Thats all folks! (for now...)

Pressures of work and family mean this blog is getting updated very rarely now.

Rather than just let it fade away, I have decided to give myself a sabbatical. In the best tradition of the soaps I'll be leaving this site live just in case I decide to make a come-back!

In the meantime, thanks for reading and for all your comments!

All the best - Paul

Vauxhall fears

Vauxhalls' plant in Ellesmere Port is about 10 minutes drive from where I live - and plays a major role in our local economy. People from across Merseyside, North Wales and beyond travel into work at the plant which produces the Astra.

Yesterday workers at the plant walked out spontaneously, amid fears that 1,000 jobs could go as part of GM's restructuring efforts. You can read about yesterday's walk-out, the reasons behind it, and the unions' take on GM's plans here and here.

Keep HP British!

I'm not especially patriotic. I won't be cheering on England at the World Cup (too many Liverpool players - Peter Crouch world class? - can't stand the manager and hate the 'Engerland' stuff that accompanies any major championship); don't own a pair of Union Jack shorts; and generally have little truck with any sort of Dambusters/Rule Britannia/Little Englander/St George's flag waving sense of Britishness.

All that said there are some things which are clearly, proudly and uniquely British - and HP Sauce is one of them. The perfect accompaniment to anything from a fry-up to Scouse, roast dinner to plain old beans on toast - HP is the King of Sauces.

So I'm gutted to hear Heinz who own the rights to HP are shipping production of HP to the Netherlands. Not only does this mean that a great British brand will no longer be produced in the UK, but - more seriously - it also means 120 TGWU members will lose their jobs. As usual this announcement comes after Heinz had previously promised that there would be no shift in production. I'm sure Heinz have their reasons - but HP has been produced in the Midlands since the turn of the century and it seems a real shame that a good, loyal workforce producing an iconic product is being let down once again. Lets hope Heinz show a bit of common sense and reverse their decision. In the meantime I will be scouring the supermarkets over the next few weeks to build up a stockpile of Brummy produced brown sauce!

Big Dunc bows out


Dixie Dean was a legend; Brian Labone was a legend; Howard Kendall was a legend - both as a manager and as part of the 'Holy Trinity' with Colin Harvey and Alan Ball.

In that sort of company its hard to think of Duncan Ferguson - never a prolific goal scorer; injured as often as he was fit; a player who Joe Royle famously described as 'a legend before he became a player'; as a real Goodison legend. But, of course football is never as straight forward as that.

I was there when the big man scored THAT debut goal against Liverpool, and I was there yesterday for my last ever (well ever for now) match as a Goodison season ticket holder to see him slot home his last goal for the Blues. For the last 10 years Everton have been conspicuously short of heroes, but Duncan fits the bill in my opinion. Goodison legend? Of course and here's five reasons why....

The debut goal against Liverpool - restoring pride to the blue half of Merseyside

Giving a (very) old granny a kiss on her birthday at a 'lunch with the players' do that we went to, and telling her 'No Tongues' (at which she giggled like a teenager)

He's the coolest pigeon fancier this side of the Penines

His goals in the big games - Man U, Liverpool - he didn't score many, but the ones he did were always special

Taking the law into his own hands - What sort of burglar thinks its a good idea to break into his house anyway!?

Post your own Big Dunc best bits in the comments box.

A bad night

Every parent works on the basis that their kids are 'very advanced for their age' and I am no exception. So I wasn't surprised that yesterday I had to undergo several rounds of Paxman like under-9 questioning on the subject of the local elections - 'Who are we voting for dad?', 'Why?', 'What does the council do?', 'I thought you said they were rubbish' etc etc.

End result: the kids know we vote Labour for the same reason we support Everton - because we do, and err well that's that. Because they were all born post '97 they also know that its a long time - well in their time-frame anyway- since Labour and Everton actually won a great deal*. I suspect they also can't quite understand why Dad (who according to the laws of parenthood should be pretty much infallible and the font of all knowledge) seems to have the unfailing knack of backing losers.

Of course, none of this is new. I went through exactly the same experience in the early 80's - a pretty bleak time for a young Evertonian, from a labour voting family, with a Dad who worked in Cammell Lairds. Yes those were great years for Labour voting Blues who worked in ship-yards! Its character-building anyway...

On the serious side, its clear that in large parts of the country the Labour vote simply stayed at home. More damagingly a very small, but still worrying, number of traditional Labour voters decided to take a punt on the BNP - landing them 15 seats. What little good news there was came relatively local to me - with Labour making small gains in both Manchester and Liverpool; and both cities, along with Newcastle, staying Conservative free zones.

How did Labour do in your part of the country? Did you even vote - or were you part of the 67% who stayed at home?

* Yes I know, 3 terms and all that but I'm trying to make a slightly stretched point here!

Why cities matter

I don't remember much from my University (Poly) days - not because of the usual student excesses, but because I was actually a pretty rubbish student and was far busier running round doing union and Labour Party work than I was studying.

I remember very few of the books I had to read during my three year Urban Studies degree (sorry no link, they closed the programme down the year after I graduated), but I do remember 'Cities and the Wealth of Nations' by Jane Jacobs, who sadly died earlier this week. You can read her Guardian obituary here.

From what I remember of her work she was a passionate believer in the city as a crucial economic and social entity - an idea which has been (partially) revived in the emerging interest in 'city regions' in the UK.

However, I suspect that most of the recent urban 'regeneration' we've seen in the UK (which seems to be based on the holy trinity of faux loft/warehouse apartments, new build office space which looks dated and tired before the concretes even set and making stag nights and hen parties the focal point of your economic strategy) would have profoundly depressed her. It profoundly depresses me anyway.

The Last of the Corinthians

Just got a call off my brother to tell me that Brian Labone died last night (I've been away so hadn't seen the local papers this morning).

I obviously never got to see him play, but he was a true Everton legend, and I did get the chance to have a few words with him some years back when we me and my brother got chatting to him (after a few pints) after a 'Meet the players' type do. He was great bloke and a blue through and through.

You can read the official EFC tribute to Brian here.