Jazz festival and picking a Manchester footy side
2009-08-13

Can you believe I’ve been in Manchester now for nine months?! God damn time flies.

Quite a lot has happened in that time, but I haven’t done a lot in the city itself as I’ve been away on and off for most of it. The Manchester Festival was in town and apparently it was cool, but I went to France and missed the whole thing. Luckily I was back just in time for the Manchester Jazz Festival! Jazz is like a mosquito bite that mutates into Ebola. At first, it’s just mildly annoying, the freeform trumpeting and the pretentious fedoras only make me slightly nauseous. A little tickle at the back of my throat. But by the second song, (usually the point where the drummer starts drumming with his eyes closed) the gentle tickle deteriorates into a panicky feeling where I can’t move and I can’t breathe. As if someone is holding me down and is stuffing shit straight into my ears with a plunger. And if scat singing makes an appearance, I start slapping myself in the face Rain man style. WATER BURN BABY! WATER BURN BAAAAAABY!!!

"Scat" literally means "shit"; You would’ve thought those jazz idiots would’ve looked that up before they named their singing style after it. I fucking hate jazz. I fucking hate jazz with all my might. Be bop a doo bop skiddle dee dee bop FUCK OFF.

So yeah, I was in the jazz tent for all of about 20 seconds.

The football season is about to start and I can’t decide which Manchester team I hate more. I had begrudgingly cheered on United for years because my wife and inlaws are all fans, but I could never really love that team. They’re so cocky. And rich. Their captain, Gary Neville is a complete knob who carved his hedges to spell MUFC. That in itself is enough for me to never support United, but throw Ronaldo (EASILY the biggest baby in sport) into the mix and they're finished in my eyes. Ronaldo could give Greg Louganis diving lessons. I can’t STAND him. I just want to punch his spotty face every time it’s on my TV.

I said that once we moved to Manchester, I would start supporting City, mostly because it would piss my wife off, but also because they were a struggling premiership team who flirted with relegation a number of times. I’ve been an Oiler fan my whole life so I have a love of shit teams. I can identify with City fans. The hope at the beginning of the season, the mid season whinge that the team doesn’t have enough money to compete and the end of season disappointment as they fail to meet even the most meagre of expectations. City were definitely the team for me.

And then what do they go and do? Get bankrolled by a rich Sheikh and buy half the league up. All of a sudden, they’re the New York Rangers of the premiership. Everyone is saying this is the year they’ll break the top four, but deep down I hope they finish at the bottom. You know, like the New York Rangers do. In fact, if they got relegated after spending all that money, I would laugh my ass off.

Add to that the fact that Neville is (practically) retired, United sold Ronaldo to Real Madrid for £80 million, (the largest fee in football history) and they lost one of their other big time strikers to City. And instead of breaking the bank themselves to replace them, they bought a couple of unknown youngsters and an old injury-prone loser. Very Oiler-like. Very Oiler-like indeed.

To tip the scales even further United’s way, I managed to get free tickets to the posh seats at the derby last year. You know, the ones with the comfy chairs, free Paul Smith MUFC cufflinks and free halftime sandwiches. Quick tip if you ever get invited: Don’t say "Where are the prawn sandwiches?". That went over like a lead balloon. A lead balloon with Dawn French in the basket.

While I was there, I managed to get my picture taken with the European Cup, the Premiership trophy and a bunch of other ones that no one cares about:

Yeah, so I’m pretty sure I’m not a City fan. Sorry boys.