I’ve touched on psychogeography here a few times before and, what with it getting mainstream coverage of late, it’s convenient that Manchester is currently hosting not one but two psychogeography festivals.

Territories Reimagined: International Perspectives, or TRIP for short, runs from Thursday 19 June until Saturday (and beyond) and takes advantage of some of the city’s most recognisable locations, both indoors and out, including…

Thursday, 2pm, the MMU John Dalton Building lobby: Identikit Manchester - Mark Rainey leads a walk themed around corporate chain stores.

Friday, 2pm, outside JD’s Refectory at the MMU John Dalton Building: Bury That Dog - A walk around haunted Manchester with Peter Portland.

Saturday, 3pm, at Whitworth Park: Frank Kickball Jesus presents a psychogeographical ball game - US v UK psychogeographers.

Saturday, 8pm, upstairs at the Britons Protection: A Psychogeographic Cabaret - featuring performance poetry with soundscape and field recordings, plus short films, surprise guests and random acts of subversive joy.

Sunday, 2pm, Café Pop on Oldham Street: Postcards from Nowhere - a wander addressing issues of surveillance and CCTV; all participants will receive a unique piece of GPS art by Max Livesey.

There are also art exhibitions at the Royal Exchange, Nexus Cafe and the Zion Centre, and this is just a small selection of the festival events. Here’s the PDF flyer and visit their homepage for late additions - or read the MEN and Metro previews for their recommendations.

TRIP is also running alongside Manchester’s own psychogeography festival, Get Lost, which is organised by the Loiterers Resistance Movement - visit their site for more information on that.

As an aside, it’s good to see the festival using WordPress.com blogging platform for its homepage. Looks much better than your standard Blogger.com site, doesn’t it?

Typical - I start blogging about all the wonderful things happening in Manchester, then make the mistake of checking the Manchizzle and discover that everything’s already been mentioned, namely:

Futuresonic festival (1-5 May), featuring In Search of the Social in Manchester and more social networking than even a 15-year-old webophile can handle.
Highlight (hopefully): a late-night gig at Charlies’s hosted by yours truly
Tip: A limited number of pay-what-you-can Day Passes will be available on each day of the conference

Sounds From The Other City (4 May) is a one-day, Bank Holiday Sunday celebration of musical Salford. Around 50 bands play in tiny churches and pubs along Chapel Street, with each stage organised by a different local promoter.
Highlight (again, hopefully): David Thomas Broughton’s set at my Salford Arms stage and Craig Wood’s Manchester bootleg archive, from 1973 to the present day
Tip: Most years sell out so book your £10 pass at Quaytickets.com now

Also, a few other bits and pieces:

Vice magazine is back in town this Thursday, 24 April. This time it’s at Sankeys and the lineup features live sets from Metronomy, Operator Please and Lovvers (who I hear are great live) plus DJ sets from Friendly Fires, c90s, Autokratz, Evil 9, The oldboy, Contort Yourself. Tickets are free when you register over at Viceland.

Someone or other at Arts Council England wants you to vote on the country’s most musical city. Mark Radcliffe makes a good case for Manchester - but I think we should all vote for Leicester, which has produced such greats as Mark Morrison, Showaddywaddy and Engelbert Humperdinck. You can’t argue with quality like that.

And finally, bad news for Manchester independents as Mai Bai, the sushi cafe, and Roadkill Records, the Oldham Street record shop, both shut their doors. I was telling someone just last week about Roadkill’s mixtape exchange…

The Guardian seems to think so. Manchester is one of five cities highlighted by the recent article, which includes quotes from Kate/Manchizzle and Aidan O’Rourke, who talks about his old site:

In my former site, Eyewitness in Manchester - a kind of forerunner to a blog - I was able to give a personal slant independent of the standard newspaper way of doing things. People appreciated that. The Manchester Evening News site Manchester Online offered me a contract to produce it as a freelance contributor. That was from 1998 to 2005.

It was also the precursor to Aidan’s current site, Aidan.co.uk, which is one of the most comprehensive and regularly updated blogs in the city.

Always willing to innovate, I’ve trying my hand at a new kind of blogging lately - internetlessly. It’s been 87 days since I last had a connection to call my own, and I’m sure you’ll agree that it shows. Apologies, readers, but normal service will be resumed… soon.

In the meantime, and thanks to a rare moment online, I thought I’d put together one last Manchester round-up this year:

Manchizzle and I were so pleased with our Manchester Literature Festival appearance in October that we’ve decided to do another blogging workshop at 1-3pm on Saturday 19 January. Like last time, it’ll be a very practical session. I’ll probably be talking techy stuff while Kate walks us through the cooler side (style, content, readership) of blogging.

Again, it’s hosted by the Manchester Digital Development Agency (they’re a lovely bunch) on Portland Street - and this time it’s completely free. Book by calling the MLF office on 0161 236 5725 or by emailing admin@manchesterliteraturefestival.co.uk.

Elsewhere, after it helped me out on a recent trip to Spain, I’ve returned to the Guardian’s great Been There travel website. This time I’ve decided to get involved myself, updating some of the 160-odd tips for Manchester (‘Suburb cafe is now closed’ etc) and even adding some of my own.

While Googling as Been There research I also stumbled across the Cube gallery’s architectural guide to the Oxford Road corridor, which seems pretty informative. It’s definitely one for a quiet Sunday afternoon, or a particularly energetic lunchtime.

BBC Manchester’s latest gallery, meanwhile, contains some decent shots at the moment: sadly I missed the sight of 500 santas jogging through Salford for charity earlier this month; sadder still, I did see the European Market’s new santa in Albert Square. How many years will we be stuck with this year’s model?

And finally, for anyone who missed it, here’s my favourite Manchester news story of 2007: Cool Cash card confusion, published in the MEN last month. Congratulations to Ciara Leeming for the ’scoop’ of the year!

Yup, it’s all happening in Manchester right now so here’s another link-dump…

On top of all the current Urban Screens activity - including the aforementioned A Wall is a Screen tonight - there’s also a short film night happening at Islington Mill tonight. Future Shorts features work from Poland, France, Denmark, Japan, USA, Australia and UK. It runs from 7.30pm and carries on until 2am thanks to a link-up with art club night Subtefuge, which promises ‘pyscho goulash’ from Hungarian trio Agoskodo Teliverek.

Next, if you thought Manchester International Festival was an over-hyped waste of money, look away. If not, you might consider voting for it in the UK Festival Awards 2007. MIF is up for both Best New Festival and the Innovation Award - and the only negative is that you have to register before voting.

Staying on the MIF tip, The Pianist - one of my highlights of the programme - is being broadcast on Radio 4 next Saturday, 20 October, from 2.30pm. More details here, or read my review-of-sorts here.

Also, something called mashup* Manchester takes place in Sale next Friday. It’s an event for those involved with ‘personal digital identity, social networking, Web 3.0 and TV 2.0′, which will probably mean diddly-squat to most of us. For the rest – or for those who just can’t get enough of networking – check out the mashup* website for more details.

I also want to mention New to Manchester, a blog by Tom. I’m embarassed to admit it’s taken me six months to discover it, but now that I have I’d say it’s one of the best new(ish) blogs I’ve read in a while - check out his guide to scamming Globe takeaway in West Didsbury, for example. Consider yourself blogrolled Tom.

And a quick mention for the ominously-titled The Leader’s Blog too. It’s written by Sir Richard Leese, Labour councillor for Crumpsall and leader of Manchester City Council. He got off to a flying start last month but has gone a little quiet lately. Hopefully the novelty didn’t wear off in little over a fortnight?