The last two months news, including: Colin Gunn's Facebook, more madness at Notts County, Ray Gosling and cat cage woman
2 February
Calverton actress Sara Poyzer reveals that she was drafted into the new Robin Hood film to provide authentic Notts background voices – and even teach Russell Crowe and Cate Blanchett to talk propleh. You don’t know how excited May Contain Notts is about this, but if I don’t hear Russ say; “Ey! Youth! Giz some f’-kin’ munneh for them boggers in Taahn who are code and ungreh or I’ll f’-kin’ pan yor, YA GET MEH?” I’ll be demanding a refund from you personally, Sara.
3 February
It is revealed that Colin Gunn has been managing his own Facebook account in prison, which is immediately taken off him. Shame - now we’ll never know how he’s getting on in Farmville, if he’s made too many choux buns in Café World, or any of the myriad applications that makes Facebook such a superior replacement to, y’know, talking to people in real life.
4 February
Forest lose 1-0 to Derby, puncturing the wonderful dream that, this time next season, the Shaggers may have to turn to getting their Nottingham rivalry-kicks with Notts County instead. It would be like Lion-O saying; “Oh, you have a go at Mumm-ra now, Snarf, I can’t be arsed with him anymore.”
12 February
Peter Trembling and Sven have one more shove of the arm down the back of the sofa, find three lighters and a TV Times from 1987, say “Sod it” and sell Notts County on to Ray Trew for another quid.
15 February
Local documentary-maker and community activist Ray Gosling reveals that he took the life of a lover who was dying of AIDs by smothering him with a pillow in hospital. It’s easily the bravest and most poignant thing seen on local television for years, but slightly marred for us Notts types by being filmed in the graveyard by the Forest, meaning that everyone round here immediately thinks; “Ooh! I’ve been on that bus!” or “Ooh! That’s where Kaz got fingered by Tabby after Goose Fair!” or in my case; “Ooh! That’s where Mad Dave used to go on his dinner hours from Clarendon, wearing a nurse’s cape he nicked from the City Hospital, so he could hold up a plastic skull and do Hamlet soliloquies!”
16 February
It is announced that the Women’s FA Cup Final is to return to the City Ground this May. I’ve got the perfect slogan for the posters: ’22 GIRLS, ONE CUP’
21 February
More scaremongering about Nottingham in the media, as we’re told that we’ve been shooting each other in the face ‘for several decades’. The Post? No, The New York Times, who writes a surprisingly positive travel piece about Hockley after all the whittling about guns. You can just imagine Son of Sam, John Gotti and The Warriors crowing round a paper and saying; “Ooh, so do you think it’s safe to go to Ice Nine now?” Oh, and big shout to the local properly-management nob who’s quoted as saying that “The Lace Market was filled with degenerates.” Bet he didn’t say that when he was attempting to pimp out ponce-boxes round there.
26 February
Notts County announce their new running-out song, and it’s better than we could have possibly imagined – Three Little Birds by Bob Marley and the Wailers. Shame they didn’t pick out a more suitable Tuff Gong tune, though, like Crisis, Waiting In Vain, Survival, Dem
Trophy Cabinet Full But We Hungry or Old Munto Came To Rob I.
27 February
A massive, 104-acre reconstruction of medieval Nottingham is opened. Unfortunately – or, depending on your point of view, thank Christ – it’s in Texas. Apparently the Greggs is fifty storeys high.
4 March
A woman from Nuthall Cats Protection spends 48 hours in a cage – with a cat, naturally – to raise awareness about, I dunno, women in cages with cats, or summat. I intend to hold a similar protest to make the Council ensure that every street in Nottingham has its own designated Mad Cat Woman, who tells you that your own cat doesn’t like being called ‘Sharon’ and is in fact the reincarnation of Lady Di.
6 March
May Contain Notts is collared on Mansfield Road by none other than The Fish Man, who asks it to thank all his lovely customers for keeping him in business and for joining his Facebook group to keep him in Notts pubs where he belongs. And rightly so.
11 March
The Nottinghamshire Constabulary is announced as the worst-performing police force in the UK, coming just behind Lincolnshire, Greater Manchester, the Keystone Kops, Chief
Wiggum and his sucky lad, Roscoe P. Coltrane and a gang of kids playing Starsky and Hutch and making all the gun noises in a Carlton junior school in 1977.
15 March
A burglar from Hucknall gets done for nicking two gold chains, a PS3, £1,000 in cash and several square hectares of our oxygen from a house whilst wearing the perfect item of stealth clothing – a bright yellow fluorescent jacket. Sadly, his helmet, which had a flashing siren on the top and projected and the words ‘I AM A BURGLOR I AM KNICKIN YOR STUFFS’ into the night sky, wasn’t working.
20 March
Gloria De Piero, the former political correspondent for GMTV – which is a bit like being the financial editor of The Beano, when you think about it – is announced as the Labour candidate for Ashfield in the next election. The Tories have already approached Roland Rat, while the Lib Dems are currently tapping up Mad Lizzie.
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