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Sleuth is a sideways glance at the city every week, it's the truth, but Sleuth's truth. He's several people all at once. We give £25 for every story/rumour and piece of absurdity you find for us to publish. Sleuth sometimes even gets serious. We ask for the money back if any legal action follows. Follow Sleuth on twitter @Sleuth
Political Drama At The Town Hall
Town Hall staff have been experiencing movie glamour again. After the Town Hall was used as the body double for the Houses of Parliament and hosted Meryl Streep for The Iron Lady, Gabriel Bryne and Charles Dance have been thesping round the place. This is for a political thriller called Coup. Sleuth can't confirm yet whether Dance is playing Sir Howard Bernstein and Bryne is playing Sir Richard Leese. Or indeed whether the plot revolves round a fiendish scheme to sell overpriced sausages at the Christmas markets orchestrated by the devilish Count Von Karnage.
Jamie's Duff Recipes
Jamie Oliver's new restaurant on King Street has been packing them in since it opened in February. Sleuth just hopes his customers haven't been gobbling up some of his gluten free recipes. As the Jamie Oliver machine wrote: 'In our ‘Bake for Everyone’ recipe we mistakenly labelled three recipes as free from gluten. The (recipes) all contain spelt flour, which is not gluten free. We thought it prudent to waste no time in alerting our readers to our error.' Bless him. What a diamond geezer.
Sleuth Becomes Viking God
Sleuth was in the Deansgate Starbucks on Thursday. He was buying an Americano. “What’s your name?” asked the girl behind the counter. “Eh?” said Sleuth. “It’s a thing we’re doing to try and make a visit more welcoming. We’re asking for people’s first names, it’s friendlier when calling their drink out. It’s been working well in the States for ages.”
Sleuth thought about this for a second: “My name is Thor,” he said. It made for an entertaining minute or two as he exited the store to plenty of stares from other customers.
Sleuth Waiting For His Americano
William Roache And His 1000 Women
Sleuth loved the straightforward questionnaire in the Guardian about William Roache’s (Ken Barlow’s) claim that he bedded up to a 1000 women in his early days of Corrie stardom - he's pictured in the main image at the top of the page breaking the news to Deirdre.
It read ‘Have you slept with William Roache? Yes or No’. Click here. Sleuth has answered no. Roache claims that his nickname was Cock-Roache due to his swordsmanship. Sleuth’s hears that the real reason was that whenever he was near women, they called in Environmental Health.
Sleuth’s Dead Fish Of The Week
This was in the River Irwell off Water Street, where it meets the old Manchester and Salford Junction Canal. This means it's yards from the Coronation Street set. Apparently the fish died of exhaustion after sleeping with up to 1000 fish. So Sleuth is doing a poll. Have you slept with this fish? Yes or no?
Sleuth Steals Idiotic Brand Of The Year Award Story From The Food And Drink Round-up
At the Northern Restaurant and Bar Show there was an exhibitor for Pussy. This is an energy drink aimed at women. Really? As a female friend of Confidential said, "It's not a pleasant word to say at the best of times." Pussy didn't taste very nice either. While Jonathan Schofield, Helen Ramsbottom and Chris Grimes were grimacing over the flavour, the poor put-upon Pussy representative asked, "Would you like to do a profile of Pussy? Maybe talk to one of the directors?" "No," we said firmly. Later at the Northern Ireland stall promoting the province's grub, Grimes was hoovering up some tasty cocktail sausages. "Don't snatch," said La Ramsbottom. "Snatch? Think we've got a new name for an energy drink," we all said together.
Bus Tour Launches
Sleuth was in attendance on Wednesday when Manchester's new bus tour did its honour launch. The Lord Mayor cut the ribbon on the open top bus, which will start tours on Easter weekend: £15 for two hours around the sites of Manchester from MediaCityUK in the west to the Ethihad Stadium in the east, plus the key areas of the city centre. Should be great. If you think you know your city then think again, the 'live' guides on the tour will be underlining the key stories in our significant city.
Mayor jumps as Town Cryer Shouts
Sleuth's Inane Tweet Of The Week
This week's winner is from a person in Yorkshire who tweeted 'Hey everyone - are we having a good day?' Unbelievably this was re-tweeted by another person who has clearly elevated the meaningless platitude to cult status.
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22 comments so far, continue the conversation, write a comment.
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They are filming a thing about Ronnie Briggs in the Britons not the Krays?
Thanks Alan, Sleuth will do some more digging
Surely it's Ronnie Biggs, unless it's a film about Johnny Briggs long lost uncle and his racing pigeons
What info you after on the Biggs thing? A friend is working on it, so I know a bit.
Which production company, why in Manchester, who's the star. That sort of thing. Thanks
I think I might have slept with that fish. Its hard to tell though there have been so many that they all start to look the same.
I've been through the plenty of fish that are in the sea, now time to start on the river fish, anybody got the phone number of that particularly sexy looking fish.........
You are all too young. We have had bus tours before and they failed.
Sometimes the first time I've tried something it hasn't been that great, but then I've tried again and things have improved. These tours will indeed be much more fun than the previous ones. These wil have live guides, and while the previous guides weren't exactly dead, they were merely recordings with no interactive potential. Sometimes they were even out-of-sync with the surroundings. These tours are the new improved version, brought to you by a completely new team. Go on anonymous, try one.
If everybody thought like you we'd never have come down from the trees.
I think Pussy tastes great.
Which isn't a sentence I thought I'd ever say.
I'm mildly aroused now
I'm with Stacey
is pussy best straight or mingled with other flavours?
I wander what name you would give to jagerbomb made with pussy and a shot of bailys bristol cream?
Children!
When you hear the Starbucks barista ask a customer's name, shout out "Don't tell him, Pike"
*Hive five* Peter!
*High five* that would be. Oh if only we could edit posts after submission.
I hope the bus I'm on is a bit more upright though.
Joan, apparently it will be if you drink some more pussy...
Will the bus tours show you any clean parts of the city?
Chinatown and Piccadilly gardens are a complete disgrace.