I've had a three day weekend, with Friday off for the funeral, but it hardly felt like time off. So today, with no massive plans needing immediate attention, I decided I'd go to Manchester to do a bit of reading or writing. I fancied a lazy chair, some coffee, a pen and a bit of inspiration. In Edinburgh, I used to visit a coffee shop at the foot of Arthur's Seat, across the Scotsman press building, but there's no such park in this town. In Nijmegen, I would visit the LUX arthouse cinema or a grand café such as L'Ambassadeur, Odessa, the Commanderie or De Foyer. But I wondered if I could find a pub in Manchester that's comfy and relatively quiet, and preferably with a good selection of beers.

But first things first of course - as it was a Sunday, and I had managed to find the Scotsman on Sunday newspaper at a newsagent's in town before, I decided to have a look for it again. If only I could remember where I last scored my favourite Sunday thickie. From Deansgate I marched past the posh shops to Cross Street, through Arndale to Piccadilly, through Tib Street to Ancoats and back to Piccadilly, then to Peter Street and back on to Deansgate. A list of streets that doesn't mean much unless you find yourself walking a fecking long way (at speed) for a paper. I didn't find it, so trudged back to Piccadilly and on to the train station. The Balcony Bar was a nice enough place to slump into a leather sofa with a Guinness. I got my old poetry book from my bag, and my new one which will hopefully become 'my completed works' - and started copy writing old poems across. In the new bundle the poems are arranged by year. I noticed I wrote a few good ones in 1996, but copied a lot of poor stuff too. I'd put a few on my blog here, but what's the point if they're already on my website nivelan.net - the good ones at least. When I get my site back up and working, moved to a UK host. Anyway, I'm going off-topic! After a few beers and a few scribbles, I walked back to Salford and grabbed a bus back home.