It is the limbo period between Christmas and New Year, and while many of us might see this as an opportunity to do very little, our Clare (being who she is) decides to launch into a significant manufacturing operation. In Fight Club the Paper Street Soap Company was a front for the manufacture of bombs and general subversion, but I assume that’s not the case here. Who knows for sure, though.
The hat with the Scroogey message has been hanging around the house for years, having been acquired from I-Don’t-Remember-Where. Here it is added to a pile of gear C was intending to wear to the first in a run of her Christmas parties. Her excuse could be that it’s the only suitable headgear in the house, but that, in itself, says a lot about why it still sees use.
A senior professorial colleague once said: “you’re a Reader. Do some fucking reading.” He was right. And there’s no reason why I need to prematurely leap out of bed to do it.
341 days into Bradford’s reign as the 2025 UK City of Culture and it does, at least, seem to have a) finished the roadworks and b) decided to try to tell people why they should visit (this is one of three similar murals in the bowels of Bradford Interchange bus station). But let’s assume that it has been a useful year for them. It is a decent city, better than some.
R. I. P. Martin Parr, by the way; if there is one photographer who I suppose I might be trying to consciously emulate, it was probably him. Check out his work if you are at all interested in this medium.
This brand of beer (not mine, but the wife drinks it) has recently appeared at the Railway and the almost unanimous contention among the clientele is that its logo is quite the worst and most inappropriate piece of branding ever seen there — and it appears on the pump, too (an ugly, blocky, monstrous columnar thing that now dominates the bar). Why does a sweaty male figure who looks like a cross between Boris Yeltsin and Boris Johnson — definitely a Boris then — somehow epitomise a Spanish beer with a woman’s name? And did I really have nothing better to photograph on a Friday? Both of these things seem to have come to pass, though.
I know I said yesterday that the weather was coming in, but this is ridiculous…. Behold, though, the opening frames of a certain 1980s TV classic, watched in its entirety tonight. Apart from Zaphod Beeblebrox, who adds almost nothing to it, it’s still funny and clever. There’s absolutely no plot, though.
Life’s present exciting status continues (that was sarcasm) and so the most attractive photo opportunity of the day was the wife’s sorting out of the local wool stock. Apparently the light-coloured stuff was what was needed for the project, so out of the bag it came. The vague flesh-coloured blur to top left may or may not be the sorter.
I learned only fairly recently that hummus is not only dead easy to make for oneself but it actually turns out cheaper than buying it ready made in pots. Beyond a bit of olive oil, you see here the entirety of the ingredients. Chuck the peas (rinse them first), the lemon’s juice, a tablespoon of the tahini, a teaspoon of the garlic, some salt and the oil into a food processor. Turn it on, and three minutes later, you’re dipping.
One of those days where I had to accept that every photo I tried today was either boring or out-of-focus. This one is certainly the latter, but hopefully the pink octopi are interesting enough. They are advertising baubles, though. Other energy providers are available.
Wherever it actually resides depends on the university’s deployment of ‘cloud storage solutions’, I guess, but the interface that allows oversight of this ‘digital twin’ of Manchester resides in the Business School. Want to keep an eye on the city’s start-ups? energy use? property prices? infection rates? It’s all here. There’s something mildly sinister and undeniably impressive about it all, both at the same time.
Being 42 