Overview of the last two months with: Goose Fair, Cypress Hill off-licence, Dobby banned by Eastwood school, Broad Marsh revamp goes down the pan
1 October
The off-licence at the bottom of my street has a refit, which includes the world’s scariest shop frontage: massive skulls laughing at me while they writhe in the flames. Along with a massive photo in the window of a cob, that should have had fangs dripping blood. Seriously, look out for it if you’re ever going past the Lidl on Mansfield Road; it looks like the kind of off-licence Cypress Hill would run.
6 October
Goose Fair. I wasn’t going to go, but I heard rumours of a £2 pot of peas, which I spend ages searching for so I could get suitably irate, tut loudly and screech ‘forteh bastard bob?’ at people. I didn’t find it. The rest of the fair is the usual Happy Shopper Alton Towers rammel and not worthy of further comment.
7 October
A woman from the Meadows gets done for necking nine – nine! – litres of White Storm cider, mistaking the headlight on a cyclist’s helmet on Forest Road for a CCTV camera, and clonking him in the face while trying to nick his iPod. Personal rule: never drink anything that sounds like a Nazi skinhead band.
12 October
A school in Eastwood bans Dobby and its manifold variants for health and safety reasons, like a bunch of jessies. When I was their age, we used to play Wally with rubber dog balls, and a game called Deathball, where you lobbed a ball onto the roof of the youth club and the other lad had to catch it on the full without being able to see it. If you were good enough, the poor sod would end up with a dislodged half-brick coming at him. Sigh. Happy times.
19 October
It’s announced that plans to chuck £700m at Broad Marsh in order to make it look something other than a huge concrete turd from the arse of Pound Shop Satan may be scrapped. I went through there the other week and saw a bloke running a wholefood stall holding out a tray of nuts like a Victorian matchseller, trying to get indoor whales with scraped-back hair to eat something healthy. I nearly roared for him.
21 October
David Cameron and his – and I’m sorry, but there’s no other word for this - bum-chum Nick Clegg visit the Meadows, resulting in coppers everywhere, but nothing happens. Obviously they’d been briefed not to try and sell anyone one a wrapped-up wodge of oregano, or get ‘NG3’ tattooed on their necks.
29 October
East Midlands Airport cops headlines all over the world when they discover explosives in a cargo plane. How stupid it was it to drop ‘Nottingham’ from the name now, everyone? Barack Obama would have been on the telly saying our name and everything. That would have been mint. Incidentally, the first two things people see when they arrive at East Midlands Airport are 1) a Greggs, and 2) a Spar. Why don’t they have a duty-free pound shop there, while they’re at it?
30 October
And yeah, I know; a duty-free pound shop wouldn’t be called a pound shop – it’d be an 82½p shop, or summat.
31 October
May Contain Notts is invited to help judge a Miss Zombie Nottingham contest at Spanky Van Dykes. The last time it was part of a judging panel was for a pilot episode of a Channel 5 show called Amateur Stripper Night. It never made it to TV, but MCN met a Welsh stripper there who wanted help getting into the world of grot. She sent a tape of her in action, whereupon MCN couldn’t help but notice there were only two fingers on the hand of her partner. Then, right near the denouement, the tape crashed into a recording of Lady Di’s funeral.
5 November
Some mouth-breather on Mansfield Road decides to commemorate the attempt to overthrow Parliament by chucking a banger into the Fish Man’s basket and ruining his stock. Two absolute heroes grab said bell-end and proceed to ruin his face. Speaking of which, and seeing as pretty much absolutely arse all happened in Notts this bi-month, MCN launches an appeal on behalf of the Fish Man; have you or someone you know got an awning for a small Sprite caravan? Some scabby gets slashed up his old one up at Americana, and he needs a new one for his wheelchair-bound grandson, so he can have a holiday. If you’ve got one to sell or give away, fire over an e-mail to fishman@leftlion.co.uk now!
7 November
MCN discovers that the mushy pea stall at Viccy Market has shut down, sparking off a week of mourning not dissimilar to North Korea after Kim Il Sung snuffed it. Did you know that for years, that place had a multi-coloured Swap Shop sticker on the back wall that kids were encouraged to look out for when Cheggers did a massive swap on the Forest?
18 November
A massive fire takes down Templars, also depriving the city of Posh Spice, the curry house named after the world’s most famous non-eater, which never actually opened. Did it?
19 November
Rejoice! Viccy Market start advertising for a new tenant to take over the pea stall! Idea: repanel the entire place in wood, call myself ‘Prince Of Peas’ and mince about in a Michael Praed mullet to the Bryan Adams song.
22 November
No, even better; a late sixties-themed bar with scatter cushions and bongs filled with mint sauce called Give Peas A Chance.
24 November
Or Pea-Funk, where I totter about dressed up like Bootsy Collins and blast out Funkadelic tunes. No, a more early-90s, Ravey vibe. Called Peas Are Good, Peas Are Good.
26 November
A snake is rescued from a house fire in Radford.
28 November
Viccy Market announces that it’s in high-level talks with a prospective new owner of the pea stall. Yesss.
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