Blogging workshop at Castlefield Gallery 28 May

After teaching blogging workshops in London, Birmingham and Chester already this year I am finally running one in Manchester."Blog Better" is a two-hour session that will cover the basics of posting, using images, linking and developing your own writing style. We'll  talk about ways to approach your content editorially and avoid the 'I don't know what to write about' panic. And finally we'll discuss strategies for engaging your readers and building a wider audience via intelligent use of social media.

It's suitable for beginners with a reasonable understanding of how blogging works as well as more experienced bloggers who aren't feeling the love for their blog anymore and need inspiration (don't worry, we've all been there.) It's at Castlefield Gallery on 28 May at 6:30pm, tickets are £25, and at time of writing there are still some left. You can read more about the workshop and book tickets here.

Image by alexkerhead via Flickr

Stuff to do in May 2013: film, zines and art

Some interesting events for yer Manchester diaries, lovingly cut and pasted from press releases:

Anna Colin artist talk Wednesday 1st May (tomorrow) 6.30pm at Islington Mill. Free.

Post Tenebras Lux Manchester premiere at Moston's marvelous A Small Cinema. 2 May, 7:30pm. £3. This Mexican indie film has been making serious waves among some cinephiles of my acquaintance, who reckon director Carlos Reygadas is the best thing to come along in ages. Go decide for yourself.

Victoria Baths Zine Fair. May 5. £2.50 Who said print was dead? Zines galore, plus a musical tour of Victoria Baths by Manchester zinester David Carden, a film screening of Manchester DIY music film Helpyourself Manchester, talks by David Hartley and Karren Ablaze! and workshops.

Steven Severin and The Cabinet of Dr Caligari at International Anthony Burgess Foundation, May 10, 8pm. £10. Siouxie and the Banshees' Steven Severin in a rare performance of his electronic score for The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (above). Support is from the trio Ears In Excellent Condition, performing soundtracks for Cinderella (1922) and The Death-Feigning Chinaman (1928), two ten-minute silhouette animations by the German director Lotte Reiniger (1899-1981).

New Blogs: The post-blog blog edition

Are blogs dead? Perhaps political blogging isn't in the rudest of health, if this Eulogy for the Blog on The New Republic is to be believed. From my point of view, political blogging in Manchester was reasonably active back in, say, 2005, but has gone very quiet these days, apart from a few stalwarts like the excellent Norman Geras, on whose Normblog I actually read about this piece.  I think it's a reach to say that blogging in general is over because a few cash-strapped newspapers are consolidating their media portfolios. But there's no doubt that things are changing.

We are seeing less of the all-rounder personal blog than we once did. Nowadays most bloggers recognise that you have to focus strongly on a niche if you want to develop an audience. I think bloggers on the whole are becoming increasingly professional and serious, as blogging itself becomes commodified. And what we have, increasingly, is what Marc Tracy describes as the post-blog blog: a sophisticated group-written and edited website that publishes blog posts. A bit like our latest addition to Manchester Media and other stuff: Northern Soul. Former Times journalist Helen Nugent has marshalled a wide-ranging group of contributors including Ex-Guardian journalist Helen Carter, Manchester Salon organiser Simon Belt and theatre director Lucia Cox to cover Northern happenings, attractions and cultural events. It joins just-launched NW listings mag The Skinny; terrific to see our cultural press growing. And it's also good to see Nick Jaspan's NW media industry website Prolific North filling the gap left by the closure of How-Do.

Writing and Literature: Andrew Simpson is the author of a history of Chorlton, and maintains a blog packed with interesting history and photographs, mainly Manchester-related. There are also new blogs from Manchester-based writers Rosie Garland and Michelle Green.

Personal: A nice range of new ones this go-round:
Manchester Flick Chick
Bitten by the Dog
Geekmummy
Richard Frosty

Music: Silent Radio is a well-organised music blog with a monthly Manchester gig guide. And tenuto sempre is a pleasingly eclectic music and found-sound blog with plenty of interesting audio files to listen to.

Food and Drink: Enough with the food and drink blogs already, this is getting ridiculous. Honestly, they just keep coming. The latest batch, fresh from the oven:
Manchester Foodies
Where to Feed
FoodGeek
Bacon on the beech
Cookingopolis

Here's another thing: The Manchizzle's Manchester Blogroll isn't the Manchester Blogroll anymore. Well, it mostly still is, but in my latest update I've sneakily added in a smattering of great blogs from the wider Northwest, Liverpool and possibly even as far away as (gasp) Leeds. This is an indirect result of the Manchester Blog Awards' expansion into the Blog North Awards last year. In the course of running the competition I've made the acquaintance of some Northwest blogs so good I can't bear not actually linking to them myself. I've also weeded out links to blogs that were not being regularly updated, exquisite corpses though they may be. Happy reading.

Image courtesy of newly Turner-Prize nominated (and Macclesfield-born) artist David Shrigley. Yeah!

Blog North's Food Glorious Food in Leeds

You know, food and drink bloggers aren't just greedy people. A certain enjoyment of the scran is required, but they're performing a service. Most of them do what they do out of passion for good food, are self-taught, do it in their spare time and don't expect any compensation. There are more of them every minute. Consider the stuffed-to-bursting food and drink section of that Manchester blogroll to your right: it's easily the fastest growing section of the Mancunian blogosphere. And what food bloggers say and think and eat and drink has never been more important.

Consider the lot of the restaurant owner/chef/producer/PR bod, working hard to get their restaurant or product some coverage. With the "national" food press fixated on London, and the regional food press shrinking, food bloggers and tweeters are becoming increasingly important. So what we have now is a culture of blogger tasting evenings and invited review meals where bloggers can meet chefs. Meanwhile, samples of artisan pies and bottles of beer and jars of jam are winging their way to bloggers around the country. And home cooks are letting dust gather on their cookbooks as they source interesting recipes from a blogs, often via Pinterest or Twitter.

The current culture of DIY food writing has sprouted practically overnight. And while professional restaurant critics or food writers may have their own codes of conduct, food bloggers don't (though this may not be a bad thing; asking bloggers to sign up to a code of anything is like herding cats, as this old Word of Mouth post and its comments ably demonstrate). So we all have to learn as we go: How do you build credibility with restaurants and readers? Is it okay to accept a sample of food and then not write about the product? How do you deal with producers/brands/restaurants who are unhappy with what you've written? Is it important that readers know you ate for free and the restaurant knew you were coming? If you're chummy with the chef and know she follows you on Twitter, are you really going to be comfortable writing an honest review of you less-than-awesome meal at her place? If you're posting your own recipes on your blog, how can you make sure no-one steals them? If a national newspaper asks to feature your recipe or writing, should you insist on a fee?

Fortunately Blog North Network's upcoming event, Food Glorious Food, will provide the time and space to get to grips with these issues. April 13 in Leeds is a full day of workshops, talks and schmoozing just for us. It's a chance to brush up on your food writing and photography with talented professionals, refresh your social media and marketing skills and hear inspiring stories of homegrown and independent foodie success. You'll meet lots of other people as greedy as you are food bloggers to swap stories, recipes and tips with. And there will be food and drink on offer. Of course there will be food and drink on offer. Booking and all the details are here. I'll see you there (I'm one of the organisers.) And if you see a surprisingly-shaped jelly, don't eat it. It might be art.

Image courtesy of the lovely Clandestine Cake Club, who will be taking part in the event.

The Market Mystery: New shit has come to light

When I started working in the Northern Quarter a decade ago, The Market stood out. It had a personality of its own in a city where few restaurants did. There was never anything fashionable about the green and white place on the corner of Edge and High Streets, its name a tribute to the long-gone Smithfield produce market. It was just the quaint side of twee, the opposite of Modern British: Old Fashioned British, and vaguely continental in its drift. The menu was small, the service friendly, the food delicious. It was the site of my first happy encounters with an Omelette Arnold Bennett and a Kir Royal. I ate there maybe ten times over the years, never had a bad meal and recommended it to people all the time. Maybe half the time I'd hear back that they'd had a less than amazing meal or actually thought I was nuts for sending them there. But I also knew people who felt the way I did about it. The place seemed to inspire this sort of crazy devotion. The people who liked it really liked it.

I heard it had been sold a few years back to someone who liked it the way it was and visited for the last time not long after the handover and ate well. I heard mixed reviews about the place after that, so it wasn't an enormous surprise when I walked by last week and saw that it had been shuttered and painted tomato red. Some snooping around the neighbourhood revealed only that the new tenant had something to do with Kahlua and pigeons. Confusing. Then I read yesterday that its going to be the site of a pop-up Mexican Coffee House sponsored by Kahlua, involving the creative minds from Teacup and Cakes and The Liquorists. I'm still not sure how the pigeons got in there, but all will surely be revealed. It's also unclear whether The Market will be back afterwards, though the restaurant's twitter feed seems to indicate that it will.

Granted, I'm pretty much the walking target demographic of a place that serves Mexican food, screens The Big Lebowski and Duck Soup and slings drinks made with Kahlua, a heavenly liquor I have been eagerly consuming since the age of 16 when I used to haul a bottle and a gallon of milk to keg parties. But I'd be sad if the Market didn't return. There's a lot more choice and variety in the city's restaurant scene today than there was even ten years ago, and it's easy to see how the place fell out of step with its upwardly-trendy neighbourhood (the arrival of the sleek Northern Quarter Restaurant right across the street was probably the beginning of the end for the restaurant in its old incarnation.) Still, I can't help but feel that a Northern Quarter that doesn't have room for The Market is a smaller, less interesting place. After the four-week pop-up pops off, let's hope it comes back in top form.

Urban Sketching, Lovecraft flicks, photocopied art

I encountered this lovely drawing of New Islington (AKA Ancoats) by Simone Ridyard somewhere on the internets recently, and then somewhat serendipitously I got an invitation to this interesting KURIO event Manchester designers NoChintz are hosting next Thursday at the Bench store: a masterclass in urban sketching with Simone. It also turns out that Simone organises an urban sketching group in the city that gets together twice a month: you can see some of their work here  and if you're interested in getting involved, there's more info about them at their Facebook page. But even if you're not a sketcher yourself you might enjoy a trip to the Urban Sketchers website, a fascinating place to poke about for people who like cities. Which is basically all of us, right?

Also next week, those busy Grimm Up North folks are showing a double bill of two HP Lovecraft adaptations, The Whisper in Darkness and From Beyond, in the spectacularly retro surroundings of the Stockport Plaza, a gem of a movie theatre. Unlike From Beyond, The Whisper in Darkness is a new film shot to look like an RKO-era classic. "A series of floods in rural Vermont uncovers the bodies of grotesque creatures that seem to match descriptions given in certain local myths and legends." That's the second time recently I've encountered my home state used as the setting for a horror story. Maybe there is something inherently wild and spooky about the place. I guess that's part of the reason why we love it so.

Finally, next week marks the opening of Paper Gallery's new exhibition Copy, featuring works from 15 artists that explore the use of the humble photocopier in creating new artworks. Bring your own toner! (kidding, art people.) The private view is from 6-8 on 14 March at the space adjoining studios on Mirabel Street and shares the evening with a new show from neighbouring exhibition space PS Mirabel, MIX, which in turn focuses on the artistic uses of concrete.

Image copyright Simone Ridyard

Manchester International Festival 2013 launches

You can't beat the Manchester International Festival launch for pure spectacle. Every two years it's like Christmas morning for Mancunian culturehounds as we all eagerly pull open the ribbons to see what's inside. The full  programme revealed today for this summer's festival is a more serious and arguably more highbrow affair than what we saw during its previous three incarnations (Shostakovich and  Stravinsky? Whoa nelly.) But there's plenty of fun and games to balance out the heavyweight stuff, and on the whole, I think it's pretty darn exciting. A few themes emerged:

Art in a dark time: The ever-awesome Maxine Peake explores protest and Manchester's radical history with a performance of Shelley's poem, The Masque of Anarchy, about the Peterloo Massacre, which was banned for 30 years after publication. Massive Attack collaborate with filmmaker Adam Curtis (of MIF 2009's It Felt Like a Kiss) to create a musical experience that explores "the power of the illusion and the illusion of power". Evan Davis hosts a debate about whether we're too apathetic or complicit to make protest meaningful today. Several references throughout the presentation to the difficult times we're living through, and moving closing remarks from director Alex Poots thanking Manchester City Council for standing up for (and footing the bill for) the arts. This will be the festival in which the art world formally responds to the financial crisis/austerity regime/corporate takeover of society/erosion of civil liberties... and about bloody time, too.

'Found' spaces: The jaded Mancunian culturegoing public love nothing better than to feel like they're getting let in on a secret these days. Hidden, unusual or unexpected spaces are all the rage, and MIF have cleverly managed to find some pretty special city centre venues hidden in plain sight. This year's performances will be staged in Mayfield Depot, the Albert Hall, an as yet unnamed deconsecrated church in the city centre for Kenneth Branagh's take on The Scottish Play and a 60-capacity venue they're keeping schtum about for the xx (can there be any underground tunnels, shelters or bunkers we haven't yet raved in?) Google Maps will be getting a workout.

User-generated/participatory art: In several parts of the programme the line between artist and audience blurs in a way that feels just right for 2013. There's the opportunity for local cutting-edge comedians and musicians to get exposure via Jamal Edwards' YouTube sensation SB.TV live. And MAG's rework of seminal art instruction manual do it  at MAG promises to make going to an exhibition a participatory experience to remember.

Street food: Yes, MIF are once again perfectly on-trend with the choice of street food carts to provide food for the launch, a taster of what will be on offer at the festival pavillion (and we can report that the hot dogs will be pretty damn good.) With Grillstock coming in June this is shaping up to be a very tasty summer in Albert Square. Let's hope they get those Guerrilla Eats collective folks involved for some properly homegrown street food. And speaking of homegrown, MIF is now probably the first art festival in the world to be growing vegetables courtesy of the fantastic Biospheric project. Tasty.

Tickets on sale from 10am tomorrow, kids. Keyboards at the ready? (*flexes fingers*) See you there.