And here’s what more-or-less the same part of the world looks like in the morning — pointing the camera in the opposite direction. Seems an OK place, Penzance — attractive, plenty of pubs — but it’s a long way out, and typical incomes in Cornwall are among the lowest in the whole UK. Being peripheral is not an economic asset these days: but the thing is, in some ways this is the centre of things. More on that tomorrow (if I remember).
This photo is garish and could certainly be sharper but with my camera in the state it is presently in (following the still-painful St Helena Tarmac Incident) it is as good as we’re going to get at the moment, after dark. I like the picture anyway: first, it represents that moment that I finally got to have some fresh air after nearly 11 hours on three separate trains today (none of which had on-board catering) and second, that I arrived in what is both the most southerly and most westerly decent-sized town in Britain, namely Penzance, Cornwall. Where you get to see palm trees outside the bus station. We’re not in Yorkshire any more, Toto.
I have got it down to working about two Sundays a year, and today was one of them. Appearance on campus before 9am on the ‘day of rest’ allows the experience of the virtually empty car park, and its mysterious ‘T’. Maybe it was once an arrow, but not any more. A recent run of interiors continues.
The independent retail institution that is Affleck’s Palace in Manchester seems, thankfully, to have survived all that virus-related crap and remains the place to go if you want to buy just about anything that is a little off-beat (and see its previous appearance). There are dozens of stalls like this. I wasn’t in the place to pick up a gas mask, however, in case you were wondering.
Documentary. I got on this train at 7.56am at Hebden Bridge. A few minutes later I got off it again, at Todmorden (where this shot is taken), thanks to it being, as you can hopefully tell,. a stupidly overcrowded two-carriage cattle truck, and waited for the next one. On Monday I have to spend about 10.5 hours on a train…. what we do for our kicks, eh?
This place is taking up the majority of my thinking energy at the moment and will continue to do so for some time to come. These maps of how things were in 1988 are not going to play a major part in my cogitations and analysis — particularly not number 7, at the bottom of this spread — but it’s all a useful insight into how things once were: this is why we need records, and archives to store them in.
And yes, I know I have hairy arms and hands. It’s always been the case. This is the first self-portrait since October.
And so ends February 2023, a varied month for me, some very interesting periods and some deadly dull ones. Photographically, it ends in a pub on Stoke-on-Trent station, mainly for lighting reasons. Though the beer was quite good too.
“I know I present as red. But inside there’s that little bit of green that’s always been on the verge of coming out.”
Norway remains third in the ranks of most-depicted country on this blog, behind only England and Australia, but it’s a while since I’ve been there — four years and ten months in fact (26/4/2018 was its last appearance). I should rectify this. In the meantime, it seems as if Norway is willing to come to Hebden Bridge: why this flag was planted in the square amongst the usual Sunday crowd of visitors, I do not know, but there it is.
On Lincoln’s only previous appearance on this blog (10/3/20) the outside of the Cathedral was depicted: today I (and Clare, visible as a slightly blurred figure on the left) went inside. The interior is just as impressive, particularly considering this was all raised to the glory of the Almighty more than 700 years ago. As I noted on my previous post, this was the tallest building in the world in the Middle Ages, a title it held for at least 230 years. You don’t have to be particularly religious to recognise that with this place, the builders really made a statement.
Being 42 