Beauty is in the Eye of the BehOldham (sorry!)

There are people who constantly look for things to complain about and seek out only the bad and ugly in things; then there are people who look around them for the good and the beautiful - even where it isn't that obvious.

Those are the people I like.

Our town has had its detractors of late, and dear old Oldham is certainly not without its problems; but I get tired of the insidious dripping water torture of complaint that we read in our local paper. There should be a test before people are allowed to put pen to paper: is their aim positive and constructive or is their aim to cause disharmony and unhappiness? Don't get me wrong, I don't expect people to have a sunny disposition and shed light wherever they go, but I do like to hear at least the merest hint of a suggestion of a solution when someone snipes at something.




Anyway, I can feel this developing into a rant so, while we are on the subject of light (were we?), I was delighted to see the results of the latest Oldham Flickr Group meeting. For the uninitiated, Flickr is a photo sharing site, and the real experts band together in groups to develop their art. The Oldham group certainly seem to have the nack of finding beauty around them - more power to their lenses I say!


The glass bridge is a perfect example of just the sort of thing I mean. The bridge is at the heart of one of Oldham's rougher areas and it is tempting, when there, to be constantly looking over your shoulder or clinging tightly to your handbag rather than appreciating the architecture!

Eeeee He Were a Great Baker Our Dad...

You can scoff, as Bill Blunt and I wax lyrical about the qualities - or lack of them - in the bread most of us buy. But it is true, the doughy pap that is served out by supermarkets as bread is a far cry from the wholesome low-yeast affair made from flour, fat, water and not much else, by the village baker.

Don't believe me? Ask Andrew Whitely the author of that excellent book 'Bread Matters' have a look at what really goes in your bread and you might consider changing where you buy it; or, like Bill and I, baking your own. It really worth the effort.

I'm grateful to Bill for inventing the 'Better Bread Blogger Award' to help further the campaign for real bread. My first awardees are The Village Manor Bakery at Waterhead for its superb traditional breads and the famous Barbakan Delicatessen in Chorlton for their outstanding range of traditional European breads.

Sack supermarket stodge - demand better bread...

right, where's my placard.

Another Opportunity to Demonstrate my Northern Credentials

You couldn't have timed it better: just when I'd gone misty eyed writing about the corner shop and collecting me mam's Hovis, Lisa pointed out the appropriateness of the music from the old Hovis adds. The one where a young flat cap wearing bread boy pushes his sit-up-and-beg bike up the steeply cobbled street to the tune of the Largo from Dvorak's New World Symphony. It couldn't be less Northern though if it tried - Dvorak's symphony was about the New World of the USA, rather than the North of England; and the steeply cobbled street they used in the advert was in Devon.

Anyway, with the warm strains of brass band music drifting across my imagination, we popped across to Blackpool to hear our Tom play in the North Western heats of the National Brass Band Championships. I have written about this event and its idiosyncrasies before so was a bit stuck for what to say, until this happened.

We have a new camera at work and it is necessary for me - no I consider my solemn duty - to borrow, I mean practice with it whenever the opportunity presents itself. So Sunday found me inside the Winter Gardens with our new Canon DS400. I had already spotted that flash photography was prohibited; nor, for similar reasons, was I intent on taking photographs when it would distract the players. I took a few pictures of the bizarre interior of the Spanish Ballroom - replete with its model hillside village to give the impression, I presume, of being in some sort of Spanish valley.

Poised to photograph Greenfield band as they came into the auditorium I shot a couple of tests to check the light but was approached by a timid mousey woman who, judging by her rosette, was an organiser. She pointed out that photography was prohibited; I pointed out that flash photography was prohibited which meant that I was OK. She withdrew.

Moments later I was tapped on the shoulder by a similarly rosetted man with a very stern beard. Now I, as you know, like a beard, but this one bristled with barely restrained indignation. We had a brisk exchange of views about what the programme stated about the restrictions on photography; but he had the rosette of authority and the humour of a traffic cop who, despite your pleas of mitigation reaches unfeelingly for his ticket book: he went immediately for the ultimate sanction.

"If you do not refrain from your photography I will have to ask you to leave the auditorium."

He drew out the word 'leave' with a dramatic flourish, until it was as long as his 'auditorium'. The devil on my shoulder confirmed with me that I really ought to call his bluff and refuse to budge. But just as I was on the verge of saying "well you had better get some help then..." I felt words like rivets drill into the back of my head from a seat half way down the hall:

"DON'T - YOU - DARE" they said, so I skulked muttering back to my seat, but not without my parting shot:

"Your type are the reason that brass bands are a minority interest" I said; and I meant it to sting.

But I had the last laugh in any case just look at the photos of the Winter Gardens I took without him knowing. Ha! (oh, and a few I took at stormy lunchtime too)



It is no wonder that many bands struggle to keep players interested when the people who maintain the brass bureaucracy are as stuffy as that silly sod. Thank goodness that one of the less healthy sides of brass banding persists in many bands to tempt the young to stay for the social life.


Thank goodness for beer - the saviour of banding!

Bucking the Tesco Trend

Banksy's latest masterpiece resonated with me today after visiting the Village Manor Bakery in Waterhead (just off the A62 near the 82 bus terminus, if you are passing). At only one mile from a Tesco, this traditional bakery bucks the trend fantastically by creating fabulous bread, cakes and pies without resorting to the dreaded Chorleywood Baking process that industrial bakers use to make that doughy stuff they sell in supermarkets as bread.

Banksy may be having a pop at the whole plastic bag thing but, to my mind, it is all linked. I simply think back to the days of the corner shop when my mum sent me with a string bag to collect her bread: two uncut white and an uncut Hovis (please Mrs Day).

That childhood errand sums up the difference between the shopping experience then, when I would nip to the corner shop for cold meat, bread and cakes; cross the road to go the greengrocers and then nip up the road to Ashworth's butchers for a pound of skirt.

I do miss the ease and availability of local shopping as it was. And that isn't simply nostalgia but rather regret at the sort of world we had where people knew your name when you went in the shop (I hope it's not just me who can hear the theme tune from Cheers playing in the distance).

When I collected my Mother in Law's bread this morning, I couldn't help but notice that despite the queue out of the door (there is always a big queue) the staff still had time for the many older people who are known by name as they collected their own regular order. They also asked me how my Father in Law was getting on; I've only been in three or four times to collect his bread since he has been ill, but they remembered me.

That's service!

Things that Transcend Age

You will be relieved to hear that I didn’t spill down the family dinner suit, so it was resplendent on Sunday when it performed Handel’s Messiah at a packed Albion Church; and I do mean packed: they had to shoehorn extra seats in between the Fairtrade biscuit stall (I’m sure there were other Fairtrade goods too but I only had eyes for the delicious stem ginger cookies) and the bar - actually it was the tea and coffee stall but it just seems right to talk about the bar when you go to a gig.

And there lies the connundrum, for I’m sure there were a few of you that raised an eyebrow when I described a performance of Handel’s Messiah as a gig, rather than a concert; but the only difference I can discern is one of age.

We were certainly among the youngest there: the hair on the assembled heads was predominantly grey; the Albion Church was built around 1890 and The Messiah itself is over 250 years old. So when does something stop becoming a gig?

It is certainly not about the effects the music has on you - the performance on Sunday left me breathless at times, certainly more so than some of the pallid large venue performances I have seen over the years. I think it is more a perception in the collective mind that considers certain types of music not sufficiently energetic, youthful nor vigourous enough to deserve the description of ’gig’.

Be honest how many of raised the other eyebrow when you heard me say that my pulse was set racing?