Sleuth is a sideways glance at the city every week, it's the truth, but Sleuth's truth. He's several people all at once. Sleuth sometimes even gets serious @mcrsleuth
NEW OPENING IN PICCADILLY
Sleuth was going to tell you about the new Soho seafood restaurant opening on Bridge Street, or the new basement bar opening on Deansgate, or the two new Drake & Morgan sites opening in Spinningfields and St Peter’s Square, or the new burrito joint opened on Oxford Road, or the new bar opening on Oldham Street, or the new steak restaurant not coming to Barton Arcade, but instead Sleuth is going to show this exclusive photo of a light switch opening in London Road Fire Station…
MARATHON SCANDAL
Sleuth hears three of the last Greater Manchester Marathons have been declared invalid after the course was found to be almost 400m too short, and that some 24,000 runners have had their times deleted. The Association of UK Course Measurers blamed an ‘incorrect calibration of the bicycle wheel’. Sleuth is trying to understand how you can incorrectly calibrate a bicycle wheel…
And just in case you missed it (or TOO SHORT of sight), the Association of UK Headline Measurers have blamed an ‘incorrect calibration of the capitalizer’ for this story in Manchester Evening News...
BUDGIES AND BURNAGE
Sleuth was on a pub tour with Grant Thornton and FieldFisher, respectively accountants and lawyers. People were talking about Burnage. Things happen like that in pubs. One chap said: “I live next to Heaton Moor golf course and there’s a colony of parakeets moved into the trees close to my house on the course, they make a racket.” Silence. Surely not? But our chap was right. The parakeets, aka, Aussie budgerigars, are settling in the UK. Check this. And this – funny video that one. Sleuth is surprised the Daily Mail haven’t run a headline: Work-Shy Tax-Dodging Immigrant Birds Stealing Seed From British Locals. Sleuth asks how did these tropical birds end up here? Easy, budgie smugglers of course.
Mr Parakeet is on the extreme rightHILL FOOD SUNSHINE SARCASM
Sleuth was up in the hills, the lovely Bowland Fells this week. He was at the Gibbon Bridge hotel, sat in the sun in one of the best restaurant gardens in the north. Sleuth was drinking a fine bottle of Rioja Reserva. But the glass was on the small side. “Have you got a larger glass?” asked Sleuth. “Why, can’t you get enough in that one?” asked the waiter before turning to Sleuth’s friend and saying, “And do you want a bigger pint glass?” Later, there was an ancient couple, one of whom said to the sarcastic waiter, “When I was very young I cycled past here. It must have been in 1948.” “I don’t think I was working that day,” said the waiter. He went from irritating to funny. The food was good too, the duck hash brown with the lovely runny egg the highlight.
Lovely garden at Gibbon Bridge
Duck hash brownLOST GLASSES AND FROZEN PEAS
There was a curious incident in Sleuth’s household in March. The lady of the house couldn’t find her reading glasses and everybody was employed to turn the place upside-down in pursuit of the elusive spectacles. Nothing. Then Sleuth was making a shepherd’s pie and thought to accompany it with frozen peas. In the bag were the glasses. “They must have been on my head when I was last using them and fallen in the bag.”
Pea- specsPROTOTYPE EMOTICONS LOCATED
Sleuth was looking at the ruins of St Luke’s in Cheetham Hill and realised that the architect TW Atkinson had designed proto-emoticons in stone.
Proto EmotoSLEUTH CHASED BY WILD HENS
Sleuth was about half a mile from Victoria Station in lovely Tuesday weather. He was in Collyhurst but it felt like the Cotswolds. He saw a hare running through a wood and then, bizarrely, several strolling hens. It was bucolic, heavenly. A teenage boy trudged through the grass in a regulation grey tracksuit. Oh no thought Sleuth as the boy stopped. The lad said in a very broad Manc accent: “It’s all right here mate, isn’t it? Like getting out into the country.” He paused for moment then pulled a can of Stella out of a bag and said, "Want one?" "I'm fine, thanks," said Sleuth, the very picture of an uptight middle class gentleman. "No problem. Nice day," said the boy, opening the can and taking a long swig. Then he moved off, tunelessly whistling. Silence in the city settled once more... apart from some light clucking.
Hens on the run in the sun
Rus in urbeTECHNO TECHNO TECHNO
Sleuth was baffled by a story in Confidential this week. The article involved Michelin-starred Extremaduran chef Quique Dacosta, who on Tuesday 17 May will join Iberica's Executive Chef and Spanish Masterchef judge, Nacho Manzano (translated: Mexican Crisp Apple Tree), in creating a special seven course tapas menu in Spinningfields. All well and good. But what stumped Sleuth was this bit...
Sleuth is trying to imagine what 'techno-emotional' food looks like? Perhaps Dacosta repeatedly turns up at the table with one ingredient and hits each punter over the head with a spoon repetitively until they cry. Either way, Dacosta and Manzano plan to do a series of collaborations, hosting an 'Electro Philosophical' dinner in June, and a 'Disco Metaphysical' lunch in July.
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