Animals of October

Let's talk about Christmas. Come on. Let's just do it. It's lurking there in our peripheral vision, drooping and thirsty, like an end-of-the-line tree losing all its needles and baubles. I was in an ASDA yesterday for the big shop, and while Halloween was still the headline, Christmas was there in its mass-produced shadow, desperate to burst out and flounce around on centre stage, like it does. There were selection boxes, cut-price mega bottles of spirits, bags of chocolate sprouts. I spotted a couple of reindeer, a few santas, a twinkle of tinsel. And there, in the frozen aisle, the depressing sight of engorged turkey carcasses piled on top of each other, straining against their shrink-wrap. It's beginning to look a lot like the holidays are coming and the weather outside is frightful. The problem is, its not just the weather that looks bad. It's going to be a tough festive season. Tomorrow is Halloween and I've already seen multiple houses in the neighborhood ...

A rare outing last night to have a substantial meal with some alcohol and a bit of time among some art. We took ourselves down to HOME, Manchester's latest arts hub success story, the evolution of the legendary Cornerhouse cinema. Usually a place buzzing like the proverbial Manchester bee, now just doing the best it can in spite of everything. They've managed to get their theatre and cinema programmes up and running again, and they have the luxury of a spacious restaurant and bar for their lockdown-approved food provision. We were there, predominantly, to scoot around their art gallery, which has reopened with a new exhibition this weekend. It is a triptych of three solo exhibitions united by their use of illustration and their themes relevant to the current situation : Mike S Redmond and Faye Coral Johnson's Bubbling Pitch - a series of feverish and lively dream-like sketches, Joy Yamusangie's Blue Glass Fortunes - a striking exploration of the Congolese diaspora in mo...

I have a very dominating sweet tooth. I think its the molar behind the right incisor, who sits a little back from the others. It lurks in soft-palate shadows, whispering at the other teeth; a slice of that cake, a biscuit or two, oooh fizzy sweets! It was my last major barrier before going full vegan, although it turns out veganism went full-blown sweet tooth at around the same time I turned, so it didn't turn out to be much of a problem. But back in 2015, when I was taking that step from veggie to veegz, cornershop chocolate bars were my failing, particularly Snickers and Twixes. I had already discovered the M&S veggie Percy Pig sweets, so that satisfied the fruity chew craving, but the prospect of not being able to nip to the shop for a Double Decker was surprisingly powerful. But then I told myself to stop being such a whiny little dick-splash and, besides, we’d discovered Vegos and Mini-Moos to sate the chocolate pangs, and a local deli did the absolute bestest vegan cakes...