Bedford is one of the largest towns in the UK not to have a professional football team. But who needs all that big-time professional crap. Their town’s footie ground entertained me amply well without it. Albeit coldly.
Another early morning in Manchester. The difference in the light, bearing in mind the 45 minute gap from the time of Friday’s shot, shows the current clocking on time for the sun. I love the details on this shot, the graffiti and the print.
I know this is a lousy picture. I’m sorry. It’s a lousy picture to have been in a position to take, too. All previous eulogies to the good weather of 2020 were decisively blown away overnight and this morning by Storm Ciara, a vicious little wannabe hurricane that blasted in, savagely dumped its load on Hebden Bridge and left the town, for the fourth time in the last eight years, under a layer of water [*]. I could have gone outside and taken pictures of the flooding but if you’ll forgive me, the prospect was too depressing. If I abrogate my duty as some kind of social commentator by doing so, my apologies — the vultures in their TV vans will doubtless be supplying the world with pictures of it all soon enough; while evading the real issues and reasons behind flooding, which are (around here anyway) to do with inequalities of power and status. And yet people vote Conservative, over and over again.
[*] The three previous occasions in the lifetime of this blog were 22/6/12 — 9/7/12 — and 26/12/15.
Preston station this evening was the showcase for this gorgeous lump of metal — the horde of sightseers was not limited to the people seen here, the group extends round behind me and the camera. And why not: there is something undeniably attractive about these machines, proof that technology can also sometimes be art. It was pointing north, so presumably was about to steam up to Scotland; appropriate considering its name, as loco no. 46115 is known as the Scots Guardsman.
Three days in a row in Manchester — teaching must have started again… This also explains the early start today. Expect more of these on subsequent Fridays, to be honest. But at least I know that at 7.15 am in Victoria station, one can purchase pudding and pie.
2020 has contained many things to complain about thus far, at least in the wider world, but the weather has not been amongst them. Perhaps it does foretell the melting of the world’s ecosystems somehow but believe me, it could be a lot worse. And time for the annual appearance of the Chinese lanterns on the blog, too.
Was obliged to visit a place I had not set foot in since 20th January, namely campus. This mural is a relatively new addition to the landscape along the way. Very Manchester, old and new.
The world turns, the sun shifts a little in the sky each day, and so slowly, light comes back into the mornings. It is only at this time of year that it starts to rise enough above the hill to the east that we start to see it again at the front of the house. Though for now, only the doorstep, and then only for five minutes in the morning; it’ll be a couple more weeks before it deigns to start shining inside.
Some pass by, some stand still, but we are all eventually heading somewhere else than King’s Cross station. I waited out my 20 minute train delay on the walkway above the main concourse, offering the chance to take this angle on it all.
Nicolae Ceausescu, who ruled Romania from 1965 until he spectacularly lost control in late December 1989, was one of the most unilateral dictators of any that have ever seized power, running the country like his own personal fiefdom. Towards the end of his reign he commissioned this monstrosity, the Palace of the Parliament, as a monument to his own ambition. Apparently it is the largest parliamentary building anywhere in the world, and also the world’s heaviest building at some four billion kilos (thank you Wikipedia). It was something to look at on my final morning as I prepared to leave Bucharest; the mare’s-tails in the sky suggesting that the very mild weather I have enjoyed there is coming to an end…
Being 42 