LIFESTYLE
Originally published on Wednesday, 25 January 2006
Northern Exposure
Like it or not, Wayne Clews is coming to town.
The Mancunian journalist has become a cult figure 'up north' through his weekly Sex & Self Pity articles for City Life magazine (Manchester's Time Out), and now he seems to be moving in on London, too.
Since the mag recently folded he has launched his own website, which you would only discover due to aforementioned fandom or as the result of a particularly dubious Google search.
Like la Bradshaw, his subject matter is his own fabulously debauched life. Unlike her, this is led with his Husband (whom he married in a puddle inside a circus tent) in a council high rise with broken floor tiles and unfortunately stained window dressings rather than a Manhattan pied-a-terre.
The self-confessed embittered hack and lethargic novelist is supported by an ensemble cast list that includes a belligerent cat, a sexual health professional and Inside Soap's former Beverly Callard correspondent.
Thanks to Clews' erring to the side of depravity and English eccentricity in equal measure, his catalogue of published articles deal with a dizzying panorama of social issues including Phlegm, Canal Boats, Smack, John Humphreys and the Eurovision Song Contest.
The jury's still out as to whether Mr Clews is going to be as cult in the capital as he is up north, but seems like, either way, hell be providing fans with a weekly Wednesday whinge.
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