I do appreciate the notion of ‘First World Problems’ and that there are parts of the world where trains can run days late, if they run at all. But for Christ’s sake, Northern….. at this time of year particularly (‘leaves on the line’ plus the cold snap of the last couple of days). This train was due to arrive in Manchester at 10:01, so there went the first twenty minutes of my 11 o’clock.
A day riddled with negativity in at least two ways, each related to totally different aspects of my life. I was glad when 20/8/25 was over, but it lasted until later than most of my days do at this time. Negativity doesn’t do much for creativity, so here’s a picture of a car park. But I suppose I like the redness and seeming randomness of the pillars, and it’s the second-latest shot of 2025 so far (beaten only by the turtle on Ascension Island in April).
I’m very sure this is the latest in any given year that blackberries have featured on this blog. They really should be gone by now, and the majority of them are, having long reduced themselves to shrivelled, dusty-looking remnants. But for some reason or other, these ones are hanging on in there. I wouldn’t eat them, though.
I am not often to be found at work after 5pm — not ‘in the office’ anyway — and heaven forbid that uni’s now seemingly random system of allocating timetable slots gives me a 5-6pm class next year, or any other year. I can feel the ennui even when spying on them from across the corner of the Ellen Wilkinson Building.
The notion of ‘an evening out’ largely died with the dawning of The Great Fear. This is the latest shot in any day since February 19th. We tried today, but it is cold out there, and trying to enjoy oneself is now something to be looked at askance, it makes one suspect, subversive almost. I cannot say there is much to look forward to in life right now. This chap may or may not agree with me — and so may you. But for me it’s the way it is.
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.
There is nothing to complain about regarding the weather, at the moment. It has been glorious, for about three weeks now, certainly since the weekend in Scotland, May 5-7.
There is everything to complain about regarding the state of our local Northern Rail service, a metaphorical view of which could see the recent timetable change as a pint of week-old milk poured into some already dodgy sauce and, consequently, it curdling alarmingly. Was turfed off my original train at Rochdale, hence here you see almost the entire population of said train trying to get on the next one, which will itself already be busy. I waited a little longer, got in 20 minutes late, and the sad thing is, this is now the new normal. Never have I encountered a large company offering such shoddy service before, close to collapse, and we might even have it better on this line than many others.
When the 07:42 cattle truck to Manchester turns up half an hour late, like it did this morning, you can be damn sure there’ll be a few people wanting to get on it. Why was I not among them? Because there was another three carriages along three minutes later, with blissful peace on board. Take this picture as an illustration of how humans typically fail to delay gratification.
Being 42 