The Green Room has provided performance art, often with an an alternative twist, for almost a quarter of a century. With a theatre, gallery space and bar, it has been an integral part of the Manchester arts scene.
Sadly, due to changes to the Arts Council portfolio for 2012-2013, The Green Room closes its doors under the railway arches today. http://www.greenroomarts.org/
Its history is celebrated at http://www.greenroomutd.org/
Hooray- it's the Spring Bank Holiday Monday in the UK- a public holiday. This photo was taken on the last Holiday Monday, on 2 May. It's the annual weekend-long Junior Six a Side football tournament, for girls and boys, held at Altrincham Football Club. I like the colours of the girls team playing on the far side in this photo - luminous pink.
The wooden Vimto monument (by Kerry Morrison) was erected in 1992, opposite the place where this soft drink was first made in 1908.
Invented by John Noel Nichols (1883–1966) as an temperance drink alternative to beer, Vim Tonic was its original name. It was a squash and later a carbonated drink, made of raspberries, blackcurrant, liquorice, herbs and spices.
This photo was taken last month, but I looked on Friday and saw the 10ft (3m) monument had been taken away leaving just the circular stone base- no mean feat. Hopefully it has been removed just for maintenance, as it's a staple photo on every Manchester blog!
All over the countryside the past month have come bursts of yellow, in the form of rapeseed oil plants peaking. These are in fields near Ashley in Cheshire.
In the heart of the Business District is this relatively new workspace called Chancery Place. Its publicity proclaims that "Day and night the soaring glass elevations of Chancery Place bring drama to the streetscape." Fair enough- the reception and inside space is pretty cool and modern too. But that's for another posting.
A shop called Hurricane on the ever bohemian Beech Road in Chorlton cum Hardy.
The Chorlton Arts festival is currently in full flow, with a wide range of events, all covered well by a special event (Restricted service licence) radio station Chorlton FM, which we can hear around the city on on 87.7 MHz. It's broadcasting from a former Polish supermarket in Chorlton precinct, and as well as the more predictable tunes, has live lunchtime theatre and performances from local schools too. An innovative broadcaster- you would expect nothing less from the local population ;-) http://chorltonartsfestival.com/
Whatever the weather, it's always interesting to people watch, and pastry watch, over a pot of green tea in Wong Wong Bakery and Cafe, in Chinatown.
"If it stopped banging on about its football teams and its bands and its shops and its attitude, Manchester has something that it can be genuinely, enormously proud of, something that it should shout from the rooftops. Manchester changed the world’s politics: from vegetarianism to feminism to trade unionism to communism, every upstart notion that ever got ideas above its station, every snotty street-fighter of a radical philosophy, was fostered brawling in Manchester’s streets, mills, pubs, churches and debating halls." - Stuart Maconie, Pies and Prejudice: In Search of the North (2008)
An office block, currently vacant, on Kennedy Street. I can't make out if the figure is a griffin or a dragon. Probably neither...
