Manchester

[BJBMK2]

Born and raised in Bury, lived in and around Manchester up to the age of 26. It's very bizarre to me, to hear people in my current work go on about Manchester as if it's some utopia. Granted, this is Stoke, so I can kinda see where there getting at. It reminds me of when I talk about going to Liverpool, or London*. As in, speaking from the point of view of a wanky tourist, and not someone who has to put up with the realities of it every day.

I doubt I'll ever live there again. It has it's good and bad points like literally anywhere in the country/world/universe. But there's a lot of pain there. A lot of family stuff, mainly involving my late mother. Plus, as I've got older, I find I'm enjoying my quiet little corner of nowhere more and more.

*I mean, it WILL be London in a few years. Just another neo-liberal nightmare where no one can afford to live, pushing any semblance of culture out of the city, glass apartment, by glass apartment.

[Kankurette]

I feel the same about Chester, where I spent my teenage years. I like it, but I don't want to live there, not least because I have some very bad memories of the place. Maybe that's why I like Manchester - I can be anonymous in a big city and I don't have to worry about some dildo knowing who I am.

I'm sure I'm part of the problem, as a former student who settled here, but I've been here about half of my life, I got a job here and ended up settling. I did not want to go back to Chester. There was nothing for me there.

[good times]

Read a Guardian review of a shit sounding book by a guy called Andy Spinoza. I think the bit where I first thought 'oh fuck off' was where it says "Enter Tony Wilson."

I've lived/ worked in Manchester for over 30 years and I think the city's fucked and it's pigeons are coming home to roost. I also think the place outdoes the scousers when it comes to mythologising it's past and constantly looking backwards, and the influence of Wilson and Factory is wildly over-stated. Feels like that story is being written by a select few who were in the inner coterie.

Wondered what others thought.

Mancs spend more time going on about how great they are for not promoting their cultural heritage than most places do actually talking about their cultural heritage.

To think they're above having a proper museum to the music which came from the city, which shaped their history and which visitors would love is painfully insecure, especially when most of the galleries / museums there are dog shit.

The same insecurity is evident when they get wound up about pop culture references to the Hacienda or whatever, it'd be like Londoners losing their shit if there's a beefeater fridge magnet in a tourist tat shop. Who gives a fuck, and why are you so surprised?

The scousers are proud of their history and rightfully so, would much rather spend a day learning about their city's heritage in the Museum of Liverpool than looking at stuffed goats or whatever they managed to cobble together in the Manchester Museum (which, for some reason everyone here has convinced themselves is amazing)

[Kankurette]

We've got the Football Museum at URBIS, but tbh I'd rather it stayed in Preston because it was a pretty big tourist attraction. Preston needed it more than we do here.

[BJBMK2]

Go to Bury instead. It's fab. They have the world famous market. And we invented Black Puddings and the police force. So in an indirect way, Rodney King, the rise of racially motivated violence from the Met, the BLM riots in 21'...all Bury's fault. All of it. Bury must be stopped before it causes any more destruction and bloodshed. Nuke it tomorrow, before they open ANOTHER fucking sports bar.

Arcade Clubs fun, though.

[shoulders]

Not sure about looking backwards, it seems to me a city that is happy churning through phases if there's money in it. The heritage stuff is a bit of a fig leaf for ongoing dramatic change.


Apart from the permashite Piccadilly Gardens.

[Janie Jones]

I go for a few days every year for a craft beer festival held in a Victorian public baths, it's a stunning venue. There's some great pubs too. A cocktail at the top of that howling skyscraper is a wanky thing to do but it's also canny fun, like. Oldham street, is it, with all the vintage shops and cat cafes is worth a visit. And I love running along the old canal towpath every morning but pulling on my still-wet gear in my hotel room is dispiriting. Why has nobody mentioned the rain? It rains all the fucking time.

[poodlefaker]

Lived there from 1988 to 1992 and in that short time it seemed to change completely. When I arrived people in pubs and clubs seemed quiet with a dry humour. Reminded me of Birmingham where I grew up. Then the Madchester thing happened and everyone turned into scousers overnight.

[holyzombiejesus]

https://twitter.com/patkarney/status/1720767591302545901?t=x4cywMW7DwYWFrqrxFm_EQ&s=19

[mippy]

Remember when UK North buses cost £2 for a weekly pass? Them were the days. And then they got shut down because the buses were dodgy as fuck and half the drivers could barely drive.

You had to basically reassemble the seats to sit down on lots of them.

[Kankurette]

It's no Zippy Santa.

You had to basically reassemble the seats to sit down on lots of them.

They were very rickety.

The Finglands talk reminds me of the old Finglands bus depot near Hardy's Well. Seeing a pile of rubble where Hardy's Well used to be always makes me feel a bit sad. I had some fun times there.

[Brian Freeze]

We've got the Football Museum at URBIS, but tbh I'd rather it stayed in Preston because it was a pretty big tourist attraction. Preston needed it more than we do here.

Was Urbis the museum of a city or something like that before they robbed Deepdale?

I think the Michael Jackson statue from Fulham is supposed to be being stored under one of the stands still because M/C dont seem keen on displaying it for some reason.

[mippy]

Hard for me to judge the gentrification really - lived there 2000-2005 as a student and an even skinter worker, at that point every warehouse left standing was being converted into 'luxury apartments'. Lived in one for a bit as a mate owned it and had a spare room when our dodgy houseshare was given notice to quit and I couldn't afford rent, and used to walk down the canal to the library every day in between picking up the ol' unemployments. It was OK. The kind of place I thought I'd end up living once I graduated and got one of those high-paying jobs they all told us about, except not like that.

Keep thinking about moving back after a colleague moved there for a while and got the train back down to London once a week. There are a LOT of very tiny very expensive flats around the city now, aren't there?

[mippy]

Seeing a pile of rubble where Hardy's Well used to be always makes me feel a bit sad. I had some fun times there.

Yeah. Maybe this is why I shouldn't move back. Went there a lot as a kid, lived there, have enjoyed coming back as an adult with a proper job that can afford to have a coffee now, but the city is suffering from the twin effects of austerity and developers realising that people being priced out of London, Bristol and Edinburgh is a whole market. As much as it's a bit too fond of its own history it seems that moving forward means turning it into London, but in a bad way.

Still keep looking at nice wee terraces and calculating the distance to the train station until I remembered how absolutely riddled with damp the ones everyone I knew lived in were.

[mippy]

Was Urbis the museum of a city or something like that before they robbed Deepdale?

I think the Michael Jackson statue from Fulham is supposed to be being stored under one of the stands still because M/C dont seem keen on displaying it for some reason.

Yeah, the 'Museum of Urban Life'.

I can see the logic of relocating it to Manchester but there's surely enough football-related STUFF to have a satellite museum, maybe one closer related to the local teams.

[The Culture Bunker]

The council's shit and run by idiots. Cranes litter the skyline and none are building anything for the people who need it, just a load of Gary Nevilles building for more Gary Nevilles. Oh look, there's a massive new arena being built, that's useful.

I think it's a classic case of a council who are entirely comfortable because they know nobody else is going to get voting in. I live in one of the very few non-Labour seats - and even then, we get that creep John Leech.

I do like living in Didsbury, as it's mostly unchanged since I moved there in 2004, but if I didn't have to travel for work, I doubt I'd visit the city more than once a month.

[Buelligan]

Probably the finest Buell mechanic in Britain lives there.  Which is something not to be sniffed at.

Otherwise, it's a city.  Not crazy about those.

[Gurke and Hare]

Go to Bury instead. It's fab. They have the world famous market.

RAACed to fuck mate.

[Minami Minegishi]

Without wanting to pull this whimsical, DSMO thread into true tangential horror, I do want to point out that weird thing people do after a tragedy. Post-Arena bombing, there was so much "we're Manchester, we will get through this - this City will not be defeated, it's the way we do things up here, etc"

People getting on with their lives a few hours after a bombing isn't really a sign of strength, in my view. It's just capitalism, the need to work to eat, and an increasing disconnect with things that do not affect us directly.

It was the same after the London bombing, 9/11, and just about every Western tragedy. So not just Manchester, obviously. But some of my Mancunian friends were really over the top about it, and how the city cannot be cowed by terrorists because it's Manchester.

[mippy]

To be fair, it was the second time in a relatively short period that people tried to blow that area up. There's still a plaque commemorating the world's hardest postbox for being left standing when what's now M+S was reduced to rubble.

[mippy]

I do like living in Didsbury

Oh get YOU

[Minami Minegishi]

To be fair, it was the second time in a relatively short period that people tried to blow that area up. There's still a plaque commemorating the world's hardest postbox for being left standing when what's now M+S was reduced to rubble.

It appeared to be an entirely successful act overall, helped along by the ineptitude of the city's own Police force, venue, and security.

[drummersaredeaf]

hear people in my current work go on about Manchester as if it's some utopia. Granted, this is Stoke, so I can kinda see where there getting at.

Stoke CaB meet!

There's a weird thing here (Stoke) where Manchester is looked on with reverence because it's moving away without really moving away. It's only 45 minutes up the road and there's still the parochial draw of Stoke - Manchester is just up the road and feels massive, but it's not really far enough to feel like moving away from home.

There is also the lure of the culture - you'll no doubt have spotted the thousands of monkey boys cunting about the place whose music tastes expand as far as Oasis and the Stone Roses. I went to school in the 90s and was in bands in the early 2000s. You couldn't get away from that shit, and even now there's a long shadow over the place. I think HZJ is a few years older than me, but will no doubt be able to vouch for the above.

Post-Arena bombing, there was so much "we're Manchester, we will get through this - this City will not be defeated, it's the way we do things up here, etc"

Having just moaned like piss about Oasis, I went to the Liam Gallagher show at the Ritz the week after the Ariana Grande bombing. I can't stand him or his music, but my mate offered me a freebie and I was keen to have a drink and observe the spectacle. The environment at the end of the show was utterly toxic, and felt like an EDL rally or Nuremburg. An entire sense of these Stone Island rotters whipping themselves into an incoherent rage - directed nominally towards 'terrorists'. Really strange atmosphere, and one I was keen to leave as soon as possible. 

[Minami Minegishi]

Having just moaned like piss about Oasis, I went to the Liam Gallagher show at the Ritz the week after the Ariana Grande bombing. I can't stand him or his music, but my mate offered me a freebie and I was keen to have a drink and observe the spectacle. The environment at the end of the show was utterly toxic, and felt like an EDL rally or Nuremburg. An entire sense of these Stone Island rotters whipping themselves into an incoherent rage - directed nominally towards 'terrorists'. Really strange atmosphere, and one I was keen to leave as soon as possible. 

You mean the third encore wasn't capped with a rousing rendition of The Internationale?

As with 9/11, exposing mouth-frothing, irrational Islamaphobia amongst civilised, cultured whiteys is one of the benefits of these types of atrocities. Apparently it once even led to an illegal war that radicalised millions!

[Zero Gravitas]

They should called it Madchester because of all the Mad Chesters they've got down there!

[biniput]

What should be in the city centre though to make it worth going? I go there every now and again and it sems like an ok place to be but anywhere is different when you have to live it. The idea of Manchester being great really is to do with what it was like years ago though. I never lived there but from what I have seen of its past the place was amazingly bad for quite a long time in the late 19thC to about the late 80s. It is very much a better place now even if it has gone from cack to average but a bit supposedly sterile.

[Mr_Simnock]

Some of the buildings they have pulled down to replace with 'sterile' new stuff were complete eyesores

[BJBMK2]

Stoke CaB meet!

There's a weird thing here (Stoke) where Manchester is looked on with reverence because it's moving away without really moving away. It's only 45 minutes up the road and there's still the parochial draw of Stoke - Manchester is just up the road and feels massive, but it's not really far enough to feel like moving away from home.

I get a similar vibe myself somewhat, as an ex-local (who went down NEW ROAD). Moving away from home doesn't always feel like quite the leap it should do, because "home" is always just...there. I go back maybe once a month, and it feels like I'm nipping down the road, figuratively speaking. Damn. Why couldn't my partner/now fiancée, have lived in Barcelona, eh?

There is also the lure of the culture - you'll no doubt have spotted the thousands of monkey boys cunting about the place whose music tastes expand as far as Oasis and the Stone Roses. I went to school in the 90s and was in bands in the early 2000s. You couldn't get away from that shit, and even now there's a long shadow over the place. I think HZJ is a few years older than me, but will no doubt be able to vouch for the above.

Is that what there calling that new Hanley wonder drug now?

[drummersaredeaf]

Is that what there calling that new Hanley wonder drug now?

I'll have you know I'm from the civilised side of the D road and only cross it under duress.

[Blinder Data]

mad to hear that that poor mentally ill woman with the photocopies about her husband trying to kill her is somewhat famous. she flyered outside our high school once - she must have covered most of Manchester eventually