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Sunday, 7 September 2014


Yesterday was pretty much a full working day for me (I know, on a Saturday) recording some more audio book chapters and sorting out the music for The Sunday Alternative before going out to write about the damp squib that was this year’s Nottingham Rocks concert. As much as I didn’t want to have to work on a Saturday (especially as Sunday seems to have once again become a working day for me, please don’t feel sorry for me) I have very little choice at the moment.

My review of last night’s Nottingham Rocks concert didn’t take me long to write thanks to some pretty extensive note taking and I ended up writing three different versions; the blog that I posted yesterday was subtly edited for the online version (that was posted on the Nottingham Post website this morning with further edits that I didn’t make), and a heavily snipped version that will (maybe) appear in tomorrow’s print edition. As I’d written something in the region of 700 words it was a real bollock having to edit it down to 300 for the newspaper. This morning I received an email from the editor Simon Wilson saying that they couldn’t use the word ‘arse’ in the review, (I had simply forgotten to take it out of the blog version, and I didn’t consider it to be a terrible word) and that because the paper is one of the media partners involved in Notts TV he had removed my less than flattering references to it. If I was in charge of the Nottingham Post I’d keep my connection to such an amateurish enterprise like Notts TV a secret in case it drove people to think that the paper was staffed by morons with no talent too. He advised me that the social media trolls would be out to get me today but as prepared as I was for a fight, it didn’t really materialise. I wrote on Twitter that I name checked Georgie Rose as one of last year’s lineup along with Harleighblu  and St Raymond, but for some reason her name was taken out and replaced with ‘the awful’  Amber Run. It made no sense to me that the change was made, (I also didn’t write the bracketed list of achievements) and Amber Run tweeted me in a sporting move to say that I was right to rate her and that I had great taste. I got away lightly and they went up slightly in my estimation for the dignity in which they responded when they could have got quite shitty about it. A member of the band tweeted from his personal account to ask if I was really a journalist, but apart from that I didn’t really need to have worn a tin hat to go out for lunch.

The fact is that I write with honesty and have never written an untrue word, be it in print or on this blog. I am not one of the Nottingham music scene’s ‘everything is wonderful’ brigade and as such I will leave the anilingus to the ones that are. Not that it will get them anywhere; Mark Del thinks the sun shines out of Jake Bugg’s anorak and never (publicly at least) says a negative word about any musician, yet I have lost count of the amount of people who have told me they think he is a monumental bell-end, (I have never met him so couldn’t possibly comment, although as a TV presenter he would make a good plumber) so if that is where flattery gets you then you can keep it. Musicians are welcome to think the same about me and call me all the cunts under the sun if that’s their opinion, but something they cannot do is question my integrity. As I am not trying to curry favour I feel that if I do say nice things about someone then at least they know I mean every word.

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