2008 Manchester Blog Awards Shortlist

Here is the 2008 Manchester Blog Awards Shortlist. We had 107 separate nominations this year, coming in from as far away as San Francisco. There was such a wealth of great stuff that it was harder than ever to do the shortlisting, particularly in the Best Writing on a Blog category (by far our most nominated-for.)

The force is strong with you, Manchester bloggers. Many thanks to all those who nominated.


Best New Blog:

Dear Kitty
Coco LaVerne
Follow The Yellow Brick Road
14sandwiches


Best Writing on a Blog:

Diary of a Bluestocking
Every day I lie a little
Nine chains to the moon
Chicken and Pies

Best Arts and Culture Blog:

Scatterdrum
Quit This Pampered Town
Northernights
Max Dunbar

Best Personal Blog:

Travels with my baby
Single Mother on the Verge
Follow the Yellow Brick Road
40three

Best Neighbourhood Blog:

Hyde Daily Photo
Mancubist
Lady Levenshulme
Manchester Bus

This will now go to our panel of judges, which includes Sarah Hartley, blogger and online editor at the Manchester Evening News, Dave Carter of Manchester Digital Development Agency, Richard Fair of BBC Manchester and author Chris Killen, winner of last year's Best Writing on a Blog award.

The winners (who each get £50 and a large metal studded belt that is very heavy) will be announced at the blog awards event Weds Oct 22 at Matt and Phred's Jazz Club.

New blogs: The not from here edition

Here's a whole heap of new blog goodness for your Friday afternoon delectation.

Ken and Belly is the very engaging personal blog of Kelly, an American expat in Mancunia, who like myself wishes you could get Annie’s Organic Mac N Cheese here in the UK. And through this blog I found out about the Expat Blogs network, which has a few blogs right here in Manchester: Canadian expat Britt Breu writes Brittunia in Mancunia, and there's Singaporean Alex's World, as well as blogs written in Japanese and Portuguese. Guess I should add this one to the list, though I feel less and less like an expat these days.

Abbas Ali writes about films over at The Movie Hack Pretty impressive, with lots of Top Five Best... lists and a preview of the London Film Festival. And don't call me Shirley!

Anthony Richardson, who is just starting a Creative Writing MA at Manchester, has set up a lit blog. He writes: "The blog is called Anthony Richardson Writes Stories That Are Funny, which is actually sort of an arrogant title come to think of it. It isn't meant to be that way. I have all my short stories up there, plus I am writing a short story a week for a year, which started this week." He also likes to redo classic album covers using Microsoft Paint, and you can see those on the blog too.

14 sandwiches bills itself as a technology-media-music party for your brain. Martin Bryant writes it, and for the record he has not eaten 14 sandwiches in one sitting.

An intriguing new group blog with a manifesto: "The LRM (Loiterers Resistance Movement)is a Manchester based collective of artists and activists interested in psychogeography. We can’t agree on what that means but we all like plants growing out of the side of buildings, urban exploration, drinking tea and getting lost. Gentrification, advertising and blandness make us sad. We believe there is magic in the mancunian rain. Our city is wonderful and made for more than shopping. We want to reclaim it for play and revolutionary fun…"


Expletive Undeleted is freelance journalist Smith3000's collection of reworked longer versions of published interviews and features. "It’s mainly music stuff at the moment, but that will probably change over time," he says. He also writes about older music at a section of the site called Hip Replacement.

Languishing in Levenshulme is a personal blog written by a resident of what has to be the best-represented nabe on our blogroll. Languishing has lived there for 7 years, and says: "I love it but kind of wish it was Hebden Bridge. I think some residents of Levenshulme would appreciate my point here. I have met some of the most fantastic friends here - but damn it I still live next to a thundering arterial road with a back garden the size of a budgie's tongue; and the closest I get to birds twittering and wildlife is the minging mice that scutter across my floor at 2am and the flying vermin (fattened on dropped Saturday night kebab) that my dog loves to chase around the Fallowfield loop. Despite all that, my heart belongs to Levenshulme." Awww.

Not a new blog, but a new site to link to: Manclopedia. "Manclopedia is a free, open content encyclopedia project operated by Hive Magazine. Launched in September 2008 it attempts to collect and summarize every aspect of Greater Manchester (including its history, culture, politics, people and places) with the aim of becoming the most comprehensive collection of information regarding this great city!" Nice idea, though there's not much on there at the moment. Any takers?

Short Stories at Friends Meeting House

Here's a cool event I only just heard about: On Saturday, Manchester Libraries are hosting Short Stories, an afternoon featuring writers, publishers and producers.

Workshop leaders include Frank Cottrell Boyce, David Constantine, Elizabeth Baines, Ra Page and Polly Thomas. This event is for anyone who loves to read short stories or would like to know more about writing for publication or radio.

It's at The Friends’ Meeting House this Saturday from 1-5pm, Tickets £8 in advance. For more info/booking go here.

No point in not being friends

Or if you prefer its gloriously full name, There's no point in not being friends with someone if you want to be friends with them. That's the new monthly reading night started by ace Manchester litbloggers Chris Killen (Day of Moustaches) and Sally Cook (Nine Chains to the Moon.) They have scheduled readers as well as open-mic slots on the night, which seems quite inclusive and as friendly as its name suggests. The third one is coming up on Tuesday at 8 and the lineup looks great. I've been meaning to get there for the last two but haven't and will make a concerted effort to get there this time, dammit.

Here's the rundown from the cats at No point...

"please come to the UPSTAIRS MUSIC HALL at the Deaf Institute on Tuesday 23rd of September for the third 'there's no point in not being friends with someone if you want to be friends with them' reading night.

we have lots of readers booked: Joe Stretch, John McAuliffe, David Gaffney, Jenn Ashworth, Thomas Fletcher, Socrates Adams-Florou, Sally Cook, Nicholas Murgatroyd, and loads more ... also, the american writer Tao Lin will be doing the 'video reading' and Matthew Davis will be performing a 'comedy monologue'.

And, as always, there'll be a few open-mic slots available on the night. if you've got something you'd like to read, just bring it along and speak to one of us. it should be good fun, and it's free to get in. it'll be the first night in the big upstairs room -- there'll be lots more space than in the basement, but it's also a much bigger room to fill so please come along and show your support."

You can check out the No point blog here, and they're also on facebook here.

Reading Capital

This just in... A fortnightly reading group dedicated to reading Karl Marx’s Capital Vol. 1: A Critique of Political Economy will begin on 6 October 2008 at The Salford Restoration Office.

Individuals are invited to join the group to read Marx’s Capital Vol. 1 in conjunction with David Harvey’s online lectures. Harvey, a respected academic and writer, has been teaching open classes on the book for 40 years, and the current set of lectures given at the City University of New York have been filmed and made available on-line. The lectures are accessible to all at anytime but the fortnightly sessions at The Salford Restoration Office will create a structured environment in which to read and discuss this
pivotal text.

Reading Capital is open to all who wish to attend and participate. Sessions are free of charge, but space is limited so please contact us using the email address here if you would like to participate. Meeting every other Monday from 6 October between 6.30pm and 8.30pm, the sessions will run until 1 December 2008, and begin again on 19 January until summer 2009.

For more information or to contact the organizers visit http://www.thesalfordrestorationoffice.org/

One week for blog award nominations

Hello all: just a friendly little reminder that we have one week left 'til the close of the nominating period for this year's blog awards. Get 'em in!

By the way, anyone know if Sarah Palin thinks dinosaurs were here 4,000 years ago? Me and Matt Damon want to know.

Mutapoem

Manchester-based blogger and poet Matt Dalby writes with news of a very interesting project: a poetry wiki. He says: "It is called 'mutapoem', and was conceived and launched (twice - in 2004 and again in improved form in 2008) in Manchester, from where I also moderate the site.

Mutapoem is a poem without final form or single author, it is a collaborative poem in the form of a wiki, to which anyone can add text, images, links, html, audio or video. More detail is available at the site itself - http://mutapoem.wikispaces.com/mutapoem - especially the page 'what is mutapoem?'

Basically the background is that mutapoem was inspired by one of Nobuo Sekine's 'Phase of Nothingness' sculptures, in which huge pieces of oil clay are placed in galleries for visitors to reshape as they like. They retain their plasticity and continually change. I was impressed by both the absence of any definitive form for the piece, and by the democratic process that enables everyone to contribute to the evolution of a perpetually unfinished work."

Pretty cool, eh? Get on there and start writing!

New blogs: The Britney edition

Clearly, blogging ain't dead. The number of responses to my last most seems to support that age-old blogger maxim about a provocative title generating traffic. Henceforth my titles will all contain the words "Britney." And I'll be experimenting with some other attention-grabbing words too.

A slightly poorly baby (no, nothing serious) prevented me from getting this new blog bulletin out all week, and every day seemed to bring a couple more new ones, so this is a long one. And an extraordinary percentage of this week's additions to the blogroll (4!) come from the same person: artist and writer Diane Becker, who lives up Preston way.

Her blog Dot7Seven explores the minutae of the everyday through short fiction, poetry and other observations.Pressed On is "comments and images relating to the theme 'Pressed On': including things you can press - buttons, switches, videos - or stick on stuff - chewing gum, blu-tac ..."

Ambient Nation is a collaborative visual arts initiative set up in 2003 by Becker and Mark Clements. And Famous Typist features cultural commentary plus art & fiction reviews. Sheesh. Anyone else feel slightly underproductive?

Follow the Yellow Brick Road is the blog of Katherine, who is a Manchester-based writer: "The blog is really supposed to be a place for creative writing, though it seems to have a mind of its own and has turned into a more general ramble about writing, visual arts, red shoes and whatever I'm doing." I sneakily saw that she has a second blog about visual arts books called Unpacking My Library, so I'm adding that too in the interest of encouraging rampant multiblogging.

How come I didn't know about your blog, Max Dunbar? Anyway, here's a link to it. A meaty literary blog that takes in politics and personal musings as well as providing a showcase for Max's writing. Great stuff.

Quit this pampered town is the online home of writer Richard Barrett. Recent posts include a riff on comics, a poem about inventing the wallet, and a completely impressive jigsaw puzzle of the Isle of Wight.

Joe Gravett has a very sharp-looking techy personal blog, or maybe it's a personal tech blog? He says: "I’m something of a geek, and love keeping up to date with what’s going on in the world of technology."

Run Paint Run Run "is intended to be a critical antidote to, and amusing assessment of, all the wonderful and not so wonderful Arts and Culture that is going on in Manchester." It's written by Ella Wredenfors.

Voices From The Below is a personal blog that's also concerned with culture. And it's written by someone with fantastic taste in music. (Jeru the Damaja: so underappreciated on these shores.)

And last but not least, we have Blog by Boz. It's a cat blog. I mean, the cat writes it. Hot damn.

Is blogging dead?

Slow summer? Or has the blogging mania died down? Yes and yes. Blogging, along with every other form of media output, always slows to a trickle during the long, wet days of silly season. But it can't be denied that blogging isn't a craze anymore. Amen to that, I say.

All the cultural mavens chattering excitedly about blogging say, five years ago, have moved on to twitter about Facebooking. That means that the people who started a blog to be trendy and in-the-know have mostly drifted off, leaving their stale urls littering the blogosphere like fallen apples. The many organisations and companies eager to get a piece of the action have figured out exactly how blogging best fits in with what they do (or whether it does at all) and reconfigured things.

The result? I think people who blog now are likely to engage with it in a more substantive way. Blogging as a form of journalism and cultural comment has been subsumed into the mainstream media, while blogging as a way of publishing creative writing online continues to evolve in exciting directions.

So yes, blogging's profile has dropped a bit, but I don't think that's a bad thing. On a local level, I feel like I haven't helped much, y'know, going off and having a baby and all and not blogging much or organising blogmeets (not to overstate my own role in the Manchester scene. Ahem.) But hark! After months of me dropping hints someone has finally seized the blogmeet baton: Julia of Notebooks and MEN Online Editor Sarah Hartleyof The Mancunian Way have between them cooked up a real, live blogmeet. It's set for Wednesday, September 17 at 6pm.

The action is in two parts: first, a tour of the Manchester Evening News newsroom and Q&A with an editor there (limited numbers - go here for info. Second, a more traditional unstructured blogmeet in a nearby pub. Voting on which pub is happening at Sarah's site now. In choosing a pub, I would advise you to consider two important qualities 1.) "dive"-ness and 2.) likelihood to be empty enough to afford the gathering bloggers enough space to comfortably unwind at that thirsty hour. I will try to attend with the littlest blogger in tow, but I probably won't make it. Early evening is our fussy time.

Helpful hints on nominating for the blog awards

How could I forget? Every year, right after I publish the news that we're taking nominations for the blog awards, I have to write a curmudgeonly and pedantic post explaining how a nomination is not the same thing as a vote. And it's that time again. So listen up:

Your blog only has to be nominated once to be in the running to be shortlisted for a blog award. Even if it gets nominated 73 times by devoted readers spanning the globe, the first one is the only one we care about. This ain't the people's choice awards; the judges decide at the MBAs. So putting something on your blog like: "Hey everybody, email this address and nominate XBLOG!" is kinda missing the point.

Also missing the point: nominating your own blog in every category, even the ones that obviously don't apply. Instead, why not maybe throw in a few nominations for MCR blogs you respect and admire in other categories? What? You don't read any other blogs? I'll pretend I didn't hear that.

MLF seeks volunteer bloggers

Calling all literary-minded Manchester bloggers, or wannabe bloggers: The Manchester Literature Festival is looking for one or two people to write for the festival's blog during this year's events in October - and possibly take some snaps too. It'd be a great way to get the most out of the festival (bloggers would get free admission to MLF events - the full programme is now up here) and get some wider exposure for your blogging skillz. Your posts would be read by a large audience on the MLF blog, and linked to your own blog if you have one. If you don't have a blog but have been toying with the idea of starting one, this would provide a quick practice run. Interested parties should email cathy AT manchesterliteraturefestival.co.uk

Manchester Blog Awards 2008: Nominations open

It's that time again. Nominations are now open for the 2008 Manchester Blog Awards.

Here are this year's categories:

Best New Blog: You're in the running if your blog got started after August 1, 2007. It's that simple.

Best Writing on a Blog: This category recognizes some of the excellent writing people round here are publishing on their blogs. Your blog doesn't have to be a "writer's blog", though. It could be about anything; it's the quality of the prose we're interested in, not the subject matter.

Best Arts and Culture Blog: A blog that covers some aspect of cultural life or leisure in Manchester. So yes, that means art and music, but also food or sport.

Best Personal Blog: If your blog is like your online journal, this is where you fit in.

Best Neighborhood Blog: This new category has been created in response to the upturn in hyper-local online writing; some may have noticed that the "City and Neighborhood" section of the blogroll has grown considerably this year. You're a contender if you focus your bloggage on a particular locale, which could be a nabe (i.e. Gorton) or a wider area (South Manchester, or even the whole city of Manchester.)

Each winner will receive a cash prize, be the envy of all their geek friends and gain admission into Manchester's special section of blogger Valhalla after death. Mind the rules: To qualify, you have to live, work, or go to school within commuting distance of Manchester. And you can't work for the Manchester Literature Festival or MDDA, our valiant sponsors.

You can nominate your own blog, as well as someone else's. Get your nominations in by 6pm on Thursday, September 18. Email them to mancblogawards AT googlemail.com, clearly stating your name, where you live, the name and url of of the blog(s) you're nominating and which category or categories you're nominating for.

I'll be back to tell you about the shortlist in late September, and let you know who this year's judges will be. The 2008 blog awards shindig is October 22 at Matt and Phred's, look for more details here or here closer to the time. In the next few weeks, I'll also be posting interviews with past winners to give you all some insight into what makes blogs work.

Questions? Email me at themanchizzle AT gmail.com or leave a comment. Have fun!

(MBA logo by Neil Nisbet)

Vacation!

It's kind of like I've been on vacation from blogging, but now I'm actually going on vacation to Vermont, for two weeks. When I return there will be news of a wildly exciting online literature project, frenzied blog awards anticipation and - hey! - more frequent blogging. Honest injun.

Which is about food

So there are good restaurants and bad restaurants when you have a baby, and which ones turn out which way is often a surprise. The Three Fishes in Mitton seemed like a good idea for a baby-friendly outing - a country gastropub run by the Northcote Manor folks. We've been before and liked the food. But with a kid we didn't feel welcome. Ended up shoved into a noisy table by the door, and our server got majorly pissy when asked to keep my food warm while I fed the bambino. He was so rude about it that a woman at a nearby table actually complained. And now I don't really want to go back there, like, ever.

But now that the wonderful Food by Breda Murphy has opened just down the road in Whalley, I'll be hitting that instead when I'm in the Ribble Valley. We had a really good meal there last weekend. My chicken salad had generous pieces of perfectly cooked Goosnargh bird with grapefruit, cashews and an interesting selection of greens and herbs. They also do a mean orange cake.

I was a little worried about our dinner with some visiting family at The Market - I adore the restaurant (above), but wondered how the somewhat fancy place would react to an 8-week old baby. We were treated like royalty - seated at a table in a quiet corner, cheerfully supplied with a pitcher of hot water to warm our bottle and even a cloth so we didn't get our table wet lifting it out. They kept dinner warm without being asked, and were generally lovely about the baby - made us feel like they were glad we had brought her in. They've started opening for Sunday lunch, by the way.

Love Saves the Day has opened a third outpost on Dale Street. It's in that weird, smallish concrete building right next to the Piccadilly Basin car park. It's tiny, but quite nice and stocked with plenty of goodies, a bit more like their Deansgate deli than the minimalist one on Thomas Street (which is soon to get a refit, I hear.)

The long-awaited (okay, at least by me) bagel place in the Arndale Centre has opened. Hilariously, it's called Bagel Nash. Yeah, like Nash Bridges. It's probably too late to tell them the right way to spell nosh. Haven't tried it yet, but they seem to have about a hundred different kinds of bagel sandwich going on.

Oh, and Jay Rayner actually gave a Manchester restaurant a positive review in Sunday's Observer. He really liked The Modern, the new place at Urbis.

New blogs: The Summer (yeah, right) Edition

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Happy Independence Day!

From here to maternity

Well, I didn't intend to take maternity leave from this blog, but we moved and our broadband took its time getting hooked up. Anyway, all is well with me and baby Molly. Let me get up on the soapbox for a minute: We had a home birth, and if anyone is thinking about doing this but is a bit scared, just do it. It was one of the best decisions I ever made. I also highly recommend the book Spiritual Midwifery, the ace documentary the Business of Being Born, and getting a doula for your birth. A doula is kind of like a mother's helper, a wise person who knows loads about birthing babies. Our doula was Antonia Segura Walker, and she was wonderful.

Having this tiny sidekick makes me look at Manchester in a whole new way. Before, I was most interested in whether a cafe had decent coffee, good food and free wireless and wasn't filled with jerks. Now I just want a baby changing station, dammit.

I've become inordinately fond of the Arndale, because it does have brilliant facilities for those with child, and is filled with all manner of changing rooms and feeding rooms (though they don't exactly roll out the red carpet for men in the changing room, as we found.) Breastfeeding is another issue. So far I've tried it in Barburrito, the Costa in the Arndale Waterstones, and Starbucks, with no problems. I don't know what I'm expecting, since no-one seems the least bit fussed, but you never know. I don't think I'd be in a hurry to get the boob out in Piccadilly Gardens, say. If anyone knows of any particularly bf-friendly places in Manc, give me a shout.

Anyway. That's enough about babies now. No, this is not turning into a mommy blog. Next post I'll be back to telling you all about the exciting cultural events that I can't go to. Sheesh.

Manchester's newest blogger

Molly Patricia Roe arrived at 2:15 am on Saturday May 17. She was born at home. She was a healthy 7 pounds 10 oz, and Rich and I are just delighted with the wonderfulness of her. I'll write a post about the birth later, when things are a little less crazy around here, but many thanks to all for the warm wishes and support.

New blogs: The calm before the storm edition

First of all: no, I haven't had my baby yet. You'll be the first to know. I promise. Apparently, a due date is not like an appointment that your kid knows about. And no, that is not my belly.

Since blogging could be tough for a while, I'm going to try to clear the decks of all the new blogs I've been saving up for, oh, ages. Too long, I know. Blogging is hard to squeeze in when you've been forbidden to sit too long at the computer (bad positioning for el fetus) and you're much too busy anyway scrubbing that mysteriously gummy corner of the kitchen counter that never bothered you before but now, for some reason, you must obliterate.

So what have we got today? First up is Manhattanchester, a personal blog written by Gregling, a NYC-loving Mancunian that features some graffiti art photos, cautionary stag do tales and thoughts about the rising cost of higher education. Greg also mentioned Overheard in Manchester as a fun place to play - I'd heard of the New York version but didn't realise we had our own one here.

Another personal blog: Middle Man, which is the sometimes irreverent ramblings and observations of a middle-aged, Midlands-born middle manager. Nice.

And another one: Gay/Thinking is the diary of a twentysomething gay student in Manchester.

Et in Ribbletonia Ego is a blog about the adventures of a new mother and pigeon racing hopeful who lives in Preston.

A new writerly blog: Extracts Von is Manchester-based writer Jack Burston's blog "collecting extracts, chapters and episodes from my writing as well as a few photographs etc. etc"

Shoplifters is a new mp3 blog from Manc DJs (Black Country) Grammar and Jon Claude, linked to their Bay Horse clubnight of the same name. It's basically all the latest remixes, for a limited time only.

Still on the music... Ugly Talented is a Manchester-based music blog written by Tom and Haydn. Nice eclectic mix of stuff on there, new and old both. And if you're in the mood for a total mindfuck, watch that Garfield and Odie do the Theme from Taxi clip they linked to. Whaaa?

The PR Media Blog is written by PR dude Mark Hanson, who recently returned to his native NW from the big smoke, and colleagues Toto Ellis and Michael Cooper. Some interesting posts on there concerned with the overlapping ground where PR, politics and media intersect, locally and globally (though Mark has questionable taste in US Presidential candidates. Hee hee.)

And a departure on the old blogroll: The Console, that ambitious and appealingly-designed dual pronged music and visual art blog, pulled the plug a couple of months ago. Sorry to see it go.

Also, as the literary types among ye may know, the blogs-to-books publisher The Friday Project has come a cropper. I'm not going to join the debate about whether their list was any good in the first place, whether blogs naturally make good books or not, or whether the whole idea was half baked/prescient but under-resourced, etc. etc., because other folks have already commented on this much more eloquently than I could hope to in my current state.

But I will say that local author and blogger Caroline Smailes (who spoke/read at last year's Manchester Blog Awards, you may remember) is one of the lucky few TFP authors whose books were picked up by HarperCollins, and so last year's In Search of Adam and her forthcoming Black Boxes are comparatively safe.

Music blogs

Just noticed this good article on music blogs in Sunday's Observer, by Killian Fox. The article is fairly explicit about the increasingly important role the blogs play in spreading the word about new artists. If anyone's thinking of setting up one, don't worry about artists or labels coming after you (as long as you aren't silly enough to post whole albums in perpetuity) - they're almost always more than happy for the publicity. In fact, they're sending stuff out to bloggers constantly, as I'm sure the Manc music blog brigade can attest to.

Even this non-mp3 blog has been getting a lot more requests to post tracks and press releases from music labels and prs lately, most of them Manchester-based. I won't say trying to get me to listen to/post about music is a total waste of time, but chances are pretty slim that I'll end up writing anything. The tiny bit of music-related blogging I do on here is basically me mentioning gigs of bands I like that are coming up in Manchester. These bands are more and more likely to have released their best work sometime in the last century. I'm open to new music but I just don't care enough anymore to spend too much time trying to keep up with musical fashions.

I accept that as a media outlet you're going to get a certain amount of pr spam from club promoters and music bods, and that's fine. But sending me three emails a day about your sizzling band is probably just going to annoy me.