This is now a standard sight on a Sunday in HB town centre. But I include it today more because of noticing the participant in the middle — one of those things you don’t see until uploading it to the laptop, later.
I was in Leeds this evening. I realised tonight that it is now more than 30 years since I first came to live in Leeds in September 1993. The first year wasn’t great, to be honest, although it did get better. For the first couple of weeks I crashed in Harehills, close to where this picture was taken, and 30 years ago there were at least three pubs in the vicinity: now there are none. Everything seems to be a take-away or fast food joint of some description, they number in the dozens round here. And I suppose it is companies like Just Eat that drive this growth. You no longer have to come to the food, the food comes to you. I do not censure, but guys, one piece of advice — please stop at red lights, particularly when there are pedestrians around.
Toronto seems one of the most civilised places I have ever been, but if it has a seedy underbelly, Dundas Square is probably it. Just these two blocks: nothing too vulgar, you know, like those USAnians do.
I am sure my day in Manchester was better than it was for the driver of this bike, lying at the junction of Princess Street and Whitworth Street, a place I walk past every time I go to work. So, seeing where the debris lay and knowing this junction and its patterns of traffic and pedestrians and stop/go signals, I suggest that this is what happened here — the bike was coming downhill, down Princess Street, as was its due, and the the car that it hit (bits of which were also scattered around), coming uphill, decided to turn right across its path. Shite driving therefore, lack of attention and care: at least the motorcyclist lived (I checked the story on the Manchester Evening News site), but that’s scant consolation I am sure.
Everyone grows up, even Hell’s Angels. Every Sunday there will be some motorcycle club or other relaxing in the square. This lot had better gear than most.
This scooter is currently lying a dozen yards offshore in the muddy wastes of the banks of the River Lune. I fear it is lost, soon to become an archaeological relic, a fossil perhaps [yes, I’m aware this cannot happen with inorganic material]. You do wonder about the story behind these things, but as with the car crash in Wales two weeks ago, perhaps it is better not to enquire too deeply.
If you’ve been to Saigon you are surely aware that the dominant lifeform in the city is the motorcycle. There are hordes of them. They make crossing the road an act that takes definite courage and the permutations of humans and cargo that can fit on them beggars belief. I even saw one today with two people and a dog on it, I kid you not. I tried to get a shot of a horde in transit, but this one, of one of the many street-side motorcycle parks, seems also to sum up their sheer number quite well.
I’ve lived in this house for over 10 years now and all that time the house across the road has been inhabited by this gentleman. And every Saturday morning he is out there working on his bike and listening to his ’60s music. And then on Sunday morning we are usually roused briefly from sleep at around 7am as it farts into life across the road and he heads off for whatever rally or off-road session he is visiting that weekend. He seems pretty happy. I’m ashamed to say I don’t know his name.
Postscript: It’s Richard.
Being 42 