THIS BLOG FEATURES:

HYLDA BAKER I speak without fear of contraception - you’re sat sitting there supping while we should be going to Blackpool hallucinations.

BARNSTONEWORTH: Yorkshire Premier League 1922: Haggerty F, Haggerty R,Tompkins, Noble, Carrick, Robson, Crapper, Dewhurst, MacIntyre, Treadmore,Davitt.


BEST BREWERIES Where were the northern beers in the list of Great British Beer Festival winners in 2006? Were the judges all from Chiddingfold-on-Sea and used to watery, headless brews?


BOWLING GREEN, OTLEY Stuffed snarling badgers, gas masks and a skeleton were among the 3,500 items inside. The landlord, Trevor, was a rather forbidding character. It looked like you had to pull a thorn from his paw to get on with him.


NELL BRYDEN She called me sweety when I bought her CD off her. I don't think anyone's called me sweety before - mind you I was dressed as a Mars Bar at the time.


TED CHIPPINGTON Walking down the road the other day, this bloke came up to me and said: 'Can you tell me how far is to the railway station?’ I said: (gruff voice): ‘One mile.’ He said: (gruff voice) ‘One mile?’ I said: (gruff voice) ‘One mile - roughly speaking.’


CUD Was Carl's voice up for it? Would new guitarist Felix fill the considerable boots (Hey Boots!) of the assistant headteacher from Tadcaster? Would the band gel like the greasiest Ted? Yes, yes and yes! Carl bellowed like a moose, holding a note like Pavarotti. Felix is the indie Jimi Hendrix and the band were tighter than a gnat's chuff.


DOCK PUDDING People flocked to Cragg Vale to taste Doris Hirst’s championship winning pudding


ROBERT ELMS Ludicrous clotheshorse


THE FALL A member of the opening act assaulted Smith with a half-eaten banana and the band played on while MES chased the banana-assassin into the parking lot, where a scuffle ensued.


BRIAN GLOVER Wrestler Leon Arris, 'the man from Paris' v Les Kellet


GOOD BEER GUIDE HIGHLIGHTS Forget all the other pub guides - unless you want to take your granny for Sunday lunch in an unbearably twee Cotswold village where they rethatched the roofs in 1973.


RAY GRAVELL
There used to be/Detonations on the telly/It was Grav discussing rugby
There used to be/From the radio great warmth surging/Grav conversing.


VAL GUEST He hated Arthur Askey, but he made his directing debut with him in Miss London Ltd, about an escort agency. It probably wasn't that kind of agency, although, you never know - "A handjob Arthur?" "Well stone me!"


HALF MAN HALF BISCUIT I went to see the Bootleg Beatles as the bootleg Mark Chapman


JEFFREY LEWIS He says he's not even a glass half-empty person, he's glass half-full - half-full of nothing. There's also some delightful rhymes - on one song about a dead pig he sings: "He's called Jonathan or Jason/It depends which way he's facin'"


LORD OF THE RINGS It's all completely humourless and is desperately in need of Brian Blessed SHOUTING LIKE HE DID IN FLASH GORDON. "HAWKMEN,DIIIIIIVE!" (When he was in his patrol car in Z Cars did he shout: "POLICEMAN, DRIIIIIVE!"?)


RIK MAYALL You could say Rik Mayall only shouted and pulled faces - but what shouting, what faces!


MARBLE GINGER It’s ‘gingier’ than Liverpool supersub David Fairclough in a carrot-top love-in with Tori Amos


STERLING MORRISON Interviewer: Is New Wave rock 'n' roll or is it folk?
Morrison: I'm afraid it's folk singing and this pains me.


CHIC MURRAY It was raining cats and dogs. I stepped into a poodle.


NORTHERN FILM LOCATIONS
Hell is a City - Grim Up North Noir with Stanley Baker as a copper so hard-boiled he's been left in the pan for a week. Everyone smokes. Trains stop at GMEX. Levenshulme, East Didsbury, Huddersfield, Medlock, Burnage, Withington and Oldham are the other locations. 
A Kind of Loving - Alan Bates throws up on Thora Hird's carpet. Thora, in Dame Edna glasses, calls him a pig. Steep park where he gets Thora's daughter pregnant is in north Manchester, also Preston, Stockport, Salford.


PIES There’s been a run on Hofmann’s “growlers” since he won the World Cup of pies



PROFESSIONAL NORTHERNERS No.3: Yorkshire Cricket Club It's Trueman v Close v Boycott v Illingworth. Notorious big(heads) in epic bickering fest.


REAL ALE TWATS 'I'm remindful of The Lamb and Tuppence in Pontypridd, a splendid little pub which serves Bishop's Gleet'


SEX AND THE CITY: A PUB CRAWL IN KNARESBOROUGH


JOHN SHUTTLEWORTH Go caravanning in Dyfed or Clwyd/Order a pizza and get it delivered/ How to be happy in a sad, sad world


SOUTH PENNINE DAY RANGER EXCURSION Emley Moor mast follows you round like Mona Lisa's eyes


JOHN SPARKES I gave you the best years of my life Denzil. Yes well I didn't really WANT them Gwyneth.

EDDIE WARING A choirboy Kaiser Chief sang at his funeral


STEVEN 'SEETHING' WELLS He had a unique talent, made his name in the 80s and was loved around the world - never mind Michael Jackson, Steven 'Seething' Wells, ranting journalist extraordinaire, has died of cancer at the age of 49. And the last words of his last column, published a day before Jacko died, were from a Jackson 5 song: "Me? I blame it on sunshine. I blame it on the moonlight. I blame it on the boogie."


WIGAN INSULTS
To someone who’s ugly:Who knitted thi face an dropped a stitch?
To someone with a terrible memory:It’s a good job thi balls are in a bag