bored in the city? don't be anymore, they are back!

I was pleasantly surprised to recieve an email from old friends and comrades at Bored in the City. Having been silent for some time it's good to have them back.

We first crossed paths many years ago when i was foolishly handed a megaphone at a demo against something or other (i am not being flippant but my memory is playing tricks; I know i was wearing a big pink ball gown and there was a free market... i suspect it was buy nothing day which in retrospect always had a muddled but good hearted message) anyhow i was enticing people with vegan cake when Mr Bored approached with bag of photocopied flyers Urbis would not let him distribute and uttered the immortal greeting 'so, are you a situationist then? I've been looking for you...'

That message then in full:

The Bored in the City Collective will be doing psychogeographical drifts around the streets of Manchester and we invite people to join us to make sense of the city and to creatively imagine what cities of the future could look like. We will be conducting a series of drifts across the city centre doing things like using maps of Cairo and New York to walk around Manchester, using dice to determine where we will go and generally enjoying getting lost in the city!

We will be meeting under the Queen Victoria Statue at Piccadilly Gardens at 11am on 11 Jan, 24 Jan, 8 Feb and 21 Feb in 2009.

Bored in the City and friends will be undertaking a psychogeographical investigation of Manchester in order to understand urban space and to question and challenge the capitalist order of things. It is a further aim to produce some writings of the investigations conducted and those that would like to be involved should contact boredinthecity@hotmail.co.uk.

The Bored in the City Collective are a group of curious people interested in wandering around cities and range from flaneurs, artists, activists, theorists and other people. We're a friendly bunch and we like to meet new people, so do join us :)

There will be further information at www.boredinthecitycollective.blogspot.com

The emoticon is entirely BitCs own and proof I do not edit contributions to this blog. A central revelation of the aforementioned The How Yellow is Manchester tour, and a point illustrated by The Yellow Paper was about the diversity of (dis)organised trails around our city and how walking is central to understanding our city; personally i'd add that a variety of voices makes for a far richer psychic landscape too. I have had my differences with BitC but frankly that's part of the fun; from philosophical disagreement comes imaginative evolution and we have spent many a happy pint debating both the sacred and profane in psychogeography.