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?

The reason for my current blogging lapse isn’t anywhere near as good as Manchizzle’s - but it’s good to know that Mancubist can tick over in my extended absence:

• The Guardian Exchange tunnels continue to generate interest and speculative comments galore
• Urbis now runs a ‘60s Magical Music Tour‘ (wrong city, surely?) on alternate Saturdays, hosted by Brian Allen and finishing up at Twisted Wheel on Whitworth Street. It’s booked up til mid-May, so they must be doing something right
• Manchester has a new record label, Concrete Moniker - and its launch party is on Tuesday 4 March at Common bar on Edge Street. Any label with the Splice Girls on its roster is worth investigating, if you ask me…
• And, finally, one via email: ‘The first issue of if p then q magazine is out in March and the first book, in the if p then q classics series by Tom Jenks, in April. Also keep your eyes peeled for readings and happenings in Manchester. if p then q is keen to talk. We welcome all sorts of experimental submissions of poetry: see the guidelines on the website for more.’

Normal service will be resumed when I’m working less than 50 hours per week again.

A few interesting things are building up again so here’s a quick link dump…

One for you literary types first: Ar’ Back Yard is a triology of books by Anwar Dharma, giving a fictional account of 1980s Manchester. Or at least it will be when it’s published in the next few months. For now, however, you can read extracts - uploaded monthly - on the book’s very stylish website.

And here’s one for you history buffs: Ciara Leeming wrote an article for the MEN about this book by Keith Warrender. It’s fascinating stuff - a theme I’ve touched on before here, here and here - and the book already has plenty of fans here. Definitely one for the Amazon wishlist…

Finally, The Rehearsal, which I saw and actively participated in at the Temple of Convenience during Manchester International Festival, is showing at the Library Theatre tomorrow, Wedneday, at 7pm. Highly recommended if you’re looking for something to do.

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!

‘Don’t you just hate the way all this sales-speak has divvied up the city into Quarters - as if we lived in fucking Paris.’ The quote’s taken Penny Feeny’s Between Hope and Paradise, a short story in Naked City, an excellent book I picked up from Route’s stall at Manchester Literature Festival’s Independents Day.

It’s actually about Leeds, though the same could be said for Manchester, with the property developer-coined Green Quarter and - worse still - the Southern Quarter, which seems to incorporate anything that’s cool between the university and Portland Street. I spotted that one in Itchy Manchester, for your information.

Anyway, today BBC Manchester is reporting that the Museum of Science and Industry - or MOSI, to give it a cooler name - is getting a �54m revamp. MOSI, the Beeb says, will form part of a so-called ‘Museum Quarter’ in the city. So get out your OS maps and marker pens:

The museum quarter will stretch nearly a kilometre from the River Irwell to the Hilton tower.

Here’s MOSI director Ian Griffin with some more:

‘The newly-redeveloped MOSI would create a modern, environmentally sustainable museum while transforming an under-appreciated area of the city into a vibrant new quarter with its own distinct character.’

Which got me thinking about other areas of the city and what they might eventually become: Castlefield as the Quiet Quarter, Cathedral Gardens as the Kids’ Quarter, Chorlton as the Over-friendly Quarter and… well, leave a comment with your own suggestions.