Northern Rail franchise extended – why this may be good news, but probably won’t be

Happy commuters, pic stolen from Northern Rail's website

I am no fan of the shoddy service offered to commuters in the North of England by Northern Rail. The joint venture between Serco and Abellio has brought nothing to the experience or helped economic development in the region. But change is going to come – the clock is now ticking down towards the next franchise period, just as this one has been extended for a couple more years. Hopefully the terms of the next deal will look very different indeed – a longer period and the benefits of the Northern Hub investment.

The Rail North plan envisages a larger franchise integrated with the local transport authorities of Greater Manchester and  beyond – that should have the benefits of integrated ticketing, electrification, better rolling stock and more services – in short, a service fit for purpose. 

It is surprising how little political traction this has. It remains a bold move - an important devolutionary step. Longer term it could also lead to franchises being run by a consortium of local transport authorities. 

I do find it laughable that the Rail Minister Stephen Hammond has set Northern Rail short term targets for improved customer satisfaction. The first thing the management should do is measure peak time punctuality separately from the empty rattlers ambling along on time during the afternoon. Then they should massively rethink the brutal approach to ticket checking at most stations by their G4S bouncers – it is humiliating, unfriendly and intimidating.  But they will argue it catches fare dodgers effectively. I believe it is counter-productive.

I also worry when I read the managing director of Northern Rail, Alex Hynes, saying efficiency and service are his priorities and those dreaded words – “more with less”.

The Department for Transport must also insist there is no further running down of trains to the South as First TranspennineExpress have had to give trains to Chiltern. I have noticed more and more trains are made up of just two carriages in the evenings. Maybe it’s a coincidence, but it has to stop.

Do you trust the press? and how far should they be tamed?

listen to ‘Do you trust the press? and how far should they be tamed?’ on Audioboo

The problem with the Co-op

listen to ‘The problem with the Co-op’ on Audioboo

Straight White Male by John Niven

This is John Niven's best book and marks his real maturity as a writer. The strength of Kill Your Friends was the laugh out loud portrayal of the horrors of the music industry, building on that as a backdrop for a story about busking it and depraved ambition.

This goes further. You still root for a flawed central character - Kennedy Marr a self-centred and hedonistic writer who turns to English academia. But while Stelfox in Kill Your Friends is utterly beyond redemption and without a shred of a scruple, Marr never particularly does harm. Success comes relatively easy to him, even though he runs away from his responsibilities and is led by his urges.

But the skill of the book is to change pace and mood - to remain consistent to the character and how he thinks through his crises, but it is also incredibly tender in its final third when he tells stories of his family and of death and how Kennedy confronts the misery of his own recklessness. It's a delight at times and I genuinely couldn't put it down. John Niven is definitely one of my favourite writers at the moment.

House of Cards Season 2 - theatre of the absurd - spoilers aplenty

We rattled through season two of House of Cards and finished it last night. Yes, the conclusion was inevitable, yes, Kevin Spacey is truly brilliant as Frank Underwood. And yes, like everyone else who has reviewed it, it wasn't as good as the first series.

For me, the big problems lie in the rushed script and storyline. So many questions are left unasked, never mind unanswered.

Characters behave in irrational and erratic ways with no attempt to explain - like the President resigning, like the FBI doing a deal with the ludicrous hamster-stroking Gavin, like everything to do with Doug and Rachel. So much time and effort is expended on storylines which go nowhere - Christina getting fired for example, it was like they just forgot about her. The constant presence of a noisy and lively demonstration outside the Underwood residence added another hyperreal layer of nonsense.

Just about all characters had lines that you actually laugh out loud at, because they are THAT absurd. Jackie explaining why she has all those tattoos. Claire, well, pretty much everything she says.

A lot of the politics didn't ring true either - not that I'd know - but it had a feeling like it was the West Wing, but with scumbags. Series 3 will be more of the same with the added presence of the Assange-like Gavin. Yes, we'll watch it, but it won't be worth the wait.

There are two problems for all mini-series now, which House of Cards has helped bring home. First, they simply suffer from a poor comparison to Breaking Bad, The Wire and The Sopranos - the High Concept, the powerful characters, the acting. But secondly, because it's on box sets, you tend to binge watch these days. On old fashioned TV, there's a lingering when something is left hanging, a number of stop-you-in-your-tracks moments that you'd collectively dissect the next day. I don't think House of Cards would scrub up to that level of scrutiny to be honest. You just want to rush to the end to see what happens. Did I do that? You may think so, I couldn't possibly comment.

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.

Race with the Devil by Joseph Pearce

Those of us of a certain age and of a certain political persuasion will have had some run-ins with the far-right. Marching against the National Front in the 1970s and 1980s was an important part of your political education. Those of us who took an even more detailed interest in the people and personalities of the struggle will remember the name Joe Pearce. He was the leader of the Young National Front and the editor of Bulldog. One of the enemy.

I was a subscriber to Searchlight magazine for many years and rather enjoyed seeing the far-right fragment as bitterly as the far-left was capable of doing. It was also good to read of whistle-blowers and further startling revelations from deep inside the beast. Former fascist street warriors like Matthew Collins and Ray Hill properly turned the tables on their former comrades. Other names faded from view. One was Joe Pearce, who later resurfaced a biographer of GK Chesterton and had undergone a journey to the Catholic faith.

At this point some have thought that journey isn't a particularly long one. Indeed, Gerry Gable in Searchlight doesn't believe Pearce is for real. There's a piece where he describes the christian thinkers that Pearce has written about as notorious anti-semites. Frankly, this is bollocks.

Personally, I enjoyed most of the book. I wasn't impressed with how he referred to those protesting against the Front as "Marxists". The leadership of the Anti-Nazi League may have been, but most people who hated what he stood for were just ordinary decent youth.

One of the best tales was when Jake Burns of Stiff Little Fingers took Pearce for a beer and tried to talk a bit of common sense to him. By showing him a bit of human love, he lit something in a life consumed by hatred and prejudice.

I'm a Catholic, but I can't claim to understand theology or the liturgy in the way Pearce does. Instead I do rather respect how he's chosen a path of life that boils down to the simplicity of the message.

Good luck to Rovers new signing Alan Myers

I see on Prolific North today that Alan Myers has joined Blackburn Rovers as communications chief. Every fan, I'm sure, wishes him well and hopes that he's able to do the job he's been employed to do. 

I remember him speaking at the 2012 North West Football Awards about the disgraceful treatment of Steve Kean by the Blackburn Rovers fans. Hopefully as his stated aim is to "engage" with the fans, he will have the opportunity to understand recent history a little better.

He said: "One of my first tasks will be to engage with the Rovers fans. I think it’s fair to say they’ve had a difficult time over the last few years, but that is changing now and I want to be part of that."

Maybe he could pop into the Darwen End and meet with the BRFC Action Group, who I was amazed to discover have an office in the Enterprise Centre, maybe that's where Shebby Singh is hiding.

I keep being asked if things have settled down at Rovers. Whether the Venky's have stabilised the ship. On one level, they have. There's no sign of Shebby Singh, loads of dead wood and high earners have been shipped out, though Rovers are still paying their wages, I hear. But the cost base is far in excess of any projected turnover. There will be a day of reckoning for all of this at some point.

Performances are patchy. Beating Reading offers a false dawn, but then losing to Bolton draws the curtains on that again.

I just hope Alan Myers doesn't have to open the excuses draw for anyone this weekend. There's an important game to win on Sunday. Quite how a new spin doctor is going to help us achieve that is beyond me, but it's the only meaningful game left this season.

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.