Another new feature on this site is the ‘Blogging about Manchester’ section of the sidebar. This comes via Technorati, where the seach string is currently ‘manchester NOT football NOT united NOT NH NOT Hampshire’ – and it’s being tweaked regularly.

The benefit is that you only read the freshest content about Manchester. You can hover over for an extract, or click through to read the full entry.

I’ve already discovered some gems: Cerysmatic Factory (a homage to Factory Records) and Love Creative (Manchester design agency), to name just two.

And when it finally gets going, BBC Manchester Blog will be hard pressed to find a better candidate than 3rd (R)age for one of its two Oldham blogger positions:

I’ve always been blind as a bat, and I’ve always had trouble with my ears, but only earache. I never had any problems hearing … until I passed the big 5-0 when Ma’am noticed that I was gradually turning up the TV volume.

Things reached a peak when the bloke next door pulled me one morning. “Can you not turn your telly down, DW? There I was watching Corrie last night and listening to Eastenders on your box.”

“In that case, you owe me half the licence money.”

He didn’t pay up and typically Ma’am was on his side. This is called marriage. If I single-handedly overpowered a team of hijackers, disarmed their bomb and landed the plane to safety, she’d swear blind I arranged it all as a publicity stunt …