The Manchester Blog Awards steams into its 2009 competition.

See more about the Manchester Blog Awards and make your nomination.

Manchester seems to attract a fair few of the UK blogging community. Maybe it’s because we all stay inside because of the rain?

Without doubt there are some great writers out in the Mancunion Blogosphere and I’m looking forward to hearing more as the nominations start to pile up.

I notice they don’t have an award for Mancunion Twitter of 2009. Maybe they should institute that this year as a special award. Particularly as some bloggers have almost forsaken “real” blogging for life as a tweeter.

Anyway, the awards promise to be a bit of fun for those of us closeted in the attic in the stifling heat or catching the drips in the various cans, buckets and ears as the Manchester summer starts to dwindle and fade.

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Copper thieves broke into the Heaton Park sub-station, about 150 yards from where we live and stole the copper neutral bars on Wednesday last week.

Unfortunately even though they must have made a noise kicking one of the grills in no one was around because of the football match.

Electricity Spikes Start Happening

Around 9pm I noticed that the Internet was no longer available but didn’t think anything of it as that sometimes happens, even on fibre optic cable broadband.

For those who don’t know removing the neutral bars means that you get voltage spikes, and those spikes can damage appliances and other electronic gadgetry.

Anyway, on waking late the next day I realised the radio/alarm was dead, even though the lights still worked. I checked the broadband – still no Internet. So I checked the wireless router – dead as a Dodo. So I went off to Maplin with the router and discovered the power supply had gone to the Great Electronics Store in the Sky. So I bought a new one and went home – to discover United Utilities had turned off the electricity because it wasn’t safe!

Workmen Drop Bombshell About When Electric Returns

When I wandered over to the sub station to ask the workers how long it would be I was told the sorry story and also that we wouldn’t be getting it back for two days, plus even when we got it back the house electric wiring needed testing before they could put supply back on for us!

So…

What Were The Consequences?

Freezers! We needed to empty 2 freezers of food that was going to thaw fast. We also needed light to see by when night came. And of course all my PCs, with all my notes on were completely unavailable. Plus all the phones, which of course are wireless, had their transformers destroyed by the voltage spikes.

So off we went to get lights and a wired phone so we could at least talk to people. My mobile phone gradually lost power and went off so it had to go Kay’s mum to be recharged.

I had to postpone a number of coaching sessions, luckily Hannah was at a sleepover and David stayed with one of his friends which made looking after the rest easier somehow.

Things that Went Pop

Here’s a list of stuff that the voltage spike killed:

• Router and power supply
• Broadband modem and power supply
• 3 wireless phone power supplies
• Combination Oven/ microwave oven
• Oven
• Electric shower
• Doorbells
• Radio Alarm

Yet next door was hardly affected because they’d been on holiday during the spikes and had turned off the electricity at  the plugs. So all their appliances were fine.

Back On The Electric 

We finally got the electricty back late Friday night.

When I came to look at the computers on Saturday I discovered that they were working fine. Unfortunately my Virginmedia broadband modem was dead. When I rang Virgin said that I could get a new one and it would be with me in 5 days. Well it’s Friday and the posts not arrived yet but I’m not holding my breath.

In the meantime I borrowed my next neighbours modem and bought 20 metres of cable to connect the wireless router to my desktop PC.

The reason? The cabled bit of the router was still working but the wireless bit had been destroyed.

Unfortunately I then spent several hours trying to get the cable connection to wrok. I eventually took it back and we discovered that although it tested OK it didn’t actually send data down the line between computers! I got another 20 metres and found the same problem.

So I had to move all my computer equipment near to the first floor entry point for the broadband – the girls bedroom. That means I can’t do anywork after 8pm as they’re in bed.

The good news is that there is a nice warm library where I can type, which has a great Internet connection and where I’m currently sitting typing this.

When I go back shortly I’ve got to sort out why my desktop PC doesn’t display any icons or the taskbar.

It’s fun here in Manchester! 

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It was a pleasant surprise to find that The Manchester Blog was awarded “Blog of The Week” by Sarah Hartley over at the Manchester Evening News.

It’s always nice to be reviewed and even better to get a few compliments too.

The review appeared on the Manchester Evening News web site and was also printed in the Saturday edition of the MEN.

And there’s been a little spike in traffic as a result. Nothing amazing but it’s interesting to see where the traffic comes from. Some is from Sarah’s electronic review whilst other traffic comes from other Manchester blogs.

So thanks Sarah and thanks to Paul Robinson her colleague over at the Mancunion Way blog for picking Manchester Blog.

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An interesting Manchester blog that I discovered through an email from David Slack who is the co-organiser of the 24:7 theatre festival is called What Would You Do?

The author, Elizabeth Baines, is writing a story week by week and at the end of each “chapter” we’re allowed to choose some of the future plot direction. She started on the 4th September and is the second week now. The story continues in Manchester’s Central Library and you get to vote on which inhabitant of the house from the first episode helps Cat on the trail of someone mysterious…

Ooh, sounds like a who-dunnit!

The final chapter is going to be performed at the Manchester Blog Awards which should be good fun.

So get on over and check the story out. Help out by voting for your preferred plot direction. Although I must admit I just chose a name at random because I don’t really identify with the characters yet.

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I think “Remember Technorati Claim” should be emblazoned across my forehead!

Of course Technorati is where bloggers can go to find interesting blogs to read. After all to paraphrase Technorati, “one of them must be worth reading.”

And it completely slipped my mind to add this blog to it.

Consequently finding Manchester Blog through Technorati isn’t as easy as it could be.

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Manchester Blog Awards 2007 has just been announced byManchizzle.

Bloggers can nominate their own blogs! This must give us a chance.

Entries (as a URL) to be sent in by the 7th Sept, in anticipation of the awards ceremony: Moho Live, Oldham Street, 7pm Wednesday October 10, free and there are cash prizes.

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Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows was the focus of our attention yesterday.

Because Kay entered the children for a TV competition on Granada Reports last week and our three year old, Rachel, won the prize.

And the prize was…

• To open Waterstone’s, Deansgate Harry Potter shelves at Midnight on Friday
• A copy of the hallowed book (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Book 7) [Children's Edition])
• 10 books from the children’s section
• To be treated as a VIP for the night.

We took our other children to watch and they were asked to lend a hand too. The press took photos, whether we appear in papers with so many other grand openings going on is a moot point but we all enjoyed the attention.

For those of you who don’t know Amazon have set-up Harry Potter World, where they’ve got a whole of Harry Potter stuff.

Plus they’ve a nice trailer for the new film and Stephen Fry giving a teaser about his recording of Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows. 

They’re also showing the most Harry Potterish town in the UL and there’s a muggle counter!

I loved it, great marketing and well done Amazon.

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When the Manchester Evening News reports on a leak of a poll conducted by NOP I was interested to find that the leak shows that 57% agreed with the congestion charge when it was related to the ?3 billion cash for public transport.

There’s lies, damned lies and Statistics. And in particular statistics relating to polls.

When I was doing my MSc in Management Sciences at UMIST we were shown just how easy it is to manipulate statistics by emphasising the questions a particular way.

I’m going to wait to see how the question was phrased to see whether it made a difference to the answer.

However, I have a few thoughts before the report is revealed on Monday:

1. Were the people interviewed living in the city centre and therefore completely unaffected by the charges?
2. Were the people interviewed students and again completely unaffected by the charges?
3. Were the people interviewed regular rush hour drivers who use Manchester during the rush hour?
4. Did the people involved use public transport regularly?
5. Were the people interviewed Manchester residents?
6. Did the people interviewed have large incomes?

Does this poll now make the bid “acceptable” to the councils involved in setting the charge? And the answer is of course it does!

But if the poll asked loaded questions the result is not a fair reflection of what the public believes. But it’s now given the councils the ammunition they were looking for to move forward and slap on another road tax.

And quite honestly I object to the councils spending  vast sums doing research, advertising the concepts and softening us up to accept the charge.

What happens next is the councils decide that instead of ?5 they’ll charge ?4 to make us relieved and so we think, “oh, that’s not as bad as ?5, we can go with that.”

When all the time none of us ever wanted congestion charging in the first place.

Update on Congestion Charging Poll:

Apparently NOP used random phone numbers across Manchester councils.

So if they’ve phoned 100 people in Bury, all of whom work in Bury and will never cross the congestion charge boundary those people will be happy for the congestion charge to be there because it will mean better public transport overall.

So I hope they asked everyone if they commute into Manchester during rush hour everyday first…what’s the betting?

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Who was it who said Manchester would never have congestion charging because we don’t need it?

Certainly since we appear to have been caught hopping by the spin doctors we’ve been suckered into agreeing to it or else we can’t have the Metrolink Big Bang that puts tramlines and stations where people can actually use them.

As an aside I wonder what would happen if Londoners were told that they couldn’t have had the Thames Barrier , or only part of it, or the Water ring around the capital would only go part way round?

And adding fuel to the spin fire we appear to an example where the pro lobby (apparently led by our own council and its quangos) has “manufactured” 4 cases studies about how “real” people would be affected by the charge.

The truly interesting point about all this is that there appears to have been a vast amount of PR stuff generated. Apparently including a Yellow Bus and the aforesaid case studies and I didn’t see a single bit of it.

As I live on one of the main routes into Manchester and where I suspect the outer ring will be I would have been very interested in anything about the congestion charge.

And you know what? I would have been doubly interested by a report from a body that didn’t have a vested interest in getting into Manchester, or keeping it out.

Oh and by the way. Do we know whether the London Congestion Charge actually makes money or breaks even? Because if it proves difficult to collect money or chase defaulters guess who’s going to pay?

Yes, your good old friendly Manchester rate payer.

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Waterstones in Deansgate, Manchester, has launched a bid to persuade J.k. Rowling to allow famous schoolboy wizard Harry Potter to stay alive.

Certainly Harry has been a fantastic franchise for all involved, film makers, author, publisher and product manufacturers.

Personally I’d like to see Harry move into the adult world and work with Muggles, rather like in The Men in Black to prevent Muggle abuse by magic users!

If you want to save Harry Waterstones have kindly created the Save Harry Potter website where you can do exactly that.

So go on, you know you want to. Get clicking to the Save Harry Potter website and add your vote now. I suspect they’ll need every vote they can muster.

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