This rail bridge takes the train (in this case a freight) between Manchester Piccadilly and Manchester Oxford Road stations. The building in the background is the Faraday building, late of the University but now empty and awaiting demolition. I like the general drabness of this shot — very January, although it was a sunny and crisp day today.
This platform over the Hebden Water has always been there, at least since I’ve been living here. But recently a project began that seemed to be building on it. One story was that this was to be car parking, but I’ve also heard that there was going to be a house built on it. Either way, the state it is in now reflects what happened on December 26th, in the floods, when the river peaked above the surface of the platform, leaving it smashed up and littered with debris (much of which has since been cleared).
The point is that this is exactly the kind of situation where you might think planning permission had been granted without due consideration. Flooding, and damage from flooding, isn’t just about heavy rainfall — it’s also about damn-fool planning. At least this happened before someone blithely bought and moved into this putative house. But who knows, perhaps the project has not yet been abandoned.
This nice round-number blog post is marked by yet another shot of Manchester city centre’s ongoing building works — a theme that is becoming recurrent, because they just never seem to end…
The high elf warrior rides his lion steeds into battle. Or possibly Joe’s been putting together his Xmas Warhammer acquisitions and there was some good light on the dining table this afternoon.
Although this is timed as very early in the morning, technically this the latest picture of all 1,598 so far — because this is still ‘Friday night’. Hey, it was a good evening… but you don’t get to see any pictures of it I’m afraid.
A day’s work in London to finish off the week (and it did finish me off). This creation was being put together outside Holborn tube station as I passed, and was proving quite a profitable enterprise for its sculptor — justifiably.
My, have all these people come to hear me talk? Well, me and some other people anyway. But I was on first. Ange (far left) is introducing me at this point. It went very well, and a keynote at Cambridge, I guess there’s a certain distinction in that.
By many reckonings, the University of Cambridge is considered the best in the world. Today was my first-ever visit there, and what struck me is that it’s so goddamn small. Even Oxford feels like a city, but this place is just a little town in the Fens. Beautiful though, even on another grey January day (I’ve literally seen ten minutes of sunshine all year thus far). I thought I might struggle to catch a photo of a punt, but there were loads of them on the River Cam, including two for the price of one in this shot. Tourists on the right, but the guy on the left does look as if he is just using the punt as your basic local transport option.
The building works in St. Peter’s Square, Manchester, do not seem to have advanced a huge amount since they were pictured nearly a year ago (26/1/15). Never mind, they remain good photographic subjects. I like this one because it seems like a collage of shapes and textures, but there is still an underlying logic to it.
How awesome is this. I want to go and get my next tattoo at this place simply because of this mural. Which, I suppose, is the point, but it doesn’t make it any less impressive.
