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Sleuth’s City silliness of the week
Sleuth can’t believe the homepage of the official City website - above. Look at the Barclay’s Premier League table. Look where it starts. With second place and Chelsea. That doesn’t stop United being top dear City people. It doesn’t make their neighbour’s success any less real.
Sleuth’s most terrifying email from Confidential of the week
When we send emails out to readers we write titles to go in their inboxes. BT internet shortens these to fit them in a list. Sleuth was shocked to read this at the start of the week: Manchester’s biggest ever cock… Of course it was meant to say Manchester’s biggest ever cocktail. “That email will have a big opening rate,” giggled Gordo. Here's the evidence.
Busiest Wetherspoons
Sleuth’s heard a rumour that the Wetherspoons in the Trafford Centre is the busiest regional Wetherspoons. The back of the bar features loads of famous Manchester street names lifted cheekily, given the location, from the city centre, including that major thoroughfare, Coronation Street. The front of the bar features loads of desperate men for whom shopping has lost all appeal. The men are texting their wives, elsewhere in the big mall, asking if they could drive home, as two pints are always better than one. A single pint is just lonely.
Sleuth’s wrong word of the week
Spot it yourself - on this car park sign.
Sleuth’s error of the week
Andy Spinoza spotted this and put it on his Twitter feed @andyspin: ‘The Observer: Mario Balotelli goes to a Mcr "nightclub" called “Jukes”. When it's a pub named Dukes. No Northern staff, no local knowledge.’ Very perceptive Andy thinks Sleuth. It's pisspoor.
Sleuth’s pure pain of the week
Sleuth is devastated his fave club has closed. Sleuth got an email a week or so ago saying, ‘Do you know Pure is shut?’ Sleuth replied with, ‘Yes I know Pure is shit, but it can be good fun if you’ve had enough to drink and happen to be in the Printworks?’ The correspondent informed Sleuth that he must have misread the email.
Sleuth’s picture of an unlikely duck - of the week
Binns, our News Editor, sent Sleuth this picture in an email. He called the email ‘Picture of a Duck’. Binns is well-known for his accurate journalism, “I stick to the facts,” he said. The duck is walking down an alleyway in Salford. Sleuth reckons it was trying to save the environment by not flying. It later got on a bus.
Sleuth’s poke in the eye letter of the week
This from Manchester’s Minister for Fun Councillor Pat Karney to The Guardian letters page: ‘For the past few months Manchester has been singled out for crude and targeted attacks from coalition leaders and ministers. We had everything thrown at us, from made-up figures about our finances to imaginary posts in the town hall, like a "twitter tsar". We were accused of treating Manchester as a political laboratory so that we could force through political cuts to embarrass the government. Manchester has now spoken. In a historical sweep of candidates all Liberal Democrat councillors up for election were swept away for these deceits. Manchester is not just a Tory-free zone; we are now heading towards a Lib Dem-free zone.’ Likes a good gloat, our Pat.
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A couple of weeks ago AA Gill of The Times came north to savage the BBC move, Rod Liddle came with him to defend it. Alan Yentob, one of the BBC bosses, was along for the ride. One of the BBC forums has published the piece HERE.
In one passage AA Gill writes: ‘A sprightly, skinny gent strides over. He has an angular face like a triangle of cheese that just ate a rat. “Hello, hello,” all round.
'He greets Rod with a rehearsed surprise. He was once a radio reporter on the Today programme when Rod was a producer. Now he’s a flak-catcher, a journalist turned journalist-tamer. He’s here to show us round.
“There’s not a lot happening at the moment, but you’ll get a sense. I’m afraid there’s no filming.”
'Rod comes with his own video-diarist, and blusters that seeing as this is a media city, the camera ought to feel at home. The minder replies that that’s the rules.
'So Alan steps forward, all cool, like Clint in a plastic mac, and says in a quietly menacing voice: “I’m sure that doesn’t apply to the artistic director of the BBC.” The cheese turns hard, and with a snarling smile shoots back that this building isn’t owned by the BBC.
Oh dear - Sleuth can reveal the ‘cheese’ is Paul Newman, Head of Communications at Peel Media. Sleuth hears he’s not well-pleased. Understandable really.
Here’s a picture of a cheese triangle and one of Paul Newman, we’re sure you can guess which is which.
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7 comments so far, continue the conversation, write a comment.
Looks like Daisy Mill in Longsight is for the chop too. This time MCC own the building and are…
Read moreThe initial plan, by all concerned, was always to save & redevelop Ancoats Dispensary though wasn't…
Read moreThat's perfectly true, but for various reasons not relevant to the original point. I'm happy to…
Read moreI'll try again..of course it won't, it's not listed so it will go. The fact that it is elegant,…
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Peel, something, something etc etc.
Delightful to see Paul Newman put Yentob in his place. Kudos.
If I liked AA Gill before, I absolutely bloody love him now. Thank you for that.
Correction - far from being displeased, I thought it was one of the funniest personal descriptions I've ever read! Hats off to Adrian Gill, a fabulous writer.
Sir, with reference to the picture of me in the Salford Alleyway above. I was not trying to save the environment by not flying. I was merely looking for some 'action' in a Salford pub. I did however catch the bus home.
Paul Newman - Butch Cassidy? So who's the Sundance Kid of Peel? Whittaker? Ms Hill.
Pat Karney has spit his dummy out over the accusation that the city council are liars and cheats,answer me this then how come the city councils survey on the congestion charge said that approx seventy five per cent of the community were in favour of it,but the results of the vote was that seventy five per cent were against it.There can be only two conculsions to this either the council got the result of the survey they wanted or the survey company did the job completley wrong,in which case we shouldn't pay them,if we did pay them it must mean they did the job as instucted.