Oct 30, 2007

It's coming home, it's coming home, it's coming, Fatboy's coming home

Oklahoma open sign

I am a lying philandering whore.

Okay, I take back the 'philandering' bit. And 'whore' may be overstating my case.

But you may tattoo my bonce with the word 'liar', for that is what I am. My Blogger profile details pin me down as a "Manchester writer, DJ and man about town". This is disingenuous.

The 'town' I was referring to was Macclesfield. It has been my place of work for the past three years. It's a strange place, inward-looking and not really sure what it is. But it's picturesque in some places, and the charity shops offer treasures for which Gollum would kill.

However, Macclesfield is not Manchester (photo of Oklahoma Cafe door by Dullhunk). I am a proud Mancunian. I have been risking life, limb and lobes on long public transport journeys into the Cheshire town, often feeling I should be working back home, in the holy city that gave the world Shameless, the Hacienda and, er, Jay Kay from Jamiroquai.

So... I'm proud to announce the birth of my new-- oops, sorry-- I'm proud to announce I will be working back in Manchester from tomorrow. I have a new job with Blackwell's university bookshop. It should afford me more time for blogging, writing, shopping lists, scratching, stabbing and anything else that can be done with a pen.

It's nice to be back home. I see you've kept the place tidy.

Oct 7, 2007

A low-denominator, low-rent scally by any other name would smell like sweets

Warehouse Project Posters 2
Warehouse Project Posters 1

When I was young and unwrinkly, I went flyposting to promote a night called Automa.

In my misty dreamcloud memory, I wore a hooded top and tried to look street despite spilling wallpaper paste all over my trousers.

It was a partial success. Manchester was plastered with Automa posters right up to the point where I got chased out the city by some bad boy gangster types.

You try running when your legs are stuck together.

It was no surprise, then, to find these Warehouse Project posters discarded near my house. They advertise the weekend just gone, headlined by the leg-end in his own lunchbox Dave Clarke.

The perpretrators of this oft-tolerated crime of flyposting have probably been strangled by some razor sharp bling or, even worse, been made to listen to a 50 Cent album all the way through.

Or maybe, just maybe, they couldn't be arsed and went to the pub instead.

There's an art to a good poster. These ones promoting the Warehouse Project are instantly recognisable thanks to a basic template they use for all of them.

Thank goodness too for Bill Drummond's understanding of a poster that does what it says on the tin, or Underworld's eye for a brilliant image.

Just save us please from the anti-Christ of quality, the Bop.

This infernal itch of a night continues to drown Manchester in low-denominator low-rent advertising that promises, "whilst the rest of club land goes high class, the Bop remains true to its roots... drinks prices are still dangerously low."

They add, "a relaxed dress code means you do get the odd scally". There is no other kind of scally, surely?

This blog post has been brought to you by my inflated middle-class Grauniad-reading ego. I'm off to clean my trousers.

Oct 4, 2007

You can take the cinema out of Michael Owen but you can't take Michael Owen out of the cinema, not without force

It's been a while. The last time I posted pub quiz questions on the Fat Roland blog, men were boys, sheep were lambs, and Virgin Pendolinos were loo rolls with jammy dodgers for wheels.

Last night, my bearded cohort Nine Tenths Full Of Penguins and I hosted a quiz in Ye Olde Cock in Manchester, where 'Olde' is pronounced to rhyme with 'mouldy'.

So here are the questions. It's about sport, of which I know little. A brace of questions have been felched from other internetwebsites, but most of it is my own work, miss.

If you reply with answers, I will mark you - no googling please. The real factual answers will materialize in a few days in the comments below this post.

Question one. What’s the perfect score in ten pin bowling? (1 point)

Question two. Let’s play Soccergram! Rearrange the letters of a football personality to find the longest word you can, e.g. from 'Michael Owen', the longest word you can get is 'cinema'. The football personality is: Sven Goran Eriksson. (1 point, plus a bonus point if you can find a nine-letter word)

Question three. The first modern Olympic Games were held in Athens in 1896. How many women competitors were there? (1 point)

Question four. Part one: who was the last Formula One driver to die at a grand prix (whilst driving in practice, qualifying or a race)? Part two: which past or present Formula One driver has a name that contains nine consecutive letters spelling out a London borough? (2 points)

Question five. The exact distance of a marathon please, in miles and yards. (1 point)

Question six. Let’s play Soccergram. Rearrange the letters of a football personality to find the longest word, e.g. from 'Michael Owen', the longest word you can get is 'cinema'. The football personality is: Ruud van Nistelrooy. (1 point, plus a bonus point if you can find a nine-letter word.)

Question seven. Andy Murray is the UK number one singles player. In what is Jamie Murray the UK number one? (1 point)

Question eight, and yes this one was taken from another website. Part one: black is always with blue, red is always partnered by yellow. What is the sport? Part two: throwing stones at houses. What is the sport? (2 points)

Question nine: Rugby Union. Wales vs Fiji on Saturday. What was the score? (1 point)

Question ten: Match these people with their sports. The people: Barry Bonds, Beth Tweddle, Bobby Dazzler, Yesica Bopp. The sports: Baseball, Boxing, Darts, Gymnastics. (1 point for each correct match)