Cool Manchester

easyJet and Manchester Pride Announce Partnership

The UK’s leading Pride event and the country’s largest airline have announced that easyJet, in partnership with Manchester Airport, will be the lead sponsor for Manchester Pride this year.Manchester Pride 2012 will take place between Friday 17 and Monday 27 August. This is the first time easyJet has sponsored Manchester Pride and more than 40,000 daily visitors are expected to attend the Big Weekend this year.

Ali Gayward, UK Commercial Manager, commented;

“We are delighted to be the headline sponsor of Manchester Pride, in partnership with Manchester Airport. The festival is one of the largest and most popular events in the City’s calendar and easyJet is proud to be sponsoring this year’s event.

“Through the sponsorship easyJet will help to make this year’s festival the most successful yet. We will help market the event to millions of our passengers and will be flying in thousands of people from all over the UK and across Europe to join the celebrations.”

John Stewart, Chief Executive of Manchester Pride, added:

“We are proud to welcome easyJet on board as our first headline sponsor. It’s great to have the backing of such a well known brand and confirms Manchester Pride’s place as the UK’s leading LGBT festival. Support from easyJet and Manchester Airport will help us realise our ambition of continuing to raise funds to support LGBT and HIV charities here in Greater Manchester.”

Manchester Airport will be sponsoring the Festival for the second time and has previously entered an aircraft-themed float in the parade that saw several of its employees taking part in the celebrations.

Stephen Turner, Aviation Commercial Director for the Manchester Airports Group (MAG), said: “We’re delighted to be linking up with Pride again on the sponsorship of the festival and also pleased to be joined by one of our largest airlines, easyJet. The LGBT community in Greater Manchester has been a positive voice in our region for many years and the festival has become an important date in our calendar as it brings many international visitors to our city. “

easyJet operates 242 flights a week to and from Manchester Airport to 25 of Europe’s top destinations including Berlin, Amsterdam and Athens. The airline has recently announced it will begin service between Manchester and both Basel and Tel Aviv this autumn.

Manchester Pride is an award-winning festival where lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people celebrate their contribution to the spirit and diversity of Greater Manchester. The festival takes place from 17-27 August 2012. Pride fringe will run from 17-23 August; the Big Weekend from 24-27 August; Pride Parade, 25 August; and George House Trust Candlelit Vigil, 27^th August.
Manchester Pride is a registered charity, raising money for LGBT and HIV charities and groups across Greater Manchester. For more information and to buy tickets, visit www.manchesterpride.com

Something very special is happening in Manchester right now.

Following a hectic and hugely successful party at the very site where the now legendary Hacienda night club once stood, Peter Hooks 'Hacienda Records', a label with an eclectic mix of the old and new, are putting on two events
at the popular night spot 'Sankeys' Soap'.
On Saturday, 2nd June, the highly celebrated French Club DJ Laurent Garnier makes a return to the city, where he once span records at the Factory Club in the late 80s. His set is rumoured to include a mixture of Techno, Acid Jazz Beats and Dubstep, a
must for any serious clubber.

The quality is kept high on Monday 4th June, for the second of the Sankey's Parties will see Graeme Park, Inner City's Kevin Saunderson, Tom Wainwright, and Allister Whitehead.
Also in the building on the 4th is Jon Dasilva, a DJ who should require no introduction here such is his pedigree.
This is just some of the DJs and shows you can expect to marvel at for the final two days of this incredible trio of events.

Hacienda Records can be found on Facebook at - www.facebook.com/fac51thehacienda
Also make sure you visit the Official website at - http://www.fac51thehacienda.com

By Andrew Barclay

On Saturday May 19th myself and Matthew (bluejovanka) decided to go off in to town as it was such a nice day. I say we decided, I wanted to go out, and decided we would go to town, Matthew agreed shortly afterwards.

When visiting Manchester, we always try to arrive after 4pm on weekdays or just go on a weekend. This is so we can take advantage of the cheap car parking at the University Car Park on Charles Street. £2 from 4pm until midnight on weekdays and £2 all day Saturday/Sunday. I would call this a bargain where free parking is unavailable (most place in Manchester thanks to the money grabbing council).

Matthew is obsessed with music as you may be able to tell from his frequent Retro Charts, so our first stops were the new music shop on Market Street, HMV and FOPP. After leaving FOPP, we heard someone singing and were drawn to it. We were very impressed with this guy, and unfortunately have forgotten his name, if anyone knows it, please do contact us and let us know. He is the one in the picture at the top of this post, and there is another further down.

After wandering around a little while, we came upon St Anne's Square who seem to be having another of their regular events. This time it seems to be a Tunisian special. I was intrigued by this tent which seemed to be destined to become a dining establishment. Unfortunately, I can't see Matthew wanting to dine in there. At this point we were getting a little hungry so started floating towards Spinningfields which is near to the Opera House theatre. We decided to dine at The Oast House (there's that 'we' again), as we had discovered this by accident a couple of weeks before when we went to see the travesty of a 'musical' that was showing. I can honestly say, the food here was excellent. The chips are on the menu as "perfectly seasoned" and they are. Matthew went for a burger, and I opted for the 1/2 chicken - you can see the pictures below.

After dining on our exquisite food, we decided it was time to go home, and as I was walking back to the car park, I decided to have a play with my camera and use the Panoramic option to take a picture of Sackville Park (Whitworth Gardens is it's real name apparently) including Alan Turing and the college. It's the first time I've really used this feature on my phone and I quite like it, I might be using it more.

The Words - Head Over Heels

Single Review

By Andrew Barclay

The Words are an exciting sounding four piece from Manchester, who have been working away at bringing their brand of poppy indie music to the larger audience it deserves.

They have a new single coming out on June 25th, called 'Head Over Heals'. It’s the kind of feel good song that fits nicely in with long hot summer days and perfect for festivals in every way.

Listening to it, I was reminded of the rash of bands that came out during the 'Brit Pop' era, trying to sound bright and radio friendly, most of them only really irritating the hell out of this reviewer, but The Words are masters of this tuneful territory, and the result is something they can really be proud of.

The single is backed by the equally bouncing 'I’m Not Listening'.

To be honest, either song could have been selected as a single, so good are the band at crafting tuneful guitar songs. I’m looking forward to seeing The Words become a success, and I’m sure the fans will enjoy the ride too.

For more info on the band, future gigs, and the release of the single visit;

http://www.thewordsmusic.co.uk/

First of all, sorry for not being on here that much the last couple of months, people who know me will know why, but I'm going to do my best now to make up for it

So, the month of May will always mean one thing to me.... EUROVISION!!

I'll be sharing with you some of my favourite Eurovision moments over the next week, but in the meantime I though I'd show you what the s=chart looked like this time in 1996:

1 Gina G Ooh Aah... Just A Little Bit
2 George Michael Fastlove
3 Baddiel & Skinner and The Lightning Seeds Three Lions
4 Tony Rich Project Nobody Knows
5 Mark Morrison Return Of The Mack
6 JX There's Nothing I Won't Do
7 Suggs & Louchie Lou / Michie One Cecilia
8 Peter Andre featuring Bubbler Ranx Mysterious Girl
9 1996 Manchester United FA Cup Squad Move Move Move (The Red Tribe)
10 The Smashing Pumpkins Tonight, Tonight
11 John Alford Blue Moon / Only You
12 Metallica Until It Sleeps
13 Sean Maguire Good Day
14 Gloria Estefan Reach
15 Liverpool FC & Boot Room Boyz Pass And Move (Liverpool Groove)
16 Bryan Adams The Only Thing That Looks Good On Me
17 Black Grape Fat Neck
18 Robert Miles Children
19 SWV You're The One
20 1300 Drums featuring The Unjustified Ancients Of M-U Ooh! Aah! Cantona
21 The Klubbheads Klubhopping
22 Manic Street Preachers A Design For Life
23 Celine Dion Because You Loved Me
24 Chantay Savage I Will Survive
25 Blur Charmless Man
26 The Lighthouse Family Ocean Drive
27 Busta Rhymes Woo-hah!! Got You All In Check
28 M-Beat featuring Jamiroquai Do You Know Where You're Coming From
29 Michael Jackson They Don't Care About Us
30 Alanis Morissette Ironic
31 Lisa Marie Experience Keep On Jumpin'
32 Pulse featuring Antoinette Roberson The Lover That You Are
33 Backstreet Boys Get Down (You're The One For Me)
34 Jodeci Get On Up
35 Horace Brown One For The Money
36 LL Cool J Doin' It
37 3T 24 / 7
38 Mark Snow The X-Files
39 Gabrielle Give Me A Little More Time
40 Scooter Rebel Yell

Sitting at the top of the chart was Gina Gee with one of the biggest selling Eurovision singles of all time. Such a pity that it did not do that well in the actual competition but in the mid-nineties Ireland were winning it almost every year, no matter how shit the song was

There was a hell of a lot of Football featured in the top 40, probably due to the fact that England was hosting Euro 1996 and from what I recall England did rather well [don't quote me on this, I know as much about football as next door's cat]

Apart from the all the football novelties, the rest of the chart was rather brilliant with some classic house tracks from JX, Robert Miles and Pulse, great pop from Suggs and Blur and a nice bit of rock from the Manics and The Smashing Pumpkins...good times!

So what are your memories of this period? Something else was also happening this month, a little film from the USA was shown on the BBC called... Doctor Who! I do remember getting a little bit excited about that [I did not watch it four times in one day..honestly!]