I’ve long been a fan of all things 1950s from rock and roll music to swingy skirts to drinks with cocktail cherries, and I’m currently glued to BBC 2’s The Hour, so naturally I was delighted to be given a couple of tickets to a late event at the Museum of London paying tribute to the 'fabulous fifties' last week.

The Museum of London is one of my favourite London museums and not only because it’s literally a stone’s throw from where I currently live. The permanent galleries tell a fascinating story of London’s history from the first people to dwell in settlements along the Thames up until the present day, and there are some great temporary exhibitions too: currently there’s an engrossing exhibition of London Street Photography from 1860 to the present day as well as a fun display of hand-drawn maps of the city in the foyer. Downstairs in the cafe, you'll also find an installation by the Light Surgeons, which is to be the first in a series of media art commissions at the museum.

I’ve been to plenty events at the museum before but this was the first event in their Late series that I’d seen, transforming the entire museum for the evening after the usual closing time. On offer was music from Laura B and the Moonlighters and The Broken Hearts DJs, vintage pin-up makeovers, talks on fifties fashion and popular culture from the museum's curators, dance classes with The London Swing Dance Society, craft workshops from  Tatty Devine, and of course, fifties-style food and drink.

Perhaps unsurprisingly given the current fashion for all things vintage and nostalgic, this was a hugely popular event: the Tatty Devine workshop was so busy that sadly I didn't get chance to join in, but I was lucky enough to get my hair styled by one of the stylists from the Vanity Box, who provided a pop-up vintage salon creating 1950s hair and make-up looks. And as well as tapping my toe to a few fifties tunes, and sampling some chips in a cone, I also snapped a few shots of some of the amazing dancers twisting, strolling and hand-jiving the evening away - for once I managed to remember a camera! It was a great evening for people watching, with some amazing outfits and retro frocks on display, but what's more, it was interesting to see the museum transformed into such a buzzing and lively space for a fun evening event - this was certainly a clever strategy for drawing in new audiences, as well as to approach learning about the history of the 20th century in a different way.

This event was part of a month-long programme across the city to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Festival of Britain: find out about more events at Story of London.  For anyone who like me, enjoys 1950s music, you might also be interested in this fifties inspired blog written for the event by The Broken Hearts DJs featuring some of their favourite tunes from the decade.

The winners of this year’s Best of Manchester Awards were announced last night at a special award ceremony at Urbis. As has become usual of late, I was watching via twitter, but I was still very pleased to hear that the excellent Owl Project had been announced as winner of the Art category. The collective made up of artists Simon Blackmore, Anthony Hall and Steve Symons cite their influences as woodwork, hobby-style electronics and open source software: their semi-sculptural musical instruments have been exhibited across Europe as well as at events such as the Sonic Arts Network EXPO, Lovebytes and Futuresonic.

However, there’s no doubt that it must been a very difficult decision for the judges (a panel of industry experts that included Peter Saville, Wayne Hemingway, Jeremy Deller, Tim Marlow and Miranda Sawyer) to make since the others on the shortlist – artist Rachel Goodyear and collective Contents May Vary – were also very deserving of this accolade.

Congratulations also go to Holly Russell, winner of the Fashion category, and Max Moran and Jayne Compton who were joint winners of the Music award. You can see work by the winners, as well as the others on the shortlist, in a special Best of Manchester exhibition at Urbis, opening today and running until 20 September.

The BOMAs got me thinking about all the other ‘best of Manchester’ things that I’ve been missing since heading Down South: people, places, and even, yes, things to eat. Just this week my extremely kind and considerate father sent me a text message to tell me he was tucking into a butter pie with peas and gravy, just as I was sitting at my desk toying with a rather uninspiring couscous salad. Now, I’m pretty sure that butter pie is something that just doesn’t exist here in London - there’s also a very disturbing shortage of gravy and peas. Butter pie would definitely appear on my personal ‘best of Manchester’ shortlist! (I know several people have already made the excellent suggestion of adding a writer category to the Best of Manchester Awards next year, but what about a food category too...!)

What would you include on your personal ‘best of Manchester’ list?

[Images via urbis and future of sound]

As I’ve been getting to know the City over the past couple of weeks, I've caught sight of something quite unexpected: a number of rather battered second-hand pianos, stenciled with brightly-coloured patterns, scattered serendipitously in the city’s public spaces, popping up everywhere from Liverpool Street Station to St Paul’s. Clearly a hit with everyone from commuters to school children, on my wanderings, I’ve observed all manner of open-air recitals, impromptu sing-a-longs, the odd rendition of chopsticks, and even a little extra piano practice.

These ‘street pianos’ are part of Play Me, I’m Yours a simple but brilliantly entertaining participatory work by artist Luke Jerram, which has been touring internationally since 2008, and has already visited Sydney, Sao Paolo and erm... Bury St Edmunds. Here in London, the artist has worked in partnership with Sing London and the City of London Festival, to install 30 second-hand pianos across the city on streets, in parks, public spaces, train stations and markets, for members of the public to play and enjoy. The aim of the project is to provide the stimulus to bring communities together, and to shake up the same old day-to-day routines of those who live and work in the city: for Jerram, Play Me, I’m Yours is “a catalyst for strangers who regularly occupy the same space to talk and connect with each other.” What’s more, the work provides an opportunity to engage with and activate the spaces of the city in a new way, helping city-dwellers to “claim ownership of their urban landscape.” Of course, as I've observed over the last couple of weeks, it's also quite simply a lot of fun.

Sadly, today is the final day you can check out the project in London, but you can read more about the project, watch films of the pianos in action, and find out about future destinations on the website here.

[Photo via Luke Jerram's website]

I haven’t written anything here for a while, largely because I’m in the middle of trying to write an essay about Mrs Dalloway. Right now, I feel like I hate Virginia Woolf a bit, but I know from experience that I will probably forgive her again when I have finished writing the essay. That’s just how it goes. The essay isn’t actually due until 19 January (which, coincidentally, is also my birthday) but I have been trying to get as much written as possible before I go back to work tomorrow.

It’s now 2009. Today it’s very cold, and as I am writing this it is snowing a tiny, tiny bit. It’s a grey and dark day.

2008 has ended, and I don’t really know what I think about the last year. It was a funny one I think. It had a lot of good bits, but overall I feel it was a tough year, a year of hard work and graft. If I was going to represent it symbolically, it would be one of those big cart-horses, or possibly some sort of barefoot Victorian orphan getting sent down the mines or up chimneys. I hope that this year will be different, with less hard graft and more fun. I would like to feel a lot more healthy, have more energy, and spend more time sleeping. I am tempted to say I would like this year to be like a happy sloth, but I think it might be better to opt for something with a bit more vitality and ‘oomph’, like a poodle, or an iguana, or perhaps an anteater.

I haven’t actually made any new years resolutions, but if I was going to make any they would be along the lines of “eat more cake” (which I'm sure I saw suggested on a blog somewhere -can't remember where though) or “more playing” (see Chris Cleave’s 'Down with the Kids' column in yesterday’s Guardian).

Here's a few highlights from 2008:

Books: as always, too many to list, but off the top of my head, The End of Mr Y by Scarlett Thomas, Perdido Street Station by China Mieville, The Lonely Londoners by Sam Selvon and pretty much anything by Haruki Murakami and Barbara Pym.

Exhibitions: many, many, many, but some that spring to mind are Peter Doig at Tate Britain, Pipilotti Rist at FACT, Made Up at Tate Liverpool especially the Drawing Room, The Intertwining Line at Cornerhouse, Made Up at The Bluecoat, and...erm... From Toad Hall to Pooh Corner at Seven Stories.

Watching: Juno, The Dark Knight, The Cat Returns, Little Dorrit, The Wire, Quatermass and the Pit

Listening to: CSS, Kraftwerk, Bat for Lashes, Stereolab, The Long Blondes, Squarepusher's 'Just a Souvenir' album, old Kate Bush records, Birdsong Radio and of course the Ting Tings.

Events: again, far too many to list, but I must mention the very fine no point in not being friends, as well as of course, the Manchester Blog Awards at MLF.

Thing I missed but wish that I had not: the La Machine Spider in Liverpool.

Some other things I have appreciated and enjoyed this year include: blankets (especially my electric blanket); pyjamas; dark chocolate; rare moments of sunshine; the outside bit at The Bluecoat in Liverpool; my leopard print earrings; trains; cinnamon tea; the colour moss green; porridge for breakfast; ginger beer; knitting; long cardigans; Spritz Aperol; baths; vietnamese food; exploring London; my mum’s soup; mittens; making lists; chicken dinner with my favourite red cabbage; really nice pens; parks; naps.

Congratulations to the lovely Naomi Kashiwagi who was announced as the winner of the Art category at the Best of Manchester Awards at Urbis last night.

Naomi was awarded the prize for her piece ‘||: Repetition :||, Fugue No.1 in QWERTY for 8 Typewriters’, a music and text score that saw four pianists and four percussionists playing typewriters. Naomi also performs fabulous gramaphone DJ sets and will in fact be performing at the Barbican as part of the Viktor and Rolf exhibition in September. You can see a video of her in gramaphone action here.

The other award winners were Richard Cheetham (music) for High Voltage and Simon Buckley (fashion) for the rather wonderful Rags to Bitches. Work from all the winners and finalists will be on show at a 'Best of Manchester' exhibition at Urbis until the end of September, which I'm sure I'll be checking out sometime soon.

... a quick selection of some of the tunes I've been listening to of late. Check out my retro pink tape player!

I'm quite impressed that I managed this all by myself.

Truly, the internet is a magical thing.

Making this just now reminded me of when I was writing a certain novel which has since been banished to my bottom drawer. At the time, I put together a whole playlist to get me in the right mood, and some of the songs even ended up working their way into the story itself, seeming to just appear, as if by themselves, at critical moments in the narrative. There's something so sad about a lost novel: I've been thinking about it a bit lately and wondering if its worth re-writing and resuscitating. It's hard to know when to have another go and when to just say goodbye.

Actually, I seem to remember that one of the songs on that playlist was 'Return to Oz' by the Scissor Sisters, which I couldn't help including here - it just seems so very appropriate given the title of this blog. Though you may be glad to hear that I did manage to refrain from including any Elton John.

NB// There is a pause button on the front of the cassette thing if you're sick of it and want it to shut up.

On Thursday night I went to check out the private view of Broadcast Yourself, the new exhibition at Cornerhouse.

On Friday, I headed over to International 3 for the launch of Artranspennine08, an exhibition taking place across various locations across the transpennine route over the next two months, which will include work by a number of my pals.

Afterwards, I went along to the preview of the MMU Degree Show, where I picked up all these lovely postcards. My favourite piece in this year’s show was by Amy Davies, a student on the Interactive Arts degree programme: a whimsical and beautiful installation made up of hundreds of images cut from old Ladybird books that appeared to be growing across the gallery wall. However, I have to admit that it’s always the sketchbooks that I like best. Looking at them makes me wish I had chosen to study art or design - actually, I haven't even got a GCSE in art. I think I decided not to study it because I felt I wasn't good enough: teachers were always telling me that my work was ‘too messy’ and I knew I couldn’t draw ‘properly’ (i.e. draw things that looked ‘real’) so I felt it wasn’t for me. I didn’t realise that being messy and making work that didn’t look exactly the same as everyone else’s could actually be a good thing. But now, I look at all those sketchbooks and I feel quite envious - I want to make a sketchbook too!

this week I have also been...

reading: mainly The Night Watch by Sarah Waters. Whilst I didn’t enjoy it as much as some of her other novels, I was impressed by the back-in-time structure of the book. At first I didn’t find the characters especially engaging, but by the end, I was completely engrossed and I found myself wanting to go straight back to the beginning to see how it all fitted together. For me, wanting to start all over again the moment you’ve finished is always the mark of a good read.

I have also been browsing a newly-discovered blog, hulaseventy (full of lovely photographs) and the latest issue of the mighty fine Blanket magazine.

listening to: CSS and the Juno soundtrack whilst sitting on the bus and gazing out of the window trying to spot the unexpected secret things that no one else is noticing: hidden fragments of graffiti; a bird swaying on a t-v aerial; wild flowers growing on a building site; an abandoned bicycle with no wheels (one of the saddest sights of the city); and, predictably enough, any passers-by with particularly cool shoes.

eating: homemade burgers and sweet potato wedges; pineapple and mango for breakfast; my favourite vegan pizza at Cornerhouse; udon noodles with king prawn, ginger and spring onions; and erm... jammie dodgers.

and most importantly of all, sleeping: as much as is humanly possible.