Nope, this isn’t a national version of Risk. Cube gallery and the Redeye photography network (plus Marketing Manchester and DLA Piper) want you to capture the city in the photographic sense.

The incentive is one of 10 awards of £500 (one of which will be decided by the People), plus the chance to have your images displayed in Cube on Portland Street from 28 March until 9 April. In fact, every submitted image – ’so long as it’s legal and decent’ (in terms of quality or nakedness, I wonder) – will be exhibited, which is a great extra incentive to enter. You’ve only got one entry though so don’t waste it.

The 10 winners will also have their photographs reproduced and distributed throughout the city as postcards, and they’ll receive limited edition prints in a commemorative book.

The competition’s open to both professionals and non-professionals, and the deadline’s fast approaching: Friday 20 February. See the Capture Manchester website for full details.

[Hat-tip to How-Do]

A couple of months ago Visit Manchester, the city’s official tourism website, launched HearManchester.com, a 10-part audio guide to the Rochdale Canal and Petersfield.

Presented by John Robb, the downloadable and streamable guides are entitled inspired, green, en-route, underground, unsung (which I found most interesting), radical, poetic, human, proud and industrial. Each part includes interviews with local experts – ‘ranging from city councillors to body-poppers, psychogeographers to popstars’ – and has a PDF transcript and an associated map, highlighting some of the main points of interest.

The individual guides have a physical trailmarker (such as the one pictured and this one) to encourage people to website, and the project is being promoted as part of next week’s Manchester Science Festival. The guide, produced by Northern Quarter digital agency StarDotStar, has also been shortlisted for a BIMA Award.

You may have already read about it, but today Kate Manchizzle and I launch a website we’ve been working together on: Rainy City Stories. It’s been fun flexing my web developing muscles on something creative and Manc-centric, and we’re both happy with what we’ve produced:

We’ve created an interactive literary cityscape that enables you to click on a location in Manchester and read a story or poem set there. To start the project off we’re commissioning site-specific stories from some of the area’s most exciting established writers, but you can tell us your own story too.

There are already four stories up from these commissioned writers – Nicholas Royle, Rajeev Balasubramanyam, Mike Duff and Jackie Kay – and they’re based around a good spread of locations: Moss Nook, Chorlton, Victoria Station and Whalley Range.

We’ve also had several submissions from the public, which’ll be going up very soon too. While it’s been mostly short stories so far, we’re also hoping for plenty of poetry submissions – and maybe even some multimedia stuff (photo stories, comic strips, audio, video etc). Click here to submit your own story to the map.

There’ll be more commissioned work added to Rainy City Stories in 2009, plus workshops and live lit events. If you’re interested in receiving updates about these – and in reading new Mancunian literature – please subscribe via RSS, email or Twitter.

Rainy City Stories is part of the Manchester Literature Festival, which begins next Thursday, and is supported by Arts Council England. I’d really appreciate any feedback, either as a comment here or on the RCS site itself.

It’s been a while since I last wrote about cycling but the Salford Folding Bike Race, which takes place on Saturday 30 August as part of the Salford Nocturne, is well worth a mention.

The competitors, dressed in business attire, will wait 10 metres away from their folded bikes. At the drop of the British flag the competitors will have to run to their steeds before building them as fast as they can and setting off on a four-lap dash.

In true commuter spirit, winner takes all – there’s no second chance when it comes to catching your train… Expect fierce competition, barging and even a little cheating as our commuters race to prove their skills.

The first incarnation of the folding bike race took place around Smithfield Market in London last year and attracted 5,000 people. Here’s a five-minute video about that event:

The field is limited to just 25 competitors, so if you’re interested – and own a folding bike – submit your entry form by 22 August. And check out the folding bike technology ‘row’ that’s developing.

I’ve been getting a number of hits lately for “zorbing Manchester”, something I mentioned briefly last September.

For those who think that rolling downhill at 60kmph in a giant plastic bubble is a Good Idea (it’s supposedly a summer pursuit after all), you’ll be glad to hear that the delightfully named Rushton Spencer, near Macclesfield in Cheshire, is home to one of 10 SphereMania zorbing centre around the country.

Call 0844 800 30 45 to check prices and book directly, or visit ExperienceIt.co.uk, which already has a price list online. This ‘South Manchester’ centre is the only location to offer zorbing in the dark (£65 for two people), which sounds even more fun/frightening*.

Check out Craig Hamnett’s Flick photo gallery (feature the above image of three spheres ready to roll), missixty’s review, Pete’s grainy mobile phone video from within a zorb, and a short story in the MEN about last year’s launch event for more information.

* Delete as appropriate