Get on your Dance'n shoes...

I feel really old like! Not 21 for another few weeks at least, I should be well in the groove now of going out every week, failing to turn up to work, and bearing the fortuitous consequences.

This is not the case; I’m turning into a boring old fart. Maybe I peaked too soon? Surfing the streets of Sunderland at 16 has done nowt for my social verve in my elder years. Before long I will be banished to my bedroom preferring cyber friends to drinking buddies. Town just doesn’t do it for me anymore!

Sunderland in its own right felt like its own socialistic bubble, where the majority of folk knew one another, or at least knew someone, who knew another person, who had sex with a mate of your brother’s. I loved the place, it reminded me of ‘Cheers’ where “everyone knows your name!” However, as I got older the bubble seemingly burst and I haven’t a clue who anyone is anymore.

For anyone synonymous with Sunderland on a Thursday night they will surely have an incline to what I’m talking about. It was shite, but we loved it!

It's well documented that neighbouring Newcastle is regarded as nightclub capital of the country, amongst the other big hitters, Leeds, Manchester, Liverpool, and of course London. But in a strange way I prefer Sunderland.

Couldn't Help It...

The old ones are always the best!

On the Buses...

As usual when I need to be somewhere the bus always seems to take the piss. It just turns up when it wants to. When the driver eventually decides to pass by, I often contemplate paying for the bus, but instead opting to blag my way on with yesterday’s day ticket. However today was different.

I remember when penny chews only cost a penny, space raiders had that scary looking wifey on the front, and the bus was only 15p! So why does it cost 10 times that now to go a few miles down the road.

Well it was evident today. Sunderland bosses appear to have coughed up the coin and spent wisely buying 12 Mercedes buses. Gold ones!

The buses with plush seats, tinted windows, TV’s and air conditioning have been aptly named 'The Laser'. And they’re bloody brilliant!

However they remain a far cry from the red double decker buses of old. Although before my time the big red bus remains a national treasure with its conductor in tow and no laser will ever replace that.

This is Radio Clash

Undoubtedly for all avid Radio 1 listeners out there, you may be having severe difficulties turning your mind set away from the fact Radio 1’s One Big Weekend will take place this weekend in Maidstone.

Plugging the festival at every ample opportunity, radio producers and DJs alike, find it increasing difficult to be subtle in their approach, devoting every other minute of their show hyping the event. The fact that the event takes place in the lower regions of the isle has now become second nature to me, and the words ‘very jealous’ spring to mind.

It was but a few years back when Britain’s biggest free ticket festival made its way up North in 2005, pitching its tents in Herrington Country Park.

The park a mere 5 minute walk from my house, saw superstar acts such as the Chemical Brothers, Foo Fighters, Jamiroquai and Gwen Stefani. Sunderland art-rockers The Futureheads, were also given a monstrous ovation as they were welcomed home by fellow wearsiders.

The defining setting afoot Penshaw Monument bare witness to what could be described as the catalyst to recent revelations in the Sunderland music scene, and no longer a far cry from that of London.

But as people in Kent are about to endure a day of herbal highs, underage drinking, loud music, and if history’s anything to go by, snow! Revellers are in for a treat.



Notions that it will be a long time before the Radio 1 team make a lap around the circuit and return are harrowing, so a bid to counter the sinking feeling means the volume on my headset will be firmly turned down.

Boris the Bus Driver...

It's frightening to think I m going down the polling station on Thursday and haven’t got a clue who to vote for. The norm would be to walk in and put a neat cross next to the Monster Ravin’ Looney party, however this year my eyes have been crudely awakened to the world of politics and I actually fancy doing it properly this time. Make a difference you knar?

I wouldn’t regard myself as a Tory boy, definitely not racist, not very green neither (got nothing against green people though, because I’m not racist) not a big fan of brown (again no pun intended) that leaves me with the Lib Dems, who I know nothing about!

Sorry for wavering away slightly in this post, however I thought it was imperative I mentioned that the elections for London Mayor also get under way this week, and can only be thankful that my decision is amicably easy that that one!

Boris Johnson appears to be one of the front-runners in the race, however I somewhat wouldn’t want the geezer, who give him his due, is a geezer, running office.

The banning of bendy buses does look promising, however my bike is broken so I’d be fucked!

Lost in the Supermarket...

Surely Gordon Brown’s credit crunch calamity will have little bearing on Sunderland shoppers, as Roy Keane robustly points out.

However Sunderland fans can surely take some consolation from recent revelations in the press that it’s not just the fact that they have a ‘shit’ football team that’s driving away big name signings and their birds.

Last year the Mackems manager made a fuss when an array of high profile players turned down a trip to the Stadium of Shite, preferring the burley boroughs of London. Keano, callously branding those in question “weak and greedy!” because their other half didn’t fancy shopping on Wearside.

"We had one player this summer who didn’t even have the courtesy to ring us back because his wife wanted to move to London. And shopping was mentioned.

If they don’t want to come to Sunderland because their wife wants to go shopping in London it’s a sad state of affairs."

Does he have a point or is it simply an excuse? As a Black and White it’s inevitable that I would regard it as merely making allowances for the small club’s excessive ambition, however shopping in Sunderland IS shite!

With an abundance of charity shops and pound shops to boot many would wonder what’s not to love about shopping in Sunderland? Snotty celebs however think differently and the array of ‘Aladdin cave-esque’ trinket stalls and gritty markets don’t really float their boat.

Page 3 goes shopping in Sunderland

Sporting the usual commodities, Primark takes centre stage in a pretty much lack lustre Fawcett Street, however The Bridges shopping centre pushes the boat out with the inclusion of a Debenhams and a H&M. London on the other hand has 11!

The capital boasts a tidy range of shopping, from small boutiques, monstrous department stores, shadowed by an eclipse of high fashion designer outlets favourited by the high fashion elitist.

Sunderland however shows little promise of an upheaval covertly remaining in the dark ages when it comes to over-the-counter culture.

Mad as a Hatter...

Almost a century and a half ago an English writer by the name of Lewis Carroll penned a story of unprecedented nonsense about a girl who fell down a rabbit-role. In 1951 a bloke named Walt made a film about it. In 2008 another bloke has decided to make another, however this time substituted a rabbit-hole for a hackney cab, the girl for a Hollywood A-Lister from Orange County, and somehow ended up in Sunderland.

The idea of rhyming rabbits in reading glasses and red waistcoats probably doesn’t fall in the ‘PC’ bracket of this day and age and many would speculate the contemporary changes from a psychedelic wonderland to the bright lights of Sunderland are necessary.

If you haven’t cottoned on to what I’m talking about yet, Alice in Wonderland is set to hit the big screens once more, ineptly renamed Malice in Wonderland. The remake of Carroll’s estranged writings will star Hollywood Actress Mischa Barton as a US student who is hit by a London taxi later finding herself in odd new surroundings.




Those odd new surroundings were in fact Sunderland, until a few weeks back when film soirees at Future films pulled the plug and re-located to Southend.

The reasons due to Sunderland bosses wanting to spend the money on weaning local talent instead.
However film bosses said:

“The title was also changed as everyone in the UK would know Sunderland but outside UK they wouldn't. I also thought two puns in one title were one too many."

Figures. But surely was it not that Sunderland was chosen merely for its similarity in pronunciations and the screenwriter’s exceptional ability to play on words?

Not entirely. Although born in Cheshire, Lewis Carroll grew up in nearby Darlington, penning the just as eccentric poem the “Jabberwocky” while staying with relatives in Sunderland. The mythological creature for which the poem retorts is said to be based upon Sunderland folk legend the Lambton Worm, and is featured in Alice’s adventures in Wonderland.

So as Sunderland loses out, another blockbuster is set for the lower regions, as Southend - just a stones throw away from the capital, embarks on a malice adventure.