Dot and Mars: You can't stop us, cause we like doing it

Schroeder has spent the last hour or so making conversation with and old guy who ends up offering him enough tobacco to fill up his near empty packet... 'I know how it is to be hard up' he says to Schroeder, before going back inside to finish his game of pool. Columbo, Shroeder and i all look at each other in bewilderment as we feel like we've entered an alternate universe... a place where people talk to you, or offer to buy you a beer without the alterior motive of trying to sleep with you. What is this world we've stumbled upon?

It's our local pub, that's what. 'Anyway' says Schroeder... 'Who says we're hard up! Has he seen our flat? Has he seen the way we party?' Schroeder motions the way we party. Hmmm... guess that's the reason we're hard up. We're drinking in this pub on a Thursday night, which looks like a glorified toilet but a pint is £1.70 (as opposed to your usual £3.20) and we've met more characters in the last hour that the three of us have met in the last year.

I feel like i've stepped back into a bit of a time warp. Have i found the 'real' Manchester? A place where an accent is so thick you can barely understand it... where faces are haggard and hands are rough after a real days work. Where the people are gruff, money is tight, but the kindness is genuine. It really is a place where every one knows your name.