Photo LeftLion
Leftlion celebrates its 100th issue this month after 15 years of rattling on about Nottingham. The magazine began life in black and white and was originally published bi/monthly. It went monthly a few years ago, and more recently it’s shrunk a little in size. The weight loss is down to being funded entirely through advertising and a necessity to help break even. The Guardian recently went on a diet, so we’re not alone in slimming down to the tabloid format. LeftLion is increasingly expanding into digital as it adapts to the needs of new audiences, so it’s quite an achievement to still be publishing a print version given the brutal economics of print media. Each month, 10,000+ copies are distributed to 350+ venues across the city, and I’ve helped deliver them as well as writing the copy inside. I’ll be picking up a copy and adding it to my collection of memorable magazines and papers (Kurt Cobain’s suicide – NME, Barack Obama’s inauguration – Guardian, last day at Raleigh – Evening Post) that will one day shift a few coins on ebay or, more likely, offer kindling for the fire.
Photo LeftLion
I was the literature editor for 13 years and thoroughly enjoyed my time working under Jared Wilson, Al Needham, and Ali Emm. All of them had their own distinct ideas and vision about LeftLion’s role in pimping out Notts. The current editor, Bridie Squires, is barely in her twenties, and so the magazine will invariably take on a more youthful view of culture. And rightly so. Nottingham has changed dramatically over the years. Milton’s (pub) no longer takes pride of place in the Viccy, the xylophone man has been replaced by the iphone man – yoots rapping over the top of recorded tracks for money, and the fountains in Market Square have been slabbed over to make way for a giant sandpit in summer and an ice rink in winter. The ice rink got the Nottingham stamp of approval when someone carved ‘cunt’ into the ice so that it displayed on the live feed hosted on the council website. It totally captured the Notts attitude: Lairy, Sweary, Quite Contrary. This act of vandalism brought me almost as much pleasure as the lad that queued up for two hours so that he could punch Peter Andre at a book signing. Or Lord Biro, a professional mitherer, who stood in a local election promising to make the burqa compulsory for Kerry Katona because he was sick of seeing her face everywhere.
Lord Biro shuffling through his bag of flyers. Interviewing singers/songwriters in the Dixie’s Arms for forthcoming BBC4 programme on mining dialect and poetry. Photos by James Walker.
It was very difficult to step down from Leftlion but it was the right time. I’ve done my bit for Notts and now it’s time to do a bit for mesen. At present, this includes: working on a BBC4 Radio programme called The Tongue and Talk of the People (due to be broadcast in May); Dawn of the Unread II: Whatever People Say I Am (sometime in 2018); and DH Lawrence: A Digital Pilgrimage (2019). The latter two projects both involve digital storytelling and are created with my partner in crime, Paul Fillingham (Think Amigo). Check out our Lawrence instagram account to see how we’re building an archive of byte-sized chunks of info about Nottingham’s favourite potty mouth, or say hello on Twitter. There were other reasons why it was the right time to step down in terms of the artistic direction of the magazine, but I’ll save them for another blog. The sun has just come out and I want to get in the garden and chop some logs. It’s where I do most of my thinking, and like DH Lawrence, I find it therapeutic: ‘You have no idea how soothing to it is to the nerves’ he explained to Dorothy Brett. ‘When I am in a temper, I like to run out into these quiet woods and chop down a tree; it quiets the nerves. Even chopping wood helps; you’ve no idea, Brett, how much it helps. That’s why I like doing it.’
Photo James Walker.
To celebrate reaching 100, LeftLion are publishing a book of their front covers. I’ve been involved with a few of these, such as Scab City, the Sillitoe Issue, Nottingham: Then and Now, and a spoof version of William Booth’s In Darkest England. You can support their kickstarter campaign #LeftLionIs15 here:
Photo LeftLion.