Take That exhibition -- Kraak Gallery, Manchester (2-28/June)

Tied in with Salford University's Take That conference, convenors Dr Tim Wise (above) and Anja Lobert (below) launched a comprehensive - rather charming, rather funny, at times rather scary - exhibition at Manchester's Kraak Gallery: "Take That Fandom Before the Internet". Here are some images (click on each to enlarge) --- but please visit the exhibition yourself for the full experience, and full cache of mid-90s teenage girl missives of unrequited love... 

above: home-made "friendship books", as posted around the globe; definitions offered of their terminology on the right. We catch up with their authors on the left.

left: Salford's Marrianne Garbutt hard at work on her own That That pre-Internet social media. right: Salford's own "Professor of Pop", David Sanjek, pictured with a Suede friendship book... presumably not created by Mark E. Smith.

Anja Lobert in a flurry of aerial friendship books