1. It, obviously, has the best bands. Sorry Glasgow and wherever else bands come from.
2. Even if sometimes other cities’ bands are better, Manchester’s are harder. Imagine if Blur vs Oasis had been an actual fight.
3. Even when Manchester’s bands are not hard, like The Smiths, they are definitively, groundbreakingly not hard. Coldplay dream of being as not hard as The Smiths.
4. It rains all the time, meaning you can’t go out, meaning there’s nothing to do but stay in and get caned and mess around playing music, which eventually leads to the formation of the best bands that play the best music as in point 1.
5. On days it doesn’t rain, the city holds what amounts to a spontaneous all-day carnival of outdoor drinking, dining and public semi-nudity.
6. The city’s Asian population is so deeply assimilated in Northern culture that to hear one ordering a chip barm is a thing of transcendent beauty. Though do not say so, or you will be called a Southern twat.
7. What’s wrong with rain, anyway? Afraid of a bit of rain, are you? Worried it’ll ruin your hairdo?
8. You can still have a flat in the city centre without being an overseas investor, an arse working in finance, an arse git working in the media, or just an arse.
9. London is mainly posh bits held together by rough bits pretending they’ll be posh soon. Manchester has about four posh bits and everyone laughs at them.
10. Trams are better because you can see out of the windows. It’s not complicated.
11. Manchester manages to keep up vicious and bitter rivalries with both Liverpool and Leeds while maintaining a healthy level of contempt for London.
12. Get out there, it’s not even raining that hard. Put your hood up. Stop being soft.
