For those of you who may be wondering what, football posts aside, I've been working on in recent weeks:

- My first unsigned bands piece was in the December/January edition of Manchester Chimp magazine. You might still be able to find copies in the shops; if not, it's available online from their website. The next issue is due out soon, with the featured bands including biederbeck, The Gentrymen, and G R E A T W A V E S.

- The first post charting my year in reading is up over at Onward, Manchester, featuring Moneyball by Michael Lewis, Misery by Stephen King, and Everything's Fine by Socrates Adams.

- On the same blog, my coverage of X-Men Regenesis is in progress (part 1) (part 2). It's moving at something of a glacial pace, but that's okay; whilst I'm happy to recommend comicbooks to people, I couldn't in good faith recommend that they buy single issues. Hell, the only reason I don't wait for the trades is that I'm a holdover from before the collected edition took hold, programmed to turn up at a shop each Thursday and peruse what's on offer.

- I'm preparing something that could loosely be described as "proper journalism" about Manchester's Metrolink service and its place in the city, primarily as a reaction to MP Graham Stringer's assertion that the network is "damaging the city's reputation and economy."

- I also started work on a novel in January, with the vague aim of getting much of it written within the year. A resolution of sorts, if you will, or at least an attempt to spur myself to write more fiction, which so far has proven somewhat successful.