Acting The Goat

I’ve tried three times but I just can’t get past that first paragraph.

A Return To Mancunian Vibes

After recently visiting the sounds and sights of Mars, it’s back to a more local setting today.

Though he’s slipped from his northern roots, Noel Gallagher has cast his mind back to his Mancunian beginnings with his latest High Flying Birds album, due out in June.

Titled Council Skies, here is the cover reveal:

That spot, where the band’s equipment sits, is the preserved centre circle of Manchester City’s former home in Moss Side. For eighty years, this was where fans watched their heroes in blue take the kick-off that would begin their games.

There is a generation of City fans today who never got to experience Maine Road, the club having in 2003 relocated to the Etihad Stadium in East Manchester. With the former stadium now demolished, houses have been built around that circle which has been left for sentimental supporters, like both Noel and myself, who have long historic and emotional ties to the place.

Having said that, I’ve yet to go and pay homage, but it’s on my list.

My first game was in 1982 and my last was that final one, held there twenty-one years later.

In addition to the hundreds of matches that has drawn me through the network of surrounding side streets of that inner city town, there has also been the odd concert, too. I was there for one of the two-night gigs put on by Noel’s former group, Oasis, when they were at the height of their powers in the 1990’s, with Britpop in all its pomp.

I can remember the moon coming out, the blue moon, adding to the saved inner image as it hung above us all, a sign of the musical Gods’ approval, as the band belted out Champagne Supernova.

It was a great night. A great band with great support (Ocean Colour Scene and Manic Street Preachers ). Maybe my favourite ever gig.

On the other night, a couple of my friends were mugged in one of those shadowed back alleyways as they made their way back home. What the Gods giveth the Gods taketh away.

All sorts of memories. Most of them good.

Looking To Spring

There’s snow on the ground and fog in the air.

Only a little snow, merely a dusting. Only a little fog, let’s call it mist.

I recently hoped aloud that 2023 would be better than 2022. Well, in the last couple of weeks I’ve been to the funeral of an ex-work colleague, lost a lad my wife and I have known since the 80’s, and spent the whole night in hospital at the bedside of my wife’s uncle before he passed away yesterday, his brother and nephew with him while I grabbed a couple of hours sleep.

We are not even out of January yet.

If you look carefully, among all of the chaos, I’m still there, recording.

But City Jackdaw can’t only be a list of unfortunate and tragic events. We’d all need therapy.

We all need balance.

As the year goes on there’s other stuff going on. There’s plans to make. Projects to complete, projects to begin. Children to lead through this patchwork of emotions we call life.

Winter only lasts so long. There’s new light coming.

Sunsets On Mars

It looks like a scene set on the fictional world of Tatooine, but this shot is of the sun setting on the empty, desolate planet of Mars.

In the whole of our history, we are the first human beings to witness a Martian sunset. Just think about that. We can see from the vantage point of an island that we as a species should never have reached.

I’ve said it before-this is a place where the silence has never been broken by spoken word.

One day it will. I wonder what that first word will be?

I say ‘silence’, but if you do a search you can discover an audio video that enables you to listen to the sound of this far-flung place. A place with few natural sounds except the wind.

I find things like this awe-inspiring. And there’s now lots of images to keep me going for some time yet. Rocky landscapes beneath a salmon sky.

I hope they instil in you the same sense of wonder that they do me. But if you are looking for a photo credit, though – I’m sorry, I didn’t take them.