I am irresistibly reminded of a drag queen at Pride, or one of those amazing Brazilian samba women at the Notting Hill Carnival, posing for the camera in front of a line of stern grey coppers…. Happy Wednesday, little feller.
It’s the first week of the semester, so the following things traditionally appear: lots more people (students); a collection of marquees with various AV equipment and heaters; and rain. It always seems to rain in Welcome week, year in, year out.
I would say that there is no reason to come through the factory districts of Bradford late at night, but this is not the first time I’ve found one: see 21st December 2021 for instance, a shot taken in much the same place as this one. Both were the result of going to an evening game at Bradford Park Avenue FC but that’s another story. I must admit that I like walking through this part of town, whether at night or not; the convolutions of the factories and their pipes and lights and ducts, clouds of steam, lights on but very rarely any people — all these make for interesting photography.
OK, maybe you’ve see The Jungle Book like 38 times or whatever, but until this afternoon, I had never seen it all the way through. Bits of it — the songs, mainly — on Disney Time that we used to get on TV when it was a public holiday in the 1970s (“I’m the king of the swingers…. a jungle VIP”, that stuff) but never all the way through. And it might be a little archaic in its depictions of this or that but it is a pretty good movie, don’t you think? It’s certainly the only thing that happened to me today.
Properly, the Cathedral Church of St Peter and St Wilfrid, Ripon: a big church for a small place. There’s been a place of Christian worship on this site since 672, so 1,350 years. Quite a weight of history, and like most such buildings, you can feel it. This shot of the rood screen and organ pipes above is one where it helps to get the symmetry right, and I think I’ve managed that.
Protesting outside the offices of a company about to insure a large new oil pipeline in East Africa: this seems valid to me. But they were all so terribly polite about it. Walking past on my way to work I might have missed the whole thing entirely were it not for a voice through a microphone that said (I’m paraphrasing slightly): “*cough* I hope you can here us, Sir Someone, but please don’t insure that oil pipeline” and then went quiet again. And the office was on the other side of the road anyway, ‘guarded’ by three somewhat bored-looking policemen. Throwing oneself under the King’s horse this was not.
Six bridges — three of which are for pedestrians only — cross the Hebden Water in town, but Hebden Bridge is named for this one specifically, purportedly built in 1510. This is something of a stock local shot but it gives as good an impression of the general shape of the town as is available.
Dina was last seen in Toronto in October 2021 and, as part of a project which has been (so far) a wholly positive development but with which I won’t bore you here, has been visiting Manchester this week. Other than myself, Clare and Joe this makes her only the second person to appear on this blog in two different countries and the first on two different continents.
Christmas decorations appearing in early November, I have learned to live with. But Halloween ones appearing more than six weeks before the fact? Ah, goddamit. Society is crumbling. (This may, of course, not be a specific Halloween reference but let me grumble.)
Time to kill before the 11:00 meeting in the city centre. Tea needed to be drunk. Monochrome needed to be used to disguise the fact that this shot is basically out of focus, but losing the colour means I can go for the rustic 1960s bistro effect. Which I’m sure is how Caffe Nero wants to be seen (note: other corporate coffee bar providers are available).
Being 42 