Leftlion print ed #18 - Nottinghawesome
Rob Cutforth is feeling incredibly positive about Nottingham in the new decade. We’ll soon knock all that silliness out of him, eh readers?
It’s a new year, a new decade, and things are looking up in Stab City. Way up.
There’s a shiny new kick-ass art gallery in town, a new Robin Hood movie coming out, a Top Ten list with Nottingham in it that has nothing to do with gun crime and - do my eyes deceive me? - Forest are pushing for promotion into the Premiership. We’ve even been picked as a World Cup city. What the hell is going on?
Nottingham Contemporary is brilliant. Well, as long as you don’t look directly at it for too long. In fact, I find that it looks better if you treat it like an eclipse. Quick, darting looks are the ticket, or through a tinted welder’s helmet. If you look at it using only your peripheral vision, it almost looks like a car dealership in the Emerald City from the Wizard of Oz.
My wife hated it the look of it from day one. Like most Brits, she’s a Debbie Downer, so she could look at Nottingham Contemporary when it was a hole and see the bad side. "Hmm... that hole looks bad. Too modern. It doesn’t fit the area. I can’t believe they spent 800 kajillion pounds on that hole". When the walls went up, she hated it even more.
I was more optimistic. "Look at that! There’s lace patterns etched into the side! Lace, Lace Market. Even I get it!" As the construction continued, I kept my rose-tinted specs on. "Erm, well, maybe green blocks of concrete aren’t what I would’ve chosen and it does look a teensy bit blocky, but I’m sure it will be… hang on, what is that? Brass?" Once the scaffolding came down, even I had to admit it wasn’t exactly what you’d call ‘classically beautiful’. However, it’s absolutely impossible to ignore - and thank the Baby Haysoos it’s not a Gehry building, the world needs another one of those like Dawn French needs another Krispy Kreme. I’m sure it will grow on me. Like a big green, lacey fungus.
Once you step in, you realise what a special place it is and why it is precisely what Nottingham needed. It’s free, it’s popular, the art is fantastic and. It just feels like a big city gallery. Not to mention the fact that it’s 100% yob-free. OK, maybe 92% yob-free, but that’s still pretty good for Nottingham, when you consider it’s in the middle of town and serves booze. The Hockney exhibition has been going for quite a while and no one’s spray-painted "bollocks" across The Big Splash yet; that’s pretty good going if you ask me. I didn’t even hear "Aah kid could’ve painted that, innit" once while I was in there.
Meanwhile, Dktravel.com has named Nottingham one of the "top 10 places to visit in 2010". Not Top 10 in the UK; in the world. The listing is due, in part, to the opening of Piccie Centre, but also due to Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood. Dktravel.com is by no means the authority on best places to visit, but it’s obvious they did more that the thimble-full of research that that stupid Channel 4 "Best and Worst places to live in the UK" show did. How many movies have they done about Epsom and Ewell, Kirstie? None, that’s how many. Stick that up your doughy, dimpled, Tory, irresponsible house-buying ass.
As for said film, I hate to say I told you so when it comes to milking Robin Hood for city gains, but I bleeding well told you so. The on-again off-again rumours about this movie have been floating about for ages, but it is now officially in production; it even has a teaser trailer and everything! And in true Nottingham style, when the film was originally being bandied about with the working title "Nottingham", the complaints were coming in thick and fast. "Oh great, another bloody Robin Hood movie, that’s all we bloody need", "Russell Crowe?! Two hours of ‘im butchering the accent, brilliant, they should call it Naddinghayam". But now that they’ve changed the title from "Nottingham" to "Robin Hood", people are whinging that it’s not called "Nottingham" anymore. There is literally no pleasing you people. This movie is going to kick some serious badonkadonk, and will do wonders for the city. Mark. My. Words.
And as if all that isn’t stupendous enough, Nottingham has been picked as a host city for the 2018 World Cup. If England actually get it. And if Forest actually build a new stadium when none of the fans appear to want one. And if the World Cup committee doesn’t change its mind later. But hey ho, even with all those ifs and buts, Leicester and Derby got the proverbial shaft. Even ugly, stinking Milton Keynes was picked over Derby, and the beautiful thing about that (besides the Schadenfreude) is the fact that if further cuts to the list are to be made, Nottingham simply cannot be cut because that would leave the whole of the East Midlands without a World Cup venue. Suck on that, Derby.
In fact, as far as football is concerned, Nottingham is the place to be this year if things carry on like they are at the minute. If not for the drama at Notts County or the utterly brilliant football being played at the City Ground, you can’t say it hasn’t been exciting. I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be so flippant about County’s plight, I’m sure Sven will sort things out there. I mean, look at his track record, he’s nothing if not reliable. Is that my coat? Why thank you.
Even the Post have taken to reporting positive crime statistic stories. I haven’t seen a Granny-set-alight story for ages, in fact, there were two positive stories in December. One on city muggings falling 25% and one on youth crime dropping to a new low. It’s like I woke up in some strange bizarro Nottingham where nothing makes sense anymore. A place where Yates’s serves Dom Perignon instead of asskickings, where Nottinghamians don’t overreact to a few inches of snow and where David Gest gives tips on how not to be an annoying, gormless jerkoff.
It’s not right I tell ya. Things are just too good...