SUMMER IN THE CITY

Manchester never stops, and summer is the best time to explore the city on foot, to absorb the energy and architecture of this pround Victorian city. And the streets are alive this summer with festivals of arts, music, theatre, food and drink. Here's a run-down of some of the biggest and best events, with a complete list at Visit Manchester

August sees the 10th anniversary of the legendary D. Percussion, the biggest free music festival in the North of England. Also on in August is the award-winning 24:7 Theatre Festival featuring newly-written, one-hour plays in unusual non-theatre venues. Or catch Platform 4 Piccadilly , a new festival of outdoor performances twith a mix of dance, circus, theatre and music. Summer’s climax is Manchester Pride, a world-famous 10-day spectacle over August bank holiday.

Autumn kicks off with the annual Manchester Food and Drink Festival in October. Food lovers can enjoy the atmosphere on St Ann’s Square and Albert Square with restaurants, chefs, local producers and farmers celebrating regional produce. Follow this up with some brain food at the Manchester Literature Festival and the annual Manchester Comedy Festival.

Manchester is a great city for hanging out, wandering around and seeing and being seen, all against a backdrop of new and restored buildings testifying to the city's extraordinary renaissance over the past decade. Here are our favourite things about Manchester but we'd like to hear your favourite summer-in-the-city tips. Enter our summer in the city competition , tell us how you like to spend a day in your favourite city and you could win a weekend in London.

1. It has been a good summer for Manchester, just one long party. The city has just enjoyed the inaugural Manchester International Festival and, to the relief of the organisers, the majority of the critics up from London declared it a success.

Ordinary Mancunians joined the clamour for tickets to see Chen Shi-Zheng's Monkey: Journey to the West and pay homage to Damon Albarn's score. They also greeted the two peeing lady acrobats and bull with a walk-on part in the controversial visual art work Il Tempo del Postino with some aplomb.

2. Carlos Acosta, Lou Reed, The Fall and others may have moved on but the party goes on. Last week, those who mourn the demise of the Hacienda night club, home of the Madchester pop phenomenon, were queueing at Urbis, the spectacular glass museum, for the launch party of an exhibition to celebrate 25 years since it opened its doors.

3. This week all you need to do is wander out onto the streets to hear the distant strains of another party taking up the slack. Follow the John Thomson-lookalikes to the Manchester Jazz Festival where you can listen to some alto sax against the soapy stone backdrop of St Anne's Church....nice. Nobody around here requires much excuse to erect an Alpine village outside the town hall and start knocking back foaming plastic beakers of beer.

As Frank Gallagher, the lager-drinking, chain-smoking godfather of Shameless, might say: "We know how to throw a good party". There are only two other things you need to know about Mancs - you cannot keep them down for long and they call trousers '"kex"..

4.The city may have lost the supercasino but, hey, we have gained Sven-Goran Erikkson, the newly-installed Manchester city coach. At Bernard Manning's funeral - a very Manchester scene - the paparazzi gathered at Blackley Crematorium chatted happily about the potentially profitable prospect of chasing the Swede and his girlfriend Nancy dell'Olio around town.

5.The city is looking good. More than a decade after the IRA blew a hole in the centre of the city's retail district, the rebuilding and recasting of the city centre is complete. A quarter which includes the Manchester Cathedral once dislocated from the city by the unlovely Arndale has been restored. On one side of Exchange Square shoppers emerging from Selfridge's pass Harvey Nichols, Burberry, Louis Vuitton, Heal's, Reiss, and a Ted Baker all within a hundred yards.

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