Issue 36 Aug-Sept 2010
“I wouldn’t say I was the best Romanticist poet in the business, but I was in the top one” Byron Clough
Just how much is your car costing you?
Travelling by tram, train, bus, walking or cycling reduces congestion and CO2 emissions, helping you to do your bit for the environment www.thebigwheel.org.uk
contents
LeftLion Magazine Issue 36 August - September 2010
Based on Thomas Phillips’ 1824 portrait, Rikki Marr’s Byron Clough lives in the Cross Keys on Byard Lane. Prints available for sale at viewtheshop.co.uk.
editorial Youths and Ducks, (...and yeah, Brian Clough’s been on the cover two issues running. You wanna mek summat on it?)
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7 Contain Notts 04 May The local news diary that’s just come back from a dirty weekend in Mabelthorpe with your Mam, and wouldn’t go anywhere near that stick of rock she’s brought back
Hooray For Wellywood Event Listings 12 22 Wellington Films racks up ten years We know what you’ll do this
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in New Basford 07 AOurCanadian Rob cuts the arms off his lumber jacket and gazes in awe at a proper English summer
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Blokes on Trent Will Forest get out of the Championship? Will Notts thrive in League One?
Terry Venerable 09 The undisputed overlord of
Programme World
Heart of The Midlands 10 Simeon Hartwig talks t-shirts and
telly
credits
in the flick biz
Empathy and Ivory 13 A long-overdue blather with Billy
LeftEyeOn Pictures of lovely, lovely Nottingham
Ivory
Throw Off Your Mental Chains! 14 Nick Parkhouse: an Eighties Knight,
fighting for the honour of Johnny Hates Jazz
on disability, and coming to a school near you
We’ve Been Framed 16 Portraits of Nottingham Pete Davis 18 He’s Nottingham’s premier
Film Editor Alison Emm (ali@leftlion.co.uk) Literature Editor James Walker (books@leftlion.co.uk) Music Editor Paul Klotschkow (paulk@leftlion.co.uk) Photography Editor Dominic Henry (dom@leftlion.co.uk) Theatre Editor Adrian Bhagat (adrian@leftlion.co.uk) Listings Editor Tommy Farmyard (leftlion.co.uk/add)
Orchestra, Baby Godzilla, Tom Garner, Lowstarr, Manière des Bohémiens, Spaceships are Cool, Kirk Spencer, Whatley & Stone and Yunioshi
the likes of Dino, The Cumin, and Cock and Hoop. Three words: ‘Om’, ‘Nom’ and ‘Nom’
LeftLion Abroad 30 Plus The Arthole, Notts Trumps and
Rocky Horrorscopes
Photographers David Baird Debbie Davies Video Mat Carla Mundy Steve Rowe Stephen Wright Pete Zabulis
It was the summer of 1980, and your humble Editor and his mate Gormy Dawny were returning from the City Ground after a daring raid onto the pitch to nick handfuls of grass when we chanced across Soccer City, the other shop he owned on Arkwright Street. The first thing he did was ask if we wanted to buy some display cases for our grass (we did. Pound each). The second thing, after he’d had our money, was to tell us to piss off, as he was busy merging both shops into one, and couldn’t waste time chatting to a couple of mongs in scabby Harringtons. I asked him if he needed a hand, and before I knew it, I had me first-ever job. Back in the day, Arkwright Street used to run from the train station right up to Trent Bridge, and at the time it seemed like the entire world passed through there on a Saturday afto. You saw everything an’all; one afternoon I managed to leg it back to the shop after a Man U game just before hundreds of mardy Manc scab-bags tried to stove the doors in. I also built up the full collection of Forest European Cup proggehs, that my Dad put in a leaky shed after I left home. But enough of my second favourite job in Notts; doing this mag is my true love, and believe you me, it’s looking so gorgeous this month that I want to take it back to me family’s for tea, and then give it one up against the chest freezer in the spare room while Mam’s watching Deal Or No Deal. Hope you think so too.
including - not lyin’ yer Sir Andrew Motion
Contributors Mike Atkinson Mat Brinks Alistair Catterall Joe Coghlan Rob Cutforth Al Draper Piers Edminson Katie Half-Price Adele Harrison Duncan Heath Pippa Hennessey Sharriff Ibrahim John James Isabel Kaufman Siobhan Logan Roger Mean Sarah Morrison Sir Andrew Motion Beane Noodler Aly Stoneman Villayat Sunkmanit Anthony Whitton
Art Editor Frances Ashton (frances@leftlion.co.uk)
Reviews 25 Opportunity knocks for 8mm
Write Lion 20 A massive two-page spesh,
Editor Al Needham (nishlord@leftlion.co.uk)
Marketing and Sales Manager Ben Hacking (ben@leftlion.co.uk)
summer
storyteller, don’t you know
Cover Rikki Marr (rikki@viewtheshop.co.uk)
Art Director David Blenkey (reason@leftlion.co.uk)
Cerebral and Ballsy Noshingham 15 28 Dan Edge: Putting the smackdown Another procession of Big Teas from
Editor in Chief Jared Wilson (jared@leftlion.co.uk)
Linchpin Alan Gilby (alan@leftlion.co.uk)
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We’re all aware, I trust, what an incestuous sniff-aroundthe-dog’s-ringpiece life in Nottingham can be - especially in LeftLionLand, where, every now and then, you find yourself interviewing people you actually know. It’s bleddy weird. You start the interview saying to some band, “So when was your first gig?” and they say; “At the Maze, wan’t it? You were there, you bell-end. Oh, has the interview started, then?” For example, in this issue, amongst other things, I got to interview my first boss who gave me my second-favourite job in Notts. Terry from Programme World.
Illustrators Rob White Mike Schofield
Word To Your Nana, Al Needham nishlord@leftlion.co.uk
Podcast crew Paul Abbott John Anderson Timmy Bates Mike Cheque Rich Crouch Jacob Daniel Will Forrest Kristi Genovese Jon Hall Dan Hardy Christopher Hough Robin Lewis Stuart Rogers Sam Vtekk Alex Walker Oli Ward Jack Wiles Jim Wheatley
Mike
LeftLion.co.uk received twelve million page views during the last year. This magazine has an estimated readership of 40,000 people and is distributed to over 300 venues across the city of Nottingham. If your venue isn’t one of them, please contact Ben on 07984 275453 or email ben@leftlion.co.uk. This magazine is printed on paper sourced from sustainable forests. Our printers are ISO 14001 certified by the British Accreditation Bureau for their environmental management.
Want to advertise in our pages? Email sales@leftlion.co.uk or phone Ben on 07984 275453 or visit leftlion.co.uk/advertise
Atkinson
A (formerly) chatty little blogger Mike - who interviews Nick Parkhouse in this ish - was the brains, fingers and soul behind Troubled Diva, one of the first - and best - blogs in the UK, before Big Media assimilated him into the Borg. He reviews gigs and interviews pop stars for the Post, and writes for The Guardian’s weekly film and music supplement. Not only does he know more about the Eurovision Song Contest than is strictly healthy, he also spent an hour on Anthony Gormley’s fourth plinth dancing to a disco mix on his iPod. Dead arteh, it wor. troubled-diva.com
Write Lion
The LeftLion Lit-cast If you love the written word, but want to give your eyes a rest for an hour or so, Write Lion hosted by James Walker and Aly Stoneman - is the perfect balm for your tabs. Their aim is simple: to showcase the work of writers on the forum, play the odd tune, showcase the cream of the Notterati, chat with industry professionals, listen to some readings and offer information on how you can get published. leftlion.co.uk/audio leftlion.co.uk/issue36
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England’s Glorious World Cup Run Everyone involved in that Radio Trent song and video should be crucified in the middle of the Market Square - yes, even those small children. I’m willing to hammer the nails in if someone with good woodworking skills can put some crucifixes together. Daysleeper Apparently 14,000 Nottingham kids were dragged out of lessons to record that song. They would have caused less shame to our city if they had spend that time rubbing the heads of decapitated old people against their groins, live on Midlands Today. Lord of the Nish England 1 USA 1 Sigh. Deceased Every World Cup, at least one of Germany, Italy, Argentina and Brazil is described as having a worse than usual team, inexperienced defence, team-coach disputes etc., and this is given as one of the reasons why it could be England’s year. Come the first matches, all those teams prove to be as amazing as ever, far better than shaky, unconvincing England. Cheque Ronaldo makes me want to hit babies and old women. themn England 0 Algeria 0 Sigh. Deceased England 1 Slovenia 0 The USA have knocked us out of the World Cup. Lord of the Nish England 1 Germany 4 I managed to trick myself into having high expectations of this team during qualification. I think we lacked pace at the back though and seemed very narrow in midfield. Rooney didn’t turn up, like so many of the players. I’d love to know what really went wrong. There has to be something up - so many of them were playing out of their natural positions, but still, they are Premiership pros and should be able to switch. ROB I think the manager has got to go. It’s pretty clear that his tactical approach with this squad was wrong. Yeah, he’s won a lot of stuff at club level - but taking off Defoe and bringing on Heskey was the wrong decision, one for which Taylor or McClaren would have been crucified for already. Is Fabio really Tony Blair in a Bo Selecta mask? Floydy Time to develop a team rather than stars. Our under 21 team is pretty good. Promote them I say and start building for the next world cup with the Euros as a tournament to bed them in. Bring back home internationals too - that’ll teach the team about pride. ROB I went for a run yesterday afternoon. On the way out, I noticed a house with loads of England flags. On the way back, with 20 minutes of the match still to play, there was a guy in an England shirt up a step ladder pulling all the flags down. I guessed we hadn’t won. Adrian
The Death of Brownes Sad to see the Detonate/Spectrum reign come to a close...even sadder to see it’s being re-branded. Not just because it’s been a staple of the Notts scene for 30-odd years, but it’s also where my parents first met... Deceased Shame to see it go, been on the cards for a while. And just as Hockley was regaining some credibility. Walking through last weekend it was scary to see how many empty buildings there are down that way. Lace Market is even worse. Mouse Something needed to happen to Brownes. Once they took out the comfy sofas by the window, they relinquished their Trendy Rights. themn
MAY CONTAIN NOTTS with Nottingham’s ‘Mr. Sex’ Al Needham
June - July 2010
27 May May Contain Notts reacts to the news of Gary Coleman’s death by launching the following petition; “We, the undersigned, demand that Nottinghamshire pays tribute to the television show Diff’rent Strokes by changing the name of an estate to ‘Willis’, to go with Kimberley and Arnold. Changing the name of another part of Notts to ‘Mr Drummond’ would be mint too.” So far, five people have signed it. Fight The Power. 28 May On the day of the UK iPad launch, over 300 people are seen queuing all the way down Parliament Street. Outside JJB Sports. For a free England T-shirt. In exchange for some tokens out The Sun. 4 June It is announced that thirty new jobs are to be created in Mansfield with the opening of a new Poundland. Knowing that dump, it’ll be one person manning the till, one person legging it to the shelves to find out how much everything costs again, eight people trying to add everything up, and twenty security guards. 10 June An author from Nottingham – the bleddy traitor – releases a book claiming that Robin Hood actually came from, wait for it, Leicester. Let’s smash this theory right now; One! Robin Hood stole from the rich to give to the poor, not sit around making jumpers. Two! Out of the hundreds of ballads written about Robin Hood, the word ‘Crisps’ appears exactly never. Three (and most importantly)! Robin’s love interest was Maid Marion, not his sister. 11 June The Council House lives up to its name when it hangs up an 18-foot wide England flag. So when’s the stonecladding going up, Council? And are you going to leave a 30-foot broken fridge outside the Lions, an’all? 12 June The Asda in Hyson Green have to slash the price of six-packs of Walkers Argentinean Flame-Grilled Steak and German Bratwurst crisps to 25p each to get rid of them. COME ON ENGLAND! 15 June Those orange and grey Nike boots that half the players in the World Cup are wearing – aren’t they rank? If ever an item of footwear was made for the specific purpose of hanging about outside the McDonalds on Clumber Street with a face like a smacked arse, it’s them. 18 June England 0, Algeria 0. England’s World Cup campaign: the second abortion that John Terry’s been involved with this year. 19 June The more I see Fabio Capello, the more I realise who he reminds me of: the Fish Man.
20 June Radio Nottingham launches a bid for Nottinghamshire to have its own flag. Brilliant idea, and I know just the design; Two upright columns (signifying the areas on either side of the Trent), joined by a similar-shaped column at a 105-degree angle (signifying Trent Bridge). And then rotated a few degrees clockwise, so it gives off the effect of a slanty…er. Ah. Forget I spoke. 27 June England get absolutely panned by Germany. The cries for video evidence in games rise to such heights that FIFA are considering Mansfield Road as the site of the next World Cup. 8 July Johnnie Jackson – the County player who gave my mate the wanker sign in the previous instalment of May Contain Notts – signs for Charlton Athletic so, quote, “he can be nearer his wife and child.” In a pig’s arse, Johnnie – you decided to peg it like a YITNEH instead of doing the right thing, which was, as we demanded, that you recreate your walk up Heathcote Street, but this time, you ruffle my mate’s head, say soz, and then give him some tickets and scarves. Look at you. Running like a bitch. 12 July NCT announce that they are looking for two voices to feature on their bus routes. Obviously, it’s a formality - but I’ve already sent in my demo tape just in case. Here’s the tracklist; 1. Stop Playing That Grime Wank On Your Mobile, Youth, It Sounds Like Someone Having An Argument Wi’ Theirsen In A Branch Of Tandy 2. Who’s Eating Chips? Giz Some! 3. Shut That Bleddy Mardy Kid Up Before I Break Summat 4. Get Feet Off Chair, You Chatty Bastard 5. Is That Weed? GIZ IT! 6. We Are Now Going Through Bestwood, Please Get Under Your Seat And Don’t Look At Anyone 17 July The Council announce plans to shut down the sex shop on Upper Parliament Street, because – wait for it – it gives a poor impression of the City Centre, taking visitors’ minds off the more vibrant parts of the area, such as slappers wazzing down Hurt’s Yard, meatheads trying to put each other through the windows of Foxy’s, and a dinnerlady-magnet called ‘Flares’. You know what I always say: the more townies at home on a Saturday night mashing their genitals with sex toys, the better we all are. 19 July A group of Mams, tired of the stigma society places on the natural act of breastfeeding, hold a mass lob-out in the Arboretum, which is only slightly marred by the appearance of a bald man in a massive nappy stomping about, waving a dummy and shouting; “This is absolutely shagging up me teggehs, you know! Are you gonna do summat about it or what?” at them. Right waste of a Monday afto, that was.
Still waiting two months for your MCN fix? Are you thick or summat? The May Contain Notts newsletter hits Nottingham every Friday(ish), with chelp, mither, rammell, and hugely important updates of what a gwan in LeftLionLand. Slap leftlion.co.uk/mcn in your browser and stop fanning abahht, youth... 4
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LeftEyeOn
Bringing you some hot shots from round Notts as seen by the local camera talent...
Left to right from the top: By George - “In-GURR-LAAND”, shouted the Council House in June. Plans to have Wayne Rooney, John Terry, Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard hanging from the balcony in July were sadly shelved. (Pete Zabulis / Flickr: PeteZab) Clock this - The Red Bull X-Riders put on a gravity-defying session in the Square on August 14, before their World Tour showdown in London. (Carla Mundy / carlamundyphotography.com) Mate in a state - Retail fantasy runs into cold reality on the corner of Market Street and Long Row. Better out than in, duck… (Stephen Wright / Flickr:-SW-) May contains Notts - Imelda May gave it some serious Rockabilly stylings on Old Market Square as part of the free City Pulse weekender, 30 May 2010. (Dom Henry / domhenry.com) Postman Prat - A protest , but against what? The privatisation of the Royal Mail? England’s World Cup display? Or being barred out of BZR? Either way, it’s just another Satdee night in paradise… (Debbie Davies / debsphotography.co.uk)
www.leftlion.co.uk/issue36
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THURSDAY 9 - SATURDAY 11 SEPTEMBER, 8PM HIGHFIELDS PARK - SEATED £12 (£9 CONCESSION) SUITABLE FOR AGES 12+
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‘To bronco a swing you stand on it, worky up to the bumps, level with the bar, kick the swing over your head and jump beneath it.’ Douglas Maxwell
This award winning show is a theatrical event unlike any other. Eight actors - all trained acrobats - play out this powerful and vivid tale of childhood innocence and the perilous passage into adulthood.
Against all odds, we’ve actually had a proper summer this year. Our resident CanAlien pulls on his Bryan Adams t-shirt and a bum-bag and dares to venture outside, the batchy bogger… Ah, Summertime. Jumping fish, high cotton, rich daddies and good-looking mommas. It’s been wonderful, hasn’t it? This summer has been so good that I can hardly believe I’m in England. Isn’t that cause to celebrate? Of course not, dummy - that just gives Brits more to moan about. Just this minute, I have had a British woman complain to me about the heat. It is 25 degrees outside. Twenty five. How have you people survived this long? In other countries, if the temperature dips below fifteen, people put on a jacket. If it rises above 23, they wear shorts. In England, if the temperature rises or falls out of that range, people die. A discussion on which factor sunscreen one should wear is a twenty minute conversation in this country. Balancing ‘acquiring a tan’ with ‘not dying of skin cancer’ is a tricky business when you’re born with that pale blue British skin. It wouldn’t be so difficult to choose the right sunscreen if the weather forecasters could actually predict the weather more than fifteen minutes in advance. I don’t know why they bother with a three-day forecast; they’d be more accurate if, from March to August, they said “sunny breaks, low to mid twenties with a chance of showers” every single day. They’d get it right more often than they do now with all their fancy weather-detecting equipment. Cameron should forget canning thousands of public sector workers to save some cash; he could just sell off a couple of BBC Doppler radars. This summer has also changed my mind about chavs. They aren’t a pinheaded menace at all. They’re actually more evolved than the rest of us; higher beings who’ve developed a gene that makes them impervious to the heat. In June when we had that really hot spell (it actually got to twenty eight one day), I saw a chav standing at the train station dressed in heavy grey sweatpants, a massive grey hoodie and a black nylon jacket. He didn’t seem bothered at all - he just stood, cool as a cucumber, poking at his stolen mobile. I was in a t-shirt and shorts and was sweating like I had just ingested the Sun. But it’s not just the young chavs; the old, tubby, baldheaded chavs who walk around town wearing nothing
but pimp shades, England shorts and a pint of Carlsberg don’t feel the heat either. They don’t bother with sunscreen at all, and yet their bald heads and man-tits are both perfectly bronzed, without a hint of sunburn or melanoma. Aside from the slight leatheriness of the man-tits and the beach ball paunches, you’d almost say they look healthy. Glowing, even. Unfortunately for me, I seem to have adopted the (nonchav) British sensitivity to the heat. I actually caught myself on a particularly hot day saying to my wife, ‘Man, it’s hot outside, I think I prefer cycling in the rain than in this bloody heat’. Yes, I moaned about having to cycle on a sunny day. How good is my life that cycling on a sunny day is my biggest worry? It could have only been a more British move if I did it sporting a mitt full of sovs and scoffing a chip cob. After I said it, my wife and I stared at each other in silence for a few awkward moments before turning and walking away, pretending it had never happened. The most important thing about Summer, however, it that it absolutely sucks if you’re a British sports fan. It’s not brilliant at any time of the year, really, but it’s especially crap between June and August. I’m not even going to get into the football my God that was awful, but at least that pain is only inflicted on us every four years - but Wimbledon does it to us every year. Watching Wimbledon is like having a delicious steak dangled high over your head that’s lowered slightly every time Murray advances. At first the steak is so high that you can barely see it. You say to yourself; “Sure, steak would be fantastic, but there’s no point in even dreaming about it, just look how high it is; I’ll just have river trout and runner beans instead.” But then Murray beats some shmo in straight sets, the steak is lowered a bit and you think ‘Hmm, I still don’t think I’m going to get that steak, but it does look pretty good’. Murray then beats someone you’ve actually heard of and the steak is lowered again. It wasn’t Federer he beat, mind, but it was someone with a number beside his name. Murray wins a couple more times and the steak is lowered again and again until it’s at a level where you can smell it, and - if you stand on your tiptoes - you can just about touch
it with your fingertips. The peppercorn sauce drips down onto your face, and it drives you mad. “Yes! I’m going to get that steak this time, and oh my God, just look at it, it’s more beautiful than I could have ever imagined!” And then, just as you’re about to bathe yourself in its delicious steaky goodness, it morphs into a giant runny turd and falls directly into your salivating, gaping mouth. If that’s not horrible enough, there actually was a good sports story in this country over the summer - but because it happened at the same time as the World Cup, no one cared. England smoked the Aussies in their one day series, beating them in three straight matches. You just know that next summer when the Ashes have the British viewing public all to themselves, Kevin Pietersen and Paul Collingwood will double team Andrew Strauss’s missus the night before the First Test, Shane Warne will come out of retirement six stone lighter with a new bionic arm and he’ll bowl the greatest match in the history of cricket, knocking out the entire English side in the first over. But there I’ll be, mouth agape, ready for another massive turd to be shovelled in, for by then I will be like the rest of you losers and have developed a taste for it. canuckistani.com
GLEE LANDSCAPE QUARTER
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BLOKES ON TRENT
County: are they out of the basement of the Football League for good? Forest: will they ever make it to the promised land of the Premiership? On the verge of one of the most important football seasons in years, our resident experts run an eye down the fixture list…
FOREST
COUNTY
If your team’s performance last season was a pub in town, which one would it be? Oceana. A once-great institution that dominated the skyline of Nottingham, followed by a few years of being pretty rubbish. Now it seems to be the place to go again, regardless of quality. Not that I do, of course.
If your team’s performance last season was a pub in town, which one would it be? Vienna. Lavish promises and unsustainable spending at the start of the season put the whole future of the venture in serious jeopardy, but we managed to find new owners just before the bailiffs arrived and thankfully ended the season still open for business (and as division champs).
Who was your star player last season? Wes Morgan, Kelvin Wilson, Chris Cohen, Raddy Majewski and Dexter Blackstock all had amazing seasons. I'd like to give it to Luke Chambers, but I'd have to say Lee Camp - he had an incredible year.
Who was your star player last season? Like all division-winning seasons, it was more of a team effort than down to one player in particular. Lee Hughes springs to mind - because it's not too often you have a thirty-goal striker in your side - but he wouldn't have got anywhere near as many without the delivery of Ben Davies. Then there's Kasper Schmeichel, probably one of the best players to turn out for Notts, but we don't mention him, as certain people think his signing breached the Geneva Convention or something.
Rich Crouch, Lost That Lovin’ Feeling
Jacob Daniel, Notts County Mad
And who was the donkey? Dele Adebola didn't live up to expectation, but I'd have to opt for David McGoldrick. We paid a handsome sum for him, so would have expected a bit more, and his name lends itself to some excellent punning. Arise, Sir David McGoaldrought. Who’s new at your club this summer? At the time of writing, the only ‘signing’ was making Raddy a permanent member. Strong rumours suggest that Pratley, Whittingham and Shorey could all be wearing the Garibaldi come August, which would be delightful. For now, the latter is still hanging on for a Premiership club to pick him up. And who’s been nobbed off? James Perch has already been flung towards the general direction of Newcastle (for an undisclosed fee of up to £1.5m, depending on which person you talk to in which pub) and Joe Garner has been loaned out to Huddersfield Town for six months. There’s also rumours of Chris Cohen going to Bolton for £5m. I'd be sad to see the latter happen (although the Evening Post will have already written the headline 'Cohen, Cohen, Gone'), but £5m for him would be hard to say no to. Any pre-season goings-on worth noting? A few pre-season friendlies, with some pretty low-rent teams and two pretty good ones. First up a trip to Portugal, followed by a home friendly against Lyon. I'd prefer them to just be over and the season start properly. If you threw a party and your team’s manager unexpectedly turned up, how would he behave? People would wonder why he was there, then after a short while you’d wonder how you ever partied without him. After the supply of whiskey runs out, though, he would threaten to leave if you didn't get him more. So you have to nip to the all-night Tesco and sort him out, ensuring that everyone knows you throw the best parties in town. What do you hate most about the other club across the Trent ? I don't hate them, I hate Derby. But the one thing that riled me was when they thought they had a bit of wedge so kicked the rugby team off their pitch, even though they'd said they could use it. Not a very nice thing to do, really. I also didn't like that slimy credit card salesman they had in charge for while - County fans should have had a gander at his track record before buying into that Munto business. And how come they never got in trouble for the advertising on their club crest? What are your kits like this season? At the time of writing, what appears to be the new home shirt has been leaked online. If it is, it’s miles better than last season’s - plain, simple, classic, with a stripy two-tone effect and no frills or faff. Forest are usually woeful with merchandising and club promotion - last season’s home shirt wasn’t available until just after the big kick-off, and the away shirt just about made the shelves for Christmas. As for the away shirt: it could be anything. Where will you be in five years’ time? At the City Ground watching Premiership football, and seeing Derby plunged further into debt by hosting a World Cup. Call your shot – what’s your club gonna do this season? Entertain, frustrate, shock, upset, disappoint, excite and enthral. The league is too open to make predictions. Unlike last year, Forest have nothing to fear from this season’s crop of Premiership rejects - Portsmouth, Burnley and Hull are no Newcastle or West Brom. I'd like to see us finish above Derby and get promoted automatically. I don't want to go through any more playoffs, that's for sure. Screw it: we're gonna win the league. ltlf.co.uk
And who was the donkey? Ade Akinbiyi, a man who effectively forced the coining of a phrase to describe an immobile, goalshy but hard-working striker. Leicester were once conned into paying £6m for his services; zero goals in three quarters of a season for Notts made us pretty relieved we picked him up on a free transfer. Who’s new at your club? Another year, another new man in the Meadow Lane managerial swivel chair: former Magpies defender, Craig Short. He's been rescued from his exile in Hungary managing Ferencvaros, where his first game was abandoned due to a riot. Lincoln fans have been having a tantrum after their keeper (and player of the year) Rob Burch defected to Meadow Lane. Lanky centre forward Ben Burgess has signed from Blackpool, midfielder John Spicer is in from Doncaster and former Chelsea starlet Jon Harley has joined from Watford. And who’s been nobbed off? Loads of people who played about twenty minutes between them last season, like Sean Canham and Ben Fairclough. They'll probably be popping up at a non-league club near you soon, somewhere like Hucknall, Retford or maybe Mansfield. Otherwise, cult hero but goal-shy workhorse Delroy Facey was given the boot, as was the elder statesman of midfield Jamie Clapham. Any pre-season goings-on worth noting? We've reappeared from the cold, dark world of Transfer Embargoland after paying a load of money back to the taxman and getting promoted to a division where there's no wage cap. They've also called in the decorators to spruce up Wheeler's Bar at the ground, so it no longer looks like a social club from a dodgy seventies sitcom. If you threw a party and your team’s manager unexpectedly turned up, how would he behave? Craig Short would man the door and take on the role of unofficial bouncer. He may also introduce us all to some traditional Hungarian tunes. Probably against everyone’s will. What do you hate most about the other club across the Trent ? They're just so cruel to their own fans. It must be horrible to be a massive club and still continually bottle it at home against the likes of Blackpool and Yeovil Town. That and they spent a million quid on David McGoldrick when we were in a recession, and still preach to us Notts fans about financial prudency. Not just inconsiderate, but hypocritical too. What’s your kit like this season? Black and, indeed, white. There's only so much you can do with monochrome stripes, so it looks pretty much like every other recent Notts kit - but the new badge doesn't look as bad as first feared. Otherwise, the appearance of a red Nike tick would be an aberration had we not concluded amongst ourselves that it’s actually crimson. Where will you be in five years’ time? Probably on our way back down having made our way up to the Championship - we operate in cycles and nomadically bounce around the divisions. Call your shot – what’s your club gonna do this season? Hard to tell. We’re in a new division. Everyone'd be happy with consolidation and continuing to make progress - although word from inside the club indicates that they're aiming for the top six and a shot at the Championship. I think with the signings we've made so far and the players we already have knocking about, mid-table looks about right - with an outside shot of doing a bit better or a bit worse. nottscounty-mad.co.uk
For all the Foresty-County chuntering a person could ever wish for, cock a tab towards Left Back - LeftLion’s monthly sports podcast - available at leftlion.co.uk/leftback. You can also read our monthly Forest and County updates at leftlion.co.uk/sport. 8
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Terry Venerable interview: Al Needham photo: Dom Henry
For nearly forty years, Terry Taylor has held the keys to Aladdins Cave - assuming that Aladdin was a rabid Notts County supporter and Forest memorabilia hoarder. His shop, Programme World, has stood on various locations and is a veritable time capsule of footballing archaeology… So what sucked you into the world of football memorabilia? I opened a shop on Arkwright Street in 1971 called Soccer City selling football badges and rings. Then I started making leather keyrings in the shop, which I still do today. I’ve collected football memorabilia since I was a lad – I’ve been watching Notts County since 1954, and I always used to tuck the programme down me shirt to keep it dry and flat. There was a bloke who used to sell programmes outside, and one day he asked if he could leave a thousand or so in the shop to keep ‘em out the rain. I let him do that all season. Come May, he told me he was retiring, and he put me in touch with the printers. I went down there and asked if I could have his pitch.
Are you going to wind down anytime soon? Well, I’m 64 now, and I’ve had enough. But I’ll always be involved in football until they take me out of here in a box. It’s my life.
You were in a prime location, on the old Arkwright Street… It was brilliant, then. You could get anything from a bag of chips to a motorcar on Arkwright Street. Fans used to come past here in droves on a Saturday – whether it was up one way for Forest or the other way for County. And then Mr Clough came to Forest, and I remember telling Sue, my wife; “Now we’ll make money.” And it all snowballed from there. We ended up opening Programme World a couple of doors down, before I merged ‘em together. We used to be busy even during the off-season.
So what did you think of the County takeover last season? I thought Munto were a total joke from the start, and the FA should have looked into ‘em from the beginning. I blame the FA for a lot of it, sanctioning a takeover where they promised the earth and took money out.
What was your relationship with the clubs back then? Did you need permission to sell programmes? I always used to deal with the printers, not the clubs. They couldn’t care less in those days, until they realised how much money was involved and they opened a club shop across the road from Viccy Centre. Back in the day when Forest were in the League Cup final every year, they used to put tokens in the programmes that you had to collect to get a Cup Final ticket. And we made a lot of money selling those programmes on to people who were missing tokens. In the end I was cutting the tokens out, and just selling them for a pound each.
Programme World, 5a Arkwright Street, NG2 2JR
New season, then: what’s gonna happen? I just hope County hold their own. I’ve heard some people say we’re going up again, but I’d be happy with mid-table and let Shorty build for the future. We’ve got some good players, and we’re pulling in a few more.
And what about Forest? What about ‘em? (laughs)
As for Notts, I was well in with them at the time. I used to do their souvenirs and I knew Jimmy Sirrel, Jack Wheeler…all of ‘em. I actually printed up the official programme for the County v Forest A-team game for the club, which was Trevor Francis’ debut after he’d signed for a million pounds. I even sold tickets for County games here; in 1975, Man United came to County, and they gave me 300 tickets to sell, because by law they couldn’t sell them at the ground on the day. That was the day Man U won the Second Division, and the away supporters absolutely trashed Meadow Lane. The shop was always heaving on a match day. You must have done alright out of it. I made more then than I do now. I’d take £300 on match day programmes alone - when they only cost 20p each. It was an absolute boom time for football programmes: people were starting to realise that football had a history and a heritage, and they wanted to buy into that. As a County man through and through, how galling was it that you spent most of your time in the boom years going around Europe with Forest on their cup runs and snapping up programmes? Not at all. I loved every minute of it. And a lot of the time, the away programmes were given away free by the clubs. I got some right stick off Chris Ashley of Radio Trent for flogging Cologne-Forest programmes for three quid each, but I had to go there to fetch ‘em. It cost me a fortune! It didn’t bother me that it was Forest having all the glory, I love football. If it had been Derby, on the other hand… And are the actual European Cup programmes worth a fortune now? No, they’re not. I’ve got thousands of ‘em. Remember, the clubs were printing thousands of copies, and everyone kept ‘em. League Cup final programmes are even worse; there were about 100,000 people there, and there was probably 180,000 programmes printed. They’re worth three quid nowadays. What local programmes fetch the most cash. then? If you’re talking County, it’s the FA Cup 3rd round game against Sunderland here, and the replay at Roker Park in the 72-73 season. I’ve seen them go for up to £120 each. As for Forest, it’s the away programmes for their Fairs Cup runs in the sixties, which is now the Europa League - Eintracht Frankfurt, FC Zurich, and especially Valencia in 1961; that one goes for big money. So it’s the really old stuff, not the glory years. I’ve had people ring me up and say; “I’ve got loads of old programmes, from the 80s”. They’re not old, mate! Proper vintage stuff, from the forties to the mid-sixties - now we’re talking. People didn’t keep programmes then - they’d put ‘em over their heads when it rained, folded ‘em into quarters, or chuck ‘em. What’s your own collection like? It’s about 5,000 Notts programmes, badges and team photos, along with FA Cup and League Cup finals and England games going back to the forties. It’ll all go to my lad when he dies. So what’s your personal Holy Grail of proggies? Notts County played Man United reserves at Old Trafford in 1958. Nowt to do with the Munich disaster - County had been knocked out the FA Cup and didn’t have a game that weekend. I’ve seen it, but never been able to get it. A single teamsheet. Worth £40-£50. leftlion.co.uk/issue36
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interview: Isabel Kaufman photo: Debbie Davies
Heart Of The Midlands Simeon Hartwig’s ‘I ♥ Notts’ t-shirt is a bona fide NG design classic - yes, even more so than the Slanty N. Fresh off his appearance in Come Dine With Me with a selection of other Notts rapscallions, he’s back with a new look and a lot to say… So how did you get started in the world of fashion? I’ve had some awful jobs. I worked at a ski resort in France where I did a number of things including being a chef-bitch which basically involved doing anything the chef wanted as well as being a night porter - all for the love of snowboarding, as I got to use the slopes for free. I did some telemarketing and bits, but after university I realised that it was going to take more than my degree to get me the job I wanted. I’ve always had problems getting clothes to fit my small 5’ 6” frame, so I started designing and making my own stuff and it all went from there. Where did the name ‘Bantum’ come from? I did a questionnaire for the Hive course I was on, and I asked people to tick a box or suggest a name. ‘Bantam’ was suggested by James from Prime & Principle, who I am really grateful to. It’s actually a boxing weight - but I suffer from dyslexia and accidentally misspelt it, which worked out for the best really as no-one had the name trademarked. The boxing weights work really well for sizing the men’s clothing range but I had to re-think it when I started designing the women’s range; ladies don’t like being referred to as ‘heavy’. You’re best known for your ‘I ♥ Notts’ t-shirts. Where did the inspiration come from? I did a night course at South Nottinghamshire College in screen printing. One night I ran out of black t-shirts for designs and I was wearing an ‘I ♥ NY’ t-shirt, so I took it off and printed my design on the heart. I think it did so well because Nottingham was getting some bad press about gun crime and the t-shirt really hit a nerve. We were pretty lucky with that design, and I’m really thankful to those who bought them. Most people know me for that design; now we are trying to push the new ones. Bit ironic, seeing as you’re a Londoner. So why stay here after uni? I actually went back to London, but I had to go back to living with my mum and everything was really expensive. I knew about The Hive in Nottingham from my university days and that’s why I really came back, I had no experience but I decided to just give it a go. The longer I stay in Notts, the more I realise just how lucky I am. There is a lot of support out there and the size of Nottingham is great, I go everywhere on my BMX. It’s not the prettiest of cities, but I always make sure I walk through the Arboretum and see the little budgies, it’s really special. The cost of living here is great and the creative scene is brilliant; like the guys at OhMyGosh! and Eternal Spirits. You get to know everyone and there’s room for great collaborations. You can do anything here.
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It seems like every other person we meet in town is a designer these days… Nottingham is quite saturated at the moment, but I think that’s good - it makes people raise their game. For example, I create individual tickets for each piece of clothing, which takes ages to do but makes each one unique. Things like that make you stand out from the crowd. What are your favourite places in Nottingham? Definitely Wild Clothing, Projects, and Montana. I get all my stuff for my shows from Wilko’s - I love that place. And the sandwiches from Bocca are amazing - the owner is part of We Make T-shirts, which just shows how far the creative arm reaches in Notts. What does the future hold for Bantum? I can’t do anything at a steady pace because I am not organised enough, but either we make it or we break up. I’m just going to see how it goes, and hoping it will blow up for us. I do worry that I am a barrier to people because I’m not business-minded. I ♥ Notts didn’t make me a millionaire, but I now have Jimmy, who is my first real member of staff. He will be the future of Bantum - he’s an awesome designer and he’s organised. It’s the little things he does - like putting the clothes in individual bags when we send them out to shops - that make us more professional and hopefully more successful. There’s no such thing as a one-man fashion company; you need a team. How did you get involved in Come Dine With Me? I never answer the landline in our new flat, but one morning I was caught unawares munching on my Coco Pops and I picked up. Turns out it was Come Dine With Me, checking if anyone at my work wanted to apply. I was about to explain that no-one actually works here, but then thought; “Actually, I cook a mean beans on toast...” A few more phone calls later, they came to my crib to record me a bit. I gave them twelve red roses as a bribe, and hey presto! So is it rigged in any way? The show’s pretty much how you see it, but each meal’s like six hours long. And when conversations got a bit boring, they’d stop us and bring us back to a slightly more provocative subject. I went in expecting to hate the other participants, but they were all pretty sound. Peter Rabbit’s home is surreal - next time you’re knocking about Kimberley, stop in for a cuppa and check out the beautiful snaps of his Grandma.
Just what is ‘The Game’, and how big are you in it really? Hahhaha, what is the game? I AM THE GAME! To me life’s a game - like Monopoly, you can land on those damn purples with hotels, but it can get good again when you pass Go and collect £200. The best way to get through the game is not to take it too seriously - and if you can improve your game you’ll find you improve your Facebook addings. And if your game is super-tight, you might even get the the odd Facecrack message from a honey whose attracted to your game - then you know you’re big in The Game. Right now I am struggling on this part of The Game a little, but when it gets better I’ll holler at you and let you know that I am BIG IN THE GAME. Er...anything else you’d like to say? I would love to give a shout-out to my screenprinters who have been brilliant, Dot Sports and October, and Premier Embroidery who believed in us - even when they are booked solid they always find the time for us and we owe them a lot. As for my advice to others in the industry, I would just get out there. It’s a rat race and you have to be organised, and if people show interest in you, grab it with both hands and go for it. bantum.co.uk Bantum’s immaculate range of tees are available at their online store. Alternatively, drop in upon the nice people at Wild Clothing, 4-6 Broad Street, NG1 3AL. Even better, why don’t you win one in our competition? The question is; In 50 words or less, what have you done over the past month to make you Big In The Game? Send your answer to: info@leftlion.co.uk, before August 31, and tell us if you want the manly ‘Big In The Game’ one, or the girlie ‘I ♥ Notts’ one. Winners will be notified by e-mail. No other correspondence will be entered into.
...just another day in the office?
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interview: Alison Emm
Crying with Laughter, Wellington Films, 2010
Hooray for wellywood Wellington Films have made a huge contribution to independent cinema in Notts, with the likes of London to Brighton - which won six festival awards and was described by The Guardian as ‘the best British film of the year’ - among their portfolio. Alastair Clark and Rachel Robey are the people behind Wellington - they pitched their story to us… How long have Wellington Films been up and running? Alastair Clark: Wellington has been running for ten years now; we’re currently organising a big party down in London, to celebrate with all the folks that have worked with and helped us over the years. Where does the name come from? Alastair: We used to live on Wellington Square in Lenton, and when we hired our first camera kit they asked what company name we wanted it put under. We didn’t have one. We thought for about two minutes and came up with Wellington because it made us sound a bit grander: ‘Wellington Films, Wellington Square’… it’s like we had premises. You’re based in Broadway nowadays – what’s it like working there? Alastair: Broadway has traditionally been the hub of filmmaking in Nottingham - maybe even the East Midlands - and they’ve been incredibly supportive. Sit in the café bar for long enough and anyone you want to work with in film will walk in through the doors at some point. It’s a great place for networking. What possessed you to start up a film company? Alastair: I did Art History as a degree. My tutor realised I preferred the film bit rather than the art bit, so he told me about a course that ran at Intermedia Film and Video at Broadway. It was a great course; pretty much everybody that’s been involved with film in Nottingham has come through their doors. It was also where I met Rach. So, what does a production company actually do? Alastair: A producer is like the managing director of a company; they’re the decision-makers, the hirers and firers. When we manage to get funding, we deal with the lawyers and the ‘talent’. We always get asked this because no-one really knows – even our parents aren’t too sure. Rachel Roby: The producer has to come up with the material; whether that’s working with a writer or director with an original idea or optioning a book, a stage play or an article that’s going to be the basis of the film. We then have to find a way to turn that basic idea into a film and decide what resources are needed. We’ve got to raise the money and pull the whole thing together. We get sent hundreds of things every month; 99.9% is not viable and some of it’s just plain bad. Have you ever turned anything down that has then been made? Rachel: There’s been a couple that have got away; there was an Argentinean film called Lion’s Den that we desperately wanted to work on but we just couldn’t find the money as it was a small, foreign language arthouse film and that made it difficult to fund in the UK. It got into the main competition at Cannes in 2009. That’s the one I’m saddest about losing.
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How important are awards for smaller production companies? Rachel: Hugely important. It doesn’t necessarily bring you anything financially, but it’s nice to be recognised. But ultimately, out in the real world, there aren’t many awards apart from the BAFTAs that mean anything to anybody outside of the industry. Alastair: We were nominated by the London Critics’ Circle - which is all the newspaper critics – for Best British Film Producers of the Year for London to Brighton. We were up against The Departed, United 93, The Last King of Scotland. We weren’t going to win that one. What’s the most fun part of your job? Rachel: It’s nice to make a living doing something you really enjoy. Getting good reviews is fantastic actually but then getting bad reviews can be pretty miserable depending on what they say. The biggest downside is the complete lack of financial security.
So just how important is Nottingham to the British film industry? Rachel: There’s a great heritage here: Steven Frears, Alan Sillitoe, Shane Meadows. Jonathan Glazier went to Nottingham Trent, and Quentin Tarantino presented the UK premiere of Reservoir Dogs at the Shots in the Dark Film Festival here in Broadway too. There’s been a good procession of people Alastair: EM Media have been very successful; at Edinburgh Film Festival last year, they had six films, which was far more than any other screen agency. So in output, Nottingham has been incredibly important in British filmmaking. We’re also good at enticing people here; Pride and Prejudice and Robin Hood shot parts locally, and The Dark Knight almost came here. The East Midlands has got such a varied physical landscape; you can film most things.
Alastair: Going to premieres of your own films. At Cannes, going to the premiere of Better Things was fantastic. We were sat opposite the cinema in a café - we weren’t in the main competition, we were in a side section – all dolled up at about 11 o’clock in the morning and there were all these people queuing down the side of the cinema and literally around the block and we realised that they were coming to see our film. Some of them hated it, but they came!
Rachel: EM Media had a huge locations department before the cuts, where you could contact them and ask if they had anywhere in the region that would suit. For Control, they shot in the street where Ian Curtis lived and died in Macclesfield to make sure that that was right, but outside of that we shot absolutely everything in Nottingham - it doubled incredibly for Manchester. And I’ve heard people say about Unmade Beds that they’ve never seen London look so good – that’s because it’s Nottingham! But it’s worrying that the film fringe in Nottingham is being jeopardised, with all the funding cuts that are coming in with the new government.
If you had an unlimited budget, what would you splurge it on? Rachel: I wouldn’t necessarily put more into making the film, for starters; I’d put more into the development - getting the scripts right and not rushing into production, because you could afford to spend three years getting the film just right before you have to make it.
Tell us about your new release, Crying with Laughter... Alastair: It was the first film to be funded, developed and distributed out of the East Midlands although we partnered with a Scottish company who funded about fifty percent of it. I’m proud to say that everyone on the cast and crew were regional as well.
Alastair: It’s difficult to know whether a film like The Dark Knight would be that much fun to make or not – I imagine it was hell, actually. I love that film so much, but I think for now I’d rather just watch those sorts of films and make independent films.
So what’s in the pipeline? Alastair: At the moment we are doing our first documentary feature, but we’re keeping it under wraps. All we’ll say is that it’s set in the world of high-end fashion. We’ve tapped into a sub-genre that has seen a resurgence, but it’s by accident - the director has been making the film for twelve years.
Do you think having a smaller budget can actually aid the creative side of making a film? Alastair: More money would mean an enormous amount of pressure from the financiers. Obviously, we need to move more into that arena to sustain ourselves and grow, but there must be incredible amounts of stress that goes with being given £200 million to spend.
That’s not an average time to make a documentary, is it? Alastair: No, it’s not! It’s the Chinese Democracy of documentaries… Crying with Laughter is released on DVD on 23 August wellingtonfilms.co.uk
Rachel: I always think of the real world and the film world as two separate things when it comes to money. You bandy around big figures, but you can’t think what a difference that money would make to your life – you have to treat it like Monopoly money.
Empathy and Ivory When it comes to repping Notts on stage and screen, Southwell-born screenwriter Billy Ivory is the current keeper of the keys. His CV includes the BBC TV dramas Common As Muck and A Thing Called Love, a trilogy of plays based in Southwell and an adaptation of DH Lawrence’s Women In Love which hits BBC4 very soon. And that’s just the local stuff…
words: Adrian Bhagat photo: Steve Rowe
Tell us about your new film, Made In Dagenham… It's based on the true story of the female sewing machinists at Ford's Dagenham car plant, who went on strike in 1968 over equal pay for women. When they marched on Parliament, they were surprised that so many passing drivers pipped their support. Looking up they realised that their banner reading ‘We Want Sex Equality’ wasn’t fully unfurled and proclaimed ‘We Want Sex’! That was the original title for the film and will be released as that in France, Italy and other countries not scared of the ‘S’ word. You’ve also adapted D. H. Lawrence’s Women In Love for BBC4. I’ve never done an adaptation before, and I thought there was no point just writing down the book. Lawrence originally planned a novel called The Sisters but it became two - The Rainbow and Women In Love - so this is my take on both books. I’ve also used his short story The Trespasser to provide a subplot. I think purists could hate it, but hopefully it will encourage people to think about Lawrence. He was such a genius, but he’s going through an unfashionable phase again. Why was it filmed in South Africa? Partly because of cost, and partly because you can’t take wide shots of the countryside around Eastwood without Ikea getting in the way. I was very excited about going out to see the filming, as I’d never been much further than Ilkeston before, but I was shocked at the inequality. We were driving with our armed guards past a township and then saw a Bentley dealership. Everyone eating in restaurants was white and everyone serving was black. Are you worried about your adaptation being compared to Ken Russell’s film? For someone my age Russell’s film is very significant, though I’m not even sure I’ve seen it all the way through. I think it was very prurient - all I can remember is Glenda Jackson’s fantastic nipples and the nude wrestling scene. It’s a tough act for my cast to follow, but they’re all young enough not to have that hanging over them. Why have you stayed in Nottingham? It’s a wondrous place and I love the character of Notts people: they are very matter of fact and down to earth with the driest of humours. They may take a long time to trust you - but when they do they’re very loyal and very open. Why would I move when it feeds my work? I live in the city now, but I do go back to Southwell. The more it’s become denuded of people I know, the stronger the memories about the place have got.
“You can’t take wide shots of the countryside around Eastwood without Ikea getting in the way”
Is it hard to get to make TV programmes set around Nottingham? It’s very difficult. I set Common As Muck around Rainworth and Blidworth, and they immediately shifted it to Manchester. The producer said it was just a question of identity – people know Manchester but not Nottinghamshire. It’s a shame because it was about the area and the local humour. The same thing happened when I wrote Faith, about the Miners’ Strike. A Thing Called Love was filmed in Sneinton and was a love note from me to the city. I’m working on a new piece called The God of Nottingham - just let them try and relocate it with that title… Why did you write the Southwell Trilogy of plays for theatre rather than the TV? I can remember as a young lad coming to the Playhouse when Richard Eyre was the director, and I’d always wanted to write for the stage. I started writing while I played Eddie Ramsden in Coronation Street in the mid-90s. It was the first time I’d seen TV scripts and they were shorter and since I had to write Journey To Knock quickly it made sense to write it for TV. Because it did well, I got offered more TV work and never got a chance to go back. Matt Aston – who was in-house producer at Lakeside at the time - encouraged me to write for the theatre. I thought I’d do a trilogy so I wrote The Retirement of Tom Stevens and then Bomber’s Moon. The final play is going to be a love story set in the 1970s, a prequel to the other two plays. The plays aren’t about Southwell, but all the characters in them are fed and watered by that place - just like me. Were you disappointed that The Retirement of Tom Stevens didn’t tour? Yes, Tom Stevens went to one of London's top theatre producers, who said it was the worst play he'd ever read! The producer's reader was straight out of Oxford and his concerns were intellectual, so he was never going to get it; you have to engage with my plays. It’s heartbreaking when you work really hard at something and it gets dismissed in a moment. However, I'm trying to get Bomber’s Moon performed in London and if it does well we might try to relaunch Tom Stevens with a rehearsed reading. The Southwell Trilogy is based around your father. How was your relationship with him? It was a very fraught and quite a harsh relationship. He was very vain and self-centred, but could also be extraordinarily generous - spending time with him was like a rollercoaster. I realise now that there was much of him that was hidden; he had terrifying experiences flying bombers during the war, and his brother Laurence was shot down and killed. After the war he became a Communist, and began to drink heavily. Like any addict, he would say he didn’t have a problem. I used to be the same - there was one time when I was having a drink in London and woke up in Sheffield a week later not knowing how I got there. That’s when I knew it was time to stop. What are you working on now? I’m just finishing a script called The Truth About Men, which we will hopefully film soon, and I’m about to start an adaptation of David Walliams’ book The Boy In The Dress. I’m trying to do more films, so I’m keeping next year free for a couple of movies and the new play. You’re a life-long Notts County fan. What did you make of last season? It’s been a brilliant year, but so up and down. I hope we keep the players and we don’t bounce back down again. I felt such an idiot getting caught up in all the excitement with Sven - we should have remembered that if it looks to good to be true, it usually is.
Made In Dagenham will be released on October 1 2010. Women In Love will be shown on BBC4 around the end of the year. leftlion.co.uk/issue36
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Throw Off Your Mental Chains! Frustrated by the narrowing of the eighties pop canon to the Wham-Spands-Duran triumvirate, Nottingham writer Nick Parkhouse has published 101 Forgotten Pop Hits of the 1980s, in an attempt to restore the reputations of those less remembered from the last great era of pure pop... interview: Mike Atkinson photo: Debbie Davies
What inspired you to put the book together? I was out in London with a fellow whom I’d never met. We were chatting about pop music, we got onto the eighties, I’d had a few drinks, and I was eulogising. He called me ‘the Louis Theroux of eighties pop’ and said that I should write a book. I did a couple of chapters, but it was all a bit “what does Wikipedia say?” Then I came upon an e-mail address for Nathan Moore of Brother Beyond. Within a couple of hours, I got an e-mail back, saying: brilliant, happy to help, here’s my phone number. So I thought: Okay, we’re a 101th of the way there. I just started pinging e-mails to people. I could almost count on one hand the people who said no, three or four people got slightly haughty and there were a couple of, as Buzzcocks would say, “still very much in the music industry today” replies. I also got two or three very stroppy e-mails back saying; “Our song’s not forgotten! It gets lots of airplay so we don’t want to participate in this.” I might press you to name a name. I tell you what - I am going to name a name because they were really rude in their e-mail: The Bangles. And Shakin’ Stevens, of all people. I thought he would be nice! He was very dismissive. The term ‘forgotten’ is a relative concept. How would you define it? When I’ve done radio, I love playing a record where people will go, “oh, I haven’t heard this for ages”. But there’s a fine line between that and playing a record that people have no recollection of whatsoever. So it’s trying to walk that tightrope between stuff that if you give people a nudge they’ll think “ah yeah, I think I vaguely remember that”, but not something that got to Number 38 in 1981 for a week. There are only a couple of records which never made the Top Ten, and there are twelve No.1s, so it’s not totally obscure. With the cycle of revivalism, things go through a period of being completely uncool and “why did we ever like that?” Then they get revered again as classics. The first half of the eighties is now home and dry, but anything beyond that is still regarded as being beyond the pale... The revivalist stuff that has been on the telly is all early eighties, and the early eighties are probably over-represented at eighties nights. Everyone from Lady Gaga to Friendly Fires namechecks
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the early eighties, but I don’t think there’s anybody out there saying, “Oh yeah, we’re influenced by Danny Wilson and Johnny Hates Jazz”.
Oceana. I’ve absolutely no idea why. It had already been a huge hit in Europe, so why they had to make another video for the UK market, I’m not really sure.
The early eighties acts all had manifestos and a complete image. You can’t really say the same for Climie Fisher and Living In A Box, because you haven’t got that hook… If you said “Nik Kershaw” to somebody, they’ll talk about his hair, his fingerless gloves, his snood and his daft videos. But if you said “Living In A Box”, you couldn’t pick them out of an identity parade. That’s a real shame; the records are as good, but perhaps they don’t have that kind of peripheral influence.
If you had to consign all but one of these forgotten pop hits to The Dumper, which would you keep? If it was for the human race, I’d keep Gold by Spandau Ballet. It’s the least forgotten, but I love Spandau Ballet and I’ve been very lucky to meet Tony Hadley a couple of times, so I thought I’d better put one in. And it is one of the greatest records ever, isn’t it? For me personally, I’d probably keep Climie Fisher’s Love Changes Everything. It was intended for Robert Palmer, who passed it over, so they decided to record it themselves. The sound is maybe a little bit dated, and I don’t think it’s got the greatest vocal in the world, but had they handed that record to a big star, maybe it would have been a gigantic hit. But it got to Number Two, so it didn’t do badly.
Of all the people you interviewed, who was the best value? I owe quite a bit to Johnny Hates Jazz. They got us backstage at the Here And Now arena tour in Nottingham and Birmingham, so I got to meet Paul Young and Bananarama. From a personal point of view, it was interviewing Pål from a-ha about their Bond theme, The Living Daylights. The whole idea of chatting to one of a-ha about James Bond - there was something a little bit magical about that. Who was the hardest to nail down? With Edelweiss, I was really struggling. They basically had the one record, and I couldn’t find anything about them. I eventually found this Austrian fellow called Walter Wezowa; it turns out that he wrote the Intel ‘bong’, which is played once in the world every five seconds or something ludicrous like that. His royalty cheques must be immense. For five notes! It’s mad! And then there was Glenn Medeiros: how lost in showbiz must he have been when he called his kids Chord and Lyric? Did you manage to unearth much in the way of local connections? Just one: Su Pollard. I had to write to her in the old fashioned way, because there was no e-mail on her website. She left an answerphone message, which I’ve kept to this day. It sounds like she’s auditioning to do the Tannoy at Maplins - it goes on for hours, God love her. The nicest woman in the world, but you do end up with the phone sort of… over here. She’s been a very staunch supporter, our Su; I won’t hear a bad word. Oh, and there’s Spagna. The video for Call Me was filmed partly in Belvoir Castle, and the rest is at Ritzy’s in Nottingham, which is now
Were you firmly a pop kid back then? You weren’t going off and scouring the indie charts or the dance charts? No. I fell out of love with music a little bit when Stock, Aitken and Waterman disappeared, and along came the Happy Mondays, The Farm and the Stone Roses, whom I absolutely hated. The early nineties was a real nadir; there was no decent music about at all. So there would be no mileage for you in doing 101 Forgotten Pop Hits of the 1990s? I’ve thought about that, but it’s more difficult to define what was pop in the nineties. Do you include Oasis? Britpop: is that pop? Maybe pop then was that horrible Outhere Brothers shouty sort of thing. You could make some mileage from the late nineties, because you’ve got the Backstreet Boys and the Spice Girls and quite a lot of what you could call pop. The other thing with the nineties, because of the way that charts evolved, is that you’d probably end up including a large amount of No.1s that came in for a week, and then disappeared. But it’s whether I care enough about the nineties, which I’m not sure I do. 101 Forgotten Pop Hits of the 1980s, AuthorHouse, £9.99 nickparkhouse.com
Cerebral and Ballsy interview: Duncan Heath photo: David Baird
Dan Edge is your typical wrestler-stroke-actor-stroke-one-man promotional machine, dividing his time between treading the boards and slamming people into them, criss-crossing the country (and beyond) in two of the most gruelling professions going. Oh, nearly forgot to mention: he’s the UK’s only full-time disabled wrestler... So what brings you to Notts? I’m currently working with the Nottingham Playhouse and the Roundabout theatre company, doing a piece called White Peacock. Basically, it’s a theatre education piece for young adults with PMLD - Profound and Multiple Learning Difficulties. We’re led to believe that you're the UK's only disabled wrestler... Well, I'm the leading one. I was the only one for a long, long time, but there's a couple of guys who've gone, “I want to have a go now.” Very flattering, but they’re trying to steal my gimmick! I know they exist, but they're not on the scene full time at the mo, so I'm still the only one. Go me! Ha ha! Have you always wanted to rassle? It's one of those dreams you always have as a kid, and I was lucky enough to get the chance. I was doing my A-Levels at the time, and a friend said; “You're really into wrestling and you like to break down and figure out how the moves work - you do know there's a local training school, don't you?” So I went there, and the head trainer - a guy called 'Mr. Total Extreme' Jim Brown – said; “Kid, if you can bump” - land a fall safely - “I'll teach you to wrestle.” Ten years on and I'm still getting beaten up. So what are you dealing with, and how did you get into fighting shape? Cerebral Palsy - the disability I have - is muscle-related. A lot of the muscles don't go through the full range of motion. I did a lot of horse-riding, simply because it stretched a lot of muscles that I normally wouldn't have. My dad worked for a company that had its own swimming pool, and the fitness manager was kind enough to give me sessions for the best part of three years. Then someone asked if I fancied playing wheelchair basketball, so I played for about three or four years. Great for the fitness levels, because it's so cardiovascular. You just don't stop! Our team became junior national champions. Then I got the chance to wrestle... What was your parents’ reaction? My mum's initial reaction was; “Sigh. Fine. But if you get injured don't come crying to me.” My parents have always been supportive - it’s “we might not like it, but we'll support you.” Who are your wrestling heroes? It's a list a mile long. There are guys you idolised as a kid, and guys you look at when you’ve started working in the business. For sheer longevity and the ability to make other wrestlers look good in a match, Ric Flair. I take a lot from him and yes, I do wear a robe with feathers. From a sheer technical wrestling standpoint, people like the Guerreros and Shawn Michaels. And The Undertaker is phenomenal. He's been going forever. A lot of the people you’ve mentioned should have retired ages ago, but keep going. …and that’s one of the hardest things when you're a wrestler – knowing when to stop. Unfortunately there are older-generation guys who are battered and bruised and peeing into bags because they just don't want to stop. So, your persona - 100% Dan Edge. Where does he come from? I originally started my wrestling career under a different guise – I was known as Xavier, after the X-Men films – I’m a bit of a comic book geek. But I kept getting confused with someone with a similar name, which got rather annoying, so it was time for a change. I thought, what could go on a t-shirt? I had an idea with percentages for some reason - being 10% this, 20% that – and then thought; “I'm over-complicating this. Why don't I just be 100%?” It works on multiple levels. If I'm disliking the fans, I tell them they call me ‘100%’ because I'm better than them. And of course, from a dramatic perspective, everybody goes, “No, you're not!” We assumed that because of your disability, you’d automatically be a babyface wrestler. So you work as a heel too? Yeah, I have been known for doing both. The average wrestling booker will see me and say, “Dan, you make a great face!” I‘ll often play the Rocky scenario - where I get beaten to a pulp and then come through in the end, because the wrestling business is, frankly, entertainment. When I'm a heel, I tell the world I'm better than them. Because I know I am. And then I hide behind a guy whose bigger than me. I do a lot of managerial stuff as well - guys that aren't as confident on the mic or as developed character-wise. The obvious comparison is with Zach Gowen, the wrestler with one leg who was brought in by the WWE. But he was typecast as a victim… I know why they did that. It makes good, stereotypical TV. And
with the best will in the world, wrestling will quite happily play stereotypes. I accept that, and know why Vince McMahon did it. Whether you like it or not, Vince is the king in this business. And I cross my fingers, hope and pray that one day I get a phone call from him, or any of the major US bookers. I could make it worth their while. Because I'm English. Because of the way my character’s constructed. And because I'm quite frankly awesome. Why do you put yourself through that, though - especially in this country? Why does somebody Zorb down a hill in a big feckin' rubber ball? Why does somebody play in a band? Why does somebody white water raft? As Jeff Hardy said; “Of course you're scared when you go out to wrestle. But if you weren't scared there wouldn't be the pay-off at the end of it.” You stand behind the curtain and
think; “Why am I doing this?” But if you can get the reaction from the crowd that you wanted, your adrenaline goes through the roof, and there is nothing that can top that feeling. That's why a lot of wrestlers - not so much now - would take drugs or lead party lifestyles: it was a way of keeping that rush going. Any final words? You know, it really humbles me when somebody says “You've inspired me...before I met you...what you do is really great” But at the end of the day, I'm just a guy doing what I love. I grew up with parents telling me there’s no such word as ‘Can't’ - you just find a way round it. So, disabled or otherwise, if you want to do it: find a way to do it. myspace.com/dan.edge leftlion.co.uk/issue36
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Words: Dom Henry
People make a place, shape its landscape and drive its culture. Some of the faces which have moulded Nottingham - historical and modern, famous and obscure - are on show at the Nottingham Castle Gallery this summer. They all have an interesting tale to tell...
Harry Wheatcroft (1898 - 1977) From humble origins in Sneinton to a world-renowned rose grower, Wheatcroft’s business went from a one bicycle concern to a horticultural empire growing 600,000 roses in twenty years, An outspoken character who enjoyed the patronage of Royalty, Wheatcroft single-handedly repopularised the rose in the UK. Captain Albert Ball V.C. D.S.O. M.C. (1896 - 1917) Born on Lenton Boulevard, Capt. Ball rose through the ranks of the Sherwood Foresters to become Britain’s most prolific WWI fighter ace. He racked up 43 enemy kills (and a Zeppelin) before being killed in a crash in May 1917.
William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Newcastle (c1593 - 1676) The man who built the second Nottingham Castle; a supporter of Charles II who received a Dukedom upon the latter’s ascension, Cavendish turned what was left of the old medieval castle into what ironically became the UK’s first provincial municipal art gallery.
William Abednego Thompson (1811 - 1880) Raised in the slums behind Parliament Street, Thompson - under the name ‘Bendigo’ became champion prizefighter of all England, retiring undefeated in 1850. Renowned for his strength, stamina and taunting wit - in fights which often lasted sixty to a hundred rounds - he became a popular preacher in later life.
William Booth (1829-1912) Born in Sneinton, Booth moved to London at the age of 20 where he became a lay preacher. He and his wife started a mission in the East End, holding revival meetings for the lowest of the low. In 1878, the organisation became the Salvation Army, which is now based in 121 countries.
Sir Jesse Boot (1850 - 1931) Born in Woolpack Lane in Hockley, Jesse founded Boots the Chemist in a small shop in Goosegate. A staunch Methodist, he refused to price-fix like other local chemists and strived to improve healthcare for the poor, leaving a legacy that now extends worldwide.
Credits, L to R: Portrait of Captain Albert Ball (1896-1917), V.C, D.S.O, Edward Newling, 1921, oil on canvas NCM 1922-48 / Bold Bendigo; Pugilist and Preacher (1811-1880), photograph miniature by Unknown Photographer / Harry Wheatcroft (1898 - 1977), Rose Grower, Alfred Reginald Thompson, 1957, oil on canvas, NCM 1957-14 / William Cavendish, Earl, later 1st Duke of Newcastle-under-Lyne (c.1593-1676), English School, 17th Century (School of S Cooper?), oil on copper, on loan from the University of Nottingham / Portrait of General William Booth (1829-1912), Noel Denholm Davis (1876-1950), oil on canvas / Sir Jesse Boot, 1st Baron Trent (1850-1931), Noel Denholm Davis (1876-1950), oil on canvas, on loan from the University of Nottingham.
We’ve Been Framed Portraits of a City
It’s not all history, mind; the exhibition also takes in contemporary portraits, via photography, paint and sculpture - with the likes of Alan Sillitoe, Sat Bains, and Samantha Morton rubbing frames with ordinary Notts folk…
Dilk The internationally-acclaimed graffiti artist has travelled all over the world promoting graf, when not running his paint shop in Hockley. Acrylic on canvas by fine art painter Peter Barker, with spray graphics from Dilk.
James Brown Opened the world’s first vacuum cleaner museum in Eastwood last year. “I got into vacs when I was four years old. When I started, I was only allowed six vacuum cleaners at a time, because of space and all that. So as I wanted one, one would have to go. But as I got into my teens it started to change and I started to sneak them in anyway. I’ve had literally thousands of vacuum cleaners over the years.” Photo by Jo Metson-Scott.
Portraits of a City is showing at the Nottingham Castle Gallery until September 19 2010. www.leftlion.co.uk/issue36
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“Storytelling is the most subversive art form there is”
interview: James Walker photo: David Baird
Pete Davis is a former fireman turned storyteller who’s been entertaining locals for the past couple of decades with his unique tales of local life. He’s worked with the elderly, the mentally ill and Notts County fans and is now touring a one-man show about life as a Nottingham lad... You went to that posh High Pavement School, didn’t you? What did you learn there? They taught me to speak proper, which was a great help in alienating me from my mates. I spent the whole time looking out of the classroom window as there was bugger all interesting scratched on the desktop. And then you became a fireman… It was the seventies, so all I had to do was lop off my seriously long hair. After doing my stint in various barracks, I ended up at Carlton Fire Station. I was told by an old sweat that I was now in a profession where, when everyone was running down the road, I would be walking up it. It was a bit melodramatic but spot on - being a fireman is a weird mix of pissing about, constant training, talking to schoolkids and then short bursts of mayhem where you earn your money. I stayed in the service for thirty years, until I had to leave because of age discrimination. I was 55. That must have been difficult. Just before I left the service it was swamped with management tossers who were drafted in to show us how to do things. They talked bollocks and sucked money out of what had been a great job. If I had my way, I’d get all the whinging fox hunters to chase these scrounging twats and tear them to bits - thus saving nice foxes and killing vermin in one go. I really miss the mess-room banter and the swearing; it was of Olympic standard. Some blokes didn’t seem to need any proper words to communicate. The fire service seems the perfect training for storytellers… Well there’s always something to talk about. I remember turning up to a house fire to see a nice lady running out bollock naked, except for a wide-open fur coat and her jewellery in her hands. All my mate could find to say was; “She’s dyed her hair, you know”. Sharing these experiences when you get back to the station naturally lends itself to storytelling, particularly as another part of the job is spent sitting around waiting for something bad to happen. You learn to fill the hours with banter and a few beers. Yes, we drank on duty in the good old days. When did you start professional storytelling? About 13 years ago at The Trip. I watched some people do it and thought, ‘I can do that’. But I couldn’t. It was hard and I had to learn. The bloke who ran the Trip sessions gave up when the Arts Council money wasn’t forthcoming and I took over and set up The Storytellers of Nottingham, which has been running for ten years.
“No matter what crap they feed us, someone will always have that quiet word that cuts through to the reality” What makes a good storyteller? To be a good storyteller you have to be able to imagine your stories. It’s no good trying to just learn words, as that’s no fun to watch. You have to see the story in your head as you speak it, and even to walk around in it and see new stuff as you go along. When you lose consciousness of yourself then the story seems to flow through you and it’s like some other person is telling it. It’s a very weird but lovely feeling. What tips have you got for performing? Look the audience in the eyes. Make them feel they are in the story with you. The rule is: if you believe it, so will they. To work as an oral storyteller you have to remember the pictures and events that make up the story. I rehearse in our kitchen, a bit like Shirley Valentine talking to her cooker. My wife often walks in and catches me jumping up and down and pulling faces. What kind of reactions do you get from people when you tell them you’re a storyteller? I hate telling people what I do because they usually say “Ooh, do you do the ghost walks?” If I wanted to walk round in the rain shouting at people, I would start drinking meths. Or, “Do you know lots of Robin Hood stories?” I want to run off screaming. Best and worst venues you’ve played? Worst was a pub in Wolverhampton. One drunken twat tried to beat my mate up, even though he could see my mate had to walk on crutches. When I got outside, a woman said “Christ, you’re lucky there’s still wheels on your car.” The best was a school for children with learning and physical difficulties. We had a great day and made up a new story about werewolves and stuff. At the end we gave a performance to the whole school, and one lad who had cerebral palsy got up and shouted out his line. Afterwards, a very shocked-looking teacher came up to me and said the kid hadn’t spoken in the two years he’d been at the school. I went home proud that day. Other projects on the go? I like to work at keeping alive local stories and memories. I’m a big advocate for older peoples’ involvement in the arts - and I don’t mean the sort of shite that involves them listening as if they’re ga-ga, while some young Arts Council tit tells them what he thinks they want to hear. Old people are capable of performing and creating, they are vital to culture, and the reason I think that they are ignored is so that we can be sold the same old tripe again and again without ever gaining from previous generations’ experiences. By the way, I’m sixty and have just been given my Christmas heating allowance, which I shall spend in Booze Busters. What about your stint at our oldest professional football club? I was asked about three seasons ago, just pre-Munto, to do a book for the Notts County Supporters Trust. I hated football at the time and went down with my audio recorder to do vox pops with the crowd. It was like being in a home for depressives and I began to think about self-harming after the tenth interview. My favourite interview was with the groundsman, who told me he regularly found condoms in the centre circle in the morning. County’s version of the Mile High Club, I suppose.
What inspires you? I just love to perform. It’s the best thing ever and, although tiring, it keeps me alive and thinking. Let’s be clear: storytelling is a way of holding a story in your head and performing it, not the material itself. You can tell stories about anything at all. I have material about tramps in Nottingham, about the crap in my garage, about vampires with regional accents. Mind you, I’m always in trouble with the storytelling establishment who get very irate about making up new stuff as they only want to do things they’ve found in the library or have heard someone else do. New material is frowned on, but hey-ho. Sod ‘em. What’s Nottingham Lad? Following a book I wrote for Newark and Sherwood Arts called Memories Are Made Of This I put together a one-man show called A Nottingham Lad which is full of authentic memories of growing up around the city and includes a recording of Under Bestwood, my unique take on the Dylan Thomas classic. Nottingham has its own lovely voice and should not be sent up by the southernsofties who try to do a Midlands accent on the telly. We like a laugh no matter what, so the show is a must-see for anyone who loves this mad city of ours. And especially those of you who can remember their Co-Op Divvy number. Why is storytelling important? Storytelling is the most subversive art form there is. When all else fails, word of mouth will carry on. Dictators may burn books, but they can’t stop us speaking or imagining. No matter what crap they feed us, someone will always have that quiet word that cuts through to the reality. The Storytellers of Nottingham meet on the last Thursday of every month at Ye Olde Trip To Jerusalem, except in August. petedavisstories.co.uk
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To celebrate the launch of Scribal Gathering - our new spoken word event at Café.Bar.Contemporary, which starts on Wednesday 4 August - we’ve pushed our literature section out to two pages this issue. Twice as many book reviews (including the debut of Katie Half-Price, a strong new voice in the field of lit-crit), some of the best work we heard from the poetry festivals we attended in July (including Sir Andrew Motion) and more forum entries… If you’ve got any wordy needs, please contact books@leftlion.co.uk
15th of December by Joe Coghlan
1/1 It all started off with the cost of a pot to piss in and a job description of being hot-boxed in a kitchen. A chef slash pot wash who’d watch the clock till left eye twitching then swab the chopping blocks and hopscotch with indecision. Did I quit the grotty slog before it robbed me of ambition? or feed the boss rotten stock, so he got botulism? I’d teeter on that plot, wield the mop and cheat the system, stealing back my time, by keeping my mind on rhymes I’d written. Fifteenth of December, I finished my shift late again as Christmas lists became plastic bags past their breaking strain. The heart of the city under cardiac arrest, wind on Exchange Street, cold enough to catch your death, with the absence of ambience and no sense of magic, just collective habits consuming, stressed and frantic and an ambulance stuck in congested traffic, I headed for the flat and left the festive masses.
1/2 I woke next to my wife, once angelic when she slept, now I dredge myself from the sea bed of this relationship wreck, in this house of cards, short of a deck, angels fear to tread, where the queen of the heartless henpecks, cuz we live cheque to cheque. It’s been this way ever since ‘mortgage’ translated from French, turned our wed lock to a death-grip held tight around our necks, it went from rehearsing vows and wedding arrangements, to resent. Unable to settle debt repayments, dreading days spent together, in the limbo of stalemates. I used to romanticize about her dancing with a willow’s grace. Now I fantasise; her smothered with the pillow before she wakes, holding it there in place, with the intensity of our first loving embrace, the way I held onto my dreams before her, the next best thing, before deferring my ideals to buy the wedding ring, before I asked her to marry me, cuz our laziness had made a baby, before that I’d never heard caged birds singing in my aviary.
2/1 Alone at last, on the overpass I lit a cigarette, thoughts domicile, till a view mid stride slowed my step, a man’s profile silhouette on the bridge was about to swan dive. A modern day Christ crucified, minus the nails and wounded side, arms coiled behind the guard rail, this gargoyle of neutered pride, was stood at the height of the streetlights that pollute the sky, goaded on by juveniles, as cars grew into scythes and I was stood just behind him, thinking “all you can do is try” I made a connection, stretched out my hand, “hey man…yo” He was middle aged, Caucasian, a shabbily dressed John Doe, no distinguishing features on show to articulate bar, Mr lonely product of these days, nobody in particular, needing more than serotonin re-uptake inhibitors. “Hey man, I know what you’re trapped in, I’ve been in it before, you don’t deserve this, your life’s not worthless, don’t let this happen” the reaction I got was a look that said “You couldn’t imagine”
2/2 This morning the slob in the bathroom mirror is an impostor. My father’s adopted my moniker and mimics my posture, while in chronological order I run down the roster, of all those who have wronged me, or left me the victim of dishonour, cuz today is the film’s end scene and I’m the cinematographer, shooting it with all the clinical detachment of a coroner. On the corner I queue for the bus, same routine act, faking cool and on track, awkward with human contact. I’m not commuting back, that line drawn the night before, where the ghosts of Christmas present haunted me for all I can’t afford. With my daughter we were treading water, panicked then sluggish, now my son nags me for CD club hits and other plastic rubbish, Santa clause is the wolf at my door and his adverts drug my kids, while we their parental guidance share a lie in parenthesis, evident when it’s said, we stay hitched for their benefit and not just cuz we don’t know how to be friends, mend or end it.
3/1 “Come on man, talk to me, we’ll sort this mess, I’ve known and walked the ledge of a tortured thought process, that resorts to abort the flesh and haunts unbalanced steps, but now I author the writing on the wall and it’s palimpsest” I got nothing. No light bulb lit, not even a match stick, I felt doubt’s rot manifest, so used it to switch tactics. “You won’t die from this height, your attempt’ll be botched you’ll be woken up in hospital surrounded by cops, the killer of a driver, wishing you’d decided to stop, cuz you’ll be a lifer in prison on suicide watch” Speak of the devil, Sirens signalled its arrival, the law deters, but maybe my words had been insightful, cuz he fled, his cry for help now a flight for survival. I tried to forget what happened but couldn’t let it lie though, his reaction of “you couldn’t imagine” replayed in my mind, so I took his challenge and spent a day in the life.
3/2 I watch the clock at the office, thinking thirty more years of this! Husband to a loveless marriage, dad to damaged kids. Victims of an environment which reflects my own genesis, where the oppressed becomes oppressor, passed down via heritage, but now I’ve got his gold watch retirement gift. “Boy j’know what time it is?” I did and it’d strike with clenched fists, but today I’m putting an end to it, making my way to the bridge. I lift over the barrier “get ya guts up” said under my breath, I look down, my stomach drops as I face my final step. I fight’n’lose the inner tug of war, so my grip on the rail tightens, then this kid says he’s known the pain and dilemma I reside in, so I fire a look to say “you couldn’t imagine” and he replied, “you won’t be killed from this height” Then came the sirens and flashing lights. So I climbed back from the ledge, found my feet and fled into the night and after months wanting to die, planning to conduct my demise, I realised mid stride, I was running for my life.
illustration: Mike Schofield
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Scribal Gathering, 7.15pm, Wednesday 4 August, Nottingham Contemporary, Weekday Cross, NG1 2GB. Free entry. Heartland
Anthony Cartwright Tindal Street Press, £7.99 England are playing Argentina in the 2002 World Cup. A crowd eagerly gathers in a Cinderheath pub, desperate for something to be proud of. Across the city, a mosque is being built on the site of the once-iconic steelworks that define a way of life gone by. ‘The Tipton Three’ from down the road are banged up in Guantanamo Bay, the BNP are on the prowl and a controversial Sunday league football match between a local Muslim team and white kids from a deprived area looks set to ‘spark a race war’. This cleverly interwoven narrative eloquently captures the demise of the New Labour project through a vast array of believable characters clogging up the arteries of this all too familiar and disgracefully forgotten heartland. James Walker tindalstreet.co.uk
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Vintage
Maxine Linnell Five Leaves, £5.99 This young adult novel is a ‘Freaky Friday’ style body swap that sees two seventeen year olds switch lives between 1962 and 2010. The girls, Holly and Marilyn, each go through a convincing range of emotional responses to their parallel personal journeys that keeps you turning the page to discover how they will cope. Sense of time is evoked through the small details such as the conversations, clothes and responses of friends. The narrative itself is straight forward in its delivery, accessible to most readers, but with a few quirks and subtleties that will please a more demanding audience. A must for fans of Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes. To read an interview with the author, please see leftlion.co.uk/literature. Adele Harrison fiveleaves.co.uk
Words of a Wolf - Poetry of a Veteran
Villayat ‘SnowMoon-Wolf’ Sunkmanitu Wolf Photography, £6.99 Sunkmanitu’s inspirational first collection of poetry and photography was created partly as a coping mechanism for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), an illness he contracted after serving in the armed forces. Using his creative work to raise awareness of this debilitating condition, he discusses his mixed experiences of Mental Health services, poignantly outlining his frustration in Circling the Drain. The poem Bottles and Bricks vividly details traumatic incidents from his time in Northern Ireland: ‘Parents stand behind their children, The first brick sails through the air…’ while other writing describes his quest for healing and peace of mind. Sunkmanitu’s desire to shed light on issues faced by veterans living with PTSD makes for a moving and informative read and is the perfect accompaniment to Simon Armitage’s The Not Dead. Aly Stoneman wolf-photography.com
Harry Patch ‘The Last Fighting Tommy’ (extract) Andrew Motion III First the hard facts of not wanting to fight, and the kindness of deciding to shoot men in the legs but no higher unless needs must, and the liking among comrades which is truly as deep as love without that particular name, then Pilckhem Ridge and Langemarck and across the Steenbeek since none of the above can change what comes next, which is a lad from A Company shrapnel has ripped open from shoulder to waist who begs you ‘Shoot me’, but is good as dead already, and whose final word is ‘Mother’, which you hear because you kneel a minute, hold one finger of his hand, then remember orders to keep pressing on, support the infantry ahead. © Andrew Motion, from ‘The Cinder Path’, Faber and Faber Ltd, 2009
Canyon
Revisited Rebel Rhymes
Pippa Hennessey
Mat Brinks
Points of quartz and granite tear my fingertips.
"Please send us your gold" In the post, right away you may get a prize If you send some today!
I cling to you like a stunted tree whose leaves have dried and blown away. It hurts more than falling so I let go and drop until I plunge into the river’s itch to carve channels leading somewhere else. I grow shale layers pressing millennia As I mould them into you.
Lava Field Siobhan Logan brown land girdled by iron hills rusted in the rain
I have become the gulf between the walls.
the burst mouth of a cone seeping oxidised red
"Please send us your gold" and we'll melt it all down then we'll cast some Gold bars to replace Gordon Brown's! "Please send us your gold" Cos' our's is all spent 'The War on Terror' Is where it all went! "Please send us your gold" & we'll make it worth more! thats after we own it of course, not before! "Please send us your gold" cos' we've got the least & the cost of our Weapons has really increased! "Please send us your gold" WE NEED IT FOR BOMBS!! For more information go to Bull****.com
Pippa Hennessey, from ‘Into The River’, the University of Nottingham Student Anthology, Jubilee Press, 2010
Untitled
A Catterall
a rubble of lava fly-tipped and strewn by frost-giants
Honouring the Boy
tuff cairns smothering ash of grey lichen
Villayat ‘SnowMoon-Wolf’ Sunkmanitu
black rocks huffing gusts of wind -snatched steam blue milk river a snake shedding husks of salt © Siobhan Logan, from ‘Firebridge to Skyshore’, Original Plus, 2009
Soft and Malleable John James
What a marvellous being you are Dave To have friends like Rupert and Lord Ashcroft Who can buy you the power you’ve long craved... From your Nivea gaze you look quite soft And as malleable as a face mask Which I secretly think you are wearing, To contain Thatcher’s face in a news cask And to keep every trace of her hair in... So they’ve bought you more votes than the others, And will rob the nest clean through their cookoo, As you stand on those steps with your lover Tweeting out about how we should trust you! While the person you thought was the big joke... You’ve selected to be your right hand bloke!!!
I remember going to my first unit by train, In my best blues and white hat, Shoes like mirrors, Creases you could cut paper with. A young man realising the ambitions of a boy. Nothing was impossible, Everything was up for grabs. There were hurdles of racism, But I’d overcome them so far, The whistle and the two stripes were mine, I couldn’t be denied, Having worked hard, Pushing my levels of endurance. Creating a new path for myself, Where I decided the route, Or so I thought. I smile at the 5, 13, 17 and 22 year old boy with fondness, I let him fulfil his desires now, Without internal hurdles. As for the hurdles placed by society, We’ll go over or around them when we can, And when we want to. © Villayat ‘SnowMoon-Wolf’ Sunkmanitu, from ‘Words of a Wolf’, SnowMoonWolf, 2010 wolf-photography.com
While we have been waiting Wonderful things Have been happening All around New plants have grown While the old have died Quietly through the night The bottles have all Been moved to the side The gate to the door Locked behind us The windows have let life in And sent sorrow out To the birds who have carried It many miles away While we have been left The world has turned over One thousand times While our bodies Have not had to move But to breathe Slowly Slowly Though the night Again And then
Introducing...Katie Half-Price
“Ayup! I’m just your average slebrerteh aurfer. As you can see, I’ve got some right tit on meh and when I lob ‘em aht, publishers give us free books. LOL! You can read me column at leftlion.co.uk/katie, but here’s what I’ve bin tryin to read this month...” J.D.Salinger: A Life Raised High
Kenneth Slawenski Pomona Books, £20 Pages: Loads You’d think that writing a book about a recluse would be dead small but this book is massive, which is odd because he only ever wrote one good book. Catcher in the Rye has sode 65 million which is more than you can win on the Euro lotto – and it made some bloke kill John Lennon (his other books are shite – they wun’t even mek someone want to kill Jive Bunneh). Salinger didn’t leave the house for thirty years which is a bit gash if you ask me - it’s not like he lived in Top Valleh - but I reckon he wor lying cuz back then they didn’t have internet shopping so he must have got dressed up like that Denis on Mansfield Rd and snuck out when he needed some snap. Consequentleh the poor biographer has had to spend his time in boring libraries tryin’ to wok aht what the ‘ell he’d been doing with hissen. Waste Man. pomonauk.co.uk
Chilling Tales from Nottinghamshire
Netty DB Publishing, £9.99 Pages: Norrenough This weird author dun’t even have a surname - maybe her famleh cun’t afford one - but don’t let that put you off. The book is filled with weird and scareh tales about panoramal activiteh in Notts - like ‘Yorkey’, the ghost in the Trip, or sightings of UFOs (which, as we all know, is really kaylide students who think they’re still on holiday in Thailand, letting off them ponce lantern things). Personleh, the only thing that scares meh in Notts is them dozy gets at the council who invested all meh hard earned benefit moneh in Iceland. The kind of people who’d like this book are the type that think the bubbles that come out of your bath when you fill it up with Matey are orbs, and fantasise that Derek Acorah is geein ‘em one while pretending to be a 17th centreh murderer when they get nobbed outside Yates at the weekend. Scareh. dbpublishing.co.uk
Obelus
Gareth Durasow The Knives, Forks and Spoons Press, £5 Pages: Hardly nowt This poet has posted on our Write Lion forum and has now had his first collection published. Wicked. He’s even acknowledged the Lion. But I ant got a clue what he’s gooin’ on about. He mixes together all these fancy words and references which make about as much sense as tryin’ to give the Thurland a make-over. It’s a waste of time. The best thing about this book is it’s dead small so you can read it on the bog. But be warned. It’s like having an acid trip and a whitey at the same time. Personleh, I think this bloke’s got problems. Instead of sitting down spaahtin’ out stuff that’s so weird it could be in that Chilling tales book, he should go on telleh and face the Kyle. He’d tell him there’s no point being a smart-arse if no one can understand what yer on about. Yer get meh? knivesforksandspoonspress.co.uk leftlion.co.uk/issue36
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LEFTLION featured listing LISTINGS Oh, Come Let Us Adore Hhymn August - September 2010
interview: Paul Klotschkow photo: Video Mat
TICKETS ON-LION
Buying tickets for events in Notts? From the latest DJs at Stealth to the latest bands at venues like Spanky Van Dykes and The Rescue Rooms, you can get them all through our website, at no extra cost. Even better, thanks to our partnership with gigantic.co.uk, every time you buy one through us some of the funds will go towards LeftLion and a bit more goes to those nice folks at Oxfam.
leftlion.co.uk/tickets
DAYS OUT
An’t the weather been nice? Well, not when it’s been chucking it down, obviously, but the outdoors events are piling in this month. Once again, the Council have got the sand down in the square until 5 Sept (for their six-week Nottingham Riviera beach binge, and not to cover the sick up). As always, the Caribbean Carnival at the Forest on 15 August will be the place to satisfy all your whine and grinerelated requirements, and if you’ve ever wanted to see what West Bridgford would look like under attack from the US Air Force, the firework display on 8 August at the Riverside Festival is a must. As for the other outdoor events? Well, er…just walk in a straight line. You’re bound to run into summat eventually.
leftlion.co.uk/listings
SHINDIG!
What better way to spend an autumnal Sunday evening than a big fat poetry kneesup? We couldn’t think of one - so on Sunday 19 September LeftLion teams up with Nine Arches Press to bring their touring event Shindig! to Nottingham for a night of poetry, open mic and music at Hockley hipster-magnet the Jam Café. Based in the Midlands, Nine Arches publishes a mixture of up-and-coming and more established contemporary poets in beautiful pamphlets that make bookish sorts go all gooey and start to stroke the covers in an avaricious sort of way. They also produce a magazine called Under The Radar, which mainly features poetry - although they’re interested in short stories, fiction and interviews as well, from anyone who fancies a go at that there writing thing. For the first Shindig! Nine Arches will be bringing two of their recently published writers, alongside our very own Eireann Lorsung and Wayne Burrows. Eireann is best known in Notts for running the fantastic Nottingham Poetry Series, a programme of readings at the University of Nottingham where she is a Ph.D student. Her first collection Music for Landing Planes By was published by Milkweed in 2007. Wayne Burrows, the Nottingham-based publisher of Staple Magazine, has a long publishing history, including his first collection Marginalia (Peterloo Poets in 2001), and Emblems, published by Shoestring Press in July 2009. He is currently working on a third collection. As if that isn’t enough excitement, there will also be a half-hour open mic session; anyone who’d like a slot can just chip up and put their name down on the night. Music during the break will feature a rare acoustic outing from psychedelic folkist Simon Haiku from Hhymn. Shindig! will be the perfect way to end your weekend, with readings and music and a friendly forum for new and developing writers to get their work out there, besides wine, cocktails, coffee, cake and books on offer. Who could ask for more?
For even more listings, check our up to date online section at leftlion.co.uk/listings. If you want to get your event in this magazine and on our website, aim your browser at leftlion.co.uk/add.
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leftlion.co.uk/issue36
Emotive alt-folk troubadours Hhymn have been entrusted with providing the musical entertainment at our first ever Scribal Gathering event, hosted by Café.Bar.Contemporary on Wednesday 4 August - so we dragged Ed Bannard and Si Ritchie from the band into the pub to discuss their story so far, the band scene in Notts, and, er, killing dolphins for a record deal… How did Hhymn get together? Ed: Me and Si met through a friend. We were both in different bands at the time, and we used to write together. and then going back to these other bands that we thought were bullshit. Just finding someone like-minded and being in the same position and into the same things was nice. How would you describe Hhymn? Si: That’s a hard one. Ed: The songs can be big and kind of epic. We try to do something interesting…something that we want to listen to. We had all these ideas and we wanted to challenge ourselves. What made you want to pick up a guitar? Ed: My cousin. I used to live in Ireland and all I’d ever heard was Madonna, Michael Jackson, and Bruce Springsteen. I stayed at my cousin’s, and went to see his band. He had a really nice Fender Strat and taught me how to play The Chain by Fleetwood Mac, which I was obsessed with. My mum and dad agreed to buy me a guitar, but only if I played classical. I hated it. That’s why I wanted to sing in the end, because I was bored with just playing the guitar. Si: I was just copying my brother - he just played guitar all day and he came back with a chord book that had The Chain, Wish You Were Here and all those things. He gave up after about a week, so I had it. There were loads of Levellers songs in there as well, and loads of Irish protest songs. I’ve still got that book. What’s Nottingham like for bands trying to get out there? Si: In any place bands meet up and make music. Whether it is easy to do it round here or not is a different question. It’s not unhelpful, but there aren’t swarms of people hanging around waving chequebooks and contracts about. It’s notoriously bad for that here. Film and visual arts-wise, Nottingham is known throughout the world. There is some sort of scene that is definitely about to happen, and when it does it will shine a light on the city. What goes through your head when you are on stage? Si: There are a lot of times at the start and end of songs where we’re passing over wires and tripping over leads, really boring mechanical stuff. Then there’s the actual moment of the song, and you feel un-hassled by any of the boring bits in your life. It is such a free time in your mind. You’re in it, and then you’re out of it again.
Ed: You’re free from all of the crap. Sometimes you’ve got to remember what you are doing, but then sometimes it just clicks. If there was one gig-going policy that you could introduce and make law, what would it be? Si: Special exception to allow people to smoke inside venues. It really destroys the atmosphere, people going in and out. Ed: People talking really loudly should be banned. And overtly pissed people. You’ve released an EP and your new single’s out. Any plans for an album? Ed: There is, we’re very close. Si: If it all goes to plan, a Hhymn album will be out within the year. You are offered a £1m recording contract - but all of the dolphins in the world would become extinct, do you accept? Ed: Yeah, as long as the seals weren’t part of the deal. Si: We could record them being culled. We could call the album The Dolphin Kull. You’re playing the WriteLion night at Café Bar Contemporary. What can people expect from a Hhymn gig? Si: Initially, the night was going to be more of an intimate environment, we were quite up for that. We talked about doing the songs with different arrangements and different instruments. But maybe it’ll be with the full band. It could arc from really acoustic with cello’s and stuff and build it up. Ed: I’d like to do it like a journey. You start off, then have a pit stop and a sit down with a dirty burger in a cafe. Then try and end it triumphantly. Any final words for the LeftLion readers? Si: Come out for our gig this Tuesday night. This interview won’t come out until August. Ed: That’s a bit bad, no last words. I’ve got one - Save The Dolphin. Hhymn, Scribal Gathering, Wednesday 4 August, Café.Bar.Contemporary, Weekday Cross, NG1 2GB. Free entry. Their new single Land Of Souls/Anamita is out now. myspace.com/hhymn
nottingham event listings... Sunday 01/08
Friday 06/08
Notts In A Nutshell presents. The Maze £3, 8pm With Ledges and United Nemesis.
Double Trouble The Alley Cafe Free, 8.30pm - late The Big Dig with Holmes The Golden Fleece
Lisa De Ville The Central Plus Reckless Abandon, Steve Pinnock and Ant Henso.
DJ Sophie The Hubb
Monday 02/08
The Joe Strange Band, Tee Dymond Southbank Bar
£3, 8pm With Godzilla Black, Fresh Eyes for the Dead Guy and Worselings. Open Mic The Golden Fleece
Wednesday 04/08 Don’t Start Feeling All Romantic The Malt Cross Free, 8pm World Atlas and Red Shoe Diaries.
The Happening The Orange Tree Free, 9pm - 1am Stop Eject and Love Ends Disaster! Spanky Van Dykes 8pm - late Pesky Alligators The Robin Hood Free, 9pm - 11.30pm
Saturday 07/08
Tides Of Virtue The Central Kronic Tyrant, Archaic and V-Twin.
The Soul Ska Shakedown The Golden Fleece
Thursday 05/08
S.P.A.M! The Rescue Rooms Free / £5 / £7, 10pm-3am
Baby Godzilla The Golden Fleece JD and the FDC’s The Central £5, 8pm With JD and the FDC’s, Dave Woodcock & The Dead Comedians, When A Train Hits A Truck and Spangle Corps. It Prevails Rock City £9, 5pm Plus Deaf Havana, Heart in Hand and Hey! Alaska. Live Jazz The Hubb Wire and Wool The Alley Cafe 8.30pm - 11:30pm
Get People Stealth £5, 10.15pm Charles Washington Quintet Nottingham Contemporary
Sunday 08/08 Farmyard Records Presents The Golden Fleece I’m Not From London The Central Sharp Knees, Luke Leighfield, Frontiers, Rescued By Wolves, Rugosa Nevada, Great Imitation, Broadcast By The Sea, Angelo Panzera, Infinity Hertz, Other Left, Crimson Joy, Ghosts Wear Clothes, Bonbonbonbons, Too Late For Heroes, Gum Loc and Alaska.
for more: leftlion.co.uk/listings
Back To The Grill Again Soul Buggin’ get their aprons on for Bank Holiday Sunday
Soul Buggin’ is a local DJ triumvirate consisting of local spinners Beane, Wrighty and Mark A, who individually run tings at club nights such as Basement Boogaloo and Hot Butter. Their modus operandi runs thusly; there isn’t enough soul knocking about Notts these days, and something needs to be done about it. With a record collection that has already caused Nottingham to sink a full five inches into the ground – taking in everything from dusty Northern 45’s, Latin shufflers from Brazil, glitterball disco from NYC, futuristic grooves from Detroit, insane broken jams from West London, old school joints and solid underground house – Soul Buggin’ began as a one-off in Bar Humbug many moons ago, had brief spells at Snug and The Loft, and has now settled in nicely at Moog. The past year and a half has seen Soul Buggin’ consolidate its position as a beacon of quality dance music, pulling in blisterings sets from the likes of Domu, Benji B (from BBC 1xtra), Kev Beadle, Colin Curtis, Atjazz and Mudd. And - after a string of ram-out Bank Holiday Sunday parties – they’re putting on an all-day BBQ session up on the roof terrace of Moog on Sunday 29 August. In attendance will be Paper Recordings don Ben Davis (AKA Flash Atkins), local deep house party crew DiY (in the form of Osbourne and Woosh), and a special appearance from Brighton’s Balearic Assassin of Love, Steve Keep it Wheel. It all kicks off 2pm until 10pm, and then continues downstairs for some dancefloor action till 3am. Entry is free before 10pm, then £3 and it’s also worth noting kids are welcome in the daytime to get their groove on too. And if you miss that, you can catch the Soul Buggin’ crew on the last Saturday of every month at Moog. Soul Buggin’ All Day BBQ, Sunday 29 August, 2pm-3am, Moog, Newdigate Street, NG7 4FD. Free before 10pm, £3 after.
Monday 09/08
Thursday 12/08
Saturday 14/08
Voivod and Nashville Pussy The Rescue Rooms £12, 4.30pm
Strings of Sevilla The Golden Fleece Plus The Saboteurs.
Emily Martin Deux
The Corner Store The Malt Cross Free, 9pm - 1am
Here’s To Tragedy The Central £5, 8pm Plus The Idol Dead, The Breakdowns and Scarlet Carmina.
Wednesday 11/08 I’m Not From London The Alley Cafe 8.30pm - 11.30pm With Zanin’s Magic Crayon, In Cases and Thunderbunny.
Thursday 12/08 Notts In A Nutshell The Maze £3, 8pm With Sola City, Youth In Revolt, Strangeling, Less Than Nothing and Alaska.
The (South) American Adventure Night Of Festivals: Copa load of this...
If having Skeggy in the Market Square isn’t enough excitement for one city, you have absolutely no idea of what’s in store for the place. Barely a fortnight after the last donkey has been packed away, the Square hosts the vibrant sights and sounds of Latino culture with a unique and totally free festival that celebrates the bicentenary of South American independence. Night of Festivals 2010 is a huge link-up between ArtReach, the Council, City Arts, Nottingham Contemporary and New Art Exchange, with the aim of scooping up the very soul of Latin America and dropping it right between Wetherspoons and Primark. There’ll be a dynamic live music stage with contemporary Latin American bands, moving image installations by artists from Mexico, Brazil and El Salvador on the Festival Big Screen, and a special installation celebrating Brazilian Festivals, ending with a look-ahead to the 2016 Olympic Games, which will be held in Rio. It all kicks off at 4pm on Thursday 16 September, with the opening of Brazilian artist Laura Belém’s interactive art installation Night of St John - audiences will be promenaded into Old Market Square beneath a shimmering sea of 745 flags. Rhythms of the City open the live music stage presentations and the Festival Screen will play a visual feast of moving image by artists including Renata Padovan (Brazil), Carlos Burgos (El Salvador) and Gina Badenoc (Mexico). Friday sees a plethora of Latino musicians and performers on both street and stage, and it all comes to a climax on Saturday when an extraordinary Carnival procession takes place, including colourful and extravagant characters from the Mexican Day of the Dead celebrations and the appearance of London’s Paraiso School of Samba - the foremost samba troupe outside Rio. How big is this event? It’s only happening in two cities in the UK, the other one is London, and they’re going to have to wait until we’ve done with it. Make no mistake - this is going to be large. Night of Festivals, Market Square, 16 - 18 September 2010, 4pm - 11.30pm Thursday and Friday, 10am - 11.30pm Saturday
Live Jazz - Ben Martin Band The Hubb
Thomas Bloch and Origamibiro / Maniere Des Bohemiens Nottingham Contemporary Free, 8pm Stiff Kittens The Bodega Free, 10pm - 1am
Richie Muir Band Southbank Bar
UK Guns N Roses Rock City £12.50, 7pm Plus The Whiskey Syndicate.
Get Cape Wear Cape Fly Rock City £10pm, 6.30pm Plus XCERTS
The Joe Strange Band, Tee Dymond The Approach
Friday 13/08 The Eviltones The Central £5 Plus Hot Japanese Girl, Dick Venom and The Terrortones. Toe Tappers Delight The Hubb Basslaced Stealth £6, 10pm Chef, Flow Dan, Flux Pavillion, Cookie Monsta, Goli and Ashburner. Will Jeffery Deux Plus Gallery 47 and Jamie Todd. Riche Muir, Jason Hart The Approach
Saturday 14/08 Digit Dealer Stealth £5, 10.15pm Pokey LaFarge and The South City Three The Maze £10, 8pm Vanity Box The Central £3 Wild Wood Southbank Bar Dave Rotheray ‘The Life of Birds’ The Rescue Rooms £10, 7pm
Sunday 15/08 Sonic Boom Six The Maze £10, 2pm Plus The Skints, Breadchasers, Fruitbag, Resolution 242, Minus Society, Chas-Palmer-Williams, Advantage, Liam O’Kane and The Stabalizer, A is for Ape, Arse full of Chips, Riot 4 Disco, The Human Targets and Meberob. Ded Hot Chilli Peppers Southbank Bar
Tuesday 17/08 I’m Not From London Jamcafe Free What Price Wonderland, Population Lost and New Age Peasants.
Wednesday 18/08 Richie Muir The Approach Trojan Horse The Chameleon £3, 8pm Plus Karhide and Nephu Huzzband. Marc Block and The Breezes The Central Plus The Hubris and The Black Fuzz. Meet the Natives The Central £3, 8pm Plus Marc Block and the Breezes.
leftlion.co.uk/issue35
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event listings... Thursday 19/08
Sunday 22/08
Sunset Duo The Approach
Farmyard Records Presents The Golden Fleece
Kuato The Golden Fleece
Doledrum All Dayer The Maze £4, 1pm-11pm Luxury Stranger, The Hell I Am, Old School Premonition, Riot 4 Disco, Sam Wilson and Nick Jonah Davis.
Smashcard The Central £4, 8pm Plus Jukebox Junkies, Lounge Fly and Soho Cobras. Jay Hart Southbank Bar Stealth vs Rescue Stealth £5, 10pm With Nero and more tbc.
Friday 20/08 Lost Controllers The Central £4, 8pm Analog Angel and N.S.J. The Hubb’s Summer Party DJs Rick Donohue and guest The Joe Strange Band Southbank Bar Boomer Mclennan Deux Sabbat Rock City £12, 7pm Plus Imperial Vengence and Cinders Fall.
Saturday 21/08 The Joe Strange Band The Approach Patchwork Grace The Central £3, 7pm Damaged Stock Rock City £5, 2pm Featuring Evil Scarecrow, Obsessive Compulsive, Abadden, Twilight’s Embrace, Glass Artery, The Beckoning Silence, 1000 Scars, Imperial Circus, Foul Body Autopsy Urban Intro Southbank Bar Mele Stealth £5, 10.15pm
Tuesday 24/08 Notts In A Nutshell! The Maze £3, 8pm With Oldboy, The Mojo Risin, Noel Street and AutoGenic. The Chords The Rescue Rooms £10, 7.30pm
Wednesday 25/08 Richie Muir The Approach Philadelphia Grand Jury The Rescue Rooms £5, 7pm Simone Felice The Maze £10, 7.30pm Fool’s Gold The Bodega £6.50, 7pm
Thursday 26/08 Garrison The Golden Fleece Cafe Boheme Deux I’m Not From london Deux With We Show Up On Radar, Super Fun Team Go, Red Shoe Diaries and May KB.
Friday 27/08 The Money, Richie Muir The Approach Detonate warm up The Golden Fleece Myna Bird The Central £3, 8pm Plus Kill Makara
for more: leftlion.co.uk/listings
Café.Bar.Contemporary Dead. Good. Venue. Full. Stop.
The appearance of Nottingham Contemporary might still be causing a stir in the Lace Market, but this place also has hidden – and very tasty – depths. Located in the basement of the city’s newest feature lies Cafe.Bar.Contemporary – and yes, those full stops are meant to be there, actually. With an inspiring interior created by New York artist Matthew Brannon and and imaginative food and bar menu, C.B.C is the perfect place to meet friends, relax and enjoy quality snap at decent prices. Okay, so you won’t be able to pose in the window looking all moody for the benefit of passers-by, but look at it another way – there’s millions of pounds of art right over your head. Through the day, C.B.C serves a full menu, with delicious daily specials made from fresh and locally sourced seasonal ingredients. All the food is creative and affordable, with international contemporary cuisine served alongside classic British dishes like bubble and squeak and fish and chips. And the local theme extends to the bar, with cask ales from Nottingham brewery Castle Rock as well a great choice of beers and ciders on draught, continental bottled beers including Duval and Vedett and an extensive wine list. In the afternoon and through to the early evening the café bar also serves a range of cakes, meat and cheese platters, and nibbles too. There are even old-school dishes such as ice cream coke floats and knickerbocker glories – a nod to the 50s diner-influenced signage outside. At night, C.B.C turns itself into music, arts and performance venue. The DJ sessions on Fridays feature Pete Bradley and DJ Fluff playing funky sounds from 5pm ‘til late, while on Saturdays, the regular Café.Bar.Live programme showcases the cream of the local band scene - it’s already become a favourite venue for album and EP launches. On other nights in the week the café bar hosts arts and performance events – including the inaugural LeftLion spoken word night Scribal Gathering, which takes place on Wednesday 4 August Café.Bar.Contemporary, Weekday Cross, Nottingham NG1 2GB. Closed Mondays. cafebarcontemporary.com
Saturday 28/08
Sunday 29/08
Saturday 04/09
The Joe Strange Band The Approach
Roger Sanchez Gatecrasher £10, 9pm - late
S.P.A.M! The Rescue Rooms Free /£6 / £7, 10pm - 3am
Soul Buggin’ Bank Holiday BBQ Moog Free / £3, 2pm - 3am Ben Davis, Osbourne & Woosh, Steve Ellis, Wrighty, Beane and Mark A.
Boat to Row Deux Plus Cecille Grey
Folkface The Maze £12, 8pm FolkFace are Dave and Dom. Evarose Rock City £3, 10pm
Wednesday 01/09
S.P.A.M! The Golden Fleece Free, 9pm - midnight
Worselings The Central
Sugarhill Southbank Bar
The Low Anthem The Rescue Rooms £12, 7.30pm
Sunday 29/08 Pesky Alligators The Navigation Waterfront £3, 9pm - 11pm Captain Dangerous The Central Bravo Juliet and General Public Chemistry Set. Dr Comfort Southbank Bar
Town’s Dead This Summer New zombie DVD turns Notts into hellish nightmare zone – without the help of Wetherspoons
Brought to you by OTT Productions - a collective of short filmmakers who have been at it ever since they met at college a decade ago - Dawn and the Dead began life as a 24 hour movie project in 2008. It’s a tried and tested story classic: boy-meets-girl-meets-zombies. Dawn (Penny J. Bond) is a modern, selfobsessed shoes-and-Facebook type, and after one of those chance reunifications that Zombie Apocalypses do so well, she teams up with Wesker (Luke Pick), a paintball instructor who teaches her the way of the gun. But what further intrigue surrounds this pairing? And what’s the army’s interest in them and a mysterious flask-shaped bomb? Although DATD is set and filmed in town, it’s certainly not Notts as we know it. With computer wizardry, digital effects engineer Saul Hayes has played around with the familiar backdrops of our city to create Beacon Falls, an overrun zombietropolis complete with burning tower blocks and abandoned cars. The production owes a big debt to Resident Evil, with its feisty gun-wielding super-femme, mutating zombies and Wesker himself. Even the DVD menu music gives you pangs of those Raccoon City PD blues - making you want to split up, look for survivors and get the hell out of there. This rom-zom-com’s mix of fourth wall-breaking and full-automatic army-filled explosive mayhem may seem odd, but it never jars the senses – largely because you can feel this is a bunch of mates putting together their own zombie epic and having a whale of a time doing so. Dawn and the Dead is available on DVD, from the OTT Productions website ottproductions.com leftlion.co.uk/issue35
Steve Mcgill Southbank Bar Pesky Alligators The Chestnut Tree Free, 9pm
Friday 03/09 Heidi Talbot The Rescue Rooms £12, 7.30pm The Big Dig with Holmes The Golden Fleece Beholder The Central £5, 8pm Plus Bloodguard.
Zombies: much cheaper than werewolves for fancy dress, less stuck-up than vampires and far less toilet roll required compared to mummies. It seems that they’re quite the monster du jour amongst local cinematic auteurs, and shambling hard on the heels of other Nottingham zombiethons comes the DVD release of Dawn and the Dead.
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Thursday 02/09
The Happening The Orange Tree Free, 9pm-1am Sam Kirk Deux
Saturday 04/09 Hold Your Horse Is The Chameleon £3, 8pm Plus Shoes and Socks off. The Soul Ska Shakedown The Golden Fleece Wildside The Central Full Circle The Hubb
Jazz Junction Nottingham Contemporary
Sunday 05/09 The Like The Bodega £7.50, 7pm Go-X The Central Plus Red XIII, Armed for a Crisis, A World Defined, Savour The Kill, To A Breathless Oblivion and A Far Cry From Innocnence and more. Fab 4 Southbank Bar
Tuesday 07/09 Open Mic The Maze Free, 8pm CW Stoneking The Rescue Rooms £10, 7.30pm
Wednesday 08/09 Kortini The Central Plus Nightvision and GrandUltra.
Thursday 09/09 Live Jazz - Ben Martin Band The Hubb Tee Dymond Southbank Bar Elliot Minor Rock City £10, 6.30pm
Friday 10/09 The Hustle with Detail The Golden Fleece UK Subs The Central £9, 8pm
Rather listen to the tunes on this page than read about ‘em? Better wrap your tabs round Sound Of The Lion, our dedicated music podcast, available at leftlion.co.uk/SOTL. And if you want your own tunes reviewed - and you’re from Notts - hit up leftlion.co.uk/sendusmusic... 8mm Orchestra
8mm Orchestra EP (Self Release) Seven starts funkily, reminiscent of Ege Bamyasi-era Can. The entire band’s emphasis on the percussion in the intro is an especially welcome touch, ushering in a verse soaked in tremolo-treated guitar. After a squelching build-up, the band stutters between heaviness and melody with the bass providing a supple spine that the guitarists work around liberally. Untitled (Trains) is a wonderful song, providing ambience and atmosphere by the truckload. The reverb treated drums and echoing glockenspiel (that eventually reverses in a Four Tet manner) haunt the bass harmonics closely until the song finalises on a note matching Explosions in the Sky. The guitars duel for attention, rhythm and arpeggios in perfect harmony, until a pleasant peak that quickly fades and breaks to make way for lazy keyboard chords. Only Clouds Move The Stars smacks of early 65daysofstatic, a sort of reinterpreted Retreat! Retreat! which brings forth feelings of hope and sadness in a simultaneous wave. An accordion misleadingly dominates the intro, and soon leaves us to be replaced by swathes of passionate guitar distortion. The band grip the main lead guitar theme and set about changing the mood until they explode completely in a cacophony of riffage. The song devolves, displaying the band in a more introspective mindset - the accordion returns with an acoustic guitar... and then they rip it all away with one final crescendo, complete with vocal harmonies. Anthony Whitton Available at gigs or online. myspace.com/8mmorchestra
Low Starr
In Search of the Light EP (Light Commisionerz) The constantly evolving nature of hip-hop often sees artists ditch their former personas to take on new projects and gain wider appeal. KMD’s Zev Love X became MF Doom while Messrs. Nas and Ghostface dropped their respective Nasty and Killah monikers to chase the big bucks. Now rapper and producer Low Starr becomes the Starburst to the Opal Fruits of Lee Ramsay that older Notts heads already know and love. Ramsay made his name with legendary group OutDaVille − alongside Scorzayzee − going on to form Marga Boys and pursue his own projects. On this new EP Low Starr goes it alone, releasing a self-produced four-track teaser marketed under his own Light Commisionerz label. The stand-out single on In Search of the Light is Reminisce − an exploration of the rapper’s fame forged in his near two decades of recording. Low Starr’s flow lilts while peppered with double-time bars that merge perfectly into the sultry hook of You’ll Remember Me. Electronic drums and Kanye-style synths make this perfect summer pop. His slick production skills are showcased again on Orchestra Minded where grand horns and handclaps turn it in to what sounds like a Jay-Z smash. The bouncy soul of Oh My Dayz and I’m Coming compliment Low Starr’s local vernacular with production that works on an international level. This name change and new direction should hopefully give this most hard-working of artists the wider recognition he deserves. And I’m willing to stake a Marathon bar on that. Shariff Ibrahim Available online myspace.com/lowstarlrg
Tom Garner
Coaster EP (Self Release) Like a mechanic stripping a motorbike, or a predator skinning its prey, Tom Garner is able to take songs down to their bare essentials immediately getting to the heart of the song. Most of the tracks on Coaster are based around Tom’s piano and voice, with drums, electronic percussion and bass as accompaniment. The easiest comparison to make would be Ben Folds Five without the need to cover up his insecurities with a geeky knowingness. For, over ten tracks, Tom conjures up gentle melodies delivered with soulful, wistful, heartfelt singing as his piano rolls around him. Occasionally, Tom is partnered by female vocals, adding an extra emotional edge to his words and putting this album firmly in the ‘songs about relationships’ camp. Tracks like Bright Lights and Empty Rooms showcase a talent unafraid to deal with the bitterness of relationships - his heart is firmly on his sleeve. This is his debut, but Garner plays like he has been crafting these songs for years making sure he gets to the heart and soul of what they are about. Paul Klotschkow Available online myspace.com/tomgarnermusic
Baby Godzilla
NPAG EP (Self Release) Noble in challenging the received wisdom that the only Baby Godzilla worth caring about is Godzuki, this Notts Agit-Psycho-Rock outfit put up a good fight with their new NPAG EP. You certainly couldn’t accuse them of lacking in confidence. The Disenchantment Boogie fires things up, with a London Callingera Clash-esque precordial thump of melody, vocal harmonies and heavy rhythmic kick. But it is second track Steamline Feline that shows Baby Godzilla at full expression. Starting out as a creep and then moving about in skulks, before long it’s gathered enough back-tension to swagger out and work the room: pounding the walls, smashing it up and raising all bloody hell. Fast. Snottily obnoxious. Downright scary in the way that it might be if you were waiting tables on Lemmy and Rocket From The Crypt as they down shot after shot before picking a fight with the bouncer, getting chucked outside and started waggling big boogy-woogy bollocks around in front of passing riot vans. Upping the tempo when it feels like it, calming down when it’s had enough, the NPAG EP is a fine presentation of this Notts outfit’s talents. If Baby Godzilla sound like this now, heaven help us when they’re all grown up. Al Draper Available at gigs and online myspace.com/baby-godzilla
Manière Des Bohémiens
Manière Des Bohémiens EP (Farmyard Records) As a band known for their engaging and exciting live shows, Manière des Bohémiens are a staple of the Notts music diet and are decidedly against the grain. Playing a hybrid mix of the French swing style popularised by legends like Django Reinhardt in the thirties and Eastern European gypsy music, their improvised reworkings of jazz standards and traditional folk tunes set each in a new and unique light. To capture a sound like this on a recording is no mean feat but, having been recorded entirely live and in just five hours, the band’s new EP has done as much justice to their live performances as humanly possible. The technical skill displayed by the musicians of MdB is blindingly apparent with wonderfully inventive, silver-fingered violin solos abounding in each track, along with effortless accordion, flowing guitar playing and cool, understated double bass solos. There is a really comfortable feel to this record, as if they are playing for you in a tiny candlelit club, and the transitions from one fabulous solo to the next flow with coolness and ease. The pace of the EP ebbs and flows, from the slow and sexy refrains of 2 Guitars to the blistering speed of Romanian Train Song, which quickens to such intensity that it’s almost shocking to find that violinist Rob Rosa still has all his fingers in the aftermath of the recording. This is certainly a record to invest in if you’re looking for something exciting, unusual and technically beautiful to grace your headphones. You won’t be disappointed. Sarah Morrison Available at gigs and farmyardrecords.com myspace.com/manieredesbohemiens
Whatley & Stone
Woven Album (Self Release) Come into my web, said the spider to the fly. Woven is that spider, pulling tighter on the web you’ll find yourself caught up in. Opening track Pulse is the bait laid out to catch your attention. Part Lilo Schafrin brassy soundtrack, part Portishead on the pull. Ms. Whatley’s vocals are beautiful; she could sing an angel to sleep. These songs, er, weave between gothy pop and big beat pomp, Cocteau Twins versus Tricky. Take Me to Heaven is a good example of Whatley and Stone’s crossover appeal. This song would work just as well from a club’s huge sound system at midnight as from your stereo at home dancing on a Sunday teatime. The bassline is to die for, the vocals let you know what Heaven would sound like. Drowning is a trippy, hippy sounding campfire song. With killer strings. Dark Angel, Black Heart is like a classic ballad, one of those that MTV would play back in the eighties, all driving rain and handclaps. Cue Ms. Whatley, black stilettos and trench coat wistfully walking towards the camera. Her voice is beguiling, the voice of the approaching spider ready to pounce. At Haunted you’re wrapped in silk, by final track Sleepwalking she’s stashed you away with the other victims, to be devoured at her leisure. Accept your fate. If you’re going to be transfixed by one record this summer, let it be Woven. Piers Edminson Available online myspace.com/whatleyandstone
Kirk Spencer ft. Wariko, Shifty Spirit, Jah Digga and 2Tone
Night Time CRS Entertainment You’lll have come across this character before - works in an office by day, lurks in an alley by night. All false posturing and braggadocio under hoods and bandanas. This mentality is explored on Nottingham producer Kirk Spencer’s massive new single Night Time. Helped by CRS Entertainment label-mates and some of the city’s finest rappers, Mr.Spencer delivers another banger from the St. Anns-based studio. Jah Digga (AKA Dan Dan) kicks things off with a solid verse: ‘You wear a shirt, tie, trousers and a suitcase/At night you wear a tracksuit, hoodies and a screwface/I know the truth, mate/You act for your crew’s sake/Everybody knows that you’re sweet like a fruitcake’, while 2Tone provides the anti-fronting hook in an inimitable Notts drawl. Mixing hip-hop with dubstep and grime is the producer’s trademark; on Night Time the dirty, fuzzy bassline and Spencer’s own live guitar and drum samples progress into a full-blown drum and bass track. Legendary grime MC Wariko sounds just as at home flowing over the epic beat as no-nonsense rapper Shifty Spirit as they lyrically out the fakers. Really slick production and great guest spots from the Community Recording Studio explain why this tune has received so much airplay on BBC Radio 1xtra. Worth the price of the instrumental alone, this one is a must-download. Just remember the song’s immortal message – check yourself before you wreck yourself, don’t disrespect yourself. Shariff Ibrahim Available from iTunes. kirkspencer.co.uk
Spaceships are Cool
Heart Echoes EP (Self Release) SaC’s website boasts a huge list of synths and other kit at their disposal. It’s an itinerary that would make any Kraftwerk fan cry with joy. There the similarity ends, but only in genre and style; in terms of innovation, SaC are on top of their game. Deemed the city’s premier (and possibly only) purveyors of uplifting, electronically driven scifi pop, they’ve managed to squeeze as much of the intrigue and energy of their excellent live shows into their debut LP as humanly possible. It’s chock-full of dreamy, lilting ditties that invoke a child-like whimsy at the same time as filling your ears with enough delicious synthy goodness to satiate your appetite for electronic nutrition for days. Opener, Along These Sleepless Nights, introduces the band’s penchant for merging analogue sounds with digital, beginning with slide and acoustic guitar before introducing the ever-eerie, spacey sound of the theramin and synthesiser combination that continues throughout the record. Heart Echoes sounds like the soundtrack to a futuristic primary school’s field trip to space; wide-eyed children exploring the solar system to a backdrop of Moog synths, undulating theramin, glockenspiels and Fisher Price toys. Yet as charming and innocent as it may sound, there is a high level of production and compositional skill to the album, with its diverse elements having been weaved together to form songs that defy any efforts to be grumpy whilst you listen. Sarah Morrison Available from gigs and online. spaceshipsarecool.com
Yunioshi
How To Survive A Robot Uprising EP (Self Release) Yunioshi are sticking their fingers firmly in the socket with their new EP. A sample from an old fifties scifi film warns of an imminent attack which then leads in to the howling siren stomp of Ghetto Getgo guitars clatter and clash as if trying to break out of Beck’s bedroom circa Midnite Vultures, whilst the bass and burbling synth breakdown near the end drags the song firmly to the dance floor. The cheeky Star Wars reference at the end shows that Yunioshi should be the house band for Chalmun’s Cantina. Believe It pulsates with a sultriness intent on grinding against you. Ctrl sees burbling keyboards and bubbling sound-effects dart around whilst the song struts around like CP30 after mainlining an entire stash of Viagra hoping to get his end away with anyone and everything, as Rob and Anna sing, “Your touch is bruising me, the feeling I want more and more.” Oh my. Matt Bellamy must have broken into the Yunioshi studio as an electrical storm of guitars clatters down over Hakushi! in a way of which Devon’s guitarmaestro would be proud and, with it, Yunioshi have created a whole new genre – ‘Robo Funk’. Thunderbird is a slab of sixties tinged lounge pop with breakbeat drums and fuzzy bass having a laser battle with a rainbow synths, as Rob lays down the Yunioshi mantra. ‘Robot funk shit’ indeed. Paul Klotschkow Available online myspace.com/yunioshi leftlion.co.uk/issue36 leftlion.co.uk/issue36
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event listings...
for more: leftlion.co.uk/listings
Friday 10/09
Thursday 16/09
Basslaced Stealth £6 / £8, 10pm - 4am Sukh Night and MC P Money, Distance, Kryptic Minds, Senate and Standfast.
Dogma Presents: The Others Dogma Free, 8pm
Salmagundi The Hubb
Kris Ward Southbank Bar
Blue Yonder Deux
Shadows Chasing Ghosts Rock City £5, 7pm
Saturday 11/09 Headstock Festival The Newstead and Annesley Country Park £12.50 - £30, 12pm - 2am The Money Southbank Bar Dizzy Lizzy and Absolute Thunder Rock City £10, 7pm Maniere Des Bohemiens Nottingham Contemporary The Beetroot Kings The Rescue Rooms £7, 7pm
Monday 13/09 Epic Fail The Maze Wolf Parade The Rescue Rooms £12.50, 7.30pm I Am Arrows The Bodega £10, 7pm
Tuesday 14/09 Barenaked Ladies Rock City £25, 7.30pm
Wednesday 15/09 Dinosaur Pile-Up The Bodega £7, 7pm
New Jock Swing
Decky does a Bronco right outside Lakeside. The dirty bogger. To some young men, their rite of passage is the first taste of warfare. To others, it’s fetching their Dad one across the face after he’s come back from the pub. To the youths of Girvan in West Scotland, it’s doing a Bronco – standing on a swing, getting high enough to be level with the ground, kick the swing over your head and then jump beneath it. All the lads in the gang can do it, bar Decky – the wee runty one. And he’s about to find that life is far more than just swings and roundabouts…
Scarlet’s Wake The Central
Black Mountain The Rescue Rooms £11, 7.30pm Plus Ladyhawk
Decky does a Bronco, for the unaware, is one of the finest plays to come out of Scotland in many a year. Penned by the acclaimed Glaswegian writer Douglas Maxwell, it took the Edinburgh Fringe by storm on its release, snapping up The Scotman Fringe First Award for innovation in theatre and outstanding new production and The Stage Award for Acting Excellence. Since then, it’s toured over the country, and finally hits Notts this September, outside the Lakeside on Highfields Park. That’s right; outside. Set in an actual playground, and performed by the Grid Iron theatre company – who specialise in taking plays out of the theatre and boast a cast of trained acrobats – Decky does a Bronco might just be the best thing you’ve seen in a playground since that fight between those two mentalist fifth years back in the day. Remember, it’s in September, so tek a coat just in case…
Friday 17/09 Fyfe Dangerfield The Rescue Rooms £12.50, 7.30pm
Decky does a Bronco, £12 (£9 conc), Thursday 9 – 11 September, Highfields Park, near Lakeside Arts Centre, University Park, NG7 2RD. lakesidearts.org.uk
Prostitute Disfigurement The Central £8 adv Plus Lordaeron, Drag The Lake, Merciless Terror and Burial. Pesky Alligators The Hubb Free, 9pm-12am Sky Larkin The Bodega £8, 7pm
Ricky Warwick Rock City £8, 7pm Smokescreen The Maze 8pm Garrison Deux
Monday 20/09
Saturday 25/09
Bastard of the Skies The Central £4, 7.30pm Plus Alunah, The Engines Of Armageddon, Master Charger and Eye For An Eye.
The Vaselines The Rescue Rooms £10, 7.30pm
Trashstock 2010 The Central £12 adv With Acey Slade and The Dark Party, The Glitterati, The Pleasures, JD and The FDC’s, Dead Identities, The Erotics, Eureka Machines, Lord Of The Lost, Sworn To Oath, Obsessive Compulsive, The Lost Souls Club and The Rocket Dolls.
Highness Warm Up The Golden Fleece
Saturday 18/09 Killing Machine The Rescue Rooms £9, 6.30pm
Saturday 18/09
Black Canvas The Hubb Mas Y Mas Nottingham Contemporary
Sunday 19/09 I Haunt Wizards The Central £3, 8pm Plus Meet Me In Vegas and Can’t Kill The Heat. The Kaiser Thiefs Southbank Bar
Sugarhill Southbank Bar
Installation Overdrive
Notts sets the dials for maximum artiness (with minimal fartiness) this summer Nottingham’s top contemporary art venues are taking ‘people’ and ‘faces’ as the focus for their current exhibitions. The work of Diane Arbus - one of the most distinctive portrait photographers of the 20th Century - is at Nottingham Contemporary right through until the autumn. Her photographs catalogued people on the margins of society, celebrating the uniqueness and freakiness of people in New York during the 50s and 60s. Following the tradition of American street photography, Arbus was drawn to people who worked in the amusement parks such as Palisades Park and Coney Island. From the unknown to the famous, Nottingham Castle is hosting the exhibition Portrait of a City. Made up of paintings, photographs, sculpture and drawings, this exhibition celebrates the people who have made Nottingham the city it is today. The characters and faces range from the 1500s to 2010; some are famous, some as yet are unsung heroes. Look out for newly-commissioned photographs by Jo Metson Scott, a Nottingham-born contemporary photographer whose work has featured in The Guardian, Telegraph and i-D Magazine.
Dogma Presents : MistaJam Dogma Free, 9pm Jay Hart Southbank Bar Cafe Boheme Deux TRC Rock City £3, 10pm Plus This is Colour Justin Rutledge The Maze 7.30pm, £10 Plus Amelia Curran
Urban Intro Southbank Bar Dog Is Dead The Bodega £5, 7pm Rachel Harrington Deux Grinderman Rock City £25, 6.30pm
Friday 24/09 Muzika! The Maze 9pm, £5
Wednesday 29/09
Detonate Warm Up The Golden Fleece
Ocean Colour Scene Rock City £23.50, 6.30pm
Johnny Dickinson Deux Lisbee Stainton The Bodega £7, 7pm Diane Arbus, Tattooed Man at a Carnival, Md. 1970. Copyright © 1971 The Estate of Diane Arbus.
S.P.A.M! The Golden Fleece Free, 9pm – 12am
Furnace Mountain The Maze £10, 7.15pm Plus Raina Rose
Reckless Love Rock City £8, 7pm Plus Jett Black.
Diane Arbus, Nottingham Contemporary, Weekday Cross, NG1 2GB, 17 July - 30 October. Portrait of a City: Nottingham Names and Faces from the 1500s to 2010, Nottingham Castle, NG1 6AA, 26 June - 19 September Memento, New Art Exchange, 39-41 Gregory Boulevard, NG7 6BE, 23 July - 4 September. leftlion.co.uk/issue35
Thursday 23/09
Detonate Stealth £10 / £12, 10pm – late Friction, Scratch Perverts, N-Type, Spor, Alix Perez, Truth, SP:MC and Transit Mafia.
Finally, and more conceptually, Ed Pien’s walk-through installation titled Memento at the New Art Exchange was developed out of research into the plight of illegal immigrants - the hidden faces of society who often take great risks in the hope of living a better life. An immersive installation made from ropes, cut-outs, sandbags, video projection and sound, Memento runs until the beginning of September.
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Rose Elinor Dougall The Bodega £6, 7pm
Saturday 25/09 S.P.A.M The Golden Fleece Shades of Blue The Hubb Calvin Harris Gatecrasher £10, 10pm
Crocodiles The Bodega £6, 7pm
Thursday 30/09 Michael Buble Trent FM Arena Nottingham Dogma Presents Dogma DJ Fresh (tbc) Live Jazz - Brazilica The Hubb Imelda May Rock City £16.50, 6.30pm Gold Rush Southbank Bar NME Radar Tour The Rescue Rooms £9.50, 7pm With The Joy Formidable and Chapel Club.
event listings... COMEDY Saturday 14/08 Magners Funhouse Comedy Club Strathdon Hotel £10, doors 8pm With Nick Page, Stuart Black, Ben Schofield and Compere, Spiky Mike.
Monday 16/08 Let’s Get Quizzical Spanky Van Dykes £2, 8pm start
Wednesday 15/09 Rich Hall The Glee Club £15, 7.15pm
Thursday 16/09 Shappi Khorsandi The Glee Club £11 - £13, 7.15pm
Thursday 16/09 Jarred Christmas The Glee Club £5 - £10, 7.15pm Jarred Christmas, Mike Wilmot, Gina Yashere and Andrew Maxwell.
Thursday 23/09 Kevin Bridges The Glee Club £13, 7.15pm
Friday 24/09 Pulse Comedy Club Night New Venture Club 7pm to midnight Andy White, Vince Atta, Jane Hill, Ishi Khan-Jackson and Resident MC.
Saturday 25/09 Jason Manford Royal Centre Brian Higgins The Glee Club £5 - £12, 7.15pm Plus Trevor Crook, Andy Robinson and guest.
Sunday 26/09 Just the Tonic Cornerhouse £12, 7pm Johnny Vegas and guests. Runs until: 27/09
Tuesday 28/09 The Armstrong and Miller Show Royal Centre
Wednesday 29/09 The Armstrong and Miller Show Royal Centre
Thursday 30/09 Real Deal Comedy Jam Nottingham Trent Uni £10 / £15, 7.30pm - 10.30pm With Kat, Axel da Entertainer, Special P, Jason Andors and Smokey Suarez. Jon Richardson: Don’t Happy, Be Worry The Glee Club £11 - £13, 7.30pm
THEATRE Monday 02/08 Murder with Love Royal Centre Runs until: 7/8
Friday 06/08 Bugsy Malone Nottingham Arts Theatre £3 / £5, 6pm
Monday 09/08 Murdered to Death Royal Centre Runs until: 14/08
Thursday 12/08 Pride And Prejudice Newstead Abbey £10 / £12, 7:30 Runs until: 13/08
for more: leftlion.co.uk/listings
Make My Club The Tonic …I want my guts laughed up
Just The Tonic - your friendly neighbourhood purveyors of stand-up - have been pulling the absolute top dogs of the circuit into town for sixteen years now, but have spent much of that time bouncing from venue to venue like a bunch of hen slappers. That’s all about to change in September, though, as JTT finally settles down in a permanent city centre venue - none other than the Cornerhouse. Yes indeed - as we speak, a 450-max venue is being readied, offering a full range of drinks, cabaret-style seating and a very nice menu that goes much further than chicken-in-a-basket. Even better, their nationally-renowned comedy nights are extending right across the weekend, from Friday night all the way into Sunday. The Friday and Saturday shows are based on the club’s London sessions, which are more geared to the needs of a Friday and Saturday night crowd (make of that what you will) and has made JTT’s London branch one of the hottest tickets in Expensive-Town - but the price is being dropped here, and it’s going to stay that way. Sundays, on the other hand, will retain the knockabout element that Just the Tonic is renowned for - cheaper, chaotic, sometimes a touring act, sometimes a famous act, sometimes just a load of people being silly. Acts already booked so far include Stewart Lee (pictured), Johnny Vegas, Sarah Millican, Rufus Hound, Jack Whitehall, Jim Jeffries, Josie Long, Nina Conti and Pete Firman – but there are a couple of surprise shows already in the works, so keep checking the website – or even better, whack your name down on their mailing list. Chuck in the much-loved Big Value Comedy audition night on a Mondays, along with the other tours and one-off surprise gigs – not to mention the fact that once the comedy is over, the place stays open as a nightclub, and the Fish Man usually gets dragged up on stage every time he swings by - and it’s obvious that one of the jewels in the crown of Notts nightlife has got even more spangly. justthetonic.com
Monday 16/08
Friday 03/09
Sunday 01/08
Anybody for Murder? Royal Centre Runs until: 21/08
She Stoops To Conquer Nottingham Playhouse £7.50 - £26.50 Runs until: 18/09
Paul Harrison and Nick Dunmur Edgelands Lakeside Arts Centre Runs until: 05/09
Tuesday 07/09
Life is Very Sweet Harley Gallery and Foundation Mon - Sat 10am - 5pm, Sun 10am - 4.30pm Runs until: 01/03
Friday 20/08 James And The Giant Peach Newstead Abbey £8 / £11, 7.30
Saturday 28/08 Love in Shakespeare Nottingham Castle £10 / £12 / £14, 7.30pm Runs until: 29/08
Tuesday 31/08 The Country Girl Royal Centre Runs until: 04/09
The Next Stage
Board-treading tomfoolery a-plenty this bi-month, previewed by Adrian Bhagat Around this time of year, theatre audiences pull on their waterproofs, drag out their plastic imitation-wicker picnic hampers, and try to watch plays through rain-filled eyes. There’s still time to catch some outdoor shows at the Castle and Newstead Abbey, including Illyria’s Pride and Prejudice. These shows are always lots of fun - and it’s a great privilege to see plays in beautiful surroundings. After the summer lull, September heralds the start of the new season and the promise of plenty of great theatre in our beloved city. The Playhouse’s first offering is She Stoops To Conquer, an 18th Century comedy of manners beloved of GCSE syllabus writers, so you may well have studied it at school. Kate, the daughter of a wealthy squire, wishes to marry the aristocratic Charles. As he She Stoops To Conquer, Nottingham Playhouse becomes flustered when talking to women of his own class, she disguises herself as a barmaid to win his heart. When someone mischievously convinces Charles that Kate’s father is the innkeeper and his house is a tavern, the resulting chaos makes the marriage unlikely. The Lace Market Theatre begins their season with Frederico Garcia Lorca’s Blood Wedding, a story of love and death. On the eve of a wedding, an ex-lover with a violent past arrives, reawakening a family feud. When the bride runs away, a revenge tragedy unfolds. This is the kind of weighty play that brings out the best in the Lace Market’s excellent amateur company. Finally, DH Lawrence fans may be interested in Phoenix Rising at the Nottingham Arts Theatre. In the play, Lawrence is shown living with his wife, Frieda, in the south of France. With his health failing and death not far away, he muses with pathos and laughter about his early life, and the people who inspired his literary characters. Outdoor Theatre Season, Nottingham Castle and Newstead Abbey, until 29 August. She Stoops To Conquer, Nottingham Playhouse, 3 - 18 September. Blood Wedding, Lace Market Theatre, 15 - 18 September. Phoenix Rising, Nottingham Arts Theatre, 16 – 18 September.
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leftlion.co.uk/issue35
Oklahoma Royal Centre Runs until: 11/09
Sunday 12/09 Shangri-la Lounge - 2010 a Space Oddity Rescue Rooms £10, 7.30pm - 12am
Wednesday 15/09 Blood Wedding Lace Market Theatre Runs until: 18/08
Surface Gallery Open Show 2010 Surface Gallery Runs until: 07/08 Liz Emery - Felt Artist D H Lawrence Heritage £2.50, 10am until 5pm Runs until: 22/08 Pilvi Takala Nottingham Contemporary Runs until: 29/08
Thursday 16/09
Children’s Summer Workshops Harley Gallery and Foundation £5 per child per day Runs until: 25/08
Phoenix Rising Nottingham Arts Theatre £8 / £10, 7.30pm Runs until: 18/09
Saturday 14/08
Friday 24/09 Twelfth Night Nottingham Playhouse £7.50 - £26.50 Runs until: 16/10
EXHIBITIONS Sunday 01/08 Through Other Eyes Harley Gallery and Foundation Free, Mon - Sat 10am - 5pm Runs until: 15/08 James Webb - Prayer Lakeside Arts Centre Runs until: 08/08 Summer Exhibition Crocus Gallery Free, 11pm – 4pm Runs until: 07/08 Summer Exhibition Crocus Gallery Free, 11am-4pm Runs until: 07/08
University Summer Exhibition Lakeside Arts Centre Runs until: 04/09
Saturday 04/09 We’ll Meet Again New Art Exchange Runs until: 07/11 LOVE New Art Exchange Runs until: 07/11
Thursday 23/09 The Nottingham Food and Drink Festival 2010 Old Market Square Runs until: 26/09 With Gino D’Acampo, Ainslee Harriott, Momma Cherrie, Atul Kochhar and Sat Bains.
Friday 24/09 Strange Dance Nottingham Contemporary
leftlion.co.uk/issue35
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Another bi-month, another opportunity for us to cram as much snap into our cakey maws as possible. If you want to be featured on this page email noshingham@leftlion.co.uk
words: : Sophie Farrell, Aly Stoneman, Jared Wilson
Cock and Hoop
Dino Café and Wine Bar
Cumin
Comfortably nestled amongst popular night-time haunts along the cobbled streets of High Pavement and opposite the Galleries of Justice, this none-more-traditional venue serves as the perfect antidote to the city’s hustle and bustle. The intimate pub atmosphere - with comfy armchairs and settees galore - make it an ideal place to relax after a busy day at work. It’s also the ideal precursor to a date, if you would like a few drinks in a quiet pub venue before venturing downstairs to the dedicated restaurant space. With wine, beer, spirits, traditional and local ales, plus the usual selection of soft drinks, there are beverages available to suit all tastes.
Tucked away on Warser Gate – the long alleyway that connects the Lace Market tram stop to the Old Angel – Dino is a welcome retreat from the mayhem of town. The front bar is furnished with comfy low-slung leather chairs - ideal for hanging out with mates and taking advantage of the tempting £3 cocktail deals that run from 5-9pm. An exceptionally happy group next to us could well have been there all day, as the café opens at 11am with ‘proper’ Italian coffee, a full lunch menu and free wi-fi if you fancy taking a breather from the office.
Setting up an Indian restaurant in this town is tough particularly if you opt to do so on Maid Marian Way, a stone’s throw from 4550 Miles From Delhi. Laguna and cutlery tosser Chris Tarrant’s fave, MemSaab. But two years ago the Arnand family did just that, after establishing similar eateries in Wembley, Leicester, Ilford and Middlesex. Spread over two floors, Cumin is intimate yet spacious, feeling modern without forgetting its Indian heritage, with swathes of reds and darks, solid furnishings and tastefully muted wallpaper.
Dinner is served from 6-9pm (Tues-Sat) and the last rays of sun beaming through the skylight windows illuminated the tranquil décor as we were shown to our table. We selected a bottle of house Merlot (£13) and started with the bruscetta con peperonata (£3.50) and gamberoni (£4.95), confirming my suspicion that vegetarians are cheaper dates than carnivores (top budget dating tip!) The bruscetta was enough to turn this red-blooded meat eater into a leaf-munching sissy when I sampled my companion’s bountiful portion of grilled ciabatta massaged liberally with garlic and heaped with warm caramelized pepper, onion, crumbled goats’ cheese and basil. Another advantage of dating a veggie if you’re a carnivore is that they can’t try your food, so I was able to devour a regal plate of butterflied king prawns, magnificently fleshy and infused with garlic, white wine, chilli and lemon butter, all to myself.
For starters, I tried the masala fried tilapia (£7.00) a freshwater fish from Kenya. The four pieces came fried in crispy batter, marinated in a blend of lemon and spices, with a peppery edge. My guest went for the boti kebab (£6.00), five tender and tangy morsels of lamb subtly spiced with black pepper, lemon and chilli. I’m a big fan of spicy food, so for my main I scoured the menu for the red pepper symbols and plumped for the bhuna gosht (£10.50), a blend of lamb chunks and bell peppers, slow cooked with onions tomatoes and ginger. Personally I wouldn’t class this as a particularly ‘hot’ dish, although it left a pleasing tingly sensation in my mouth. My guest was more restrained with the murg makhni (£9.50), chunky chicken simmered in a mild and creamy tomato sauce.
Definitely not a Flintstones theme restaurant
Hungry? Put a ring on it
When we ventured downstairs, we discovered an open plan space with quirky little booths for those in pursuit of privacy whilst eating. The service was with a smile and the waitress was attentive. There could have been more space between tables, but tea lights, soothing music and dim lighting made for an ambient atmosphere. The menu, although concise, covered all bases with popular British fish, meat and vegetarian dishes. You can order nibbles with your drinks, which include mixed olives (£3.00), the roasted nut selection (£2.50) or Tuscan bread with olive oil and balsamic dipping (£3.00). Starters include roasted butternut squash soup with mushroom toast (£4.85), duck leg and breast terrine with green peppercorns and sourdough (£6.50) and a salad comprising devilled lamb’s kidney, anchovies, oat cakes and pickled shallots (£5.75). The mains also appeal to British pub food enthusiasts with beer battered hake fillet, mushy peas and chips (£9.50) and roasted leek and kale lasagne (£8.50). I chose a fish cake (£5.50) for starters and was pleased to discover a hearty, well-seasoned portion with soft mash potato filling. The fish pie main (£9.50) didn’t disappoint either with delicate flavours designed to tantalise taste buds. My guest had salmon rillettes (£5.50) followed with succulent lamb rump (£12.50), which proved to be the wholesome and simple British cooking you’d expect from a Michelin Pub Guide venue.
The Mediterranean-style menu mainly consists of meat and fish dishes, but several vegetarian options and an extensive specials board ensure plenty of choice. I opted for a succulent supper of monkfish (£9.00) which swaggered in on a black oblong slate, upstaging my companion’s risotto di zucca (£7.95) - a perky combination of roasted butternut squash and sage risotto - both visually and in terms of flavour fortunately he didn’t know what he was missing. We were full to bursting and we knew it, but there’s always room for chocolate, especially in the form of homemade white chocolate cheesecake (£2.50) – something we could share (reluctantly).
Aimed clearly at people who want a bit more than your standard pub lunch - and a lot less noise - Cock and Hoop is a gastropub par excellence. No two-for-ones, to be sure, but the level of value for what you get towers over its rivals.
Dino has an emphasis on providing an affordable high-quality menu using locally-sourced produce where possible. Friendly staff and beautiful décor help to make this a great place to linger with friends or on a romantic night out, with live music on weekend evenings. They’ll even let you use their piano.
29-31 High Pavement, NG1 1HE. Tel: 0115 852 3232
9 Warser Gate, Lace Market, Nottingham NG1 1NU. Tel: 0115 9504455
Oh my Ghosht
We complimented these with a bottle of pinot grigio (£13.50), which was both refreshing and rounded, as well as a few of Cumin’s speciality side-dishes. The pilau rice (£2.50) was more than enough to share between two alongside a garlic naan (£2.50). The aloo paratha (£2.50), a pan-seared wholewheat bread filled with mashed potato and with a distinct cheese flavour went down a treat too – but best of all was the bondi raita (£3.00), a fresh creamy yoghurt spiced with roasted cumin and packed with crisp gram flour puffed balls. We were too full to get stuck into the dessert menu, instead settling for the lemon towels and mints. But they have a few interesting looking dishes on there including pistachio kulfi (£3.00), gulab jamun (£3.00) –fried dumplings in syrup - and rasmalai (£3.00), which are milky sponge cakes. In the face of tough competition on Notts’ own curry quarter-mile, The Cumin more than holds it’s own. If you’re going on a rowdy work do then look elsewhere, but if you want to share an intimate meal, ahem, cumin and grab a table. The Cumin, 62-64 Maid Marion Way, NG1 6BJ. 0115 941 9941 thecumin.co.uk
tinyurl.com/cockandhoop
Our resident fast food expert Beane continues his quest to eat at every takeaway in Nottingham…
Maryland Chicken Chicken shops are now starting to rival Greggs in the most-outlets-in-town stakes. Case in point: I clocked people queuing out the door of Maryland the other day – at four in the afternoon. KFC must be seriously sweating at this new player in town. My first experience of this place almost ended in a visit to casualty: on my way home after a particularly saucy night at the Nottingham Bar and Club Awards, I stopped the taxi after seeing the bright lights of Maryland and ran across the busy Lower Parliament Street at 100mph - straight into the glass door that my beer goggles thought was an open doorway,
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and then onto the pavement. With the whole joint in stitches, I dusted myself off and, wobbily, entered to applause. That is how you make an entrance, people. As for the food, well, it’s pretty standard fried chicken and chips as expected, best eaten under the influence. Not necessarily a bad thing, though – sometimes a deep-fried bird is actually enhanced by a body swishing about with enough booze to fill a child’s paddling pool, and there’s certainly a lot worse eateries in Notts. Give it a go, but please; make sure you open the door first before entering. 24 Upper Parliament Street, NG1 3DA
Desi Express
Situated in the thriving centre of Hyson Green just across the road from that massive tropical grocers-cum-hypermarket - I’d heard many a nice tale regarding Desi Express but had yet to venture in. With the World Cup final looming that night, it had to be curry time in the Noodle HQ, so I decided to give it a whirl. It was early Sunday evening and the first thing I noticed was it was well rammed - always a good sign. You can either take a pew and eat in, or load up like Arnie in Commando and get your takeaway on big style. The first thing that hit me was how cheap the menu was – was this a fancy kebab house or a proper take-away?
Me and the Noodle crew opted for some lamb chops, lamb curry, rice, chips, vegetable kaporas and chicken biryani. Stacked up with spice and serious flavour it did the job and then some. A special shout out must go to the rice; normally a side player in your curry game, it was gorgeous - cooked with chick peas and herbs, it went lovely with the hot spicy chops. Bottom line: Desi is good value, highly recommended and goes perfectly with a bit of football. 113 Radford Road, Hyson Green, NG7 5DU
NEW YORK · LONDON · PARIS · MANSFIELD INTRODUCING LEFTLION SUBSCRIPTIONS it’s like having a little piece of Nottingham in your toilet BACK ISSUES
CALLING ALL EXPATRIATES marooned far, far away from the Motherland, Nottophiles in all locations who can’t go two months without seeing the word ‘chelp’ in print, and locals who just can’t be arsed to go into town: LeftLion subscriptions are now available.
KICKING YOURSELF because you missed out on an issue of LeftLion? Regret cutting up a certain issue to make blackmail threats to your ex? Want five copies of the issue with Su Pollard having it off in the Square on the cover to sell on eBay in years to come? Don’t mither yoursen, kids - simply giz some more money, and we’ll sort you out. We have limited copies of every issue of the ‘Lion (excluding issue 3), and when they’re gone, they’re gone.
That’s right, youths and ducks - from now on, you don’t have to ratchet up your carbon footprint by jetting into Nottingham in order to pick up the latest issue of the only magazine in Nottingham worth the steam off your wazz - simply giz some money, and we’ll send every issue to you the minute it comes off the presses. With a stamp and everything. Until your subscription runs out, obviously.
Again, check www.leftlion.co.uk/subs.
Now you don’t have to spend your lonely nights in a lesser town worrying about who is playing at The Maze next month as you slowly lose your accent - we’ll get your postie to shove Nottingham through your letterbox on a bi-monthly basis. Hit up www.leftlion.co.uk/subs to order online.
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Leo (July 24 - August 23) Great poets and philosophers have remarked that true love has no boundaries, no limits and no rules. However, before you get too involved in your latest romantic mission, you should be aware that your restraining order already has the three covered.
Virgo (August 24 - September 23) Having taps that constantly drip and drip can be torturous. Whatever you do though, don’t try to turn the tap off hard to stop it - it’ll only make the drip worse in the long run. Instead, arm yourself with a hammer, a wrench and some plaster sealant. Do not try and make sense of the patterns.
Libra (September 24 - October 23) If you’re looking for words of wisdom, there are many places you can find it. Some people go back to study, some find religion and others find the answers within. But 3am on a Sunday morning, drunk off your face, kebab in hand, shouting at the Cloughie statue won’t get you anywhere, young man.
Scorpio (October 24 - November 22) Baby girl, I got ten kids spread across this country and I don’t want to make it eleven. It’s time to wrap up the janitor before we let him loose down the corridor again. We’ve been lucky so far, but you can only push chance for so long. I blame the coalition government for this.
Sagittarius (November 23 - December 22) You’ve worked hard over the past few years and finally laid the final foundation stone to qualify for your ‘dream’ job. However, your partner will find this a little ironic, considering how little time you will find for sleeping from now on. Pro Plus is your new best friend.
LEFTLION ABROAD
Port Elizabeth, South Africa, June 2010
Capricorn (December 23 - January 19)
Do you find yourself regularly vomiting during intercourse? No matter how hard you try and hold it down, does naked time with a loved one ultimately end in a display of human pizza? They say it’s not the size of the ship, but the motion of the ocean that you need to change. Steer left!
Aquarius (January 20 - February 19)
A blazing inferno will sweep through your apartment block this week, cleansing your ponce-box of all material things, purifying the souls of your noisy neighbours, purging the whole community of all guilt and sin, and defrosting those microwave pizzas you bought from Tesco.
Pisces (February 20 - March 20) The Colonel has left. He’s gone to find his sister, The Duchess, in the elephant’s graveyard. It’s a sad day, but it was always going to happen like this. You came into the world alone and you went out that way, wobbling away from me on your tired back legs. Thanks for the glance back. God bless.
Aries (March 21 - April 20)
You’ve seen the adverts saying ‘It could be you’ but you never actually thought you’d match six numbers and scoop seven figures on the Saturday night rollover lottery. So thankfully you won’t be too disappointed when you buy thirty tickets this week and win nothing at all.
Taurus (April 21 - May 21)
The recession has started to hit us all in the psychic mentalist trade. Russell Grant has branched out into doing pet horoscopes – is there even a market for that? And Phillip Garcia is writing about gay stars (and he’s not even a member of OutRage). My sideline in snake-milking starts a week on Monday.
Gemini (May 22 - June 22)
Refrain from getting into a mass debate this weekend when you should instead be enjoying the company of the person you are with. Withholding the seed of information will work for you and ultimately please your partner. Letting others have the upper hand will ensure that you receive the caresses and backing you deserve.
Port Elizabeth is located on the eastern cape of South Africa, 6,224 miles away from Notts. It boasts the tallest bungee jump in the world and shark cage diving - but if you were feeling even more suicidal this summer, you could have watched England stink out the World Cup instead. Here’s Danny Howard, outside the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium, checking last issue’s wallchart with a few new-found chums from the South African riot police, who had nothing better to do before the Slovenia game. As Danny, a Forest fan, says, “Maybe next time, eh?” Er, no, mate.
Going somewhere exotic? Take a copy of the Lion, duck – not only can you get yourself in the mag waving it about, but it also keeps mosquitos away. Lob your pics and details to info@leftlion.co.uk.
Cancer (June 23 - July 23) You’re right that nobody seems to understand the excruciating personal pain and trauma you are currently going through. But having to constantly listen to you whining on about it is a torture of a whole different kind. Cheer up, fool!
EEE’YARRRRRR!
Lord Byron
Lord Biro
Eyes down for LeftLion Three and Seven, Thirty-Seven, out on Friday 1 October, just in time for Gooseh. Gerron your rides if yer gerrin’ on! Scream if you want to go faster! You only gen us a fiver and you can’t prove owt! Etc! 30
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AKA: Broxtowe Elvis
on AKA: Baron George Byr lism
and alcoho Weaknesses: Syphilis War Famous battles: Greek of Independence
12 year-old Greek Got tangled up with: A for 500 quid buy to d trie he girl whom
Weaknesses: Running
in elections
Famous batttles: 199
7 Tatton election
Got tangled up with: Nic k Clegg’s security guards, outside a LibDem conference
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