New Blogs: The May 2010 edition

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The City Debate and the future of Manchester

Hoo boy, is this a long post. But I had so much to say about FutureEverything’s City Debate last Friday, I just couldn’t restrain myself. For another perspective, I’ll point you in the direction of Inside The M60's coverage and blogger Sarah Hartley, who has a very interesting analysis. As a snotty aside, I also find it surprising that a serious debate about the future of Manchester with some pretty big bigshots held at Manchester Business School didn’t rate either coverage by the local press or participation from the city council (though Sir Howard Bernstein did record a video statement.) But what do I know?

Big props to FutureEverything for organising what was a very ambitious and largely successful event. The format was interesting, but I think there were simply too many people taking part. I'm sure this came out of a well-meaning desire to offer a really broad slate of views. And it was great that such a range of people were there. Unfortunately, having so many panelists made the event longer and slower to get down to brass tacks, as everyone read through their statements and responded to questions from a couple of specially-selected lead questioners. For me, it wasn’t until the questions were opened to the floor that things really got interesting.

Two big things I took away from the event: One is a growing sense of frustration from many of the people in the audience and even a few of us on the panel. For all the horn-tooting about the meteoric rise of the original modern city, the reality is that we’ve just seen a period of tremendous growth which seems to have completely passed by most of the people who live here, especially those in poorer outlying neighbourhoods. It was clear that that many of us would specifically like the people in charge to focus their innovating on making sure this doesn’t keep happening. Patsy Hodson of the Manchester Communication Academy currently being built in Harpurhey spoke especially well on this point, and she should know.

And the second is a sense that the wind is, at long last, shifting in the city. For years Manchester has been in thrall to property developers. But the boom is busted, and what we do in the future will be less about building and more about retrofitting. As a wise audience member pointed out, a crisis is a terrible thing to waste. Now that the cranes have stopped their seemingly-endless march across the city, let’s turn our attention to what we already have: acres of solid old industrial buildings and solid old housing that no-one’s using. And some of the housing isn’t even that old – I’d love to know how many of those new build “city living” flats are empty?

But many people are discovering that highly-marketed dream of city living ain’t all it's cracked up to be. As one CC resident pointed out at the debate: “I can get as many cappucinos as I want but I can’t find an NHS dentist.” Ever noticed a playground in the city centre? I haven’t. (But don’t get me started on park and green space provision in Manchester; we compare shamefully with every other major city I’ve ever lived in or visited. When is this going to become a priority?)

If you want to depress yourself, consider the number of long-term vacant housing units in the city (recently at more than 6,000 according to the MEN) alongside the waiting list for social housing in Manchester (this article in The Mule puts it at 23,000 a year ago). Then factor in all the houses and flats on the market people can’t afford to buy. Something isn’t working.

Meanwhile, commercial rents in the city centre are skyrocketing, and you know who can’t afford to pay them? The artists, inventors, writers, thinkers and makers who give this city its reputation for being a hub of innovation. We can’t all go and work in the Sharp Project. If the city really wants to encourage a culture of innovation and experimentation, how about fitting out some of these abandoned or derelict buildings as artist live/work spaces (see Islington Mill), community cultural/voluntary centres (Zion Arts), or technology workshops, places like MadLab which provide resources and networks as well as much-needed physical space in which digital/creative folks to do their thing.

I’m hopeful that good things will start to happen in this area. We are lucky in Manchester to have a progressive city council that has supported many innovative programmes in the past; bold ideas that often don’t get as much recognition as they should. What we need is for the city leaders to make this a priority, to devote money (even a little bit) and time and energy to these projects, to develop incentives for people to re-use. Wrangling in court with landlords to take possession of a derelict building for the common good, for example, isn’t glamorous work, but its becoming increasingly important work.

While they’re at it, they should have a think about some of the ideas that were bandied about during and after the debate: Green rooftops and vertical gardens growing food – reducing CO2 and hunger at the same time. Citywide free wifi (though I get the impression MDDA have already established that dog won’t hunt.) Developing the unloved canal network for a range of uses. Making Manchester really bike and pedestrian-friendly. And if something’s working well in another city – the free bikes or city-sanctioned artist squats of Paris, say – let’s not be shy about stealing those ideas.

And yes, I know it’s not that simple. I sure as hell don’t have all the answers to all the tough questions like where is the money going to come from and what if people don’t want to live/work in these old buildings and how much can the council actually do? I guess I’m just hoping we can start to talk about these things in a new way. And that this is a conversation we can all participate in.

(Photograph: E.O. Hoppe, Manchester 1925)

Leftovers

A few interesting odds and ends:

Some Manchester writers have cooked up a tasty new web-based venture over at 'other' magazine. You can read new writing from various people, admire Nicholas Royle's 20-year-old collection of bread tags, and an annotated diagram of Socrates Adams-Florou's fridge (above). Plus, they're on Twitter. And this post about the absence of a UK independent lit scene has attracted 86 comments!

Not Manchester-based, but interesting all the same. The Literary Platform is a new website showcasing projects involving literature and technology. So if you like what we do over at Rainy City Stories, you might enjoy a browse.

TBA Magazine looks to be a new art webzine based in Manchester. Lovely website and some good lookin' content on there. No word on when issue 1 will be launching - will update this post when I have more info.

And I enjoyed the maiden issue of Things Happen, a fanzine about our fair city from the Manchester Municipal Design Corporation, a subsidiary group of MMU's DesignLab. Website coming soon and a second issue planned for this summer, if they can find a way to pick up the tab. You can find it at FutureEverything events.

Speculative fiction writing group

I have helped organise a speculative fiction writing group tonight at MadLab on Edge Street. No, this doesn't mean the existence of the group itself is speculative (though it is, as this is our first meeting and I have no idea how the group will work. All I know is one person proposed the Turkey City workshop method on Twitter, which sounds scary, doesn't it?)

The group is for people who want to write and talk about writing speculative fiction, a broad category that includes science fiction, fantasy, horror, slipstream and stories that are just kind of weird. To my knowledge, there's never been a writing group specifically dealing with this kind of genre writing in town before. Though Manchester has a long and noble SF tradition.

Just to be clear, yes, this means I read science fiction. I've also been known to enjoy stories about cornershops with a pesky door into another dimension, and books which have werewolves as main characters or feature a chick in a lace-up bodice clutching a glowing blue sword on the cover.

You don't think I'm cool anymore, do you? I guess I'll just have to live with that.

Everyone welcome. MadLab tonight at 7pm.

FutureEverything and The City Debate

I was delighted to be asked to take part in The City Debate. It's an interesting idea: assemble a big group of people who think about Manchester a lot and start an open conversation about what the future of the city should look like and the best way to get there. The festival describes it as "An ideas event for evangelists, cynics, digital artesans, policy makers, property magnates, media vultures, urban planners, you, and me."

Who else is going to be taking part? Sir Howard Bernstein (Manchester City Council) by video, Susan Woodward (Sharp Project), Roger Milburn (Arup), Mike Ryan (Manchester Digital), Dave Carter (Manchester Digital Development Agency), Lyn Barbour (Manchester City Council), Walt Crowson (Learning Skills Employment Network), Patsy Hodson (Manchester Communication Academy), Alice Morrison (NWVM), Nick Johnson (Urban Splash), Professor Alan Harding (Institute for Political & Economic Governance), Martin Carr (True North), Mike Emmerich (Commission for the New Economy), Colette Williams (Moss Side independent candidate), and Tim News (MIDAS). The BBC's Jenni Murray is going to be moderating.

Each of us had to write a statement summarising our views about where the city should be headed, and given the nature of my work I chose to focus on culture and creative industries. I'll post a link to it here when its online.

In the meantime I had to boil that statement down into a 140-character summary (that was fun) and I came up with this: "supporting small orgs, artists, writers + thinkers will ensure MCR's creative renaissance reaches beyond Salford Quays." Now I'm thinking going with revival instead of renaissance could've saved me a few characters. Ah well. You can check out what some of the other participants wrote on twitter by searching for #citydebate.

It's Friday, May 14 at Manchester Business School on Booth Street West from 3-5:30pm. Entry is free, but you have to book and tickets are limited. Come on down.

FutureEverything's full programme is online here. There's plenty going on all over the city, and the art strand has some especially interesting stuff planned this year.

(Photo by Mike Colvin via Wikimedia Commons)

Sounds from the Other City 2010

Mayday... mayday. Sounds from the Other City is this Sunday. I will not be there as SFTOC involves standing around in hot, crowded rooms and watching other people get drunk, both profoundly un-fun ways to spend your time if you happen to be a pregnant woman. But you should go, of course. If you're looking for a rundown of the music on offer, head over to Creative Tourist, where Matthew Britton did us an excellent preview. This year, however, the homegrown Salford music festival has expanded its focus to include art and literature.

Box Office is an art installation at Salford Central station, a phantom ticket booth which will offer tickets to an intriguing assortment of one-off gigs, events and performances taking place across the city in a range of overlooked and under-loved spaces between 26th April and 2^nd May. It launches tonight with a little opening shindig from 5-7:45.

Paradox is a mash-up of live literature readings and music featuring the likes of Socrates Adams Flourou, Chris Killen, Thick Richard, Jackie Hagan and Frank Sidebottom. Watch out though, they might try to give you a flower if you go in there.

And take a gander at the SFTOC souvenir programme from the folks responsible for the Shrieking Violet zine (that's the cover up there). Pretty neat.

Manchester magazines, online and off

Here's a long overdue roundup of new activity in Manchester's cultural media landscape. Some gigantic web launches lurk in the wings, but at the moment there' s some evidence that, at least on the smaller and more grassroots side of things, print is not entirely dead here.

There's encouraging action on the zine front. I should have heard about this one ages ago, as it's already pretty well established, but Pull Yourself Together is a music zine dedicated to the indiepop scene that's published every two months. They also have a nice sideline in gigs, and clubnights at Common. And they now have a web presence over here. Also in the zine and music business is Moon Printed Shadows, which is shortly launching a publication called Knick Knack featuring poetry and short stories from Manchester writers.

I got a chance to peruse the Salford Zine Library at Islington Mill the other day - some real gems in there, and its good to see someone taking responsibility for collecting and championing zines. If you make a zine, get in touch and send them a donation. They also have what appears to be every single edition of the long-departed City Life over there. That made for some pretty interesting reading.

In case anyone missed it, Words & Fixtures published an excellent list of Manchester magazines, fanzines and online publications that are open for creative writing submissions, as well as writers' groups - incredibly useful info for writers in our fair city.

Copywriter Tom Mason, who was responsible for November in Manchester, has a new web-based publishing project: 330 words "The concept behind 330 Words is simple. Take a photograph and let it inspire you towards a piece of fiction. Let your photograph form the foundation of your story. Choose your own genre and style. Keep the entire thing under 330 words." (Auto) Flash fiction?

Not to be confused with the previous, 3030 Magazine describes itself as "articles, reviews and stories aiming to get people in Manchester interacting. Fans of old-style documentation - written on paper. Free press out in early 2010." No information on when/where/how it is launching, though going by their Twitter activity they seem to be collecting submissions and doing a spot of matchmaking.

Now Then, the Sheffield arts and culture print magazine that planned to launch a Manchester edition this month has postponed the launch and will take a few months to regroup: "It is with sincere regret we write to inform you that, despite our best efforts, we have been unable to gather enough support from independent retailers, charities and community groups to print an edition of Now Then Manchester this month," they wrote on their blog today.

"This is not us giving up, but a postponement in order to create something which is sustainable on a monthly basis. We are all still hugely committed to seeing a magazine on the streets and in the cafes of Manchester, and to the task of informing people about their local independent artists, traders and politics," they say. They'll continue to publish content on the blog in the intervening period (props for including the word bombinated in their recent Magnetic Fields review.)

The Skinny, the Glasgow listings magazine that was planning a Manchester edition, has now reportedly shelved those plans. They started posting a bit of MCR content online, but stopped short of launching a print mag. Just like Time Out. That's right, we got stood up again. (sniff.) Come on, what's wrong with us? We deserve a what's on magazine just as much as anyone else does, dammit. Is it something we said?

Or is it the fact that everyone seems convinced that there isn't the local advertising market to support a print magazine in Manchester, to say nothing of the fact that we're in a recession, or that the entire model of financing print journalism by selling ads is crumbling before our eyes.

Oh yeah, well, okay. There is that.

(Illustration from Toothpaste for Dinner)

Malcolm Gladwell at The Lowry

Canadian journalist, writer and professionally supersmart guy Malcolm Gladwell will be appearing at The Lowry May 11. The great-haired one cometh to promote his latest book, What the Dog Saw, a collection of pieces from The New Yorker, where he became a staff writer at the tender age of 33. His consistently great work on the magazine has established him as a master of the journalism of ideas.

So, okay, I'm a big fan of MG. His books, which include The Tipping Point, Blink and Outliers have become required reading for executives because of their useful applications in the business world, but they're recommended reading for anyone: fascinating, well-written and engaging books that make highly complicated ideas accessible. And I've heard that he's a good speaker, so I'm really looking forward to this rare appearance on our shores.

(Malcolm Gladwell drawing from Deadspin)

Three new books from Manchester

I recently read Len Grant's Billy and Rolonde. It follows three socially excluded people - a junkie, an asylum seeker from Zimbabwe and a homeless alcoholic in their daily lives through a Manchester most of the people reading this probably wouldn't recognise. It was certainly new to me.

Both writing and photography are simple and direct, letting the people speak for themselves. The author is appealingly open about the setbacks he has throughout the project and the way that his relationship with the subjects changes over time as, inevitably, he becomes personally involved with them. Rather than trying to become invisible, he lets us see him engaged in the work of trying to tell these stories. This tactic can easily backfire, but here it works.

It's hard not to like Len Grant as a narrator, he seems honest and rarely gets preachy - facts and statistics are offered in an almost offhand manner, when they come up in the story, and are all the more powerful without the usual window dressing. And it's hard not to like each of his subjects, regular people in difficult situations who have done a brave and generous thing by allowing him, and us, this degree of access into their lives.

The book itself is a beautiful thing, designed by Alan Ward at Axis in Chorlton and released by Cornerhouse Publications. So it's an entirely Manchester-made project, which seems right. In my ideal world this would have been a prizewinning series in Manchester's local newspaper instead of a book, but there's not a snowball's chance in hell of the MEN devoting the necessary space and resources to a project like this. So it's a book, and a pretty terrific one.

I also read the two most recent chapbooks from Manchester author Nicholas Royle's Nightjar Press, which I can't recommend highly enough. Each one contains a single short story, the perfect size to shove in your bag and read on the tram. I was impressed with the solid binding and the thoughtfully-chosen covers. Chapbooks conjure up images of bent staples and inky fingers, but these are sleek beasts.

When the door closed, it was dark by Alison Moore is about a British woman who goes to an unspecified foreign country to live with a family and look after their infant. I'm not going to say any more than that, except that it is extremely creepy (in a good way), and that it might not have been such a good idea to read it while waiting for my 20-week scan in the antenatal department of Fairfield Hospital.

Black country, by Joel Lane, is a detective story in which a cop pokes about in the anonymous suburban districts of the West Midlands, investigating some weirdly troubled kids, and ends up exorcising his own buried memories. The ending raises as many questions as it answers, but satisfies all the same. Both were so good that I'll definitely be seeking out anything else Nightjar sees fit to offer us.

(Image from Billy and Rolonde courtesy of Len Grant)

New Blogs: The Bank Holiday Blues edition

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wolf Haul

Road trip! In The Company of Wolves, Neil Jordan's gobsmackingly weird 1984 film of Angela Carter's werewolf fantasy, is going to be shown Friday evening in the spooky surrounds of Grizedale Forest as part of AND festival's programme of events in Lancashire and Cumbria this spring.

The film is being presented by the fabulous Scratch n' Sniff, so that means viewers will be able to appreciate it in full Odorama splendour. People are encouraged to come in fancy dress and I am told that "a transformation station will allow patrons to paint on lips as red as blood or attach a tell-tale monobrow. Rose-imbued gin will be served on arrival, plus wolf stew, a blanket of fog and an origami apple orchard."

Details here . It's cert 18, which is too bad, since teenagers who think Twilight: New Moon is the shit should be kidnapped and forced to watch this. And smell it too.

The rad limited edition screenprint by Simon Misra above will be for sale at the film for £10.

Twestival Thursday at Hulabar

Nearly time for the Manchester incarnation of Twestival, a worldwide charity event that harnesses the awesome power of Twitter to raise money for good works. Ours takes place this Thursday, 25th March, from 6pm-11pm at Hulabar in Stevenson Square in the Northern Quarter.

The organisers say: "the event is a unique opportunity for local Twitter users, who normally communicate through the site, to meet face-to-face and build on the relationships they have made online while raising money for international charity Concern Worldwide.

Entertainment at the event will include music, a charity auction, and many other Twitter-based activities all sponsored by low cost airline BMI Baby, North West based digital agency KMP Digitata and Manchester airport."

Tickets are £6 or £10 and include a free drink. And if you have a business it's not too late to donate a prize. More information over at the Manchester Twestival site, or follow them at @manctwester

Party in the library

If you've been reading this blog for a while you may have picked up on the fact that I'm kind of a library geek. I worked in libraries on and off for years (oh, I can shelve books all right), and my mom was one of those righteous activist librarians they seem to have lots of in the states and not enough of over here. So one of the first things I do on moving to a new place is check out the library. And when I visited Central Library for the first time I was not disappointed. It's pretty wonderful.

Unfortunately we're saying hasta la vista to our library for a while; it is closing to be renovated until 2013. During that time we'll have to make do with a scaled-down temporary library on Deansgate. I hope that the things I love about it don't get messed with too much in the renovation (the spectacular Great Hall, the language & lit library) and the things I don't like are going to be all sorted out (the outdated cafe, the tiny general readers library, the lack of a good space for children's books and reading activities). We shall see.

The library's getting a proper literary and musical send-off tomorrow night with Manchester Central Library: A Celebration. Sean O'Brien will read from a collection of short stories written entirely about a city library, The Silence Room, and Jane Rogers will read 'Lucky' set largely in the library. Other readers include Nicholas Royle and Mike Garry - and they're going to have a klezmer band too. It starts at 6:30 and it's free and open to all.

There's another interesting bookish event on the radar in Salford: Reading for Reading's Sake, a 4-day event aimed at exploring reading as a practice. "Unlike a regular reading group, this event aims to unfold the activity of reading, the situations in which we read, reading as a shared event, a private passion, concentration, interpretation, sound and voice, the symbolic and emotional value of the act."

It takes place Thursday April 8 - Sunday April 11 at Islington Mill, and includes a whole host of reading-related activities, workshops and evening performances. Booking required, places limited. Full details here.

(Manchester Central Library photo by Flickr user brightonsinger)

The Magnetic Fields at Manchester Cathedral

Another great gig coming up: I'm getting pretty excited for The Magnetic Fields at Manchester Cathedral this Friday evening. A Magnetic Fields show is always something to look forward to, but this one especially so: It'll be my first time at the Cathedral since the church began hiring itself out as a gig venue and I'm really curious to hear how that vast, grand space deals with rock music.

With their love of strings and unusual instruments I think the Fields are probably a good choice to try out the acoustics. Their most recent album, Realism, released in January, was recorded entirely unplugged, and used a variety of gonzo percussion instruments. I love this album, as does Alexis Petridis from the Guardian, whose glowing review includes the following delicious qualifier:

"It's not a perfect album: it is perhaps otiose to complain about the level of camp in the songwriting of a man who owns a Chihuahua called Irving Berlin, but it has to be said, The Dolls' Tea Party would cause Duncan "Chase Me" Norvelle to suggest Merritt man up a bit."

Hopefully they'll be playing lots from Realism as well as some old favourites from the warped and beautiful mind of Stephin Merritt.

Green shoots in Ramsbottom

There always seems to be lots going on in Ramsbottom, the northernmost bit of Bury where I live. But there have been a couple of developments recently I thought I'd let the rest of Manchester know about too.

I've always loved the hundreds of funky little community gardens dotted around New York City, and I watched a great documentary recently about the urban communal gardens in Cuba - every scrap of land is used to grow stuff. Well, it looks like a bit of this spirit is coming to Rammy. Inspired by the example of nearby Todmorden, whose residents use empty lots and odd bits of disused land around town to grow fruit and vegetables. Ramsbottom is getting its own homegrown gardening effort: Incredible Edible Ramsbottom.

The group will be meeting up 7:30pm Monday March 22 at Christ Church off Bolton Road North. They also have a webpage here with a discussion forum- and it looks like they've already lined up some plots in Nuttall Park and a disused orchard in Greenmount. This could be just the thing for people despairing at the multi-year waiting list for allotment plots, or really for anyone who likes the idea of getting their hands dirty.

One really great thing about living here is the Ramsbottom film society, Real 2 Reel. The good news is that they've just moved house. Instead of showing their monthly films in the Civic Hall, they'll be screening them in the newly renovated Theatre Royal, home of the excellent Summerseat Players. I've seen a film there and can say that the seats are way more comfortable. The next movie is Rebecca Miller's The Private Lives of Pippa Lee, showing on Wednesday March 31 (unfortunately the same evening as our blogmeet.) You can keep up with their schedule on the Real 2 Reel Facebook page.

(Photo by Flickr user innpictime)

Manchester Blogmeet March 31

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

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

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

(photo: Tim France)

New Blogs: The Dark Corners Edition

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

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

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

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

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

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

A photo blog, Percy Dean

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

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

Gigs: Jesca Hoop and Jonatha Brooke

Tonight Jesca Hoop (above) is playing at the Deaf Institute. A few months back I heard a track from her recently released second album on the possibly endangered 6Music (BBC: so, so wrong) and loved it enough to get her amazing first album, Kismet. It's hard to describe her songs - quirky, funky, folky but very personal, and she's got a killer voice. Turns out she moved from California to Manchester last year at the urging of her friends in Elbow. Yay! I'll be looking for other chances to catch her playing her hometown.

Another amazing folksinging lady and one with a voice that's equally unique: Jonatha Brooke is coming to Band on the Wall on Feb 20. Her old band, The Story, released a couple of great albums back in the early nineties and disappeared, but Jonatha's been doing some quality solo stuff since then. Should be a good gig.

Seoul Kimchi and Bubble Cafe

Where can you get the best dumplings in Manchester? Until recently the answer to that question would have been easy: Red Chilli, where the Beijing dumplings have long reigned supreme. But a new contender has emerged: Seoul Kimchi, a tiny grocery and restaurant on Upper Brook Street that serves up Korean home cooking. Many of the Asian restaurants in Manchester don't bother to make their own dumplings and seem content to serve frozen ones shipped from thousands of miles away. So the gyoza at Seoul Kimchi are a revelation: crisp on the outside, bursting with flavour inside, you can tell from the first bite that they're the real thing.

The japchae, a fried noodle dish, and bibimbap, a rice-based dish, were also excellent. Don't leave without sampling the kimchi, the spicy pickled cabbage that Koreans eat with practically everything. And there are lots of choices for veggies. It's nice to finally have an alternative to Koreana, which is much more formal (and more expensive). Unfortunately Upper Brook Street isn't really convenient to anywhere, but you can take the 50 bus right there from Spring Gardens. There are only three or four tables, and if it's full, well, Red Chilli have opened a new location nearby on Oxford Road.

These are good times to be a foodie in Manchester. We may not have any Michelin-starred restaurants, but on the casual/ethnic side we're doing pretty well. During my time living in New York I got swept into the city's amazing foodie subculture. There are thousands of people who comb the five boroughs for the ultimate felafel, soba noodles or corned beef hash, and cultishly track the movements of favourite street food vendors on Chowhound ("The Arepa Lady is back on Roosevelt Ave!") One of my favourite foodie haunts was Sau Voi Corp, a Vietnamese record store on Lafayette Street in Chinatown with a lucrative sideline in banh mi, unbelievably addictive Vietnamese sandwiches filled with meat and veggies.

When I moved here seven years ago, not being able to get banh mi in Manchester got me down; it was like some kind of litmus test. Well, I'm happy to report that you can now get these sandwiches here. The recently opened Bubble Cafe on Portland Street sells bubble iced tea and a selection of Vietnamese snacks including pho, noodle soup and banh mi sandwiches (Bubble's Sandwich). On the day I went, they were out of pate, a grievous omission, but the baguette had ham, sliced pork, grated carrot and coriander. Instead of the usual sweet and spicy sauce, though, it was topped with some kind of weird mayonaise - not an improvement. Still, it was good, and at £3.80 for a giant sandwich it's a solid lunch option.

Factory seconds

So Peter Hook's Factory-themed nightclub, FAC251, opens tonight. Whoop-dee-doo.

Sure, everyone's entitled to their own nostalgia trips, but this particular one has been rammed down our throats for the last 20 years. And I'm not even one of these hippersnappers that utterly scorns the music that came out of that scene. Yeah, I decorated my teenage walls with Peter Saville album cover postcards and still consider most of it great music (Happy Mondays, though... I think maybe you had to be there and on those drugs). But enough already. I've got chronic Factory fatigue.

And I know I'm not alone. Check out Tony Naylor's exasperated, well-argued post on Guardian Music Blog, and this post on Words Dept., which is where I found out about the brilliantly vitriolic FUC51. They're also on Twitter. Anyone considering going along to the opening tonight should check out their blog for an eye-opening Youtube preview of what's likely to be on tap.

Maybe it's time for us to move on and show some love for the great new music coming out of Manchester? It'd be interesting if this club actually did that, but I'm not holding out much hope after checking out their website. Too much grandstanding and too much Rowetta. There's something depressing about watching the Factory folk shamelessly attempting to cash in over and over again, with books, reality show slots, second-rate reunion gigs, crap DJ sets and now this. I ask you: Can officially merchandised Joy Division oven gloves be far away?

BlackLab

Four people have separately mentioned BlackLab to me over the last few weeks, so it feels like the right time to tell you about them. BlackLab is a self-described "visual society" organised by David Oates, Liz Lock and Mishka Henner, based in Manchester. Here's their mission:

"BlackLab is here to revel in images old and new. We want to breathe new life into the presentation of still pictures by experimenting in collaboration with artists, musicians, film-makers and designers. We want to dispense with conventional forms of exhibiting photographs and create spaces in which images can collide and collude with film, soundscapes, slogans and texts."

On Friday they're hosting Trawling the Visual Wreckage, a night of screenings, socializing, and conversation about photography, imagery and film at An Outlet on Dale Street. "Meet the city’s thriving community of bloggers and image-makers (if they show up) and participate in a thrilling raffle for a prize that’s out of this world." Sounds like a great night and an especially good meetup opportunity for the many photobloggers in Manchester. The fun starts at 7:30.

New blogs: The like, totally tubular edition

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hello January!

Greetings comrades. 2010 has been a little rough on the re-entry so far. Snow, ice and, for my part, more work than I know what to do with. That last one is generally positive, apart from the whole not having time to write blog posts thing. I'm sorry about that, but experience has taught me that my readers are steadfast and stick with me through thick and thin. Right? ... Hello? Oh, hi. You're still there. Good.

It has recently been suggested to me that bloggers who don't shell out for their own domain name don't take themselves seriously enough to be worth reading. I don't really agree with this (I certainly wouldn't want to be accused of taking myself seriously), but I have been considering buying my own domain for a while. Maybe I should give myself a new url as a little present.

I haven't bought a domain name for this site in part because I do a lot of work helping people start blogs, and I want to show them that it really is super easy and free to create a blog. Buying a domain name is great, but it's not necessary. That's part of the reason I've stayed on Blogger, too - I've used both lots and I genuinely think the interface is easier for less tech-savvy people (counting myself in there) to deal with than Wordpress, though the latter looks way cooler and can do so much more.

I haven't experimented with Posterous yet but I know a lot of people really like it. Anyone prefer this platform to all other blogging platforms? I'd be interested to hear what you think.

Happy holidays from Manchizzle

Merry Christmas everyone. See you in 2010!

Mad Lab, Good Grief! and the SF Panorama

I was in the Manchester Digital Laboratory, better known as Mad Lab, for the first time the other day and I urge alert readers to add it to your map of good places in Manchester. It's on Edge Street across from Common. What is it? Well...

It’s a space you can get together with like-minded individuals and work on your urban gardening, crochet, hacking, programming, media arts, filmmaking, animating project without worrying that you’re in a library, coffee shop, pub or other unsuitable venue. We know hackers and craftspeople need work space and may need to get down and dirty – we also know sometimes you need a quiet area to present and show works to your peers. We support both activities. And we hope there will be a rich mix of individuals who’ll get out of the usual zones, the knitter talking to the software architect, the cupcake maker scheming with the laser etching builder. We know some good will come of this.

I think some good things are definitely going to come out of the Mad Lab. Also, a lot of robots. It's available for meetings, meet-ups, and dastardly plotting of all kinds, so keep it in mind.

I was in the Mad Lab to talk about the Manchester aggregator project I posted about recently. Many folks let me know they were interested in hearing more, contributing or being involved. This is an open, blogger-led project that is still evolving and if you want to see what we're talking about, join the conversation or just lurk in a shadowy manner visit the Manchester Aggregator group on the Social Media Manchester Ning page. You can also look out for twitter posts tagged #managg


In other unconventional newspaper news, McSweeney's only went and published their latest edition of the literary mag as a broadsheet, The San Francisco Panorama, that people could buy from Bay Area newstands (which sold out in about ten minutes flat. You can order it from McSweeney's in the states, but I can't seem to find anywhere selling McSweeney's no. 33 in the UK. You listening, Santa?) In addition to championing a beleagured format the paper features 16 colour pages of comics from the likes of Chris Ware, Dan Clowes and Art Spiegelman. If we could get the broadsheets in this country to publish 16 colour pages of comics regularly the UK would be a better place. Or even four pages. But a few months back The Guardian axed the wonderful comic they were publishing on Saturdays. Boo.

To read more about the Panorama head over to Flavorpill's Flavorwire where there's an interview with Oscar Villalon, McSweeney’s publisher, originally sent out in their excellent weekly book email, Boldtype. Pictures via Tonx, who has a good post about it too.

I might head over here and see if they have it:

Yes, new shop Good Grief! brings a bulging sack full of art book, zine and comic goodness to a hut on the third floor of Affleck's Palace. Also music, and posters, and music posters. I am very excited about this. We could really use more places in town to buy this kind of stuff. At the moment there seems to be an amazing bounty of illustrators and comics in Manchester doing weird and wonderful work that it can be absurdly tricky to get ahold of. Keep up with the Good Grief! gang on their amusing blog here. Thanks for the tip Kate Taylor.

Newspapers and blogs

Nobody hates blogs more than journalists. Blogs drive the less digitally-savvy journos and media industry guys crazy (and not just because we are helping to put them out of work). They gripe about bloggers having no accountability, no transparency. There is no tough editor peering over the blogger's shoulder and demanding they back up the claim they make in the second paragraph, no sub dutifully fact-checking their copy, no time-honoured professional code of conduct preventing them from writing good things about their mates or slating the work of people they don't like.

And what exactly are the blogger's credentials? This is what really rankles: Bloggers haven't been carefully selected for their role as critic or commentator by a respected news organisation, required to demonstrate writing prowess and reporting nous. They haven't stubbornly worked their way up the ladder in profession that, while incredibly competitive and often grueling, pays poorly. In short, they've jumped the queue. They're not professionals, they're bloody amateurs. And people are listening to them!

I've been both a newspaper journalist and a blogger, and have been thinking a lot lately about the overlapping ground between these roles, and the antagonism and competition that exists between the two camps in what is shaping up to be the golden age of citizen journalism. Down south, the arrival of theblogpaper has attracted attention. Closer to home, I'm meeting up with some folks tonight to discuss an aggregator project for Manchester bloggers that I suspect will share some of the aims of theblogpaper.

It's early days and I'm not sure what will come of it, but it's encouraging that people are interested. I've been beating the "we need an aggregator" drum since the original Manchester Aggregator, a one-man volunteer operation, died a few years back (and in case you've never met an aggregator before, it's a website that pulls in the posts of multiple bloggers via feeds and publishes them in one place).

But first: theblogpaper.

The all-lowercase name evokes the recently departed thelondonpaper and gives notice of the venture's designs on the freesheet market, but on this front theblogpaper is guilty of putting out mixed messages. They say "we aim to combine two different yet equally important types of media: internet and print." Yet they "promote contents to print" by voting; the top rated stories get published in a London paper edition. What's with the inferiority complex? These days, putting online content into print is more of a demotion than a promotion (and I say this as someone who will let you take away my morning newspaper when you tear it out of my cold, dead hands).

If you're interested there's some more background info on theblogpaper here. I'm not sure if it will succeed or not. The main problem is content: I think there is some truth to the assessment this t5m blogger makes of it (though as a competitor his views should possibly be taken with a few grains of salt). And there are some things I don't understand about their model. Why do they require contributors to submit articles rather than automatically pulling registered bloggers' posts from their sites aggregator-style?

Having to submit articles places more of a burden on participating bloggers, and the site already asks a lot of their community as they need people to vote on what articles to "promote". I understand the model's allure as it is both democratic and time saving. The readers are the selectors, so you don't need editors. But it's a big gamble - I think any new venture that leans too heavily on user participation via voting and liking is on shaky ground unless they have a gargantuan publicity budget.

I see they are selling advertising. Not sure if this will work. It didn't for theblogpaper's predecessor The Printed Blog. In the US big-name blogs command hefty rates. Over here, the only blogs I've seen ads on are the newspaper blogs and the blogs of Gawker's UK copycat Shiny Media, and they certainly haven't found a model that's immune to the problems of the print sector. I like the model where blogs with an established following band together and sell ad space a la The Deck, but I'm not sure local advertisers would go for it, or whether the amount of traffic UK local blogs get (at best, a couple hundred hits a day, I'm guessing) would make this a viable idea, even with the ad display replicated over several blogs.

I wish theblogpaper well and will be delighted if it succeeds; it's still in beta phase and hopefully whatever doesn't work will be dealt with soon. But whether it's this project or not, I think it's only a matter of time before something blog-sourced makes a go of it in the UK. Newspapers are in free fall. There is a content vacuum, and bloggers stand ready to fill it. In some cases, you could say they are already filling it.

Take Manchester as an example. The content of our daily newspaper, such as it is (sigh) has dwindled in terms of both quality and quantity; they've shrunk pages and offloaded experienced (and incidentally, better-paid) journalists in favor of unpaid and exploited rookie journos. No print mag has gotten very far off the ground since Citylife folded; Time Out looked at coming in and decided it wouldn't be profitable enough, I'm guessing. So on the print side, we've got a handful of well-intentioned zines, one or two property circulars masquerading as "lifestyle magazines", and the fresh-faced new culture and listings magazine that seems to arrive with a bang every six months or so and disappear with a whimper a few months later. I wish one would stick but they keep not sticking.

Online, things are buzzier. Manchester's cultural institutions have gone into the content business themselves, setting up their own web magazine (and making a damn fine job of it, says this admittedly very biased contributor) and turning to bloggers to review their exhibitions and plays. In this city, at least, bloggers really are the new press. Manchester Confidential's recent decision to start charging for content in the new year prompted an interesting debate (also here) with some asking "why would people pay for content they can get for free elsewhere?"

It's good that bloggers are getting more attention here. And I think a group endeavour that would unite the best of our content in one place would be good for everyone: readers, writers, cultural and civic institutions. But Manchester bloggers will have to step up our game if we want to be taken seriously (though some couldn't give a rat's ass about being taken seriously, and more power to them). We aren't professionals, but I think maybe we ought to hold ourselves to more professional standards. What does this mean? Well, for starters...

• If you get press tickets, actually write about the thing
• Be transparent: if you get free meals, free drinks or free gear say so in your post
• Be independent and dispassionate, don't allow freebies to influence what you write
  
• Get permission to use copyrighted photos instead of thieving them fecklessly
  
• Attribute. Use links to other blogs/sites generously; credit where credit's due.
  
• Be respectful of readers who disagree; publish and respond to critical comments
• Be as accurate as you can. Sloppy mistakes erode your credibility
• Correct mistakes quickly and prominently
  
• And fer chrissakes, spell check your posts.

Hmm... I have a feeling I may come to regret posting this list. All nitpicking comments taking issue with my grammar, spelling, photo crediting, accuracy or legitimate parentage gratefully received ;) Anyway, I'll keep you lot posted on the MCR aggregator project. If anyone wants to be more actively involved, please get in touch.

Blog picture via Tubuans and Dukduks.

'My log has something to tell you'

Twin Peaks. The drama. The flannel. The unearthly blend of mawkish and surreal that could only come from the dark, dark mind of one David Lynch. And, of course, the pie.

I'm not sure exactly how watching the weekly adventures of The Bookhouse Boys, Agent Dale Cooper, the Log Lady and the rest of the gang as an adolescent warped my mind, but I think it was in a good way. Nobody's ever figured out how the TV execs agreed to let Lynch loose on prime time, but thank god they did. The first season is some of the best TV ever. The second season... well, really, it's kind of a mess but still miles more interesting and original than 99 percent of the crap on television.

If you've always secretly longed to don Laura Palmer's prom dress, you're in luck: Islington Mill in Salford will be turned into the town of Twin Peaks for one night only on Sunday Dec 13. Come in character. There will be a Miss Twin Peaks 2009 pageant, live music, performances and djs. £11 (advance only here, limited capacity) gets you in with a slice of cherry pie.

I'm also going t'mill tonight to catch the amazing Mayming and World Sanguine Report. Some really great gigs coming up there.

Club Brenda, the big hearted club night renowned for its eclectic playlist, is the subject of a limited edition book. Strange Trees. The book is getting a proper DJ-assisted launch Dec 1 at Urbis 7:30-10 (free entry). The book "moves through the history of Club Brenda, using a series of classic narratives to form a dark urban fairytale, alongside a series of commissioned photography and artwork" from the likes of Rachel Goodyear and David Hoyle, who will also be selling art on the night. Enjoy your Urbis while you can, kids.

And closer to home (well, for me and those of us who live in the farthest reaches of North Manchester, much further for everyone else) Horse & Bamboo's Deep Time Cabaret comes to the Boo in Waterfoot on Saturday, 28 November. Looks like fun.

servicing

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

Phew. This could take a while.

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

November in Manchester: Literary News

Well howdy. It's been a while, no? Now that the Literature Festival dust has settled, I'm here with a lot of long-overdue literary news things.

November in Manchester, an ambitious "social media love story" undertaken by Tom Mason, an SEO copywriter whose first love is creative writing, is now live. I spoke with Tom about it at Social Media Cafe and he told me how it works: he's written a story which is going to be published via characters' first-person tweets and blog posts (here are blogs for main characters James and Persephone.)

Readers can take part by sending in pics and films representing the characters and/or scenes they experience during November in Manchester (photo above is from their Flickr Group.) It's not really a collectively written story, more a collectively illustrated one that employs social media in its delivery. Interesting idea.

A wave to those intrepid Manchester writers furiously sprinting through National Novel Writing Month. Good luck, guys! In case anyone is just finding out about this excellent endeavour and doesn't want to wait another year to take part the folks who run it also do short story and script-centred projects throughout the year, so sign up to their list to find out about those.

Some news on the publications front:

Author, dreamblogger and literary Mancunian of note Nicholas Royle has started up independent publisher Nightjar Press, which got things rolling last month with chapbooks from Manchester writer Tom Fletcher (who writes a blog at Fell House) and Michael Marshall Smith.

Knives, Forks and Spoons press is now publishing poetry and organising readings, their next one features Simon Rennie, Alec Newman and John G. Hall and is at Central Library on Nov 26 at 6:30. The press was begun by Richard Barrett earlier this year and is being continued by Alec Newman. They live on Facebook here.

Lit zines The Shrieking Violet and Belle Vue (write up of it at The Mithering Times) both have fresh editions out, as does new-to-me zine Geeek and web journal The Manchester Review (now on twitter at @mancreview).

A new writing group is setting up shop at Nexus Art Cafe. Called Bad Language, it's being organised by Dan Carpenter. The first meeting was Nov 3 but as I didn't get around to posting about it til now, get in touch via Bad Language's twitter account or contact me and I'll pass on Dan's email.

And if anyone missed it, Manchester's butt-kicking literary scene gets a glowing write-up in the Guardian Books Blog by Jerome de Groot. Interesting debate in the comments on whether Manchester is tiresome about blowing its own horn. Maybe I see the original writer's point. Honestly, we've got a lot to brag about. I would say that, though. Mancs are known for being gobby, and Americans, well - we're not generally considered backward in coming forward.

What do you think? Should Manchester stop grandstanding? Answers on a postcard TO THE GREATEST CITY IN THE WORLD, EVER please.