Another day where not a great deal happened, so let’s bring out one of the recent Hebden Bridge staple shots — Blokes Working On A Roof. This time, with added Autumn Foliage for garnish.
After the weekend away, the day spent almost entirely at home working to make up. Use was thereby prompted of a stock late October shot, but what the hell.
Maybe not ‘outstanding’, but Friday night was pretty good; the first part of a fine weekend away, to celebrate Clare’s birthday (Saturday).
If you’re wondering what exactly is so outstanding here, it’s a school, trumpeting its Ofsted (Office for Standards in Education) rating. Not a modest institution.
This is a fairly stock campus shot, but then again it was a fairly stock campus day. At least there are people in it, which is more than has been the case for several other recent photos.
Walking around in the countryside, as I do, I noticed that there was nothing stopping me standing in this position and attempting to get this shot: which only really works if the symmetry is just right, and in that regard I think I have done a reasonable job. In a way, it’s a shame about the wires, but then again, they are the point of the structure.
A second day in a row spent in Manchester in which I didn’t seem to point my camera at any people, particularly. I like the collage effect here though, and the flash of reflected sunshine. After two long days though, I’m glad it’s the weekend.
In 2025, Bradford will become the UK’s City of Culture, and the sign proclaims this: from the rear, the slope on the left is one of the 2s, with the zero to the other side. Behind, a small part of the gigantic, desperate building site that constitutes most of its city centre at the present time. The bus station is entirely closed, having been declared unsafe a while back. You can’t get a taxi from anywhere particularly near the railway station. And all this with exactly eleven weeks to go until 1st January. City of Culture? Perhaps this chaos and neglect is, indeed, representative of the UK in this epoch.
What is this for, really? Surely if you want people to ‘drive normally’ up Oxford Road into Manchester city centre putting up a sign suggesting that they do so is exactly the way not to achieve this? “Hmmm, I thought I was driving normally, but… now I’m confused, what do they mean….” (screech of brakes as the now-distracted driver drifts to the side and takes out the Deliveroo guy).
Did nothing except trug into campus by the usual routes, do my thing, and trug home again. The usual routes take me through Chinatown, of which Manchester has a large example, the third biggest in Europe if you believe the hype. And I do — it is hard not to, bearing in mind the ethnic composition of my classes at the present time.
Back home: from Berlin on a Sunday morning to Hebden Bridge on a Monday one. At least I got out of the house today. This is a standard shot but the comparative lack of traffic was appealing. The sign to top left, less so, but I tried to make it look less obtrusive.
Being 42 