U-turn for Much Needed Manchester Transport Updates

In 2008 over 800,000 people in Greater Manchester voted against the Proposed Congestion Charge. I can recall endless online debates that at times got quite aggressive, over whether the congestion charge was a good or a bad thing. The only consistency from both sides of the argument was that transport across Greater Manchester needed a massive overhaul. Over crowded, over priced and at times not very convenient meant that driving into Manchester for many is an obvious and easy choice over the alternative of trains, trams & buses.
One of the 'promises' from the For Campaign was that the Congestion Charge would allow a massive fund to improve transport, however, we (Greater Manchester residents & voters) were firmly warned that if the charge did not go ahead, there would be absolutely no funding to pay for transport upgrades!


Very interesting then, that this week a leaflet dropped through the doors of many a resident, stating that (despite no congestion charge) that GMPTE are planning to (finally!) introduce bus services across the City Centre, as part of a larger programme to deliver £1.5 billion of transport improvements over the coming years. Currently people living in the of North of the city have to swap not only buses, but bus companies to travel south of Piccadilly Gardens resulting in having to buy multiple travel tickets, from what I have read in the distributed leaflets, this will be a thing of the past. I'm sure it's too much to expect a similar system to London, where everyone pays a flat fee per journey/time period.

Warehouse Project 2009

Last night we went to the Warehouse Project underneath Piccadilly train station. After spending almost 50 minutes trying to find the venue (GPS locator sending us in the wrong direction, ending up behind piccadilly, unable to cut through!), we eventually arrived a little after half 10. After seeing promotional pictures and the "strictly no entry after 11.30pm" message on tickets, we expected to be queuing for a quite a while, so it was a nice surprise to find on a handful of people waiting to be searched before entry. We went straight in to find the venue (a car park during the week) fairly empty, which gave us plenty of time to have a wander around and explore. Very cleverly laid out underneath the arches, there is a foyer with merchandise for sale & cloakroom, the main room, with a bar off that area, around the corner there is the second room, and a chill out lounge with cinema!


The cinema was showing Beetlejuice & The Bourne Identity along with another film I can't remember, there was no sound but that didn't seem to bother anyone as you wouldn't have been able to hear it over the sounds from the rest of the club, there was a popcorn seller, and you could get your photo taken in the Smirnoff Cinema Seats - for this you are rewarded with 3D glasses and a visor! Along with having your photo uploaded to Facebook

The drink prices were pretty reasonable for a club, £3 to £3.50 for a can of beer (tiger, kronenbourg, red stripe etc), to £3.30 for a spirit & mixer, the bars were never too busy, we managed to get served within a couple of minutes each time we went to any of the various bars. The toilets (portaloos) were plentiful and the queues were not too bad, although they ran out of loo roll before midnight, which isn't great when you consider the club is open until 5am.

On to the music - Rich Reason was the warm up dj for the main room, he was ok, nothing particularly stood out, but it wasn't offensive to the ears either, by the time BeardyMan came on at 11pm, the previously empty room was packed out, he started with Shimmy Shimmy Ya and the crowd went crazy, it was a real party atmosphere! If you haven't seen beardyman before it's worth checking him out on Youtube.
After that we chilled out in the cinema room for a while, waiting for DJ Krush to come on at 1am. We ended up queuing to get into the relatively small second room to see DJ Krush, because he's that popular - luckily the room emptied out as most people apparently wanted to go see the radio 1 dj who's name escapes me. We didn't see all of Krush's set, but it was very Shadow-eque, it was a shame that the accompanying visuals displayed on the wall behind the decks weren't very bright, but over all a good night.
We didn't manage to see Friction or Roni Size as these were on way after out bedtime!
We headed out into the night around 1.30am, being old & tired having had a really good night out, will definitely be looking forward to more similar events.

6 Reasons why the Paris Metro is better than the Tube

1. Zones - basically if you're a tourist, once 'in' Paris, everything is zone 1, apart from Euro Disney or the airports. So no need to worry about being taken to some French jail for not having the right ticket (the threat of which made me and my college friends spend a week doing Paris on foot, compliments of the course tutor). If you're only there a few days, the best thing to do is to buy a carnet (book - ooh get me showing off my GCSE French) of ten tickets - each one valid per journey or you can actually buy a few or many as you need - there is no saving for bulk buying.
2. Rush Hour - we travelled several times in what would be considered "Rush Hour" in most cities (ie between 5-6.30pm), and not once were we crammed sardine like into a carriage with our faces smooshed against the glass, which is a common occurrence in London, neither were we subjected to a smelly armpit in our face.. in fact the rush hour period was barely distinguishable from the rest of the day. My only conclusion can be that A. Parisians don't finish work the same time as the every other major city in the world, or B. because they keep the trains running regular the entire day - thus keeping everyone moving at all times, rather than trying to put on a few extra trains at peak times.. I swear we never waited more than 6 minutes for a train.

3. Air Con - now I don't know for sure if the Metro has air con, but despite it being 30c outside, the stations and trains themselves were fine, not humid or sweaty, maybe it's just that their tunnels are bigger? Either way, being able to travel by underground train in august at a temperature that do not exceed the legal level for transporting livestock is a plus point.
4. Vending Machines - Unless there has been some radical changes in the 6 months since I last stayed in London, the majority of platform vending machines were full of chocolate bars. Not very useful say when you're about to faint through dehydration (see No.3). Needless to say every platform we used on the Metro (and there were plenty) had vending machines that stocked most importantly - Water, and lots of it. Along side various sodas, crisps, and haribo - Bonus!
5. Buskers - I have to say I have no qualms with people busking, on the underground or anywhere else, but in Paris we saw a puppet show (although I have to admit, we were subjected to some pretty awful dancing and karaoke).
6. Doors - the doors on a lot of Paris Metro trains are not controlled by the driver! which means (as we often saw) that you can open the doors a second or two before the train fully stops to jump out! It also means the doors only open if people are entering/leaving the train.

Summertime Catch Up

My blog posts over the summer have been very sporadic at best. I just feel like the past 2 months have passed in a blur!
I spent almost 3 weeks of July volunteering for Manchester International Festival along side my day job. I worked mostly as front of house for the Bach/Hadid Salon at Manchester City Art Gallery

I was very lucky in that I managed to catch at least one half of each performance for the three different concert solos (piano, cello and violin). I also worked at It Felt Like A Kiss although that was mainly waiting at designated 'escape routes' in case people left because the experience got too scary/intense, on my last shift the assistant director gave us a whistle stop tour of the space/show explaining the story including a lot of the more subtle clues through out which was the highlight of my time volunteering. The film by Adam Curtis which is a part of the installation can be viewed online at the BBC. I have to say, if I'd known a bit more about it, I would definitely have bought a ticket to go see, although I thought that about quite a few of the MiF events.

Along side that during August I joined Hot Bed Press, a print studio in Salford. I thought it was time I got back into it and put my MA to good use! I have successfully exposed a zinc plate with photec, hoping to go back next week to dip it into the acid so I can produce my first print in about 5 years!

Mid August also saw me & Ant heading to Paris for a 4 day city break - I'm still processing the photos, so a full blog post on that at a later date, but here's one of my fav shots so far taken on the Metro

Prima Donna at the Palace Theatre

One of the perks of volunteering for Manchester International festival is that hopefully you get to see parts of the shows/events you work on, but a totally unexpected bonus was that we got to choose a free ticket to a dress rehearsal of some of the events, I chose to go to Rufus Wainwright's Opera, Prima Donna at the Palace Theatre.


The story is about a day in the life of an opera singer, and without wanting to ruin it for anyone, the storyline has some amusing and ironic elements to the plot. The singing was truly amazing, as was the music.. I was so blown away by the scale of it all... the sets were the best I've seen in any stage show before and along with the costumes, felt very contemporary whilst being set in 1970. The subtitles were large enough to easily read, whilst not interfering with watching the performance, although I'd forgotten how cramped the chairs are at the Palace, even with me at 5'4" and my friend at 5'2" our legs were seriously cramped.
It is definitely worth a visit to see this, although I suspect it's close to selling out/sold out - Prima Donna is on at the Palace Theatre Manchester on the 10th, 12th, 14th, 17th & 19th July 2009, check here for ticket details.

Mark Thomas Comedy Product

On Thursday we went to the Dancehouse Theatre on Oxford Road, Manchester (opposite the BBC) to see comedian Mark Thomas. On approaching the venue there seemed to be a polling booth set up in the downstairs lobby, this was not in fact some stunt/ploy.. but a genuine polling booth!

The premise of the tour is that at each gig, the audience submits manifestos that are then read out and voted on, with Mark trying to make some of them a reality in the future.



There was also photos and anecdotes about recent protests held, including one outside Hazel Blears' house that day. They were also handing out various leaflets etc at the merch stall including a Stop & Search card, which is for any unfortunate person who gets stopped and searched under the new ridiculous anti-terrorism laws...

The night was just so funny, I haven't laughed that hard in ages, who would've thought politics could be so entertaining?
Now time to buy the book...

Cardiff - Hen Weekend

Last weekend I travelled to Cardiff for Dawn's hen weekend. I'd love to say it was a smooth journey, but it wasn't. I Caught the bus from Salford, what should have been a swift 20 minute non rush hour journey into Piccadilly somehow turned into an almost 40 minute journey of taking the massive piss slowness. I then had to rush with my awful suitcase on wheels to Piccadilly train station, legged it to the platform with about 3 minutes to spare. To find that the train was not there yet. But before I could weigh up the chances of being able to visit a near by concession for journey supplies, the train approached so I thought, I'll get something to eat on the train.
Oh more fool me, Arriva trains don't provide food OR drinks for their almost 4 hour journey to South Wales. (although it was apparent from the litter around my seat that the previous passengers had had the courtesy of Arriva refreshments).
Luckily I had thought to pack wine & mints for the journey (and a cup!) so I drank that... and arrived at Cardiff to find that everywhere in the station was closed at 11pm also!
Wow.
Then I got in a taxi, and the driver had no clue where I was going, even though I offered the postcode for sat nav (as all the taxis in Manc have sat nav), but he just decided to ask other taxi drivers at the station... needless to say when Dawn rang me 15 mins later, I was no where near where I should've been. At this point, bright spark taxi driver pulls out the sat nav and apologises (for being thick or not using it in the first place? couldn't really tell), so yeah, get to Dawn's quite late.

Day 2: Wake up fairly early and sit in the garden as the weather is beautiful, Helen made pancakes for breakie (awesome)- I had mine with lemon and chocolate spread! then it was time to crack out the margaritas!


After a few drinks we headed into Cardiff which is a pleasant 20 or so minutes walk from James & Dawn's house,(although a quick stop off at the local junk shop for a kitsch Pope plate was in order).
We had a good wander around the shops before stopping off at Zushi for some Sake and sustenance

I would say this prepared us for the walk home, but to be fair, we went to Cuba where we had Long Island Iced Teas and then jumped in a cab back to the house!
Where we fired up the barbie for tofu kebabs as well as Dawn doing a fab spread of tabouleh, raita and general salady goodness

This was then washed down with more alcohol... probably margaritas as we managed to grab some margarita mix whilst out in town, plus a few shots of tequila!


After the barbie we got a wee bit dressed up and decided to head back into Cardiff for a few cocktails. First stop was buddha bar, we'd passed it earlier in the day when it was really busy and as we approached we thought they were playing some decent DnB, but alas, that was the flat above the bar...the bar itself was barren at barely 10pm. we asked for cocktails and the barmaid informed us they didn't do them, at which point a smooth talking bar man said he could make us a funky buddha which was blah blah and midori... only to find a minute later, they were out of midori so he would substitute it for something else... ahh well

Dawn & Helen looking very bemused when the final concoction was brought over, I know it had Blue Curaçao in it... hence the colour
After that we headed to Inncognito

another bar that does cocktails, which was also surprisingly empty, but still took the barman about 15 minutes to make a round of cosmopolitans because they had run out of Cointreau, but at least we got a discount. We sat out the back of the bar, where you could actually hear yourself speak... no idea who they were pumping the music to, as it wasn't the 10 customers.
After there we headed to Buffalo, but this bar was charging £4 a person after 11pm (although I completely understand why) it was no good for us hens who were only going to have one drink in there, so we headed off for somewhere else and ended up some place random, there were plenty of restaurants with outdoor seating so we ordered a round of G&T's and V&T's (after the obligatory tequila slammers)

Natasha had along with the lovely medals brought a selection of miniature plastic instruments including a Harmonica, Kazoo, Football rattle and Mini saxophone.




After this we grabbed a cab back to the house where we had left a few small potatoes on the barbie which were now cooked to perfection, and ready to dip into coleslaw and such. We sat out until about 1am when it got a wee bit chilly and Natasha had to drive back to London the following morning at 7am! Crazy lady!

Sunday am, we had a full cooked breakfast courtesy of James: bacon, eggs, hash browns and other meat n stuff... i was so full. Then Helen left to get her 8 hour coach!! (Crazy lady), then after a few hours of garden lazing (and apparently burning), I went home also!

Goodbye Cardiff, I was quite sad, could have happily stayed a few more days with that awesome weather :)