Early January, time to take down the Christmas decorations. Or, in this case, the Christmas ice-based themed dispenser of alcohol. Let’s time how long it is before the next similar installation thing goes up outside the Corn Exchange; when’s Chinese New Year, a month?
A Manchester shot for the first time since December 19th. I must be showing my face on campus again. I like it when there’s nobody there. I only went in, basically, to up my step count.
There is a nice optical illusion on fhis shot. Look at the three pieces of guttering to the right and note how we seem here to have one of those ‘can this shape exist?’ dimensional paradoxes. I know how it’s happened, but it’s not immediately obvious on the picture itself.
Today was one of those grim December days where it never seems to get light at all. Ragged and shadowed though it is, this winter flowering cherry blossoms at this time each year in its little courtyard under this fire escape, and does its best to lighten the gloom.
Did not feel a great deal more interested in engaging with the world today than I did yesterday, but was obliged to haul myself into Manchester in any case. The city seems to have definitively adopted Alan Turing (that’s him…) as one of its own, despite the fact that he only spent the very last portion of his truncated life here. But hey, there are many worse and less significant people to eulogise.
This squirrel and I were both out for a lunch break on campus today. He (or she) was busy gathering materials for the winter — I was trying to avoid work as much as possible. (But only for that 20 minutes.)
The original Blade Runner movie was set in 2019 and in Manchester’s case is currently coming to look more and more like architectural prophecy. And those quasi-human replicants that infiltrate society and create havoc? We call them “Tories”.
I do still turn up on campus now and again but because of the increasingly painful train journey that it takes to get there — and, just as importantly, back — I am trying to do so less and less. Rainy mornings (which lead to me smelling damp all day) are no help either. But every so often I have little choice.
First day on campus in 10. I just like this one as an abstract. Maybe I should make that a separate category for posts on the blog.
Pulled duty on the 06:31 train out of Hebden Bridge and it was still dark by the time it finally ambled into Manchester. This looming darkness will briefly be relieved this weekend when the clocks go back, but all the same, winter draws inexorably nearer each day.
Six days away from campus and in that time, everything seems to have turned gold. Is that a jacket in the branches at the top? Or the ubiquitous and planet-killing plastic bag? Guess we can find out for sure when the rest of the leaves are gone.
Being 42 