What we talk about when we talk about doughnuts: Breakfast at Common

Common is dead, long live Common. The old Common is no more. Yeah, it was a little beat up around the edges, but what gives? I liked the fact that the walls looked like a bizarro comic book. I liked the booths. I liked the day-to-night menu of casual eats and, sometimes, root beer. The whole thing was as comfortable as an old pair of jeans, dammit.

But earlier this year Common decided it wanted more out of life. Common looked around and realised it was time to grow up. Why? I have my theories. There's money to be made on Edge Street now. Whatever's at street level and isn't being turned into a speciality tequila bar or a cafe hawking £5 goji-guava detox shots is (or will soon be) a restaurant, because this is where people want to part with their leisure money. Say you found yourself in possession of a bar and restaurant unit smack bang in the middle of this. Wouldn't you raise your game and go for the kind of customers who aren't going to spend 3 hours hogging a table with their laptop and a couple of Americanos? I would.

Anyhoo, when the newspapers came off the windows there was a more foodily ambitious menu. There was table service, FFS. And decorating. Out with the loungetastic booths, in with wooden stools. Common now has the intentional blankness of interiors in a Saturday magazine supplement (architect duo Isaac and Caroline converted the former Balham Brush Works on a shoestring at just £2.3m) The crockery is covetable, the light fittings unique. It looks great. If it was a new restaurant, I'd probably eat there and like it. It's just, well... why'd they have to do it in Common?

Yet look under the surface and there's still some rough in this diamond. The astonishingly strong craft beer roster is still there. The trusty burgers are still there, and it's still a good place to hang out once you get used to it, though the clientele has definitely changed. And, with vastly expanded sub-noon offerings, it's now a solid choice for breakfast and brunch, my favourite two meals of the day.

Where to eat is a crucial decision if you're feeling way delicate following a long night; the wrong choice here could bruise your soul. You need somewhere comfortable where they are going to smile and play okay music and feed you nice things and you can pretend you're not in public while reanimating yourself with gallons of coffee beverage. If this is how it is with you, I prescribe Common's cured salmon, asparagus and poached egg bathed in hollandaise on a slice of Trove sourdough; like a cooler Eggs Benedict. One particularly fragile Saturday it sorted me right out. My brunch buddy went for small plates from the lunch/dinner menu which I guess is something people do, but he spent the meal looking longingly at my eggs.

Another weekend, in slightly sounder fettle, I tried the shak shuka, a skillet of eggs baked in a sweetly piquant mixture of spiced tomatoes and peppers, accompanied by more of that heroic sourdough, and was glad I did. My companion's Full English received cautious approval. Yes, the portions weren't as big as you get elsewhere, and no black pudding, but the impeccable quality of each individual component got it a thumbs up. We ate in the front bit not the dining room and we both appreciated eating in a space light and airy enough to nudge us into the idea of daytime. They had the papers in, too.

Oh. Wait. We need to talk about doughnuts. Common has unexpectedly started cranking out the most incredible doughnuts right there in their basement kitchens. They fill them with all sorts of stuff like banana custard or vanilla and plum jam or (gasp) ice cream down there. Those who want to try them should get there early as they regularly sell out. If you're the kind of person who likes that sort of thing, you may flip out and want to bulk buy them and you can do this easily because they sell them by the dozen and half dozen, pre-order only. They are really freaking fantastic doughnuts and you will pay £18 for a dozen. Yes, £18. That's only £1.50 a doughnut, which, well... I dunno, I suppose it's all about your priorities. Some people in those Saturday magazines pay £60 for a single lipstick (!!!!) Is it wrong? Is it right? I donut know.

Common, 39-41 Edge St. Northern 1/4, Manchester M4 1HW. Breakfast menu served 10am-2pm daily. Full disclosure: Common asked me to come in and have a meal on them and write a review. For this post I went once on their dime and once on my own. And they're not giving me free doughnuts. Though, you know, I wouldn't say no to one.

Two new independent bookshops in Manchester

Good news for the city's readers: if all goes according to plan, we'll get two independent bookstores in Manchester this spring. Weird, huh? We haven't had one since forever, and now, suddenly, we're getting two. It's kind of like those two new cereal cafes we're getting, but without the business concept that makes you want to stab yourself in the eye repeatedly with a spoon.


Chapter One Books

The first of the two is already being installed in the Northern Quarter. Sister-owners Christine Cafun (above) and Lyndsy Kirkman come to the book trade from the beauty industry and the NHS respectively. They've taken that long-vacant storefront on the corner of Dale and Lever Street, fronted by a pocket park with a few benches, and are completely overhauling the place. Cafun says they're lobbying the city to let them keep the large trees currently throwing shade there, which are due to be chopped down (guess they decided the Northern Quarter was leafy enough with all those mature trees around. Mmmhmm.)

Inside, there'll be nearly 5,000 feet of bookstore for people of all ages, including a cafe and a 50-capacity event space that the owners hope will be used for book launches and readings as well as more offbeat live lit shenangigans. Also, maybe some typewriters. I'm kinda excited about the typewriters. They're aiming to be open around April 1. You can follow them on Twitter @chapter1, and if you have a good idea for the shop or several boxes of unused typewriter ribbon to donate to the cause email them on somethingnew @ chapteronebooks.co.uk.


Aspidistra Books

Aspiwhatnow? As-pi-di-stra. It's a plant. The name comes from the Orwell novel Keep the Aspidistra Flying, which was partly inspired by working in a bookshop. It's also a book about throwing off the shackles of the nine-to-five, which is exactly what proprietor Joseph Parkinson is doing: after years in the charity sector, he's following his bookstore-owning dream.

As the Orwell connection suggests this will be a shop with a political and literary bent, and according to Parkinson, a strong interest in LGBT literature. Parkinson also likes the idea of hosting readings alongside casual literary-themed events like 'speed dating with Hemingway' {insert joke about Hemingway's love life here.} He's currently looking for a premises, probably in the Northern Quarter or the Village, and hopes to be open by May. Parkinson wants us to tell him what we want in a bookshop. Get in touch via Facebook or Twitter (@AspidstraBooks), or help by filling in this survey.


Independent bookstores are great, aren't they? We definitely want some around. You know how we get to keep these, and maybe get some more? By actually buying books from them. That's how.

Manchester restaurants: Solita review

I’ve been sceptical about Solita, the restaurant in the Northern Quarter. First they were an upscale seafood restaurant, Sole, then re-branded last year as Solita with an Americanised casual menu big on the ribs and dirty burgers etc. that UK foodies were going apeshit for around that time, which could be interpreted as a cynical move. Also, I get suspicious if restaurants are too good at social media, because in my experience social media prowess and quality of food are inversely proportional. Solita is very good at social media. They seem to emit a constant stream of blogger tasting sessions, pictures of burgers in progress and lots of tweeting with the Manc fooderati. They're unusually hip to cultural trends. James Gandolfini's passing was honoured with a special Tony Soprano burger; a recent Breaking Bad-themed dinner sold out in record time. They get buzz. I just wasn’t sure how much of it was justified.

Also, it’s a little expensive. I’ve done a couple of drive-bys but the fact that most starters weigh in at £6 and it’s hard to find a main for under a tenner put me off, especially when they’re serving up this kind of food. I don’t care how good it is, I’d feel like an asshole paying £10.90 for a hot dog. So when they contacted me to see if I wanted to come down to sample their summer menu (at their expense, you dig) I wasn't sure. It was possible I’d been avoiding a real gem for silly reasons. I mean, everybody in Manchester seems to love the place so much, and you know all those food bloggers weren’t just high on all the food, drink and cameraderie, right?

So anyway, I went. 

The evening’s drink special, an herby and cool sloe gin fizz, was a very auspicious beginning to our dinner. My friend and I were sat upstairs in the fairly spartan dining room where we admired the gigantic red neon sign that says SOUL, the Modesty Blaise frames decorating the wall, the classic R&B soundtrack and the unusually friendly and self-assured service. Downstairs lurks a darker, cosier dining space.

A starter of beer boiled shrimp tasted good – the Old Bay butter brought back happy memories of Maryland crab feasts – but they were small, and when you have to shuck ‘em yourself you want more reward for the labour. The "Lucky 7"; a Tex-Mex seven-layer dip, was a surprise. It’s the kind of thing you find at PTA dinners and barbeques across the states; my mom made it all the time. Seeing it on a menu in Manchester is slightly surreal. Solita's version is standard, with beans, salsa, sour cream, guac and cheese etc. served with the tasty blue corn chips that are tough to find over here. In a similarly nostalgic vein, they're currently serving up a blooming onion, a deep-fried artery-blocking staple of county fairs. Fried dough (doused with butter, powdered sugar and cinnamon) can surely not be far behind. God help us all.

Tuna tartare was fresh raw tuna chunked in a bowl, served with tiny bowls of toppings (minced avocado, tomato and radish; sesame seeds) and toasted bread slices. The overall effect was a little bland, with the ingredients failing to get a very interesting conversation going; I would have liked a stronger wasabi flavour from the oil, which fell through the toast holes and made an almighty mess.  After this, the prawns and the fondue, our table looked like the aftermath of a fantastic food fight.

They decided what to send us, which was how we ended up eating burger fondue, a gimmicky thing I’d be unlikely to order anytime but definitely not during a heatwave. The cheese fondue was good. The burger was small, probably for dipping purposes, served in a soft sesame-topped bun avec mustard et ketchup a la Mickey D’s. The meat was dark reddish pink inside, which was fine by me, but the texture was oddly smooth, and there was practically no char on the outside. It was all right in the context of fondue but if that’s the kind of burger they do generally I’d have problems with it. The pudding was a sticky toffee apple pie with fantastic Cabrelli's vanilla ice cream. I loved everything about the pie – flaky crust and the right ratio of apple to caramel topping. I would come back for this alone.

Overall, we ate well. You get the impression that Solita is trying hard to do something different, and I like the sense of fun about the place. So, for that I’ll forgive them for being too good at social media and for naming themselves after a trendy Manhattan neighbourhood. Heck, I'll even consider forgiving them for serving a £10.90 hot dog. I probably won’t eat there all the time, but I'd go back for a special occasion dinner. And I plan to investigate their lunch menu, which is a lot more wallet-friendly (mains at £5.95.) and includes good sounding-stuff like a pulled pork cheese toastie, a meatball sub and a grilled chicken caesar salad.

Review: Manchester Sound: The Massacre

Site specific, immersive new theatre by the usually excellent Library Theatre Company. Happening at a secret location in the Northern Quarter.  Unifying two diverse but interesting moments in Manchester’s history: The Peterloo Massacre and the heyday of Acid House. Manchester Sound: The Massacre was intriguing on many levels, and I sincerely wanted to love it. I trooped off to said secret location full of hope and goodwill. But the play just didn’t work for me.  

First, the good stuff. The staging was bold and effective, with the audience becoming active participants in the gathering, whether it was a rave or a public demonstration. It was alarming the way actors charged around the space, sometimes barrelling right through us, which lent proceedings the right kind of unsettled nervous energy. And the space itself is a real find. It’s full of atmosphere, and it has been used resourcefully. 

But these positives, along with a game cast who gave it their all, weren’t enough to salvage a play with a flawed central analogy. Comparing citizens massacred while peacefully protesting for the right to fully participate in society with raver kids half-assedly agitating for “the right to party” won’t wash, and it just can’t be cemented together with broad platitudes about standing up for what you believe in. It reminds me of the time they closed the smoking lounge at my high school and some kids took to wearing Stars of David cut from packs of Camels. The best thing you can call it is naïve. But you can’t build a strong production on such a shaky foundation.

I say this with affection, but for those of us out in the rest of the world (and even lots of us who were right here in 1989) the Hacienda just wasn’t that big of a deal. Yes, the music and the clothes were new, but anyone who believed Madchester was going to usher in a new era of peace, love and brotherhood was either too young to know better or pilled to the gills. The trouble is, most of 2013’s cultural gatekeepers came of age then, and their nostalgia for the time seems limitless. It’s like they’re all personally invested in the delusion that their cultural 15 minutes "changed the world forever" and seem determined to foist it on the rest of us.

Compounding the trouble was a confused script, full of flat dialogue and predictable laughs. (“Women can be politicians now?” “The Prime Minister’s a woman. She’s a bitch.”) The action happens in parallel to start, switching between 1989 and 1819, which worked fine. But the moment three Peterloo women inexplicably turned up in the loos at the rave and started exclaiming over the condom machine, I lost the narrative thread. It transpired that they were dead and had come back to haunt the apathetic ravers into giving a toss about current events. By the end of the play, I think I worked out that if they failed, the ghosts were doomed to repeat the events of Peterloo for eternity, but this is mostly speculation on my part. And to be honest, I had disengaged from the play by then.

During its theatre-less few years, The Library Theatre has gotten really good at putting on site specific theatre. But in Manchester Sound, a provocative analogy didn’t develop into anything truly meaningful. Kind of like those totally amazing conversations you have in a warehouse at 5am. Yes, I  know, it all seemed very deep at the time.

Image: Stephen Fewell (DJ Liberty) in Manchester Sound: The Massacre by Polly Wiseman, directed by Paul Jepson, presented by the Library Theatre Company (Saturday 8 June - Saturday 6 July 2013). Photo by Kevin Cummins.

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.

Claire Massey, Prestwich Book Fest and Drinking in the Northern Quarter

Claire Massey is one of my favourite Manchester-area writers. Her stories are smooth and lean and pleasantly uncomfortable, modern fairy tales that make you feel a bit strange. So I was very happy to hear that Manchester's own Nightjar Press was publishing two of her stories as single story chapbooks. I love the idea of single story books, and Nightjar's are always carefully chosen and beautifully designed... just the thing for a commute or an after-dinner read. Massey's Into the Penny Arcade is a creepy tale of a girl who happens into a strange place on her way home from school, with a nicely ambiguous ending. There's nothing ambigious about the way Marionettes ends, but this story about a couple holidaying in Prague does that difficult thing of making magic seem inevitable and unquestionably real. I should also mention that the two predecessors in the Nightjar chapbook series are winners too; Christopher Kenworthy's Sullom Hill explores good and evil among children in Garstang, and anyone who's read Ga Pickin's beautifully written Remains won't be venturing out on the moors after dark anytime soon. Collect them all!

Claire Massey will be reading at the first-ever Prestwich Book Festival, along with a host of other folk like Ben Judge, Aaron Gow, Sarah-Clare Conlon at the emerging writers night this Thursday the 17th May. And also, me! I'll be going all meta and reading an essay I wrote about a bar, in a bar (well, okay, a pub. The Church Inn, which I've never been to but have heard very encouraging things about.) The writerly action all kicks off at 8pm. And there's plenty else on; lots of good events helpfully spread out over several weeks rather than crammed into a few days. I'd especially like to get to Tony Walsh's Vocabaret on 14 June.

 And speaking of writing in bars: The Complete History of Drinking in the Northern Quarter is a fascinating transmedia arts project that uses collective storytelling and social history to get at what makes this place special to so many people. It's an endeavour that is pretty close to my heart. I still remember the first time I turned onto Tib Street in 2004 following promising reports on t'internet to the likes of Cord, Afflecks and the late, great Love Saves the Day and breathed a sigh of relief that there was a place with some art and soul in this strange city. The Northern Quarter quickly became my workplace and hanging out place and if anywhere feels like home to me in Manchester, this small network of streets and alleys is it. If you also have a history with this neighboorhood and its many fine drinking establishments, there are lots of different ways to get involved: you can record/submit a story with Audioboo (or the Complete History gang will come record you); you can share a written story, a video, photographs or memorabilia. They've got some very interesting things planned for the coming months, so keep up with them on Facebook and Twitter to stay in the loop.

Claire Massey photo Jonathan Bean.

Mad Lab, Good Grief! and the SF Panorama

I was in the Manchester Digital Laboratory, better known as Mad Lab, for the first time the other day and I urge alert readers to add it to your map of good places in Manchester. It's on Edge Street across from Common. What is it? Well...

It’s a space you can get together with like-minded individuals and work on your urban gardening, crochet, hacking, programming, media arts, filmmaking, animating project without worrying that you’re in a library, coffee shop, pub or other unsuitable venue. We know hackers and craftspeople need work space and may need to get down and dirty – we also know sometimes you need a quiet area to present and show works to your peers. We support both activities. And we hope there will be a rich mix of individuals who’ll get out of the usual zones, the knitter talking to the software architect, the cupcake maker scheming with the laser etching builder. We know some good will come of this.

I think some good things are definitely going to come out of the Mad Lab. Also, a lot of robots. It's available for meetings, meet-ups, and dastardly plotting of all kinds, so keep it in mind.

I was in the Mad Lab to talk about the Manchester aggregator project I posted about recently. Many folks let me know they were interested in hearing more, contributing or being involved. This is an open, blogger-led project that is still evolving and if you want to see what we're talking about, join the conversation or just lurk in a shadowy manner visit the Manchester Aggregator group on the Social Media Manchester Ning page. You can also look out for twitter posts tagged #managg


In other unconventional newspaper news, McSweeney's only went and published their latest edition of the literary mag as a broadsheet, The San Francisco Panorama, that people could buy from Bay Area newstands (which sold out in about ten minutes flat. You can order it from McSweeney's in the states, but I can't seem to find anywhere selling McSweeney's no. 33 in the UK. You listening, Santa?) In addition to championing a beleagured format the paper features 16 colour pages of comics from the likes of Chris Ware, Dan Clowes and Art Spiegelman. If we could get the broadsheets in this country to publish 16 colour pages of comics regularly the UK would be a better place. Or even four pages. But a few months back The Guardian axed the wonderful comic they were publishing on Saturdays. Boo.

To read more about the Panorama head over to Flavorpill's Flavorwire where there's an interview with Oscar Villalon, McSweeney’s publisher, originally sent out in their excellent weekly book email, Boldtype. Pictures via Tonx, who has a good post about it too.

I might head over here and see if they have it:

Yes, new shop Good Grief! brings a bulging sack full of art book, zine and comic goodness to a hut on the third floor of Affleck's Palace. Also music, and posters, and music posters. I am very excited about this. We could really use more places in town to buy this kind of stuff. At the moment there seems to be an amazing bounty of illustrators and comics in Manchester doing weird and wonderful work that it can be absurdly tricky to get ahold of. Keep up with the Good Grief! gang on their amusing blog here. Thanks for the tip Kate Taylor.

A tale of two trees

Happy tree:



Tib Street at its most charming. Not the same without the old LSTD's outdoor tables, but still one of the loveliest spots in town.


Sad tree:



This tree died of embarassment after being forced to participate in the Triangle's horrifying mall sculpture atrocity. For shame.

Love Saves The Day becomes An Outlet

The bad news about Love Saves The Day going bust (yes, for real this time) has a silver lining: an excellent new cafe has moved into its old digs in the Carver's Warehouse, the strange, ubermodern cube on Dale Street by Piccadilly basin.

An Outlet has left some things the same (shelves lined with posh groceries, a globetrotting soup and sarnie menu) and changed many others. The interior has been given a coat of black chalkboard paint and there was a short story about someone eating clams taking up most of one wall the day I went. There are also international newspapers, interesting books to peruse, and storyboard pads and pens should genius strike mid-pain au raisin.

It has a friendly buzz like the canteen of a busy creative firm, which is probably because it is effectively the canteen of creative firm Four23, which had just relocated upstairs when LSTD crashed and clubbed together with another tenant, engineering firm Martin Stockley Associates, to prevent the site from falling into the hands of StarbucksCaffeNeroCosta. Hard to imagine that lot being interested, though. The site is far too quiet, off in the cinematic no-man's-land between the Northern Quarter, Ancoats and Piccadilly. And thanks to their free wifi, it's my new favorite place to blog on the hoof.

Northern Quarter coffee wars

What's with all the coffee? There's a new caffenero/starbucks/costa on practically every street, and we're even finally getting some more good independents. Two opened recently in the Northern Quarter, and I went and checked them out:

CUP is very nice indeed... a big, light and airy storefront cafe on Thomas Street with previous occupants Vox Pop records crammed into the back. The place reminded me a bit of the much-missed Suburb, but quirkier. Cup's menu had a small but fairly nice selection of soups and sarnies - I had scrambled eggs and fake bacon on a bagel, which hit the spot. And they sell Tunnock's teacakes there, so I was happy. Forgot to ask if they have wireless though.

This place is going to be deservedly popular, so I'd suggest swapping a few tables of merchandise for eating tables; the five they had in there the day I visited with Mancubist didn't cut it. And as much as I love designy china sets, I love smoothies named after Iggy Pop more. (photo courtesy Flickr user Marky1969.)

Interestingly, right next door is the newest incarnation of Love Saves the Day, competing for your Latte alliegance. You'll remember the original one in Tib Street became the massive one on Oldham Street which then closed. And what makes it interesting is that, for a while, LSTD was running a cafe concession in Vox Pop, which is now CUP.

Whatever. It's the same lovely people serving the same lovely drinks and snacks in a joint that's considerably more stripped-down and cosy than their last digs on Oldham Street. And unlike the one on Deansgate, you can actually sit down in there without worrying about barking your shins on a rip-roaringly expensive vat of single estate olive oil. And along with Odd and Trof there are now four or five places to caff up on Thomas Street that weren't there a year or two ago. Good stuff.

Burnt to the Ground report

Burnt to the Ground was a lovely afternoon out, very chilled and pleasant. I heard a few people saying how much it was like D.Percussion used to be, before it was overrun with menacing scallies and scarily wasted people. Plus when you paid your donation you got a nifty orange sticker that said "Are you the God of Hell Fire?", which I loved.

The few bands I saw were good, though the DJ area (with one bloke doggedly dancing solo) was too close to the main stage, Stevie Square not being all that big really, and if you hung out in the middle your ears were hurt by clashing-music-din. And watching the skateboarders take turns on the ramp trucked in by SkateMCR was strangely mesmerising.

There were older people, younger people, and even plenty of kids there. Loads of kids, in fact. In the middle of Broke n'£nglish's set of full-on Manc rap there was a tiny little boy sitting on the ground in the middle of the bouncing crowd filling a notebook with painstaking drawings of superheroes and video game characters. It was the kind of place where that could happen, and it would be okay. Though after talking to my friend Hazel, I'm half-convinced that the only reason some people bring their kids to these things is so they can smuggle in contraband beer in the stroller (apparently they never check 'em.)

Sadly, I missed out on Arthur Brown's performance, because I was eating what I now firmly believe to be the best dim sum in Manchester over at Pacific. But yes, he did bring his awesome flaming helmet. Wish I'd seen it! The above picture comes from laptoppingpong. Spinneyhead has loads up too.

I am the god of hellfire!

Remember that fire on Lever Street a few weeks back? Some of the folks who work in the damaged buildings haven't gotten back into their offices. Others are facing some heinous financial consequences due to water, smoke, burning or firefighting damage.

Fortunately, the promised benefit concert is going on this Sunday, June 3, from 4-11pm in Stevenson Square in the Northern Quarter. It's being organised by D.Percussion folks Ear to the Ground, who, in cooperation with CIDS, will distribute all proceeds to affected businesses and the city fire department. And yes... they've embraced the camp, funny side of having the building that houses your offices almost burn down, have called the gig Burnt to the Ground, and promise a flame-themed stage and fire trucks. The best part is that the Arthur Brown, he of The Crazy World of Arthur Brown, will be performing his scary 1968 song "Fire." That's a picture of him above. Let's all pray that he brings his awesome flaming fire helmet.


Also performing will be a whole slew of musical acts including... Mr Scruff, The Unabombers (who've graciously put up with their 24 Lever St. offices being the alternate entrance for the entire building for weeks), Polytechnic, Broke n' English, Marc Riley, Rita & Sue, Magic Arm, Peter & the Wolf, The Mekkits and the deejay stylings of clans Fat City, Tramp, El Diablo, Rockers, Jayne Compton, Solja and Flotsam & Jetsam. Loads of these people work in or around the buildings, or are otherwise connected with them.

It'll also be worth going to see if they can actually fit 5,000 people in Stevie Square. £2 suggested donation.

Ashes to ashes UPDATED

The Northern Quarter was in chaos yesterday, after a building on the corner of Dale Street and Lever Street caught fire in the wee small hours of the morning, when nobody was paying attention. By dawn, it was a towering inferno. The absolute worst thing is that there were some folks who may have been sleeping rough in the building, people whose whereabouts are presently unknown.

The fire spread to two nearby buildings which between them house many of the small creative industries in Manchester, 20 Dale Street and 24 Lever Street. I've been working in 24 Lever for years, and if there's any Manchester building I feel a sense of ownership about, this one - with its knackered elevator, East German loos, odd smells and odder people hanging about - is it.

Yeah, it's scruffy, but this building's ridiculously low rents and location smack bang in the middle of the Northern Quarter have made it a petrie dish for creativity in Manchester, an unofficial incubator space for small artsy businesses and organisations with no money - many of them the very folks who do so much to make Manc such a great city to live in. It's unclear at this point how much damage the offices have sustained, but, at the very least, water damage from the sprinklers seems a foregone conclusion. Computer equipment will certainly have been lost. And the thing about these small creative industries is that they almost never have insurance.

I'm thankful everyone made it out of the building alive, especially my dear friend who was pulling an all-nighter on the third floor working on a grant application, and realised something was up when she heard the flames crackling! But I am very worried about how these small organisations are going to cope if they have to replace all of their equipment - people like Comma Press, The Manchester Literature Festival, The Phone-Book, Manchester Music, Ultraviolet, Futuresonic, The Noise Festival, The Manchester Food and Drink Festival, Astill and Associates, Redeye, The Northern Film Network, Electriks, Literature Northwest, the list goes on.

(Image courtesy of the BBC.)

UPDATE: This had benefit concert written all over it, I thought, and I just read on Mancubist that Ear to The Ground have risen to the occasion, organising a benefit gig for affected traders May 28 in Stevenson Square. CIDS are apparently offering office/computer space for officeless workers, too. Anyone who needs workspace, or has workspace in their HQ to offer the displaced should email info at cids.co.uk. Awww.

Manchester Spring Blog Meet April 7

I know, I know, it's been way too long since we've all met up. But I'm still over here in the states, and still don't know when I'll be coming back to the UK. Fortunately, James Yer Mam! has kindly volunteered to organise the next blogmeet.

It's going to be going down at 3 in the afternoon on April 7 at The Hare and Hounds on Shudehill, a pub many of you may remember fondly from previous glittering Manchester Bloggers affairs (The quaintness of the decor! The cheapness of the beer!) For those of you who aren't quite sure where that is, it's in the Northern Quarter, just across the street from the new bus station and just across the tram stop from the Printworks.

As usual, everyone's welcome: people with blogs, people who wish they had blogs but aren't quite sure how to go about setting them up, people who like to read blogs, bloggers' significant others who secretly resent being forced to attend these geekfests but haven't quite managed to get out of going yet, people who don't understand why all these loud youngsters have taken over their pub in the middle of the afternoon but hope they bugger off soon. Have fun.

Whither Stevenson Square?

It seems Stevenson Square, that glum, heavily-trafficked bit of urban blight above Lever Street, is getting a makeover. I just stumbled upon this post on Rob Adlard's Blog from way back in December, possibly inspired by this piece in the MEN (in which they misspelled the name of the square. Classic). He writes:

"...the only real potential candidate for a proper square in the Northern Quarter, is to be developed by Argent, the people who brought a little bit of Milton Keynes to Manchester with the No.1 Piccadilly building.

As I’ve already said previously in this blog, they did a great job of encouraging the right kind of local businesses into the building, but its a real low point in terms of appeal and appearance showing that we haven’t really learned any lessons from the 70’s or the Arndale Centre. It really concerns me that the same people are going to be allowed to develop such an important part of our historic and unique Northern Quarter."

And, according to this press relase from architects HKR, it's to be called The Hive, no doubt to be filled with productive little worker bees hopped up on cappucino from the regulation coffee bar on the ground floor.

I didn't realise that Stevie Square was an official "conservation area" - This council site sketches out the planning guidelines, and includes a lot of great historical info. It seems the square once was exactly the kind of public gathering-place that Rob and others are calling for:

For the last three-quarters of the 19th century, the Square was popular with open-air speakers and became a meeting place and starting point for processions. The most notable of these celebrated the opening of the Town Hall in 1877 and was believed to have engaged 50,000 participants.

Rob says he'll keep us posted on the plans. This looks like one to keep your eye on. And what's with that Robot, anyway... what IS that thing? I like it.