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 was disappointed this year. He spent New Year in New York watching the celebration as 2013 became 2014 in Times Square. As fireworks broke he could hear people sighing, some were weeping, saying, “I wish we were in Manchester, England.” This followed Cllr Pat Karney, City Spokesman For Hyperbole, saying in the MEN that our New Year’s Eve event would take on New York’s. So come the big night Sleuth was frustrated, he wanted to be in Manchester, the city that had always embraced New Year’s Eve more than any other city. Although there had been some initial confusion. One wit wondering: “When they say it 'will rival New York', I presume with the planned Michael Jackson dance-off they mean that small bar just off Canal Street called New York, New York?”.
Umezushi Lockdown
Sleuth popped into the neighbourhood Japanese restaurant, Umezushi, behind the Arena, under the viaduct, down the alley in the...oh sod it, here’s the address, 4 Mirabel St, M3 1PJ. You might need Sat Nav and a sherpa to find the place. Cute as can be as usual, and with just about the finest collection of fresh fish in the sushi and nigiri selection, Umezushi was packed with Asiatic overseas students and residents. Sleuth asked one of the Japanese diners what they thought of the food. “It’s as excellent as home,” came the reply. To celebrate this statement Sleuth then locked himself in the only toilet in the restaurant. Or rather the toilet locked him in. Slightly claustrophobic, Sleuth was starting to sweat, when one big tug finally released him. “We must get that seen to, it happens all the time,” said the waitress as the paramedics conducted CPR on a twitching Sleuth.
Umezushi
Music Gets You Going
Sleuth loved this PR puff from Warrington-based Dawsons Music, who of course have that large instrument shop on Portland Street in Manchester. They did a survey and found that ‘playing an instrument can make you more attractive, a better parent, more employable and even a better lover’. Apparently it was ‘independent’ and was generated by, well, Dawsons. Next week: ‘Quantity surveying makes you hot between the sheets – a National Institute of Quantity Surveying Institute survey reveals’ and ‘Traffic wardening makes you the life and soul of the party – National Institute of Traffic Wardens’ survey reveals’.
Old Granada Studios Gets Busy
It’s all hotting up for what look like exciting plans down at Granada. Allied London, the folk behind Spinningfields, are calling on creatives to come up with ideas for the use of the old studios site. Their twitter site is alive with hints of ‘pop-up theatres, pop-up bars, pop-up markets, pop-up restaurants, conferences and fashion events’. Full story coming up on Confidential soon. In the meantime here’s the website. Sleuth reckons ‘pop-up’ might for once be about right. After all studios are all about facades, temporary inventions and so on. Sleuth looks forward to a huge area of the city becoming vibrantly alive in 2014.
Aerial review of Granada posted on Twitter by Allied London
The Clerihew Reviews
Sleuth is pioneering these snappy food and drink review poems – see below - for venues in Manchester. They are reviews for people on the go, busy people, or even people who can’t be arsed reading. Academic types might recognise these poems as Clerihews, named after Edmund Clerihew who invented the idea of two sets of rhyming couplets describing a thing or person.
Here’s the first Clerihew regarding alcohol-free Braai Steakhouse.
Then there's two more - just because.
Clerihew Review – Braai Steakhouse
Braai is small, sells decent steaks
But no alcohol for religion’s sake.
So downstairs on South King Street
You sober up while you eat.
Clerihew Review: Revolution Bar, Parsonage Gardens
Revolution Bar’s good for parties
And hen gals with pornstar martinis
Plus balding men with huge big grins
No beards and wobbly double-chins.
Clerihew Review: Cornerhouse Bar
Down at Cornerhouse Bar they chat a lot
About inequality and right wing plots,
About French movies and art installations
Then cycle home pissed on expensive Bromptons.
Come on folks you have to admit it, Sleuth is a genius. This is the future. Next poet laureate?
Sleuth And Concrete
Every seven days or so Sleuth is stopped in the street and asked by policemen, concierges, pyrotechnicians, Pat Karney, randy musicians, sushi chefs and all the poets in the North, this question: "We love concrete, where can we read about Modernist buildings in Manchester complete with some exquisite photographs?"
"Why," says Sleuth, "that would be in Jack Hale's stunning article for Destination Modernism. Everybody interested in Manchester should read it."
And to prove this he showed all the policemen, concierges, pyrotechnicians, Pat Karney, randy musicians, sushi chefs and all the poets in the North, this link to the article.
Manchester Modernism - the 1960s buildings of Granada
