The news I've been waiting for since DVDs were invented! Shoulder to Shoulder is coming out on DVD in March next year!

Now I just have to wait for someone who isn't Amazon to advertise it...

Also posted on Dreamwidth, with
( Read more... )

I must report on this year's Peterloo commemoration before it slips by. After last year's event, when several hundred people turned up to hear readings by Maxine Peake, Christopher Eccleston et al, we deliberately decided to go for something a little different, not attracting as big a crowd but trying to refocus attention on our primary goal, the ( Read more... )

I must get on and give you my account of last week's Peterloo commemoration, which was our biggest and best yet. We usually do a formal wreath-laying on August 16, and hold a rally on the Sunday, but as Sunday fell on the 16th this year it was a single event, and our new idea was "the Peterloo Picnic" - Peterloo as it should have been, a peaceful ( Read more... )

I still haven't posted about the Richter/Pärt event at the Manchester International Festival, which I went to see after my council leader tweeted that "Richter/Pärt at the Whitworth one of the best things MIF has done. Ever!"

Don't think I'd put it ahead of Maxine declaiming the Masque of Anarchy two years ago, but I did enjoy it. Several works ( Read more... )

Slightly belated, my report on the fourth day of July, when I attended two parties, one at Withington Baths and one under the wings of Concorde.

( Withington Baths )

Naturally I share the general distress at the outcome of the General Election, and I'm particularly sorry for Ed Miliband, whom I really like, and I've no idea whether I'll ever have another chance to get a geek from my college into Downing Street ( Read more... )

Happy with the end of Scott & Bailey. (I was told by someone who'd worked on it that this was going to be the final season, which makes sense given [plot development commemorated in final scene], though I suppose Blake's Seven was supposed to end with Terminal and we all know what happened after that.) Anyway, they solved the crime (as they ( Read more... )

Hurrah, Scott & Bailey (not to mention my adored DCI Murray, see icon) are back - tonight at 9 p.m. on ITV.

This is the fourth series, and I understand it's the last one, so let's make the most of it.

[ETA: Amelia Bullmore, Lesley Sharp, Suranne Jones - and Danny Webb? My cup runneth over!]

Elsewhere on TV, I enjoyed Robot of Sherwood, I ( Read more... )

Yesterday I went to Manchester Pride. I went with friends last year, but was alone this time, which left me without a focus; from my point of view the Pride event itself is rather boring, as it essentially consists of a lot of people milling around bars and going to pop concerts. I sat (or stood) through a lot of pop last year, and enjoyed quite ( Read more... )

We did it again! Another Manchester redwash, with Labour winning 32 wards out of 32, as in the previous two council elections! Since the Liberal Democrats entered the coalition government in 2010, all their councillors have been knocked out - the last nine fell yesterday, the ones who had come in on the same day as the general election.

( The numbers game - you can't all lose! )