Armed Robbery

When the English aren’t playing darts, plane spotting, or watching snooker on television, they like to engage in a spot of armed robbery. It’s a very popular activity, particularly enjoyed by the younger male residents of Greater Manchester. Several bars in Chorlton have recently been robbed during the evening, the latest by a group of youths wearing balaclavas and brandishing shotguns and tomahawks. They moved all the customers out the back and took their mobile phones, while a staff member emptied the till. Unfortunately all that effort netted them only £30. The Trevor Arms Hotel in Beech Road has been robbed four times in the last 18 months, although last time the punters ran outside after the robbers who dropped the £6,000 pounds cash and fled. The locals managed to collect every last note and returned it to the publican, who says he will buy them all a round. Armed robbery is now so popular in Chorlton that the local bars have set up a walkie talkie system to warn other bars and restaurants in the area of the danger.

The latest statistics have Greater Manchester’s overall crime rate impressively above the national average. Although the crime rate overall has fallen considerably under Labour, the public believes that crime is worse than ever. Interestingly, violence committed by acquaintances is way down but crime against strangers has stayed the same, and is now makes up the highest proportion of violent crimes. Those most likely to become the victims of violent crime are the poor and young men aged 16 to 24 years. But even though Manchester is up there with the top regions for violent crime, Merseyside still beats it for violent crimes per head of population. Damn those Scousers! Even then, London outdoes them both by a long, long way.

But potential villains need to be careful about which pubs they go into in Manchester. Not long after I first arrived, I read about an assassination attempt gone wrong in Salford. Two armed assailants wearing balaclavas burst into the Brass Handles pub and fired shots at a man they were trying to assassinate, wounding him and another person. Initially all the drinkers ducked for cover, but then they turned on the attackers, overpowered them, and shot them both. The two men, fatally wounded, staggered out of the building and fell down across the street. The punters surged out of the pub and commenced kicking the men as they lay dying on the ground.

I haven’t been to the Brass Handles, but I bet you could enjoy your beer there without any fear at all of armed robbery.

Spotting

What is there to do on a rainy day in Manchester? How about a little spotting? The locals enjoy all kinds of spotting activity: trainspotting at Piccadilly, tram spotting in the park along the Altrincham line, or—my favourite—plane spotting at Manchester Airport. The ‘Aviation Viewing Park’ is set up for plane spotters, comprising three raised platforms, which I reckon would fit about 30 people on each one (although this is looking at it from a distance, as I’ve never been in). They have an excellent view of the runway, so the plane spotters can happily write down the plane numbers, airlines, and time of take off/landing. There is also a large car park, where many spotters like to sit in their cars, eat sandwiches, and while away the weekend watching flights that more sensible people take to and from other places.

On one weekend I saw about 50 people on the platforms and a full carpark (say, 50 cars). It costs £3 entry for each car, plus £1 for each extra adult, or you can get a 3 month ticket, which I think is around £40. Now that’s value entertainment. There is even an ‘aviation shop’ and a kiosk where you can buy bacon butties and other local delicacies. Indeed, plane spotting is so popular in Manchester that 250,000 people visited the Park in the past year. Yes, 250,000 people. The airport claims they the Concorde which is also parked there is a big part of the attraction, but whenever I’ve driven past I have never seen anyone coming out of the Concorde. They’re all spotting.

But to explain how much they love spotting here, I must report my experience in WH Smith, the stationery store. I recently purchased a diary for the new year, and sitting behind the diaries was a Spotters Book. It’s the size of an address book, but each page contains a table for entering the spotting event, with separate columns to note down the time and date. The great thing is it works just as well for any type of spotting! Although I suspect the avid spotter needs a much, much bigger book to document all those fun-filled days standing in the rain at Manchester International.

Darts

If it’s winter in the UK, it’s time for darts on television. The British haven’t been doing very well at sport lately and they feel terribly anxious about it. So, to compensate, they praise sports which they are good at and pretend that no-one else cares about them. Darts. Currently, the World Darts Championship is screening on BBC1 for around 5 hours a day. Yes, I said ‘world’. And it’s true – people come from far and wide to compete, from exotic locations such as Stockport, Gateshead, and Hull.

Darts – apparently – is a ‘sport’, a sport for obese, alcoholic, tattooed, ex-cons (for the female contests, simply add a mullet). Although, the audience is even more entertaining. The tournament is played in something like an RSL club, with the punters indulging in heavy drinking throughout the competition. They’re a boisterous bunch, and fair enough. You have to do something to get some entertainment from darts. To liven things up, the television coverage includes a camera in the board and even super-slow motion shots of the darts spinning majestically towards the triple twenty. Best of all is the guy who calls the scores, exaggerating the middle syllable the higher the score – ‘one hundred and foooooooorrrrrrrrrty’.

For a taste of the excitement, go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDYJYzj4PMk

But if you think darts raises the blood pressure to dangerous levels, the snooker is only just around the corner…

The Singing Christmas Moose

From late November through to Christmas Manchester hosts a large European-style market. You can get loads of German sausages, Dutch Cheese, French sausages (fantastic) and Belgian chocolates. Thousands of people go along, stand out in the cold and the drizzle, drinking gluhwein or beer and eating. But the highlight is the moose (see the video). What can I say... he sings, he talks, he's bilingual, he even blinks. And he is so charismatic, people sing along.

Christmas Day 2007

Christmas 2007, Manchester

Christmas cooking started on Christmas Eve, when we made the stuffing, baked the potatoes and made the vegetarian dish, the Caponata. Christmas day started at 7am to prepare the turkey and put in the oven. Every 20 minutes after that the alarm went off and someone had to remove the turkey from the oven, baste it and reset the timer. It took more than four hours overall, and was very nice. Aroun 10 o’clock we opened loads of presents, many from Australia courtesy of various relatives but also given to each other, courtesy of Poundland. By 12pm there were five or six people in the kitchen, but through a controlled form of chaos (just like a professional kitchen!) we managed to prepare all the food on time. Of course, we over-cooked, but we also over-ate, so it all worked out in the end. Enjoying the feast were Lucy, Alex, Megan, Ally, Mark (Megan’s boyfriend from Connecticut), Catharine Abell (an Australian philosopher at the Uni of Manchester), and me.

As is the tradition here in the UK, we played The Pogues’ ‘Fairytale of New York’ several times at loud volume and drank some beer and/or nice Australian wine. After lunch we watched the Queen's message - listed in the television guide simply as, 'The Queen' - which I suppose might be seen as annoying and anti-Republican, but here it just seems ludicrously quaint, and a little camp. Then some of us went for a walk while others simply went to sleep.