Fourth and final day of the ALT-C conference, but the picture is not of Manchester today: this is Hebden Bridge station, as you probably recognise by now. An early morning after a late return the night before. Ow.
Told you not long ago that this place was all coming down. I like the combination of light and dust cloud on this shot.
An unexciting subject for a photo but this was an unexciting day. It does at least mark the first appearance of the exterior of the Ellen Wilkinson Building at university, in which I (occasionally) work. Named for the UK’s first female Minister of Education, by the way. But not a building of great architectural merit, inside or out.
This building has been erected since I started this blog – it wasn’t there a year ago. It stands near Oxford Road station in Manchester. I am particularly impressed with the budget accommodation visible here, but I doubt it’s very suitable for anyone worried about heights.
Another one of those days: look up, see a sky, want to move to a different city. Half an hour after this came another intense cloudburst: until a couple of months ago I’d have said ‘I’d never seen anything like it before’ but of course we have. (The building is the AQA headquarters on the Manchester campus.)
Still off work, went to York for the day – a fine city with plenty to do and see (but lots, and lots, of people in the narrow streets). Could have presented a photo of the architectural glory that is the Minster (cathedral), the Roman ruins, some of the best-preserved city walls in Europe, the National Railway Museum… but instead, let’s go with this picture of a devil puppet, attached to a busker’s fiddle so it twitched and boogied as he played. Why? Because, I don’t know, it’s cute, and had no objection to having its picture taken.
Last day in Helsinki. Went on a walk this morning round Töölönlahti, which is an arm of the sea in the centre of the city, encircled by a pleasant path festooned with joggers and cyclists. Many of them stop at a terrace café high up on one side, where the famous Finnish architect Alvar Aalto must once have enjoyed his cups of coffee. The evidence for this statement is given above, where you see Aalto’s 1976 Finlandia building (a multi-arts venue), placed in front of the much older – and twice as distant – tower of the Finnish National Museum behind. Just look closely. What a stroke of genius, only visible from this exact spot, and all done with a lick of paint.
Tampere is the largest inland city in Scandinavia and known as the ‘Manchester of the North’ as it was the cradle of the Industrial Revolution in this region. Unlike Manchester itself it does still have a sense of industry about it, like things continue to be actually made here. I’m here for a conference (which traditionalists will say has nothing to do with ‘making’ anything, and they’d probably be right). This is the city’s second appearance on this blog, the first being way back in September 2011.
I’m away again. When heading east most of the day is spent travelling and there wasn’t much to see today. Snapped this while sat on the Finnair bus waiting to head into Helsinki city centre from the airport.
This is one of my town’s more pleasurable regular events and was thankfully blessed by good weather. I no longer have an interest in cars as a means of propulsion but any one built before about 1965 just has such a damn fine look to it. And when they come out to events like this they’re all looking their best, polished and chrome and curvy and well, dammit (Janet), rather sexy. But I only look. I don’t want a relationship with one of these things again. Too complicated.
(PS technically this is a self-portrait: look carefully.)
