Genealogists work out that Barack Obama’s great-great grandfather ten times removed came from Sutton in Ashfield, and more
26 May
Genealogists work out that Barack Obama’s great-great grandfather ten times removed came from Sutton in Ashfield.This is the first time ever that a black man has had anything to do with that place. There are women now, even as we speak, leaning on the garden wall, subtly pointing to other women across the street and muttering; "Eeh, you want to watch her - her great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandpa's great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-granddaughter ended up getting married to a...", and then pursing their lips and tutting like Les Dawson used to.
27 May
A burglar in Beeston has his sentence cut when he points out that he needs to be with his five children. Of course he does; how else is he going to get those fiddly little windows open?
6 June
The bus fares go up. Again. Bad enough that you’ve got to fart-arse about looking for multiples of £1.70 because they don’t give change, but they’ve also abolished the £1 short hop – meaning that if you live in Carrington, you have to pay as much to get into town as someone who lives in Rise Park, which is an absolute skank. If you live in the former, and you’re going into town with a mate, you might as well get a taxi now. Hmph.
7 June
The new Evening Post website launches, and oh dear – haven’t they done a rammell job, readers? It’s as if they’ve force-fed a five year-old with the contents of a bin liner full of Rowntrees Fruit Pastilles, made the poor sod jump up and down on a trampoline to the whole of Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), and then pointed his vomiting head at a laptop screen. Editorially, they’ve jumped on that Web 2.0 bandwagon that was in vogue at some point during 2004, meaning that it’s now very hard to find out any news in Nottingham, but very easy to find out what a racist troll thinks about Britain’s Got Talent, or plant fake news stories on the front page. This monstrosity has gone out across all the local newspapers owned by the contemptible Northcliffe Media, so they all look the same. Lovely.
8 June
Roy Skelton, who provided the voices of George and Zippy in Rainbow as well as the Daleks, dies. Someone turns up an article he wrote the mid-90s, in the guise of Zippy, revealing himself to be a hardcore Forest supporter. “Like me, Cloughie would always say exactly what he thought,” said Zippy. “The club’s not been the same since he left. I reckon if Forest want to be champions of Europe again they should make me their manager!” Bungle probably supports Derby.
10 June
It is confirmed that Wollaton Hall is to be used as the setting for Wayne Manor in the next Batman movie, provisionally titled Coke-Addled American Film Executives Have Another Squeeze Of The Batman Teabag Because There Are Enough Bell-Ends Knocking About Who Will Pay To Watch The Same Film Over And Over Again. Sorry, but I’ve never forgiven the Batman films ever since I queued up for hours in 1989 to see the premiere midnight screening of the first film at the ABC across the road from The Dragon. Batman was poncing about in his new plane that they’d been banging on about for months and The Joker pulled out that tiny gun and brought it down with one shot. Then someone spilled Fanta down my Public Enemy t-shirt.
12 June
Nottingham Forest nob off Billy Davies and immediately start going out with Steve McClaren, like a big slag. So this means that Forest have gone from having the best manager England never had to the worst manager they did, in less than 20 years.
13 June
Some bloke accused of indulging in ‘sexual activity’ in the Square is cleared when he points out that he’s actually an epileptic who has up to thirty fits a day. I’m not convinced. I defy anybody to stand in our Market Square, look around at the hunks who disport themselves outside Wetherspoons and the not-at-all-lardy-arsed-ladies lumbering out of the Greggs and not feel a tingle in the loinage. Ooh.
16 June
Forest and County get drawn against each other in the League Cup. The last time the two met, a load of chatty-arsed Forest youths in sportswear ran onto the pitch at Meadow Lane - possibly in excitement at seeing an area of grass in Nottingham that wasn’t riddled with broken glass, needles and spent johnnies. They were then chased off by fat, wheezing middle-aged County fans who possibly warned the encroachers that they ‘knew where their Dads lived.’
18 June
Reflex and Flares, the twin swastika tattoos upon the face of Nottingham nightlife, rebrand themselves – presumably because the people who still want to go to a seventies night need the aid of a Stannah Stairlift to get in. Instead, it’s now a 90s and 00s theme bar. Hang on, though; isn’t a ‘00’s theme bar’ just a pub that hasn’t done itself up for over two years?
21 June
A fire breaks out in Crazy Coffins in Bulwell, destroying thousands of pounds worth of mad corpse-boxes. Check their website; people spend thousands of pounds to be lobbed into caskets shaped like mobile phones, guitars, skips and all sorts. I dunno about you, but if I had laid out some proper money for a coffin shaped like the Left Lion and heard the place was burning down, I’d push my way past the fire brigade and get into the bastard there and then.
11 July
It is announced that the Forest Rec is to get a £5m grant. I know exactly what they should spend the cash on; you know how all these ponces go on about locally-sourced produce? Well, you turn half the Forest into a big allotment that grows peas, ‘nuggit’, brandy snap, and the like. Yeah, and have a tuffeh apple orchard. Then they can charge twice as much for everything.
10 July
The News of the World shuts down. My all-time favourite local news story that they ever published? The one in 1982 when Jam fans (described in the Screws as ‘POP-CRAZED YOUTHS’) were going to the bowling alley in town, paying for a go, and legging it in their bowling shoes and leaving their manky Gola trainers behind. If only they had concentrated on real news stories like this, eh readers?
16 July
Dear that woman who runs the knitting shop on Mansfield Road; When you close at night, tip a load of kittens into the premises, and charge sucky women who spend all day at work looking at cat porn on YouTube a tenner each to look through your window.
21 July
Some bell-end from Hucknall in the EDL gets done for putting a pig’s head on a stick on the proposed site of a mosque in West Bridgford. Forgive May Contain Notts for being spiritually naive, but if I was an Islamic fundamentalist and I saw a pig’s head on a stick, I’d think; “Ooh, a dead pig. Bleddy good. I hate pigs.” Surely, if the EDL want to get a rise out people, they want to dress the pig up in some unfashionable gear, and get it to hold up a sign that says “I ar yor BOYFRIEND – you want to tak me to PICTURS and hav a SNOGG”
22 July
And I’m sorry, but a mosque in Bread and Lard Island? “Please take your shoes off before praying – not so much that it’s respectful to Allah, but more because we’ve got new carpets. Now let’s all bow towards M&S.”
We have a favour to ask
LeftLion is Nottingham’s meeting point for information about what’s going on in our city, from the established organisations to the grassroots. We want to keep what we do free to all to access, but increasingly we are relying on revenue from our readers to continue. Can you spare a few quid each month to support us?
