Simon Hooton @simonhootonmcr.bsky.social · 02/09/2026open.spotify.com/track/0xVU3b...open.spotify.comFrench NavyCamera Obscura · My Maudlin Career · Song · 2009 110
Simon Hooton @simonhootonmcr.bsky.social · 02/09/2026open.spotify.com/track/3A0cAz...open.spotify.comThe Divine ChordThe Avalanches, MGMT, Johnny Marr · We Will Always Love You · Song · 2020 010
Simon Hooton @simonhootonmcr.bsky.social · 02/09/2026open.spotify.com/track/3GfOAd...open.spotify.comSong 2Blur · Blur: The Best Of · Song · 2000 030
Simon Hooton @simonhootonmcr.bsky.social · 26/08/2026Where would you put Jessie Buckley?https://open.spotify.com/track/7GRDNomSjhnM5ghxy1YAFP?si=13efedcfab954800open.spotify.comSeven Red Rose TattoosJessie Buckley, Bernard Butler · For All Our Days That Tear The Heart · Song · 2022 000
Simon Hooton @simonhootonmcr.bsky.social · 12/08/2026Can't see any data on this, but is it possible there are more police officers in prison for serious offences against members of the public, than there are members of the public in prison who've committed serious offences against police officers? 150
Simon Hooton @simonhootonmcr.bsky.social · 21/07/2026Would need to check data but my first house in Chorlton went up 4x in value from 2000 to 2006. My second house up 3x in value from 2006 to 2026. Its silly money. Not sure how a civil servant's pay would afford it today unless bringing big equity from Ldn. 010
Simon Hooton @simonhootonmcr.bsky.social · 21/07/2026I think the big price spike in Chorlton happened before 2010 & was given a boost by the tram commuters working city centre. There already 8,000 civil servants based in Manchester. Im very happy for house prices to go up in Chorlton, but am banking on the tower-living youngsters wanting a garden. 100
Simon Hooton @simonhootonmcr.bsky.social · 29/06/2026Should Oasis have sung about Mr Stringer instead of Mr Sifter? 000
Simon Hooton @simonhootonmcr.bsky.social · 06/04/2026We are visiting Woodbridge over Easter and this story has divided the family BBC News - Woodbridge woman to fight over windows after 'drunk man falls into lounge' - BBC News www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...bbc.co.uk 000
Simon Hooton @simonhootonmcr.bsky.social · 30/11/2025My daughter studied there for a year 22/3 - it was brilliant for her (and me!). 120
Simon Hooton @simonhootonmcr.bsky.social · 06/11/2025Mark Hughes the footballer?? ... not the other one?? 100
Simon Hooton @simonhootonmcr.bsky.social · 06/11/2025Simplest solution (which I suspect most locals adopt) is to just see Media City as part of the city that we know (and love) as Manchester. I regularly cycle and walk there .... crossing 3 local authority boundaries to do so (!!) 100
Simon Hooton @simonhootonmcr.bsky.social · 06/11/2025Would the impact have been greater if BBC had relocated to City Centre? Would London based BBC staff have been more enthusiastic? Easy to say now, but the relocation of ITV to Salford Quays suggests a city centre MEZ wasn't that strong an idea? And First St now looks well used too. 200
Simon Hooton @simonhootonmcr.bsky.social · 26/09/2025Isn't the sustainable long term case based on reducing fraud whether it be consumer, finance, voting or access to public services. Everyone can get behind those arguments can't they? 110
Simon Hooton @simonhootonmcr.bsky.social · 12/09/2025Damn. I've been telling people for years that I once worked with David Baddiel when he was doing urban research in Manchester. 120
Simon Hooton @simonhootonmcr.bsky.social · 31/05/2025London's challenges are surely more about distribution. Doesn't it need targeted intervention to help deprived people access the infrastructure that's there? While the North still needs the actual infrastructure? 000
Simon Hooton @simonhootonmcr.bsky.social · 31/05/2025Is your BAU that the UK risks stopping growing without public investment in London? Or that London will grow less fast? It's easier to say the North won't grow without infrastructure investment to get people closer to jobs. 000
Simon Hooton @simonhootonmcr.bsky.social · 31/05/2025Also need to consider impact area... are we looking at impact on London or the North or on UK as a whole? It makes a big difference! 200
Simon Hooton @simonhootonmcr.bsky.social · 31/05/2025I agree, we don't want and can't afford as a country for London to not grow. But would investing in other regions make that more likely? The Green Book allows this to be considered in the reference case.... or BAU 100
Simon Hooton @simonhootonmcr.bsky.social · 04/05/2025Milagros or Mariposa, with Corazon as a possible if it were a girl. Spike or Ivan for a boy. Completely vetoed by wife and subsequently born kids are pleased I lost. Corazon was a No on grounds we were living in Manchester and it would become Corrie. 020
Simon Hooton @simonhootonmcr.bsky.social · 01/05/2025And of all the options in Cheshire, Frodsham wouldnt be the obvious place to go for a punch up after the pub. 120
Simon Hooton @simonhootonmcr.bsky.social · 01/05/2025And then there's Chester which is the centre of gravity for rural folk and the north Welsh 000
Simon Hooton @simonhootonmcr.bsky.social · 01/05/2025Winsford is an untypical island in mid Cheshire on account of Liverpool overspill housing development in the late 60s. My impressions are that the east (Knutsford, Macc, Wilmslow) looks to Mcr and the NW (EP) to Liverpool, the South (Crewe) to Stoke and the North (Warrington) to Lancashire. 110
Simon Hooton @simonhootonmcr.bsky.social · 01/05/2025I grew up in Winsford, right in the middle in the 80s. Town made up of scousers and woolly backs. I think allegiances split evenly four ways between Liverpool, Everton, City & Utd with a small number of Crewe Alex and Port Vale fans. 221
Simon Hooton @simonhootonmcr.bsky.social · 26/04/2025National Portrait Gallery is excellent npg.si.edu 010
Simon Hooton @simonhootonmcr.bsky.social · 17/01/2025The real juice is looking behind headlines at the net figs (remove displacement and deadweight) and to look at area of impact (then remove double counting / unattributable impacts). 000
Simon Hooton @simonhootonmcr.bsky.social · 17/01/2025If you were to look closely at any projected impacts there will be a methodology and assumptions which probs have some rational basis even if they are 'ambitious'. 100
Simon Hooton @simonhootonmcr.bsky.social · 24/12/2024How many MPs elected to Labour in 2024 will be sitting without the Whip over a matter of principle/voluntarily? And how many without it now will have had the Whip restored? 010
Simon Hooton @simonhootonmcr.bsky.social · 21/12/2024School Dinners were served up by Dinner Ladies at lunchtime. And then for dinner we'd have our Tea. 000
Simon Hooton @simonhootonmcr.bsky.social · 18/12/2024I went to Nepal earlier this year. Can confirm the Earth is not flat. 000
Simon Hooton @simonhootonmcr.bsky.social · 08/12/2024Did something happen today or is this normal? 020
Simon Hooton @simonhootonmcr.bsky.social · 07/12/2024Loved @nitinsawhney.bsky.social and Halle this week. First set of the big faves and then an incredibly evocative immersive musical retelling of your heart attack which felt like it brought up memories and fears for everyone present. So impressive. 0142
Simon Hooton @simonhootonmcr.bsky.social · 20/11/2024We went on a lot of crappy school trips but the best day ever was the one we wangled during the school exchange to go down there. We weretaken around underground in a minibus to a see what the town was built on. I'd gladly pay to go again. 010
Simon Hooton @simonhootonmcr.bsky.social · 20/11/2024I grew up in Winsford and the mines were our one bit of shared identity (in your face Northwich) .. . but by the 1970s very few people worked in salt ... no one I knew at school had a miner Dad and there was no pit jobs waiting. 110
Simon Hooton @simonhootonmcr.bsky.social · 19/11/2024Imagine the furore if they had tried to introduce a wider wealth tax? 000
