Forget your Harry Potter

September 6, the true end is nigh .....

It's late autumn in Edinburgh and late autumn in the career of Detective Inspector John Rebus. As he tries to tie up some loose ends before retirement, a murder case intrudes. A dissident Russian poet has been found dead in what looks like a mugging gone wrong. By apparent coincidence a high-level delegation of Russian businessmen is in town, keen to bring business to Scotland. The politicians and bankers who run Edinburgh are determined that the case should be closed quickly and clinically.

But the further they dig, the more Rebus and his colleague DS Siobhan Clarke become convinced that they are dealing with something more than a random attack - especially after a particularly nasty second killing. Meantime, a brutal and premeditated assault on local gangster 'Big Ger' Cafferty sees Rebus in the frame. Has the Inspector taken a step too far in tying up those loose ends? Only a few days shy of the end to his long, inglorious career, will Rebus even make it that far?

The Best Pub in the World

This is the Fox & Crown in Old Basford.

Before Friday I considered it to be the Best Pub in the World.

Now, it is DEFINITELY the Best Pub in the World.

Thank you.

Forest 1:2 Dirty Leeds

A hot day, an early kick-off, the chance of a couple of pints before the game, a debut trip to the Nottingham Boat Club and a nice pint in the sun outside the Trip on the way home.

Just a shame that it had to be spoiled by the result of the game on Saturday.

Dirty Leeds had the better of the first half and probably deserved their half-time advantage, but such was the swing in the second half that Darren Beckford's last minute goal should have been nothing other than a consolation, instead of the great City Ground 3 point robbery it turned into.

The reaction of the Forest fans at the end was a mixture of appreciation for the second half's efforts merged with silent dumb-struckness as to what had just taken place.

Still, the 3,500 track-suit wearing drug-riddled inhabitants of the pound-shop s**t-hole that is Leeds would have had a good journey home, probably laughing as to how they got away with it.

Reading

August Bank Holiday weekend means the Reading festival, and while I won't be going this year, here's a fantastic 6 minutes from the first time I went back in '89.

Enjoy, and have a good Bank Holiday.

New Order - Your Silent Face

England Friendlies

I may have mentioned it before, but I would rather England lost friendly games and learn something, rather than just winning for the sake of it. So what did we learn last night ?

• Micah Richards is actually quite a decent player, so clearly won't be at Man City for very long


• If there's a stupid goal scored, the chances are that in the background Rio Ferdinand will be looking like a lost fool (see above)


• Kieron Dyer has won 33 caps. How ?


• England won the World Cup in 1966, apparently. You would have thought that the commentators may have mentioned it during the evening


• Peter Crouch is incapable of winning a ball in the air without fouling the opposition defender, despite being 4 foot taller in most cases


• It's clear to even Stevie Wonder that Joe Cole & SWP are the most dangerous midfielders we have, but that won't stop McClaren picking a midfield of Lampard, Gerrard, Hargreaves & Beckham in the next competitive game


• The German coach looks like Johnny Marr


• or Bryan Ferry


• The England coach looks like an idiot, mainly because he is one


• England WON'T be involved in Euro 2008

Dinosaur Jr

With the festival season nearly over, a notable inclusion at Reading & Leeds.

Priorities ?

From the BBC:

A 12-year-old boy was charged with assault and taken before the courts - for throwing a cocktail sausage.

This may sound harsh, but when his house was searched, police found an arsenal of garlic bread, sandwiches with no crusts and a whole plate of pickled onions, cheese & pineapple on sticks.

Tunes #2

Buy me here

Listen to tracks here

Tunes

Has the world gone mad ?

Marlon King, the Watford centre forward is worth £60 million.

£60 f***ing million.

This is the man who, while at Forest, not only couldn't hit the proverbial cow's a**e with a banjo, regularly failed to hit the same proverbial cow's barn door, but also had difficulty hitting the b****y farm.

And he's worth £60 million.

Take off seven zeros from that price and I'd still want change.

Tony Wilson

I've been a huge New Order fan since way back. I was also lucky enough to spend most weekends circa 1989 - 1991, the height of Madchester, with a friend up in Manchester so knew all the best places to go, the clubs, the bands and especially the Hacienda.

I bought a bootleg tape of New Order's appearance at the Reading Festival (I was there, so that's OK in my book) and will always have the sound of Tony Wilson introducing New Order on behalf of Jeff the Chef.

The film 24-Hour Party People, while not being 100% accurate, is a fantastic piece of cinema and a worthy epitaph. If you've not seen it, and you claim any interest in music, then search it out.

I'm not from Manchester, but I know that without Tony Wilson, my life would have been, and would continue to be, less interesting.

Coming to a bus stop near you soon

Orangutans

Orangutans communicate using charades, apparently.

But only because they're so shit at Pictionary.

The BBC and me, again !!!

D***y 2:0 Forest

My first visit to Pride Park on Tuesday night. Firstly, I thought it would be much bigger, secondly, how poor is the traffic access ? If you're going to build an out of town football ground, at least make it so it doesn't take an hour to get off the site after the game, and that was with a police escort out.

A pretty poor game won by a poor Derby side against an even poorer Forest side.

An appeal by the Clough family for calm before the game was adhered to by most of the 25,000 crowd, but not by Harry Potter, who got escorted away in the first half, and a steward who decided to start smashing up the advertising hoardings in the second half.

There was the usual banter between the two sets of fans.

"Have you ever been to Wembley ?" sang the Derby fans;

"Have you ever been abroad ?" replied Forest;

"You're not famous any more" sang the in-bred, webbed-toed morons to our right;

"You're not famous anyway" came the reply;

"Your teams f***ing useless" they chanted;

We just shuffled and agreed. Couldn't really argue with that.

But, irrelevant of which division we're in and which division our animal-fiddling 'friends' from down the A52 fluked their way into, we'll still be from Nottingham, and that, and that alone, makes us better.

So Derby win the inaugural Brian Clough Trophy game, which wins them this cup.









But they'll never be able to have these on their shirts, a legacy Brian Clough left to only one team.