All listed event times are subject to change – please double check on the dedicated websites.

Museum: International Peace Quilt/Holocaust Memorial Day, Jewish Museum: 25 January-25 February.
The International Peace Quilt is currently being display for a short period at the Jewish Museum in Cheetham Hill. That’s a quilt, of peace. No, it’s not the soiled bedspread of John and Yoko’s bed-in for peace, this is an entirely new piece of peace for the bedroom. This particular quilt emerged as a response to the London 2012 Olympics and is a patchwork made up of drawings by children aged 8-15 from 197 different countries. Children from Denmark to Kenya to Iran and elsewhere illustrated what peace meant to them personally. The drawings were then transferred to material and stitched together. Sunday 27 also sees Holocaust Memorial day at the museum which will see a dedicated Holocaust exhibition as well as a talk by Joanna Millan, a survivor of the terrible atrocities, which begins at 2pm. The museum is open 10am-4pm Sunday-Thursday and 10am-1pm Friday but closed on Saturdays. Entry is £3.95 for adults, £2.95 for concessions. More information can be found here.

Peace Quilt

Cycling: Critical Mass, Central Library Meet: 25 January
Cyclists vs. Motorists has become a very modern unnecessary flashpoint on our roads. Critical Mass is a San Francisco styled love-in for push iron enthusiasts who fancy a leisurely evening urban bike ride. Taking place on the last Friday of each month the event is to celebrate the bike in the natural habitat of the car. The event began on the sun kissed West Coast of America in 1992 and has spread the world over. Riders are encouraged to bring ‘bikes, drinks, music, trumpets, snacks, lights, waterproofs and friends’. The party peloton will leave at 6.30pm with not set route, merely at the whim of whoever is at the front and concludes at The Sandbar on Grosvenor Street for drinks afterwards. More information and some vague safety guidelines are available on Facebook here. 

Critical Mass

Food: Kebab of the Year, Turkish Delight Chorlton
The kebab, often a freshly prepared flavoursome bite on the continent and more often, pavement dressing in Britain. Now the post-pub snack of choice which originated in the Middle East has a Parliamentary seal of approval and the highest honour has been awarded to Turkish Delight in Chorlton. The award was presented at a ‘glittering event at the House of Commons’ with local Lib Dem MP John Leech, who nominated the restaurant for the prize, giving a the staff a tour of Parliament. With around 15,000 restaurants in the UK Turkish Delight skewered the opposition to claim the top prize. Pictured below is an award winning Lamb Shish Kebab. Turkish Delight is located at, 537 Barlow Moor Road, Chorlton, M21 8AE.

Chorlton’s Finest Lamb Shish

Music: Underachievers Present Easter Douga, The Roadhouse: 25 January
The Underachievers crew are continuing their well-worn live music/club night schtick this weekend with two more local bands to fill your ears with joyous fuzz. With their second outing of January this Friday at the usual Newton Street haunt sees Americana enthusiasts Easter  who released their debut LP Innocence Man last year. Also on the bill is Douga, comprised of multi-instrumentalist Johnny Winbolt-Lewis and band who’s recent Mono No Aware EP was treated to airplay from 6 Music’s Gideon Coe among others. Doors are at 9pm with the Underachievers DJs taking over at 11pm-3am. Entry is £3 before 10pm or anytime with a flyer, or £4 up until midnight and £5 after. More information here. 

Easter

Art: Streetview Exhibition Launch, 2022nq: 25 January
The city is changed. It happens on a daily basis, but one of the biggest alterations to have occurred in recent years is notable by the 800,000 sq ft hole in Oxford Road. The former BBC site has been razed to the ground but as it’s form slides from memory a new exhibition highlights the red bricked buildings last days. Photographer Andrew Brooks and illustrator Michael Morrell both documented the demolition and have combined to a historical newspaper style narrative of the event. Also featured in the exhibition is work from internationally renowned graphic-illustrator Stanley Chow. The event will also see 40 contemporary views of Manchester and Salford from a ‘Google streetview’  style perspective in the form of sketches, embroidery, paintings, photography and sculpture. Doors open at 6pm with music continuing until 2am, more information is available here. 

BBC Oxford Road Demolition

Music: The Soft Pack, Soup Kitchen: 25 January
The Los Angeles-by-way-of-San Diego quartet are swapping West Coast surf and sun for Soup Kitchen’s Stevenson Square basement this weekend in support of their second album Strapped. Once touted by NME as ‘the new Strokes’ the arena filling success hasn’t quite materialised but the lo-fi high energy songs are still there. Doors are from 7.30pm with tickets priced at £8.50 and available from here.

The Soft Pack

The END: Zombie Apocalypse Training, MOSI: 26 January
Sprinting breathless through a field you stumble and trip over your own exhausted feet. You claw desperately at the earth, tearing at the wet dirt in an attempt to scramble back to your feet, but it’s too late. The elderly couple from next door have caught up with you and they’ve got hunger pangs for the soft pink delights locked in your skull. Clearly your preparations for the Zombie Apocalypse weren’t up to scratch. To avoid a similar fate MOSI are helpfully running a zombie training day to help you evade those pesky un-dead folks. During the survival training you’ll learn how to manage infectious diseases and use computer simulations to see how your survival strategies play out. So use your brains while you’ve got them and take a leaf out of Rick Grimes’ book to get prepared for the imminent apocalypse. Further information available here. 

Mancunian Zombies

Tour: Haunted Underworld, St Ann’s Sqaure: 26 January
In a dark and mysterious undercroft of the city centre old stories are coming alive. Tales might include those of dead artists, sinister magicians, tragic lovers and body snatcher. Expect the unexpected and also lots of laughs. People who are brave enough to come on the tour should try not to faint (something that happened last time). The tour costs £8 per person and last just over an hour. Minimum age is 10 years old but if the child is very sensitive, best not to bring the under 12s. Tickets can be booked here.

Haunted Underworld Tour