Getting away with it

Ah, another case of Do as I say, not as I do – Manchester Police’s Assistant Chief Constable (the one in charge of traffic, no less) gets stopped for doing 104mph on a motorway, and gets away with 6 points and a £450 fine. Alright for some, isn’t it?

Chris Rea
Manchester Apollo

Some people just get confused. As we were leaving the gig, someone behind me said

“Why didn’t he play ‘Lady in Red’ ?”

Sorry, pet, wrong Chris.

However, if you knew what you were looking for, this gig was bloody good. Bizarrely, it was my second all-seated gig within 10 days, after donkey’s years without one at all.

A few years ago, Rea was diagnosed with cancer, and allegedly “did a deal with God”, and decided that if he survived, he’d play the music he wanted to, and do blues albums instead of some of the pap he’d done previously. The first two thirds of the gig was exactly that – proper “old-fashioned” blues, like a supercharged bar-room band. Seriously good blues and rock’n’roll type music.

The last third was more a revue of his older stuff, “Let’s Dance”, “Road to Hell”, “Josephine”, and the like, but even then they’d been bluesed-up (if that’s a word) and a lot better than they’d been remembered.

All things considered, a bloody good gig – much enjoyed. And thank fuck, no “Lady In Red”.

Classy Google Searches

From the last twenty-four hours:

Niagara Academy livejournal. No idea, sorry.
“My boss is a twat” t-shirts – Nice idea! Definitely has potential…
Machine’s plastic and injection part – the mind boggles.

Be Still, My Bleeding Heart

Following on from yesterday’s pithy review by the Guardian of Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares, they now have a feature about the aftermath of the show. It makes for some hilarious reading.

“I think they manipulated the town, the restaurant and people who work so hard to earn a living,” said Sarah, a waitress. “They portrayed Silsden as an unsophisticated northern town in the name of reality television. We are as sophisticated as people in London. This is an affluent, growing place and I think we all feel insulted.”

What, a TV “reality” programme that alters viewers perceptions of what the place is like? Imagine my shock. It’s also worth noting that “Neither Gray nor the restaurant were paid by Channel 4 for their participation, which the head chef invited by answering an advert in a catering magazine.” – so really the chef thought he was good enough to be on TV, and didn’t think for a minute that he’d be upstaged and outdone by Ramsay. To me, that comes under “deserves everything he gets”.

Gray, who yearned to be a chef from childhood, said he did not undergo any psychological profiling before agreeing to take part in the programme, something Dr Cynthia McVey, a psychologist from Caledonian University said should have taken place.

“People want to take part because they’re excited about being on television. They see it as a path to stardom, but when they actually see the result it’s different. They think they have control and then realise they don’t.”

I’m sorry, but psychological profiling before the show? The lad wanted to be on TV, answered an ad to get him on TV, and is now upset that he was made to look like a twonk. He volunteered. If C4 had rung up the restaurant and said “we want to film at your place” without any prior enquiry from the people working there, then I’d feel more charitable about it. But they volunteered to be on the programme, answered an ad to take part, and didn’t even get paid for it, which leaves me thinking far more “reap what you sow”.

RIP

One of my old teachers, John Fulkes, has been found dead at his home (and they think he’d been dead for some time before anyone found him). The funeral is on Friday. RIP.

Disinterested

This one can be filed under “Brewery, Piss-up, Organise“.

Today, there’s been a report released about the future of Oldham, following on from the race riots in 2001, and detailing how Oldham can move on and improve itself. It’s been reported about by the Manchester Evening News – in fact, it’s front page headline, plus two further pages inside, plus an editorial comment. In the paper, it says “for a full copy of the document, look at the website”. On the website, the entire report isn’t even mentioned. [UPDATED : I’ve since been pointed to a copy of the story on the site, and the 5.5Mb PDF of the report is here]

Not only is it not mentioned on the MEN website, it’s not mentioned on the website of Oldham council, who are one of the parties behind the report. (Apparently they want to make it not look like a council-funded report – instead they make themselves look ignorant of what’s happening in their own town) At the time of writing, the UrbEd page has a link to a PDF of the report, only the PDF either hasn’t been uploaded to the webserver, or they’ve just keffed it up and sent up an empty document. The NorthWest Development Agency, another of the partner organisations, also doesn’t have any information about the report, except to detail the launch party for it, at Gallery Oldham, which also hasn’t got any information on the site.

And finally, the main organisation/site behind this report, Oldham Beyond at the time of writing hasn’t even mentioned the fucking report.

Organisation – don’t you just love it?

Hypocrites

Obviously the Anglican church still believes in “Love thy fellow man” – but don’t take it too literally. Not content with insisting that Dr Jeffrey John wasn’t “fit” to be the Bishop of Reading, a group of “around 40 clergy and laity” in the St Albans area now want him to step down as Dean of St Albans.

In a statement, the St Albans Diocesan Evangelical Fellowship said the move was a “serious error” of judgement.

The group said it was “aggrieved” that the Bishop of St Albans, the Rt Rev Christopher Herbert, had agreed to the appointment.

© BBC news

What is the problem with having a gay man in the clergy? I’m sorry, but I simply don’t see what the issue is with this, other than homophobia and bigotry on the part of the blinkered bastards who are complaining.