Despite earlier reports there was no mosh pit at the Manchester Passion, but it was a perfect Spring evening and a beautiful day for a crucifixion.

It was also a brave event for the BBC to attempt. It wasn’t at all clear how many people would turn up or who they would be. Katharine had been very wary of the whole thing, afraid of being preached at.

For some it was an affirmation of their Christian faith. But it wasn’t – for us anyway – a religious occasion. We saw a wonderful piece of theatre and a celebration of Manchester and its impressive contribution to popular culture. The city looked great. Watching back on television this morning, Exchange Square in particular looks like a studio set. But Manchester really does look like that – superb Victorian architecture, rubs shoulders with the best of the new and bright neon lights – a wonderland, with something for everyone.

When I went through the camera phone pics this morning, I found a familiar face: the protester who accosted me as I left Jerry Springer the Opera.

That so many songs have Christian reference points is no great surprise. Christianity is deeply engrained in the collective consciousness. The Happy Mondays, in particular, have always borrowed heavily and I was disappointed not to get a chorus of Halleluiah and a bit of Kinky Afro: ‘Yippee-ippee-ey-ey-ay-yey-yey / I had to crucify some brother today’.
See also: Manchester Passion: a beautiful day for a crucifixion……A Christian execution

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So here it is. The climax of today’s passion play. The cross has arrived.

I guess the Christian thing to have done would be to burn him at the stake or have him hung, drawn and quartered. After all, he was a heretic.
See also: Manchester Passion: a beautiful day for a crucifixion……Resurrection: Manchester Passion reviewed
This posted via mobile via Flickr and so not so closely proofread. Click the pic to see it large (there’s an ‘all-sizes’ tab for really large).

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We’re only here for the theatre and there’s no denying that today is a beautiful day for a crucifixion. Keith Allen, as Pontius Pilot, is to lead the case for the prosecution against a soundtrack of top Manchester tunes: James, Oasis, M People, Happy Mondays, Stone Roses et cetera.

They’re showing a documentary on the Manchester music scene on big screens while we wait. We’re being pushed about by the crowd. There’s something of a rock concert atmosphere. I just heard a scally: ‘There’s a mosh pit down there!’

The Bishop of Manchester, Nigel McCulloch, told the Evening News it ‘is not far removed from how it must have been on the first Good Friday’.
See also: A Christian execution……Resurrection: Manchester Passion reviewed
This posted via mobile via Flickr and so not so closely proofread. Click the pic to see it large (there’s an ‘all-sizes’ tab for really large).

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One of the many topics in the pub tonight was Manchester’s listing magazine scene. The death of City Life has left a void that many seen keen to fill. Rumour has it Time Out has been in town and I’ve heard plenty more titles talked of.

A downside is that it looks like my companion might take a small hit over the apparent collapse of The Mix, a mag that wasn’t around long enough for me to see a copy.

Anyway. Having got home I was sent out to the chippy to find a poster on the wall for Word of Mouth, another definitive listing guide. Rather wisely they’ve replaced launch with keep it afloat party.
This posted via mobile via Flickr and so not so closely proofread. Click the pic to see it large (there’s an ‘all-sizes’ tab for really large).

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He didn’t look proletarian. He was a smartly dressed young man, a student on the verge of his finals perhaps, sat on his own in Sinclair’s Oyster Bar (pictured here from the Wheel of Manchester). Obviously not at all impoverished, a large plate of steak and chips arrived to accompany his ale.

And this is where it all fell apart. The boy couldn’t use a knife and fork. He gripped the knife like he was going to stab someone in the stomach. The fork he held limply, as if it were a spoon. Then he proceeded to scrape and scratch at the meat. I don’t eat meat, but I was tempted to go over and cut his steak into itsy-bitsy pieces for him.

Anyway. The upshot is that I’m not at all surprised to read that twenty-somethings lack basic domestic skills. They blame their parents. And they’re right.

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It’s time to dump the blogroll; that list of blogs I’ve linked to on a whim. Not even my Museum of Spam has survived. I’ve never been one for reciprocal links or other forms of back scratching. I’ve preferred to link to blogs I’ve found interesting or that somehow illustrate the diversity of the blogosphere. When people link to me, I think them very nice and hope that it’s because they think my blog’s worth sharing with their readers

There are some very old school bloggers who seem to link to just about everyone and anyone. I suspect that’s a hangover from the days when blogs were very rare. You simply can’t link to everyone today. But the main reason for dumping it is that maintaining it is too much hassle. If you’re looking for other blogs like this, try Blogcode.

Instead of the blogroll I’m displaying headlines from elsewhere. This is simple mash-up. I create an RSS feed of clippings from various RSS/Atom feeds using Newsgator, pass the result through Feedburner and display here using the latter’s BuzzBoost feature. Ta da!

That means instead of linking to blogs, I’ll link to individual posts that I think are interesting as well as stuff from other sources. It does mean that to have a chance of appearing – take note Dave Windass of Killing Time – your RSS feed needs to work.

The latest clippings are here and there’s an RSS feed for them at www.stephennewton.com/clippings:

And here, for the sake of old times and in alphabetical order, is the blogroll as it stood upon deletion:
Assistant
bloodshot dawn
bowblog
David Brake’s Blog.org
Cruella-blog
Daily Mail Watch
A Fistful of Euros
jude & trin & clazza’s reality tv
kickAAS
Killing time
k-punk
Manchester Bloggers
Mcr Marks
MediaWatchWatch
My Museum of Spam
New Links
The Noggie View
Perfect.co.uk
Southern Bird
Spinneyhead
SpyBlog
Supermum

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The TiVo has had a really hard time finding stuff for us to watch lately and I came back from the pub tonight to find Parkinson. Well, ‘why not?’ I thought.

The answer was the horror of Paul Anka swinging Van Halen’s Jump. The only thing that might have been worse would be Paul Anka playing pan pipes.
Update: Thanks to Wodge for directing us to Anka’s album from hell. Wodge picks ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ out for special attention, but I most fear his version of ‘Its a Sin’ (I’m assume we’re talking Pet Shop Boys).
This posted via mobile via Flickr and so not so closely proofread. Click the pic to see it large (there’s an ‘all-sizes’ tab for really large).

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Ten years ago I found myself commuting from Stockport to Stoke-on-Trent. It took about an hour (45 minutes on a good day). Sometimes there would be an accident or something on the M6, but I wasn’t the only commuter and so we’d huddle in the pub until it cleared.

I don’t think you could do that today. Traffic volumes have grown so much you’d have to spend every evening in the pub.
This posted via mobile via Flickr and so not so closely proofread. Click the pic to see it large (there’s an ‘all-sizes’ tab for really large).

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There’s something rather tedious about JK Rowling jumping on the eating disorder bandwagon. Skinny birds are so easy to pick on. It’s true that if you spend any time in an office where slim twenty-somethings obsess about their diets, it does kind of do your head in. But it’s also true that people seem to think they can throw any level of insult at slim people… something you can’t do to poor old fatties.

With 36 per cent of girls obese or overweight and a quarter with clogged arteries, Rowling and her ilk send out very mixed messages at best. At worst they endorse the lifestyles responsible for one of the greatest healthcare challenges we face.

It may well be normal to be fat, in the sense that it’s hard to write off a third of the population as abnormal, but normality isn’t necessarily something to be proud of. Obesity is debilitating and fat people die young.

Rowling’s right that some people suffer for their desire to be thin. But associating thin girls with being ‘empty-headed, self-obsessed’ and fat girls with being ‘independent, interesting, idealistic, kind, opinionated, original, funny’ is little more than body fascism.

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It’ll soon be Easter and that means chocolate. And the big spoiler: Easter eggs that display their wares outside of the shell. What nonsense is that?

I want to break into a nice big chocolate egg and discover the chocolate treat inside. Yet confectioners insist on putting the ‘surprise’ on display. It would be like… I don’t know… is there a real egg metaphor for this travesty? The only mainstream Easter eggs with the treat on the inside seem to be chocolate buttons and they’re nothing special. It leaves the whole thing rather hollow.

Step forward the Chocolate Trading Company. Ta da! These clever, clever people have a full range of what I call proper Easter eggs. We’re talking gourmet dark chocolate Easter eggs filled with fine assortments of rose & violet creams; superior quality, white chocolate Easter eggs, filled with an assortment of praline mini quails eggs with their speckled pastel shells and more. And they start at less than £10!

Giving any other kind of Easter egg is like giving someone an already unpacked present alongside a gift wrapped empty box. So trot along to the Chocolate Trading Company right now!

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