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. Sometimes Sleuth even gets serious @mcrsleuth
GILES COREN IS TWEETY-DELETEY
Gordo guesting for this story on Sleuth is amused by little Giles Coren of The Times. Coren doesn’t like two things in life; being told by his editor to get off his arse and review somewhere further than ten miles away from his snotty little middle class house and, secondly, being told by the BBC that to further promote his snotty ‘brand’ he needs to travel up north to Media City. It puts him in a shocking mood, evidenced on Twitter once when he was made to get on the early Monday morning train to a horrid (his words were far more derogatory) northern city (Manchester), with a hangover. He deleted the tweets within minutes, but half the Manchester Bloggers had taken screenshots by then.
In March, Coren, with the advice of his friend ‘TC’, a Mancunian Quisling, allegedly the ‘restaurateur’ Jonathan Downey, took another begrudging trip to Media City. He finished up dining at Damson, where he took an almighty one on Steven Pilling’s charming gaff, Damson, and the Manchester restaurant scene in general. Gordo got the opportunity to take a swipe at The Weasel in his review of one to watch, Grafene (click here) at the beginning of the week. Coren then did one of his knee-jerk tweets. “Really Mark? Pissed? Lazy? And you say this in print?” Gordo reckons what happened then was this, Coren must have gone into John Witherow’s office, the current Times editor and said: “This nasty man in that horrid filthy town Manchester has been beastly to me, I want to sue him immediately!” “Fuck off,” says Mr. Witherow, not even looking up, “take that tweet down and shut the door after you." The tweet is no longer there.
"Stop sulking, Giles, you know every now and then we have to pretend we like other parts of the country" CHEF CONFESSIONS
Sleuth overheard three chefs in discussion. One said to the others: "All that nonsense about spitting in the food of people you don't like is wrong. You just put a few drops of Optrex in their food and immediately, I mean immediately, they run to the toilet." The other chefs sagely nodded their heads all denying they'd ever done this, but you know they'd heard about it...from someone. Optrex? Eye-watering, thought Sleuth.
TRINITY ISLAND AND THE ARCHITECTS
Sleuth took a gander at the new ideas from Allied London about Trinity Island, a new name for the land either side of the inner ring road in the south-west corner of the city centre, the other side of Castlefield. He bumped into Jess Middleton-Pugh (JM-P) the fine journalist and deputy editor from the excellent Place North West and they studied some of the images together. "Who are the architects?" they simultaneously mused. "Is that them in the corner with that logo, or does this corner bit refer to the fact this is a CGI for Allied London?" wondered JM-P. "I suppose it must mean this is a CGI," said Sleuth. "No," interjected Greg Jones, from the architects, "that last letter is not an I it's an L. That's us, CGL, Child Graddon Lewis, it doesn't stand for computer generated image but for our architectural practice." "Ah," said Sleuth and JM-P simultaneously, little light bulbs flickering slowly to life in their heads.
Brand unawareness TRINITY ISLAND PROPOSALS AGAIN
There's going to be a bigger story and critical comment about these proposals on Confidential next week, but Sleuth likes to give people a peek-a-boo on his lush column of what might be coming along. There will be 1,233 flats for sale in a group of five towers at Trinity Island. The tallest tower will be 38 storeys, which is less than the original plan for 50 storeys, a decision reached after consultation. There will also be a lot of public green space between the buildings, including a handsome elevated and landscaped 'podium park'. "You remember the podium from the first proposal do you?" asked the charming and amiable aforementioned architect Greg Jones. "That's where you said in your report last time that I'd said this might be a place for people to 'cheekily have sex while drunk'. I'm not sure I did say that." "If you didn't I'm sure you intended to," said Sleuth, always a stickler for journalistic integrity, and by now a little confused because he couldn't see any free bubbly or wine and normally after ten minutes at presentations like this he'd be on his second glass.
Trinity Island towers, a CGI by CGL, as they might look from Castlefield
Podiums for funANDY SPINOZA ATTEMPTS THE IMPOSSIBLE
Sleuth thinks Andy Spinoza of SKV Communications is a very very fine PR man, one of the greatest in the North West, but surely he knows that reaching bronze statues with his message is beyond even his many talents.
Bronze man unmovedOLDISH BUILDING TO BE DEMOLISHED – NO PROTEST PLANNED SHOCK
As part of the Greengate redevelopment in Salford between Trinity Way and the Irwell in Manchester these warehouses are going to be demolished. Sleuth feels that in this instance there will not be a campaign, nor any petitions raised to save them as there is with every other older building threatened across the river in Manchester city centre. Sometimes it's good to tear things down.
Oddly there will be no protest about this one goingOLD PUB NOT TO BE DEMOLISHED SHOCK
Speaking of the Greengate area, Sleuth is pleased to hear that at least one old pub in the central areas of the city centre - and that includes Salford between the Irwell and Trinity Way - is to be retained. Guy Garvey's central 'local', the Eagle pub is going nowhere but will be cherished in the redevelopment plans as a key landmark in the vast make-over of the area. Apparently, it will add character to the glass, steel, panelled structures flying up into the sky all around. Over to you Mr G Neville (read Confidential's interview here): what about applying the same principle to the Sir Ralph Abercromby?
Eagle will still fly SLEUTH’S FUTILE GESTURE OF THE WEEK
Here's a Bible-bashing shouty man in St Ann’s Square asking a group of disinterested youth on a bench to “Repent and change your mortal direction before it is too late!” One lad said: “You do know we’re Muslim?” Bible-bashing shouty man continued to rant, the lads went back to their smartphones.
Futile evangelising
CAMRA’S RIGHTEOUS CALL TO ALCOHOL ARMS
Sleuth loved this press release from the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA). It reads: ‘More than half the public disagree with official health guidelines on alcohol consumption, according to new figures. Of 2,040 people surveyed by YouGov, 61 per cent agreed that moderate alcohol consumption could be part of a healthy lifestyle. CAMRA chairman Colin Valentine said: “If the government wants people to take the guidance seriously then it needs to present people with realistic and believable advice, which they can use to judge their own risk when it comes to responsible drinking. If the public feels guidelines are not credible the danger is they will just ignore them. There are decades of international scientific evidence showing that moderate drinking can play an important part in a healthy and happy lifestyle. This year the Friends on Tap report from Oxford University also found that those who frequented a pub were happier (and) healthier.’
Sleuth loves it. CAMRA would say this, of course, but everybody knows pubs and the odd pint are good for you. And everybody knows that the Chief Medical Officer's puritanical injunctions are killjoy reactions designed to cut National Health Service bills. For the record, officially 'there is no safe level of alcohol consumption' but if we do drink we should limit ourselves to no more than six 175ml glasses of wine a week, six pints of beer a week or five pints of cider a week. What? Six pints isn't even a night out.
Seriously? LONDON ROAD FIRE STATION: A FINE LESSON FROM THE PAST
The editor-at-large, Schofield, has been telling Sleuth about one of the more curious revelations from the many London Road Fire Station tours that he's been conducting in July and August. Apparently until a generation ago fire officers who were on duty could have a drink, as long as they were 'reasonable'. Nobody knew exactly what 'reasonable' was. Ah, yes, the good old days. There might not have been any Pokemon Go but at least you could have a drink on the job.
After a couple of swift ones, there were always entertaining ways of leaving the bar
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