Not so long ago I put together this short video of people windsurfing on a windy day at Glossop Sailing Club.

What do you think of it?

It's pretty much my first ever watersports video that I've spent any time editing and I know I've still got a lot to learn...

How would you improve it?

If you think you know an answer, please leave a comment.

Update 1

I've received an email with an apology and explanation from FAC251. I'll explain in more details soon I hope..

As some of you may know. I've spent quite a bit of time recently at the new FAC251 superclub located in the old Factory Records building.

I was there on the opening night, til well into the morning, I was at the White Lies gig (it was awesome!) again, I stayed well into the early hours and had an amazing time.

I was, therefore, amazingly excited that my friend's (unsigned) band, The Fayre, were playing FAC251 - I couldn't agree more with them that it was "one of the best things to happen to the Manchester music scene in years".

After my epic nights at the clubnights afterwards I was particularly pleased to see on the official FAC251 Facebook event page that entry to the gig also got you entry to the DysLEXIC students night:

"Tickets £3 Available at www.factorymanchester.com - Tickets also allow entry to DYSLEXIC @ FAC251 following the gig"

I was quite confused, unsuprisingly, when after the gig, the bouncers started clearing Space 1, the live venue, and asking everyone to leave.

I'd payed for entry to the DYSLEXIC clubnight hadn't I?
Why were we all being chucked out into the outside?

I couldn't understand. I tried asking the bouncers if I could get upstairs to the clubnight, but they were unhelpful, essentially ignoring what I was saying and pointing me in the direction of the door.

I tried asking other people why we were being directed out. They didn't really know either. Like me, they had thought their tickets were valid for the clubnight, but had been told that they were not.

We were directed outside the club, without having my hand stamped or being given a wrist band and let out onto the street. There was a massive queue of people waiting to get in for the DYSLEXIC clubnight.

I was extremly confused and annoyed. Why wasn't I allowed entry to the clubnight?

As I stood there in the damp and cold, I watched a group of girls try and reason with one of the bouncers. Instead of attempting to enlighten us as to the situation, or giving us any sort of indication as to why everyone had been kicked out or what was going on.

Eventually, as the girls persisted inquiring why they were stuck in the cold and rain, the bouncer got increasingly aggressive, unhelpful and confrontational and told them to all go away because they weren't going to be allowed in whatever happened.

Frustrated by the lack of information, and be deprived of what I had hoped would have been a good night, combined with the bouncers arrogant attitude.

Sadly, I walked home in the rain.

I'm a bit hurt that FAC251 have done this. It's made me a little more cautious about taking their word for things and has also deprived me of an enjoyable clubnight. I'm quite hurt really, that a brand I have had so much confidence in, over the past few weeks, has delivered such an un-enjoyable end to my night.

I've always believed that they can make a really venue, and I'm certain they still can.

I'm sure that this incident is not a frequent occurrence and certainly wasn't intended to happen. There has to have been a degree of confusion at some level. It's a fairly new venue and I'm sure the teams don't have everything planned and rehearsed as much as they will do in a few months time

I'm also confident that the FAC251's management will listen and accept feedback. Positively take it onboard and use it to make FAC251 run more smoothly in future.

At the end of the day, I want FAC251 to be an awesome place to go, and so do they.

From this...

I've just got back from the FAC251 Launch gig!

This is how my night went:

My ticket said it started at 7pm, Facebook advised a 7.30pm start so I rushed to get there and got in the queue at about 7.10pm.

TV crews were all over the place, rushing around, getting panorama shots of a queue, filming signs. It looked like dull work.

A reporter from Key103 came down the line and asked us all our thoughts on the FAC251. I couldn't really think of anything meaningful so I just blubbered out a few incoherent sentences about how Manchester would have great expectations of a venue with a background like this ones. I went on to speculate as to whether this would be the Hacienda of the nouties...

At about 8pm the line was really getting quite long but we were finally ushered in, had our printed out digital eticket (with 2D barcodes) scanned and had our hands stamped. FINALLY, we were in.

The stage!

On the ground floor we have the live space. It's quite a nice live space in my opinion. It's fairly small, intimate, friendly.
The stage basically fills the opposite end of the room to the end you come in through. There is a stone/concrete floor, a bar at the opposite end of the room.

Hooky!

I managed to get right at the front at the barrier, but the amount of people with SLRs or commercial-grade video cameras was almost stunning for me.

At times, I couldn't work out whether it was a press conference or a gig I was at.

All I had was my Nokia N900, no 3G and only 1/2 my battery!
It kicked off and I immediately realised that as I was behind the main speakers, I wasn't getting the sound quality I might have expect had I been stood in the middle 3 metres back. However, with people squashing me from 3 directions, the last thing I was going to do was move to get better sound quality!

Guitar!

Throughout the evening, I was microblogging persistently and my followers and subscribers had taken quite an interest. Some people's response was along the lines of "Lucky Git" where as others remembered The FAC51 Hacienda. Some felt that FAC251 would just be full of chavs where as others were really happy to see something rise out of the ashes of the Hacienda...

The crowd were loving it!

For me I think there were two highlights from a musical perspective - two times when I thought the music was absolutely outstanding (not including The Blue Monday Song).

When Rowetta started to sing (confusingly a Joy Division cover! )I was mesmerised. Although she only did two songs, it was clear by the crowd reaction that I wasn't the only one enjoying listening to her.

Hooky mentioned, that, before Joy Division's Ian Curtis killed himself, the band had been working on a song that had been left unfinished.
Hooky went on to explain that him and some others had gone away and finished the song and then proceeded to debut it to the wider world.

I couldn't believe how good it was. It really was all there, fantastically delivered vocals, catchy guitar riffs, a driving tempo. Yes, I'd quite like to hear that song again whatever it was called...

Rosetta and Hooky

They finished off the set with the pace getting ever faster. Finally, as an encore, the played The Blue Monday song. As New Orders probably most iconic track, it turned the the group of SLR wielding yuppies crowding next to me back into headbanging teeny-boppers again. Memories, hey!?

I really enjoyed the gig, and the subsequent club night, however details of the club night will have to be another post, as I now desperately need to go to bed.

Creative Commons

All my photos and videos of the FAC251 Launch gig are available on flickr.

Please reuse and remix and remember to attribute Tim Dobson as the photographer. :)

Any links to tdobson.net are always appreciated! :D

All content was taken on my Nokia N900 mobile phone.

All content is be licenced under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0.

More than ten years since the legendary Fac 51 Haçienda closed it's doors and almost three years after the death of Factory Records boss Tony Wilson, you would have been forgiven for thinking that Manchester's "Madchester" era had all but died out.

However, it would appear this is not the case!

Peter "Hooky" Hook from legendary Manchester bands New Order and Joy Division is launching a new club with help and support from the Gary Manny "Mani" Mounfield (Stone Roses/Primal Scream) and former members of the Happy Mondays.

FAC251 as it will be known, is based in the original Factory Records headquarters on Princess street.

There is a slight bit of irony involved. In October 2009, Hooky released a book entitled "How not to run a club" detailing his experiences running the Hacienda and swearing he'd never run a club again!

Anyway, I've managed to get tickets to the official launch event which is tonight, .

Apparently this is what I'm going to be looking forward to:

PETER HOOKS 'THE LIGHT' Live gig

A special one off performance featuring PETER HOOK joined by MANI (Roses), ROWETTA (Mondays), HOWARD MARKS performing RARE AND EXCLUSIVE Joy Division and New Order tracks plus a WORLD DEBUT from Hooky and Mani's new project FREEBASS..

Should be good! Stay tuned to me on identi.ca and twitter and watch my flickr page for live updates!

On Wednesday I'm going to the Manchester Werewolf Chapter again.

If you've not heard of it before, Werewolf is a game. A social game. A game about how to lie, how to tell when someone is lying and how to drink and do the previous two things.

It's a bit wacky but everyone is really friendly and it's sooo funny! :)

Anyway, here's the details:

Manchester Werewolf Chapter

7 – 11pm, Wednesday, 3rd February

Pure Space, 11-13 New Wakefield Street, Manchester

As I now live in the centre of Manchester, and being cooped up in a flat is certainly not enjoyable for a dog, Bess, our well loved Staffordshire Bull Terrier currently lives at home with my parents.

Recently they had an incident that was a very close call, so I asked her if she'd be willing to write an account of it for my blog.

Here it is.

When you've read it, please consider leaving a comment.

My mother writes:

As some of you know...

I was 60 years, 11 months and 27 days old last Thursday 7th January 2010. I was a fit, outdoor and morris dancing grandmother. I still am, but I'm different, too!

At that time, probably 9 inches of snow had fallen, but with drifted snow from the barren moors of Bleaklow, in Old Glossop we were now under a foot or more of snow. We had spent the previous two days ~ first, 'holed up' in the house; and then, next digging ourselves out. So Bess, our 8 year old brindled 'Staffie', had had make do with walks in Manor Park, and up the Doctor's Gate track to the sledging fields of Mossy Lea.

Thus on the third day of the Snow, I decided it was time for a bit of outdoors, with a proper walk for Bess. Bess loves snow and goes quite loopy in it (she was a 3 month old puppy the first time she encountered it, and it seems to trigger in her memories and behaviour of that age), even now. At least to start with.

So I decided on our 'usual' ~ up the Cock Hill track, diagonally across the Lower Blake Moor to the far gate, round the end of the Lower Shelter Belt, then back across Middle Blake Moor to the Cock Hill track again, and back down Charles Lane. Normally it would be a short hour, but given the conditions, I expected a long two hours ~ good for dispersing 'festive fat'!

It was fine up Charles Lane. It was tough but exhilarating up the Cock Hill track. It was...ooooh ..such deep snow ~ thigh deep at the bottom of Blake Moor! I floundered, and Bess sank! She is a very thin, tall, leggy 'Staffie', (she has all the Manchester Terrier part of her breed's heritage). So, though she slices through snow up to 10 inches ~ deeper snow, and she sinks! Did we turn back? No!

I'm desperately need sleep but here it is:

There is a new, larger, Snowcock.

If you are fast enough to Norfolk Square in Glossop you may be able to get a photo of it. If it's not been demolished yet you cannot miss it, it's about 14ft tall, built in less than 2&1/2 hours by a loose knit team of nine at the peak brought together by this Facebook campaign- http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=236840413990

Update!

See here for info and photos of the second Glossop Snowcock!

(This post is mainly about the original one)

As some of you may be aware, the town I live in, Glossop has been experiencing quite heavy snow fall over the past few days.

Glossop is famed for being mildly bizarre, a stereotype exacerbated and exploited by dark comedy series, The League of Gentlemen, filmed in the nearby village of Hadfield

In Norfolk square, right in the centre of Glossop, the formal square where the war memorial is, a snow sculpture was erected. This was not any old snow sculpture, it was not a snowman.

This was an 8 foot model of a penis...

Not a bad sculpture either. Whilst some did not see its artistic merits, this was an expertly crafted masterpiece, complete with testicles, veins etc, right there in the centre of Glossop for all to see.