Please wash out all crims before recycling

Lots of talk about vermin with shotguns in town at the moment, so here's a light-hearted story about petty crime. It appears that Bulwell is piloting a new eco-friendly scheme; recycling bell-ends. Obviously, there'll be the usual moaning (another bin to look after, getting the collection dates mixed up, the stench of two-week-old crackhead attracting flies in summer, etc), but it's worth a try. And well done to the Post for exposing a new and sinister development in criminal methodology;

In mitigation, William Bennett said Baguley had been affected by his past.

He said his mother was an alcoholic and he had become involved in a gang who used him to smash windows during burglaries.

I dunno about you, but this is a bit scary. I don't know how I would react if I heard a noise at 3am, pulled back the curtains, and discovered a gang of youths using one of their own as a battering ram, or loading him into a massive catapult made of discarded shopping trolleys.

One goes into town for the fanny

It only seemed like yesterday when Parliament and the military were arguing the toss over whether Harry Bastard should go to Iraq or not, so congratulations to the Royal Family for learning their lesson and keeping Prince William's even more dangerous plans to go out on the mash in VIOLENT, NO-GO DEATH CITY NOTTINGHAM a state secret. According to the Post (who are absolutely pissing their knickers with glee over the story), he spent an evening at the Pitcher and Piano before going on to Oceana (and then presumably going across the road to Food Factreh for battered swan, chips and caviar). Gawd Bless 'im, he's just like one of us, etc (Apart from having six security guards around him. And his Dad owning Cornwall. And being able to masturbate into a handful of £50 notes if he hasn't pulled that night. Even though his Nana's face is on them, so he probably wouldn't. Make that €500 notes, then. Etc).

Despite all the cooing and arse-licking, however, I remain unimpressed. When the Post's website said 'Which Nottingham bar was Prince William drinking in?' I guarantee that everyone in Notts with a brain automatically said 'The Pitcher and Piano. Because it's big, and predictable, and up its own arse, and full of twats, and shit. And I bet they went to Oceana afterwards, because that's where all the divvy out-of-towners with no imagination go" .

And anyway, if I was him, and I had six hand-picked security guards with guns and everything who've probably been instructed to take a bullet for me, I'm not gonna fuck about in Twat Church - I'm going in Yates, or Libertehs, and I'm kicking the fuck off. "OI! Your missus looks a decent bit o' fanneh - what's she knockin' abahht wi' a CUNT LIKE YO' FOR? YEAH! I SAID IT, YOUTH! And yeah, I AM wearing a Derbeh shot under these robes, ACTULEH - yo' wanna MEK SUMMAT ON IT?"

Royalty, alas, is wasted on the Royals. Still, here's hoping it starts a trend, and we see Harry Bastard going in the Thurland soon, in his Nazi uniform.

*DMFH* *DMPH*, That's The Sound Of The Police

Another chapter in the storied history of the Nottingham music scene was written by the Post today, who were rather excited to discover the bassist of Hepburn working as a Detective Constable in Notts, which makes a refreshing change from dragging your guitar to The Running Horse or whatever ex-band members in Nottingham do, I suppose.

Naturally, it's only a matter of time before someone from ITV commissions a crime series involving her, the little one from B*Witched, Lolly, and all of Vanilla taking down criminals in Mansfield with GIRL POWER (with Cheryl Baker as the firm-but-fair gaffer, and maybe Billie Piper could come in for the pilot show).

(PS: according to an acquaintance in the biz, his appreciation for Hepburn dimmed somewhat when he attended their launch party in a posh London hotel, pulled back a curtain he shouldn't have while they were onstage, and discovered an all-male band playing the instruments)

He's not too old to get some smack off his Dad

Man, isn't it horrible when you get shamed up by your Dad? Like when he insists on wearing that manky jumper he got at Christmas 1997 and those trackie bottoms whenever you bring your girlfriend over. Or when you see him Elvis-dancing to Abba Gold at a cousin's wedding. Or when he's on the front of the News Of The World selling crack and heroin to prostitutes in 'No-Go Nottingham crime zone' (fucking hell, is there anywhere in Nottingham that's actually 'Go' anymore?) Radford, after being stung by the Fake Sheik himself (who presumably wasn't posing as a petrodollar millionaire for this particular job).

That, my friends, is the quandary being forced upon 'Millionaire soccer ace' Jermaine Pennant this morning, as he riffles through the country's leading Sunday shit-rag and reads about his old man being an EVIL MUSCLE-BOUND BOSS OF A SEEDY CRACK DEN (as opposed to a nice, well-kept crack den, presumably), as well as getting information on what prostitutes in Radford are charging at the moment. And I bet his first reaction, like all of us, would be to scream; "Ah DAAAAAAAAAAAAAD! PUT SOME FUCKING TROUSERS ON, FOR FUCK'S SAKE! YER ALLUS SHOWING US UP!" before stomping back to the bedroom to listen to Bullet For My Valentine at top volume.

"AY! Are yo' havin' a goz at me FOO-KIN' TITS, youth?"

Now I've got me Sexperty head on again, I'm absolutely delighted to find a news item that can fit into both blogs, as it features big tits and Mansfield. Next time I hear a mate in the pub trotting out the standard rammell opinion that if he had a massive set of jubblies, he'd wouldn't stop playing with them, I'll stop him mid-sentence, direct him to this news story, and say; "No, mate, you wouldn't. You'd be sat at home getting your tits out on East Midlands Today."

Yes, despite the small matter of three Notts schools being announced as some of the worst in the entire country, the BBC decided that the top news story of the day was a pair of massive Mansfeldian mams. Which must have been great news for anyone having their tea. Personally, that pic above is giving me some serious Clockwork Orange flashbacks. To use the vernacular, that lad had got some right fucking tit on him.

If you ask me, I think the bloke has every right to be fucked off about not getting a breast reduction off the NHS, his life must be hellish. There was one lad at our school who had the same ailment, and every time we were getting changed for Games, he'd be surrounded by sex-crazed youths trying to cop a feel. "Ah man...let me suck them tits, Guy...give us a soapeh tit-wank..."

Of course, my fear is that it might be some kind of virus, and by the summer Nottingham will be plagued by gangs of brick shithouses from Mansfield in bra tops and rabbit ears pushing men into corners at Jumpin' Jaks and bellowing "YOH WANNA SHOT ON ME FOO-KIN' TITTEHS, YOUTH? GET YOH FOO-KIN MAATH RAAND THESE COONTS, OR AH'LL FOO-KIN' PAN YOH!"

(and yes; I'm wondering what those market boxer shorts are saying too. 'Calvin Clark'? 'Calvin Clap'? 'Calvin Claat?')

Bulwell wobbles, but it don't fall down

I've had so many people flagging the following news story up to me and wanting me to comment on it, that I've been feeling like Dennis bleddy McCarthy. I suppose you'll be hassling me into doing Wanted Column On The Air next, or that quiz with the fucking typewriter music in the background. Actually, I've been clamming to write about it ever since I saw it, so here goes; Bulwell has taken the accolade of having the highest percentage of people in Notts who buy sportswear, and the highest percentage of people who do fuck all sporting-related activity, what with them being too busy cramming half of Iceland into their cakey maws.

Personally, I'm a bit shocked by this. How could an area that closes down its swimming pool and opens up a drive-through KFC across the road possibly fall into such a state? How could this happen in a place where the Greggs has the kind of queues that you used to see on the news whenever there was a bread shortage in Communist Poland? How could a part of town where the only sporting facility the locals ever use is the short-cut across the 'Golfeh' to get to Tesco and the nearest bingo hall (pausing to flick V-signs and scream abuse at anybody about to take a shot, naturally) sink so low? (he wrote, as he bit into the crisp sandwich on the side of his laptop and eyed the remains of the Quality Street tin)

Personally, however, I'm not here to talk about the collective lardiness of the people of that gentle town with its babbling brook (who will be hereafter referred as Bulweebles) - do I look like fucking Trisha or summat? The thing that interests me here is the sportswear aspect. I've been to Bulwell far too many times in my precious, precious life, and it's true; they're all absolutely batcheh for manky sportswear in that place. I'm surprised that NCT didn't add a third rail to the bit of tram network that runs through Bulwell, so it would look like there was a huge adidas stripe across the place on Google Earth.

This might be a little hard for our younger readers to take in, but once upon a time, sportswear was an absolute status symbol. I remember growing up in Top Valley in the 1970s, and being in awe of the Abbs brothers, for the simple fact that two of them wore white Admiral Man United away trackie tops. OK, so maybe they wore them all the time, and by 1978 they absolutely funked, but the fact remained; you could not buy this shit in a shop. God knows how they got hold of them. While our Mams were fobbing us off with Littlewoods long-sleeved t-shirts and claiming they were Forest tops, those two lads were undisputed kings of the street, because they were wearing the exact same thing as Joe Jordan and Gordon McQueen.

(and bear in mind that there was precisely one sports shop in town, the almighty Redmayne & Todd, which was the best shop in Nottingham ever ever EVER and had an absolutely gargantuan Subbuteo section).

I even supported Man United in the 1976 FA Cup final and cried when they lost, just because I wanted a trackie top just like that. Me mam should have disowned me.

By late 1977, I finally got hold of a Forest trackie top, with the logo and everything, and it was my turn to dominate. Nobody - and I mean, nobody - had one, and kids at junior school would beg me to let them wear it for a bit. In fact, my first contact with puberty happened because of that top; I lent it to one lad who was in goal, and when he gave it me back, it absolutely reeked of sweat (I got him back later, when he split his trousers reaching down for a ball and I silently pointed out the massive skid mark in his kecks to everyone else).

By the 80s, Casual Culture (or 'Shadies', as they were known in Notts) kicked the door right in. A gang at our school started calling themselves the Hi-Tec Crew (tsk...rubbish trainers), and people were going to obscene lengths to get hold of a £75 Tacchini trackie top or Pringle jumper (with the resultant effect being that half the kids at school either looked like Games teachers or middle-managers on a golfing weekend). From there, it was a very short jump to Bulwell creating enough static electricity to power five hospitals whenever some indoor whale in a chatty Reebok tracksuit brushes against another gutbucket in a Lonsdale top in another sport shop that doesn't sell anything you could actually play a sport with. Sigh.

The Clough Statues

...are now whittled down to a shortlist of three, and can be seen at the Council House this week. It has to be said that none of the proposed statues look much like Cloughie at the present time, and are a bit underwhelming. When you're up against something as skill as this, you have to come stronger, I'm afraid. Anyway...

Les Johnson: I like the pose, but it's totally unsuitable for a statue that will be on the streets of Nottingham. As anyone who has ever walked past the statue of Robin Hood by the Castle will know, it is almost obligatory for anyone having their photo taken with it to cup Robbo's bollocks and laugh, as if they're the first person to ever think of doing such a thing. That pose there is leaving the great man's cobbers completely unprotected. And if I ever saw some sucky bint on a hen do handling my idol's junk on King Street, I would not be responsible for my actions.

Keith Maddison: This is the most Clough-like pose, even though it's inevitable that some pisshead in the Square will assume that some metal bloke is 'fronting up' to him and will charge over to have a go. However, I'm not enamoured of the face, the Umbro logo on the sweatshirt, or the rolled-up trackie-bottoms making it look as if Cloughie is wearing the kind of boots sported by Monkey whenever he was giving some demons a kicking or trying to convince Pigsy that the woman he was trying to get his trotter over was actually a Slug-Monster.

John McKenna: Despite the more obvious Forestisms in this one, it's my least favourite. Some Notts meathead is bound to piss up against the logo and start a civil war, and it looks like Cloughie has commemorated his retirement by wrenching the Forest badge off the side of the Trent End and is pegging it for a bus.

In their defence, however, the accompanying busts look a lot more lifelike facially than the statues. Both the statue fund and the Council are soliciting opinions, so get involved.

Village Idiots

There's been some unbelievable acts of poncery committed in Nottingham over the past decade, but this takes the biscuit, if not the whole packet: Sneinton - the part of town accurately described by someone in the MCN forum as 'sounding like it's come out of someone's nose, and looks like it too' - now wants to be known as 'Sneinton Village'. Yes, there are some nice bits in Sneinton, but let's consider the facts;

This is a village.
This is Sneinton.
This is a village.
This is Sneinton.
This is a village.
This is Sneinton.
Are we all clear on that? Good.

Apparently, this incredible act of ignorance in the face of truth has come from the local cricket club, for reasons that I can't understand, even after reading the Post article 27 times. "As far as we know there is no legal criteria [for becoming a village] - if we can do some of the things we have got planned, we could re-brand ourselves Sneinton Village." Said the chairperson of said cricket club, as she applied another layer of Brasso to a massive, stinking turd in the road. However, it looks like the idea of a 'village green' is a long way off;

A game was due to be held in October. Teams from a pub, local restaurant and the police were set to take part - but it was called off after health and safety problems with the proposed site, an area of land owned by Castle College.

Trans: 'Someone left a knackered fridge at silly mid-off, and a dead prostitute's needle-pocked arm was found sticking out of the crease'

Of course, there's a precedent to this; the lamentable attempt to rebrand Hockley as 'Hockley Village' (a term which is only used by juff-headed bell-ends who work for estate agents and drive around town in those stupidly-painted Mini Coopers). So why stop there? Let's have Viccy Flats Village an'all. Let's see some signposts for The Magical Fairy Kingdom of Radford, while we're at it. Fuck it, let's start to call Nottingham 'Monaco', or 'St Tropez', and have done with it.

"Er, just rub her tits, Jason. And play with her fanneh a bit"

Dunno if you're aware, but when I'm not representing for the NG and putting in work for the set at LeftLion, I make some sort of a living writing about sex and relationships for mags like Scarlet and Cosmo as a sexpert (which means I have sex, then I spert, tee hee).

Therefore, it gives me a not inconsiderable tingle in me loins to announce the launch of Todger Talk, a new sex blog that is put together by myself and a couple of other very eminent people. One of them is Sam Van Rood, who is GMTV's Love Doctor. This means that if Eamonn Holmes, for example, ever got worried about erectile dysfunction, or Lorraine Kelly wanted to have a go at Pony Play but was unsure about what kind of bridle to get, Sam would be the one they'd be having a discreet word with in the pub. Probably. My other compadre Dr Ayan featured in the BBC series Street Doctors, and was once filmed talking to blokes about their prostates in Viccy Centre. Which makes him absolutely ROCK in my eyes.

My first post is here, and is not advisable reading for anyone who is having their tea. Particularly if you're having a dollop of Heinz Tomato Ketchup on their fish fingers.

(PS: Fret not, my local bread-bins: the post level in MCN is not going to suffer because of it. Promise)

Nottingham Education #3: Place Names

Thinking of moving to Nottingham? Good. Not sure about where to live? Even better, because I'm about to hip you to one of the great paradoxes of this lovely town.

You see, in most other cities in the UK, you can tell what an area of town is going to be like just by its name. For example, you could have never heard of London in your entire life, look at a map, and go "Hackney? That sounds like a right dump. Peckham? Ugh. Dulwich Village? Ooh, that sounds nice", and you'd be bang on the money.

Try that in Nottingham, on the other hand, and you'd be shagged. For some reason, either by fate or design, there's a strange maxim to the naming of areas, and it goes something this; the nicer an area is, the more horrible its name is, and vice versa. Don't believe me? Let's have a look at the top end of the market;

AREA		SOUNDS LIKE		ACTUALLY IS
The Park		…you’re sleeping on a bench, under some newspaper		The dead, dead, dead, dead, dead nice bit of town
West Bridgford		A service station, with a Wimpy and a bust House Of The Dead cabinet		The posh but quiet bit on the other side of the Trent
Wollaton		Grim Dickensian village, littered with sheep carcasses		Well nice and very green part of town
Mapperley Park		A mental institution (which it was perennially associated with until Rampton came along)		Full of massive houses as big as God’s head
Lady Bay		Something dead rude (“I drove my cock-lorry right into her Lady Bay”)		West Bridgford’s little sister

With me so far? Let's now move down the other end of the scale...

AREA		SOUNDS LIKE		ACTUALLY IS
Rise Park		The kind of safari park people honeymoon at		Top Valley with a nicer tracksuit
Forest Fields		Lush green eco-haven		Where the students live
Arnold		A cuddly jumper-wearing uncle		A big post office, and little else
Top Valley		Luxury ski resort where Fergie goes		Massive Tesco, horrible pubs
Bulwell		Picturesque village in Jane Austen book		Place where Steve Austin would get started on
Hyson Green		Cricketers on the square, old maids cycling to church, etc		Youths in hoodies cycling on the pavement
Bestwood		The magical place of refuge that the rabbits in Watership Down were trying to get to		Known to media as ‘No-Go-Area Bestwood’ (even though there's a bus service, and everything)
The Meadows		Flowery glade where Bambi and his chums skippety-skip all day		Where Doom would have been set if there were PCs in the 70s
St Anns		Girls school in Enid Blyton novel		Definitely not a Girls school in Enid Blyton novel

This is precisely the reason why people around the country get confused about gun crime in Nottingham; when they read about St Anns v The Meadows, they must think it's some kind of varsity hockey match. I tell you one thing; when the council announce the building of a new estate called Knifington or Anal Dog Pustules, I'm putting me name down for a house immediately.

And off we go again

I had the full intention of starting the New Year in an optimistic kind of mood. And then I read this story in the Post. And it reminded me of how I spent New Year's Eve bouncing on the door of the Orange Tree for the LeftLion do. And then I remembered that instead of shutting the doors at 1oish and going off and enjoying myself, I had to stay on the doors, because their beer garden has to shut down early so as not to offend the residents (evidently, 50 people on the pavement outside fagging away and gassing on doesn't make any noise at all), which rather fucked up my New Years.

So I will say this once again: If you have decided to live in a Ponce-Box in the Lace Market and are complaining about the noise at night, you are a twat. You're no less of a twat than someone who moves to Rockall and then moans about there not being a Spar nearby, or someone in the BNP who relocates to Soweto and then complains about 'Blackies' bringing down the house prices - and that, as I'm sure is even aware to someone as fuckwitted as you, is extremely twatty indeed.

Listen up, bell-ends; why the fuck should I and the thousands of other sane people in Notts forego our birthright of getting kaylide, shouting at people of the opposite sex in the street, and generally attempting to forget that we've got shit jobs to go to in the morning just because YOU were fuckwitted enough to buy a shoebox in OUR city centre because you saw Sex In The City and all those shitty property programmes on Channel 4?

I don't usually bother to make New Year's resolutions, but here's one I'm going to keep to in 2008: whenever I'm in the Lace Market after hours, I am going to bellow "BIG! 'AIREH! FANNEH!" as loud as I can, no matter what time of the morning. And if these pissy-knickered mitherers get on your wick as much as they do mine, feel free to do the same.

(PS: Here's what my LL oppo Rob Cutforth wrote a while back about the time he lived in the Lace Market. I've since forgiven him. He's Canadian. He didn't know any better)