Food and Drink and Logan's Run.

So, the Manchester Food and Drink festival has put down it's knives and forks for another year.  Bit of a strange one this time around.  Although it has grown during the last decade to become one (if not the) largest in the country, there has been criticism this time around for it's location.  Spinningfields was chosen above Albert Square as the main 'HQ' for the foodie activity.  This was undoubtedly down to the main sponsors being Spinningfields, hence it made complete sense (to them at least) to choose the location to up their profile.  Still in it's infancy (many of the building are yet to be complete) Spinningfields is a kind of smaller, more central Canary Wharf: big banks and law firms all perched inside glass and chrome towers.  It's been described as cold and sterile, amongst other tags and even the most casual bystander can't help but notice the lack of independent business's here.  The likes of Giraffe, GBK, Carluccio's, Cafe Rouge, an Italian chain I can't quite remember the name of and a few good few more are all here.  The restaurants are busy enough over the weekend but there's a distinct lack of footfall in the area as a whole.  Sure, the buildings are spanking new, fresh and modern, but they are rather cold for the most part.  But these are mainly back office banking boxes for the monolithic banking corporations.  I actually like the area...very futuristic, 'European' and other clean another notch on Manchester's determination to play on a much larger stage.  It also contains the CJC building, quite simply one of the best new buildings in the UK.  This was designed by an Australian firm of  architects, Denton Corker Marshall and they've created the largest courts building in the country since the Royal Courts of Justice were built in London over a hundred years ago.  From one of Spinningfields's squares this is pretty much the first thing that takes your eye: an enormous glass curtain wall which I personally think is outstanding.  It's from this square that this year's Food and Drink festival was held....and held mainly in teepee's.  Given better weather of the time of the festival and had more people been aware of the location, this would've been much more of a success.  I think perhaps in the future that it ought really to relocate back to Albert's Square and perhaps have a 'feeder' here in Spinningfields.

Conversely (and rather confusingly), St Anne's sqaure had it's own food and drink market and I guess most people were here rather than walking aimlessly around Spinningfields looking for wigwams.

I caught a couple of Chef demo's and sampled a bit of food (overpriced really), but thank god for the real ale tent (with the likes of the Marble Beer house) which, with the real fire going inside took you away from the corporate surrounds outside and sent you back in time to some Mongolian hunting party...albeit with PDA's and Apple Macbooks squirting their electro-magnons into the environment.