This is Debs who is a regular of the Railway (you’ve seen it often enough) – she has been here for a while visiting family and we both happened to be in Brisbane tonight, so shared a couple of Guinnesses (there they are) at the Irish pub with its cool balcony on the corner of George and Elizabeth Streets. Sláinte!
This is Serge, a naturalised Australian but born in Belgium, smoking a cigarette as he shelters from Cyclone Oswald, which began walloping Brisbane pretty much as I arrived yesterday and hasn’t stopped yet. It’s been very harsh and today no one left the Kookaburra Inn – the backpackers’ hostel where I am staying (expect to see more of this place over the next few months). However, the worst seems to have passed. The rain has mostly stopped and the winds are high, but manageable. I hope. This was the second-worst day of weather to be featured on this blog (after 9/7/12).
There is a double meaning to the title of this post by the way. I realised today, after about 24 hours of being here, that a good proportion of the people staying here are not ‘backpackers’ at all but refugees being housed here by the Australian government, from Iraq and Afghanistan. Interesting. Anyway, you will see more of Australia yet, never fear – but we just have to wait for this cyclone to pass over, which in accordance with all natural laws, it will.
Another of my occasional drinking haunts, the Trades Club in Hebden Bridge, has yet to feature on this blog, but let’s allow it to sneak on today with its regular weekly chess club, held in the back room and run by the impressively bewhiskered gentleman (John) you see here. A black and white photo for a black and white subject.
Here we are on an exact anniversary of last year’s equivalent dinner (same house, same seats); but none the worse for that, I have been looking forward to the evening for some time. Dave (who seems fascinated by whatever it is that Keith is evoking here) was last seen on the blog in July, stuffing a lit torch down his throat – and Keith has also appeared before. A happy Winter Solstice to them, and to all the rest of you too.
This is Alexander, stood in an office that he is making look his own – but is not his own.
A similar theme to yesterday, I know, but for the second day in a row I’m chuffed with the picture so couldn’t omit it. It’s less impersonal anyway: this is one of my students, Michael, pictured taking notes (good boy!) during our field trip to the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester. It’s that institution’s second appearance on the blog, after this shot in February 2012.
Seeing as I seemed to spend most of the day teaching in one way or another it seems appropriate to use a picture of a class to encapsulate the day.
The three students in the foreground are Chinese and Korean, the book they are looking at is in Arabic. I could give away my pedagogical secrets and tell you why, but then I’d have to kill you. (Or you could just enroll on my degree, of course.)
Last time you saw the University of Manchester’s new “Learning Commons” building it was still being finished, back in early July. It’s now open and myself and some of my students got a tour of it today: off this lady here (pictured through a window separating a corridor from one of the private study spaces). And it’s impressive, too. Even if I didn’t help design it 🙂
We are still above water, for now. Let’s move on to other things.
This photo is not bad considering I was slumped forward, half-naked, on a bench, sticking my camera over my shoulder and shooting blindly, while in the middle of a four-hour session, the first half of which was marked by stoic acceptance, the second half by suffering and pain. Yes, my tattoo is under way. This is Clare at work, you may see here again in a few weeks’ time.
Being 42 