Overview of the last two months with: Google Maps, FHP Magazine, Carl Froch, Jen Dodd, grandad breakdancer and Bulwell dad on sex offenders register
April 1
Nottingham is still in the thrall of Google Maps, the application that allows us to gaze anywhere in the world and brings home the fragility and all-oneness of humanity as it
clings to the planet. Except that we use it to gawp at prostitutes on Forest Road and check which houses in the posh bits leave their back windows open. Have you seen ‘Denis’, the
matriarch of Mansfield Road, flicking a V-sign at the Google car? Lovely.
April 9
A devastating blow to Nottingham Culture, as it is announced that FHP – the magazine that contained nothing but photos of Cheese Managers from Asda standing next to their wives and grinning like electrocuted chimps at the opening of a crisp packet as if their pointlessly meaningless husks of lives actually counted for anything – has folded. Right about now, there are hairdressers standing stock still in Tantra, their faces set in a wild-eyed rictus, waiting to be photographed at the VIP launch of a new condom machine in the gents. Waiting there for a photo that will never be taken. Breaks your heart, doesn’t it?
April 15
The two-minute silence for the victims of Hillsborough takes place in the Square, and it’s eerie as owt. I swear the sky darkened when it started, and all you could hear was the flapping of the flag at half mast and the beating of pigeons wings overhead. It was like Bizarro New Years Eve.
April 19
The world record for abject, non wind-assisted window-lickery is smashed on Forest Road when a Dad from Bulwell – obviously worried that his 14 year-old son might be falling behind at school, or he might be Gay, because he’s made noises about being a vegetarian or starting to look a bit Emo – decides to sort him out by treating him to a slap-up prostitute virginity-losing session. Unfortunately, said prossie turns out to be an undercover police officer, and Dad gets rightfully slapped on the Sex Offenders Register. And before any of your lot start braying that you wished you had a dad like that, imagine yourself trapped in a Ford Cortina at the age of 14, with your own father leaning over and saying things like “Just gerrit up ‘er, youth” and “This is where I go when your Mam gets on me wick”. Shudder.
April 26
Carl Froch gives an American lad a tumpin’ in his own back yard in an amazing fight that keeps everyone watching TV at home in Notts on the edge of their seats. Except it doesn’t, because nobody running a TV station in Britain thinks to screen it, preferring to show Kerry Katona: When Fat Kaylide Mams Attack The Drinks Cabinet, or suchlike.
April 29
No sooner do we start to slowly recover from the death of Selectadisc (and we devote a cover to it, which was the last thing that was left hanging in the window – pause to breathe on fingers and buff them against lapel of school blazer) than two London businessmen announce that they’ve taken over the name and are reopening it. General rejoicing all round, but hang on – it’s not going to really be proper Selectadisc, is it? That’s like me going around town with a carrier bag of blood vomit and calling myself Yates. Couldn’t they call it ‘Tekatune’ or summat?
May 6
Once again, it’s Nottingham Two, London Nil Day – that annual event when occurs when the last London team gets knocked out of the Not Really For Champions League. All those teams, all that money, all those players, all that tedious peacockery, and they still can’t come close to us. Ha. Ha.
May 8
What a beautiful day, missus, what a beautiful day for the Royal Concert Hall to tell Ken Dodd not to bother doing his Christmas show this year because his act is ‘repetitive’. Because everything you see, listen to and experience at Christmas is completely different year after year, in’t it?
May 13
The council announce that the idea of making the Market Square look like a beach resort is to be reactivated over the summer holidays. Mint idea. And here’s a suggestion to make it even more authentic: why not surround it with a crust of horribly depressing pubs, with gangs of lobstery meatheads shambling around outside in sweat-ringed football shirts, grunting at each other and making you ashamed to be British? Nah. Way too ambitious.
May 19
A couple of banjo-twangers from Kimberley go on trial for beating up some poor sod on the bus after a heated discussion over the latest book by Richard Dawkins, particularly the claim that atheists should not be apologetic for or timid about their beliefs, because atheism is evidence of a healthy, independent mind, uncowed by traditional though. Ha, not really – it was over a pink jumper someone else was wearing. I’d love to be around when they realise that they actually live at a girl’s name.
May 20
The Brian Clough statue gets defaced. Surprise, surprise, the culprit turns out to be everyone’s favourite mouth-breathing tagbitch, the contemptible Smokey. Here’s a suggestion – let’s put the statue on a pivot, so the God-Like Brian can headbutt the worthless dangling of clag from the bumhole of futility into the ground, over and over again, until nothing remains but a puddle of congealed Mong.
May 21
The BNP, those cheeky scamps, are up to their usual japery. This time they’ve sneaked flyers, containing the usual yitneyesque bleating about Eastern Europeans wanting to take your jobs, only pausing on their dinner hours to gnaw at chopped hunks of your
kiddies before giving your daughters a bit of what-for, into Pizza Hut menus. Unfortunately, they rather spoil the effect by using an illustration of a Spitfire with Polish markings. Y’know, when they were helping us to fight the Nazis.
May 22
A young friend of May Contain Notts is informed by someone at their local job centre that 1,400 people have applied for a manager’s job. At Greggs.
May 24
Notts is represented in Britain’s Got Nothing Better To Do on A Saturday Night Than Watch This Load Of Rammely Toss by a 73 year-old breakdancer from Sutton Bonington. Alright, so he’s not really busting wicked bad fresh moves in his chilly duds, but he can do a forward roll, which is more than most people reading this piece can do...
May 25
But, oh dear, it turns out that said superannuated B-Boy is immediately exposed as being on the sick and claiming £70 a week for a badly leg. By the way, when I go on there and Amanda Holden asks me what I’m going to do, I’ll say “I’m going to knock off Les Dennis to get me face in the papers and then totally destroy him by slagging it with Rocky out of Boon. After all, that’s what you did to get on, duck.”
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