Here’s an mp3 of BBC Radio 2’s Mark Radcliffe giving an audio guide to Manchester for the excellent Guardian Travel website.

He’s very enthusiastic about his ‘home town’ (he’s technically from Bolton), talking in particular about Albert Square, GMex, the Midland and Radisson hotels, Mr Sam’s Chop House, Royal Exchange and the Gay Village.

‘It’s a city you have to work to know,’ he says while sat in Briton’s Protection. Briton’s used to be next to an armed forces recruiting office apparently, which goes some way to explaining the name.

He also discusses the Northern Quarter and Affleck’s Palace in some detail, and Oxford Road (’very close to my heart’).

The podcast finishes, like many good Mancunian nights, in the Curry Mile. Mark talks about being an undergraduate in 1976 when there were only a few ‘unlicensed curry canteens’ in Rusholme. How times have changed.