Manchester goes to New York

I forgot to post the link reporting on the visit to New York by the Manchester International Festival people which was covered in the New Yorker magazine.

There's a link to it here.

And a flavour of it here:

To promote the gravitas of a city best known for one of its soccer squads, for the Madchester pop-music scene of yore, and for its tendency to be drenched in slow, steady rain, Poots had imported a team of seasoned professionals. “Manchester is the first city of the modern age,” Nick Johnson, the chairman of a company called Marketing Manchester, said. “It’s where Marx met Engels; it’s where Rolls met Royce. The industrial revolution started in Manchester. Manchester was the first city to invent the computer. I’ll have to get back to you on who that was, exactly.” (Arguably, the first computer was built in Philadelphia, though the first electronic stored-program computer can definitively be said to be a Mancunian invention. Marx made Engels’s acquaintance in Paris; however, the two did frequently convene in the North of England.)

It's not a particularly flattering piece, but the writer spots the fact that Manchester does run a genuine risk of believing its own hype a lot of the time. The festival should be good. I'm particularly looking forward to seeing Blue Nile in concert and seeing Anthony Wilson back to his best in a mass debate on whether London is bad for Britain.

Happy birthday Matt

Matt is celebrating his 5th birthday this week. He absolutely loves racing cars so I'm taking him to Silverstone in a couple of weeks to meet the Porsche racing team. He's had loads of presents from Cars, his favourite film, including a model of Radiator Springs which was a bugger to assemble with a hangover, some Cars pyjamas from Grandma, this brilliant helmet from his Aunty Joanne and Uncle Dave and more goodies from Grandad Stewart and Nana Hazel. The rest of the team have been great about all this attention lavished on one boy. Wonderful kids, we're so proud and so lucky.

"Going out", it's the new "staying in"

I did four nights out last week and strangely feel alright. I must be fitter and happier than I feared. They weren't just swift drinks after work, but full blown formal dinners with drinks at 7, carriages at midnight and in three cases they were black tie as well.

1. CBI dinner in Manchester on Tuesday was OK, met some good people, listened to a dreary speaker, got a good story lined up, but it felt like work.

2. Our property awards in Cardiff on Thursday was a triumph. We pulled a great crowd together and there was a great energy in the room. Our editor down there, Wyn Jenkins, is a top bloke with a good following in the business community. We found Wyn because my deputy editor Lisa Miles used to work with him and rates him - which is praise indeed! I wanted to put an ad in Press Gazette that said - "Patriotic Welsh bloke needed, must have an accent like Neil Kinnock, be mad on rugby and have ruddy cheeks. Ability to spell would be an advantage. " I got better than that, he's all of this and more. It was brilliant to watch him work on Thursday.

3. The Marple Athletic JFC fundraiser at Mellor Golf Club was a ripping night. Looks like the money raised should really help the club. One thing though. Jason Isaacs might be able to coach kids football teams with distinction, he may be able to make the kids idolise him. Fair enough. And yes, he can probably play football a bit himself. Obviously he can also play the guitar in his absolutely superb band, A Few Good Men. And he sings lead vocals. And yes, he's a good looking bloke. I just don't need to hear it from every other woman in Marple. Seriously, great night out!

4. All of that didn't leave much in the tank for the Hurstwood Charity Night at the Midland Hotel in Manchester on Saturday. But we soldiered on. Our friends Stephen and Nicola Ashworth have dug deep to support Derian House, a childen's hospice in Lancashire. The money they raised on Saturday was astounding. We were delighted to play our part by offering a special Insider prize for auction.

It was clear to us as we watched from our taxi on Saturday that we socialise in something of a rarified atmosphere. What we witnessed on the streets of Manchester made us grateful we don't have daughters, but we were also horrified at the spectacle of the human zoo all around us. Then, I get to see this, an account on the Manchester Confidential website about the aftermath of a fight outside one of Manchester's so-called upmarket bars.

And so, on it goes. It's another hectic one this week, but we are definitely chilling out this weekend with a takeaway, a nice bottle of wine and a DVD. Staying in will be the new going out for us and that's how we like it.

Top night out

We had an absolutely belting night out last night, the third of the week. It was a fund raising dinner dance for Marple Athletic JFC with a superb band - A Few Good Men who played a cracking set. Seems like we also raised a few quid for the club, but some of us are paying a heavy price today; there will be a few sore heads on the touchline at Brinnington this morning. Ouch.

This blog had an advert in the programme. If you've visited for the first time having seen it, then a very warm welcome to you.

And if you have raffle prizes to donate, please get in touch.

Marple Athletic win the league - foreigner whines

Don't you love a whiney foreign prima donna.

"The teams from the north of England are terrible. When we play them I have counted their centre-backs booting up to 30 long balls upfield per game. The weather over here is killing me. We'll get one day of sunshine for every 30 days of rain, and it is driving me to despair. My girlfriend and my mother are frightened about not seeing the sun in England. Premiership football is very hard. I am Brazilian and I enjoy playing the ball, making clever touches and taking bicycle kicks. Arsene Wenger does not forbid me from doing them, but the game is so fast I don't even have time to think about them. The moment you stop to think, someone has taken the ball off you and knocked you to the ground. Over here they value a corner kick more than a fancy flick" - Julio 'The Bleat' Baptista of Arsenal.

What a tit.

I can say with some pride that Marple Athletic Junior Football Club Under 8s have won the A and B divisions by some distance. Why? Because they are fitter, stronger, better organised and happier than other teams. They play through rain, mud, sleet and sunshine. The northern way. Love it.

Land of my father

I'm in Cardiff today. I do like Wales; my Dad was born in Wrexham and although I'm a proud Lancastrian I do always feel a touch of pride for Wales.

It's a bugger of a journey down here though. Even when you get to train stations with no vowels in the name you're still more than an hour from Cardiff.

We're off to the Wales Property Awards tonight which is a great do for us.

Borredar!

There is power in a union?

Long before I became a capitalist and had to do people's appraisals I've been dismayed about the infantile ultra leftism of the National Union of Journalists. I resigned over their stance on Northern Ireland and now I notice they are now advocating a boycott of Israel. Please.

One journalist has pointed out already that such resolutions seem to go against some of the core ethics of journalism that we are here to protect, such as balance and objectivity. I don't think any representative body of journalists should be taking a side.

See here and here for more of the same.

It also seems to clash with point 3 of the NUJ's code of conduct:

A journalist shall strive to ensure that the information he/she disseminates is fair and accurate, avoid the expression of comment and conjecture as established fact and falsification by distortion, selection or misrepresentation.

And in the midst of this terribly complex and often dangerous conflict I don't believe that it's the Israelis that have kidnapped BBC journalist Alan Johnston.

Hat tip: Norm

The Magic of the Cup (spoiled)

Still disappointed about the football at the weekend, but will probably save a very small fortune from not now going to Wembley. There were no discounted tickets for our tribe for the semi. Hence we didn't go as a family. I was going to post some splenetic rant about the price of tickets for the semi-final, but this from an email called The Fiver says it all.

The FA, no doubt pleasantly surprised by the ease with which they've been able to persuade the public that delivering a new national stadium ridiculously late and even more ridiculously over-budget is fine so long as you keep stressing the fact that it has 2,618 toilets, has now decided to recover their entire £353m overspend from MU Rowdies and Chelsea fans in a single afternoon. Today it confirmed that the cheapest tickets for this year's final will be an eye-watering 40% higher than their equivalent last year, with seats going for £35, £60, £80 and £95 (with a limited and as yet unspecified number of £17.50 seats on offer to Under-16s).
"It was important to set ticket prices at a sensible and affordable level for the first FA Cup final at the Late Wembley," honked permanently bewildered FA big cheese Brian Barwick, suggesting fans can look forward to even greater price increases next year when the novelty has worn off. "We believe these are very competitive prices for what will be an historic match," he continued, pointing at the list of admission fees charged by the Rowdies, Chelsea and anything on London's West End with the names Andrew Lloyd Webber and Ben Elton attached. If fans had any sense or dignity they'd vote en masse with their feet and stay away, but there's little chance of that. To paraphrase a ginger Welshman who was famously never prime minister (no, not John Hartson): loyalty is a fine quality, but in excess it fills inaccessible football stadiums and FA coffers.

In happy contrast the Rovers season ticket packs include some very generous discounts. I hope they manage to attract people back.

Gutted

Gutted. There is no other word for it. We took Chelsea all the way and still lost. We deserved to win today. Bah. Still, the flag made it onto TV. And Rachel backed first and third yesterday.

Sport mad

Although this is the first year in four I've not been to the Grand National, it's a fantastic sporting weekend. Last night's fairy tale at Edgely Park saw Sale Sharks' Jason Robinson score a try with seconds remaining of his last ever game. Ever the gent he thanked Bath for a gripping game before taking the applause of the 10,000 crowd. What a night.

Good match report here.

I've been looking for the picture from today's Guardian which shows him skipping towards the line with the Insider Magazine hoarding in full view. I'll buy it from Action Images in due course and get it framed for the office.

Rachel always does well at the National and we've backed our usual crop of no hopers and outside favourites, picking Irish trained horses and ones that aren't owned by Trevor Hemmings.

Tomorrow it's the semi final at Old Trafford. it was too dear to take the family so it's a lads do this time. Ten of us are meeting for lunch in Manchester, then heading to the swamp and then probably returning to town with our tails between our legs. 30 years following Rovers has taught me to prepare for disappointment. If McCarthy and Tugay can turn it on we can do it.

Ten thoughts on...cooking

Although I really appreciate good food, it’s usually when someone else has cooked it. Having spent so long away from home over the past week and anticipating a lot more time away in the next two – rubber chicken at business dinners, hospitality at rugby and football (I know, a hard life) you can’t beat home cooking. When it’s our home that means me. Here are my ten favourite things to make. If you ever fancy coming over, let me know your ideas for wine to go with them. Olive magazine is a great inspiration for this kind of thing as it’s aimed at simpletons like me with no time for preparation.

Fish pie
A winter and a summer variant to this, but the trick is to flake the fish and pile in a fist full of prawns, parsley and peas, don’t overdo the pepper.

Thai Chicken curry
A nation that has learned to love curry of the Indian or Pakistani variety hasn’t ever mastered making it at home, if you ask me. Thai is easier, especially as the core paste (red or green) can be bought in a jar – cheating a bit, but the coconut milk, extra red hot chillis, the crunchy vegetables and the gently cooked chicken make it one to experiment with.

Spaghetti Bolognese
The first thing many blokes cook, because it’s so simple and straightforward. Onion, garlic, mince, tin of tomatoes and a sprinkling of herbs. That’s the basic bit, but using Oxo cubes and puree to beef up the beef gives it a thicker flavour. You can use this as the base for lasagne and chilli too. I like red peppers in there for flavour and density.

Sunday roast
Taking over the kitchen for an afternoon and sticking onions and lemons into chickens, sprinkling with herbs from the garden and getting the roast spuds just right. Best veggies in our house are frozen peas, corn on the cob and carrots in marmalade.

Chicken soup
The leftovers of the Sunday lunch can be used to make a great stock when you bung in an onion and some herbs. Warm it up again, bung in a load of noodles and some peas and corn and it’s a Chinese type one. Wack in a jar of crème freche and it’s the Jewish equivalent.

Cheese on toast
Spread the cheese on thick and improve it with Worcestershire sauce or HP. I know it’s not really a recipe but when you can’t beat it for taking the edge off munchies after a long walk.

Full English breakfast
This is actually really hard to do when you most want to do it – ie first thing on Sunday morning when you’re really sleepy. Cumberland sausages are the best, thick smoked bacon and chunky mushrooms. I like white bread dipped in whipped eggs but a guilty pleasure is fried slice soaking up the sausages and bacon fat. A spoonful each of baked beans tops the lot off.

Lancashire hot pot
Chunks of lamb (some on the bone), carrots, and the right blend of thyme and rosemary topped off with thinly cut proper potatoes make this a tricky one to get just right, but as it’s the North’s representative in a new series of the Great British Menu. Serve with red cabbage, but don’t make it, get it out of a jar.

Paella
You can overdo paella, but the sheer size of it is brilliant for a feast. Something for everyone, keep it cooking in a massive pan. The mussels are a risk as the rubbery buggers give kids the squits. But chorizo sausages, chunky prawns and chunks of chicken and pepper give it lots of variety.

Cake
An American of my acquaintance once bragged that her cheesecake was simply the best. How do you make it, I asked. “Well, you open the packet…”. Truth is I’ve never really cracked cakes yet. But there’s this ace recipe for the Victoria sandwich in Olive this month.

The tragedy of Mark Langford

They'll probably never find the loot that Mark Langford and his wife Debbie trousered from their stewardship of The Accident Group - slogan, "where there's blame, there's a claim". We reckon he put about £9m into an Employee Benefit Trust, then transferred that offshore. Talk of £50m is fanciful.

The obituary in the Daily Telegraph is here.

A typically nasty and graphic account in the Daily Mail is here.

Previous posts on the subject of The Accident Group are here.

Was it suicide? Was it stress? Was it justice? Whatever his state of mind when he died it can't have been a happy one. He was separated from his wife. He had become a pantomime villain. Pilloried and pursued across Europe as the man who not only ran a distasteful business, but ran it dishonestly too. Served with a petition from the Revenue and Customs at his daughter's birthday party, his tragic end serves as a sad and pitiful warning to those who's greed and ambition consume them utterly.

On the two occasions that I met him I was struck by his painful craving for respectability. The back story was that he'd threatened to sue us for saying he'd killed Bill Thornley, a war veteran, while driving his Ferrari. He had top libel lawyers Carter Ruck and Partners send us threatening letters. We didn't back down and the row went away. It was true, by the way. He had killed the bloke, but technically he had been cleared of causing death by dangerous driving. Semantics. Mr Thornley was dead.

A year and a day later, he then called me in for a chat. He had employed Clive Entwistle, a former Cook Report investigative journalist as his PR man. Clive claimed this was an extension of his work unmasking bad guys. Langford wanted to show that he was helping people, that he had offered a service to people who had nowhere else to turn after legal aid was withdrawn for personal injury claims. He was also branching out into personal finance and would be sponsoring Manchester City FC through his First Advice brand. The truth was he was still mainly selling after-the-event insurance to accident victims, and taking a cut of the loans to fund them and gambling on a percentage of cases being settled by the insurers.

But Langford also had made an enormous pledge to support the NSPCC. At a glittering ball at Knowsley Hall President Bill Clinton praised him for his efforts. As well as providing the glittering lifestyle for his family - the mansion near Congleton and the fleet of cars, he also craved admission into the respectable class of Cheshire business. Hence the NSPCC stuff. Hence he was talking to Insider.

The business was doing quite well, his accounts showed enormous profit growth, but there was a time bomb under it. Insurers were contesting more cases. To compensate for this more cases were taken on, profits were then booked on probable case wins, rather than cash coming in.

At the end of one meeting I went through his accounts and asked about all the offshore entities which owned his businesses and asked about the employee benefit trusts. He got quite twitchy at that point and stopped answering the questions.

When the next accounts were published it showed just how much he and his wife were paying each other in salary and dividends. We decided to clear a stack of pages and the cover in the June issue and go to town on TAG. Sue Craven did some research for us and red flags shot up; this was a business not paying its bills. Everyone went quiet at TAG as well. Calls weren't returned and the cosy co-operation had dried up. In late May 2003 it went bust. He fled to Marbella and was engaged in a tetchy and evasive battle with the administrators to get the money he had taken from a business that had falsely declared large profits. He was disqualified as a director, chased by the Inland Revenue and Customs and occasionally turned up in the press for the crime of living in Marbella. Always on hand to provide a quote is someone called Alec McFadden, from something called the TUC (not that one).

Infamously, when the business went bust 2500 staff were told in a text they weren't being paid. That communication stunt was in fact organised by the administrators PWC, yet it will be forever the epitaph for Mark Campion Langford.

How do you cope?

We've been away. Center Parcs, Legoland and London. And before you assume we went to that Center Parcs at Longleat, which is quite near to Legoland at Windsor, we didn't. We went to that one at Penrith. We had to get there via Burnley and Settle because of the M6 on Good Friday. Then we drove to our Travelodge (one room, mind) in Reading on Easter Monday after a full day of fun in the forest. We've carbon offset it all however by urinating in the outdoors a lot, apparently it's good for the plants.

If I had £60,000 for every time this week that someone has said to us: "Five! Boys! How do you cope?" I wouldn't have to worry about our enormous and overwhelming mortgage. The truth is, we don't always cope. We sat up until 1am talking about them and what a wonderful life we have with them last night. Conclusion? We're getting better at it, but it's bloody exhausting.

All five of the little darlings will scream and rage and tantrum at some point. But there is usually a limit to it and it's usually for a reason. It took us a while to work that one out, but the reason is either hunger or tiredness. They need to eat, or they need to rest. Thankfully, they very rarely all kick off at once and they tend not to fight with each other too much. Well, sometimes, but it's soon resolved.

The other cause of angst is they need to go to the toilet at the most inconvenient time. Like when we've just navigated through a crowded train with standing room only (where we stood from Reading to Paddington next to a toilet), through Paddington station, the tube station and it's two flights of stairs, up, then down again. On the platform two of them announce a minute before we're about to get on a tube to Westminster: "I'm really bursting for a wee." It's fine at Center Parcs, you just whip it out and have a wizz behind a tree. Don't you? Oh. We piled off at Gloucester Road where the nearest toilet is one of those pod things.

So, here are some lessons learned this week to make up for the lack of ten thoughts last week.

• Make them piss regularly. Stand over them and demand they try harder if it doesn't work first time. It usually does.
• They make their own fun. The more contrived the higher the expectation. The highlight of London for Matt was going on an underground train. Louis loved seeing Reading's stadium as we drove past it. The elder trio played football in St James' Park and Matt and Elliot made a maze in the daffodils. Never mind Buckingham Palace and all that.
• Give them adventures. A three bedroomed house at Center Parcs with the hated Jetix was much more stressful than all of us in one room at Travelodge.
• Musicals on CD are actually alright. They love Mary Poppins and Joseph.
• If there's a fight, let them resolve it between them. Unless skin is broken, or blood shed. Don't be an audience.
• Be prepared to queue at theme parks. Or just don't go. We lined up for an hour to mess about with a JCB for five poxy minutes. My Dad could have sorted an afternoon doing that with his mate Bobcat Pete.
• They don't remember the shit bits. They are grateful, they don't show it all the time, but they are absorbing the love and the experience.
• We don't remember how surly and ungrateful we were as kids. My Dad came up to Center Parcs for the day and just chuckled at our gasps of exasperation. Been there, done that, son.
• At a restaurant, organise two tables. One for us two and a table for the five kids. They get on with it then and we can relax a bit.
• They make a lot of noise, but isn't it sad to see families that don't talk to each other. We blank out other people now. You have to. Sounds selfish, but we can't apologise for overbreeding and most of all they are very happy.

Discrimination report

I have a strange attitude to the Guardian newspaper. It's the best put together paper in this country. The wholesome humanitarian outlook is much more of my neck of the woods than anything else. The weekend paper is full of different ideas and always finds something new and fresh to say. News is balanced and well composed. It has more must-read columnists than any other paper: David Conn, Michael Walker, Marina Hyde, Matthew Fort, Jon Ronson, Catherine Bennett and David Hepworth. I even respect Polly Toynbee but I don't like her style or her politics.

BUT. As the voice of smug media London there is nothing worse than the Guardian in full flight. Take this. A feature on the top black and ethnic minority people in Britain's media. PR people, record producers, someone who runs a civil liberties group (media???), radio presenters, you get the drift.

What about a managing director of a media company with a turnover of over £50m that has changed the direction of his industry, moved its core brand into on-line and television? You'd think he'd be a shoo in.

Ah, but that's David Benjamin, the MD of the Manchester Evening News. He's the right colour, but he doesn't get in the Groucho Club very often. He just works in some far off outpost called the North of England.

Under April Skies

I didn't know which news stories to believe yesterday and certainly wasn't bowled over by the sheer hilarity of the April Fool's jokes. BMW did an advert about a new gadget - this has never been funny, but they persist with it nevertheless. The Observer had a piece about Tony Blair going into acting when he leaves Downing Street, here's the link.

We watched Louis Theroux's programme about a preacher in Kansas called Fred Phelps from Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka and his family have become The Most Hated Family in America. They picket funerals of servicemen and women to proclaim it is a good thing. They wave offensive banners about homosexuality. Their website is God Hates Fags, and no, I won't be providing a link to it. This just had to be an April Fool. Surely? But no, here's what Wikipedia has to say about Phelps, here. We've been discussing it at work and we haven't made up our mind. If it is a spoof, it's a good one.

Fly the Flag

For a variety of reasons we haven't ventured to Old Trafford today - though we will be there in two weeks time for the semi-final against Chelsea.

Also there will be this blog's flag, which was delivered during the week. Parading it in the garden is Joseph, with aching limbs from a nail biting 2-1 win over Stockport Vikings.

John Givens 1963-2007

It's been a sad couple of weeks since I learned of the death of John Givens, a former editor of Yorkshire Business Insider magazine.

John, who before coming to Insider had worked for the Yorkshire Post, had gone on to work at Citywire and more recently at the press office of the Nationwide Building Society in Swindon.

A lifelong Sunderland AFC supporter, he will be missed by many in the media and professional sector in Yorkshire, not least for the football tours he regularly used to organise.

I wasn't that close to "Givo" but we kept in touch. If he ever thought of something that might help someone else he was always kind enough to pass it on. His service was an emotional occasion, well attended by lots of mates and sadly, the children who are now without their father. His family have asked people to donate to Sight Savers, John’s favourite charity, in his memory.

A gush of PR people

Nigel Hughes posts at Ear I Am about what certain PR people of this parish think. I still haven't worked out whether it's a spoof or not, or a joke at my expense.

The journalist most respected by Jo Leah is Michael Taylor.

I was therefore minded of this.

Ten thoughts on....the best parties in the world

My old friend Stuart McGavin always used to say - "we're not here for a long time, but we are here for a good time." It was a full-of-life, very Australian attitude that he embraced right up until he was knocked down and killed in Melbourne after a rugby international in 1997. I miss Stu a lot, he was a proper bloke with a nailed on view of everything. Honest, loyal and kind.

One of our drunken ideas for the future used to be a TV programme on the ten best parties on the world. He went to more of them than I ever did...

The running of the bulls in Pampalona (July)
Never has being chased by crazed animals been so much fun

Hogmany, New year's Eve, Edinburgh
The best way to see in the new year, even when it's chucking it down

Glastonbury (June, but not always annual)
The mud and music

Mardi Gras in Sydney (February/March)
Best party in Australia and a tribute to Aussie machismo

Oktoberfest, Munich (September/October)
Swilling lager and oompah singing

St Patrick's Day in Dublin (March)
A close call, with New York and Boston throwing decent parades, but the original is the best

Beer can regatta, Darwin, Australia (July)
Tins of bear and mad boats in the harbour

Full Moon Party, Haad Rin, Koh Phangan, Thailand (every month)
Druggies on the beach going mental

Carnival in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (February/March)
The party city lets its hair down even more than usual

Trinidad Carnival (February/March)
A two day festival of rum and drums. The biggest in the Carribean

Oh my Lord

So Blackpool gets to fight another day. The BBC reports, here, on the close vote in the House of Lords which has failed to rubber stamp the decision of the Casino Advisory Panel to locate a new supercasino in Manchester.

Blackpool got it badly wrong by not bidding for any of the other casinos. Manchester put together a good bid, the panel just made the "wrong" decision. Our prediction: they'll give everybody one, that'll keep them quiet. What a fiasco.

Support your local team

An unashamed sales pitch now for one of the great successes in our local community over recent years: the growth of Marple Athletic Junior Football Club.

With teams starting from Under 7s up to Under 16s the club is gaining a reputation throughout the North West as one of the best run and most successful set ups in junior football. Some age groups even have two teams, A and B, with most if not all currently topping their current leagues and set to perform well in tournaments through the summer months.

The club is run by a mixture of public spirited volunteers and enthusiastic parents but there is also a great opportunity for local businesses to become involved in order for the teams to have kit, trophies and half time oranges!

The club works closely with another successful business in Marple, Footy4kidz, which runs sports courses for children in the area with F.A.Qualified coaches who comply with all safety and statutory police checks, trained in First Aid and with a caring and supportive environment.

The advantages to local businesses include:
- Community involvement in a positive and successful sporting club

- Advertising your business through a popular sports club

- PR opportunities through sponsorship of the club

- Advertising on the club's soon to be revamped website

- Promotion of the business through parents and players bulletins

- Networking opportunities with parents and other club sponsors

There are a range of sponsorship opportunities in each age group. The season tarriff is also follows

Kit sponsor £500

Jacket sponsor £250

Trophy sponsor £100

The club is a great success and we would be proud to support local businesses who support the club.

Manchester, London of the North

By 'eck, I get comments on my blog from all sorts now.

Someone called called "anonymous" was just plain abusive (how brave) and someone called "Armley" (a pseudonym), bizarrely, also got personal. Whatever. He/she took issue with the comment I reported from my presentation to a forum of marketing and PR people from the professional services sector that Manchester is becoming a "London of the North".

Armley spent a good 500 words dissecting a short remark about Manchester's relationship with other cities in the North. Like this, with a reference to what the BBC staff think about Manchester:

"You may have bought into the Manchester regionalist propaganda machine's line that Manchester is a northern Shangri La, a booming cosmpolitan city of international importance that outclasses everywhere in England besides London. They don't; they still think it's a grim, crime-filled milltown shithole."

Who says I have "bought into" that hype? A common theme of this blog is that Manchester is not living up to the story in the glossy brochure. But to not also see the success that is around us is just stupid. Temper that instead with what you hear, as I do, when you go to Carnforth, Blackpool, Burnley and Barrow and hear what people think about the fact that Manchester has won the casino bid, or the Commonwealth Games, or the BBC relocation, or is launching the Manchester Festival, and you hear the resentment in their voices. It's not unjustified either. Blackpool is well hacked off with Manchester. They think Manchester is taking everything. They think Manchester is sucking investment and glory from them and from the rest of the North. It's "the big smoke" with all its airs, graces and pretentions.

Mention Manchester during MIPIM, the international property exhibition, in the company of people from Bradford, Birmingham, Leeds, even Liverpool, and they grind their teeth in frustration.

Then, in the context of professional services, look at how the professional service firms, the private equity houses and the banks have shifted their Northern regional offices to Manchester and closed down in Leeds. Listen to how Leeds complains about the lack of a concert arena and a much smaller Harvey Nichols. It's not me talking, it's the truth.

No, Manchester is NOT London in the sense that London is a massive international capital city of a major economy. Or the sense that London is culturally, economically, politically, physically at the centre of this nation's decision making.

For those reasons - and many more - London is not held in great affection by the rest of the UK. To most people in the UK it's actually a dangerous, expensive and crowded mess that has too much power over the rest of the country. And that same type of resentment is beginning to be directed towards Manchester. That's all.

Ten thoughts on.... PRs and press

I did a meet the editors event last night at the plush HQ of PR company MC2. I was alongside a top chap called Tony McDonough from the Liverpool Daily Post. These were 10 of the questions we were asked and my attempts to answer them.

1 Liverpool and Manchester have a history of being in stiff competition, do you think this is still the case now or is it getting better?
It's getting much better. Liverpool and Manchester peacefully co-exist. I'm always amazed at how very different they are. I think Manchester is becoming the London of the North, however. Investement is therefore being sucked out of Blackpool, Lancashire and Leeds towards this incredible success story.

2 We work for a number of small clients and always put them forward for features. We’ve noticed that although our comments are submitted in plenty of time and are of excellent quality, they usually get bumped out of the feature in favour for the bigger competitors. Can you explain why this happens and also, how to avoid it in the future?
We don't bump out small companies because they're small, but small companies can be cautious.

3 What sort of stories do you get really excited about?
Frauds, overnights successes, political intrigue, hostile takeovers.

4 What makes a good interviewee?
Someone who is prepared to say the unothodox, or the different.

5 Have you ever considered turning to the ‘dark side’ and becoming a PR?
No. But I do PR for Insider all the time.

6 What are your pet hates?
I don't hate anything, I'm a Christian. But London PRs asking if we cover Middlesbrough in North West Business Insider are a little bit irritating.

7 Will the BBC move to Manchester be great news for the media in the region?
I hope so, but I fear not. They are not moving any centres of commissioing power and only one network - Radio 5 - which is the most regionally friendly of them all. I think financial services is a much more important economic success for Manchester.

8 What is the one thing that a PR can do to immediately grab your attention?
Say they've got an exclusive story with unique access just for us.

9 What are the things they do that immediately put you off using their clients?
I never blank a PR company, but you detect trends. Missed opportunities frustrate. We constantly seek stories from successful businesses - metal bashers from Bacup - who only seem to want to talk about what they did on Red Nose Day.

10 Who is the most interesting person you have ever interviewed and why?
In the last year the most interesting people I interviewed were Terry Matthews and Brian Kennedy. They just don't seem to want to stop, and I wanted to find out why.

Dead man's corner

Commuters are facing a dance with death at the blind spot in the tram tracks as you approach Piccadilly station from Canal Street or the courts. This picture here shows a tram having narrowly missed a punter who didn't see the tram coming. Trouble is, you have to stand on the tracks to look around the corner in both directions if you're heading from Piccadilly station. Even when City Inn has been built I can't see the pathway being any safer.

Was lost, but now am found

As well as having a lovely Mother's Day with my Mom and with Rachel, this has been a great weekend. I was confirmed today. I took holy communion at Holy Spirit Church in Marple for the first time. It's been a meandering journey, but I think I belong. All the boys are being brought up Catholic and I thought it was about time to make good my core Christian beliefs and to make complete my own path to peace.

I've been helped along the way by Rachel, a cradle Catholic, and by Stuart Adlington, our Deacon and my sponsor Trevor Martin, a fellow Marple Athletic touchline Dad. I've also been helped enormously over the years by two very wonderful people in the parish; Margery and Peter Mount, who are not only incredible Grandparents to two of my sons, but have been amazingly supportive friends.

The last hymn today was Amazing Grace, one of my favourites.

Where the one-eyed man is king

I bought a magazine last week called Monocle. The breadth of features were incredible, on Chile's economy, German wine, an Afghan radio station, cashmere jumpers, Japan's navy. The Economist in Prada, I suppose.

Is this true, or an urban myth?

A bloke came up to me in Albert Square a few months ago with a long winded story about an argument with his wife, lost his phone, she drove off with his wallet. He needed some money to get to Chester. Get on a train I told him, and tell that to the ticket collector, he'll issue you with a ticket, take your name and you can pay later. He was begging. Just like the bloke with the petrol can that runs around Manchester with his daft story. Ingenious, but he's begging. You either give, or you don't. Personally, I don't.

Then there's this story doing the rounds on email that has also been reported on the BBC's site.

The 32-year-old victim was walking on King Street at about 1800 GMT on Friday when she was approached by a woman. She gave her some change but the offender then grabbed her arm and scratched it with an unknown implement.

The story is harrowing and the implications that there are seemingly civilised, well-dressed muggers with sedatives and syringes is horrific. Two people I know claim they know the woman concerned. Yet I'm still inclined to think it's another urban myth.

Ten thoughts...read them all

This list thing is getting quite hard now. I'm not going to be doing European airports, pretentious magazines or international trade exhibitions. But one of the delights of international travel is the chance to read. Here are ten fiction authors I've read everything by.

Martin Amis - always surprises.

Guy Bellamy - hugely underrated and under valued comic novelist

Julie Burchill - read one you've read them both. Good laugh and a bit smutty.

Mark Timlin - south London private eye who got progressively darker with each book, very influenced by...

James Crumley - Amercian private eye who gets darker still.

John Grisham - because it's easy.

Bret Easton Ellis - Lunar Park is terrific, and I've nearlly finished.

Donna Tartt - Secret History was better than that other one she wrote. Is she Ellis in disguise?

James Hawes - films have been awful, but his books are good fun.

George Orwell - all his stories, like his journalism, are top drawer.

Book review in a lift - Tom Bower's book about Conrad Black

Tom Bower, the master assassin of the rich and famous turns his pen on the former owner of the Daily Telegraph and his wife. Conrad Black, who comes across as self-important and pompous, is on trial for ripping off his shareholders in order to fund a lavish lifestyle. He craved power and influence and a seat in the House of Lords. His five-times married wife, Barbara Amiel craved status and wealth beyond their means. She doesn't sound like a very nice person at all. He just comes across as deluded. Either way Bower doesn't cut either of them much slack. They're suing him now.

The Russians

Reflecting on the international property event I've just been to, MIPIM, the most striking presence was from Russian cities promoting themselves as a destination. There were places I never knew existed, claiming to be Russia's third city. It could almost get as tetchy as the spat to be England's number two.

There, we saw Manchester flag waving with a banner draped over the main exhibition entrance and a large space at the very front. Birmingham fought back with a hamster. Indeed, it's surprising which cities roll out which celebs. Apparently the Brummies had a banging event with Richard Hammond from Top Gear. Bradford were tempting property investors with the chance of a chat to Linda Barker. Liverpool had a Beatles cover band wandering about and Taguey even had a chat to Sir Terry Leahy yesterday afternoon.

Poolside despatches

From technological muppet to a fully paid-up member of the Monacle generation. I'm tapping away at the poolside of the Martinez Hotel in Cannes after flying down last night from Manchester via Munich. I've sorted out wireless and everything.

The only problem is I can't think of anything to say (never stopped me before, I know).

We're hosting a couple of events today. One on investment opportunities in the UK regions, the other on New Towns (like Telford). Wish me luck. Au revoir.

Blue Doom

My football predictions are rubbish, always have been, probably always will be. With one exception that will always be true: Manchester City will never be more than a season away from a crisis.

If you reflect back 7 years to the first time this decade that Manchester City visited Ewood you enter a dark part of my soul and one of the lowest in my life as a Blackburn Rovers supporter. We lost 4-1 in a gutless second half collapse, chaotic ticketing meant our ground was overrun by boozy ecstatic Mancs and the pitch was invaded by them. All that our manager could do was rant as we finished the campaign rooted in mid-table. To make matters worse, Burnley were on the rise again. Everything about our club seemed rotten.

There is no way I could have predicted then any of what has since followed: promotion by an exciting footballing side, three European campaigns, Corrado Grabbi, the Worthington Cup, learning to love Andy Cole, two top six finishes, Tugay, Graeme Souness leaving a club in a better state than what he inherited, another top manager, a team of bully boys, Robbie Savage, Benni McCarthy and a second FA Cup semi-final in three years.

I wasn't reared on thrills and spills but mind numbing mid-table mediocrity, occasional play-off defeats. And Simon Garner.

Even the most optimistic City fans that day knew they were heading back down again in a short space of time. Crisis is in the DNA of the club. Even the windfall of a new stadium paid for by the council and Sport England and the greatest boom in football history has been left in tatters by Kevin Keegan's spending spree. The last two years have been marked by dreary drift. But as David Conn reported in his Wednesday column in the Guardian, something else has gone from City, a part of the soul of the club has gone too.

Once a byword for English fans' bloody-minded loyalty, Manchester City now embody the paradox at the heart of a booming game. While the Premier League's £2.7bn TV deal and exploding interest around the world thrill US investors, at home, in the blue moon heartlands, resentment at the game's direction is turning lifelong supporters away.

The rest is here.

On Sunday the travelling support gave a glimpse of the pride and the passion of the club and its perennially frustrated potential. But without sounding like I'm gloating there was only ever one team going to win. The moment that summed up City's season came ten minutes before the end. Tugay, starved of his enforcer - Aaron Mokeona - won the ball in the centre circle then had time to roll the ball around before he chose which one of three thirty-yard passes to make.

Living in Marple and working in Manchester means I come across a load of City fans who are good friends. After yesterday I genuinely fear the worst. City look like a doomed team while Charlton have hit form. I hope I'm wrong about this, and right about my other prediction that Rovers will lift the FA Cup at the new Wembley having swept past...Middlesbrough.

This sporting life

We've got a problem at Marple Athletic Junior Football Club. We could have worse problems, to be honest, but it's one created by having a successful set up. As most the teams (under 10s, 9s, 8s and 7s) are at the top, or thereabouts, this has caught the eye of scouts. One of the teams is faced with a situation where six of the kids are likely to be recruited by either Stockport County, Oldham Athletic, United or City. This is 7-a-side football by the way and once a kid is signed on for a professional set up they're not permitted to play for their old club with all their old pals.

At a meeting on Thursday night the wonderful people who give up their time to run the set up and the coaching sessions through Footy4Kids - Jason Isaacs, Shirley Booth and Charlie - spelt out the scale of the issues for parents: ferrying around, dealing with disappointment, not playing as many matches, missing friends and the odds of this leading to a football career are still absolutely tiny. On the other hand it's an opportunity to learn skills from a professional set up.

This is going to run and run and I don't quite know what we are being asked to make a collective decision about, or whether we were just being informed of the bigger picture. Meanwhile, my personal interest in the club, Joe and the Under 8s B team, won 6-0 on Saturday and are still unbeaten with just a few games to go.

Ten thoughts on...profound thoughts

Ten Friday thoughts today concern just that. Thoughts.

Many of them I've picked up this week at the wonderful Tom Peters and Charles Handy conference. Some are older than that.

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” —Charles Darwin

"Given that we only have one life we can neither compare it to our previous lives, nor perfect it in our lives to come." - Milan Kundera

“One woman can make you fly like an eagle. Another can give you the strength of a lion. But only one in a cycle of lives can fill you with gladness and the wisdom that you have known a singular joy." Deputy Hawk, Twin Peaks

“Nothing is so contagious as enthusiasm.” —Samuel Taylor Coleridge

"If you try to keep your life for yourself, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for me, you will find true life. And how do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul in the process? Is anything worth more than your soul?" - Matthew 16:25-26

"Imagine. What would you do if you knew you couldn't possibly fail?" Michael Finnigan

"The greatest dangerfor most of us is not that our aim is too highand we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it." Michelangelo

"Ready. Fire! Aim. If it ain’t broke ... Break it! Hire crazies. Ask dumb questions. Pursue failure. Lead, follow ... or get out of the way! Spread confusion. Ditch your office. Read odd stuff. Avoid moderation!" Kevin Roberts' credo

"For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life." John 3:16

"To thine own self be f***ing true, son" - Bernard Manning, quoting William f***ing Shakespeare

We are the quarry

When we were unruly teenagers we used to spend summers afternoons at Jackdaw quarry. It was great for diving in and swimming, though I suppose it was very dangrous. It's now a film location and has been used for Emmerdale and a recent TV drama.

A disused quarry near Carnforth – complete with submerged helicopter, boat and oil rig – was chosen as the Lancashire Film Office’s location of the month recently. Based at Jackdaw Quarry, in Over Kellet, near Carnforth, the Capernwray Dive Centre was chosen after Lancashire Film Officer Lynda Banister visited the 11-acre freshwater lake and was mesmerized by the crystal clear water and the beautiful rural setting.

An absence of logic

Most of the time, reporting on business is quite straightforward. A business makes a profit, creates jobs, does well. This a good story. If a business loses money, closes down, lays off staff, then it’s not so good. None of this suggests that running a business is easy, or dealing with customers, banks, suppliers or staff is straightforward. It isn’t. But when a decision goes against a company there’s usually a reason or an explanation; even applying for planning permission is transparent, if slow.
But there are two instances, currently at the forefront of all of our concerns, where business logic is trumped entirely. One is anything at all to do with the business of football, where the heart so often rules the head; the second is where the government, or one of its regulators, issues a licence for anything, be it a supercasino, or a licence to operate a radio franchise.
Dealing with the last one first, as we are defying common sense, the media regulator Ofcom has issued a licence to Guardian Media Group (GMG) to run a new FM radio licence in Manchester, RockTalk. That will be in addition to GMG’s ownership of Smooth FM, Century FM, the Manchester Evening News, several weekly newspapers, a fledgling TV station, sponsorship of the largest concert venue in the north and a national newspaper, The Guardian, which I won’t assume many of you are terribly familiar with.
Take my word for it, over the years several million acres of forest have been felled in order to fill pages of that paper with stories regarding the evil empire of Rupert Murdoch and the pernicious influence of the Daily Mail. Imagine, if you will, the howls of outrage that would be heard across Hampstead Heath and around the dinner tables of Highgate if Associated Newspapers, publisher of the London Evening Standard, were able to own such a similarly large slice of London’s media.
I have yet to hear Mr Angry of Hyde, Heywood or Hazel Grove on this subject, because there’s no-one stoking the fires of outrage and they probably don’t care. Yet what we have here in Manchester is a rapidly expanding media monopoly, offering advertisers and consumers little choice.
It is the other logic-defining sector that really has got them talking. Assuming the GMG isn’t also tabling a bid for Manchester City, the debt-ridden football club could soon follow two other bigger regional red teams into American ownership, and also see a big shiny casino opening up next door. Will that regenerate East Manchester? Maybe. Will hoards of people flock to this bright new leisure temple? No, they won’t. And perhaps, out of this other farcical bidding process, Blackpool can move on and forget this folly once and for all.
(Lead article, North West Business Insider, March 2007).

Transforming experience

To the Hilton Hotel, Manchester for a full day business conference starring two of the world's leading business gurus - Charles Handy and Tom Peters. The pair complement each other very well, but have never been on the same bill before.

It was a wonderful experience and I can heartily recommend it. Peters was like an adrenline shot. Much of what he said, by his own admission, is common sense. Sometimes you need that. His slides from the day are here. Best quote: If you bang your head against a brick wall and then walk away, you're a quitter. Do it ten times and you're an idiot.

Charles Handy was different. I've read his book The Empty Raincoat and probably forgotten most of it, but his delivery was quieter than Peters, but no less thoughtful. His gentle social philosophy was a wonder to share. Best quote: "Do your best at whatever you are best at."

PS Thanks to the Northwest Regional Development Agency for organising my place at the conference. Lunch with the bossman has been regarranged to next week.

Attack dogs

During a tidy up of the blog late last night I came upon a rant I'd not seen before buried in the recesses of a tale of a day trip to Crosby. It wasn't just the untended dogs of Crosby beach that soiled my boots, anonymous of Liverpool also wrote:

Or the one that a wearingly predictable anti-Liverpool Manchester bigot manages to "see" more crime and disorder in a single daytrip to Liverpool from his home in North West crime capital, Manchester than I have seen in years in the city? You visited Crosby for pity's sake - it's not the inner city. Nevertheless that someone who is the editor of his purported "North West region" is so ignorant and prejudiced about one of the two biggest cities in the "region" his magazine is meant to cover - it confirms yet again the insanity of Liverpool ever being reported by Manchester-based media operations.

Blah, blah, blah. The full unexpunged rant is at the end of this posting here.

I do rather tire of anonymous postings on blogs. Norman Geras has simply given up allowing people to post on his site, so weary did he become of uncivilised outpourings. I don't get as much abuse as Norman, but all I do is tell it like I see it. We had a crappy day made crappier by scallies. Our car was atacked. I got shite on my boots. The statues were awesome, the beach was full of rubbish. The pies were superb. Fact. Facts. Facts. Get over it. Two weeks later I came to a similar conclusion about scrotes in Manchester city centre.

The main point though is that what I say about one place on one day therefore has any bearing on what I think about the city in which I work, or an innate superiority that city has over Liverpool. Can I expect a rant from annoyed of Preston about my tale of woe following the accident on the M6, pointing out that we have traffic jams in Marple as well?

No, it appears that someone just doesn't like me very much. Doesn't like my magazine, doesn't like Manchester and can't get past the bitterness that seems to infect so many people in this country, whether they post anonymously, or not. I can live with that, whoever you are.

The river that changed the world

There's a marvellous book being produced by the lovely people at the Mersey Basin Campaign. It's called The Mersey: The River That Changed The World. There's a thread on the campaign's blog, here, which is getting giddy about how the book is coming together.

Why should I care? I've contributed a chapter on the docks. It's going to be extracted in the next issue of the campaign's excellent Source magazine. The river begins near Marple, where the Goyt meets the Etherow.

Some good news:

The statues of Another Place are a step closer to a permanent home on Crosby beach after council planners decided to overturn their own previous ruling. A new report from Sefton council comes out in clear support for granting planning permission for the installation by artist Antony Gormley.

You can read the full story, here.

You can read about our day out, Once More Unto the Beach, here.

Badder than you think - cable is rubbish

For the best part of three years I earned a poor living working in the cable TV industry. It was rubbish. It really was. First of all I worked in TV production for an appalling TV station called Wire TV. After I was sacked I got a job as international editor of a US based news magazine called Cable World, which was a quality publication for a mega industry in the US, but I was our man covering the sticks, frankly. At the time the streets of the UK were being dug up by gangs of men subcontracted by middle managers from American phone companies eager to know how they could sell cable AND phone services to the masses. This was before the Internet, by the way.

The trouble was, as still is, that there is a far superior way of getting more TV channels; it's called Sky TV. And in securing Premiership football and some half decent imports cable was completely dependent on Sky for supply of TV channels.

The corporate game of chess that I followed so keenly involved various combinations of cable operator merging, acquiring and borrowing in order to stem the huge debts they built up in the cause of killing trees, ripping up pavements and offering a mind bogglingly bad record of dealing with the public. After being a customer of United Artists Communications in Bristol (who gave me everything for free, forever), when I moved I then subscribed to Cable London (pants), then finally NTL (which managed to be even worse). I had a minor dispute over the notice I had to give them, which I was unable to win because they sent debt collectors after me which put a black mark on my credit file. I have pledged never to subscribe to cable ever again.

I am not alone, the shocking service culture and dreadful marketing makes you gasp. Even as I type this there is an invitation coming at me for an event to celebrate the coming together of NTL and Telewest and their deal with Virgin as "bigger than you think". Though that process has finally come to the inevitable conclusion that a large single brand with good customer service could compete with Sky and BT, the fact is they've botched that too. Cable subscribers have now lost some Sky channels due to a row over how much they pay their biggest competitor for supply of their core product.

Richard Branson is doing what he always does. He's muscled in on the cable industry for not much money. Used his brand as leverage and is now bellyaching over being bullied by the market leader because they won't roll over give him the privilege of doing business. Tom Bower, an author I'm enjoying reading on Conrad Black right now, has written about Branson before, he has also has a very telling piece here.

Cable is doomed in this country. It has been completely trumped by Sky, and now broadband. Sky has problems of its own - and we won't have that in the house either - but a threat from Beardie Cable is not one of them.

Tea at the Three Fishes

The first person who ever alerted me to the best pub in the world ever, The Three Fishes was my pal Alec Craig, who was trying to sort out lunch and beers before the hair raising trip to Burnley in February 2005. It's owned by fellow Rovers fans Craig Bancroft and Nigel Haworth, who also do the excellent corporate facilities at Ewood Park. That day we ended up going to the Fence Gate, and Alec still hasn't made it.

We had a family outing visiting family in East Lancs yesterday, topped off with tea at God's own pub. Once again it was a triumph. The best thing about it is the attitude to kids. Not only are they welcome, which to be fair, we are in most places these days, but the belief that kids can love proper food, not just sweet mush. There's a zeal about the place that isn't just a good place to be, but represents something positive and proud about Lancashire and about quality food. Also lunching with his family yesterday was Carl Fogarty.

Nigel wasn't on site yesterday, he was at the Reebok Stadium watching Rovers win 2-1, report here, with his mate Paul Heathcote, a fan of the losing side. I know this because just as we were sitting down to order, coincidentally, Alec phoned with a report on the game. Superb. And just the best place to toast such a sweet victory.

Food for thought

What's going on in Manchester restaurant land?

Establishment and Le Mont were ambitious if flawed attempts at fine dining. Both have now closed. I'll be honest, I could never get excited about either. The last time we went to Establishment was a lovely evening with great service and superb food. I've heard horror stories about the service and attitude at Le Mont, I thought the main flaw was a chilly atmosphere.

Lounge Ten is a huge favourite of Patrick Loftus, who I had lunch with yesterday (at the distinctly average Olive Press). He likes Lounge Ten's character. I've not been for so long I can't remember. But it's despised in equal measure by Wolfie and Jason, two good pals of mine who know a thing or two about good manners and customer service.

Add to this the heavy atmosphere of moody intimidation in the so-called designer bars with gangsters, wannabee celebs and pseudo WAGs, read about that here. The crime is a worry - San Carlo got robbed last month. We're left with pretty poor scene, frankly. Plenty of upmarket average, as I've said before.

Manchester Confidential has a sparky debate about it, here, with an insightful - if slightly pompous - intervention by "Ray", who is almost certainly Ray King the former columnist from the Manchester Evening News.

I think there may be an opening in one of the new hotels that are planned, and the River Room at the Lowry Hotel has the potential, especially now they have wisely erased the name Marco Pierre White from the menu. He came here once, what a prat. Anyway, I'm off to the Lowry on Thursday for a catch up with Steve Broomhead. I'll let you know.

Ten thoughts on crappy days

Like I said I've had better weeks. I fell over at Manchester Airport on Tuesday and my elbow still hurts. Not only that but I didn't end up going to where I was hoping to due to airline incompetence. I did a talk to a very unresponsive audience later that evening, had all sorts of things cancelled during the week, missed the Rovers match on Wednesday, including this goal, here, got stuck in traffic yesterday, missed a meeting in Liverpool, then the rest with that comedian chap, see below.

You have to laugh. You really do. And I know I will look back on this and laugh. It could be worse, I could be a Virgin Cable subscriber who filled his car with Tesco petrol. Anyway ten shitey annoying things that have happened, over 15 years ago, that I can laugh about now.

* Got my first car vandalised by a National Front psycho in Lancaster city centre. Had to drive round with NF scratched on the roof of my Mini until I could afford to get it resprayed.
* First week of the second year at University, walked into a wall in my student house in Manchester cutting my head open. Still got the scar.
* Missed my Second year Sociology of Something Tedious exam because I got the day wrong.
* Got on a train to Leeds by mistake, instead of Lancaster, had to change at Miles Platting, took an hour to get back to Victoria
* Jibbed the train all the way to Blackburn, 1986, for a crucial relegation match V Grimsby, only to find it was off.
* Got the bus back - it took two hours. Missed the start of a big night out.
* Went to the rematch, ripped my jacket climbing over a fence at the end.
* Got shells stuck in the car engine on a beach in Western Australia, had to get help. Got rescued by a family of racist Londoners "still bad with the blacks back home?" "Can you let us out here next to this arid desert please, we'd rather walk."
* When working at EMAP 1990 ish - had a few quiet beers after football, followed by several noisy ones - fell asleep on the last tube to Clapham, woke up in Morden. Left kit, filofax, keys, money, everything, on the tube. Got a taxi - had to wake up flat mates to pay. Awful.
* Due to an appalling mishap in the EMAP admin department had no hotel in Las Vegas during NAB convention week, had to stay in Econo Inn at the arse end of the Strip. Rooms by the hour or the week.

One of those nights

I can't believe I've failed to blog all week. I guess it's been one of those weeks. We held our Merseyside Property Gala Dinner event last night at St George's Hall in Liverpool. Dougal Paver has reviewed it from the perspective of a paying punter.

To St. George’s Hall for the fabulous insider property gala dinner. Star turn was Warren Bradley, leader of Liverpool City Council and self-styled ‘business champion’. Before him lay an open goal: 520 leading property types with a combined borrowing capacity running in to the billions. And he didn’t miss.

You can read the rest here.

As the event host and compere, my own personal recollection will be forever tainted by the memory of introducing the final part of the night, the comedian Jason Manford (pictured). As the crowd politely applauded in anticipation I looked in horror at the place next to the stage where Jason had been stood five minutes before. He wasn't there. I had to fill for what seemed like hours - though it was more like a minute. I froze. The horror, the horror. Jason did appear, he'd been to the toilet, and thankfully he was very good. He even told a few gags I'd never heard before (joke).

Manchester 4, Blackpool 0

By jove they must hate Manchester in Blackpool. First the tram money, then Labour, the supercasino, now the Tories are following Labour and plumping for Manchester as the conference venue for the future. What next, moving the tower to Deansgate?

The bitter end

An old friend has set up an anonymous blog charting her quest to give up booze for Lent. She's a 35 year-old North American journalist living in Edinburgh, so no clues there, then.

It's very funny, called 40 days in the wildreness, and you can read it here.

Fascists marching on the high street

A blog I drop in on from time to time called Harry's Place has a piece about local activists opposing supermarket developments. There is a shade of opinion that seems to say big shops - bad, local shops and high streets - good, typified by a recent BBC programme on the subject which I alluded to here.
I think some Marple traders make the trudge a pleasure. Saturday mornings are fun and it's good to potter, but for convenience and price you can't beat a supermarket. And when you've got 5 kids, pottering isn't always an option.

Why would anyone elect to trudge through mud and sleet wearing fourteen layers of clothing to shop at establishments who - if they actually had what you needed in stock - would charge you more for it than say Tesco or B&Q? The idea that the average High Street proprietor is more knowledgeable about his product or more concerned with satisfying his customers is, frankly, balderdash!
Customer service is universally bad, and the only place to get decent advice on
product is on the Internet - specifically from other consumers.

But I suspect the truth is that they fear that the majority of people do actually want the convenience and economy of a supermarket. So what these self-styled 'community activists' are saying is that townsfolk must be forced to shop in the High Street for its preservation and, apparently, their own good. This is a mini fascism.

Give peathe a chanthe

Chris Eubank has protested against Prince Harry being sent to Iraq. BBC story is here.

Atmosphere

Last night's Rovers v Leverkeusen match was ultimately a big disappointment. We had enough domination to have won it, but despite throwing on four strikers it just wouldn't go in. The kids loved the atmosphere of a pretty much full house (not many Germans) and loads of other kids, due to the £1 ticket price and the 6pm kick off. Which got me round to thinking of the ten best ever atmospheres at Ewood since I first started going regularly in 1977.

1984 Second division v Leeds United 2-1, great game on Boxing Day, young skilful Leeds team got swept away by some Simon Garner magic

1990 FA Cup 3rd round v Liverpool - 1-1, when a Marko Van Atkins OG kept that whiney git Kenny Dalglish in the cup

1991 Second division v Plymouth - 5-2, the legend that is Kenny Dalglish is unveiled as manager
THE BEST 1992 play off semi final v Derby - 2-0 down, won 4-2. Mike Newell's wonder goal set us up nicely. The singing went on all through half time. Derby were shell shocked.

1995 VE Night v Newcastle. 1-0. You have to ask?

2001 First division v Burnley 5-0. April fools. Could have been 10.

2002 Worthington Cup semi final v Sheff Wednesday - 3-1 - We're all going to Cardiff

2002 UEFA Cup v Celtic, lost 2-0, but what a noise

2005 FA Cup replay v Burnley, won 2-1. By jove they gave us a game.

2006 Premiership v Manchester United 4-3. "Rio, Rio"

Book review in a lift - Pies and Prejudice

Chirpy bloke off the radio does a tour round the North. It starts really well; I love his observations and how he appreciates the North. He begins to irritate with some factual errors, but by the end you are left roaring with pride at the wonder of the North. 7 out of 10.

Going overground

I've just bought 4 tickets to see the Jam at Preston. Couldn't resist, the more I thought about it.

Didn't we have a nice time?

I don't think I'd even be excited about The Jam reforming WITH Paul Weller. But the news, here, that Bruce Foxton and Rick Buckler are to tour as The Jam is absurd. I don't know where to start, I just wish they wouldn't.

He's here, he's there...

As I work with the comic genius Neil Tague I don't need to be convinced of his attributes. You can find some more of him here. And here. And here too, if you scroll down to the one about MIPIM. He's also had a word with this fellah.

The truth is out there

I loved the X-Files. I admire investigative journalism. The maxim of questioning power is a mighty one. But I actually felt quite sick watching BBC 2's Conspiracy Files last night. It was a patient and painstaking piece of television that must have left many nutters watching it quite frustrated that the programme didn't endorse a single mad theory about 9/11. If you don't want to believe that Mohammed Attah and his twisted death cult pals could do that, then you will invent evidence to say they didn't, and ignore the overwhelming weight of proven facts that proves they did. Equally, if you believe in a twisted ideology of superhuman order and the supremacy of an aryan master race, then it's quite hard to sell that door-to-door if everyone believes there was a holocaust in Europe in the 1940s.

Frustrated at 0-0

It wasn't a great game, the in-form home team had the better chances but it was frustrating to watch. No not Arsenal v Rovers but Marple Athletic under 8s B against Woodley. I'll take both Rovers' results this week. Bring on the Germans, and fair play to the club for slashing ticket prices.

Wayne Hemingway on Holy Moly

I wouldn't normally cut and paste from the scurrilous Holy Moly email. But this is priceless.

A Mole writes: Wayne Hemingway was on BBC Breakfast yesterday complaining that modern housing is not up to scratch and how most of it shouldn't get past the
planning stage because of the lack of thought placed on "community" amongst other things.
Found his preaching a little strange seeing as I'd recently viewed some apartments in Manchester city centre (the birchin) that he had put his name to thus earning piles of cash. The thing is the apartment I was looking at was supposed to be a two bedroomed. Bedroom two wasn't big enough to fit a washing machine in let alone a bed. When I pointed this out to the estate agent showing me round, their reply was that it wasn't really two bedroomed but they had to pretend it was to get through planning. Manchester City Council insist on a certain percentage of all units in anapartment block being 2+ plus bedrooms to attract more families to the city centre. Nice one Wayne Hemingway!

The self same professional northerner and alleged Rovers fan once upset a room full of Liverpool property people with righteous bleating and poor Scouser jokes. I was paying his bill.

Roger Cashman

One of the columnists for Insider has attracted a bit of a following. I've set up a blog for him, with an archive of his words of wisdom, because he's too busy (or arrogant) to do it himself.

You can link to it here.

Ten thoughts on...the M6

Not the most riveting subject for my ten random Friday thoughts, but I have just spent a long time on the M6 motorway this week.

* Are there really speed cameras on the southbound stretch near Kendal?

* Why doesn't Carnforth have a brown sign - Gateway to the Lakes?

* Is there a more dangerous junction than Lancaster North?

* Is there a more magnificent civic monument than the Ashton memorial?

* My personal Room 101 will be to be trapped forever at Forton services.

* Is there still some rude graffiti under the big T bridge at Scorton?

* Those chevrons on the southbound side between Galgate and Broughton, what are they all about?

* Adverts on lorry trailer parked in fields, that's not legal is it?

* My goodness isn't Lancaster University ugly?

* Has anyone from Dolphinholme or Bay Horse ever been arrested and prosecuted for using the works access roads?

The Green Green Grass of Home

I've done a 20 questions feature in the Lancaster Guardian, the damn fine weekly newspaper of my hometown. Marple really does feel like home, but as the song goes "there'll always be a little piece of my heart devoted to what is known as...[Williamson's] Park life". You can read it here. But take time to look around at the rest of the news and features. I liked this one.

9/11 conspiracy

At last the truth about 9/11 can be revealed. Here. Thanks to Norm.

Get well soon Tony Wilson

My pal Tony Wilson is being treated for cancer which he writes about in the Manchester Evening News today. He rightly praises the treatment he's had from the NHS in Manchester. He's still in good spirits. I sent him a copy of Nick Cohen's What's Left to cheer him up - his reply: thanks for the book bro. You f*cking tory xxx

Have I left anyone out?

A less happy return to Goodison Park on Saturday to see Rovers lose 1-0 to the People's Club. Kids loved it. Elliot sang "Barmy army" all the way through, Mattie said "Dad, I hate Everton", which is harsh and against our sound Christian principles of love and forgiveness. Joe, who's Marple Athletic team won again at the weekend, is learning manager speak: "It's not the end of the world if we lose this, we're still in two cups." I won't reveal how Eamon Curran's daughter reacted to a late goal attempt by Rovers' Brett Emerton.
We were entertained before the game by Sean Styles a local comedian we've booked before. Great Alan Hansen impersonation. Also this: "Blackburn fans eh? You've had some great players over the years. Alan Shearer. Haven't left anyone out have I?"

Curry in a hurry

We went to Basmati on Saturday night, the curry house located in a hut kind of building opposite Marple train station. It always seems eerily deserted during the week, but gives off an alluring whiff of spicy sauce that piqued my curiosity.

Anyway, it was far from quiet on Saturday; they were queueing outside by 10. The staff were rushed off their feet and initially we overhead some punters grumbling that their food hadn't arrived by 8.30, just as we arrived. If anything our concern was the opposite; we were rather rushed along. Not by a very sweet waiter, but by the manager who was rushing around.

The food was OK. Poppadoms were a bit stale, beer glass smelled of soap, but the rest was good. A nutty lamb balti, mixed sizzling grill, cheesy peas and a damn fine Peshwari naan.

Also pleased to see the Marple Bridge man who was at great pains to tell me he hasn't won the casino bid. It'll come, Ken, it'll come.

Ten thoughts on booze

My name is Michael Taylor and I am not an alcoholic. I actually don't like pubs that much. On tour I fall asleep when I've reached my limit, I can't keep up with the likes of Andrew Page, Mike Perls and John Fowler. However, I do like a tipple and as I get older, I get more choosy. Here are my ten Friday thoughts for the week on the subject of booze.

Best white wine: Marlborough Montana Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand

Best red wine: A really dark creamy Merlot (Argentina)

Best bottled lager: Cains finest lager (proper stuff, gorgeous cold)

Best draught lager: Staropramen

Best bitter: Moorhouses Pendle Witch (from Burnley, I know, I know)

Best place to buy wine: Majestic (just gets better)

Best vodka: Absolut Citron (keep it in the freezer and serve neat over ice)

Best champagne: Veuve Clicquot

Best late night tipple: brandy warmed and in a big glass

Best stout: Guiness in Dublin, obvious but so true

Unintended consequences

One of Insider's columnists, Steve Brauner, has written of his experiences of the world of blog. I was going to do a preamble to the tale, but Steve tells it pretty well from the top.

What do your employees get up to in cyberspace? Are you aware Miss Jones in accounts advertises herself on a social networking site as a bisexual paganist with a penchant for partner swapping and painful piercings?
Being a broad minded sort, you’d probably respond that while people kept things like that to themselves when you were a lad – worse luck – what she does in her private time is up to her.
Yes, but what about that young salesman who can get a bit lippy? Have you seen his Myspace blog? The one where he slags off all your customers. Still think social networking websites are something you don’t need to add to the long list of ball-aching things to worry about?
Ask the chief executive of Thorntons. The chocolate shop chain has just learned a very hard lesson courtesy of one of its junior managers.
Drafted over from Newcastle to Barrow-in-Furness, Steve Beall didn’t take to his new location. Trapped in a Travelodge on the outskirts of town, he told the world, via his Myspace blog, that Barrow-in-Furness was “a shithole” and queried how anyone could possibly live there.
Mr Beall, or Stevo to his Myspace friends, posted this on a page open to public access. Therefore anyone with a “Barrow-in-Furness” Google alert was sent an email directing them to his words of unwisdom.
One of those people was myself, editor of the North-West Evening Mail, read by more than 75 per cent of the adult population of Barrow-in-Furness. Do our readers have a right to know that the manager of a new store who smiles and takes their money by day is slagging them off to all the world by night? Yes, obviously they do.
So Mr Beall’s indiscretions appeared on our front page and some of our readers felt the need to speak to him. Thorntons’ staff felt threatened, police had to be called. Mr Beall was despatched back to Newcastle and the company’s chief executive issued a grovelling apology.
What followed was 15 minutes of infamy. Not just for Mr Beall but for me as well. On the blogosphere I was accused of suppressing free speech, invading privacy and putting a lonely young man at risk of losing his job just before Christmas.
Before you get the violins out, Mr Beall was not sacked, just reprimanded.
Even so, here are the views of one blogger, a PR man called Stephen Newton: “If anybody should be sacked over this affair it’s the editor Steve Brauner, who thought Steve Beall’s MySpace page was news.”
Did this flash of insight come to Mr Newton after his Apple iMac fell on his head? Does he think the scores of newspapers, websites, TV and radio stations who followed up the story were all stricken with the same lapse of editorial judgement? He needs to realise that cyberspace is not a sim world where it doesn’t matter what you do or say. Free speech comes with responsibility and consequences, on Myspace or anywhere else.

The Spirit of Radio

I'm not as up to date with rules on media market share as I should be, but the latest award by OFCOM of an FM radio licence in Manchester made me gasp.

RockTalk 106.1 is wholly-owned by The Guardian Media Group. It will provide "a speech and rock music service for 35-64 year-olds, which contains a strong commitment to local news, current affairs and interactive debate for the Manchester area. Comprehensive local, national, world news and information is included, with a wide variety of rock music played during off-peak and Bank Holidays".

In Manchester, GMG now owns the only daily paper (The Manchester Evening News), a TV station (Channel M), loads of weekly papers, it has a stake in the Metro free paper, it also owns two other FM radio licences (Century FM, Jazz FM).

There be dragons

There is not a flake of snow on the pavements of Marple. I may awake to find a blizzard, but the weather that has engulfed the nation has not come to the North. You would never guess that from the national news. It reinforces the view that we live in a place on a map that the BBC and national press have down as the place marked: "there be dragons".

Can't stop the music

The latest issue of Insider is out now. We've led on the horrible story of how Music Zone bit the dust. You can read the story here.

Optimism of the will

They may be loath to admit it, but a lot of the present day entrepreneurial and quango class of Liverpool (and Manchester for that matter) cut their organisational teeth in the heady world of Labour politics and single issue campaigning in the 1980s. The hair may be thinner now, the suits may be sharper, but if you squint you can see the same salesmanship that once traded in the ideas and policies of the left, now at work on the regenerative qualities of property development and knowledge-based industries.
With this thought in mind I can tell you all, brothers, that I’m reading a remarkable book at the moment called What’s Left – how liberals lost their way by a writer called Nick Cohen. He charts the betrayal of causes such as freedom of speech, human rights and equal opportunities by people who have completely lost their moral and political compass: people who will defend Islamist death cults, or Serbian thugs, because they are against George Bush and Tony Blair. Or the west. Or whatever.
The very things that many on the left wanted in the 1980s are now comfortably within the reach of our children. The liberators are education, freedom of thought and freedom to trade. Socialism is a dead ideology. But the ability to do business and the benefits of doing good business are there for all to see.
There’s probably an even better book to read, if you have the time, which picks up where Cohen finishes the question – what is in fact now left to care about? It’s called The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman. The subtitle is – a brief history of the twenty-first century and it argues that a new flat world is a fairer world to hope for. The end result is the same, but the journey is very different. Comrades: there are still some battles worth fighting.

This piece will appear in a newsletter for Downtown Liverpool in Business

The snake pit of politics

I'd never heard of Fiona Jones MP until the news of her death last week. This story here paints a picture that confirms every prejudice about the snake pit of politics. It's been said on this blog before that most people I've known who are in politics are real creeps. However, two totally sound human beings who I know and who are also New Labour types in Manchester are Ruth Turner and Simon Danzcuk. Ruth's woes are well documented. Simon, I now hear, wants to be Labour MP for Rochdale. He's had death threats for his trouble and someone sent him a wreath. Stories about all this are here. Sickening.
It is also not on to post anonymously on this site naming people as being responsible for any of the above misfortunes. I won't have it. Be honest, be loyal, be kind.

Book review in a lift - Progressive Patriot by Billy Bragg

Based on the premise that if someone I work with asked me as I got in the lift - "what's your book, any good?" I'd be able to tell them before we got to the 8th floor without them wishing they'd never asked.

The Progressive Patriot - a search for belonging by Billy Bragg. Cockney folk singer makes a decent stab at English history by evoking traditions of the English Civil war, the domestic front during the Second World War, the labour movement and folk music. It's a lively and informative enough read, gets bogged down a few times in an obsession with a Bill of Rights and the history of Barking, but it's billed as a personal journey so why not? Six out of ten.

Though shall have a fishy

I wept tears of joy the very first time I went to the Three Fishes at Mitton in the Ribble Valley. A pub that serves gorgeous local food and welcomes you with a smile. It now appears in virtually every newspaper and foodie magazine. The latest review is here. One of its success factors has been the proximity to top boarding school Stonyhurst. I hear it's now so busy on a Sunday, you have to be there before 12. A victim of its own success? I eagerly await the opening of The Highwayman, their next venture, but hope they don't spread themselves too thinly.

The joy of football

My oldest lad's team - Marple Athletic under 8s - won again today to stay top of the league. Beats watching the likes of Lucas Neill in the greed league, I can tell you. The team they beat 3-0, Richmond Rovers, gave a good account of themselves and the scoreline was quite harsh. Sounds smug I know, but they were a decent club, as are all the ones we've played. So far I've not witnessed pushy parents behaving badly on the touchline like the ones who so appalled us at the Marple schools tournament last summer. The manager of Richmond, from over Poynton way, told me after the game however that one team have a rough following and he's reported them to the league for excessive effing and jeffing from one of the Dads. Oh dear, aren't they meant to enjoy sport?

Ten thoughts on...radio

Last night's race to Blackburn could have been a night in a traffic jam had I not had the foresight to listen to Radio Lancashire's regular traffic reports. The updates and stories through the evening also showed the BBC at its best. It got me thinking, so here are ten Friday thoughts on the subject of radio.

Best phone-in programme: Alan Beswick on Red Rose Radio in the mid-1980s

Best football commentator: Mike Ingham on Radio Five Live

Most negative summariser: Richard Dinniss on BBC Radio Lancashire - "there's just no coheeeesion"

Best radio station in the world: BBC Radio Lancashire

Biggest berk on the radio: Tim Westwood

Best football phone-in: Legends on Century FM, especially when a hysterical Gary Owen is in full flight

Best double act on the radio: Jane Garvie and Peter Allen on Radio Five Live

Last time BBC Radio One was any good: When Chris Evans did the Breakfast Show

Best fictional radio station: Chorley FM, "coming in local ears"

Worst choice of topic for a radio phone-in: Islamic terrorism

Wacky races

What a day yesterday. I knew I was cutting it a bit fine to finish at ten to 6 at a Lancaster Chamber event at the Longlands, just north of Carnforth (gateway to the Lakes), and make it to Ewood Park for our Lancashire Dealmakers Awards for 7.30. Suffice to say I didn't. The traffic chaos in Preston, caused by a nitric acid spill (read about it here) meant I diverted up the Lune Valley, Wray, Long Preston, Skipton, Guisburn, Nelson, M65 - Then to Roverrrrrs for ten to 8.

Put it this way, it's probably a very nice drive during the day.

Book review in a lift - Guerra by Jason Webster

Based on the premise that if someone I work with asked me as I got in the lift - "what's your book, any good?" I'd be able to tell them before we got to the 8th floor without them wishing they'd never asked.

Guerra by Jason Webster. Slightly annoying English bloke is bored living in Spain, wants to find out about the Spanish Civil War. Book alternates chapters between a very breezy history (good) and tales of him playing keystone cops around the underbelly of Spanish society (hit and miss).
6 out of ten.