Am I a Communist….? well, ‘from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs’ always sounded reasonable enough to me. On the other hand, gulags, no freedom of speech, etc. Maybe I should just follow Lila Zing on Spotify instead.
This was one of those shots where the crowning touch was not apparent until I uploaded it — namely the bees. They are not actual insects, of course, but drawn on the doors of the establishment (an ‘aparthotel’ I think) which lies behind these flowers.
Additionally, this looks like it will be the last shot taken with the Canon PowerShot SX740 camera I have been using since 18th August 2021. 20 months is not long for a camera to last, even with the daily usage that I give it: but it never really recovered from the St Helena Tarmac Incident of late January. It limped on for the next three months, and I am grateful for that, but a replacement was becoming urgent. If you’re interested in these things, today I picked up a Panasonic TZ95: let’s see how long that lasts. I think it will be the fifth (and certainly at least the fourth) camera to have supplied the artwork for this blog.
There are some signs of spring, at least. Whether these trees are actually one of the various species known as ‘lilac’ (genus Syringa) I know not for sure, but they certainly can lay claim to the colour. Behind them, the Town Hall gets on with its decade-long restoration.
Seeing as today was Good Friday this seems an entirely appropriate post for the occasion, but I swear that until I came over a rise on Mellor Moor, above Marple, and saw this cross, I had no idea it was there — it wasn’t marked on the map. Apparently it was first erected in 1970. It has a good view of Manchester, you have to say. (Passed on my latest County Top walk — of which there are more pictures on the other blog…)
To cake or not to cake, that is the question, at the end of not just a working week but a whole term — I’m on my Easter break. Unless the French air traffic controllers stymie the deal, the next few posts should come from a country that has not yet appeared on this blog.
I despise litter, but sometimes there is, if not beauty, at least interest in it: frankly it’s amazing what gets chucked away. What these ceramic roses had been doing somewhere on or near Abingdon Street in Manchester, I have no idea, and whether they were broken first, then disposed of, or whether the breaking happened because they were chucked, who knows. Either way, call it my homage to the cover of the classic New Order albun, Power Corruption and Lies.
The independent retail institution that is Affleck’s Palace in Manchester seems, thankfully, to have survived all that virus-related crap and remains the place to go if you want to buy just about anything that is a little off-beat (and see its previous appearance). There are dozens of stalls like this. I wasn’t in the place to pick up a gas mask, however, in case you were wondering.
I don’t know why I at first chose to point my camera at this wall (on Abingdon Street in Manchester). It was only after uploading the shot that I noticed the very evident face on the cigarette bin. Kind of spooky, in fact: an inanimate object with a secret inner life, if ever there was one.
Chosen as much because this was the year’s first outbreak of cherry blossom — at least, in my sight. The position of the photographer on this shot was carefully chosen — Alan Turing’s statue is visible, the litter bin is artfully concealed.
So little time do I spend on campus these days that I had not noticed the great exhibition of old Manchester rock scene photographs in the main canteen, in University Place. Some superb pictures: notice Ian Curtis to bottom left, the rest of Joy Division above, and then Tony Wilson, Peter Saville and Alan Erasmus (Factory Records more or less) under the relevant sign.
Fantastic to look at; but I wonder whether it’s wasted on the students, most of whom, let’s face it, have been born since 2000 AD and unless they have very cool parents haven’t the slightest idea who Joy Division are or ever were — particularly if they come from China. It’s not a value judgment.
Being 42 