Losing the thread

I'm having a hiatus. I don't think it needs surgery, but I'm insisting that it involves plenty of bed rest. As a result of this extended break from office life, I spent my last week (last week) not only trying to facilitate some kind of work handover but also running hither-thither round town checking off tasks and visits from my current inventory of extra-curricular cultural excursions.

One such list entry was a long overdue trip to Manchester Craft & Design Centre to peruse the Threadbare show, as promised right here on this blog, ooh, a while back.

I was, it has to be admitted, slightly underwhelmed. Debbie Smyth's work is definitely interesting - black cotton (with focal points of blue) looped around pins to create a picture (think 21st-century take on those 1970s kaftan-swishing art teacher numbers so rarely found in charity shops) - but Threadbare turned out, disappointingly, to be less of an exhibition and more of an exhibit.


A large piece extends over two perpendicular walls in the light-diffused main space, and while I felt a tad unsure about stepping up onto the white dais to squint at things close up, I'm pretty certain this (the stepping up, not the squinting) was intended, as otherwise you'd need to have brought your opera glasses to read the info panel in the far corner. The scene depicted is the Northern Quarter streets surrounding the Craft Centre (a nice touch for this special commission), complete with air con units, metal rollershutters and lonesome road sweeper. The perspective and detail already have merit in themselves before the threading adds an extra creative dimension; giving the artwork a pen and ink feel while simultaneously having the effect of softening the lines.



Threadbare does also include a number of smaller pieces, including a rather beautiful bear, but these are displayed in glass cabinets round the back of the main number. In fact, they're in the cafe area, which is great if you're enjoying a coffee and cake but rather more of a strain if you have to crane over the heads of those people innocently relaxing with a mocha and a muffin. Ah well, if you go with the intention of seeing just the main piece (and you have until 30 October), you'll not be disappointed.

Now, if you fancy getting crafty yourself, the artist Debbie Smyth is giving two classes on textile sketching, and the first is today (the next is on Saturday 9 October, which gives you a little more warning!). Starting at 10am, the workshops run until 4pm, and a full day is just £30. Call 0161 832 4274 or email exhibitions@craftanddesign.com.

Questions, questions, questions

Bloody hell, last night was the inaugural Bad Language Literature Quiz at the inimitable Waldorf and our team, The Arndale Twin Toilet Cubicle Confusion (yeah, ask Ben of Ask Ben & Clare), just missed the top spot by one point. No thanks to me - I'm just the lucky mascot, not the brains behind the outfit. The brains were Ben, Ian, Dave and Helen.

Not one to be discouraged by being crap at quizzes, however, I purposefully strode over to interrupt one third of the BL massive and query (for your benefit, dear literary quiz-enjoying readers) whether a second outing might be in the offing, the first one having gone so swimmingly. Joe was certainly up for the idea, so, if another function is organised, rest assured W&F will let you know.

By way of getting us warmed up, poet Max Wallis read some of his work (including a liberal hundreds-and-thousands sprinkling of "fucks"), while short story writer David Gaffney took to the floor during the all-important marking stage, treating us to some of his immense flash fiction, plus a couple of his Destroy PowerPoint presentations. We all got giddy and overexcited, possibly from eating some extremely pink cupcakes, maybe from nearly scooping the glittering first prize, but mainly at handing over five whole pounds (note to self: owe Ben a fiver) and getting our books signed. Sawn-Off Tales for me; Never Never and Aroma Bingo for the boys.


Cheekily, I asked Mr Gaffney if he wouldn't mind submitting a question to Ask Ben & Clare; he said I ought to put forward a contribution to his project The Poole Confessions. Briefly: "Over the summer short story writer David Gaffney will collect the anonymous confessions of the people of Poole and turn them into micro-short stories. He will read these short stories in special intimate one-to-one performances in a custom built mobile confessional box at Poole Literary Festival." I already have two confessions in mind. It's anonymous; I can't tell you what they are. You'll just have to guess.

Got an "aks" to grind?

Oh looky here: it's a shiny new blog. It's called Ask Ben & Clare. It's nice, isn't it? Subtitled "What's your problem?" (ha!), you can send in any "contemporary conundrum that needs contemplating", and some nice people called Ben and Clare will offer a succinct solution to cheer you up while you chow down on that tasteless cold wet sandwich you made the mistake of buying for lunch. Again. You never learn, do you? Perhaps you should email Ben and Clare for some hot new ideas, fresh out the kitchen.

Clare, now that's a name I recognise... oh, it's me, isn't it? Quelle coincidence!


So, this is the soft launch of mine and Ben's new blog. (Don't worry, dear reader, I'll still be blogging independently and just as often here on Words & Fixtures.) Maybe one day we'll have a proper launch. If I have anything to do with it, it will be in a pub. It won't be anywhere la-di-da or in a "special bit" of somewhere that makes it sound like we hired it out. There won't be free drinks. In fact, we'll probably be hoping that you buy us drinks; after all, ABC is the brainchild of two poor writers on the breadline (as tradition insists). We'll let you know.

In the meantime, here's a direct quote from Ben about our collaborative project: "We think it is dead dead good and that." I think that just about sums it up. Tune in every week (or so) for regular fixtures and fill your boots with happiness and goodwill. Stick with us - you never know what life-saving tips and interesting information you might pick up along the way.

It's all about me

Last week, some survey by some person somewhere revealed that Manchester is the third biggest European user of Twitter. We come after London and Paris, so we're in good company. It goes without saying, but I will anyway, that I have lived in all three of these hip'n'happening cities and no other conurbation (unless you count Liverpool which I inhabited for perhaps as long as a month).

Anyway, as if to prove the Rainy City's position of social media status, yesterday was a busy old day in Manchester's interweb.

First off, some bloke from The Guardian did some live Tweeting travel feature thing: "armed only with a mobile phone – and ready to go wherever the best of your tweets take him". He was called Benji Lanyado and it was called the TwiTrip. Yawn. Still, somehow me, along with many of the other regular Manc Twitterers, got sucked into the whole thing and started blatantly self-promoting and showboating, and desperately bigging up places for this bloke to go in a "my suggestion's better than yours" kind of way. I was finally namechecked at about 7pm, along with my Chorlton mate Gill: "@benjilanyado: Instalations at the Cornerhouse, thanks to @Wordsnfixtures @Gillmphoto & @popisthis http://flic.kr/p/8tt24N". If you're remotely arsed, you can see the TwiTrip to Manchester in its entirety here.

Secondly and very bizarrely, @wordsnfixtures starting trending on Twitter. WTF? This is what the Tweet said: "@TrendsManc: Sarah-Clare Conlon, @wordsnfixtures is now trending in #Manchester http://trendsmap.com/gb/manchester". My colleague Josh (aka @technicalfault) loudhailed this announcement across the office (which was rather embarrasing as it does probably mean that I'd spent more of the day dicking about on Twitter than doing any actual work. And we all know that such a thing would never happen, right? RIGHT?). He then showed me how to do a screengrab, for proof, like. Look, I'm right at the top, above that Benji bloke:



Thirdly, the first-ever South Manchester Tweet-up chugged back some ciders and shimmied into its sparkle boob tube for a night out in Didsbury Village. Such a glamourpuss, this latest social media mover and shaker has not one, but two hashtags: #southmcrtweetup and #southmanchestertweetup. Organised by Tom Mason (@totmac) and Nicola Cooper-Abbs (@ncooperabbs), the get-together went swimmingly with quite a gaggle of creatives, SEOs, PRs, developers, local business reps and even some "normal" folk, and lovely Laura from Airy Fairy Cupcakes put on a spread of sweet treats. Didsbury Life's Helen (who I didn't recognise because I am a complete dunce, although, in my defence, it has been a while) is going to do a write-up about it, so look out for all the action shots down on the DL blog. Rumour has it the next SMTU might be in Chorlton. Hold on to your hats, kids, I'll be able to crawl home!

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!