Cool Manchester

Many thanks to Tom at http://www.toms-travels.net/ for these great pics!

Here’s a picture of the metro station at Media City surrounded by the gardens with the studios as a back drop. I’ve included a couple of the new yellow trams that link Media City to the city centre and two of interior of a tram so people can see what it’s like inside. Looks quite roomy but in the rush hour it can be packed. i took the pictures of the trams at Cornbrook Station when they decided that the one I had got on to go to Media City was going somewhere else! We all had to get off and wait for the next one to turn up. Cornbrook Station is kind of in the middle of nowhere but it has been designed as one of the stations where all the different lines come together so you can change from one line to another with ease.

There's a great article in the Guardian today about why 1988 was such an important year

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/jul/17/one-year-counts-1980s-1988?INTCMP=SRCH

I had a look at everyhit.com at the chart from this week 23 years ago, it was certianly varied!

1 Glenn Medeiros - Nothing's Gonna Change My Love For You
2 Salt-N-Pepa - Push It / Tramp
3 The Fat Boys With Chubby Checker - The Twist (Yo, Twist)
4 Everything But The Girl - I Don't Want To Talk About It
5 Tracy Chapman - Fast Car
6 Bros - I Owe You Nothing
7 Sabrina - Boys (Summertime Love)
8 Michael Jackson - Dirty Diana
9 Transvision Vamp - I Want Your Love
10 UB40 With Chrissie Hynde-  Breakfast In Bed
11 Mac Band featuring The McCampbell Brothers -  Roses Are Red
12 Debbie Gibson - Foolish Beat
13 Eighth Wonder - Cross My Heart
14 Phil Collins In The Air-  Tonight
15 The Pasadenas - Tribute (Right On)
16 Matt Bianco - Don't Blame It On That Girl / Wap-Bam-Boogie
17 Def Leppard-  Love Bites
18 George Michael - Monkey
19 Bruce Springsteen - Tougher Than The Rest
20 Maxi Priest - Wild World
21 Kim Wilde - You Came
22 INXS - Never Tear Us Apart
23 Wee Papa Girl Rappers - Heat It Up
24 Ziggy Marley & The Melody Makers - Tomorrow People
25 T'Pau I Will Be With You
26 Hazell Dean - Maybe (We Should Call It A Day)
27 Pat Benatar - All Fired Up
28 The Communards - There's More To Love
29 Desireless - Voyage Voyage
30 The Pogues - Fiesta
31 Eric B & Rakim - Follow The Leader
32 The Timelords - Doctorin' The Tardis
33 Will Downing - In My Dreams
34 Public Enemy - Don't Believe The Hype
35 Natalie Cole - Everlasting
36 Steven Dante - I'm Too Scared
37 S-Express - Superfly Guy
38 Eurythmics - You Have Placed A Chill In My Heart
39 Kylie Minogue - Got To Be Certain
40 Jack 'N' Chill - Beatin' The Heat

Even though the number one song is a stinker, there are some absolute CLASSICS in this chart countdown.

What are your memories of the time? I remember being in Majorca and boring people to death about Doctor Who's 25th anniversary and Madonna! Kylie was on her second single around this time, and while I was liking her I was nowhere near the massive fan I became after hearing her first album. I was so pleased when it was outselling Bros's "Push". My "Brosette" friend Hazel and I got into some very heated debates about who would be more successful. I think I won that one....

My work has a float on the Manchester Pride parade this year and the theme is going to be the greatest British songs ever written.

What would be your nomination in this category? I can think of a few like The Beatles and Queen, but they seem rather obvious

When these polls take place asking for the greatest tracks do you think there are any in particular that get overlooked? I always think that Stock Aitken Waterman songs are underrated, the songs are well contructed and always have great choruses but whenever I mention them I always tend to be shot down for thinking such a thought!

So what would your nomination be? Let me know

So Torchwood went out last night in the UK, nearly a week after the rest of the world (but that's another matter discussed elsewhere on this site!), but was it any good?

Twitter and Facebook last night was full of opinions and all of them were pretty strong, people weren't happy at all with the show's transition to the USA. This is something we have to accept as from what I have read it was a series of Torchwood in America or no series at all. There was no way the BBC were going to pay for and produce a new series on their own.

My main worry, however, was the choice of network that the BBC chose to make the series with. I have found other "original starz productions" to be quite tacky with the main objective to be to show as much violence and naked ladies as possible. Even the new series of Camelot had Eva Green stripping off for no other reason than a cheap thrill.

Because of this I have been genuinely worried that Torchwood: Miracle Day would head in that direction... after one episode though I am feeling a bit better about the whole thing. Episode One was not bad at all.

It was great seeing Gwen and Rhys settled down as a family and I appreciated the idea that Gwen no longer appeared to want to go back to her previous life in Cardiff as her experiences with the 456 were nothing less than traumatic. The concept of the "Miracle Day" is also a very good one and I liked the fact that while nobody was dying Jack was becoming battered and bruised (only what John Barrowman deserves!).

Making the series a ten parter as well is extremely ambitious, it gives the show time to explore the story properly and not rush it to a conclusion after 45 minutes. I particularly liked the scenes on the hospital slab when a surgeon decided to cut a bomb survivor's head off just to see if he would live. That scene was very well done and genuinely scary.

The first episode wasn't without it faults though. Mekhi Phifer's performance was frankly awful and was far too over the top to be believable, he was given a couple of rotton lines to say as well. Wales is like New Jersey? Where the hell did that come from? Plus, why did he fly to Heathrow "UK" when Cardiff has a perfectly serviceable airport? (ok I know that's being incredibly picky!)

As Torchwood is now going to be made by Americans we have all assumed that the show will have a bigger budget. To be honest I never saw this, I thought a couple of effects were really fake and CGI was being used when it wasn't really necessary. Would it not have been easier to use actual fire rather than adding the CGI effect afterwards?

So far its OK, I would give it about six out of ten and no more, but its only episode one and this story looks like it will be a slow burner in a few weeks time I could very well be raving about how good its getting! I'm still not happy with the crappy job the BBC schedulers are doing though...

http://www.toms-travels.net/?p=1381 Thanks TOM!

On Sunday afternoon we went to lunch in Tai Wu, a Chinese restaurant on Oxford Street. It’s a bit away from China Town but we have noticed that Chinese businesses and restaurants have started expanding across the city centre in all directions. Tai Wu is one of the best. It has a good traditional Chinese restaurants on the ground floor and one of those, eat as much as you can, Chinese buffets in the basement. That’s where we went. I like the selection of foods you can eat. Puddings are restricted to ice cream, jelly, a little fresh fruit and some chocolate sponge roll which is a shame because I like a good pudding. They do have a machine that extrudes some of that soft ‘Mr Whippy’ ice cream which I enjoy playing with. So I had lots of that.