Publications

Soon in hard copy: Inside the one party state

Twelve guerrilla snapshots of municipal Manchester

Journalism

Best reads 2025: Camille Paglia, Julian Cope, David Talbot

[Northern Soul 22/12/25]

Best reads 2024: Alan Garner, Howard Jacobson

[Northern Soul 22/12/24]

Good night Brunswick…could the sun be about to set on an historic Manchester neighbourhood?

[Blog 2/1/24]

Best reads 2023: Tom O'Neill, Gordon Burn, Charlotte Bronte

[Northern Soul 22/12/23]

What's the craic with..? Benjamin Myers

[About Manchester 9/5/23]

"Anderton's boys would see themselves in our comic then come and raid us again" A tea dance with Savoy Books' Michael Butterworth

[About Manchester 12/2/23]

"Certainty like that passed for insight in the 90s" Liam Spencer, Nathan Ake and the conspiracy to solve the Kennedy Assassination

[About Manchester 28/1/23]

"There's more to Ireland..." Flann O'Brien, the Irish, and the English

[About Manchester 4/11/22]

What's the craic with..? Elizabeth Gaskell

[About Manchester 4/10/22]

Recession incoming: “There’s something about the past thirty years that feels like a skipping record, an infinitely-looping GIF"

[About Manchester 29/8/22]

What's the craic with..? Anthony Burgess

[About Manchester 14/9/22]

"The highest inches" England’s heights, the Irwell’s depths, new paths for the humble zine

[About Manchester 29/8/22]

“There is no future for our species” Sebastião Salgado’s apocalypse

[About Manchester 11/6/22]

“People need monsters” Fat White Family’s Lias Saoudi on Ten Thousand Apologies

[About Manchester 14/3/22]

Why I don't like Not Quite Light

[Blog 3/3/22]

"Does the council's planning committee do rehearsals?" Rebel councillor Marcia Hutchinson speaks

[The Meteor 16/2/22]

Xmas card from GCHQ

[About Manchester 20/12/21]

Passing Time: how I helped bring a ‘lost classic’ Manchester novel back into print

[The Meteor 18/11/21]

Guardiola girding City for last hurrah

[About Manchester 18/11/21]

The new front line in Manchester politics

[About Manchester 11/11/21]

Blackhaine single shows where Manchester music could be heading

[About Manchester 4/11/21]

Solskjaer's problem is Ronaldo - he represents everything that is sick at Manchester United

[About Manchester 28/10/21]

The thought of Andy Burnham leading the Labour party shouldn't stir anybody's blood

[About Manchester 21/10/21]

Are FC United just another football club now?

[About Manchester 15/10/21]

Inside the one party state...the last days of Sir Richard Leese

[Blog 4/10/21]

Was Ewan MacColl spying on his mates for Special Branch?

[About Manchester 24/9/21]

Book review: Lost, Found, Remembered by Lyra McKee

[Northern Soul 1/6/21]

The Manc Year That Was: 2020 in Review

[Manchester Confidential 31/12/20]

Book review: The Abstainer by Ian McGuire

[Northern Soul 22/12/20]

Book review: Manchester - Something Rich and Strange, ed. Dobraszczyk / Butler

[Manchester Confidential 18/11/20]

Book review: The Northern Question - A History of a Divided Country by Tom Hazeldine

[Northern Soul 16/11/20]

"The superstitious may ask: 'if we burn Haslam will the gods give us our music scene back?'"

[Manchester Confidential 29/10/20]

Set in Uganda, This Coming-of-Age Story Contains Universal Themes [Jennifer Makumbi photo image]

[New York Times 1/9/20]

With Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi's Next Novel a Star is Born [photo image]

[Publisher's Weekly 24/7/20]

Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi on immersing her reader in Ugandan culture in her second novel [cover photo image]

[The Bookseller 26/6/20]

Album review: I Am Not A Dog On A Chain by Morrissey

[Northern Soul 5/4/20]

"The dark person is coming" Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi on Idi Amin, the African novel and 'Manchester Happened'

[Northern Soul 26/11/19]

"I write the books that shout loudest in my head" Crime legend Val McDermid

[Northern Soul 20/9/19]

"We built something amazing here" Does the 'Shudehill Shard' spell the end of the Northern Quarter as we know it?

[Manchester Confidential 28/8/19]

"That romantic notion that the past will come to the rescue of the present" Polyp, founder of the Peterloo Memorial Campaign

[Northern Soul 17/8/19]

“Are you out of your mind?” MiF director John McGrath on why this year's culturebang is far from elitist

[Manchester Confidential 2/7/19]

"Look out for #dunblanehoax coming down the greasy mindpipe" North West goes to the polls as Farage eyes ownership of Europe debate

[Manchester Confidential 23/5/19]

"Every time they've tried to take me down it hasn't worked" Tommy Robinson comes to Salford

[Manchester Confidential 25/2/19]

"We only want what's fair" Manchester clubs at the centre of Premiership breakaway tensions

[Manchester Confidential 19/02/19]

Christmas letter from Salford: The Star is saved but there’s a bleak midwinter ahead for cladding victims

[Manchester Confidential 29/12/18]

Poem: Fifteen Haiku For A Drinking Day

[Manchester Confidential 26/11/18]

"Abu Dhabi isn't Qatar, you know" Sir Richard, Manchester and the Sheiks

[Manchester Confidential 23/11/18]

"Can Manchester learn from this?" Preston, the Corbynomics poster town

[Manchester Confidential 15/11/18]

“I don’t really know that I can answer what I think you’re asking me” Mike Leigh on Peterloo

[Manchester Confidential 2/11/18]

"The Northern Quarter was born in the Night & Day" Last thoughts on Jan Oldenburg

[Manchester Confidential 1/11/18]

"Cat. Pigeons. Us." The Funeral of Diana Princess of Wales 2.0 at The White Hotel

[Manchester Confidential 7/9/18]

Poem: Bricks

[Manchester Confidential 24/8/18]

"Let them eat fire extinguishers" Green Quarter residents told to pay £3m to fix Grenfell-style cladding

[Manchester Confidential 22/6/18]

"Slow motion greatness" Cult author Jeff Noon is back

[Manchester Confidential 29/5/18]

"Gentrification by force" Hulme’s Captain Cae0s is finally evicted

[Manchester Confidential 12/12/17]

"I've threatened the life of every man and woman who's been involved in this" The truth about social cleansing in Manchester

[Manchester Confidential 1/8/17]

Music: Kirsty McGee / Ocotillo live at the King's Arms

[Salford Online 3/3/16]

"Theirs flows more but ours looks better" Natasha Jonas and the rise of women fighters

[Big Issue North 15/2/10]

"There really did have to be a woman" Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy

[Big Issue North 12/12/09]

"He reverts to the accent of his childhood" Andrew Biswell on The Real Life of Anthony Burgess

[City Life 3/11/05]

Film review: Elephant [15]

[City Life 28/1/04]

"Where's the resonaance?" Quentin Tarantino settles Kill Bill

[City Life 15/10/03]

"I know I'm going to be bombed" And so on into the belly of the beast

[City Life 19/3/03]

"People get addicted to silence" Getting the monk to the Buddhist centre

[City Life 23/10/02]

"That was one big protest march" The first Stop The War demo, London

[City Life 9/10/02]

"I might be dead by the time you publish this" Mike Leigh on All or Nothing

[City Life 9/10/02]

"Next they'll be saying I had flying lessons in Florida" Taxi ride, Sept 2002

[City Life 25/9/02]

"If cinemas were like art galleries" Ken Loach rocking Sweet Sixteen

[City Life 25/9/02]

"They're playing home movies of their favourite riots" A Robert Newman secret gig

[City Life 10/7/02]

"Danny Moran vs the Royal Family"

[Dazed & Confused June 02]

"Hurrah for the Jubilee!" At home with the Hamiltons on the Queen's big day

[City Life 12/6/02]

"We want to put the record straight" The cast of Diary of a Bad-lad try to convince me their film is real

[City Life 6/3/02]

"I said, 'He's a pisshead and you're a whore...'" My Valentine's date with Jeremy Kyle

[City Life / Century FM 14/2/02]

"I've never seen a temperature drop as big as that" The haunted house

[City Life 21/11/01]

"He took me aside" Pilgrimage to the grave of Duncan Edwards

[City Life 23/10/01]

"Can I invite you to the church I go to?" Baptised into the International Church of Christ

[City Life 8/8/01]

"Don't touch that" The flying lesson

[City Life 11/7/01]

"I spose it's the risk" Straight boy's guide to cottaging

[Attitude May 01]

"Being born is not a crime" The cryogenic storage facility

[City Life 18/4/01]

“It’s how you get behind the eyes” Ken Loach on Bread and Roses

[City Life 18/4/01]

"The rat would probably catch something" Christmas at the Salvation Army soup kitchen

[City Life 10/1/01]

"I've never seen it outside the club before" The Hacienda Must Be Auctioned Off

[City Life 6/12/00]

"You were either on the dole or you were going to be a star" Carol Morley relives The Alcohol Years

[City Life 25/10/00]

Doomed Youth - the incredible story of poet Alan Burke

[Dazed & Confused Oct 00]

New school rap...Saian Supa Crew in Stretford

[The Face July 00]

"A lot stems from disappointment" Guy Garvey delivers Elbow's New Born EP

[City Life 28/6/00]

"I had lunch with Ewan and told him we needed Leo instead" Danny Boyle thinks bigger for The Beach

[City Life 9/2/00]

“He’s an ancestor of Johnny in Naked” Mike Leigh on WS Gilbert and Topsy Turvy

[City Life 9/2/00]

"On his way..." The Tyson-Francis weigh-in at the Midland hotel

[City Life 9/2/00]

"People like you the way they discovered you" Kevin Spacey finds himself in American Beauty

[City Life 26/1/00]

"We've got these Johnsons now" Sweeping up after the Twentieth Century with the municipal cleansing dept

[City Life 1/1/00]

"Just...tooling around being Bond" Pierce Brosnan at the Dorchester for The World Is Not Enough

[City Life 24/11/99]

"Sometimes I kick off" John Bramwell at the centre spot for I Am Kloot's debut single

[City Life 27/10/99]

"The pleasure for me is in seeing people develop" Joe Moss, the man who discovered The Smiths

[City Life 29/9/99]

"You want entertainment" Indie-punk hip-hop monkeys Brassy

[City Life 1/9/99]

Film review: South Park - Bigger, Longer and Uncut [15]

[Express 31/8/99]

"When I read it, I thought it was like great literature" Olivia Williams, the English rose blooming in Rushmore

[City Life 18/8/99]

"It's the next five hundred years that will be key" George Lucas and the return of Star Wars

[City Life 7/7/99]

Film review: The Matrix [15]

[Express 15/6/99]

Cultural Barometer

['Engaged' zine / Summer 99]

"Is that a one-way mirror?" The swingers' club

[City Life 12/5/99]

Album review: Mule Variations by Tom Waits

[City Life 28/4/99]

"I feel your pain" Monica Lewinsky comes to the Trafford Centre

[City Life 31/3/99]

The Week That Was: Rae & Christian / Tommy Tiernan / Brett Easton Ellis / The Fall

[City Life 3/3/99]

"I'm not really into reality" Darren Aronofsky on lo-fi psycho-debut Pi

[City Life 20/1/99]

"Low frequency lobster radar" Polythene, Cheetham Hill's answer to Sonic Youth

[City Life 4/11/98]

"I write to be read" Lemn Sissay on poetry and Black consciousness

[Bop City zine / Summer 89]