Every few months he goes to a function room upstairs in a pub on the edge of Manchester city centre, down the wide streets behind Piccadilly station, under one of the iron bridges, well away from the bustle of the city's club and bar hot spots on Canal Street, Oldham Street and Oxford Road. He goes where there are few cars, no taxi ranks, no gangs of drinkers swaying down the pavement, to a pub on the corner of Fairfield Street called the Star & Garter. The main door is always locked, so he goes in the side entrance. When he walks in, there are four or five customers congregated round the bar downstairs, sipping pints. This is unregenerated Manchester, untouched by the digital, global, corporate world; there's no stripped pine, no chrome, no theme, no menu, no cloakroom, no Chardonnay, no champagne.