The picture was taken on a cloudy day. It is sunny in Manchester a lot, and it dosn't rain anymore than any other city (check out the MET office stastisics).
Check out all the pictures just not the first page. I am working on a much better site than btw, I have one done in ASP using paging but its not ready yet for public viewing due to the amount of bugs.
There is a lot of nice countryside very near to Manchester as well. I am 20 mins from the city centre buy bus and also 10 minutes walk from the local countryside (the Mersey Valley)
There are rough parts of Manchester (Moss Side is not that rough btw) but you just avoid them. Don't let silly stereotypes put you off visiting an exellent city. Also Manchester is the fastest growing toursit destination in the UK and one of the fast growing ones in Europe.
We have all the well known shops, Selfridges (we have two!), Harvey Nicolls etc. The arndale is also the biggest city shopping centre in Europe and will be the biggest shopping centre in the UK by the time all the work has finsihed on it. The trafford centre is also very big, it makes the Meadow Hall seem tiny.
Also because Manchester has the biggest student campus in Europe (Owens Campus) which is shared by Manchester University, UMIST and Manchester Met (all next to each other) you have the biggest student population in Europe. So in terms of night life its great. A lot of the clubs you can get in for £2 too. Then there is the music well I Manchester's music speaks for itself quite simply.