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The Manchester Weekender 2011: All Done For This Year ... Or Is It?

I love city festivals. I love that feeling of being on holiday in the place you live. I love disparate events with a collective purpose. I love tearing all over town and Tweeting about it. I love free wine and cheap tickets and good conversation with motivated people. A hectic calendar of Manchester festivals (International, Pride, Jazz, Science, Food and Drink, Literature, Asia Triennial, Comedy, and of course the Weekender) provides this in spades.

The savvy thing about the Manchester Weekender is that it mingles events that might already be happening with new and specially-commissioned work to create mutual enthusiasm and mass encouragement to get out there and see what your city has to offer.

At Castlefield Gallery, Istanbul artists blend ideas of vacation and immigration, utilising everything from suitcases to IKEA-style stills of visa application offices. Entry is through a metal-detecting airport security gate. On the inside, voices of authority are aired through video interviews with visa office employees while the voices of the disappointed and rejected literally envelop the entire gallery on the outside; the walls and windows are papered with correspondence from people denied entry into various countries. The exhibition forms part of the ongoing Asia Triennial Manchester.

Against this backdrop Beating Wing Orchestra give a musical performance with a global and mesmerising blend of influences; old European, pan-Asian, Congolese, hip-hop, Bhangra, all with astonishing vocal dexterity. ‘World music’, explains one of the singers simply. A terrific feeling of camaraderie between band members, and eventually between band and audience too, make this a special event.

Down at the Whitworth Gallery, After Hours present ‘BlackLab’, an amalgam of set pieces that complement the existing ‘Dark Matters’ exhibit. Both play with light, film, delay, transparency, print, music and motion. The slow-mo movie of burning oilfields is weirdly touching while next door live guitar and cello soundtrack short films of traditional paper silhouette stop-motion. Whether the man shouting ‘MARGARET THATCHER! KARL MARX!’ is an installation himself or someone with political Tourettes I’m still not sure. ‘Cosmodrome’, screened in the auditorium, pays melancholic testimony to the heroes of Soviet space travel.

‘Primitive Streak’ is fashion meets life science. Divided between the Royal Exchange mezzanine gallery and the windows of Debenhams, the clothes shown in photograph, sketches or their final stitched form are inspired by the cellular development of living humans, so we get designs for spinal couture, a ‘sperm’ dress and, my favourite, the ‘Anaphase Dress’ which surely should belong to Bjork by rights?

Time to hit the shoe leather for two Mancunian walks. The first sees Ed Glinert from New Manchester Walks take a group of booted and be-torched urban explorers through Manchester’s concealed subterranean history and its fascinating links with Nazi invasion, state secrecy and ambitious canal endeavours. It’s thrilling and unnerving to be metres beneath Deansgate and not hear a sound. Memories of people enduring uncomfortable, diseased hours in the expansive bomb shelters feel all-too tangible in that dank air.

Then it’s back into sunshine and air for a tour of Ancoats, incorporating old and new, alluring decrepitude and ambitious renovation. The ‘Ancoats Peeps’ are discrete viewing portals, historical fragments placed in oblique locations that preserve images of Anocats’ past even as the district develops around them. Beginning and ending at the beautifully designed Cutting Room Square, the tour brought us into renovated cotton mills and the breathtaking interior of St Peter’s Church, soon to provide rehearsal space to the Halle Orchestra no less. A book is available to chronicle and complement the ‘Ancoats Peeps’.

The weekend ends on a high with Dave Haslam’s ‘Close Up with Jarvis Cocker’ in the intricate Gothic majesty of the Town Hall’s Great Hall. Surrounded by Ford Madox Brown’s vivid and edifying murals, Jarvis and Dave talk music, lyrics, sex, Michael Jackson and recession Britain before a rapt audience. Wonderful fun.

Though the Manchester Weekender is officially over, it is in fact a gateway to an autumn/winter schedule packed with events like the ones above. Festival season continues across the city. Check links, get on mailers and Twitter feeds, see what’s afoot. After 48 hours of cultural input it becomes apparent you can make a Manchester Weekender for yourself whenever you like. Get going ...

(Big thanks to Holly Jennison at All Points North)

The Manchester Weekender 2011

The leaves are dying a death but the city’s alive and kicking. Music, art, theatre, politics, underground, overground, lots of it free! That’s what Creative Tourist have magically/manically pulled together for the imminent Manchester Weekender, running from this Friday (14th) to the far end of Sunday evening.

‘It’s all about engaging conversations, big questions, daring performances, secret places and cool spaces,’ says the spiel. Perfect.

The good folk at All Points North have asked me to delve in and report back from the artistic front over this frantic three-dayer, and I’ve accepted the challenge.

A full guide for the three days can be obtained right here, and a more compact version, a clash-finder if you will, is here. Best get planning. Here’s what’s currently taking my fancy …

Primitive Streak … couture meets evolutionary science in these free exhibits at the Royal Exchange and Debenhams

Sounds Like A Gallery … tributes to Manchester Art Gallery and its collection told through the medium of the banjo (!) and other instrumentation

Beating Wing Orchestra … part of Asia Triennial, migrant and refugee musicians make up this collective performing at Castlefield Gallery

After Hours presents BlackLab … a blend of prose, film and still photography, soundtracked live by artist and musician Otto Smart

Gothic Splendour … embrace Manchester’s Victorian roots by visiting Ford Madox Brown’s dozen murals housed in our beautiful imposing Town Hall

Underground Manchester with New Manchester Walks … torch, boots and backbone required for this subterranean exploration beneath the city streets

Ancoats Peeps … the endlessly rich story of the Ancoats streets is the subject of this walk, taking in historical buildings and new installations

Jarvis Cocker: Close Up with Dave Haslam … Round off your epic weekend in the company of a contender for the title of ‘Greatest Living Englishman’ inside the Town Hall’s wondrous Great Hall. Jarvis Cocker will be there too …

If you’re out Tweeting during the Weekender the hashtag is simply #McrWeekender so let’s get trending while we’re trekking.

See you out there…

Berlin Part 6: Our last auf wiedersehen …

A late healthy breakfast at Hilde’s where we meet Matthew’s friend, the lovely Anita. Anita is an ex-Mancunian resident and a delight so we decide to fall in love with her over croissants and fruit and Geordie’s fragrant peppermint tea which is simply fistfuls of shredded mint leaves in piping hot water and which smells of HEALTH. Delish. Anita hasn’t been in Berlin long but she already has a fascinating job working for this talented lady. Jealous.

The sun is blazing down. I have to donate my hat to Matthew. It’s a parks and ice-cream day for sure. I have pistachio and one other flavour which runs down to my elbow in the heat and makes me feel about eight. Mauerpark is our destination. It runs along the site of the old wall (‘mauer’) and the deathly no man’s land that lay there. Today it’s a bustling park with performance spaces, wild undergrowth, and best of all a huge flea market where you can and must buy everything from knives and forks and dresses to ice cold beer and records. Matthew tries on a lovely lavender panama hat with some sort of floral print on it and the couple running the stall fall about laughing.

After a nice lazy wander and some beers we retire to a bar across the road for Mai Tais in the shade. Our good intentions of visiting the gay museum fall apart as the cocktails work their magic. It’s simply too hot and too hilarious to do anything but sit and smoke and laugh like drains. Stomachs begin to rumble so we head out for Vietnamese food in the slowly cooling streets of Prenzlberg.

Soon it’s time to say goodbye to Anita. The boys and I begin to amble home. Soon the sky bruises and my skin starts to prickle. We’re not very far from the flat when the first ice-white flash of lightning booms its way across the sky. It’s the beginning of the biggest, loudest thunderstorm I’ve ever seen in my life. This was our view of it from our balcony (careful, it’s pretty loud…)

After watching in the hot rain and drinking some or other amazing wine with the lightning coming from all directions round the Fernsehturm I am filled with a weird kind of energy. It needs to be danced off. I leave the boys at home and go to meet Craig for nocturnal revelry. I don’t know if I have a reputation for getting lost or something but this is what is placed inside my wallet before I head out …

Pork at Fechen 3000 is exactly as upmarket and glamorous as it sounds. Tonnes of beary boys and fit art gays pinballing around the place to a mush of indie and dance and electro guff. The lovely Joel Gibb from The Hidden Cameras is DJing when we arrive and lets me take over the decks for a bit. The ‘decks’ being someone’s woefully undernourished iTunes from which I salvage some Ladytron or something. It’s all severely hazy by this point. I’m seriously entertaining missing my flight on purpose but the administrative nightmare of this threatens to sober me up (fat chance) and there’s still plenty of time to party yet.

There is more than one area in this nightclub establishment. I lose my brand new jackplug necklace in the other area of this nightclub establishment. That’s all I have to say about that.

I am limping for a cab home at 8 am. Every single item of my clothing is drenched with beer. The get-me-home Polaroid proves itself priceless. I still have it with me now. Everywhere I go.

Objects of desire: Part 2

The delights gathered below are all lovingly bookmarked with a view to potential future perusal and possible eventual acquisition. By me. Within reason. The Manhattan helicopter ride might have to wait till next year at the very least. Anyway, feast your eyes on these consumable beauties. By the way, this list in no way constitutes a series of enormous hints about things that you might like to buy me for Christmas. No no no …

Peruvian Organic Fairtrade Coffee

£19.79

Muppets Movies Boxset

£19.99

Chromeo, Terminal 5, New York

£30 (plus cost of getting to New York and staying there of course …)

Dinner at Terre A Terre in Brighton

£100

Manhattan Helicopter Ride

£100 (plus blah blah …)

Doc Marten Shoes

£110

Giorgio Armani Sunglasses

£165.90

Dualit Espressivo 79000 Coffee Machine, Polished Steel with Frothing Jug

£179

Paul Smith Black Colyer Spectacles

£196

Pioneer HDJ2000 Professional Headphones

£229

The Smiths Complete Deluxe Collector’s Box Set

£249.99

Vintage Narnia Chronicles

£320

Armani Coat

£375

Leaf grief

I do this every year so just bear with me. I actually didn’t mean for it to become a tradition. But here it is. I hate the autumn. I don’t know what it is. Except maybe I do. It’s because September smells funny. And the light is awkward. And my music sounds … off. Is that it? I think I have synaesthesia when September comes around. It’s the weird moon and the weather that changes minute to minute and the sweat and shiver because your clothes are all wrong. The beloved portholes that are the windows of my flat in HMS Lancaster start to look inwards at this time of year and I refuse to look back. My curtains are drawn until March.

More specifically tonight it’s poverty and fomo and all this recycling that I simply can’t face. And Morrissey.

I went to the launch of a book about Morrissey earlier. I’ve organised and introduced an identical event myself so I know it’s not easy. But this was a bit of an ordeal if I’m honest. A mixture of introverted and possibly unenthused academics saying oblique things to an audience who knew better and whose enthusiasm wained in under forty five minutes such that there were barely any questions and in fact one open and lengthy criticism.

Proceedings were lightened considerably by These Charming Men who bookended the discussion with quite lovely acoustic renditions from The Canon. But I went there alone and my questions sounded confrontational in my head (they weren’t) so I didn’t ask them. The people in front of me sniggered and rolled their eyes and left.

Then again, maybe it was me. I’m starting to think pop music might have ruined my life. I’m pretty sure I would have written more than one unpublished novel if not for pop music. I might have written two unpublished novels. Boom-tish. ‘There Is A Light That Never Goes Out’ instigated two enormously pivotal moments in my life and I’m a bit annoyed about it now. Although it will sound just right in the autobiography I suppose.

I left the book launch and turned on my iPod and it went straight to ‘Meat Is Murder’. I skipped. It was Robyn, ‘Dancing On My Own’. I could do without the signs and symbols at the moment. I’m pained by the single unbroken martini glass that survived the party here on Saturday night, a party that was terrific fun but that more or less went completely wrong.

I have quit smoking though. For good this time. The last time I quit was on the roof of the Hawley Arms in the sweltering heat of last summer, with cider, when Amy was alive. I don’t miss cigarettes but it seems the world and his husband have taken it up again. I was definitely ready to let it go though. It’s twenty years since I smoked my first one. It was love at first puff. He hit me and it felt like a kiss. But even a kiss shouldn’t last two decades.

Chin up though. September didn’t break me. I managed to skip it with a healthy degree of denial, plus a trip to Berlin which I am going to do every September from now until forever, just to take the edge off. I shall tell all about the final day and night of my German urlaub anon. It will be heavily edited so that we can remain friends.

Anyway, now that I’m a student again September means the start of term. I’m into the second year of a part time MA in Novel Writing at Manchester Metropolitan University. I’m actually doing this, and not just talking about doing this. So it’s back to a novel a week until Christmas. What could be lovelier? The reading list looks like this:

Muriel Spark, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

Vladimir Nabokov, Pnin

Margaret Drabble, The Millstone

Anthony Burgess, The Malayan Trilogy

V.S. Naipaul, Miguel Street

Doris Lessing, The Fifth Child

J.M. Coetzee, Disgrace

Benjamin Black, Elegy for April

Nicola Barker, Small Holdings

Howard Jacobson, The Finkler Question

Beryl Bainbridge, Master Georgie

See? We’re fine.

Coming up shortly: more Berlin, how to stay positive this autumn through retail therapy, and forthcoming exciting cultural events across Manchester.

I think I will buy pyjamas.

This on repeat please.