Manchester through the eyes of a London-dweller
The general antipathy that Manchester receives from the South shows no signs of diminishing. Having been sent up here on a short project at work, I’ve had a chance to put my prejudices to the test, and see what life in the provinces is like. Despite getting the constant stabs at being a namby Southerner (for which my retort of Northern credentials never ceases to raise eyebrows), the people have proved not only jovial but also not as football-obsessed or beer-focused as the stereotype would have you think.
As cities go, Manchester is a mixed bag – but then again, is not London? The objection I had, staying in the centre of town and not having the pleasure to visit the suburbs more than once, was that the moderately garish 1970’s hotels that overshadowed the glossy glass temples for mammon could have equally been a view from Basingstoke or Maidenhead, though slightly grander in scale. WHSmith, M&S, even Selfridges and House of Fraser all have their spots. The shock was not to see the aspirational upper middle class ponce around buying John Lewis toiletries, but rather that it all came across so anodyne and non-committal.
There are a few brave and successful choices of urban planning that ought not to be left unmentioned. Almost cradling up to the Cathedral (parochial on the outside, mostly well preserved on the inside) is a superb, inviting and uncomplicated area where civilised drinks can be had in the shadow of the London-Eye-copy. Behind the corner an amphitheatre that combines a running stream and a huge screen playing constant news and sports, evokes a sense of the forum where citizens come to see and hear what is new, topical and interesting. The feeling is not that of Trafalgar square, a monument to tourism rather than civic pride (though I must begrudgingly acknowledge that the previous mayor’s improvements in pedestrianisation, whose name I dare not mention for getting Socialists posting abuse on my blogs, have been very successful). It is authentically more reminiscent of my childhood town’s marketplace, where people would meet, chat, spend some time and decide what to do on a lazy Saturday afternoon.
A urine-covered alley leads locals from the Cathedral to pubs, or with any luck vice versa, and a dead and sterile (most likely cholera-infested) pool of still water looms nearby the Printworks, what seems to be a shopping mall with a thousand places to eat and nowhere to sit. An hour before I was about embark on a cinematographic experience with a colleague to see the modern day epic G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra, we tried to find somewhere to have dinner. And the waiting times were outrages even if you thought you were in a hot bed of high quality entertainment. Which the Printworks is not.
The main street along which I strode on every morning to work and back to the hotel in the evening, was in the process of being dug up. Construction seems to have taken less of a nose dive in the North – I suspect due to subsidies. Or continued reckless lending. Or a combination of the two through mindless government policies viz-a-viz the banking sector. But I digress.
The John Rylands (memorial) library is a the gem of Deansgate, and the faux-gothic flying buttresses may send the mind to higher things, but the real shock was how the multiple modern buildings around this particular piece of Northern heritage and multiple others seems to be infinitely less offensive than in London. To look at the City and think how the Guildhall can actually exist in the same square mile as the Lloyds building is mind boggling, but there doesn’t seem to be such a disastrous cacophony at play in Manchester. Somehow the planning solutions have been sensitive, the modern buildings are fresh and even the glass monstrosities that house the aforementioned temples to greed and commercial must-have’s have an inexplicable air of lightness to them. They may be largely without character, but they lack the offensive self-assertion that many of the new, especially financial buildings in London seem to project.
So yes, a London-dweller ought to be pleasantly surprised. Perhaps the biggest surprise is the overt friendliness that catches you off-guard. The unexpected smiles as you walk into work, the fact people call you by your name after the first meet, and the general pleasantness that abounds. Taken in by this, the vicious under-belly seems equally unpleasant, for at least someone who doesn’t live on the Southern side of the river Thames. Groups of NEETs, as popular jargon now calls them, do terrorise the middle class pretensions and the flat vowels that ricochet through the modern streets are arresting. I’ve never felt intimidated by hoodies or locals (unlike a certain government minister whose name we equally would rather not mention), nor seen the need for a stab-proof vest. In Manchester on Friday night it wouldn’t have been out of place.
Do, and I say this earnestly, give it a go. I resisted the opportunity for a long time, and now bemoan the choice – but am glad I spent some time in the second city of England. It may not be a London or an Edinburgh, but despite its foibles, a long weekend in Manchester is certainly preferable to yet another short break in Paris with snooty Frenchies and immaculate museums.
