STAT Magazine

Number 18 Museum Street in Warrington is a rather unassuming looking abode. The most I can ascertain about the place is that it’s a hostel for homeless and vulnerable people, set up by the charity Room at the Inn in the wake of Warrington YMCA’s closure. Naturally, the people at the charity are keeping tight-lipped. But given number 18’s history, it’s following a long tradition of anonymity and secrecy. Until 1993, number 18 was the discreet seat of a power without responsibility.

This month’s The Black Lights festival has billed itself as “a dream you can’t wake up from”. And its smattering of visual, sound, and performance art – esoterically dubbed as The Third Wave – promises exactly that. From 26th to 28th of June, The Black Lights is staging a psychic takeover of Blackpool via sight and sound. Its Third Wave will “alter” the town’s “internal logic”, by warping the interiors of hotels, cinemas, galleries, and civic spaces with artistic installments.

This week, candidates for the Makerfield by-election were pitted against each other on screen in a debate that would answer all the important political questions.

STAT Magazine has upset quite a lot of people in its relatively short history. We have, in various ways, slagged off and annoyed artists, musicians, marketers, right-wingers, establishment politicians, book shop owners, journalists, curators, other magazines, potential dates, potential friends, Peter Hook, full-time Instagram commenters, and no doubt many others. We have become known for what some will call “contrarianism”. We prefer to call it a stubborn appreciation for honest critique.

Recently, clips surfaced of Greater Manchester Mayor and prospective Labour leader, Andy Burnham, saying he’d like to scrap VAR in football. It should come as no surprise that a man who voted for the Iraq War would be against a live action replay of something being put before a panel of judges.

There’s a strong case to be made that Crewe is the least culturally significant town in the country. The word “railway” is mentioned 40 times in the town’s scant Wikipedia page, whilst “music” gets three pretty illustrative mentions: one for an opera singer who was born in the town but basically never lived here; and two references to the town’s live music venues.

Geoff Martlew was living on Bolton Road in Ashton-in-Makerfield when Frederick’s ice cream factory exploded and his windows were blown in. The banal topic of Geoff’s windows was a fleeting sub-discussion on a 2009 Wigan World thread: “aw, what a shame”, a user named Tonkers posted, punctuated by a gleeful face; “who was Geoff?”, to which Tonkers responded only with a cartoon of a pilot.

After a confusing delay at Warrington Interchange where the hourly bus disappeared from the board, I was on the number five to Lymm. Trundling past opulent showrooms, a boarded-up Conservative Party office, and JW Lees pubs, town gradually dissolved into country. Lymm Cross rises from the modern village square like a grubby, ancient menhir. It’s not a cross as such, but a stepped monolith bolstering a pavilion with clocks on either side.

Queen of the Night (Raat Ki Raani) Alina Akbar Haji Cash & Carry, Rochdale 26 – 29 March 2026 Alina Akbar’s debut solo exhibition Queen of the Night (Raat Ki Raani) explores the images and feelings of a scene rich in ease and discomfort: the intense emotions and companionship between young Muslim girls in a car after nightfall. It’s not a topic we’ve learned to expect from exhibited work.

Listening to Wes Baggaley talk about his youth is to be confronted by his gallows humour. His accent reminds you that, although he played NTS Radio over the weekend and has played Berghain on several occasions, he cut his teeth on the streets of the North West. This teeth cutting first occurred by hanging around Wigan Pier, a landmark venue on the Leeds and Liverpool canal which hit its peak in the 1990s.