Manhattanchester

Self-care

2016-10-11T23:55:00.001+01:00

Yesterday I spent World Mental Health Day having a self-care day, which seems appropriate. In reality you ought to be good to yourself every day of course, but that’s just not plausible for most of us, so for those who need it, it’s important to put aside special days – or even just some hours or moments if that’s what you can spare – to prioritise feeling good and being kind to yourself.

The reason I need self-care days is basically down to anxiety. My approach to controlling my anxiety these days is preventative, because once it’s there it’s basically a straitjacket and the more you struggle the tighter it winds around you. I know the circumstances that set off my anxiety and when I start to eliminate them – coffee instead of food on an empty stomach, alcohol, being disorganised, running out of money, lying – my quality of life gets measurably better. Other anxiety triggers are unavoidable – guilt, emotional friction, fear of violence, bad health, running out of money – while some episodes have no tangible origin whatsoever and you just have to have your tactics to hand for when they arrive.

Two things are definitely true for me: the more I look after my body – yoga, exercise, sex, good food, less alcohol and caffeine – the less anxiety I will have to go through; and the more I look after my mind – yoga, reading, learning, meditation, art, new experience, conversation – the less anxiety I get and the better able I feel to deal with the way I live and the world I have to live in. Self-care days help me to sustain all of that.

What my self-care days are

Necessary.

All mine.

An opportunity to think about my mental and physical health.

An opportunity to learn from people going through similar.

A chance to think how far I’ve come.

Truly lovely times.

What my self-care days are not

‘Treat days’. It shouldn’t be a big treat to want to go for a walk for no reason, or make a 5 hour playlist just for yourself, or make imaginary AirBnB wish lists. They’re just simple pleasures that I deserve and that harm nobody.

‘An excuse to bunk off work’. I’m a freelancer, that means I work hard and I work long hours, but I work them when I want to. Also there ain’t nothing wrong with bunking off work anyway.

A day to get over hangovers. My self-care days are all about improving on my default condition, not struggling to get back to an emotional ‘norm’ after self-abuse. If you’re only ever recovering, then you’re never improving!

Things I like to do on a self-care day

Ride my bike with no destination and in any weather.

Notice really small things.

Meditate.

Take ages to do things.

Watch, read, listen to bell hooks. She is my intellectual icon, she theorises love as a survival tactic, she is teachable, she makes me think about my own political accountability, she loves conversation as a method of teaching. All this sustains my brain, I am very grateful to her.

Listen to every single version of a single song that I can find.

Watch TED Talks, listen to On Being.

Yoga, either at home or at a class if I feel like facing people. Classes are great because people pay attention to you in a caring way and everyone is there to feel good.

Reciting Victoria Wood.

Trying to learn ‘Billy in the Darbies’ off by heart.

Getting in touch with friends I’ve not seen for ages.

Comedy comedy comedy.

Long baths.

Give money to charity if I have it.

Re-read things I love.

Write fiction.

Make really insanely optimistic plans for the future.

Things I don’t do on a self-care day

Shopping.

Drugs.

Check messages if I don’t want to.

Read the news.

Worry about money.

Waste time.

I hope you gave yourself some quality time on World Mental Health Day. Try a self-care day, they are fun to curate, fun to do, and have seriously good repercussions. Put one on the calendar, you’re worth it.

38

2016-02-24T06:17:00.000+00:00

Our old dog came to see me in a dream this morning. Maybe he knew it was my birthday! He was sitting next to me on the couch, growling and whining because I had gloves and a hat on. He never liked it when you wore them. I took them off and his eyes were sad and stubborn like they used to be and his snout was wet. Oisín woke me up because I was ‘beeping’, the anxious sound that I make when I’m having bad dreams, but actually I was having a bit of a sleep-cry. I got up to fetch some water and in the kitchen I could hear a single bird from outside having a riotous sing. He’s still going now. It’s 5.45 am. He has no idea how old he is, how old the world is, how long birds have been singing, he’s just doing his thing.

I’m 38 today, I can hardly believe it. I still wanna throw my bonnet over the windmill and rush into the sea at midnight (Pat Phoenix). I remember leaving home at 18 with absolutely no idea how to do anything at all but read books. Things have gotten much better. I’ve been in Manchester 20 years now, I’m the IRA bomb generation. I’ll have a big party in September to celebrate my anniversary I think.

I spent time with my Mum last week and found out my biological Dad made a conscious decision not to see me again quite a short time after I was born. It doesn’t make a big difference, and it started before that because he never came to get us from the hospital when I was born or anything. I’m so much older now than he was when he left that it seems churlish to even think about it but it has hurt me a bit. I’m lucky though because I’ve been so loved my whole life by lots of people. Even now, on occasional days when I’m still in my pyjamas and my anxiety is out of hand and I haven’t been able to pay rent, Oisín will tell me not to worry, I’m a unique handsome genius and Manchester would fall apart without me and why don’t I become a famous singer or something?

I never do a jot of work on my birthday, this is the only thing I’ll write today. Weather permitting, we are getting on our bikes later and cycling out to look at a 1920s street or something, and then having a massive vegetarian feast at Lily’s Indian restaurant, then a pint, and then I’m going to read Times Square Red, Times Square Blue. There’s a cake too, I could smell it baking when I got back from DJing last night. Good morning everyone, happy birthday!

Queer Contact… the story so far!

2016-02-11T15:49:00.000+00:00

It’s been a rollercoaster of variety already: funny, serious, questioning, confrontational… Here’s what I’ve got up to at this year’s Queer Contact so far.

Life’s A Drag is a piece by artist Jez Dolan looking at Manchester’s drag history, and present day, and these live performances represent the first fruits of an ongoing project. Written with playwright Chris Hoyle, Life’s a Drag is a meta-comedy where we see two drag queens preparing backstage for a show. While they bitch, kvetch, laugh and take us on a journey back in time via the make-up box, they teach one another about the relevance of their own particular school of drag and gayness, from Polari to RuPaul. We encounter legends and legendary nights out, from Foo Foo Lamaar to the Hulme drag ball, and it’s all done with such a light touch that it feels like a genuine eavesdrop, even as they kick down the fourth wall with heels. There’s a superbly moving moment with a pair of earrings that crystallises what the piece is about for me, plus an astonishingly good musical medley at the end, sung across the decades, but no spoilers as to the songs…

FAdoubleGOT and The Daily Grind worked well on the same bill. The former is Jamal Gerald’s very personal story, encompassing bullying, education, a second-generation immigrant experience, youth, sexuality and life in a Northern town. Using monologue, symbolism, music and pop culture, it’s performed with a charming combination of earnestness and sass that perhaps even its very young creator isn’t fully aware of. He’s also a terrific poet and his verse threads neatly through the piece as he goes. The Daily Grind is the work of a slightly older, very serious theatre maker, all about life on dating apps. Don’t be surprised if you feel vulnerable and discomfited as much as moved to laughter. The dissonance of the performance comes from its single performer and writer, Laurie Brown, flitting between friendly, camp, menacing and monstrous. For anyone in the know it mirrors convincingly the Jekyll and Hyde nature of online encounters. The last five minutes of the show were a borderline genius move.

A personal highlight so far has been Outspoken, the poetry and spoken word event. A real triumph of curating, the breadth of writing styles and extremely high standard of performance, not to mention the content which ran from surreal to sad to hilarious to too-damn-true, made for a really inspirational evening. Such a treat to see Jackie Kay perform, and a first real life encounter too with my online favourite, poet AJ McKenna. Also introduced me to astonishing work from Paula Varjack and Keith Jarrett too. Seek them out.

Another personal favourite was STUD, a bizarre and hilarious journey through masculinity and the world of horses (yes, horses). Created and performed by a truly confident and accomplished performer, like no other show on the bill the audience were in this performer’s hands from the opening seconds. It’s hard to even describe the show or why it works so well, suffice to say after twenty minutes you stop even noticing the glorious pubic bush that’s constantly on show. It’s a piece that gently terrorises gender, with a handsaw, a raw carrot, whatever comes to hand or hoof. Eilidh McAskill, I salute you.

Still to come for me: Our Lady J, which will be a Valentine musical weekend sensation, and a religious experience in the shape of Jesus Queen of Heaven, on a Sunday of course… Full line up is here, and check out the pics from my own Queer Contact event right here. See you soon…!

Queer Contact 2016

2016-01-31T12:35:00.001+00:00

Gender isn’t a exactly new frontier for queer people, it’s always been a frontier. The law that got to be too damn much at Stonewall – as we should know by now but as Laverne reminds us – was that all patrons must wear three items of clothing ‘appropriate to their gender’ otherwise the police would crack skulls.

Gender and its multiple expressions are deep in the heart of queer history and art. It wasn’t long ago that homosexuality / drag / transgenderism were talked about as a continuum of expression. You encounter it in contemporary accounts of the Stonewall era, right up to Paris is Burning. The scare queens, butches and femme queens of yesteryear might not necessarily connote cis or trans precisely the way we think of those terms today. Our connections to one another as queer people of all genders are deep and abiding and vital.

Timely as ever, this year’s Queer Contact Festival puts together a broad and exciting programme where gender is frequently at the artistic frontier. Transparent has been one of the most radically queer mainstream shows ever created, winning dozens of awards as it interrogates ideas about sexuality, history and identity. It’s something of a coup that one of the writers and series advisors, Our Lady J, is appearing at Queer Contact 2016. Her original musical show ‘For the Love of Gospel’ will help demonstrate why she has worked with everyone from Sia to Debbie Harry, via Antony Hegarty, Lady Gaga, Cyndi Lauper and Scissor Sisters.

Next, from high-femme to bold and butch, Eilidh Macaskill’s ‘STUD’ puts a queer woman’s perspective on the traditional gender binary as she performs a series of hyper-masculine tropes, exercising her ‘penis envy’ with full comedy intact.

For a more local perspective on the performance of gender, Jez Dolan and Chris Hoyle’s ‘Life’s A Drag’ is the beginning of a year-long project that celebrates Manchester’s drag culture and its deep roots with performance, oral history and maybe even some participation, so get your foundation right.

If the Pet Shop Boys are ‘The Smiths you can dance to’, Erasure are the Pet Shop Boys you can really camp it up to. Singer Andy Bell’s Contact show will take him on a somewhat different route as he explores the vexed polysexual character of ‘Saint Torsten’ through a song-cycle written especially for him and lately performed at Edinburgh Fringe. It’s a chance to see and hear a legendary gay pop voice as never before.

Another Queer Contact highlight is the return of Debs Gatenby, star of the much-loved Hi, Anxiety, whose new solo show looks at those journeys, inside and out, in search of ‘A Place Called Happiness’.

A dose of raw comedy can be had in the Comedy Playground where seven stand-ups battle it out for your love and lolz, including Bethany Black of Cucumber/Banana fame, Suzi Ruffell from telly and a familiar flamboyant host...

As for me, I’ll be throwing a Queer Contact launch party in the shape of A Queer Revue! at Band on the Wall, featuring international and local trans, gay, lesbian and queer talent, including contemporary dance, singing drag queens, Kate Bush and Bowie tributes, poetry, pop videos, comedy and a big old party afterwards.

As for the rest of the programme, you can tuck into the full listings here, or use my handy taster guide below…!

For the vivid voices of Black sex workers…

For the ultimate queen of heaven…

For getting read to filth and back…

For the godparent of gender outlaws…

For getting your voice heard…

For a frank voice on Black LGBT lives…

For an uplifting night of LGBT spoken word and writing…

For the highs and lows of internet cruising…

For religion and sexuality explored…

For the undisputed Mother of queer cabaret…

For our young voices…

Stonewall, and Stonewall by Roland Emmerich

2016-01-31T12:14:00.001+00:00

To be honest I could barely get to the end of the trailer for Stonewall by Roland Emmerich. Instead, I’d encourage everyone to watch the Marsha P. Johnson documentary, ‘Pay It No Mind’, and Sylvia Rivera’s 1973 speech at Washington Square before you see Stonewall (or instead of). The Stonewall rebellion was so much by and about queer and gender non-conforming people of colour that to fictionalise a white male lead in a film about it seems like it can only possibly have been done at their expense. Why? Presumably to make the story more ‘palatable’ – and by palatable we mean suitable for Hollywood, and quite possibly the Oscars. Well, screw being palatable. Stonewall has been co-opted and whitewashed enough. Example: the Stonewall charity was founded in 1989 and only this year officially put trans rights on its agenda. Enough.

As a secondary point, it’s interesting (as a long-time Stonewall student) reading the think-pieces that have accompanied the kickback against the film. Various critics attempt to present as hard fact what cannot actually be proven about the Stonewall uprising, thus offering their own kind of historical re-write with a well-intentioned agenda. Sylvia Rivera moves to the forefront of the newest Stonewall narrative while the film itself apparently chooses to focus on Raymond Castro with a cameo possibly from a Marsha P. Johnson-esque character, while names like Marilyn Fowler, Jackie Hormona, Zazu Nova, Wolfgang Podoloski, Stormé Delarverie and Tammy Novak begin to fade away from the narrative – and as for the butch dyke (or possibly trans man) who was the first to escape arrest, she’s in the film, but people still wonder if she existed at all. This is the nature of Stonewall.

Most Stonewall historians have at some point had to disavow to some degree their principal sources of evidence. Everybody wants to have been there, thrown the first bottle or punch, and who wouldn’t? People fought hard, but not necessarily in the order we might think. I feel strongly in my heart that of all people, Marsha P. Johnson never spoke a dishonest word about anyone and that nobody had reason to speak one about her. Marsha was at Stonewall the first night (though if it was for her birthday she was celebrating early; she was born August not June), but how grieved might everyone be if it were more widely known that Marsha had described how, on the first night of fighting, she had frantically searched for her friend Sylvia Rivera, knowing that Sylvia would want to be involved, and had apparently found her asleep in Bryant Park, possibly homeless and perhaps using heroin. Sylvia couldn’t have thrown the first bottle from there, of course. Sylvia was with Marsha the second night of the fighting, with courage blazing, and subsequently devoted her life, her energy, her health to a movement for equality, or ‘power’ as she always called it, often living homeless and struggling with drink, always helping others, much the same as Marsha who would famously give you her last dollar – and it really would be her last. How are saints like this not fit for lead roles?

Le Gateau Chocolat at Contact

2015-10-09T09:39:00.000+01:00

It’s been several years coming but Manchester finally got a taste of Le Gateau Chocolat’s sweet sweet award-winning talent at Contact last night. Forget lip-syncing for your life, the big, bearded and beautiful Le Gateau Chocolat is first and foremost a vocalist of genuine power, and while she might like to cheekily introduce herself as a ‘complete asshole’, her stage persona is life-giving and full of heart – but let’s talk about that voice… Baritone, velvet, dextrous, LOUD – you have never heard the Great American Songbook performed like this. Breakneck trips through the best of the musicals are punctuated with heart-breaking interludes where wigs and music are stripped back for moments of real tenderness. At one point a delicate ‘Hoppipolla’-style piano scale underpins the most touching Whitney Houston interpretation you might ever hear.

The best drag performers have comedy and tragedy at the tips of their gloves, and the music of Ms Chocolat moves deftly between the two. The potted version of Les Miserables will make you want to fast forward through every musical film ever with Gateau on the couch bedside you – hilarious. It’s offset emotionally with moments such as an astonishing tribute to Paul Robeson, where Gateau brings her basso profundo to the painful, beautiful, dignified slave narrative of Robeson’s ‘Old Man River’. It’s a very moving and special moment to see a large, powerful and adored black queer body and voice in all their power. Queer culture should always be about celebrating that which the mainstream designates as ‘odd’ and ‘other’. Le Gateau Chocolat celebrates herself, and the audience follows lovingly. ‘I have a law degree you know,’ she says, as she switches from one dazzling lycra creation to the next. Defying expectations is where great art begins, of course.

A Queer Revue!

2015-09-29T12:06:00.000+01:00

Here's a cool press release about my new night happening this Friday...

The demolition of Legends is still mourned by Manchester’s LGBT community, the closing of Essential marked the last gay superclub in the city, and Kraak, home to a host of LGBT nights, has shut up shop. But sometimes in Manchester the answer as to where to put on a party can be right under your nose.

A Queer Revue! is an experimental venture mixing club DJs with a range of cabaret style performances that will take place on October 2nd at Band On The Wall. Over two centuries old, Band On The Wall began life as The George & Dragon Pub before becoming a renowned music venue in the 1930s and undergoing the change that made its Mancunian nickname official.

A Queer Revue! is the newest night to make a home there, brainchild of DJ, promoter and creative, Greg Thorpe, co-founder of Drunk At Vogue (you may have seen them launch the last two Manchester International Festivals) and resident/promoter at Off The Hook (City Life’s ‘Best Gay Night’ 2013).

‘I’ve always admired how the Vauxhall Tavern in London is integral to the identity of Duckie. It’s possible this is the first official LGBT party at Band On The Wall, but drag acts like Diamond Lil and Neville St Claire were regular performers there in the late 1950s, and that history of showgirls and servicemen, all that rowdy entertainment fits so nicely into queer history. I like that it’s in the Northern Quarter, but also on the edge of the city – that’s a very queer thing too,’ says Greg.

‘Once you’ve played at the MIF Theatre you don’t want to go backwards and at Band On The Wall we won’t have to. We have a historic venue at our disposal that includes terrific light, stage and backstage facilities that will give performers chance to shine, plus the DJs will love the soundsystem.’

The first line-up for A Queer Revue! combines three of the city’s favourite LGBT parties from the Queer Alt Manchester collective:

Bollox has been on the scene for a decade, thriving on indomitable spirit, loyal punters and eclectic playlists, and they throw in dressing up boxes, fledgling drag queens, bring-and-buy sales and more into the mix. DJ Rod Connolly and Bollox drag hostess Lill will both perform at A Queer Revue!

Cha Cha Boudoir is home to drag queen collective, The Family Gorgeous. Once a month at the Boudoir, Cheddar Gorgeous, Anna Phylactic and their troupe of queens satirise and pay homage to popular culture with their radical drag competition. DJ Danny Olsson-Lane and artiste Anna Phylactic will represent Cha Cha at A Queer Revue! with thrilling dance support from Tom Kuzniar.

Off The Hook is the long-running queer party playing hip-hop and RnB to a loyal crowd. At A Queer Revue! Greg will take the decks, with specially-commissioned dances from gifted choreographer Joshua Hubbard and the amazing Yandass from FlexN, who recently took MIF by storm.

Plus, in the beautiful adjoining Picturehouse Bar, queer short films will play on the giant screen while writer Adam ‘Beyoncé’ Lowe will be on hand performing as ‘The Telephone Poet’. A Queer Revue! will be hosted by a different guest compere each time and for the first party that duty falls to Salford’s finest drag powerhouse, Joyce D’Vision.

Greg says, ‘I like to think about the word ’Queer’ in both its old and new meanings. I like the sense of oddity and intrigue it has, and of course it’s a way for people to identify themselves on the LGBT+ spectrum. It’s a versatile and passionate word, I want people to be less afraid of it. The word ‘revue’ opens the night to all kinds of performance. In future I’d like comedy to sit alongside pop, burlesque with hip-hop, I want to make ‘vaudeville disco’ a thing…’

A Queer Revue! at Band On The Wall

Friday 2^nd October, 10pm till 3am

Tickets £6: http://bandonthewall.org/events/4846/

25 Swan Street, Manchester M4 5JZ, Tel: 0161 832 1111 www.bandonthewall.org

Heaven Adores You

2015-05-13T22:43:00.000+01:00

I watch the Elliott Smith documentary and leave the cinema feeling crumpled and happysad as expected. Everything seems so long ago now. When I get out onto the street the light has become incredible. The pavement is full of people not walking but taking photographs of the tops of the buildings which are visible in incredible detail in the hour before sunset. I play ‘Needle in the Hay’ and take the Whitworth Street/Piccadilly/Back Piccadilly route to the Northern Quarter to fetch my bike which I left there three days ago. My battery goes and ‘Needle’ cuts out before the chorus. When I get to my bike the removable squishy seat which I should have removed has been removed and so has the front wheel. I’m not upset. I found him in the basement of my old building, we’ve had a good innings, someone might ride him again soon. I take my D-lock at least which is worth more than the bike and walk to get the tram with my headphones still on, playing nothing. A gorgeous girl in a hijab is taking a ton of selfies at the stop. Someone Tweets: ‘Please someone take me for a beer in the sun’. A group of Spanish people are photographing a lad who is holding onto the back of a tram and being pulled along on his skateboard. Just before Cornbrook, the saddest place in the world, the astonishing sun rests in a gas tower on the horizon just for a second.

‘Manchester: In Residents’ ... #32 John

2015-05-02T21:01:00.000+01:00

‘I remember my winter, trudging up to Oldham on two buses, sat in the back room with endless tea and a whole rotisserie chicken…’

What’s your name?

John.

What do you do?

I am a writer, predominantly about clubs and dance music, for several publications including The Guardian, Time Out, Skiddle and The Skinny, for whom I was Clubs Editor, and from where all of this stemmed. When I see distant or elderly relatives, I joke that ‘I write in advance about what most people can’t remember!’ No, they don’t tend to laugh either. It’s a real struggle. I also work for a research company occasionally, and still get my head down with the odd bout of office temping. I am trying to distance myself from the brain prison of data entry.

Where do you live?

For the past year or so, I’ve lived in Chorlton, home to the highest proportional home burglary rate in the UK. So you can assume that if this questionnaire drifts off into the ether before your mind does, I have simply been robbed of my ability to complete it. I had always liked Chorlton even when living in the city centre, but the Metrolink made it much more appealing. Plus there’s cheap swimming and moderately priced ale to offset the constant climate of fear that you could return home any time to nothing but a dope stained set of late 70s upholstery.

Tell us the story of how you ended up in Manchester.

As a teenager in a North Wales village, in no uncertain terms I wanted to get the fuck out, and fast. I considered going to university in Kingston Upon Thames, Derby and a few other spots, but really wanted Manchester (not so) deep down. I just about squeezed in to MMU to study Film and Media, which I screwed up and dropped out of after two years. Somehow, with almost no financial means and only temporary jobs flyering alongside a brief stint as caretaker managing a declining chain of sex shops in Northern satellite towns, I managed to stick around. Soon to be 27, when life still feels uncertain, I remember my winter trudging up to Oldham on two buses, sat in the back room with endless tea and a whole rotisserie chicken, avoiding eye contact with the endless money shots repeated on a first generation plasma screen inches from the counter. The only security I had was a hammer stashed in a small cupboard.

I moved to Manchester for ‘the scene’, although I wasn’t sure what that was at the time. I did stand up for a few years and ended up working on a few writing projects for television and so on. I was much better at the latter side of things. Eventually, my interest drifted more toward music, and dance music especially. I started to DJ (sometimes badly, dropping random Panorama Bar house in between Foals remixes at Now Wave), and somehow kept my head above water. Some best of times, most worst of times.

I have lived in town in pokey student flats with TVs tuned only to Sky Action – on which I watched the finale of Alien Resurrection on a daily basis – then in Rusholme, where a burglar shat in my yard and a DNA officer inspecting the scene asked me if I’d ever met Steve Coogan, ‘and was he a dickhead in reality too?’ I lived above Abduls, on whose food I briefly subsisted, stealing wi-fi from a Chinese exchange student and never having to heat the flat, which was so warm in the summer months, I was physically unable to occupy it most of the time. Eventually I moved to a flat near Piccadilly, and lived with a rotating cast of characters, starring me as landlord and handyman.

What’s great about this city?

It’s a massive cliché, but almost everyone in Manchester loves music, and many more become readily engrossed in the culture surrounding it. Perhaps this is true of any large condensed populace, but the people are largely very funny too. But it’s mainly great for all the brilliant, life changing experiences and opportunities it has afforded me over the years. Or, perhaps I have afforded them to myself? Perhaps the real city, is inside myself…? (It’s not, it’s in Manchester.)

What’s not so great?

I think the city centre as a whole has declined rapidly, and the atmosphere is markedly sour compared to less than a decade ago. The cuts to resources for the homeless or those with mental health or drug problems has disenfranchised people on a huge scale; From a humanitarian angle, it’s unjustifiable, and from a more cynical tourist board perspective, it doesn’t present the city in the best light. Obviously the blame here doesn’t necessarily lie locally, though. I also worry that the city’s small enough to be almost entirely franchised and operated by half a dozen powerhouses across retail, clubbing, dining… It’s great that there’s money and ambition available still, but a streak of independence and even the sort of radicalism that the city’s cultural heritage often trumpets wouldn’t go amiss, albeit from those with far more imagination and conviction than most of us, myself included, are able to offer.

Do you have a favourite Manchester building?

I don’t have much of a taste or sense for good architecture, although I’d like to. I enjoy the corridor of university and residential buildings on Whitworth Street, and the general feel and sights of the Palace/Cornerhouse junction. I seriously hope that the latter building stays put.

Do you have a favourite Mancunian?

My favourite living Mancunian is probably Kosmonaut’s bookings manager and former Piccadilly Records staff member, Pasta Paul. Not only is he one of my favourite DJs - which is saying something as he can’t mix for shit - but he loves the city more than anyone I’ve ever met. He’s still dashing around from gig to gig, opening to opening and record shop to record shop without a shred of disillusion, or the usual ego and expectations that consume some ‘local characters’. He has achieved what is surely one of the UK’s largest network of friends without ever succumbing to Facebook, and has not but a bad word to say of anyone. He is an immaculately dressed force for good in what can occasionally feel like a sea of ridiculously attired cynics.

Pasta Paul aside, I would have really loved to have met Tony Wilson, especially as I have a fondness for old Granada TV idents as much as acid house. Like many, I feel like Manchester’s musical heritage has occasionally been frequently pillaged for personal gain by many of those instrumental in it, but in and of itself, Factory is perhaps one of the most important labels of all time, and yes, Vinni Riley is good music to chill out to.

What’s your favourite pub/bar/club/restaurant/park/venue?

I love clubs, and I love them best when they’re dark, loud, full of smoke and not entirely welcoming at first glance. I really think Soup Kitchen’s basement is, on a good night, up there with the best in terms of a space to dance, and definitely one of the few dancefloors I feel most comfortable playing records to. Dan, who books Soup Kitchen’s club, has afforded it an amazing reputation in the face of massive competition, never allowing the listings to go stale, and maintains a wry sense of humour or perspective when I’d potentially be losing my mind.

I really like Albert Hall, which is a great example of what happens when several ambitious organisations take a risk on a venue that probably seemed obvious to a knowing few for so long. I love This and That, which even despite a few dodgy visits of hundreds, will always remain my personal victor in the endless Northern Quarter Rice and Three war. I still love Common, whatever’s on the wall there, and whatever they do to make their fries taste really good.

I enjoy strolling through Granby Row, beneath the railway arches, which feels pleasantly secluded and is as good of a bench sitting spot as any in the city. As well as the Archimedes statue, I particularly enjoy the ‘Vimto Bottle’ monument, which I genuinely thought was a really durable inflatable promoting the drink for far longer than I should have.

What do you think is missing from Manchester?

Following on from the above, I’d love to see more green space, which has always felt exclusive to the greater suburbs. I hope one of the occasional plans to transform Stevenson Square or the like into a greener environment comes through. But that it is genuine green space, not a continuation the council have of adding relatively miniscule patches of grass amid largely stone or concrete areas. I would rather see relatively miniscule patches of stone and concrete amid large areas of grass. I know you’re not supposed to say that sort of thing nowadays, but deal with it, incredibly well paid town planners!

If I was Mayor for a day I would …

Make sure I went somewhere dead nice to get a sandwich at lunch, and then keep the receipt, say I was having a meeting, and claim it back on expenses at a later date.

Who else would you like to nominate to answer this questionnaire?

Mick Hucknall.

Montage Of Heck

2015-04-28T10:27:00.005+01:00

I still listen to new music all the time but I think the period of my life is over where music has the power to impact on me so hard that it’s like being in love or becoming politicised or finding out a truth about yourself. Feelings of that intensity probably won’t happen now just from hearing an album. It’s a bit sad to think about it that way but I’m fine with it. I know who I am a bit more these days and there are things in life just as important as music, and some even more so.

In 1990 that was not true. I was twelve and pin-balling between two great albums released the year before; ‘3 Feet High and Rising’ by De La Soul, and ‘The Stone Roses’. I was young with not much frame of reference but music gave me a sudden and profound understanding that there was a much bigger and better world out there, with an astounding soundtrack. (I am living in it now, thank God).

That young period of my life has expanded in my memory, maybe because in the ‘90s all I cared about was music and in those days you had to wait for your music. You waited for Top Of The Pops, you waited for The Chart Show, you waited till you had enough money to buy a record, you waited for the record shop to open or you waited for your records to arrive in the post, you waited for the inky weeklies and the glossy monthlies, you waited for the radio to play the right song, you waited and waited. Perhaps that’s why it feels as if I’d already been listening to music for a long time when ‘Teen Spirit’ landed in September 1991. I was thirteen and a half then and I can’t overstate how much my sister and I loved that record and how much we loved Kurt on sight. We should have been afraid or unnerved, at least by the dark gorgeous video that constantly looped on MTV, but because Kurt looked so frail and indie yet sounded so heavy it hit you from both sides and never stopped.

Henry Rollins said ‘Nirvana slayed the hair bands’ and whether you agree or not, at the time the heavy guitars we craved seemed like the province of Guns N Roses (who we loved and then discarded – they seemed ludicrous post-Nevermind) and their sexist West Coast soundalikes. It’s possible I heard the Pixies’ Surfer Rosa the week before ‘Teen Spirit’, or at the latest immediately after, and I got Trompe Le Monde on release in ‘91, so I was at least moving in the right direction, but Nirvana blew everything up in minutes. Even now I find it hard to credit that a band whose impression on me was so overwhelming and has been so enduring were only around for two years in total from ‘Teen Spirit’ to the final double A-side of (the overrated) ‘All Apologies’ and the poignant, brilliant, bookend re-imaging of ‘Teen Spirit’ that was ‘Rape Me’. Kurt was gone four months later.

When you walk into a film like Brett Morgen’s Montage Of Heck you are sad already because there’s no getting away from the ending you already know, but Morgen has offset that anxious anticipation of loss with such weird artistry and lingering intimacy, moments of absolute comedy, and such a brilliant devoted use of Nirvana’s music, re-imagined, stripped down or slowed down, orchestrated or left raw, that you are in Kurt’s grubby and funny and hurt world for longer than one album ever allowed, and it’s overwhelming and addictive – two adjectives which were pretty much the blessing and curse of Nirvana and Kurt.

Montage Of Heck is a film about Kurt and watches its subject in as isolated a way as it’s possible to do in film without making something abstract. There are no discussions, per se, not about the legacy, nothing about the Seattle scene, the word grunge is never mentioned, Dave Grohl is not included, Courtney only speaks a few times (and for one of the world’s greatest music interviewees makes a bland showing) – this is all about Kurt from birth to death and sets his life and writing and personality against fame and pain and the power of his songs. When ‘Territorial Pissings’ hits the speakers it is such a spectacular kick in the guts that it’s hard to sit still. I thought people might stand up. I wanted to. Conversely, the arrival of ‘Teen Spirit’ is handled with a genius understated stroke (but stay for the very very end of the credits for some emotional comeback).

Among the stories about Kurt you might never have heard, and certainly the footage you won’t have seen of tiny Kurt becoming the kind of messy movie-star-handsome man you want to instantly be friends with, there are two moments that left me heartsick. One is the cut between footage of baby Kurt and baby Frances, who could be twins. The second is a grown up Kurt visibly nodding out with Frances in his lap and a drawling Courtney trying to cut the baby’s hair. It’s truly pitiful, and whatever Kurt went through as a child, at least nobody did that to him. Frances co-produced the movie and I wonder what it was like to see that footage for the first time. It’s almost certainly heroin and it’s very hard to watch.

Where footage and photos run dry, animations take over and I understand that some people won’t be into that aspect but the aesthetic of it seems so right for the time, referencing the zine/poster look from the ‘alternative’ world of that period, and it never turns Kurt into something you feel he’s not. It feels authentic. In addition, the continuous animation of his notebook lyrics and artwork is probably my favourite aspect, aside from the music. The feeling of an invisible hand and a blank page coming alive with the non-stop weirdness that would eventually become known world-wide is a powerful tribute to Kurt as a writer.

If you’ve read other reviews it’s no spoiler that the film doesn’t focus on the method or circumstances of Kurt’s death, and certainly not on any conspiracies around it, though it does seem to accept the Rohypnol near-miss in Rome as a suicide attempt so is not entirely a fence-sitting piece. At two and quarter hours it might be the longest amount of time you’ve spent in Nirvana’s company for a while so prepare to feel it all again. You’ll be glad to recall there were so many highs and only one big low that I guess we’re all still going through. I had a ticket to see Nirvana play at the Manchester G-MEX in March 1994. I'd just turned sixteen. After the Rome incident they re-scheduled the gig for April but by the time the re-scheduled date came around Kurt had already been dead for a week. I came that close to seeing them. I have my unused ticket still. When they cremate me or turn me into an apple tree or whatever, it will probably be in my pocket.

30 Days of FIN: my Cornerhouse closing project

2015-03-05T12:14:00.000+00:00

#30DaysofFIN

FIN.

A simple enough word seen in the darkness of the cinema that means a special journey has come to an end.

During my work as researcher and music producer of ‘The Storming’ – the final installation that takes place at Cornerhouse on April 4^th – I have, like an accidental snowball, been gathering up stories, memories and assorted ephemera relating to our unique Manchester arts institution.

As we count down the days to the closing of Cornerhouse – towards the FIN of the film of Cornerhouse’s life – I will be using the Cornerhouse Twitter account to send into the world a selection of images, historical detail, videos, anecdotes and memories relating to Cornerhouse.

Mimicking human memory, my timeline will be un-chronological, the posts gleefully abstract and enticing, but the stories and feelings they communicate will all be genuine. They will hopefully reach out to all those who have loved Cornerhouse.

My previous Twitter intervention for Manchester Central Library can be seen here.

Watch out for the hashtag #30DaysofFIN from the Cornerhouse Twitter account, every day until April 4^th when my final Tweets will be sent live from The Storming.

FIN.

#30DaysofFIN Tweets

‘Tuesdays at Tescos’, HOME and the Re:Play Festival

2015-01-22T13:28:00.000+00:00

Victoria Baths, and Ancoats, and now Number One First Street… The soft launch of HOME is bringing us ever-closer to HOME itself and it’s a genuinely exciting feeling. From the makeshift theatre foyer on the second floor of this smart office building, serenaded by a live guitar player, and with a lovely craft beer in hand, you can look out (through snowflakes in my case) and see the new building emerging over the way.

On Tuesday, fittingly, I saw ‘Tuesdays at Tescos’ inside the pleasant temporary performance space. You might have seen me Facebooking about how good it was. The final performance is tonight, and you should treat yourself. You can even get half-price ticket deals on the HOME website.

The play is a one-hour monologue spoken by Pauline, a trans woman renegotiating her relationship with her ageing father now that she has been able to reveal her true self, or, ‘Me. As I am. Now.’, as she says, softly and repeatedly like a mantra.

I came away feeling very moved by Scott Kentell’s performance. He brought a gentle sincerity to a very good script. His performance was assured and insightful (I can’t imagine Simon Callow’s was a better, and I’m a fan).

The director Sue Womersely and performer Scott Kentall are interviewed here:

listen to ‘Replay Festival 2015: Tuesdays at Tesco’ on audioBoom

‘Tuesdays…’ is part of the 2015 Re:Play Festival, an annual selection of theatre that gives audiences a second chance to see the best work from the previous twelve months.

On Friday night I’ll be looking back at a year of comedy with the Re:Play Breakthrough Comedian of the Year competition. I need all the inspiration I can get for my own foray into stand up this year, of course…

Thursday, Friday and Saturday gives you another chance to catch Jenny May Morgan’s portrayal of a questionably-talented author of women’s erotica pushing her latest work, complete with mucky novel extracts… An Evening of Filth and Despair promises to reach into dark and delicious Julia Davis comedy territory.

On Saturday night, Chris Hoyle’s play Two Spirits dramatises the story of the three Sioux Warriors who came to Salford in the late nineteenth-century as part of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West touring show. This coming together of disparate cultures was researched heavily by the playwright during time spent in Dakota and a documentary about his time there will screen after the play. Theatre and film for one ticket, not to be missed.

Re:Play is not only a great chance to see quality new work so cheaply but it will also whet your appetite for the big HOME-coming too…

Check the full line up HERE.

Queer Contact, Queer Media, Queer February!

2015-01-20T19:01:00.000+00:00

In February I am honoured to be speaking at a panel event which is part of a larger media event which is part of the one of the most exciting festivals happening in Manchester this year. It’s Queer Contact, and the line-up is so good it makes you wish it was actually Pride and that there was a parade at the start.

From the 5^th to the 15^th a plethora of queer arts comes to Contact and beyond with a program of music, theatre, performance, comedy and more.

National treasure David McAlmont launches proceedings with a live performance on the 5^th, alongside the talented Mr Guy Davies, which, from experience, I can promise will be intimate, fun and very touching.

Justin Vivian Bond is another sensational name on the bill and is in town for not one but two performances, including a collaboration with our very own David Hoyle. Bond is a trans icon of cabaret and is here to share Valentine’s weekend with us, using both original songs and familiar cover versions to interrogate and celebrate love. Expect to be stimulated and moved. On top of that there is a related JVB event with a screening of Shortbus and a Q&A to follow.

The Queer Media Festival is a highlight for me. Almost thirty media professionals (and me!) will gather to talk about storytelling, their work, their identities and career paths. There will be films screened, performances, a news broadcast, and a gathering of like-minded but diverse creative individuals under one roof. The event is promising to be a great opportunity for students, for peer-learning and networking, for idea generating, for meeting and greeting, and for exposure to new ways of thinking. Speakers include V-Squared aka Vinny and Luke (YouTube stars), John Bird Media (blogger), Tim Macavoy (Director at InterTech Diversity Forum), Anna McNay (arts editor, DIVA), Paul Brand (Northern Political Correspondent, ITV) and Addie Orfila (producer, Hollyoaks). Tickets here.

Queer Contact has comedy covered with a six-comic line-up for the Comedy Playground, while word nerds will thrill at the selection of poets, novelists and playwrights sharing their practices at Paul Burston’s Polari on the 10^th. Kate O’Donnell explores trans identity with humour and music, while site specific drama takes a police raid on a Victorian drag ball as its thrilling subject. The Vogue Ball at Gorilla sees competing Houses dance to victory, or defeat, while Mother’s Ruin host one of their far-from-usual cabaret spectaculars. The closing party, Love Art, is in the hands of the creators of Cha Cha Boudoir so couldn’t be in better hands.

Explore the full line-up for yourself right here and treat yourself to something new and challenging. There will be queer bohemia aplenty at Contact, but all across the city February is turning into a high point in the cultural calendar – Seeing Queerly has a terrific line up, while the first Manchester-based LGBT History Festival provides the context for how far LGBT people have come. February is a chance to learn and connect, network and create, and be touched by art and performance. Please be a part of it. The rest of 2015 has a lot to live up to…

Sister by Amy and Rosana Cade from Rosana Cade on Vimeo.

This video is quintessential Manhattanchester

2015-01-15T11:46:00.002+00:00

'Ask me no questions, I'll tell you no lies
The past is your present, the future is mine...'

A girl racing home from her job in a pizza parlour to get ready for a night at the Funhouse in New York City, Barny Sumner and Gillian Gilbert turning up to the club in shorts, that quotation above... this 1983 video couldn't be more Manhattanchester if it tried...

'Confusion' - New Order (1983)

The Projects

2015-01-14T15:06:00.003+00:00

You can probably tell from my output that my pursuits are pretty varied – this blog, that blog, Off The Hook, Drunk At Vogue, The Queer Forum, writing, and the rest of my freelance work which I love and which pays the rent. The number of things I have on the go at any one time is a bit dizzying, and there are a few reasons for that: I’m interested in lots of things. Too many things really. I’m trying to find out what I’m good at and I want to be good at everything. I don’t want to miss out on anything.

When I turned 30 I’d been working in an office for eight years, in a profession I enjoyed but which I knew by that point didn’t entirely suit me. I applied for lots of jobs in London that I didn’t get, and I started to panic a bit. I decided if I was going to stay in my job then I needed something outside of it to keep me going, so I set myself little tasks, the first of which was to start a blog, this blog, which I started in April 2008. I had no readers of course, and not always much of an idea what to write about but I immediately felt better about things. Later that year I was invited to play my first DJ gig, and so that became the second thing on my informal list of 'things to try'.

As time went on I added things to the list in order to push myself, to stay inspired, to find my limits and to fight complacency and boredom. I’ve done some big things that were never on the list, like becoming a freelancer, which brings ambitions and aims all of its own. After six months of freelancing I felt great, even if money was difficult in my tricky start-up year. Soon after that I reached my half-life anniversary in Manchester and took the opportunity to take stock.

I’ve been freelancing for a year now and it’s been a challenge and an adventure, but the list of ‘things to try’ still exists, needling me to get on with it. That’s what I’m going to do. I have formalised the list as ‘The Projects’, and as with my New Year’s Resolutions, if I go public with something I feel twice as motivated to get it done.

Here are all eleven of ‘The Projects’ as they currently stand, with little summaries for the ones I have achieved. I am genuinely holding myself to these and I am not adding anything new until this lot is done, or at least attempted. Something amazing might come out of this, or nothing at all, but the feeling of having tried is really the best feeling.

1. Start a blog

Blogs were everywhere in 2008 but were becoming a bit passé so I didn’t think I would stick with this thing for long, but seven years later, here we are. I’ve met some of Manchester’s finest people through writing this blog, people who I would otherwise have no reason or nerve to talk to. I’ve had 270,000 page visits to date, messages from around the world, a few hundred quid made, free tickets for wonderful events when I couldn’t afford them myself, but mainly a bit of dialogue with the world, which is what I have always wanted.

2. Be a DJ

Being a DJ was somebody else’s idea for me to begin with but once I start something I have to see it through, and DJing proved to be the perfect activity for someone like me, who likes a party but is also shy. I love it. DJ culture I can do without and I’m not really a part of that. It’s a bit macho and competitive for me. People will always use music to be cool, no matter what age they are. I think people are sometimes surprised that I’m a DJ because of how uncool I am and I’m glad! I wanted to be good at it though and I’ve really tried. I’ve been profiled in the Manchester Evening News and Attitude, I’ve played at Festival No. 6, Manchester International Festival, HomoElectric, GAZE Film Festival, Northern Quarter Festival, Homotopia, Vogue Fabrics, Islington Mill, Clique, Bollox and more. I’ve never played a recorded set in my life and I never would. Club promotion itself I can do without, and if it wasn’t for the chore of that I would be DJing much more often. I’ve had so many special moments DJing that I think only other DJs would understand. Even if I stopped tomorrow, those would be the moments that made me feel like I really did it.

3. Start a clubnight

The first Off The Hook at Kitsch was one of my favourite ever nights out in Manchester, and the only Off The Hook that I didn’t DJ at. I was a resident from the second party onwards and I took over the night when the original promoters had shelved it. I gave it a re-brand and a new venue and a year later it won the City Life award for ‘Best Gay Night’. If I’d been kind to myself I could’ve ticked this one off the list then and there but I wanted my very own baby. Enter Drunk At Vogue. I’d daydreamed about the night for a couple of years, had even pitched it somewhere and had it knocked back, and then shelved it. It eventually came to life as the collaboration you see today. I have learned a lot from collaborating, that it’s very hard to do, but that it has loads of benefits, that your baby will never ever turn out like you think, but that you’ll love it anyway. Drunk At Vogue started in November 2011. Then we had our first birthday, then a few months later we threw the launch party for the Manchester International Festival. I am very glad I didn’t tick number 2 off the list too soon.

4. Get a Masters

I wasn’t done studying, I wanted to read more books, I wanted to finish writing a novel, a proper one this time, with supervision and a deadline, and I wanted to do something subversive and uncool with the money I was making from DJing. So I did an MA. It had been on my list way before these set of circumstances arrived, and to be honest I thought that I would go and study Shakespeare at Masters Level. I had ducked out of that very option when I was 21, despite getting my place at Manchester and my funding from the Academy. Instead I went to the Writing School at MMU when I was in my thirties and wrote a novel about Shakespearean culture. I got a Distinction for it. I had my graduation party with my family and friends in the baking sunshine on Albert Square at the MIF Pavilion. I was so happy. I learned a lot. I met great people and read some magnificent books. The course is good, go and do it. Number 4, you are done.

5. Get paid to write

A hundred years ago I filed some album reviews for The Big Issue the week before they laid off most of their Northern freelancers and disappeared off down south. The cheque I got for that work (£36 if I recall) was the most satisfying money I‘d ever earned. I got the bug but my timing was terrible and it took me a long while to get back here. Being paid to write, in an era where anyone with a keyboard is a writer, is validation, for better or worse. Writing is a profession that people not only invite you to do for free, but often expect it, in some cases demand it. I have had dozens of people over the years discover my blog and approach me to write for them. Often when I enquire about a fee they become unpleasant. Often I am told that I will be paid in 'exposure' for my blog. ‘But you found me,’ I always say to them. ‘I am exposed.’ I never write for those people. If somebody gives you a fee it is professional, respectful, honest, and yes, it's validation, and it’s a validation that comes tenfold when it is the thing you love doing most. Don’t take your writers for granted, and writers: try not to work for free.

6. Write a novel

This is the one... I have written a very short and very bad novella about a temp who wins the Lottery and goes on an insane odyssey with the girl who lives downstairs. I have written a longer and slightly better novel about five gay men whose lives intersect in a weird post-modern way around the lonely vacuous world of Canal Street and a desolate Manchester city centre. I have written a longer and much better novel about digging up Shakespeare’s bones and the effect it has on a world obsessed with him. Trying to write a novel is one of the great sorrows and frustrations of my life. I can’t explain why I even like it. Every other activity in the world disrupts and distracts from fiction. So many good ideas and great lines vanish into the ether if you aren’t able to give them your full attention. Being a novelist is time-consuming and tiring and wonderful. It deserves my full attention. My novel needs a damn good third draft and my intention is to give it my all and let my other ambitions slide by the wayside until this is done. I want it published. This Project should be entitled, ‘Publish a novel’. This is the point at which a jack of all trades has to try and be the master of one. Of all the things on The Projects list, if I don’t see this novel through I will die disappointed in myself. Do you hear me?

7. Try stand-up comedy

This is where it gets scary. And this is as far as I’ve got with the list. Kind of five-and-a-half down, five-and-a-half to go I suppose. None of these are pipe dreams though. I have already signed up to workshop some stand-up material this coming Saturday. I have never done anything like this before. I think I am a bit funny, and I have done lots of public speaking, but the two have rarely crossed paths. But I love stand up and I am going to try it for myself. I’m terrified. What am I doing? Stay tuned.

And here is the rest of the list. So no biggies, huh…?

8. Write and stage a play

9. Curate an exhibition

10. Be an artist

11. Find some work outside Manchester

See you on the other side...

Motionary Art-Oids in Manchester (or, Video Art in the City)

2015-01-12T12:06:00.000+00:00

There’s a ton of great video art showing in Manchester right now. Tomorrow night (Tuesday 13th) at Cornerhouse, there’s an hour-long screening of a compendium of film work by Margaret Salmon, including both early material and new works in progress. Salmon’s subject matter is the everyday, her medium is realism and her forte is detail. Catch a Q&A with the artist after the screening.

'A Tiger's Skin' by Chris Paul Daniels

Over at the Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art, you can watch some excellent video art by Chris Paul Daniels and Sun Xun. Daniels’ main piece is ‘A Tiger’s Skin’, an engaging layered video triptych consisting of the artist’s documentary response to Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1972 film, ‘Chung Kuo, Cina’ which was commissioned then banned by Mao. Daniels also has three shorter pieces showing, including one with a snippet of not-to-be-missed Chinese disco music. In the rear gallery, a selection of Sun Xun’s animations combine unnerving but beautiful imagery with myth, legend and philosophy. ‘What happened in the year of the dragon’ is a UK first showing and is genuinely brilliant. There’s also a defiantly weird and captivating 3D film showing in the dark room, and more besides. It’s a major solo collection hot on the heels of Sun Xun’s Asia Triennial collection.

Lastly, video art makes a great showing at Castlefield Gallery’s ‘30 years of the Future’ exhibition. For this anniversary collection the gallery have invited friends and past artists to nominate the work of an artist who shows great promise. The video work on show includes powerful advertising satire from Thomas Yeomans, queer agit-pop from Evan Ifekoya, and lots lots more over the two floor space. The whole collection is great, in fact, but the video work packs a powerful, funny and sad punch, depending where you start. Treat your eyes. Do not miss.

Queer Narratives

2015-01-10T21:22:00.000+00:00

Lord knows I love Larry Kramer but I was underwhelmed by the 2014 adaptation of The Normal Heart, Kramer’s drama about the formation of Gay Men’s Health Crisis, the first body to attempt to tackle the mysterious illness we now know as the AIDS pandemic. The play was originally staged in 1985. Kramer then wrote a screen version for direction by Ryan Murphy last year, in which there was somehow less of a sense that the world didn’t care about a disease killing New York’s ‘undesirables’, than that the disease itself was actually only happening to a dozen people in a telephone crisis centre. The world felt oddly remote, and not for the right reasons. In 1969, Kramer’s sexy screenplay update of D. H. Lawrence’s Women in Love won him an Oscar nomination, but time didn’t seem to be working in his favour for a twenty-first century Normal Heart. There was something of the clunky and anachronistic exposition we are all supposed to accept in this post-Downton Abbey world, but I was oddly unmoved by it, plus I straight up did not rate Jim Parsons. Having said that, Julia Roberts gave a great turn as the Virginia Woolf-like scientist providing a lone voice of reason and restraint as the virus gathered pace; Mark Ruffalo I could happily watch sanding door frames with the sound off; and Joe Mantello’s manic diatribe as the body count hopelessly increased, was, I think, award-winning stuff. But the road was full of rocks to get you there.

If you want a lesson in narrative grace, watch Transparent. In fact if you want a lesson in most of the important skills of contemporary drama, Transparent has them – script, pace, casting, story, you name it. And it doesn’t make things easy on itself. Turning-point scenes happen off-screen, there are numerous flashbacks, temporal dislocation, narrative uncertainty. But it’s all water tight, and so consistently and persistently emotionally fraught that it’s best to sit back and not speak for a while after each episode. It’s also the most genuinely queer thing I’ve seen in ages. The fluidity of gender and sexual identity is practically torrential in Transparent. It’s a story that’s as much about navigating human desire across all manner of boundaries/binaries as it is about a trans woman – the blindingly talented Jeffrey Tambor as Maura – coming out to her family of adult children. It’s listed on IMDb under ‘Comedy’ but I can’t think what for – other than as some kind of categorical titillation to prevent a straighter audience being deterred. Regardless, it does have plenty of funny moments, effortlessly and circumstantially funny that is, and therefore real comedy, the comedy of life rolling on with pitfalls and errors. What I like most about it though is that it has is no discernible interest in ‘normalising’ trans or queer experience – doing so would cost the story the uniqueness that convinces you that you have never seen anything like this before.

NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS 2015

2014-12-31T12:51:00.000+00:00

1. Make peace with my sister

2. Spend more time with my family

3. Finish editing my novel and get it sent off to agents

4. Don’t watch any more bad films

5. Less online time-wasting and more productive and political social media

6. Attend more cultural things, but be discerning

7. Work hard

8. Try and get out of debt, whatever it takes

9. Stop biting my nails, but really stop this time

10. Banish anxiety: to be aided by next two resolutions:

11. Drink less

12. Learn more yoga (and keep up my physio)

13. Read only quality fiction

14. Destroy capitalism

Manchester Timelapse

2014-12-10T09:24:00.000+00:00

Another Manchester movie. Keep 'em coming. The thing I like most about these films is that they make Manchester look so clean (no mean feat), plus you can put your own soundtracks on them. Try 'Isjaki' by Sigur Ros for this one ...

Manchester Timelapse - Observingtime from Paul Richardson on Vimeo.

My talk from The Queer Forum #2 on 7 December 2014

2014-12-09T18:10:00.000+00:00

The Queer Forum is an event that I co-host in Manchester in which people who identify as Queer/LGBT can come and talk to an audience for fifteen minutes or so about anything they like. People have spoken about ACT-UP New York, about their intersectional identity, about life modelling, about dementia, about erotic art and more besides. We also show very short films and we meet new people and we are hoping this event will grow. We are mainly all about the love. At the second Queer Forum event I thought it only right that I give a talk too, rather than just encouraging others to talk, so I wrote this to talk about the very confusing but enlightening year I have had, and some opinions and hopes and some personal anecdotes. I finished by reading an extract from Andrew Holleran's novel Dancer From The Dance which I can't reproduce here but which I recommend everyone reads. Here is my talk:

My name is Greg. I’ve lived in Manchester for eighteen years. I came to University here. I used to work in advertising and publishing. I’m now a freelance writer, a DJ and a club promoter. I’m also an event organiser. I also copyedit academic books and write fiction and reviews. I also do research and writing for artists and art institutions, and for the last six years I’ve written a blog about all of this stuff, and more stuff besides. I am a bit of a jack of all trades, which has as many drawbacks as benefits, but for that reason, and because I enjoy analysis more than conclusion, my talk today, given partly in homage to James McCourt’s book Queer Street, is anecdotal and personal and has several themes and is entitled:

‘Where I am and what I’ve learned and am learning as a queer gay man in the twenty first century’

I am 36 years old. Twelve years I stopped eating meat. Two years ago I got rid of my television and stopped buying newspapers. I am from a working class family who are now middle class because they have a car each, and I am middle class too because I’ve been to University twice and I work in the arts, even though I sometimes struggle to make the rent. I am, like many people, trying to work out what it is that makes me tick, what it is I should do, how to be good, how to be happy, how to contribute.

The Projects

This summer I had a cycling accident. I spent some time in hospital, far from home and delirious with morphine. At one point I thought I could speak Maltese. I had lots of time to think. In the last couple of years, two amazing people who I was lucky enough to know both died very young. Because of these experiences I have decided that if something should happen to me, I don’t ever want to have to say that I regret not doing x, y and z. So instead I have made a list entitled ‘The Projects’, describing all the things that I think I might want to accomplish. Some of them have been long-standing, others are accidental ambitions and are already underway, such as creating a club night, becoming a DJ, getting paid to write, hosting an event like The Queer Forum; some I haven’t tried yet, like stand-up comedy or staging a play; some might never happen at all, like getting my novel published… I just don’t want to have regrets.

Learning about social justice

A lot of my work and my life happens online. I am an enthusiastic user of Twitter and Tumblr and online writing, one of the main reasons being that it keeps me politically conscious and cuts out media bias when listening to other people’s voices. Here are 5 things I am learning online from social justice activists:

1. Racism has never gone away, it has only changed shape as society has changed shape. Capitalism needs racism.

2. The politics of, ‘We will come back for you’ doesn’t work. ‘When we get full marriage rights as gender conforming gay people, and we can adopt children, and we have equal everything else, we promise will make sure that everyone gets the same rights and protection too. We will come back for you.’ It doesn’t work.

3. Learning about your own privilege is vital and enlightening, but how do you use that awareness to help and make a difference? You need to find out.

4. There is an epidemic of violence happening against women worldwide and against poor trans women of colour especially. It isn’t going away.

5. Social justice doesn’t mean a thing if there’s no clean air to breathe and your town floods and the ocean is poisoned.

Having therapy

When I was 24 I spent a year having therapy. My counsellor was a young lesbian and the message I left on her answering machine, long since erased, was the first time that I had ever said out loud the words, ‘I am gay’. In our first session she asked me to describe what I would like to work through in my therapy. I told her that:

1. I need to deal with the fact my Dad left, and:

2. I’m gay and I don’t want to be gay.

A year later anyone who mattered in my life knew that I was gay. My therapist once said to me, ‘As a lesbian, my sexuality is central to who I am and how I live, and at the same time it’s of absolutely no consequence.’ I had no idea what she meant at the time, but now I do. Everyone should get some therapy.

Why I don’t think Alan Turing should have been pardoned

Alan Turing was a bona fide genius with a singular mind who should have lived a long and productive life, excelling in his many fields. Instead of being allowed to meet this extraordinary potential, he met a guy outside The Dancehouse Theatre on Oxford Road in December 1951 and three months later the two of them were facing prosecution for gross indecency. A little over two years after that, Alan killed himself. A popular campaign succeeded in gaining a Royal pardon for Turing one year ago for the crime of gross indecency. I think this act pardons the State of responsibility for what it did to Alan Turing, rather than pardoning Turing himself. Alan didn’t need a pardon because he never did anything wrong in the first place. If he hadn’t been of use to the State there would have been no petition to start with. The original petition read, ‘This may act as an apology to many of the other gay men, not as well-known as Alan Turing, who were subjected to these laws.’ I strongly disagree. Turing’s usefulness to the State singles him out from the countless prosecuted and silenced men who suffered the same fate. I would be so angry to learn that a grandfather of mine had jumped off a bridge for the same reason but wasn’t deemed fit to be pardoned. In December 1952 Alan Turing was a criminal, the State should wear its shame for making him one. If only useful homosexuals get pardoned, I don’t want to be useful.

Having a partner

In 2011 I saw a movie called Weekend. The set design and cinematography of the film was based on the work of a pair of photographers working under the name Quinnford and Scout. Their work set the visual tone of the film and they were also invited to do the set photography, eventually resulting in the film poster image which graces the walls of so many gay men’s bedrooms. The film had a big impact on me, one that I was not ready to deal with. I had decided at some point to no longer make emotional commitments to anyone and for the first few weeks of the film’s release, various gay men, about six of them, with whom I had had some kind of relationship in the preceding years, each messaged me to find out if I had seen the film, and if not they urged me to do so right away as there was a lesson in it that I sorely needed to learn. They were mostly not very kind about it, but I knew exactly what they meant. So, because of the film, I decided to make a change and open my mind to at least the possibility of a relationship, maybe some time in the future. Not long after I made this decision I met a guy named Oisín Share who was one half of the photography duo Quinnford and Scout who had worked on the movie. In March we will have been together for three years. There is a strange synchronicity sometimes to life.

Am I gay or am I queer?

I am very attached to the political, social and cultural history of men who have identified as gay but when I look at anything that is labelled as gay culture today, I feel alienated. My body is wrong, my politics are wrong, I can’t afford anything they advertise, I don’t want anything they advertise, everything is badly designed and nobody wants to talk about books. Thinking queerly helps me to square all of this. Thinking queerly is a way to critique not just gay culture, but all culture, society, capitalism. When I find gay culture threatening or trivial, queer culture says to me to take what I like, give what I can, be something better. Gay is what I am, but queer I think is something closer to who I am.

Thank you.

Virtual Books and Library Twickets: The Collection

2014-11-27T11:51:00.000+00:00

I recently spent a week as writer-in-residence at Manchester Central Library for the Everything Everything Chaos to Order residency.

I took the opportunity to undertake a modest, highly enjoyable digital art project using the simple tools of library books, iPhone and the Manchester Central Library Twitter account.

The concept, to quote myself, was as follows:

‘In a modern library you’re just as likely to leave with a laptop full of information as a rucksack full of books. I wanted to find a way to symbolise the evolution from paper to data that emphasises the importance of both.’

The project turned into a way to showcase printed treasures from around Central Library; exciting, mundane, beautiful, forgotten, well-loved. Each book was reduced to a single image and a piece of quoted text and sent as a Tweet – a digital artefact if you like – to Central Library’s thirteen thousand followers.

Below is the full collection sent over the duration of the residency from start to finish. Armistice Day fell in the same week so I opened the collection with an image from the First World War and finished with an entry from a compendium of Army names from the Second World War, a soldier named G. Thorpe.

‘Strange friend,’ I said, ‘here is no cause to mourn.’ ‘None,’ said that other, ‘save the undone years…’ pic.twitter.com/rCG7C1He2j
— Manchester Libraries (@MancLibraries) November 12, 2014

‘Stret- relates to Roman times, and -ford to Saxon.’ pic.twitter.com/5xeZS7fpWi
— Manchester Libraries (@MancLibraries) November 12, 2014

‘This song proved once again the power a song can have, whether it’s used as a positive tool or a negative one.’ pic.twitter.com/156f5JXMDw
— Manchester Libraries (@MancLibraries) November 12, 2014

b4 before @oms atoms 2day today xxx ‘kisses’ zzz ‘sleeping’ pic.twitter.com/kF3dfPBmfb
— Manchester Libraries (@MancLibraries) November 12, 2014

‘You don’t WANT to go to Manchester,’ the clerk corrects him gently. ‘You mean you HAVE to go there.’ pic.twitter.com/uQvazXd1Xx
— Manchester Libraries (@MancLibraries) November 12, 2014

3349 pic.twitter.com/iQzNWbVMnR
— Manchester Libraries (@MancLibraries) November 12, 2014

‘I’ve never been able to finish a full bag of chips so I gave most of mine to the gulls.’ pic.twitter.com/IMdhcaC0WV
— Manchester Libraries (@MancLibraries) November 12, 2014

‘MANCHESTER UNDID THEM BOTH’ pic.twitter.com/tSuQHPUIfm
— Manchester Libraries (@MancLibraries) November 12, 2014

‘I saw everything’ pic.twitter.com/ZHdb7HM6ZO
— Manchester Libraries (@MancLibraries) November 12, 2014

'at the end of the streete I took leave, being much afeared I shall not see him here any more...' #ChaostoOrder pic.twitter.com/iw2qtp6wXR
— Manchester Libraries (@MancLibraries) November 13, 2014

'expanses of raw canvas covered with row upon row of black numerals...' #ChaostoOrder pic.twitter.com/2daPEAKr6f
— Manchester Libraries (@MancLibraries) November 13, 2014

* It will be recalled that summer 1967 was the season of the "flower children" #ChaostoOrder pic.twitter.com/x0YIncGU82
— Manchester Libraries (@MancLibraries) November 13, 2014

‘Plato has an epigram: "As wolves love lambs, so do lovers love their loves”…’ #ChaostoOrder pic.twitter.com/f69GoEYv8Z
— Manchester Libraries (@MancLibraries) November 13, 2014

'In 1958 Mrs K departed from her mother's home and her whereabouts are not now known…' #ChaostoOrder pic.twitter.com/1EgK4Gy1cd
— Manchester Libraries (@MancLibraries) November 13, 2014

'There was a room in the house into which Beryl was not often allowed to go...' #ChaostoOrder pic.twitter.com/QEDviDMCls
— Manchester Libraries (@MancLibraries) November 13, 2014

BUYING A HOME IN BULGARIA #ChaostoOrder pic.twitter.com/RyVe1WDUDW
— Manchester Libraries (@MancLibraries) November 13, 2014

Lilith remained with Adam only a short time because she insisted upon enjoying full equality with him. #ChaostoOrder pic.twitter.com/xnL4gCZ6sC
— Manchester Libraries (@MancLibraries) November 13, 2014

(1) Law Rep. 20 Eq. 114 #ChaostoOrder pic.twitter.com/hTxCOL8o4C
— Manchester Libraries (@MancLibraries) November 13, 2014

The East Village is a place that stays up late #ChaostoOrder pic.twitter.com/azJp4xznC9
— Manchester Libraries (@MancLibraries) November 13, 2014

‘This is the story of a city, and the story of a woman…’ #ChaostoOrder pic.twitter.com/w559WSXVN5
— Manchester Libraries (@MancLibraries) November 14, 2014

‘Edna found herself jostling a group of people engaged in the pastime of looking at the murder house' #ChaostoOrder pic.twitter.com/UpMXBb1QH9
— Manchester Libraries (@MancLibraries) November 14, 2014

‘Before the 20th century there was no choice but to note down songs with pencil and paper...’ #ChaostoOrder pic.twitter.com/NLguVZIcY3
— Manchester Libraries (@MancLibraries) November 14, 2014

On 28th December 1976 Buzzcocks set in motion an event that was to revolutionise the record industry #ChaostoOrder pic.twitter.com/I20hP8swad
— Manchester Libraries (@MancLibraries) November 14, 2014

‘The Amazon Lake Monster that nobody believed was real, including me, until I took this picture.’ #ChaostoOrder pic.twitter.com/U3F8umKUP7
— Manchester Libraries (@MancLibraries) November 14, 2014

‘At least one aspect of Lacan’s analysis of Hamlet certainly does move beyond Freud.’ #ChaostoOrder pic.twitter.com/SayjJtm6QU
— Manchester Libraries (@MancLibraries) November 14, 2014

‘The church then was a ruin, with holes in the floor and models tripping over floorboards…’ #ChaostoOrder pic.twitter.com/0SJSE9PK3T
— Manchester Libraries (@MancLibraries) November 14, 2014

‘Götterdämmerung’ #ChaostoOrder pic.twitter.com/grkOIcXJtj
— Manchester Libraries (@MancLibraries) November 14, 2014

‘There was a partly eaten apple on the table by his bed ... as a rule he used to eat an apple at night’ #ChaostoOrder pic.twitter.com/Zukl27ReNZ
— Manchester Libraries (@MancLibraries) November 14, 2014

I grow older and I live in the ordinary of more than my own days. #ChaostoOrder pic.twitter.com/8NpQTJUrZz
— Manchester Libraries (@MancLibraries) November 15, 2014

The word ‘God’ is a label for something we do not know. – Herbert McCabe #ChaostoOrder pic.twitter.com/aa6o1EJdIO
— Manchester Libraries (@MancLibraries) November 15, 2014

‘I do not understand what is meant by F/6, 8, etc.’ #ChaostoOrder pic.twitter.com/rSdHKCBfH5
— Manchester Libraries (@MancLibraries) November 15, 2014

Daisy and the Trouble with Maggots #ChaostoOrder pic.twitter.com/OUNH15u3Hy
— Manchester Libraries (@MancLibraries) November 15, 2014

‘I thought about using the landscape around Balmoral…’ #ChaostoOrder pic.twitter.com/I67iqSPMIn
— Manchester Libraries (@MancLibraries) November 15, 2014

HAUSA-ENGLISH / ENGLISH-HAUSA #ChaostoOrder pic.twitter.com/ZhcXDvFDVC
— Manchester Libraries (@MancLibraries) November 15, 2014

On the grass when I arrive, in the ivy when I leave. #ChaostoOrder pic.twitter.com/CoxlcolZu0
— Manchester Libraries (@MancLibraries) November 15, 2014

Thorpe, G. – 75 #ChaostoOrder pic.twitter.com/GO66xF2WrN
— Manchester Libraries (@MancLibraries) November 15, 2014

The Queer Forum

2014-11-25T18:41:00.000+00:00

My friend Siobhan and I have started a venture called The Queer Forum. Inspired by the TED Talks, we are hosting irregular get-togethers in which we invite half a dozen LGBTQI/Queer-identified people to give an informal talk to a friendly audience about something of importance or interest to them, and/or to our community. We might also show some short films, time permitting. It's not-for-profit, community focused and aimed at bringing queer folk together for education and fun.

We held our first event during Pride weekend and it was a really lovely, warm, eye-opening and well-received event. We learned about the film critic Vito Russo, about being a visiting covert lesbian in Bolivia, about gay erotic art, LGBTQI Muslim life, and more. You can see videos of some of our talks at our Vimeo channel.

Our next event is on Sunday 7th December at 6pm at Bangkok Restaurant on Princess Street, Manchester.

If you want more of a taste of what we're about, here's the Introduction I gave to our first event:

Hello. Thank you to everyone for coming to our first ever Queer Forum event. A special thanks to Rachele and the team here at Bangkok for giving us this lovely space to work in, and for including us in the Queer We Are program of events. Rachele approached myself and Siobhan separately to do an event here and, because great minds think alike, we both came up with the same idea; to do something like the TED talks that was for, by and about LGBTQI people. We both feel strongly that making yourself heard is an important thing for queer people. Stephen Beresford, who wrote the movie Pride, which no doubt you’ll all be going to see next month, said the other day how hard he’d found it as a gay man to make himself heard about anything other than sex; and that’s as a middle class white guy. There are voices everywhere that should be heard and we want The Queer Forum to be one of the places you’ll hear them.

Of course it’s no good making yourself heard if there’s nobody to listen, so this project is also about bringing people together, for support, for sharing, and to bear witness. We should be able to come together and share ideas in an environment that’s fun and intellectual, and that’s not just about partying while Rome, or indeed Paris, burns. Laverne Cox has said that it’s important to always remain teachable in the face of ignorance; including your own. So let’s all promise ourselves to remain teachable. It takes a lot of courage to talk in front of an audience and I know you’re all going to be supportive and welcoming. I hope you’re inspired by what you hear today; perhaps inspiredenough to come and be one of the speakers at a future event.

So, I’m going to put my money where my mouth is, andbe today’s warm up act and give you a selection of great quotations from queer people:

Join us as we explore Manchester’s Gay Village. It’s meaning. What is it saying to us? Is it a powder keg of the avante-garde?
The Divine David Hoyle

Straight people aren’t the enemy. Gay people aren’t the enemy. Ignorance is the enemy.
Anonymous dancer from Flesh at The Hacienda

The only ‘queer’ people are those who don't love anybody.
Rita Mae Brown

It is a rather amazing fact that, of the very many dimensions along which the genital activity of one person can be differentiated from that of another, precisely one, the gender of the object choice, emerged from the turn of the century, and has remained, as THE dimension denoted by the now ubiquitous category of' sexual orientation.
Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick

I think God is a callous bitch not making me a lesbian. I'm deeply disappointed by my sexual interest in men.
Diamanda Galás

My name is Martin Boyce, and in 1969 I was a drag queen known as Miss Martin. I remember on that night, when we saw the riot police, all of us drag queens, we linked arms like the Rockettes and sang this song we used to sing: "We are the Village girls, we wear our hair in curls. We wear our dungarees above our nellie knees." And the police went crazy hearing that, and they justimmediately rushed us. We gave one kick and fled.
Martin Boyce

We can only see a short distance ahead, but we can see plenty there that needs to be done.
Alan Turing

I remember much of it as if it were yesterday. It is difficult to celebrate when one has such potent, painful tragic memories. We held so many of each other in our arms. One never forgets love like that. Make no mistake, AIDS was and is a terrible tragedy that need not have escalated into a worldwide plague. There were 41 cases when I started. There are 75 million now. It takes a lot of help from a lot of enemies to rack up a tally like that.
Larry Kramer

The dead are still here holding our hands.
Jackie Kay

‘Manchester: In Residents’ ... #31 Oliver

2014-11-17T18:54:00.000+00:00

'Lorenzo offered to walk the elephant back to Manchester, which he did in ten days...'

What’s your name?

Oliver East.

What do you do?

I’m an artist. I write and draw comic books about landscape and walking. They sell about as well as that sounds so I’ve also had a long career as a barman in south and central Manchester – Maine Road Family Stand, Free Trade Hall, Robinski’s, The Drop Inn, Velvet, Matt & Phred’s – before finishing up with seven years as a manager down The Temple. I get the odd illustration gig as well, like two Elbow album sleeves and animation, for instance. The comics are making money now though, so I’ve been bar-free for a while.

Where do you live?

Old Trafford.

Tell us the story of how you ended up in Manchester.

I’m a party baby. Or more specifically a 'cult party baby'. My mum was living in an ashram in Withington, next to St Paul’s Primary (which I later attended) as part of a worldwide cult. Told she couldn’t have kids, she had one nonetheless. Grew up, just the two of us, in a Fallowfield flat. School in Withington then Didsbury. The Didsbury school was a strange mix of working class Burnage and middle class Didsbury. Hated it. Failed most everything and did retakes and such in Heaton Chapel.

I really wanted to study archaeology, but couldn’t get the grades. I took ‘Classical Civilisations’ for GSCE three times, getting, in order, D, D, E – so Indiana Jones was a no go. I wanted to study something though and so I fell onto an art foundation course. Two and a bit years into an art degree, I fell for art. Moved out of my Fallowfield home at 18 into a Fallowfield student house. Standard fare. Then sublet a one bedroom Northern Quarter apartment whilst courting my future wife and working in Velvet and then Matt & Phreds. It was an illegal let, which would have been okay, but a census was done at the time and there’s only so long you can ignore the door to those guys…

I moved into a Chorlton share with my girlfriend and some numpties who would only ‘let’ us in the front room at certain times of the day. Fucked them off and got our own place, – a flat in Whalley Range. Due to an accident my girlfriend had enough for a deposit for a house in Old Trafford. A year later we got married in Las Vegas in a chapel who said, ‘You just tell us, on the day, whether you want God there or not’. Our son, Hunter, was born five years ago. We were married nine years. She’s no longer my wife but we’re great mates in a ripe-for-mockery ‘North Chorlton’ co-parenting team.

What’s great about this city?

Viewing the city with ‘single’ eyes, it’s a different world out there: terrifying but ever so much fun at the same time. I walk everywhere if I can. It’s cheap therapy. I can be in town in less than an hour and Chorlton in ten minutes. You can walk across the whole town centre in less than twenty minutes, with your beer jacket on. Every parent around treasures the museums. I hope they’re not taken for granted and that everyone chips in on their way out.

One of Oli's beautiful Elbow sleeves.

What’s not so great?

I could fire off many a missive about our misfiring trams. Packed single ones at rush hour and empty doubles during the day. The public transport system as a whole is pretty embarrassing when you talk to other Europeans. ‘What, you mean you can’t use the same ticket on all the buses?’

The London Road Fire Station situation is shameful.

Fallowfield has been shat on, bit by shitty landlord bit, over the years. With the students now more likely to live in the centre of town, they’ll have to fill the houses somehow and a once appealing neighbourhood will just get worse.

Do you have a favourite Manchester building?

Central Library, before they gave it a veruca. The stretch of Whitworth Street, from Palace Theatre to Piccadilly Station looks like a parade of gargantuan gateaux. If you lived in India House or worked at the Palace Hotel, you’d get nothing done, as you’d have your head out the window eating icing all day.

Oxford Road station is the best in town. Love the roof and their stubborn refusal to sort out a lift for years. The egg and toast rack in Fallowfield would have to be up there actually. The residential houses of Whalley Range deserve an illustrator’s attention. I’ll get round to it at some point. Still some grand houses in Fallowfield if you can see past the flyers.

I enjoy running. One favourite route is around Trafford Park, with the warehouses and industrial bakeries, glimpses of The Lowry and a bridge over the quay.

Do you have a favourite Mancunian?

Lorenzo Lawrence. He worked at Belle Vue zoo in the late nineteenth century. The owner of the zoo travelled to Edinburgh, with Lorenzo, to buy a load of animals. The plan was to get them back by train to Piccadilly but the elephant they bought kicked off and smashed his carriage. Lorenzo offered to walk it back to Manchester, which he did in ten days. But the elephant was already trained and had been used to carriages for years. Once Lorenzo had got it on the train that would have been that particular gig over for him. So, a skilled trainer, he somehow gave the elephant a signal to panic. Thus blagging himself an extra ten days work. I’m working on a comic book about the whole thing now.

I worked in Velvet for a couple of years and there was a character, Tony Dean, who used to write poetry for his favourite bar staff. I’ve still got a load now. He wrote a short story about a beauty spot on my cheek. He made me a spoken word cassette (both sides) of him reading sonnets called ‘In Celebration of Oliver’. He was fun.

Bumping into Guy Garvey is the highlight of any day and honourable mentions for Steve Manford, Carol Batton, Emma Jane Unsworth, Hannah Thomas and me Mam.

One of Oli's public wall pieces.

What’s your favourite pub/bar/club/restaurant/park/venue?

My homing instincts always take me down to The Temple (of Convenience). It’s a hole, it stinks, the staff are surly, it’s a nightmare on Saturday nights, but I love it. Having worked there for seven years, off and on, I’ll always find someone down there with whom to over-share. That, and its older sister, Big Hands, are the only two real rock and roll bars in Manchester. Being newly single means I’ve had to broaden my horizons beyond these two, for it not to get too incestuous with the bar staff.

Fletcher Moss Park for nostalgia reasons (mainly sticky fumbles) and the Mersey that runs round to Chorlton and Stretford, via Northenden, which is good for running. Longford Park as I used to take the boy there every day, reading a book while I pushed him around. He would make his first steps in the avarium there.

As for restaurants I have some pretty ingrained phobias about eating, so anywhere where I can order, it comes quickly, and I can pay and leave while still chewing, works for me. This ‘n’ That, where I go with the boy before Bolton Wanderers home games is great. The Mexican stand in the Arndale food market does a massive burrito, a bottle of decent beer and a shot of tequila, for a tenner. Top way to start off a hung-over Saturday.

Rage Against The Machine at The Ritz is always up there as one of my favourite gigs. Used to go to Dance Yer Docs off there as well. It’s a great venue with buckets of sweaty nostalgia.

Whenever tourists would come down The Temple I’d always tell them about The Briton’s Protection. As good as pubs get in Manchester. Ask me again when I’ve been single for a year and I’ll know more places.

What do you think is missing from Manchester?

Humility.

If I was Mayor for a day I would …

Panic. I’m totally unqualified for such a position. But until I was found out I’d get shot of that Simpson character. The architect who keeps getting every gig going in Manchester? Yeah, I’d do away with him. I’d make The Temple and Big Hands rent-free forever more. I’d sort out the road above The Temple so it didn’t leak all the time.

Who else would you like to nominate to answer this questionnaire?

Steve Manford. Filmmaker who works at Afflecks.

All of Oliver’s books can be bought from Forbidden Planet International on Oldham Street but, if you can live with the shame afterwards, they’re also available on Amazon. He also has a website, a Tumblr where he posts process pictures and inspiration, and he also does a bad job of hiding his anger issues over on Twitter.

Virtual Books and Library Twickets

2014-11-11T15:17:00.000+00:00

As part of my role as a writer-in-residence for Chaos to Order, I’m executing a small-scale digital art project that utilises library books, photographs and the Manchester Central Library Twitter account.

In a modern library you’re just as likely to leave with a laptop full of information as a rucksack full of books. I wanted to find a way to symbolise the evolution from paper to data that emphasises the importance of both.

To that end I’ll be rummaging around the many shelves of Central Library, unearthing books that appeal to me in some way, and reducing the physical item of a book down to a single photograph and a single Tweet. That’s one digital image and 140 characters to capture the essence of a book.

I will then check the book out of the Library ‘virtually’ via the Central Library Twitter account. The book will be sent out into the world as a small digital artefact that will represent a combination of the contemporary and the traditional library.

You’ll see me check in and out of the Manchester Central Library Twitter account from time to time over the next few days, sending virtual books into the world.

Fiona Ledgard goes drive time on All FM

2014-11-07T11:17:00.002+00:00

If you live in Manchester and you love your music, chances are your path will cross with Fiona Ledgard’s sooner or later. A compulsive gig-goer, champion of new music, radio DJ and more, when I speak to Fiona she’s just back from seeing Bob Marley's band The Wailers. (‘Moving and inspiring!’ she enthuses.)

After graduating Manchester University’s ‘Music, Culture and Society' BA, Fiona made a trip to Berlin, returned to the city, volunteered at All FM and has been broadcasting eclectic quality music to south, east and central Manchester ever since. All FM is Manchester’s community radio station and has been soundtracking the city for over a decade now. As well as quality broadcasts, the station offers radio training and other unique opportunities to everyone from the city’s unemployed, to Mancunians experiencing mental health issues, to students in musical training programmes. The station’s remit is all about community and diversity, and for that reason alone it’s a credit to the city.

Fiona’s own commitment to music and culture has seen her interview a crazy range of people, from punk geniuses The Slits to queer icon JD Samson, from fellow DJs like Mary Anne Hobbs and Dave Haslam to radical performance artistes like David Hoyle and Justin Vivian Bond, plus more bands than you can shake a tambourine at.

As of this week, Fiona is taking over the coveted time slot of 5-7pm. That’s’s right, she’s going drive time! Her show will hit the ground running tonight, including three brand new features: Is it 'anging or is it banging?, Rappers Delight and Thank You For The Music. Tune in to find out what exactly they're all about. You're going to hear something that will perfectly kick off another tremendous weekend in Manchester.