Category: Manchester

Help the Aged: A field trip to Withington Village

Sam Bail

Manchester is a city of many neighbourhoods, all with different reputations, ranging from “nice” or “hippieish” to “grim”, “dodgy” and “I WOULDN’T GO THERE!!”. Withington seems a bit lost somewhere in between the studenty madness of Fallowfield, and the civilized suburban middleclassness of Didsbury. There are a few rough areas as well as some very nice places like the vegetarian cafe, bar and gig venue Fuel, and my favourite underground boozer Indigo, but there seems to be no consistent opinion about this area.I thought I might as well go and explore it myself – and so I embarked on a little day trip to the hardly known, quaint little village called “Withington”, located in the South of Manchester.

Only a short bike ride away, I started my day with a hearty breakfast in the local eatery The Coffee House – “A place where friends meet when it’s time to eat”. This little gem of copywriting is surprisingly appropriate for the greasy spoon on Copson street, the commercial and social hub of Withington. The Coffee House seems a popular meeting place for the pensioners and workers of the village, while serving huge fry-ups that would make all you Koffee Pot fanatics weep from joy*. The four ladies who work at the cafe whip up bacon barms by the dozen and buckets of steaming hot tea for the hungry crowd, determinedly and patiently tracing all orders while whizzing through the cafe with wagon wheel sized plates in their hands.

Having eaten enough mushrooms, beans and toast to last until next month, I set out to explore what Withington is famous for: its charity shops. The NSPCC shop, right next to “Withington Fruit & Veg” (good & cheaper alternative to the Co-op), is possibly the cheapest of all, cramming in 25p vinyl singles, as well as paperbacks and records for 50p. While I’m rooting through books and scarves, the three ladies in the shop are busy discussing their last holiday to Blackpool: “I stayed in a hotel that was like a combination of Fawlty Towers and the Titanic! I left after one night!” I leave with a book and a Human League 7″. I don’t even have a record player.

At Age Concern next door, I find a nice big handbag in a bargain bin and move on to the Lighthouse Charity Shop, which doesn’t have anything particularly exciting on offer. Across the road, I visit the Barnabus Boutique, a Christian charity shop that houses a little cafe (read as “has a coffee machine on the counter”). I am tempted to buy a DVD titled “Caribbean Wreck Heaven”, butfeel a little disappointed after finding out it is only a DVD on deep sea diving.

Leaving behind the magical world of charity shops, I leave the main road for a quick peek into my favourite shop in Withington, the one without a name that simply says “CDs. DVDs. Vinyl” on its shop window. The place is packed up to the ceiling with, well, CDs, DVDs, Vinyl, books and Star Wars memorabilia, and I never fail to find something to spend my money on. Today, it is a Flight of the Conchords DVD, which the shop owner hands me wrapped up in a Sainsbury’s bag. Don’t waste a thing!

My last stop for today is the often overlooked Withington Library, which has put me off so far with its ugly exterior. But oh, how wrong I was! As soon as I enter the building, it feels like I have walked into one of those Harry Potter tents that look like huge mansions on the inside. The tiny library consists of only one, presumably octagonal, room with large windows and big, round skylights, with an almost airy feel to it. I wonder why I have never considered visiting the library, and I definitely know where to set up camp next time I have some writing work to do. On my way home, I make a quick stopover at Martin’s bakery on Copson Street for one of their strawberry tarts that found their way into my heart* with their gooey jelly like topping and pools of custard.

So, what is Withington? Is it just a strip of charity shops along Wilmslow Road? Well. It may be a bit rough sometimes, there are fights, drunks, drunken fights and the traffic can be a nightmare, but between the library and the shops on Copson Street, Withington is almost like a little village with a diverse community, if you look at it from the right angle.

* Stomach.

Crazy in Love: Westfest 2010

Sam Bail

Ladies and gentlemen: it’s official. This blog is bipolar. I’m in a serious love/hate relationship, you know, the ones that go on forever, where you just can’t let go despite knowing better, because the good moments are amazing and the bad moments are, well, pretty bad, but hey, it’s not all that bad really, it could be so much worse, but DAMN, sometimes you just want to drop everything and say “right, that’s it, I’m not ‘avin it”.

I’m talking about YOU, Manchester. Don’t pretend you didn’t know this was going to happen one day: you’ve finally driven me insane. You make me rant before I even get out of bed in the morning, you make me smile for no reasons, you make me drink, fall down stairs, talk to strangers and hug the pavement*, you make me want to prod, poke and even punch you sometimes, and you’ve taught me that wellies are just another item of clothing that can be quite useful far away from muddy festival weekends. You’ve gone bonkers a long, long time ago, and I’m following you down the red brick road to the crazyhouse at last.

In other news: to celebrate my newly found enlightenment, I visited the Westfest, West Didsbury’s very own independence day this weekend, which is really just a synonym for “I stuffed my face with silly amounts of food, again”. Having missed the first WestFest last year**, I was looking forward to spending some time wandering up and down Burton Road, peeking into the shops I normally give a miss due to the rather scary price tags attached to all the pretty offerings on display in their shop windows, and sampling some food.

Unfortunately, Frankie’s Fish Bar had run out of veggie fish&chips – I would have loved to try the heart-attack-on-a-plate that is battered halloumi cheese – so I settled for a huge portion of chips, cheese & onion pie, and peas. Great, sturdy food, but the actual highlight was the waiter who accidentally charged us for the “free” side orders and simply explained “sorry, I can’t be held liable for this, I’m still drunk”. Quality.

The deep-fat-fried-goodness-induced food coma following my visit to Frankie’s makes the events of the day slightly blurry, but I remember the ladies outside Crazy Wendy’s dancing on tables, with one of their cooks ecstatically banging a pan lid as makeshift drums, buying raffle tickets at the WDRA stall and Moth, repeatedly bumping into people I know (figuratively speaking), ice cream, delicious punch from the cheerful chef outside Rhubarb, live music at Silver Apples and a rather busy street party and Prince’s “Raspberry Baret” playing outside Loft.

Somehow, I found myself with a bag full of food I must have bought at Thyme Out Deli, choosing a delicious slice of chocolate tart from the nearly raided cake buffet at Love2Eat. There’s no flights to catch tomorrow, so I might return for drinks tonight (rumour has it there’s a special “WestFest cocktail”), celebrating Manchester, West Didsbury, my insanity, and the weather that’s just about to go terrible again.

* Don’t ask. Seriously.

** Except for rather accidental drinks at Folk and even more accidental cocktails at the Drawing Room on Sunday night which made me miss my flight home the next morning. Damn you, Tom Collins!

Guiness Book of Shit Records: Manchester! What the hell is wrong with you?

Sam Bail

“Where there is much light, the shadow is deep” (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

I’m constantly trying hard to see the good things about Manchester – yes, it’s got a lively and lovely arts & culture scene, a university that’s world famous for its research, some amazing bands, two fairly good football teams (not taking sides here) and, uhm, the Manchester Egg.

Lately, however, it seems that Manchester is trying really hard to make me think of it as a filthy soggy snot rag that is nothing but appalling: we’re currently on an impressive winning streak, breaking the country’s shittiest and least desirable records. Reading through my daily feed of “Inside the M60″, I came across these gems:

  • Much to everyone’s surprise, Chorlton received the “Newcomer of the Year” award for being the nation’s “Burglary Capital”.
  • Greater Manchester health organisations have received the highest number of written complaints in the last 12 years, earning themselves the prestigious “Mr Motivator” award.
  • Young people in Manchester proudly carry the “Nasties of the Year” award for having one of the highest rates of STIs in the country (Ugh. Remind me to wear rubber gloves on the bus.)
  • The city has the 6th highest rate of car accidents involving children in the country. No jokes about that one. The whole North West seems to be full of mad drivers, with Preston, Liverpool and Blackpool being in the top 4 on the list.
  • A “Stoner of the Year” special mention goes to Greater Manchester for having the 2nd highest number of cannabis farms in the UK – unfortunately we lost that one to North Yorkshire.

And what’s the best solution for all these problems? Oh yes, spending cuts for Greater Manchester Police. Manchester’s future is all rainbows and sparkly unicorns! Whoop!

Honestly, I’m certainly not disenchanted by these news, and I’m in no position to blame anyone – shit happens everywhere. But at the moment Manchester seems to attract it like a freaking Swiffer cloth! People of Manchester, please enlighten me: what the hell is going wrong here? Or is it just my feed reader?

* That was an accident. I mean “YOU. YOU MANCUNIANS.” But you know what… who am I kidding. I’ve been mancunianized, I just can’t help it.

Hidden Place: Towers & tunnels in Manchester

Sam Bail

As I happily announced a few weeks ago, I had booked a place for one of Manchester Confidential’s “Tunnel Tours” to explore Manchester’s damp and dark underground. And since I’m German, i.e.  efficient to the point of stubbornness*, I decided to plan something else before the tour to go with the “underground” theme. Yes, I went for high tea at Cloud 23, the bar on the 23rd floor of Manchester’s tallest building, the Beetham tower (better known as the Hilton Hotel, or Playstation 2 as I call it).

After a scarily fast ride on the lift, we were greeted by an incredibly friendly waitress and lead to our table – right-by-the-floor to ceiling windows, looking out over the city centre and Salford. The views were amazing, and after two years in this city it was fascinating to finally see it from above. The tea was served in mismatched vintage tea cups and pots, which seemed surprisingly twee and quirky in this place, and the sandwiches (they even took note of the “Attention! Vegetarian! Handle with care!” warning we issued when booking), scones and cake were lovely. I’m quite looking forward to taking any potential visitors there again (so I can eat cake while they’re distracted by the panorama. Ha!)

Swapping the heels for trainers, we moved on to the second part of our “Towers & Tunnels 2010” tour. A fairly large group of adventurous Mancunians had already gathered outside the Bridgewater Hall when we arrived, sporting wellies and carrying torches. Our tour guide gave us a quick introduction to the use of canals in Manchester and the importance of the Great Northern railway station: it used to be one of the largest goods exchange places in the country, with access to the underground canal and the railway to transport goods by water and land.

We descended into the old canal system via a… uhm… secret door at the back of the information room (who knew that room even existed!) in the Great Northern, climbing down a stair case into a corridor that lead into a large hall. This was the beginning of a walk through damp, muddy and very dark tunnels, at times only lit by our torches, while the guide stopped the group at some points to talk about the use of the tunnel for trade, and as an air-raid shelter in the second world war. I had a great time down there while learning something exciting about a part of the city I won’t see again any time soon – and walking around in the dark with torches felt like being on a school trip! Dan (who went on the tour just after us!) has written a little more about the tour, including all the details that I was too lazy to remember.

In the light of its history, it’s a shame the Great Northern is now almost completely useless (apart from the AMC cinema), and I really hope the tunnel tours help putting it into the focus of both people in Manchester and businesses again. At least the tours seem to be a huge success – almost all of them are fully booked months in advance.

* And by “efficient” I mean I can carry a mug with steaming hot tea, a laptop with an open lid, a heavy bag, two books, my phone, a pencil case, a packet of biscuits and a plate with toast downstairs from the lounge into my bedroom just so I don’t have to walk twice. Never mind the burns on my hands.

Pretty Day: Didsbury Food Market & Mad Scientists’ Tea Party

Sam Bail

August 14th, 2010 — 9:56pm

One of the reasons why I actually like Manchester (sometimes) is its hyperactive arts and culture sector that seems to be just crazy about organising festivals. There’s the Jazz Festival, Future Everything, the Literature Festival, 24:7 Theatre Festival, the Family Friendly Film Festival, the Didsbury Art Festival, Manchester International Festival, the Comedy Festival, Food and Drink Festival, the WestFest, FuturEverything… this city really is ONE BIG FESTIVAL!

Well, that’s  certainly fine by me. I’m happy to stop bitching about the depressing weather, lousy public transport, scary crime rate and social inequality in order to engage in a bit of culture, especially when paired with food.

After days of torrential rain in Manchester, I awoke this Saturday morning to find the sun burning down onto my face, convincing me to finally make a serious attempt at visiting the Didsbury Food Market. Located just around the library, this teeny tiny gathering of stalls may not be big enough to be called a “market”*, yet it managed to keep me busy for quite a while. And by that I mean “stuff my face and succumb to impulse buys”, spending a small fortune on: a cheese & vegetable tart from “Silver Apples”, beautiful macaroons from the “English Rose Bakery”, a home made Battenberg from the lady with the pretty apron, two necklaces from “In All Her Finery”, and a cupcake from “And the dish ran away with the spoon”, who are just about to open a shop in West Didsbury. What a lovely way to start a Saturday morning. A few more regional fruit & veg stalls, and I’m happy to throw all my money at local businesses there every week!

Moving on into the city centre, I enjoyed a little more of the rare sunshine at the Mad Scientists’ Tea Party, a trailblazer event for the Manchester Science Festival (another festival!). Exploding plastic tubs, lava lamps made from oil and vitamin tablets, rainbow coloured cupcakes, giant soap bubbles and an incredibly fascinating camera obscura in a yurt were keeping children and parents entertained.

What I found even more interesting than the activities however was the eclectic mix of people at the Tea Party – families with their Saturday shopping, teenage mums, emo kids not willing to give up their usual spot at Cathedral Gardens, and two tramps who got seriously excited about the explosions and kept sticking vitamin tablets in film containers. Until recently, I would have sniffed at this and left quickly, but I suppose I’ve been in this city long enough now to understand: this is Manchester. It’s just… a bit different. Nothing wrong with it, eh.

* See, I’m from a very rural area. Some of the boys I knew would sometimes drive to school with a tractor. We do proper markets. It takes all day to get from one end to another. There’s dozens of stalls selling organic hand grown happy fruit and vegetables, artisan cheese from happy cows, tons of uhm… happy meat, Turkish and Greek deli stalls, hundreds of different types of bread loaves, rolls, cakes and sweets. No need to explain why I turn into a little fatty every time I visit my family at home.

We Love the City: Music for Manchester’s streets

Sam Bail

Despite it being Bugged month and me having vowed to give my newly developed love for wearing noise-cancelling headphones on public transport a break, I still feel that it is the music that makes traveling through Manchester attractive, interesting and sometimes simply bearable.

I noticed how dreaded journeys like getting the Magic Bus (see previous post) in the morning or walking down Market Street on a busy* Saturday can almost turn into a pleasure when accompanied by the right music. It makes me relaxed, helps me bury my head deeper in my book despite the hoards of noisy students getting on in Fallowfield, makes me feel cooler than everyone else, parading down the street with my headphones, throwing presumptuous and omniscient smiles at people who don’t see me anyway while blasting out and bopping my head to whatever’s coming onto my little black iPod (5 years old and still going strong, bless!), unknown pleasures that only I can hear.

In the prospect of getting sued, here’s my playlist with ten songs for some of the situations you may encounter in the streets of our rainy city – ready to download as a handy zip file. Let me know if you like it. Let me know if you don’t.

2018 update: Here’s a Spotify playlist. Boom.

  1. American Analog Set – Punk as fuck
    Hangover music. Not too loud. Don’t ever remove from player. Good for getting on the bus around midday when it’s sunny and fairly quiet, won’t help covering the noise of loud mobile phone conversations in the seat behind you. Which will happen inevitably.
  2. Das Racist – Shorty said (Gordon Voidwell remix)
    Best soundtrack for busy Saturday afternoons on Market Street. Makes you think you’re down with the kids. Like, totally. Turn it up loud enough to drown out the guy with the creepy duck whistles and the crazy Christians shouting “JESUS CHRIST” at your face.
  3. An Horse – Horizons
    Good for the rare sunny days in Manchester. Leave the house and walk to the bus stop, wearing large sunglasses that look ridiculous. Feel bittersweet, but happy, but annoyed, but ah well never mind. Oh yes I’m doing so well.
  4. Talking Heads – Once in a lifetime
    Listen to nothing but Talking Heads for weeks. Go to Smile at the Star & Garter and get stupidly drunk on vodka while sitting downstairs and waiting for the first people to start dancing. Realise that you’re dancing on the benches two hours later. Ask yourself: how did I get here? Drop your drink on someone. Apologise. Drop your drink on someone, again. Fall down the stairs, blow a kiss at the bouncer, get nearly run over crossing the road to Piccadilly station and fall into a taxi. Same as it ever was.
  5. Roisin Murphy – Ramalama (bang bang)
    Walk down Burton Road through West Didsbury on a Saturday night. Witness the drunken messes staggering home and sing “Ramalama bang bang flash bang bing bang bing bong ding dong dum dum du dum” to yourself. Imagine you are in a Disney musical and do a little dance. Hope that no one has noticed you.
  6. Gui Boratto – Terminal
    Try to break your own personal record walking from West Didsbury to Fallowfield. Convince your house mate that it is absolutely possible to get to the post depot in 20 minutes. Take a deep breath and engage in 17 minutes of power walking while listening to Brazilian techno. Find a huge queue at the post depot. Swear.
  7. The Smiths – Half a person
    Coming from Piccadilly Gardens, walk down Portland Street on a very gray and rainy Saturday, towards the Temple pub and down the stairs. See your friend through the window at the bottom of the stairs, wave and take off your headphones. Wonder how you’ll ever manage to dry your soaked shoes.
  8. Tears for Fears – Head over heels
    Good soundtrack for a bus journey down the curry mile when it’s dark. Watch the people walking down the road outside the takeaways and curry houses. See the neon lights’ reflections in the puddles on the pavement and the rain drops on the window. Think about how 80s synth pop and neon go together so well.
  9. The Shins – Kissing the lipless
    Get off outside the Sainsbury’s in Fallowfield. Walk into the shop. Try and time your movements with the music. Feel sublime if you manage to pick up your bread the second the music gets louder. Block the way in the isle with the crackers, the one that has a pillar in the middle, and don’t hear people repeatedly saying ‘excuse me’. Notice them. Feel guilty. Turn the music down.
  10. Japandroids – Wet hair
    Walk home from Fuel after a far too boozy Tuesday night. Feel the warmth of the pavement that has been heated up by the sun. Remember the crazy hot summer in your home town. Think of your friends. Feel a bit upset. Hope that everything gets back to normal soon. Cross your fingers.

* nightmarish

Going Underground: Tunnel tours in Manchester

Sam Bail

Everyone who has lived in Manchester for a while has their own little “Manchester Underground” story: apparently there are large networks of tunnels, secret World War II bunkers all over the place, market depots and generally so many big holes in the ground that it is impossible to build an underground transport system here in this city. Elbow even wrote a song about it!*

After publishing an article on ‘Urban Exploration’ by Jim Gilette in the very** popular b&n magazine, I was intrigued to find out more about the world that’s hidden beneath the busy roads and buildings. Thanks to Gareth, I stumbled upon Manchester Confidential’s Tunnel Tours – 1 hour long guided tours through the tunnels under the Great Northern building in the city centre. Count me in!

Tickets are £10 and can be booked on the Manchester Confidential website. In case I don’t get lost down there, I shall report back next month.

* My interpretation of Grounds for Divorce: it’s about the massive hole that opened up in the middle of the road in Didsbury last year. What do you mean, the song was released long before that?

** not quite so.

[Photo by Stewart Priest. Thanks!]

Could it Be Magic: Public transport in Manchester

Sam Bail

There aren’t many things I genuinely hate, you know, I’m a pacifist and stuff. Okay, there are, but not as much as I hate having to rely on public transport in this city. This is what I imagine hell to be like:

Giant blue beasts racing down the streets with deafening roar and bawl, their grotesque faces distorted from years of abuse and anger, breathing out black clouds of fumes, controlled by raving mad men who urge them as if there was no tomorrow, no future. And there you stand, damned to wait for all eternity, while the cold rain is pouring down on you, soaks your shoes, your coat, your bag, and you wait, wait, wait.

There, is it a dream? Is it a mirage? You get tense, focusing all your attention on the forehead of the beast that is quickly approaching. Will this be the one to take you back to the safety of your home? The feeling of relief when you realise that you are lucky at last is almost impossible to bear – yes, YES,  the monster does carry the two magic numbers above its eyes!

You climb up into the belly of the creature, get hit by the foulest stench, push your way to the desired position, surveyed by the piercing stares of your fellow travellers who do nothing to hide the fact that they are also fellows in misery. Water is dripping down through the window, adding only little to the dampness of your clothes that slowly turns them into a lifeless cold matter clinging onto your skin, while the adolescent join the never disappointing parade of tribal rites, accompanied by the loud rattling sounds of unknown atrocities played from strange metallic boxes.

Finally. It is your time to get up, stagger and squeeze your way towards the creature’s mouth, touch one of the red tumours that have grown in its belly, one last screeching scream and the monster comes to a halt, opens it lips and vomits out a stream of people eager to escape the horror.

Run! Run! Run for your life, your health, your sanity.

Don’t know if you could tell, but I really don’t like getting buses in Manchester.

To make all this more fun, 11,000 students* have signed a petition on Facebook to get the Magic Bus Drivers to wear wizard outfits while driving around their drunken arses, probably to give them something to laugh at while they’re trashing the bus, leaving their rubbish everywhere, throwing up, shouting at people on their phones, smoking pot and being generally annoying. (Trust me, one of the regulars at the bar I used to work at used to come in after his night shifts driving the 142 Magic Bus. I have heard even worse stories.) And because Stagecoach LOVE their customers so much, they have come up with the amazing** idea to give in and, yes, let the drivers wear wizard costumes on their so called Wizard Wednesday in June. Humiliation in the name of charity.

But you know what?

I’ve got a bike now. The first time I was riding it I cried from relief. No more black magic in my life.

* idiot nutcases with too much time

** absolutely stupid and pathetic

[Photo by Gregoire Chabrol, who went from Manchester to London in a Magic Bus. I’d love to hear that story!]

Truth or Myth: Fun at the funfair

Sam Bail

One of the reasons why I started this blog was to explore both the good and the bad sides of Manchester. There were so many places people told me not to go, “just don’t – it’s horrible!”, that I’ve started wondering if Manchester was really that bad. While all you food and culture bloggers enjoy the, well, food and culture of Manchester’s nicest spots, I shall discover and experience the places we normally avoid, and find out how bad they really are – I’ll be playing urban myth buster. I’ve got some fun things planned (without putting myself in too much danger, hopefully), starting with the mecca of my childhood: funfairs.

Ever since I spent a year living in Rusholme near Whitworth Park (only got mugged there once, and there were no potentially dangerous weapons involved, so I suppose you can call it a ‘safe’ area… haha.) I’ve been wanting to go to one of the marvelous funfairs taking place there. However, due to warnings of funfairs being “terribly trashy rip offs” and “full of dodgy people” I was denied this pleasure until recently, in an act of defiance, I decided to be brave enough to go and experience the pleasures and dangers of Manchester’s funfairs with my own eyes.

And so we went to the fair at Platt Fields park on a sunny Wednesday evening, hoping it didn’t turn into a miserablefair (Matt said that. I thought it was funny. I like puns.) – and it was good, sturdy, old-fashioned entertainment. Screaming kids, the smell of greasy deep fried chips and candyfloss, the odd announcer at the rides (my favourites!) and that little bit of sunshine the notoriously bad weather in this city offered us made for a rather nice and enjoyable combination.

We even went on one of the rides, which seemed to be particularly popular with the kids. In fact, so popular that they forgot (“forgot”…) about their good manners and pushed their way to the front to get a seat before the carousel even stopped moving. This rush and excitement caused even me to defend the seat I had just grabbed from a little child that was about half my size, pulling the seat away from its tiny little hands and kindly saying: “NO! THIS IS MINE!”. I shall go to hell for that. (But hey, I was first!! Also, I’m German, I don’t know how to queue. It’s not efficient.)

Due to unforeseen circumstances*, the rest of our trip was reduced to wandering around the fair, marveling at the lovely stalls, the picturesque crowd and their fabulous interpretations of past and current fashion trends, until we ended up at a ‘shoot the cans’ place. My friend invested a whole 2 pounds to win me one of these monstrosities pictured below on the top shelf – a giant bear with an ‘I love you’ heart. The gentleman at the shooting gallery (also pictured below) even grabbed his microphone to enthusiastically (not.) comment on Matt’s dart skills, and called me a lucky winner! After carrying our new fuzzy friend around Platt Fields for a while, we gave it to some kids (and by kids I mean their parents) that seemed delighted by the idea of having a life-sized bear spreading its fur all over the house (hey, just like my flat mate!).

Sitting in the grass we watched some lovely family scenes, as a young man in a grey tracksuit made the teenagers (clearly bored by the rides) at the fair happy by swapping little plastic bags with them for money, while his jittery looking girlfriend was waiting in the back with her toddler in the pram – how convenient when you can combine work with leisure!

Having said that – I did enjoy myself, and the fair wasn’t nearly as bad as people had always claimed. Pick a nice park, a sunny day and forget your reluctance for a bit, and you might even have a fun time at the funfair.

Truth or myth factor: Not that bad, really.

* That means I was stupid enough to have chips and THEN go on a ride. My body reacted with its own version of wagging a finger – I felt violently sick. My natural survival instincts: clearly non-existing. I’m still suffering from it more than 24 hours later, so it might have been actual food poisoning. Maybe don’t go-go to “Food to go-go” next time. Even if CHIPS CHIPS CHIPS are hard to resist.

On a side note: Quick peek at the new visitmanchester.com page

Sam Bail

Last Thursday, the new look of visitmanchester.com was revealed and celebrated with a launch party. The website is supposed to be the ‘official tourism website for Greater Manchester‘ and provides information from fun and informal (5 top cheap eats in Manchester et al) to business related (such as conferences and hotel bookings). Naturally, such a wide range of topics and huge amounts of information, along with the technical requirements poses a real challenge for web designers and developers.

Given the rather enthusiastic twitter comments about the new website, I was keen to have a look at it, expecting something nice, neat, user friendly and visually pleasing. The following dialogue then took place between my 14 year old (that was in the 1990s!) hyperactive internet-ecstatic persona and my current cynical, Manchester-critical, internet-bored and rather boring 24 year old self:

Me then: “WOAH this is awesome! Everything’s moving!!1!!!11!”
Me now: “WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE?!”
Me then: “CHECK THAT OUT! The navigation DISAPPEARS and then COMES BACK! They must have used FLASH, that is soooo cool!”
Me now: “JESUS CHRIST why is everything…what…where has the navigation gone… ah there it is… hang on, is this a one-page-website? That’s cool actually! One-page websites are the future.”
Me then: “MAAAN there’s like, wavy lines coming down, in different colours, and text, and photos of random people! This is THE FUTURE! I WANT TO BOUNCE AROUND! LOL!” (downs another pint of peach ice tea. I used to drink several pints of this stuff a day, going from one sugar high to the next.)
Me now: “Why are there photos of random people and overlapping text snippets in the background? I can’t read anything. Is that a twitter feed or something? I don’t get it. Wait… this is not a one-page navigation, only the top boxes stay the same. Oh, no it is actually… everything I’ve seen so far is still on the page! How handy. And confusing.” (left eye starts twitching)
Me then: “So many totally cool boxes EVERYWHERE! I LOVE boxes! I love CSS! CSS boxes are the FUTURE!”
Me now: “Where is the navigation gone now? Eh… I feel dizzy… they could have aligned the boxes at least. Why does the menu on the left appear twice? What… Oh it says ‘Deutsch’, let’s see if they’ve got a proper translator. Whoops… no… that German looks very English to me. Huh?”
Me then: “Colours!”
Me now: “I don’t feel well…”
Me then: “Wavy lines!!”
Me now: “This is confusing…”
Me then: “Mouse over effects! I LOVE mouse over effects!”
Me now: “What is happening to me…”
Me then: “Live Twitter feeds*!”
Me now: “Everything is spinning… uugghh…”
Me then: “Maaan when I grow up I want to MAKE COOL WEBSITES, like, totally!!”
Me now: “Make it stop, please. Please!!” (curls up in a ball and stares at a blank wall for half an hour)
Me then: “Man, you’re lame. Duh.”

While I don’t have doubts about the usefulness and quality of the content, I couldn’t possibly imagine using visitmanchester.com for anything other than casual browsing and exploring. I really don’t want to actually search for any particular information there – the website is just too confusing.

Thanks to magneticNorth for giving me the shakes and five minutes of insanity. Don’t take it personal, but WOAH! This is one mess of a website. I suppose if you test it on the over 50′s next time (Happy belated Silver Surfers’ day by the way) you could produce something less headspinning.

Time for my Horlicks now!

Edit: They made a video about the launch as well, featuring an interview with the creative director of magneticNorth (who I confused with Gary Lineker first). “Neverending cascade of information” is quite appropriate and sounds as scary as it looks. “Hopefully this will spread out…” Yeah…but… no. Please don’t.

* Ok so this is nonsense. We didn’t even have facebook then, let alone twitter. It was geocities all the way.