Category: Reviews

Fine art photographer Andrew Brooks happily acknowledges he is standing on the shoulders of giants when it comes to creating his own unique atmospheric pictures. Seven years ago British photographer Andrew Brooks took me on after a series of unexpected events kick-started my life as a freelance writer. As...

As Black History Month begins today on National Poetry Day, it brings to mind how a little-known poem by Muhammad Ali became a contender for the world’s shortest poem. Previously, the generally accepted holder of this title was poet Strickland Gillilan, that was until, Ali the greatest boxer of...

Never mind the bog rolls, if ever the country needed a reet good gallows laugh it is now. Fortunately for us, there’s a comedian who can help us in our dark hour....

From the moment the Millfield Girls 1st XI first stepped onto the astroturf together in the September of 1989, I knew we had that special kind of magic....

For over a decade he has been walking in snowshoes to draw incredible geometric images on the pure white snow of the Alps. And the rest is as they say mathematics......

With Manchester Pride coming up this weekend for PoCLGBTQWI (and all the rest of letters in the alphabet), why not try a few pick-up lines from Sappho and wow your future partner...

A Guest Post by Mike Haigh, Printroom Custodian at the Beck Isle Museum, in Pickering, Yorkshire, tells us how. The Columbian Letterpress Double Demi Revealed This hand printing press was invented by George Clymer, an engineer from Philadelphia, USA, in 1813. The design was the first all metal lever...

  This piece can be viewed in the Manchester Central Library archives along with hundreds of other women’s stories brought together by The Pankhurst Centre. For more information about this project see the womenswordsmcr blog. Author’s note: This unedited stream-of-consciousness prose on life so far in Manchester was written under...

  “I’ve never been in here before,” said Jules about Central Library. “It is completely overwhelming.” Despite being a resident of Manchester for eighteen years, it’s not really surprising as reading has never been one of her favourite things to do. An undiagnosed dyslexic at school in the 1980s...

When I am dried up, a desert of words, feeling what I imagine it would be like to be an old woman in a time before any of the waves of feminism whetted her appetite for life, I always find myself reaching for a book called Carol. The copy...

In 1993 an empty Last Splash CD case permanently resided at the top of the other CDs sprawled across typical student detritus that grew next to my bed – an overflowing stolen pub ashtray, penguin biscuit wrappers and unused packets of fruit-flavoured condoms. (Only the mint one ever got...

Last September a train hurtled itself along the tracks in a sorry state from Manchester to Nottingham, it took me with it and delivered me and my frayed edges into the New Art Exchange. This venue was hosting the World Event Young Artists, a showcase of of 1000 artists from...

How are you feeling David Shrigley? Fine, thanks. I just did some yoga. Tell me about your mother? She is 72 years old and used to be a computer programmer until she retired. She likes reading and is active in her local church. Tell me about your father? He...

Colin the Big Issue seller had a busy week last week. His pitch is right outside the main entrance of the Cornerhouse that has just opened its doors to David Shrigley’s new show How Are You Feeling? and the ever-affable artist designed the cover on the magazine. “I sold...

A red-stitched baseball cap hung lopsidedly on the head of a man named Jamie. He swigged a Miller High Life and said, ‘I’m going to pace myself to three or four beers an hour.’ He was the favourite to fall first. An in-house sweepstake amongst our friends had him...