Crouching at the base of a cardboard themometer muttering something about there being too many guitars

Manc convention insists I be excited about the Manchester International Festival. If I had an oversize cardboard thermometer with 'not much electronica' written at the bottom in black marker pen and 'lots of lovely electronica' written on a piece of star-shaped yellow card blue-tacced to the top, I would hum and haw and then stick my strip of (Top Gear style) card saying MANCHESTER INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL quite low on the chart, perhaps very near the bottom.

So no trendy experimental music for my tastes. I will have to make do. arms crossed, lip curled, with Lou Reed (old man's music), Kanye West (hmm, maybe not) and PJ Harvey (oh yes yes and thrice yes).

Or I could save up my pennies for the holy Mancunian marriage of the Fall and the Happy Mondays (record cover pictured) shambling through a joint gig. There'll be nothing civil about that partnership, I can assure thee.

All the events can be seen on the events calendar, as quite rightly they should be.

Oh, incidentally, one of the debates featured in the line-up is called 'Is TV good for society?'. Well, let me just start the debate by giving an in depth opinion on the subject:

Yes.

Does any of the Festival take your fancy? And shall we go together? I've got a megarider, so we'll have to get the bus in.