May 01 2026
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Daily Post, Urban scene

Windows of the Retro Bar, now dead

Friday 1st May 2026, 11.30am (day 5,363)

Retro bar, dead, 1/5/26

Going on the gig posters that still sit, forlornly, behind a metal screen just to the right of this shot, the Retro Bar, on the corner of Sackville and Charles Streets in Manchester, closed in summer 2025. The reason? Because there are no longer any students up at this end of the campus. Whatever is being planned for the acreage of the old UMIST buildings, it has involved gradually emptying them over the last decade or so, and accumulating what must amount to real estate value of tens, perhaps even hundreds, of millions of pounds. I’m sure my employer is well aware of this.

Meanwhile — it was loud and peaceful, so Mark attests. Note the train heading over the viaduct.

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May 01 2026
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Art and architecture, Daily Post

Settling in for the three-hour Director’s Cut

Thursday 30th April 2026, 7.05pm (day 5,362)

Apocalypse Now, 30/4/26

Clare really dislikes Apocalypse Now and I have given up trying to establish why this is. It’s not that she has anything against the genre, as she agrees Full Metal Jacket is a classic, for instance. But she was out all evening….

On the other hand, having sat through the Coppola Cut for the second time, unlike with some movies (particularly The Wicker Man which was butchered in the initial edit) this one doesn’t benefit all that much from the additional material. All it really adds is forty minutes and three pairs of breasts. Nevertheless if you ask me (but not Clare) this remains a work of crazed brilliance.

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Apr 30 2026
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Daily Post, Hebden Bridge, Urban scene

Further repetition

Wednesday 29th April 2026, 5.50pm (day 5,361)

The houses on Windsor Road in Hebden Bridge always make a good subject and I think this is the sixth time they have appeared on here by now — but it’s been fifteen years, so I ask for that to be taken into consideration when judging my claim to want to avoid repeition on here. Definitely an effective illustration of certain engineering principles though, and of variations on a theme . I make it that there are forty windows visible on this shot in whole or in part, all the same, but all just that little bit different too.

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Apr 29 2026
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Daily Post, Sport

Out of sequence

Tuesday 28th April 2026, 7.40pm (day 5,360)

Blue seats, 28/4/26

At some point in the future — and it may be next week, next year or whatever — there will come a day on which, at the end of it, I will be forced to admit to myself that I have taken no photos worth publishing. Today was nearly that day. Blue plastic seats (specifically at the West Riding County FA headquarters, on the edge of Leeds) won’t raise it for most people, artistically or spiritually. And even if there’s a certain interest in the repetitive pattern my shadow spoils the composition.

But enough apologies! Look, the numbers are in a random order. Which is why I took the shot in the first place, I suppose…

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Apr 28 2026
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Daily Post, Portrait

Rutherford

Monday 27th April 2026, 12.55pm (day 5,359)

Rutherford Theatre, 27/4/26

Professor Ernest Rutherford, originally from New Zealand, was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1908 even before he conducted, with Hans Geiger and Ernest Marsden, the famous experiment where a bunch of alpha particles were fired at a sheet of gold and some of them bounced back, which Rutherford allegedly said was like firing a missile at a sheet of tissue paper and having it come back and hit you. From this was established the existence of the atomic nucleus, not to mention the original Geiger counter. For this reason Prof Rutherford is one of those former ‘Employees of the Month’ that the University of Manchester likes to big up. But in this case, why not? (Incidentally the room in which this experiment took place is still there, although no longer a laboratory — last time I looked it could be booked as a meeting room.)

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Apr 27 2026
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Daily Post, Flora/Fauna

Beetle and phone

Sunday 26th April 2026, 4.20pm (day 5,358)

Beetle and phone, 26/4/26

This beetle was very purposeful, and it’s a shame that there was no pot of gold (beetle equivalent) at the end of the table outside the pub, but I did help it down to the floor at that point. A test of the micro-focus on the camera, anyway, and its quite precise: the body is pretty much there, but the antennae, they are just that little bit blurred.

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Apr 26 2026
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Daily Post, Flora/Fauna

On Oxenhope Moor

Saturday 25th April 2026, 12.35pm (day 5,357)

Ewe, lamb and moor, 25/4/26

Too nice a day to spend it inside whether that was home, the pub or on a train somewhere. And I needed the exercise, hence my walking north from home over the moors to Oxenhope — where, OK, I might have visited a pub, but only after walking 7½ miles to get there. For a chunk of this journey I was being closely watched by various specimens of Ovis aries, both mature and young — the lambs are definitely out.

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Apr 25 2026
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Daily Post, Hebden Bridge, Urban scene

Bus stop under blossom

Friday 24th April 2026, 3.15pm (day 5,356)

Bus stop and blossom, 24/4/26

The sun continues to shine and it was far too nice a day to extend the whole ‘working at home’ thing past about 3pm, particularly bearing in mind it is now the weekend (cf. yesterday’s comment). These people may well be on their way home too as they wait for the hourly bus to Haworth and Keighley.

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Apr 24 2026
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Daily Post, Friend, Portrait

Drinks in the sunshine

Thursday 23rd April 2026, 4.35pm (day 5,355)

Sunshine drinks, 23/4/26

The glass of wine is not mine; in fact, nor is it Steve’s, sitting opposite, and, in part anyway, making his fifteenth appearance on the blog (thus coming in at one per year on average). You can tell it’s him: he’s the only person I encounter regularly who habitually wears this much jewellry. Drinks were just migrating to this point in space, well lit by warm sunshine. Shame it’s not the weekend, but possibly tomorrow will be little different.

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Apr 23 2026
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Daily Post, Interior

The horde arrives

Wednesday 22nd April 2026, 8.50am (day 5,354)

Victoria horde, 22/4/26

As will be made obvious by my photographs, I don’t go into Manchester every working day by any means. But when I do, if arriving on platforms 4 or 5 this will invariably be the first thing seen there. Up we all go, to then distribute ourselves through the city by some other means of locomotion.

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