Glorious day in Bucharest, sunny and around 17ºC. Surely the warmest 1st February I have experienced anywhere except Brisbane in 2013, and that doesn’t count. I was not the only one taking this opportunity to relax.
I like Metros. Bucharest’s doesn’t have the grandeur and Art Deco sensibilities of the Moscow one, being more of a 1970s functionalist design, but it’s still got these long, open halls that are a great improvement over the rabbit warren that is the London Underground. I think I’ve got this shot pretty symmetrical, except of course for the TV screens, but those aren’t my fault.
Welcome to Romania — a new country for me, and the 40th to appear on this blog (allowing for my splitting up the component parts of the UK: a move which may yet prove prophetic, of course). I did not leave the conference venue all day, so more intimate shots of the city of Bucharest will have to wait, but this building was in view from there, as it is from most of the city. This is the People’s Salvation Cathedral, proof that not all the big houses of worship in the world are medieval; this was being planned 150 years ago, but was not actually started until 2010 and as is apparent on this shot, is not finished yet. It is the largest Eastern Orthodox church in the world.
I know that on my ‘About’ page I claim that this blog is intended to be apolitical. But now and again I make exceptions, and this is one of those days.
Today I have travelled to Romania (which you will see photos of over the next few days) for a conference that ironically is on cross-EU collaboration in higher education (a.k.a. the Bologna Process). I say ‘ironically’ because while I have entered Romania as an EU citizen, with rights here and indeed in 26 other countries across the continent, I will leave it on Sunday without these things, thanks to the piece of childish idiocy that has become known as ‘Brexit’, a shorthand term for the spasm of ideological, racist stupidity which a minority — and it is, be most assured, a minority of the UK population (do the maths) — decided in 2016 that they wanted. This then being reinforced by basically the same people who last month elected a lying, lawbreaking, over-privileged, credential-free buffoon to lead the country at this critical time.
On my way this morning from Heathrow I got the chance to take this shot: apologies for the alarming tilt on it but it was the only way to do it. Just below is Dover, its harbour walls clearly visible. And over there, under the plane’s wing, can be seen Cap Gris-Nez, near Calais. This is how close we are to Europe. I have flown over Lake Michigan and you can’t see one side from the other even from 30,000 feet. Here it took less than a few minutes to cross the Strait of Dover — or Pas de Calais, if you prefer.
And what do the Brexiteer morons and lunatics and bigots think will happen now? Do they think that the island of Great Britain is just going to float merrily off into the Atlantic, to engage in some blissful rendezvous with the Trumpiters somewhere near Bermuda? Are we supposed now to think that this narrow strait, this tiny defile that could still be walked across 6,000 years ago, is going to become a gulf and we will all get on with our Little Englander lives as if Europe, and all its economic and intellectual strength, its culture and history, wasn’t still there? Especially now that we have consciously revoked all ability to directly influence its politics, to vote in its elections, to oblige its ministers to hear us, as a member of a union, with all the deep legalistic meaning of that term?
I am ashamed.
London approaches its century of appearances on the blog: this is number 91, and going on my usual frequency of visits here, it’ll hit the milestone before 2020 is out. Tonight I’m just passing through, but it has made for a more leisurely journey than if I’d started from home tomorrow. And yes — the various signs and stickers on that fire exit over there do annoy me.
A brief interlude at home in Hebden, between trips. It still refuses to get particularly wintry. I have always liked this garden, passed on the way to the shops from our house: it is past due an appearance here. Today it can have its moment.
An illustration of how it is on public transport in the north of England at the present time. After making it back from Northern Ireland as far as Manchester Victoria, the (20 minutes late running) service to Heben Bridge apparently bursts into flames as it couples up with another couple of carriages. And the thing is, we all just shrugged out shoulders and ignored it. And then the carriages left anyway. This is how Keystone Kops it has really got.
One of those shots which is a nice arrangement but the OCD in all of us goes, couldn’t you have straightened up the goddamn chairs. Really.
The blog’s first trip to Northern Ireland, and only my third. Has it been as wet as this neon display suggests? No — or not yet, anyway.
Up in the air again, from Manchester airport heading roughly north-west, though not very far (so if you want, you can deduce where I travelled to before I post from t/here tomorrow). Not long after take off, visual interest was added to the flight to the south, where this cloudscape revealed itself. I wasn’t sure at the time where this might be but a subsequent look at the map suggests the hills in the background must be Snowdonia, in the north-west corner of Wales. It’s the general golden wash that I like about this photo, however. Far better weather up there than down on the ground today — as is often the case, of course.
Being 42 