Manchester's transformation is an epic tale - and Andy Spinoza is one of its characters. As a journalist in the 80s and 90s, he told the story of a cultural revolution. That revolution helped attract developers with deep pockets - developers whose interests 'Spin' would represent as a PR guru.
The city was shabby, the buses were orange and cream, and MCFC were border-line bobbins. But I loved the place. While Londoner, Spinoza, and gone north to Manchester University for an American Studies course I had left the West Midlands for Leeds Polytechnic for a degree in Social Administration. Salfordians let me into their homes despite my alien Black Country accent, and spoke of death, life, joy, corruption, cover-ups, and "the bloody council". Meanwhile 'Spin' was turning the MEN's Diary page into an edgy potpourri of gossip, alleged scandal, and humour.
The book is bursting with humorous, jaw-dropping, and intricately detailed tales. One captures the fusion of rock n roll excess and bulging bags of government cash. Before joining the M.E.N, Spinoza was a co-founder of City Life, a spiky, mickey taking, brave, and sometimes reckless, "underground" alternative.
"I realised with my collection of City Life I had an alternative history of Manchester, from 1983 to the early 2000s. It was, of course, rescued from near death by the M.E.N. I also had records from Manchester Central Library of the MEN when I was working on the Diary, where I would literally write up what I had done the night before - which parties, which launches. That was a really rich resource.
"But anyone who lived or worked or had any interest in Manchester will be interested in it. I have tried to shed some light on the cultural forces, social forces, and political, context to weave this kind of narrative, which I hope shows future generations what went down in this great city." "A lot of that money was in a 1980s onwards competition culture, where cities compete for funds - and they became very good at it. From Hulme and Michael Heseltine right up to George Osbourne praising Factory Records in Parliament - how did that happen? Manchester has always had a better shake out of the Tories than Labour. They even had to go to a high level game of poker to get the Blair government to fund the Commonwealth Games properly.
City area looks much better now but re development in commercial and retail area was necessity after the ‘96 bombing. Housing strategy was lousy - led by greedy selfish developers pushing PRS and a complicit docile council
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