Tuesday 13th November, 2012, 3.50pm (day 446)
Don’t even remember why I took this shot in particular, but it does seem to epitomise a grey, dull November day, as things get darker earlier and earlier.
Being 42
Life, one day at a time
Tag Archives: Manchester
Early Santas
Tuesday 6th November 2012, 7.55am (day 439)
Early in the day, more importantly, early in the year. Even if they are pretty… too early 😦
By the Mancunian Way
Monday 5th November 2012, 3.25pm (day 438)
This photo was taken right at the point where a slip road – that’s it behind the fence – curves off the busy A34 road and heads up to the even busier Mancunian Way (the city centre relief road). I’m stood right by a flyover that still bears the commemorative plaque awarded in 1968 by the ‘Concrete Society’ (no kidding) and in the background is one of the locality’s grimmer 1960s housing blocks.
All the same, it’s rather pretty at the moment isn’t it?
Smoke break
Tuesday 9th October 2012, 10.55am (day 411)
This couple were pictured outside the Sackville Building at the University of Manchester this morning, which was incidentally another beautiful, but chilly one.
Do I talk too much on this blog? Do I need to say why I find this picture aesthetically pleasing? I’ll leave it.
Cross Street, Manchester
Friday 28th September 2012, 4.10pm (day 400)
Busy day at work to end a busy week, and a busy month. Sometimes you’ve just got to admit that the most photogenic thing you saw all day was the rear view of a pretty woman on the walk home to the station. One chance to snap it, taken. I nearly cropped this to just show her bottom half, which works quite well with the leaf, but her hair is too good to omit even if it untidies the composition a bit.
Dinner at the ALT-C conference
Wednesday 12th September 2012, 8.05pm (day 384)
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.
Joe and Joe, National Football Museum
Monday 13th August 2012, 2.15pm (day 354)
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.
Affleck’s Palace
Monday 6th August 2012, 2.25pm (day 347)
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.
The CIS building, Manchester
Friday 3rd August 2012, 3.40pm (day 344)
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.
Manchester ‘Olympic village’
Tuesday 31st July 2012, 3.50pm (day 341)
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.
Being 42 