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
BUSABA EATTHAI FOR MCR?
Sleuth hears yet another London operator is coveting Manchester. Busbaba Eatthai - a respected Thai restaurant chain by restaurateur Alan Yau OBE - are said to be lining-up a unit in either the Printworks or in one of very few units left up for grabs in the fast-developing Corn Exchange project. Yau is the brains behind the all-conquering Wagamama chain which he began in 1992 and sold in 2002 for a nifty £60m. Yau then opened Hakkasan - which later became Britain's first Michelin-starred Cantonese - which he sold for £30m in 2008. Then came Cha Cha moon, Milanese-bakery Princi, Turkish fast-food gaff Babaji, Duck & Rice... you get the idea, Yau knows what he's doing. Sleuth ate in a London Busaba a few years back and found the place cool, dark and comforting and the grub fresh and surprisingly reasonable (£8 for a Pad Thai, if Sleuth remembers correctly). Could be a coup this one.
Busaba
BISTROVIN TO DO IT SIMPLY
Bistrovin will open in a splendid space above Spirited Wines on Deansgate in a few weeks. The first floor venue will provide ‘an oasis of calm’ with a view across the road to the anthropological experiment on the west side of Deansgate. The people behind the venture, Lewis Drewe and Jonathan Claviere, tell Sleuth there will be no Enoteca wine dispensers just straightforward service, decanted wines, wines by the glass or the bottle. If you want to purchase from the shop there’ll be a modest corkage charge of under a pound. Food will be charcuterie, cheeses and so on, with the aim to match up the flavours of food and wine. Sleuth can’t wait, Deansgate’s on the up. Sleuth’s going to get drunk again. Hurrah.
Bistrovin: Lewis Drewe (L) and Jonathan Claviere (R)
BULL'S HEAD TURNS BOUTIQUE HOTEL
The cracking Bull’s Head pub, the best boozer close to Piccadilly Station, our Euston Tap before the new one travels north and opens on Piccadilly Approach (click here), is to offer longer term accommodation for the weary travel. Several bedrooms in a ‘boutique-style’ are being added over the excellent bar area with its eight or so real ales. Sleuth loves the sudden rise in smaller scale pub - bed and breakfast style - accommodation such as happened recently with the Abel Heywood in the Northern Quarter. This adds another dimension to Manchester’s stay-over options.
Bull's Head
FOLK DEVILS & MORAL PANICS
Just after Christmas a few idiots and the Daily Star got people all bothered about a ‘canal pusher’ story in Manchester city centre with apparently numerous deaths and panic on the towpaths. The police calmly proved there was no connection between any of these, some happened in reservoirs and they’d occurred right across Greater Manchester. Recently the MEN printed a story saying there was no truth behind the shock news there’d been 33 attempted child abductions in the Cheadle area of Stockport. They wrote: ‘Officers say all have been fully investigated and only the first one in Cheadle found to be genuine. (The reports) led some schools to issue warnings to pupils and parents to be vigilant.’ The MEN appealed for calm, failing to mention they’d stoked the fear and created the panic and tension in the area in the first place with several stories such as this. Bless them, they must have clean forgotten.
Watch out for this (not a real) person
BEZ NEWS
Since Bez failed to register his Reality Party with the Electoral Commission a few weeks back, Sleuth has had scant Bez News to report. Still, Bez rests for no man and Sleuth is happy to report two BIG bits of Bez news this week. Not only is Bez currently staging a seven day Lennon-Yoko-brand anti-fracking bed-in at the Brewery Hotel in Moorgate, London, but he's also managed to register his party under a new name - We Are The Realisty Party' - and can now stand in the general election in Salford and Eccles. Good for him. Bookies are even giving him 25/1 to win. Sadly, Sleuth reckons it's worth a punt. Now sing, IF YOU'RE HAPPY AND YOU KNOW IT...
'I DEMAND MY MONEY BA... ACTUALLY KEEP IT'
Samoa: 99% volcano, 80% obese, tenth favourites for this year's Rugby World Cup and opera fanatics. Sol3 Mio - the improbable record-breaking opera trio made of three burly Samoan-New Zealanders as wide as, well, a Samoan, will play Salford Quays Lowry Theatre on Monday 16 March during their Good Time Guaranteed Tour - so called because if you don't have a good time you can ask for your money back. Sleuth dares you...
...just keep it, eh
WHY CONFIDENTIAL DOESN'T DO FOOTBALL
Sleuth was reading a footy piece in the MEN and came across this lovely interchange. Ah, he thought, that’s why Confidential doesn’t do football. We might have people who don’t like San Carlo or the Labour administration of the city but we don’t have vile people. Sleuth is especially bemused that there was an icon of Anthony Talbot, a vicious protagonist in the exchange below, next to his comments. The icon includes the man and next to him a picture of his angelic toddler. Sleuth has retained the original spelling.
Man u players are not used 442 diamond they are use to 442 flat like sir ferge play we have to play with our normal wingers 7&11, if you look man u are producing good wingers in world before eg look at Geaoge Best,Beckham, Giggs, Ronaldo they are the best wingers in their time and Lvg have some future wingers like Di Maria Januzaj and even better scout than fergi why why why Lvg.
Anthony Talbot Aliyugaubale • 4 hours ago
Stop calling us Man U it is an insult to those who died in the Munich disaster.
Jojo Anthony Talbot • an hour ago
No called man scum
Anthony Talbot Jojo • an hour ago
Get gone you kiddie fiddling bellend.
Jojo Anthony Talbot • an hour ago
Hahaha loving it scummy team LFC all the way n u saying something like that must be sick and into doing exactly the thing your saying iam a lass n your scum saying n thinking that got it on your mind how sick a you
Anthony Talbot Jojo • an hour ago
Get off the United page then you bin dipping scouse smack rat.
...lovely.
COCKROACH CLAIM
A couple claimed to have found an oddly well-preserved cockroach in a curry at Manchester's Mughli restaurant this week, with the story reaching the nationals including the Daily Mail, Metro and Express. Sleuth thought it odd that the whole plate of food had been finished with the cockroach plonked in the middle. Still, what does Sleuth know. The couple raised the issue and left the restaurant without paying. Sleuth likes their style. Sleuth has since been getting stuff for free all week...
