Top news stories today are...

The trial of the month kicks off

Horrible pen-related murder trial ends

Council warns people not to buy their kids cunt-bikes this Xmas

And, er, Top Valley Tesco reopens, on the site of the pub where I had my 21st birthday piss-up. Bastards.

Car Theft: We're Number Five

The top five places in the UK for having your car whipped, according to an insurance company who wants the free publicity;

Hull - 126.1% (above national average)
Bradford - 107.4%
Leeds - 95.6%
Bristol - 72.2%
Nottingham - 68.4%

Once again, we have been belittled by our cruel Nemesis to the North. Sigh.

A crap draw, followed by a good 'un

Forest might have been unable to do over Salisbury City in a lumpy game played on an even lumpier pitch in the 2nd round of the FA Cup, but they've been given a very tasty draw against the extremely rubbish Charlton. Shame they've got to get there via a replay first.

Despite being a Forest chap, I have to say that the best thing that could happen to Nottingham football would be a shameful knockout in the replay, followed by relentless Notts-baiting across town, followed by Notts getting promoted and Forest not (or, even better, Forest getting promoted and a massive bung scandal that sees Notts getting promoted two divisions in one go), followed by both clubs being bought out by billionaire oil magnates and rising to the Premiership together.

Sigh. I talk a right load o' wank sometimes.

Extreme ASBOness

Another teet'-sucking mouth-breather from Aspley getting an ASBO isn't usually cause for comment, but this one's special. Get a load of that five-county ban - it's like summat Boss Hogg would slap on the Dukes of Hazzard. Of course, if he now wants to see his equally cunty mates or try and run a Special over on a motorbike, the poor lad's gonna have to go to Leeds or Peterborough to do it - and how is he gonna get there? By TWOCing a National Express?

The 80s Revival Continues

HIV cases in Nottingham have trebled in five years, and no-one seems to be particularly surprised. Let's ignore the usual bollocks how it's all the fault of immigrants and arse bandits and cut to the chase - no-one's scared of the fucker anymore.

Christ on a crisp packet, when I was knocking about in the 80s, you couldn't move for icebergs and massive tombstones, and the sight of Mike Smith putting a johnny on a banana made me leg it across the estate and ring the AIDS Helpline, just to make sure that having a mole nicked at Bill The Barbers on Mansfield Road hadn't doomed me to a living death.

And don't expect to see this product in Boots any time soon.

What the fuck am I gooin' on abaaht?

If you've just stumbled across this and wondering why anyone would bother compiling a blog of little else but links from the Nottingham Evening Post's rammell website, I'll explain; I write the Notts The Nine O'Clock News column in LeftLion, which is surprisingly popular. It does me head in how more people come up to me and want to talk about it than anything else I've ever written for mags like Cosmo, Scarlet, The Daily Mirror, When Saturday Comes and all the shit I usually get paid for, so I might as well put a bit more effort into it.

And I'm sick to death of having to spend hours trawling through two months of stories about the council spending hundreds of thousands of pounds on bins to get to the juicy stuff. So I'm setting this up as an aide memoire, or whatever you call it.

I'll try to make it as entertaining as possible, promise.

Tings A Gwan In LeftLionLand

8,000 issues of LeftLion - Nottingham's only free magazine worth the steam off your piss - has been whipped away from the printers and is currently stacked up in a flat in Sherwood, ready to be dumped all over the city this weekend. And although I say it myself, this is one mint issue. Look at that cover, for a kick-off; Rikki Marr is a talented fucker, in't he?

Contents...Kasabian...The Mighty Boosh...Juliette Lewis...Jason Lee...Belle & Sebastian...Gary Imlach...Ground Hog breakdance crew...Three-page Xmas diss...The usual Notts-based palaver...

40 pages of properness. Even the adverts look skill.


And, as is our wont, we'll be getting battered in the Orange Tree on Saturday 2nd December for the monthly LeftLion Presents, featuring The Deltarays and Alice Rock. So get your arse over, youth.