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!

New blogs: The secondhand edition

Hey. Been a while, hasn't it? And all that while I've been quietly collecting new Manchester blogs...

New blog Secondhand Safari is the brainchild of Suzy Prince (above) who used to run the excellent Nude Magazine. Suzy has set herself the task of buying no new items for a year (with some reasonable exemptions for food and the like.) It's a mission that I totally support, as a passionate lover of charity shops and buying things that come with their own mysterious history. Suzy's challenge starts on May Day, but there's plenty of good content on her blog already.

Bernadette Hyland is the woman behind Lipstick Socialist, where she writes about culture, women's issues, trade unions and grassroots campaigns.

Laura Moulden's personal blog is at laura em.

Nice to see a food blog focusing on the humble caffs and cafes of Manchester: Angie Harrison's Cafe Reviews. And journalist Louise Bolotin blogs about cooking for one at The Lone Gourmet.

Sheesh. How on earth did I forget to link to David Bailey's mindbendingly gonzo food blog Food Legend? A bit strange as it only won a blog award last year, and I have been telling people to go read it for months. Anyway, this has now been corrected.

Lots more food blog action this time around (finally Manchester wakes up to the food blogging revolution. Huzzah!) Get your teeth around Foods to try before you die, Hungry Hoss, Good Egg Foodie, Lady Nom, Good golly good gobble!, North/South Food, Mangechester and The Hungry Manc. Burp.

Spancunian Andrea Perez Arduna writes Me, Myself & The UK about her experiences living in Manchester, and her partner Daniel writes Simply Sport.

Writer Ebba Brooks blogs at Jenny Wren and Bella Wilfer Her latest post is about Manchester novelist Alexandra Singer and her remarkable story.

Liz Postlethwaite writes the Organic Allotment blog, about monster truck-driving kittens. No, it's about gardening. Just messing with ya.

Jamie Alun Price blogs at The Etched Mirror, which documents the photographer's adventures in Manchester and elsewhere. He also took the photo of Suzy above.

SACStyle is a fashion blog.

Rochdale blogger Seamus Kelly writes a poetry blog Thinking Too Much and also a biking blog, It is so about the bike.

Melanie King writes art catalyst about her arty adventures in London and Manchester.

threadsandletters is about stitches, writings, DIY publishing and photocopies.

The Fiction Stroker reviews books, comics, radio, TV and events.

Outtasound is a new music blog.

Pencil it in is a new culture/digital/design/food blog by Jen, a digital marketer living in Manchester. Like the design.

Curious Christina is a Manchester-based travel blogger.

Dry Goods wants to know what's in your cupboards.

Manchester travel and fiction writer Rhonda Carrier blogs about her journeys and traveling with kids at Rhonda's Travels.

Finally, Bury-based artist Coreen Cottam blogs at Cottamart. Happy readings everyone. And as always, if I've left you out, drop me a line and I'll fix it.

UPDATE: No sooner had I published this than a few people got in touch with additions...

Carolyn Hughes, or the blogger also known as Manchester is Ace has started a new blog about things to do in South Manchester with babies and toddlers, Little Dudes.

Didn'tsbury is "an unusual local photo blog which features photographs taken in Didsbury accompanied with surrealist short fiction. It aims to celebrate Didsbury alongside creative writing which will both bemuse *and* amuse the reader." Nice idea. Submissions welcome.

Finally, James follows the fortunes of Bury in Life, love and third division football.

New blogs: Part 2

I've long been a fan of Len Grant, the Manchester-based photographer and writer whose work focuses on telling the stories of the people the media typically ignores: asylum seekers, addicts, people fighting like hell to win their way back to a better life - sometimes succeeding, sometimes not. So I was delighted to learn that Len's current project is a blog: Her First Year documents in words and pictures the story of baby Mia and her mother Frances, who are living in supported accomodation for vulnerable young mothers. It's a beautiful project in every way, please go check it out.

On a day when we're all fairly disgusted with the lack of attention paid to women's sport in the UK, it's good to see new additions like Girl On A Terrace , a lower league football blog from the perspective of a female Rochdale AFC fan. Any more sport blogs out there written by women? Give us a shout.

Anyway, here's the second part of the enormous list of new (to me, at least) Manchester blogs I had to add to my blogroll. If I've left anyone out, send me an email.

arts & culture, design/fashion blogs:
Followyourarts
umwp
wordofwarning
Old Fashioned Susie
MancMode
northwest is best
Beauty's Bad Habit
Curious Damsel
Pepper and Buttons

literature/writing blogs
Katie Anderson Writer
Beau Brummell Press
I hug my books
Julian Lee Robinson
Craig Pay
You, me, and the story
The Poplar Tree | it's not chick lit or pulp fiction
She-Wolf
Chetham's Library

Music blogs

Carnival Saloon

Film/Television blogs

Cathode Ray Tube

Foodie blogs

Little Red Courgette

Tea and Sympatico

City/neighbourhood blogs
Manchester Meanders
So…Chorlton

Digital/tech blogs
THE BOOK OF SCRAP

Personal blogs
.....haven't had a dream in a long time
On the Edge; A Freelancer in the Recession
what red said
The Fag Casanova
My Wonderful Life

Image copyright Len Grant

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

New blogs: The Okasional Edition

Okay, it's been a while, so I've got loads of new blogs for your delectation:

Back in December I wasn't quick enough to get to the latest incarnation of the Okasional Cafe, the itinerant venue that has been periodically squatting in vacant buildings around the city for as long as I lived in Manchester and probably much longer (The photo above was taken on Charles Street). If you don't want to miss the next one, keep an eye on the Okasional Cafe blog.

One of the most hotly anticipated openings of 2011 (at least at my house) is Common's new venture, Port Street Beer House. I've been watching thirstily as it takes shape on the beer house blog. Their about page says it all: "For those of you enthused by the world of beer we hope to provide a warm comfortable environment for you to sit back and appreciate the ever expanding world of craft brewing." We're enthused! And it's open now.

Once again, we've got plenty of new writers' blogs, including little bird stories, Tupenny Tales, Troubleau, Urban Masterplan Working Party, and blogs from writers Claire Massey (formerly of the Fairy Tale Cupboard), Hayley Flynn and my MancSpecFic comrade Craig Pay. Also, bricolage and be, the culturally-oriented blog of Dr. Beccy Kennedy.

Bloggers Ben Judge and Clare Conlon have only gone and started a new blog where you can ask them anything and they have to find, figure out or make up the answer. Go on, you know you want to.

Jennifer Grace Cook moved here from the states for one reason: to find a man. You can read all about her quest at A Girl's Guide to a Noble Manchester. Other new additions to the personal blogroll: Tales from the tower and Mad Balance Plus a stray food blog, Northern Food, that got lost on the way to my last post.

Others: Newsicmoos is music news of the electronic variety. School Boy Couture is about gadgets and design.Plastic Circles is all about the design of music packaging. Screen 150 is short and snappy movie reviews (150 words, natch) and welcomes your contribution. Happy reading.

New blogs: The Mangle Street edition

Hey, it's new Manchester blog time. First off, I have whole heap of new writing blogs to add. Seriously, a lot. Check this out: Write in for Writing's Sake is an interesting use of the tumblr format to host an online writing group. And Figs Might Leaf is a short story blog. And Manchester-based Fantasy and SF author Andy Remic has a blog here. And Khmer Rouge Strippergram is a joint Mancunian-Irish humor blog. Other Manchester writing blogs: The Paper Face Girl and Something Every Day. Oh, and Potwatch: Observations of a Kitchen Porter. In verse. You don't see that every day, eh?

Onto the city and neighbourhood section, where Manculiar is a new blog about the city's past, present and future, and has turned up some very interesting stuff. mightaswell is exploring the city and poking her nose into all sorts of odd corners. There's plenty more fascinating reading over at Manchester's Radical History. And Hulme seems to have some new hyperlocal action with Best of Hulme.

Mediawatchers will be interested to hear about the MediaCityUK Blog, which "delivers the latest news, views and rumours about the MediaCityUK development in Salford Quays, Manchester - entirely independently and unofficially."

On the arts and culture tip, Andy Brydon writes Curated Place,"A blog trying to capture, critique, explain and explore the meeting points of culture, tech, art, places and people in a world that has gone beyond the museum." A couple more new arts and culture blogs: fellow Rammy-ites Fishink and Pinnikity, who both make stuff. And there's a new fashion blog: Pastime Bliss.

Music-wise, Richard H-J's blog an appropriate response to reality is mainly video-based (music and other stuff.) Bad Cover Versions, on the other hand, is pretty self-explanatory.

The photo above is from this week's new photoblog. Being a former New Yorker in Mancunian exile, you know I love photoblog Manchester is Not New York. Those fire escapes are something you don't notice at all when you live in NYC, so I was almost surprised how taken with them visiting Brits are (someone I know returned from a trip to NYC with hundreds of fire escape photos.) And who knew the Northern Quarter had so many of them? This particularly ornate example is from the corner of Dale Street and the delightfully-named Mangle Street.

And if anyone wanted to get to but missed our Manchester blogmeet last week, I'm sorry for you. It was really great. Seriously enjoyable. The inimitable Fat Roland has an exhaustive (and slightly spooky) round up on his blog here. Many thanks again to the folks from The Lowry for coming and telling us all about their Spencer Tunick exhibition and buying us beer. And also thanks to the fine people at Common, who have a way with the taps and whose halloumi and felafel kebab is a thing of awesome beauty.

Stay tuned for news of another blogmeet in the Autumn.

New Blogs: The May 2010 edition

In a town so small there's no escape from view is a blog about city centres, and often, Manchester's city centre, by Dan of PYT fame. "it is inspired by backstreets, lost architecture, broken windows and forgotten buildings." Some good photos on there.

Lazy Noggin is a new Manchester arts and culture blog. A nice post about Jesca Hoop, of whom I am also a fan, and the photography workshop that CityCo ran last weekend.

A new music blog: Come see the duck, written by Jonathan Hopkins.

Manchester filmmakers L'Institute Zoom have a very entertaining blog, Transmissive Episodes.

Ziggy Kinsella is a horror writer who maintains a blog about writing and other stuff called The Feckless Goblin. Writer Lydia Unworth blogs at getting over the moon.

Some new personal blogs: One husband, two kids (and lots of books), Joe the Dough and The Mobius Loop.

A new (mostly) political blog is Three Legged Cat, billed as the "embittered cynical mutterings of a politically marginal Manchester hack." Also, one new photo blog: Dark Adjusted Eye.

May have to invent a new category for Manchester Massages, which features "reviews, news and information on therapeutic massage, spa experiences and eco-spas in Manchester (and beyond...)" Another new sort of blog for Manchester: Makeup Savvy, which reviews beauty products.

The hyperlocal train just keeps on chugging along, and the latest Manchester nabe to get its own community happenings blog is Macclesfield: The Loop is narrowly focused on what's on there. There's also a paper edition which you can sign up to receive.

And yes, the photo above has nothing to do with any of these blogs. I usually try to use pictures from the blogs I'm writing about, but the photoblogs I have on today don't seem set up to share their photos easily. So I am using this random image of graffiti in Hulme that I have had in my computer for ages and have no idea where it came from. Both funny and appropriate given the debate about social housing on here recently...

New Blogs: The Bank Holiday Blues edition

New blog time. So what have we got? A whole mess of new arts and culture blogs. Blog Station is the blog linked with Chorlton's Lead Station, showcasing the MCR artists whose work they exhibit in the restaurant. Artist Jai Redman of the UHC Collective has an interesting blog about his work and what he's up to, most recently working with the Buddleia Commissions project in Cheetham Hill.

Look Up Manchester is a collaborative blog by students at the Manchester School of Architecture - some great images of the city on there. There's also a new crafty blog, Sally Fort's Tinkering Times. And another food blog, Manchester Foodie.

Headstretcher is the blog of Creative Concern honcho Steve Connor. Jon from music blog Black Country Grammar has started a more broadly-focused posterous blog called I'm Jonthebeef. Some more personal blogs: The Laughing Housewife, Rich Rich Rich, and a new photoblog by Boris.

Some media additions: BBC Producer Gemma Hodgson, and the (mainly) media oriented blog by my neighbour Andy Walker, Walker's Rambles. And my other neighbour Jamie and his friends have also a started new music blog, Good for the Soul. Go Ramsbottom!

A new made-in-Manchester comic blog - yeah! Flesh and Bone serves up new strips every Monday and Thursday. That's one of them up top. It's the work of David Bailey, whose excellent illustration work (as part of the Mount Pleasant duo) on gig posters and the like you may already be familiar with.

Had good chats with some new-to-the-blogroll folks at last Wednesday's blogmeet, including Abbas of Call Centre Confessional, Benjamin of the brilliantly lo-fi Ribbons & Leaves, and not one but two Gareths (The Cardboard Kid and Cutteruption), among others... please remind me if I've forgotten anyone I said I would add. It was a good night all around, thanks to the ever-delightful Common and sponsors Skiddle.com. Look out for another one in a couple of months.

Incidentally, it's another busy week for social media in Manchester, with the hyperlocal themed Social Media Cafe at the BBC tonight, and the Manchester Aggregator group meeting tomorrow night (7pm at Madlab, any curious bloggers welcome.)

New Blogs: The Dark Corners Edition

A really interesting bunch of new blogs to add: Urban Adventures, Rookie and Gone, a trio of urban explorers who post photos and reports from their adventures poking about in some of Manchester's dark corners, high roosts and forgotten buildings, getting a look at the places most people don't go. The photo above is from Jim Gillette's trip to the 5th Avenue Culvert on the Medlock in Central Manchester - a place many of us have probably passed over countless times without being aware of its existence. And they take their photography as seriously as their exploration; the resulting pictures are beautiful.

East Angles is Manchester journalist Ben East's blog about all things cultural. Dead Rabbit is artist Naomi Kendrick's blog about multisensory participatory art. Bren O'Callaghan blogs about film, digital art, media, culture and various other things.

Hey, some new music blogs: Pigeon Post and For Folk's Sake. On the latter blog you can read about Single Cell Collective's monthlong programme at Zion Arts Centre in Hulme, Finding Zion, which runs from 27 Feb - 26 March and features all manner of cultural goodies from mass bike rides, music and food.

There's a new hyperlocal blog for Saddleworth, Saddleworth News.

A few new personal blogs: Two Hour Lunch , The Tea Shop Diaries, The Book of Scrap

Some new writers' blogs: Sian Cummins and Andrew Beswick's Moon Printed Shadows. And Your Call is Very Important to Us, featuring the amusing email correspondence of Martin T.R. Higgins and Richard V. Hirst.

A photo blog, Percy Dean

New tech blogs: Tom Mason's SEO Manchester and the I-COM blog

And last but not least, the menswear fashion blog Style Salvage, which is one-half based in Manchester so we can include it here.

New blogs: The like, totally tubular edition

Hey, I'm back with some new additions to the blogroll for your reading pleasure.

They are: A new local politics blog, Tameside Eye. New music blog Friend Rock Manchester Not one but two new fashion blogs, avantgarde and kisses and cross stitches. And journalist Louise Bolotin's media blog Here's the Kicker.

New personal blogs Mind of Mine , The Amazing Adventures of Pottywoman and Manchestreker, about cycling in Manchester.

A healthy new crop of writerly blogs to add: Yes, I will Hold , Stories that will lead you along strange ways, The Journal of a Diet Poylmath (all published recently on Rainy City Stories), Dirty Sparkle, A Life in Manchester , Metafiction and What Daisy Did Next, through whose links I found Contrariwise, a website dedicated to literary tattoos. Supercool.

Writer Benjamin Judge has turned his attentions from the award-winning Cynical Ben to his new Wordpress site, Who the fudge is Benjamin Judge.

Socrates Adams Florou, aka"Mister Chinatown," has written a novel. You can read all about it over at his new website, Everything's Fine, which lists a blog and a tube gallery among other impressive features and benefits. The picture up there is from the tube gallery, which makes more sense when you read Everything's Fine.

servicing

Just wanted to say that I'm doing some long-overdue maintenance of the creaky old blogroll at the moment. Wow, is that thing dirty. I've rolled up my sleeves and added a long list of new literary blogs today, but that's really just the start. There are scores of new blogs to add and a few nasty defunct blogs to de-link.

Phew. This could take a while.

Anyway, if you want me to add your new (or old) blog, now's a good time to tell me.

New Blogs: The raining cats and blogs edition

It's Manchester Blog Awards nomination time, and I'm being deluged with new blogs to add to my blogroll. Seriously. It's raining blogs, hallelujah. Like that.

So I'm going to be briefer than normal and just list a whole bunch of new additions here, because, you know, there are about fifty more lined up behind them, and the baby could wake up at any time.

Art, design and fashion
Switched on Art
Discouture

Manchester City and neighbourhood
LOL! Manchester - A new MCR comedy listings blog

Literature and writing:
Wondrous Reads - a really comprehensive YA/Teen fiction blog written by a bookstore employee from Stockport.
Personal/writers' blog Stick it to the Mand, and the same writer's fiction at Words Etc
Writer Richard Barrett has a new blog, Yawn.
MA writing student Kim McGowan's blog Justtesting
Power is a State of Mind

Sport:
Irontwit, chronicling an Ironman attempt
The Amazing Shrinking Gaz

Personal:
What DO you do in Preston?
Travels in my house

Photo:
TdM Photography

Music:
Songs from Under the Floorboards
S’il vous plait clubnight blog

Tech:
Fluid Creativity

Creative Tourist arrives in Manchester

This week sees the launch of Creative Tourist, a wordpress-based online magazine about our fair city's arts and culture from the Manchester Museums Consortium.

And what a time to launch, eh? Manchester is positively stuffed to bursting with fabulous cultural encounters, life-changing art experiences and can't-miss performances. I don't know about you, but my art-appreciation muscles are getting tired. My critical faculties are so exhausted that I'm being forced to take myself off to New Jersey for a restorative week in which my most challenging cultural experience will probably involve getting past the windmill in mini golf, or maybe deciding what flavor of water ice to order. (Actually, this is a serious matter which I am already working on. Root beer or cherry?)

Issue 1 features Jeremy Deller, Ansuman Biswas (better known as the Manchester Hermit), Marina Abramovic in conversation with Whitworth Art Gallery director Maria Balshaw, Andrew Shanahan's guide to the best videogames ever, and Dea Birkett writing and ranting about children in galleries, among other things.

Creative Tourist's main features will be published monthly but the idea is that the website, blog and twitter feed will keep up a steady stream of interesting content. I will be helping out Editor Susie Stubbs with the words, cruisin' the local blogsphere for tasty bits to link to and commissioning guest posts from Manchester's finest culturebloggers.

If you're one of them, please don't be shy. Get in touch and let me know what you're doing and you may be linked to in a blog roundup or be asked to pitch in and write something, like Katherine Woodfine of Follow The Yellow Brick Road, who wrote up Procession for the Creative Tourist blog.

Anyway, back to work: Root beer or cherry?

New Blogs: The Tasty Art Edition

Loads to tell you about today, with some delicious new arts and culture offerings for le blogroll.

Hilary Jack is a Manchester-based artist and curator (half of the Apartment team) whose work is currently appearing in The Social Lives of Objects at Castlefield Gallery - above is one of her pieces from that show I really liked. Her blog is a great example of how artists can use the platform to showcase and promote their work.

Manchester/Glasgow-based artist Yuen Fong Ling has a blog in which he writes about his practice and pictures of his work as well as other stuff.

This is cool. Soup o'th'Day is a blog with vodcasts/news of arts events in Manchester. It's linked to Stephen Cambpell's project which presents arts events in Manchester in visual form. Currently featured is work from Susie MacMurrays' exhibition Lost & Found at Islington Mill opening July 10 (private view Thursday 9th July, 6.30 - 8.30pm)

They're cooking up some crazy things over at the mill these days, as always. The latest wheeze is a series of artist-led meals. At the last one, artist and curator Kwong Lee prepared a feast of red and green dishes which had to be eaten with 3-D glases on. Whenever possible, I think art should be tasty. The Islington Mill Art Academy, its free, self-organised art school, looks to be going well, too. They now have a blog here.

Moving out of the art world, Chris Norwood wrote in to introduce the Forever Manchester blog. He says: The blog is linked to the charitable work of the Community Foundation for Greater Manchester and is part of their Forever Manchester initiative, which raises money to fund community groups and other activities in neighbourhoods across Greater Manchester.

A new personal blog: Bethan Townsend's Plastic Rosaries.

Gareth Hacking describes his site as a photoblog, though artwork and other stuff appear from time to time.

Citizen Badham is a blog by comics fanatic and freelance writer Matt Badham, who is currently running a series called 100 days, 100 cartoonists.

Sean Gregson is writing a blog about the process of writing and producing a play as part of the upcoming 24:7 Theatre Festival. Said play, Donal Fleet: A Confessional is on July 20.

Finally, The Culture Cheese and Pineapple is an interesting idea. Organisers Plashing Vole and Ben from Cynical Ben describe it as a "place where you can force your favourite books, records, films, art, theatre, and the like on unsuspecting members of the public and they in return can make you sit through theirs. It is a bit like a book club but with no limits on what media you suggest." They explain how it works here. Very early days but they want to get things going in August, there are email details on the site if you'd like to get involved.

New Blogs: The short and rushed edition

A short, highball glass full of new blogs for you to knock back as I rush out the door:

Falling and Laughing is Alistair Beech's blog about music, film and media.
Mithering Times is a new personal blog.

Thoughts of Nigel is a media commentary blog written by Nigel Barlow.

Another media addition: Katie Moffat's PR nowandthen.

A new artist/illustrator blog: Stephen Marshall Also on the art tip: ArtYarn is a collaborative fibre arts project coordinated by visual artists Rachael Elwell and Sarah Hardacre. If you want to know what yarn bombing is, check it out.


Charismatic Information Technology is written by Simon Carter for those folks who know the difference between VPN and VPL, unlike myself, to whom they are just a random arrangement of meaningless letters.

Send me some more new blogs, will you? Stocks are getting dangerously low.

New Blogs: The Checkpoint Charlie Edition

"Can I see your papers, sir?" Manchester's set to become Cold War-era East Berlin as we've drawn the short, shit-covered straw and won the privilege of being the first city in Britain to get identification cards.

They won't be compulsory, oh no - well, not at first. Good citizens will queue up to get them out of an earnest desire to help the authorities keep us all safe, right? And you're a good citizen, right? So why don't you want one? Don't you want to live in a safe country? Hmmm, maybe we should make them mandatory. For the good of all, you understand.

Don't you stand for it.

I received an email from Rosetta Hampshire telling me about her new blog: although I am not quite as delicious as I once was

"I suppose it would fit best in the personal blogs bit as I intend to write largely about myself and my feelings about moving to Manchester. I was actually born here about ninety years ago but had never actually seen the city until this year. At ninety years old I cannot promise my blog will last for very long but hopefully it will be worth reading while it (and I) keep going."

There can't be too many nonagenarian ladies who list Stereolab among their favourite bands, but the world is much stranger than we think. ;)

A couple of new music blogs: Guestlist and Cath Aubergine's Up the Down Escalator which is a blog that lives on MySpace.

Oldham 100 is a photo blog written by an Oldham bus driver who documents his route in daily snaps. Great idea, nicely executed.

The Manchester Zedders live here. What are zedders? Go find out.

Following up my last, surprisingly comment-provoking post, Sarah Hartley has a personal blog here, and will continue her food writing here.

Commonword joins the blogging fray with Commonword Blogs.

An interesting new addition to the city blogs section: Lost in Manchester, which chronicles "the weird, wonderful and plain ordinary in and around Manchester" Reminds me of the excellent Forgotten NY.

CMS, who writes Lost in Manchester, also has a photo blog called The Last Picture show.

Culture Club Social is not a blog but a ning site with the motto "Be proud, be creative, be in the city - Bee Manc (a reference of course to the symbol of Manchester, the industrious honeybee. Which is now endangered. Hmm.) They're interested in news of cultural events around the city.

All Over MCR is an anonymously written blog that seems to have a Manchester news and media focus, with recent posts on the launch of the Bury Independent and Channel M.

Peace out.

New Blogs: The Painterly Edition

Anthony and Diarmud run a blog called Paint my Album. It's all about replicating classic album covers using the challengingly blunt instrument of Microsoft Paint. So far they've have had 802 sent in from all over the world and are trying to get 2,000 by December. Okay, that all seems fairly straightforward, but they've ratcheted things up another level with video podcasts in which they introduce the new submissions, and, well, get a bit silly. I strongly recommend you go check it out.

The Art of Noise album cover above, #452, is by Mike Daye from Bristol. Very impressive.

Oooh, and look at all the other pretty new blogs:

Manchester Climate Fortnightly does a blog which is updated more than fortnightly.

Words and Fixtures is a blog by the lovely Clare, a veritable goddess of subediting, which is "mostly about words, but also about other things that pique my interest or irk my irkness." And it is a most formidable irkness. You can totally vent to her about any misplaced apostrophe's you encounter because she feels your pain.

Rev Porl says this is "a blog of musings, things that happen, things that I see and hear, and stuff. Nothing in particular. Just some bits."

Tomato Sauce is a new writerly blog.

I'm told Filling the Space is the blog of a Chorlton-based auntie.

Th'Arctic is a live art project from Rebecca McKnight. "During April 2009, Rebecca will attempt to become one of the first British people to ski up to 300 miles pulling a pulk (sledge) from Resolute Bay to Grise Fiord, the most northerly Inuit community in the Canadian Arctic. Throughout the journey she'll be posting about her experiences on this blog. Th'Arctic blog 'stations' and photographic updates from Rebecca's journey will be on show at Cornerhouse as part of Cornerhouse Projects, BBC Radio Lancashire and on the BBC Big Screen in Manchester's Exchange Square."

Katy Murr is a freelance journalist and also a feminist.

Also, have you met David?

New Blogs: The Dewey Decimal Edition

This week I'm shelving:

000
Technical Faults
One Greener Day
Redswish
Big Chip Blog

096
The Master of Complications

320
Voice Against Empire

534

Envirosonic

635
Ditches and Hoes

700
The Shrieking Violet

780
Helen of Troy Does Countertop Writings

811
The Other Room

921
Black Dogs
Flanerie
Not a kid and not that friendly

New blogs: The Homegrown Edition

Here's the latest in new bloggage around Manchester:

I Can Grow It is a blog tracking the progress of Susan's allotment in Stockport. It's a lovely idea and the pictures are cracking, like the one above.

Canuckistani in Limey Land is written by Rob, a North American exile recently arrived in Manchester. That's right, we're taking over. And any furrners thinking about becoming an official citizen of this grey and pleasant land (as I am) should read this post pronto.

The world kaleidoscope is a new visual art and culture blog.

Manchester is Ace is written by Carolyn Hughes and looks to be mainly about eating out in Manchester.

Edifying Discourse is Mark Rainey's personal blog.

"A year in France. Me, him and Cleo the cat. Not looking for an old barn to do up. Nor a second home, couldn't afford it, and anyway, one house is bloody hard work to maintain, so why have two? The pound has crashed and our income with it. It's beautiful. It's quiet. I know absolutely no-one. I love it. But what am I here for exactly? Good question. Anybody round here know the answer?" That's Manc in France.

Eric Olthwaite's blog is about "Boozers, Bands and Buildings. Comedy, Films and Trains. Rugby, pies and moans." His recently published Rainy City Story put one of my favorite old man pubs on the map.

More writer's blogs:

Annie Clarkson's Forgetting the Time

Matthew Hill, who writes weird fiction.

Richard Evans' Uncanny Valley

Dave Hartley is writing a short story a week for a year and posting them on his blog Lon Lon Ranch.

New blogs: Chock full o'writers

One of the cool side benefits of running the Rainy City Stories project is getting to find out about a lot of writer's blogs. Gosh, just look at all of them:

Fictionmaker

It's Alrite, Ma (I'm Only Writing)

Gill's Blog

Broughton Writing Lives

Spooky Action, Spooky Aiden

Natalie Uninterrupted

No Chance: A Quarter to One

Jockey Full of Bourbon

Atomised Amnesia

Writing because I have to

Santiago's Dead Wasp

I am going to continue to add blogs I get tipped off to through the site to the blogroll. I am assuming here that if you write a blog that's live on the internet and are putting it forward as a link with something you submit to be published online, you're quite happy for people to find out about it and maybe go read your writing. However, I've been wrong about this before, so if I post a link to your blog and you didn't want me to, just get in touch and it will be stricken from the record. I will, however, advise you to stop writing a blog and go buy yourself a moleskine.

Over in the realm of personal blogs, we have new additions in the blogs by mothers who write about their kids but also write interesting things about themselves subcategory: My Shitty Twenties and my neighbour Adventures of a Sleepless Toddler.

Another American expat blogger in Manchester? Yup, check it out: Uncouth American

He's cynical, and his name is Ben. He's Cynical Ben

Image: Will Freeborn's Girl in White Jacket, part of the Moleskine Project