Category Archives: Urban scene

‘Champions’ banner, Manchester Town Hall

Tuesday 15th May 2012, 7.50am (day 264)

Manchester City banner, 15/5/12

Posted purely to wind up any Manchester United fans in the audience. I dislike Manchester United because of:

  1. the fact my Dad is a City fan of nearly 60 years’ standing
  2. the general arrogance
  3. (most of all) the 1983 FA Cup Final (look it up if you don’t get this reference).

Anyway the drama of Sunday’s game (which I missed altogether, being on a plane back from Copenhagen at the time) was too good for it to end any other way. Well done, City.

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Mini Copenhagen

Friday 11th May 2012, 5.00pm (day 260)

Mini Copenhagen, 11/5/12

Finished off in Nyborg this morning and transited back to Copenhagen for the weekend (for reasons which will become obvious tomorrow). This rather cool model of medieval Copenhagen – nothing of which remains – sits outside the Copenhagen Historical Museum, a few minutes’ walk from our hotel on the Vesterbrøgade.

It’s a new capital city for me, anyway: I think this is the full list of capitals that I have visited at any point: London, Dublin, Oslo, Helsinki, Moscow, Warsaw, Berlin, Paris, Amsterdam, Madrid, Lisbon, Athens, Vienna, Prague, Nicosia, Sofia, Riyadh, Taipei, Washington and now Copenhagen. My favourite? Amsterdam. The most boring? Sofia. The oddest? Riyadh.

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The balloon seller, Manchester

Friday 4th May 2012, 3.10pm (day 253)

Balloon seller, 4/5/12

Walking back to the station I followed this lady for ages and tried to get several photos – I like this one in particular because of the woman on the left ignoring the whole spectacle (and the photographer). I must have followed her for five minutes and in all that time saw nothing but these feet.

It’s as well these things are appearing in my life as subjects because this is the longest run I’ve had all blog of pictures just in Hebden Bridge (home) or Manchester (work). Today was the 20th in a row in just these two locations. I’m off to the Lake District tomorrow though, then Denmark for 5 days on Wednesday.

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St George’s Square, late at night

Thursday 3rd May 2012, 10.55pm (day 252)

St Georges Square, 3/5/12

This is the main square in the centre of Hebden Bridge. You have seen it before (like on March 18th and March 6th, for example), but not this late at night. Then again you’ve seen very little of things this late at night, because I am not much of a dirty stop-out. Tonight was an exception: we went to the cinema.

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CDs at Hebden Bridge market

Wednesday 2nd May 2012, 9.35am (day 251)

CDs at market, 2/5/12

Yup: that pretty much sums me up, musically. And all at £2 off, as well.

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May Day blossoms

Tuesday 1st May 2012, 8.45am (day 250)

May day blossoms, 1/5/12

The weather was not wet, nor that cold, today, but it was so dull. So to cheer me up and make things feel more springlike, here are some pretty blossoms for May Day.

It’s also day 250 of the blog, so I have made some new additions to the ‘Best of the Rest’ page.

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Cathedral and Carbuncle

Monday 30th April 2012, 7.50am (day 249)

Manchester cathedral, 30/4/12

I put up this photo today for two reasons. The first is that I have been starved of sunlight for a week but here is evidence that the morning was a beautiful sunny one, and the whole day stayed reasonable. The last time I had a photo on this blog illuminated by sunshine was 21st April, and even that had just been a momentary break of sun in an otherwise rainy day.

The other thing is that I see this view of Manchester Cathedral every time I leave Victoria station, and keep thinking, OK, it’s not a particularly impressive church (the parish church in the Sussex village where I grew up is larger); but it is a cathedral, thus the centre of a bishopric, the ecclesiastical centre of this, a very large city, God’s house, all that jazz. And in 1974 or so someone went, ‘I’ve got an idea. Let’s build a sodding great white concrete thing right beind it.’

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‘Drought’ in Hebden Bridge

Thursday 26th April 2012, 4.25pm (day 245)

Joe in rain, 26/4/12

The non-democratic British government, and the private capitalists they get to do their dirty work with public services, are so inept they can’t even do the weather right. Last week we were all told that the country currently resides in a state of drought. Since then it’s hardly stopped raining.

It’s not a ‘drought’, anyway. What we are being told is that the private water companies have inefficient water capture systems and a lack of any real conservation strategy. But that’s an undesirable message as far as they’re concerned, and one easy to spin into ‘It’s the Weather. Honest guv. It’s out of our hands.’ No it isn’t. If the government just gave everyone a water butt for free we could sort out a lot of the ‘problems’ by tomorrow morning.

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Canal, early morning

Tuesday 24th April 2012, 6.40am (day 243)

Canal morning, 24/4/12

This is one of those photos that I could take almost any morning that I walk to the station, as this view just presents itself to anyone walking over the bridge that leads there. In a sense then it’s one of the ‘reserve’ photos that I have been saving for when there’s not much else to document. The weather is poor at the moment, the light flat; but there’s always the reflections to give some interest. And speculation as to what it’s actually like to live on one of these boats, which many people do.

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Memorial Gardens, Hebden Bridge

Sunday 15th April 2012, 12.15pm (day 234)

Memorial gardens, 15/4/12

No particular story behind this one, just a photo to encapsulate what was a nice, sunny day – although a chilly one.

Back to work tomorrow after 11 days off. Well, I suppose it’s gotta be done now and again.

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