Monday 18 March 2024

The Boy who missed Next Year


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oh, my Lord! I woke this morning to the news that someone has actually bought a copy of the first book I wrote. 'The Boy who missed Next Year' is a children's adventure story that I put onto Amazon Kindle about six years ago, and which promptly disappeared down the long and echoing rabbit warren that is self-publishing. To say I'm surprised is an under-statement. (Delighted too, of course!) I'm just going to sit back now and wait for the royalties to pour in. I always knew it was a long slog, this book-writing mullarky ..


(Oh, and to get your own Kindle copy, just paste this bad boy into your browser .. https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=the+boy+who+missed+next+year&i=digital-text&crid=11TDAS8AG8B8R&sprefix=the+boy+who+missed+next+year%2Cdigital-text%2C72&ref=nb_sb_noss)

Friday 15 March 2024

I'm confused ..


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My blog on Wednesday achieved 984 reads. Now how did it do that? I didn't even write a blog on Wednesday. The world of social media continues to bewilder me. I'm just really happy I don't need it to run a business anymore ..

I had a great day in Bournemouth last week, catching up with two old photographer pals from the Manchester Evening News. We talked of battered Nikon FMs, of rushing film back from football grounds and of The Bumblies - the nickname given to the ever-complaining darkroom staff at the MEN. Not a word about digital cameras. Nothing about online portfolios or having an Instagram 'presence'. Ah yes, life was so much simpler then. Although, without all that, you wouldn't be able to read this blog, would you? See, I told you I was confused ..

Ps: Today's picture is another blast from my past. Street 'entertainment' in Canton, China. Shot on film - on an Olympus XA - about fifteen years before I had a web-site on which to show it!!    


Thursday 14 March 2024

Forty-five years ..


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

March 14 .. and it's now an unbelievable forty-five years since I took my pictures of Joy Division at Bowdon Vale Youth Club. After a dodgy start - nobody was interested in using the shots at the time - the photographs have now been used in magazines, books, exhibitions and, like the image I'm showing you today, on T-shirts. The band's music is as powerful as ever, and I'm so lucky to have seen the group three times. Rest in peace, Ian.

Thursday 29 February 2024

It's about time ..


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's a Leap Year today, so I thought I'd write about time. Specifically, the amount of time it's taking the good ol' NHS to see my 86 year old Mum, who broke her back in an accident almost two years ago. I waited with her in Accident & Emergency for thirteen hours and then, after being (very well) treated at Salford Royal Hospital, she was given an appointment to be seen by a specialist in April last year. That was cancelled at the last minute and she was given yesterday as her new appointment. That visit was cancelled with a phone call at 9.30 in the morning, and she now has to wait until next July to be seen. You can imagine how angry and disgusted I am at the moment. I'll spare you the **%$@^^^ words, but all I can say is I'm so glad I don't live in the UK anymore. The place has gone to the dogs ..

Speaking of dogs, today's photograph (Of a clock. See what I did, there?) is from the next of my photography books. Called 'Riding the dirty dog', it is a collection of photographs from a Greyhound Bus trip I took in 1985. I spent a whole week on various buses, trying to get to as many cities as I could in seven days. Why? Ah, you'll have to get the book .. 

Wednesday 28 February 2024

Sievey/Sidebottom



 

 

 

 

 

Like a doddery grandad that won't shut up about the past, I'm following yesterday's musical memory with another 'date-in-the-diary' that I thought you'd like to know about. We're going back to February 28th, 1979, meaning it's forty-five years to the day since The Freshies played the youth club at Bowdon Vale. Does that name ring any bells? Yes, it's the same venue in which I photographed Fast Cars and then Joy Division just two weeks later. (Recognise the wallpaper?) Anyway, here's poor old Chris Sievey (right) giving it his all in an effort for world domination. He'd later become Frank Sidebottom, of course, gaining fame and no fortune with a papier-mâché head stuck on his shoulders. Following the gig, I asked the band if we could arrange a photo-shoot, then spent a fun-filled morning snapping them all around the streets of Sale. Sadly those photographs, like the band, got nowhere ..

Tuesday 27 February 2024

Heaven knows I'm happy now ..


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's incredible to think that The Smiths  first LP came out forty years ago this month. February 20th, 1984. I was 23 years old. The band has been a part of almost two-thirds of my life. I'll never forget their arrival on 'the scene', via John Peel, inevitably. They got accused of being depressing, but I hadn't heard anything as exciting and fresh in a long time. Indeed, it didn't take me long before I wore a string of beads around my neck when I went out for a pint. (God, the memory!) The band had split by '87 and, of course, poor old Andy Rourke is dead, but their music goes on and on for me, despite Morrissey's best efforts to make me dislike him. Here's my copy of the record, replete with a photo-pass for their 1984 gig at Manchester's Free Trade Hall ..

Tuesday 20 February 2024

Toilet humour ..


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Having a drink with a pal the other day, he mentioned that he frequently read my blog. What a surprise! "Oh yes," he said. "It often gives me a chortle in the toilet." I know my place ..

Ps: Today's shot is a Kodachrome of a toilet in Kenya, and is part of my forthcoming travel-photography book.