Week 48: the weirdest thing Sleuth's ever seen in a pub

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

Sleuth's weirdest thing he’s ever seen

Sleuth was in the White Lion pub in Castlefield this week for a colleague’s leaving do. In walked a man dressed as Super Mario. Sleuth assumed him to be on a stag do, except that he was on his own, and carrying a keyboard. Mario went to the stage at the back of the pub, where he set up his keyboard and began playing 8-bit Nintendo music. The pub stood still for a moment, as drinkers took stock of the situation. “Perhaps this will be like the Sex Pistols’ famous gig at the Free Trade Hall,” said Confidential publisher Mark Garner, breaking the hush. “I can say I was there when a bloke off his tits and dressed as Super Mario played Christmas songs to seven people in a Manchester boozer.”

Sleuth and the stinky rave

Sleuth has been invited to a night event in Manchester with Hacienda music. Nothing new there. Except this is down in the drained section of canal running by Deansgate Locks. The Canal & River Trust will open Lock 91 of the Rochdale Canal for 'one night only' (Fri 1 Dec) where ravers can enjoy free DJs and 'see up close the vast quantity and array of rubbish that gets thrown into the water'. Lovely, thinks Sleuth, he could dance away the evening under the stars, and also under a hail of fag ends, vomit and flying teeth from drinkers from Deansgate Locks above.

2017 Deansgate Locks Between Lock 90 And 91 Rochdale Canal

Sleuth and the plasticine modellers

Sleuth was part of an activity recently where people in teams had to model something that represented Manchester in plasticine. Most teams got into the spirit of things and there were Manchester bees, the Town Hall, United, City, the odd factory, canals and much else. All nice, all sweet. Well, maybe, not all. One team had fashioned a man and a woman vomiting in Piccadilly Gardens after a long night out…next to a Manchester bee. “Look,” said a woman on the team with great pride, “I’ve fashioned the genitals on the man in blue plasticine.” Sometimes Sleuth simply has no words.

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Sleuth and the plasticine modellers (part two)

Another team had been a bit cheeky too. “Why’ve you put that teabag next to your models?” Sleuth wondered. “You wanted something that represented Manchester,” said a man on the team, “and that’s a bag of spice.”

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Sleuth and the unlucky postie

Manchester Confidential had a Black Friday sale last week, selling almost 2000 discounted privilege vouchers on one day alone. Such was the demand that the printing company had to send out a member of staff to the postbox in St Ann's Square with two sacks of envelopes. All relatively straightforward, you'd think. Except that a member of the Christmas Markets security staff thought the man pouring the contents of his bag into the postbox was up to no good and called the police. Within minutes the hapless chap was surrounded by armed police, demanding he open the voucher envelopes. "Poor fella," said Sleuth to the lady from the printers on the phone. "He was rather distraught," said the lady, "but on the upside one of the police asked where he could buy a couple of vouchers himself..."

Winging it

Sleuth was talking to bar maestro Lyndon Higginson this week, the man behind Crazy Pedro’s, The Liars Club and Cane & Grain. Higginson has just opened a new bar, Bunny Jackson’s, in First Street, and was telling Sleuth about a marketing ploy which had begun to backfire. “We’ve been selling chicken wings for 10p on Wednesdays,” Higginson told Sleuth, “to get people in and let them know we’re here.” “How’s that gone?” Sleuth asked. “A bit too well” said Higginson, looking slightly pained, “we sold out of 500 wings by 1pm. I had to panic order 500 more for the night - then we sold out again.” “Well that’s what you wanted, to get people in,” said Sleuth. “True,” replied Higginson, “but I've had to buy an extra fryer and employ two more chefs on Wednesdays, and at 10p a wing we lose money, and 1000 10p wings is a lot of money." "You could say your wings are flying out," said Sleuth, thus winning the ‘Wit of Manchester Award’ for the twelfth consecutive year.

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Hands up if you've dropped a bollock

Sleuth and the most hipster hipster ever

Sleuth was out at the open of Eat New York's new Bagel Shop on Northern Quarter's Oldham Street. It was packed out. This surprised Sleuth as it’s a fairly bare room with alcohol and bagels. Bloody good bagels, mind. But Sleuth did spot the most perfectly groomed and immaculately turned out hipster he’d seen for ages. The man holding him looked pretty good as well.

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Butt of the joke 

Sleuth was on Curry Mile this week, on a tour of the Kurdish kebab houses with seasoned babber Luke ‘Unabomber’ Cowdrey, co-owner of Electrik in Chorlton and Volta in Didsbury. They were making their way to Kurdistan (the restaurant not the geo-cultural Middle Eastern region – long walk that), when Sleuth had to stop and giggle at these two nearby businesses. “I wonder if you pay for the back you can have some off at the front,” said Sleuth, thus winning the ‘Wit of Manchester Award’ for... oh we've done that one.

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Sleuth’s odd dance of the week

A lot of bee stuff this week. There's all the Manchester food and drink stuff going on, plus those giant bee sculptures. Now there's a new craze hitting Manchester and that’s dancing like a bee. Here’s the evidence...