Views from Google Earth #2

Fallowfield

Views from Google Earth #1

Salford Precinct

Match of the Day

This article although factual may contain material of an extremely trivial nature







FA Cup Qualifying 2nd Round:

Marske Utd v Skelmersdale Utd, 15:00

The real minnows of the FA Cup are playing today for a chance to end up in the ping-pong ball bag for the first round proper of the FA Cup. Marske Utd. take on the mighty Skelmersdale Utd.

'Robocop'/Middlesbrough Mayor Ray Mallon has promised to be groundsman for a day for Marske if they can go through to the third round. Not exactly bearing one's arse in Binns window but certainly an incentive to cheer on Marske.

Star Forward David Onions could be the man to pull it off for Marske. Last years leading goalscorer won't be intimidated by Skelmersdale with experience at Guisborough Town FC and Northallerton.

Marske will be hoping to break this season's record attendance of 161 from the preliminary round of qualifying where a 'rampant' Onions scored a hat-trick to bury Brigg Town.

The 'Seasiders' manager, 'ex-copper' and former Boro player Charlie Bell will be hoping for a win at the Mount Pleasant ground this afternoon otherwise to honour Mayor Mallon's bet he will be spending a day sweeping roads in Middlesbrough for his former boss.















Marskes "state of the art" stadium on Mount Pleasant Road may be stretched if attendance today tops the '200' mar'k

First Gig

Like your first record 'Theme from Monkey' (BBC records) or first LP 'Zenyatta Mondatta' by the Police I guess everyone remembers their first gig. Mine unfortunately wasn't really cool enough too be called a 'gig'. It was more a 'Rocktacular' or 'Metal-fest'.

The venue was the Redcar Bowl and the band was called 'Magnum'. Birmingham's pomp rock outfit? It was actually quite a good night. Fueled on by halfs of cider we got quite into it, and instead of falling over laughing when the Spinal Tap moments arrived we gasped in amazement.

The lead singer disappeared before one song, then appeared in the spotlight with a angulared mirrored head mask shooting out beams of light in all directions into the crowd. The crowd gasped with delight. Another song was played wearing fruit head masks.











'She should be made to smell the glove'

I left the gig thinking I was going to really get into metal. I was only 13 and I blame it on hormones and leather pants. The metal phase never really came thankfully.

Stangely enough I had been invited to a gig 2 months previously by 3 girls. But I quickly turned them down. 1 - It scared witless the idea to be with 3 girls for a whole day in Newcastle, and 2, I thought it sounded a bit 'gay' going to a concert that would be full of 'teenyboppers' all adoring the blokes in the band. The band was 'Frankie goes to Hollywood'.

Gillette Fusion

A Couple of weeks ago on 'Dragon's Den' one inventor came on with a 5 bladed razor which was quickly thrown out as absurd. I was quite shocked by this decision as as anyone who has closely followed the revolution that is 'disposable razor technology' will know........

Simple equation is
New Technology = Old Technology + 1 blade.

Gillette are currently launching the Fusion disposable razor with 6 blades. 5 on the front and one on the back for 'those tricky places'. Yes Mr Gillette it is difficult to shave tricky places with a razor that is as wide as a football pitch.

Apparently the sales of the 'Fusion' haven't been that good so far , so John Consumer may be rebelling. Enough is enough. I think Gillette's next product may be the four bladed razor.

Gillette Quatroplex. Because 5 blades was too much , we taken the complexity out of shaving with 'Quatroplex'!

The 'Kirk'

The Kirk or Kirklevington Country Club as it was officially called was a club run by the brothers 'McCoy' in Kirklevington. A tiny village about 10 miles outside Middlesbrough. Not an easy place to get to if one intended on drinking as no buses ran after 11pm.

When we first started frequenting the Kirk in our mid-teens we thought it was the coolest place on Earth. We also found out that some of our parents also went to the Kirk and also thought of it as the place to go.

The Kirk was the only club we knew in Middlesbrough that played indie music at the time, and we would sip our pints around the outskirts of the dance floor ready to run on as soon as The Smiths, New Order or Joy Division came on.

It was the highlight of the week. And budgeting began on Monday if we planned to go on Friday. Occaisonally unknown local bands played downstairs in the 'Kirk' mostly not that good, but if you search on Google you will find that in its day the Kirk was the place to play for upcoming and established bands.

Jimi Hendrix - Jan 1967
Jeff Beck - Oct 1967
The Animals - Dec 1967
Moody Blues - Feb 1968
Yes - 69
Jackson Heights -1970
Simple Minds 1979
George Melly 1973
Level 42 1981
Mott the Hoople 1970
Ben E King, the Rolling Stones, Rod Stewart, the Small Faces , Chris Rea also played at this small venue.

Unfortunately the Kirk no longer stands in Kirklevington as it was decided to close the club. The McCoy brothers had decided to concentrate on their restaurant businesses 'The Tontine' and 'The Purple Onion'. They were raised in the Masham Hotel, an iconic 'green tiled' building in the centre of Middlesbrough with Marks and Sparks attached to its' side.

So our next generation will never experience the joy of returning home at 2 in the morning, aftertaste of 'dodgy mobile van' kebab in the mouth, and 'Rock the Kasbah' and 'The Passenger' ringing in your ears, and a sore arse from bouncing up and down on the country roads in the 'clapped-out' smelly mini-bus.

And Kirklevington, population 282 will only be known for its unofficial poulation in the HMP Prison

You Tube

You Tube seems to be the fastest growing phenomina in the world of the internet.
I believe that it will become an excellent reference library almost as indespensible as as a 'google' search or a 'wikpeda' listing.

On Sunday my sister bought me a 'Diablo' and after exhausting the only trick I could do I quickly found lots of 'youtube' tutorials on how to perform flabergasting tricks for your mates at your next party. (Still can't do any though).

A recent trend also seems to be to stick a digicam in your car and record a trip through your place of residance. What a waste of Megabytes!

Coupe Aeronautiqe Gordon Bennett

The 'Coupe Aeronautique Gordon Bennet' is a balloon race. Well it's not really a race more a competition as the winner is the hot air balloon that travels the furthest.

First run in 1906 from Paris, the event was organised by Gordon Bennet, an eccentric millionaire newspaper man from New York. 200,000 people turned up to watch the start in Paris. Most teams dared not cross the English channel but the team that did won the event landing in Scarborough on the North East coast.

This year the event is running for the 50th time and starting in Antwerp in Belgium. Rather like the Eurovision Song Contest the winner of the 'coupe' has the honour of hosting the following years event.

At present (10.09.06 12:24 UTC) the 16 competitors are winging their way accross the North Sea heading towards Norway. You can follow their progress live by GPS co-ordinates at the competition website.

Belgium 2 looks like it is going to pass over Middlesbrough. What a treat for the crew. Currrent position is (Team Name: Belgium 2Van Geyte, Luc / Paenen, RudyLast Update (UTC): 2006-09-10 12:03:12Position: N53°59'38" W001°32'47"Flown Distance (km): 495.09) . Putting that into Streetmap.co.uk they are currently passing over Harrogate. The Royal Pump Room Museum to be exact.











Museum in Harrogate used by Royalty though the ages for relief from flatulence
















Germany 3 (Columus V) narrowly misses Middlesbrough instead passing over Skinningrove's Cliffs

Halluçienda

Am i halluçianting? Are there really 41 Haçienda Flyers for sale on Ebay. Why that eBayer must be of his trolly to sell those. And it must have taken him at least two hours to put them all on eBay!. Espeçially when his stupid PÇ kept crashing.

When i first sold a çouple of Stone Roses flyers for 10 quid and upwards, one going for 20, I thought the attraçtion was the Roses, but sinçe realised there is a huge bunch of Faç nutters out there, who foam at the mouth at the thought of anything related to 11/13 Whitworth Street West.

Before I'd managed to finish posting the items I already had 1 bid, 2 email questions and about 10 people watching these items. Even the ones that look like they have been used as beer çoasters.

Any bids are welçome........ Old Paper for sale

Banksy Strikes Again

Paris Hilton's album entered the UK chart at number 29 last week Hundreds of Paris Hilton albums have been tampered with in the latest stunt by "guerrilla artist" Banksy.
Banksy has replaced Hilton's CD with his own remixes and given them titles such as Why am I Famous?, What Have I Done? and What Am I For?

He has also changed pictures of her on the CD sleeve to show the US socialite topless and with a dog's head. A spokeswoman for Banksy said he had doctored 500 copies of her debut album Paris in 48 record shops across the UK.

A spokesman for Virgin Megastores said staff were searching for affected CDs but it was proving hard to find them all. "I have to take my hat off - it's a very good stunt," he added.

Considering that it is very difficult to get hold of this guys 'art', surely these CD's could be fetching 1,000's in years to come. I'm off to ebay now! I'm sure one or two dumb Hilton fans will think they are worthless.