A Happy Christmas from Manchester City Council

Just received a penalty charge notice for driving in a bus lane at Hunts Bank (apt name, given the way I now feel about the place...) at 17.43 on Fri 1 Dec. I'm not a frequent visitor to Manchester and was only driving in the city centre as I was dropping my son and his mate at the MEN Arena for a concert. Although I accept I was in the bus lane, I only knew this when I saw a notice and the sodding camera once I'd turned right onto the damn thing (there was a much larger sign for the Arena immediately before the turning, which had far greater prominence than the penalty warning). Now £30 the poorer, I can give this categorical assertion without fear of future contradiction: I won't ever drive in this shit hole of a city EVER AGAIN.

Oik or Oinky, it's grim up North, Dave

I look forward to Conservative Party conferences - being in government (in office, at least) they get to go last. Labour had a spectacularly good week down on the South Coast. But now Dave's Tory gang face a rather different prospect in Manchester - centre-piece of their much-vaunted Northern Powerhouse, lest we forget. Not only has their venture north led to a large part of the city centre being placed under something resembling a US-style 'lock-down', but delegates have reportedly been told to hide their conference passes while traversing the mean streets on their way to and from the Party jamboree. All this just four short months since Dave's less-than-overwhelming 12 seat majority general election 'victory'. If they're scared of the proles now, what are they going to be like in a few years' time?

An evening of poetry with Mike Harding

Went to see Mike Harding yesterday evening at the Square Chapel in Halifax. I've been to several of his shows over the years, in fact, he was the first comedian I ever saw live. As a 15 year-old, I blagged a ticket from my mate, John Hodgson, who was too scared to ask a girl from the year above to go with him to Leeds Town Hall to see the Rochdale Cowboy tour in 19776. All week he'd been trying to pluck up courage, but his nerve still failed him by Friday, and with two tickets to that evening's performance, he asked me it I wanted to go. John had been busily supplanting Harding as the teenage mimic's monologue of choice instead of the then ubiquitous Monty Python for a while beforehand. It was a tall order, but 'hulla, hulla, hulla' and 'dip your bread in' had made some inroads into the all powerful 'shut your festing gob, you tit' and 'shut the bleeding door, mother' so I was mentally prepared for the big night out. Harding had an uphill task that night - the acoustics in the Victoria Hall were not on his side. A strong wind whistled round the domed ceiling - prompting plenty of impromptu wind breaking jokes from the lad from Crumpsall, and I was hooked on live comedy from then on. Last night was different; Harding's poetry is of the blank verse-type (I had hoped we weren't in for a night of forced rhyme) and it's largely based on the people he's known in his life. So we reconnected with his mate Worfie - and learned how Miss Worswick used to relax at the weekend (a subtle and moving piece, in which he showed a tender respect for his self-confessed early years' educational bette noir. The poems were interspersed with readings from Harding's forthcoming autobiography and the readings ended on a well-received political philosophy note, with works that castigated bankers, fraudsters, shysters and general arseholes - much to the evident approval of his audience. Like myself, many there had followed Mrs 'Arding's Lad for years: the cast of characters were largely well-known by most, and he gently introduced us to new ones - from his Irish, atheist and Socialist granddad, to Ireland's best digger driver with a light and assured touch. The tragic death of his RAF navigator father, a month before Harding was born in October 1943, was also deftly handled. Fans will remember this from his 1980s Bombers Moon tour, but in his poem Photographic Father, Harding shows how his memories have changed over the years - even down to mentioning the account of the man responsible for shooting down his father's aircraft: a sombre and reflective moment. But the evening was about the warmth of humanity - as best reflected in his poems about life in Connemara and the joy he has had in seeing his grandsons grow up. It was a pleasure to meet up again, Mike. Thanks for the laughs over the years. And from the recounted tales I overheard walking back to the car afterwards, my mate John is part of a long-lived oral tradition of Hardingophilia that is still alive and kicking.