Helen Reddington at Louder Than Words festival

Today I went to see Helen Reddington (neé McCookerybook) being interviewed by the excellent Roisin Dwyer about her new book, She's At The Controls, at Louder Than Words festival. She was on fine form: Articulate, intelligent, funny and self-depreciating. After the Q&A she played a few songs on her guitar ('A Good Life With A Bad Apple', 'Mad Bicycle Song' and one about Barcelona I'm not 100% sure of the title of), which seemed to go down well. It wasn't a huge crowd but, given that she was scheduled against a bloke from Dire Straits and his memoir, it was a respectable number of attendees and the audience seemed to be a nice variety of people who listened and asked intelligent questions. Helen was considerate enough to ask the audience to applaud Roisin and the sound engineer at the end too, which doesn't happen enough.

Normally I'd pay to attend all three days of Louder Than Words but the ticket price has gone up this year and my finances haven't sufficiently recovered from last year to take the hit. Similarly, I couldn't find enough events on the schedule that I wanted to attend to justify paying the ticket price. 

Last year Louder Than Words did go ahead, but as an online only event that attempted to make the best of things during the second Covid lockdown. I didn't attend because I was even poorer then than I am now, plus I doubted that the event would go ahead given that it was announced either just before or during the Greater Manchester local lockdown. 

It was odd being in Manchester for the first time in a year. I haven't needed to go into the city since last November when I was doing exam invigilation work for Manchester College and you forget how enclosed and claustrophobic the ever increasing density of really tall buildings makes you feel. We don't have that in Stockport because we have less tall buildings and those that we do have tend to be both shorter and more generously spaced, meaning the sky gets more of a chance and you don't feel hemmed in in the same way.

After Helen's event a gentleman called Darren from Bolton, who Helen knows through an online art club they both attend, and I adjourned with Helen to HOME next door where we had hot drinks and pizza and talked about music, art, Louder Than Words, work and lots of other things. It was nice though I do feel guilty that I didn't get a round of hot drinks in. 

It was a bit of a day for old friends actually as I'm sure I saw Pascale from Better Buses For Greater Manchester sitting outside Trove with a friend as I went past on the bus into Manchester. On the way home one of my sixth formers from last year said hello to me before heading for the back of the top deck where he proceeded to do the gangster thing with one of his mates.

I was a little apprehensive about travelling into Manchester on the 192 but, if anything, more people are wearing masks at weekends and keeping the bus windows open than they are during the rush hour to work in Stockport during the week. I suspect that weekend bus users may not be commuting to work by bus during the week whereas many weekday bus commuters have quite probably been commuting in large numbers into Stockport throughout all the lockdowns and have become fatalistic and nihilistic re Covid, hence over 90% of them not wearing masks on every bus I catch during the week.

Today was also a day for arsey bus drivers: There was the driver of the 201 outside Piccadilly train station, who shouted at the man who asked him if the bus was going to Stockport 'DOES IT SAY STOCKPORT ON THE FRONT OF THE BUS? NO IT SAYS HATTERSLEY!'. I think he must have felt guilty afterwards because when he had to re-open the door to let someone else on, he did at least shout that the hapless gentleman who'd made this mildly voice enquiry should be getting on the 203 though, in the end, he got on the 192 with me instead. The driver on that bus nearly missed my stop on the basis that he felt I was taking too long to come down the stairs, conveniently forgetting how close the bus stops are together on that part of the route and that it takes a finite amount of time to get from nearly the back of the top deck and down the stairs. I see that the recent pay rise after threat of strike action hasn't improved the temperament of Stagecoach Manchester drivers. Mind you, the driver shortage seems to be getting worse so I expect the remaining drivers are probably wishing they were on strike, increased pay offer or not.

Better Buses for Greater Manchester: FourGoods and forays into 'proper' journalism

There's definitely a story in this...

Recently, I have been dabbling in what I like to think of as 'proper' journalism.

To explain, there is a certain snobbery within the world of journalism vis a vis music journalists; a sense that we aren't 'proper' writers and we aren't deploying journalistic skills and training. Which, given the high standards of research and quality of writing that you see in a lot of long form music and cultural commentary, feels very unfair.

It goes without saying that there's an equal amount of snobbery and scorn directed at bloggers by journalists in general (including music journalists): We write for free! Without editors! We have no training or discipline! Which, admittedly, is hard to argue with at times. That said, just because you write for free, without an editor, with no training doesn't mean you can't write. Sometimes it does, but not always. I'd also say, on the financial renumeration point, that platforms like Medium as well as crowdfunding platforms like KoFi and Patreon are muddying the waters so far as the 'unpaid' aspect of it goes.

Personally, I'd say that I occupy a weird hinterland that I'd like to call 'Semi professional journalist/blogger', meaning that I do write for free, but I also get paid for my work sometimes. I've also written for free in an academic context, but because it's in an academic context it's fine and not shameful. Which is a bit of a headfuck it has to be said. Ultimately, I would like to be a fully professional writer, but (for various reasons) it just isn't happening at the moment.

I started writing pieces for the website FourGoods earlier this year. They commissioned me to write about veg box schemes and Brexit (this was before the deadline for Brexit was extended to the 31st October) and, more recently, the campaign to re-regulate the buses in Greater Manchester.

There was no byzantine recruitment process, no weird unwritten rules to somehow know by osmosis and comply with... I simply pitched the veg boxes and Brexit idea to them, they liked my pitch, read my stuff on Medium and concluded that I had the right tone of voice for their publication, and that was it: I was commissioned, I was in. I'd like to say that this happens a lot, but it doesn't: My pitches have a success rate only marginally above the proverbial snowball in hell.

Anyway, back to those buses...

As with most of the UK (London is the exception) the buses in Greater Manchester were de-regulated in 1986 and it's been chaos ever since. It's long been a source of disappointment to me that there seem to be so few people in the UK who care about bus travel, who want to change it for the better, who are willing to stand up and make a fuss about it and agitate for a better deal. After all, commuter groups have been doing just that with trains pretty much ever since the trains were privatised in 1994.

Then, I heard about Better Buses For Greater Manchester. I met Pascale Robinson, saw the campaigners in action, and the rest they say is history.

I have learnt a lot about journalism while writing for FourGoods, and it's also taught me a lot about pitching I think as well. Particularly about not pitching too soon, before you've worked the idea out properly, which I know I've done in the past.

I am looking forward to writing for them again at some point.

Photo by Andraz Lazic on Unsplash