Words Dept.

Did Mick Hucknall actually sleep with 3,000 women in three years during the 1980s, as the Guardian claims today? Plainly the mathematics, if you care to consider them, which I don’t especially want to but sadly must, isn’t on his side since it involves somewhere close to 2.75 “insertions” per day – and Viagra wasn’t [...]

A selection of my latest bookmarks: Love Levenshulme – Why not? Fabelhaft home page – Featuring “Ch Fabelhaft Too Hot To Handle ‘Tony’” Gregg Wallace from Masterchef random nonsense generator 2666 by Roberto Bolaño – Thinking of abandoning the crime paperbacks for something a touch more weighty.

I went to the closing down sale of Danish furniture shop Ilva in Manchester today. Predictably, the place was a lot busier than the two previous times I’ve been there. When Ilva opened its three UK stores a couple of years ago – in Thurrock, Gateshead and Piccadilly – it was supposed to be the [...]

What is, or was, the point of Xfm Manchester? After launching with much fanfare just two years ago, GCap Media has announced that it is going to sell off its Xfm radio licence in Manchester. The reason is a cost cutting drive by GCap in order to fend off a takeover, exacerbated by rising costs [...]

While it’s probably advisable not to get sucked into the largely fatuous online “debate” Channel 4 is trying to stoke up, I found it a bit daft that Manchester was rated the 17th worst place to live in a “Best and Worst” list on Channel 4 last night. As is usual with this annual feast [...]