This Friday is the penultimate SFX event for the summer and features the super-talented Roger Quigley and guests, Sarah Lockwood and Otto Smart. Both Roger and Otto’s band the Montgolfier Brothers and Roger’s solo project At Swim Two Birds are personal favourites. They’re not huge here, despite their music being the perfect soundtrack to a rainy Manchester day – but do ok in Spain apparently.

Here’s a video for At Swim Two Birds’ In Bed With Your Best Friend.

Roger and friends play from 6pm until 7pm, and beer and wine are priced at £2 from 5.30pm until 7pm. The bar will also be serving Pimms, to tie in with the current Royal Exchange production of Noel Coward’s Hay Fever, which has now been extended until Friday 16 August. All stage-level tickets for the play next Wednesday, Thursday and Friday are just £5 if you quote ‘Hay Fever Offer’ when booking on 833 9833.

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

This meeting of loveable geeks in home-made Dalek suits was arranged to set a world record for ‘the biggest number of people dressed up as daleks in one location’. Strange, I thought, that such a record didn’t already exist…

Anyway, there’s a Flickr photo set of the occasion and a YouTube video of this ‘proper Dalekfest’, as one commenter calls it. Check out the related videos if you’re after 25 minutes of non-stop Dalek footage.

Thanks to MoSI worker Unpopular Superhero and super-blog BoingBoing for the tips.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikwKaMlzoyI]

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmJnEXLPkS0]

[Hat-tip: Manchester-clubbing]

As a side point, I’m interested to hear what you think or want to know about this new festival. Someone pointed out in a comment that MIF works out as costing each Manchester household £11.90. Given the £30+ ticket price for the major events, do you think you’re getting good value for money?

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQ1Tf0AziiM]

I’ve included the middle of three videos here, because it is the most explanatory, but you can check out the other two videos for more information. They talk about the Manchizzle in detail, while Spinneyhead and The43 get brief mentions too.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTbku-L5j3w]

[Hat-tip to Craig McGinty]

Here’s a documentary about that night, and here’s an accompanying video about the protest at Urbis that followed in early February.

Manchester-based PushOn are the real professionals though (and nice guys about it). They’ve made this funny no-nonsense video, which I found through Web-Strategist, to explain what they do: