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Dec 18, 2024 | 
northernsoul.me.uk | Robert Hamilton
Here at OperaWatch offices in Northern Soul Towers, the staff are giddy with excitement. After a surreal visitation by the spirits of past, present and future, I have granted them a few extra days off this holiday. Hell, I even forked out for a fatted goose for the staff party. God bless us every one, said Tiny Tim as he tiptoed through the tulips. We were also excited as it was the last opera of the season.
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Dec 5, 2024 | 
northernsoul.me.uk | Desmond Bullen |Chris Wallis |Fran Yeoman |Robert Hamilton
There was genuine excitement in the OperaWatch office at Northern Soul Towers when a missive arrived from English National Opera. ENO was announcing its big move to Greater Manchester at MMU’s Holden Gallery and we were invited. There was a lot of discussion about the implications of such a huge move. Where would ENO be based? Would it build a new opera house? Will we need a bigger office and more staff? We even held a sweepstake as to who would go. Of course, it was rigged and I won.
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Nov 23, 2024 | 
northernsoul.me.uk | Eileen Jones |Helen Nugent |Amy Stone |Robert Hamilton
It had just started raining when I met The Brunette in the bar at Fenix. There was a slight tension in the air as our teams were playing each other later that day. I was also a little nervous because the scuttlebutt about this new Greek place was not good. The Brunette mentioned “all fur coat and no knickers”. Meanwhile, I’d read reports about other Manchester restaurants baulking at customers coming in with LED lights and tripods to produce Instagram food porn.
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Nov 23, 2024 | 
northernsoul.me.uk | Eileen Jones |Helen Nugent |Amy Stone |Robert Hamilton
It was a cold, damp evening when I set off to Opera North’s revival of Benjamin Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream at The Lowry. I’d heard that Britten’s opera was ‘difficult’, and my only encounter with Shakespeare’s play was the 1935 Hollywood version with James Cagney and Micky Rooney some years ago. Despite this, I was in an optimistic mood, excited to be back at the opera.
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Nov 20, 2024 | 
northernsoul.me.uk | Amy Stone |Robert Martin |Robert Hamilton
You know when you read something and think, ‘damn, I wish I’d written that’? Well, that’s how I feel about Burnt Ice Cream by Candi Martin. I loved this collection of poetry. In fact, it feels like I can’t review it properly because it resonated so deeply. I’m not biased. I’ve never met Candi Martin and, to my shame, I hadn’t heard of her work until my editor forwarded the details of this book. But it’s hard to separate your worldview from your reading.
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Nov 20, 2024 | 
northernsoul.me.uk | Robert Martin |Robert Hamilton |Desmond Bullen
Readers of a certain age could be mistaken for thinking that films featuring the work of Ray Harryhausen were on our TV screens every weekend when we were kids. Think of the dinosaurs of One Million Years B.C., the gigantic creatures living on Mysterious Island, Sinbad’s various friends and foes, the mythical beasts of Clash of the Titans and, best of all, the trials of Jason and the Argonauts.
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Nov 20, 2024 | 
northernsoul.me.uk | Robert Hamilton |Desmond Bullen |Fran Yeoman
Let me say from the outset that I’ve always been a Guardian reader. At a time when such an admission might be accompanied by ‘tofu-eating Hampstead wokerati’ from certain parts of the right-wing culture wars loony party, I say it with pride. I have always been a Guardian reader. One of the great joys of being a Guardian reader has been the If… strip by Steve Bell. Every day, Bell managed to distil the news of the day into an acerbic, genuinely funny drawing full of insight, commentary and opinion.
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Nov 9, 2024 | 
northernsoul.me.uk | Andy Murray |Helen Nugent |Robert Hamilton
There is a definite chill in the air. As the song goes, “all the leaves are brown and the sky is grey”. Winter is coming! And so it was a welcome sight when an invite to the Wednesday Supper Club at The Firehouse dropped into my inbox. The very idea of a supper club at a house of fire was warming and comforting in equal measure. With happy anticipation and a spring in my step, I set off to The Firehouse to warm my cockles.
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Oct 21, 2024 | 
northernsoul.me.uk | Nancy Collantine |Desmond Bullen |Robert Hamilton
Summer is a quiet time in the OperaWatch offices here at Northern Soul Towers. Much twiddling of thumbs, long boozy lunches and musing on whether or not the southern jessies at English National Opera will ever move north. It is, therefore, a great relief when the leaves begin to turn brown and a chill in the air signals the beginning of autumn and signs of activity in the office.
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Jun 11, 2024 | 
thesgnl.com | Michael Bluhm |Robert Hamilton
After an autumn and winter of stalemate, Russian forces have captured territory along Ukrainian front lines over the past month. Launching an offensive into areas north of Kharkiv, in northeastern Ukraine, they’ve taken control of villages Kyiv had liberated in the fall of 2022. During nighttime, they regularly fire barrages of missiles into Kharkiv; dozens of people have been killed or wounded; and around 11,000 have been evacuated.
