Thursday 12th March 2026, 11.45am (day 5,313)
This is, pretty much, the attitude I affected for most of the day. The weather was grim, and if it counted as ‘nice weather for ducks’, well, he’s doing his best to ignore it.
Having a doze
Being 42
Life, one day at a time
Infected Blood Memorial
Wednesday 11th March 2026, 10.25am (day 5,312)
This was just seen in passing this morning: my walk to work is so familiar after more than twenty years that even minor alterations are easy to notice. At some point in the last couple of weeks this has appeared in a window near the Old Quadrangle. Information searching reveals that this is a new ‘Infected Blood Inquiry Memorial’, which will be officially dedicated in a couple of weeks’ time.
The inquiry into how more than 30,000 people in the UK were given blood infected with HIV or hepatitis prior to 1996 (3,000 of them have subsequently died) reported its findings in 2024. Amongst the recommendations in the report were that “there should be a memorial”. As it is declared, so it shall be — so here is that memorial. I get the point: as you can see here and there, these specimen bottles are each filled with a little scroll of paper, with handwritten inscriptions — and that one little kiss, which makes the photo, I guess. But a memorial like, say, your average Cenotaph, this is not: and it doesn’t help that it’s inside a building that will only be open some of the time. (This is not a criticism of the University of Manchester by the way.)
This would all be of only passing interest were it not that one of my friends is represented in here. When I first moved to Yorkshire in 1991 I got to know Dave Chamberlain, of Low Row in Swaledale, who was a haemophiliac and was infected with HIV thanks to infected Factor 8. Dave was one of the people who was very friendly to me, a new ‘offcumdun’ arrival into the community, and did not have to be — it is because of these people I remained in Yorkshire and never went back down South. When I heard he had died, in the late 2000s sometime, I was very upset. Whatever ‘compensation’ this inquiry determined was just, imposing this two decades after his death, and nearly 35 years after the fact of his avoidable infection, seems more of a cynical and meaningless gesture rather than any acknowledgement of true culpability. Sticking a bunch of little bottles in a window in a university building, one that is off the main road and which passers-by don’t have a lot of reason to notice, is probably much the same.
Late night on Garnett Street
Tuesday 10th March 2026, 9.45pm (day 5,311)
OK, not that late I suppose, but nevertheless this is the latest shot in a given day since 30th September — which, as this one is, was taken in Bradford. Clearly that city has become my go-to spot for evenings out. I did do more interesting things today than hang around this empty car park for some industrial unit or other, by the way. But as a subject for the camera it worked OK. The manhole cover to the bottom right does annoy me a bit, but I couldn’t crop it without also losing the important red.
Poster changeover
Monday 9th March 2026, 11.45am (day 5,310)
Over time a collection of movie posters has built up in one corner of the house and, lately, we have been displaying them in circulation. Time for a changeover. The name of the one going up is on its tube. Surely any true movie buff will recognise the one that’s coming down after a couple of months on the wall.
Clare deals crib
Sunday 8th March 2026, 3.15pm (day 5,309)
A Sunday afternoon game of cribbage. I won 3-2, by the way. As C pointed out when she first saw this, sometimes a blur is exactly the point of the shot.
Advertising, old and new
Saturday 7th March 2026, 12.20pm (day 5,308)
Shops have always advertised themselves. I mean, they have to, don’t they? All advertising is text, and looking at how texts change over time is as good a way as any of understanding social change. This juxtaposition caught my eye: the shapes, the textures and the words themselves.
Where’s the puck gone?
Friday 6th March 2026, 9.40pm (day 5,307)
Never let it be said that I am closed to new experiences, particularly not when they are suggested by the wife, so behold — my first ever ice hockey game. Manchester Storm, in the dark kit, beat Dundee Stars 5-1.
I chose this shot because it illustrates one basic characteristic of the sport, at least from my perspective as a rookie spectator. For a significant slice of the playing time I wasn’t completely sure where the puck was, partly because the sightlines from our seats meant one whole side of the rink was obscured and partly because it just zips around without much pattern or relationship to how the players are moving. I acknowledge the skill, balance and athleticism of the players but based on my having seen some games on TV in the past (particularly in Toronto, where it’s kind of unavoidable) I have previously described ice hockey as ‘like watching a bunch of wasps buzz around in a bottle’. My first experience of watching it live has not changed that opinion.
Shedding
Thursday 5th March 2026, 1.20pm (day 5,306)
This ladybird first turned up on Wednesday in my home office and might have made that day’s shot — I got a reasonable one of it sitting by the Mac — had the cock-up at the football not happened. It then hitched a ride downstairs on a tea mug; I noticed it miments before it would have got bunged in the dishwasher, so saved its little ass from an unpleasanr death and left it sitting in one of our kitchen’s grimier corners.
24 hours later I saw it again: surely the same one, as it had barely moved. Still sluggish from waking up after the winter, I guessed — except then it sort of wriggled a bit and dumped this crust of old carapace onto, as it happens, the side my plastic lunch box. At this point I went and got the camera. And captured what might be a look of slight disdain: ‘now that stupid thing has gone I can grow a bit more and get back to terrorising aphids’. Fine by me: who wants greenfly in the house anyway. Have a good spring. mate.
The lights have gone out
Wednesday 4th March 2026, 9.05pm (day 5,305)
Five minutes into the second half of tonight’s game at Brighouse Town, half the lights went out. At that point, this picture was taken. About a minute later, the remaining lights went out too, and the game was abandoned: as a football fan, my third ever abandonment, one of them because of a serious injury, one because of rain (at Accrington Stanley) and now tonight. Brighouse have been rather inept on the pitch lately, so perhaps this off-pitch ineptitude is all just part of the bigger picture.
Waiting for the 9:57
Tuesday 3rd March 2026, 9.55am (day 5,304)
Yes, it was a comfortably late start to the day but then again I am still teaching until 6pm on Tuesdays. Much more preferable to go in later, particularly as we are, finally, having some pleasant weather.
Being 42 