So I was just walking to work from Victoria station and turned my head to the right, checking the road for traffic, and I just saw this photo. It’s turned out as I envisaged it, I think. It’s nice when that happens.
So, I see it’s a year ago today that I posted my 2,000th picture. In a couple of weeks it’ll be six-and-a-half years since I started this blog. But there are still little takes on the Uni of Manchester campus I haven’t tried yet. Even if they aren’t quite straight.
Making transport communal has always seemed to me to be the most sensible solution. I haven’t owned a car for some twelve years now, at least, but I am a member of a car pool. These orange bikes get unlocked by some code you can get on your mobile phone, you use them, leave them at your destination so someone else, possibly, can use them there. So simple. Unlike the similar ones I saw in Brisbane five years ago, these ones are seen to be used now and again. And yet there are some who would react even to this basic and friendly form of socialism by frothing at the mouth.
Richmond Street, Manchester. Overnight I have cogitated on a possible pithy commentary for this one and none springs to mind so let me allow the photo to stand on its own for a change…
One of those pictures where I didn’t really notice the details until it was ‘developed’ (that is, uploaded to the laptop). I thought the pigeon was actually a traffic camera until I looked more closely.
February dawns bright and clear, with snow on the ground on the Lancashire side of the Pennines, but not in Yorkshire — which is unusual. The light covering of white that was on Victoria station roof in the morning would not have taken long to melt off in the sunshine.
China Lane, Manchester, was until relatively recently part of the old warehouse district. However, due to its proximity to Piccadilly station, in the 21st century it has become full of apartbouhotiques and bars where you can buy £7 glasses of Lithuanian stout with plates of felched scallop on the side. But at least there are still places to sleep.
Since early December there has been a whole new version of our train service, extending — at least on paper — to Oxford Road station. This all makes my life mildly more convenient coming home on an afternoon, as long as I can bugger off no later than 4pm; in the morning it makes no difference at all, being quicker to walk between the two stations. For this, your friendly government magnanimously spent £85m on the Ordsall Chord development. Well, I’m sure it’s all part of some bigger plan somewhere. After all, it would be terrible to think that the people in charge of the country’s finances didn’t actually have a clue.
The title — and the sign — refer to the closure, as of today, of Manchester Town Hall for restoration, ‘until 2024’.
You know, I was just thinking that what this city really needs is a significant, very extended, disruptive building project. I’ll be fifty-five fucking years old in 2024.
Don’t worry, Manchester has not made a sudden return to the depths of winter. In fact this is the Christmas ice rink being callously disposed of. That’s your festive fun over for another year, sod off back to work the lot of you. Then again this was the establishment that was publicly playing Wizzard’s I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day as early as November 8th this year, so I have no sympathy. Doubtless it’ll be back in ten months.
