My megaphone has been borrowed for tomorrow. I bought it on eBay for a Tenner three years ago and they aren’t much use for most of the time so I’m not going to miss it. Hopefully he’ll replace the batteries…

I didn’t have my camera with me today on my trip to Manchester for a convergence event. This meant I wasn’t able to photograph the neon sign that said “SEXY FOOD” at Love saves the day outside Deansgate station.

The event was at the Deansgate Hilton which is in a humongous tower block called Beetham Tower. The lifts go up to 23 for the hotel but it actually has 48 floors with apartments in the higher bits (where it juts out).

The Hotel may only be 12 months old but inside the decor is somewhat timeless apart from the carpet (which is showing signs of wear) and the toilets (which have trendy circular basins on pillars).

Contrast them to the toilets in the Central Library which I had an urgent need to visit on my walk from the station this morning as the Sanisette euro-loo in Piccadilly Gardens was Closed, not accepting money. (& the porta-urinals had gone!)

The library toilets were stainless steel with vestigial seat strips either side and as I was washing my hands I noticed that there was a CCTV camera at ceiling level trained on the cubicle doors (but not the urinals, which were screened off).

The camera did not have an associated loudspeaker, fortunately. You can imagine the banter:

“Number three- cubicles are intended for single occupant use only, for the purposes of defecation.”

“Number one- I can see you waving under the door but it is not the responsibility of security to replenish the consumables”.

“Come out number two- your time is up!”

Today I received a personalised letter from Cllr Terry Grayshon (as did Karen). They both had 2nd class stamps so they were probably posted on Saturday last week.

This might be what the BNP are supposedly getting upset about, although probably not.

The letters included the following leaflet.


Let us have a reality check here. The only place the MBI have real power (but not control as they only have one third of the Councillors) is on the Area Committee South. The Council as a whole is run by a rainbow alliance of Conservative, Lib Dem and Greens who form the executive posts as they have a 52 seat majority (of 99). (The people excluded are Labour (40), MBI (4), BNP (1) and two Independents).

This could well change on Friday, although in what way is anyone’s guess.