Everyone’s least favourite part of the week is here – the deeply unsettling, wildly offensive and dangerously unfunny round up of what is going on over the next 7 days. This week is no exception – it has seemingly been written by a 13 year old with a bad attitude problem, but there’s a few decent things going on – check it…
Blue Dot Festival
Friday 7th – Sunday 9th July
We went to a few decent school trips to Jodrell Bank when I was a lad – not only is the massive Lovell Telescope pretty impressive, they also had a cracking gift shop where I once bought a multi-coloured pencil that would write in rainbow. Not a day goes by that I don’t think about that pencil. I can’t remember what happened to it but I reckon someone stole it out of my drawer – probably Lee Garside who was always nicking stuff. Well this weekend sees Blue Dot Festival come to the iconic location and it promises to be a weekend of music, science, arts, technology, culture, food and film. The music line-up includes Alt-J, Orbital and Pixies – wonder if they chose Orbital solely for the space connotations? Tickets are still available either for the full weekend or day-by-day and can be bought here:
Shit Indie Disco – Oasis Special
Saturday 8th July, 10pm – 2am
One of my specialities is annoyingly singing songs at the back of a Magic Bus at 3am on the way back home, trying to get other people involved. As a legendary warbler, my go-to choice of song is usually something from Oasis – because everyone knows the words and the tunes are easy peasy. Recently I’ve moved on to Africa by Toto which is much more difficult, but better shows off my vocal range – especially after 2 bottles of Bucky. Well, you can probably expect loads of singing along to Oasis this Saturday at the Underdog’s Shit Indie Disco Oasis special where they’ll be banging out loads of the Burnage lads’ tunes as well as plenty of other Britpop and Indie anthems. The last one sold out so get your tickets ASAP right here:
CBBC Summer Social
Saturday 8th – Sunday 9th July, 9am – 5.30pm
If you’re a kid nowadays, and you get home from school, it’s not a case of putting on ITV and watching Bernard’s Watch, or BBC 1 for Newsround and Blue Peter – they have dedicated Children’s channels on Freeview now. Because of this I now know absolutely nothing about kids telly – except that there’s a programme called Swashbuckle about pirates and one featuring Sam & Mark off of Fame Academy. I only know this much because my girlfriend worked on them. And even then it was usually through one ear and instantly out of the other. If you’ve got kids though you probably know loads and will absolutely love the free CBBC Social this weekend down at MediaCity. Here you can join CBBC stars past and present like Hacker, Katie, Karim, Lauren and even Dani Harmer (AKA Tracy Beaker) for a day of live stage shows, awesome activities and exclusive CBBC stuff! The girl who plays Tracy Beaker must be around 45 by now but if you know them names – cruise on down – you can bag yourself tickets right here:
Game of Thrones Quiz @ Black Dog NWS
Monday 10th July, 7pm
This Monday sees Black Dog Ballroom NWS roll out a Game of Thrones quiz for the unsuspecting Manchester public. As a big fan of both quizzes and the TV show, I shall be in attendance – probably to win. As the countdown to the new season of Thrones continues, I find myself getting increasingly excited to find out what’s going on in Westeros and whether Cleganebowl is going to happen. They will also be showing the brilliant Battle of the Bastards episode of Season 6 on the night – which really was a stand-out 60 minutes of television and the greatest example of how if someone is shooting ANYTHING at you – bloody run in a zig-zag. Entry is free and the prize for the winners is a years’ membership to Baelish Brothel for two.
The Red Shoes @ The Lowry
Starts Tuesday 11th July
For someone who has never seen Red Shoes, but has heard about it – mostly from the huge Powell and Pressburger adaptation from 1948 – this week would be the perfect time to head on over to The Lowry, as they begin hosting a brand-new adaption of this tale of obsession, possession and one girl’s dream to be the greatest dancer in the world. This would be perfect for a date night, with a bit of a love story, loads of dancing, a few tears and a few laughs. Much better than taking someone to watch the new Spiderman film, which I’m sure is great, but nowhere as impressive. Unless you’re both 12.
