"Gaskell’s first novel, the tale of a working-class girl in Manchester during the Industrial Revolution, probably isn’t her best, but I’ve not yet got through it without tears. It’s so alive with indignation, sympathy, and compassion."

"I struggled with whether or not to include this one, as I’m a Gooner (that means Arsenal fan, by the way), but the fact is that Sir Alex grew Manchester United into one of the best known brands today, and that’s what fascinates me about him."

"I actually saw Earth, Wind And Fire play. I went to a Santana gig in Manchester in 1975 and they were the support band. My God! They blew Santana – and me – away! They came on with flame-throwers and nearly singed our eyebrows off, you know? The music came with all kinds of layers and rogue elements like that Brazilian aspect in the chords. It's a really varied album and there's not much here in what you would call traditional black music. There are certain things here that crossed over, in the way that Stevie Wonder crossed over. The commercial radio station in Manchester was Piccadilly Radio and the Earth, Wind And Fire was always on Piccadilly Radio."

"When I set foot in Piccadilly Records in Oldham Street [Manchester], I know I’m coming out 40 quid lighter. I dropped in to see those guys the other day. Thee Oh Sees are new to me. It’s edgy, full-on guitar; garage punk. But it’s got a psychedelic edge, which makes it a bit proggy."

"I was the perfect age for the whole Manchester thing – 13-15 during those years when it was really big, when it peaked with the Inspirals, Happy Mondays and The Stone Roses. Me and Danny [Goffey, Supergrass drummer] met at school, he was two years above me, which was a bit weird ’cos you don’t really tend to cross over years in school. I think he found out I was into music and played a bit of guitar and he’d got a drumkit for Christmas. I was into music and art, not like the village boys who were into starting fights and stuff. I remember going up to Manchester on a bus with Danny to the G-Mex to watch Happy Mondays with the Inspirals supporting, which was amazing."

"If you're listening to prog like Gong then you're going to bump into Magma. They make their own language on their records, so we made our own words for Magma albums. A number of Magma albums would pop up in various friends' record collection, and each one was quite different. On Üdü Wüdü there's an 18-minute track called 'De Futura', which is like a suite and it moves to different tempos and it's got all these cross rhythms in it; it's an overwhelmingly transcendent record. There was a rock disco that we used to go to in Manchester in the 70s and you could take your own records and we used to take this record. You'd see these rock fans freaking out to it. It was a curious time in Manchester because you had the punk thing, but all these other oddball things like Magma and Earth, Wind And Fire were standing beside each other. It wasn't as tribal as it's been made it out to be. You'd go up to a free festival in Rochdale that was called the Deeply Vale festival and all these subcultures would be represented there, because all of the sub-cultures would be big enough to stand on their own two feet. But at this disco in Manchester, you'd hear Bowie and Roxy Music, and Magma, probably some Genesis and some Sex Pistols."