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
NORTHERN HUB CLOSES WHIM WHAM CAFE
Whim Wham Cafe on Whitworth Street West has closed.
The railway arch which the family-run business has occupied since 2012 will be subject to an eviction notice over the course of the next year due to Network Rail's £600m Northern Hub development project - with work due to start in 2016 and end in 2019. The city-wide plans will see two new platforms added to Piccadilly Station and Whim Wham swallowed by the widening of the railway viaduct and the lengthening of platforms at Oxford Road station on Whitworth Street West.
This is sad news for a family-run business, Whim Wham told Sleuth: "As an independent family business, still in its infancy our position is too fragile and the business is not strong enough to hold on whilst further details of eviction come to light."
Sleuth wonders what this means for the remaining businesses on the street. What about Gorilla? Dog Bowl? And what of the third generation family-run Harry Halls cycles?
Whim Wham
Northern Hub plans for Whitworth Street West
KRO BAR WOE
Piccadilly Garden's Kro bar closed this week after a decade (leaving only two of five left, in Heaton Moor and at the University), sad news as 40 people lost their jobs. Apparently the new landlord Legal & General jumped the rent significantly. Sleuth worries this is becoming a pattern in his columns, only last week Sleuth reported on the possible closing of Aumbry restaurant in Prestwich - their landlord also decided to hike the rent as the lease drew to a close. It's not all doom and gloom though, Legal & General have already announced that they have two major national chains lined up for the prime spot. Just what Piccadilly Gardens needs, thinks Sleuth. If we're lucky we may get a Pret, oh no wait there's already one there. Well how about a Pizza Expre... Cafe Ner... Bella Ital... Starbuc... Nando... Burger Ki... Zizz... Subwa... Hmm.
Kro on Piccadilly Gardens (left unit)
LAW LIBRARY NOW A £1M THREE-BED TOWNHOUSE
Sleuth is upset. It's a crying shame that the 1885 Law Library on Kennedy Street is to be sold off. The building by Thomas Hartas is a stonkingly delightful Victorian Venetian Gothic building. It's on Rightmove for a million quid and described weirdly as a three bedroom townhouse. If a townhouse has a first floor crammed full with original book shelves then maybe. On the the plus side at least the facade will be retained to remind us what was there. The sale underlines the changed nature of the legal profession, fees down, competition hitting the pocket hard. Of course there's still a lot of money to be made in law, so Sleuth wonders whether one of the legal fraternity might be tempted to pay that million and live there. He or she wouldn't have to think too hard about where to put their legal tomes after all.
Law Library/Townhouse on Kennedy Street
YOU CAN RING MY BELL - TOWN HALL TOWER TOURS RETURN
Sleuth loves getting high. So he's pleased that the Town Hall Tower tours are re-starting this Saturday from the good people at Manchester Guided Tours. The tours spiral up 85 metres via the ridiculously charming clock mechanism and then out onto the balcony over the Town Hall clocks for a stupendous view. Best of all is standing next to the huge Great Abel hour bell as it strikes. The noise reconfigures your insides and blows your mind. It's therapeutic and shocking at the same time. Up high, Sleuth reckons, you get the best legal high in the city. Tours this Saturday are at 11am, 1pm, 3pm, 5pm and 7pm. Book here.
Get up it
This 8 ton bell is a legal high
GRAPHENE TEETH
Graphene - the world's new 'miracle material' - discovered in 2004 by two University of Manchester professors in the lab with a block of graphite and some sticky tape. Graphene is 200 times stronger than steel, a 1,000 times thinner than paper and able to carry electricity at one million metres per second. Terabit uploads in one second, mobiles charged in five seconds, drinkable seawater, cities on the moon and... new false teeth for Nan. Yes, graphene company 2-DTech (in which the University of Manchester has a 15% stake) is in the process of developing much improved hi-tech false teeth. Sleuth reckons graphene's most mundane applications may prove to reap the most benefits. Now, if only they could sort Sleuth a hi-tech prophylactic. Actual scientists in Manchester are actually working on this now, you say? Fantastic. Readers can study this in more depth here, in this article, charmingly titled, Better condoms through nanotechnology.
Graphene can prevent an outbreak of babies
VICTORIA BECKHAM IS A ROBOT
Sleuth’s colleague, L’Oréal Blackett, pelted it down to Selfridges Exchange Square on Wednesday after receiving tip-off Victoria Beckham would be making an appearance in store. As is the way with these celebrity 'appearances', the celebs are only really obliged to do just that; turn up and appear. Victoria Beckham’s own arrival was a thing of real wonder for L’Oréal, who had been pondering when was the last time she had seen Mrs Beckham expose teeth in the public eye (an estimated guess would be pre Loos-gate 2004). It would be a lesson in two things: posing and walking with posing. L’Oréal watched as VB manoeuvred between her pre-programmed moves: left leg out front, hand on thigh, posh pout and absolutely no smiling. “Did you get to speak to her?” asked a gushing throng of the female members of the office. “Sort of,” replied L’Oréal. “She stopped so I could take a picture and I said, 'Oh shit’.”
'Now Mrs B, pull the other one, no that's the same one...'
HOTEL FINE? HOW ABOUT FINING HOTELS?
Sleuth sniggered this week when he read about the pissed off Blackpool hotel operators who fined a couple £100 from their credit card for leaving a bad Trip Advisor review. It read “DIRTY ROTTEN STINKING HOVEL”. Curt. The hotel have since promised to refund the money. But this got Sleuth thinking, if hotels are able to fine guests for poor form, does it work the other way around? Because Sleuth would love nothing more than to slap a fine on Hale-based Britannia Hotels, recently voted the UK's worst hotel provider (for the second year running), for their despicable treatment of Manchester’s century-old London Road Fire Station – read here.
London Road Fire Station
SLEUTH'S MOST CRINGEWORTHY PLACE TO HAVE A MEETING IN MCR
The Premier Inn on Lower Mosley Street...
Afterwards why not pop up to Hilton's Cloud 23 bar for some blue sky thinking...
Touchbase Meeting Rooms
