Northenden.Net - bigger than Northenden?
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HISTORY OF NORTHENDEN.NET
1993 - Northenden residents unhappy with lack of community information
1995 - Big Ern starts a crappy photocopied newsletter 2000 - Newletter augmented by internet email list 2002 - Local announcements now appear on GeoCities web page "Northenden.Net" 2004 - Big Vinnie & team brought in to build and manage dedicated website 2006 - Site layout redesigned by international image consultancy |
It's eighteen months since Northenden.Net moved to our new dedicated server, and two years since we acquired our own domain name. During that time, we've watched the site grow month after month - we now have over 100 times more visits to the site per day than we had on GeoCities and that number is growing steadily.
We now have more writers, including regular contributors from our readership. We have gone from no pictures at all to a heavily image-based content. We have large numbers of readers as far afield as Canada, Australia and New Zealand. We update the site more frequently than ever before, which is keeping us at the top of the ranking of Mancunian web sites. Because of this, we have become an important part of community relations, generating significant interest in the village. One email recently suggested that we are now more famous worldwide than the village itself - that's flattering but let's remember that without the village itself, there would be no Northenden.Net! So for now, we're happy just to be Manchester's Number One Website.
Motorbikin' - It's History!
Nicked bikes
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Now. Some of you people will recently have recieved the much trumpeted Bi-annual publication Northenden Matters. It is available in seventy-one different languages, Braille and as an audio book so there's no excuse for any of you to have missed out. Yes, I'm talking to those people who need it in Braille, Audio, Icelandic and Urdu. Any takers...?
I am always particularly comforted by this publication which is sympathetic to causes with which I empathise. It has reassured me that Northenden Labour Club have saved the library. It has pledged to remove the scandalous libel sprayed about my granddaughter on the flyover wall. It promises me that the filth are working around the clock to crack down on gangs of kids riding scrambling bikes up and down my bleeding road while I'm trying to watch Footballer's Wives. And have they delivered on their promises? Wait... what's that? They have?
Now some of you people out there have been known to approach me in the street and call me a deaf old git. And yes, it's possible that I might have missed the odd two-wheeled thieving scrote up and down Kenworthy on a nicked moped during one of Zoe Lucker's more, er, vociferous moments. But I'm not completely blind yet and I'd like to point out to the local plod plus the editors of Northenden Matters that the former Wythenshawe Park Motorcross team now have a new pastime - nicking cars. Several a month in fact. The identities of some of the perpetrators are known to northenden.net and we look forward to being promised that this is all going to be sorted in the next issue of Northenden Matters! Nice one.
Do not point, that bloody sign... at me.
You're only supposed to wipe one bloody word off!
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Now. The Northenden.Net Diarists are keen to stay one step ahead of rival journalists and in keeping with this I've been looking through the local press recently to see what people are saying about the village. Most popular at the moment seems to be the state of the place. We are top of the list for litter, eyesores and there is even talk of putting cameras up in the village to stop yobbish behaviour. What this probably means is LESS plods the village, and MORE hooded chavs on the rampage. However, I digress.
One of the articles which recently caught my attention concerns the new road sign outside Curry's. Apparently the word WYTHENSHAWE initially appreared on the sign and it was removed - quicker than you could say "Digmanchester graffiti" - amidst a flurry of self congratulatory publicity by the Labour Club, claiming that local residents were unhappy, and Labour Club were only too happy to oblige. Now some of you people may wonder why we need another expensive sign saying welcome to northenden - be it in Wythenshawe or not - when there's been a perfectly good sign 100 yards up the road on the bridge for 60 years. I myself, wonder what the effect of the word "Wythenshawe" would have been on the price of a flat in the nice new block which has been given the go-ahead next to the new sign? Not a lot of people know that... but we think we can name someone who does...
No, this is not Beirut
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Garage on Barrowed Time
My spies on the committee tell me that there has been a right old stink over the state of the Barrow Motors building.
Apparently the nice eastern european people have complained to the council that their windows are broken and the eletricity and water have been cut off. The building obviously isn't fit for accomodation and so whilst the Nice Eastern European Asylum Seeker Luxury Rehousing Co-ordination Focus Group swings into action to find a local Hilton, talks have been taking place with the owning consortium regarding bringing the building back up to scratch. I understand that the committee asked for some action before the end of March. Obviously nothing's happened yet, and the committee is reportedly playing hardball by threatening to lobby Labour Club to demolish the building. To this end, Mr Prescott is understood to have pencilled in a date in late April to go and stand on the roof. I'm told that if this threat doesn't have the desired effect, the committee are prepared to up the ante - this may involve Labour Club giving plans to turn the site into a massive block of Luxury Flats the green light (and making sure there are no roadsigns containing the word "Wythenshawe" anywhere nearby). Lovely Jubbly!
A word about Big Vinnie Macleish
Now. Some of you people may have noticed that local crime has been on the increase due to reduced policing in the area. Please rest assured that Big Vinnie will be out soon for good behaviour and will not only resume control of the Northenden.Net server - he will also return to the helm of his security operation. So, if you're the low-life that keep nicking the vicar's bike - watch your back mate. We're onto you - and this isn't a threat. We mean it.