Wherever it actually resides depends on the university’s deployment of ‘cloud storage solutions’, I guess, but the interface that allows oversight of this ‘digital twin’ of Manchester resides in the Business School. Want to keep an eye on the city’s start-ups? energy use? property prices? infection rates? It’s all here. There’s something mildly sinister and undeniably impressive about it all, both at the same time.
It is now dark by the time I get back to the station after my Thursday afternoon lecture — but next week it will be dark before I even finish the class, thanks to the clocks going back this weekend. This is one of the usual ‘sculptures’ (I suppose we can call them that) put up around Manchester for Halloween, in case you hadn’t made the connection. Actually I think there’s been somewhat less overt plastic tat on display this year but maybe that’s just a personal opinion.
A day of work, even though it was a Saturday. Then, an attempt to find a quiet corner somewhere for a post-work drink — not necessarily easy on a Saturday night in Soho. But this pub on Charing Cross Road just about managed it, and afforded many people-watching opportunities through the sash windows. I pick this one because it has the feeling of being a still from a movie, and Soho just has that feeling of being a movie kind of place.
It may be yet another abandoned shoe (why is there only ever one, not two?) but dammit, it can still make its own way home. Of course, it isn’t really moving. But I guess the illusion is there.
The weekend’s tour of non-glamorous Northern towns continues. Actually Accrington is a more pleasant place than you might imagine, with signs of civilisation…. Not in the market today, though, not on a Sunday. Day of rest and all that. Did you know that bricks made in Accrington were used in the foundations of the Empire State Building? Now you do.
It seems to have happened slightly later than usual this year, though that’s just a quirk of the calendar, but today was the day I could no longer avoid going onto campus and being faced by a large number of people who were not in the vicinity two weeks ago. Yes, it’s the first week of teaching. So be it.
This giant wheel, tipped over onto its side but still propped up a little by its axle, lies by the top of New Works Road in Bradford, remnant of, and memorial to, one of the various coal mines which used to operate around here, but no more. These days, it indicates the point at which the chemical factory district turns back into the real world. I’ve done various pictures of the factories in the past, so today (tonight), let’s see the wheel.
As stated yesterday — a second shot from the same place: from yesterday’s shot, pan to the left, go up a ways and pull back out and this comes in view. Not always with the mist, though there’s usually a bird around somewhere.
I don’t often present the shots in portrait orientation but it seems appropriate today, as the verticals are what matter here. Taken in Manchester, but don’t get used to it — even with the new term coming up. Campus will be about a hundred times busier next week than it was today, but that’s OK, because I’m not going to be there.
This shot somewhat misrepresents the day’s weather, as for most of my time in Solihull today (near Birmingham, and making its debut on the blog) I walked and sat in quite pleasant sunshine. But not from between about 2.30 – 2.50pm. And the seats for the match to come were not under cover. Fortunately, it stopped, and two other big fat thunderheads that looked like they were later coming in also passed us by.
Being 42 