It's a very strong shortlist for lunch of the month for October. I'll take you round, clockwise from the top left. It was a flying v...

I am dead chuffed to have made my debut writing for The Mill, a fresh and high-quality online newspaper for Manchester. It has the potential...

The FA Cup journey - or odyssey of oddities - has taken on a curious twist in the last few days. Having followed the happy scrappy grafters ...

Why haven't you done one of your self-regarding and pompous blogs about the Newcastle takeover? Don't you care about murdered journa...

Thanks for having me, Radcliffe, it's been great getting to know you. It was a bruising physical duel at Radcliffe today that saw Morpet...

We're supposed to be back to some kind of normal, so this blog is resuming the tradition of picking a 'lunch of the month'. I...

I had a couple of little tickles of pride this week as a few things I'd been involved in at Manchester Metropolitan University came to f...

I'm still a sucker for a new magazine, not just as a reader, but as someone who's been into the whole process all of my working life...

I've written before (yesterday, in fact) how I tend to jump in and absorb everything I can from certain authors. It isn't a recent t...

Last year, as we lurched into lockdown and I was task-avoiding the final flourish on writing my thesis, I got absorbed in folk horror. It so...

I am really, really enjoying the FACT that we beat Cardiff City 5-1 today. I will watch the highlights over and over. I will be texting Loui...

This is going to be quick. After a busy week in Ireland and walking from Langsett onto the moors today, this is just about all I've got ...

We pack a lot into our little holidays, and we always seem to learn a thing or two. Full Irish breakfast to start a busy day, comes without...

Early alarm call, Ringway, Ryanair, hire car palaver and 45 minutes south of Dublin and we’re having a mid-morning drink and a packet of Tay...

I've been thinking a lot lately about networks, networking and building up your own social capital.  In my Freshwalks profile ( here ) I...

We went to the film premiere of Saint Etienne's new album last week, followed by a delightful Q&A with the band's Bob Stanley an...

A few years ago ( here ) I made a confession that my guilty pleasure was British gangster films. Not just the good ones, but the rank bad on...

I don't think there's a prettier view in all of football than the setting of Seel Park, Mossley.  I was there for the Second Qualify...

  So many of us have had something of an epiphany over recent months. A feeling that we have to think about others, wake up to the terrible ...

As part of the onward movement to being fully human again, I’ve spent today on an Army base in Yorkshire as a Fellow of the Forward Institut...