THING OF THE WEEK
PYRAMID SCHEME… So the Stockport office market has potentially reached its peak with the sale of The Pyramid, as revealed by Place this week. Eamar Developments, headed up by a Saudi investor, has taken on the building, which was up for a guide price of around £4.5m, although it’ll cost a fair few quid to do up, with a total bill expected to approach £10m if the building is to get a full makeover. When looking at the building it’s always important to remember the project that never was: the proposed Kings Valley – not the Valley of the Kings – would have seen five pyramids built, but the developer went bust before this could be realised. Whatever happens to the sole remaining pyramid next, let’s hope the new buyer isn’t a dodgy Giza.
SWAG… Never a company to miss an eco-friendly trick, Civic Engineers has come up with the goods again with the latest branded bumph to land on THING’s desk. Not just a pencil, once it’s been used down to a stump you can plant it and grow a sunflower, an idiot-proof project that hopefully even the less-than-green-fingered THING team would struggle not to manage.
HIGH WIRE… If you’re free this weekend and fancy a bit of dare-devilry, high wire performer Chris Bullzini will be at MediaCityUK as part of the 2019 Quays Culture Summer Festival. Chris will be walking across a high wire 200 metres up in the air, running from the Alchemist across the Docks, at 5:30pm on Sunday. The festival is going on all weekend and also features Arboria, a luminarium – that’s an art installation to the rest of us – made up of three domes. As well as the high wire artistry, there’ll also be circus workshops taking place on the Sunday, although the literature promises you can “learn the secrets of circus performers”. THING was always under the impression that magicians shouldn’t give away their tricks, but in this era of fake news, maybe being a bit more open and honest is the way to go?
MANY HAPPY RETURNS… Happy 40th birthday to Manchester Arndale, the 210-store shopping mall in the city centre with a 21-storey tower which everyone loves to hate. A major feature on the city’s skyline since the 1970s, the centre has seen a raft of changes including a major rebuild after the 1996 IRA bomb. In honour of the occasion, Manchester poet Mike Garry was commissioned to write a poem celebrating “the miles of tiles”, and the many popular, but long-gone shops in the city centre. Read Garry’s ode to the Arndale below…
