The blogs of war

The MEN's foray into blogging continues, with the surprising addition of newspaper-sponsored blogs based in Lebanon and Israel. This sort of news-responsive hotspot blogging has been done before, probably best and most famously by the Guardian in Iraq, who enlisted Salam Pax to write a column. Still, it's a great idea, and it's nice to see the MEN being more ambitious on both the blogging and international news fronts.

The View From Lebanon is written by Wassim Kabbani, a recruitment consultant who moved to Beirut from Cheadle a few years back. His pieces provide a clear and unabashedly opinionated perspective on the situation in Lebanon. And Mancunian Sharon Healy is writing The View from Israel from her home near Haifa, which so far has centered mostly on the difficulties of carrying on with your life in a war zone. It's really weird to read about her buying cornflakes in the supermarket and missing out on her community drama group meeting because of bombing. I hope they both continue to write regularly, and stay safe.

The rest of the MEN blog stable is off to a somewhat variable start, with online director Sarah Hartley's food blog seeming the strongest of the lot.

Fringe benefits

Like just about everyone else I know, I long to go to Edinburgh every year, and every year I'm here in my pyjamas reading the glowing reports in the morning papers (whole sections of which are always given over to raving about the festival, which seems rather unfair on the rest of us.) But this year I feel like I am there, thanks to the marvelous Fringecast, a daily video podcast featuring snippets of performances and brilliantly unscripted interviews with performers.

The first couple podcasts have featured an interview with the scary Christine and Neil Hamilton, and a performance from Krysstal and Brian Damage, who sing a very funny song about Brits abroad. And it turns out that Fringecast is put together by one of our own Manchester bloggers, Dave of the Northern Quarter Podcasts blog. Pretty cool, eh?

(Photo of random flyerer from the Fringecast site.)

Manchester Blogmeet this Saturday!

Less than a week until the Manchester blogger confab at Urbis (that's 3-5 p.m. in the conference room, in case you were wondering.) It'll be a star-studded guest list of North West blogging talent.

So far, we can expect to see: Mancubist, Connect Media North West, Spinneyhead, Yer Mam!, Sticker,Bench, Landed, Why did I go wrong?, Stephen Newton's Diary of Sorts, A Free Man in Preston, Girl on a Train,
Crinklybee, Normblog, EnCompass Culture, Black Country Grammar, and Counago and Spaves.
I think there are others, but I might have mislaid a couple of links.

D.Percussion recap

So D. Percussion was okay. A fun day out in gloomy Castlefield. I'll be honest, I didn't think the musical lineup was all that. I tried to get into some of the bands (The Whip, The Longcut, Aim) but my mind would wander after a couple of songs. And I just missed Field Music, the one band I actually wanted to see. It would be really, really nice if Ear to the Ground would at least let us know what the running order is for each stage next time. They never do, though, and so everyone spends the entire day rushing aimlessly from stage to stage.

But maybe I'm always distracted by running into old friends, added to the ridiculous difficulties of trying to get a drink (which was not helped by the drinks stands running out of everything but John Smiths and Brandy by 7pm, and we're not even going to talk about that disgusting Fosters citrus beer they were flogging by BarCa.) Getting in enough drinks seems like basic competency stuff for events companies, though I was glad to see that they had enough portaloos this year. Still, it was fun to see everyone out and about in their finest hoodies and jeans. Did anyone else go?

To do: D.Percussion, trouble at t'mills, wireless

A firecracker of a weekend, with D.Percussion on tap to keep us entertained (remember your £2 "donation"). The full list of acts is here, though everyone I talk to seems to be the most excited about the Pipettes' set. I'm also looking forward to seeing Field Music.

Afterwards, you've got a choice. You can go to a rave in an old mill in Castlefield. Or you can go to an old mill in Salford, and see a crazy-haired singer called Diane Cluck. You could also try to get into the D.Percussion after party at The Music Box, but that's bound to be oversubscribed n' sweaty.

If you're having such an amazing time out and about in Manchester this weekend that you simply must share it with the internets immediately, you're in luck. Bournemouth Runner reports that Cornerhouse is now offering free wireless to customers. So by my count, that makes three places in town now offering free wifi, along with Oklahoma and Suburb (don't try to juice up with Suburb's electricity, though. They get real pissy.) A thriving digital cafe culture? Hardly. But it sure beats the lame "citywide wifi" service hawked by The Cloud and other connectivity profiteers.

Time Out Borrows Bill

Manchester media gossip time. So a month or two ago I had heard rumours suggesting that a former City Life editor had been tapped by the suits down in London to run the Manchester edition of Time Out. But it seems they were wrong. The man in charge is Bill Borrows, the former Maxim editor football blogger, author and Mirror columnist. Here's a highly amusing piece he did on accessories. Even better, I hear he's actually from Manchester. A Man City fan. Unfortunately, it seems he's actually only putting together the sample issue. Shame they couldn't entice him back North!

I also heard that they're not interested in hiring anyone who worked for City Life. Of course, that could just be a vile and inaccurate rumour (or it could be sound editorial policy). Time Out honcho Tony Elliott sure sounds unimpressed with Manchester's last listings mag in this Press Gazette piece:

“City Life wasn’t very good — I don’t know the whole story, but it lost its way and it wasn’t as sharp and as organised and reliable as it ought to be. In a nutshell, Time Out is a better and different magazine."

Should be interesting to see the sample issue next month.

(Time Out Manchester cover image shamelessly thieved from Mancubist, who still won't say where it came from...)

Big for summer: The homeless look

You know, it totally sucks when you're being interviewed by a trendy magazine at a famous clubnight and you say something so breathtakingly thoughtless and stupid that it makes Mel Gibson look like Martin Luther King. And then they print it in the magazine, underneath your picture. That, like, totally blows.



From NYLON, June/July 2006

News with a guest list

Flavorpill, the slickly-designed weekly email that keeps young urbanites up to speed on essential info such as where to catch the latest punk-funk band or 23-year-old memoirist sensation, has launched a new subscription email service. Following recent expansions into literature, music, fashion and art-specific e-newsletters, the powers that be have decided that news is next. Strange.

I took a look at this first issue today. "Activate" has an interesting layout, featuring a rundown of the week's top stories, the best in pictures, business and technology sections, a few local news nuggets, and "nearly news" - a selection of weird news bits from around the world. It's pretty much all links, and devoid of much analysis or context, so it reads fairly thin to me.

There are lots of news aggregators out there, this one just seems to be trying to brand itself as the stylish alternative. It's sort of like a brisk little news cocktail for folks who are too busy being painfully hip to do anything so quaintly laborious as actually read a newspaper. The header text on the site asks: "are you on the list for Activate?" a phrase that can't help but pique the interest of its target audience of liggers, blaggers, bloggers and braggers. But, hey, anything that keeps folks informed about the world beyond Hoxton and Williamsburg is a good thing.

To do: Nell, Little Fish, Grilled Prawns, Rock Lobster

It's almost the weekend, and if you're casting about for something to do, keep in mind that the lovely and talented Nell Bryden will be doing her bluesy singer-songwriter thing at the Night and Day Saturday night, having come all the way from New York City. I've seen her live stateside and highly reccommend it. If you can't make that one she's playing at the Trades Club in Hebden Bridge on August 12.

Little Fish is on at the Cornerhouse. It's grim. It's about Australian drug addicts, dealers and petty scum. It's got Cate Blanchett leading a stellar Antipodean cast. I liked it a lot. Plus it's one of those movies that makes you feel great about your life because there's no way it could be that fucked up, ever.

The weather's supposed to be good, so we'll be barbecuing at my house. If you're doing the same, you might want to try this lip-smacking marinade, suitable for meat, fish, veggies, and fake-meat-soy products, but it's especially good on tiger prawn kebabs: Combine a bit of light soy sauce, sesame oil, rice vinegar and a dash of fish sauce. Chop a couple of cloves of garlic and a teaspoon of ginger and mix them with a whole lime's worth of juice and a small teaspoon of sugar. should be a nice caramel brown colour. If you have fresh cilantro or lemongrass hanging around, chop it and throw some in, but it's not essential. Brush on liberally throughout and after grilling.

Or you could sit inside and sulk in front of the computer like the miserable misanthropic blogger that you are. If you're planning to do that, you can kill a whole bunch of time rocking out to old videos by the B-52s, Tom Tom Club, The Damned (goth + cowboys = strange) and oodles of other rad 80s bands, here at the confusingly named Best Legal Advice. Yes, they even have the theme song from St. Elmo's Fire. But what's the deal with the domain name... is this some kind of scam that loads your computer up with spyware while you're staring dumbfoundedly at Living on Video by Trans-X? I kind of almost don't even care if it is.

The Manchester Blog Awards

This Autumn will bring a big opportunity to spread the Manchester bloggers gospel. Here's the deal: the brand-new Manchester Literature Festival has a strand of programming called Freeplay celebrating the intersection of writing and technology. As part of that, I'm going to be organising the first Manchester Blog Awards. This will be a few awards in different categories, open to all bloggers in the Manchester area (except me and other to-be-determined judges). The winners will be announced during the festival, at Urbis on October 16, which is to be a joint event with the Verberate live lit night.... and might even include some blog "readings."

So I'd like to hear any ideas folks have about the awards - what you would and wouldn't like to see for categories, who'd be a great judge, etc. Whatever random, half-formed thoughts you have, send 'em my way. I'll be on hand to answer questions about this and will be actively soliciting more input at the Manchester blog meet, Saturday Aug 12 at Urbis. And if anyone has design talents they'd be willing to devote to whipping up a little Manchester Blog Awards logo for the cause, get in touch at themanchizzle at gmail dot com.

More new blogs, plus Flickr meetup

Okay, here's four more new blogs. I'd like to say I'm sorry this is the last day of our new blog invasion week, but I'm getting a little bit sick of writing about blogs, and there are so many other things I want to blather on about, like how bad Superman Returns was, how jaw-droppingly cool Toshio Iwai's talk was at Futuresonic last night, and all of the various exciting things happening around the city over the next few weeks. But first...

Jonathan's Blog on Teaching, Learning and Research in the Arts is a great example of the right way to use blogging as a professional resource. Johnathan Savage is a Senior Lecturer in Music Education at Man Met, and from September 2006 will be a Visiting Research Fellow at the Royal Northern College of Music. His blog does what it says on the tin.

The blog of a N. irish computing student at UMIST,
ajdunlop's rants include bits about Flickr, double decker buses, and great quotations.

Cognitive Dissonance is written by PJ, a Manchester software engineer who writes a lot about music, and life in general. He's also active in Flickr. I'm seeing a lot of overlap between bloggers and Flickrheads in Manchester. So some of you might want to head over to the Manchester Flickr meet-up this Sunday, July 23 at 1:30pm at Sinclair's Oyster Bar in Exchange Square.




I'm not going to be able to make it seeing as I'll be out of town, but it should be fun, and could be the most photographed event in Manchester since the bomb. (Sinclair's photo courtesy of Spiderpops, from the Manchester Flickr group.)

Blog invasion week: Day 4

Yep, there's still more. Here's today's batch of freshy minted (or new-to-us) Manchester blogs:

Susan Tranter is writing a blog, from Manchester, for the British Council's international reading website, enCompass Culture where she is online writer in residence. You can read it here, and you might learn a bit about Georges Perec, too. You know Georges Perec, right? Aw, just go read it.

Ben Edson blogs at benedson, writing primarily about spirituality and worship in Manchester, or that's how it looks from recent posts.

And finally, Paul Smith is "a friendly frontend designer and programmer" who blogs at paulmichaelsmith His blog mostly deals with matters technological and design-y.

New blog invasion week, Day 3

It's another scorcher today, but it's nice and cool in my house. And, as promised, here's a new batch of Manchester-area blogs for the ever-lengthening blogroll. I'm seeing a lot of very sophisticated, designed-up sites out there, which is making me look at the old Manchizzle and think it's time for a facelift of sorts. Sigh...

Richard, who's getting a MSc in History of Science, Technology and Medicine at the University of Manchester, is the man behind
One Born Every Minute, a repository of funny and quirky thoughts on religion, ethics, psychology and modern society. If you're concerned about the afterlife, you might want to read his latest post: Are You Going to Hell? Take This Fun Test. And yes, trips to Ikea on the Sabbath do count.

Northern Comfort is the online home of Northern, who writes hiphop, electronic and dance, which you can hear on his site. You can also see Yoda bust a move while throwing down some mad rhymes. This week he writes about a San Francisco anti-graffiti campaign that seems to be appropriating the techniques of street artists like the brilliantly inventive Wooster Collective - the very folks they are trying to shut down. Another musician's blog is Testrack, which is specifically about "dubstep tunes and other shizz" and you can hear some of his tunes on the site.

Jonathan Fox is an interactive media specialist, photograper and author who lives in Cheshire and writes WordCast, a widely-ranging blog that recently covers the problem of Britishness, the erosion of civil liberties, and our blogmeet... thanks! He also thinks whistling is just wrong.

Blog invasion week: Day 2

Oy vey! I can't take the heat. Lever Street is shimmering in a dusty desert haze, and Piccadilly Gardens is crawling with people who are about fifteen minutes away from realising they have heatstroke and should get out of the sun, pronto. I've promised to bring you new blogs every day this week, however, and my duties cannot be shirked. But it's too hot for thinking much, so I'm going to keep the introductions blessedly brief.

First up is MREnders blog about FC United and whatever else takes the writers' fancy, which this week includes Tiswas.

Blogrot has an excellent strapline: MySpace my arse. It's a multimedia smorgasboard of a blog that started life many generations ago as a biscuit factory in the Ancoats district of Manchester. Stop by, introduce yourself to the aural delights of the Wah Zoo and check out bitrot's first foray into film, courtesy of YouTube.

Can't take any more... must go stand in front of the freezer. Keep drinking water.

Un-conscious

One of Manchester's finest folks left us today, taking off for a better job in a flatter place. We know him as the modestly brilliant Conscious & Verbal. Go and read his lyrical farewell to the city here. Frankly, I just don't know how we'll all get along without him.

Ambition and distraction

By the way, while I'm getting my hands dirty in the bowels of The Manchizzle's template, I'll be removing some old, inactive blogs from the blogroll. It's needed tidying up for a while, so I'm going to eighty-six blogs that haven't been updated in the last three months. If your blog gets de-linked and you want back in, just email me at themanchizzle at gmail dot com and I'll return it to the blogroll.

Blog invasion part deux

It's the second chapter in our week of crazy new blog action. Here we go...

Rantspace is the digital home of Sticker, who is in the process of moving to Manchester from Aberdeenshire, where he's been involved in organising meetups for bloggers and flickrheads - he promises to come to our meet Aug. 12 at Urbis, too. Sticker rants about pop culture, society, security, gadgets, the technology sector, football and other stuff.

Sol Flamberg writes SollyBear, a personal blog about his adventures in life. He recently got married. Congrats.

A line at the top of Tomog asks: 'Do you think it's dangerous to have Busby Berkeley dreams?' I know that phrase from somewhere, but where? Tom Ogden, the writer of the blog (who recently moved to Manchester,) also says "some other things I find pretty or interesting include indie-pop, books, space, films, the web, maps, design, cities — all sorts of stuff really, but mostly it’s love and science."

Another couple of photoblogs for the list. A fairly straightforward collection of Manchester snaps is at Zamyatin. And intellectual-idiot has some great nature snaps up at the moment, including a robin vs. flying ant series that's pretty incredible... see one above.

Martyn Redstone, a computing student at Salford U, writes Schmultz and The City, a spiffy-looking personal blog. If anyone's wondering what Schmultz is, he offers a definition:
Schmultz: Yiddish for “Chicken fat” but has been appropriated by Hollywood types to refer to emotional mushiness. Not to be confused with “Schmutz” (dirt).
In my experience, it's often spelled Schmaltz, as in, "I thought Superman Returns was waay too schmaltzy." I did, too, but more on that later.

Invasion of the new blogs

I've been meaning to add a bunch of new blogs to the Manc blog roll for ages. So long, in fact, that the number of blogs waiting in the tiki lounge, sipping a cocktail and tapping their toes impatiently has grown to an unruly crowd. So brace yourselves for a ginormous influx of new blogs this week. Be nice to them.

First, welcome to jonthebeef, a Manchester DJ who operates a sweet music blog at Black Country Grammar, which is also hooked up to the musicblogaggregator extravaganza that is elbo.ws - go check it out if you haven't already. BCG is featuring a multi-part T in the Park roundup that is guaranteed to make you wish you were there.

Next up is Drongomala, "who says he is heralding the second Renaissance. Drongo means idiot and mala means 'evocation of'. He runs a recording label in Manchester. This blog weaves in and out of focus between music, politics, art and personal experiences. Snapshots take place in the same manner as a knee hit on the unfunny bone. This is the chicken the hammer and the egg." Cool.

Landed. is a personal blog from Stef from Chorlton, who likes windsurfing, sunshine and wobbly dogs. She splits her posts between English and Italian - our first bilingual blog, I think? There's a long post in Italiano titled "On Ikla Moor baht'hat" that I wish I could read - wonder how that translates?

Dented Nerd is written by Joey. "Joey is a British female Libra who likes to rock, write and drink obscene amounts of alcohol. She studies popular music and recording at Salford University, sings lead vocals in a band, plays a bit of guitar, watches too much anime for her own good, and designs websites every now and then."

There are a few photo blogs to add as well. Photodude is snapped by John Marquess, who lives outside Manchester and has a nice photoblogroll of sites well worth a visit. Fontilan is an a stripped-down, anonymous photo blog. Unpopped is Ade Rixon's photography. Thanks to Mancubist for tipping me off to these last three. Also, Matt Cox runs a sleek Opera-based blog, Sketchy Stuff, that features great photos (one of which I've posted above) and writings about online stuff, music, film and the like.

Blogmeet plans: Aug 12

Jonathan reminded me that I'd mooted the idea of a Manchester blogmeet in late July, and was wondering what was going on. Well, here's the deal. I've found us a city centre space with free wireless, a dedicated private room, and drinks/snacks to buy: Urbis. The kind folks there are willing to let us use their conference room. The hitch is it was booked through late July, so the next available date would be Saturday August 12. I was thinking 3-5, with folks going on to a pub afterwards if they were so inclined. How does this sound?

Attack of the Robot Blogs!

What happens to a blog after it dies? The answer appears to be reincarnation, as many decommissioned blogs find themselves hosting a splog (or spam blog), cyberman style, in short order. For examples here on our own blogroll, I call your attention to the gone-but-not-forgotten Trolley Park, which now redirects you to a splog (I'll take the link off the blogroll soon.) And I've noticed some weird posts coming up on Manchester Bloggers aggregator as well, bizarre streams of half-sensical content vaguely related to Bob Dylan or Barbra Streisand that could only be the work of a splog. No, really.

The explanation seems to be that someone is doing a brisk trade in freshly de-activated Blogspot urls to spammers and nefarious Search Engine Optimisers(SEOS). Check out this thread on the elbo.ws user forums. Way more on the phenomenon here at Greynet's Blog. So, if anyone is contemplating a platform shift, don't de-register your blogger account or you may be enabling spammage. And suspect splogs should be flagged as objectionable in the Blogger navbar, after which someone will presumably do something about them.

Sometimes, though, defunct urls are taken by someone who is genuinely setting up a blog, which can make for some amusing mixups. Our own Southern Bird, who flew the coop several months ago, might be suprised to find that her old url hosts a blog that is actually about southern birds. It's now the home of the Southern Wings Bird Club. Happy twitching!

(Wicked cyberman drawing coutesy of Paul Rance's Doctor Who Facts & Figures Page)

Love returns to the Northern Quarter

You heard it here first: Love Saves The Day is coming back to the Northern Quarter. In a few weeks, they'll be serving up tasty treats every day at Vox Pop records on Thomas Street.

As my friend said yesterday, before they set up shop on Tib Street you only ventured North of Piccadilly "to buy drugs or get twatted." Chris and Beckie Joyce brought baristas and bagels into the 'hood, and the ensuing gentrification helped transform it into the playland for young professionals with silly hair that we know and love today.

Some financial difficulties led to them shuttering the Oldham Street and Deansgate delis several months ago. Deansgate has since reopened, but Oldham Street is now occupied by a vintage clothing shop. Now, they're going to be operating a concession inside the funky record shop that's backed by that tea-loving Manc DJ. It's just going to be coffee and sarnies, but at least that's one more place in Manchester to buy good coffee and sarnies.

(Isn't this a cool picture? It's from anti-limited, who have a pretty impressive collection of 360 degree panoramic photos/quicktime movies of your favourite Manchester landmarks on their site.)

To do: Funkateers, Buccaneers, and football

The Mothership will be touching down at Manchester Academy next weekend, so now's the time to bag some tickets for the mind-snapping spectacle that is a Parliament Funkadelic show featuring George Clinton (aka Starchild, Dr. Funkenstein) who may actually be an alien, the man who posed the eternal question: Do fries go with that shake? No drugs necessary.

Go see the Enron movie. Or if documentaries about crooked bidnessmen are too depressing, go see a movie about pirates of the non-corporate variety. Apparently Keith Richards is going to be in the next one, playing Jack Sparrow's Dad. Must have recovered from, erm, falling out of a coconut tree or whatever (what the hell was he doing up there?)

Yeah, it's the World Cup final on Sunday. But did you know that you could watch it in the air conditioned comfort of the filmworks? Weird.

Scousecleaning

Robyn Archer, the Liverpool Capital of Culture chief, is out amid a storm of controversy (which, as we've noted before, the CoC needs more of like Dolly Parton needs a Wonderbra.) Full story here from the Indy.

Lots of speculation about why she's out. Personality clash? Maybe she missed Australia too much. Several months into getting the post, she was still living in Oz.

ooh, more blogs

Hey, look what I found on Oldham Street... it's a very interesting crop of new additions to the blogroll.

First up we have Thousands and Millions, Gavin White's faith-centred blog. Recent posts cover the spiritual restoration of the city of Manchester, Jesus' words on fruit, and this interesting take on England's recent sporting slump:

Well the summer of sporting misery continues for the Great British Public! England are out of the world cup, Andy Murray is out of Wimbledon and England have been highly ineffective in the cricket. Sport is such a fickle beast, great one minute and terrible the next - If it's where your passion lies then you're in for a roller-coaster ride!!

However, if you put your passion and energy into worshipping God then you will know a peace, joy and fulfilment that even England winning a penalty shoot out (will it ever happen?) couldn't provide.

Hmmm. not sure that sort of consolation would be such an easy sell to the likes of David Beckham. But he'd love the jewelry...

Moving on, I realise somewhat belatedly that I've neglected to add a great photo blog to the blogroll. I've written before praising Mr. Pretzels' blu-tack animation, but the guy also has a Manchester photo blog that is updated way more frequently, so I'm adding it to the roll instead. That's where the groovy orange picture of Oldham Street, late night, came from.

Next up we have Img is Everything, written by Phil Thompson, who previously blogged at doubleonegative.com. He's a web developer who lives in Manchester, and it mostly deals with web developer stuff that I can't really understand, but I know some of you geeks will benefit from it's tips n' tricks. In fact, the img part of the blog's title is written in html, so that if you try to include it in a post it actually creates a little text box... clever, but it kind of makes it hard to blog about the site without changing the name.

July 4

Happy Independence Day.

If you want to see what a Fourth of July parade is like in my native Vermont, my flatlander blog buddy False 45th has put together an excellent photo essay, with very funny captions.

Good news, bad news

So we hear from Mancubist that d.percussion has been granted a reprieve. You can read the details here. Apparently a last-minute sponsorship deal with Bench clothing saved the free Castlefield festival that had threatened to close because some sponsors pulled out at the last minute.

Hmmm... maybe I'm being overly cynical here, but Ear to the Ground sure have gotten a whole heap of publicity out of this last-minute funding crisis, and now they've also made sure that it's bad form to gripe about having to pay £2 to get into what was always a free festival.... but maybe I'm just being too cynical. Of course, we all love D.Percussion. You'd be a fool to miss it.

But it's not all sunshine and roses this morning. Our West Yorkshire correspondent Tony reports that Hebden Bridge has been hit by severe flooding. Joss sticks, copies of The Prophet and £9 pots of gourmet Hummus have washed up as far away as Cornholme.

And I'm sorry to report that Stephen Newton's cat has ascended to feline Valhalla. RIP Critter.

(Amazing d.percussion photo by Lomo goddess Lori Smith. Go look at her pix, they're gorgeous.)

Movies: A mighty "Wind"

Just saw Ken Loach's film The Wind That Shakes the Barley at C-house last night. What a great movie; beautifully shot, beautifully acted and nicely understated in its general tone, which allows the gut-wrenching conflict to take center stage. It makes Michael Collins look like Forrest Gump.

Wind starts off looking like it's going to be a simplistic story of Good (Irish freedom fighters) vs. Evil (Black and Tans). But these boundaries dissolve into chaos, as Loach shows how fiercely the conflict over partition raged between diehard Republicans and compromise-minded Free Staters, with flaws and injustices on all sides.

This film does a particularly good job of putting the Irish struggle in the context of wider European events. The aftereffects of the Great War in Britain (a large number of war-brutalised mercenaries to hand, a hardheaded approach to foreign policy) and the socialist movements sweeping Europe in the teens and Twenties both played significant roles in the way events played out in Ireland, and it's nice to see a movie that doesn't shrink away from showing a bigger, more complex picture of history.

Film fest shock!

Commonwealth Film Festival is closing June 30, for good.

This is bad news. Every year the festival showed an intriguing programme of films that might have trouble finding an audience otherwise, particularly emerging Asian cinema. When was the last time you saw a Malaysian movie at the cineplex?

It's not clear from the website why the festival is closing - and the way things are worded here, suggests that it was only intended to run for five years. If this was to be the last year all along, you'd think it would have been mentioned in the literature for this year's fest, but it wasn't. I'm guessing that money is the problem...

The Commonwealth, as an entity, doesn't seem to hold much water these days, and for younger folks it may actually possess a negative association, a reminder of Britain's distasteful imperial past. The film fest was launched in the runup to the Commonwealth Games, and managed to keep going for five years, which is a credit to its great staff. But festivals and organisations launched for such milestones (e.g. Capital of Culture) aren't always sustainable once the raft of grants and funding floats away to the next big cultural thing.

However, there's some good news too. I got this email today:

*Kinofilm launches MiFF... Manchester International Film Festival

*Filmmakers and lovers of cinema need to start planning right now
for a trip to Manchester between *26th October to 4th November
2007,* when *Kinofilm* launches the new biennial *Manchester
International Film Festival*. The new festival will combine an
eclectic mix of *Features, Shorts, Animation and Documentary*, and
will showcase exclusive premieres and outstanding new talent.

As well as promising to bring a feast of *International Independent
Cinema* to the *City of Manchester*, the festival will provide a
much needed platform for talented filmmakers from the UK, many of
whom have successfully made the transition from shorts to features.
The *Manchester International Film Festival* will champion original,
low budget and independent new features, and will include
retrospectives of such directors as *Lynne Ramsay *and* Damien O¹
Donnell* both of whom gained important early exposure through
*Kinofilm*.


What's up with all the *asterisks?* I have no clue either, but a new film festival is a good thing for the city, and a biennial one should be easier to sustain.

Okay, it's a World Cup post

Got back from the motherland yesterday morning, still a little jetlagged and bleary.

I expected my month in the states to be a World Cup-free experience, but to my surprise soccer does seem to be taking off - a bit - in the states. Of course, it'd take off a lot faster if we didn't play so dismally, but, even so. I watched part of the USA-Italy match crowded around a tiny tv during a wedding reception with a room full of unexpectedly into-it soccer fans (the mother of the bride kicked us out around halftime because they needed the space for pictures) and even in rural Vermont, it wasn't hard to find bars showing the games. It's always been big in New York, probably because of the huge immigrant population, but lately soccer seems to have become the cool sport to follow in media circles. Still, I was more interested in watching the Carolina Hurricanes beat the Edmonton Oilers in the action-packed Stanley Cup finals (that's ice hockey, folks.) I didn't want to go nuts watching football over there because I knew that when I got back to blighty it'd be football city morning noon and night.

And it is. Oh yes, it is. It's like a St. George's cross bomb exploded in Tesco. My partner and I drove into Liverpool today, and we walked by a bar with a big sign:

WE ARE SHOWING EVERY MATCH

(EVEN IRAN V. MEXICO)

Everyone's getting into it. A barber's in Walton had this one:
"WORLD CUP SHOWN HERE. WATCH THE MATCH WHILE YOU WAIT."

And then went to lunch at the London Carriage Works, the posh-but-reasonable-for-lunch restaurant attached to the very tasteful Hope Street Hotel. The food was good. They handed us this card with our bill:

Throughout the World Cup, the Residents' Lounge will be screening all the major games so you can enjoy the tournament in luxury. You will receive first class table service throughout the game so you need not miss a minute of action!

Watching the match in luxury seems somehow wrong, though. Don't you have to be in a pub full of sweaty, shouting blokes clutching pints of lager?

Oh, and the picture is actually England flag contact lenses. No joke.

Time Out IS coming...

Time Out to launch Manchester, Liverpool eds in February (Independent)
But first they need to raise a million quid.

(Thanks to alert reader Kate T. for the tip-off)

Mighty mighty

DPercussion might be cancelled, The Music Box and Jilly's might be converted into a Tesco, and Band on the Wall might never reopen. Hmmm.

Welcome to Salford, suckas

Didn't see this one coming.

BBC chooses Salford Quays for new site (NWE)

Salford bid wins BBC move north (MEN)

New blog about food

Oops, forgot to include this new foodie blog in my roundup the other day. Moreish is a blog about "living deliciously in the Northwest", and looks to feature the best of the region's food and drink: From parkin to pho bo, from vimto to vol au vent, if it's good (or exceptionally bad) then I'm going to write about it. I'll uncover culinary mysteries, tracking down the fabled "slappy" in its natural habitat, scouring remote moorlands for forgotten pubs, and unearthing the last Temperance Hall in existence.

Moreish's first few posts include a review of the Three Fishes in Mitton and a description of a farmer's market at Hoghton Tower near Preston.

New kids on the blog

News of a few new Mancunian blogs has crossed the Atlantic to Vermont (where it has been raining since I arrived, natch...) and we have three additions to the blogroll this week.

First up is Mancubist, a blog connected with music promotion outfit Hey! Manchester. The Mancubist describes the blog as a different take on the Mancunian identity. "I'm just a fan of Manchester - though neither red nor blue - and arts, music, media and life in this fair city. I'm one of those weird people who like the rain." And there's no connection with the Londonist or Gothamist blogs, in case you were wondering - he just liked the name. He's started out with some really interesting posts about sundry things like Chinatown bakeries and The Salford Star, a new "grassroots glossy" Salford-centric mag to be distributed free across the river.

Then we have Continuity in Architecture, a blog run by academics and architects in Manchester and Preston. It's hooked up with the Manchester School of Architecture, where CiA is a teaching studio. It is, naturally, pretty heady stuff, but a lively writing style and interesting topics keep it from becoming totally inacessible to those outside of the industry. Those with a healthy side interest in buildings and stuff (and there are lots of you in Manchester, I know) may want to check in regularly - recent posts explore wayfaring, facades and the evolution of Rome's Porta Maggiore.

Finally, ConnectMedia Northwest is a professional network that holds workshops and get-togethers for journos, photogs and flacks in the Manchester area (the next one is Wed, see site for details.) They also host a blog, and sitemeister Craig always has his eye out for interesting media tidbits, like this recent item about the MEN's foray into blogging. Cool.

(Thanks to Lord Rich of Manchester Bloggers Aggregator for the new blog tips.)

Blog meet in July

Hi y'all. I'd like to organise another Manchester blog meet for a Saturday or Sunday in late July. It's nice to get the blogging brethren together for a cup of tea from time to time, and I also have some news to share about a blogging event that's going to happen during the first annual Manchester Literature Festival this coming Autumn, one that lots of you should be involved in.

This is going to be an hour-or-so-long casual meet somewhere in the city centre. So, I'm putting this out there to solicit input about what's a good day/time/location for people, and also to see if anyone has anything else that they'd like to talk about at the meeting (new blog-related projects, burning questions about templates, etc...) Please respond in the comments with your thoughts, or you can also email me at themanchizzle at gmail dot com.

And... I'm just about to do another new bloggers post, so let me know if you've got any new candidates for the blogroll.

NW Enquirer gives blogs some space

I just noticed that the North West Enquirer has started a new online feature called North West Blogwatch, where they excerpt NW blogs. They've already featured some folks who are on the blogroll, but if you want to let them know about your blog then there's a form you can submit on the blogwatch page. Should hopefully get some new folks into blogging, or at least bring us more readers. And it's nice to see a newspaper with some net savvy - Their website is more user-friendly than most, and they had RSS feeds up from day one.

YouTube hearts Salford

Okay, so I am supposed to be on vacation, but having some free time on my hands I just dipped a cautious toe into the ocean of amateur video bizzareness that is YouTube, and I found some Salford-related goodies that I just had to share:

1. "The Salford Lad"
A clean-cut yet angsty young man walks awkwardly through what could be the rougher bits of Salford and... eventually... smokes a cigarette. Apparently the homemade video for a German(?) band's homage to Manc urban blight. I don't speak German, so I'd love to know what they're saying (C?) but I think that the chorus is something like "three cheers for the Salford Lad!" What, no hoodie?

2. The Salford Lads Club
Some slightly more famous Salford Lads, and a performance of The Queen is Dead from a 1986 gig at Salford University Students Union. Look how young the Mozmeister is!

3. The Salford Lads Fight Club
"Hold on tight, because the most incredible kung fu adventure, ever, is about to begin." The Dragon Fist Fighters unleash their righteous fury on Salford. Oh my gawd.

MAN-NYC-BTV

Just a little postlet to say that I'm going back to the motherland for the month of June, to attend not one but two weddings in New York and spend some time with my family in glorious Vermont. I won't be writing as much here but will be blogging over at The Vermizzle, my long-neglected stateside blog. Come visit if you get bored.

(gorgeous VT pic courtesy Dusty Davis)

Arthouse in Preston

Today is apparently my day to blog about the movies. I've just found out that there's a new arthouse cinema coming to Preston (aka "England's Newest City") and this is wildly exciting news for me and those of us who live, erm, on this side of Manchester (those of you who live within walking distance of the Cornerhouse can go and be smug somewhere else.) It's going to be based at the University of Central Lancashire, it's opening June 9, and will have 4-5 screenings a week, plus talks/events/readings etc. Tsotsi and L'Enfant will be the first screenings. You can read about it here. Now, if I can just find a decent bar or restaurant in Preston, I'll be all set.

Movies: A beauty and a beast.

Somehow, I've managed to get away without either reading or watching the Da Vinci Code (shhh!) but I have seen a horrible dud that I feel it is my duty to warn you about. Namely, Match Point, which was just released on DVD. Yeah, it is a Woody Allen movie, but it's become increasingly clear that this doesn't mean it's good. I'll usually cut him a lot of slack. I even liked Melinda and Melinda, which everyone else seemed to hate. This one, however, is a real dog.

The dialogue is so stilted that it could have been translated into English from Albanian by a Japanese graduate student. It doesn't help that the two chemistryless leads, Scarlett Johanssen and Jonathan Rhys Meyers, couldn't act their way out of a paper bag (though they both have nice, pillowy lips.) The storyline is a tale of forbidden love between two outsiders among the (yawn) English upper classes, with a feeble connection to tennis. It's one of those movies that starts out lighthearted and easygoing and then makes a completely unwelcome 90 degree turn into bleak drama-thriller territory, kind of like Something Wild. It's a complete unmitigated disaster, and I have to wonder why the reviews were so positive.


Go see Brick instead. It's a noirish murder mystery set in the echoing corridors of a California high school, featuring a nerdy antihero, some menacing teenage drug dealers and hypnotically alluring young females in berets. The weird hepcat lingo grates after a while, but it has a kind of dreamlike appeal. It was shot on a shoestring by young filmmaker Rian Johnston, who got all his friends and family to put up the money, and you really get the feeling of one person's fully-imagined vision coming to life... in that it reminds me a lot of Donnie Darko, which it is certainly every bit as weird as.

And speaking of which, Richard Kelly's second film, Southland Tales, has been roundly slated at Cannes. The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw - who I defintely don't always agree with - described it as "the festival's real clunker." Awwww. Now I really want to see it.

100 blogs... plus two

Cough. Sniff. Sneeze. This is me limping into bank holiday weekend with a terrible cold, missing work and surviving on a diet of tea and toast. At least the weather is crappy so I don't feel as though I'm missing out on anything special, like our camping plans. But, because I'm always thinking of others, I have pulled myself out of my feverish lethargy to add a few new blogs to the blogroll ... nudging us past our 100-blog benchmark.

The first is McBlog, written by I.Mc, who has put down Aberdeen/Manchester as hometown. Quite a combination. What will you find there? Bad chimp jokes, musings about the proliferation of St. George's Cross flags, and a mini-review of the Da Vinci Code.

Then we have Mark is Taking the Plunge, a writing blog by an aspiring novelist. Recent topics include short stories, and a sneaky peak behind closed doors at the Carcanet offices. Apparently they give tours to the public.... who knew?

Finally we have The World of Mistrust, the blog of Mistrust, a downtempo chillout musician, who writes about the music he makes at home. That's all for now, I'm running out of strepcils.

The Night Museum

Going to look at some art or artifacts often seems a lot more enticing when there's a social element to things. I imagine this is part of the reason why private views are so popular (though the free booze undoubtedly helps too) - you can catch up with your friends and meet people while checking out an exhibition.

In the past couple of years after-hours gallery events have become a bigger thing. Art galleries in the world's urbs have started periodically opening their doors for late-night perusing, often accompanied by a musical performance, live art gig or other entertainment. This seems like a win-win to me... the museums get a much-needed injection of hipness and a way to attract more customers; we get more opportunities to see those exhibitions we'd end up missing otherwise. Museums and galleries are mostly open during the work day, and our weekends are already packed with other culturally-edifying activities (lolling around outside the pub drinking beer, lolling around on the couch watching T4, etc.) And looking at art or other exhibitions in these settings just seems more relaxed, less intimidating and, somehow, not such a big deal.

Over in NYC, the Brooklyn Museum's First Saturdays have been an enormous hit, and down south they've got Late at Tate and The V&A's much-heralded Friday Late programme. I haven't heard about anything like this in Manc, except for a few one-offs like the birthday Live Art events in the Cornerhouse galleries last October. The Manchester Art Gallery did have one late night event like this a year or two ago. It was some cocktail and looking at art thingy put on by an outside events company, I think - but it was invite only (like most of the private views in town ... which i think is really too bad. Why should these things be closed to all but the self-appointed cultural elite? If opening them up to the public means they have to charge for drinks, so be it.)

So I was delighted to hear about The Social at Urbis, a series of different music nights, live lit readings and performances. Unfortunately, the galleries close at 8pm Th-S so you can't look at art while the events are going on (they're held in that long, thin cafe down the side) but they have a new menu so at least you can get some dinner and enjoy a drink.

And, right on cue, it's Nuit des Musees across Europe this Saturday, May 20. In Paris this is a big deal, with practically every museum staying open til the wee hours. Here in Manchester, we get the Manchester Museum staying open til...gasp! 9 o'clock. Oh, and the Hat Works in Stockport is also open later than usual. Yup, it's all going on in the 24-hour city.

(purple urbis shot from pictures of england)

Manchester Media cat fight: MEN v. MCR Confidential

There's nothing like a good old-fashioned catfight to liven up a party, as long as you're not one of the cats. Advertorial site Manchester Confidential's Mark Garner (aka Gordo) pissed off the MEN, and promptly got disinvited to their annual diary booze-fest. You can read Gordo's account of the spat, the snippy letter from MEN Editor Paul Horrocks un-inviting him, and the reader responses to all of this (which seem about split between rubbishing the MEN and rubbishing Gordo)here:

But Gordo didn't provide links to the copy that annoyed the MEN so much. I've dug it out. The main culprit, I suspect, was some text accompanying a contest sponsored by the Enquirer:

"We believe there must have been some divine intervention for the arrival of The North West Enquirer to save us from the drudgery of the MEN and bottom-burping Metro....with the explosion of urbanites and professionals in Manchester, it was about time there was a newspaper to match the North West’s IQ...Editorially led, you can actually flick through without Shane Ward or equally tiresome C-list celebrities' mugshots dominating 90 percent of the pages. Radical, we know....Where newspapers like the MEN, or the ‘evil empire’ as Gordo affectionately refers to it, dumb down their copy and insult the intelligence of their readers, The North West Enquirer injects the brain cells with rocket fuel and reassures the reader that journalism covers more then cats up trees and pie eating competitions. We may be northerners but we’re not stupid....Will you stand firm with us and join the North West’s finest in support of the biggest thing to hit Manchester since the IRA bombing, or sink into early retirement, play puzzles and nod off in front of the MEN." Meow!

Here, in an earlier piece, MC called the MEN "shit-scared of any competition that can actually commission interesting stories," and said they didn't want to be "The Guardian's catamite." (Excellent word that.)

This interesting tale came via Manchester_Clubbing, a new blog apparently run by those silly boys over at What Happened Last Night. Yes, that's another new blog. We're getting very close to our Manchester blogroll century.

(Cat-tastic picture courtesy of on-no.net Want to see more pictures of cats? You know you do. Go here. Or here. Or here)

Open Guide to Manchester

It can be difficult trying to find new places to go in the city; we all get stuck in our own little grooves. In the past, the livejournal community Manchester's Journal has been good for the odd restaurant, pub or night out tip, and I've just learned about another place to look: The Open Guide to Manchester. This is in the wiki format, so the idea is that it gets better the more people contribute. I found the way it was set up not so user-friendly, but if you noodle around with it for a while you can find some interesting things. Let the wiki-ing begin. They especially need help with city centre restaurant reccs - one of the few listed now is the Wetherspoons in Piccadilly.

I found out about the Open Guide on Criminally Vulgar, the newest addition (number 98, in fact) to our Manchester area blogroll. CV is written by an expat yank who works in IT and lives in Wigan. Scroll down for a fascinating tale of gypsies in Leigh, a handy guide to charity shops in the Wigan area, and The Da Vinci Code translated into livejournalese.

97 and counting...

Just noticed that all these new additions means we're up to 97 blogs on the manchester blogroll. Pretty cool. Maybe we should have a door prize for the hundredth blog.

More new blogs

Here's the rest of the new Manchester-area blogs I didn't get a chance to add yesterday:

Great Blue World is Peter's blog about arts, culture and politics from a gay perspective. Recent posts cover the perplexing appointment of Ruth Kelly as equality minister, Paris Hilton's desire for a gay boyfriend, and the "new abs" of the Tories.


The Life of Baz offers "a study of girls, god, geekdom and life in general," written by Baza, "a 19 year old stuck in a dead-end job with no prospects for the future, struggling to write a book in my spare time." There's a post - with picture - of the city's new outdoor urinals, which don't sound very private at all. Eeek, how bizarre.


I am Banno is the personal blog of, erm, Paul Banno, a maths student who works in a cinema, writes about movies and telly and other stuff, and is a budding fiction blogger. He lives in "what sounds like the geekiest house in Manchester" - and I suspect some of his roomies may already be on the blogroll. You guys definitely win in the blogs-per-house stakes.


I love this one. Martial Arts! A journal by Kit Lok features weekly reports and lesssons from the world of Martial Arts (yes, it goes into a bit more detail than 'wax on, wax off...') With bone-crunching action pics and, somewhat randomly, a picture of the guy who played Cat on Red Dwarf, whom Kit recently spotted at a martial arts event. Dude looks exactly the same.


Louisa is a Canadian woman who moved to Manchester. Her blog is called Canadian in Manchester - and she's certainly not the only one, eh C? It appears to be mainly a personal blog.


A Cool Noise is another music blog, linked to the author's indie music website by the same name. He writes this week about Last.Fm (which I am a big fan of - my user name is Yankunian; if anyone else is on there give me a shout.) A little further down there's a useful guide to going to gigs, clearly gleaned from longtime personal experience.

Now with more blog goodness than before

Holy shniekies, I just checked out Britblogs and there are an unbelievable number of new-to-me Manchester blogs on there. All those statistics you read in the newspapers about someone starting a blog every 1.7 nanoseconds must be true. I'm going to be adding these new finds to the Manchester blogroll in bite-sized chunks over the next few weeks. By the way, I do try to contact everyone to make sure it's cool to add their blog, but sometimes (in cases of no email/enabled comments/undeveloped psychic abilities/general Yankunian ineptness) it's just not possible. So, if you're here because you're wondering who linked to your blog and you don't want to be on the blogroll, email me at themanchizzle at gmail dot com and I'll return you to the mists of obscurity.

With no further ado, here they are:

Comprehension Dawns is written by Rebecca, a Manchester student and musician with a commendably candid writing style. She is also disabled, and has written an enlightening post about her experiences with inclusion, which I have excerpted a bit of here. This was in response to Blogging Against Disablism Day which was on May 3:

"Feeling safe and wanted and welcomed is something truly universal, and all too often people seem to forget it, in their rush to assess (at a glance, in the queue in Withington post office) someone's quality of life. Those poor fools pity me. I pity them - they are so narrow and shallow and ignorant that they're missing out on all sorts of life's wonders and should they through chance or misadventure join the varied, bickering ranks of disabled people, they will be so busy thinking their lives over that they'll miss out on even more."

First there was New Labour, now there's Newer Labour, written by Tom, a law student from the Whitworth Park environs. Looking at all of the links to political activism groups he's involved in both fills me with respect and makes me tired. Tom, what do you run on? The blog is mostly about politics, though you probably would have figured that out.

Malcom is the man behind Everything's Eventual, which is the personal blog of a twentysomething Geordie living in Manchester.


The intriguingly-monikered Cakesniffers Beware! is the personal/humor blog of Tina, who lives in Manchester but whose toothbrushes live all over the UK (she travels a lot.)


More later....

Out for a drink

The summer is nearly upon us, and the hour of outdoor drinking is nigh. Nearly every village, no matter how remote, has thoughtfully been equipped with a pub, and warm afternoons now find people installed in benches out front, enjoying a leisurely pint or seventeen while frying their fishbelly white hides.

Topping the list in Manchester are usually Dukes 92, The Ox and the other perenially popular bars along the canal in Castlefield, as well as those with outdoor tables in the village. But I'm also partial to The Moon in Piccadilly Basin, which is maybe the most hidden bar in the city (I love that strange reflecting pool.) And doesn't the brilliant Fringe Bar have a beer garden overlooking scenic Ancoats? You've gotta love that.

To assist your planning, some of our bloggers have put a lot of thought into the best places for an al fresco cocktail. Flew From the Fylde Coast (yup, this is a new blogger, to be added to the blogroll shortly) has a top 5 summary of quality outdoor joints in the city. But Salford is not to be overlooked. Mike of Where cranes connect the sky has been on a quest to find Salford's most idyllically located boozer. Contenders so far are The Old Pint Pot by the university and The Mark Addy, on the banks of the mighty Irwell. Anyone else got outdoor drinking reccomendations?

(Photo by Aidan O'Rourke, from Manchester Online)

Spring comes to The Manchizzle (UPDATED)

It's a glorious day at the end of a glorious week of real warm spring sunshine - and of course, I'm stuck inside glued to a computer. But if I get tired of gazing out the window at the pastoral beauty that is the Fulwood Industrial Estate in spring (unlikely as that sounds), I can take heart by admiring the work of some of our own photobloggers. Island Monkey and slow|afternoon, and Roy at Mantex have posted the most gorgeous pictures of blossoming trees, fresh trembling leaves and springing turf. This photo above is one from Island Monkey. Anyone else got good spring snaps?


Enjoy it now, because the weekend is going to be crappy. Sigh. Of course it is.

Manchester Media Gossip: Time Out....Liverpool?

In today's NWE - way back in the business section - there's a story about Time Out considering a new edition up north. But it's not a Manchester edition that's mentioned, or even a Northwest one (thank god) - It's all about Liverpool. You can read it here:

http://www.nw-enquirer.co.uk/

Apparently they're looking to make the most of the capital of culture "synergy" - though Time Out Liverpool could be launching as early as this autumn. What isn't clear is whether there's the advertising market needed to make a publication like this sustainable.

Don't forget to vote!

And whilst you do, think of me, who can't - at least not in the country where I live. What was that? Taxation without representation? Ring a bell?

Just kidding. I don't understand the parliamentary system, so I'd make a lousy British voter anyway...

Moues Colbert

For his jaw-dropping performance at the typically cosy, self-congratulatory White House correspondents dinner, comedian Stephen Colbert is being called "the Edward R. Murrow of his day." I think that's a tad overblown, but there's no denying he made a big impression. In fact, he "left the clueless DC press corps gaping," according to Michael Scherer in online mag Salon:

“….It’s not just that Colbert’s jokes were hitting their mark. We already know that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, that the generals hate Rumsfeld, or that Fox News lists to the right. Those cracks are old and boring. What Colbert did was expose the whole official, patriotic, right-wing, press-bashing discourse as a sham, as more ‘truthiness’ than truth.”

You can watch the video of his speech at Crooks and Liars. And then, if you're so inclined, you can say thank you...

North West Enquirer arrives

Yesterday saw the launch of the North West Enquirer, the new regional weekly paper. Though its server seems to be having problems at this particular moment, I'm delighted to see that they've put some content online (though not, sadly, the piece I wrote about the Derek Williams exhibition in Preston, which is in the arts section.) Stu at Feeling Listless has a very in-depth post about his thoughts on the new issue, and raises some good points, I think, especially about its lack of listings. What does anyone else think of it? I'm curious.

Fresh blogs

First we had The Art of Fiction, now there's The Tart of Fiction. I wondered at first if this was Bournemouth Runner showing us a saucy new feminine side, but I think after some consideration that it must in fact be another person. "Fiction Bitch" looks to be writing about literature and the writerly life in Manchester and beyond.

Weeelll, this one isn't actually a new blog. It's new to the blogroll, but I was alerted to its existence awhile back, and then just completely forgot to add it to the blogroll. Shame on me. It's called Where cranes connect the sky, and it's written by Mike, who blogs about life in Manchester and takes quite nice pictures, many of which you can see here.

Rich, Lord of the Aggregator, was kind enough to let me know I'd missed out Just Words a personal blog by one SL. He also maintains an interesting blog called First Drafts, which is "a collaborative blog aimed at providing writers with a place to share their work on any subject they like.(Near-)daily writing prompts are emailed to you to provide guidance or inspiration." Pretty cool, no?

Sabrina's Book of Hours is a personal blog by - who else? - Sabrina, who lives in Manchester, but may or may not be accepting a very special invitation to go to Taiwan. You'll have to read her blog to find out... (Thanks Stuart for the tip)

And last but certainly not least, we have Fee-Fy-Fo-Fum, a Welsh girl in Manchester (and other places). FFFF's most recent post is about an upcoming street theatre perfomance in London that looks marvelous. Croeso!

new blog roundup

I'm fixing to do another roundup of new blogs this week, so if anyone knows of a new Manc-area blog that needs to be added to the blogroll, let me know.

Salford vs. Manchester

Last night on television I happened to catch a programme called Dispatches: Yobs Are Scaring the Crap Out of us Posh Middle Aged Folk, or something like that. Of course where did it open but Salford, amid a hail of bone-chilling crime statistics and several minutes of grainy footage in which hoodie-clad scallies (and their wee brothers and sisters, aka the scallions) ran riot. Actually, they were mostly just standing around looking bored, drinking cans of Carling and occasionally lobbing a rock at a storefront. Every now and then the Dispatches reporter would approach them, shove a big camera in their faces without so much as a by-your-leave, and ask them inane questions like "Do you know why people are scared of you?" and "Does your mother know where you are right now?" I would have told her to fuck off as well.

I amused myself by imagining the poor BBC employees in London who were also watching Dispatches, colour draining from their carefully buffed faces as they realised that Salford is where their jobs might be heading! The BBC has narrowed it down to two sites for its massive expansion up norf, one at Salford Quays and the other in Manchester's "Central Spine" off Whitworth Street (I've never heard of that part of the city, but it sounds painful, doesn't it?) The winner will be announced in June. A poll of BBC employees back in January came out in favour of Manchester. Ya think? And calling the Salford site "Media City" hardly makes it any less hyperventilatingly scary for the northbound Beebers.

But they really shouldn't be that worried. Salford is nothing to be afraid of. Sure, there are bits of it you will basically want to avoid, like, forever. But other bits are quite nice. And there are quite a few excellent pubs there. A good excuse to see all of them in one day is coming up this Sunday, when Sounds From The Other City brings its swirly multi-location local music shindig to town. Book now, it sold out last year.

XFM Cometh.... and disappointeth

The indie credential, who were really cheerleadering XFM's move to Manchester on their blog, have become sorely disenchanted with the new XFM Manchester on account of their playlist. And they're not the only ones. I've read more than a few bloggers grumbling about it, and take a gander at the XFM messageboard - the criticisms are all the same: too much dad rock, MOR, old baggy anthems and mid-table indie rock from the 90s, not enough of the new, edgy indie bands and quirkily selected mix of old tunes we all heard from London on DAB or the internet. And what's up with the repetitive bangin' techno on a Saturday night? - you might as well be listening to Key 103.

I'm listening right now, and as I've been writing this we've had Depeche Mode's Personal Jesus, which they seem to play a lot( if they want to play DM, there are much better, less-mainstream choices...) That muzak-like Groove Armada song about sand dunes and salty air. A Muse song. Some crappy late REM (see DM comment). Some Madchester band so boring I've forgotten their name. Radiohead. Nirvana. Joss Stone. I think that's a fairly representative sampling.

So in response, Indie Credential have created a my space site where people can register their displeasure with the new station. It's called XFM Manchester Sucks. Manchester will not sit back and listen to David Gray. Manchester deserves better. Thems fightin' words.

Manc media stories

A nice big feature in today's Media Guardian about how Manchester's media landscape is undergoing a revolution, what with the BBC coming, Google opening their first regional offices here (wha? first I've heard of that. What do they want with offices here?) Etc. etc. etc. Having been here a few years I only have to see the words Manchester and Revival in the same headline and my eyes start glazing over with boredom, but I guess it's nice that they're bothering to write anything at all.

Also got the news this weekend that the MEN is going to be distributed free in the city centre. Here's a thought - how about actually improving the dismal product instead of trying to give it away for nothing? Maybe?

World Gone Mad

Forgot to say I went to a really wonderful exhibition last night - World Gone Mad: Surrealist Returns in British Modern Art at the Castlefield Gallery. It's on until June 4, so you've got loads of time if you want to go check it out.
(Image courtesy Castlefield Gallery)

media/art/film next week

Holy cow, check out Cornerhouse's glorious new website! What an improvement. I may return frequently just to hear those cool sound effects ... no wait, I just got sick of them. Oh well, that's what the mute button is for. I happened by because Bournemouth Runner tipped me off about an event that's happening over there in conjunction with the Tijuana Organic exhibition that opened last night.

It's called BULBO BROADCAST: ALTERNATIVE MEDIA AS SOCIAL SPACE
and is going down Thursday 27 April at 6. "An informal discussion on collaborative and alternative media projects. The event will feature participants in person and online, from multimedia projects, artist's groups and communities in Tijuana, Manchester and the North West. This one-off multi-channel broadcast will also be streamed live by Trafford based Let's Go Global as part of their regular Thursday show. Drop by in person, or join in online via iChat."

Next week promises to be a busy one for arty folk as the Commonwealth Film Festival opens Friday night. (I never understand what they're talking about when people call it ComFest, which sounds to me like it might be a computer programmer's conference circa 1983). Haven't had a chance to look at the programme yet, but there's always some winners in there.

The blues

The unhappy lot of the City supporter right now is covered thoroughly in this heartfelt letter posted on Bitter and Blue. It's sincere, detailed and to the point, and I hope someone up there takes notice.
http://bitterandblue.blogspot.com/2006/04/points-of-view.html
(yeah, my links aren't working again.)

ipod of death

After a year and a half, my ipod has kicked the bucket. Yup, my green, first generation ipod mini has died, leaving me with a hollow ache inside. Yeah, I do think it's dumb how people have fetishized this piece of electronic hardware, and I'm sure it sounds ridiculously overwrought, but it's hard for me not to be upset at losing a very expensive piece of equipment that added so much enjoyment to my everyday life - I used it every day while excercising, commuting and racing around Manchester.

Although, lately, things had been less fun. I had to replace the battery ($$) after playing time dwindled to an hour. The clickwheel started acting up, and then it became harder to upload songs. But the end came when I simply updated my itunes, as Apple repeatedly encouraged me to do. You wouldn't think a company's own firmware could actually kill their device, but that's exactly what happened to me and, I found after searching around the internet, a whole bunch of other ipod suckas. The crazy thing is that Apple has shrugged off any responsibility. It discontinued the mini several months ago, even though they were selling like hotcakes. Now I think we know why.

You might expect a piece of equipment that you paid that kind of money for to last longer than a year and a half, and to at least, I don't know, be repairable when it does break. I won't bother to detail my fruitless efforts to get some kind of satisfaction from Apple (15 minutes on the phone with the clueless Hassan at call centre tech support and 30 headbangingly infuriating minutes chatting with Stuart at customer relations in Ireland. The upshot is that it's a few months out of warranty, so it would cost more to fix than it would to buy a new ipod, and there are no guarantees the repaired device would last anyway. There's a good New York Times article here that details exactly how insane this is.

So, at some point I'm going to need to buy another mp3 player, and given Apple's poor design, bad value and appallingly arrogant approach to customer service, I'm not really jazzed about shelling out for another ipod. The only problem is that itunes really is the best music-managing program I've ever used (I had a Samsung yepp a couple years ago, and the software sucked.) So, if any ur-geek has read this far and knows of an mp3 player with ipod-comparable specs and good software, please speak up.

There is a burgeoning anti-ipod movement online, though it isn't, as I'd hoped, an expression of outrage at Apple's rapacious business tactics but a tirade against the ipod as an instrument of social isolation. Truthfully, I'm kind of okay with the social isolation. But I'm waiting for the day that people wake up and realize that we've all been duped by clever marketing, and that the ipod isn't all that. Bring on the insurrection.

Yankunian wants to be your friend

Okay, so I set up a myspace account. I did this mainly because we don't have a listings magazine anymore (though apparently Time Out were up here "prospecting" last week), and I was having a hard time with the old forward planning. I mean, Roy Ayers played at the Mint Lounge, for chrissakes, and I didn't know until it was too late. And there are also some artist collectives/events organizers/interesting folks who don't send out press releases, but do all of their promotion and dissemination through myspace. Plus, I was curious.

Anyway, it doesn't matter how good my reasons for setting up an account are. My friend Chris still snickered at me and called me a "cool chaser." And, it also doesn't matter how lame myspace actually is (which, um, it is by the way. For one accustomed to the clean Habitatesque Minima-lism of blogger, a visit to myspace is like a trolley dash round Walmart on a muggy Saturday afternoon,) I am now inextricably bound up in the life cycle of a trend, rather than standing on the sidelines rolling my eyes and making wisecracks. It feels cold, and a little scary.

Which reminds me of an excellent story I'd like to bring your attention to - the tale of the rise and fall of the Flash Mob, once catnip to hipsters, by Bill Wasik, the man who created them in order to study the life cycle of a trend. Read it and eat your pseudo-ironic trucker hat.

UPDATE: Forgot to say that I did not take this picture. I wish I had, but I pulled it off a news story that has since disappeared.

Looking for creative writing/fiction bloggers

A general appeal:

For a project I am working on, I'm looking for people who are using blogs as an outlet for creative writing. This could be a group of writers who use a blog to house a collectively-written story, a lone fiction blogger or generally anyone doing cool stuff with creative writing through the blog format. If any of you know of someone who's doing this type of thing - either locally or elsewhere on the web - please leave a comment or email me at themanchizzle at gmail dot com. Anonymity assured.