I don't want to just keep knocking the Hull Daily Mail. I've still got lots of mates there and they do a really good job in the face of enormous pressure and constant cost-cutting efficiencies whilst having to deal with that fallout from some rather absurd managerial strategies. But... rather strange - if factually correct - choice of headline on an education story today:
A 100 per cent improvement sounds rather good, doesn't it? But David Lister, the failing school in question, is starting from a pretty low base. Last year, as the report does point out, just 10 per cent of pupuls left with five A*-C GCSEs. A 100 per cent improvement ain't looking so great now, is it? And, thus, the headline looks rather silly. But not as silly as the school and its inappropriately boasting headteacher. "We are absolutely delighted for the kids - it is fantastic." What?? What about the 80 per cent you've let down? No wonder the school's f**cked when the head is so overjoyed with achievements that don't even come close to mediocre. The headline spin - because that's what it is, if it isn't a sub having a laugh - is somewhat misplaced.
Fully story here.
Irregular service resumes...
I was driving around Hull last night and I found myself stopping at a set of traffic lights close to the River Hull-side Clarence Mills of Joseph Rank Ltd fame. I looked up. I love it. It's part of Hull and always should be. But...this magnificent building is earmarked for demolition as part of Hull City Council's efforts to finish of the Luftwaffe's Blitzkrieg project, although it appears to have a temporary stay of execution due to the credit crunch and the inability of developers to come up with a worthwile replacement to fill the site. I'd spent the earlier part of the day wandering around Wincolmlee, Hull's old industrial heart. Lots of defunct buildings. From the time when we used to make stuff. Before the people that you'd have beaten up at school took over and sent our industry spiralling to its terminal decline. Many of these same inept, dull, boring geeks - people who wouldn't be capable of a physical day's work if their sad, jargon-filled lives depended on it - now work as management and/or consultants in the public sector. Or work in banks. No doubt they will take an apartment in whatever contemporary living space is deemed worthy enough to plug the gap left by the destruction of Clarence Mills. Then lease out their purchase to someone who doesn't object to being ripped off. Hey ho. Everything is broken.
To the pub. We discussed comedy in our usual bickering, whinging, whining low-level way. Unfathomably, to me anyway, the frontman of The Interiors doesn't think that Bill Hicks is/was funny. Yet he finds Mitchell and Webb highly amusing. I don't. Comedy, and what makes us laugh, is all subjective and I do accept that, if not what was surely drink-induced stupidity from the frontman of The Interiors. Therefore, at a push and with a lot of generosity on my side, we are both right. Although I am more right than he is, because Bill Hicks is a very funny stand-up and Mitchell and Webb, well, there's two of them, so mathematically they should be twice as funny as Billy. But they are not even half as funny. The frontman of The Interiors is, I should add, very funny.
HDM sports feature writer Nick Wood has an Alanis Morrisette grasp of irony.
In a feature about former Hull City defender Sam Ricketts, Woody writes:
"...departing for Bolton in a £2m deal in the summer, the defender swapped East Yorkshire for Lancashire and a club with eight years of Premier League football behind them. That he's back at the KC within three games of the start of the campaign is an irony." (my italics!)
What's ironic about that? Surely it's just down to the Premier League fixtures?
Full ironic story here.
Down the pub with The Interiors frontman, who's just written a screenplay called Pygmies On Stilts. The title bears no relation to the script's contents. I pointed out that we were sat in the seats where a man with an uncanny resemblance to Steven Spielberg usually parks his ass. The Interiors frontman shrugged. Then the Spielbergalike turned up. There was no scene. He just sat somewhere else. We talked about the fortunes of Hull City and Hull FC. I had avoided the opportunity to attend the latter's game last night free of charge, feeling that a ticketgiveaway had devalued, even more, if that were even possible, a game that was already totally meaningless. 5,000 freeloaders made the effort and I doubt that my lack of presence made any difference. We chatted about the script. We shared two pitchers of lager. We discussed the paucity of ambition of other people. We went our separate ways. Home, I ate two slices of cold pizza and watched the Big Brother post-eviction show, with absolutely no idea who anyone was talking about. Is that better or worse than 80 minutes of underperforming Super League teams going head-to-head?
I went into Tesco for a Cornish Pasty, an ink cartridge and a die-cast police car for Finn. Which I got. I also bumped into Hull's award-winning playscribe Richard Bean, in town for rehearsals of his new play Pub Quiz Is Life. "Will it offend me?" I asked Richard Bean. "You probably won't be interested," said the award-winner, "it's about east Hull."
My back. Hurts. So much. Can't lie down. Can't stand up. Can't walk. Can't keep still. Can't sit down. Can't bleedin' deal with it. Of course, sitting here, blogging, won't do it any good. But it won't do it any harm either. The damage, whatever it is, appears to have been done. I am going to sleep on something hard tonight, as opposed to our soft matress, in an effort to develop some bouncebackability. Otherwise I might have to turn to my friends at #welovethenhs for a cure or, failing that, a nice course of physiotherapy. If only I'd remembered to keep up the exercises I was given the last time. I've had problems with my back since the year 2000. So, once again, I'll blame the Hull Daily Mail, because their old furniture got me into this mess. Round here most things are their fault. Apart from the floods - that was Yorkshire Water and God. Whose existence I'm not too clear on (God, that is, not YW), aside from when I have a bad back, when I find myself asking Him for help.
I mostly work remotely these days. It's great, because it means that I am closer to the kettle and the fridge and don't have to shave or wear clothes. It's a brave new world and one that isn't necessarily aesthetically pleasing. Occasionally, of course, I have to attend a meeting. Like today. I wasn't happy because we could have done the meeting, which was little more than a coffee and some inane chat, via telephone. So, to appease me, halfway through the meeting they bought me an ice cream from a passing ice cream man who slowed down near the office block, tooting his ice cream man's tune. The ice cream in question was a whippy 99, in case you're wondering. Poor ice cream men, I don't suppose they'll ever get the chance to work remotely. But I suppose they could go unshaven and naked if they fancied (best not to hang about outside the school gates if you do opt for that approach Mr Whippy). Going to the meeting meant that I lost two hours when I could have been writing the work that the meeting was about. Which is why I mostly work remotely these days.
Poor Hull City. They were well and truly Defoed last night against Tottingham Hotspurns. I didn't go - I listened to the game on the local BBC radio station whilst watching a live stream that was delayed by around five seconds. That's how I like my football. I'm sure everything will be alright when they get the Greek in and Jozy Altidore arrives. Oh. Dear.
And finally, and courtesy of M who pointed me towards it first, how lovely that Father Ted scribe Graham Linehan uses his celebrity power and huge twitter following for good rather than evil, driving #welovethenhs and other big conversations around the globe. He writes, brilliantly, about twitter and The Conversation that has resulted here.
So, Hull FC are giving tickets away. Which is good for the poor people amongst us but demonstrates how far the club have fallen from grace. They should, by now, be top four regulars in Super League. But they've lumbered from one disaster to the next. It's not good enough to write off a season in the hope that all will come good next year when the team is overhauled. Because it's an embarrassment and an insult to those that follow the club. Castrate Richard Agar, behead the players, sack the board etc.
Great website for the anti-Daily Mailers amongst us and/or Daily Mail headline writers, whose work can now be done at the click of a button. The Daily Mail-o-matic produces glorious results such as COULD GAYS DEFRAUD THE ROYAL FAMILY? and HAS THE INTERNET MADE CLIFF RICHARD IMPOTENT? I love Chris Applegate's rationale for the way he has made his random headline generator go about its business: "I was going to give the generator a sophisticated grammar for more varied sentences, until I realised the Mail’s grammar is nearly always the same." Give it a whirl here.
But who am I to complain? Watched Tigers online too - those poor things deserved a draw. We also went out to Hull's Museums Quarter to 'Meet The Tudors', although my suspicions are that they were just contemporary folk wearing costume. There was some Tudor food up for grabs - bananas soaked in some sticky, orangey sauce and some smashingly bitey ginger bread amongst it. Not too much was going on, to be honest, which is just as well as not many people had bothered to turn up to see how little was going on (those two negatives not cancelling each other out. Hull is a place where mediocrity has bred apathy).
A couple of artsy endeavours have gotten me thinking. Which is a good thing.
First up is that Goole Town Council are seeking a freelance Samba music workshop leader. Have you ever been to Goole? It's not the place that one would expect to hear Samba music, nor the place one would expect to dance a Samba. Which is surely the point. This Samba gubbins will lead to a Samba procession through the town of Goole on Bonfire Night 2009. I read that "some Samba equipment will be provided". My head spins.
Second up is the great news that Hull artist Lee Merrill Sendall - or the mighty Corona Smith round these streets - is one of 59 artists shortlisted nationally for Artists Taking the Lead, part of the Cultural Olympiad in 2012. Lee aims to create a five acre, 200ft hight Large Spiral Mound upon which we can stand and view East Yorkshire. It will be made of waste earth and rubble, which the public will be invited to dump in the spirit of a cooperative shindig. Given the levels of waste we all produce these days, five acres and 200ft might be nowhere near big enough.
You would think that Sainsbury's staff would get fed up of asking me if I have a Nectar card. But they don't.
You would think that Tesco staff would get fed up of asking me if I have a Club Card and if I am ok with my packing. But they don't.
You'd think I'd follow the rule of three and write something about Asda. But I rarely go in Asda and tend to self-checkout when I do.
That was a good blog post, wasn't it?
Another week. Half of the first day almost gone already, so the working week is all slipping away from me again as I speak. But so what? Who cares?
A nice weekend, during which I generally mucked about and relaxed with M and the boy F, which I don't feel like I've done for quite some time. We walked in the sunshine. We went to the park. We laughed. And meandered. General japes. Some monstrous vegetable burgers over at mothers. Bit of decent telly too - northern flat cap, whippet stroking rugby league Challenge Cup semis thrillers, then the miners night on BBC Four and Louise Theroux in The City Addicted To Crystal Meth, while not exactly mood enhancers, were jolly interesting. Bit of a disappointing musical experience - The Twang's Jewellery Quarter, demonstrating an act trying desperately to fit too many lyrics into too small a space. But maybe it needs a few listens. In contrast, I was also tempted to pop Sign O The Times back on the CD player for the first time in a long time and that was good to hear again.
Submitted play to theatre last week, waiting for news. This morning I sent some radio gubbins over to a Radio Four producer. I won't hold my breath. But that would be good to do.
Generally, I'm not doing enough, although I feel overworked. Flat battery syndrome. Thinking too much about stuff that ties me in knots to my own detriment. About removing the desire to fulfil my 'false needs', about the mess we're all in, about how to opt out of 'the system' if, indeed, it's possible. We have no money. A big part of me doesn't care. Another part of me worries. I wake up at around 4am most mornings. Not sure if it's the thinking or the tea-filled bladder weakening under the strain.
Finally waded through a load of treacle that's been threatening to drown me. Which feels rather nice, although the end result was more of an "at last" letdown rather than any feeling of accomplishment. Hack work, y'know, it ain't very satisfying. It also sucks the blogging life out of me, despite my best intentions of clambering back on the daily post treadmill.
Found this website today. It's fantastic: http://istwitterdown.com/
I'm excited about this (although, arguably, it should've ended before now). Although it will, no doubt, be months before I see it. Larry, I heart you, you old misery guts. The story arc for this series - cast of Seinfeld reunite, to cut several programme outlines short - sounds as promising as The Producers-based series, which was, for me, the best Curb yet. Bring it on.
Very amused when I landed on uk.msn.com today to see the above headline above the Stone Roses legendary monkey man. Not a tale of a crackhead so out of it that he took Ian Brown in hand. Rather, just the work of someone who'd decided to omit the word 'stage' from proceedings. Mr B is enough of a visual feast without witnessing that. This was all part of MSN's efforts to chart the Worst Onstage Mishaps - the King Monkey was pulled off stage at Sheffield in June 2008. Good work. You can find the rest here.
My honey, my baby
Don't put my love upon no shelf
She said don't hand me no lines
And keep your hands to yourself
