This guy was certainly moving at quite a clip, so the ‘charging’ reference has a double meaning: pretty weak, I know, but that’s what a full day’s work does for my wit these days. In three days’ time I should be somewhere very different.
A hundred years ago the town of Burnley had 103,000 people in it; these days it has about 78,000, so around a quarter fewer. They still seem pretty closely packed in, though.
He is watching something. The eye in the sky is below him and can’t watch him from there, but I capture him with a long zoom. Everyone is watching someone else.
Whatever happened on the 22nd February at 9.55am happened while I was in Dubai, so I do not know the details. But going on the location, at the junction of Booth Street and Mosley Street in Manchester city centre, the ‘serious collision’ was most likely between a car and a tram — something which really shouldn’t happen in broad daylight. The tram is never going to come off worse in such an encounter. One therefore assumes the memorial flowers — note the £3.50 price tag visible on one bunch — are for at least one occupant of the car. And their ghost keeps a careful watch.
(OK, actually I’m the ‘ghost’, but it does look a little eerie, and was something I did not notice at the time of taking the shot.)
The association between this pub and Halifax Minster is obvious, even before noticing the painting hanging inside, which depicts the choir ‘practising’ while swilling ale in the tavern; and it was painted in the 1790s, apparently. The beer inside is still decent but there wasn’t much singing going on tonight. This is one of the shots where you can check my timekeeping.
Back home, where it is, of course, raining. (It did seem to be threatening rain on one evening in Dubai but it never fell.) Then again, the sun is shining too, at this point in time. It’s this essential ambivalence that keeps us Britons who we are, I suppose.
Getting out of the general area of the hotel was desirable so I did what I usually do under these circumstances and went to a football match; this is taken outside the Zabeel Stadium. There were far more Emiratis there than are typically seen around the city, at least in the bits that I have been (only just over 10% of Dubai’s population are Emirati).
And this also offered an opportunity to add to the blog’s list of ‘Superlatives’ (see the bottom of the stats page) — the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world at 2,722 feet/829.8 m, or over half a mile. It really is ridiculously tall. One day I might try to go up it but there’s no time on this trip and apparently the queues are outrageous anyway. I imagine going to the football is a better way of plugging into local culture.
From the colour of one specific bit of Manchester yesterday, to this scene of utter grayness. Or is it greyness with an E? I’ve never been sure. Gra/ey it was today though, for sure. Such a gloomy day .
One of those seasonal themes, coming a little late this year — Chinese New Year celebrations have yet to make it to St Helena. Manchester always sprouts a healthy crop, though.
The last night of the trip was spent on the 12th floor of the Walthamstow Travelodge, from which this was the view on opening the curtains in the morning, the first rays of light just catching some of the buildings and, in the background, the smoke or steam rising from the industrial area over there.
This afternoon, four weeks and five hours after leaving, I arrived back home. Time to rest for a little while…. well, a couple of weeks anyway.
Being 42 