If you're not a pub type of person...

... the Ivy Manchester Church in Didsbury is screening the upcoming England v. US football match on its own hallowed ground. Illustrating the story is pastoral staff member Kristian Tucker, showing just how hard it is to smile AND do keepy ups.

His Master's Voice...

A picture from a recent PR job. Just goes to show the difference a nice prop - a vintage gramophone, in this case - can make. Beats a branded T shirt!

The Incredibly Diverse Kings Arms

Salford institution The Kings Arms is a pub with a fairly extensive events list, owing in part to its unique attribute of a theatre space for 120 on its upper floor, which regularly hosts plays and live music. Elsewhere in the pub there's a knitting club (in a room featuring a knitted chandelier), a very popular Dylan Day, and on Thursdays a Klezmer music workshop. Featured here are landlady Livy Pickford and Jimmy Foster, who coordinates theatre events.

Poll Positions..

Manchester Town Hall is being turned into a polling station for tomorrow's elections. At well over a century old, it has seen its fair share of Parliaments.

235 feet up on the Big One..

.. these less-than-subtle shots were taken, to promote asparagus which is grown on Claremont Farm, on the Wirral, and consumed across the North West and beyond. The Pepsi Max Big One in Blackpool is the tallest rollercoaster in Europe, and I had to take the maintenance gangway to the top for this picture. At least I didn't have to ride the bloody thing to the bottom.

Jailbreak!

In a bonkers charity stunt the Christie had invited various companies to charge their MDs with various offences (losing their phone, being a prog rock fan) and then locking them in a cell at the Manchester Police Museum on Newton Street. They wanted a fairly generic picture to illustrate their crime themes (a murder mystery is to follow) and these are what I came up with.

A Deadly Nine Year Old

Nine year old Mark Royles is surgical with a bowstaff - or just his feet - and is showing his abilities in front of judges Cowell et al in this week's Britain's Got Talent. Look at that war face - if they know what's healthy, they'll sit on their hands for the audition..