Misty weather discouraged a walk up anywhere high, but a nine-mile stroll along the Rochdale Canal to Todmorden and back at least stretched the legs today. While not really visible on this shot, this boat did have the remnants of a ‘For Sale’ sign painted on the side; I guess by now it’s probably quite a bargain, if you’re prepared to do the salvage work.
This is Leeds railway station, at what should be peak time on a Saturday morning.
You may think this desperately depressing scene is justified and necessary. I do not. When a crime has been committed the good investigator first asks — cui bono? It means ‘who benefits’? And who does benefit from all this — if we are not travelling, not spending money in the same places we were spending it last October, seeing friends, partying in nightclubs, going to Elland Road or wherever? I name Rupert Murdoch, Jim Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Eric Schmidt and all their kin as people with the most profoud vested interest in keeping us locked up through the spreading of fear and this year’s sudden, digitally-driven enhancement of what Michel Foucault called the carceral state. If I’m wrong, sue me. If you don’t like it, defy it.
The Rochdale Canal has featured many times on this blog, most recently eleven days ago, near Todmorden. This shot is taken in the centre of Manchester, on Canal Street, as urban (and metrosexual) as you get, but you wouldn’t know that from this shot. When I returned past this point in the afternoon, all the leaves had gone, suggesting the lock had been opened at some point during the day — a small sign of life in what remains a mostly comatose city, just waiting for the Tory Party to take it down and stomp it underfoot for a few more weeks.
One of those where the object of interest had turned at a junction and was trotting away from me in the distance before I realised how interesting it was. But I just about got the shot. That is the way to go, is it not. And this is the second horse-drawn hearse to appear on here, the first being in London back in January 2014.
This idea of ‘underuse’ has been a recurring theme lately — but there are obvious reasons for that, and it is going to become even more the case now that uni have decided that, after all, they would rather not teach face-to-face, ‘at least’ until the end of October. Which is, conveniently, after everyone’s arrived and paid their rent. Don’t blame me — I oppose the decision, and rather vehemently too. But it seems this opinion is now in the minority.
Halifax’s transport infrastructure seems to have become a recent theme. At least, this is a sign that I am still moving around the local area, including on a Sunday. I like the complexity of the layout here, the bendiness, but tied together by the point mechanisms.
This is a factual statement. The road past our house has been closed for weeks while some vague ‘improvements’ take place on the moors. But perhaps this shot is also metaphorical.
Either way I really hope the phallically-challenged moron who roared past this sign later at 60mph in his Porsche was actually heading for Keighley. To have seen his face.
Not sure that I have previously managed to categorise a post as ‘sport’ and ‘transport’ simultaneously. A shame the ball could not make it into shot as well…
I did try to go into Manchester today. The train got as far as Rochdale, where all services terminated thanks to a ‘points failure’. As I didn’t really care one way or the other, after a while of non-movement, I turned around and went back to complete my day’s work at home. It is a sign of my recent equanimity that it didn’t bother me. At least I got the chance for a photo. It doesn’t really look like anything has moved here in years, so it seems appropriate.
The 15:35 heads for Ravenglass station, beside the estuary of the river Esk. And then leaves again — without me on it — meaning, I am about to have a first night away from home in Hebden for 135 days, since my trip to Lincoln on March 10th. The walls of the valley were beginning to close in. Here, the vistas are much different. Variety is a good thing. It is good to be on holiday in this mad year.
Being 42 