The May Contain Notts Awards 2007

Welcome, everybody, to the upstairs room at the Thurland for the inaugural May Contain Notts Awards of 2007. All of Nottingham’s movers, shakers, and knifers are in attendance, and we’ve just had a splendid three-course meal in a giant cob. Ooh look, there's the Slanty N just coming out of the bogs, and Sherwood Bear is over in the corner trying to suggest a threesome with Twiggy and Jo.

Well, the bingo's just about finished, so we can finally open those envelopes and cast an eye over another eventful year for the glittering jewel of the East Midlands. And the first category is…

***SPORTS PERSONALITY OF THE YEAR***

Yes, it’s been another great year for sport in Notts, just as long as you’re not arsed about football, and you really, really, really like ice hockey. The nominees are;

Carl Froch, for having another unbeaten year

…including a five-round mashing of former WBC champ Robin Reid in November. Anyone who can make people in Nottingham actually pay to see someone punch someone else in the face must be pretty special.

Forest and Notts twats, for running about on the pitch at Meadow Lane in a preseason friendly, like bell-ends

Local teet’-sucking mouth-breathers from the Forest end forego their usual Happy Meal to partake in the Kids For A Quid scheme and run on the pitch at the end of the game, only to be chased off by Fat Dads in the Notts end, shaking their fists like Mr The Menace after Dennis has put a ball through his greenhouse. Tsk.

Nottingham Forest, for pissing away a two-goal lead to Yeovil in the playoffs

I was there. It was like your missus trying to resurrect your beached whale of a relationship by giving you a lap-dance, only for her to leave a 12-inch skid mark on your best trousers.

Notts County, for officially becoming the worst club in the country to support

...confirming what we all knew anyway.

and the winner is…

Neil Harris, for shitting on the floor of Muse after Forest celebrate getting battered 5-0 by Oldham by acting like nob-ends in town.

Well done, Neil. Don’t move, let me just put this newspaper underneath you. Here’s your award, now fuck off back to Millwall you chatty bastard. And our next award is...

***SMALL BUSINESSPERSON OF THE YEAR***

It goes without saying that Nottingham is teeming with enterprising people with their eye on an opening in the market. Particularly Bulwell Market. So what if most of what they do is a bit, well, illegal? The runners-up are;

The bloke who nicked an entire kitchen out of his next-door neighbours house

With a special mention to his missus, who claimed that she was bathing her kid the entire time that he re-fitted it and was surprised to find it there afterwards.

That smackhead in St Anns, for continuing to claim her next-door neighbours pension 18 months after he’d died and was found by the police in an advanced state of decomposition

Shane Meadows’ next film virtually writes itself.

Another St Anns twat, for taking advantage of his mate getting stabbed to death at a pub in town to rob £324 out of the till

You’ve got to admire anyone who can see the fiscal advantages of a bad situation. I can imagine him trapped in the World Trade Centre on September 11^th, thinking “Skill! While everyone’s chucking themselves out the window, I can absolutely rinse the stationary cupboard!”

That bloke from Notts who grew the strongest weed ever discovered in the UK

Mmm, green heroin. Who needs mild euphoria when you could have brain haemorrhage ?

But the winner is…

Those two bent coppers, for losing their jobs and getting jailed for passing on information to crims about murder investigations

…in return for discounts on clothes from that shop in town where chavs get their suits for their next court appearance. Here’s your award, plus a £5 voucher for TK Maxx.

More awards later. But now, put your hands together for the one and only SU POLLARD!

Thanks Su. And talking of the great artistic bounty that Nottingham has bestowed to the world, our next award is…

***CULTURAL EVENT OF THE YEAR***

Nottingham, as we all know, could not be more vibrant and eclectic if it turned itself into a massive Aboriginal dildo, and 2007 saw many huge developments. Broadway getting some new enormous blue windows. The council erecting George Best’s old house on top of some old buildings. And some other things. And our nominees are;

The stripper from Arnold, for her thought-provoking performance art piece at a local school

When I was at school, there was always one girl who would show you her bits in exchange for a copy of Smash Hits. Obviously, now that said mag is defunct, I applaud Arnold Hill School for taking steps to remedy the situation.

The fountains in the Square, for thought-provokingly not working for a bit

Yoko Ono must have been right pissed off for not coming up with this one; spend a fortune on the piping, construction and planning of a new fountain that youths can’t empty a bottle of Squezy into, which then produces…nothing. Apart from a flood of mithering letters to the Post.

Unknown graffiti artist, for the thought-provoking ‘Suck Your Mum’

If you live in the South of England and are travelling to Nottingham by train, what is the first thing you see when you reach our lovely hometown? Nottingham Castle? The Inland Revenue offices that look like a Nazi POW camp? Those horrible signs that say ‘WELCOME TO NOTTINGHAM – HOME OF CAPITAL ONE’? No; you see a huge piece that says, to everyone coming to our city, ‘SUCK YOUR MUM’. Simple. Minimalist. Genius.

The Millz Taliban, for their thought-provoking YouTube video

It’s not there anymore, but you already know what it looked like; shitty Grime music. Misspelled captions. Twats waving guns about. Obligatory shot of someone else’s pit-bull. Etc.

And the winner is…

That bloke who has a massive thought-provoking Gay wizard on his back

Obvious choice. Here’s your prize, Sir – a massive tattoo of the Village People on your face. Next award, please...

***THE LUDICROUSLY VIOLENT INCIDENT OF THE YEAR***

Naturally, this is the most fiercely-contested award tonight – so much so, that all the nominees have been strapped up to those mobile Hannibal Lecter restrainers. And the runners-up are…

The inbred cousins from Eastwood who started hitting each other with pool balls in socks in a pub in town, because they were bored

Back in the day, they would have settled their differences with a banjo duel. Nowadays, it appears that our neighbours in Bandit Country like to play Human Conkers of an evening.

That nob from Broxtowe, for attacking someone on the tram with a meat cleaver

Not just any meat cleaver, though – a meat cleaver secreted inside a baby’s pram, like Shogun fucking Assassin. Still, as anyone with a babby knows, it’s a right mither remembering to take everything you need out with you. Nappies…bottle…sun hat…dummy…favourite teddy…throwing death stars…

The father and son from Broxtowe, for beating the shit out of two blokes who they thought had robbed from their house

Say what you like about Charles Bronson and the Death Wish series, but you must admit that he had a bit more class than walking about a street in Bilborough with a hammer in one hand and a golf club in another. Especially when you’ve got the wrong house.

That dealer in Basford, for stabbing a bloke in the eye because he wouldn’t buy any drugs off him

No, mate. If you want to get on as a dealer, you offer the first one free, or you offer a discount. What you don’t do is say “Ey! Buy mah foo-kin droogs, or I’ll shank yoh!”

But the winner is…

That meathead from Bulwell who has been banned from every pub in Notts bar five

An outstanding achievement, as I’m sure you’ll all agree. We now go over by satellite to one of the five pubs he’s still allowed to drink in…oh…we appear to be having some technical difficulties…he appears to be…beating people to death with the camera. Oh well.

And now, ladies and gentlemen, it’s time for a short break in the proceedings. Here’s….ALVIN STARDUST BEING JABBERED AT BY A DUTCHMAN!

Ta, Alvin. Without further ado, we move on to a very special award indeed…

***THE MAY CONTAIN NOTTS LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD FOR UTTER CUNTISHNESS AND TALKING ABSOLUTE MINGE ABOUT NOTTINGHAM***

So how the FUCK can Nottingham be the fourth worst place in the country to live in when FUCKING MANSFIELD is only ninth, you BELL-ENDS? Have you EVER BEEN TO FUCKING MANSFIELD, you smug, know-nothing, DRIBBLINGS OF WANK DOWN THE FACE OF AN ELDERLY PROSTITUTE? HAVE YOU? HAVE YOU? I’ll tell you the worst place to live in the UK – INSIDE YOUR SHIT-ENCRUSTED, MEDIA-WHORISH, DELICIOUSLY-PUNCHABLE CUNTY HEADS. Take your award, stick it up your fucking arses, and FUCK OFF WHILE YOU’RE DOING IT.

Ahem. And our next award is…

***THE WORST THING TO HAPPEN TO NOTTINGHAM IN 2007***

Always a favourite category, this one. And the nominees are…

The Broadmarsh Centre, for wanting to get bigger

What kind of a lead paint-licking gibbon would want to increase the Broado by three times, when it’s obvious to anyone in Nottingham that the best thing that could happen to the place is to reduce in size, preferably to the size of a matchbox. Ooh yes, let’s have another Top Shop five minutes walk from the other ones, that’s a great idea.

Skegness, for burning down

Weep, Nottingham. Weep.

The Variety, for shutting down

This place was the 70s in aspic. It should have been a National Heritage site for the preservation of dodgy comedians and dodgier strippers. Sigh.

The Evening Post, for allowing local racists and pissy-knickered mitherers to comment on their website

Jesus, have you been on there? It’s like being trapped in a room with your least favourite uncle.

Nottingham City Transport, for axing the weekday Night Bus Service

Eejat bwoy.

And the winner is…

Nottingham Forest, for wanting to leave the City Ground and move to a 50,000-seater Mega-Bog in Clifton

Come on, Mark Arthur, get up here and take this award. Go on, do that bit where you say that Forest are going to be in the Premiership in a few years time…HA HA HA! What’s that? ‘World Cup venue’? HA HA HA HAAAAAAAAAHHHHH! Oh Mark, we’re going to have to book you for next year’s awards, you’re fucking killin’ meh.

And now, the final award of the year is…

***THE BEST THING TO HAPPEN TO NOTTINGHAM IN 2007***

When you think about it, 2007 was very good to Notts. Don’t believe me? Have a look at the nominees…

The Not As New As It Was Old Market Square, for finally not being a building site any more

Yeah, you can moan about the fountains not working, or the expense, or getting Toneh ‘Ahleh Aht O’ Spandaah Balleh to open it, but the fact remains; it’s so good to have it back.

The Hard Rock Café, for shutting down

No offence to it – apart from the fact that it was some rubbish touristy dive of the type beloved by Italian exchange students in pastels – but it used to grieve me sore to see that lovely building that divided King Street and Queen Street defiled with a big and horrible sign. And it’s going to be the location of the new Cloughie statue.

Steve Green, for announcing his retirement in 2008

Sorry Steve, you seem like a pretty nice bloke, but you really shouldn’t have nobbed off the Drug Squad to concentrate on burglary.

Central News East, for shutting down in 2008

Goodbye, skateboarding rabbits. Goodbye, deliberately interviewing the most toothless window-lickers you can find in the Square for vox-pops. Goodbye, pretending to be in a floating News-Pod in the middle of the Trent when you’re actually in a studio in Birmingham. Goodbye, that rubbish news-reader with the funny-shaped head.

And the winner is…

Colin Gunn, for being sent to the Naughty House

Say no more.

And that concludes the May Contain Notts Awards of 2007. Thanks for watching, and may your New Years Eve be as much of a gargantuan piss-up as ours is. See you all next year, and to see us out…BRING ON THE DANCING GIRLS!

Happy New Year, and – as always – STAY NOTTS.

Evening Post Sinks To New Depths

I know they're worried about losing their regular revenue stream from taking small ads from local knocking shops. But do they really have to resort to advertising what appears to be a New Years Eve do for violent racists?

Right, that's it

Chuck us the Quality Street, top me up with more Malibu, and find summat decent on the telly. I'm done for a bit. Have yoursen a luvleh Xmas, and KEEP IT NOTTS.

This is what Nottingham's like

Someone offers train travel to London for £1.50. And some twat on the Post forum moans about not getting a free cup of tea.

This is how Biggie v Tupac got started, you know

Graffiti, Top Valley subway;
Graffiti, Top Valley subway, one week later;
I truly hope my Boggaz and Boggarettez in the Gheeto can somehow hold it down and increase the peace. And learn to fucking spell properly.

Oh, by the way, I hate Christmas.

I wrote this last year for LeftLion. The full version, featuring illustrations by the ridiculously gifted Rob White, can be found here. A surprising amount of it is out of date (particularly the moaning about the Square being out of bounds, so you couldn't snog a Sharon up against a lion or watch a pisshead attempt to climb the Xmas tree), so here's the abridged version...

1. YOUR SHIT OFFICE PARTY THAT ALREADY HAPPENED IN NOVEMBER
Ah, Christmas dos; the need to pretend that we’re well liked, the chance to ride the office bike. And there’s no finer indication of the status of your company than the office party. If you’re rolling about pissed out of your eyeballs in World Service or Harts the day before you break up, well done; your future is secured, and you’ll probably be doing the same thing next year. If you’ve spent your Xmas piss-up upstairs at the Peacock long before the first horrible lights went up, rest assured that your company is firmly up Arsehole Street, there’ll be no bog roll in the office lavs by January, and you’ll have to wipe your arse on your own king skins.

2. THAT BLOKE ACROSS THE ROAD WHO PUT THE ENORMOUS SANTA LIGHTS ON HIS HOUSE AS SOON AS GOOSE FAIR FINISHED

He’s not the only one on the estate doing through the same old depressing, turd-polishing motions, but Christ on a crisp packet! It’s so gargantuan that Rudolf’s head fills up his bedroom window, and he keeps it on all night. I dunno about you, but if I was his missus and all I could see at night was a massive neon reindeer head staring at me through the curtains, I’m not going to be massively up for a seeing-to.

3. SHOPPING CENTRES PUTTING UP DECORATIONS IN NOVEMBER

Bastards.

4. MEATHEADS AND SLAPPERS IN TOWN WEARING SANTA HATS

It makes that random, unprovoked kicking outside Re-Flex so much more jovial, doesn’t it? A shame the staff at A&E don’t wear the full gear, put you on their knee, and say “Ho ho ho! I know a little boy who wants a splint and some painkillers!”

5. THE ONE TIME OF THE YEAR WHERE YOU HAVE TO GO TO FUCKING ARGOS

It’s like signing on, but coming away with a Darth Vader helmet instead of a Giro.

6. THE COUNCIL HOUSE LOOKING LIKE IT WAS BOUGHT OFF QVC WHEN SOMEONE WAS REALLY PISSED, FOR A LAUGH

Ugh.

7. CLAIRE SWEENEY IN THE LOCAL PANTO EVERY BASTARD YEAR

She is, isn’t she? Has she got Poloroids of the management of the Theatre Royal going dogging or summat?

8. THE LAST FRIDAY IN TOWN BEFORE THE STUDENTS GO HOME

Carnage.

9. THE FRIDAY AFTER THAT WHEN EVERYONE ELSE KNOCKS OFF WORK

Even worse.

10. THOSE LITTLE ROBOTIC FUCKERS IN VICCY CENTRE

Don’t they get on your tits? I swear I’m gonna jump over the barrier and twat one of ‘em on the snot-box this year. Waving at me like he fucking knows meh.

11. THE INFLATABLE SNOWMAN ON THE PUB ROOF THAT HAS ALREADY DEFLATED

…so it looks like some youth has hrown the world’s biggest spent Johnny up there.

12. IN FACT, ANY PUB THAT DOES DECORATIONS APART FROM THE OLD GENERAL IN HYSON GREEN

For 11 months of the year, they have a dummy of an old bloke in military uniform in the upstairs window. In December, they chuck a Santa outfit over it. Simple. Subtle. Timeless.

13. CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS BOUGHT FROM POUND SHOPS

Hey, I’ll have nowt said against pound shops, but a bloke on our estate has got these Santa poster-things that say “HO HO HO” in his window. Problem is that from the outside, it reads “OH OH OH”, which makes it sound like he’s having phone sex.

14. CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS, FULL STOP.

I once had the only Xmas decco worth a toss; a massive cardboard box made to look like a prezzie, full of little polystyrene balls and a vacuum attachment. You put your tree in it, clipped a little pipe to the spine, and turned it on. Result – a never-ending cascade of ‘snow’. All the others aren’t worth the steam off my, yours or anyone else’s piss.

15. HAVING TO BUY CHRISTMAS CARDS WHEN PEOPLE WHO YOU DON’T GIVE A TOSS ABOUT SEND YOU ONE

Look, this is why e-mail was invented. Stop it. Now.

16. THE FACT THAT YOU’RE NOT ALLOWED TO BRING YOUR GAMES IN ON THE LAST DAY OF WORK

Not fair.

17. PEOPLE WHO ARE GOING ON HOLIDAY FOR CHRISTMAS BRAGGING ON ABOUT HOW THEY’RE GOING ON HOLIDAY FOR CHRISTMAS

Stop banging on about it, you sensible, rational, cleverer-than-me bastards.

18. CHATTY YOUTHS GOING CAROL SINGING NOT FIVE MINUTES AFTER HALLOWEEN

…and all they know is ‘We Wish You A Merry Christmas’. Come back when it is Christmas, you nob-ended teet-sucking vermin. Better still, die..

19. SOME TWAT OFF THE X FACTOR INEVITABLY BEING THE CHRISTMAS NO.1

The battle for the Christmas No.1 used to be mint. Now it’s decided by a glorified karaoke competition. Kill Louis Walsh.

20. SHITTY CHRISTMAS MUSIC EVERYWHERE

We’ll have a Rock ‘n Roll Christmas - Christmas Rock n’ Roll…Wish I was at home for KER-RISTMASSS…And so this is Christmas, and what have you done?...Simply. Having. A wonderful Christmas time...And the Christmas bells that ring there are the clanging chimes of doom…how the fuck do people in Morrisons put up with this shit without opening a vein?

21. GOING BACK HOME TO YOUR MAM’S TO DISCOVER YOUR OLD BEDROOM IS NOW THE FREEZER ROOM

Seriously, if you’d have been run over in the street when you were seven, they would have left everything untouched. Because you didn’t, the minute you leave they chuck away the bed you lost your virginity on and replace it with a chest freezer containing half a dead cow. And where’s me back copies of 2000ADs and every single Forest programme during both European Cup runs? In a canvas bag in the shed with the leaky roof? Skill!

22. YOUR MAM HAVING HER ANNUAL NERVOUS BREAKDOWN

Obviously, Mams are skill. But why are they the only ones who give a fuck about Christmas when everyone else can’t be arsed with it? Why do they feel the need to peg it down to Tescos at five in the morning to buy more food that’ll be chucked away?

23. TAXI DRIVERS TAKING THE PISS

Rip-off merchants at the best of times – utterly larcenous at Christmas. They might as well just take your wallet, shove their cocks through the fold, and have sex with it. Their rampant greed inevitably leads to…

24.TOWN BEING ABSOLUTELY DESERTED ON CHRISTMAS EVE

Once upon a time, this was the best night of the year for getting mashed in town. No hassle, everyone in a good mood, no trouble whatsoever. Nowadays, everyone’s been on a works do, a departmental do and a go-out-with-your-mates-who-are-back-in-town do, your drinks cabinet is groaning, and the last bus home is at 10pm. Consequently, you can walk from one end of town to the other on the 24^th and you’ll see 100 people and a mile-long queue of fucked-off cabbies.

25. A GREY CHRISTMAS

I miss proper snow. Even the Meadows looked nice in the snow.

26. SELECTION BOXES

A quid’s worth of chocolate if you go to the right all-night garage, bundled up with some game that no-one ever plays, that become available at the exact moment that you’ve already eaten so much chocolate that you could easily shit a Mars bar. Still, it’d be a shame to let it go to waste…

27. HAVING TO GO TO THE LOCAL PUB TO GET OUT OF YOUR MAM’S WAY

You wouldn’t be seen dead in the place on the other 364 days of the year, because you probably would be, but on this day it’s heaving. Particularly if there was a machete attack in a nearby pub the night before. So you sit there for a couple of hours trying to squeeze a conversation out of your miserable, face-like-a-smacked-arse Dad. The only bit of entertainment on offer? Counting the new and manky market jumpers at the bar. Oh, and…

28. SEEING PEOPLE FROM SCHOOL ONCE A YEAR AND HAVING TO LIE ABOUT HOW ACE YOUR LIFE IS

We’ve all done it, haven’t we?

29. YOUR DAD IN A PAPER HAT, PISSED OUT OF HIS SKULL, BANGING ON ABOUT JESUS WHILST DUMPING HALF A POT OF PEPPER ON HIS TURKEY

An annual ritual at our house during Christmas dinner, usually just after the end of the prawn cocktail and just before the first wine glass gets broken. As he eloquently puts it, “Everyone’s forgotten about the cunt”. The way he goes on, he makes it sound like the Son of God is on his own in a bungalow in Arnold, thinking to himself “Fucking hell, I’m 2,007 years old today…and what have I done with me life?”

30. HOLIDAY ADVERTS KICKING IN THE MINUTE YOU’VE HAD YOUR CHRISTMAS DINNER

Fuck. Off.

31. THE QUEEN’S SPEECH

If you’ve still got your grandparents, it’s a traditional part of the day. If you haven’t, it’s some right old trout banging on about arse all. What’s on next? Oh, for fuck’s sake…

32. THE BOND FILM

Ever since we realised that all British spies really do is lose laptops on trains and make up excuses for America to bomb Muslim kiddies, the magic has gone.

33. ALL CHRISTMAS TELLY, IN FACT

Jesus, I can remember the days when the entire country had a collective orgasm when the Xmas TV and Radio Times came out. Nowadays you either spend Christmas night round your mates (providing they live within walking distance, or you’ve taken out a loan to pay the cab fare), in the spare room with a laptop and a tray of sausage rolls, or on the settee in an alcoholic stupor with a tin of Sensations on your rapidly expanding gut.

34. THE REALISATION, JUST BEFORE YOU GO TO BED, THAT TWO MONTHS OF RELENTLESS MARKETING, HUNDREDS OF POUNDS YOU CAN’T AFFORD TO SPEND, AND MILLIONS OF MAN-HOURS SPENT RUNNING AROUND LIKE A BLUE-ARSED FLY HAVE RESULTED IN A) AN INTERRUPTED LIE-IN, B) A SESSION IN A RUBBISH PUB, C) SOME PANTS THAT DON’T FIT YOU, D) A GLORIFIED SUNDAY DINNER, E) A ROW WITH YOUR DAD OVER RELIGION, AND F) AN UTTERLY, UTTERLY, UTTERLY FUTILE EXPERIENCE

Just like last year. And next year.

35. BOXING DAY

Ooh, let’s go shopping again, seeing as been two whole fucking days since we’ve dragged our arses through Broado.

36. ABSOLUTELY FUCK ALL TO DO FOR A WEEK APART FROM MORE SHOPPING

And eating. And drinking.

37. THE BITTERSWEET MOMENT WHEN YOU ACTUALLY REALISE YOU’RE DESPERATE TO GO BACK TO WORK

Even if you happen to work at a maggot factory, or are a prostitute on Forest Road.

38. THE EXTRA STONE YOU PUT ON OVER CHRISTMAS

Nuff said.

39. NEW YEARS EVE BEING ONLY SIX DAYS AWAY FROM CHRISTMAS

Don’t get me wrong, New Years Eve is skill – in fact, it’s the all-denomination winter solstice piss-up that is everything Christmas should be. But why does it have to be so close to the rubbish one? Let’s move it to the middle of January, or replace Valentines Day with it, when we’ve all got a bit more cash and could do with a doss off work.

40. MAKING YOUR NEW YEARS RESOLUTIONS AND REALISING THAT THEY’RE THE SAME ONES AS LAST YEAR

This year, I vow to; stop going into Yates and beating people up, calm down on the ‘shagging women every night’ thing, be a bit less ostentatious about my expensive house and car, and being a compulsive liar.

41. NEW YEAR’S DAY

The dullest day of the year. Even Bono had a cob-on about it, and although I think he’s a hateful twat, I'm inclined to agree.

42. JANUARY

Five weeks before you get paid. Tax bills. Credit card bills. Everyone’s skint. No-one goes out. Rubbish.

43. MAD BASTARDS WHO LEAVE THEIR CHRISTMAS LIGHTS ON UNTIL FEBRUARY

Sitting on the top deck as the bus goes through Bestwood is like being in a Sinclair Spectrum flight simulator.

44. PEOPLE WHO DO NOTHING BUT MOAN ABOUT CHRISTMAS

Miserable twats, aren’t they? Happy birthday, Jesus!

There's a twat in me kitchen, what am I gonna do

I suppose I'd better review the latest episode of Kitchen Nightmares, seeing as it featured the Curry Lounge on Upper Parliament Street, even though I would rather watch my own Dad shit into a glass bucket. The things I do for you.

In case you're unaware, Kitchen Nightmares follows the usual Channel 4 framework of getting some toff to tell the plebs how to sort their lives out, along the lines of shows like Your Dog Needs To Be Neutered Almost As Much As You Do, Your House Stinks Of Unwashed Arse, and Look At Your Shit, You Feckless Indoor Whale, Go On, Look At It. It stars, as you're already aware, the hateful Gordon Ramsey, an Aryan who believes that, if you swear every other word, people won't notice that you're a toff doing a girl's job (ooh, hang on, my ears have started burning...).

Gordon points out that although Nottingham has shitloads of curry houses, people aren't going to the Curry Lounge - and he speculates that it might be because you can order whatever dish you like and they have tellies that play Bollywood films and they hang the nans up like aunties' knickers. No, mate - it's because it's situated on the most horrible street in Nottingham, better known as Shit Pub Alley. You don't go to Upper Parliament St for a curry. You go there to get shitfaced, put a glass into someone's face, and try to knock some slags off in Libertys. The only nan anyone's interested in that part of town is from Strelleh, and is wearing a leather mini-skirt.

After some low-level slagging off, more swearing and loads of shots of Gordon poncing about in the Square (presumably to show how ABSOLUTELY FUCKING ROCK he is to strut about right in the middle of ASSASSINATION CITY), Gordon turns it round, and when he returns the restaurant is full, which is nothing to do with the fact that the restaurant has been in the papers all summer, and he's come back with a camera crew. If Hairdressers' Monthly has taught us nothing else (and it hasn't), it's that you could fill Bulwell Lido with dog shit, and enough people would dive in and squdge about in it if there was a camera there.

Still, it was nice to see Channel 4 doing something about Nottingham without getting its knickers all sodden with bullshit about rat-faced youths shooting each other. I'll still be going to the top end of Friar Lane for a curry and Gordon Ramsey is still a cock, though.

Get Some Notts Round Your Pots

Details here.

It's Shit-Thick Petty Criminal Week in May Contain Notts!

I don't know about anyone else, but when I've got a girlfriend on and I go to her parents' house, I always make sure I'm looking presentable and minding my P's and Q's. And maybe even bring over some Ferraro Rocher from the garage, if I really fancy her. What I don't do is turn up off my mash on Magic Monkey Juice and Space Drugs, threaten to kill everyone inside if they call the 'Feds', and then fall down the stairs and out the door after a failed attempt to grab her Mam's handbag. Particularly when it turns out that I've got the wrong house entirely.

Thanks to that particular incident and other assorted episodes of random cuntishness, that lad up there now has four years in the Naughty House, by which time he might be able to grow a proper moustache. And if the aforementioned 'Kelly' is reading this, and that contemptible bit of scrag really was the only bloke on offer, I advise her to run to the Foresters as quickly as she could say 'Fair go, Bea, you're Top Dog in Wentworth now'.

Brian Cursed

This story is ace. I can't shake the image of a bedroom in Sneinton, containing a woman smoking a fag in a post-coital haze, pausing every now and then to put her arms around two Brian Blessed cut-outs, going "HA HA HA HAAAAAAA!" and shaking them until their attached strap-ons wobble like sunflowers in a breeze.

Another War Demo In Town

Members of the Sherwood Foresters (except they aren't anymore - they were merged into another regiment a while back) marched through town yesterday after their stint in Afghanistan. Now, we could all argue the toss about what constitutes heroism in this day and age, but I think we can all agree that running them through town on a Tuesday afternoon while most people are at work or school, being watched by less than half the people who turned out for a local DJ's funeral, says more about the success rate of the last six years military occupations than a million newspaper articles ever could. I'm not exactly the most pro-war person in Nottingham, but I think they probably deserved better, don't you?

When Re-enacting Scenes From 'Scum' For A Bit Of A Laugh Goes Wrong

Obviously, when you're trying to write a blog about Nottingham, it would be very easy to just sit down and record every violent incident that was reported in the Evening Post. I don't like doing that - for one, it gives off a totally false impression of a city that has taken an absolute pasting from the media. But mainly because I'd have been chained to this laptop 24 hours a day, sitting on an Kilimanjaro of my own excrement, with my fingers worn to bloody stubs. So I try to stay away from it whenever possible.

And then a story like this comes along, and you don't know what to think. So let's begin at the beginning...

A Man was left bleeding and unconscious after a "play fight" with pool balls in socks.

(random bell-end) had taken the makeshift weapons into the city centre "for protection" on a night out with his cousin, Nottingham Crown Court heard.

OK, three things are automatically springing to mind here;

1. I dunno about you, but when the words 'play fight' spring to mind, I think of me picking up my nephew and chucking him on the sofa like the Undertaker, or me and a mate punching each other on the shoulder when we've got leather jackets on, like John Travolta and Kenickie in Grease. There doesn't seem to be anything fun about swinging about a pool ball in a sock and whacking your mate on the head with it, like you were Ray Winstone and he were Phil Daniels.

2. If you need to take a weapon into town 'for protection', maybe God is telling you that you shouldn't really be going into town that night.

3. This might be just me, but who the fuck apart from cast members of The Beverley Hillbillies goes out on the batter with their cousin? I've got loads of cousins, and I only ever see them at funerals. It's not that I dislike 'em or owt; I just have mates.

But after drinking a large amount of alcohol on August 17, the pair began hitting each other with them in Long Row, in the city centre.

OK, bear with me a minute, because I'm having trouble with this one; how badly kaylide do you have to get before you start thinking that stoving your cousin's head in with a mace constructed by something whipped off a pool table and half of summat you bought from Primark is a really good way to inject a bit of fun into your night out?

"Ah man, this is shit and there's no fanneh abaht - shall weh goo to Social?"

"No mate - full o' foo-kin' students"

"Shall weh gerra kebab?"

"Norrungreh"

"Shall weh goo on the bandits?"

"Foo-kin skint, youth"

"Shall weh, I dunno...clonk each other in the foo-kin 'ead with them pool balls in socks we brung aht?"

"Foo-kinYEAH! I forrgorrabaht them. MINT! You go fost! Tee hee!"

Gareth Gimson, prosecuting, said: "Officers on patrol were told by a member of the public about some sort of disturbance.

"Police saw two men and were concerned that one of them had some sort of head injury.

"One pool ball was handed to an officer at the scene. A sock was on the floor next to a pool of blood. Another sock containing a pool ball was also found near to the pool of blood."

Next time you're in the pub and you're having a moan about 'Babylon', recall this story and remember; this is what the police have to do every fucking day. If your Mam's been burgled again, and it's taken the coppers ages to come round, don't blame New Labour or the council or the New World Order; it's because they've had to wipe the arses of a couple of mongs from the more mediaeval parts of Nottinghamshire who were working out which one of them was the Daddy-Uncle-Brother.

In mitigation, the court was told the cousins were having a "play fight" which went wrong.

No shit.

The defendant had an alcohol problem

Even less shit than the no shit that went before.

...but was working to cut down his drinking, the court was told. He told police he was carrying the ball and sock because he was having trouble with some drug dealers.

Now then, I don't know that much about drug dealers in Nottingham, but I'm guessing that they may just have access to weapons that could easily counteract someone who had to fumble about in his jacket pocket for five minutes, and then check that he was holding the right end of a sock so the pool ball wouldn't fall out, and then whirl it about for a bit. It seems to be about as useful a pissed-off dealer-deterrent as a bit of fire on a stick, or a Spongebob balloon on some string.

Mr Gimson said: "He told police he would have used them if trouble had come his way. He said it had been an accident that (his cousin) had suffered the injury." He said the prosecution accepted it was nothing more sinister.

So there you have it: going into town and pitching yoursen in the lottery of being in the same pub on a Saturday night as a couple of cast members from Deliverance who've decided to take out pool balls in a sock - Officially Not Sinister.

My my, to Waterlooville Notts County did surrender

Oh dear.

October and November: The Main Points again

1 October

Secret files released by the National Archives on Rudolf Hess include a letter from a Nottingham bloke offering good wishes to Hitler’s right-hand man, along with a photo of his kids holding up a model Zeppelin. ‘It's like getting the autograph of an Australian cricketer - you may not like things to do with his personal life and you have to strike a balance in getting their signature’ he said to the Post, whilst popping a photo of his granddaughters throwing an Airfix plane at a Jenga stack in the post for Osama bin Laden.

2 October

Broadway holds a gala night for Control, to celebrate local actors copping a break and the fact that someone from a production company drove into Lenton, looked through a square made from their thumbs and index fingers, and said ‘Hmmm…yes…this looks exactly like the sort of depressing shithole where a miserable Indie twat with a Nazi fixation would want to top himself’.

3 October

The long-predicted global recession begins to bite. House repossessions in America reach an all-time high. The Dollar hit record lows against the Euro. UK house prices slow down. A pot of mushy peas at Goose Fair’s dedicated pea stall is jacked up to one pound twenty.

4 October

The residents of Wollaton pull back their lace curtains at 2am to be greeted with the sight of something out of The Sweeney, discovering a bleddy big burning Mercedes containing a stabbing victim. Turns out that said victim had previous for using a golf course in Leicester as a front for a massive drugs operation and had buried vast quantities of pills and powders under the fairways and greens. Warning to anyone pulling on diamond jumpers and dragging their irons out the loft; he also guarded said stashes with explosive trip wires.

5 October

Nottingham City Transport announces the axing of their regular Night Bus service, weeing in the face of everyone who works in this so-called 24-hour city who quite liked getting home from their shift without having their wallets raped by a cabbie. Sigh.

12 October

The head chocolate-maker at Thorntons resigns after getting caught squishing the truffles at Hotel Chocolat. Amazingly, it’s the top story on Central News East, outranking the small matter of a shooting in St Anns. Imagine you’re that poor sod who got shot; laid up in the QMC, with your only consolation being the fact you’re going to be the most important person in Notts at 6pm, only to see them banging on about some gimp mashing up some expensive tuffehs. And they wonder why no-one gives a toss about the forthcoming axing of Central News East.

15 October

Those two pissy-knickered house-shitbags on Channel 4 find a new way to raise Nottingham to fourth in the latest edition of The Worst Places To Live If You’re The Kind Of Middle-Class House Price-Obsessed Wankstain Who Watches Shitty Programmes Like This On Channel Four Because You’re Scared To Go Out, by annexing Rushcliffe. Next year they’ll grant independence to The Park and Hockley in an attempt to get us to the top. That bald cock and his hateful pinch-faced bint of an assistant claim that Mansfield is a better place to live by seven whole places, which is all you need to know, really.

16 October

Notts County finally sack the former (and soon to be) building site worker Steve Thompson after sinking to the bottom of Division Four. They install Ian McParland as the new boss and go on a decent run.

19 October

The Variety, the club in Radford, which for over 40 years was the only place in Nottingham where you could play bingo with strippers from Matlock, finally closes down for good. Another part of Nottingham’s soul disappears forever, and if you didn’t go, you’ll never know.

24 October

A Cinderhill factory worker gets shamed, due to spending £500 on having a two-foot tattoo of Dumbledore on his back, only for said imaginary wizard who doesn’t exist to be outed by JK Rowling. ‘It’s been terrible’, he says to The Sun. ‘I’ve always liked Dumbledore, but not in that way’. Jesus in a jumpsuit, it's come to summat when a man can use a national newspaper to point out that he doesn't want to have bum-sex with a wizard in a kid's book.

29 October

Wet Wet Wet (ask yer mam) play a one-off gig at the Hard Rock Café. Two weeks later, the Hard Rock Café goes out of business.

4 November

Forest’s projected move to a big new toilet in Clifton is nixed by the City Council, who want a location nearer the city centre. I know just the place; right next to Trent Bridge. Just behind the Southbank Bar.

5 November

Truants at Arnold Hill School bash their faces against the nearest available wall when it turns out that a stripper puts in a guest appearance at a drama class for some lad’s birthday. The school thought about calling in the police, but were worried that they’d only pull the dinner ladies over the counter, grind their crotches into their faces to Hot Stuff by Donna Summer, and make the headmistress suck whipped cream off their truncheons.

7 November

Twiggy and Jo win an award for Best European Breakfast Show. Christ on a crisp packet, who were they up against? A monkey banging on a saucepan in Oslo, and someone drilling holes into farm animals in Bucharest?

9 November

A local youth is up in court for reacting to his mate getting stabbed to death in a city centre venue by robbing the till of £324 (and yes, you’ll note he even took some pound coins). Obviously, he needed all those notes to staunch the wounds, a clearly-marked first aid kit evidently not being available.

13 November

Whoever is employed by the Post to sit on YouTube all day typing ‘Nottingham’, ‘Guns’ and ‘Oh My God, They’re All Going To Murder Us In Our Beds’ finally hits paydirt when they uncover a video of some lads called the Millz Taliban waving guns about and smoking weed. Note to local gang members: don’t name yourself after a religious group that outlaws everything you like doing.

17 November

The latest local crackdown on beggars in town turns up a man whose was identified as dead and cremated by his own mam in Manchester a month previously. Hopefully, the coppers have also got that bastard who pretends to be a Big Issue seller and tries to flog LeftLion for a quid, claiming that we’ve been bought out by them.

19 November

A 26 year-old scamp from Bulwell is hit with an ASBO that bans him from every pub in Greater Nottingham bar five, for such japes as waving an air pistol in one pub and puncturing someone’s lung with a fork in another. Every pub in Notts minus five equals a shitload of pubs, making it the biggest bar-out in history and worthy of a place in the Guinness Book of Records.

LeftLion #20 - Out NOW! NOW NOW NOW!

FREE Notts Xmas decorations
The A-Z of Nottingham Hip-Hop
Cappo
Neville Staple of The Specials
The return of Miles Hunt
Shopping in Notts
Dominic Minghella
Loay Hady

Plus May Contain Notts, A Canadian In New Basford, two months of Nottingham listings and all the usual features. Available in all the pubs and bars in the city centre worth a toss tonight, and all the other shoppy places from Monday.

Nottingham Education #2: The Accent

(I wrote this for some student mag last month. Seeing as I didn't get paid for it, and because there are so many twatty youths in the city who are currently spurning their native tongue in favour of trying to talk like somebody from Brixton after a brain haemorrage, I see no reason not to print it here...)

The Nottingham accent is weird. For one, only half the people in the city actually talk like that, as people who live south of the Trent sound like they come from the Home Counties. For two, it’s the most difficult British accent to get right (which is why they never bother with it in any production of Robin Hood, especially the current one. And we won’t even talk about Kevin Costner’s attempt in Prince Of Thieves, which got him laughed out of the UK premiere).

If you want to learn Notts As She Is Spoken (and you should, because it opens a lot of doors, mainly the ones in clubs and late-night bars), you need to learn the following ground rules;

1. WE’RE NOT NORTH. WE’RE NOT SOUTH. WE’RE NOT EVEN MIDLANDS. WE’RE EAST MIDLANDS

Attempting a standard Northern accent is not going to cut it – the Notts dialect is far too subtle for that. And although we’re in the Midlands, our accent bears no relation whatsoever to the Birmingham one. Moral of the story – attempt to wing it, and you’ll come a cropper.

2. DON’T BOTHER LISTENING TO LOCAL MEDIA FOR GUIDANCE

Trying to find a local accent on the radio or telly is as pointless as looking for a pound shop in Knightsbridge.

3. WE MIX BOTH NORTHERN AND SOUTHERN ACCENTS IN THE SAME SENTENCES

In other words, we combine harsh Northern vowel sounds with drawn-out Southern ones, and then snip off a few vowels or add new ones for good measure. It’ll take a lifetime to master it, but here are a few examples;

Northern	Notts	Southern
Up (‘Oop’)	Shirt (‘Shot’)	Down (‘Daahn’)
Bath (‘Baff’)	Work (‘Wok’)	Out (‘Aht’)
Just (‘Joost’)	Home (‘Om)	Sound (‘Saahnd’)
Must (‘Moost’)	Take (‘Tek’)	Town (’Taahn’)

Ergo, a sentence such as “I was about to have a bath before going to town, but realised my shirt was dirty, so I went out to buy a new one” is pronounced “I wor joost abaaht ter tek a baff after wok before gooin’ dahn tahn, but it wor dotteh, so I went aht ter gerra new’un. It’s saahnd as a paahnd!”

4. REPLACE WORDS THAT END IN ‘Y’ AND ‘IE’ WITH ‘EH’

If you learn nothing else, this is the rule to live by. You don’t go to Rock City to take in a gig; you go to Rock Citeh to see . Your best mate is not called Julie; she’s called Juleh. You’re not studying at a place of Higher Learning; you’re at Uneh. Quite possibly doing a Joint Honours in Istreh and Sociologeh. Maybe living in Strelleh. Doing a part-time job in Ockleh to mek some extra munneh so you can afford a season ticket at Notts Caanteh. The Nottingham version of ‘The Rain In Spain Lies Mainly On The Plain’ is ‘Toneh Adleh Aht O’ Spandaah Balleh’. Repeat it, in the mirror, at least five times before going out in the morning.

5. A BRIEF TERMINOLOGEH

A full list of words peculiar to Nottinghamshire would take up pages and pages and pages, so here are the most essential;

1. ‘DUCK’
   (‘Dook’) - Term of endearment, regardless of gender or sexuality. In other words, don’t be offended if you’re a strapping Sports student and the bus driver calls you ‘duck’. ‘Duckeh’ can also be used, but only with people you’re particularly close to. Eg: ‘Ayup, me duck’
2. ‘YOUTH’
   (‘Yooerth’) – A (mainly male) term of endearment, regardless of age. In other words, if the same bus driver calls you ‘youth’, he’s not casting aspersions on your perceived lack of life experience; he’ll probably call the bloke behind you whose just collected his pension the same thing. Eg: ‘That Yooerth over there wants to flog his iPod’
3. ‘SUCKY’
   (‘Sookeh’) – Nothing to do with Bevis or Butthead: it’s a disparaging term that calls someone’s intelligence into question. Known in the South as a ‘Plum’, and the North as a ‘Soft Lad’, said person is a bit thick, but in a fairly benign way (if he was outright insane, he’d be Batcheh’). Eg: ‘That Yooerth ovver there only wants a tenner for his iPod – he must be right Suckeh’
4. ‘COB’
   The local equivalent of a bap, roll, baguette, etc.
5. ‘CHELP’
   One of the few terms used by DH Lawrence still in existence today. It’s a catch-all term for back-chat, insubordination, etc. Eg: ‘Andeh gen the landlord some right chelp abaaht fixin’ the cooker, so he’s kickin’ us aht’
6. ‘SNAP’
   Food of any description, which is best consumed when you’re Clammin’ (i.e., hungry). If you’ve got some cobs in a Tupperware box, congratulations – you’re in possession of a Snap Tin.
7. ‘CHATTY’
   (‘Chatteh’) – Not a description of your ability to talk at length: more a critique of your personal hygiene. It also means you’re extremely Crufteh. Eg – ‘I’ve got to clean up me ‘aase before me Mam visits – she’ll goo Batcheh when she sees how Chatteh it is’
8. ‘DEZZIE’
   (‘Dezzeh’) – nothing to do with South Indian culture: it’s a description originated in Notts in the 1980s, after Des O’Connor, which casts aspersions on one’s sense of style and fashion. Eg – ‘Ugh! Aah lecturer was in Rock Citeh wearing a tank top over a Spice Girls t-shirt! He looked WELL Dezzeh!”
9. ‘ONE-O’
   A phrase of indeterminate origin that describes maximum effort and (in some cases) excess. If you bust a gut running for the last bus, overindulge at the SU bar, partake in a 48-hour revision binge, or pursuing a member of the opposite sex, you’re on it like One-O. Eg – ‘This youth in aah year is a right Keeno – he’s been sucking up to lecturers like One-O’
10. ‘CHIPPING’
    To go somewhere. You may be chipping off to Rock Citeh, or chipping back ‘om ter yer Mams for Christmas. Eg – ‘This club is well Dezzeh and I’m clammin’ for some snap. I’m gonna chip, yer get meh?’