Fat Mancunian

Every good work do starts with a meal and mine's no different. Steak and Ale pie at a surprisingly busy Stag. Ordered a Carlsberg to go with it because the Guinness is always crap in here and the only bitter they have is Yorkshire rubbish. Pie was piping hot and gorgeous. Beer palatable, atmosphere good and the scary locals got less and less scary the more they harmonised with the Human League tunes on the jukebox. Got a call from housemate and colleague Moss who's up for tagging along. She and another possible recruit, Louisa, are waiting at stop 2, The Mount. Location: The Stag, Orrell Road

Afternoon campers. So the office Christmas Do is something I always look forward to, and this year's was a belter in Warrington. Unfortunately I was on my best behaviour for whatever reason. I went out with a girl from Ramsbottom way back when and her dad was a self employed plumber and every year would have his own Christmas Do. He'd do a job in the morning then park the van back at their house an walk down to the pub and do what self employed plumbers do best. Drink until he was fluent in Polish. Now I'm currently trying to convince the Revenue that I'm no longer self-employed but for today I'm going to pander to them and have myself a "self employed Christmas Do". I'm going to start with some lunch at one end of Orrell Road in Wigan and make my way into town to meet with my friend Shaun for a curry. The perfect Christmas Do and, like the actual official Christmas do, I'm paying for it myself! I've got my mp3 player for the walk, my phone so ...

I’m currently reading Peter Hook’s fabulous “How Not To Run a Club” which is making the Hacienda sound like the coolest place to be but the most frustrating place to be involved in. It’s a cracking read as well. As much for the appendices as anything, from the original membership application form to set lists of concerts. From the book (and the club’s end of year newsletter) here’s the 1982 Hacienda Top 20. Hacienda 1982 Buy the book

I have many theories about radio. The vast majority of them are wrong and moronic I'm told but every now and again I come up with one that has merit and I believe this to be one of them. What if we only did Top 10 at 10's if we did them properly? Like how they started. A real Top 10 from this week in a year gone by rather than playing from the pool of the same 15 songs because they're the only ones that "fit the brand". So, as a little exercise here's the Top 10 from this week in the year that Wish FM is using today. Would this sit well on a music radio station in 2011 or is it just too spikey.....and if so, why? This is purely a "what if?" exercise...I'm not suggesting that we do it, I'm suggesting it's something to talk about when you don't want to do any actual work. Hey, why not play along at home m'darling! 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

What you’re about to read will not help anyone. It’s not a sensible solution, it’s not the kind of thing that anyone should really condone. It’s just the gut feeling and heartfelt outpourings of a bloke watching a collection of pillocks taking the piss in his hometown. After a couple of nights rioting in London and kidding myself that it wouldn’t happen in Manchester because, as tweeters across the city have said, we lead – we don’t follow, it seems to have kicked off tonight. I had a little kip at 3.00 and there were reports of a bit of a police presence in Piccadilly but no bad temper at all, woke up at 7 and Miss Selfridge is on fire, BBC Manchester have had their radio car totalled and there’s widespread looting at Salford Shopping City (although what you can “loot” from 3 branches of Cash Converters I’m not sure). Listening to Key 103 – who have done well tonight – there’s a bloke from the City centre’s Pub and Club Watch saying that all pubs are closed for the night. No bus...

North West Tonight, the wonderful and humble organ of regional news on BBC1 reported on the fact that Pete Best, “The 5th Beatle” is having a street named after him in Liverpool. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-14275755 The new estate in West Derby will also have a street named Casbah Close, after the club that was half a mile away where the Beatles started their career. You know how much I love our Scouse brethren, only in Liverpool would they name a street after someone who was NEARLY in the biggest band in the world, and a club that was QUITE CLOSE, not on the site, quite close some years ago. And another thing……how many places in Liverpool did the Beatles start their career? Every street corner from L1 to L12 proclaims itself as “de place where it all started!” In other Mersey themed news, it’s been a very short 7 months but happy birthday to a man I already consider to be a great friend, East Lancs legend Kev Seed is 25 again tomorrow. Nice one ace!

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I’ve been getting to grips with news feeds and what have you on Firefox and in order to get music news about people who seem to be named after dangerous pets I’ve subscribed to MTV News. When I got rid of Sky about 18 months ago I worked out that it had been a couple of years since I had watched MTV for music, and even then I recorded 120 Minutes at stupid o’clock in the morning to watch when I came in from work. This was going to be a diatribe tredding a path followed a number of times about how they should drop the “M” but instead of that I got on You Tube and looked up some MTV that I loved. I grew up watching MTV when it was by far the best channel on Astra and have narrowed down my 5 favourite things about good old MTV. 5. Davina McCall in leather! Davina was fit. She was funny, she was irreverent, she could hold her own against the wave of testosterone that was whichever Italian happened to be on with her at that time and she was fit! She also had an amazing rock n roll ba...

My Auntie Gabrielle is an amazing woman. She is a mother to two very switched on children, both now grown up and ploughing their own furrow. She is a nurse, and a bloody good one at that with experience coming out of her ears. She’s a graduate, with a Masters no less. However, she is prone to the odd faux-pas and eccentricity. For example she’s got to the age she is convinced that the word “next” is spelt “NEXED” despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Recently she confused X Factor loser Ray Quinn for survival expert Ray Mears and spectacularly during a family holiday in Yugoslavia she had a disagreement with her partner, picked up her handbag and stormed away from the pool…forgetting that she had attached her handbag to the table and took the table and it’s contents halfway through the hotel bar. For as long as I’ve been interested in music and plying my trade in radio she’s talked about a song called “Marie Celeste” that she remembers from the 1980’s. The whole famil...

Watching the IT Crowd Series 2 – it’s the dinner party one! Running the battery down on my kindle Making a brew Stroking my new facial hair arrangement Writing a test page using Live Writer to see if it marries up with the changes I made to the template

Kudos to Anthony from work for finding this gem. From Italia’s Got Talent : fast forward through the judges taking the mickey to about 3 minutes in to see the greatest performance in reality TV history. If I could do this, I’d be queuing at the auditions as fast as my legs could carry me!  

…or at least not as far as I know….eh, eh! (No, seriously, I’m not and there is no chance on God’s earth that I am) Anyway, I’m not a parent but Molly Forbes’ blog about being a mother is aces, and you can vote for it here http://www.the-mads.com/index.htm

So then, day 2 of my “holiday” (it’s in inverted commas because I’m not actually going anywhere, just staying in the flat) The plan was that I’d spend this time getting up to speed on things that I’ve neglected, however so far I’ve watched Jeremy Kyle and fallen asleep on the couch. Hopefully today will be different with a bit of time set aside for “Twelve Monkeys” which I’ve got from Love Film and still haven’t seen. Good start so far! Out of bed a whole hour earlier than yesterday…

On Friday morning we got word at "The Lodge" that George Michael was releasing a cover version of "True Faith" to raise money for Comic Relief. I must admit to taking the trademark Fatmancunian position of head shaking and mumbling at the revelation. This morning I heard it. Gobsmacked. My first reaction was to wonder whether Comic Relief had gone back to the good old days of Llallaneeneenoonoo and Hale And Pace by releasing a comedy record but, no. It would appear that this is a serious effort. It's like when you're "tired and emotional" and someone's given you a kiddie's Cyberman helmet to sing through and then slowed right down as if it might have sounded fairly normal once but has been applied to an iron maiden. It is without doubt the worst, most ill-concieved record I have ever heard. If I was Comic Relief I'm be annoyed beyond belief and demanding action from George Michael's management to remedy this appalling acti...

Brilliant story about a woman who went postal in a cake shop after being told they didn't have her favourite cake anymore. My favourite bit of the piece is the desciption the police gave. "A 5'3" well built lady aged between 35-45 with shoulder length strawberry blond hair.." which has to be the politest way of say "big old ginger" in history. Hang on, let me read that description again....has anyone asked Geri Halliwell where she was when this happened? Woman goes proper mental in a cake shop

I bought the netbook in my hands for a reason, and that reason wasn’t to take round to various hotels up and down the country trying to watch iPlayer (although that is a happy biproduct). It was so that I found it easier to blog and would hopefully do more of it. I’m using Windows Live Writer which all looks fine to me and not at all problematic. Having said that it’s only day 1. Today I’ve enjoyed saying the wrong station name on air, snoozing in front of the Simpsons and Matthew Rudd’s marvellous 80’s show on Q Radio. Going to read a bit of Zig Ziglar before sleep. 3.30 dart tomorrow morning, loads to do!