From
The Prairie Schooner.
This week: Bulmer's Cider, Electrosil and Boxer Ales.
Tuesday, 21 July 2020
Sunday, 19 July 2020
Gorilla and The Deaf Institute Close Permanently, Band on the Wall Closes 'til 2021
 |
| Kylie Minogue in Gorilla |
Two
key Manchester clubs have folded this week due to the pandemic:
Whitworth St club Gorilla and Oxford Road venue The Deaf Institute.
There
is a possibility, according to the M.E.N, that a buyer for the venues
may have come forward. But things still look bleak.
I
had good times in both. It would be a real shame to see them go. In
Gorilla I met house music producer Route 94
(his key song was My Love,
featuring Jess Glynne) and 90s house
music group K Klass
(Show Me was their big hit from 1996.) I also saw rapper
Xzibit.
Great nights each time, this latter-mentioned gig possibly more so
due to it being the only club where a joint was openly passed around.
Certainly passed the time while we waited an AGE for Xzibit to appear
on stage.
The
Deaf Institute is a large, multi-storey club on Oxford Road that- as
well as music nights- hosted literary events like the Blog North
annual awards and I could have sworn fiction and poetry slams,
although I don't appear to have written about them. Some talented
writers graced the inside of their walls. Also adorning the insides
were the skulls of various random animals. Very unique place. Its
loss would be a real shame.
Furthermore,
Northern Quarter live music venue Band on the Wall is temporarily closing until
September '21, says the M.E.N.
I've been meaning- since about 2012- to try the place out, but never
got around to it.
Well.
Some venues have reopened, some not so. Such is life. As it happens,
I haven't been out at all since before lockdown. I'm in no rush to risk anything.
Wednesday, 15 July 2020
A Blessing and a Curse
I
don't talk about work on here very often, and when I do I keep it
brief. I work in the public sector and I do admin. That's as much as
I'll disclose here. I do the best I can, given the circumstances
(short term memory difficulties) but the team is supportive and aware
it's not the most ideal job for me. Somehow, however, I've held it
down- against all odds, and despite a few errors- for nearly 13
years.
A
couple of years ago I identified Public Relations as a sector that
I'd be well-suited to. It's a field that involves marketing, writing,
advertising and journalism, but doesn't involve sales, a field I
crashed and burned in twice in 2005. (In 6+1/2 years of studying
media, I never once learned about PR.) I started looking around for
opportunities in this field- be it being put on their books as a
blogger, or volunteering in their office.
Go
PR and Events have had me as a blogger on their books for a couple of
years, and- before the lockdown- were inviting me to blogger dinners,
product launches and bar openings. I'm looking forward to things
picking up once it's safe to do so. I looked into PR as a field, and
it seemed like a perfect fit- everything I'm already good at. I'd
just need to learn procedures. I started asking around, and a friend
gave me the heads-up about another PR company, in the city centre,
called SKV Communications. I sent an email off- in the tail end of
2018- and met with the Manager. He explained more about the field,
and the industry, and offered me 2 weeks work experience. I took him
up on the offer, and enjoyed it. As a field, PR was just what I was
looking for, and from then on, I had a plan. I was to be a Public
Relations Officer.
That
said, around that time, I bought a house. It's kind of a big
shake-up, moving from a 1-bedroom council flat to a terraced house,
and even a fairly well-kept house needs a TON of decorating. I did a
huge splurge of decorating starting around April '19, lasting for a
few months.
In
May '19, I covered my time at SKV here. Over that next month, I grafted away at getting my foot in the PR
door- to little avail.
It was going to take more persistence.
Of
course, once 2020 began, everything went tits up. COVID-19 found its
way to UK shores, and within 7 months 40,000 people were dead. The
country was, and still is, in lockdown. Thousands of businesses have
gone under. Sadly, one of these was SKV.
They
were a great team. I hope the freelance plan is working for the
officers there- I'm not closely in touch with many of the team, bar
the odd social media follow. As for myself, my public-sector role is
an essential job, and I've been working the same number of hours
during lockdown as I did before. So, as much as I'd like to have made
a transition, I am in some ways glad I didn't. At the same time,
though, how much more of my life should I spend doing something that,
honestly, makes me quite unhappy?
A
blessing and a curse, indeed.
Tuesday, 14 July 2020
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