Top Form

Yes! yes!! yes!!!, back on top form!!! I have just received my first project mark of the year and its comfortably into the first class category I was actually expecting a lower mark, so naturally this has given considerably greater impetus to my previously flagging motivation. Next thing on the agenda is my major core unit project, in my case a critical engagement with all that was Factory Communications. For those of you not in the know this was Manchester's iconic record label come arbiter of a contemporary design style which ultimately gave rise to the Hacienda cult, and the uniquely British (Mancunian) packaging of the House music phenomenon. Next year I intend to concentrate on the French new wave cinema of the 1960s, I am also very interested in that last great golden era of the British film from the 1950s to mid 70s and may also work on this. Well on a more trivial note the celebrity Big Brother show has unfortunately become just as compulsive as the first version, I know there is something terribly unethical about this format and particularly ones desire to watch it but there is just nothing I can do to help myself. I have a feeling that Jack Dee will win it simply because I feel the general public are not going to vote him out for reasons pertaining to the above, he obviously seems to be very unhappy in the house, or at least gives that impression? Possibly a very clever ploy? Who knows! My old neighbour Jaime Harding (lead singer of Marion) is in the paper once again and this time for a good reason as he is to be one of the judges for the "Band of The Land" competition. Its quite interesting to note that although it's usually my job to slag off Macclesfield as a cultural wasteland populated by northern stereotypes. However, it does actually have quite a good reputation in the music field. It was after all, the birthplace and hometown of the legendary Ian Curtis and Joy Division ironically the seminal Manchester band. We also get a surprising range of musical luminaries at Bar Cuba. However, apart from the lowest crime figures, and the longest life expectancy in the NorthWest. Coupled with excellent schools, Cheshire's most beautiful landscapes, the most affluent surrounding arrears this side of surrey, and the only place I know in the North West that still has proper fish & chip shops the place hasn't really got much else going for it.