I have got it down to working about two Sundays a year, and today was one of them. Appearance on campus before 9am on the ‘day of rest’ allows the experience of the virtually empty car park, and its mysterious ‘T’. Maybe it was once an arrow, but not any more. A recent run of interiors continues.
One reason, among many, that I hardly ever drive into Manchester is the enthusiasm of its traffic wardens: this seems to particularly apply around the King Street/Booth Street area, as the driver of this car will doubtless realise when s/he returns to it and its double ticket whammy. When I saw this I recalled this story from The Register, which noted that:
One council operative, identified only as badge number MC1192, issued 5,662 of the council’s 14,887 parking tickets for the month [May 2020], raking in £69,864 with a further £155,266 allegedly outstanding on MC1192’s tickets alone by the end of the month. This workrate is the equivalent of 35 tickets issued every working hour of the month, assuming a generous 40-hour working week with no bank holidays or days off.
….and that was in lockdown. I’ll stick to public transport, thanks.
Chosen purely for the shape and the symmetry. This VW serves tea and coffee to the market-goers in Hebden on a Sunday.
I’m not a fan of cars exactly, whether as objects in their own right or as subjects for photography. Actually I think they mostly get in the way. But I waive this concern for any car from about 1970 or earlier, like this Morris Minor which decorated the marina in Hebden this afternoon.
As this photo shows, it was kind of wet here today. But it was not the supposed weather Apocalypse, the ‘worst storm for decades’ if you listen to the UK media. A classic case today of how London-centric it all is. This very spot was under seven feet of water on Boxing Day 2015 for example, and on three other occasions since this blog has been running. Check the facts. Nevertheless I was still told (once again) to ‘stay at home’ and that should I disobey this order, the public services would not be responsible for my safety or well-being.
Just one of those images noticed on the way down to town. It certainly is a very grubby car, but at least this records someone else’s artwork, before it gets cleaned off. A photowhack (the only photo taken today), and also a picture taken, totally inadvertently, at exactly the same time as yesterday’s (within a minute). This is the kind of trivia I seem to care about the most these days — see the updated stats page too, as it’s a round number day today.
My first Manchester shot for four weeks — and the first one before 10am for five weeks. These two facts are not unrelated, the connecting factor being ‘going to work’, or at least, visiting the office. Not that Manchester has yet busied up much (will it ever do so again?) although January is always a quieter time, which is why I like it, particularly when the sun shines.
Even the traffic warden was somewhat bemused by this saloon ‘parked’ not only on one of the slip roads to the Mancunian Way, but across a pedestrian crossing. However, I suspect the true owners of this car are not — at this point in time — aware of it being parked there. Hey, maybe they’ll beat the tow-truck.
It was about 12ºC today, compared with -2ºC on Saturday. The sun shone for a couple of hours in the afternoon and, just for a moment, there were intimations of spring. This lady appears to be enjoying it, albeit from behind glass.
I don’t know, one gets the chance to go out for a change, and then the car breaks down on the motorway on the way back. But everyone with whom I then had to engage to sort this out, did indeed get it sorted out, so credit to them all.
A car crash in a remote, forgotten part of Europe that probably happened three and a half years ago seems an adequate metaphor for the way things panned out today. This is a good sixty feet below the road. Maybe the occupants got out, but I actually suspect not.
Being 42 