Nonbussed

"Deeply fascinating" debates on the new rail timetable have some distance to run perhaps. We'll not go into that right now. Not much, anyway...

Upon inspecting the new destinations on Stoke station's departure boards this morning, my first thoughts raced straight to Ninian Park, Whaddon Road and Ashton Gate... with no need to change at Birmingham. Wu-hoo!

This is wonderful news. Our horizons seem instantly expanded and the service seems generally better on paper. A nice empty Pendolino to Manc at 7.45 replaces the crowded four coaches at 7.36, but - nnngh! - the return journey is now totally out of sync with The Glorious XXI, making it infinitely more difficult to arrive home in time for Sam's bath.

And there's no improvement to the Longport service. Many northbound trains in the morning, with crap all coming back. Not that one would ever expect it - nice new information screens, but barely a departure to display... (it would seem all the Londoners want to visit Kidsgrove instead)

And now the last train home is even earlier! FFS! It's a very personal slant (ok, an unpolishable rant) on the issue, but there's surely mileage in the idea that this stuff - that is, being able to access opportunities afforded by adjacent big cities at night, be they work, education or leisure - is fundamental to persuading people to live and stay in Stoke.

"Try pulling your eyelid down as far as it'll go..."

Away at Morecambe.

It's not quite often one of Britain's leading football bloggers can be tempted from his secret scribing facility somewhere in deepest Staffordshire (I've seen it: think your cool best-mate-from-school's Optimus Prime toy, but with more with more grounds under its belt) for a brief encounter between perhaps the two giants of the modern game - that's Morecambe versus the mighty Quakers to you.

Saturday's fixture at Christie Park presented just such a temptation, and our guest expert was kind enough to buy me a pint of Black Sheep into the bargain. For my part, I hope to bust my Brightonian cherry at Edgar Street in February. There may be foine coider on hand, albeit in very small driveable quantities.

Thanks to Groundhog for the company and continued tolerance, in any case.

And so on towards Morecambe through the mist and HGV spray, up the M6 and down the A5105 Coastal Road, passing en route through the mighty-sounding Bolton-le-Sands and Carnforth, of Brief Encounter (the real one) fame. All the while wondering if - like last year - this afternoon's game was somehow predestined to be postponed or abandoned.

Neither of us was too confident, least of all myself - and thus I delivered my finest Celia Johnson:

"If we control ourselves...
and behave like sensible human beings...
there's still time!"

If. And. Would we have a sufficient window to make Fylde or Squire's Gate - if the Gods were with us?

Speculatively, I fumbled the radio buttons for information. None was forthcoming from the once-rocksteady 693 Medium Wave (nowadays "the home of live sport," long vacated by "useful information delivered in a timely fashion.")

Alas, Radio Lancashire starts its football broadcast at the ungodly hour of 2pm, and so we listened respectfully to some homely programming about humble garden wormeries instead.

Happily, anyone familiar with last year's corresponding fixture - or, with the wormicide witnessed at the hands of Darlington's River Skerne a few years back - knows that this course of action was entirely appropriate.

In any case, Morecambe shows its best side when approached in the roundabout fashion. Last year I shunted through Lancaster's seasonal traffic for what seemed like hours (maybe it was just Lawro-on-the-Radio effect).

Taking the Coastal Road, on the other hand, lays the seafront before you like some magic carpet made of asphalt and salt water. It was high tide, and a winter murk hammocked the air, nearly abolishing the tonal difference between sea and sky.



Wading birds pottered around in the wet sands and standing water. Groundhog vaulted the concrete wall and ninja-rolled like Bruce Lee onto the promenade. Self-consciously, I probed for an ample gap to squeeze through. He is more athletic than I, despite his advancing years...

We stared out towards America, and contemplated its possibilities. Or those of Grange-over-Sands. Not for too long, though.

While we're here, I'm disappointed to learn that Morecambe's Jug-of-Tea is no more. And I keep meaning to go and see the Midland Hotel, but I'm sure its resplendence won't quite measure up.

Onwards to the ground, featuring a high-class chippy by the away end - om nom nom nom! - and with a whole would-be grandstand accounted for by the presence of an ARC car wash where the lukewarm pie counter should be. With a little under an hour till kick-off, we plumped for a short walk to the York Hotel.

Cantering briskly along, I liked the way that the intermittent terraced street was composed of short-then-tall house and shop frontages, looking a bit like the joined-up letters of a child's handwriting. Out and about in Morecambe, there's plenty of rambling shorthand for faded grandeur and past glories, but most of all there's a welcoming humanity.



The pub was ace, the bouncer very personable. The back room was what all "sports bars" should be and won't ever be, one day.

OK, so the big screen with Sky Sports is concessionably a necessary evil, but the walls - all festooned with the scarves of lower-divison and non-league opposition - rendered the place welcoming and inclusive.

Here's a place that feels like it belongs to Morecambe, full of the names of old mutual acquaintances you didn't know they knew: Bedlington Terriers, Droylsden, Farnborough Town, Kidderminster Harriers...

The ninety minutes were disappointing, Darlo losing 1-0 and slipping to sixth. "Never at the races," sighed the bobbing, twitching woolly headgear at the full-time urinals. And, having announced that I felt like some "atmosphere" we had taken our place behind the goal amongst fans who'd decided that referee Jarnail Singh's alleged resemblance to Monty Panesar was too hilarious to let pass. Much of the first half was spent warbling on about it. Wonderful. We were so going to get on...

But when all's said and done we've been here before. We've been much worse before. Good results, most fans understand, are far more exhilirating in adversity. In fact we've rarely been much good at all, ever since 1883. Who can claim honestly that the prospect of success is what it's all about? Though admittedly it is nice to have a decent team this year...

For me, the great thing about following your team away (and I think it's better in nearly every respect at this level), is that you spend time in all kinds of places you'd rarely venture otherwise.

Each season brings a new promise of peregrination. Were it not for the football, instead of Boston (a few seasons back, that one) you'd choose... well, would you ever need to make that choice anyway?

There, we sat in some pub on the old Lincolnshire harbourfront, a little spooked by the fact that a middle-aged couple were taking notes on us and exchanging giggles in a fashion they clearly thought clandestine. Like two kids at the back of the class. More likely stories on Boston here.



As often than not, there's a wonderful sense of place both outside and inside the ground (though this is changing, as I'm sure to discover at Shrewsbury).

Morecambe is a great example, but there's something to recommend every seasoned ground, even in the places that otherwise privilege grit and character over any ostensible charm - see Dagenham and Redbridge's pie and mash (and of course, liquor) shop and the beautiful 1930s pub round the corner from their Victoria Road ground (one that looks a dive from the outside, but which is stunning within).

It's not that the football isn't important. It's the fact that it comes embedded in the landscape, with such a rich hinterland. More on this in future posts, no doubt. But I think that's why I rarely go home disappointed.

This is England

At least, it is today. Painted, chipped boundary walls, shoulder-high. Next door's dog soiling the back yard (just out of shot). Chimney pots. Plant pots. Sheds and prefabricated garages. Gable ends and hotch-potch bathroom extensions like the connectors in a fragmented jigsaw. Redundant pegs and plastic shower caps on the washing line. And skies that should be leaden, but aren't.

Now Pirates Get PMT!

[clarification for outsiders]

A truism, perhaps, but it's great fun when toddlers reimagine everyday stuff.

Last Friday, as Sam and I were plotting a course to the library, we briefly watched some workmen erecting Burslem's new bus shelters and scoffing chocolate hob-nobs ready for the Saturday switch-on of the lights.

Slinky windbreaks, so they are. Steely curvacious numbers with wavy wanderings printed on the glass. Each one has its own lofty spike which I take to be an aerial for the bus info feed. About as burlesque and suggestive as a bus shelter can possibly get. Appropriate for Burslem.

Well, maybe.

It appears they're also designed to echo the old Ceramica shop. Prepare for a letters-page boreathon in the Sentinel...* Luckily, two-year old skippers have no time for such petty seditions!

"A PIRATE SHIP!" boomed the potty-training privateer, perched with outretched finger 'pon the foc'sle of his speedy caravel. And a very sci-fi pirate ship at that, if slightly landlocked there in its berth beside the Methodist Mission. Indeed, a sci-fi pirate ship with live bus information!

And thus was the precedent set for the remains of the day. Cool day. The bus stops aren't bad really - maybe a bit slimline for the demands of the Potteries microclimate.

And expensive? Fuck it. Motorists are far more subsidised than bus users anyway. Not a point you'll see made very often in the Sentinel, although I do remember one comment to that effect by Tom Whiteley a couple of years back.

Credit where it's due, see! But as for: "*" ... ok, ok, I'll give it a rest...

Hymn to PMT

Hanley, 5.45pm.

Five lads, beered and bullshitting, mounted my homeward bus at that very special stop outside Cheque & Pawn, and thence lunged for the back seats.

A polyphony of choking and coughing commenced in earnest as the chari passed Staples. Small lakes (no solids) formed in the time it takes to reach Pets at Home - possibly the shortest geological period yet recorded.

By the time our young gods alighted at Commercial Street, there were damp little tributaries running all the way to the disabled seats, and - bizarrely - the strong smell of oranges. They all remembered to thank the driver: "traaa, mate."

Those boys need feeding so that they have the energy to learn about what beer is.

Being the sympathetic type, I was inspired to produce the following, which I'll proceed to devour at work over the next couple of days [edit: microwave FUCKED! This CANNOT be!]

Scaleable, simple piquant chick pea lunch thing

Many, many chick peas, soaked (like, 60% of it)
Lots of green beans, chopped
Some carrot, diced
Some shallot, chopped
Paprika, much
Cumin, some
Garlic, two cloves - um, whatever
Some root ginger - damn, I ran out
A few revolutions of the WC2006 souvenir peppermill
Mustard seeds
A little passata
Olive oil

Chuck it all in the frying pan and cook severely until it looks and taste nice. Disco!

Line thy stomachs, my children!

My kingdom for a window seat

Early.

One of the things I erred briefly about when I left behind my last job in the Potteries commuterland to work "up Manchester way" was the travelling.

So it transpires, twelve months on, that driving can be a faff sometimes (and, oh, the guilt of a Guardian reader!) but mostly the train service is very solid indeed, if expensive. In fact, some mornings it's an unequivocal pleasure. At worst, it's still preferable to wearing some Londoner's armpit in lieu of space for a hat.

Hopping on at Stoke, I can almost always secure a window seat before the chattering hoardes besiege the Quiet Zone at Congleton. For these forty revolutions of the clock (sometimes fewer), reverie is mine, punctuated only by the prodding enquiries of a ticket collector or the sudden snagging of a curious conversation.
















The recent bad weather has only heightened this waking daydream feeling, even if the permanent way was really made for anything but. Northbound, we've Mow Cop and Bosley's Cloud resplendent in teetering silver. An ethereal flash of wending canal. The Dane whispering and winding far below us.

Later, we're retracing our stealthy slide-path, this time all wrapped up in provincial shadows and with only pale reflections of ourselves for eye contact. There are blue-chip cellphone accents and pinched corporate letterheads, things that only ever pass through Stoke on fast trains.

There are heads-in-notebooks and 3G wireless cards blinking neurotically. There are four seats, four Windows desktops and barely a waking moment as we shoulder-charge the A500 at Longport.
















One face - uplit as if with a child's torch - scrunches briefly as a door beeps and plunks, letting in the cold Staffordshire air:

"How long to Euston?"

Anomienous

Journalists at the BBC have finally nabbed the exclusive that many of us here in the Potteries had been hoping to keep to ourselves until - OoooOh - at least 1993.

The results of their survey show that Stoke-on-Trent, our very own town(s) that time forgot, is(are) in fact the most marvellous place(s) on earth, most of the time. This is based, apparently, on the relatively low pervasiveness of anomie (feeling feint? wiki it instead).

This might have seemed a little strange to the researchers in question had the state of local politics been accounted for. As it goes, the vital signs seem to go uncorroborated by any kind of living, breathing survey based on attitudes - no matter, see a nice video here and get yer sweet, sweet schadenfreude here!

They'll be dancing in the streets of the Mother Town (or, at least, its hinterland).

Whatever. They'll also sigh knowingly and offer up a "right y'are then, duck," before ambling off down Waterloo Road with a wary chuckle. Still, we/they can rest contentedly in having the strongest sense of 'belonging' of any (ahem!) 'local radio area' in the UK - a finding that has spurred the most unlikely comparison between Burslem and Bayswater.

I've blogged about this before, from my own perspective as an outsider who is both peeping and creeping in with my swagbag full of anomie and dislocation. It's fairly clear that all is not well in Stoke-on-Trent generally. However it's great to see something so bluntly (if inarticulately) positive all over the national media, especially after this and other recent media beatings.

Incidentally, Bramhall, where I sometimes haul my trolley of job-related oddities, is supposed to be the UK's most 'rooted' community... *adjusts collar*.... spot the mysterious connection, folks!

In fact Sam and I were interviewed by Radio Stoke (token male at toddler group, see) on this very issue, but before I could slavishly reprise Benedict (or even Brett) Anderson, Sam had lunged at the terrified reporter yelling "scary biscuits!" at the top of his little voice.

Which is probably about right as an erudite response; for my part, I just blathered twitchily about knowing and trusting our neighbours, the toddler group being very welcoming, and so on - though I'm still not sure I'd commit to that fortnight in Benidorm out of 'street solidarity'...

Postscript: Curiously, a quick bash on 'anomie stoke-on-trent' chucks you this beauty...

NOM NOM NOM: that's the sound of the Police...

Ahahahaha snooort! Pure GOLD!!!

I should probably let it lie, but this recent front-page outrage is a Sentinelism of the highest order.

Revealed: Contrary to popular belief, officers of the law in Stoke-on-Trent are a bit partial to a sandwich and banana for their scram. Quite awesomely, the MASSIVE headline comes complete with shocking illustration: the offending carrier bag photoshopped into some innocent bobby's hand, or, "our mock-up of how an officer may look doing his shopping at Asda."

Um, right then...

So has some jilted journalist at the Sentinel picked up a speeding fine of late or something? Poor soul. An earnest paragraph acknowledges that the Force is investigating the alleged naughtiness. And, if you press your ear to the cold steel gates outside the back of Hanley police station, you may just detect a weary sigh carried along on the breeze from the copper canteen.

To underline the daftness, even the send them back brigade over at thisisstaffordshire.co.uk is failing vociferously to detect any sort of problem whatsoever...

Brilliant.

Psshhticooof!

During the summer, we took our two-year old brio fanatic for a carefully choreographed wander through the cattle fields of Staffordshire and beyond to Burnam Dilhorne wood.

Not only does this huddle of trees conceal a "secret" railway station, but it also confers a fraction of the requisite mystique upon some rather theatrical red-coated gentlemen wielding period rifles, thermos flasks, and severely re-enacted facial hair.

"Mind out for the live rounds, kids!"

Granted, I have a known weakness for steam trains, but Stoke's own Foxfield Railway features the coolest of them all. Going strong (well, ambling, on and off) since 1874, it merits this title in part on account of its fearsome and rather steampunk-sounding name. Except, there's no punking required for this most genuine of articles.

More than that, it's the only train I've ever known that pssshticoofs exactly like Ivor the Engine whilst trundling about its north-west corner of Staffordshire. Ivor, you'll recall, had his whistle changed for organ pipes and sang in the male voice choir.

If you've no idea what I'm talking about, you suffered a deprived childhood of cultural denial and your mum and dad should be pilloried by the outraged townspeople of Llantisilly.

That, children, is Bellerophon - creature of myth and slayer of monsters.

Sentinelism

Pic via Wayne Williams on Facebook.

Now then - this may become a recurring theme here, but the terminally slow-news-dazed Sentinel today gets to table the idea via a suggestive whisper (a sentinelism!) that sacred landmark and undisputed fount of civilisation Burslem town hall is about to be wiped off the face of the planet.

Fffrrfff!

Is this mischievous or just a bit rubbish, or both? Do readers swallow it? I dunno, but fortunately for the rest of us, Northcliffe Newspapers has plenty of highly entertaining previous - and that's without even bringing the Mail into the equation.

While the subject of the article is valid enough, is it too much to hope that if (or when) Stoke's governance improves seriously, one or two of our city's opinion-formers might just have to raise their game too, or at least find a new story that's actually worth fucking about with?

Burslem by night

There's a teetering, unspecific restlessness about Burslem at night, when the drone of traffic has passed and the streets are all but left to the cats, even if it's just the anticipation of nothing in particular.



Thanks to the jaundiced uplighting and fractured textures of blistered gable ends, Queen Street really does seem to twitch and tense its sinews in the cold night air.

[With apologies for the limitations of my compact camera...]

Close encounters of the First kind

It may be an oldie, but here's a sweet and affectionate (if slightly ambiguous) sketch of Hanley bus station, soon to be gone. Or not. We all love it none the less.

Still, it reminded me of my homeward commute from Stoke station the other night, courtesy of the Number 21 bus towards Bradeley. Dicing up the Potteries all the way from Trentham to Tunstall and on to the outer nebulae, a gaslight cruise aboard the 21 is the *only* way to experience the Potteries in all its twilight glory.

Anyway...

A well-nourished but wobbly fella hauled himself aboard in Hanley, by Cheque & Pawn. With ample cheer and breath like napalm, he sat himself down and commenced broadsiding merrily at anyone and everyone that wouldn't listen. Something about I'm a Celebrity and how he used to know Robbie.

All this was but background noise as our chariot swept by the wipe-clean lap dancing club and onwards to the labyrinthine headfuck that is the Festival Park Experience.

Suddenly, I was hurled from my reverie as the driver hit the anchors. I sensed an exodus of ruffled, elderly passengers. Evidently, they'd suddenly remembered how much they'd been coveting one of those dainty USB fishtanks from PC World.

Big fella danced around the maypole and thlumped his adequate arse down on the seat in front. Like a beery barn owl in Bukta, he deftly rotated himself and presented a battered wing-tip for inspection. Foolishly I detected little harm in shaking it - for what bother is a friendly drunk anyway?

Two minutes and an aeon later, he released me. By now he had anointed himself Gorgeous George, King of Tunstall ("that's what they call me!" - no shit!) and had begun to wonder loudly whether I fancied a buying him a pint in the Globe by way of small tribute.

Being every inch the considerate monarch, he ensured that I was fully briefed on the fortunes of that old friend of mine [also, conveniently, his ex-girlfriend] Tracey. Uh-huh. Oh, that Tracey... um... wow, who knew...?

From thence we proceeded regally to more pressing matters of state. The State of the Nation, no less. Cobridge, if you're particular. George, you see, had once been a member of the Socialist Workers' Party - "protesting against that lad that wouldn't sell to a nigger," apparently.

The bus took on a demographically representative sample outside Sageer Barbers and tiptoed apologetically past the Mosque with the onboard polemic in full swing.

"Hey, all this... makes you glad to be WHITE BRITISH, doesn't it?"

I rubbed frantically at the condensation and stared determinedly out of the window.

"Makes you PROUD doesn't it? To be white. BRITISH, Eh!?"

"Um. I dunno. I'm half Italian," I squeaked with the it's-a-pound shrug 'n' smile combo of a desperate man; a slightly, if wilfully embellished version of the truth.

Note to customers: For your comfort and peace of mind, all PMT buses are fitted with clearly-marked MISSION ABORT! buttons positioned throughout the vehicle.

Also, don't forget the Chlamydia Advice Line!

And so it was that I alighted prematurely and with no little relief outside Coin Crazy. Drawing deeply from the sweetly scented air of Waterloo Road (yum... Hanging Mangoes), I began to reflect wearily on this, my unexpectedly close encounter of the First kind.

Nosey Park-er

Cool. The City Council website now has a map of some £2m of prospective improvements for the wonderful Burslem Park. Despite the bad press, the council has done a very decent job of revitalising our parks, considering their previous state of decay.

There's also a fledgling Flickr group dedicated to the life and work of the park's planner Thomas Mawson - other commissions of his included Hanley Park, the garden at Wightwick Manor, and Brockhole Garden in the Lake District. More on him here and here...

Splash!

Like an unloved Pepsi-Cola can this blog has been re-deposited in one G. Wedgwood's drinking trough, along with the autumn leaves.

So, after a good ol' bit of feedback, the not-so-old name is back - but never mind usability, I'm not changing the URL again.

That, dear friends, would be too much faff by far...

Halfway to fifty-eight

Wonderful.

Day off. A rare day all on my own with nothing to do - no-one to please, no-one to displease, as my Grandad once wrote of his preferred pastimes. Great. Or at least, a chance to do the little lazy things I do rarely seeing as I'm someone's dad.

So, off back to bed for two hours, then long bath and into (sorry, up...) Hanley to spend someone else's money on two records by local bands (my first and last CDs in ages) - see he-arrh and a-he-arrh!

Interval: a highly decadent vanilla larr-tay and cookie, costing about the same as two fry-ups. Quick bout of Guardian reader guilt, quickly dispelled by reading said chatter-paper and therefore about someone else's liberal guilt instead.

An idle perusal around some little shoppes, speccing up wooden castles for S's Christmas present - very important task, this. Expensive, but very cool.

Then a quick ascent of that hill at Trentham with the monument on. Grrrrr-anville! he's called. Nice view of huge distribution centres to the fore and away to Shutingsloe in the distance. A beautiful clear day.

Feel great, lungs bursting full of fresh wintery air. Guilty cup of fairtrade tea by the lake. Then off home to blog this and mastermind some tea for la famille, after test-driving new cezve (or Aladdin's lamp if you're two).

After Sam's bath, story and bedtime, I fancy I'll finish watching Persepolis and maybe rock some washing up, such is my no-holds-barred lifestyle.

Glorious fuckin' stuff you increasingly old bastard, I tell myself.

Mmm, coffee...

I'm still smiling from Saturday night at Coventry's Tin Angel, where Ish Marquez - on his first trip to the UK - put on a splendid set for a small, appreciative audience.

Squeezed into a corner cafe somewhere between the huge new blue Ikea and the brutalist blocks and precincts, this was a very personal show - a little bit Pixies, a bit Herman Dune (blame my untutored ears for the bad comparisons).

While Ish confessed (with surprising sincerity) that he was "blown away to be in the city of The Specials," companion Stanley Brinks looked rather taken with the living lights on that tower block in the Lower Precinct, in addition playing the sweetest of sets midway through Marquez' gig.

Coupleted with nearby Taylor John's House, this has to be one of the best small venues in the Midlands and certainly outside the south east. It'd be easy to take issue with the vaguely antifolk circle that rarely plays outside London, Brighton and Bristol. But it's great to see a Midlands venue that privileges this stuff - with (bonus!) David Thomas Broughton bringing his loops in January.

And a quick tip-of-the-hat to the proprietors: it's great to have access to nice coffee when you're driving back to Stoke in the small hours. Very goodly, that.

Nearer to home, this and this also look promising...

St. George and his cardboard castle

Interesting that the BNP's electoral strength (relatively speaking) in these parts isn't borne out in its membership strength.

Oh, to live in Charnwood or Loughborough. Not.

There will be Bloods

Oh well, 0-1. I've just returned from the appropriately-named Butchers Arms in Droylsden. The first twenty minutes aside, the mighty Quakers were outfought by The Bloods. It's a fair reflection, and all a bit too familiar, but I'm still not feeling magnanimous enough to buy into the 'romance' of the cup thing. At least it wasn't as bad as Hornchurch, and what's more we're still top of the league.

Unfortunately the whole evening, romance or none, was overshadowed by some trouble and by a rather serious injury. Liam Hatch, who has been outstanding during his loan spell from Peterborough, has a suspected broken neck. Facilities are limited at this level, there was no ambulance on site and so the match was suspended for at least half an hour while Hatch lay immobile in the cold, awaiting the arrival of trained medical staff.

It's a long hour down the three motorways from Tameside to the Potteries when you're out of the cup (a fact underlined by the jubilant pitch invasion from Droylsden's resident scallies). Still, a young man's basic health and livelihood are in question all of a sudden due to a chance collision, and I'd imagine most Darlo fans will be willing enough to call this one a write-off.

Well done Droylsden. You deserved it.

Let's end it here

So. Ventured out to the teen haunt formerly known as The Coliseum with Matt last night to see Ladytron. I like them, but I'm never quite sure what to expect with electropop when performed live - lads hunched and nodding rhythmically over a keyboard or two? There's a time and a place called Thursday night.

And there's not much to scribble either. The music was delivered very proficiently and the vocalists were excellent if a bit brooding (maybe that's their territory). The hunched lads hung back and did what it says on their tin. But still, forty-five minutes (including one-song encore) for your fourteen notes, and out on the streets before ten...

It was pleasant enough, but so's the near-identical CD. On the bright side it was a decent opportunity to pop for a beer, or would have been if we weren't both driving.

This, friends, was what a gig review looks like when written by someone's dad. But - I may just pop back to Coventry next week for Ish Marquez.

Retrovictoriana

Just occasionally, the internet brings you something wonderful that you almost didn't click to.

Check out this beautiful steampunk silhouette animation, and just imagine something similar set in some retro-Victorian version of Longton.

Even better, there are a few tantalising echoes of Conrad (I think) in the heavy sense of nautical apprehension that runs through the plot.

Perfect. Thanks to alec-m for noticing!

The Greater Glory of the Invisible Hand

Hmmm. For what seems like the 1,143rd consecutive day, the every major news organ reannounces what they had already reannounced time and time again:

1) It might be an actual recession now;
2) It might get quite bad;
3) It might last more than a week.

And on point 3, you get to wondering what exactly they were all expecting, if not this?

But, hang on, what's this? Um... has anyone seen property fetishists Kirsty and Phil recently? No? Marvellous - I am willing to undergo any amount of negative equity, just to make this moment last!

But if I'm wrong about the last point, I'd rather not know, thanks!

Bad Carma

The wandering urchin that spontaneously appended a silver go-slower stripe to the side of my car last week was rather perceptive, it turns out.

He/she seems to have figured out that I never take the speedy or more direct path to anything whatsoever; the aforementioned stripe seems a genial work of unstraightness and charming whimsy... some kind of psychogeographic metaphor, perhaps.

I don't mind too much. It's not worth much (though I am expecting it to go twice round the clock before nature reclaims it irredeemably, please). People are too fucking precious about their paintwork, and spend far too much time stroking their bountiful tubes o'Turtlewax.

Likewise, restless natives like to complain about the occasional vandalism and often non-specific 'trouble' round here, but based purely on personal experience we had more grief more regularly when we lived in leafy Warwickshire.

So there y'go, dear readers.

Being Stoke

Jesus, I've been living in the Potteries for nearly five years.

During that time, a lot has changed both for me personally and in these, my adopted towns (though I think I've managed to avoid ever stopping in Fenton except to visit the bike shop). This is the place where I arrived an outsider, where I settled and ultimately started a family.

To some extent I'm still a distinct outsider. I know of people who grew up five miles from Stoke and claim to feel like outsiders in a way that I'd never imagine feeling in, say, Coventry. And despite the fact that I too grew up watching those Potteries derbies on Central Match Live, Burslem is the one place that I've ever been called 'immigrant' to my face (and that's just plain odd).

It's too easy to overstate the parochialism cliche, and just as easy to underestimate it. There's a distinct a multifaceted identity here, and it's dripping with saccharine sentimentality. "In the old days, way back when... we were poor but we were happy, and you could leave your front door open," and the like.

This scent of roses may be equally pronounced elsewhere, but in the Potteries I challenge anybody to escape it. People so often sound fantastically proud in one breath, dejected and disinterested in the next. On the buses, in the street, and pretty much wherever you care to turn - "it's a shithole, mate..."

By the same token, we know and trust our neighbours and they know and trust each other. And much as they bemoan 'the way the country's going' - whatever way that is - there's a real sense of community that I've never experienced anywhere else, beaten down and diminished though people may feel. Things worth cherishing - "...it's *our* shithole, in't it."

And still, disillusion abounds and rebounds, whether it's about regeneration, immigration, low pay, the ills of Federation, whatever. Community pride ever vying with the sense of betrayal by complacent city fathers and fly-by-night council managers. Is it justified? I don't know - cheap shots at the council are ten-a-penny in these parts.

Know what? I'd hazard a guess that many outsiders settling here have very similar feeling - certainly more akin to the 'local identity' than you might expect. I don't think I ever expected to stay, and others I know tried living elsewhere. But here, eventually, we stayed. And we grew to like the place in a way that perhaps we never expected to.

This is a city that doesn't seem like it was ever really finished, such are the rubbled, empty expanses, even in the city centre. Some days it's depressing, a relentlessly downbeat place. But there's a really compelling undercurrent here - true Stokies and newcomers who sense possibility and potential, who coax out and sometimes broadcast the sense of "unconventional beauty" that prevades these parts.

History has not been kind to the Potteries; this isn't some Richmond or Knightsbridge - and yet people are creative; they acclimatise, develop ways of seeing and learn to create nothing less than A Beautiful City by looking closer.

None of this is overtly political. But our political climate is crying out for optimism, creativity, warmth and a renewed sense of perspective. This can come from artists, council managers, bloggers, whoever - just people, at the end of the day. In pubs, on websites, at the civic.

So it goes.

After all, this Being Stoke, it's our shithole too. And that's the great thing about living in this of all places, the city that's not quite finished yet.

Let Them Eat Oatcake!

I unna goin Benidorm anytime soon, but....

On the blog...

So, then.

I feel another blogalapse coming on; perhaps this one won't be so short lived as the last.

Maybe this is the only blog in the whole world named after a horse trough.

Doubtless someone will be along shortly to prove me wrong.