Jonathan Schofield takes a wry look at city stories
No 10 of the North and the Pornstar Martini Tree
There have been several tough looking police officers outside Heron House in Albert Square, Manchester, this week. There’s going to be a lot more of them soon. Until a new building is completed on the site of Ancoats Retail Park it appears Heron House will host the No 10 of the North. It already houses a northern outpost of GCHQ and thus, no doubt, is the most secure space in the city centre.
It’s still a bit odd though, the definition of bathos.
In one building there will be the No 10 of the North, GCHQ, Manchester Registry Office and…er…the Slug and Lettuce pub featuring ‘3 shots for £11’, ‘3 bombs for £12’ or perhaps a ‘Pornstar Martini Tree for £52’ with nine, yes NINE, full cocktails.
Purchase a couple of those ‘trees’ and that’s the whole cabinet more or less sorted. Better than stuffy old Downing Street eh? Andy B can even buy a discount voucher to ease pressure on government finances.
Slug & Lettuce, Albert Square, announce a new menu
I dropped into the Slug & Lettuce and talked to someone there. I was pleased to learn they’re jazzing up the present menu with some new dishes.
Chef’s Special, The Burnham Meat Feast: a real mountain of meaty dreams and promises with all the bitter factionalism removed. You might find you’ve bitten off more than you can chew as this dish will be a real challenge to complete. Enjoy while you can as it may be dropped from the menu after six months. £You tell us what you think you should pay.
Scamper & Chips: parliamentary labour party with ta-ra starmer sauce. The dish comes with a slice of we-know-which-side-our-bread-is-buttered-on. £13.25 (it’s a bargain panic buy)
Crisy Shredded Starmer: sliced ambitions marinated in an exquisitely indecisive sauce over two years, gently reeved and lammyed and served with profound regrets. £8.25 (a sensible but uncommunicative price)
Breaded Mandelsteinburger: secretly epsteined for decades this comes with your choice of diplomatic posting. Only fresh meat is used. Guests can pay extra for an embarrassing older man to deliver the burger in his underpants. £15.25 preferably (in a brown paper bag)
The Polanski salad: plant-based slippery salad with no idea where it lives. Served with few scruples but lots of shameless ambition. Regulars might notice the name has changed from the Paulden Chicken Breast Magnifier. £10.99 or maybe a £1 if you feel sorry for him
Nigel’s special bolognese: classic ragu enhanced with large regular donations of crypto millionaire palmitawaycheese. Guests can pay extra for a waiter with a bin on his head. £3m at least
Eton Mess: a blast from the past from our guest chef Boris Johnson’s very own recipe. £6.45 or if coming by bus £350m
Looking back I’m not sure the man I talked to at the Slug & Lettuce worked there.
Speaking of No 10 of the North
Well done to JW Lees for creating an alternative No 10 of the North at The Millstone pub. A good laugh this from William and the team. This place is the city’s queen of karaoke and the beating heart of the Northern Quarter. Wild and crazy in there most nights, let's call the place No 10 Dancing Street.
Fine new pub opens: The Spinners Rest
Speaking of local breweries, Joseph Holt have come up trumps with their reinvention of The Shamrock pub in Ancoats as the Spinners Rest. They’ve expanded the site on Bengal Street with a cracking terrace and internally decked it out in a very traditional manner that suits. The pub offers a classic British pub menu. It’s a real boost for the area and on the Friday afternoon I visited was packed with a mixed clientele of Miles Platting locals and younger apartment folk from Ancoats and New Islington.
Pub desert
I was taking a group around Angel Meadow the other day and we finished in the Crown & Kettle pub on the corner of Great Ancoats Street and Oldham Road. Some of the guests were from Failsworth and one of them said: "Between here and Failsworth centre there isn't a single pub open along the length of Oldham Road. That's more than three and a half miles. There must have been dozens when I was growing up." The Spinners Rest offers a crumb of comfort.
G20 summit to come to Manchester
It’s good news for the city that the eyes of the world will be focussed on Manchester when the G20 summit arrives here in 2027. I’ve been racking my brains - when I inevitably get asked - where to take Donald Trump on a tour.
I’ve got a few ideas. A trip out to the Trafford Centre might remind him of Las Vegas, there’s a McDonald’s there too. He loves golf so we could grab a game at Dino Falls Adventure Golf next door, the main features of which may remind him of himself. We’d definitely pop into The Village at some point where Big Don can do his famous jig to his favourite tune YMCA. I’d like to finish at the aforementioned Millstone pub where the President can deliver a lively version of My Way or maybe The Smiths’ classic Big Mouth Strikes Again. Oh and I nearly forgot. We must take a stroll to the Abraham Lincoln statue to discuss the dignity of presidential high office.
Anybody got any other suggestions?
Radio 4’s Today programme lapse
After the cabinet was announced the BBC’s Nick Robinson quizzed Jonathan Reynolds, the Business and Trade secretary on the cabinet composition. This is the recording two hours and twenty minutes into the programme. Robinson asked how would Southern people and parliamentarians take the fact there are now many more Northern ministers than those from London and South East. He said there are only four from the latter areas? Reynolds was taken aback and said: “I don’t want to get tetchy but I can’t remember previous occasions wher people have objected to too many people being from a different part of the country.”
I got tetchy once. I remember writing about a cabinet situation in Manchester Confidential when the Conservative government in 2021 revealed a watered down plan for the rail line between Liverpool, Manchester and Leeds. Then it was very much the opposite situation and one the BBC didn’t mention.
I wrote in the context of Johnson’s big election result in 2019 which had collapsed the red wall of Labour MPs in the north of England: ‘The problem for the new Northern MPs will be finding a voice to make their case. In the cabinet out of 21 cabinet members there are just three with northern constituencies and those sit some distance from the main cities affected by the proposed railway line. Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor, is MP for Richmond, North Yorkshire, Ben Wallace, Defence Secretary is MP for Wyre and Preston North, while Anne-Marie Trevelyan is a MP for a constituency so far distant it might as well be in Norway, Berwick-upon-Tweed. All the other cabinet ministers, except the two at the Welsh and Scottish offices, all hold seats south of Birmingham.”
Jonathan Reynolds should have got tetchy about and told Nick Robinson: “Isn’t it great? Haven’t you or the BBC listened to what Andy Burnham has been saying about devolution?”
CNN and Manchester
I took around CNN’s senior business reporter Hanna Zaidy on Monday 13 July who’d come north to see what the Burnham fuss was all about in Manchester. This is the story she produced about Manchester. If you have time it’s worth a read. It's always interesting to get another perspective.
Korean drinking test
I took some delightful gents from a major Korean company around on the Monday following the conclusion of the Open Championship at Royal Birkdale Golf Club. They had perfect English and were very enthusiastic about Manchester but there were some questions that gave me pause for thought. For instance one gentleman said: “We were out in Manchester on Saturday night and we wondered if the city has the most impressive drinking culture in the country?” I quipped back: “The best.” Then I asked what they meant and they said they’d never seen so much drinking in all their lives. “It’s not just Manchester,” I said, “I think you’d find most towns and cities in the UK have an equally impressive drinking culture, although I’m not sure impressive is the right word.” “I think he was being polite,” said the boss with a smile who didn't look like he needed a Pornstar Martini Tree from the Slug & Lettuce.
Good news about a park opening
As revealed in an earlier newsletter a fine new park, St Catherine’s Wood, will open a little north of Victoria Station this month, specifically on Friday 24 July at 11pm. If you’re around maybe take a look.
