illustration: Rikki Marr
SUNNY SIDE UP
Despite the start of summer not exactly living up to expectations, it seems that we’re all pretty darned optimistic here, as well as taking our city’s representative colour quite seriously too. The council houses of Nottingham have more solar panels sitting pretty on our rooftops than any other UK city. 4,000 Nottingham City Homes houses have them and they reckon it’s saving residents a combined total of £480,000 a year. Big up your bad, green selves.
ERRYBODY OUT
It seems we all lost our little minds earlier in the month, when we went batshit-barmy over a suitcase filled with clothes and hair appliances. The whole of Vicceh Centre was evacuated thanks to one careless shopper leaving their luggage unattended, forcing emergency services to carry out a controlled explosion to get rid of the damn thing. It might have been a bit of a hoo-ha, but better to be safe than sorreh.
STABBING IN HYSON GREEN
At the beginning of June, 21-year-old Aqib Mazhar was murdered in Hyson Green. Since that day, nine young men between the ages of 18 and 24 have been arrested, and four have been charged. They’ll be appearing at Nottingham Crown Court on 22 August. That’s one young man who has lost his life, and nine more whose lives have been irreversibly changed thanks to a mindless act of violence. Our thoughts are with Aqib’s family.
PULL THE OTHER ONE
Ladies and gentlemen, the pinnacle of local news. One lairy lout has been banned from every single pub in Stapleford after entering the Midland Hotel, verbally abusing the landlady, pulling an innocent bystander’s beard, and slapping another punter in the face. He’s facing a twelve-week suspended sentence for his actions, plus, there’s nowhere for him to sink a pint in the sunshine now Stapleford Pubwatch has banned him from all the boozers in the town. Savage.
JACKSON FIVE
Just when we thought we’d offered up enough citizens to the gods of reality television, another within our ranks has decided to try their hand at the risk-it-all Big Brother. Former Television Workshop student Jackson Blyton is heading for the ultimate game show, posing as the ‘anti-lad’, waging a war against protein shake-consuming meat heads who seek to disrespect women, despite describing his own treatment of the female sex as “putting that pussy on a pedestal”. OK, mate.
LEWIS BROKEN
Viccy Centre has been having a bit of a hard time of it recently. In a completely non-torrential-rain-related incident, John Lewis closed its doors for a few days when over 80,000 litres of water flooded the gaff earlier in the month. Middle class women from all over the city wept into their empty perfume bottles at the prospect of having to nip to Superdrug, and a local grandad who completed his 3D puzzle described the ordeal as “devastating.”
WOAH, YOUR BUS IS ON FIRE
Clifton saw it all back in May. The number two bus was on its usual route, travelling up Farnborough Road, when suddenly there was a loud bang, and all the passengers clocked smoke wrapping itself around their ankles. Luckily everyone managed to get off outside The Winning Post pub before the whole thing burst into flames. It is unconfirmed as to whether the driver did it on purpose so he could pop in for a swift half, but I think we all know what happened here.
SKELLYBOB AT NOTTS CASTLE
It’s all got morbidly interesting over at the castle, as a human skeleton have been found in the grounds. Thought to be the remains of Colonel John Hutchinson who was the Governor of Nottingham during the Civil War back in the seventeenth century, archaeologists are currently working to put the pieces back together, so to speak, to find out all they can about the bloke behind the bones.
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