BBC Manchester Blog: RIP

Some sad news: The BBC Manchester blog is no more. The experiment has run its course, and creators Richard Fair and Robin Hamman are bowing out.


You have to hand it to them - okay, I became involved with it, so I'm not totally impartial here - but they did good. In fact, I was initially very suspicious of the project. So many other instances of traditional media trying to "do" blogging result in tin-eared, unreadable sites that have all the easy authenticity of Michael Howard in a metallic hoodie. Or they expect bloggers who already have an established audience online to fall all over themselves to write for their media outlet just for the sheer privilege of it, and seem gobsmacked when they don't.

But Robin and Richard, from the first, demonstrated their willingness to engage with the existing community of Manchester bloggers on equal terms, and use the BBC's broad reach to make the medium increasingly accessible, welcoming many Mancunians new (and old) to blogging with workshops, radio spots and generous linking. They showed that blogging can be a very effective way for established media to incorporate new voices into their output - and that local people who are not necessarily members of the media elite can contribute really worthwhile and fresh content about their city (even if it isn't news-led; even if, in fact, it is totally random.)

I'm sorry to see the experiment end, but I understand it couldn't go on forever - these two guys are pretty busy. I'm frankly amazed they were able to keep the blog active and interesting for as long as they did, given the number of other things they both have to do. Still, the UK landscape has changed so drastically in since the blog started in 2006 - big newspapers and media companies seem to be getting a bit more of a handle on this blogging thing, and local microsites, citizen journalism and community-led content are the buzzwords of the day. The BBC Manchester Blog was certainly at the forefront of this trend.

New blogs: The moany edition

Oh my god. I have been feverishly ill now for two weeks, and being ill is apparently much worse than normal when you're super pregnant. For one thing, your immune system is not so effective. I have drunk gallons of vitamin C drink, inhaled more steam than a sauna attendant and ingested such radioactive levels of antibiotics that I can curdle pots of bio-live yoghurt with a single glance. And for all that I feel a little better, but not much. In fact, I have to go lie down for a bit.

That's better, not so dizzy now. Okay. (Cough.) Sigh. So I guess I have some new blogs to tell you about.

Last year Susie started a pregnancy blog called Oscar or Isabelle. And then she had her baby and it turned out to be neither an Oscar nor an Isabelle, but a Milo. So she's unveiled a new wordpressy blog in which she will record her adventures with the new man in her life: Travels with my Baby.

Lovely Gill Moore, Manchester photographer and graduate of one of our blogging workshops, has started an excellent blog that features photos she admires as well as her own work, news and thoughts about photography, exhibitions and other random things. Scatterdrum: Ramblings from inside a photographer's head.

Andy Sewina has started posting a work-in-progress-novel blog, called "Space Invaders!"

Tom writes Book of the Future, which deals in technology, society and geekery. "Been going since November 2006 and though I haven't managed to keep up my intended blogging schedule over that time I'm still approaching my 90th post," he says.

Ian Hough is the author of a book called Perry Boys about Manc football and culture in the 70s and 80s. He also writes a blog called The Nameless Thing, at which you can read about his theory of The Four Quadrants of Manchester.*

"The 4 quadrants are sectors, regions in Greater Manchester County, which possess definite identity and character, fault-lines in the ancient crust of our city. Just as Paris’ arrondissements are arrayed as a gigantic snailshell, in a tight clockwise spiral around the central core, so are Manchester’s degrees of suchness concentrically packed, like jam roly-poly about its lively heart..."

(*Unless you're from Partington, in which case you should not read it. It'll just make you angry.)

Finally, Manchester socialite Miss Coco LaVerne has arrived to pretty up our general area of the blogosphere. In her own words, Coco is "an enigma, a spectacular incarnation of beauty and grace." Welcome Coco. Now I'm going back to bed.

New blogs: the dyspeptic edition

Three days later, I am still recovering from judging the North West Fine Food awards. Judging food awards seems like a great gig until you find yourself facing 19 varieties of sausages with additives at 9 o'clock in the morning, and then realise you have to eat steadily until 4:30. Eeek.

But there's no cause for indigestion to be found in this week's heaping plate of new blogs (do you see what I did there?) Which is good, cause my hoard of imported Tums is dwindling fast. First up we got Mini Manchester, which is a blog about kids' activities in the region by Manc journo and mum Ruth Allan. She's asking for like-minded parents to share news of interesting kid-friendly outings around the city.

Another new music blog: Just Press Play has lots of samples to taste.

nine chains to the moon is the blog of Sally, a Manchester writer, who uses it as a place to post a mix of fiction, poetry and random musings. She has this to say about it:

"It is weird that someone left a comment because it made me realise people other than my friends might read this blog. I wonder how anyone would find it. I am sorry to anyone who was excited by the title and thought it might be about geodesic domes or something. I feel peculiar when I imagine strangers reading it. When I think of it I get a kind of creeping shivery excited sick feeling. But that is the point isn't it? Is it very narcissistic to want to write a blog? I feel more vulnerable than gratified at the moment. But I think it will be good to Toughen Me Up and get some bits of writing that I do out into the open, and also gathered in one place where I can keep an eye on them."

I think that's a really apt summary of how many people feel about their blogs.

Does Christopher Walken like hotdogs? You can find out at manc dj and pubquizmeister Elliot Eastwick's new World Famous Blog.

And an interesting take on a personal blog is Cotton and Coal, subtitled "The adventures of a bachelor cotton trader, his friends, lovers and carrier pigeons in a Manchester steaming towards boom or bust." Writer Batson Bargreaves adapts events from his life into the voice of the narrative, which is decidedly old-school.

Eurekak, flacks and .... Aidan.

A few new blogs for you this week: The first is Eurekak!, a themed blog that collects moments of dodgy inspiration (that's one there, that picture). It might go like this: One night, in the throes of drunkenness, you have an idea and are immediately convinced it's genius. You frantically write a few key words on your arm with a ball-point pen, chuckling at your own ineffable brilliance, before passing out. In the cold light of day, however, your idea doesn't seem so brilliant. All you can do, really, is take a photograph of your arm and send it, along with the whole sordid tale, to the shadowy Dr. Whom, who will post it on his wall of shame and you can thenceforth pretend the whole thing never happened.

HackFlack is a blog about PR and media matters, written by Chris Marritt, a former hack (journo) who is now a flack (PR professional). I've always liked the word flack, and use it whenever I can, but people over here don't seem familiar with it. Flack! It's kind of fun to say.

Thirdly, Eye on Manchester is now Aidan.co.uk, which is similar in focus but with more of a portfolio setup. Several people emailed to tell me they saw the recent Guardian Tech section article about regional blogging which mentioned this blog and Aidan's. In case anyone missed it, you can read it here.

Welcome back, number 43

In among this week's crop of new blogs, some of you might recognise an old friend. The 43 was a beautifully written blog based on writer Geoff's musings while riding on the number 43 bus. It captured our hearts and won the blog of the year award at the first Manchester Blog Awards 2 years ago. And then, Geoff stopped writing. But now he's back with 40three, a brand new wordpress blog that's subtitled "Faith, Philosophy and Life:"

"It’s been nearly a year but I have finally decided to get back into the world of blogging! Some of you may remember my previous blogging adventure, from which this blog takes its name (to give the whole thing a pleasing sense of continuity) but not its theme. I doubt this present jaunt will be as sensitive, amusing, or fortunate in stumbling across a friendly award, but it may well satisfy my current appetite to write," he says.

Then there's a new blog called How do you do? which bills itself as "Lifestyle Guides for the 21st Century of Time." Jolly Roger has helpfully given us instructions on how to be a human - and, rather enterprisingly, is already flogging t-shirts and mugs with the blog's name on. Goodness. Upcoming topics include how to be a temp and how to be a gay... Oh, I can't wait to read that one. (via Manchester is Online, Sarah from the MEN's blog formerly known as The Mancunian Way.)
UPDATE: Have now read the promised post on how to be gay, and will be removing this blog from the blogroll and any links to it, as it's unbelievably offensive.

Also in the business of helping people - at least made up ones - is Dear Kitty... It's a fictional agony aunt column, updated every Friday.

Photoblog words fail has some nice snaps up. That's one of them up there. (Thanks to northernights for the tip. He has just posted an excellent round-up of Manc musicbloggers' Best of 2007 lists, btw.)

In the sports category, United Road is "concerned, as the name suggests, with Manchester United, primarily with the political and business stuff that swirls around off the pitch, rather than doings on it." Has an interesting post on there about XFM's commentary on Man U games, and the station in general.

Ambition and distraction

Here's a whole family-size tin's worth of new Manchester blogs for our blogroll. Tasty.

Manchester Libraries have entered the blogging action with The Manchester Lit List, full of news about readings and events, book groups and mini author profiles.

Another foodie blog! This one features the culinary adventures of GastroGrrl... restaurant reviews and meditations on food, cooking and eating.

Mel's Bog Blog is the blog of Manc artist Melanie Warner of the aformentioned Bog Standard Gallery.

Still on the artistic tip, Paw Quality Comics is the blog of comic artist Jim Medway. As you'd expect, lots of great illustrations as well as news about openings and workshops and discussions of the comic art.

Manchester Photography is a blog about photography and Manchester, from Mark Page. For Frock's Sake! is a blog about fashion and styling from Zo, a stylist based in the city.

Equine Obesity is not about fat horses. It's a personal blog written by Fathorse, a student who lives in the city.

Where's Wigan? is the personal blog of Robin, a New Yorker who recently moved to deepest Lancashire. God, can you imagine how crazy a transition that must be? Ho ho ho...Who is that girl? is another personal blog. The Thirsty Gargoyle is another personal blog, and at the moment it seems to be mostly about the work of Alan Moore, the best comic book writer to ever worship a snake-headed Roman sock puppet. Also possibly the best comic book writer ever.

As we giveth, so we taketh away: I am going to be doing a clear-out of blogs that haven't been updated in the last few months or have ceased to exist. If yours is removed but your new year's resolution is to blog more in 2008, just let me know and I'll put you back on the blogroll.

Attack of the new blogs

Now that the frenzy of the MLF and blog awards has dissipated, and I'm starting to claw my way back to something resembling normal life, here's a whole bunch of new blogs I've been meaning to add to the blogroll for some time:

Almost Witty is the "anecdotes of a reluctant thirty-something UK man in Manchester mildly obsessed by all things film, comedy, media, music, dating, the internet world and this thing we call life."


T'blog is the personal blog of a shadowy "Lancashire Lad."

Epicly Carnage is the personal photoblog of Gil Swerts.

Geekinetics is Fee Plumley's (formerly of Fee Fi Fo Fum) new blog about "evolving forms of theatricality & digital scenographies through internationally collaborative creative praxis." The word praxis sounds kind of scary, doesn't it?

The dictionary of Oscar Macsweeny is a Manchester-based fiction blog. Apparently no relation to Timothy McSweeney.

Secret Lunch is described by its author as "a manchester-
restaurant-review-spouse-abuse-rant-blog." Definitely the first one of those we've had.

Belinda Webb wrote in to say hello. She's a writer and Manchester native (now living in That London.) She says: "I have my first novel, A Clockwork Apple, due out in April 08 which is about a raging girl gang who traipse the streets of Manchester! It is, in part, hommage to that other Mancunian, Anthony Burgess, author of A Clockwork Orange!" You can check our her blog here, in which she weighs in on the Amis/Eagleton cat fight.

I'm also adding a link to the MEN's stable of blogs. Many thanks to online editor Sarah Hartley for reminding me. She writes the "Life Through Food" blog which, since we now have two food and drink blogs, joins a shiny new category. Any more?

Manchester Blogstory chapter three

The third riveting chapter of our interactive Manchester blogstory, What Would You Do?, has just been posted. I have to say, I didn't see the story going this way at all, so it's a neat surprise. I also enjoyed Elizabeth's descriptions of stuff we see all the time around Manchester - the goths in Cathedral Gardens, the dancers performing in front of M&S, the crowds of drinkers outside Sinclair's Oyster bar. It's both unnerving and cool to see these familiar scenes become part of a fictional work. And I'm dying to know more about the mystery man! Go read it and vote already.

There was a major problem with the blog poll last week (and incidentally, why do blog poll tools suck so much?)Aaaanyway, we're back with the one that worked best, Blog Flux Polls, which has a very neat map function which shows where all the votes are coming from on a map of the world.

By the way, I added about a hundred new blogs to the Great Manc Blogroll late last week - okay, er, maybe it was only 12 or so. But I'm not going to have time to introduce them politely here, so y'all will just have to introduce yourselves.

2007 Manchester Blog Awards: Shortlist

Here's the shortlist for the 2007 Manchester Blog Awards - it's now with the other judges, Richard Fair of BBC Manchester and Dave Carter of MDDA.

Many thanks to everyone who nominated and was nominated; we had well over a hundred nominations this year, many of them very strong, and it was really difficult to choose. The winners will be announced October 10 at the awards event, so if you've been shortlisted you may want to reserve tickets and save the date. More details on that event as we get closer to the time.

The shortlists (in no particular order:)
Best writing on a blog:
Untitled Supermarket Nightmare/Day of Moustaches
Airport Diaries
A Free Man in Preston
Community Fair

Best political blog:
The Asparagus
Normblog
Politaholic
Skipper

Best personal blog:
Gooseania
Notebooks
Single Mother on the Verge
Crinklybee

Best arts and culture blog:
Fictionbitch (aka The Tart of Fiction)
Mancubist
The Ring Modulator
The Console (music and visual)

Best new blog:
The Shoe Project
Get Weird Turn Pro
Words Dept.
Renter Girl

Manchester blogstory chapter two

...has just been posted here. Please read this week's chapter and vote on what you think should happen next.

Now off to look at blogs, blogs and more blogs. The shortlist for the blog awards should be up in the next couple of days.

Act now!

Just a quick reminder that tomorrow is the deadline for submitting your picks for the 2007 Manchester Blog Awards. We've had more than 80 separate nominations, which is a scorching hot response! But if you haven't sent yours in yet, email 'em to mancblogawards AT googlemail.com by midnight tomorrow.

Also, while we're on the subject of deadlines, reader voting on what happens next in What Would You Do, our Manchester Blogstory, closes at 8pm tonight. Eeek! Tune in on Tuesday morning for the next installment.

New blogs: The shoegazer edition

A bunch of new additions to the Manchester blogroll:

The Shoe Project is Chris Shen's new site - he's taken down his multimedia blog Supashen and is focusing all his energies on this. The site features pictures of people's shoes with their handwritten notes about what they think their shoes say about them. You can download a form on the blog to make your shoes part of the project (see above.)

Manchester Dead Souls is about all kinds of things, lately Mancunian driving style and how it differs from the way people drive in France and Sheffield.

Rent Girl lives in Salford and writes about landlord and tenant issues, the perils of renting and her adventures in Dovecot Towers.

Lady Levenshulme is "all about things she likes and things she doesn’t like, things she’s done, places she’s been to, the neighbour who has stolen 3 of her wheelie bins, books she’s read and anything else that takes her fancy. And why Lady Levenshulme? Because she lives and works in Levenshulme and you wouldn’t believe the stuff that goes on there."

Wiggers World is Tom Wigley's personal blog, which features writing about various places, flora and fauna as well as some lovely pictures. Here's a cool post on the Hawthorn plant and its uses.

Single Mother on the Verge is the personal blog of a mother and writer in South Manchester who recently had a play in the Edinburgh Fringe.

A couple of new music blogs: hip young gunslinger "is a blog that 'deals with' pop music, electro music and indie music you can dance to. It is basically an 'indiepop electro' blog, whatever one of those is." Fucking Dance is Jamila Scott's "music blog from a bored girl."

And still with the music, here's a new one for the sidebar: Northernights is a pleasantly lo-fi clubbing site for Manchester whose mission is to "bring you independent and accurate nightclub listings with insider knowledge and recommendations from the people who really matter: the clubbers themselves. We won’t hound you with flashing ads and cheap hotels. This is a non-profit service predominantly for the creative and forward-thinking side of the city’s nightlife." It's been really difficult for me to find out what's on since ___(insert rant about Manchester STILL not having its own listings magazine here). This will help.

Manchizzle in The Guardian

Holy cats! Today's Guardian Guide did a Blog Roll feature on Manchester, and here's what they had to say about this blog:

"The pick of Manchester culture and hub of blogging goodness."

Couldn't have said it better myself. Cheers, nameless Guardian writer.

Blog Roll also namechecked Mancubist, The Ring Modulator, I Shook My Head, Manchester Looks, Yer Mam!, and Chronicles of Joy Division.

Now off to enjoy the rest of the bank holiday weekend. They said it was supposed to be sunny, didn't they? THEY SAID IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE SUNNY.

More new blogs

Just like last year, the blog awards nominations are clueing me up to a whole mess of new bloggage. Plus I already had a backlog of new blogs to add on account of me being too busy offscreen to blog much lately (selling house, buying new one, family visiting, grousing about the weather, etc.) So here's the lastest additions to the blogroll:

Manchester DJ and writer Fat Roland has a blog where he talks about his life and music, chiefly electronica "from afx to yokota." And who says bloggers are all arrogant gobshites? His latest post starts out "I am a blithering hypocrite and you should pap me on the nose with the back of a spoon." You just have to read on after that opener, don't you?

On the other side of the musical spectrum is The Ring Modulator, which writer Adrian Stevenson describes as "musings about jazz, Manchester, and anything else that feels right at the time." He's just posted a recap of this year's Manchester Jazz Festival.

Mamucium has started a second blog called I Shook My Head (This is What Fell Out).

Tourista de Mancunia is a personal blog written by a Southerner living in Manchester.

Manchester Blog is concerned with Manchester news, parking, affairs and personalities, and it's open to submissions from Manchester bloggers.

New Ways of Seeing is a blog about digital photography, with lots of pictures as you'd expect. It's actually the Manchester Studio Digital Portrait Photography and Fine Art Pictorial. That's where the image above comes from.

Ear I Am is the personal blog of Nigel Hughes, who lives in Newton-Le-Willows and works in PR in Manchester.

Literary blog Pernickety Hat is the work of writer Viki Lane. It's the place where she posts her flash fiction, short stories, poems and novel extracts. You can also play with her adorable tiger. A blog with a pet? I like it.

Action Without Theory appears to be concerned with left politics and journalism, and it's written by Miles. "The first stop for rebels and renegades on the web."

Finally, Diary of a Bluestocking. "Being the recordings of the day to day ruminations of EP Niblock, Edwardian spinster, flaneuse, adventurer and intrepid explorer, an unfashionable anachronism constantly bewildered by her unexpected navigations into the contemporary post industrial landscape." Marvelous.

Short short stories on Normblog

I just found out that Norman Geras is running a short short story series on his excellent and very widely-read blog. Contest details here. He's just posted one today, here.

He also says: "All I need add is that, whatever its quality, your story will be received at normblog as a vote in favour of the glory of literature." Hooray for Norm!

Manchester Blog Awards 2007

I'm happy to tell you that the Second Annual Manchester Blog Awards are in the works, and they're going to be bigger and better than last year.

The judges will be picking winners in the same categories as last year (political, arts and culture, best personal blog and blog of the year) as well as a new category that recognises the best creative writing on a blog. And we're sorting out cash prizes for the winners this year. I'll let you know about how to nominate blogs closer to the time.

We're getting our own star-studded event where we'll have even more readings from bloggers, an exciting guest speaker, and the city's music bloggers are going to be asked to do some dj-ing (so don't even think about going to a gig that night. I'm looking at you, GirlonaTrain and JustHipper.)

The blog awards going to be happening during the Manchester Literature Festival on Wednesday, October 10, at around 7:30 in a new venue on Oldham Street called Moho Live (this is all tbc for now). Put it on the calendar.

We're also planning some blogging workshops during the festival - more info on that later.

So... does any one of you design wizards feel like whipping up a "second annual blog awards" logo? And if anyone has any ideas or strong opinions about this year's blog awards, speak up.

Fishing for new blogs

Holy cats! What rip-roaringly exciting new blogs I have for you this week.

I've been doing some more work looking at the juxtaposition of creative writing and blogs lately, so I was delighted to find that Manchester writer Chris Killen is writing a novel on his blog, a chapter a day. It's called untitled 'supermarket nightmare'. Go read it. It's ace. He's also running a competition which you should probably know about:

i am starting an untitled 'supermarket nightmare' competition. the competition is titled "write chapter 50". if you would like to enter the competition, please write chapter 50 and post it below as a comment. you have about thirty days or so to enter.
if anyone enters, i will choose the entry i like best and it will be chapter 50.
i don't think anyone will enter the competition.
if you enter the competition it might really fuck up the writing of this novel.
please enter the competition.

Also new to the blogroll is Mount St Helens weeps lava tears. It's the blog of Chadderton-based cartoonist John Allison, who is responsible for the comic Scary Go Round. (Um, how come nobody told me about that. It's really good and it's only been going for five years.)

John recently attended All Tomorrow's Parties and posted a review. Here's a bit:

SUNDAY
SLINT - alas I am making some macaroni at this point ?/10
MICAH P. HINSON - nothing a nice gargle wouldn't fix 7/10
BAT FOR LASHES - were playing crazy golf directly in front of me this morning 7.5/10
ARCHITECTURE IN HELSINKI - it's 5! 7/10
BAND OF HORSES - best band of the weekend 9.5/10
MODEST MOUSE - v.good but Johnny Marr is not going to be in the band for very long because he obviously wants to be in charge 8/10
CAPRICORNS - I had to play darts on my mobile phone to take my mind off this mess 1/10
GRIZZLY BEAR - hippies 6.5/10
DO MAKE SAY THINK - I have never been more tired zzz/10

Sounds about right. Thanks to Sheshark of the newly-revitalised If You're Sad and Like Beer for the tip.

What's with the fish picture? Well, that's Sammy the Salmon. More info at the Mersey Basin Campaign.

New bloggage

I'm limping into Monday, recovering from a nasty virus that for the past week has made me very dizzy after ten minutes in front of the computer screen. Now I'm up to twenty minutes, so I'll hurriedly catch up with some new Manchester blogs:

Supashen is a multimedia extravaganza in the form of a blog; Sitemeister Chris Shen features content in music, video and text flavours, both self-made and externally sourced. That's one of his mind-bending screensavers above, entitled My Dreams Keep me Awake.

Still round the corner there may wait... is a blog from Megan, an Australian, twenty-something psychology graduate "living in Manchester, working in a hotel, wishing I could quit work and walk the earth (you know, like Caine in Kung Fu)."

My anger makes me a modern girl is written by a shadowy Mancunian female known only as notmarcie. It's a personal blog.

Tony Trehy is a curator and writer and the director of the always-intriguing Text Festival in Bury. The blog focuses mainly on art, his own work and what he's been up to.(Thanks to J for the tip).

Manchester Spring Blog Meet April 7

I know, I know, it's been way too long since we've all met up. But I'm still over here in the states, and still don't know when I'll be coming back to the UK. Fortunately, James Yer Mam! has kindly volunteered to organise the next blogmeet.

It's going to be going down at 3 in the afternoon on April 7 at The Hare and Hounds on Shudehill, a pub many of you may remember fondly from previous glittering Manchester Bloggers affairs (The quaintness of the decor! The cheapness of the beer!) For those of you who aren't quite sure where that is, it's in the Northern Quarter, just across the street from the new bus station and just across the tram stop from the Printworks.

As usual, everyone's welcome: people with blogs, people who wish they had blogs but aren't quite sure how to go about setting them up, people who like to read blogs, bloggers' significant others who secretly resent being forced to attend these geekfests but haven't quite managed to get out of going yet, people who don't understand why all these loud youngsters have taken over their pub in the middle of the afternoon but hope they bugger off soon. Have fun.

Fresh blogs

Young bloggers rule. Here's one of the youngest I know of: David Wilkinson was born (in Manchester, of course) in 1994. He's also the force behind Techzi, a blog about all things technological that's very highly regarded; The Techzi feed has 199 subscribers.
David describes himself as an "internationally acclaimed weirdo, founder of Zi Media, and general nutter." You rock, David.

The Mersey Basin Campaign blog has moved here, and changed slightly in focus, writes blogmeister Kate. "It's a bit wider in scope - rather than just focusing on 'Mersey Basin Week', it's a blog for the whole campaign. Highlights at the moment are a thread following the progress of the book we are putting together about the River Mersey, and news about the project to redevelop the Radar Tower at Crosby."

Nik Fletcher is a student at RNCM and a bit of a technophile. He's also an observer of Mancunian life, who "noticed this week that yet another Sainsburys Local getting ready to open on March 8th under what is believed to be a hotel (IIRC) on Mosley Street just down from Picadilly. With 4 Sainsbury Locals already in the City Centre, all within easy walking distance of each other, I can't help but wonder who's letting these applications go through."

Red Rose Ramblings is the work of a 30-something Lancastrian - it's Steven, who also writes for the FC United blog MREnders. He has a funny account of just how eager a certain local newspaper seems to shift copies.

On the heels of the Salford Star, here's another community-media venture for you: The Old Trafford News, which comes with a blog called Old Trafford Views, written by editor Ally Fogg.