Tag Archives: police

Mar 06 2025
Leave a comment
Daily Post, Urban scene

Ghosts?

Wednesday 5th March 2025, 8.45am (day 4,941)

Abbey House flowers, 5/3/25

Whatever happened on the 22nd February at 9.55am happened while I was in Dubai, so I do not know the details. But going on the location, at the junction of Booth Street and Mosley Street in Manchester city centre, the ‘serious collision’ was most likely between a car and a tram — something which really shouldn’t happen in broad daylight. The tram is never going to come off worse in such an encounter. One therefore assumes the memorial flowers — note the £3.50 price tag visible on one bunch — are for at least one occupant of the car. And their ghost keeps a careful watch.

(OK, actually I’m the ‘ghost’, but it does look a little eerie, and was something I did not notice at the time of taking the shot.)

Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,
Jan 11 2024
Leave a comment
Daily Post, Transport

Debris

Thursday 11th January 2024, 10.15am (day 4,522)

Crash aftermath, 11/1/24

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.

Tagged , , , , , , , ,
Oct 12 2023
Leave a comment
Daily Post, Urban scene

More protesting

Wednesday 11th October 2023, 6.00pm (day 4,430)

Pro-Palestine protest, 11/10/23

The third protest in a month, if we count the poster statement. Not hard to work out the basic focus of this one. I was just passing, not expressing a particular opinion, but I do notice that in BBC reports of the atrocities presently unfolding in the Middle East, Israelis ‘are killed’ whereas Palestinians just ‘die’. As much as anything else that helps explain why some people are pissed off.

Tagged , , , , , , , , ,
Aug 09 2023
Leave a comment
Daily Post, Transport

Bus crash — aftermath

Tuesday 8th August 2023, 4.50pm (day 4,366)

Bus crash aftermath, 8/8/23

Walking through Manchester city centre tonight it was impossible to not notice the activity around the corner of Oxford Road and Whitworth Street, with everything cordoned off by police tape and some major sweeping up under way. Turns out at lunchtime a bus took out a central reservation, for some reason (which I can quite believe involved swerving to save the life of some idiotic cyclopath of the kind who thinks his Deliveroo bag gives him the right to ignore red lights), a few people hurt but nothing serious. And the picture? Well, the pink scaffolding is impressive. Some might say there’s not been enough pink on the blog recently.

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , ,
May 22 2023
Leave a comment
Daily Post, Urban scene

Police line, do not cross

Monday 22nd May 2023, 8.50am (day 4,288)

Police line, 22/5/23

I walk past this car park every time I come into Manchester, as it lies on the route between my office and Victoria station. That it was cordoned off by the police this morning was notable enough. But as it happened, after last night’s gig we had stayed in the hotel that is built literally on top of it: which made it a little strange, wondering what had been going on below while we slept overnight. I’m not dwelling on it — all was gone again by the afternoon so it can’t have been that serious. Reportage over photographic quality today.

Tagged , , , , , ,
Oct 04 2021
Leave a comment
Daily Post, Urban scene

Deansgate awaits

Sunday 3rd October 2021, 3.00pm (day 3,692)

Deansgate, 3/10/21

Manchester once again plays host to the Conservative Party’s annual Conference, and today was the day that the Party and its state police force graciously permitted the parallel annual Protest March. This was safely kettled somewhere to the right of Deansgate, as we look down it here. The whole city centre was cordoned off to cars, and eerily quiet, apart from the distant drums of the protestors. Ahead are Beetham Tower and the West Tower of Deansgate Square, the tallest habitable buildings in the UK outside London: monuments to a particular kind of property-driven capitalism that the Conservative Party fully epitomise. No one can be publicly seen to question it, to ask whether this is really the way that we want to structure the world. The waiting police vans make sure of that.

Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,
Aug 13 2017
Leave a comment
Daily Post, Hebden Bridge, Urban scene

Pride Police

Saturday 12th August 2017, 4.20pm (day 2,179)

Pride police, 12/8/17

Street party in Hebden Bridge this afternoon to celebrate LGBT and possibly Q life (new initials seem to be added annually to this acronym). The police were keen to participate and bring out the rainbow flags to decorate vehicles and headgear.

Tagged , , , , , , ,
Dec 01 2016
Leave a comment
Daily Post, Urban scene

Police line (do not cross)

Wednesday 30th November 2016, 2.25pm (day 1,924)

Police line, 30/11/16

I don’t know what had been going on around Manchester’s Chinese Arch but the whole area was cordoned off all day today with lines of blue-and-white police tape. But the managers of the establishment referenced here will clearly be damned before they lose any business as a result.

POSTSCRIPT: Apparently this is the result of a fire in a building, on Monday, in which two people were killed.

Tagged , , , , , , ,
Jun 20 2012
Leave a comment
Daily Post, Urban scene

The Starbucks riot squad

Tuesday 19th June 2012, 5.55pm (day 299)

Starbucks riot squad, 19/6/12

Looks like something’s going down in Starbucks. What is more interesting is the guy on the right striding off in the direction of ‘The Wonderful World of Waxing’. Did he have an appointment? Inquiring minds want to know.

Tomorrow (Weds 20th) is day 300 of this blog, so I’ve added some more pictures to the ‘Best of the Rest’ page to mark the occasion.

Tagged , , , , , ,