Blimey… a Guardian mention one month and a nomination for this year’s Manchester Blog Awards the next. Maybe I should be too busy to blog more often. Or maybe not.

Anyway, thanks to whichever of you deluded people voted for Mancubist again. I’m really very honoured – and hopefully it’ll be the virtual kick up the arse that I need to start posting more irrelevant nonsense about this fair city.

And while I’m here, just a friendly reminder that (the very busy) Kate/Manchizzle and (slightly less busy) I are doing a blogging workshop (blogshop?) on Saturday 29 September.

Places are strictly limited (10) and tickets are a paltry £2 (hopefully that doesn’t reflect our worth), and you get to look at a very large picture of Kate while you book. Mine must have been lost in the post…

The first Saturday in ages that I haven’t bought a Guardian and I end up being featured in it! Well, by featured I mean a five-line mention in the Guide’s blog column – but it’s much better than nothing. I think I’ll continue not to buy it in the hope of further recognition.

So a warm welcome to my fellow Guardian readers – feel free to subscribe by email or leave a comment if you like the place. And regular Mancubist readers, check out the other sites to be blogrolled here.

Meanwhile, back to the usual Manchester miscellany: someone on urban exporation website 28dayslater.co.uk has done a recce of what they call ‘Manchester Underground’ – a series of air raid shelters under the city, accord to this poster:

There are 17 shelters in all and most of them have sub sections A. B. C etc… these are joined by one long corridor… there are numerous blocked up exits and stair wells… but the most jaw dropping feature was the toilets, the whole place was maze of small wonders…

Check out the rest of these excellent photos here.

I went for lunch with the re-Mancified Manchizzle this week. We had dim sum lunchboxes at Lotus on King Street (£6, with or without this voucher) and had good chat about Manchester blogs. She’d noticed that, for some reason, very few people had blogged about the Northern Quarter fire a fortnight ago.

I think it’s more a case that people have been unusually slow to react, however: Manchester Clubbing has found a few videos on YouTube, for example, and Mamucium is already talking about the aftermath – including looting and an inquiry into the blaze.

On If you’re sad and like beer, Kate posted a very personal first-hand account of that firey morning – and about not knowing what to do when your office is full of smoke. She’s followed it up too, with some of the confusing lines those involved are being fed:

Different degrees of destruction; the sprinklers went off, the fire spread, the smoke damaged, just looks like someone had a really good party, smells a bit, needs demolition, the chimney’s unstable, the roof might cave in. You’ll be let in next week, you won’t get in for a fortnight, closed for three months, you have half an hour to go in and grab your stuff. Dramatic access by torchlight up dark stairwells flanked by fire officers.

Morag over at Twangorama is appealing for help. The Basement on Lever Street avoided the fire but suffered smoke and flood damage from the sprinkler system.

Some of us were able to briefly go in and salvage important items; the scene that greeted us was grim but rather less apocalyptic than we first feared. There were puddles of water rather than the 2 metres we were warned about but many books, leaflets and art works are well beyond repair. Ceiling tiles have come down and we can not yet be sure how badly affected the IT hub and kitchen are.

They need any help on offer, including cleaning up the place and donations to cover an inevitable insurance shortfall. You can register your support on the Basement website.

CIDS continues to take a strong lead in the situation and has now published a list of temporary and permanently office space available for those displaced. I guess the mashup of Manchester’s wireless hotspots might come in hand right now too.

James over at Yer Mam! has accidentally organised a Manchester blogmeet. It begins at 3pm in the delightful Hare & Hound pub in Shudehill (that’s the edge of the Northern Quarter, for those with blank expressions) on Saturday 7 April.

These things always become fun some time after you’ve finished trading inquisitive glances, trying to work out who people are, and the beer usually sorts the bloggers out from the, er, non-bloggers. Something like that anyway. If you’re not away for the weekend do go along.

But, what’s this, at 3pm on Saturday 7 April there’s a rival geek-meet? Manchester’s Flickr users, you say? Congregating in Piccadilly Gardens and almost certainly heading for pubs in the Northern Quarter?

What happens if the two groups collide? Will there be a horrible mash of broken cameras, laptops and pint glasses? Watch this space from Saturday afternoon to find out.