Time for some more objects of desire. The sales weren’t up to much, and
let’s face it your savings could be better, but even imaginary retail therapy can help on the long
haul to payday . Here’s what future-me has his eye on
...
Ghetto Blaster Cushion
£17
Beard T-shirt
£22
BaByliss i-Stubble Trimmer
£40
New Balance trainers
£55
Primavera Festival, Barcelona
£145
Flight from Manchester to Melbourne
£685
Smithson Martin Emulator Multi-Touch Professional DJ System
Well, the world didn’t end, but it’s still in a right old state,
and isn’t music the very best of comforts and the most comforting of
distractions? I’ve had a special little moment with every one of these
songs in 2012. I’ll wax lyrical on the top ten when we get there, and what a ten
it is. Here’s the Spotify playlist, and here's the rundown from 50…
14. Macklemore & Ryan Lewis – Thrift Shop - feat. Wanz
13. Friends – A Thing Like This
12. The Child of Lov – Heal
11. Orbital – One Big Moment
And the top 10…
10. Kitty Pryde –
Okay Cupid
‘Get out my
rooooom….!’ A super late entry from Ms Pryde and her girlish, lolloping gem
of a single. It didn’t occur to me until about my tenth listen that this was rap. I’ve been so brainwashed into
thinking rap belongs entirely to hip-hop but here’s Kitty to prove otherwise.
Lyrically, this might be favourite thing on the list. Just listen:
‘Lordy, shorty, you're
a 10 and I wait for your drunk dials at 3:30 am, I love them.
So call me sober when
you're ready, not goin’ steady, but babe I planned our wedding already’
9. Todd Terje –
Inspector Norse
Everybody loves
this track, how could they not? It’s Bentley Rhythm Ace and The Clangers for a generation
reared on Aeroplane mixes. Terje’s amazing instrumental shows there are other ways
to be uplifting without having crashing great crescendos everywhere. And just
when you think you’re in the groove with it, at three minutes thirty that weird
hummmmmm bottoms out and makes you
want to do all the messy things in the world. Out and out magic.
8. Grimes – Genesis
She’s the Enya you can dance to. That’s a good thing, by the
way. I nearly chose ‘Oblivion’ or ‘Be A Body’, the album is choc-full of these
little masterpieces, but ‘Genesis’ neatly represents everything she’s best at.
The Enya’s really kick in just shy of a minute but then it gives way to that
amazing beat... An electronic masterclass.
7. Mykki Blanco &
Brenmar – Wavvy
The queering of hip-hop continues apace. Mykki Blanco is not
just an artist who happens to be gay either, there is full-on sexual potency
and radical drag at the heart of his material. This addictive track is actually
trad hip-hop in lots of ways, the me-me-me vibes are intact and the production
could be a 50 Cent record, but just listen to those words:
‘I pimp slap you bitch
niggas with my limp wrist, bro
What the fuck I gotta
prove to a room full of dudes
Who ain't listening to
my words cuz they staring at my shoes…’
Come out Missy Elliott, it’s lovely out here.
6. Girls Aloud – On
The Metro
Comeback single ‘Something New’ was just clearing the decks
for this knowing, rollicking bullet of a track. Great pop can usually eclipse
whoever is actually singing it, and this would have been just as good in the
hands of anyone from Mini Viva to Kylie, but the fact Cheryl at the very least might
have actually cried on the Metro adds some charming veracity to the whole affair.
5. Sleigh Bells –
Comeback Kid
I didn’t really know or mind what Sleigh Bells were going to
do next, but this piece of massive Ratatat-meets-Stars buzz-saw gutter pop turned
into my favourite ever track of theirs. Drunk air-guitaring to this became a
brilliant thing for me this year, it’s
in my repertoire forever.
4. iamamiwhoami –
Goods
Kate Bush’s influence seems to be all over the place this
year (Alex Winston, Grimes) and nowhere is it more obvious than on the weird
helium-and-trill vocals of this track, so it might take you a while to realise
you are in the middle of the best dance song of 2012. Jonna Lee’s iamamiwhoami
project has delivered something astonishingly good in the Kin album. Not a shabby moment on it.
3. Haim – Forever
Perfect guitar pop record. I’ve been falling in love to and
with this song since the summer. It might turn out to be one of those golden
one-hit moments a la Wilson Philips but right now it sounds like the greatest reason
in the world to grow your hair and cycle round town with your sisters. The
Lindstrom and Prins Thomas re-work was one of my favourite mixes of the year too.
2. Solange – Losing
You
Her most sensational output since ‘Sandcastle Disco’, nobody
has quite put their finger on why this track is so great, so perfect in fact. Every
botched description I’ve read in the press has put it further out of reach. It’s
a sad song first off, all my favourite songs are, but it sounds like she’s at a
block party, and the weird dissonance between the two is a pop trick worthy of
Prince. It’s quite simply brilliant. You can stop mentioning the B-word now.
1. Winhill/Losehill –
Tell Her She's The Light Of The World
It’s fate and only fate that a band that just rolled up in
my ‘recommended listening’ one day has had such a lasting impact on me. This
video was the first thing I heard from Sweden’s Winhill/Losehill and it was
love at first listen. ‘Tell Her She's The Light Of The World’ isn’t just my
song of the year, their album Swing Of Sorrowis the most perfectly realised and moving set of songs I have heard
in ages. From the opening ten seconds of silence, to ‘Karin’s Hymn’ where a
mournful cello drops out of the sky like a Lancaster Bomber, to the perfect happy/sad
Neil Young-esque ‘The House Is Black’ and ‘Long Way To Next Stop’, to the brilliantly
funny Beirut-style stomper ‘I Leave You ‘Cause I Don’t Care’, this sounds like
a band at the absolute peak of their vision, and it’s only a debut. Song, band,
and album of 2012.
Postscript and
Interview
I was so possessed by wanting to know where this kind of songwriting
can come from, and getting tired of reading badly Google-translated interviews
in Swedish, that I tracked down the band myself and asked them some questions.
Here’s what they told me:
The
music for this album was written under a terrible cloud of sadness around
Jonas’ mother’s illness and subsequent passing. Is it important for listeners
to know about these unusually fraught circumstances, or are you happy for the
album to stand alone?
JONAS - I hope it can stand alone without the listeners necessarily
knowing about all that. I mean, those things are the reasons we came together
to make the record so of course it’s really important for us, but my impression
is that anyone who has been through something similar, like the loss of a loved
one or any form of painful breakup, can catch up on that just from relating to
the songs in themselves.
The
band name comes from a place near to me, just over in Derbyshire, where Jonas
visited as a youth. What are your memories of England, and have you or any of
the band ever been to Manchester?
JONAS – One of my memories is walking in the mountains
just outside of Hope village; the landscapes were very inspiring and beautiful.
The strongest memory though is the music I experienced and learned during my
stay at a folk music camp. English folk music has definitely been an
inspiration for Swing of Sorrow. Unfortunately
though, I've never been to Manchester.
CARL – Many members of the band have been to the UK and
we’d obviously love to come play there soon, especially in a music city like
Manchester!
Where
does the album title Swing Of Sorrow come from?
CARL - The short answer is that ‘back in your wild swing of sorrow love’ is the first line in ‘Don’t
let the inside shine out’. But Swing of
Sorrow was also the working title for another song way back, which we
eventually changed. When we were to decide on an album title it suddenly came
back to us. Partly because we felt that all the mood swings we’d been through
during the grieving process was exactly that, a swing of sorrow. And partly
because of the musical reference, a way of tying grief and music together.
What
makes this record so special for me is that there are moments of terrible
melancholy offset by a wonderful sense of elation and hope. Is that a fair
assessment of your intentions?
JONAS - I find it hard to define intentions like that, composing
is just so much more intuitive to me, but it’s definitely a really beautiful and
flattering assessment of how one can receive our music.
Some
artists revel in abstraction, such as Bon Iver, and that can work really well. Your
writing seems to be the opposite, there’s a concern that the listener
understands exactly what you intend. For instance the line, ‘In these songs I have tried to make it
clear: whenever she is close there is no fear’, is one of my favourite
moments. I find that frankness and lack of irony really moving. Is that an
accurate description for what your music is trying to achieve?
CARL - I believe that sometimes a straight line like that
can be the best way to say something complicated, and sometimes a queer
abstraction is necessary to say the simplest thing. We’re really into writing
songs and telling stories that matter to ourselves in ways that move the
listener and I wouldn’t want to avoid any methods of writing to achieve that.
We write for ourselves and for strangers, so to speak.
In
the rest of Europe and America, Swedish music seems to fall in and out of
fashion from time to time (see also Canadian music). Would you consider
yourself part of a ‘scene’, and do you think it’s a help or a hindrance?
JONAS - I wouldn’t really say we’re part of a scene in
that way. Of course there are some bands that we feel related to musically, but
that’s sort of independent of time and space, and some bands that are our
friends, but that’s mostly being from Umeå and having known each other from way
back.
‘Karin’s
Hymn’ is one of the loveliest instrumental pieces I’ve heard in years. Are you
classically trained musicians, and do you differentiate between using one type
of instrument and another when you’re making music for the band?
JONAS - Thank you so much. Writing that piece was a truly
proud moment for me as a composer and one of the songs I remember playing on
the piano for my mother while she was sick. Writing music to record and playing
music live are two very different things to me and I try to think as little as
possible of the practical circumstances and different levels of training of the
musicians when I'm writing, so that the creative process can be as free as
possible.
CARL – As far as the band is concerned, everybody comes
from really different backgrounds with various degrees of having studied or
worked with music, but we’ve all been playing together in different
constellations since about high school.
What’s
great about living in Sweden, and wuld you ever consider living anywhere else?
CARL - What’s great is the few remains of the welfare
state, but that’s unfortunately being dismantled more and more for every day.
If things don’t change for the better soon, maybe we’ll have to consider going
into exile: preferably somewhere a bit warmer, less racist and more fair. Where
is that again?
JONAS - The musical climate in Sweden is often very warm
and supportive and it has helped me and the band a lot in the creation of Swing
of Sorrow to have the kind of support we've had from other musicians, teachers,
institutions and people around us.
I can
hear so many diverse influences in the music (some that may not even be there),
such as Neil Young, Beirut, P:ano… Who really does influence you as musicians
and songwriters?
JONAS – Me and my co-producer Henrik Nybom (also the
band's drummer) were listening a lot to classical composers while arranging and
recording Swing of Sorrow, for
example Igor Stravinsky and György Ligeti. Rufus Wainwright and Frank Zappa are
two other important influences.
CARL – From those you mentioned, I’ve taken more interest
in Neil Young again just recently, when it comes to writing lyrics. But during
the work with Swing of Sorrow, and in
general, I really find the most inspiration in writers and poets rather than
songwriters. Lyn Hejinian, Forough Farrokhzad and Marguerite Duras for example.
JONAS - And in the end, just hanging around together is
probably the most inspiring for all of us!
What
new music have you enjoyed this year?
JONAS - Just the other day I discovered Sufjan Stevens
latest Christmas-album which gave me a joyful feeling that'll hopefully stick
during the holidays. My greatest musical experience this year was definitely
Bon Iver's perfomance at Way Out West in Gothenburg last summer, which was one
of the greatest experiences of my life, all categories.
CARL - It’s been a such a good year for new music I think,
it’s really hard to choose. But Cat Power was really great, as well as Patti
Smith and Rufus Wainwright. And I’d say some of the songs on Psychedelic Pill
are among the best Neil Young’s ever written.
What’s
next for the band, and when can we see you play?
JONAS - Well, we’re back to writing new material of
course, and we’re really looking forward to play at By:Larm in Oslo in February,
our first gig outside of Sweden!
8. Everything Everything – My Keys, Your
Boyfriend
7. La Roux – In For The Kill
6. Julian Casablancas – 11th Dimension
5. Dizzee Rascal – Bonkers
4. Lady Gaga – Paparazzi
3. V V Brown – Shark In The Water
2. Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Zero
1. Girls – Lust
For Life
2010
10. The Besnard Lakes – Chicago Train
9. Yeasayer – I Remember
8. Broken Bells – The High Road
7. John Grant – Outer Space
6. Gorillaz – On Melancholy Hill
5. Xiu Xiu – Chocolate Makes You Happy
4. Band Of Horses – Blue Beard
3. Robyn – Dancing On My Own
2. Beach House – Zebra
1. Everything
Everything – Weights
2011
10. Azealia Banks – 212
9. Junior Boys – Banana Ripple
8. PJ Harvey – On Battleship Hill
7. Joe Goddard – Gabriel
6. Foster The People – Pumped Up Kicks
5. Metronomy – Corinne
4. Nicola Roberts – Beat Of My Drum
3. James Blake – The Wilhelm Scream
2. Elbow – lippy kids
1. Bon Iver –
Beth/Rest
And so to 2012. Chances are if you
made super sad folk music or out-there hip-hop or if you’re a woman
who listens to a lot of Kate Bush and
I heard about it, then you’re probably on the list. It was as fragmented and
hub-bub a year as I can ever remember. Another year where the brilliant singles
were never the best tracks on the album, another year where the women seemed to
outstrip the men (if you’re bothered about that kind of thing), another year
where unstoppable pop juggernauts could un-cool your scrobbling list in a
matter of days, and if nothing ever tops
that top ten from last year (look at it!) then the list this year manages to blow
every other one out of the water in one department at least: lyrics. Beautiful,
strange, forward-looking, painful, funny and effervescent writing everywhere
you listened. 2012 was like having your bookshelves set to music…
‘It starts like
this: a kiss is a kiss….’
‘She may
contain the urge to run away, but hold her down with soggy clothes and breezeblocks…’
‘We held our breath to see our names are
written on the wreck of '86. That was the year I knew the panic was over…’
‘You gave me my
very first gun…’
'Then she
starts to cry, mascara running down her little Bambi eyes: "Lana, how I
hate those guys"...'
‘My sister
asked, ‘Are we prayin’ for him to pass?’ And no one dared speak out loud, but
we all knew, and pushed the paperwork through…’
'The Last Post
sounds, just like a love song for the way I feel about you;
paradise not lost,
it's in you ...'
‘Before the
full weight was on our shoulders, before the twilight’s cover, before I knew
time was such a swindler. Oh my dear friend, everything falls to death…’
Wonderful stuff. I’m posting the first half of
the top 50 for now; the top 25 is still
subject to painful reshuffling (rest assured the Top 3 are carved in marble). But
it’s coming very soon. I hope you find something here to love for a very long
time. And right here is a Spotify list for your convenience. Merry Christmas,
2012.
I took a little
writing sojourn to London recently, a long weekend in the wilds of Streatham
Hill to live with a cat named Trevor. I spent a day in central London first
though, visiting various places I’d been meaning to go to for ages. Saint Paul’s
Church, Covent Garden – otherwise known as ‘the Actor’s Church’ – is where many
a famous thespian is remembered. I got teary-eyed before I even made it inside,
as each of the benches in the churchyard carries a commemoration, from Beryl Reid
(‘So much love…’) to a long-serving head
librarian at the RADA. The church itself was officially closed but I snuck inside
by holding open the door for a man carrying a set of bongo drums. Inside is a
lovely modest sort of church with plaques everywhere for the great and good of
British stage and screen. That’s one reason I wanted to go, another is that legend
has it that the first of London’s plague victims is buried here, one Margaret
Ponteous, 1665. And yet another is that Henrietta Street, which runs alongside Saint Paul’s, was home to the Hell Club, an early New Romantic
hangout, before they were calledNew
Romantics and before they took over the Blitz. Steve Strange tells an amazing story
of how everyone was on acid one night in Hell and the club was so hot they all
spilled out into the graveyard and danced around there, tripping their noodles
off in their outrageous costumes. Isn’t that an amazing image? I liked it
so much I've drafted an entire novel plot around the idea.
Having
soaked up these lovely pagan vibes, I emerged into the decidedly more
Christmassy environs of Covent Garden looking for coffee, which I found in a
state of near perfection at New Row Coffee.
The coffee is incredible, go there. They’re
lovely folk too. Revived, I then walked to Soho to have a nosey at the Soho Hotel
where one of the scenes begins in the novel I’m working on. There’s not much to
see, Dean Street turns into a little mews with a red brick and quite
Mancunian-looking structure piled up the end, which is the hotel. There’s a large
shiny black Buddha cat in the foyer. From there it’s a short walk to Soho Square.
I make a little pilgrimage here from time to time, especially when it’s cold, to
sit on a bench and play ‘Soho Square’ by Kirsty MacColl, whom I adore and miss
terribly... ‘… kiss
me quick, in case I die before my birthday…’
Next
stop is Southwark and I decide to take a Boris bike. Opposite the bike park at Soho
Square, Will Young is waiting for a cab, holding a bunch of flowers. My mother wants
me to marry Will Young so I wait at least until eye contact is established, but
it’s brief. I guess the flowers are not meant for me. Will gets in his cab with
barely a glance and I hop up on my bike. I love Boris bikes. It only costs a
pound – and almost my life at Piccadilly Circus – but before I know it I’m
sailing past the Thames, over Blackfriars’s Bridge, and into deepest Southwark.
(When is somebody going to put something interesting where that old sandwich
shop is at the bottom of the Blackfriars’s Bridge by the way…?)
Southwark
is my very favourite bit of London, even more so now that I’ve been to the Cross
Bones Graveyard, which you can read about here, and also
because I discovered yesterday that Stock, Aitken & Waterman’s Hit Factory
was round here too, on Vine Yard. I love Borough Market of course, and Tooley
Street, and I’m even coming round to the idea of The Shard. Maybe. Yes, Southwark
is the place for me.
From
London Bridge I catch the train to Streatham Hill, deep in the South London
suburbs. Angela Carter country. I arrive in the dark, meet Trevor the enormous
handsome cat, do some writing, and go to sleep early. In the morning I leap out
of bed and go for a jog in the dazzling autumn sunshine. I plough into the school
run for the primary school a few doors down and from there I run to Brockwell
Park, run right around it, and home. It’s downhill all the way and uphill all
the way back. My legs are still in considerable pain four days later. It is the
last jog I am even able to do for the rest of the trip. None of this bodes well
for the sponsored 10K I am meant to run in May.
After
a day of writing I catch the train back to Southwark. London is steeped in a
marvellous silver fog by now. I walk over Tower Bridge, which is every bit as
exciting as Brooklyn Bridge tonight. I walk down Park Street which is magical
and Dickensian. We are looking for The Rose Theatre, London’s oldest surviving theatre,
and the very first to open on Bankside. Tonight they are performing The Winter’s Tale on a small fenced stage
above the excavation site of the ancient theatre. The Rose preceded even The
Globe just along the river, opening in 1587. Shakespeare performed here as an
actor and staged two of his own plays here too. The layout of the theatre, the outside
wall and jutting stage, is described in red lights so you can see where the building
once sat. It’s thrilling. I can feel old voices and ghosts coming up through
the ground. Musicians play over in the far corner of the excavation site, lit
by candles. The performance is lovely too; enticing and fun and heart-breaking.
Francesca De Sica’s Hermione is wonderful. I am given a flower (at last!) by guitar-playing
troublemaker Autolycus, but even he reclaims it at the end of the play. I take
it as a good omen though. I fall for The Rose, and they have just this week
heard they will be getting a
Heritage Lottery Grant to complete the excavation. If/when The Shakespeare Girlis published I want to have my launch party
there. Some fine ale follows in The George,
off Borough High Street. There has been a pub on this site since at least 1543
and the current building dates to the mid-seventeenth century. Yes, Southwark is
the place for me.
I
am then firmly holed up for the next couple of days, churning out thousands of
new words and feeling the spirit of what I first planned to write all those
months ago. Twenty-three thousand words in, The
Shakespeare Girl is coming to life. Missing social events and getting used
to solitude gets easier the longer you write. Having a terrifyingly close
deadline also works wonders. Angela
Carter’s last novel, Wise Children,
was a large part of the original inspiration behind the story. Streatham Hill
is next to Balham, where Carter grew up, and I find out her old school is not
far away so I take a walk there. It proves impossible to find mention of the
house she grew up in though. I expect the present tenants would like to avoid
legions of bespectacled girls in maxi skirts, and me, leaving flowers at the
gate. Anyway, she’s in the leafy air down there somewhere and I go home and write
a scene about a famous actor who goes out into the Soho night in drag, and I
think she would approve.
'It makes me angry that we have so many boarded up buildings and shops that have stayed in that state for years, and yet rather than investing money in a homeless shelter or doing something about the situation, we get yet another up-market, trendy bar that we don’t need...'
What’s
your name?
Katie Slade
What do
you do?
I am the Rights, Marketing and Events Manager at
independent short fiction publisher, Comma Press. I got hired in September
2011, so I’ve been there just over a year now. Before landing this awesome role
I worked at the Odeon for around four years, first as a team member, then as a
supervisor, and I temped a little in the admin office, to support myself
through university. Now, thanks to Ra Page and Jim Hinks, I never have to say,
‘Would you like an Odeon Premiere Club Card?’ ever again.
Where do
you live?
City Gate apartment blocks in Castlefield. My
street is just after the little bridge, over the canal with the barges and the
geese who attack anyone who tries to cross the grass.
Tell us
the story of how you ended up in Manchester.
I was born in an area called Sidcup in Kent, but
moved to Derbyshire with my mum when I was eleven. Living in the peaks may
sound nice but I lived in a small town called Chesterfield where everyone was
related and lived next door to the same people for about fifty years.
Entertainment and nightlife were pretty much non-existent, so when I reached
the end of my A-levels in 2007, I thought, ‘Fuck this’ and decided to go to a
university that was far enough away that I could be independent, but not so far
so that my mum would feel abandoned. I honestly can’t remember why I picked
Manchester – I guess it just made sense at the time. I just wanted to be
somewhere where there were actually things to do, and I could go shopping
without bumping into half the neighbourhood.
I’d
already made up my mind to stay permanently by the time I graduated, and I’d
already applied to do a two-year MA course, so my boyfriend and I finally moved
in together and made our own home in Manchester. I think my mum is still
holding out hope that I’ll move back to Chesterfield but I’ve been slowly
easing her into the reality that there is no way that will ever happen. My old
room is still the way it was when I left home five years ago!
I
can’t honestly say I love Manchester but it’ll do for now. Plus my work is
here, so I’ll just have to see where the future takes me.
What’s
great about this city?
The literary scene is vast and varied, and
everyone knows each other within these circles, so it feels like a very
friendly, supportive and inclusive community. There are always literary events
going on, whether it’s a poetry slam, a short story reading or a book launch,
and with so many cultural venues within walking distance, you’re never too far
away from something. We also have some of the top literary names living in our
midst – Jeanette Winterson, MJ Hyland, Carol Ann Duffy, to name a few. There
are also lots of photographers, artists and film-makers either bred or
developed in Manchester, so you can usually find someone to do a top quality
job on whatever it is you want making.
Also,
from my own personal perspective, there are three major theatres right on our
doorstep, which means whenever a show I want to see is on tour, I don’t have to
travel miles out of the city to see it. I can go enjoy the West End’s finest
without having to walk more than half an hour. And the tickets are probably far
cheaper than you would pay in London.
It’s
the same with touring bands. A few years ago, I got to see one of my all time
favourite bands who had come all the way from California, for just £12. It was
at the Academy so I easily walked there and back and got right up close to the
stage. It was incredible.
Finally
– the city has a diverse, multicultural population. When I worked at the Odeon,
I met people from all over the world, people who are still my friends now.
Meeting people with different native tongues, experiences, cultures and
backgrounds, people who can show you interesting things, introduce you to new
food (and do the odd translation for me here and there!) is a wonderful thing. Especially
when you grew up in such a repetitive, monotonous community where people are
suspicious of anything beyond their own county.
Oh
yeah – and the Gay Village. In a lot of places you can just wear your jeans and
trainers which is perfect for me.
What’s not
so great?
I’m going to sound like a right asshole now, but
you asked me to be honest, so three things…
The nearest bowling alley is Didsbury – what’s
that all about? Even Chesterfield had a bowling alley...
It seems very corporate. Everywhere you go it’s
loyalty cards and brand names and overpriced food. It’s either restaurants or
trendy bars, and very few normal, down-to-earth cafes where you can just order
something like toast, or pubs where you can just chill without having ciabatta
with goats cheese and organic hummus, skinny jeans and TopMan cardigans shoved
in your face. Even the Northern Quarter, which I thought was cool when I first
moved here as a naïve eighteen-year-old, is starting to get on my nerves. I’m
writing this on a train coming back from Brighton, and there you couldn’t move for
independent, family-run cafes and shops. Sure, they had all the other stuff like
Boots and Costa and H&M, but brands were outnumbered by an emphasis on
local produce and local business. For me, Manchester is either about
corporations or trendy places which try to pass themselves off as down-to-earth
and independent, but are actually stupidly expensive or pretentious.
I can’t get to work or back without being
bothered by someone who wants what little change I have in my pocket. I don’t
mind Big Issue sellers, I regularly
buy the magazine, but the amount of beggars in the city centre alone seems to
have tripled in the last few years, the situation seems out of control. I know
this sounds horrible, but it’s not as if I’m wealthy, and every week I lose
pretty much all the change I have in my purse to get myself bread and milk and essentials,
just because I feel too guilty to say no – even though these people tell you
the same story every week, somehow afford new trainers and mobile phones for
the next time you see them, and hurl a torrent of abuse at you if you tell them
you don’t have anything to give. It makes me angry that we have so many boarded
up buildings and shops that have stayed in that state for years, and yet rather
than investing money in a homeless shelter or doing something about the
situation, we get yet another up-market, trendy bar that we don’t need. I don’t
know anything about government but I’m sick of dreading the walk to and from
work, and I wish I could see evidence of someone doing something about it.
Do you
have a favourite Manchester building?
I don’t know if I have a favourite but I’ve
always liked the faded grandeur of the Palace Hotel on Oxford Road. There’s
something about the clock tower and the green domes on the top that make me
think of people going there to dance and court each other in the 1940s and
stuff. I imagine years ago it was the height of class and glamour.
Do you
have a favourite Mancunian?
Emmeline Pankhurst. And Jeanette Winterson. A
bit of both.
What’s
your favourite pub/bar/club/restaurant/park/venue?
The Footage. Poptastic. Baa Bar. The Lowry.
What do
you think is missing from Manchester?
A bowling alley.
If I was
Mayor for a day I would …
Have the Urbis building knocked down. It’s ugly.
Who else
would you like to nominate to answer this questionnaire?
I should probably say Jim Hinks as I don’t want
him to feel left out – but equally I don’t want it to look like favouritism for Comma, so I will also
nominate Mike Garry.
