Ieuan Hewitt, full-back for Flint Town United, is consoled after visitors Newtown won 4-3 in the penalty shootout at the end of their 2-2 draw in the Welsh Cup. Hewitt saw his kick saved as the shootout progressed under skies that looked like they were rough sketches for Dante’s Inferno.
POSTSCRIPT: After I tweeted this picture it was then used as the lead back page photo in the Flintshire Chronicle‘s report on the match. Which was flattering…
A good view, but a precarious spot to be perched on this Friday morning. How do scaffolders have the confidence to get up there and be active when (to my mind) the whole edifice looks about to topple over to the right and crash him down from forty feet up in the air? The whole thing, put up this morning, had come down again just after lunch, so I hope it was worth it.
Since early December there has been a whole new version of our train service, extending — at least on paper — to Oxford Road station. This all makes my life mildly more convenient coming home on an afternoon, as long as I can bugger off no later than 4pm; in the morning it makes no difference at all, being quicker to walk between the two stations. For this, your friendly government magnanimously spent £85m on the Ordsall Chord development. Well, I’m sure it’s all part of some bigger plan somewhere. After all, it would be terrible to think that the people in charge of the country’s finances didn’t actually have a clue.
“What the hell are you looking at?”
Wise words. I’ve been asking myself that for the last 2,344 days in fact.
What can I say? It’s Tuesday. I spent the day sat on my arse grading student papers. It’s pub night…
Tory cuts notwithstanding there remains a decent municipal waste tip a couple of miles away and even if you can’t drive to that the council will pick up this kind of thing from your house. So, sorry, but what’s the fucking point in dumping a broken chair by the side of the river, in a now-inaccessible but visible and central spot, where it will presumably sit for several months? Mucky bloody bastards. I hate this kind of neglect. I could say it’s a middle-aged thing but actually I’ve always hated it.
I’m still not particularly well, and despite a tolerable interlude yesterday the weather basically continues very crappy: ‘Outside’ at the moment is a euphemism for ‘Being sprayed with icy precipitation in a variety of forms’. So, more board games then. And a visit from Doug, who thereby makes — in part — his third appearance on the blog.
He did do so, a couple of minutes later. Yes, I do have a photo of that moment as well, but there was too much flare on it and anyway they can keep their privacy in that respect.
Continued dim and gloomy light means this one isn’t going to win any nature photography plaudits but nevertheless, robins are hard birds not to like. Cute, colourful, unafraid of people, they hang out where we like to be — like this one at the railway station this morning. It would be nice if they would stay in one place a little longer, but I just about got the focus right here. I make this the fifth robin to appear on the blog. My favourite? This one, from 4th January 2017.
The title — and the sign — refer to the closure, as of today, of Manchester Town Hall for restoration, ‘until 2024’.
You know, I was just thinking that what this city really needs is a significant, very extended, disruptive building project. I’ll be fifty-five fucking years old in 2024.
Being 42 