The infrequently used platform 12 at Piccadilly Station is currently showing off Manchester’s music venues, past and present, with a photography exhibition. All those you expect to be there are, plus a couple of surprises, such as the Jolly Angler pub, just behind the station, and the Hardrock Concert Theatre in Stretford. Turns out the latter, a 3000-capacity venue, hosted shows by David Bowie, Led Zeppelin, Lou Reed, Bob Marley, James Brown and Elton John!

The 16th outing of Viva!, the Spanish and Latin American film festival, kicked off yesterday at Cornerhouse. From reading through the brochure, Solo Quiero Caminar (Just Walking) looks to be one potential highlight – especially ‘if your dream film is a mash up of Pulp Fiction and The A-Team’, as someone described it earlier. That’s on tomorrow, Monday 8 March at 8.10pm.  There’s also a short film festival-within-a-festival on Wednesday from 7.30pm, and a live musical accompaniment to Segundo de Chomon’ silent shorts on Monday 22 March from 6.30pm.

Upstairs in Cornerhouse’s Gallery 1, Carlos Amorales, one of Mexico’s leading contemporary artists, has just opened an exhibition that runs for the duration of Viva! (6-27 March). I took a peak yesterday… it’s very video- and ambient music-heavy, in a good way.

If you follow Whitworth Street West down from Cornerhouse and take a left just before Deansgate, you’ll find yourself at Castlefield Gallery. Right now, this often-neglected space is playing host to a two-person exhibition by Leo Fitzmaurice and Kim Rugg – full of pain-stakingly detailed montages of ‘communication art’. Read CreativeTourist.com’s write-up of this exhibition, which continues until 3 April. It’s well worth the eight-minute walk.

Show & Tell is an exhibition by the Urbis Creatives art collective; a collective comprised of Urbis staff. The exhibition will give the Urbis team a chance to show their work and tell the visitors about what they do outside of the creative environment of Urbis. It will comprise of many different disciplines from photography to illustration, painting and also projects the members are involved in such as community work and music events.

You can get a sneak peak of the kind of talent on show by reading more about Urbis Creatives artists. Show & Tell opens on Tuesday 29 September and runs until 12 October.

Meanwhile, I couldn’t write about Urbis without mentioning the potential transfer of one of Preston’s star attractions, the National Football Museum, over here in 2010. I’m sure it would be a great addition to this football-rich city – although Kate over at the Manchizzle expressed the other side of the argument concisely: ‘Art 0, Football 1′.

This website has been lovingly crafted by Manchester Museums Consortium, a group of nine museums and galleries in Manchester, separate venues that have a single vision: the desire to stage intelligent, thought-provoking exhibitions and events. Oh, and to celebrate the city in which we live, work and play.

We are rightly proud and passionate about this city of ours; we hope that, by reading about some of the things happening here, and finding out more about our outstanding historic collections, you’ll start to feel the same.

This celebration of our fair city is what has particularly drawn me to the project – the promise of original, substantial editorial coverage of Manchester, the likes of which is a rare treat right now. The launch content ties in with Manchester International Festival of course – Marina Abramovic and Jeremy Deller both make appearances – but there’s also a feature connected to the Videogame Nation currently on at Urbis, for example, and another about ‘Manchester hermit’ Ansuman Biswas.

The blog section is shaping up nicely too, with the Manchizzle’s Kate Feld doing a MIF ‘cultureometer’ roundup, among other posts. Kate’s another member of the CreativeTourist team, which is being overseen by editor Susie Stubbs – winner of last year’s Manchester Blog of the Year no less. Check out the site now, and if you find it interesting sign up for regular email updates, follow it on Twitter, or become a fan on Facebook.

ANTIFREEZE is an exhibition about the high-end art market delivered within the format of low-end trade. It is the grass-roots answer to hugely commercial art fairs allowing independent and non-commercial practitioners to explore ideas of value, exchange and independence with artists and artist-led organisations responding to the physical, social, economical, geographical and literal situation.

Taking in sculpture, printing, drawing, video, performance, installation, photography and collage, Contents May Vary’s ANTIFREEZE offers extreme clowning, trespassed pictures, Nazi poster art, Kun(S)t stylings, Tranni Bingo, naff music, Regal defacement, automobiliart, a gift shop, zines, hunting women, masked men from the woods, black dogs, Kipling, turd polishing, Mainlining (Intercity), dogs in hot cars, Nail art (modern), vernacular diamonds and bread, neatly packaged in the car park of a building lifeless without art.

‘Manchester’s first art car boot fair’ features work by the dozens of artists listed here. It takes place on Saturday 4 July, 12-7pm, at the CHIPS Building, Upper Kirby Street, off Old Mill Street, New Islington, Manchester, M4 6EB – click here for a Google map.

While you’re in that area, check out Hope Mill, which is hosting some interesting music and arts events right now.

Soup o’ th’ Day offers a week-by-week guide to events happening in the city, in a visual calendar form. Next week, for example, you choose between Sketch City’s Sketchbook Sessions at Odder on Wednesday, a Blur aftershow party at Ruby Lounge on Friday, Carol Ann Duffy’s poetry, or even ‘Women on the Edge of HRT’, both at The Lowry.

There’s also a Soup o’ th’ Day blog with videos, from Not Part of, Islington Mill and gigs, for example.

And remember to check out The Shipping Forecast if you’re interested in music event listings in particular.

Yup, the Best of Manchester Awards posters have been re-imagined as ‘Best of Manchester Notions’ – click above for a larger version, and check out the ninja symbol top right in particular.

The (official) organisers love it and are appealing for the designer to come forward. They’ll get their space within the BoMA exhibitions. Alternatively, anyone who helps out with some detective work will get a couple of tickets to the awards night. Email marketing at urbis dot org dot uk.

Gesampt is a new night bringing together all things creative and offers people an opportunity to exhibit their work for one night only in a Salon style – this could be anything from paintings to objects and videos to soundtracks.

Gesampt will also be showcasing acoustic and folk musicians that are either traditional or experimental in style.

Offering acoutic entertainment this evening will be Luffy the Acoustic Man, Clare Helen, Callum Plowright and Dan and Lee from No Drones for Leopold, while Cygnus and WEAR will be providing ‘experimental electronic shenanigans’. The event kicks off at 7.30pm and runs until about 11.30pm. Visit the Salon Gesampt blog for more information about future events.

The former is An Apathetical Reader, which is ‘a creative community site that hopes to give a voice to the vast numbers of unsupported, disillusioned young people in the city and question why individuals feel apathy towards their own work’. It’ll achieve this through local news, national political comment, features of Manchester, music journalism and artist’s profiles.

The latter is The Chapel on the edge of Platt Fields in Rusholme/Fallowfield. This building, which dates back to 1790, was used as a meeting place for Manchester Amateur Photographic Society (itself founded in 1885) and the Russell Leite Theatre School until it was purchased a couple of years back.

Now, however, it’s being run by the same ambitious group of ex-students who launched Platt Fields’ Mad Ferret festival last year and who took over the (now closed) Ram & Shackle pub. Their aims, according to a post on Indymedia.org.uk, are  to provide an autonomous space for performing arts, learning, access to the arts and local campaigners. I’m hearing lots of grand ideas coming out of this unusual building, so best of luck to them.

And the link between these two? AAR will be holding an open meeting at The Chapel this coming Wednesday from 7pm. If you fancy getting involved, email Alice or join the AAR Facebook group.

It seems that their current Instant Win scheme is going well (next chance is 27 February), and though you can’t quite make £500 in 60 seconds, GreenRoom’s latest appeal demonstrates that they’re continuing to develop fresh ideas – and just about beating minimum wage…

Sometimes… Co is a Manchester-based dedicated, evolutionary, 20-strong, multi-disciplinary art collective, focusing on next generation artworks specialising in new media installation, sound and performance. In its six year history the group have hosted numerous art platforms, exhibitions and live shows promoting fine arts, new music, installation, performance and film.

Sometimes… Co and greenroom need 30 artists to be part of their latest journey and site-specific piece in late February and March. Allow Sometimes… Co to pay you for your time: they will buy you out of work, college, shopping, sleeping (whatever it is you do) for £1 for every 10 minutes they spend with you and ask you to take them on a journey within Manchester. Wherever YOU want to go, wherever is important to YOU, wherever YOU love, wherever YOU go every day. Wherever. Sometimes… will document your journey and create a piece of work that will appear among all the other journeys in an exhibition at greenroom from 6 March for three weeks.

The deadline for this project is 20 February and you’ll need to be able to make it to GreenRoom between 11am and 2pm on 23 February. Email them to register your interest.

The biggest event this week is surely the re-opening yesterday of the Manchester Christmas Markets. The largest one, in Albert Square, is open daily, 10am until 9pm, right through to 22 December. For more information, including opening times for the other four – in St Ann’s Square and on Exchange Street, New Cathedral Street and Brazennose Street (here’s a map) – check out the council website.

Inside the town hall, meanwhile, the two-day NOISE Festival – Creative Futures event is currently taking place to promote careers in creative industries. Today’s schedule (10am-6pm) features portfolio reviews, one-to-ones, careers advice and a busking corner, plus an unsigned showcase and panel, and a seminar on art direction by Amelia’s Magazine. Warp Films and Badly Drawn Boy, who played last night, are among this year’s big-name curators.

Elsewhere, there are plenty of great gigs again this week: tonight, the Faint play at Academy 3, supported by an interesting Polar Bear-related band, the Invisible (‘the Invisible Band’ would be a better name…). Or Parenthetical Girls are playing across the road at the small but perfectly formed Kro Bar. And on Friday, Four Tet’s Keiran Hebden returns with drummer Steve Reid.

Salford Film Festival is also in full flow at the moment – great to see it back after last year’s near-cancellation. It runs until 23 November at venues including Salford Arts Theatre, the Lowry, Islington MIll and the Theatre Organ Heritage Centre. Check out the day-by-day guide here.

Oh, and the Spinningfields Ice Rink opens tomorrow, Thursday 20 November, and for the first week it’s just £5 for all skaters.