Category Archives: Urban scene

Sep 04 2018
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Daily Post, Urban scene

Building site problem

Monday 3rd September 2018, 9.30am (day 2,566)

Homeless, Abingdon St., 3/9/18

I’m tired of the endless destruction and re-capitalisation being wreaked on Manchester city centre. The yellow hoardings on the right surround what is to become a boutique hotel, called “Brooklyn” — or actually “BKLYN”, clearly this was exactly the configuration of letters which wasn’t already a hashtag — scheduled to open some time in 2019 it seems.

However, an objective assessment of the local building stock leads me to conclude that Manchester is already well-supplied with hotels, boutique or otherwise. What it seems to lack are beds for a growing population of rough sleepers, that anyone who walks through the city centre on a regular morning basis will agree has increased substantially in the last year or so.

Welcome to your neo-liberal marketised future.

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Aug 30 2018
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Daily Post, Urban scene

Back to Manchester (raining)

Wednesday 29th August 2018, 10.10am (day 2,561)

Rainy Manchester, 29/8/18

Felt obliged to put in an appearance in the big city for the first time (photographically) since signing off for my holiday on 3rd August. The weather brought melancholy in the morning, a feeling of autumn, though it did brighten up. The monochrome adds to the mood though really I only changed it to address a blob of anomalous colour (on the traffic sign in the background: near invisible here, a bright blue splodge in the original).

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Aug 27 2018
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Daily Post, Urban scene

A wet 49th

Sunday 26th August 2018, 11.55am (day 2,558)

Wet birthday, 26/8/18

After a few weeks of getting out and about, my 49th birthday was spent at home in Hebden Bridge, and this is the weather that greeted it. I’m sure it’s not a metaphor for my advancing years…. but it was rather a wet blanket (OK, that’s a metaphor). Onward, anyway, onward with my fiftieth year on the planet (good grief). But the travelling is over for a little while.

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Aug 24 2018
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Daily Post, Urban scene

By the wall

Thursday 23rd August 2018, 12.20pm (day 2,555)

East Side Gallery, 23/9/18Some parts of the old Berlin Wall remain in the city. Probably they could have been demolished back in 1990 but the authorities realised — correctly — that they were valuable as memorials and/or tourist attractions. Or, as in the case of the East Side Gallery, which runs beside the Spree for about a kilometer near the Ostbahnhof, an art installation; this long line of concrete has been decorated by a range of murals, including this one of Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov, who seems to disdain the busker beside him, playing as he is on a load of old water pipes, or something.

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Aug 23 2018
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Daily Post, Urban scene

It’s the Wurst

Wednesday 22nd August 2018, 5.50pm (day 2,554)

Wurst stand, 22/8/18

The next burst of summer holiday is taking place in Berlin, where Clare and I travelled today. We didn’t arrive until late afternoon and I feel I managed to do little, photographically, with the various opportunities offered: a few stereotypical shots of the Brandenburg Gate, which everyone snaps (our hotel is only a few minutes’ walk away). But this sausage stand nearby did capture the attention. As anyone who’s been to Germany knows, if you want a roadside sausage, this is the world epicentre. And that German word always gives scope for some dreadful pun or other.

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Aug 19 2018
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Daily Post, Flora/Fauna, Hebden Bridge, Urban scene

The birds seek more

Sunday 19th August 2018, 1.25pm (day 2,551)

Geese revenge, 19/8/18

Two days of total indolence are in progress for me, this being the first. I avoided the temptation to present a photo of this afternoon’s football result (Brighton & Hove Albion 3, Manchester United 2 — oh yes oh yes) and so this one will do. The woman in beige maybe regrets encouraging the geese to visit her for a snack.

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Aug 11 2018
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Daily Post, Urban scene

The end of Castle Pier, St Peter Port

Friday 10th August 2018, 3.45pm (day 2,542)

Castle pier, 10/8/18

Last year when I went to St Malo in September the denting of the aircraft’s wing, thanks to ineptitude (not the airline’s) stranded me on the island of Guernsey for 24 hours. At first this greatly pissed me off, but it turned out to be a rather nice 24 hours and an experience I thought repeating and worth sharing with the family. So here we are for a week’s holiday. I feel on this first day I also failed to take any particularly decent photographs, but this best effort is looking back to the island’s capital (and our first place of residence), St. Peter Port, from the end of one of its several breakwaters. Clare and Joe head back to town. There’ll be more from here over the week to come. I can improve. The sun might start shining, too (maybe).

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Jul 31 2018
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Daily Post, Urban scene

Not China

Monday 30th July 2018, 9.25am (day 2,531)

Chinatown, 30/7/18

Usually by this date in the year I am somewhere else. 2015, for example — halfway up Kilimanjaro. Last year — Whitehaven. (OK, not so exotic, but still, on holiday.) There are other examples. This year, I’m still working, at least for another few days. But walking through Chinatown on my way to work each day at least allows for some globetrotting by proxy.

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Jul 26 2018
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Daily Post, Urban scene

Under the arches, St. Peter’s Square

Wednesday 25th July 2018, 7.30am (day 2,526)

Under the arches, 25/7/18

For the second time in a fortnight, the photo of the day that I find most pleasing visually happens to include a guy sleeping on the pavement. As the numbers of pictures accumulate on this blog, each being a snapshot (literally) of a moment in a day, statistically it comes to reflect the patterns of my life, where I am the most, the times of day I do things, the things I see around me. And there are more men and women sleeping on the streets of Manchester around me than ever before. It’s a fact.

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Jul 19 2018
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Daily Post, Urban scene

On Cross Street

Wednesday 18th July 2018, 9.20am (day 2,519)

Homeless on Cross Street, 18/7/18

This is easily the most interesting photo I took today both in terms of its appearance and any semblance of social commentary. On the other hand it opens me up, not for the first time on this blog, to the accusation of voyeurism. But I suppose all photographs, at least, of people, have an element of this: the question is whether the spied-upon assents to or is even aware of the spying. In this case he is not. Yet in a small way does something come from it? I claim this blog is not political, but that’s not always the case. I get angry that a society with pretensions to high civilisation can’t at least find beds each night for a certain number of its people. This man shouldn’t need to spend the night on a pavement in the centre of Manchester. Maybe by showing it I keep it, even in a very tiny way, as an issue for public debate. But perhaps that’s all just rationalisation after the fact.

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