So it’s the end of another decade. You can tell you’re getting old when you say ANOTHER decade. Ah I remember the heady days of New Year’s Eve in 1999, with the ridiculous fear that the world as we know it might end because of a date setting.

Manchester Is Ace was born last December, which makes it a fitting anniversary that I’ve just re-located to WordPress and tried to develop the site one year on. It’s been a busy and fabulous year for me, with redundancy forcing me to take the plunge and go into full-time PR and journalism freelance-style.

Just a couple months after launching my blog, I was employed to write some freelance food reviews for Taste of Manchester, which then led to me doing all the PR for Manchester Food and Drink Festival 2009. It’s not a secret that I do like my food, so what job could have been more perfect for me?

Anyway, here’s a quick look at some of the most important things that happened in Manchester in 2009 (well, according to me anyway).

1. Urbis becomes a football museum
To someone with a strong dislike for football, this is still very much a sore point. I never actually got to write about this before, being in the midst of WordPress-self-hosting hell, but seriously?

Manchester’s ‘brand’ is Original Modern, and historically Manchester has such a cultural force in the UK, and indeed is the capital of the North. Known as Cottonopolis, we’ve driven the Industrial Revolution with the massive boom in cotton production, demanded a place in Marxist history for being the subject of Freidrich Engels’ The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844, and the thriving music scene in the 1980s created a second nickname for the city: Madchester.

So my rather-long winded point was Urbis was supposed to be at the forefront of documenting our urban culture in the new millennium. And now its exhibitions are going to be squished into a corner, while football memorabilia from Preston takes the limelight. It’s not even an exploration of the popular culture aspect – it’s actual football memorabilia.

Sadly this has also meant job losses for some staff at Urbis, and chief executive Vaughan Allen has already taken a new job at CityCo. Read this interview with him on Culture24.org.

Urbis might not have been for everyone, but how can this city claim to be Original and Modern if it doesn’t dare do something different? However, this article on Culture24 says that Urbis lost £500,000 in its last yearly report – and in a money vs culture argument, you know what’s going to win. Urbis did get off to a shaky start, but even in January this year, the Manchester Evening News reported that it had pulled in record-breaking crowds, with a 67% increase since 2005.

Urbis is supposed to close on February 27, unless there is a last minute reprieve. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned from being a local newspaper reporter, is that nothing’s ever final until you see it happen.

2. Intergrated transport system on the cards
Just a few weeks ago, the Manchester Evening News revealed that the city is to get a £2.2m Oyster card-style integrated system. Just in case you don’t know, an Oyster Card is the transport swipe card in London, which means you load up with money and can use it on buses, tubes and trains.

The idea was mentioned back in 2007/08 and was going to be put into place if the public voted yes to the congestion charge. In fact, we were told that a yes vote would mean a £3bn public transport package – when although a much smaller sum of money, it looks like we CAN have some money towards improving public transport (see what I mean about nothing being final with government).

However, public transport as it stands is all over the place and more expensive than driving. Doesn’t really tempt you to leave the car at home does it? So fingers crossed that this goes ahead.

3. Replacement water pipes
Will 2009 be the year that we all remember the mass roadworks, bringing the city centre to a standstill? From May onwards, the city saw a £8m project to replace the Victorian cast iron water pipes with modern plastic ones.

Work began on Oxford Road, before moving across the city centre and ending up with Deansgate being one way. According to the United Utilities website it should all by over by early 2010.

4. The end of journalism as we know it
This year has seen reporters all across the country being given the heave-ho, and Manchester hasn’t been any different. The last few years have already seen lots of redundancies, with my beloved Citylife being closed down. But this year saw the final cull and really, the death of journalism in Manchester.

The Manchester Evening News shed most of its staff, including citylife.co.uk staff, while the Metro closed down all of its Northern offices, meaning we lost all our Manchester-based food, culture and going out pages. The remaining journalists in our local papers just don’t have the time to do their jobs properly because they just don’t have the staff. I could write so much more on this, but there’s just too much to say. Sad times indeed.

5. Twitter
I wasn’t planning to mention Twitter, because we’ve all read sooo many articles about the new social media website this year, most of them completely missing the point.

But when I think about my year of working and living in Manchester, Twitter does in fact feature quite prominently. Manchester is quite a small city, and everyone just knows everyone, especially in the media, digital and PR world. So I think Twitter has brought all this together quite nicely, and I’ve met a huge amount of people, been to some fabulous events, gained a few new clients and actually feel like part of a community – none of which I would have done without Twitter.

Here’s raising a glass to 2010.

Urbis photo by Aidan O’Rourke
www.aidan.co.uk.

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Manchester Is Ace has been asked to provide a monthly round-up of all the amazing stuff we have here for our cousins in Leeds across the Pennines.  Have a look at my post on Culture Vultures and let me know what you think.

I decided to stick to only three things otherwise the post would be too long, but it’s so hard to choose because there’s so many great things going on the city that I heart. Watch this space as I’ll post a couple more things that I’d like to mention.

I also write for www.tasteofmanchester.com, which is a purely food and drink lovers website, so have a look there for my food reviews and news.

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When I started this blog over Christmas it was really just a hobby and I didn’t think anyone would notice or read it for AGES. But of course, then I discovered Twitter, which enables you to reach a large audience very quickly. Around the same time Twitter has reached mainstream media and seems to get mentioned in the Press rather a lot by people who just don’t get it. Celebrities tweeting their daily trivia is just a small part of this network. I follow a few celebs but generally find it far more interesting to follow and converse with people who have similar interests to me and work in a similar field to me.

By far my most read blog post – and the one Sarah flagged up too – was the one about kebabs and reviewing my favourite chicken kebab from Persian Tasty Grill in Levenshulme. About the time I wrote it, kebabs seemed to hit the news: first the bloke who invented them died and then (shock-horror!) it has been discovered they are not very good for you.

When most people say or hear kebabs they mean doner meat, which is a squishy mish-mash of lamb meat, but let’s face it – it could be anything and you wouldn’t know. And anyone who’s read my post knows I’m not a fan of floor scrapings but I do like some marinated chicken cooked in a clay oven. If there was anywhere that used free-range chicken, I’d be one happy gal.

If you’re going to buy takeaway food, make sure it’s from somewhere clean. I read too many stories in the local papers about kebab shops and takeaways in Manchester, which have been fined by Environmental Health for being disgusting. In fact there was an article in the South Manchester Reporter (and here on the Manchester Evening News website) on Friday about Pink Garlic in Rusholme. It said the curry restaurant on Wilmslow Road had to be closed for three days for a clean-up, after they were found to have a mouse and cockroach infestation, and magistrates fined them £14,000. How pleasant – I’m so glad I’ve never eaten there.

So just to finish – thanks for everyone who has read, and hopefully, enjoyed my blog. It was set up to shout out all those great places in Manchester that I find, plus bring together all the offers and deals you can find. Although the focus is mainly on food and drink, it’s not strictly a food blog.

Any feedback or comments are much appreciated, and I will be also be looking for guest bloggers, and am happy to guest blog for anyone else (if it’s something I can comment or contribute too, of course).

My aims now are to sort out the design of the blog and get it looking all snazzy, and just to keep adding to it. Bye for now – I have many more posts to write up!

Carolyn@manchesterisace

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We set up the Manchester is ace blog because we love Manchester and want to bring you tips, offers and details of the best places we’ve found. We want to sing the unsung, find the coolest little shops, the bars with the best offers that we find as we tootle through life.

If you look in the About Me section, you’ll see that this blog isn’t going to mention the dreaded C word (no, not that one!) – credit crunch. Or recession or politics – read a newspaper for that! Forget the depressing stuff – people still go out, eat, drink and live – so let’s just do that.

There are loads of blogs about Manchester and by people who live in our city – but hopefully this one will bring something different to the forum. Eventually we would like this to be a team of people who post when they found a wicked happy hour offer, a special cocktail, or even just really amazing customer service at an independent shop. We’ve been reading blogs and sites about Manchester (and some not about Manchester!) for ages – so check out the links on the side panel.

First up I’m going to flag up this article, which helped me launch this site. Craig McGinty is a journalist who writes a couple of blogs and I found this useful posting. We’re still finding my way round Typepad – but hopefully will figure it out soon!

Here’s that link: http://www.craigmcginty.com/news/2005/07/setting_up_a_bl.html

Anyway, see you around. Keep checking back for new posts.

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