The last two months news, including: the recession, Frances Finn, MCN's nephew, Forest vs Derby, the beach in the square and NHS texting
1 August
According to a survey, Nottingham is one of the top cities in the country with the least amount of shop closures since the recession, while Derby is at the very bottom of the list. By the end of the year, sheep-shag towners will be returning to the bartering system and by mid-2010 all cashpoints will be fitted to supply Groats, chickens and ‘shiny pretties’.
3 August
A local mouth-breather celebrates his 21st birthday in town by stamping on a bloke on Friar Lane, unfortunately forgetting that a) he was in the middle of town, b) there are CCTV cameras all over the place, and c) he was wearing a t-shirt with his name a date of birth printed on the back.
11 August
Frances Finn, Radio Nottingham presenter and the person who lets May Contain Notts broadcast to her audience that if they don’t have a proper Nottingham accent, they are vermin, has an extremely nasty accident on her motorbike on Mansfield Road. Get well soon, duckeh, from all of us at the Lion.
17 August
May Contain Notts’ eight year-old nephew tells him that he knows what happens at Hooters. “Women with boxer shorts on their heads do cartwheels to clown music, and they rub mud into their lips because they’re too trampy to afford proper make-up.” Bless.
19 August
A proud day for all Nottinghamians, as Viccy Centre contracts the first symptoms of Broadmarsh Disease and opens a Poundworld on the site of the old Woolworths. Not just any Poundworld, though; it’s the biggest Poundworld in the whole UK. A veritable Jupiter in the Pound Solar System. In your face, London.
24 August
Another new Robin Hood film called Sherwood Horror is announced, about a bloke who comes out of prison to discover that his home town in the Deep South has been overrun by vampires. No, really.
25 August
Notts County activate the Championship Manager cheat mode again by signing Sol Campbell on a five-year, £40,000 a week contract, which is more than the combined weekly wage of most fourth division squads and the first step towards making County the team of the decade. OK, so maybe the decade in question is the 90s, but it’ll do for now. And why stop there? Why not have a go at tapping up Pele, or digging up George Best and leaning him up against a goalpost?
29 August
The Forest – Derby game ends with Nathan Tyson ripping a corner flag and waving it at the Derby end, who react like extras in Planet Of The Apes when Charlton Heston shoves a bit of fire on a stick in their faces. Robbie Savage, the crying woman of second division football, says something in complaint, but the resultant whine can only be picked up by dogs.
2 September
The beach in the Square is such a roaring success that plans are made to bring it back on an annual basis, but with a different theme each year. Here are my suggestions; 2010 - Sharks, 2011 - The opening scene of Saving Private Ryan, 2013 - Pyramids and a
Sphinx with Su Pollard’s face, 2014 - Massive sand worms, like in Dune, 2015 - Sharks, again.
7 September
Three schools in Notts – Greenwood Dale, Elliott Durham and Jesse Boot – merge and become Nottingham Academy, the biggest school in the UK. Christ on a crisp packet, what’s gonna happen when they all go off for a fight with the school next door? Probably the same thing that always happened once a year when our school went off to fight Bigwood; loads of mongy youths marching up the road, wearing their ties round their heads like Rambo and chelping off at folk, only to find that when we get there all their kids are at home, watching Dr Snuggles and eating Toast Toppers.
8 September
The Sheriff of Nottingham gets slagged off for going on a £10,000 fact-finding trip across the Atlantic to discover how Nottingham can bring more Americans over here. For one tenth of that, he could have come to me and I would put him right; “Crash a number 89 into the White House, and then release loads of videos of yourself flicking V-signs at them from the caves under the Broadmarsh.”
14 September
The local NHS launches a text service for the yout’dem so they can apply for a free chlamydia screening kit. All they have to do is text; ( ) ===D ~ : (
16 September
According to police figures, crime has fallen by a quarter over the past two years in Notts, but drug offences have risen by 20%. Obviously, the weed is Nottingham has got so strong that even the hardcore criminals in town are thinking; “No, actually, sod breaking into some old woman’s house or shooting someone in the face – let’s just get a massive bag of Haribos and put Bomberman on instead”
21 September
A bloke from Clifton is on trial for taking his knock-off to new plateaus of Tantric ecstacy by lobbing her jubblies out and attempting to give her a seeing-to in the woman next door’s
paddling pool. When said neighbour took a photo that she was going to show to said Casanova’s Mam, who he still lived with (presumbly adding that “Your Martin’s a right dutteh bogger”), he went batchy and tried to kick the door down. The judge – who probably has memories of bringing someone back when his Mam was at the bingo and trying to get her knicks off before she noticed the ornaments of clowns on the mantelpiece – lets him off with community service.
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