Category: Mightaswell

Going out on bonfire night had always felt way too dangerous for me – the prospect of getting shot at with fireworks or chased by an angry mob with torches didn’t seem all that appealing. This year however, I was joined by fellow new Mancunian Paul (the gentleman who brings you Manchester Daily Photo) to watch fireworks, drink mulled wine and dodge some rockets.

The arrival at Platt Fields Park was somewhat overwhelming (Flood lights and police at the entrance! Thousands of people! Bright lights and noisy sounds from the funfair! Mud everywhere!), but we soon managed to find a nice place to watch the fireworks display which started out mildly disappointing, but grew steadily into an extravaganza of pyrotechnical awesomeness.

The music choice for the fireworks quickly convinced us that someone must have typed “fire” in their iTunes and hit shuffle. A trashtastic Eurodisco song with a lady moaning about her being a pyromaniac was followed by The Prodigy’s Firestarter – and I was convinced I could see some scallies raving their trainers off to those “bangin choonz” somewhere in the muddy puddles of Platt Fields.

Having blown up half of Manchester city council’s annual budget, the celebrations for Platt Fields  Park’s 100 year anniversary continued with Manchester’s own Poet laureate Mike “God is a Mancunian” Garryreciting “The Gift”, a lovely poem for the park – an effort that was completely lost in the murmur* of thousands of visitors. This was followed by a Mancunian cowboy-country-folk song praising the park with the chorus “Platt Fields, Platt Fields, you make me feel so true”, accompanied by a beatboxer. Yes, a beatboxer. A beatboxer who, at some point, broke into a five minute freestyle grime beat with the singer aimlessly yodelling “Platt Fiiieeeiiieeeellldsss”, turning it into a 15 minute monster of a birthday song. That was the point when, once again, I simply surrendered to the craziness of Manchester.

Playing for time while the Chinese lanterns where being lit, the speaker then began to thank supporters of the park and the festivities – one by one, a never ending list of names, which prompted the gentleman standing next to me to shout “Shut up” at the stage. If there’s one thing in Manchester that you can rely on, it is this: the rowdy mob never disappoints.

* Shouting.

[Lovely fireworks photos by Paul Capewell at Manchester Daily Photo]

As I promised (warned, that is) you last week, I went on a little trip to Levenshulme. As a loyal reader* of the South Manchester Reporter, I was aware of the existence of this area of Manchester, but could never really pin down what exactly constituted Levenshulme. Or what was happening there. Or who lived there. In order to battle my ignorance, the fab Helen from Love Levenshulme volunteered to put up with me for an afternoon and give me an introduction to the wonderful world of Levenshulme.

On a very lovely and very sunny Sunday, I climbed the stairs to the top deck of the 192, leaving behind Piccadilly and slowly moving down Stockport Road, past teenagers in sleeping bags camping outside the Apollo, through Ardwick and Longsight, finally getting off at Levenshulme rail station to meet my guide for the day. Our first stop was the absolutely brilliant POD deli which had its name from its location – a former post office! (Yeah that kind of stuff does get me quite excited.)

We spent almost two hours at POD, stuffing our little faces with delicious food and chatting away with Helen and her “almost next door neighbours”. “There are lots of families in Levenshulme!” they said, pointing at the children and prams squeezed into the tiny café. “Oh really?”, I replied. “I just thought it was well dodgy!”. I learned that, while certainly having its slightly more grubby areas, Levenshulme was full of families, a large student population, parks, and a lovely little creative scene, which was proved by the handmade cards and brooches displayed at POD.

We only just managed to drag ourselves off the chairs at POD and move further down the road, past a phone box that looked like it had been the location of a very long and potentially very interesting phone call, containingsix emtpy cans of Skol Super – a 9% lager. Welcome to Levenshulme.

We arrived at the mysterious “Antiques Village”, which, as it turned out, wasn’t an actual village, but an old council building that had been turned into an antiques shopping mall. We explored the little museum-like shops that had bits and bobs crammed in up to the ceiling, including a creepy self-inflating Michelin man, discovered the amazing Agaphantus Antiques shop (ooh! Shiny!) that Helen had only just mentioned on Love Levenshulme, and had a cup of tea from the little café in the village. And that’s where my trip to Levenshulme ended – distracted by lovely food, lovely chats, and shiny things, I didn’t actually manage to explore the dingy backstreets I had been hoping for. I suppose there is only one way to solve this (terrible, teeeerrrible) problem: I have to come back to Levy as soon as possible!

Special notice: Love Levenshulme are running a photo competition titled “Levenshulme Loves”. The deadline is on Wednesday 3rd November, so I recommend you pay a visit to Levy, snap some awesome pictures (i.e. better than what you see below…) and send them in as soon as you can. Fame awaits you!

* When we first moved down here, we used to put the South Manchester Reporter in the bathroom as toilet reading material. Now it just goes straight into the recycling.

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.

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!