I was sure I'd written about this somewhere before, and was about to point out my 'scoop', but alas I can't find what I thought I'd written anywhere. Perhaps I wrote it for The Floating Dog - if you don't know what that was, don't ask.

Anyway, Manchester City FC have put plans in motion to switch the City of Manchester Stadium to wind turbine power. Not, you understand, merely by switching supplier, but by actually building a wind turbine next to the ground. Ecotricity, the firm supplying the turbine, has produced the following slightly crude depiction of the end result:

The turbine will be designed by no less than Sir Norman Foster, and will apparently fold into one single point when it isn't particularly windy, expanding into normal three-pronged turbine when the wind picks up (i.e. 99 per cent of the time, in Manchester...).

Planning permission hasn't been received yet, although the turbine will also power two thousand homes in the area, which might offset complaints from local residents. The stadium already has the UK's tallest sculpture, the 'B of the Bang', at one end of the ground.

And despite having no evidence to back this up, I'm still sure I broke this story earlier this year. Dammit. The title of this post, by the way, is the opening gambit you can expect from Stuart Hall, the moment he files a radio report from the stadium once the turbine is in place. He previously referred to City's old stadium, Maine Road, as the 'theatre of base comedy', mimicking Manchester United's claim that Old Trafford was the 'theatre of dreams'.

Update: I told you so. (This link may stop working eventually, The Floating Dog won't get renewed when the hosting expires.)