I’m not a big clubgoer myself - I’d rather see music played in the flesh - but I’m well aware of Manchester’s big clubbing tradition, which I guess dates back to 1963 when the Twisted Wheel opened. And we don’t even need to mention the H word, do we?

But while Thursday’s Metro, Friday’s CityLife and, occasionally, Saturday’s Guide do a reasonable job of previewing a few of the dozens of nights going on around Manchester each week, print space dictates that the coverage is far from comprehensive.

The folks over at Northernights have realised just this and have decided to bypass trivial things like word limits by doing it all online. They’ve got the main site - containing a club directory, previews, features and a calendar - plus a blog, which is updated a few times a week, and the obligatory MySpace and Facebook group.

What’s particularly handy, however, is the weekly mailer they’ve started sending out. ‘WARNING - CONTAINS SOME MAJOR PARTIES THIS WEEK,’ it declares. And indeed it does, as it goes on to list a couple of dozen club nights happening around town - thus saving you the effort of hunting through half a dozen other sources.

Northernights is still pretty new but I like the sentiment and I like the service they’re providing (for free, let’s not forget). It goes to show that it doesn’t take much to build something useful in Manchester - just an idea and some time.