Tuesday 4th November 2025, 10.00am (day 5,185)
This is definitely a stock shot, but what the hell. The Rochdale Canal is definitely worth a regular viewing, particularly at the peak of autumn.
Rochdale Canal (stock shot)
Being 42
Life, one day at a time
Category Archives: Urban scene
Manchester’s Digital Twin
Monday 27th October 2025, 9.20am (day 5,177)
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.
The eyes have it
Thursday 23rd October 2025, 6.15pm (day 5,173)
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.
Soho, on screen?
Saturday 18th October 2025, 6.10pm (day 5,168)
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.
Shoe crossing
Monday 13th October 2025, 10.00am (day 5,163)
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.
Accrington Market is closed
Tuesday 5th October 2025, 12.20pm (day 5,155)
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.
Bikes and people
Thursday 2nd October 2025, 3.45pm (day 5,152)
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.
The flywheel
Tuesday 30th September 2025, 9.50pm (day 5,150)
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.
Misty morning, with bird
Monday 29th September 2025, 8.20am (day 5,149)
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.
Pipework in Manchester alley
Wednesday 17th September 2025, 3.40pm (day 5,137)
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.
Being 42 