I'm no Eddie Windass

But my blue cheese scones are pretty good. I can't do pastry though, my hands are too warm.

Labour of Love

No, not another post about UB40, I think I'd rather forget about them for a while.

It seems to have taken over my life for the past couple of months but I've finally posted the last in the series 50 Years Of Corrie In 50 Days over on the Coronation Street blog, ready to go live the day before the Corrie's 50th birthday. It was first conceived as an idea on the train back from Manchester after the 50th anniversary press party held on the Coronation Street set back in September. I don't think I had an inkling of the amount of work involved at the time. In fact I seem to remember that I thought it would only take me a couple of weeks to write a blog post to cover every year of the Street. The excess of J W Lees Coronation Street Ale must have muddled my thinking somewhat.

There was a lot of reading involved, researching of storylines, collecting of dates and searching out of pictures. Credit must go to the works of Daran Little, Sean Egan and Tim Randall, without whose books none of it would have been possible, and to all at corrie.net for lots of info on characters and dates. It's been a lot of fun to produce such an epic (for me anyway) piece of work and I don't think I could have done it for anything other than Corrie which has a very special place in my life. Without it, I wouldn't be as happy a chap as I am.

I need another project now, let's hope that it involves packing up the house and moving to Sunderland.

Signing Off

To the Forum (T & C as was) in Kentish Town last night to see UB40. It's the 30th anniversary of the release of Signing Off and they're celebrating the milestone with a tour in which they play the album in full before coming back on and doing some of their hits. It's become a popular format lately and I've been to a few similar gigs in the recent past, including Dare, Architecture and Morality, and It's a Shame About Ray.

They've all been good and the format has really worked but I think that's largely down to the fact that the albums that have been performed have been excellent and full of crowd pleasers. Unfortunately I don't think Signing Off qualifies in this respect. It's only got a couple of hits on it and it showed as the crowd didn't really get going until they played Food for Thought and then it all went rather flat again. The second half was a bit better but I was left wanting to listen to some proper reggae. I never had high expectations of the gig but even then, I came away feeling disappointed.

There should really have been some poignancy to the gig as the album was first released as a Tory government was in the throes of implementing a hate-filled, anti working class, anti anybody unlucky enough to be poor or vulnerable agenda and dressing it up as essential medicine for an ailing economy while ensuring that big business and bankers felt none of the pain. Thirty years later and we're here again but you'd never have guessed it from the attitude of the band who didn't even bother to engage with the audience on the obvious parallels that could have been drawn, They didn't even play One in Ten. Maybe they're all Liberal Democrats now.

Kirsty Karaoke

To Shepherd’s Bush Empire last night to see A Concert for Kirsty MacColl. Kirsty would have been 50 yesterday if only she hadn’t been killed by some rich twat in a boat off the coast of Mexico nearly 10 years ago.

The first and last time I ever saw Kirsty MacColl play live was in the same venue  about 10 years ago. She herself declared it to be about the best gig she’d ever done, largely due to her lack of nerves which had blighted her all through her career but on this tour she had her partner on stage with her and that seemed to do the trick.

She’s influenced so many people over the years that there were queues of artist wanting to sing at this benefit gig for Kirsty’s favourite charity, Music Fund for Cuba. We’d been promised Johnny Marr and David Gray, who failed to show up and inevitably Shane McGowan was lost in the bottom of a glass somewhere in Dublin when he should have been singing 'Fairytale of New York'.

But it didn’t matter as most of the stars who turned up for a night of Kirsty Karaoke did a brilliant job. I say ‘most’ as I don’t understand why a Corr was allowed on stage to murder ‘They Don’t Know’. Fortunately the organisers redeemed themselves by bringing on Kim Wilde later on to show her how it should be done. Great performances too from Alison Moyet, Billy Bragg (doing a cover version of one of his own songs), Jackie Clune (who knew she could sing), Eddi Reader, Boo Hewerdine, James Walsh, Catherine Tate and even Phill Jupitus.

It was left to a couple of members of Kirsty’s band to sum the night up. They’d clearly had a fantastic time and had enjoyed playing songs that they’d not done for a long time. Here’s hoping they get to play them again soon.

Save The Wenlock

I found out tonight that one of my favourite pubs is threatened with closure. Steve & Will have run The Wenlock Arms since 1994 but have decided to call it a day and an offer has been received from a developer. The sale is far from complete but it would seem that should the place be sold to a developer then the chances of it remaining a pub will be slim to none. It's been a pub since 1835 so it would be a great shame if this were to end.

I've been drinking in the place on and off since it was reopened in 1994, having worked nearby for much of the time. What intially drew me there was the great selection of well kept beer but it's more than a place just for real ale fans it is a true locals pub at the very heart of the community. For a several years I was a member of a works darts team that used the pub as its home venue and we were always made very welcome by the locals who felt that we were representing the pub as well as our office. Away teams loved the pub too, generally turning up early and staying on long after the match had finished to enjoy the excellent beer and atmosphere of the place.

The fight is on to Save The Wenlock and we can but hope that it is successful.

Unfunny observational comedy

A friend texted me last night. "Michael McIntyre, completely unfunny. How is he so popular?" I must admit to having hardly seen him on the telly despite his being so ubiquitous. So I flicked through the channels and found him. With hundreds of channels to choose from, it's a virtual certainty that he's on somewhere. He was doing a riff about hoovering. Apparently some people follow the hoover around the room and others stand in one place and move it backwards and forwards. This is funny?

I blame Peter Kay for making this kind of unfunny observational comedy popular. He's a great writer and Phoenix Nights is brilliant but when it comes to stand up (or sit down as it was on Paul O'Grady's new chat show on Friday night) I think he's lost it. Merely reciting the names of sweets and toys from the 70's is not comedy. If it was everybody could be a successful stand up comedian.

What about Top Trumps and Aztec bars, eh!

Now where's my Perrier award?

From A to Z

I've been making great progress spending more time with my music collection and less time with BBC 6 Music. I'm now down to just listening to the breakfast show and so largely avoid the repetitious hell of the playlist. This has been made a little easier with Lauren Laverne going off on maternity leave (good luck Auntie La La) though that situation may change when Huey Morgan from Fun Lovin' Criminals steps into the fray as her temporary replacement.

It's not as simple as it seems though. My music collection is fairly large despite being culled somewhat in the past couple of months, so the problem is what to listen to next. I can listen to all my favourite albums (and I have) but that doesn't do justice to all the other stuff that's there. Just because an album isn't on my ever-changing virtual all-time favourites list, doesn't mean it isn't worth listening to. There are some absolute gems in there that just never seem to fight their way into my attention. So how to go about picking what to put on the turntable or slide into the CD player?

Last week I worked my way through my vinyl albums using the alphabet as a method of selection, trying to pick things that I hadn't listened to for a while. All went well until I got to 'Q'. No Queen, Queens Of The Stone Age, Quintessence, Q-Tips or Quicksilver Messenger Service. So in the end it came down to a choice between an old dance single by DJ Quicksilver or searching out something by ? And The Mysterians, which I'm sure to have somewhere on a CD compilation. I went with the former as it was easy to find and it's on vinyl like everything else in the A to Z. See below for a list of the selections.

So, what next? After having a day or two of general browsing, I'm currently picking my way through eponymous albums on CD, for no better reason than there seem to be quite a few and I rather like the word 'eponymous'.