

She may have been someone who you worked with. And you’ll have loved her.

Or even the shop staff at Marks and Spencer in Lancaster who greeted her with open arms every Christmas and Birthday as she’d return the sacks full of gifts so she could exchange them for something she really wanted!

And isn’t it true that whichever of those boxes you ticked there, and apologies if I missed one, that you also tick the friend one too. She was a true friend, a loyal friend, who was there for you whatever and whenever you needed her.

What an achievement, what a life’s work. To have lived a life so full of life and laughter, so full of love, to be so loved. And to have done so without any kind of edge whatsoever. Think about that.

All of us have loved Hazel in those different ways. And all of us miss her in those different ways too.  And today I hope I can remind each of you of the ways in which she touched your lives.

I hope to give us all some memories to share when we retire to the Fox and Goose later to celebrate her life.

Much in the spirit that Hazel and her oldest friend June would when they’d put the world to rights most Friday nights. One other difference though - you don’t have to smuggle in your own peanuts as they did.

I may go off on tangents… Wasn’t that an amazing storytelling gift Hazel had? But like her I hope I come back round to the point of this story – the heart and soul of who she was. And in her spirit too, I hope you will embrace, circulate and meet with new faces and welcome old friends, very much as Hazel always did – like her brother Harold – the outgoing wing of the Preston clan. She so impressed her shyer brother and sisters with her confident and illuminating presence at every party, every gathering she ever graced.

And yet there was a curious paradox with that. Someone who worried so much, who cared so much and was anxious everyone was alright, and not offended, could also be so fearless and carefree.

When I asked people in the family to share their memories some consistent themes cropped. Family, friendship, loyalty. And dancing.

Think about what that says about someone. A love of life and fun.

From the earliest years in Pilling, then by the time the family moved to Daisy Bank, Lancaster to be closer to Mr Preston’s job as the head gardener at The Moor Hospital.

Her sister May remembers the Queen’s Coronation in 1952 and how they both had a role in the celebrations  - as junior Morris Dancers.

How Peter was wowed by Hazel’s rock and roll moves, as everyone else in the room was as they stepped away to stand, stare and applaud.

And it was at dance classes where a 14 year old Hazel danced with a dashing lad called John Hudson, warming him up for her older sister.

And Angela tells me how when May eventually married John, that she graduated to the big girls room and shared a bed with Hazel, the big sister of the house. It meant dressing up in her sister’s stilettoes and covering for her when she’d sneak in late from a night bopping on the dancefloor at Morecambe Pier.

Andy recalls a holiday at Pwllheli Butlins in about 1975, when she won a can-can dancing competition, wooing the judges with a dandy pair of pop socks.

Happy times. Happy memories.

Hazel always had time for family. Back then, and as she always did thereafter. Coffee at Casa Baba on Cheapside on a Saturday with Angela.

And then in later years staying in touch via texting, Facebook and Skype.

Bridging ten time zones and talking regularly with her sister in Australia, and visiting there too – the royal visit with Angela, Peter and Pat - for May’s 60th.

Taught by the patient master and ever the early adopter of gadgets and widgets, “our Andrew”, she embraced new ways to share her love with friends.

Can a Mum have had a more devoted and loving son than Andrew? Hazel was so proud of what a gentle and lovely man he is, how he and Christine welcomed people into their home – as they have done all of our gang. But how their large group of friends so loved sharing Hazel’s company and she theirs.

And she was the devoted stand out Mother. When Andy set off with 20 other apprentices to embark on their training, two mums turned up at Irelands Coaches to wave them off.  Of course, one of them was Hazel. But only one climbed up on to the bus for a last goodbye.

But those Prestons – like us Taylors - have something of a dominant male gene. After Andy, Chris, Gavin and Craig, then David and Stephen - Angela then upset all the odds and gave birth to Claire. Hazel was so shocked she checked inside Claire’s nappy just to be sure.  And I think it’s fair to say they had a special relationship from that day to this.

But what a lovely sister she has been – supportive and there for them all when it mattered – through the ups and downs of life and particularly nearly five years ago to Peter and Pat – at the sad time of the deep loss of their son David.

I’ll remember a strong and resilient Hazel too – how she learnt new skills for career changes. From Storeys, to nursing, then from the NHS to the Nuffield. Embracing change – always learning, and supporting colleagues and always there for patients too.

Her mild OCD at making sure things were just so. Carrier bags folded and put away. Curtains drawn just so. I remember her washing up at our disgusting student flat in Manchester. Tackling a pile of plates that contained several new life forms as yet undiscovered by biology.

And how remarkably well she embraced being a Grand Parent. To our five boys Joe, Max, Louis, Matt, and Elliot and to Joanne’s three Jamie, Ben and Harry, she was a terrific Nana.

Jamie tells me tales of how his mates would take over the garage, doing up cars, making a racket, spilling oil and creating a bit of a mess. How Nana would give them a mild telling off, but then bring them a plate a butties and to share a joke and a laugh with them.

I asked our eldest Joe what I should say today and he said: “Just tell everyone how lovely she was.”

These are tales of family love. And I told you I’d go off on a tangent.

Hazel entered my life when she first started going out with my Dad. Two lost souls found each other. From that first romantic date when he picked her up - in his pick up – the old romantic - it was a real love story.

Whatever misfortunes had fallen on them – fate certainly turned its hand in bringing them together and they really, truly found their soul mates.

Our memories, all your memories of Stewart and Hazel will serve us all for the rest of our lives as a lesson in how to build a lasting, deep and loving relationship based on respect and trust. Or as my Dad said, the two words that make the secret formula for a happy marriage – “Yes, Hazel.”

Dancing too. Indeed, my memories of the lovers, at the start of their wonderful 30 year marriage, is smooching to Renee and Renata’s Save Your Love at their joyful and raucous wedding party at the Boot and Shoe.

How they were with each other, so devoted, so complementary, so easy and so in love.

Hazel was a real “people person”.

She was such fun to be around, whatever the occasion. Be it the Milk Kitters Ball or just a night out over a bar snack in Winmarleigh with Peter and Joyce, or Kellett with Peter and Pat, or round at Spencer and Sheila’s or at Ian and June’s. Or on a long walk with her sister in law, my Auntie Elaine.

How she’d talk to anyone, be engaged and ever so interested in meeting new people and hearing their stories.

In recent years I remember two lovely occasions with them both – one at the Albert Dock in Liverpool supporting me at a book launch. The other watching me wearing a silly hat and a gown at Preston Guild Hall for a ceremony for the University of Central Lancashire.

 I was proud of how Hazel circulated and met people around those rooms. MPs, professors, editors, Lords.  Some of them right up themselves, to be fair. But the point is this. Nothing and no-one phased her. And rightly so.

On my Dad’s mantlepiece – is a card to my Dad from May’s husband John, her brother-in-law, which summed it up for me.  

It says: “The time spent up at “the field” were very special to me.

“You know what, I reckon me and you are lucky to have married those two fantastic sisters.”

How right he was. How right he is.

There are a lot more cards on that mantelpiece and a full church today. That says it all.

And now she’s gone.

A friend of mine, a Catholic priest, had these words of comfort for me when we were in bits and in grief recently.

“It’s just crap isn’t it?” he said. (That’s obviously not official scripture or anything).

But it summed up how we’ve all been feeling and how we’ve been entitled to feel. But we have the opportunity today to reflect not just on a rotten year, but to celebrate a wonderful life full of our own love stories.

For how lucky we must feel today.

And to actually quote scripture this time, from Matthew’s record of the Beautitudes of Christ:

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”

And that’s what I hope we feel today, blessed that we are gathered to remember someone so special. Blessed to be together.

Blessed to have loved and honoured to have been loved.

Good writing - less is more

I love this list of 10 rules of writing from the late great Elmore Leonard. I was reminded to share it after I read an excellent blog by my pal Neil Tague. 

The link is here.

A flavour is here: "Time is a truly precious commodity, thus brevity when it comes to writing is, to my mind, something to be treasured. There are loads of US writers I won’t go near, despite a welter of recommendations, because I really can’t be bothered with another bloated, overly wordy attempt at writing the Great American Novel. It’s as if once a writer has established a reputation and can be considered “box office” their work can’t be touched by an uppity editor. Balls to that – most novels could lose 50 pages at least without it having any detrimental effect. Films too, but let’s not go there."

Less is more.

The football debate - only ever going to be one winner, but a spirited try

-->

It’s a tough job sticking up for football. The charge sheet against the so-called beautiful game is long. Indeed, at our DISCUSS debate on Wednesday the 15^th of January, Dr Annabel Kiernan outline a fairly chunky list of reasons why she was arguing for the motion that it is the beautiful game no more. Football has sold its soul.

In his quite stunning oratory against the motion Professor Tom Cannon of Liverpool University didn’t actually try and argue that it was in fact still beautiful, rather that it never was. We’ve become seduced by nostalgia and a sepia toned view of the past, that has allowed us to forget the crooks that ran football, Arsenal, Manchester United and Liverpool in the olden days.

But winning the emotional argument was TV’s Graeme Hawley, actor and Coventry City supporter who delivered a heartfelt plea for the motion based on his own club’s perspective – playing 35 miles away in another city – something the FA had done nothing to prevent.

Like I said, the job of defending all of this was left to Colin Bridgford of the Manchester FA. Fair play to him for evoking the schemes in the community. The great transformative things that the influx of money has enabled football to do.

But there remained an elephant in the room – the Premier League with all its money, pricing out the fans, accepting foreign owners with no respect for what matters to fans – well, the audience weren’t having it. Colin got a hard time when the questions came – and from all kinds of supporters.

In the end the motion was carried – some waverers were won over. But it was a mountain to climb, despite a plucky and audacious opening the odds were against an upset. Rather like the one the Blackburn Rovers team faced in the second half of the game that followed the debate.  There was only ever going to be one outcome. 

http://discuss.org.uk/2014/01/18/our-football-debate-results-now-in/

The 2014 reading pile

It's all here - history, politics, religion, fiction, football and music.
I'm currently rattling happily through David and Goliath by Malcolm Gladwell and have dipped into some of the others. I failed to nail last year's pile. But as an experiment in human nature and perseverance I will do these over all others, and soon. But necessarily in the order they are stacked in.

The Beautiful Game No More - football has sold its soul. Discuss.

You could wax lyrical all day about football and how the beautiful game is no more. I must admit, I fall out of love with it all the time, but it's part of me and there is still something amazing about every game I go to. 

This project I've been involved with - Discuss - has at its core, a mission to help facilitate debate about life and the passions of the people of the North.

We've had some belters so far - social media, HS2, Thatcher and Manchester.

Our next debate is about football and it will bring together fans, people in and around football and a special celebrity appearance in the shape of TV's Graeme Hawley who as well as being John Stape in Coronation Street is also an unhappy Coventry City supporter.

It's taking place on the 15th of January at The Memorial Hall, Albert Square Chop House, Albert Square, Manchester, M2 5PF
 
Doors open at 6pm, debate starts at 6.30pm. We finish formal proceedings at at 8pm. We then encourage after show Digressions. Tickets are priced at £7.

The way it works is that each side has 8 minutes each for their two speakers to make arguments for and against the motion.

Argument for the motion
A game beset by greed, finance and the worst excesses of human nature. Football has become tainted and distorted. Top class football, especially in the Premier League, the so-called richest league in the world, has become a rich man’s plaything. It is no longer within the reach of ordinary people. It can no longer claim to be the beautiful game.

The argument against
On the other hand, football is the most popular sport on the planet. It has the power to inspire and transform lives. The amount of money coming into the game is a reflection of this. And at its essence is the beauty of the simple game – two teams playing to the same rules all over the world.

Speakers:
For the motion
Graeme Hawley, actor known for his role as John Stape in Coronation Street and Coventry City supporter.
Dr Annabel Kiernan, senior teaching and learning fellow, Department of History, Politics and Philosophy) and director of The Centre for the Study of Football and its Communities (CSFC) based at Manchester Metropolitan University.

Against the motion
Professor Tom Cannon is Professor of Strategic Development at the University of Liverpool Management School. He is considered to be an expert on Sports finance, economics and business notably professional sports.
Colin Bridgford, chief executive of the Manchester County FA.

Tickets are just £7 - get them here.

Getting through a reading pile

It just doesn't work like that does it? Still, I read MOST of the books in this pile, but significantly the best ones of the year weren't even in here.

Really enjoyed
The Slap
Max Hastings on the Second World War
Agents, Rovers and Cricket Loving Owners by Michael Blackburn
I'm not really here by Paul Lake
NW by Zadie Smith
The last Christopher Hitchens book, Mortality.

Just never got round to the rest. Will try. And will build a new tower soon.

Same old Arsenal?

When I lived in London, Arsenal were my local team for the most part. To this day it's the only ground I've seen Rovers play at and walked home afterwards. There is a theory too that you should support the team you were born nearest - that would nudge my eldest son Joe towards the Gunners, but he's for the Rovers still.

Since the Arsenal moved from Highbury, I haven't managed to get to their spectacular new stadium, named after a Middle Eastern airline. Architecturally, it is a colossus, rising with real presence out of a complex urban mismatch of uses and serving to lift the area, rather than simply plonk down in the middle of a wasteland as the City of Manchester Stadium does. It also symbolises and represents the transformation of modern football, bigger, quieter, catering for the fan as a consumer. The seats were the most comfortable I've sat in at football, the leg room the best, the sight line perfect. The crowd definitely seemed even more gentrified than the new breed at Manchester City and the prawn sardine brigade at Old Trafford. Note: we were in good seats, but not corporate. One female fan near us was loud mouthed, passionate and frankly a bit of a berk. Most other people were supportive, but sedate, highlighting her boorishness even more.

The football was a reminder of what we were used to in the Premier League - a gutsy lower table side trying to out fight and defend against an infinitely more skillful Big Club. 2-0 was cruel on Cardiff, but we were pleased to see goals. Joe's prediction of the 1-0 to the Arsenal, as the old song went, looked the most likely outcome throughout.

That was my 138th ground on which I've watched football and the 66th of the current 92. There are very few easy to reach stadiums to get to now from the 92 - though we could chalk off Morecambe and Fleetwood soon.

Massive thanks to Joe's Godfather John Dixon for taking us and to our old pal Mark Sibley for letting us keep his seat warm.

The Marple Leaf Review of 2013

Here's a review of 2013, based on the 10 main blog topics.

Marple - Asda got shown the way out of town, but Marple still seems to lumber on without a clear identity or a direction. Paul Howard Menswear closing was a blow to the retail core, no progress on the Kirkland development of a new Waitrose or Aldi. Crummy Corner looks even worse since All Things Nice departed for the new deli on the main street. The row at Rose Hill ended badly.

Rose Hill Stores - ended badly

Rovers - still been staying away from Ewood, except when we were invited. The outlook is still miserable, for the most part, which has been masked by moderately good form. I don't share the optimism of blogger Mikey Delap. I rather tend to the view shared by Jim Wilkinson that this is a mid-table side still owned by people who don't know what they're doing. There is no money and the losses are piling up. There will be a day of reckoning. This cannot last.

Journalism - Carried on writing, including a cover byline on Economia, the largest circulation business magazine in the country, but radio was what started really exciting me. I hosted Downtown's hour long business programme on CityTalk FM a few times and really enjoyed it. Have also enjoyed popping up on Radio5 Live and BBC Radio Manchester. Also did the Whistelblowers podcast a couple of times. I want to do more of this. Any help and hints gratefully received.

Whistleblowing

Manchester - the city is definitely on the up, but large issues loom ahead. The circle of poverty around the city core is a blight on the rest of the shiny happy centre. I've worked with the top class civic leadership this year, but 2014 has to be year when a new generation starts to shine through as the whole city region looks beyond Sirs Howard Bernstein and Sir Richard Leese to the generation who will lead the city in the next 20 years.

Cass Penant and Bill Routledge at the NFM

Books - Moderately pleased at the reception and reviews for Northern Monkeys - another cultural anthology that I enjoyed this year was Thick as Thieves - Personal Situations with The Jam by Stuart Deabill and Ian Snowball - captures what it was really like following the best band I ever saw. Best work of fiction I read was probably Zadie Smith's NW. My magnum opus is with its editor at the moment.

Telly - Enjoyed some quality box sets - Broadchurch, Breaking Bad, House of Cards and the most compelling of them all, Homeland.

Politics - massively unimpressed with all the parties. Yet for all the negativity about Ed Miliband he's been an effective opposition leader - prevented intervention in Syria, stood up to Murdoch and the Daily Mail. Labour's message about living standards may be starting to stick, but as things get better economically the prospects for the coalition parties improve by the day. The politician that has played it best in 2013 has been George Osborne even if he has missed all his own targets. I'm worried that the Scots will vote for independence - they have the momentum and Salmond is one of the most capable politicians there is. Liked Andy Burnham and Andrew Adonis.

Catholic stuff - We were lucky enough to visit Rome this year and celebrate Mass in the Vatican. Pope Francis has brought zest and energy to the Church. He seems to be able to connect with the essence of what the core Christian message is - love, charity and hope.

Friends - This was the year we said goodbye to Martin McDermott and Norman Geras. So sad. But I continue to be awestruck by the small acts of kindness, generosity and thankless endeavour by so many of of our friends. We are truly blessed.

Family - we continue to hope and pray for the health of Hazel, my Dad's loving wife.

Homeland - "I want it to end"

Pic from Showtime - Brody in prison in Iran

Yep, me too Brody. The last episode of Homeland was on Channel 4 last night. It was a crashing, crushing disappointment. After all the emotional investment into Carrie and Brody, it felt like it needed to end. There isn't any way back now. Season 3 was a rambling confused series of indulgent red herrings. It was only rescued by the re-appearance of Nicholas Brody, but even his scabby imprisonment in a Venezualan slum was starting to feel more like an episode of Lost.

The last twenty minutes last night - after the horrible public execution of Brody in Tehran - stripped back what was left and, frankly, it doesn't add up to much. Without Brody there is no series. The paranoia, the confusion and the second guessing of motive made Homeland so gripping, so surprising and to quote a word used twice last night - astonishing.

There cannot and should not be a season 4 - it has been reduced to the level of Spooks, where the story always trumped the characters. Enough.

STAND - Against Modern Kids Football

I'd urge you to go and buy a copy of STAND - the fanzine of the year - it always has some really well put together pieces from the perspective of football fans. 

I was really chuffed that they won Fanzine of the Year at the Football Supporters Federation awards night.

I've done a piece in the current edition on my experiences around kids football and who I blame for the appalling behaviour of some parents and managers. I was going to upload it on here, but for now I'll just urge you to buy the print edition.

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.

Whistleblowers podcast

Me, Stuart Deabill, Webbo, Kevin Day

Recorded a podcast down London this week with old mucker Mark Webster. It was a nice surprise to meet the other guests: Stuart Deabill, author of my favourite book about The Jam, Thick As Thieves; and comedian Kevin Day.

We rambled on about Man United, Chelsea, Match of Day, Blackburn Rovers, kids football and a few stories about Northern Monkeys and Southern Ravers.

You can listen to it here - http://ht.ly/2C1bql - or subscribe to Whisteblowers via iTunes.

What is the point of the Manchester Evening News?

I’ve sat in meetings with regional media executives thinking I’ve missed a trick. Being fair minded I sat there listening patiently to bold new strategies, to taps on the nose about hidden revenue streams they had discovered and thought they must know something I don’t. Over the years these have involved going free, getting into TV and sticking bits behind a paywall.
They’ve all come and gone and I have, occasionally, doubted my core view that the whole regional newspaper industry is sliding towards total oblivion.
The announcement this week that the Liverpool Daily Post is to close is just one more nail in the coffin of an industry in its death throes. These strategies are just dreams, whims and last gasps.
So let’s take this opportunity to take stock of the Manchester Evening News, also owned by Trinity Mirror and run by the same management team responsible for closing the Post. Now based in Oldham, the MEN reads and feels like a tabloid paper in a city region that does a decent job of reporting big crime stories, Metrolink problems and Premiership football. Beyond that, what else?
Really, go on, ask yourself if you can remember an MEN splash that wasn’t one of those stories?
Two days of the week it is handed out free (pic, above). Its very name is a triage of misnomers – it is neither Manchester, Evening, nor News. Such is the pace of which hard news is broken through web and social channels, not to mention through radio.
Circulation is heading downwards, as it is with all print titles.
Analysts of these trends tend to focus on the decline in the quality of the journalism and the supposed correlation with copy sales. Many will also evoke the take up of social media as evidence for public disengagement.
The real decline however is in advertising. That was the foundation upon which everything else was built. Advertising paid for the court reporters, the political editors, the punchy columnists and investigations. The layers of rock of newspaper advertising were jobs, homes, motors and classified. At each turn these have been cracked apart by more Internet disrupters – Monster, Right Move, AutoTrader and the all conquering eBay.
As I know very well, there is a small reservoir of business to business advertising, but it is barely enough for the MEN to sustain even its GM Business Week magazine, usually to be seen in unopened bundles in receptions in Spinningfields.
Any media property is at the core of a community. It provides a relevant platform for advertisers, attracted by an attentive set of readers. It also dominates the conversations people are having around that pivot. That has long gone in Manchester and in other cities around the world. What all regional papers are doing now is flailing around looking for a purpose. Good luck to them, but it looks like the game is up.

Should you check your email? Brilliant.

Should you check your email? This brilliant (and tragicomically true) illustrated flowchart by Wendy MacNaughton is now officially one of the best infographics of the year.

Dirty electioneering starts here

The next election campaign is going to be a horrible, uncivilised and dirty battle. If any further evidence is needed then the choice of cover for the latest Spectator gives you a glimpse. For me, the choice of the phrase 'patron saint' is dreadful.

It's actually fair enough for Melanie Philips to argue, as you'd expect, that he's an icon of our times, that he was hiding in plain sight and was utterly out of his depth as chairman of the Co-operative Bank. I don't dispute her right to make that argument and as usual she gets carried away. But she doesn't actually use the phrase patron saint. She suggests that he instead ticked all the right boxes and got away with it. She makes dubious use of the flimsy rumour that someone made a casual joke about Paul Flowers having a "Colombian cold" but that's it.

I also can't find the cover on the website. Just the piece which is here.

The choice of cover is down to the editor, Fraser Nelson. I don't believe it's a wise one and I'm pretty sure now that it's one they have regretted.

Manchester - time to stop bitching. Time to embrace REAL collaboration.

At our SmartCity event last week there were loads of great ideas to lift our city. Plenty of passion and a real burst of energy. This wasn’t just on the things you’d expect from a business network, but on subjects like food production, waste disposal, street lighting and money.
We also talked about London quite a lot. Manchester’s relationship with the capital is always a slightly thorny one. To be honest, I’m always happier not to. I’d rather talk about Manchester.
As the Tory magazine editor Fraser Nelson said in the Daily Telegraph last week – “Manchester does not behave like it wants to be Britain’s second city: it behaves like it wants to be the first.”
I like it that he says that and I like it because it’s at least partly true. But I actually wish it I wish it were really true.
Since June last year and my life changing visit to Silicon Valley in March, I have been determined to embrace the spirit of partnership and collaboration and help to join up the dots.
There is so much to co-operate on, so many opportunities in the city to do things for the betterment of the city. To simply focus on a narrow short term interest does no-one any favours. It just reinforces the image of the great cities of the North as parochial fiefdoms.
We have introduced businesses to new opportunities, opened the door to politicians of all colours and recommended companies to one another. It’s what we do and is all part of a wider mission to be a more grown-up city.
Yet I have been properly depressed at times to find myself on the other side of a fault line, drifting away from people I genuinely want to work with and share ideas with, but who have fallen back on supposed enmities and rivalries to the exclusion of, well, me. I genuinely thought I’d left that all behind in 1983 when I left school.
I’ve also been caught in the crossfire on some nasty personal battles that really should be beneath those involved.
We all have a duty to our businesses to succeed in a competitive environment. I get that. But what I don’t get is the nastiness. It’s just not necessary and it narrows your horizons.
So, here are the questions I’d like you to ponder.
Do the media do justice to the conversations that take place around the city – the initiatives that require backing, not just the ones they are media partners on?
Do the Universities really want to open their doors to the people of Manchester and share knowledge and expertise – and even to work with one another?
And is there a willingness amongst technology businesses of what they might require from an active financial and professional community, rather than just a slightly grumpy complaint they don’t understand the sector?
I’d like to think the answers to all of the above are “yes”. But I suspect, if we’re honest, they are “no”. I’d like to change all of that. Do you want to work with me?