Score one to the north.

Hard to believe that this is a view of Salford, with Trafford Park in the background. The water in the foreground is the former dock which is now the starting point of the Great Salford Swim and the cluster of shiny new buildings is Media City, controversial northern home of a large chunk of the BBC from this summer onwards. Just out of the picture to the left are the Lowry Centre and the Imperial War Museum, both impressive and popular public buildings. The whole area's a reet big chunk of in-your-face blaggadacio. Thirty years ago all you had in this area was decay and dirty water, with the then notorious Ordsall estate across the road. 


Thirty years ago was when I fetched up in Manchester, a refugee from a stalled business enterprise in the North East, looking for a fresh start. On a wet day in August I arrived with a Geordie mate and it didn't look promising. I remember my first impression was of wet, dirty redbrick buildings and chimneys and concrete and sprawl. There was no clear focal point, unlike Newcastle perched on its hill above the river. In Manchester at that time you had to thrash your way through the urban undergrowth to find the many treasures that lay beneath. Actually a few weeks ago I was taking a visitor from California to Piccadilly Station along the Mancunian Way and, as he was looking out of the car window at the hotch-potch of architecture which has grown like a culture on a petri dish from the first germination of the industrial revolution, he said 'God, this place is ugly. What do you see in it?' I felt a surge of pride and, while I can't remember exactly what my reply was, it wasn't too far away from this quote from Luke Bainbridge in The Observer today


'This is the home of the industrial revolution and the city that split the atom, the birthplace of the computer and the Guardian, the suffragette movement, the free trade movement, the co-operative movement, the anti-corn law league, vegetarianism, the nation's first free library, the world's first intercity railway and the engine room of rock'n'roll that has produced the country's best bands of the past 30 years, from Joy Division to Take That. This is not only where Morrissey met Marr, Jack met Vera and Bobby met George and Denis. It's where Engels met Marx and Rolls met Royce. I could go on… and on.'

And the best thing about it is that it feels like a big village. On my first night in Manchester I slept on the floor in a basement flat in Palatine Road and went out to a new club called The Hacienda. 

Unlike nightclubs in the North East there was no dress code, the atmosphere was easygoing and when a couple of lads started dancing on the tables in the downstairs bar the doormen came and asked them to get down. The vibe was friendly, and after all these years I still occasionally bump into people from that first night. I come across surprising connections to other people that I've met over the years, whether through work, or our children's schools or activities, or chance meetings on the street. Because of the BBC's move northwards there's been a lot of London-Manchester comparison going on recently. I love London, but it's vast. Compared to it Manchester is intimate, accessible and friendly. After thirty years I've realised that it's my home. It's familiar and surprising all at the same time, and there's still new stuff to discover. A few weeks ago we went to Jodrell Bank for the first time. It is amazing, Manchester reaching out to the universe...

Jeremy Clarkson and a few others may not get it, may not be prepared to look beyond lazy northern stereotyping. Tough. It really is their loss.  Here's to the next thirty years.

Stella Street meets Coronation Street (1)

I was inspired to write this when I was in Morrisons in Chorlton a few weeks ago. There was a guy with his kids by the dairy section. He looked vaguely familiar. Had I played football against him? Was he a former colleague or (more likely, given my age) a former pupil? I definitely recognised him but just couldn't place him. Then I realised I was having a Mancunian Stella Street moment. This usually involves encountering a 'celebrity' going about their normal daily business, and Chorlton's Morrisons, which used to be Safeway, and which has always been the supermarket from hell, is a better than average place to spot them.

On this occasion it was this guy

2nd from right, bass player with Elbow. Other encounters over the years have included

Beverley Callard, her from Corrie and 2 pints of lager...,

Ian Brown, Stone Roses and a bit of a Mancy monkey,

Mike Pickering, M People, moving on up to the fruit and veg (sorry),

Ainsley Harriot, the only one I've ever seen being mobbed. It was quite disturbing, watching him being outed as the bloke off the telly by autograph hunting grannies while other shoppers just stopped and stared at him with a kind of malevolent curiosity (Morrisons in Chorlton is like that),

Finally, the most bizarre. Mick Hucknall, no 1 in the charts at the time, just beginning to ride his 80's megastardom wave, in the checkout queue with a tall stunning and bored looking blonde woman. He was obviously still getting used to the whole pop star thing, because he was holding a newly purchased set of Ikea bathroom scales and enthusiastically banging on about what a great shop it was. I wonder what number she was on the list of thousands of women that he's recently owned up to sleeping with 'back in the day', and whether he wooed them all with some form of retail related foreplay.

Remember. Morrisons in Chorlton. It's a rubbish place to shop, but if you've got an i-spy book of celebrity types, it's the place to be.

A cut above

The first time we visited our oldest daughter in London she took us to a place that she had visited with her friend, Rachel(advocate of the no. 42 bus route). I don't know how Rachel discovered it but her knowledge of offbeat tourist London puts her up there with Tom at tired of London, tired of Life in my opinion. The place is the Hunterian museum at the Royal College of Surgeons.

It is macabre and inspiring, graphically showing and telling the story of the growth of the science and craft of surgery. There is something respectful and moving about the way the exhibits are  beautifully displayed, despite some of the more grisly and dubious tales that accompany them. I was especially moved by a video presentation of an operation on a brain tumour. Given that 42 years ago my dad's tumour was seen as 'inoperable' I saw hope in the advances made, a way that his illness and death fitted into the development of the life-enhancing skills of surgeons.

And the museum is located in the Royal College of Surgeons, stressing its place as a record of work in progress. On the day we were there some kind of oral exams or interviews were taking place and seeing the hopeful candidates making their way gave a vitality to the place that I wouldn't normally associate with a museum. Go, and be inspired.

More of more of the same

With reference to my post of two weeks ago ('More of the same'), I know I said that the owners systematically dismantle the team by selling the best players, and that humiliation was never far away for Newcastle fans. It gives me no pleasure to be right again. Andy Carroll in a Newcastle shirt just looked so right. He was local, a product of the club, an exciting and edgy presence and now, like Paul Gascoigne, our last prodigy, he's gone. The club have taken the money, they've got nothing to replace him with, and he's a young man out in the world with a huge price tag and massive expectations on his shoulders.

Let's hope that's where the similarity ends.

The big issue

This is Dash when we first met him a week ago. He'd been left in a house for 3 months, with no exercise and little attention apart from regular feeding. As a result he is more than a few pounds over his fighting weight.

This is an approximated pictorial representation of me, post-Christmas, having made the most of not going out. Like Dash I've got work to do in order to get back to my optimum streamlined profile, so we've decided to start a Rocky style fitness programme. My goal is the Manchester 10k Great Run on May 15th. I'm 55 on the 14th May and I'd like to run the race in 55 mins or less. I ran it for the first time last year and did it in 64 mins even though most of my preparation and half the race was affected by a calf muscle injury.

Dash is a terrific training companion, despite the full set of spare tyres that he's carrying. We ran together for the first time yesterday, on a beautiful sunny and frosty morning. I ran 2 miles and by the end my chest and throat were burning and my legs were turning to jelly. The good news was that my calf muscles held up, and I had broken through the inertia barrier and exercised seriously for the first time since the clocks went back. Dash probably covered about 6 miles, given that he would charge ahead and then come back to check up on me and then charge off again and so on. We even stopped halfway through for a bit of tennis ball chasing (I ran on the spot). I creaked my way through the rest of the day, exhausted but satisfied. Dash went out for 2 more long walks and seemed a little bit tired by the evening.

He's going to look pretty damned good in a month or so. As for me, if I'm half a stone lighter by May I'll be happy.

And now the very latest news - our 16 year old son has decided to run the 10k with me, so I've got even more incentive to shape up. 

I'll keep you posted.

New dog, new tricks

We started looking seriously for a new dog at the end of November. Benji was such an important presence. It took a while to adjust to him not being around, to grieve for him, and then to come to terms with our desire for a new pack member. I ran hot and cold. Some days I was yearning for a dog to walk with, to share space with. Then there were other days when I relished the lack of complication and responsibility and the resulting freedom to be spontaneous. Deep down I knew what I really wanted, which is why I had a dogsblog tab permanently open on  my browser. 

A week ago I was on a train back from London when my wife sent me a text. She'd spotted this beautiful boy, Dash, and had phoned the RSPCA and arranged for us to meet him. We met him Saturday, brought him home Thursday and the photograph above was taken on our first walk on the meadows.

I'm not a superstitious person but I find something appealing about the idea of good omens, so it was fantastic on that first walk when I spotted a kingfisher on the brook. We see it occasionally and it always feels special, a real privilege, to see that flash of colour. Vivid, iridescent, electric, in flight it is one of the most beautiful and uplifting things I've ever witnessed and I never tire of seeing it.

Dash is a classic Border Collie. He runs and runs, loves chasing and retrieving balls and has a lovely nature. Our pack feels restored and revitalised. Benji is still in my thoughts and I find myself wondering how the two of them would have got on as I watch Dash dozing. He's just looked up as if to ask what I'm writing, and it feels so good to have him here. 

Them and us

Don't you just want to give them a slap? I know I do, and having watched Andrew Neil's documentary  this evening I think I have some justification. I realise I'm a grammar school boy from a working class home and that I can wear chips on my shoulders as stylishly as this shower show off their new romantic/Flashman fancy dress. I am also prepared to accept the possibility that if we actually did have a meritocracy some of them might still make it to the top on ability and aptitude, but the point is we'll never know. Their privilege, their money, their friends have guaranteed them their place at the top table. Let's start the campaign now for the UK's first comprehensive school educated Prime Minister. Can you imagine what an exceptional individual s/he will have to be to wrest power from these smug b'stards.

Then again, maybe politics is the haven for the greedy, the self-serving, the morally bankrupt. In which case these are clearly the (white)men for the job. I'm not a cynic, and I've worked with some incredibly gifted and resourceful young people over the years who, if they were given a fraction of the resources that this lot have had, could achieve so much. They have a wisdom and insight born of experiences that these guys could never really understand, and this country needs people in power who represent us all.

When I was younger politics always seemed more interesting when Dennis Skinner spoke up, and I really can't see anybody like him coming through now, and that's a crying shame. Maybe the student demos of the last few months could be the start of a more representative political class. I live in hope.    

The no. 42 bus

 I stayed with my daughter and her housemates in Camberwell last night. I had to get to Liverpool Street Station for an early train this morning and asked them the best route. With the bus passenger's equivalent of the knowledge, I was reliably informed by my daughter's friend Rachel that the 42 from Camberwell Green was my best option, and that it was a favourite of hers.

I can see why. At 10 past 7 on a cold crisp morning I was going across Tower Bridge in the dark, with a spectacular view of the city lights, and a full moon above the river to the West. It was magical.

No matter how mundane my reason for being there, I always feel like a tourist in London, and there was something thrilling about seeing the place at that time, being part of the small band of travellers on their way to work, bringing the city to life. At that time there's a sense of purpose, and also a kind of intimacy, as if we were the crew preparing a stage or a film set for an epic crowd set piece.

I was early for my train so I got a coffee and some breakfast and watched the drama of the morning rush hour at Liverpool Street unfold, happy to have played my part in setting the scene.

Thanks, Rachel.

A many splendored thing

These are the Simonside Hills near Rothbury. The distinctive stepped ridge is visible from all over south and mid - Northumberland. I used to look for it as I travelled on the coast road from Newcastle to Whitley Bay. It marks the beginning of the wilder northern part of the county, the Cheviot Hills running up to the Scottish Border. I reckon I was 8 or 9 when we got our first car and this was a regular weekend day out for us. We'd scramble all over the hills, racing each other to the top, and then taking in the view back to the coast and the chimneys of Blyth Power Station a good 20 - 30 miles south.

They felt like they were our hills. There was a Northumberland National Park Visitors' area and car park with forest and nature trails but we rarely went there. We would park at the side of the road and strike out through the heather on the most direct route to the top. I associate it with my dad and our dog, Moss. After dad died I don't remember going there as much.

This is a poster for a romantic weepy film that was a favourite of my mam's, starring her no. 1 heartthrob William Holden. I guess you're wondering why this connects to a small hilly ridge in Northumberland. I was on a train this morning, and looking at the hills in the distance sparked a memory. In the film William Holden plays a war correspondent covering the Korean War (I think) and Jennifer Jones is the woman he falls in love with in Hong Kong. Their love is conquering all (I can't remember the particular obstacles - maybe something to do with her being Eurasian and society's disapproval) when he goes back to the war and is killed - bummer. I watched it a few times on Sunday afternoons when I was a kid, and the scene that always got to me was at the end. The couple have a favourite hill where they meet

and when she hears that he has died that's where she goes. Then she sees him walking down the hill towards her, and he waves, and it's confusing and great and then in one of those manipulative heart-wrenching tricks of cinema he fades away and she's left, bereft.

This scene had an impact on me long before I'd really experienced loss. My dad died when I was 13, and when I was 14 I started going out with a girl at school. We were together, on and off, for the next 6 years. When I was 15 her family bought a holiday caravan on a site in Rothbury, a mile or so from Simonside, and we'd go there for walks. Her family tended to follow the trails, and one day I had a yearning for the old days so I went off-road and headed in a straight line for the top. As I did I thought of Love is a Many Splendored Thing and I couldn't shake off the idea that when I got to the top he'd be there, even if only for a few seconds before fading out of view.

I walked all over that summit, choking on huge sobs. There was nothing. No sign, no sensation, no presence to bring him back to me even for a moment. Love is a many splendored thing, which makes losing somebody you love all the harder to understand and accept.

Funny what you see when you look out of a train window.

More of the same

I don't know when this picture was taken, but it clearly shows that Sunderland-Newcastle derbies go back a long way. I was working while the match was on yesterday, teaching on a psychotherapy training course, and catching updates on my phone between pieces of supervision. Despite the late, lucky equaliser from the Mackems I was happy with the result. It suited my current ambivalence about my club. Actually, that phrase 'my club' is the problem. It's not mine. It doesn't belong to the fifty odd thousand who turn up at St James Park every home game either. It wouldn't be there without us all, and we'd be lost on a Saturday afternoon without it. And it belongs to Mike Ashley, the latest in a long line of exploitative owners who apparently have no love or understanding of the game, who openly despise the fans and who will systematically dismantle the team by selling the best players rather than build on success.

The received wisdom is that a few wins is all that it takes to erase history and bad memories from the fans' minds. We've done all right since Alan Pardew took over, and we seem to be playing decent football. We've even revived a long-standing tradition of getting humiliated by a smaller club in the 3rd round of the FA Cup. I just can't get excited about it at the moment. The sacking of Chris Hughton was dishonourable, a way of letting us all know whose club it really is, whose club it was always been. The butchers, the bakers, the candlestick makers - all those shopkeepers who fancy bigging themselves up by having a stake in the local club - the lawyers and bankers who turn it into their plaything. The owners. They've always been there, especially at Newcastle, and sometimes I wonder whether it's worth caring and getting worked up about.

Mind you, Andy Carroll might be back from injury in a couple of weeks, and I really can't fault the team.
Supporting Newcastle is a thought - provoking pursuit, never straightforward, and humiliation never feels far away.

Adrift

This picture is a still from the Powell and Pressburger film 'I Know Where I'm Going'. I don't, and a whirlpool seemed a good image for my thinking process at the moment. To my loyal readers, all 5 of you, I apologise. I've been living up to my pseudonym and spending a lot of time with my thoughts, going nowhere.

I've been thinking about, and as the year goes on I will write about

• Learning Front Crawl

• Looking up to my son

• The joys of living in Chorlton cum Hardy

• How to be middle-aged

• and the rest...

I love the word melancholy. It has a musical cadence, and a complexity to the way that it looks and sounds that fits with its meaning. It's a kinder word than depression, a mood rather than a condition, and it comforts me when I use it as a label for the way that I have been. I've had a recent brush with Bell's Palsy, now almost cleared up, and our daughters have both gone back to their other homes after being home with us over Christmas, and I feel lucky and lost all at the same time. A bit like seeing a beautiful evening sky...