Bar Closures, Copious Volumes of Food, Alternative Nightlife Ideas

The shortness of life, so often lamented, may be the best thing about it.

-Arthur Schopenhauer, German philosopher

For whatever reason- be it everyone being broke (the mostly likely explanation), people becoming fitness nuts, or you realising that alcohol is a depressant and a serious hindrance to your life, or it just being cold as fuck in Manchester- there's been a massacre of bars in the city centre. They're closing at a horrendous rate. Rosylee, Hula, Tusk, Walrus, Fitzgerald, Blue Pig, Lazy Lizard, Manchester House, The Rabbit, Artisan, plus restaurants like Byron, CAU and Prezzo have all folded. Artisan and Fitzgerald I'll miss hugely. They were favourites.

There'll probably be a lot more to follow. People want more than just a room serving alcohol, no matter how you dress it up. There are, and have been for a long time, more bars than people going out to populate them. That's why I expect ventures like Base Manchester, a bar with baseball batting cages, to take off. Or Chill Factore, the Trafford Park-based indoor ski slope. Or Junkyard Golf, or Circuit Dating, or basically any other pastime that isn't just standing around in a bar scoping out reality TV bimbos or overpaid footballers.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Side issue, but Dom Lever from Love Island liked my tweet.

Also, following the theme of excess, I've finished off a little sample bottle of Auchentoshan and eaten my bodyweight in Chinese food at Tops Buffet.

I have another post specifically about alcohol, or lack thereof, in the pipeline.