Sleuth 17/12/10

Sleuth is a sideways glance at the city every week. We give £25 for every story/rumour and piece of absurdity you find for us to print. We ask for the money back if any legal action follows.

Press Club to open at MediaCityUK
Sleuth hears that MediaCityUK bosses have decided to take radical action in a bid not to appear corporate and a little more rugged. Unconfirmed rumours are reaching Sleuth’s ears that they’re going to ask the city centre’s Press Club to move in.

The Press Club located on Queen Street, off Deansgate, is the UK’s oldest surviving press club, and has been making people sing karaoke when they’ve had too much to drink since 1765. An established institution in the city for the desperate and the insomniac the move would lend MediaCityUK a more ‘earthy’ character.

Click here for the full backstory on the Press Club.

Sleuth understands any deal will be rent-free apart from a weekly delivery of Red Stripe lager to the MediaCityUK Marketing Suite, together with the promise of a monthly duet with Tina O’Brien from a medley of ‘approved’ Take That songs.

Sleuth spoke to mystery spokesperson, from a cave dwelling under new The Gordon Burns Memorial Building at MediaCityUK. The leprechaun said, “We need a proper mucky old drinking dive in amongst all the concrete and glass; something that has heritage, vomit and a thousand shattered dreams soaked into it. The area will definitely need tinsel, a bit of a stage and difficult doorstaff. ”

Pinocchio continued: “After announcing a Costa Coffee was about to open here – big deal eh? - we realise that hacks, luvvies and their attendant representatives, mistresses, and other old soaks need somewhere a bit sticky to relax in until 6am.”

Sleuth’s suggestion of maybe a whole street at MediaCityUK with stripclubs, swingers bars and Amsterdam-style coffee shops was given short shrift. Since Russell Brand left the BBC and met Katy Perry, it seems demand has slackened.

The Press Club was unavailable for comment this morning. It was 10.30am and they were all asleep.

The perfect vegetarian burger
Mark Jorgensen of Manchester Confidential nipped into The Moon Under Water, the Wetherspoons establishment on Deansgate, recently. He ordered a burger and a pint. When the burger came it was somewhat lacking. There was bread and salad, but no burger. It was like going to watch a football match and finding the players and the ball missing. There was no apology at the bar, just a suggestion to fill Mr Jorgensen’s bun with some new meat, so to speak. With visions of a lost burger being relocated from God-knows-where and then slotted back into the meal, he declined and escaped with a refund.

Train-driver
Sleuth’s friend, Roman (it’s his name not his heritage), was coming back to Manchester from Birmingham the other week, when snow on the Stoke section of the line halted them at Stafford. All the passengers had to get out and wait for another train to return them via Crewe. “Why did we have to get off into the cold? Couldn’t the train we were on take us through Crewe back to Manchester?” asked Roman. “No," said the rail person on Stafford platform, "the driver doesn't know the way.” Tracks and signals on a series of fixed rails, it seems, aren’t enough for some drivers.

Sir Ian McKellen’s Oldham chips
Sleuth hears top actor Sir Ian McKellen (a Greater Mancunian by birth) and his Coronation Street pal, Antony Cotton, paid a visit to the Oldham Coliseum this week to watch Sue Devaney in Sleeping Beauty. Apparently Sir Ian loved it. He also loved the fact that having missed his tea, the Coliseum staff nipped out bought him some fish and chips, heated up some plates and let him and Cotton munch them backstage. For some reason Sleuth can’t get the image out of his head of McKellen eating his chips dressed like his Magneto character in X-Men. And maybe Cotton dressed like Wolverine.

Rome alone
Further to the above McKellen story Sleuth said to his friend, “I’m meeting someone from the Coliseum tomorrow.” “Are you going to open a Rome Confidential?” asked the friend, possibly, thinking of Confidential’s proposed 2011 expansion. “No,” said Sleuth slapping him round the back of the head, “I’m talking about the Oldham Coliseum theatre, you fool.”

Sleuth’s can you spot competition
Here’s a picture of Gordo, the self-declared ‘greatest living food critic’, Santa in Albert Square and a Sontaran from Dr Who, but Sleuth doesn’t know which is which. Can you help him?

Baguley sorted
Sleuth got a Council notice from the press office announcing a local government election in Baguley, Wythenshawe. ‘Do you think a Manchester Confidential candidate on a ticket of more foie gras, truffles and fine wines for the area might stand a chance?’ emailed Sleuth. ‘Maybe. That's exactly what they're crying out for in Baguley,’deadpanned the Council office.

Chilean miner Manchester excusions
One of Sleuth’s cheeky lady friends texted him on seeing the rescued Chilean miners at Old Trafford for the Arsenal match this week. ‘You could have done a better job looking after them?’ she wrote. ‘How so?’ replied Sleuth. ‘You could have taken them on one of your famous Manchester Confidential Tunnel Tours, made them feel at home,’ she replied. Sleuth thought about it and agreed it could have worked, after all this time it only would have taken 75 minutes to get out.

Sleuth’s celebrities he’s most sick of seeing this week
Matt Lucas and David Walliams. Take That. Michael McIntyre

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