Lion’s Den (Leonera) is a long couple of hours that would comfortably into fit half an hour. Mostly shot in a not-quite-documentary style it mostly observes its pregnant protagonist as she enters a not so bad prison where she has her son under the watchful eye of some quite nice prison guards.

There are occasional moments — like the opening murder scene and plenty of lesbianism and nude shower scenes for anyone who feels a need to cover up their liking of that sort of thing by pretending to drawn to foreign cinema (and doesn’t know how to find porn online) — but they are not enough to redeem the movie, which never gives us a reason to care.

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Going out for breakfast has always been one of my favourite treats and, as this Superfoods Porridge from Teacup on Thomas Street proves, it need not mean a gut busting fry-up. This may not look it, but it is food of the gods and cheap at just a couple of pounds or so.

Yet porridge is not as easy at it looks. The other day I found myself approaching a client’s office a little early and popped into Starbucks — whose Fairtrade coffee I’ve always enjoyed and who do some surprisingly good salads — and made the big mistake of trying their porridge. The order was met with a look of somehow knowing confusion from the barista, who had to check ‘out the back’ for porridge. Porridge was found. I paid-up and then was told there was no fruit to go with it; that disappointed me, but I let it go. Worse was the come, I was eventually served up some lukewarm milk with lumps floating in it. To be fair I got my money back, an embarrassed apology and a voucher for any drink, any size from any Starbucks anywhere in the continental USA, Canada or the UK.

Anyway. Back to Teacup on Thomas Street which was previously, and more simply, known as Cup but has succumbed to the Northern Quarter trend of boasting that you’re on Thomas Street (and why not?) and who most certainly do know how to make porridge. More importantly, as this Superfoods porridge demonstrates, they know how to make porridge interesting. This has blueberries, pumpkin seeds and other stuff. It’s really, really good.

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Shutter Island initially left me entertained, but naggingly disappointed. It may be that I have unfair expectations of Martin Scorsese, but this is not a film that offers anything we haven’t seen before. In may ways this a fairly conventional Hollywood psychological thriller, with a splash of horror.

But on reflection, it’s difficult not to appreciate how well done it is; nobody disappoints and Leonardo DiCaprio and Ben Kingsley put in faultless performances. While the reveal is no great surprise to anyone who knows the genre, the consistency of the narrative — that is, the way everything falls into place and all makes sense — deserves to be admired.

In the end a good, solid popcorn movie.

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A film to look at, rather than a film to watch, A Single Man is a fantastic achievement that immediately establishes Tom Ford as an auteur.

Like an exquisite designer suit, A Single Man is wonderfully sharp, confident and smart. There are no loose ends.

That will inevitably irritate those who like their movies to reflect life’s mess and they will think this film slight, but they’ll also have missed the point.

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It’s all over now, but Ghosts of Winter Hill was, like so many Urbis exhibitions, much better than the its promotion made it sound.

Greeting visitors with a series of front rooms for each decade from the birth of commercial television in the North West, Ghosts of Winter Hill took us from an incredibly confident and dominant Granada — ‘what Manchester sees today, the rest of the country will see eventually’ — to a time when ITV is barely significant. The Manchester of Tony Wilson and World in Action gives way to independents like Red. As ITV loses it ambition and loses its way, so the BBC fills the void… in part.

But if the exhibition had a flaw, it was never tackled the Granada’s sad decline head-on. The once great independent TV station, simply faded away without explanation. Strangely the consolidation of ITV and selling out of Granada was simply ignored.

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