BARELY a month apart, two significant dates on Warrington’s social scene have registered on Podium’s radar, both sure to spark a wave of interest.

Just as the Guardian hits the streets on this last Thursday of the month, a small but select gathering, just family and friends, will be toasting the launch of Viola Beach’s self-titled album at their spiritual home.

And then just 24 hours later that same location, The Lounge, much-missed by many, will officially reopen on a permanent basis. Several investors, including original boss Adam Lawson, have clubbed together to give the new venture legs.

I’ll quite unashamedly wish The Lounge Mark II a happy and healthy start – those who supported it previously know what it’s about. And maybe a new generation can catch on too. No-one needs reminding that, to thrive and survive for all possible clientele, the town centre needs each of its different ‘nights out’ to chip in.

  • Another diary entry comes in the form of Rock for Corbyn, the fledgling public foray of Momentum Warrington, the ‘grass-roots’ organisation devoted to ensuring their dear leader remains at Labour’s helm. I’m sure my invitation for the August 21 gathering at The Brew House, in Buttermarket Street, is lost in the bin.

But thanks to the caring, sharing utilitarian world of social media, the aural assault of The Roughneck Riot, The Thought Police, Only Strangers, Arms & Hearts, Tim Loud and Jordyn Leyland could be mine.

August is such a busy month for us hacks, with everyone else departing on their hols and pages to fill, might pass.

Far be it from your correspondent to point out that Warrington’s ‘boom town’ reputation was built on a centre-left orthodoxy which clearly pre-dated Blairism. Or that Corbyn makes Michael Foot look like Bill Clinton.

Or the merits of championing an IRA sympathiser in Warrington.

(This reminds Podium of a recent Guardian tale whereby Warrington Trade Council urged Labour supporters to rally around the Islington North MP as the only figure capable of uniting the party. Maybe I’m missing the connection between a prep school-educated chap, whose CV details various political sinecures, before he joined Parliament in 1983, and the town’s horny-handed sons of the soil. Does the Trades Council know of a mysterious chapter of Marxist plumbers in Orford, or a secretive Trotskyite cell of welders, within our borders, aching for revolution?) Regardless of all this bluster, you can’t have enough venues for live music in Warrington, which the reopening of The Lounge, and the likes of The Brew House (or Porters, The Hop Pole, The King’s Head, wherever) will hopefully continue to service.

And typing as someone who has (if inadvertently) attended a Morning Star fundraiser before now, there should always be room for a legitimate benefit gig, whether you wholeheartedly agree with the cause or not.

Not a sentiment, judging by the bitter wranglings between the centre and hard left, which finds many fans nowadays.

  •  And if that doesn’t fill your calendars, there’s always Mr Cat’s Wrestling at Rylands Social Club on Friday, August 5.

Regular readers know by now that Podium is not adverse to some strategic plugging. You’ve got to have bought in to sell out, right?

But when you’re accosted by a six-foot four furry cat after having a few pints at The HJ following a narrow squeak against wooden spoon outfit Huddersfield, it’s an attention grabber.

Perhaps the exploits of Warrington’s own Sexy Kev, Tyson T-Bone and the aforementioned Mr Cat are a world away from last October’s trip to see the WWE at Madison Square Garden, but it’s still (sports) entertainment.