Fishing for new blogs

Holy cats! What rip-roaringly exciting new blogs I have for you this week.

I've been doing some more work looking at the juxtaposition of creative writing and blogs lately, so I was delighted to find that Manchester writer Chris Killen is writing a novel on his blog, a chapter a day. It's called untitled 'supermarket nightmare'. Go read it. It's ace. He's also running a competition which you should probably know about:

i am starting an untitled 'supermarket nightmare' competition. the competition is titled "write chapter 50". if you would like to enter the competition, please write chapter 50 and post it below as a comment. you have about thirty days or so to enter.
if anyone enters, i will choose the entry i like best and it will be chapter 50.
i don't think anyone will enter the competition.
if you enter the competition it might really fuck up the writing of this novel.
please enter the competition.

Also new to the blogroll is Mount St Helens weeps lava tears. It's the blog of Chadderton-based cartoonist John Allison, who is responsible for the comic Scary Go Round. (Um, how come nobody told me about that. It's really good and it's only been going for five years.)

John recently attended All Tomorrow's Parties and posted a review. Here's a bit:

SUNDAY
SLINT - alas I am making some macaroni at this point ?/10
MICAH P. HINSON - nothing a nice gargle wouldn't fix 7/10
BAT FOR LASHES - were playing crazy golf directly in front of me this morning 7.5/10
ARCHITECTURE IN HELSINKI - it's 5! 7/10
BAND OF HORSES - best band of the weekend 9.5/10
MODEST MOUSE - v.good but Johnny Marr is not going to be in the band for very long because he obviously wants to be in charge 8/10
CAPRICORNS - I had to play darts on my mobile phone to take my mind off this mess 1/10
GRIZZLY BEAR - hippies 6.5/10
DO MAKE SAY THINK - I have never been more tired zzz/10

Sounds about right. Thanks to Sheshark of the newly-revitalised If You're Sad and Like Beer for the tip.

What's with the fish picture? Well, that's Sammy the Salmon. More info at the Mersey Basin Campaign.

Burnt to the Ground report

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

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

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

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

I am the god of hellfire!

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

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


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

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

The thrill of the grill

So Yer Mam! (whose blog just got linked by Wikipedia, in a quite surprising and humorous way) and Jon le Beef have floated the idea that instead of blogmeeting in a pub this July, we hold a Bloggers' BBQ in some verdant Manchester park.

This sounds like a marvelous idea to me. Maybe it could be BYOM (bring your own meat) or even BYOVGFoC (bring your own vegtarian grilling foodstuff of choice)? Or we could just chip in for a hundredpack of e-number dogs, a family size bag of twiglets, and a shitload of White Lightning. We're now welcoming suggestions for scenic park BBQ locations in Manc, and preferable Saturdays in July.

New bloggage

I'm limping into Monday, recovering from a nasty virus that for the past week has made me very dizzy after ten minutes in front of the computer screen. Now I'm up to twenty minutes, so I'll hurriedly catch up with some new Manchester blogs:

Supashen is a multimedia extravaganza in the form of a blog; Sitemeister Chris Shen features content in music, video and text flavours, both self-made and externally sourced. That's one of his mind-bending screensavers above, entitled My Dreams Keep me Awake.

Still round the corner there may wait... is a blog from Megan, an Australian, twenty-something psychology graduate "living in Manchester, working in a hotel, wishing I could quit work and walk the earth (you know, like Caine in Kung Fu)."

My anger makes me a modern girl is written by a shadowy Mancunian female known only as notmarcie. It's a personal blog.

Tony Trehy is a curator and writer and the director of the always-intriguing Text Festival in Bury. The blog focuses mainly on art, his own work and what he's been up to.(Thanks to J for the tip).

Not Manchester International Festival

I have some news about the MIF. Or actually, in this case, the NMIF. What's this? Yes, a new festival has taken shape, and it's Not Manchester International Festival (so what is it then? Ahem.) NMIF is the Manchester International Festival's opposite number, The maverick Master to its oversubscribed Doctor Who. Okay, sorry. It's a fringe festival. Read on...

Not Part of Manchester International Festival will run alongside the International Festival showcasing art from every media all around the city and its environs. We will run from the 29th June (to give MIF one night in the spotlight) till the 15th July 2007. We believe everyone who can be should be able to be involved in a cultural event with such great potential, regardless of whether they were commissioned to be or not.

To be officially not part of MIF is very simple. All we ask is you put ‘www.notmanchesterinternationalfestival.co.uk’ on all your promotional material to promote yourself, and everybody else. If every flyer, poster, postcard etc, for everything that happens between the 29th June and 15th July 2007 in mcr has "www.notmanchesterinternationalfestival.co.uk" on it then everyone will know where to look for the listings to find everything that’s on.


"Like heaven, there are steps to being not part of the MIF. But unlike heaven, we're not exclusive." If you want in, email non-organiser Gareth McCann on gareth AT notmanchesterinternationalfestival.co.uk

New blogs to admire

I thought I was sooo clever inventing the word Yankunian to describe myself, but clearly the idea's not that original. Mancypino is the blog of an expat Filipino woman living in Manc. And My Little French Girl could definitely be described as a Frankunian. Photoblogger Anne-Laure describes herself as a "Frenchie dropped in Manchester."

James from Yer Mam! has suddenly turned into a multiblogger, thus ensuring that he has no free time whatsoever. His new blog is called No Flipping! and it's about telly.

Manc musicblog Get Weird Turn Pro has been in business for a couple of months. It's the work of Croft, who lately writes about Bjork and The Beasties and has made us a nice little mixtape with a song by Kool Moe Dee. Yeah, that's Mr. Moe Dee to you


The Asparagus is a new political blog I've been meaning to mention for a while, by Journalist Richard Jones, that specialises in foreign affairs.

M20 is a newish site from blogger Stuart Brown that covers life in South Manchester, with lots of lovely pictures.

Finally, mmm, pretty is a blog by Chloe, a graphic designer based in Manchester. She says it's "just a collection of visual things that make me happy. I originally started it for myself, but I have a modest amount of regulars now who aren't my friends."

Ashes to ashes UPDATED

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

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

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

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

(Image courtesy of the BBC.)

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

Normal service will resume shortly

Hello everyone, I am back in the UK and back from my blogging break. In my confusion over transitioning to the new and improved blogger, I accidentally deleted my entire blogroll a couple of weeks ago (Not like that was an important feature of this site, or anything. Ha ha ha!) So I'm slowly building it back up over the next week. If you don't see your blog link up there by next week, feel free to gently remind me.

Trish Feld 1943 -2007

A personal note: My mother, Trish Feld, died yesterday. A few people who read this blog know that she's been seriously ill. The rest of you may have been wondering why I've spent the last couple of years going back and forth between Vermont, where I'm from, and my home in Lancashire. She is why.

In August 2005 she was diagnosed with an aggressive and inoperable brain tumor. Mom weathered a grueling succession of radiation and chemotherapy treatments but gradually declined, and died quietly here at home yesterday evening, with her family around her. She never lost her sense of humor, and faced her ordeal with tremendous courage and grace.

Here's a little piece a local newspaper columnist wrote about her life. A children's librarian, she cared passionately about reading and learning, and she touched the lives of so many people, both personally and professionally, that we aren't sure the church is going to be able to hold everyone.

Nobody knows why people develop brain tumors. If, through the wonders of Google, anyone happens on this post in who is in the same situation, I will pass on the valuable Brain Hospice site, and this book that straightforwardly describes what happens after diagnosis from a first-person perspective.

If I have learned anything from this experience, it is just the same things people always learn, over and over, when someone dear to them dies. But they still bear repeating: your family are always more important than anything else. Tell them how much you love them, early and often. And appreciate them while you have them; you never know what life is going to throw at you.

Rabbit

This is the freakiest, most sinisterly compelling and magical short I've seen on the tube yet.

(Cheers to His Holiness Neil Gaiman for the tip.)

Time Out Manchester update

Yet another installment in the laborious will-they-or-won't-they saga of Time Out's much anticipated Manchester launch.

In an interview on brand new NW Media networking website How-Do, Tony Elliott declares that the magazine will start in October, following the launch of a beefed-up TOM Website. It should definitely launch by the middle of October, he says ... unless it takes longer to set things up, that is, but certainly we can look for a launch no later than the beginning of next year.

Uh huh.

There are some more interesting bits in the interview, like the part where Tony says he's "fairly confident" the magazine can shift 8,000-9,000 copies every week. And, yes, it's a video interview delivered via YouTube. Pretty spiffy, no?

But the best part of this interview is down in the comments, where two competing magazine editors have written little love notes purporting to wish Tony good luck on the Manchester launch that are actually wince-inducing, thinly-veiled shills for their own unimpressive mags, 69 and (my favourite) Moving Manchester. What a couple of palookas.

If you're wondering where How-Do came from, it's the brainchild of Nick Jaspen formerly of the NW Enquirer. It "offers news, opinion and resources for those working in all aspects of media in the region." It looks promising so far.

Other interesting bits include a piece on Manchester Confidential, complete with an amusing description of the advertorial site's restaurant "review" process, and a comments spat... already! And we notice they have very good taste in blogs, too.

(Thanks to Mind for the Time Out tip-off)

MIFfed on Portland Street

I thought I was safe from news of the Mancunian arts scene way over here, but today it came looking for me. I opened up the New Yorker this morning and read this Talk of the Town piece about the upcoming Manchester International Festival (that takes way too long to say, doesn't it? How about we come up with something shorter, like Muffy or the MIFfest?)

MIFfed is surely how some people in our city felt after reading the piece, which made Marketing Manchester's Nick Johnson, Sir Richard Leese and Alex Poots (listed in descending order of how silly they came out sounding) look a bit, well, idiotic. Like powerpoint hucksters trying to condense the city's appeal into "brand signifiers" and not letting little things like historical accuracy or not actually knowing much about Manchester get in the way. Apparently, Poots
still lives in London half the week. I know it's not the same as trying to commute from Australia, but still.

Anyway, I thought the article was good, slightly patronizing about Manc at times, but those New Yorker writers probably don't get up North much. And it's downright refreshing to see someone write about the city without the automatic unquestioning deference for Mancunian sacred cows (The Hacienda, Alan Turing, Peter Saville, etc.) that the local press always includes free of charge.

Manchester Spring Blog Meet April 7

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

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

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

Travel advisory

Oh, and if you're wondering why I have been so quiet lately, I'm back home in the states dealing with a difficult situation offline. Blogging service should continue to be intermittent for the forseeable future. Go read some of those blogs over there, to your right.

Have Mersey!

Who says Mancs and Scousers can't get along? Hogwash. The Manchizzle has a new best friend, and it's name is Liverpool Blogs.*

Liverpool Blogs is the work of eminent ex-Mancunian blogger Stuart Ian Burns of Feeling Listless, and it's much like this blog in its aims; Stu says "Liverpool blogs more and more and the purpose of this site is to provide a focus for the budding blogging community, highlighting our writing and demonstrating that actually, we're not alone."

In fact, he says LB was actually inspired by The Manchizzle at the top of the first post. Aww, you gotta love being inspirational. Anyway, it's just barely been born and is still a mere mewling, monkey-faced infant in the blogosphere, but go take a gander at that blogroll. Amazing how many Scouse bloggers there are already, isn't it?

*(Of course we still love you Flat Out Norwich. You know what they say: "Make new friends but keep the old, one is silver and the other gold." I think that was a little song I learned in Girl Scouts.)

Observer Woman: Bite Me

The Observer Woman monthly has been known to make me so angry that I waste perfectly good Sundays being a seething mass of bitter rage, devoting hours to brooding and muttering that were intended for lingering over your third cup of tea and lazily contemplating making another bacon sandwich. So I've stopped reading it. I've strictly limited myself to sneering at the cover (all right, and muttering just a little bit.)

That's why I'm delighted to see that two fine Mancunians have picked up my slack in the righteous ranting department, except they're doing it online and in a much more organized and coherent way. Observer Woman Makes Me Spit is a noble blog that defines its mission thusly:


It arrives once a month. It’s often painful, always annoying. Liable to invoke irrational mood swings and violent bursts of temper. It’s messy, embarrassing and is often known as ‘the curse.’ Yes. It’s the Observer Woman Magazine. Could it be less relevant? Could it be more offensive? 51% of humanity reduced to simpering, bitchy whores of the fashion industry. Nothing to trouble our little minds but hunky men, flashy lip gloss and Gucci gussets. We hate it. We hate it so much we went to all this trouble to set up this blog. And we have real jobs. It took a good 30 minutes out of our drinking time. Spill your bile here. We will.

And I will too. If I ever let myself read it again.

Fresh blogs

Young bloggers rule. Here's one of the youngest I know of: David Wilkinson was born (in Manchester, of course) in 1994. He's also the force behind Techzi, a blog about all things technological that's very highly regarded; The Techzi feed has 199 subscribers.
David describes himself as an "internationally acclaimed weirdo, founder of Zi Media, and general nutter." You rock, David.

The Mersey Basin Campaign blog has moved here, and changed slightly in focus, writes blogmeister Kate. "It's a bit wider in scope - rather than just focusing on 'Mersey Basin Week', it's a blog for the whole campaign. Highlights at the moment are a thread following the progress of the book we are putting together about the River Mersey, and news about the project to redevelop the Radar Tower at Crosby."

Nik Fletcher is a student at RNCM and a bit of a technophile. He's also an observer of Mancunian life, who "noticed this week that yet another Sainsburys Local getting ready to open on March 8th under what is believed to be a hotel (IIRC) on Mosley Street just down from Picadilly. With 4 Sainsbury Locals already in the City Centre, all within easy walking distance of each other, I can't help but wonder who's letting these applications go through."

Red Rose Ramblings is the work of a 30-something Lancastrian - it's Steven, who also writes for the FC United blog MREnders. He has a funny account of just how eager a certain local newspaper seems to shift copies.

On the heels of the Salford Star, here's another community-media venture for you: The Old Trafford News, which comes with a blog called Old Trafford Views, written by editor Ally Fogg.

The MEN weighs in on blogging

The MEN has published an article about blogging today - local blogging superstar Geoff of The 43 is quoted, as well as Robin from the BBC Manchester Blog (Which I'm still writing weekly bits for, by the way.)

Time Out Manchester: Outta Time?

We've all been wondering what's going on with Time Out Manchester, which was supposed to launch this spring, you remember? It's been verrry quiet on that front. But Monday there was another communication from on high, buried down at the bottom of a Media Guardian gossip column. Here's the key bit:

"Elliott scoffs at suggestions that the magazine is being shelved. "We remain completely committed to Manchester and will launch in autumn," he says. "We are still in the process of raising investment. We need about £1m, and we have people working on that. We just do not have the liquidity to set it up on our own, though we have always said we really want to run Manchester ourselves, like we do in Chicago and New York."

Yeah, remember when he swaggered into town and said all that stuff about giving Manchester "the magazine it deserves?" Hmmmmm. The crack team of journalistic guns-for-hire assembled for the launch issue are all wandering away, I hear, to work on other promising "projects." A few were allegedly offered starvation wages to write for the soon-to-be-expanded TOM website, but declined.

It seems money's tight for TOM. Maybe we should start a fundraising drive, hold a few bake sales?

Roller disco, in an undisclosed location

Aww, yeah. I've been waiting so long for this, and someone's finally done it. They're bringing a roller disco to Manchester this Saturday night. And of course I'm buried beneath three feet of snow (really, no joke) in Vermont, and I can't go. How unfair is that? If you want to know how much I love roller disco, read this.

And it's so much more than just a roller disco. This Saturday, Manchester Forbidden Arts is throwing a big party from 2pm til 4am at an "as yet undisclosed venue." They promise us roller disco with skates for hire, art exhibs, film screenings, propaganda distribution stalls etc. from 2-5:30, and something called a "Cabarave" from 6pm-4am, featuring (deep breath): spoken word, film, Cabaret performance, burlesque, fire shows, belly dancers, circus skills, bands and Manchester's finest DJ's playing music. Want to know more, like, erm... where it's gonna be? Email manchestertaa at yahoo.co.uk

The roller skates will help you get away from the police dogs all the faster, right?

(The photograph is of NYC's own Bill Butler, the Godfather of roller disco and a lovely man.)

Manchester Blogggers needs you

Listen up for a special Valentine's Day message from the Manchester Bloggers Aggregator:

It needs some love. It hasn't been working properly, mainly because the guy who was maintaining it, Lord Rich, moved back to Bradford and doesn't have time to do it any more. Poor sad, neglected aggregator. Surely there's a Manchester technogeek out there who can come to the rescue?

If you just read the above and are now scratching your head wondering what the aggregator is, and why you should give a rat's ass about it, I'll tell you. The aggregator grabs all of our blog posts in one big feed and puts them up there on the screen in one easy-to-find place. It's the place to go if you want to see what Manchester bloggers are writing about, but don't want to spend hours visiting blog after blog. If you've signed up, it's brought readers to your blog. It's a good thing for all of us.

Rich writes: "Right now, somebody else taking over working on it sounds good. I'd be happy to hand it over to anybody who has time to spend on it. However, I'd warn you that it needs more than a little maintenance work - I'm thinking starting afresh with some more robust software is the way to go, and I definitely don't have the time to do that."

Won't you help? If you want to help save the aggregator, email me on themanchizzle at gmail dot com and I'll put you in touch with Rich. I'd do it myself except that using blogger is about as far as I go with technology and that.

New blogs that run with the wolves

Don't pay any attention to my silliness. I'm just getting bored with writing "more new Manchester blogs" every week or so and have decided to mix it up a little. These blogs don't really run with the wolves... or do they?

Tin-men is the blog of a 21-year old computer nerd struggling his way through the last part of a degree in Manchester. His latest project is MSG - no, not the dodgy flavour enhancer but something called the Manchester Student Guide. Looks well studenty.

It's high time I added this link to MEN Online Editor Sarah Hartley's Life Through Food, by far the strongest and most consistent of the MEN blogs. I hear they're getting some new ones soon.

Warhead's blog is written by a self-styled Grumpy Old Man. It's also on Six Apart's VOX platform, which I haven't seen much of. Other new personal blogs include Julesy's World and Lewis Henshall's blog.

How did I miss Adele's Labour Blog? Cripes, it's nice to see a political blog written by a woman for a change. This is your spot online for anything relating to Labour politics in Manchester, nationally and even internationally, as one of her recent posts features butt-kicking orator Barack Obama.

Hooray, it's another Mancunian Live Journal community. This one is for activists.

And finally, two veteran Manchester bloggers, Skipper and Mantex, have teamed up for a new Heaton Moor community blog called On The Moor. Roy of Mantex writes: "It's a mix of local gossip, moans about the council, plus the nearest we can get to celebrity news (local writers in our case). And piccies of course." Sounds good.

(Wolf picture from Dance With Shadows. We seem to be doing an animal thing lately with the pictures. Yeah, I have no idea what that's all about.)

A little birdie told me...

We love it here at the Manchizzle when a local boy makes good. You remember our old blogroll comrade and latent twitcher Conscious & Verbal left Manchester some months ago to seek his fortune? Sure you do. Well, he's now the proud owner of a shiny new blog called Flat Out Norwich.

It is, unsurprisingly, about "Norwich - Norfolk - the East of England - and the stuff that happens. Culture. Arts. Chat. People who blog. It's about finding out who is blogging flat out, out there, and compiling a big ol' blog roll so we can all spend more time reading about each other. It's blog love. Blove, if you will..."

Go visit and say hello.

(Brilliant canary picture courtesy of Bird Health.)

Two new magazines in Manchester!

Death of the print media? What? Manchester's about to get itself two shiny new magazines, and neither one is called Time Out (no word on that launch, BTW)

RevolveWire is a new Manchester-based magazine about culture and creativity. It's quite beautiful, and is edited by the shockingly multi-talented Ruth Heritage. The theme of the first issue is looking, and it should be available soon from stockists nationally and then some. *Blatant Plug* I contributed an article in this issue about blog fiction and an interview with the amazing Sarah Hepola. (Coughs awkwardly, changes subject.)

Who's Bob? In his own words, Bob is "a new free magazine that's as honest, unpretentious and approachable as its name suggests, bob is here for you. interested in the things that make you love life, bob will be a trusty companion ready and waiting in all the best haunts around manchester. bob launches in late march."

Check out that pilot issue on their website. Looks pretty dang good to me, and even features writing from email ninja and huge Manchester Museum fan, Andrew Shanahan.

Go on, shower them both with love and affection.

Asian Invasion, Part 3: Chaophraya

There's a lot of hype about this new Thai place, Chaophraya. Based on my first visit, it's entirely justified. Of the three places I reviewed for lunch, this was definitely my favourite. It could be one of the best restaurants in the city, though time will tell.

Its location makes it convenient to most of the offices in the city centre, and it seems the word has definitely gotten out. On the Friday lunchtime I was there it was very busy - I think I managed to get the last table in the bar area, most of which were either very high, or way down at floor level. They pad thai and other noodle/rice dishes for under a fiver, and have lunchtime "tapas" selections of skewers, dumplings and various deep-fried bits at £5-£8.

But I had my heart set on Som Tom (£9), a cold salad of shredded green papayas, veggies and prawns. I ate this years ago, in a town near the Cambodian border, prepared by a toothless grandma with a mortar and pestle, and it was unforgettable. God, doesn't that sound like pretentious foodie nonsense? It's true, though. I was visiting my friend China in Surin.

Anyway, I digress. The Som Tom at Chaophraya was very good - shredded veggies and peanuts slathered in just the right amount of sweet-spicy-fishy seasoning, with those little red peppers providing a potent kick. There was a generous serving of grilled tiger prawns alongside, not the little dried shrimps they use for this dish in Thailand (apparently they're very hard to get hold of here.) The service was good, though one waiter did scowl at me when he realised I'd asked for tap water, and he'd just opened a bottle for nothing.

I don't usually spend £9 on lunch, but it'd be well worth the extra dosh for the food alone, even if the atmosphere wasn't impeccably gorgeous. The place is an oasis of burbling fountains, carved statues, and muted lighting - much thought has been put into the decor and it shows. They even have posh hand lotion in the bathroom that smells like orange blossoms.

And you just never know who you'll see in these places. I spent ten minutes staring at this guy a couple tables away from me, trying to remember where I knew him from. Eventually I realised it was Dave Spikey, Chorley's Ambassador of Culture, and felt like a prat.

Chaophraya
Chapel Walks (Above Sam's Chop House)
Off Cross Street
Manchester
M2 1HN
0161 832 8342

Asian Invasion, Part 2: Mai Bai

Sushi sushi sushi, everywhere except Manchester. Until now you could only sample this gift of the Japanese people to mankind in two locations here: The YO! Sushi treadmill in Selfridges and New Samsi on Whitworth Street, both scandalously overpriced and fairly mediocre quality-wise. Recently we got Wing's in the Arndale Foodmarket (reviewed here) and Sapporo Teppanyaki in Castlefield, which I think has the best sushi of the lot.

So here comes another sushi-slinging joint. Mai Bai fills a nice little gap if you're in the vicinity of Albert Square and don't fancy soup or sarnies, it's on Princess Street just across from the Town Hall. Of course, lots of other people have this idea, and on my first visit bang in the middle of workday lunchtime the place was absolutely heaving. Come after 2:15 if you want to eat in peace.

God knows why, but conventional wisdom seems to hold that the English are a tough sell on raw fish. Maybe this is why most sushi places here fill their menus with rolls made with cooked fish, and even weirder things like meat and cream cheese. Mai Bai is no different - cooked rolls easily outnumber raw fish rolls on their menu (chicken teriyaki roll, anyone? Jesus.) This saddens me. To put it plainly, if it ain't raw, it ain't sushi, except for that omlette stuff.

The folks at Mai Bai seem to make most of their sushi beforehand, and sell plastic containers of the stuff in a refrigerated case. I'm told you can ask for things to be made up, even combinations they don't have on the menu, but I wouldn't like to try it when it's busy. I asked for some unagi rolls the second time I was there but they didn't have any eel in. Instead, I got a so-so California roll, which weirdly seemed to have mayonaise in it. The second time I got a very spicy kimchee roll, which was good, but in both cases I'd have preferred more filling and less rice. Both times, some miso soup and hot, in-shell edamame went down a treat. If you go that route, though, you're not going to get out of there for less than £6 or £7 if you want a drink too.

I haven't tried Mai Bai's Japanese-style noodles yet, but am looking forward to it. There were quite a few people busily slurping away both times I visited.

The decor is a little clinical - lots of gleaming metal and white walls, and rows of high stools and counters that make it seem like the kind of place designed for eating in a hurry, or maybe performing elective surgery. But they do have free wi-fi for customers, so you geeks might want to linger. I'll definitely be back for more Mai Bai - it's convenient, reasonably priced, and will satisfy my sushi jones. But more raw fish, please.

Mancubist reminded me to tell you that Manchester Confidential is running an offer where you can get 2-for-1 on hot food there, if you give them your email address (and let their e-marketing elves have their way with it, of course.)

Mai Bai
37 Princess Street
City Centre
Tel:0161 238 9191

Asian Invasion, Part 1: Ning

Coming to Manchester from NYC a few years back, I really missed the huge selection of ethnic restaurants - I was especially homesick for Asian food besides the ubiquitous Indian/Pakistani/Bangladeshi and straight-ahead Chinese on offer. But lo and behold, Manchester has suddenly gotten a mini-influx of new restaurants serving up other Asian cuisines. And I've been checking them out at lunchtime. Here's a triptych of
sorta-reviews for your consideration:

Part One: Ning

Ning is located at the top of Oldham Street, well past the invisible line where the dodgy discount stores and down-and-out pubs start to outnumber the hair salons and record shops. This isn't exactly a buzzing bit of manc right now, but I'm sure the owners are hoping that the promised transformation of Ancoats into a yuppie breeding ground will bring the punters their way. Could be a smart move, if they can stick it out.

Ning is billed as a "cantine/cafe/restaurant" which seems a little precious - I mean, couldn't ya pick one? It's a small place decorated in a restrained, design-y manner with lots of bare surfaces and big plate glass windows, which some drunken scally will soon careen into and shatter.

The flavour of cooking here is pan asian, heavy on the curries, rice and noodles. While there isn't a ton of choice, the lunch mains are all under £6.50. I had the grilled tiger prawn satay (£5). The satay sauce was nutty and not too sweet; the (too few) prawns were crispy and toothsome, and the rice and raw vegetables alongside just about made this enough for a light lunch.

Across the table, my luncheon companion The Mancubist seemed quite happy with his £5 Ning Curry Lunch (they have a changing selection of curries every week; you pick beef, chicken, veggie or prawn).

Based on that experience, I'd say it's a decent place for lunch if you're in the hood. The food didn't completely knock me out, and I was hoping for more street food and more Vietnamese stuff on the menu ... most of the dishes are Malaysian, which means curry and more curry. But it's a nice addition to Oldham Street.

Ning Cantine Cafe Restaurant
92-94 Oldham St
Manchester, M4 1LJ
0161 238 9088

On t'wireless

If you've been wondering what's going on with all this wireless city stuff you've been hearing about, you can get the straight dope over at the Manchester Digital Development Agency's ONE-Manchester blog.

For those of you who are just tuning in, Manchester has launched an ambitious bid to create a free wireless network that would cover all of Greater Manchester (an area of some 400 square miles) and serve 2 million people. The IP- (internet Protocol) City project would be partially funded by the Government's Digital Challenge initiative. The MDDA just got their application in last week - oy, I bet that was a big stack of paper.

Big kudos to the forward-thinking folks at MDDA who came up with the idea of blogging about the process - this kind of transparency is all too rare in government.

Whither Stevenson Square?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

They just keep coming...

...those new Manchester blogs, ya know. Makes me think there's something to all this media bleating about how a new blog is created every .08 seconds. Anyway, here's this week's motley crew:

Timothy W. Stanley is a doctoral candidate at the University of Manchester. He doesn't write exclusively on his academic topic, but his well-written, lengthy posts often deal with the intersection of religion/ideology and popular culture - e.g. this post on the eschatology of Betty Suarez ( star of the curiously addictive new telenovela Ugly Betty.) His latest post is a thoughtful look at the very different ideas of justice in the UK and the USA.

All My Little Words is a blog about The Magnetic Fields, written by a Nick, another Australian living in Manc. Actually, to be precise, he says it's about "grammar, The Magnetic Fields and The Magnetic Fields inspired/related ideas." If you're not familar with Stephin Merritt and his amazing band of musical genius-oddballs, check them out. They performed the one of the best concerts I've seen in Manchester at RNCM a couple of years ago.

Funky Monkey Man is the personal blog of a Mancunian gent who writes mainly about his daily life.

Iconoplex is written by Paul Robinson, who's curious about the world, and wants to enlist readers in his quest to think more. He writes:
"Over the coming months, you'll be asked to contemplate, question, discuss and improve the World in various ways. This is a wonderful place, full of wonderful people, all the more remarkable for the fact we're just a few billion walking pieces of mud on a tiny speck of rock nearby a lovely warm star. The aim of this site is to help you enjoy it a little bit more by thinking." This week he's thinking about why we blog.

Random Thoughts is "just the standard type of blog," written by a Mancunian and cyclist who lives, I believe, in Glossop. Has a nice snow picture up, too.

Scrub-scrub says of her blog: "it's: All about me...well what I think/do on a daily basis! Im 17, live in Manchester and Im studying A levels at Sale Grammar. I've applied to medical school as I really want to study medicine but I doubt Ill be sucessful! the majority of this blog will probably be me moaning!"

Another week, another film-related blog. This one's intriguingly titled Ugly RED Source of all Evil, and it's written by a Scottish projectionist who lives in Manc. And he eats pie sandwiches - also known as "slappies." I thought they only did that in Wigan.

New photo blog fotofacade is the work of Andy Marshall, who is an architectural photographer. As you'd expect, some lovely photos of buildings on there. Walter Menzies is another photoblogger based in Chesire. His latest photo of Macclesfield is entitled "Where would we be without maggots?"... I've pasted it above.

And Forgotten Classics is a literary blog whose main contributor is JdG, a writer and academic who lives in the Northern Quarter. It's linked to the Time Out (London) column of the same name, which bears the slogan "reading neglected writers so you don't have to." He has recently featured Graham Greene's minor novel The Ministry of Fear and - yes - Julie Burchill's first novel, Ambition.

TO DO: Blog workshop, My Manchester, HK art

Lots of other folks have blogged about this, but I thought I'd remind you, too. Thursday at 6pm the lovely people from the BBC Manchester Blog are holding a workshop on blogging. It's a free (you need to register) two-hour intro for anyone who's ever wanted to blog but hasn't yet, and will also benefit experienced bloggers who have questions about stuff like RSS feeds, changing platforms or installing advertising. And anyone who's remotely interested in getting involved in the BBC Manchester Blog should come along.

Incidentally, I'm going to be on BBC Radio Manchester chatting about Manc blogs again this week - should go out around 3 or half 3 Wednesday.

I found this listings site for the city, called My Manchester. A smattering of art exhibition listings, gigs etc. but the all-in-one place film listings are probably the most useful bit. However, it doesn't stretch to Bolton and some other outlying urbs in Greater Manc.

There are a couple of Asian-flavoured art exhibitions opening Thursday. Collective Identity is a group show examining the Chinese people under Mao at the Chinese Art Centre. Arrivals and Departures: New Art Perspectives of Hong Kong is at Urbis, and features the work of Castlefield Gallery co-directors Kwong Lee and Yuen Fong Ling, among others (the above image is from Gordon Cheung).

The exhibition marks the 10-year anniversary of the handover of Hong Kong, and I'm looking forward to checking it out. The last time I was in Hong Kong was before it reverted to Chinese control. I stayed here and it scared the bejeezus out of me. That was before I had seen Chungking Express though - a marvelous movie.

An avalanche of new blogs

Wow, there's like, soooo many blogs to add. Here we go.
Bend to Squares is the quite slick-looking blog of Vic, a copywriter and Australian in exile. It's basically a resource for cute art and crafty things, as well as fashion, photos and other covetable odds and ends... like the unsettling work of Marcel Dzama, which is the subject of her latest post.


StraightTalkingStreetTalkingSweet is a blog of pub poetry written by Danny Wise, aka Andy Sewina. It's not poetry about pubs, at least not mostly. "I call it Pub Poetry 'cos most of it was written after a few beers down the local watering hole." he also has a personal blog at Proper Joe's. And his partner Nicola has a blog called Raw Meat

ysr23 is subtitled "photos and that." It's the work of Thomas Mceldowney, who posts a photo a day. He's responsible for the image above - I'm sure Stretford has never looked so hauntingly beautiful.


Deltaflow is the personal blog of Julian Malik Seidenberg, a Manc student who's had a very interesting life. Really.

Elgey is currently traveling in Prague, where he is presumably drinking absinthe - if you scroll down a bit there are detailed instructions on how to correctly prepare "the green fairy." Never had absinthe myself, but always wanted to try it.


Mamucium is a personal blog - the name comes from the old Roman name for manchester, and there's quite a bit about the city's ancient history in the first post.

There's also another political blog: Politaholic, which has lately focused on close readings of and responses to political coverage in the newspapers.

Postcards from the Manchester Student Scene; That one's self-explanatory, I think. Same goes for Reel Review.

Thanks to the folks who emailed about new bloggage - Nick, Chris, Andy and the rest.

The week in Manchester blogs

From now on, I'll be posting a weekly roundup of what's doing in Mancunian blogs over on the BBC Manchester Blog. The first one is up now. I'll also be on BBC Radio Manchester today around three to chat about the same topic with Richard Fair, so tune in if you're able.

I'll be scouring all the blogs on my blogroll for material for this weekly thang, so please let me know if there are any marvelous new blogs that should be added. Also, drop me a line (themanchizzle at gmail dot com) if you or someone else has written anything especially good - for this feature I'll be most interested in blogging about/related to life in Manchester.

Manc lingo: "The Southern Quarter"

In this review of Odder (formerly Zumbar) on the always entertaining Manchester Clubbing we spotted what could be the genesis of a wankdified new trend: Referring to the bit of Oxford Road near Hulme as the "Southern Quarter." God, please nip this one in the bud.

Some creative businesses moved to the neighbourhood around Shudehill years ago because it was way sketchy, and the rents were cheap. The myth of the bohemian Northern Quarter was engendered by city council folk, residents and early-adopter businessowners panting for their own Greenwich Village North. In time, it became a self-fulfilling prophecy. If enough people say that bit of the city is where all the arty bars/vintage clothing places/record shops are, then that's where the businesses who wish to be identified in that way will choose to locate. Nowadays, real estate there is no bargain.

But, however it got that way, the Northern Quarter is a neighbourhood with a distinctive character. Whether the bit of the city around Odder shares that character is highly debatable... as far as I can see, Oxford Road round there is mainly middling student bars, kebab joints, and Cornerhouse. There's Arch, which ain't what it used to be. And Hulme (apart from the Redbricks) is hardly bohemian. It's where students and other folks looking for affordable rents live. A walk around it will quickly disabuse anyone of the notion that it's another arty playland for people with silly haircuts. Still, the real estate agents have already seized upon the Southern Quarter as a marketing catchphrase. Ugh.

It must be said, though, that it's spot on to refer to the grim quadrant of meat-market clubs stretching from Quay Street down to Deansgate Locks as the "Straight Village." No time is this title more fitting than on a Friday night, say around 2 am, when passsersby are likely to run afoul of drunkunian mating rituals and frantic couplings in the street.

Strangely, I found a usage of straight village on Visit Northwest, a tourism site for the region. On the page headed Peter's Fields and the Conference Center, it says:
This is a newly developed area that includes the Manchester International Convention Centre (MICC), Bridgewater Hall and G-MEX. To many the area is also the ‘Straight Village’, the antithesis of the Gay Village. At night gangs of shaven-headed lads and girls in mini-skirts roam from pub to pub.

Now, doesn't that make you want to visit? Sounds well friendly.

First post of the new year

Greetings, Mancunia. I've limped into the UK and the new year with a head cold. Hmm... why do I always come back from America sick? Anyway, a whole heap of new Manchester blogs are waiting impatiently in the wings, but before I get stuck into that, I thought you might want to read this piece by Charlie Brooker in yesterday's G2. In it he describes his realisation, whilst on the crapper, that Sky Magazine's new system of using celebrity faces to classify film genres is more than just moronic, it's dizzying madness:

"Somewhere in my head, a camel's back splintered beneath a straw."

Tons of other people are doing it

If anyone's planning on taking part in the flash mob pillow fight in Piccadilly Gardens tomorrow (all info here), you really should read this article first. It's a history of the flash mob phenomenon, written by the guy who invented the flash mob to study the trendmongering social practices of Williamsburg proto-hipsters. I first posted it way back in April. In fact, the article was published almost a year ago, but flash mobs still continue to work their way around the world, and most participants remain oblivious to their origins.

Here's the way Bill Wasik's tale begins:
On May 27, 2003, bored and therefore disposed toward acts of social-scientific inquiry, I sent an email to sixty-some friends and acquaintances. The message began:

You are invited to take part in MOB, the project that creates an inexplicable mob of people in New York City for ten minutes or less. Please forward this to other people you know who might like to join.

More precisely, I forwarded them this message, which, in order to conceal my identity as its original author, I had sent myself earlier that day from an anonymous webmail account. As further explanation, the email offered a “frequently asked questions” section, which consisted of only one question:

Q. Why would I want to join an inexplicable mob?
A. Tons of other people are doing it.

Have fun, kiddies.

Follow the Star

The new edition of the Salford Star, our homegrown bastion of butt-kicking investigative reporting, is out now. It looks to be packed with all manner of Christmas goodies, but the story I'm really itching to read is the long promised MediaPity:UK, a 7-page "study in hypocrisy"concerning the BBC's beleaguered plan to move a chunk of their workforce to the proposed MediaCity: UK complex at Salford Quays.

There's been a lot of speculation lately about whether that move will ever happen. As the BBC looks likely to get less dosh than it's asking the government for, many have predicted that the Beeb will use the funding issue as an excuse to wriggle out of a move that seems to be wildly unpopular amongst the southern majority of its workforce. They're still hemming and hawing.
But the government is making no secret of its support of the plan.

The story is not up on their website, but I can only hope they'll put it up soon, since I could have a hard time getting hold of a copy here in Vermont, where I have arrived for Yuletide

Stu's Review

Erstwhile Mancunian blogger Stuart Ian Burns is halfway through an interesting monthlong project on his blog Feeling Listless, called Review 2006. He's asked readers to send in any question, and he'll answer one a day for the whole of December. But he isn't simply answering these questions - some of which are quite complex indeed - he's using each one as the jumping-off point for a sort of ruminative mini-essay. Past questions have ranged from "Why can't Liverpool FC win away from home?" to "How many girls has James Bond slept with?". He's delved fearlessly into his personal life with toughies like "What would your total fantasy life be like?" (Rosario Dawson and the New Yorker figure prominently) and "Why Stuart Ian Burns, not Stuart Burns?" He's covered blogging, with this one: 'Whenever I think of doing something like a blog, I always worry that anything I write would either sound really pretentious or be very boring. How do you handle those fears and just write?"

And then there's my favorite:
"Throughout most of The Empire Strikes Back, the Millenium Falcon's hyperdrive is not working (should have gone to Kwik Fit!) so it can't travel faster than light! However, there is a point where they travel from the Anoat System to the Bespin system. Separate Star systems would never be less than a couple of light years apart (I presume!), i.e. at least two years travel even if they could attain just a tiny bit less than light speed! It clearly doesn't take them this long, so is it some sort of 'worm-hole' or curved universe phenomena that they utilise to accomplish their trip?" Awesome.

The good news is that you can still get in on this, as Stu's looking for his last ten days' worth of questions, so send yours to feelinglistless@btopenworld.com. There are five flavours of question he will answer:

(a) Personal (egotistical). A question about something that has happened this year or something I've written on the blog that you've wondered about but were too afraid to ask.

(b) Trivia. 'How big is the moon?' or 'How fast is the fastest thing that's ever been fast?' that kind of thing.

(c) Review. What do you think of this album/film/book that I like?

(d) Opinion. See if I can work out something you've been ruminating on. 'Why do people who get on buses always stand near the door when others are patently going to get on after them and they'll be blocking the way?' That sort of thing.

(e) Advice. Dear Stuart, I wonder if you could give me advice about this problem I've been having ...Basically a question about anything.

Go forth and enquire.

Photographer wanted (UPDATED)

This is a personal request. I need a professsional hi-res photograph of myself taken sometime in the next week (it's for the contributors page in an American magazine I write for.) I don't know what the going rate is for this, but I don't have outrageous amounts of money to spend on it.

What I really want is a skill trade - swapping someone's photography for my writing/editing work on their behalf. But if this isn't possible I'm certainly willing to pay for it. Anyone know someone? You can respond in the comments or email me on themanchizzle at gmail dot com.

Update: Sorted! One of our number happens to be an extremely talented photographer, who was kind enough to take some of the nicest pictures of me last weekend. If anyone else needs a headshot for anything, or a wedding photographer, let me know and I'll put you in touch with him - he really is good. Ah, the talents of you blogging folk truly are limitless. Many thanks for all the help/suggestions/advice.

Free gig tonight

Breaking Christmas market update: I just happened to notice on the BBC Manchester website that B-Music have organized a short-order gig there this evening featuring American folkstress Josephine Foster, Voice of the Seven Woods, and Jane Weaver. It kicks off at 6pm in Albert Square. They want you to make an extra effort to come on time so as not to upset the proceedings. Josephine's been described as "delicate" so I hope they're planning on keeping her warm.

All info here.

New Manchester Blogs

Time to introduce the latest shiny new addtions to the Mancunian blogoschmear.

The usual hefty haul of personal blogs:

Ciara Leeming

October Poppy

Rob Adlard

Who does he think he is?

You can't control the message

And two for the music blog category:

Indie Music Blog. No extra points for guessing what that one's all about.

2nd Altos Like the Bottom Parts. A blog about life in the Halle Choir by one of its singers, Jocelyn.

There's a new political blog, On the knocker!

Finally, this one definitely wins the most attention-grabbing name of the week:
Naked Chasm Jumpers, a general interest blog run by a group of MBA students in Manchester.

Scallies on ice, wursts, and caroling lawyers

Christmas in Manchester. What could be more quaint and Christmassy than an ice-skating rink in scenic olde fashioned Piccadilly Gardens?. On Friday I snuck into the part that's right next to the rink so I could get better shots of the skaters (if the pictures come out okay I'll post them here later.) The first thing you notice is the enormous shocking orange plastic ice skates they make the punters wear. They make hockey skates look like Manolo Blahniks, and it's pretty much impossible to look cool in them.

The skaters seemed to consist mainly of pre-teen kids who were mysteriously not in school. There were a lot of young girls skating around in aloof pairs, stopping frequently to reapply their frosted lip gloss or adjust their sparkly scarf and hat sets. But the best part was watching the scallies on ice, who behaved exactly the same way they do anywhere else. One little scallion in a red and blue tracksuit could really skate, and was playing havoc with the first-timers inching their way around the edges, skating the wrong way and buzzing them like a fighter plane.

If you're looking to get in the Christmas spirit you may want to check out some of the city's christmas concerts. At St. Ann's Church they have a yule-related concert or carols service almost every day this month, including a special one just for lawyers (maybe they need extra help?) Most are free. And over at Manchester Cathedral there's also a whole mess of Christmas music happening, with Manchester Baroque doing Handel's Messiah on the 16th.

One more thing: Avoid the St. Ann's Square Christmas markets on weekends at all costs unless you fancy waiting 40 minutes in the cold for a mug of glauwein and a lukewarm wurst. And if you've never been, a visitor from Nottinghamshire has a thorough write-up of this year's German Market here.

I won NaNoWriMo

At last, I have finally typed my 50,000th word, which makes me an official winner of National Novel Writing Month (aka NaNoWriMo.) Something like 80 percent of the people who sign up drop out before reaching their goal, and I completely understand why. It's the kind of thing that sounds far easier than it actually turns out to be... and then some oddballs make it even harder for themselves by deciding to write a novel in Esperanto, or writing the entire thing dressed in a chicken costume while sitting in the window of a bookstore (nope, not making it up.) Congrats to Keris, who also won, and the many (around 250) Mancunians taking part.

I was lucky in happening to have a big fat chunk of time to devote to it during the month of November, but not blogging sure helped a lot. The book is far from finished, but I've gotten most of it down. Sure, it's in a raggedy, sure-to-be-rewritten-extensively incarnation, but even having something to edit is a first for me. I've always been derailed at the "sort of thinking about writing some fiction" stage before. NaNo was a very good motivator; it forced me to sit on my internal editor and just barf it out. (You see, it's just that flavour of gruesomely mixed metaphor action that will make my work a delight to read.)

Anyway, now I can go back to my accustomed life of blogging and wasting vast amounts of time on the internet. Starting in grand style with the Manchester blogmeet Saturday at 3pm at The Castle on Oldham Street. A few folks have already said they'll be there and I'm looking forward to catching up with ConnectMedia Craig, James Yer Mam!, C. Mancubist and Jon the Beef and meeting Rachael of The Console.

Blogmeet This Saturday

Hi y'all. Sorry I've been so behind on organising this blogmeet, but this month of novelwriting is almost over (and hey, I only have 10,000 words to write in four days...) Anyway, a few folks have emailed to say this Saturday is a good one, so I'm going to plunge ahead with it.

Time: 3pm this Saturday. Probably going on for an hour or so.

Place: The Castle on Oldham Street, same side of the road as the Night N' Day but further back towards Great Ancoats. There's a back room with pool tables and they have good beer on tap. It's not as much of an old man pub as the Hare and Hounds, but it's still pleasantly scruffy.

Let me know if you can make it.

Also, here's a beautifully designed new Manc blogsite called The Console, which features music and art writing and comes tricked out with podcasts for your listening pleasure. It's the work of Rach and Olly, and I don't know much more than that, but go check it out. Cheers to Yer Mam! for pointing it out.

New Writing Types

Am headed down to Norwich at the end of this week for New Writing Types, a conference hosted by The New Writing Partnership. I'll be speaking on a panel discussion called Screenburn: Writers and The Internet, along with some very talented and interesting folks: Paul Carr from The Friday Project, Lane Ashfeldt of Pulp Net and poet Todd Swift. I'm really looking forward to it, and will probably come back all fired up about online writing again. And if anyone from these parts is going, give me a shout.

This will be my first visit to Narch, as my friend there calls it - and actually my first time in that whole bit of England, so it'll be good to check out a new place. I heard they have a store there that sells nothing but mustard. In the whole shop. Yep.