Playing out

I'm a huge fan of after hours parties in museums, and The Whitworth's Midsummer House Party looks set to be a cracker, with a houseful of music, poetry and crafty goodness courtesy of local promoters For Folk's Sake and Pull Yourself Together and the Manchester Craft Mafia. It's this Thursday, from 7:30 to 10:30pm.

The weather is gorgeous at the moment, so the timing couldn't be better for Parklover's handy guide to public parks and green spaces in the city centre. It's a really comprehensive look at all the options for summertime picnics/recreation/sprawling on the grass hidden away in the urban streetscape. Some great little-known spots on there I will definitely be checking out soon.

If you feel like getting outside by the water this weekend, join Manchester Modernist Society for Tales of the Riverbank, a group meander in search of nature in the heart of the city. They say: "Join us on an investigative journey to find out how life on the riverbank has evolved through changing times. How have architects and planners responded to the presence of elemental forces of nature in the city centre? Sarah’s walk will follow the River Irwell uncovering tales of ecological development in the urban environment." Meet up at 1pm outside Manchester Cathedral on Sunday 27th June.

And if getting into the water is more your thing, you might want to check out my piece for Creative Tourist about wild swimming spots near Manchester. If I've missed any, and I'm sure I have, please add your own favourite swimming places in the comments (and no, the Rochdale Canal doesn't count.)

New blogs: The Summer (yeah, right) Edition

Hey there, it's time for another update on the newest blogs in and around Manchester.

First up isn't really a new blog, it's been going for a while unbeknownst to me. It's the blog of author Helen Tse, whose memoir about growing up Chinese-Mancunian family bears the same name as her family's Chinese restaurant in the Northern Quarter: Sweet Mandarin. Unsurprisingly, that's also the name of the blog. You can keep up with book news and read extracts from the memoir too.

Next is Booncunian, who calls himself "The Manchester blogger." Here is a guy is really into the new Batman movie. I mean, like, REALLY into the new Batman movie, to the point where I'm wondering if the studio is paying him to write about it. If not, man, you're missing a trick there.

Here's another work-related blog by a rather disenchanted Mancunian worker bee. It's either called Wage Mule or My Boss is An Idiot But He Pays My Wages. I'm going to go with the former until adrvised otherwise, because it's shorter.

A new photo blog: Summerseat Views chronicles the changing seasons in this lovely village outside Rambo. It's not updated that often, but the quality of the photos more than makes up for that. That up there is a sample.

Solepower is a group blog "dedicated to the culture of sneakers/trainers. As we have all lived in Manchester all our lives there will be lots of reminiscing about Manchester culture."

MyManchester.net is a network of 12 websites providing community-based information for Manchester. They've also hooked up with the BBC to help devlop media talent in Manchester and Salford. They're doing some really interesting work in helping people get rolling as community reporters, essentially neighbourhood-specific bloggers who write about what's going on in their 'hood - check out B of the Blog (Beswick, Clayton and Openshaw) or Roblog (Hulme). It looks like they're working with both new and existing bloggers as they've also signed up Lady Levenshulme to represent her domain. Content manager Jessica describes their approach thusly on her MyManchester Editor's Blog:

"When you hand the cameras over to the people who actually live here, the stories are so different. We’ve got loads of content on our website from people doing really interesting, really positive things in Manchester, which never make it into the news because they’re not going to sell, but they actually paint a much more realistic picture of what’s going on in our community. Whether its a young people’s anglers club in North Manchester, a refugee talking about their experiences, or a report of a local event, its real news and real issues from real people."

Sounds right on to me. Kinda similar to what the BBC Manchester Blog was doing, but more localised and a little more directed - I look forward to reading lots of good new neighbourhood blogs. If you're interested in getting involved, they're looking for more community reporters, so get in touch on their website.