An excuse today to walk through some parts of Manchester that I don’t frequent often. Although the brick rectangle to the bottom left annoys me somewhat, I think that this shot reflects, for me, the way Manchester seems to have developed in the last ten years or more. Significant parts of it aspire to be the hypermodern ‘skyscraper forest’ these days, but the old industrial landscape hangs on here and there.
Whenever I walk past the new car park on Princess Street in Manchester, just north of the Mancunian Way (the shadow of which is visible), nine times out of ten there is a mysterious, anonymous white van parked in the service tunnel, as here. The metal grille in front of it adds a pointillist effect to what is basically an abstract. Yes, probably it would have been better without the shadow, but it was another sunny and warm day, so I’m not complaining too much.
Third shot in a row taken in Manchester, and that’s the first time that has happened since early February 2020. I’m pulling an early one, too. Manchester, in need of some kind of symbol (as everything has to have a ‘brand’ these days), has adopted the bee, and statues like this in a variety of colours crop up at points in the city.
Nearly two years ago today (9/3/20) I was in Manchester and depicting much the same area of the city, albeit from higher up. On the left of this picture, the Town Hall remains swaddled in scaffolding and Prince Albert’s memorial on the right is also still under wraps. Shortly after 9/3/20, the stupidities of lockdown began and there were only three more Manchester pictures for the subsequent five months. None of that this year, thankfully. And if anyone ever tries it again I will ignore them.
After, like everyone else, having ‘a couple of years off due to Covid’, the annual Imperial Stormtrooper Convention gathers once again in hall Darth 4 of the Emperor Palpatine Memorial centre. “It was so nice to be able to strap on the white plastic again”, one delegate was heard to mutter through the helmet.
Or, maybe, it’s a Lego construction, exhibited at this year’s Bricktastic in Manchester. You decide.
Somewhat continuing a theme from yesterday, but hey. Definitively, the first blossom I’ve seen of the year turns up in the courtyard of the Ellen Wilkinson Building, as it has done before (it’s a finely sheltered spot).
I haven’t had three days in a row of Manchester pictures since February 2020 — what happened after that, I wonder. But today’s the latest burst of two-in-a-row, and with good light to boot. Manchester’s Chinatown is, in no way comparable to, say, San Francisco’s in scale (not to mention anywhere in China) but in European terms it’s sizeable enough. At this point it is possible to imagine one is far away.
The endless building and rebuilding of Manchester does not seem to have particularly slowed down as a result of the last two years of bollocks, although seeing as no one has any money any more except Mark Zuckerberg it seems, I don’t know who’s going to inhabit all these new buildings. This scaffold tunnel rises over my walking route to work and I’ve been passing through it in both directions for some months, thinking it would make a decent picture; this evening it gets its chance.
It’s 2/2/22, and also Lunar New Year (or Chinese New Year, Tet, whatever other term you want to use). It seemed appropriate to depict this today even if I suspect I am a day late. Manchester has a large Chinese population (students or otherwise) and the city centre is decorated accordingly. I believe I should say at this point: xīn nián kuài lè .
“Go back to the office!” says the Chief Clown, though going on numbers coming through Manchester Victoria in the mornings, most of the population (those who can, anyway) feel quite happy with the idea that they might make this judgment on their own. Admittedly 2pm isn’t peak time but one still might have expected a few more people around.
POSTSCRIPT: To be fair, I was browsing earlier pictures just now and found this one from almost exactly 5 years ago (25th Jan. 2017), of the same spot; and there weren’t any people on that one, either. Comparison of the two photos also shows how the light shines through exactly the same bit of the roof at this exact time of day in late January; and the photogenic consequences of this.
Being 42 