An estate agent might still describe this a “Manchester city centre apartment, including private balcony, with intimate views of the River Medlock below”. The reality is that this building has been swathed in scaffolding for months now (certainly since at least early February, as this pic proves), and the Medlock is a litter-speckled concrete drainage channel at this point. I doubt those stairs have much purpose in existence, either.
At about 3.30am in the morning I was awoken by a distant but continuously ringing alarm down in town, and a sense that I could smell smoke, although both these things only reached the semi-concscious level of awareness. Having convinced myself that if there was smoke, it was external to our place, I drifted back to sleep.
In the morning, it became more apparent where all this was coming from: the La Perla restaurant in town burned down overnight. This morning they were still dousing the smouldering timbers, the town cordoned off as I walked past on my way to the station — so this was the nearest I could get for this bit of reportage. No one was hurt, but I imagine there are a number of people who today are extremely upset.
The ‘West Riding’ bar on Dewsbury station ranks up there with the world’s great railway station refreshment rooms. It’s quite as good as Stalybridge’s, and that’s high praise indeed. The random scattering of stuff around it, inside and out, seems natural rather than the affectations of an interior designer. It’s been a while since this piano made any music, but it remains interesting in different ways.
The underbelly of the Mancunian Way isn’t the most glamorous spot in the city, but somehow this combination of graffiti and beer bottles looks relaxing.
Monday saw probably the highest temperatures in recorded British history, at least in some places. Today, it was chucking it down, and cool enough to need a jacket when out in the afternoon. The weather in Britain explains a great deal about the country’s psyche. “What comes, will come. Live with it.”
My perambulation around the southern parts of England continues. Academic that I am you might have expected Oxford — undoubtedly one of the world’s greatest seats of learning — to have featured on here over the last 11 years (nearly). Its rival Cambridge has done so, and I have to say I do find that the more attractive place of the two. Cambridge has rural charm whereas Oxford is really just a middling-sized city with, admittedly, some pretty fine buildings. But on a sunny, pleasant Monday morning, it’ll do.
It is plastic, but it does look very realistic, particularly sat on a cushion outside the pub in the sunshine. Many passers-by were seen doing double-takes. Why was it there? Just one element in a range of junk (hence the pile behind it), passing through.
I’d say ‘it’s that time of year again’ but this is the first mid-July since 2019 where there have been such scenes around campus. Ceremony does matter: it’s good to see these return.
Outside Club Bloom on Abingdon Street. Clearly they feel they don’t need a “Deal or No Deal” fruit machine any more, so if you want one — or a traffic cone — help yourself. What we throw away in the modern world, though. In a SF book I once read there was a company called “Dumpmines” who made lots of cash through mining 20th- and 21st-century landfills for their valuable materials. Seems quite sensible to me, I’d invest in it.
I did very little else other than enjoy some sunshine on this Saturday afternoon; and I was not the only one.
