Bryson also described Manchester as an "airport with a city attached"

Bryson was also presented with one of the notorious yellow tiles from the outside of the old-look Arndale Centre, which he said made it look like the lavatory.

As he carried out the opening he said he did not feel "at all guilty" about the comments he made about the mall and Manchester itself - "an airport with a city attached" - in his book "Notes From a Small Island".

"When I wrote that it was true," said the writer, who now lives in Norfolk. "But it has changed. It's really unbelievable. I don't recognise where I am."

Bryson labelled the Arndale a "monumental mistake" after his visit to the city in 1994 as part of a tour of the UK.

'Cold forbidding'

However, on Thursday he said the shopping centre was "a thousand times better" after undergoing a �10m refurbishment.

"To be completely honest I would rather be at Salisbury Cathedral but the world does need shopping centres," said Bryson.

"This used to be a cold forbidding thing separate from the city centre, now it is concentrated on what is going on around it."

Bryson even said he "felt a pang when he saw the tiles being ripped off".

Manchester has seen a resurgence since Bryson's visit in 1994. Following the IRA bomb in 1996 the city has reinvented itself, culminating in the hosting of the Commonwealth Games in 2002.