David Byrne and his band

Saturday 18th July 2026, 9.30pm (day 5,441)

David Byrne, 18/7/26

For someone who is now 74 years of age, David Byrne — who is the white-haired chap with the guitar to the lower right — can certainly still put on a show, one that I, personally, have waited some forty years to see. It’s a shame he and his former Talking Heads colleagues have belied the name of the band and not spoken to each other since about 1991 but the orange-clad, sprightly young(er) things on stage with him at the Piece Hall last night were a wholly adequate substitute. So look! It’s David Byrne….!

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Caterpillar back

Friday 17th July 2026, 6.40pm (day 5,440)

Caterpillar back, 17/7/26

Perhaps I’m spending too long indoors but this does evoke a caterpillar for me — including the cigarette, a connection maybe only subconscious when I took the shot, but which Tenniel’s Alice in Wonderland illustration makes more clear the following morning.

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In seclusion

Thursday 16th July 2026, 2.10pm (day 5,439)

Closed curtains, 16/7/26

I am writing. For all that it is still warm and sunny outside, the bedroom gets too warm in the evening if the curtains are left open on days like this. The outside world must be closed off, at least for today.

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Victoria, mostly empty

Wednesday 15th July 2026, 8.15pm (day 5,438)

Empty Victoria, 15/7/26

Manchester Victoria was significantly less populated at 8.15pm this evening than it would normally be on a Wednesday. In the end though, the reason was obvious. But I did make it home in time for the second half.

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Cultural icon, late

Tuesday 14th July 2026, 10.35pm (day 5,437)

Phone box, late, 14/7/26

Sustaining this blog requires me to at least try to see familiar things in a new light now and again. There was no particular reason why the phone box in the centre of town caught my eye (on the way home from the cinema), but it did. Perhaps it was just looking very much like itself. These things, collectively, are a recognisable British icon — not quite technology, not quite architecture, a mixture of the two. This one is still functional as far as I know (that is, you can make telephone calls from it): it was being used as a library for a while but that is no longer the case.

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Observing the bees

Monday 13th July 2026, 5.35pm (day 5,436)

Bees at work, 13/7/26

Respect the pollinators. I know bees are ‘social insects’ but do they socialise, particularly? When two come together like this are they in fierce competition or is it more like, “Hey Bob: make sure you check out the bit just to your left, there’s some good stuff over there”?

I pick the title of this post because it’s not just me watching them, either. The blob to the right is not a blemish on the lens (of which I have plenty) but some other little bug hanging around, and unless I’m mistaken you can see a second one just behind the wing of the rightmost bee. As you can see the weather stays clement — very pleasant stuff I think, although the grass in the garden is starting to go brown.

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Random contents of scavenger bag

Sunday 12th July 2026, 5.40pm (day 5,435)

Puzzle pieces, 12/7/26

Our acquaintance Toby is something of a scavenger, the sort of person who will go through the skip outside your house and in five minutes retrieve from it a range of interesting items that you had no idea could be found within. What he has in mind for these various 3-D puzzles, who knows — but I do not think it involves simply putting this one back together.

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Malt Shovel FC

Saturday 11th July 2026, 1.00pm (day 5,434)

Malt Shovel landscape, 11/7/24

While I believe there might be a different version of football still going on somewhere in the US, here at home we are in the realm of the Pre-Season Friendly. Malt Shovel FC — the name being that of a nearby pub — play in Selby, a place which thereby becomes the 536th different one to appear on this blog and makes its debut with this quite impressive factory backdrop. And it smelt good, too: whatever was being cooked up in there wafted extremely pleasant, and hunger-inducing, scents over the pitch in the second half. It finished 2-1 to visitors Brighouse, in green, but that’s an irrelevance.

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Friday DVD stall

Friday 10th July 2026, 3.10pm (day 5,433)

Friday DVD stall, 10/7/26

If you find yourself in Hebden Bridge on a Friday afternoon and in need of some cheap DVDs, this market stall is the place to come, believe me. I’d spend more money here except that most of the films stocked that I do want to see, we already own. “Nordic Noir” is a new genre on me — but I think it just means that in this box can be found a couple of copies of The Bridge.

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Additional support needs?

Thursday 9th July 2026, 10.00am (day 5,432)

One-legged pigeon, 9/7/26

Whatever happened to its other leg it didn’t stop it soliciting donations of food this morning — not that I had any. There’s a guy regularly seen in Hebden who has only one leg but even he needs a crutch to get about, and as later evidence proved, this pigeon can still take off, propel itself through the air, and land perfectly competently. Its ASNs are therefore not too extensive.

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