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Jan 15, 2025 | 
manchestermill.co.uk | Ophira Gottlieb
By Ophira GottliebFactory Records left a legacy that has seeped itself so thoroughly into Manchester’s identity that there’s a wall dedicated entirely to it in the Ashton-under-Lyne Ikea. But it’s only fairly recently that this legacy, and the cultural historians that work tirelessly to preserve it, remembered about women.
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Dec 21, 2024 | 
glasgowbell.co.uk | Ophira Gottlieb
Morning readers — forgive the unusual prelude to your Saturday read but just a quick note from us on The Bell's publishing schedule over the festive break. Like many of you, we will be taking the opportunity to rest a bit (forgive us!) so we'll be on a reduced schedule next week, and then taking six days off until 4 January. And now, on with the show as Ophira gets the jammiest assignment of the year in discovering why Glasgow and pantos go together like a pie and pint. Enjoy.
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Nov 15, 2024 | 
manchestermill.co.uk | Ophira Gottlieb
Dear readers — Last week, Trafford council approved a proposal to create an eruv in Hale, establishing a symbolic area in which Jewish people can move around freely on the Sabbath. This was a major win for the proposal’s backers, who have been trying for the past decade to establish an eruv in the area. The application promised to provide "numerous benefits for the Jewish residents, particularly the elderly, disabled, and families with young children...
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Nov 8, 2024 | 
manchestermill.co.uk | Ophira Gottlieb |Jack Dulhanty
Dear readers — since 2017, an American film producer and actor named Hopwood DePree has been renovating the derelict shell of Hopwood Hall, a 600 year-old manorial estate in Middleton. DePree says the building was built by his ancestors, and he moved to Rochdale from Hollywood to spearhead its revival.
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Nov 4, 2024 | 
glasgowbell.co.uk | Ophira Gottlieb
Dear readers – the double Halloween weekend is finally over, and we trudge onward into November. Bonfire Night tomorrow likely can’t come soon enough for those living in firework hotspots. In Pollokshields, The Bell can confirm a council snafu that stopped a proposed firework ban going ahead this year has offered an opportunity enthusiastically taken up by youthful residents, with other locals on innocent strolls often getting caught up in an unexpected, ground level pyrotechnic display.
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Nov 2, 2024 | 
glasgowbell.co.uk | Ophira Gottlieb
Gavin Brewis – Gav to his friends – and I are meeting in a café called Spill the Beans because he reckons the name is appropriate. Over coffee (his order is an unexpected oat milk pumpkin spice latte), he gives me a quick run-through of his life so far: a childhood between schemes, kicked out of two schools for violent behaviour by the age of 14, involvement with young teams, a deferred sentence, seven years in the army, a few more in the fish farms.
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Oct 10, 2024 | 
manchestermill.co.uk | Ophira Gottlieb |Jack Dulhanty
Dear readers — Today Ophira and Jack are taking us behind the scenes of the ongoing battle between the owners of beloved Withington institution Café Blah and their landlord, H Homes. After H Homes changed the locks on the premises, owners Adam Porrino and Tess Parkinson managed to smuggle themselves back into their own cafe, where they, a few regulars, some musicians, and a tenant’s union rep hunkered down for a sit-in protest. Will Café Blah prevail?
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Oct 9, 2024 | 
glasgowbell.co.uk | Ophira Gottlieb
It’s Thursday evening – the sky like October leaves – and I’ve finally found a taxi driver willing to take me to Cumbernauld. This proved more difficult than expected, and I arrive at Broadwood Stadium a couple of minutes late for my assignment. From the car park where my driver drops me off, I can vaguely hear the sound of German techno outfit Scooter blasting from stadium speakers, heralding a goal.
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Oct 7, 2024 | 
glasgowbell.co.uk | Dani Garavelli |Ophira Gottlieb
Dear readers – welcome to our first ever Monday Briefing, the newsletter that will forevermore be your essential start to the week, so crucial to your life that you will forget how you found the motivation to stare down the barrel of another seven days before the founding of The Bell.
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Oct 5, 2024 | 
glasgowbell.co.uk | Dani Garavelli |Ophira Gottlieb
Our first-ever weekend read is a brilliant essay by Dani Garavelli, one of Scotland's leading writers, who on top of her column for The Herald has written features and long reads for the Guardian, the Scotsman, the Times and the London Review of Books. The first commission we made when we decided to launch The Bell was asking Dani to write about the state Glasgow finds itself in. A sense of decline pervades conversations about the city, but is it justified? And can we move beyond it?
