Monday 24th October 2011, 6.25pm (day 60)
The Arbat is like Hebden Bridge. You can amble around and pick up art or second-hand books or jewelry, but nothing very practical like medicine. But it is laid-back, which is unusual for Moscow.
Being 42
Life, one day at a time
Category Archives: Urban scene
View from my hotel room, Moscow
Sunday 23rd October 2011, 10.15pm (day 59)
Looking out over the Moscow River (unseen in this shot) – this is the Hotel Ukrainia, one of the ‘Seven Sisters’, gothic skyscrapers built by Stalin (well, not personally) in the 40s and 50s. I’m in the Hotel Belgrad.
I always wanted a job where I could travel, right from being 16 or so. And now I have one, I’m glad enough, even if sometimes it seems a little excessive – I have 7 work trips abroad planned between now and mid-February (plus one personal one), and that does not even include trips within the UK.
But I think the chance to see how other cultures live, and realise that – unlike what the Daily Mail says, in its xenophobic little hate-fuelled way – Britain is not the centre of the world, are good things and has made me a better person, though others should be the real judge of that. Do I worry about the environmental impact? Yes… but I don’t own a car, so feel at least that I compensate in one way. Again, let others judge.
Keighley Road, Hebden Bridge
Friday 21st October 2011, 6.30am (day 57)
Why do I have the sinking feeling that I am going to be getting up in the dark for most of the next six months?
Frosty morning
Thursday 20th October 2011, 8.45am (day 56)
Beautiful morning today but a bloody cold one, with a sharp frost, clearly visible here. Well, that’s winter on the way then.
Slight reservations about posting this if only because there’ve been a lot of Hebden Bridge pictures this last few days. Off to Russia on Sunday however, to give this blog renewed international flavour.
The back door of the Railway Inn, Hebden Bridge
Wednesday 19th October 2011, 4.20pm (day 55)
A day swamped with bad vibes but by the end I had found out the probable cause. Not a pleasant thing at all but not something which affected me directly. At that point I was glad I was able to join friends down at the pub.
I must have come through this back door at least twice a week on average for the last ten years but it’s nice to see it with a fresh eye now and again.
Outside the ‘Inn on the Bridge’, Hebden Bridge
Tuesday 18th October 2011, 8.55am (day 54)
The light was weird this morning – a burst of sunshine into a day that was otherwise pretty foul – so here’s a challenge: can it make even an industrial skip, full of waste, look photogenic?
Hell yeah. It can.
Sunset seen from home
Thursday 13th October 2011, 6.30pm (day 49)
Today was proving a very mundane day photographically and I was struggling to find a representative picture – until the natural environment obliged with the last light of the day.
Tomorrow is the 50th day of this blog, by the way. So look out for the page of ‘outtakes’ (or ‘best of the rest’) which I’m going to stick up tomorrow alongside the daily picture.
Calder Holmes Park, Hebden Bridge
Wednesday 12th October 2011, 8.45am (day 48)
The Indian Summer buggered off back to India at least a week ago and since then it’s barely stopped raining. Not much else worth adding here, except perhaps, ‘enough already’.
Taking shelter, Manchester city centre
Monday 10th October 2011, 4.10pm (day 46)
A bit blurred I know but this was the best picture I came up with to encapsulate what was another rainy day. Apparently Manchester is not, according to its reputation, the rainiest city in the UK (it’s Glasgow, I believe) – but on days like this it certainly feels like it.
Incidentally, is it me or do Caffé Nero spell their name wrong?
Conservative Party roadblock, Manchester
Monday 3rd October 2011, 7.50am (day 39)
35,000 people marched in Manchester yesterday against the policies of the government. PM David Cameron said, bluntly, in the Manchester Evening News today: ‘You are all wrong’. This presumably means, he thinks he is right.
OK, let us look at just one salient story for a moment. On 14th March 2007, the incumbent Labour-led government voted on whether or not to spend at least (that’s ‘at least’ – it will inevitably rise) £20billion on upgrading the UK’s Trident nuclear missile system: something that has never been used, and probably never will be. At this point the government’s majority was 62. 85 Labour MPs voted against the plan. Therefore, had the Opposition done what it does as a matter of course with most other votes, and opposed it, it would not have gone through, and that £20bn would not now be on the public spending bill.
However, virtually every Tory MP voted for the proposal. This £20bn of public spending (no mention of public-private partnerships here) has been specifically said by Mr Cameron to be ‘ring fenced’ and not open to being cut.
All this is fact, a matter of public record. Therefore, the only conclusion to draw is that the Conservative party, and the Liberal Democrats who are the pimps in this particular transaction, are actually not all that interested in cutting government spending per se. Rather, it shows that they are far keener to redirect money which could go on education, welfare, health and other things that citizens might actually directly benefit from, and spend it on bombs.
And I bet the citizens of Manchester are paying to police the party conference, too: despite facing local government public spending cuts as big as any in the country. Paying for the privilege of having a chunk of their city centre turned into a fortress. Inclusive government? Democracy? Yeah, we’ve heard of it. Christ, I’m pissed off.
Being 42 