Meet Dangermoose, my newest friend.

Another city has fallen to the bovine infestation that is Cow Parade and this time it's Manchester, as I discovered last week.

Yeah, I know he's only a fibreglass cow, and that any conversation would be pretty much a one-way thing, but he caught my eye, and I think we're going to get along fine. After all, we've both got the city's best interests at heart.

 

Shamefully it was my first trip north for a couple of years, ostensibly on grandson-type duties, but also giving me the chance to catch up with a few old faces from my early days at the Beeb, and see what progress had been made in redeveloping the city I'd seen virtually every day for almost seven years.

 

After meeting Dangermoose outside Piccadilly station, I wandered through the city centre. It was the first time I'd seen the redeveloped Piccadilly Gardens. And though I hate to say it, I can't say I'm impressed.

 

Although they've obviously tried to banish much of the mid-20th century civic planning nightmare that dominated the area, there are still visible signs of old, poor Manchester hanging around. The Gardens area still seems to be a magnet for some of the down-and-outs who populated it before the facelift.

 

And despite the lift the cows are supposed to bring to the city, most of them in this area seem to be on the roof of what appeared to be the new bus station shelter. Isn't that defeating the object? Call me jaded, but it's probably for their own good. One or two more accessibly situated in other parts of city are certainly showing signs of wear and tear.

 

It's not just the cows who are suffering. It used to be the case that you could walk a good distance without being offered a copy of the Big Issue, but the vendors seem to have multiplied. The afternoon I was there, I found four within a 50 metre stretch on Market Street. Surely that can't be a good portent.

 

I hate sounding down about the place - I have good memories, and good friends still there, and I know it's come a long way since the IRA forced the issue of refurbishing the Mancunian landscape.

 

But despite all the money that's been pumped into it since the '96 bomb, to someone coming back, the city still feels like it's struggling to shake the decay and deprivation that swamped places across the north throughout the 70s and 80s.

 

Maybe I'm being too harsh. Maybe a couple of afternoons isn't enough time to judge a city, however well you used to know it.

 

I just feel that there's something deeper haunting Manchester that won't be cured by a Harvey Nick, 100 trendy new bars, or even a herd of colourful cows.