Good News!

Without wishing to turn this place solely into a regurgitation of what’s on the BBC News website, I feel compelled once again to talk about an item of news. Don’t worry – I promise to get onto more investigative and interesting topics soon but this is worth a mention. What with all the gloom in the press at the moment and reports of stabbings and murders three times a day (seemingly), this is the sort of story we need to boost morale a bit. It goes a little something like this:

In a pub in Bury an altercation develops between two men, for reasons unknown, and the instigator of the incident stabs the other man, inflicting serious wounds to head and body. Attacker flees. Female friend of victim chases attacker, catches up with him, floors him and holds him in a headlock until the police arrive. After prosecution, man is jailed for a minimum of 3.5 years.

Here’s a rather poor still of something going on in the pub:

I like stories like this. Not only does it offer a real life example of the classic good versus evil scenario, it...well, that’s it really. What more do you want? I’d just like to have seen his face when this woman was squeezing his neck for all her worth. Well done friend of attacked man in Bury pub!

Confectionery Police

More from the front line for you here: Last week a woman was asked to leave a cinema and ‘threatened with the police’ (how that works I’m not sure – were they wielded baton-like in front of her face?) for...wait for it...trying to take sweets into a cinema!

The bewildered woman was innocently entering a screening of one of the latest brainwashing attempts from Hollywood when she was taken to one side and had her bag searched for ‘recording equipment and alcohol’ (that’s what the cinema said). What they found was, apparently, much, much worse – a bag of Revels. They probably looked a bit like this:

Quoting company policy, the complex’s manager explained that, as they weren’t bought from the overpriced vendor in the foyer, the sweets would have to be confiscated and returned after the film. The woman refused, ‘out of principle’, and was followed into the screening by the manager and security and told the police were being called to come and sort her out.

Needless to say, she spent the duration of the film in a state of anxiety, afraid to even look at her handbag for fear of the confectionery police stepping in with their batons (made from Curly Wurlys?) to stop her accessing her Revels. Quite aside from the point of this whole story, whatever that is, and what it says about ‘the world we live in today’, this, to me, is just one more reason not to bother going to the cinema.

I’ve long held a dislike for cinema visits and probably haven’t been for a number of years, but the reports I get from cinema going friends don’t provide me with much inclination to venture back. The price is one thing, obviously. £7 a ticket! (I’ve just looked that up) Blimey. And that’s before you’ve even got there and considered sustenance. Then you squeeze along an aisle into your uncomfortable seat and have to sit and wait like a prisoner waiting for his breakfast as they try and work the projector to start the film. Then it starts and people around you make lots of noise, laugh in the wrong places, talk and generally annoy. Toilet break? Forget it. They won’t pause it for you. Cold beer? Ha - no way. And the film’s probably shit anyway.

In search of the black stuff

As I’ve very kindly (or foolishly, depending on your outlook) been given free reign over this here Web Log, I’ve decided to indulge myself a little and write about one of the many things that I privately obsess over – Guinness.

Guinness, as any drinker of the black stuff will tell you, differs from a lot of the other staple bar top offerings by varying wildly between pubs. A lager, for example, is not of too great a refined or complicated constitution as to seem much different from one establishment to the next. There may be subtle differences, and perhaps even the odd occasion when one would be forced to exclaim that a particular pint was ‘awful’, but in general lager is lager. Bitter drinkers will probably step in and say that the much wider field of bitter, or ale, has infinitely more complex and differing presentations between public houses; indeed, ‘they do a good pint’ is a phrase you will hear many a bearded man aloft bar stool utter. I do not dispute this but merely offer the following in explanation: I don’t drink real ale much, I prefer Guinness, and this is my blog and I’ll write about what I like, thank you very much.

Finding a good pint of Guinness is a surprisingly hard thing to do and something that non-Guinness drinkers will find difficult to grasp. I offer no help to you – my words here will confuse and baffle you no matter what explanation I offer so in keeping with the approach with which I am accustomed, I will carry on regardless and start by attempting to explain what it is that the discerning Guinness drinker is looking for:

1. The pour. Yes, believe it or not, the manner in which this wonderful fluid is poured does make a difference to the taste and enjoyment of the beverage experience. The glass should be filled from the pump at a 45 degree angle to approximately three quarters of a pint and then LEFT TO SETTLE. Yes, I’m sorry, I’m shouting, but this is important. By settle I mean that the main body of the liquid should become black – all of that surging and storms that you get in the sea with the horses...sorry, in the glass, should calm down before anything else is done. It needs to settle and then, only then, can you top the glass up to the rim (or preferably just proud of the rim), holding it flat, producing a decent sized head. Which leads me neatly on to the next important point:

2. The head should be a creamy white colour, NOT LIGHT BROWN/GREY/YELLOW. That is a sure sign of a bad Guinness before you’ve even tasted it and something that will have the Guinness pedant crying inside, or possibly all over the bar, before the preparation of the drink has even been finished – if it’s brown put it down! Is a mantra probably no one adopts. Similarly, if the head is anything but thick, creamy and full, you’re in for a disappointing experience – in no way should the word ‘watery’ be used when describing a pint of Guinness.

3. Now, finally, we can get round to the hopefully enjoyable activity of tasting the stuff. The all important first mouthful will communicate with you immediately the quality of the pint you have in your hand. Creamy, almost sweet head should give way to thick, bitter stout that bites ever so slightly as it hits the back of your tongue and slips down the throat. As you continue to enjoy, the head should be ringing the emptying glass – this indicates not only a clean glass but, most importantly, clean Guinness - the key to this whole endeavour. When you’re done, two things should happen that would indicate that you’ve just had a decent pint of Guinness: 1. You will want to slurp up the last of the head remaining in the glass and it should be creamy and even slightly sweet – not brown, watery and rancid. 2. You will want another one.

Sadly, experiences as perfect as this are very few and far between which is why I am launching – yes, launching! – this mission: To find the best Guinness in Manchester.

In order to inject some sense of order to this endeavour, the quality of the Guinness that I sample on my adventure will be measured using the characteristics detailed above, namely pour, look and taste. Marks out of ten for each shall be awarded, producing a total out of 30. Let’s be clear: This is not a review of Manchester’s bars and pubs. I don’t give a shit what the bar staff look like or if the place is nice and cosy; for the purposes of this research I will solely be interested in the state of their Guinness. Let the games begin!

Think you’ve got the best Guinness in Manchester? Or do you know where we might find it? Leave us a message here and we’ll check it out!

Top Stories

Top stories from the north west in the last few weeks – shoppers get trapped in car park! Naughty police park on double yellows! That’s right, we’re all about the big issues here.

So the first ‘story’ to catch my eye in recent weeks was the tale of the (possibly) hundreds (or maybe dozens) of shoppers who got trapped in a supermarket car park for hours, because one of the exit lanes was closed by ‘workmen’s bollards’ (that’s a quote). You’ll notice I’ve said lanes, plural, there, indicating that there were in fact other lane options available for cars wishing to exit the car park.

The problem had something to do with the fact that the car park sits close to a motorway junction and the huge volume of traffic coming off of it, making exit from the car park via the single remaining lane impossible. It turned out the ‘workmen’s bollards’ weren’t even doing anything at the time – they’d been left behind after some repair work on a water main. Inevitably, the police were called and managed to sort the whole thing out by supervising the merging of two lanes of cars into one, but not without the obligatory outrage – some people were trapped for two whole hours! Some even had to take a detour of five miles to get home! Can you imagine?

Story two also involves the police but this time not doing what they were supposed to, allegedly. An eagle eyed journalist for Manchester’s long running daily rag (you know the one) took a photo of a police van parked on double yellow lines while one officer apparently went into a nearby shop to get some food. Here is that photo:

The reason for this wild flouting of parking laws, and ensuing accusatory journalism, was, apparently, because there was a problem with the van’s doors which had to be checked so the three (potential) criminals contained within couldn’t escape and one officer, having been on duty for 6.5 hours without a break, took the opportunity to grab a sandwich. Disgraceful.

Even if it were an unauthorised stop for some food, I’m sure the police have spent more time explaining why this happened than it took to actually buy the sandwich. I’m not saying the police shouldn’t be policed but this kind of stuff is stupid, especially when the main aim of it is to fill a paper.

Ithaca and the Disappearing Lunch Menu

Occasionally it comes to pass that we are able to leave the toil of our battered keyboards and visit some of this city’s eating establishments, often under the pretence of offering an opinion of said establishments for the purposes of entertaining our readers.

I’ve no idea why I’m writing like this, I’ll revert to type: We sometimes do restaurant reviews, as you may or may not know. Like this one.

We went to a really posh place called Ithaca the other week for lunch, as they kept sending us emails pushing their ‘amazing lunch offers’. We weren’t that impressed – the food was pretty swanky but as it purported to be ‘lunch’ we were, with hindsight foolishly, expecting to come away feeling like we’d had lunch, not just a nibble on a few bits of posh food. You could, if you wished, read the long winded account of this experience here.

Two things struck me following that particular visit. 1. The restaurant doesn’t really know what it wants to be. On one hand, it’s one of the poshest, most exclusive places in town, on the other it wants the likes of us going in for lunch (‘us’ being the majority of the population who want to eat lunch for less than a tenner most days). 2. They change their menu so often they’ve started contradicting themselves and, ultimately, confusing those with whom they’re meant to be colluding (i.e. us). Example: Had we gone there two months prior to our visit, we would have eaten four ‘courses’ (I use the term loosely) for the same amount of money we paid for three. They wiped out a whole course without adjusting the price.

OK, so, so what, right? I mean, who really cares? A posh restaurant can’t quite get their lunch offer right. People are dying in the world, some people can’t afford to eat, THINK OF THE CHILDREN!! etc. But...well, but nothing. There’s also other things in the world to worry about and we’ve made it our priority to worry about lunch injustice in Manchester.

This week I get an email with yet another ‘new lunch menu‘ attached, this one purporting to be part of their ‘biggest promotion ever’. It’s more expensive - £20 this time instead of the £16.50 we paid – and is sold as a ‘three course lunch’. Take a look at this:

Oh, where to start! First of all, Miso Soup is not a course. It’s a bowl of salty water. End of story. Secondly, don’t be fooled by the mains. They sound nice and probably do taste nice but a portion they are not. A mouthful or two at most. I’m assuming they’re classing ‘extras’ as their third course, which, as you can see, cost extra. Brilliant little twist they’ve put on the concept of ‘set menu’ there, isn’t it?

You do get a glass of wine or beer with this but let’s look at it objectively. You’re basically paying £20 for a drink and a quarter of a plate’s worth of food. I’ll say it again – this is not lunch!

Now I know what some will say, so let’s address them now:

“It’s not £20, it’s £10 because of the 50% off offer.”

Doesn’t matter – if it’s £10 worth of product (and I would say not even that) then sell it for £10, don’t dress up some £20 with 50% off crap to make it seem like we’re getting a bargain.

“What do you expect, this is top quality, expensive dining.”

Stop trying to get people in for a £10 lunch then! If we wanted fine dining we’d either save up and go on our 30th birthdays and have a decent sized meal of it or wait for our parents to visit and make them pay. Don’t try and sell me a ‘three course lunch’ then say, “Well, it’s not a whole lunch because we’re actually really exclusive and you can only afford a bit of a lunch.”

I think that’s what grates the most – the arrogance that underlies it all. The thought that they have to do us a favour in order for us to have the privilege of experiencing even a small amount of what they offer. Well balls, is what I say – I know of plenty of places in the city where you can get properly fed for under a fiver, so Ithaca can stick their 50% con up their Miso Soup.

House Swap

A life of solitude and peace and quiet is perhaps something we all crave at times. So imagine yourself on a small island off the coast of Cork, Ireland, with 11 acres of land to play with, unspoilt sea views and the concept of close neighbours being a completely alien one.

That dream may not be as unreachable as you might imagine because a man with all of that is looking to swap his two bedroom, traditional fisherman’s cottage on Long Island, off the coast of Cork, with a property in Greater Manchester so he can be closer to his mum. Here it is:



The house comes with a Land Rover and a boat (the land goes right down to the sea) and sits in land that has been designated as a site of special scientific interest, which should mean no one’s ever going to stick a big apartment block up next door. It’s on the market for £309,000, the price having shot up somewhat since he bought it in 1990 for just £12,500, but the current owner has registered with a house swapping website and is looking to move back near to his mum, who is in a care home in Worsley.

It’s not everyone’s cup of tea I shouldn’t think – there’s no Tesco nearby, I’m not even sure there’s a pub anywhere within walking distance – but the sea views, fresh air and lack of thousands of other people must surely appeal to a few. I quite like the idea. Not sure about the commute though.

University Challenged

So The University of Manchester has triumphed, albeit a little belatedly and only thanks to a technicality, on academic quiz institution University Challenge. It’s not quite the air punching, party-inducing circumstances the team would have liked as it comes after Corpus Christi College, Oxford, actually won the televised show and had the title stripped from them this week after it was discovered that one member of their team wasn’t actually a student. Something, one might reasonably assume, that should be a fairly basic criterion to fulfil when applying in the first place.

It’s actually all fairly boring, with Manchester being very meek about accepting the title and the offending non-student apologising a lot and insisting he didn’t know he was in the wrong. Considering he declared his course dates correctly on his application (he was a student when it started and graduated some way through the series) and was accepted on to the show, you kind of get the impression it should be the programme’s producers getting all the attention, and blame, and not him.

So the real story of this year’s ‘challenge’, which was filling front pages long before this deception was brought to light, is of Corpus Christi captain (and ‘intellectual blitzkrieg’, according to the Guardian) Gail Trimble, who wowed the press and, apparently, the public with her encyclopedic knowledge and dominance of point scoring (she won a third of her team’s points in all matches, or whatever you call them, before the final), as well as the offer she received from Nuts magazine, following the short lived victory, proposing the exchange of English pounds for the opportunity to take photos of her sans clothing. Which is all, you don’t need me to tell you, rather weird. Here’s the lady herself, in the middle. The dude on the left is the cheat:

Lovely. Or not – I’m not here to judge, merely provide sarcastic and sometimes withering asides, so running with that theme I’ll leave you with a question from this year’s final:

“If a tap leaks a millilitre of water every second, how many 10-litre buckets will it fill completely in a day?”

Answer: Who cares, what’s on channel 4?

p.s. It’s 8.64 really.