Sir John Barbirolli was conductor of the Hallé orchestra, the UK’s oldest extant symphony orchestra, from 1943 until his death in 1970. The Hallé now reside at the Bridgewater Hall, built in 1996, and this bust of Barbirolli sits outside the venue — as you can see. I hope to be doing a fairly big project here over the next couple of years so expect to see more of this place, if all comes to pass.
This passage between the Manchester Central Library and the Town Hall has been closed for years, literally, while the library was refurbished, but it does now seem to be open again — at least, at this end. So this picture can be considered the latest documentary pic in the ongoing reconstruction of what seems to be the entirety of Manchester city centre.
Looks like the sale’s been working, but they’re sure dragging it out. Going purely on this blog, there’s no proof this jeweller ever doesn’t have a sale, in fact.
Normally our journey home from London wouldn’t take us through York but we ended up there because of a blockage on the line at Wakefield. It didn’t really extend our journey time much, to be fair. I took this shot while sat on our Hebden Bridge train waiting for it to leave, and like it because until I uploaded it onto the laptop this evening I didn’t realise how I’d captured this mother and son a couple of platforms away. I wasn’t particularly taking a photo of them, just of this group of people sat over there, and it’s nice sometimes when you get something unexpected.
The weekend in London continues. Visited the Victoria and Albert museum partly to see an exhibition and partly because I had never previously been there in my 46 years. The museum was opened in 1857 and has the largest collection of art and design objects in the world, the scale of which — 6.5 million objects — becomes apparent when you wander around the fairly large building and realise that even then only a tiny proportion of the collection is on display. This artist was one of a group sketching a sculpture which had made it out to public view.
Manchester yesterday was the exception — I’m back in London. This is Senate House, which contains the administrative offices and the main library of London’s university colleges. It was finished in 1937 and was one of the tallest buildings in the city at that time. In WW2 it was occupied by the Ministry of Information, and George Orwell’s wife Eileen worked there in the censorship department, thus inspiring the physical description of the Ministry of Truth in Nineteen Eighty-Four. It was also a key location in John Wyndham’s The Day of the Triffids.
Hot and sunny in London yesterday it may have been, but in Manchester this afternoon it was neither of these things, particularly not when I had to walk all the way along Oxford Road getting soaked. At least this girl had an umbrella, even if, like me, she was otherwise dressed for rather nicer conditions.
For me there’s something kind of suburban or small-town about ice cream vans, so it’s nice to find one in the centre of one of the biggest cities in Europe. Good idea today though, it was very hot and humid in London, and indeed elsewhere today.
This is pretty much the centre of the archaic, monolithic and largely closed institution that is the British state. Horse Guards Parade is virtually next door to 10 Downing Street, and Buckingham Palace is just a few hundred yards away. On this gravel the Queen Troops the Colour (whatever the hell that means) to celebrate her own “official birthday”. Until 1997 it was used as a car park, unbelievably, and the beach volleyball was played here in the 2012 Olympics.
Down in London again, and this is just the first of a double visit this week. Four nights to be spent in the acre of hotels to the south of King’s Cross. A tiny hotel room, but a decent view, of tiny little Midhope Street, and the weather is glorious — you will see more of it tomorrow I’m sure.
