Funds raised by this compilation will go directly to We Love Manchester emergency fund, run by the British Red Cross in tandem with Manchester City Council. It took ten years for you to complete this book, but really its genesis is about thirty years prior to that, with you being to some extent groomed by Tony Wilson over the years to write about his life. I'm beginning to think that Morley has gone, 'Right, how would Tony have written this?' and done it in that style. Either that or it's some kind of post-postmodern, post-punk, post-pun, pun.

At the very last minute, I added something in the book about that area. There was a meeting after Tony died, chaired by Sir Richard Leese. There was thirty or forty of us, colleagues. Coogan was there, local entrepreneurs. All the bigwigs. And the idea was how do we remember Tony Wilson? The meeting was such a flop, we needed Tony Wilson to tell us what to do. I thought it was very dreary to have a Tony Wilson Street, and I suggested that we just have Wilson, and you had to go and hunt for where this thing was, and when you got there it was a wonderful sculpture with a multimedia insight into who Wilson was. And Sir Richard Leese was so angry with me, either for not taking it seriously or for taking it too seriously. “Getting a road named after you is such an honour, such a wonderful honour!” So that became Tony Wilson Place. To me, it felt like a great taming of a spirit, more than an unleashing of his disruptive style. It’s got the arts centre there, and the statue of Engels, but it just seems too pat. There was never a moment where he said, oh, write my book. It would be more… rumours. I knew he desperately didn’t want him writing my book, or him writing my book, so it was through a process of elimination that I was the last man standing, and the only one prepared to take him on. There’s a chapter called ‘Be Careful What You Wish For’, and that’s applicable in Manchester. A lot of what has happened to the city is not Tony Wilson’s fault, but since the destruction of the modernist 1960s city and its replacement by something else entirely, a lot of Wilson’s contradictions are now Manchester’s contradictions, which is summed up by the experience of standing in Tony Wilson Place.Morley’s biography is as illuminating on Wilson’s strange ability to hold others in his orbit, even after his death, as it is on the story of his life.’

Alan Moore’s first short story collection covers 35 years of what The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen’s author calls his “ludicrous imaginings”. Across these nine stories, some of which can barely be called short, there’s a wonderful commitment to fantastical events in mundane towns. His old comic fans might enjoy What We Can Know About Thunderman the most, a spectacular tirade against a superhero industry corrupted from such lofty, inventive beginnings. The World: A Family History The entire Factory history is based on the capital that is Ian’s life,” Saville tells Morley at one point in From Manchester with Love. “I once said to Howard Bernstein, the chief executive of Manchester City Council, that I believe modern Manchester stands on the investment of Ian Curtis’s life. I feel that very strongly.”

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From Manchester With Love, then, is the biography of a man who became eponymous with his city, of the music he championed and the myths he made, of love and hate, of life and death. In the cultural theatre of Manchester, Tony Wilson broke in and took centre-stage. Wilson himself admitted that was very accurate but was a bit miffed it missed out his academic side. Tony Wilson was a man who became synonymous with his beloved city. As the co-founder of the legendary Factory Records and the Haçienda, he appointed himself a custodian of Manchester's legacy of innovation and change, becoming a cultural pioneer for the North. To Paul Morley, he was this and much more: bullshitting hustler, flashy showman, inventive broadcaster, self-deprecating chancer, publicity seeker, loyal friend. It was Morley to whom Wilson left a daunting final request: to write this book. To Paul Morley he was this and much more: bullshitting hustler, flashy showman, aesthetic adventurer, mean factory boss, self-deprecating chancer, intellectual celebrity, loyal friend, shrewd mentor, insatiable publicity seeker. It was Morley to whom Wilson left a daunting final request: to write this book.