What is it with robins as a species — why are they, more than any other type of wild bird, so completely unfazed by being a few feet away from a human? Not only that, but a human who has stopped walking, and is pointing a camera at them? This one even hopped from side to side for a minute, offering me a selection of poses. This one won. I hope he approves.
This container of (presumably) liquid nitrogen, behind a protective fence that allows (like this) only glimpses of the whole, is depicted not just for itself, but because now I walk past it every time I go into uni it reminds me of the 90s German electronic band Air Liquide. Listen to their album Nephology — and particularly the track “The Clouds Have Eyes” — preferably while dosed up with something strong, and have your head completely melted. Marvel at the fact I used to listen to this kind of stuff for pleasure. And still do, in fact I’m listening to it right now.
These fences along Old Gate are, doubtless, the prelude to the building of new flood defences in the town. Now one might consider this a good thing, particularly if one’s property has ended up under water on one of the four occasions (count ’em) that the town centre has been inundated even just in the lifetime of this blog (June 2012, July ’12, Dec ’15, Feb ’20).
But in the first place, one can question the necessity of these works — or at least, wonder why they have been prioritised over known strategies of flood prevention that could take place on the moors above the town. But that land is all owned by the Walshaw estate, who want to continue burning heather and ensuring the peat bogs don’t hold the rain that falls, because it’s uneconomic for them to do that; so they push the problem down-valley, and now Heben will push it further down, and unless we build walls all the way down to the North Sea, some poor bastard will get that water in the end.
Second, all this will most likely turn the pleasant, leafy environs of the Hebden Water into a stripped-bare drainage channel — as similar ones have in Mytholmroyd. If the foliage in the background of this shot is still there in a few months’ time, I will take this back. But I doubt it. So the attractiveness of the town centre (and it does matter — many of the shops here would not exist without tourism) will be ruined, and we’ll still be blind to the real causes of the problem; bad land management and climate change.
I’m still trying to keep the step count up, but the weather turned rather grim. Being up on the moors above the town in squally drizzle made the exercise less pleasant than it might have been. But it kept me moving.
The moor here is a riot of cottongrass. I feel it comes out at the wrong time of year — it looks like it should be a December plant, a proxy for snow.
I’m all for getting freebies when they are available but come on, it’s only £8 to get in and see your local non-league football team (in this case, Colne FC of the Northern Premier League D1 West) and you can stand under cover, out of the rain. You’re just being tight, is all.
There must be some big student event going on this evening at Manchester because the south-western quadrant of the campus has become ringed by this security fencing. I like this picture because of not noticing at first the arms belong to two different people and the litter bins which look like some kind of waste disposal robots.
A night out last night, stayed over in a motel (because you shouldn’t drink and drive — so given the choice I don’t drive). This was the scene outside our room this morning.
Being 42 