Category: Mightaswell

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!]

On a side note: Cardboard Kid making new friends

Sam Bail

If you’ve seen the post below, you were probably* wondering what my little 2-dimensional button eyed office mate was doing – Gareth posted an update on cardboardkid.co.uk, go and have a look!

* Probably not.

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: Cardboard Kid’s arrival!

Sam Bail

I recently* discovered my liking for things with button eyes – which is probably why the desk in my office (listen, people of Manchester! I’ve got an OFFICE. I’m a GROWN UP. Go me!) is occupied by button-eyed creatures of all sorts.

You can probably imagine how delighted I was when I discovered 365 Days of Cardboard Kid to give me my daily fix of button-eyedness: Cardboard Kid, the 2-dimensional cardboard-coloured and square looking anti-hero, who tends to get in quite dramatic situations sometimes.

I kept following the adventures of my new little cardboard friend with excitement – until last Friday, when the poor kid was involved in some sort of accident (my guess: pub fight…) and suffered severe injuries. I was more than just mildly upset, to say the least.

Fortunately, Gareth gave me the opportunity to look after the poor little fella and posted him to me, neatly wrapped in two envelopes. The other residents on my desk were rather excited about the new arrival and gave Cardboard Kid a warm welcome (only that lazy Rubix Cube couldn’t be bothered leaving his favourite spot in front of my screen). Updates on the kid’s way to recovery and his adventures with his new the button-eyed mates might follow (somewhere on Gareth’s website or facebook page).

If you think I’ve gone bonkers, you may or may not be right.

* Not quite true, I’ve been madly in love with Domo Kun for almost a decade now.

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.

Neighborhood #1: You are now IN Salford

Sam Bail

Basically a part of Manchester (uh oh, I really shouldn’t say that), Salford is still the big unknown to me. Even after living here for 2 years, I only ever managed to cross the bridge once*, have a wander around the Adelphi campus, and then escape back to Manchester straight away. I was quite looking forward to spending a day in “the other city” last Sunday, when several Mancunian promoters were hosting the “Sounds from the other city” festival (which was pretty awesome by the way – I’ve written a more detailed review on bunmagazine.tumblr.com)

As soon as I had crossed the bridge and left the hot pink sign screaming “Welcome – you are now IN Salford” behind me, I was greated by one of the members of society who regard tracksuit bottoms as suitable for wearing outside a gym (Please note: They’re not.), smiling at me with his teethless mouth, then shouting at his son who was wearing matching trackies. Welcome indeed.

Walking down Chapel Street was a rather sad experience: Almost every other building, presumably former pubs, on this road is empty, boarded up and crumbling. What a shame, given it is so close to the city centre and could act as an extension to Market Street, with the Northern Quarter on the upper end of the street. It almost feels like Chapel Street was intentionally left deserted to avoid any kind of confusion with Manchester – a clear cut between the centre and Salford, constituted by a no-man’s-land devoid of function (okay, it’s not that bad, but there really isn’t much on that road).

There seems to be an ambitious regeneration (let’s hope it is more ambitious than the website…) project going on (Spinningfields 2 anyone?), and with events like the Sounds from the other city festival the usual Mancunian crowd takes notice of the existence of their neighbour at last – but there is still a lot of work to be done to make this area of Salford not only a place you could easily go to, but also one you would want to.

Looking down Chapel Street towards Manchester (Jenga-like Courts of justice on the right)

Islington Mill. Former cotton mill, fantastic gig venue and artist space. There’s always something happening and it’s usually quite loud.

* Not incuding the trips to the Lowry and the Imperial War Museum North, but that doesn’t necessarily count as seeing anything of Salford itself.

Field trip: The Underground Tea (London)

Sam Bail

My weekend activities? Well, there was a feminist march in Manchester, a geeky (un)conference in Cambridge, and a fancy afternoon tea at an underground restaurant in London. Hosted by a lady who goes by the name Ms Marmitelover, a small number of people gathered at a private house in north London to enjoy drinks, food and – sun! All top secret, semi-legal and home made.

There was a “psychic in the shed” (not my words) who told me some interesting things about my life. I had to choose tarot cards and picked “Death”. Oh.

The kitchen. Hardly visible in the back, giving instructions (and always wearing a timer round her neck): the lovely Ms Marmitelover – hostess, chef and underground restaurant legend. (I don’t know if she’s a legend, but she’s been doing it for 1 1/2 years now and she’s nice, so I think she deserves legend status).

In addition to tomato tart, blue cheese quiche, high heels biscuits, red velvet cake with raspberries, strawberry tart with custard, and tea infused vodka, we had this: rude biscuits, rose & chocolate marshmallows, Marmite cupcakes – absolutely delicious. I can’t wait for a pop up restaurant / supperclub / underground restaurant / youknowwhatimean to appear in Manchester!*

Until then, I suppose you have to make sure you book a place at one of the many supperclubs next time you go down to London!

* I’d totally do it, but that would mean entire meals consisting of dhal and broccoli, not too sure if that would go down too well with the foodies.

Pretty Green: A trip to Fletcher Moss

Sam Bail

Last week was absolutely shocking. For the first time in almost a year the weather actually made me want to spend time outside. Park time! Since we all know that Platt Field’s park is an utterly useless waste of green spaces (ok, so that’s not true, since I consider all green spaces valuable. But don’t you think they could have come up with something slightly more appealing than a bit of grass, a half arsed rose garden and a concrete pond that constantly suffers from bizarre algae?), my task on Saturday was to find a nice park in south Manchester. Fog Lane park isn’t too exciting either, so there were Didsbury park and Fletcher Moss left to choose from (I know there’s quite a few more, but I didn’t feel that adventurous). I went for the one with the fancier name and ended up at Fletcher Moss, situated right behind the “Didsbury” pub (which was absolutely heaving – after all, it was derby day). How convenient.

And ooooh I love love loved it. I managed to secure the best spot by a little pond in some very pretty Japanese / botanical garden style bit after wandering round the vast fields and a wooden bridge like path. I even felt too warm in the sun to wear a cardigan. Happy times.

Which is your favourite park in Manchester?