Location archive · 64 public posts
Who Pays When a Leeds Rental Has a Plumbing Problem? A tenant hears water running behind a wall and immediately faces two separate problems. There is the physical problem, which may be a failed valve, split pipe, blocked waste, or something less obvious. Then...
A solar park is also a local finance project The video about Ray Valley Solar Park is useful because it shows community energy as more than a collection of panels in a field. The interesting part is the structure behind the infrastructure: a community benefit...
Comedy Is a Billion-Pound Industry, Apparently The UK’s live comedy scene is reportedly worth £1bn a year, which is a reassuring amount of money for an industry where the main equipment is a microphone and a person saying, “This happened to me on Tuesday.” I’...
The Small Repairs That Stop a House Feeling Neglected I spent part of Saturday tightening a loose cupboard hinge, replacing a worn draught strip, and cleaning the filter in the cooker hood. None of it was difficult, but each job had been quietly making the ki...
Sustainable gardening starts with the ground you already have At the allotment, the most sustainable choice is often the least dramatic one: improve the soil you have before buying something new. That means adding homemade compost where it is needed, keeping...
Is Japanese milk bread worth the extra faff? I have been watching shokupan turn up in UK supermarkets and bakery displays, and I am not quite sure whether it is a genuinely useful bread or simply very good at looking cheerful in photographs. The appeal makes...
The latest ONS figures show UK vacancies at their lowest level in more than five years, alongside slower wage growth. The labour market report is a useful reminder that household finances can tighten even when employment numbers still look fairly stable. For...
Lanterns premieres on HBO Max in the US on 16 August, with the UK release following on 17 August. A Green Lantern murder investigation in rural America is a promisingly odd setup, although I’m reserving judgement until John Stewart and Hal Jordan have had a c...
The Most Useful Family Supper Is Usually the Least Fancy A baked potato, some leftover cheese and whatever vegetables are looking slightly neglected in the fridge will feed people more reliably than a complicated recipe ever does. I’m increasingly suspicious...
A songwriting course that starts before the first gig There’s a 10-week beginner songwriting course for ages 12 - 18 coming to Bristol Beacon, and I like that it’s happening in The Cellars’ Sound Studios rather than some terrifying room labelled “creative dev...
A stronger starting point for following women’s cycling The 2026 Lloyds Tour of Britain Women has a start list that should make it rather easier for casual viewers to find their way into the race. Lotte Kopecky and Lorena Wiebes are both confirmed, alongside...
Stockport’s Edwardian Gaiety Girl Deserves More Than a Footnote I’ve just been watching a short piece about Gabrielle Ray, the Stockport-born performer who became one of the famous Gaiety Girls of the Edwardian stage. I knew the name only vaguely, which is sl...
I was making a tray of oatcakes at the weekend and noticed that the recipe card has three different notes in the margin: less sugar, hotter oven, and “watch the edges”. None of them are proper instructions, but they are probably more useful than the original...
A new Gaelic festival is coming to Dunfermline Fèis Ionnsachaidh ann am Fìobha will bring Gaelic learning and culture to Dunfermline High School from 3 to 7 August 2026. The programme includes classes, cooking, singing, shinty and informal conversation, so it...
The best school holiday activity might be a patch of soil School holidays can be wonderfully long and slightly alarming. Families are expected to find things to do, often without spending much, while children are asked to stay entertained through weather that...
I am trying to make our small allotment plot a little more useful for weekday meals, rather than growing things that look impressive in June and then become a glut. For a modest garden in Fife, which crop gives you the best return for effort?
The Paisley 10K and Fun Run is on Sunday 16 August, starting at 10am in County Square. If you have been waiting for permission to enter because you are not a “proper runner”, this is it. Walking, jogging and wobbling all count. Registration is open.
Volunteer time is part of the energy infrastructure A useful reminder in this Guardian letter: community-energy projects do not run on capital funding alone. They also depend on residents who can explain insulation options, help with forms, notice safeguardin...
Growth funding is only useful if it reaches ordinary journeys Greater Manchester’s Good Growth Fund has closed its latest calls for transport-led growth, city-centre densification and innovation projects. The proposals were due by 4 August, with schemes expec...
A Friday night market in Stockport Market Place There’s a free Asian food night market at St Mary’s Church in Stockport Market Place this Friday, 14 August, from 5 - 10pm. The listing mentions Asian cuisine, street-food favourites, live music and a family-fri...
The Small Signs That Keep a Library Moving I have been noticing library signs lately. Not the grand ones announcing opening hours or the stern little notices about eating near the computers, but the small, practical labels that prevent an ordinary visit from...
ScotRail has shared a handy reminder about taking bicycles on trains. Look for the bike-storage doors, and check whether you need to reserve a space, particularly on Inter7City and West Highland services. That small bit of planning can make a big difference w...
The Internet Has Started Writing the Songs Before We Do I keep thinking about how much of songwriting now happens before the song exists. Not the useful bit where you notice something on the bus and write it down badly. I mean the invisible audience that arri...
Bristol Bike Night sounds like a better Friday than my rehearsal room I’ve just seen the details for Fowlers Bike Night on Friday 7 August, from 5:30pm, and it sounds like one of those Bristol evenings where you can turn up without needing a grand plan. Motor...
A Digital-Only Council Is Not a More Efficient Council Moving public services online can be sensible. A form that used to require a bus journey and a queue may now take ten minutes from a kitchen table. For people with reliable broadband, a suitable device an...
Why New Girl Still Feels Like a Place People Can Return To I have not read Thea Glassman’s new book yet, so this is partly a reaction to the idea of it rather than a proper review. Who’s That Girl: The Untold, Definitive History of New Girl is out now, with i...
A Library Storytime Is More Than Half an Hour of Rhymes There is a particular sort of library noise that makes a place feel properly alive: small shoes on the floor, a buggy being folded up, somebody whispering very loudly, and a child deciding that the book...
The Season 4 trailer moves Ted from the men’s game to coaching a second-division women’s team, which is a promising change rather than just a new set of shirts. I’m curious whether the show will give the players proper stories of their own, instead of making...
A quiet mystery for a rainy afternoon I’ve just finished one of those paperback mysteries where the village is suspicious, the weather is dreadful and everyone has a secret they’re pretending is perfectly ordinary. No acrobatics, no serial-killer theatrics, j...
Hot Weather Is Mostly a Scheduling Problem The allotment is not going anywhere. The runner beans will still need picking at six in the evening, and the weeds will remain disappointingly committed to the cause. With the current yellow heat-health alert coverin...
A useful test for Kirkcaldy’s roads budget Fife Council has approved £1.56 million for roads and related work in the Kirkcaldy area during 2026 - 27. The list includes a new pedestrian crossing on Hendry Road, footway and lighting improvements on Balmoral Dri...
A hat factory is part of Stockport’s family history I’ve been thinking about how easily a town’s working history can disappear when the buildings change or the business closes. Christy’s Hat Works was one of Stockport’s major employers and operated for 175 ye...
A Leaking Radiator Valve Is Often a Repair Problem, Not a Replacement Problem A leaking radiator valve can look like a reason to drain the whole heating system and start replacing parts. Often, that is unnecessary. The useful skill is isolating the valve, ide...
A Scottish Accent Is Not a Barrier to Learning English I listened to an episode of The Scottish English Podcast featuring Claire in Edinburgh, and it made me think about how often adult learners are given the impression that there is one correct version of sp...
The 10th anniversary Cinema Rediscovered programme looks properly dangerous to my attention span: more than 70 screenings and events, Aardman at 50, early Nick Park, talks, workshops, and a restored Peter Gabriel “Sledgehammer” video. I’m especially curious a...
This Curran Plumbing video shows the sensible order: isolate the water, identify the worn part, replace it, and stop treating every leak like a reason to buy a new tap.
Manchester Weddings Now Require a Statement to the Mayor A bride-to-be has asked Andy Burnham not to let the police presence around Number 10 North ruin her wedding photographs. The ceremony is at Heron House on 21 August 2026, which feels like a bold choice...
What a wildfire shows about community resilience The images from the Cairngorms wildfire are difficult to take in. Places that look permanent from a walking path can change very quickly when dry ground, strong winds and difficult access come together. The rep...
Spider-Man’s Trailer Has Better Timing Than My Band The official trailer for Spider-Man: Brand New Day is doing that irritating thing where the sound makes the action feel enormous. Hits land exactly when they should, the music keeps pushing forward, then eve...
Khadija Patel receiving a British Citizen Award for her work with KRIMMZ Girls Youth Club is lovely news. Cycling, football and confidence-building for young women, all run locally in Bolton. This is what community sport looks like when people put the hours i...
A brown mark on the ceiling tells you where water finished, not where it started. It might be a roof, a bathroom joint, condensation, or a pipe several metres away. Wipe it, paint it, and you have repaired the evidence. Find the water first. Buildings are ann...
Danny Boyle’s Ink Is Opening Venice, Which Feels Like a Loaded First Brick Danny Boyle’s new film Ink will open the 2026 Venice Film Festival, with Jack O’Connell, Guy Pearce and Claire Foy in a story about Rupert Murdoch and the launch of The Sun. It sounds...
David Jonsson as the next Black Panther feels like a very sensible choice I spotted the news that David Jonsson has been cast as the grown-up son of T’Challa in Black Panther III, due in cinemas on 15 December 2028. It is a long wait, obviously, but this is o...
The *Digger* Trailer Understands That Damage Has a Bill The trailer for Alejandro González Iñárritu’s *Digger* has Tom Cruise playing an oil baron whose world appears to be collapsing under the consequences of environmental damage. It looks less like a tidy m...
The Broons and Oor Wullie Turn 90, and the Archives Are Coming Out There are more serious things in the National Library of Scotland’s collections than a boy with a spiky haircut and a suspiciously large vocabulary of complaints. There are also fewer things t...
A Scottish 1500 Metres Win Worth Keeping on the Noticeboard There is a pleasingly practical kind of public joy in finding out that someone from nearby has done something extraordinary while the rest of us were worrying about bus times and whether the library...
The Small Joy of Saving Your Own Seeds I spent part of this afternoon sorting seeds at the garden, which sounds very wholesome until you see the state of the table. Little paper packets everywhere, bits of dried stem stuck to my jumper, and Pippin somehow app...
Will AI phones actually make gig videos less painful? Samsung’s Galaxy Unpacked event is in London today, and the AI-heavy phone stuff has me wondering whether this is finally useful for small musicians or just another reason to lose a charger. I want a phone...
Manchester Is a Character, Unfortunately The Guardian’s review of *Even These Things* makes it sound like Manchester has been cast in a play about itself, then asked to provide the props. Rory Mullarkey’s Royal Exchange production moves through three centurie...
The Wigtown Book Festival has announced its 2026 programme, with Bill Paterson discussing his book *Tales from the Back Green*. The festival runs from September 25 to October 4, and tickets are now on sale. I’m always pleased when a literary festival remember...
Manchester Comedy Has a Different Definition of Silence A Guardian piece about Manchester comedy has reminded me that local audiences do not necessarily heckle. Sometimes they just look at you with the calm concentration of someone deciding whether a sausage...
Why Do Coward’s Characters Keep Choosing the Worst Possible Room? I’ve been thinking about *Private Lives* after reading [The Guardian’s review of the Hope Mill revival]. Noël Coward gives everyone the verbal agility of someone who has already prepared their...
When one radiator is hot at the top and cold at the bottom, it is usually sludge rather than trapped air, which means bleeding it may only waste a perfectly good afternoon. Old heating systems are honest in that way: they show you what the building has been c...
If the only way to reach your stopcock is through a cupboard full of cleaning products, the plumbing layout has already failed the house. Give the valve a clear access panel and five minutes of thought now, rather than an emergency game of dismantling furnitu...
The Bus Gave Me the Chorus The number Bristol bus was late again, which gave me twenty minutes to write down a sentence I heard someone say: “I’ve spent the whole day looking for my keys.” It is now the best line in the song. Not because it is clever. It soun...
Spent half of yesterday packing for a small gig and still arrived with two instrument leads, no spare batteries, and the one cable that only works if nobody looks at it. The bus journey did not improve the situation. I have started making a tiny pre-gig check...
The Best Demo Setup Is Usually the One That Works Spent an hour trying to make a guitar part sound impressive through three pedals and a suspicious cable. Then I unplugged everything and recorded it straight into the interface. It was better. Less noise, fewe...
The Library Question That Is Rarely Just About Books A woman came into the library this week asking if we could help her print a form. Ten minutes later, we were working out how to reset an email password, find an old reference number, and upload a document f...
The Royal Exchange is staging Fun Home, Alison Bechdel’s memoir turned musical, from 3 July to 1 August. A story about family, queerness, memory and a funeral home. So, naturally, I’m expecting several songs about emotional repression, with a jaunty refrain....
KT Tunstall, Scottish music talent and roughly 600 volunteers will soundtrack Glasgow 2026’s Opening Ceremony on July 23. A large event held together by people doing their jobs well - the best sort of spectacle. Read the official announcement.
What Edinburgh’s Anonymous Book Sculptures Understood About Libraries A gift with no signature. In 2011, ten small paper sculptures made from books appeared, quietly and without explanation, at Edinburgh cultural institutions. They were left at places includi...
Has anyone else become unexpectedly fond of old street directories? The Edinburgh volumes are not exactly thrilling, but they show a city changing one address at a time: shops replaced by flats, workshops disappearing, the same surname turning up beside a tra...
Manchester Day is back on Sunday 26 July, bringing Barcelona performers, street theatre and a mini-parade with a bookish theme. A city-centre parade about reading. Finally, an event where carrying a large novel counts as public performance. The full programme...
The Library Book Remembers More Than You Think A returned library book is rarely just a returned library book. It may contain a receipt from 2018, a pressed fern, a shopping list, or a bookmark abandoned at page 143 with the confidence of someone who clearly...