So Mancubist scooped the Best Arts and Culture Blog award at last night’s Manchester Blog Awards. Many thanks again to those who nominated it - I know who (some of) you are - and special thanks to Kate for organising this and just about every related event in Manchester.

The night itself was fun: I arrived to catch the very end of fellow winner Days of Moustaches‘ reading, which by all accounts went down very well, and The Free Man in Preston impressed me with his last-minute performance.

After receiving the award, one of the judges, Richard Fair of the BBC Manchester Blog, cornered me for a quickfire interview, which was a strange experience - normally I’m on the other side of the microphone. Luckily my quotes are just being used on the blog (I hope…).

All in all a great evening – and very well attended too. Here’s a list of this year’s other winners:

Best Personal Blog: Single Mother on the Verge

Best New Blog: Rent Girl

Best Political Blog: Politaholic

Best Writing on a Blog: Day of Moustaches

I’m going to use this rare moment online to dump information about some news and events I’ve recently discovered:

BBC 6 Music reports that Manchester City Council is considering a proposal to rename Whitworth Street West (home to Green Room, Rainbow Snooker Club and the Brickhouse nightclub) in honour of the late Tony Wilson. Two-thirds of residents will have to approve the name change to either Tony Wilson Way or Anthony H Wilson Way - I personally prefer the latter.

Tomorrow, Wednesday, is of course the date of the Manchester Blog Awards 2007 - for which Mancubist is nominated in the arts and culture category. Remember, the venue has now changed from MohoLive (which now opens in late November) to Matt & Phreds, also on Tib Street. The city’s music bloggers will be DJing (or MP3ing…) and blogger-cum-published-writer Caroline Smailes will be doing a reading. It’s free and starts at 7pm.

Also happening tomorrow is a low-key media event called MELD. It aims to generate ideas by ‘melding the skills of Northern Journalists and Interactive Designers’. The long-term goal is to pitch ideas by 20 of the region’s hacks and geeks to ‘major industry players’. The project’s Manchester launch event takes place in Selfridge’s Moet Bar from 6pm. If you think you fit the bill email info@just-b.com.

And finally, another lovely (lapsed) blogger called Kate tipped me off about a free event happening on Friday. A Wall is a Screen is ‘part guided tour, part film night’ and invites the public to view nine short films projected on buildings across seven secret city centre locations. It’s part of Manchester Urban Screens (11-14 October, check out their other events) and begins at 9pm outside Kro Piccadilly.

See you at some or all of the above…

According to my stats, Mancubist attracted its 100,000th view this morning. I’m getting about 10,000 views every 7-10 days now, which is great news.

Since last May I’ve made 290 posts (roughly one a day) and have received 339 comments in return. The statistics page is actually my most viewed, followed by the Sabi Rock guy, ice skating in Piccadilly and UK North buses.

Other stats include over 130 subscribers - 40 of whom follow Mancubist via email, including various people from the local business, media, music and arts worlds.

Off-site, Mancubist is ranked 7th top site in BlogTopSites’ Local category and Technorati says I’ve got the 74,767th ranked blog, linked from 55 others. On Alexa my site is ranked 153,180th.

Thanks to everyone who visits and here’s to the next ton!

It’s been a while since I last added a new feature to this site.

This one is called Ask about Manchester. I want readers - ie. you - to submit questions about the city. I’ll try to find an answer and if I do I’ll reply and publish it.

Of course, if your questions are too ridiculous I won’t even both. But if there’s something you’ve noticed about the city lately, or something historical that’s been puzzling you, please ask away.

Next up: I’ll tell you where you left your keys!