Welcome back...

BLESS those students, as featured in today’s downpage piece. The city’s not half different now they’re back - and for the better I reckon.

For sure, going out on an evening during last week’s freshers period was a bit like walking into a scene from Ibiza Uncovered and I could do without those living in nearby flats playing The Ting Tings at 3am on a Tuesday morning. But there’s no doubt they bring a vibrancy and liveliness (not to mention an economic boon) which is - Tramlines weekend excepted - sadly lacking during the summer months.

Welcome back. Now keep it down.

n TALKING of noice, don’t be alarmed if you start hearing poetry while walking down a Sheffield back street next month - it’s another of Bank Street Art’s more... unusual projects.

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“If people won’t come into our space,” say bosses. “We’ll go into theirs. We’ll accost unsuspecting passers-by.”

And so that’s what they’re doing - piping audio tracks of poetry, monologues, pronouncements, announcements and arguments up from the cellar via a coal chute and out into the street. Whereby anyone wandering past will either (a) be inspired to go in, or (b) think ‘what a set of arty muppets’.

Either way it gets a reaction which, presumably, is the point. Organisers are looking for sound ideas. Email john@bankstreetarts to get involved.

n ENTERPRISE is the new rock ’n’ roll, according to Dragon’s Den’s Peter Jones. “It’s more exciting than anything I can imagine,” he added at Sheffield’s MADE festival. Very worthy, I admit - but there goes a lad who needs a better imagination.

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n FROM squares to hippies, and as recommended by a reader, I finally got round to watching the cult 1969 movie Easy Rider this weekend. Ace film – and who’d have thought Jack Nicholson was once so handsome?