A day of work, even though it was a Saturday. Then, an attempt to find a quiet corner somewhere for a post-work drink — not necessarily easy on a Saturday night in Soho. But this pub on Charing Cross Road just about managed it, and afforded many people-watching opportunities through the sash windows. I pick this one because it has the feeling of being a still from a movie, and Soho just has that feeling of being a movie kind of place.
This giant wheel, tipped over onto its side but still propped up a little by its axle, lies by the top of New Works Road in Bradford, remnant of, and memorial to, one of the various coal mines which used to operate around here, but no more. These days, it indicates the point at which the chemical factory district turns back into the real world. I’ve done various pictures of the factories in the past, so today (tonight), let’s see the wheel.
Jamestown isn’t usually the most rocking capital city on the planet — then again, neither was my last one, Windhoek, and Jamestown may well be the more lively of the two on a Saturday night. But not on a calm Monday evening. The lights climbing to the left are those of Jacob’s Ladder. Above, the moon.
I didn’t even take my first photo of the day until after 7pm — at some point in the future I may just forget altogether, or at least, leave it too late to get anything usable. But this one is OK. It’s a quiet time, this seems to reflect that.
It’s the longest night of the year. On my walk to Low Moor station in Bradford tonight, I passed through this industrial zone in which all the factories were still lit, burbling away internally, though no people were in sight. The robots may well now be in full charge. It would explain a lot about current political trends.
Latest shot, and first shot after 10pm, since early October last year. Nights out are still not entirely a thing of the past. The Nightjar bar sits under the Hebden Bridge Picture House, and if you don’t see why I’ve appended the ‘Hawks’ to its name in the title of this post, well, maybe this painting is familiar to you.
The world is still out there, somewhere…. so we’ve been told. Across the valley, there’s a house that doesn’t seem to have removed its Christmas lights yet. Meanwhile, at home, the movie collection keeps a semblance of entertainment ticking over.
Pubs now have to shut at 10pm, and so with no nightclubs or alternative venues available for anyone wanting to carry on with their evening, everyone now mills around and gets into taxis and buses at the same time, thus compressing all those infective agents together instead of spacing them out more. And if you think this idiocy will be repealed soon, recall that the licensing restrictions brought in during World War One remained in place for eighty years.
Meanwhile, your friendly local high street is becoming a ghost town; if your place looked much different from Hebden Bridge at 10.50pm this evening (or on any given evening), then I would say that’s unusual.
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’m still here on the campus of the Russian Academy of National Economy and Political Administration (hence, RANEPA). It was much colder today — thanks to a biting wind; the last few days had been still and not unpleasant, but today was bitter.
Being 42 