Category Archives: Urban scene

The red parked car

Thursday 1st May 2025, 9.45am (day 4,998)

Red parked car, 1/5/25

Or should it be, the parked red car? I know there is supposed to be some kind of innate order to English adjectives, but here I am unsure. Anyway it is often seen in this position — this was not a lucky capture. And yes, it tilts to a noticeable degree: otherwise, this shot is faithful enough to the perpendicular.

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Friends…

Monday 28th April 2025, 6.40pm (day 4,995)

Friends with God, 28/4/25

On Saturday it will be day 5,000 of the blog, but I won’t be leading up to this milestone with an eventful week. Having done four trips abroad already in 2025, thus, one a month, it’s time to stay at home for a while and Write Up. Writing Up is the one obligation I owe from these travels and the sooner it is done, the better. None of this has anything to do with today’s picture except to offer a reason why I was in the pub again. I suppose today is an effort at a collage, although a very random one.

Am I claiming some status via this pamphlet? No, someone was just making suggestions. Anyway if by God you mean The Planet then I’m all for that.

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Light reading

Wednesday 23rd April 2025, 2.50pm (day 4,990)

Pub reading, 23/4/25

This ‘reading in the pub’ theme has been done before but after nearly 5,000 days some things just come round again. Anyway, taking in James V. Wertsch’s concept of ‘mediated action’ is better done with the accompaniment of alcohol, I feel.

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Outside the James Chadwick building

Tuesday 22nd April 2025, 12.10pm (day 4,989)

Chadwick building, 22/4/25

Back to work, and back to campus, at least for today. This was one of those shots where the shapes pleased me so I went for it, and even the red box is fine, it’s part of the composition. The wonky sign is the anomaly, but I could claim that’s deliberate too. (It wasn’t.)

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Charging, on Princess Street

Monday 31st March 2025, 4.10pm (day 4,967)

On Princess Street, 31/3/25

This guy was certainly moving at quite a clip, so the ‘charging’ reference has a double meaning: pretty weak, I know, but that’s what a full day’s work does for my wit these days. In three days’ time I should be somewhere very different.

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Rooves of Burnley

Saturday 29th March 2025, 2.20pm (day 4,965)

Burnley rooves 29/3/25

A hundred years ago the town of Burnley had 103,000 people in it; these days it has about 78,000, so around a quarter fewer. They still seem pretty closely packed in, though.

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Watching on the bridge

Thursday 27th March 2025, 3.45pm (day 4,963)

Turing Building bridge, 27/3/25

He is watching something. The eye in the sky is below him and can’t watch him from there, but I capture him with a long zoom. Everyone is watching someone else.

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Ghosts?

Wednesday 5th March 2025, 8.45am (day 4,941)

Abbey House flowers, 5/3/25

Whatever happened on the 22nd February at 9.55am happened while I was in Dubai, so I do not know the details. But going on the location, at the junction of Booth Street and Mosley Street in Manchester city centre, the ‘serious collision’ was most likely between a car and a tram — something which really shouldn’t happen in broad daylight. The tram is never going to come off worse in such an encounter. One therefore assumes the memorial flowers — note the £3.50 price tag visible on one bunch — are for at least one occupant of the car. And their ghost keeps a careful watch.

(OK, actually I’m the ‘ghost’, but it does look a little eerie, and was something I did not notice at the time of taking the shot.)

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Ring o’ Bells and Halifax Minster

Tuesday 4th March 2025, 6.10pm (confirmed…) (day 4,940)

Ring o'Bells, 4/3/25

The association between this pub and Halifax Minster is obvious, even before noticing the painting hanging inside, which depicts the choir ‘practising’ while swilling ale in the tavern; and it was painted in the 1790s, apparently. The beer inside is still decent but there wasn’t much singing going on tonight. This is one of the shots where you can check my timekeeping.

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Shower and sun

Tuesday 25th February 2025, 1.30pm (day 4,933)

Rain shower, 25/2/25

Back home, where it is, of course, raining. (It did seem to be threatening rain on one evening in Dubai but it never fell.) Then again, the sun is shining too, at this point in time. It’s this essential ambivalence that keeps us Britons who we are, I suppose.

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