大象传媒

Urban Legends

• Richard Fair
• 11 Jan 07, 10:21 AM

Can you hear those hamster wheels start to turn? All over Greater Manchester, bloggers are slowly logging back on after their holiday break. And I鈥檓 sputtering into productivity too. For the last couple of years I鈥檝e been blogging over at , and from now on I鈥檒l also be posting here regularly, providing a random and eclectic recap of the week in Manchester blogs.

I heard something a while back about mysterious tunnels under the city, so I was glad to read Mark R鈥檚 post about Mancunian urban legends on . Some of the best include 鈥渓egends that abandoned 60鈥檚 nightclubs remain in the cellars of the Arndale Centre. That there is a massive cold war bunker beneath the city centre. That rivers flows underneath the Town hall and Victoria Station. Or that there is a tunnel underneath the Irwell connecting the Hanging Bridge to Ordsall Hall, complete with Tudor treasure and skeletons.鈥�

But it鈥檚 not all overactive imaginations, says Mark R. 鈥淪ome of these legends are true. I have seen the river Irk flow beneath Victoria Station and the massive Cold War bunker, which has its entrance in China Town, is now publicly documented.鈥�

Literary site (two merged blogs) provides a thoughtful counterpoint to wrangles between bloggers and newspaper critics in the press. This week the bitch sympathised with Guardian critic Peter Bradshaw鈥檚 shock at entering the gloves-off, bumptious debate on the blogosphere:

鈥淚 will never forget the feeling of exposure the first time I put up a post all without the protection of the time-honoured authority of the printed publication (which I have also experienced), and it is through writing their own blog posts that these journalists are coming to experience this for themselves.鈥�

Music blogger was counting down the best compilations of 2006. In the top spot is Tropicalia: A Brazilian Revolution In Sound (Soul Jazz).鈥淭he music on this compilation was recorded at a time of turmoil for Brazil and it comes from a handful of artists who were convinced that music could change the world. It was a noble, but doomed endeavour, but the politics is just another facet of this joyous, celebratory music. Gal Costa's 'Sebastiana' is one of the sexiest things I've heard all year, while both versions of 'Bat Macumba' that bookend this comp (from Gilberto Gil and Os Mutantes) are the sound of the best party you've never been to.鈥�

And Mark Muldoon, who writes found himself flummoxed by a request from a girl to 鈥済ive me three interesting facts about yourself鈥�

Here鈥檚 what he came up with, some time later:
鈥�1) I鈥檝e been on Radio 1 a few times
2) Pete Doherty once said hi to me
3) I鈥檝e sky-dived myself, like.鈥�

鈥淪adly I didn鈥檛 get to impart these, as by then she was presumably off talking to some boy with indie hair or something.鈥�

Better luck next time, mate.

CLICK HERE to listen to Kate talking to Richard Fair on 大象传媒 Radio Manchester