This is obviously tragic news so I’ll be spending the next 7 days finding as many tins of it as possible so I’ll have a supply to fix my hangovers for years to come. For everyone else, there’s this lot…
Blue Monday Pre Exam Indie Disco @ Antwerp
Saturday 13th January
Most of the students should be heading back into the city around now, and unlucky for them – they’ve probably got a load of exams to contend with. There’s nothing worse than revising – either heading down to the library to pretend to work while chatting up a rugby lad in his tight hoodie, or staying in at home and getting so monstrously bored that you end up dying your hair red and alphabetising your DVD collection. So, to get all the post-Christmas excitement out of your system, Antwerp Mansion are putting on a Blue Monday Indie Disco, complete with all the usual guitar riffing, drum bopping bands that have been touring Japan for the past 10 years since they brought out that one song that everyone knows the words to but don’t know who sung it.
XS Malarkey – Rose Matafeo
Tuesday 16th January
I used to go to XS Malarkey all the time when it was in Bar XS in Fallowfield, so much in fact that I started to think I could get up there myself and make a room full of strangers piss themselves laughing. How wrong I was. Luckily for my self-esteem, the place shut down shortly after that and XS Malarkey moved to various other venues. It’s now located in The Bread Shed, which used to be The Pub/Zoo and this week features Rose Matafeo, voted Best Newcomer at the New Zealand Comedy Awards in 2010, which was 7 years ago – hopefully she’s still good with the gags.
Shrek the Musical
Starts Tuesday 16th January
Everyone’s favourite ogre is coming to Manchester this week, and in tow will be an annoying little donkey, a proper fit princess and a whole host of fairy tale creatures. It’s Shrek, and it’s a musical so you should go in expecting some form of singing and dancing. Which is fine, because the film had plenty of that in there too. Personally, I’ve never seen it on the stage, but you can’t really go wrong with such a good starting point, and I’m sure kids will just enjoy all the colours and being let out of the house for something other than school. That said, I expect there’ll be plenty of adult-only sex jokes in there too that will go right over their stupid little heads.
January Sales
Throughout January
Obviously, it’s still January, and there are still a ton of special offers knocking about in the bars and restaurants of this fair city. It’s also at that very dangerous point in the month where you’re too afraid to look at your bank balance so just end up eating Super Noodles every day while supping some top-class, ice cold tap water. My advice would be to continue ignoring those texts off Natwest and just get down to a restaurant and enjoy up to 50% off. Here’s our list of the best ones in town.
Shawn Michaels – Inside the Ropes
Wednesday 17th January
There isn’t really much point in talking about anything else happening in Manchester this week – this is the big event. The only thing to care about. Mr Shawn Michaels, the big, greasy wrestler from WWF as a kid is coming to town, complete with his long flowing locks, butch hairy chest and extensive stories about kicking grown men in the dick while wearing blood splattered boots. He’s heading over to the Comedy Store, not to tell jokes hopefully, but to regale his audience with all that’s happened to him during his illustrious 35 years of wrestling. There will likely be mentions of the Montreal Screwjob, personal fitness and how to look good wearing zebra skin leather trousers.
Work for Finest: Social Media Executive
If you’re really, really bored this week, looking for something to do then why not send us over your CV for our Social Media Executive job? It’s full-time and based in our swanky NQ office which has the excellent benefits of featuring a wide selection of beers in the fridge, a Nintendo 64 and my ugly mug sitting approximately 2 metres away, telling the best jokes known to man. The job is proper good if you are looking to get into the whole Social Media world, providing plenty of experience and skills which are likely to be very important in the future as we all slowly become subservient robots hooked up to Mark Zuckerberg’s iWatch. More details and the email to apply are here.
Vintage Clothing Sale at MMU Union
Thursday 18th January
Just today I spent a tenner on some second-hand clobber in that Thrift Store on Piccadilly Gardens, so was immediately attracted to this Vintage Clothing Sale being held at MMU this week. It’s likely that 90% of the stuff there will be absolute tosh – stuff that even an Eastern European drug trafficker in the 80’s would refuse to put on – but that of course makes the hunt for that one special bargain all the more appealing. It also means that if you do actually find something decent, you can tell every single person you ever meet and bore the fucking pants off them. It’s open all day, from 10am until 5pm and they accept both cash and card – which is always a good sign.
