Chris Worfolk's Blog

Last Saturday we went to Wendy House. It recently celebrated it’s 16th birthday and a message went out from the organisers saying “we hope to be here in another 16 years!”. I am not convinced it will be though.

It was a good night. It went as a group of friends and had a good time. For proof, see this low quality photo of Hugh looking ambivalent.

Wendy House itself though, is a a shadow of its former self.

The rise and fall

I first attended Wendy House eight years ago. It was magic. They had three rooms. Stylus played alternative and 80s, Mine hosted the Mutate room (EBM) and Bat Coda (now Pulse) hosted an indie room. They were all full. Not Fruity full, but pretty full (for context, Fruity is the big Friday night student cheese event).

If my memory serves me correctly, which it probably doesn’t, Mine had a capacity of around 500. Pulse had about 350 and Stylus could hold thousands. Therefore if I was to estimate attendance I would put it at over 2,000.

Slowly, as the years have gone on, this has drained away. First they closed the indie room and moved Mutate into the smaller bar. Then they started closing some of the area in Stylus. Now even Mutate has gone and they are down to a single room. Furthermore they do not even run in the summer any more. For a second year, there will be no event in July, August or September, and they missed March this year too.

It is not hard to see why. Last Saturday was empty. There were maybe 200-300 people there, a tenth of what it might have been at its peak. You could actually get served at the bar and get space on the dance floor.

Worse, it was full of people in casual clothing. I was somewhat dressed up, but I think if I had gone full on dressed up I would have actually felt conspicuous because of the lack of other people in full costume.

What went wrong?

Some people have suggested that the students are to blame. They are not around over the summer, hence why nobody was there. This does not explain the long term decline in attendance though, nor do I think it is a significant contribution.

Firstly, in my experience, a lot of the students that went to Wendy House did not go home for the summer. That is really a first year thing, after that people have a house in Leeds and hang around to see their friends. Secondly, a lot of the patrons are not students. The summer never seemed to have a huge affect on attendance back in the day.

Perhaps a better explanation is the decline of the alternative community. When I was a kid, there was a big crowd of goths outside the Corn Exchange every weekend. Then they renovated the Corn Exchange, kicked all the alternative shops out and told the goth kids to go away. Later their lead tenant went bust. But that is a whole different rant.

The point is, you do not see that as much anymore. Much like the pensions pot crisis, there is a lack of young goths to replace the old retiring goths. Perhaps time has run out.

Bucking the trend

It is also worth nothing that Wendy House has actually done really well to get this far.

Alternative nights have never been popular. When I first started clubbing in Leeds there was Bar Phono and another alternative club. They both closed. Then Subculture opened. And closed. Rock Of Ages used to be based at the Union, now it is upstairs in the Library which, as James points out, is where nights go to die. Halo’s indie night suffered a similar fate. Basically all alternative nights everywhere are unpopular. Even the legendary Jilly’s Rockworld (Manchester) has gone.

The fact that Wendy House has survived this long really is to its credit.

Scaling down

Unfortunately, as it has begun to shrink, it is possible that it has hastened its own decline. Take the music they played in Mutate for example. I just do not want to listen to it. It just is not music. Take a listen to this:

It is just annoying. When they closed Mutate they merged it into the main room. This did not really keep anyone happy. Those that preferred Stylus were suddenly frightened and upset by them actually changing the playlist, while those who had spent their time in Mutate were unlikely to find enough songs on the playlist to keep them interested.

Conclusion

Wendy House is still a night worth visiting. The music is still good. However, on Saturday it felt just like a regular run-of-the-mill alternative night. Not the magic night that it once used to be.

With them taking a break this summer, and the low turn-out this week, who knows if they will return. But here is to hoping.

Here are some old photos to make us all feel better…

Stewart Lee’s 2012 show was entitled “Carpet Remnant World”. I’ve just watched it, and I have to say I was disappointed.

In November, Dominic Cavendish wrote an article in The Telegraph about why he walked out of Stewart Lee’s show. His complaint was that Lee spent too much time insulting his audience. He’s right. The first 10 minutes straight of Carpet Remnant World were essentially dedicated to Lee discussing the contempt he holds his audience in.

I’ve seen Stewart Lee live several times and he does make a lot of jokes like that. At first they were funny. Now they’re old, and increasingly offensive. He parrots out the same joke over and over again until people like Cavendish, and indeed even me, someone who considers myself a big Stewart Lee fan, are fed up and bored.

That is not to say there wasn’t a lot of good material. I particularly liked the bit where he said “dog” in a funny voice. However, a lot of his material is feeling increasingly tired.

Recently, the US Patent office revoked some of the patents owned by the Washington Redskins because their name was offensive to Native Americans.

This follows on from a long campaign against the american football team to change their name because it is incredibly racist. Earlier this year the National Congress of American Indians launched a new advert to bring the point home.

Of course, it is not really like the point needs to be brought home. It’s obvious. There is simply no way this can be viewed as anything but offensive:

For example, what happens when you take out one derogatory term for a group of people and put another one in:

As if anyone would stand for that! It’s time for a name change.

What should they change it to? I’m angling for the Washington Filibusterers.

If Stephen Hawking were British, he would be dead. That is what one critic of Obamacare said.

You can probably safely assume then that the author did not consult the latest World Health Organisation rankings of the world’s healthcare systems. It was getting increasingly out of date, with the latest rankings being published in 2010. However, even back then it could be seen that Britain ranked a reasonable 18th while the United States could only manage 37th, equal with Costa Rica.

However, a new study by The Commonwealth Fund has ranked the NHS at the top.

It is quite a selective list. No Spain or Italy for example, both who ranked excellently in WHO’s 2000 report, along with many very small nations such as San Marino that arguably do not count. But does include a health selection of systems including France (the 2000 first place) and Sweden and Norway that you would expect to do very well in all things quality of life.

In fact Britain does so well that it comes first in every category but three – equity (joint second), timeliness (third) and healthy lifestyles (tenth).

Click for a larger view.

Not everyone agrees with the report though. The Euro Health Consumer Index (EHCI) produce rankings also and their 2013 report puts Britain a lot further down the list.

Click for a larger view.

However, as I will almost certainly lead a happy life in the belief that I do have the best healthcare in the world, I’m going to choose to believe the former. Go NHS!

How long would it take you to complete the World Cup sticker book?

The answer, as it turns out, is a long time. We did the maths in the office a few weeks ago and the value we came up with was £460. That is how much you need to spend on stickers, on average, to fill the entire book. This assumes a random distribution of each sticker with no rares.

James Offer has created an online tool which simulates the process. It opens up a random pack of stickers over and over again until you have filled the book. It reached 637 somewhere between £300-400 I think, then was still going for that last sticker at £600 when I turned it off after two hours.

Of course you can reduce this by having friends to swap with. However, as a 27 year old man, I do not know any of my friends that are collecting World Cup stickers (nor I am for the record).

People often refer to Britain as a Christian country. You can make this argument, but as the BHA points out, not if you look at the stats. They are quite clear. Most people in Britain have no religion.

If you take a look at Wikipedia’s list of best-selling books of all time, A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens comes right at the top. Of course, it was published over 150 years ago, so who can say where Fifty Shades of Grey will be after a similar time has lapsed…

It also shares a very similar name with the Leeds-based food blog A Tale of Two Sittings. I am not sure whether it is a deliberate reference to the book, or whether the blog pre-dates the novel and Dickens was making a reference to the blog. More research is needed.

Dickens tells the tale of a small cast of characters and their jet-setting lifestyle between London and Paris, both before and during the French Revolution. It takes quite a while to get into. I think I got to about half way through the book, still wondering what it was actually about. Of course it all comes together in the end though to form a beautiful tapestry of interwoven stories that culminate in what is probably a happy ending. Ignoring the tens of thousands that went to the guillotine of course…

I could write about this, but John Oliver can do a much better job of it:

It’s shocking. I knew about a lot of the crap that FIFA do, such as exclusion zones to make sure that no local businesses can earn a living while the international sponsors rake it in. I had heard about issues with workers being mistreated in Qatar. However, the video really puts it all in perspective. And it is not a good perspective. Tax exemptions, enforced drinking, World Cup courts, a coffin a day going back to India, the list goes on.

Everyone knows that FIFA is rife with bribery and corruption. Every year there is a new story, usually several times a year.

As Oliver points out, it is too hot to play football in Qatar! It’s actually impossible to do the World Cup there! When the Daily Mash ran the headline “Qatar to host Winter Olympics“, it was only marginally more ridiculous. Who would rationally vote for that? Even FIFA know it, which is why they are talking about moving the whole tournament to the winter.

It’s all very well Greg Dyke telling him he probably should step down, but surely it is time to take some actual action. If UEFA told them they wouldn’t stand for Blatter continuing as FIFA’s head, what would they do? They would be fucked. Most of the top teams in the world are from Europe, FIFA would have to listen.

I am going to watch the World Cup. Because as an individual there is basically nothing I can do about these state of affairs. However, surely given the latest round of allegations, supported by a mountain of evidence, it is time for those with the power to act.

Liar’s Poker is the first book Michael Lewis published and the one that transformed him from a bonds salesman to a writer. It tells the tale of how he came to work at Salomon Brothers and key figures at the company that oversaw rise and fall. It’s an interesting insight into the excess of Wall Street.

I’ve been thinking some more about why I did not find The Blind Side quite as satisfying a read as I had hoped for. I think it is because the story does not really fit together as well as it could have, and thus the ending was a bit of an anticlimax.

The early part of the book set out a clear narrative. The NFL was taking up to the fact that left tackle was a really important position while simultaneously Michael Oher but a quark of fate was both huge and nimble. It was a fairy tale story ready to be put to paper.

Unfortunately, it did not pan out that way.

The NFL had in fact woken up to the value of left tackle well before Michael Oher arrived on the scene. Far from being unique, the league had already sourced a collection of elegant giants to protect their quarterbacks.

He was drafted in 2009 by the Baltimore Ravens and despite trying him out at left tackle, he has spent most of his time on the right. That is not to say he is not an excellent player. The Ravens won the Super Bowl (after the officials refused to call blatant pass interference on what would have been the 49ers winning drive – I’m not bitter about it though) with him in the offensive line. However, re-write the book he did not. Bryant McKinnie was their left tackle.

That is not to detract anything from what is a wonderful story. It was a very moving tale and an enjoyable read.