Wednesday 5th February 2020, 9.45am (day 3,086)
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.
Being 42
Life, one day at a time
Tag Archives: 50
Sun on the doorstep
Tuesday 4th February 2020, 10.35am (day 3,085)
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.
Waiting for the train
Monday 3rd February 2020, 9.25am (day 3,084)
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.
Monument to megalomania
Sunday 2nd February 2020, 11.30am (day 3,083)
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…
Enjoying the sunshine
Saturday 1st February 2020, 1.25pm (day 3,082)
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.
Politehnica Metro station
Friday 31st January 2020, 2.45pm (day 3,081)
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.
People’s Salvation Cathedral, Bucharest
Thursday 30th January 2020, 11.45am (day 3,080)
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.
This is how close we are to Europe
Wednesday 29th January 2020, 10.55am (day 3,079)
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.
Outside King’s Cross, late
Tuesday 28th January 2020, 10.30pm (day 3,078)
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.
Garden on Foster Lane
Monday 27th January 2020, 11.35am (day 3,077)
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.
Being 42 