The Mancunian way
The boyish smiling face of Wayne Rooney greets you at Terminal 3 of Manchester International Airport. He and his Red Devils colleagues may to many be what Manchester is all about. Ray Bugeja found there is a lot more to admire along the Mancunian way.
"Congratulations" said a gold-plated plaque on the door of my room at the Arora Hotel, right in the heart of Manchester. Being very late in the day, I was too tired to think straight and at first I thought it was some kind of a joke. See, I am a Milan AC fan which beat Man United in the Champions League earlier this year.
As I inserted the electronic card in the lock to open the door I also noticed there was an image of a guitar beneath the plaque. Hanging on the four walls of the room were pictures of Cliff Richard, the Peter Pan of British pop music. On top of the lamp-shade on a side table hung a framed golden record: Cliff Richard's Congratulations! To me it seemed like the real thing. As I went into bed I kept thinking about all this but I was soon fast asleep.
After a good night's sleep and a hearty English breakfast, the group of journalists I formed part of on a trip to Manchester as guests of GB Airways, Marketing Manchester and Malta International Airport was out in the bright sunshine where Blue Badge guide Deirdre Burns informed us that the Arora Hotel is partly owned by Sir Cliff. Oh!
I later learned from the Manchester TimeOut Shortlist that four rooms feature artworks and objects from the singer's personal collection.
It was one of the many surprises I had in Manchester. When I had casually mentioned the fact that I was invited to visit Manchester, a colleague who spent a very long time living in the UK asked me what exactly did I expect to see there. On my return I made it a point to look him up. "How wrong you are," I told him.
It may not be a city one would want to spend more than a week in, but it is definitely neither dull nor dead.
One can shop until one drops with the added advantage that the tempo is not as fast as in big cities, say London, and thus shopping can be done at one's leisure. There is a huge shopping arcade - the Trafford Centre - very close to the Old Trafford stadium, a very good arrangement for couples where she loves the shopping and he football...or the other way about.
Museums, art galleries and theatres have a lot to offer and eating out is no problem. The Chaopraya Thai restaurant has super dishes and one can be taken there by Tuk Tuk, a motorised rickshaw! At the Gaucho Bar and Grill you can not only enjoy splendid food and wine but also an exciting environment. The famous Cornerhouse rightly boats of being a centre of art, film, books, food and drink. All at one go.
And to think that the city's regeneration was sparked off by a tragedy: A powerful bomb planted by the Irish Republican Army (IRA) on June 15, 1996. The staging of the Commonwealth Games in 2002 further helped to modernise the place, about three hours and 30 minutes flying time from Malta.
The bomb was planted right outside what was then a moribund Marks & Spencer outlet in the heart of the commercial centre. Just feet away was a red pillar; for some reason it remained standing and still does, a tangible symbol of the city's resilience. Nobody died but many were injured.
Some distance away, sound engineers were locked inside the new Bridgewater Hall doing the finishing touches to the £42 million concert hall. So efficient is the vibration system installed in the modern-looking building that they remained unaware of the huge blast until they walked outside and found a deserted city and a multitude of police officers who wondered what these people were doing there since the whole area had been evacuated hours earlier.
Stanley Houghton's Hindle Wakes was running at the Royal Exchange theatre when the bomb went off a couple of hundred yards away. The place was badly damaged and the venue had to be rebuilt, during which audiences watched their favourite plays in a makeshift tent. The theatre reopened in 1998 with Hindle Wakes.
It was not the first time the Royal Exchange made a comeback. Indeed, it had started in 1729 as a commercial exchange, becoming the world's biggest commercial trading floor in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. As the cotton market faded, business stopped on New Year's Eve of 1968, even if the cotton prices prevalent then are still posted on its walls till this very day. A group of theatre producers came up with the idea of having a theatre within the Victorian shell and Sir Laurence Olivier opened the £1.2 million theatre-in-the-round in 1976.
The cotton industry used to be Manchester's mainstay. It was eventually overcome by India and Pakistan and, later, by China. It had no option but to diversify and this started in the 1980s. The cotton industry had necessitated scientific and technological developments and this served to chart the future of the city.
A number of firsts can be attributed to Manchester and none have anything to do with Man United. Richard Artwright had built his first cotton mill, launching the Industrial Revolution. Friedrich Engels, who benefited from his family's cotton wealth, had been a number of times to the area in order to see for himself the appalling conditions the people lived in. This had inspired his Conditions Of The Working Classes in England, which he wrote in 1844.
James Sadler made the city's first balloon ascent in 1785 and the Football League was officially set up in April 1888 in what was then the Royal Hotel, now a building hosting Abbey Bank.
John Dalton, who contributed to the principles of modern atomic theory, had his laboratory there and two gentlemen - Mr Rolls and Mr Royce - had met in a hotel in Manchester, an encounter that eventually led to the birth of one of the most famous and prestigious brands in automobile history.
Closer to our times, it was in Manchester that Bob Dylan was heckled and called "Judas" after going electric in 1966 and the Sex Pistols had presented two "momentous" gigs in 1976.
The city also hosted the Hacienda, in its heydays perhaps the most famous club in the world and now a block of flats. It was opened in 1982 and it was there that Madonna gave her first performance in the UK.
The Hacienda is situated in the Castlefield and Deansgate locks area, with its listed real estate that formed such a crucial role in the city's emergence as a railway and canal capital. Archways that supported the railways in the past and warehouses which retailed all sorts of merchandise, have been superbly turned into upmarket units thanks to the entrepreneurship of a forward-looking man.
Blue Badge guide Ray Hoerty recounted how this entrepreneur, perhaps bored stiff having become already quite wealthy at the age of 40, wanted to do something else. He visited the area close to the canals and thought of regenerating it. Off he went to the local council to sell them the idea but they soon showed him the door, deeming him insane, given that the area was a den of criminals, junkies, pimps and prostitutes. In that case, I'll buy the place and do the job myself, the entrepreneur offered. And he got it, the whole lot, for £25,000. Not a bad price considering that today an apartment would not go for anything less than £150,000!
There too lie the remains of Roman Manchester. Alas, very little indeed can still be found of the four Roman forts built in the first and fifth centuries, most of them having been destroyed during the Industrial Revolution.
It was in AD 79 that Julius Agricola built a wooden fort there and established the Mancunium community. The Mancunian way was thus opened.
The Manchester route
Flights from Malta to Manchester by GB Airways, British Airways franchise partner, which had been suspended for the winter season, will be operated all year round, with three services a week, from October 28.
Flights will operate on Monday, Thursday and Sunday, departing from Malta at 12.40 p.m.
The daily service to London Gatwick will continue throughout the winter too.
Alan McIntyre, commercial director of GB Airways, said: "Our new winter schedule is ideal for those taking a weekend break from Malta. Customers can watch a live Premiership football match in Manchester or Liverpool (a short train journey away) or take advantage of the diversity of shops in the city, which suit all tastes and budgets.
"The introduction of these flights is a direct response to our customers' requests and we expect them to be very popular. Passenger figures from Malta to Manchester have more than tripled from 2006/7 to 2007/8 and load factors have increased from 66 per cent to 85 per cent over this period."
Return fares start at Lm14/€32 to London Gatwick and Manchester excluding taxes or charges.
• For more information visit www.ba.com or call 2166 7376.
As I inserted the electronic card in the lock to open the door I also noticed there was an image of a guitar beneath the plaque. Hanging on the four walls of the room were pictures of Cliff Richard, the Peter Pan of British pop music. On top of the lamp-shade on a side table hung a framed golden record: Cliff Richard's Congratulations! To me it seemed like the real thing. As I went into bed I kept thinking about all this but I was soon fast asleep.
After a good night's sleep and a hearty English breakfast, the group of journalists I formed part of on a trip to Manchester as guests of GB Airways, Marketing Manchester and Malta International Airport was out in the bright sunshine where Blue Badge guide Deirdre Burns informed us that the Arora Hotel is partly owned by Sir Cliff. Oh!
I later learned from the Manchester TimeOut Shortlist that four rooms feature artworks and objects from the singer's personal collection.
It was one of the many surprises I had in Manchester. When I had casually mentioned the fact that I was invited to visit Manchester, a colleague who spent a very long time living in the UK asked me what exactly did I expect to see there. On my return I made it a point to look him up. "How wrong you are," I told him.
It may not be a city one would want to spend more than a week in, but it is definitely neither dull nor dead.
One can shop until one drops with the added advantage that the tempo is not as fast as in big cities, say London, and thus shopping can be done at one's leisure. There is a huge shopping arcade - the Trafford Centre - very close to the Old Trafford stadium, a very good arrangement for couples where she loves the shopping and he football...or the other way about.
Museums, art galleries and theatres have a lot to offer and eating out is no problem. The Chaopraya Thai restaurant has super dishes and one can be taken there by Tuk Tuk, a motorised rickshaw! At the Gaucho Bar and Grill you can not only enjoy splendid food and wine but also an exciting environment. The famous Cornerhouse rightly boats of being a centre of art, film, books, food and drink. All at one go.
And to think that the city's regeneration was sparked off by a tragedy: A powerful bomb planted by the Irish Republican Army (IRA) on June 15, 1996. The staging of the Commonwealth Games in 2002 further helped to modernise the place, about three hours and 30 minutes flying time from Malta.
The bomb was planted right outside what was then a moribund Marks & Spencer outlet in the heart of the commercial centre. Just feet away was a red pillar; for some reason it remained standing and still does, a tangible symbol of the city's resilience. Nobody died but many were injured.
Some distance away, sound engineers were locked inside the new Bridgewater Hall doing the finishing touches to the £42 million concert hall. So efficient is the vibration system installed in the modern-looking building that they remained unaware of the huge blast until they walked outside and found a deserted city and a multitude of police officers who wondered what these people were doing there since the whole area had been evacuated hours earlier.
Stanley Houghton's Hindle Wakes was running at the Royal Exchange theatre when the bomb went off a couple of hundred yards away. The place was badly damaged and the venue had to be rebuilt, during which audiences watched their favourite plays in a makeshift tent. The theatre reopened in 1998 with Hindle Wakes.
It was not the first time the Royal Exchange made a comeback. Indeed, it had started in 1729 as a commercial exchange, becoming the world's biggest commercial trading floor in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. As the cotton market faded, business stopped on New Year's Eve of 1968, even if the cotton prices prevalent then are still posted on its walls till this very day. A group of theatre producers came up with the idea of having a theatre within the Victorian shell and Sir Laurence Olivier opened the £1.2 million theatre-in-the-round in 1976.
The cotton industry used to be Manchester's mainstay. It was eventually overcome by India and Pakistan and, later, by China. It had no option but to diversify and this started in the 1980s. The cotton industry had necessitated scientific and technological developments and this served to chart the future of the city.
A number of firsts can be attributed to Manchester and none have anything to do with Man United. Richard Artwright had built his first cotton mill, launching the Industrial Revolution. Friedrich Engels, who benefited from his family's cotton wealth, had been a number of times to the area in order to see for himself the appalling conditions the people lived in. This had inspired his Conditions Of The Working Classes in England, which he wrote in 1844.
James Sadler made the city's first balloon ascent in 1785 and the Football League was officially set up in April 1888 in what was then the Royal Hotel, now a building hosting Abbey Bank.
John Dalton, who contributed to the principles of modern atomic theory, had his laboratory there and two gentlemen - Mr Rolls and Mr Royce - had met in a hotel in Manchester, an encounter that eventually led to the birth of one of the most famous and prestigious brands in automobile history.
Closer to our times, it was in Manchester that Bob Dylan was heckled and called "Judas" after going electric in 1966 and the Sex Pistols had presented two "momentous" gigs in 1976.
The city also hosted the Hacienda, in its heydays perhaps the most famous club in the world and now a block of flats. It was opened in 1982 and it was there that Madonna gave her first performance in the UK.
The Hacienda is situated in the Castlefield and Deansgate locks area, with its listed real estate that formed such a crucial role in the city's emergence as a railway and canal capital. Archways that supported the railways in the past and warehouses which retailed all sorts of merchandise, have been superbly turned into upmarket units thanks to the entrepreneurship of a forward-looking man.
Blue Badge guide Ray Hoerty recounted how this entrepreneur, perhaps bored stiff having become already quite wealthy at the age of 40, wanted to do something else. He visited the area close to the canals and thought of regenerating it. Off he went to the local council to sell them the idea but they soon showed him the door, deeming him insane, given that the area was a den of criminals, junkies, pimps and prostitutes. In that case, I'll buy the place and do the job myself, the entrepreneur offered. And he got it, the whole lot, for £25,000. Not a bad price considering that today an apartment would not go for anything less than £150,000!
There too lie the remains of Roman Manchester. Alas, very little indeed can still be found of the four Roman forts built in the first and fifth centuries, most of them having been destroyed during the Industrial Revolution.
It was in AD 79 that Julius Agricola built a wooden fort there and established the Mancunium community. The Mancunian way was thus opened.
The Manchester route
Flights from Malta to Manchester by GB Airways, British Airways franchise partner, which had been suspended for the winter season, will be operated all year round, with three services a week, from October 28.
Flights will operate on Monday, Thursday and Sunday, departing from Malta at 12.40 p.m.
The daily service to London Gatwick will continue throughout the winter too.
Alan McIntyre, commercial director of GB Airways, said: "Our new winter schedule is ideal for those taking a weekend break from Malta. Customers can watch a live Premiership football match in Manchester or Liverpool (a short train journey away) or take advantage of the diversity of shops in the city, which suit all tastes and budgets.
"The introduction of these flights is a direct response to our customers' requests and we expect them to be very popular. Passenger figures from Malta to Manchester have more than tripled from 2006/7 to 2007/8 and load factors have increased from 66 per cent to 85 per cent over this period."
Return fares start at Lm14/€32 to London Gatwick and Manchester excluding taxes or charges.
• For more information visit www.ba.com or call 2166 7376.