Living the highlight

I am a highlight. A highlight in this month's wonderful online zine Blank Pages. There's its cover below. It reminds my of an album by The The. I don't suppose many of you remember The The. Before your time probably. They were quite good; a bit weird, maybe, but quite good nonetheless.


Anyway, I am very much honoured to have been furnished with this "highlight" entitlement. Huzzah for me! But why?, you ask. Well, I've written a feature in the latest Blank Pages, out today, all about blogging and just how ace being a blogger in the rainy city can be and just how ace one of my fellow bloggers is. She's called Hayley Flynn; you should check out her stuff. Her Skyliner picture set is just getting going, but it promises to make hers a go-to blog. And her misplaced mail stories are fab; they're the letter equivalent of my list collection, which I'm aiming on doing more with soon. And which grew again this morning with "loaf / crumpets / Actimel / 3 meals / veg? / mixed salad / sweets / or fruit and cream". Lovely.

Talent show

OK, folks, the blogging laziness continues. I can only apologise, but I promise that plenty of exciting things are going on behind the scenes and all will be be revealed soon, when you will hopefully forgive me for neglecting you so.


In the meantime, I just wanted to mention that I finally got round to watching New Novelists: 12 Of The Best, A Culture Show Special, which was shown on the tellybox on World Book Night. That being a Saturday, I was of course out painting the town red. Anyway, I saw it last night via the magic of Betamax, and thought it was very interesting. I'm sure you're bothered.

I enjoyed learning about the historical background to the idea of listing the best new writers at a given moment in time, and the controversy that has often entailed. I enjoyed hearing the various views on creative writing courses, and how most of the novels that were finally chosen as the golden dozen had a similar narrative structure, which the panel (led by John Mullan, who writes about the process in The Guardian here) put down to studying "the art" at college. (Whether that's a good or a bad thing, make your own mind up: I ain't here to judge, honey.) I enjoyed being made aware of 11 new books and 11 new writers, and seeing the 12th, local lass Jenn Ashworth, make her screen debut. More from Jenn here, and more on her soon on this very blog.

What the book?

New year, new bloggage, and let's kick things off with some thoughts on reading. Rumour has it Kindle sales have gone through the roof this festive season, with something like eight million units being shifted even before shoppers started tearing off the doors to Selfridges in a sales-induced frenzy (I exaggerate). The most popular titles being downloaded for the handheld e-book reader? Good old-fashioned bodice-rippers.


Perhaps it's as well we don't have long to wait until 5 March, and World Book Night. The idea was launched on an unsuspecting public a mere month ago, but already your time is nearly up to put yourself forward to distribute 48 copies of your choice of tome from the list. Twenty thousand book-givers are being invited to hand out a grand total of one million books (yeah, I don't get the math either) and you have until 9am on Tuesday to apply. I'm absolutely stuffed as I (whisper it) have read only one of the 25 titles on the reading list. That's a bloody travesty, I know, so I'm hoping you lot are going to volunteer and make sure I get a copy of the books you advocate!

STOP PRESS! The deadline to apply to be a book-giver has been extended! Closing date for applications is now Monday 17 January at 9am.

Dear diary

So you think I've been avoiding you, eh? That's what all this is about. This monumental grump. You think I'm ignoring you, or that I don't want to talk to you. That's not it at all, but it's not always about you, you know. Other people, other THINGS sometimes get a look-in too.

There have been non-existent quizzes, celebrity spots, farmers markets, freezing fog, trips to Grotto, pictures of geese, 40th birthday parties, disco dancing, jay watching, Christmas social diary planning, press release writing, list idea developing, #beatoff events organising (oh yes indeedy - see, there's something to look forward to in the new year!).

There's even a story in progress. Maybe I'll let you read it at some point. You just have to be patient. I promise to write soon...

A moment of fiction #9

Let's get this out there before the party season kicks in; give you a fighting chance of getting something other than random sherry-induced witterings down on paper...

Tomorrow from 6pm, I've just heard, you can talk to Sam Pritchard, New Writing Associate at the Royal Exchange, about The Bruntwood Playwriting Competition. The next Bruntwood Competition launches and opens for entries on 31 January 2011.

If your bag is more "amazing fiction, flash fiction, prose poetry and nonfiction", the third issue of creative writing quarterly Spilling Ink Review has just come out (featuring a piece by the brilliant Valerie O'Riordan). I imagine, therefore, that the Editorial Board (oh yes) will shortly be looking for contributions for the fourth. You can read the whats, whys and wherefores of the submissions process here - "but keep in mind (above all else) we want to read your very best work" (their words).

Lancaster Litfest's Flax imprint (as mentioned in A Moment Of Fiction #7) is looking for submissions of flash fiction from writers in the north west for the Flax026 issue. Deadline is 20 January; see here for more.

I've just heard that Unsung, as mentioned in A Moment Of Fiction #8, has extended its deadline to 20 December (well, it never published one in the first place that I saw). Matthew Unsung says: "The quality and amount of submissions that we've received after announcing the next issue has been very encouraging ... however, there is still plenty of room for whatever poetry, prose, literary articles, essays and reviews that you've been pondering over!" Email your work to unsung.manchester@gmail.com. The magazine launch will be towards the end of January - I'll try and let you know when I hear.

Let's hope it doesn't clash with Bad Language's new monthly slot at The Castle Hotel, which gets underway in the new year, starting on 26 January. "Mark your calendars," the merry band of three say, as do I: the Scattered Reds launch last week was vibrant, varied and a very good excuse to sink a few pints with my #beatoff chums. There will be an open mic slot: email events@badlanguagemcr.co.uk to get your name on the list. Visit the Bad Language Facebook event page, the website or the blog for more info.

At the birth of #beatoff was @samanthabail, who Tweeted me following publication of the November edition of Moment Of Fiction to let me know about the next issue of B&N Magazine, the bilingual (German/English) zine she edits. The topic is “tied to the 90s”, according to the B&N site, with "estimated time of arrival: early to mid December", and Sam assures me it will be out by 15 December at the latest, so keep your peelers peeled in NQ venues such as Common. You heard it here (or on Twitter) first.

Finally, please don't forget to quiz Ask Ben & Clare (via askbenandclare@gmail.com), submit stories and poems to Roy Keane's Lucky Scarf (via roykeanesluckyscarf@gmail.com), fling flash fiction at 330 Words (via 300words@gmail.com) or rustle up a review for Screen150 (via screen150@gmail.com). That is all.

A moment of fiction #8

It's high time for another instalment of A Moment Of Fiction, wouldn't you say? So here's the agenda for this round-up of all things writery: first up, submissions; second, readings; third, publications; fourth, AOB.

Unsung, "Manchester's best free literary magazine" which had its very own festival earlier this year, is accepting submissions for a December edition promising to be "its mightiest". I'm not privy to the deadline as I hadn't heard back off Mr Matthew Byrne at the time of going to print, but I'm guessing it's pretty soon. Send your poems / prose / articles / illustrations to: unsung.manchester@gmail.com. Matthew says, "Launch night is TBC but I assure you there will be beer, a mic, a roof and a toilet", so keep your eye on Facebook for details as they become available.

Bewilderbliss is under new management. Having completed (and hopefully passed) their creative writing MAs, Matt and Jon are off to pastures new, and poet Max Wallis (of Talk To Me About Love and Something Every Day) is now in the hotseat. Issue 5 has been provided with a theme by lovely poet Jo Bell, one of the brains behind the Bugged project. Not surprisingly, she has picked "overheard". You can read more here and here, but basically you have until 15 January to send up to four poems, up to 5,000 words prose or a piece of black and white artwork relating to the theme for the cover and interior design.

Also on a poetic tip, poetry quarterly Magma welcomes submissions, as I found out at their recent "roadshow" as part of the Manchester Literature Festival (see my review on the official MLF Blog for more). The deadline for the next issue - the 50th! - is 28 February and edition editor Clare Pollard has chosen "journeys" as the theme, but off-theme poems will also be considered. Full details here.

A gentle reminder too that Ask Ben & Clare are also looking for contributions (nothing too strenuous; just a questionable conundrum for the great minds to solve), along with Roy Keane's Lucky Scarf.


Next week, meanwhile, there are a couple of events where you can be inspired by the work of others or indeed dabble in a reading and try your stuff out on a live (albeit dead drunk) audience. The Bad Language gang (aka Dan, Nici and Joe: blog; website) are having a launch night for their second anthology, Scattered Reds, next Wednesday (24 November). At newly done-up and beautifully betiled The Castle, it's free, kicks off at 7.30pm, with the first performer up at about 8pm - and there's still chance to read! If you wish to partake in the open mic slot, get an email off to events@badlanguagemcr.co.uk. You'll be in good company; I hear some of my Bad Language literature quiz teammates (see pic above, left to right: Mr Hartley, Ms Power, Mrs Conlon, Mr Judge, Mr Roland) will be stepping up to the oche.

Another open mic event next week is on Saturday (27 November), 6-9pm in the 2nd View Restaurant in Waterstone's Deansgate. I am reliably informed by Jon from MLF that this new monthly event is actually back due to popular demand! The Unannounced Poetry Acoustic is "an evening of songs and poems and stories to perform or just to listen. The first drink of the evening is on us and the entertainment is on you!" Did someone say free drinks? See you there.

Experimental poets If P Then Q are busy plugging The Other Room 21, which has a bit of a do on Wednesday 1 December with readings and that, free from 7pm.

Quick update on zines hitting the shelves... Out now is Pantheon issue 2 (featuring a "Beckett-ish piece" by Lil Dave Hartley and now available in Blackwells on Oxford Road, near t'uni, or via the website); Flux Autumn 2010 edition, which features a short story by Chris Killen called Sorry (it's good, but it has suffered a cut'n'paste error in the first par; I've reedited for your delight and delectation below*); Dan Russell's Things Happen Part Deux, which you can look at on Issuu with hard copies about the place soon; the latest B&N Magazine, edited by award-winning mightaswell blogger Sam Bail, is (I am assuming) available in the next month or so, while number 11 of The Shrieking Violet, the "media special", is out now at Good Grief! - which has just this week relocated to the Soup Kitchen in the NQ. My good friend Andrew tells me they sell alcohol, not just soup, so this, and its beautiful art nouveau adornments, gives me a number of reasons to get my arse in gear and visit some time soon.

If you want to gaze back wistfully over previous incarnations of A Moment of Fiction, I've created a magic little widget on the left hand side of this here blog. Look! A Moment Of Fiction archive! Consider it an early Christmas present. Don't say I don't treat you well.

(*Craig has a dream. In the dream he is dead. He has just died. He is in a room, with things in it. The things in the room are: a desk, a bed, a chair, a coffee table, a sofa, a wardrobe, a cup (with some tea in it, gone cold), a computer, a copied CD of Planet Waves by Bob Dylan, a pair of shorts, a sunlounger, a bottle of Daiquiri, a pair of mirrored sunglasses, a coat, a hat, a pair of tweezers, a sheet of writing paper, the lid of a biro, an empty cassette box, a packet of Walkers crisps (prawn cocktail flavour), a poster of Ben Affleck, an empty ice cream tub, a toy car, a toy boat, a miniature ‘gift book’ style copy of War and Peace (6 pt. font), a 50p coin, a cigarette lighter, a cornflake, a wisp of hair, a blank greetings card (‘Best Wishes!’), a pornographic magazine from the seventies, no windows, no door, and the smell of cats... Read the rest here.)

Reading lists

I was trying to come up with something new and interesting to write about, which has been proving difficult (my brain has, for the past fortnight or so, been fuddled from strong winds and some pretty reckless all-day drinking), so I distracted myself by swinging by some other of my favourite blogs to see what's going down with them.

Over on my estimed Ask Ben & Clare colleague's own personal weblog, a nattily entitled post The Book Spreader caught my attention, encouraging bloggy folk to list their favourite tomes so other people might share the pleasure of reading them. You can read Ben's suggestions in their original context here, and follow his link to the Nik Perring post which sparked it off.

Anyway, I thought a reading list was appropriate in the run-up to the fast approaching fifth annual Manchester Literature Festival (14-25 October), so I've put together a five-strong selection of modern works I've recently enjoyed. Feel free to pass it on. (It's kind of like a chain letter, but without any guilt, shock tactics, or weird religious undercurrents.) So, in no particular order and without further ado, ta-da...

Two books ago, I read Catherine O'Flynn's debut What Was Lost. I'd been waiting to get to it for a while, and especially since hearing Catherine read at last year's Manchester Literature Festival, but my copy was elsewhere. Anyway, we've been reunited and I can report back that it was worth the wait: an easy read with some interesting twists, and a fancy line in intertwined storytelling. Certain sections reminded me of Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-time (just because lots of people have read it doesn't necessarily make it bad) and the style wasn't too far removed from my fave, Douglas Coupland.

A bit before that, I read my second Nicola Barker offering. This one, Five Miles From Outer Hope, had been recommended to me by the previously cited Ben (who had her up against the wonderful Elizabeth Baines in his Literary World Cup over the summer), and I can confirm its credentials. I'd previously read her "novella", Small Holdings, which I perhaps prefer, although they are both quite different to each other, despite sharing a certain similar dark humour and dramatic build-up.


Just before Central Library shut down, I managed to pop into the lending library and borrow Gwendoline Riley's most recent (but not that recent being published in 2007) novel, Joshua Spassky. I have to admit I was a little disappointed. It's about a writer enduring some rather cliched writer problems not to mention some equally cliched hardships of the heart. Her previous novels Cold Water (2002) and Sick Notes (2005), however, are definitely worth getting your hands on, with familiar Mancunian sights and nights detailed in abundance.

Another Manchester writer I checked out not so long ago was Chris Killen, who is going to be doing a reading at the upcoming Manchester Blog Awards on 20 October. His first work, The Bird Room, is really well written with some fantastic utilisation of swearwords for effect. Both big and clever. I understand he's in the process of writing a second, so I'll be keeping an eye out for that.

My final pick, Erlend Loe's Naive. Super isn't Manchester related in any way except I bought my copy in a Chorlton charity shop purely out of intrigue in the back cover blurb. It turned out to be a fine purchase and it's a shame that none of Loe's other books seem to have been translated into English from Norwegian. If you've read Room Temperature or The Mezzanine by Nicholson Baker (not to be confused with the aforementioned Nicola Barker), you too will be pleased with how fascinating the minutiae of mundane everyday life can be made to appear. Lovely obsession with Duplo, too.


So there you go. A few wee ideas. As both Nik and Ben have recommended Like Bees To Honey by Caroline Smailes and Something Beginning With by Sarah Salway, I will put these on my own reading list, along with Armistead Maupin's new Tales Of The City book, Mary Ann In Autumn (above), out across the pond next month.

An other world

Wow. I'm so totally beside myself with excitement that I can barely type. To prove it to you, let me put up the smallest possible logo I can find to illustrate this post. Let me also inform you that, as well as some terrible spelling which I've been trying to keep on top of as I go along, I'm also afflicted by an ongoing accidental pressing of the delete button. Idiot.

Anyway, what I'm excited about is this: some of my witterings have today been published on Other, which is a fabulous online magazine I (and many others) have been very much enjoying since back in, ooh, April. Contributors chalked up from the start included Chris Killen, Tom Fletcher, Jenn Ashworth, Nick Royle, Joe Stretch and Lee Rourke.

I showed an interest in submitting when it was still a cheeky glint in its creators' eyes and was very much encouraged by editor Socrates Adams-Florou. It took me a while, but I finally rustled up a concept last week. (It coincided with a Tweet in which I revealed I was "practically puking ideas", if you were watching closely.)

Here is a chunk of my email. I reproduce it here as it kind of explains my idea:

Basically, I collect lists. Discarded shopping lists, to be more precise. They are sometimes quite dull, but largely they are immensely interesting and often even amusing. People even use special paper to write their lists upon, and sometimes they reuse sheets which have fascinating tales of their own to tell on the reverse. For a while, I have been wondering quite what to do creatively with my lists, and I suddenly realised they might offer me an opening into the wonderful world of Other.

You can read THE TAXONOMY INSPECTOR #1 by Sarah-Clare Conlon here.

Yes, that #1 means it's going to be serialised! And yes, I am sharing a section with Nicholas Royle. NICHOLAS ROYLE!

Listing dangerously

Last week, amid all the balanced, unbiased BBC reporting about the, er, BBC, the corporation's news channel did manage to keep a clear head and make sure we knew about a list-making exhibition currently on at the Archives of American Art in Washington. Don't mock; it's important stuff.

I'm a big fan of lists, actually, making plenty myself and also collecting the discarded inventories of others with the vague idea of using them as the basis of some kind of future project which I've yet to develop a concrete plan for.

In the article, Liza Kirwin of the Archives of American Art explains the revelatory aspect of lists: "This very mundane and ubiquitous form of documentation can tell you a great deal about somebody's personal biography, where they've been and where they're going."

I'll say. One of the lists I plucked from a wire shopping basket includes the rather specific "new pile cream". Others reveal how people really can't spell (broccoli and potatoes are a particular stumbling block).

But from reading this article, I'm pleased to learn that "taxonomy" is about list-making ("the science or practice of classification", Collins defines), and has nothing to do with stuffing dead animals. I wonder how I managed to get this far in life without knowing this fact.

ADDENDUM 16/03/10
Check out fellow Manchester Blog Awards Best New Blog winner (class of 2008) Follow The Yellow Brick Road's post on lists, where she references some other list-making bloggers.

Oceania's 11

This week, the Words & Fixtures cultural excursion was to the theatre, dahlink. We went to see an adaptation of George Orwell's novel 1984; the "world premiere", in fact. It was the preview public performance, which technically isn't really first night, it's more of a last dress rehearsal but in front of "real people". It was well acted and executed (apart from being a tad on the long side), and, as I've come to expect of the Royal Exchange having been a regular visitor over the years, good use was made of the space (it's in the round, y'know), with some inventive set changes and appropriate props. Unfortunately, there was what appeared to the cast and crew to be a major technical hitch in the second half, which flummoxed the stage manager somewhat and stopped the show in its tracks for ten minutes or so, but which really didn't make a jot of difference to the audience, who took the mishap with good humour and a chance to record the problem on Twitter.


Anyway, as my memory's not as it once was, I seemed to have forgotten how the story concluded, which I suppose could be construed as not such a bad thing after all. Perhaps I fell asleep when I watched the film with Hurt and Burton. I certainly haven't got that far with the book, which I must have been reading for about four years and which I now realise I have mislaid. Note to self: maybe it's at my summer residence. Oh, maybe.

The part that always raises a knowing smile from me, however, is when Winston bumps into Syme in the canteen and they discuss the 11th edition of the Newspeak dictionary. The joy and enthusiasm with which Syme explains "the destruction of words" is somehow nicely ironic, given that Orwell is an author and must, ergo, like words. I just thought I'd share that with you. Intellectual, aren't I?

'We’re getting the language into its final shape – the shape it’s going to have when nobody speaks anything else. When we’ve finished with it, people like you will have to learn it all over again. You think, I dare say, that our chief job is inventing new words. But not a bit of it! We’re destroying words – scores of them, hundreds of them, every day ... It’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words. Of course the great wastage is in the verbs and adjectives, but there are hundreds of nouns that can be got rid of as well. It isn’t only the synonyms; there are also the antonyms. After all, what justification is there for a word which is simply the opposite of some other word?'

Here's a list of Newspeak words. Very efficient.

The cover, by the way, is the British first edition, published by Secker and Warburg in 1949. If my recollection of an English Lit class about Orwell (we studied Animal Farm, but the teacher was contextualising it) is correct, he wrote the book during 1948 and simply transposed the numbers to get a date in the near future. A useful snippet of information that may one day be of assistance in pub quizzes.

Science is golden

You know I like to be honest with you guys, so here it is: my name is Words & Fixtures and I'm a secret geek. There, it's been said. It may have been said before, I'm not sure, but now it's definitely out there. It's out there, it's out of my hands. It's in the big wide world and the vastness of the ether.

I admit it: I'm a bit of a geek and I like sci-fi; mainly films, but also TV, and sometimes even books.

Anyway, it seems I'm not alone in the universe. And to prove it, a melange of Manchester social media luvvies have only gone and set up a Sci-Fi Book Club, founding members of which courageously battled their way through snowstorms to inaugurate yesterday evening. I have to admit I didn't actually put in an appearance myself, but I did send a representative to report back on proceedings. Seems proceedings went well. A bunch of "15 or so" likely candidates met at Madlab (aka Manchester Digital Laboratory), discussed a possible reading list, worked out a date for the next get-together, then decamped over the road to Common, which it strikes me is not uncommon if you are a Madlabber.

Anyway, hop on board, join the ride, get on over to the Oxfam bookshop and let the crazy reading party being! The initial book list is below and the next fixture (when first tome The Forever War will be under discussion) is Tuesday 16 February (more here):

The Forever War by Joe Haldeman
The Drowned World by J. G. Ballard
Neuromancer by William Gibson
The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin

...plus, in case discussion dries up, or Common runs out of Star (whichever comes first), it has been decided everyone should also have a wee shufty at A Science Fiction Omnibus, a collection of short stories edited by Brian Aldiss and including Isaac Asimov's 1941 classic Nightfall. Maybe I'll see you some time in the future...

Such a bookish girl...

It's my birthday, so I've been buying myself presents. No, I didn't wrap them up; that would be stupid. I got a nice stripy Christmas jumper (you get used to it, this Christmas shit), some angora over-the-knee socks, the Florence & The Machine album, tickets to see Blithe Spirit at the theatre, and The Gum Thief by Douglas Coupland. Happy birthday, me.

Regular readers among you will perhaps remember that Douglas Coupland is my favourite author. What you may not know is that I have every one of his novels (plus Polaroids From The Dead, which is classed as non-fiction), except Generation A. I was pleased to just happen upon this one random copy of The Gum Thief knocking about in Fopp as somehow it had totally slipped my mind. So, just because I can, may I present each work in backwards chronological order. The covers of Coupland books seem to change with the seasons; these are the versions I have.



(I'll let you in on a secret: I haven't read them all. I like to drip feed myself so I don't run out.)

Librarian chic all sewn up

I'm quite a fan of voluminous handbags (as a cyclist, writer and professional tight-arse, I have various lights, locks, waterproofs, gloves, spare shoes and socks, notebooks, pens, elastic bands and packed lunch boxes to lug about wherever I go).

These literary creations, however, stretch the concept of a bag with volume just that little bit further. If you want to show your affiliation to a particular author while also making a fashion statement, this is your chance to get the intellectual look covered. Each piece in this limited-edition collection of clutches and minaudières (called, jauntily, "You can't judge a book by its cover") is individually designed and crafted by Paris-based Olympia Le-Tan.

They're not available until January, so just miss the Christmas list, but if you've got a bit of cash (well, $1,600) to splash, you can book (groan) your place on the reserve list at Browns or Colette now. The lovely Tilda Swinton and Chloe Sevigny have (Chloe has apparently ordered Moby Dick)...

I found out about the tome totes from my librarian pal's blog, where she links to more pics (including of Mademoiselle Le-Tan herself) on the fabulously divergent We Love You So site linking to the work of Spike Jonze, director of Where The Wild Things Are, which, coincidentally, is out today.

Rumble in the jumble

They're very with it these days, you know, museums and art galleries. No longer are they the stuffy spaces of yore; all low lighting and subdued murmuring, shuffling visitors and stewards hiding in the shadows. No, nowadays it's all about chi-chi launch parties, and trendy workshops and lectures, and touchy-feely interactivity with the exhibits, and free cake with your cappuccino.

Perhaps it's because they need to keep up with all the trendy young things that have been busily getting in on the curating act; influential establishments like Tate Liverpool (getting on a bit now with its coming of age this year) and Tate Modern in London (established 2000) or upstarts like Hoxton's White Cube (est. 2000) or Manchester's Urbis (est. 2002). Or perhaps it's just the way things are as we prepare to enter the second decade of the 21st century. I mean, who'd've imagined high-street banks would ever pipe pop music into their banking halls, that bookshops would tout coffee and muffins, and that local libraries would host slam contests?

So in this context, perhaps it's not surprising that museums and galleries are big on the social media scene and looking to digital developments to extend their reach (promoting exhibitions through Twitter, for example), to increase participation and involvement (such as the Britain Loves Wikipedia museum exhibit picture hunt, launching 31 January at the V&A), and even to offer greater accessibility to collections.

At Social Media Cafe Manchester last Tuesday (yes, I know that's nearly a week ago, but you'll have to bear with me; I've been a bit busy!), Manchester City Galleries' web manager Martin Grimes (with the help of his glamorous assistant David Edmundson-Bird from MMU Business School) led a discussion called Crowdsourced Treasures, exploring the idea of using social media tools to open up access to the hidden exhibits that the public never gets to see. We learnt that only about nine per cent of the collection is on display, although, after many years of painstaking cataloguing by some very patient staff, you can at least now check out the online collections database where there are records for 175,000 objects.

Martin, however, was very keen to pique our interest in (and presumably get us blogging about) what has been dubbed The Mary Greg Project. Mary Greg was something of a hoarder, it seems, and kept pretty much everything that passed her way during the late 1800s and early 1900s, later donating it to the people of Manchester. There's already a dedicated blog, Mary Mary Quite Contrary, which delves into the drawers and boxes containing the weird and wonderful items in the collection and presents some gorgeously detailed close-ups (check out the Flickr feed for these).

I like the tab inviting you to "have a rummage". (What a great onomatopoeic word rummage is.) Take up the invite, anyway, and you're immersed in a bonkers world of bygones, bric-a-brac and bits'n'bobs. There are spent matches and birthday cake candles, scraps of letters and lists of nonsense, pieces of thread and herringbone-patterned thimbles, chatelaines and bodkins, more spoons than you could ever practically need and a thousand keys to a thousand doors that most likely don't exist now. The financial value might not be great, but you can't really put a price on that nice warm feeling nostalgia causes, and writing this post has given me more pleasure than I could ever have dreamed of, especially when I dismissed the seminar somewhat cynically last week.

Calling a spade an implement with which to dig holes and fill them back in

As reported at the time in Words & Fixtures, the Local Government Association issued its annual list of officialese in March. This is a collection of words that public sector workers are urged to avoid using in reports, speeches and other corporate literature, and includes such creative inventions as "gateway reviews" and "funding streams". I'm not sure it's had a great deal of effect.

In its own attempt to kick into touch the ubiquitous "jargon and meaningless euphemism" so favoured by MPs, earlier this year the House of Commons Public Administration Committee commissioned an inquiry, Bad Language: The Use and Misuse of Official Language, the first draft of which (The Guardian reports today) has just been published.

Chapter 2 quotes Tessa Jowell: "I have what I call a bollocks list where I just sit in meetings and I write down some of the absurd language we use — and we are all guilty of this, myself included. The risk is when you have been in government for eight years you begin to talk the language which is not the language of the real world". The report then goes on to describe: "The unlovely language of this unreal world floats along on a linguistic sea of roll-outs, step changes, public domains, fit for purposes, stakeholder engagements, across the pieces, win-wins, level playing fields and going forwards".

I like the undercurrent of sarcasm and playful piss-taking apparent throughout and the plea in the summary for the government to "mind its language". Now, who else says that...

It's not the winning that matters (oh, who am I kidding?)

So I'm still reeling from Wednesday night and the shock of the moment (and certainly nothing to do with the copious amount of drink imbibed soon thereafter) when the Words & Fixtures moniker was announced as the recipient of the glittering Best New Blog gong at the 2009 Manchester Blog Awards. Look at us working that logo! We wear it well, non?


The evening, which took place in the newly refurbed and reopened Band On The Wall, was compered by a very-tight-and-very-red-dress-wearing Maria Ruban, who came up against something of a challenge with her catchphrase idea (we'll just leave it at that, eh?). Prize-giving duties were taken up by Kate Feld, and winners received a book courtesy of Manchester Literature Festival, a cheque courtesy of Arts Council England and a CD bearing the aforementioned logo courtesy of, ooh I dunno - Manchester Blog Awards? The bloggers nominated in the Best Writing category gave readings, as did author and judge Jenn Ashworth (showing her immense talent for situational description, but, if I'm honest, something of a downer with its rather bleak subject matter). Various mp3 bloggers played us some top tunes as part of Bloggerpalooza, a unique music streaming event, and I enjoyed The B-52s very much through my by then drunken haze.

The judging panel included: author and Guardian columnist Naomi Alderman; Dave Carter, head of Manchester Digital Development Agency; Richard Fair of BBC Manchester; author (and former blog award winner) Jenn Ashworth; Mike Noon of Arts Council England North West, and, last but most certainly not least, Manchester Blog Awards founder Kate Feld. Apparently, one of the judges said of W&F: 'It was the only blog out of the 24 shortlisted that made me laugh out loud.' See, I said I should become a comedian, didn't I?

So here's a list of (and links to) all the movers and shakers at the 2009 Manchester Blog Awards; big heartfelt congrats to them all (and, indeed, to everyone who was nominated and shortlisted):

Best City and Neighbourhood Blog: Lost in Manchester (anonymous). One of the judges said: "Sometimes it's easy to forget to look at what's right under your nose. I love its unashamed raw passion for Manchester."
Runner-up was The Manchester Zedders (Liam Purcell and Marie Pattison).

Best Personal Blog: My Shitty Twenties (Emily Morris). One of the judges said: "Moving, thoughtful, funny and wise. Sometimes heartbreaking, always uplifting."
Runner-up was Cynical Ben (Benjamin Judge).

Best New Blog: Words and Fixtures (Clare Conlon - that's me, that is!). One of the judges said: "It was the only blog out of the twenty-four shortlisted that made me laugh out loud."
Runner-up was Songs From Under the Floorboards (Andy Wake).

Best Writing on a Blog: My Shitty Twenties (Emily Morris again). One of the judges said: "It's almost impossible not to get drawn into the story that this blog tells."
Dual runners-up were I Thought I Told You To Wait in the Car (Richard Vivmeister Hirst) and Dave Hartley's Weblog (Dave Hartley).

Best Arts and Culture Blog: Run Paint Run Run (Ella Wredenfors). One of the judges said: "Opinionated, heartfelt and pleasantly rough-around-the-edges, a blog with an infectious enthusiasm for art."
Runner-up was The Manchester Hermit (Ansuman Biswas).

Blog of the Year: Lost in Manchester (still anonymous). This was awarded to the blog with the highest aggregate score in the competition. One of the judges said: "Quirky, original and focused, with an eye for detail. Putting the extra into extraordinary."

This here's a pic, from the MEN, of Emily Morris (My Shitty Twenties), Manchester Blog Awards organiser Kate Feld, me (me!) and Ella Wredenfors (Run Paint Run Run). Don't we make a splendid line-up in our posh frocks? And I like the height graduation.



This big ole bunch of links is some of the stuff that has been written in The Press and on the interweb thingy (if you know of any more, kindly post a comment. I thank you).

The Guardian: Women Dominate At Manchester Blog Awards
How-Do: Best Blogs In Manchester Revealed
Manchester Evening News (mis-spelt name and all): Single Mum Scoops Blog Award
Neville Hobson: In Conversation With Kate Feld
MDDA: The Return Of The Anonymous Blogger
Visit Manchester: photos
The Manchester Lit List: Manchester Blog Awards - And The Winners Are...
Searched Designed Developed: Manchester's Blog Awards Demonstrate The Real Power Of Blogging

New:
City Life: Girls On Top At Manchester Blog Awards 2009

Literati, glitterati, Twitterati

Today marks the start of the fourth annual Manchester Literature Festival, which sees a number of literary events taking place every day until 25 October at various venues around the rainy city. A success already was the Trailblazer event with Margaret Atwood
back in September and, earlier this week, the first of two festival "Bookends". This initial one brought the University Of Manchester's Professor Of Creative Writing Martin Amis together with fellow novelist Will Self for a heated discussion about sex (apparently largely in the context of Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita). I say!



Other famous faces on the ten-day programme include Joan Bakewell (who is presiding over afternoon tea at the Midland Hotel as we speak), Eoin Colfer (author du jour thanks to his Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy follow-up And Another Thing..., which just so happens to be this week's Book At Bedtime on Radio 4), feminist novelist Fay Weldon, historical author Kate Mosse, TV writer Jimmy McGovern, poet Michael Schmidt, local scribe Robert Graham (who led the fab creative writing workshop I recently took part in and seems to live down the road), Manchester-based MJ Hyland, Catherine O'Flynn and Jeff Noon... there's just loads. Check out the who, the what, the where, the why and the when (maybe even the how) here.

There are talks, discussions, readings, recitals, launches, awards, workshops, walks. And there are novelists, poets, short story authors, screenwriters, essayists, performers, broadcasters, journalists, editors, cartoonists, dramatists and bloggers. Talking of blogging, bob over to the official Manchester Literature Festival Blog here and follow events as they unfold (you may even see my name pop up). Follow the fun on Twitter via @McrLitFest and go hashtag happy using #MLF09. See you soon, bookworms.

Caught short

On the last day of the first Didsbury Arts Festival, I've left my Chorlton comfort zone and taken part in a workshop on fiction writing. It was held by novelist and short story writer Robert Graham, who is a lecturer for MMU Cheshire and has published the useful tome How To Write Fiction (And Think About It) (Palgrave Macmillan, 2006, £14.99).



I've been reading a lot of short stories lately, notably Dylan Thomas and Roald Dahl, and was after a bit of guidance to help me get my own ideas down on paper. We learnt about characterisation and immediacy, and we wrote some stuff off the cuff, there and then, in the class, hangovers and all. Here are three of my stories, each written in about five minutes flat.

This one was about a man, of whom I had been given a photograph and had previously been tasked with describing. I picked the situation "walking into a party" from a list we were presented with.

Standing at the edge of the room, Michael nursed a warm bottle of Old Speckled Hen and eyed the other guests cautiously. Realising he had been loitering alone a little too long, he made a beeline for the table where a simple buffet was laid out, and perused the food on offer. It was just as he was reaching out for a coronation chicken sandwich on white sliced that a voice made him jump.
"Do you come here often?"
He swerved round, holding the beer and sandwich up and close, and peered at the intruder.
"My name's Susan," she said, smiling.
"Oh, er, Michael. Er, Mike," he replied, putting the bottle down and holding out his right hand.
"I saw you standing on your own and thought I'd come over and make sure you're OK," said Susan.

This one was to lead on from the sentence: "I wonder if this happens to a lot of people".

I wonder if this happens to a lot of people. It's certainly not the first time it's happened to me. I supposed I really should learn, but I'm always in a hurry, and generally I have my hands full as I'm on my way to work. The first time it happened, I managed to ram my hands onto a black lady's ample bosom. It was so embarrassing but thankfully she saw the funny side of it.

This one was following an exercise when we worked in pairs to come up with three scenarios which included a person, a place and a problem. We then had to pick one person, one place and one problem, but not the ones that went together. I ended up with "teenage girl", "park bench, eating lunch", and "loses her son".

Bethany liked going to the park to have her lunch; it got her out of the poky council house she shared with her mum and younger brother. It also meant Ryan, who was now two and quite boisterous, could run around and wear himself out so she could have a nice, fuss-free evening in front of the telly. That wasn't going to happen this Thursday, however, although as yet she didn't know that. As usual, she laboured with the pushchair on the rough ground just inside the gate and went straight to the bench near the tree. She unclipped Ryan and lifted him out, then watched as he ran over to the roundabout where some other children were playing. She sat down and reached under the pushchair for her sandwiches, wrapped in an old Sunblest bag. She pulled one out and sank her teeth into the soft white bap, the tang of Cheddar almost a surprise. Looking over towards the roundabout, she saw it spinning, growing gradually slower, but the children were gone; the two that had been there and Ryan, who had joined them.

I really enjoyed myself, and hopefully I've learnt something useful. Robert Graham was a good teacher and a very nice man, and everyone seemed to have fun.

Robert is taking part in the upcoming Manchester Literature Festival
(see www.manchesterliteraturefestival.co.uk for full details), in a free event called Northern Salt on Sunday 18 October at 3pm at the Whitworth. This is a showcase of Northern talent, all published by the independent publisher Salt, and Robert will be reading some of his work, alongside prizewinning writer Elizabeth Baines, novelist Mark Illis and poet John Siddique.

Politics and religion

It's not often you'll catch me discussing politics or religion. Certainly not in public, anyway. Perhaps it's because, in terms of the first, I just can't make up my mind any more, having been let down so often in the past, like a lonely spinster; in terms of the second, I've made up my mind, but I don't really want to offend anyone unnecessarily.

Or, perhaps, I'm now old enough and wise enough to know it's best to keep my mouth shut on both thorny subjects, especially at family get-togethers, and especially when booze has been imbibed. Ah, Christmas 2007...

So anyway, I surprise myself to be drawing to your attention yesterday's Thought For The Day, from the Today programme on BBC Radio 4. Newly woken and face still puffy with sleep, I was caught somewhat unawares and it took me a very long time (until the first mention of the Bible, actually) to realise there was a religious undercurrent as I perked my ears up to the talk of grammar.

"...when I was at school we were encouraged to be a bit suspicious of adjectives. Rules of syntax kept them firmly in their place. An adjective qualifies a noun or pronoun. They are not the important words like verbs: 'being or doing words', or nouns: 'names of persons, places or things'. For all their flamboyance they don't really tell you much. They may make you feel vital, vibrant and vigorous, but in fact their content is often vain and void. They represent aspirations, worthy ones, perhaps, but they don't come with dates, times or budgets; they are wonderfully cheap because they float free of concrete reality. They soar like helium balloons, raising our sights, but not delivering anything except, perhaps, hot air..."

It's interesting, this. I, too, GCSE guinea pig that I was (so grammar wasn't really up there on the curriculum's list of important skills to learn in English Language class; preferred were exploring abstract ideas and presenting your work at the front), was taught to be unliberal with descriptive words, and henceforth I've shied away from overly flowery prose and quickly developed a tendency to run screaming from anything written before 1950. (I'm getting better, but Thomas Hardy still brings me out in a cold sweat.)

I also find that excessive use of adjectives sees me getting my ersatz (now, that's a good adjective) red pen out straight away when I'm editing and have to cut to fit. Well, spurious adjectives and shit copy and crap structure.

Anyway, the full TFTD is here if you follow this link, and you'll see it sits in a wider context of politics, just to complete that circle of doom.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/programmes/thought/documents/t20091001.shtml

STOP PRESS!

I'm over the moon to be able to announce that Words & Fixtures has been nominated in the category of Best New Blog in the upcoming Manchester Blog Awards, which is being held during Manchester Literature Festival (more on that soon)! Read all about it at:
http://www.manchesterblogawards.com/the-shortlist


If anyone fancies joining me at the Awards Ceremony, it's on Wednesday, October 21 at 7pm at the recently revamped Band On The Wall. Tickets are £4 (£3 concs). Right, I'm off to buy a fancy frock for the soiree and try and stop grinning like the Cheshire Cat...