Week 21: Revealed - ‘water is hot’
Sleuth is a sideways glance at the city each week. It's the truth, but Sleuth's truth. Sometimes Sleuth even gets serious, but not often... @mcrsleuth
Lift for Mo
Mo Farah was in Manchester at the weekend to take part in the 10km Great Manchester Run. Sleuth hears Mo was in a lift in the Radisson Blu Edwardian Hotel when it came to halt. Mo was stuck between one flo' and the next flo'. But Mo’s fast. He still won the race. Maybe he was inspired to run faster due to temporary incarceration.
Transformational hobbies
Sleuth is a fan of obsessive people as long as their obsessions are harmless. So he feels cheered up by the fact that Louis Georgiou, co-founder and managing director of Manchester-based digital agency Code Computerlove, has launched his campaign to get a Guinness World Record. The man, despite being a fully paid-up grown-up, has hundreds and hundreds of Transformer toys. He reckons he has 1,900 examples which far outstrips the current record of 1,000. There will be an official count soon. Apparently the collection started when Georgiu was looking for a Christmas present for his son. Sleuth wonders if the son ever got a transformer that year.
Beggar record broken
Sleuth walked from Chinatown via Albert Square to Blackfriars Street on the night of the Arena bomb commemorations. One walk, twenty minutes. He was asked for money by beggars 25 times. Is this a Guinness World Record as well? Certainly Sleuth, having been to Liverpool and Birmingham recently, knows that those cities have nothing like this problem. So what is it about Manchester? There will be an article next week focussing on Chinatown and exploring this issue. So much for regional mayor Andy Burnham’s efforts thus far.
Mini-me employment policy
Sleuth loves Neil McInroy of The Centre for Local Economic Strategies (Cles). He is a charming and articulate campaigner for making our towns and cities better and fairer places. Still, Sleuth couldn’t help smile at the new officer he’s employed in CLES, Tom Goodwin. His face seemed somehow familiar, ah yes he looks just like Neil, his boss.
20 Stories confusion
Sleuth’s friend took a client to lunch at 20 Stories restaurant this week. He hadn’t been before and so like every other person who’s visited read the address as '20 Storeys' thinking it would be on the twentieth storey of the No 1 Spinningfields building. “It’s such an odd idea to call it that, almost as though they lack confidence about something,” he said to Sleuth, pausing before continuing: “Maybe after fake-news we’ve moved on to fake-numeracy.”
Toilet graffiti of the week
This was found in the gents The Castle pub on Oldham Street. ‘I like eggs’ somebody had written. Someone else had added ‘weird’. Sleuth isn’t sure. While it is weird to write that you like eggs in a toilet it isn’t weird in itself to like eggs, unless this is another case of a direct action from a vegan militant.
Stupid toilet notice of the week
HOME arts centre has taken to informing people that ‘Water may be hot’. Thanks for that HOME. Sleuth is looking forward to other impossibly ridiculous and obvious signs at HOME such as ‘Water is liquid’, ‘Toilet bowls are not the same as bowling alley bowls and also different from bowls you eat your food from’. Or maybe, ‘Don’t get your hopes up death is inevitable’. Sleuth loves publicly funded bodies wasting time and money.
Sleuth’s dish of the week is primitive
Sleuth has been doing some free tours in Angel Meadow and up the Irk valley for the MeadowSide development. Usually these finish in the Marble Arch pub. Sleuth said to the barkeeper, “I have been walking and talking for many miles and it has been hot and tiring work. I need something to re-energise me.” “What about bone marrow?” the man said. “Oh that would be perfect,” said Sleuth. The dish took a while to arrive. “Is there a problem?” asked Sleuth. The barkeeper went to the kitchen and came back stating, “The chef says it is taking so long because your bone is so big.” Sleuth, ignoring any potential double entendre, howled for joy at this news like a happy wolf, and when the dish came he howled again with delight. “Could you stop howling now, it’s disturbing the other customers,” said the barkeeper.
