Taken at the Palace Hotel, Manchester (with a fast shutter speed – it wasn’t actually that dark). Three Manchester photos in a row – that hasn’t happened before on the blog. It’s because I’m here for the ALT (Association of Learning Technologists) conference, although I don’t always like coming to conferences here – it’s hard to detach from other work. Nice meal tonight, though.
No work for two weeks. Took Joe to the new National Football Museum in Manchester, in the former Urbis building, which has already featured on this blog on a few occasions (amongst others, here and here). Here he is face-to-face – kind of – with Joe Hart, Manchester City and England goalkeeper. If asked however, I am sure he would claim that Ben Roche of Morecambe is better. And good for him.
My leather jacket, of many years’ use (but surprisingly little photographed, once I looked through the archives), died following the biblical downpour of 9th July, when it got soaked and then was never properly dried because I never thought about it as I dashed off to New Orleans. It was knackered anyway, but its fate was sealed when I next picked it off the rack and… you don’t want to know.
Fortunately, if you want any clothes even remotely in that genre and your budget is limited, there is always Affleck’s. Threatened with closure a few years ago because it didn’t meet the profile of the district’s gentrifiers, it’s pleasing to see it still open and still selling good gear of this type for – in my case – £25. Long may it reign.
This building is only a couple of hundred yards from Victoria station but I never have normal cause to go past it. Today, after I had a meeting nearby, was an exception. When built in 1962 it was the tallest office building in the UK, at 399 feet, and it remained the tallest in Manchester until 2006 when the Beetham tower (510 feet) was built on Deansgate. It’s one of the group of buildings around this site that are the headquarters of the Co-operative Group (bank, stores, insurance, etc.).
I’ve never been inside it but it does have a significant role to play in my life. My mother and father both worked for the CIS but in separate buildings and only when this was built (when they were 18) did they begin working in the same place – and thus met. Arguably, then, if this hadn’t been built, I wouldn’t be here.
In some city down South the Olympics are on, and Manchester (which is hosting some of the football tournament’s games) gets in on the act with a ‘village’ built around Exchange Square, where the wheel used to be (see previous photos). Judging from this shot, it is doing about as well at filling its seats as London is.
Cynical? No, I’m not, not about the athletes anyway. But we all knew that the promises of a ‘people’s Games’ were rubbish when they were made in 2005, so why are we surprised it’s turned into a corporate love-fest in which the relatives and friends of athletes can’t see them perform, while swathes of corporate junket seats sit empty, because bigger profits are made that way? I also remember hearing that the ‘brand poiice’ don’t want anyone to link to the official Olympic site if they are going to be critical of it.
Today was a dull day in every respect. The grey skies and rain are now a permanent feature of existence. Back in Manchester for the first time in 10 days but I spent most of it in my office, which isn’t a particularly great photographic subject (which is why there have been, to date, precisely no photos of it on this blog). This is the university’s new ‘learning commons’, due to open in time for the next academic year, and doubtless full of all sorts of exciting new devices that someone has decided will ‘enhance the learning experience’. Not that they ever asked any of the academics around Manchester who specialise in educational technology their opinion as to how it should be built. I know this, because I am one of them. I am sure it will be just perfect.
Urbis has already appeared on this blog more than once; but seeing as it’s right outside Manchester Victoria station, I walk past it an awful lot, so it has plenty of chances. And I think it’s a relatively handsome building. This shot came about because just as I walked up the ramp, on another drizzly day, a truck drove off and left this perfectly rectangular dry patch. My in-camera shot had the wrong white balance setting on it and was a bit fuzzy, but a fiddle in iPhoto and here we have this abstract. Not bad.
Back in the UK, where there are occasional bursts of paraphernalia left over from the Jubilee celebrations last weekend, missed due to my being in Norway. So here’s a belated reference to all the pro patria stuff.
“Ere, mate. Dontcha think it’s ironic, like, that the day we put up this ‘summer house’ in the city centre, it’s the first rainy day in a fortnight?”
“Yeh, it’s all part of the comedy of life innit. Or maybe because it’s a Bank Holiday weekend. Anyway, sod that. I want to know why Jack ever thought that those shorts were a good idea.”
I’m off to Norway tomorrow – most likely there won’t be posts on here for a few days but you’ll get a big lump of them all at once when I get back. Including one of a fjord. If it kills me, there’ll be one of a fjord this time.
Phew! What a Scorcher, blah blah… actually it was rather cooler today than it has been. I bet this pigeon frequently takes a dip in the fountain, either way. It was certainly quite civilised about it, going about it like some old geezer who still insists on swimming in the Serpentine every morning.
Being 42 