You may have heard about the notorious raid on a drag ball at a temperance hall in Manchester in 1880? An article in The Guardian (Village People, 7 August 2004) refers to the incident, but it begins with the scene just over one hundred years later.

In 1988 “Canal Street in Manchester city centre was still a red-light district,” writes the author. Going on to describe how police officers patrolled its “dank alleys”.

“This kind of surveillance was nothing new in the area,” she continues. (more…)

This BBC News report shows how a 7 inch vinyl record is made. It’s quite a process and involves a one-hundred-ton weight.

Plus sad scenes as Radio One DJ Mike Read’s £1m record collection is sold following his bankruptcy.

Two days ago it was the fourth anniversary of the death of my mum.

Tonight, four emails within thirty minutes:

Tesco: ‘spoil your Mum this Mother’s Day’

Kodak: ‘remember Mother’s Day’

Asda: ‘treat your Mum this Mother’s day’

Ancestry.co.uk: ‘don’t keep mum about our great family history gifts’

One or two is fine but by the fourth one I began feeling a bit annoyed. Is there some central place sending these out? Mother’s Day isn’t until 2nd March, so it seems a bit of a coincidence these all arriving at the same time. Not a pleasant effect.

Not much time to do anything on here at the moment due to lots of new work in motion pictures!

I think some of the video files on the site are missing after I changed servers, but don’t have the time to go through and check everything.