The sun still seems uninterested in putting in an appearance, and this picture seems to epitomise the general colouring of the UK at this time. Manchester did get a bit more interesting for me later, but that still doesn’t mean it became sunny.
In Manchester, at some point in most weeks in the autumn there will be an influx of visitors from some European place or other, because either United or City will be at home in the Champions League — or lately, if it’s United, some lesser competition, but they did make the CL this time round. Today it was the fans of FC København (or Copenhagen if you like). They seemed an agreeable enough bunch, but didn’t see a win: United took the game 1-0.
We have yet to put our clocks back, and so the level of darkness in Manchester this Friday morning is somewhat boosted by the extra hour, but even after this weekend things will catch up soon enough and this will be a common enough sight for me in the run up to Christmas. For now, Halloween tat is in charge. The spectral yellow blobs to centre right may or may not be evidence of spiritual involvement.
A year has passed since there was a shot taken outside the UK (it was in Bucharest on 2/2/20) and in that time only two of them have been taken outside England. Without going through the stats in detail, it’s probably twenty years since I last spend this amount of uninterrupted time on this island. Am I bothered about this? Not for myself, I’ve decided, but I am when I think about what this change represents. Even going into Manchester seems to risk being subversive these days. These two guys were a welcome flash of hi-vis humanity this morning.
Here I am still going into Manchester a couple of days a week, largely because it gets the step count up. I will try not to get symbolic and just observe that I like this picture because of the various chunks of detail, which seem to lay over one another like a collage, particularly on the right hand side. And the pigeon which sneaked itself in.
It is approaching 12 years since I started work in Manchester. In that time I have only rarely been in the city every day of a five day working week (indicated by the fact that there has only been one five-day run of Manchester pictures on here, which happened to be in March 2014). I have managed four this week, however. Anyway — the city might not be photographed as often as it could be, but this shot marks a nice round number — the 400th Manchester picture to appear on here.
Incidentally the blue plaque to the top left marks the founding of the Northern Rugby Football Union, later the Rugby League, in a hotel that once stood at this spot.
Whereas last Chinese New Year, Exchange Square in Manchester displayed an inflatable dragon, this year we are graced with this illuminated plastic ‘terracotta army’, which may or may not be the tackiest thing I have seen in a while. Still, if the purpose of the display was to get mentions on social media, it has succeeded, going on the number of people taking photos of it today. Including me of course. Or perhaps I was photographing the crowd. But it doesn’t matter does it? The end result is the same. It is what we do now.
I know we were here less than a week ago, with the dragon, but he’s moved on, and this was the best picture I got today to celebrate a strange atmospheric condition in Manchester this morning; an odd blue cast to the light, a weird dryness in the air and a burning yellow ball above, giving nostalgic reminders of times long past. It was very pleasant. I like here how the Corn Exchange is reflected in the glass.
I have to work all five days this week in Manchester and that happens very rarely. So I am making a point from Monday – Friday this week of having all my photos be of the city. It gives me a mini-challenge within the broader one. This is taken toward the end of the working day; as I took it I thought the guy had busted me, but whatever it is he’s noticed, it’s not me.
Have been kind of saving this one for a day like today – a full-on hectic scramble from meeting to meeting where I barely had time to sit down let alone take photos. But here are the seats on Exchange Square to provide an abstract. (One irritating bit of litter, that I noticed too late, has been cropped out…)
Off to a new country tomorrow: first ever visit to sub-Saharan Africa, as I’m going to Kenya. 3.15 am alarm call coming up…
Being 42 