Do you ever wonder "Have I got too much money?" Well, now here's a definitive check.
If you find yourself breaking out your credit card to buy Voss Artesian bottled water at £25 for 12, consider yourself institutionalised by capitalism. It does come in a natty glass bottle. But it's still just water, even if it's sourced from under a million-year old glacier in deepest Norway, filtered through virgin's hair (and bottled in a factory on an industrial estate).
To break the cycle of wasting your money on this old rope I recommend giving away all your earthly possessions. Perhaps to some starving journalists. They can be found hanging around Manchetser's pubs and park benches trying not to look like alcoholics.
Voss water can be purchased from Smithfield Wine, previous winners of Salford's Chapel Street Business Group Business of the Month. They also do a very interesting-looking bottle of Lanchester mead for 7 quid. Incidentally, if you've never tried mead, it's honeyed liquer, I promise you'll never go back to wine again.
Friday, 8 August 2008
Water Water Everywhere - Too Expensive To Drink
Tuesday, 29 July 2008
Bored? Try SalfordOnline.com
Here's a decent alternative for anyone who's bored. Try this link for SalfordOnline.com's A Bit of Fun, there's thousands of hours worth of fun shit to do, including crosswords, optical illusions, slashdot pics, jokes, cartoons, animations, videos and more.
Thursday, 24 July 2008
My Recent Portfolio
You can see my recent work at the following links. These include: a story about disabled access in Salford, a business feature on Salford City Radio, my coverage of an academic conference on The Fall and an interview with Turkish rock artist.
Saturday, 19 July 2008
Salford Bloggers Do It For Free!
If you live in Salford and belong to a community group, and you want to join the online revolution, go here, to Charlestown & Lower Kersal Social Media Centre. They'll teach you how to get a free blog, where you can post your thoughts, get involved in online debating and even market yourself for jobs.
Safe, mate, d'ye knaa wha meen?
Friday, 18 July 2008
Manchester Media: Salford Online
Salford Online is a news and community website serving, well, Salford.
Long perceived as Manchester's "scruffy neighbour" (see here for the offending article), Salford has for years been playing catchup in terms of coverage and media outlets. Salfordonline attempts to redress this balance, and is looking for new amateur journalists and writers to cover the vast variety of stories on offer.
It's led by editor Brian Everall and a very small (ie single figure) team based in Eccles, but constantly provides high-quality journalism despite this lack of resources.
You may recognise star reporter Tom Rodgers from this site, or from his articles in the Paul Foot award-winning Salford Star (produced by mad scally Stephen Kingston) and on crossrhythms.co.uk!
Tuesday, 3 June 2008
Salford University MA Journalism
So, that was it then, i went for my Masters in Journalism interview at Salford Journalism department at Adelphi House, Salford. There's a little picture of it on the right here, in fact.
Adelphi House is a pretty imposing red square block of a building. It's right next to the River Irwell and can look quite pretty on a nice day, as you can see from the pic 
below.
Don't get confused like I did and head for the Culture, Media and Music Department, which is about 500 yards from Adelphi House in a north-westerly direction, across a car park which is pretty windy, grey and desolate. It's the picture I had in my head of what Salford would be like, all burnt out buildings, flat spaces with very little scenery. A pictorial representation of this is shown in the pictures below.
So, the interview. It really wasn't as difficult or challenging as I thought it should have been, just a little 10 question news quiz e.g.
1) Who is Edward Timpson (Tory winner of Crewe and Nantwich by-election),
2) What do Robert Knox and Ayar Aslam have in common (both teenagers, both recently stabbed),
stuff that had been in the news in the past week or so, and a couple of technical questions e.g.
3) What is a leader/byline/masthead,
4) Who are the PCC and what do they do.
From a group interview I was expecting us to explore an issue and for each of us to take a certain position on that issue. What actually happened: we were asked the one fuckin question I hadn't prepared for, the question that people applying for graduate jobs hate to hear: "So, tell me a little bit about yourself." What do you want to know? I'm quite lazy, I don't learn things very quickly, I hate work, I like to know obscure facts and figures, I'm distrustful of authority and I love my bed. That's about it, in a nutshell.
Tell me a bit about yourself, I dunno, it's such a dissembling question, like the interviewer really does want to know that you like Curb Your Enthusiasm and you and your dad smoke weed on a regular basis, rather than doing the graduate thing and "selling yourself". Well, you say, I've been interested in this course since I moved to Manchester, I've been writing for Company A and Company B and etc etc etc. I really can't be fucking arsed to sell myself any more. I've been trying to hock myself out to companies and for jobs since I left university and it's just completely hollow bullshit. They know it, and you know it, and neither of you are willing to admit it.
Monday, 10 March 2008
Retracing Salford
Salford Museum and Art Gallery documents over 50 years of Salford ’s recent history. The exhibition includes
- Photographer Maria Murphy’s view of regeneration in
- Mixed-media artist Tim Garner’s collages of photography & painting
- Lawrence Cassidy’s family photographs, films and memories from residents of demolished
I spoke to Maria Murphy as she reminisced about growing up in Broughton in the 1960s. She said, “We used to have play streets, the road used to be closed so kids could go out and play in the streets. But you go there now and it’s hard to find anyone on the street at all.”
The regeneration projects of the 60s, including the flagship flats at Hanover Court, had become eyesores by the time they were demolished in 2005. Through the 70s and 80s the housing deteriorated in structure and remained under-funded for refurbishment. They were recently condemned for providing substandard living conditions to Salfordians.
It throws a spotlight on the hotly-contested local redevelopment that Salford City Council is undertaking; the regeneration flats at Chimney Pot Park; “affordable housing” way out of the reach of local residents and the Council’s habit of ploughing money into short-sighted housing renewal projects.
The exhibition runs until 20th April, entry free.
Saturday, 19 January 2008
MA/PGDip Journalism: Salford
I've been getting very excited this week by the prospect of Journalism. Out with writing for fun. In with writing for money. I'm putting together the final thoughts on an MA/PGDip in Journalism at Salford, starting September 2008.
With mediacity:uk open for business in 2011 (check progess of building works here), I hope that this degree will open up some major networking opportunities in journalism in Great(er) Manchester. Training is absolutely essential to becoming a journalist. You need the NCTJ qualifications - along with any subbing/layout, proofing and interviewing skills you've picked up along the way - to be taken seriously.
I did look at other MA Journalism providers in the North West. They included the University of Central Lancashire (UCLAN) in Preston, which has a very strong website, and an impressive Online Journalism course, and Sheffield Hallam, which came top of the NCTJ rankings recently. Both centres are highly rated and have very positive alumni progress stories.
I have to admit I was less sure about Salford. My initial interest was sparked by seeing that the MediaGuardian columnist and all-round media hero of mine, Steve Hewlett, was a Visiting Professor there. Fourth place in the above NCTJ rankings did Salford's reputation no harm either. But Salford itself, which as I learnt on a fact-finding pootle around Outer Manchester, is not the prettiest place in the world. Salford Quays, the apple in the architects' eyes, is an overwhelming sheen of glass and expensive lighting. The imposing Imperial War Museum and the Lowry, however, do a good job of outshining Salford's more outre architectural behaviour.
Staying in and around Manchester was a big draw, as I've settled in very well here in the leafy paradise of West Didsbury - The Chelsea of the North.
Moving to Manchester was a big step for me; goodbye farms and running over phesants, hello live poetry and big, big gigs. It's a wonderful, complex, dirty, beautiful contradiction of a place, and it's just inspired so many thoughts and ideas since moving in Feb 2006. The arts scene is fookin mint, which helps. Some of the amazing things I've already seen in Manchester include:
Paul Hartnoll (one-half of Orbital) playing electroacoustic techno with full band (electric harp, drums, flute, cello) to an assorted crowd of curious stoners, sharply dressed ex-ravers with kids in tow and beardy middle-aged nutters. All the better for taking place in that achingly divine structure, the Bridgewater Hall.
Finding out a guy I work with in Moss Side is a genuinely talented guitarist and songwriter - Kamal Arafa.
Seeing Whitworth Park in glorious sunshine, and knowing that Moss Side's not the rat-infested crack den the national media claim it to be.
And this, my personal favourite; you don't often see a company willing help itself to acres of bad press. Redstone, building student flats in Moss Side, wagered on a completion date of 2006, a splashed it across a big beige sign:
It is now 2008. Yes, they are still building. Yes, the sign is still there. I have thought about pointing it out, but I don't think they'd buy me a pint for doing so.
Also worth considering was Aphex Twin (9th December 07), playing a blinding set underneath Piccadilly Train Station as part of The Warehouse Project. It was freezing cold, with a smoking ban imposed, but brilliant all the same; the underground space set out for the gig was enormous, cavernous, with films, graphics and animations playing out the jagged brick walls. Luke Vibert weighed in with a funky IDM set which was also very good.
I may also have scored some work experience for the well-reviewed community magazine the Salford Star. To read editor Stephen Kingston's inspirational piece on Salford and community journalism, click here.
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