Photography

  • Find Your Eyes – Aviva Studios (home of Factory International), Manchester

    There’s something exceptionally special about stepping into the artist’s studio. In 2023, the exhibition, ‘From Moss Side to Marseille: The Art of Michael Brown and Eric Cantona’ launched at the National Football Museum. Whilst paying a visit, I was enthralled to discover that artist Michael Browne was in residence throughout, creating a new piece as

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  • Preview: Manchester Open Exhibition returns HOME this week

    Can it be two years since the inaugural exhibition? And what a two years it’s been. Well let’s not go into that, but the first Manchester Open Exhibition was so super, I even walked away with a purchased piece. A piece that soon began to take on layered and multiple meetings in the 12 months

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  • Pics: Rehearsals in full flow for Back to the Future The Musical

    If you haven’t yet heard that Back to the Future The Musical (no less) is coming to Manchester’s Opera House on 20 February 2020, great Scott, you’d better make like a leaf and get outta here! Yes, I did that homage and I’m very proud of my little self… Starring Olly Dobson as Marty McFly

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  • Restaurant Review – Ibérica’s new seasonal menu

    Whenever I go for tapas I’m reminded of a probably not that amusing exchange I overheard about 12 years ago in the Living Room, Deansgate. Two, I’m sure lovely, gentlemen were discussing life and loves (although talking about one lady they met on holiday the word ‘love’ may or may not have been used: Salt

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  • Madama Butterfly 🦋 Fatal Passions and Attraction

    I last wrote about this topic (in more detail)in my dissertation in the year cough cough etc. You understand my entire dissertation wasn’t based on Michael Douglas but a small portion of it. I don’t have a degree in Michael Douglas. I focussed on the femme fatale on film and how feminist theory has been

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  • Manchester plays host to Fizz Club – cava load of this! (sorry)

    I’ve been a member of a number of clubs in my life. Chess club, book club, netball club, Never has my enthusiasm been so strong, my interest piqued so much, my commitment been so absolute than for this particular club I’m proud to be a member of. That of course is Fizz Club, as brought

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  • eXchange Food and Drink Lounge – call me ☎️

    It’s a rare day I pick up when my phone rings. It’s a hell freezes over day I call someone else. I’m not a monster, a social pariah, arrogance personified. I guess you could call me the ultimate screener. But it’s not through a sense of selecting who I want to talk to. It’s more

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  • *MCR Event* Burns Night in style – Chivas Regal with Paul Smith

    Dear old Rabbi Burns Chivas Regal celebrated Burns Night at Paul Smith on Cathedral Street this year. Whisky never tasted so stylish…

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  • My Manchester in 2017 – in pictures

    The highs, the lows and the love that stemmed. Beautiful Manchester. .

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  • Bowled over by the Hilton

    Brought up by cricket-loving parents. I can boast that I was there at the infamous Headingley Test in 1981. I was barely stringing a sentence together given my young years what’s new? (Good one, me. Who just wrote that too. About me) … but I was there. And so with that grounding, I had no

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  • The Tram Tribes – a Manchester subculture. 

    The Manchester Metrolink. It has its knockers but I’m a fan and think, in general, it’s pretty good. Pretty good doesn’t include when it terminates early at Timperley or Navigation Road (Alty commuters, right?). But as a service, it mostly works. Whilst crowding and cancellations can drive you to the brink at times (or not, if

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  • Fall fork first into autumn at Malmaison

    After a summer of outdoor activities, beer gardens and sun terraces (yes, even in Manchester, naysayers), October heralds a time for taking it back indoors . Personally happy to see the back of light summer salads, all I can see ahead is a series of extended Sunday lunches with friends and family and delicious decadent dinners. Autumn

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  • Mancs vs Food – aka my Saucy Sunday 

    Sunday, Bloody Sunday.  You wake up in the morning, you’ve got to read all the papers, the kids are running around, you’ve got to mow the lawn, wash the car, and you think  Sunday. Bloody Sunday With a few adjustments to the woes listed by Alan Partridge , I often do think the same. They’re

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  • Brasserie Abode – bringing it home.

    It was on a balmy night in Manchester when Brasserie Abode threw open its doors, banged on its bongos and welcomed Manchester into its loving, refurbished arms. If the recently rebranded bar and restaurant is anything like its welcome party, us mancs (born and honorary) are in for a treat. Last Thursday I got a

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  • Manchester on my lunch hour

    Manchester, you’re killing me man, you’re killing me. Your 50% off food this, and 50% off food that…well it’s February now so…deal with that. Manchester. Like a cliche, a glorious cliche, I was battling all the 50% off restaurant shenanigans as I resolved away, this January, and opted for the rare and untapped resolution that

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