Manchester Live Literature: Autumn 2016

As usual there are more literature events then we actually want or need around here, getting in the way and making a nuisance of themselves all autumn long. Everyone you know has written a book and needs to launch it pronto. You wanna to go to a poetry reading? We've got slam, feminist, experimental and Petrarchan sonnet nights. There's probably a short story slam happening in your pocket right now. Go on, have a look. Wait. Don't.

Take this Thursday. Just a simple Thursday evening in August, when we're all supposed to still be on holiday, right? New publisher Dodo Ink launches Seraphina Madsen’s Dodge and Burn with support readings from Jenn Ashworth, Lara Williams and Anthony Trevelyan at Blackwells' at 6:30. Up in the NQ at exactly the same time it's Book Bash at Kosmonaut, a new 'book social' from publishing guy Mike Murphy, AND across town The Other Room gives us experimental poetry from Joey Frances, David Kennedy, Wanda O'Connor and James Wilkes in The Castle Hotel from 7:30pm. Disgusting, isn't it?

Next week! Wednesday August 31 Bad Language's monthly open mic is headlined by Anna Chilvers, author of Tainted Love. Oh, and next month BL co-host an event with Edge Hill University Press celebrating the publication of a new anthology, Head Land, featuring stories from the first decade of the prestigious Edge Hill Prize; Jon McGregor, Rachel Trezise and Zoe Lambert perform at The Portico at 7pm on Thursday September 29 (£7, book.)

On Friday September 2 great weather for MEDIA present The Careless Embrace of The Boneshaker- the second Mcr event from this NYC based indy press, featuring performances from Rosie Garland, Harry Jelley, Rebecca Audra Smith, Amy McCauley, Chris Stewart, Nadine West and Emma Wooton alongside editor Jane Ormerod. 7pm at 3MT, £5 (book)

Then Saturday 3 September is the Anti Slam, a new event hosted by Paula Varjack and Evidently's Kieran King which somewhat alarmingly promises us that the poet with the lowest score wins.  It's judged by Lenni Sanders, Rebecca Audra Smith and Fat Roland. Potential for good bad poetry high. 7:30pm at 3MT

On Thursday Sept 8 at the Burgess Foundation it's the launch of a new anthology from MA students at the Centre for New Writing (6:30pm) with readings from contributors. Saturday September 10 at Central Library is the launch of Elevator Fiction- a new anthology of flash fiction and micro narratives from BAME writers published by Commonword (2pm, free.) That evening sees Nous magazine celebrate the launch of its 'work' issue with readings and music at Fuel Cafe in Withington from 7pm (free). 

Tuesday September 13 Blackwells celebrates my birthday with Blackwells Book Quiz 3: What We Quiz About When We Quiz About Quizzing.... Okay, so the folks at Blackwells haven't mentioned that 'my birthday' part yet. (I like books and also book tokens. And yessir I've got a bit of a soft spot for book-themed novelties.)  The following night live storytelling champions Tales of Whatever tackle the internet on September 14 at Gullivers (free, 7:30pm). Let's hope no one gets seriously injured this time.

Max Porter, author of the much-praised Grief is the Thing with Feathers is in conversation with poet Andrew McMillan at Waterstones Deansgate on Wednesday Sept 21 at 6:30pm (£5, book here) - this should be a great event. Also on Wednesday Sept 21 Pen:Chant moves to Gorilla and welcomes a pretty varied and interesting lineup, including strange comedy trio Gein's Family Giftshop, beatboxer Bellatrix and MOBO-winning/ Mercury-nominated alto-saxophonist and MC Soweto Kinch plus open mic. And on Monday 26th September Fallowfield's finest open mic Verbose returns from holidays with a Bare Fiction magazine special featurng headliners Michael Conley, Rosie Garland and Rachel Mann (7:30pm at Fallow Cafe, free).

And then? And then? Well in October (7-23 October to be precise) it's Manchester Literature Festival so you should probably go to that. All of that.  Incidentally my own outfit The Real Story is running a special MLF edition of our live nonfiction night on October 22 at the Burgess Foundation headlined by the great Horatio Clare, and we could use a couple more essayists to read at it. If you're interested, check out our submission guidelines here. You can also buy tickets (£6/4) here.

I have gotten wind of a special event First Draft are doing on 31 October at Chetham's Library (this is in addition to their regularly scheduled October night on Monday 17th at 7:30pm at The Castle Hotel, with performers responding to the theme 'crush.') Save the date for some spooky stories... Look, I'm not even going to talk about the rest of October. I mean, I'm tired of writing this post and you're not actually still reading this, are you? Wait... you are? Don't you have that Petrarchan sonnet to write? 

Manchester Writing and Live Lit: Autumn 2015

These days the writerly activity in Manchester has saturated the city centre and is spreading out to The Suburbs. Do not be alarmed! It's okay. Nice people live there. If you're a nice person living in Stretford, for example, you're lucky because the great Dave Hartley, himself a legendary lynchpin of the live lit landscape, has made a new open mic night at the Sip Club. It's called Speak Easy, and I'll be tramming it out there tomorrow evening October 8 (7:30, free) to read along with a bunch of fine writers. I've only been to Stretford once, for the purpose of loitering around an abandoned cinema...

...which, weirdly, I'll be reading a story about in another southern suburb later this month. If you're near Fallowfield, you probably already know about open mic night Verbose at the Fallow Cafe. I'm at the next one on Monday 26 October with Sarah Butler and David Gaffney in a reprise of the Re/Place project, a series of stories about South Manchester landmarks commissioned for Chorlton Arts Festival (7:30, free). And both of these relatively new nights are open to all flavours of spoken word performer, from fiction to nonfiction, from rhyming verse to weird experimental poetry.

As always the city centre is crazily busy with readings and events all Autumn: Evidently have American performance poet Adele Hampton and Joe Cooper Monday 12 October and Pen:Chant bring Jess Green to Islington Mill on the 14th. There's a pretty stellar lineup at First Draft on Monday 19 October, an intriguing Bad Language/Tales of Whatever/Manchester Science Fest mashup on Sunday 25 October at Gullivers, and way too many enticing things at the Burgess Foundation and Chapter One Books. But wait, am I leaving something out? Oh yeah, Manchester Literature Festival is happening 12-25 October (****INSERT SUBTLE LINK HERE****)  It may be true that I work on it and am contractually obliged to say how great it is but I'm pretty darn excited about this year's Rising Stars events, which offer the chance to see some incredible rarely-seen-here writers for little more than the price of a NQ pint. So there.

There are plenty of non-performy opportunities for developing and publishing work in the city: Are you wild about site specific writing? Postmodern urban landscapes? Islands? You’re in luck. New writing project My Pomona wants your words. Pomona is a (sort of) island on the outskirts of the city. It’s been in the news a bit lately as Peel Holdings have announced some controversial new plans to develop it. Also, Tapes n’ Tales are a new podcast featuring writers reading their own stories, made right here in Manchester. They’re open to audio submissions of short stories between 2-7ish minutes.

Comma Press has launched MacGuffin, a new platform for short fiction in both app and internet form. They publish new writing in audio and text format, and they've already amassed a really impressive range of work including some live performances from city open mic nights; go have a wander. Comma and Creative Industries Trafford are running a short fiction writing course with Sarah Schofield at Sale Waterside next month, where the Northern Lights Writers' Conference takes place on 14 November.

The mighty For Books' Sake are running their women-only Write Like a Grrrl course again starting in November. Poet Joy France has taken up a new artist in residence post at Manc alternative cultural insitution Afflecks, so look out for some workshops and events there soon. Sleepy House Press are now doing regular writing workshops, too. On 13 October at Central Library there's a free poetry workshop with Shirley May based on the music of Nina Simone. And poets might also be interested in a one-on-one critique session with the wonderful Jo Bell. I think that's enough to be getting on with.

Live Literature in Manchester: Summer 2015 (or what's left of it)

Our new independent bookstore/cafe Chapter One Books is open Tues-Sat 8am-7pm, on the corner of Dale and Lever Streets in the Northern Quarter.

You know how things slow down in the summer? Not here. Nope, Manchester’s literary scene never goes on vacation. The big news is that we’re getting a new performance night. Crack literary magazine BareFiction are launching a regular night in the next month or so. Editor Robert Harper says they’ll be inviting poets, fictioneers and theatre people to get involved. Follow them on Twitter or Facebook to stay in the loop. I’ve heard other rumblings about new literary events launching in the city, but cannot divulge them yet. 

It’s Edinburgh preview season, so warm-up shows are go: First, Fat Roland’s made a show called Kraftwerk Badger Spaceship (using his patented Fat Roland brand random word generator) and he's previewing it at Gullivers on Sunday July 26. Then writing duo Jasmine Chatfield and Lenni Sanders aka Dead Lads preview their poetry play Nuclear Roomates at 3MT on Tues July 28. Also, Sarah Jasmon launches her debut novel The Summer of Secrets at the aforementioned Chapter One Books on Sat 14 August with support readings from Jo Bell and Tania Hershman and Benjamin Judge and Graeme Shimmin followed by an 1980s themed disco. All of these events are FREE and will be FUN.

Bad Language have announced a  show with comedy duo Molly Naylor and John Osborne Sept 28, a set at Kendal Calling, a 45 date stadium tour and plans to invade Belgium and install a puppet government. Their regular night’s on Weds 29 July with Kirstin Innes, too. Sheesh.

First Draft have welcomed Harry Jelley to the Captain’s Table and introduced a new format – inviting contributions written to a prompt – with the next evening on the theme of 'All Shoved Together' August 17 at The Castle. Rad live storytelling night Tales of Whatever is down to hold its next event 12 August at time of writing, but check on Twitter to confirm closer to the date.

And then there’s our live nonfiction night, The Real Story. (See how I waited to mention my night last? I wasn't raised in a barn, you know.) The next one is Weds 19 August at Gulliver’s with headliner Michael Symmons Roberts, the Forward and Whitbread Prize winning poet who also happens to be a pretty wonderful essayist; he'll be reading from essay collection Edgelands. Rounding out the bill are a diverse group of writers including novelist Marli Roode, Nick Thompson, Adam Farrer and me & my co-pilot Nija Dalal. 

If you’re curious about The Real Story, creative nonfiction and the writing/live lit scene in Manchester, Nija and I are going to be talking about all of that on Ella Gainsborough and Kieren King’s radio show on August 13 from 8-9pm. Kieren and Ella run the ace Salford spoken word night Evidently, and they’re just launching this weekly dose of spoken words on Fab Radio International. Check it out.

And finally, look out for the announcement of the full Manchester Literature Festival programme going out here and here and here around the second week in August. The Festival is happening 12-25 October and it celebrates its tenth birthday this year. It’s going to be extra good.

Wild swim at Gaddings Dam, Todmorden

On the website of the Gaddings Dam Group they describe the path to Gaddings Dam as “a steep, poorly defined footpath.” This doesn’t really get across the effort involved here or give you any indication of exactly how long it will take someone to hike up to the dam while toting an overstretched old carrier bag full of buckets and spades and jollying understandably hesitant three and six-year-old girls up what is definitely the biggest hill they’ve ever climbed. The answer: approximately 30 minutes. At the top be sure to point out your car which is now a tiny speck, parked outside the Shepherd’s Rest pub (not great, nice play area.) Pack a picnic and whatever else you think you’ll need because there's nothing but water and rocks and bleakness up there.

Gaddings Dam is billed as the highest beach in England. This is kind of a joke, but there’s enough sand to amuse a bunch of children and provide a soft place to sit in what would otherwise be a rocky, inhospitable moorland setting. The dam is a stone bowl of cold, clear, black water at the top of the moors. An industrial reservoir built in the early 19th Century, it was purchased in 2001 by a collective who preserve it to be enjoyed by the people of Todmorden and the surrounding towns. When you dive in the water actually smells like ozone, like the sidewalk after a summer thunderstorm, and it brings home the fact that you’re swimming in rainwater that’s probably closer to its original source than anywhere you’ve ever swum before.

On a hot sunny day in June the water was plenty warm enough to go without a wetsuit, but I pretty much always think that and am aware that other people have different ideas about what is and isn’t too cold. The reservoir is a very quiet place – all you can hear is the occasional bleat from a lamb somewhere on the fells and the soft lap of water against the stone. There are cows actually standing in the water at the far end, but at 4 square acres it’s a pretty big body of water, so don’t let that faze you. After you’ve swum, be sure to allow some time for lying in the long grass in the adjacent meadow and gazing in awe at the incredible views dropping down across the Calder Valley – cloud shadows and green hills and pastures disappearing into the haze. Weirdly, dam base camp is accessible by public transport, though with one bus an hour heading up Lumbutts Road it’d require crack timing. Highly recommended.

First Draft and Next Draft

First Draft is good. It's a Manchester-based cabaret event, with people performing music, poetry, stories, comic monologues and short plays on the same stage. Great idea that. One format nights are all very well, but for those audience members with shorter attention spans (hand going up) changing up the kind of work being performed can really help keep things engaging. Your brain does sometimes start to wander a bit after the fifth flash fictioneer takes the stage, or the seventh slam poet, no matter how fantastic they might individually be, and that's only natural.

The idea is that this really is the first place to perform stuff that's still very fresh, so there's an off-the-cuff, low-risk feeling about it that can be quite freeing. The organisers (including the lovely Abi Hynes, above) work very hard putting the regular night together, and they really took on a big project with last month's Next Draft: a two-day event at the King's Arms produced with Studio Salford, aimed at giving past performers a chance to perform works that were a bit further along in its development.

I went along and enjoyed Jez Hewes and Andrew Williamson's daft mashup of three songs, a lovely nonfiction essay from Nija Dalal, a funny performance from Anjali Shah, a cheesy story from Fat Roland and Faro Productions' one-woman play about the fascinating Mata Hari. Unfortunately I had to leave before the second half so missed out on Papermash Theatre’s Happy Birthday Without You, from playwright and performer Sonia Jalaly. But they're back to their bi-monthly-ish slot at The Castle next Monday night with a fresh batch of performers ready to rise to the Empyrean heights of the challenge set by the theme 'Songs of Praise.' Come along, or get in touch if you're interested in performing here, the next one's in August.

The Short Short Story Slam (and why you should go see live literature in Manchester)

So. Manchester’s live literature scene, something happened to it while I was hibernating. It got awesome.

Last night was Flashtag Collective’s Short Short Story Slam at Gullivers. I’d heard great things about last year’s slam in Didsbury, but I wasn’t really prepared for the quality of the readings. Eleven writers all giving it their best shots, and there wasn’t a dud in the bunch. Standouts for me included Mark Powell’s surreal hijinks with Scoob and the gang, Mark Mace Smith’s deceptively simple stories, Joy France’s brilliantly filthy opener and runner-up Joe Daly’s bleak closer, which proved you don’t always have to go for the laughs. But there could be only one winner and Simon Sylvester was it with his strange, tightly crafted fictions and what was really a very fetching hat.

Much respect to these writers. It’s fucking terrifying reading your work before a live audience as it is, but to do so knowing that your story will be instantly judged right in front of you, that you will be either the winner or the loser... sheesh. And the Flashtag team were experts at wringing the maximum entertainment from the experience while also maintaining a friendly and supportive vibe throughout. It’s great to hear that they’re thinking of doing this every few months – judging by the big crowd last night it could do very well indeed.

But there's more. Next week, the ever-brilliant Bad Language is at The Castle next Wednesday, April 30 with Luke Brown headlining. Effed Up comes to The Castle on Sunday May 4 with a theme of outsiders’ views of Britain. Cabaret night First Draft is cooking up a special two-day showcase, Next Draft, at The King’s Arms on 5 & 6 May. Open mic  Evidently holds court at The Eagle in Salford every second Monday, storytelling night Tales of Whatever is at Gullivers every month…oh, I could go on. But you get the picture: it’s happening. Get in there.

Image courtesy of Flashtag.

News flash: I am not cool

I am a fraud. I am misrepresenting myself, living a double life, guilty of perpetrating an online persona that is more than a little out of whack with reality. Actually, there is a gulf so big between the two things that you could drive a fleet of Mack trucks through it. But it’s so easy now, isn’t it? We all have these virtual aliases, a pocket full of glossy digital incarnations which only resemble our real selves if you squint really hard.

Writing about ‘what’s on’ is a young person’s game. Look at the Guardian Guide, with its slavish devotion to niche musicians you’ve never heard of and easy way with slang so laughably unfamiliar you suspect they’ve invented it (also see: The Skinny.) These publications are written by actual young people who care intensely about these things, with a few good fakers trying to hide in the back. And they should be. They know what they are talking about.

When I started this blog, I was young. I had just arrived in this city and was on a mission to map Manchester’s every hidden hangout, coolest surprise, weirdest place. I stayed up all night, so many nights, dancing around rusty machinery in an old cotton mill and then tumbling out into the bleak Mancunian dawn. I saw every important movie on release and plenty of not-remotely-important ones too. I had an insatiable appetite for new music, could go to three or four gigs in a week, and I didn’t even care if there was comfortable seating. Theatre press nights, restaurant launches, readings, art exhibition openings – any occasion attracting the same dubious band of Manc bohemians conjured, as if by magic, with the sound of the cork popping on a bottle of Barefoot (hey guys) – I was there, talking and swigging free horrible wine and going on to the pub to drink and argue and laugh some more, while smoking approximately 46 fags at once. But that was almost ten years ago. Much shit has happened.

So here’s my confession: I am not young. I am not cool, if ever I was. I am not urban. My finger isn’t exactly on the pulse. I listen to Radio 3 just as often as I listen to 6Music. I’m 40 years old, with two children who aren’t even babies anymore. I don’t really drink, and never do drugs or smoke anymore. I go to bed before 10, and get up at 6:30. If it's not on television before 10, I'm not going to see it until I grudgingly shell out for a secondhand box set years after everyone stopped talking about it. I watch Countryfile while wearing fleece (mostly for the excellent, in-depth weather report. But still.) Getting me to leave my house in the farthest reaches of exurbia on a January night, even for a trip down to the pub on the corner with some mates I adore, is like chiselling a barnacle off a rock.

The irony is, now that I’m settled in the hills, I get invited to everything. In UK blog years, Manchizzle (est. 2005) is like the Domesday Book, so I am on every PR list in creation. And then there’s the fact that my day job is also writing about interesting things to do and see and eat in Manchester. So for the past couple of years, the old/reclusive thing, plus the fact that I get paid to write Manchizzle posts for a living (just not here), has meant that I haven’t had much to say on this blog.

I feel like a fraud writing posts like this last one. Because those events were all genuinely enticing ways to spend an evening and I desperately wanted to go to each one of them. Just not as much as I wanted to sit in my perilously cosy red armchair and reread Gaudy Night for the 17th time. I didn’t go to them, and I knew I wouldn’t when I wrote that. But I still wrote about them, so that maybe you could go to them, if you wanted to. But there might be less of that on here for a while.

I’m not saying culture is only for the young. Hell no! It’s just that I’m hunkered down for the winter, and going through a hermitty time in my life, so it seems fake and distasteful to write a blog that doesn’t reflect that. I have no desire to break up with the 'chizz, and I miss blogging more often. So this blog may increasingly not do what it says on the tin.

How exciting.

Image: Guilherme Kardel via Flickr.

Ramsbottom Festival 2012 preview

I am making many sacrifices to the rain gods in hope that the sun will shine down upon our soggy Pennine Valley over the weekend of September 14-16, when the Ramsbottom Festival comes to town. Last year's festival was many things, but dry was not one of them. It was, however, all of these things: fun, well-run, immensely entertaining, child-friendly, adult-friendly and (in a humble, Rammy-appropriate way) totally rocking. You can read my review here.

Can we expect the same degree of awesomeness this year? I had a nice chat with Victoria Robinson from The Met the other day and she filled me in. For starters, ticket prices have gone down (when does that ever happen?) with day tickets £18 on Friday and £20 Saturday and Sunday,  weekend tickets £50 and Saturday/Sunday tickets £37.50. Kids under 6 are free, kids 6-16 pay £5 day and £10 weekend, and there are family tickets available too. (You can buy tickets here )

You can't really do anything about the weather, but there is much more preparation happening at the Ramsbottom Cricket Club site to prevent mud and/or flooding in the event of serious rain. They've done more to make the festival truly family friendly: There's going to be a ladybird tent with children's entertainments, and the funfair rides will be free. The festival ale will be brewed within shouting distance at Rammy's own Irwell Works Brewery, whose wares I was able to sample the other day and I'm not at all worried about the quality of the beer. Camping has moved to St. Andrews Primary School, a short walk away.   (Updated: I heard residents' complaints have put the kibosh on this campsite, but sure the festival folks have cooked something else up for campers.) And I understand they're laying on coaches to transport folks to and from Chorlton and the city centre each day of the festival. Not as atmospheric as arriving by steam train on the East Lancs Railway, perhaps, but surely very handy for some.

Here are some of the acts I'm most excited about:

Sometime in early 2004 I went to my very first Manchester gig knowing literally nothing about the band, the venue, or the city. I just thought the band's name sounded interesting. It turned out to be I am Kloot at The Night and Day. (Yes, I accidentally went to the most Manchesterest gig ever.) They put on a great show and I instantly became a fan of this fine band, fronted by the raspy-voiced songwriter Johnny Bramwell, joining an army of other Mancunians who make up their loyal following. Why they haven't gotten really big like their contemporaries Elbow and Doves is a complete mystery to me.



I like folksinger Thea Gilmore a lot, something about her lyrics remind me a bit of Suzanne Vega. Her ballads are beautiful, spare things. Recently she became a little bit famous when the BBC used her song 'London' in an Olympics montage. Her latest album sets to music a notebook of Sandy Denny's lyrics found after the folksinger's untimely death. Here's an older song:



The Leisure Society are an artful indie band whose arrangments and musicianship put most of their contemporaries to shame. I saw them play a great show at Ruby Lounge a couple of years ago so I'm expecting a good set from them. Their biggest hit is probably this beautiful song:

Scottish musician Roddy Frame is a wonderful songwriter, and I'm looking forward to hearing his new solo stuff. But most people will surely know him best as the lead singer of Aztec Camera, the ace indie band from the 80s whose hits included Somewhere in my heart and my favourite, this one:



Seth Lakeman is a traditional fiddler and singer-songwriter who was nominated for the Mercury Prize a while back. This song is about a servant girl who killed herself on Dartmoor and is said to haunt the place. Intense.

 

Liz Green has become a firm favourite in the Manchester area and is developing a growing audience around the country. A bluesy folksinger whose voice sounds a lot like Billie Holliday to me, doing her own thing musically and sounding great at it.
 


There are plenty of other acts on. Some performers my friends are excited about include: Roddy Woomble (of Idlewild fame), The Inspiral Carpets (sorry, I kind of missed that whole Madchester thing) Air Cav and Admiral Fallow. And there's plenty more fun to be had in the silent disco, which proved the sleeper hit of last year.

But as entertaining as the silent disco was, it couldn't compare to the sheer joy of watching this guy dance. Like a Lancashire Bacchus, Stripeyman embodied the true spirit of the festival. I'll be looking out for him.

Stripeyman photo by Brian Connor.

Manchester Blog Awards 2011 recap (and new blogs)

So I think the 2011 Manchester Blog Awards were the best yet. A hefty dash of creative nonfiction was provided by the winners of The Real Story competition from my digital lit sideline Openstories. The five readers were wonderful and benefitted from an exceedingly friendly audience who really listened. And then came loads of excellent shortlisted bloggers reading a tasty smorgasboard of different writing - from short stories to microfiction to razor-sharp satirical emails. And then came the ever-popular Socrates Adams reading from his new novel Everything's Fine, which I just read and can say it is (as expected) deeply funny and exceedingly well-written. And then the crowning of the new winners, a very deserving bunch. Apologies to the one or two people who were disappointed by the absence of acceptance speeches, or our shocking lack of sufficient hoopla and fol-de-rol. Next year, maybe we should have the awards presented by celebrity dogs on unicycles. Whaddaya say?

On the night I got to thinking about the many amazing writerly partnerships and endeavours that started up from people meeting at the blog awards (I'm thinking especially of the Flashtag Manchester brigade and their various individual projects, side projects, events and one-off collaborations.) It might seem to someone unfamiliar with the Manchester writing scene that everyone at the blog awards knows each other. And yes, many of the writers shortlisted for blogs every year do know each other. Some met at the same event years ago and went on to do things together. More will have met there this year. Others know bloggers from writers' groups, university writing courses, or by being involved with one of the other bountiful opportunities available to writers in Manchester (the events and publications of the Bad Language collective, Tales of Whatever, The Night Light, Blank Media Collective, etc. )

The point is, writing brought these people together. If you're standing on the sidelines feeling left out, don't be a wallflower. There will always be the odd stuck-up ignoramus, but for the most part this is one of the friendliest and most inclusive writing scenes I've ever encountered. Come along to one of the aforementioned events and introduce yourself to the guy sat next to you, or to a writer whose work you liked, or to the girl behind you in the bar queue. Who knows what could come of it? What I'm saying is: it's definitely a clique. It's a clique that's big enough to encompass Greater Manchester and we're all personally invited to join it, kapeesh?

Anyway, we always hear about loads of new blogs via MBA nominations. They're additions to the ALREADY INCREDIBLY LONG list of new blogs I have been meaning to add here for ages. Hence the massive bumper edition of new blogs.... so many I'll have to publish this in two or three parts over the next few weeks. I'm not going to be able to do my usual helpful introduction to each one this time, but will simply give you the links. They'll all then be added to the categories in the Great Manchester Blogroll at the side. Happy readings.

Writers' Blogs
What Vanishes
Emma Jane Unsworth
sweetrsalted
Nici West
Josef A Darlington
I blog every day
Bad Penny

Personal Blogs
Richard Frosty
Jilted Generation
Oddments and snippets
Random Thoughts

Arts&Culture/Design/Fashion Blogs
Cava Coma
Manchester Cycle Chic
Manchester LAB
Caitlin's Country
LogsyLou
Clothes Pony

Music Blogs
Having a party without me
Unchained Melodist

City/Neighbourhood Blogs
MCRmix
Mancunian Wave

Tech Blogs
Tony Tickle

Journalism/Media Blogs
Speechmarks

Sport Blogs:
Naturally Cycling Manchester

Ramsbottom Festival 2011: The Recap

So I've just about recovered from the inaugural Ramsbottom Festival. Here's a little summary:

Rain factor: You have an outdoor music festival in Ramsbottom. In September. Of course it's going to rain. The question is, how much and when. This rain wasn't too bad - it came and went, it was a bit of a drag, but you could mostly ignore it. There was always a place to get out of it if you wanted to.There was no wading through mud. We even had a few hours of sun on Sunday.

Best in show: The Waterboys. It was the very last band of the festival, it was dark, cold and wet, but they still made it very possibly the rockingest Sunday night Ramsbottom has ever seen. Those guys are professionals. The encore of Fisherman's Blues had the crowd twirling like idiots and sent us all home smiling (and shivering):


Runners up: Cherry Ghost, The Travelling Band and Young Knives all turned in solid performances on Saturday, Capercaillie rocked on Sunday. Can a traditional Celtic band rock? The answer is yes.

Miss (Non)Congeniality award: Badly Drawn Boy. I've always been kindly disposed to the beardy one's music, but after seeing this performance I'm less kindly disposed. He started things off by having a hissy fit about the sound and finished up by grousing that he should have been the headliner. In between: a whole bunch of meh. Stay in Chorlton next year and knit yourself some new hats, dude.

Personal disappointment: Missing Steve Cropper Friday evening. It was very wet, but still.

Taste sensation: Salted Caramel and Peanut Butter ice cream on a toasted brioche from the wonder that is Ginger's Comfort Emporium (long may they reign.) Really freaking good.

Best non-live-music-related activity: Silent Disco. Lots of fun.

Unexpected impressive thing: Whalley Range All Stars "PIG" performed inside a specially-built pig. The play was ten minutes long and only ten people could watch it at once. The audience had to don curly tails and stick their heads right into ten holes along the pig's belly, so they looked like a line of piglets.

Best thing for kids: The bouncy pirate ship, apparently. I spent about two hours standing next to this handing a very polite teenage girl money while my daughter bounced. And bounced. And bounced. Lots of kids about on Sunday, not so many on rainy Saturday. And don't ferris wheels look cool at night?

Comfort Factor: Weather aside, the festival was a pretty comfortable place to hang out. The drinks were excellent and keenly priced - Outstanding Beers' very pleasant festival real ale at £2.50 for a reasonably sized pint, fancy shmancy cider for £3.50. I think they had some weird mixed-drink-in-a-bottle stuff going on too, but I didn't get involved in that. In short, a far sight better than the shockingly bad beer selection (Bud and Coors?? In plastic bottles? Really?) at the Manchester International Festival pavillion this summer. You got served quickly at the bar. The food vendors were good and again, nobody was ripping you off (£5 for a massive plate of tasty Tibetan Kitchen.) There were enough toilets, so you didn't spend hours in the loo queue, and they stayed reasonably clean. Thumbs up.

Best flavor of Rekorderlig Cider: Strawberry Lime. I know, me either.

Unexpected funny thing: The VIP area resembled a cattle market - a roped off, exposed-to-the elements plot with bare benches, about as far from the stage as it could be. I think I saw two people in there all weekend. That kind of sums up the festival's ethos nicely.

Hero of the day: Stripeyman. The tirelessly boogieing, permanently ecstatic painted fellow below will dance on in the memories of festivalgoers for many years to come. I'll have what he's having.

In summary: a very good time. Of course, I walked down the road to get there, was sensibly attired and got in for free, so admittedly it would have to be awful for me not to have enjoyed it. But it surpassed my expectations in pretty much every way (apart from the weather, sadly.) Hey, I'm looking forward to next year already.

All images Brian Connor (via Flickr.)

Filey by Campervan

I've been trying to get over to the North Yorkshire Coast for ages, but hadn't managed to in the many years I've lived here. It's just a hair too far away for a day trip with small children. But with a VW Campervan at my disposal thanks to the lovely people at Jolly Campervans in Huddersfield (who even dropped it off and picked it up at our house), it was at last within my reach. And so it was that me and my partner packed the two kids - and the unbelievable volume of brightly coloured kid-and-baby gear even a weekend trip requires - into the van and headed East for a long weekend. Were we crazy to be taking a 3 year old and a 10-month old camping? Hmmm.

While Mancunians traditionally go to the seaside towns of Lancashire and North Wales for their summer holidays, my resident Yorkshireman informs me that the North Yorks coast becomes like Leeds-on-Sea in summertime. For the simple reason that it was almost exactly due East of where we live, we opted for Filey, a small town near Scarborough and this was luckily a fantastic choice. We stopped off at Castle Howard for lunch (lush farm shop, very cool adventure playground) and rolled into the campsite by late afternoon. Filey Brigg Caravan Park is run by the council, tidy and spacious with sea views, and a five-minute walk from the unspoiled beach and the tidepools and rock formations of the Brigg. The small seafront is council-owned too, and maybe that's why it had quite an old fashioned feel to it. That and the fishing boats.Everything was scrupulously clean and family-oriented with a small funfair and a few stalls selling rock and fresh seafood. I even ate cockles, which is apparently an important part of the traditional seaside holiday here in the UK. The last time I encountered cockles it was in the small hours at the sadly defunct Malt and Hops in Chorley, when I was utterly amazed to learn that anyone would try to sell drunk people cold sea creatures in styrofoam pots. But you know, they were great.

We also ate some excellent fish and chips at The Brown Room in Filey town, which still uses dripping to cook their chips in like many of the chippies along this coast. It really does make a difference - they were much crispier than normal. The chips were noticeably better. But my attempts to order a fish muffin met with utter failure.

The van itself was beautiful. It had a name: The Baron, because Jolly Campervans names all their vans after characters on Danger Mouse. The Baron was fresh off the boat from Brazil, where they still make these beauties, but had been converted to left-hand drive and thoughtfully packed full of modern conveniences like digital radio, proper coffee and Fox's Biscuits. Traveling by VW bus is a wonderful way to see the world. You can't go to fast, so secondary roads are the way to go, and you really get a chance to look around and get a sense of the place you're driving through. And it's strangely liberating to be traveling in the place you're going to be sleeping in.

I'd never stayed in a campervan before, I thought it would be cramped, but once we figured out how to set up the massive canopy tent (essentially a large canvas room that fits on to the side) we had plenty of space. I was charmed by the cunning way everything fits together so neatly - the tiny but incredibly handy kitchen, the ingenious compartments, the pop-up cathedral ceiling. Not so charming: spending several hours lying in a bed located directly under a screaming, teething baby. But that can hardly be considered a design fault. Eventually, the little dear calmed down and nodded off, and the second night went much more smoothly. My eldest daughter is already clamoring for another trip in The Baron. Next time maybe Whitby and Robin Hood's Bay? I'm definitely up for it - once teething is safely behind us.

Manchester Blogmeet March 31

Time for another gathering of the blogging clans. Yes, our spring blogmeet is upon us, and this one will take place on Wednesday March 31st from 6-8 pm in The Kestrel Suite at Common. It sounds very fancy, but don't worry, it's just the extra room they added on in their recent renovation. For those who haven't been before, Common is the bright green bar on Edge Street in the Northern Quarter (just off High Street). They serve a full range of hot drinks and tasty snacks as well as a fine selection of beer, wine and spirits.

The drinks will be courtesy of our sponsor for this blogmeet, Skiddle.com. Jamie Scahill and Richard Dyer will be on hand to tell us more about their site. They say: "Now in its 9th year of operation, it's is officially one of the largest and fastest growing what's on guides in the UK. With over 222,306 events listed, 620,000 unique visitors and 119,754 registered members we offer the ideal platform for club promoters, festivals and event organisers to promote their event."

As always, you don't have to RSVP but you can always leave a comment to let me know you're coming. Or just turn up. All bloggers are welcome, so if you haven't made it to a blogmeet before please don't be shy. It's a chance to meet your online comrades in a relaxed and friendly setting. And it's usually lots of fun.

(photo: Tim France)

Manchester Blogmeet Sept 17

I've organised a long-overdue Manchester blogmeet for Thursday September 17, from 6-8pm at Cord, off Tib Street in the Northern Quarter. All are welcome... bloggers, friends of bloggers, blog readers, whatever; come on down to the basement.

And for the first time this will be a sponsored affair. The folks from Creative Tourist, the web magazine of the Manchester Museums Consortium, will be buying everyone a drink and giving us a brief rundown of their goings-on.

As nobody put forward any objections when I asked around a couple of months ago, I'm trying out this sponsorship model for future blogmeets. Seems there are quite a few organisations about who are interested in working with Manchester bloggers, so if they'd like to buy us a beer or a coffee I figure we're willing to listen to what they have to say for ten minutes or so.

As ever, the rest of the time will be spent in making friends, catching up, flirting, frontin', bullshitting and otherwise interacting with other Manchester blogfolk. If you plan on coming say so in the comments, comment on the MCR Bloggers FB group message I'm about to write, or email me so we know how many to expect.

I love a parade

All this buildup to Jeremy Deller's Procession (which looks to be amazing) has renewed my appreciation for the humble parade. And sent me searching for a half-remembered Maurice Sendak (?) book I had when I was little about a parade featuring all kinds of unusual groups of people - people with moustaches and/or people who slurped soup, among others? Anyway, I can't remember what it's called, so if it rings a bell for anyone let me know because I'm going crazy here. Maybe I should ask Jeremy Deller.

And if you'd like to whet your appetite for Procession by checking out another unconventional parade, head over to Hebden Bridge Saturday at 2pm for the Handmade Parade. As you'd expect from a town "internationally known for its funkiness" and indeed for the seriousness with which it takes its role as right-on capital of Albion, this is a parade with rules: No written words or logos, and no motorised vehicles.

They are good rules, though, so we can't poke too much fun at them, and the parade sounds terrific, with puppets (which look a lot like the ones at my beloved Bread and Puppet in VT), dancers, handcrafted floats and a samba band. There are workshops if you'd like to make something yourself and march in the parade, which is followed by a pageant and a big picnic in Calder Holmes park. This year's events have a Glorious Garden Party theme, so expect to see lots of adorable wee trustafarians cavorting in handmade butterfly costumes.

Overlooked Manchester

"We are not architects, preservationists, activists, though we do know a number of each of these. We are not radicals, Situationists, academics or psychogeographers, though we are lucky to count a few of these mythical creatures as our friends..."
The newly-formed Manchester Modernist Society cannily introduces itself by telling us what it is not. So what is it? Well, the MMS manifesto makes for great reading, here's an excerpt:

"We believe that the recent past and its rich variety of grand and ordinary, cherished and neglected buildings continue to play a part in our shared consciousness and sense of identity ...We are keen to foster and help develop a greater public awareness of the rich and complex relationship between architecture, art and design and public space, and draw attention to the precarious nature of much of the 20th century backdrop that we often mistakenly take for granted.

We aim to create a real space for discussing, engaging and enjoying perhaps occasionally even campaigning for the multilayered complexities of a city that is comfortable to wear its carbuncled heart on its sleeve. Not for us the smooth uniformity of a relentlessly brand new city that is too intimidating to use."

Organisers Jack Hale and Maureen Ward have also enlisted the support of EP Niblock, who wrote the introduction to their website. The Society's first get together is a trip across the Pennines today in Leeds. But, closer to home, they also recommend this talk on The Future of Architecture tonight at The Circle Club. Look out for more events in future on their website or Facebook page.

There's more to a city than buildings, and Green Badge Guide Anne Beswick wrote to tell me about her new tour which focuses on some of quietest and possibly most neglected Mancunians - Manchester's trees. Loyal readers know I am a friend of the trees and wish there were more of them around here. Having grown up in a place that looks like this, I'm never really comfortable too far away from a forest. But it turns out I'm not far at all: The Red Rose Forest encompasses a big chunk of the parks, trees and woodlands in Greater Manchester. Who knew?

Anne says: "Did you know that alder makes the best charcoal for gunpowder manufacture, that birch trees are known as the 'ladies of the woods' or that the old name for oak was 'ac' from which we get acorn and Accrington?" More information and a schedule of the tree tour here on the Tour Manchester site. The next one is June 23.

More Manchester Spring Festivals

Okay, so a few alert readers let me know I left some festivals out of my last schpiel. Yes, there are more festivals in Manchester this spring. There are so many, in fact, that I ran out of steam and decided to do the update in two parts. But I didn't tell you that, did I? No, I wanted it to be a surprise. So, holy cats, look over there, there are some extra bonus festivals you didn't even expect queueing up on the calendar. It's like finding a freshly-baked strawberry rhubarb pie on your doorstep.

Futuresonic
13-16 May, venues around the city

Next year it's going to become the scarily-named FutureEverything, but first we have one more year of old school Futuresonic. And the sonic element of this year's fest is especially interesting. I knows some of y'all are going to be thrilled at the chance to see Phillip Glass perform at RNCM, the joint with the best acoustics in town. He's by far the biggest name. The delights of the festival's music programme are definitely esoteric; unless you're a trendhunting digital ambient anorak with £300 headphones you may not have heard of them, but who cares? Pick one that looks interesting (and they pretty much all do) roll up, and more likely than not get your mind blown.

I'm especially excited about Soap&Skin at Cross Street Chapel, and can't decide between the two great-looking opening night gigs. Music aside, there's the usual programme of arty hijinks around town, and the excellent social technologies summit too.

Bury Text Festival
30 April - exhibitions run into June, venues around Bury

The Text Festival is a biennial programme of exhibitions and events that span the overlapping ground between poetry and text-based art, based at the wonderful Bury Art Gallery. Director Tony Trehy's energy and curatorial nous help make this a gallery that punches way above its weight... and I'm not just saying that because I live in Bury.

This year's Textfest features artists including the American visual poet Geof Huth, Poet Ron Silliman (who has been working on a single poem since 1974) and artist Jenny Holzer among many others. The Bury Poems features poets Tony Lopez, Carol Watts and Phil Davenport responding to their stay in Bury with poems.

MAPS Festival
1-4 May, venues around the Northern Quarter
Note: this date has been changed (had the wrong one, thanks Diana.)

Wait a min... what? Last week I told you about Hungry Pigeon, which is meant to be the reinvention of last year's MAPS festival. Well, turns out there's been a mysterious schism between the organisers of that event last year. Some of them splintered off under the flag of the Hungry Pigeon, while others stayed on to organise the second MAPS festival - and both camps are claiming to be the real thing. Hmmm. Curious. Aaanyway, we get two festivals in the N. Quarter this year instead of one. So we're the winners here, no?

And the MAPS festival is looking like a grand old time. Check out that clever map on their website - it's a tree and a map at the same time. Very cool. As Chris has already pointed out, MAPS is strong with local promoters who look set to put on a good show. As for the bands playing at a spate of traditional and not-so venues around the nabe, well, again, I haven't heard of many of them. But I'm sure that's pretty much entirely down to the fact that I don't get out enough anymore. Go, enjoy, and maybe next year we'll get three NQ festivals in May.