SleuthSleuth is a sideways glance at the city every week, it's the truth, but Sleuth's truth. He's several people all at once. We give £25 for every story/rumour and piece of absurdity you find for us to publish. Sleuth sometimes even gets serious. We ask for the money back if any legal action follows. Follow Sleuth on twitter @mcrsleuth
Sleuth's Haircut Of The Week - Tim Burgess
Sleuth's female friends were down at the All Saints shop in Spinningfields on Thursday. They were schmoozing with lots of movers and shakers, the DJ was none other than the well-known musicican and meditator Tim Burgess, who'd apparently been given a 'jumper' from the store to perform. Burgess (main picture above) was the pretty boy lead singer of the Madchester band The Charlatans twenty years ago. He's 45 years old now. Sleuth thinks he should seek a second opinion about that haircut and colour.
Queue Of The Week
Sleuth loves a deeply committed rainy queue. This one is for the opening of the Aldi in Urmston on Thursday. Apparently 250 people turned up. Wow that's really something. For an Aldi. In the rain.
Urmston retail is looking up
Sleuth's Most Tasteful Cocktail Of The Week
This from the list at Lock 91 (yes the new bar at the end of the parade of joy that is Deansgate Locks). The name is 'Dirty Silky Panties' with Bombay Sapphire, raspberry liqueur and pineapple juice shaken over ice. Sleuth isn't sure but he reckons this cocktail may have been inspired by an early work from artist Tracey Emin.
Sleuth's Confusing Sign Of The Week
This is to be found on the banks of the River Irwell close to the Lowry Hotel. Sleuth admires a large pole that can take you both ways but bring you to the same destination.
Confusing directions
Sleuth's Prize For The Shortest Running Catering Business of 2012
This is a toss up between would-be Italian Restaurant Pizza Porto in Albert Square which lasted six weeks and the Mish Indian buffet restaurant on South King Street which lasted the same length of time. It's down to hours really who wins. Bad news for the jobs of the people who worked there on both counts but Sleuth reckons it also proves why restaurants need to research the market very accurately before opening.
Boarded buffet
Critic Volleying Celebrity Chef's Head Across The Room
The man in the chair is food and drink critic Neil Sowerby and the head in the foreground is that of well-known chef Simon Rimmer. They are both in the wonderful Sky Lounge in the Doubletree Hilton close to Piccadilly Station. Sleuth thinks Lionel Messi would approve of Sowerby's sitting down volleying technique while sporting an inscrutable smile.
Sowerby and the head chef
Sleuth And The Triumph Of Commonsense
Sleuth was at a loss. He’d been asked a question and he didn’t know the answer so he emailed the council press officers. ‘Which department do I ask if I want to put an A-board up on the street? Not strictly a press office responsibility, I know, but any help would be gratefully received.’ First reply came back, ‘Do you know, I haven't got the foggiest...’ Second reply was, ‘You don't need permission to put up A boards, but you need to make sure they don't cause any obstruction.’ A little later the first press officer emailed, ‘I'm actually staggered at this commonsense answer'. So was Sleuth, no red tape, no bureacracy, no panels, just do it but think for yourself and be considerate of others. Sleuth had to have a lie down after that.
Sleuth And The Rude Headline
Confidential couldn't help itself last week and wrote a rude headline. A new bridge, built out of upscaled Meccano was proposed for that area of Bolton called Nob End. So we wrote as the headline Big Erection For Nob End. Childish but...irresistible. Here's the story. Happily the scheme has been approved. The designer wrote to Confidential to say, 'The engineers were so pleased with it they printed the headline out large and put it on the office wall'.
Sleuth's Peter Street Boost
Peter Street is on the up Sleuth hopes. In the first week of October chain outlet Revolucion de Cuba opens on the site of the world's worst concept bar, Squares. The two storey venue will have more than 50 rums from the Caribbean and Latin America. It will be the flagship of the group with a ‘Rare Rum Store’ offering rums costing between £25 and £200 a measure. Let's hope it manages to avoid the unnerving scenes often sampled outside Squares back in the heady days of the late nineties, early noughties.
Glimpse through the Revolucion window
Hen and Stag Parties Banned
Sleuth applauds the policy of Gorilla, the Trof-owned bar and performance space on Whitworth Street West to ban all single sex hen and stag parties from its comedy nights. The Group Therapy Night show which starts on 29 September claims to be 'the only weekend comedy club, by comedy fans, for comedy fans'. As a spokesperson says, "Other weekend clubs rely on stags and hens to fill their seats and spend at the bar. But they can spoil the night for everyone else, including the comedians.” Sleuth wasn't aware that comedians were so sensitive but the policy should make the occasion more focussed on the jokes then on ladies in pink with rude attachments stuck to their shoulders. But would the bar let one of those costumed stag parties come in if they were all dressed as gorillas?
Labour ExchangeSleuth's Building Project Of The Week
Good news for lovers of the variety of Manchester's architecture. The old Labour Exchange once ear marked for demolition could be saved.
Sleuth hears a rumour that it might be now converted into a hotel and health club. Look at that space on those flat roofs for recreational areas eh?
For more on the Labour Exchange click here.
Plenty of room for roof action
