A trip out to the suburbs today: definitely not the former Communist blocks, more like leafy Hampstead or Carshalton (if this were London). Streets named after composers, big gardens and garages, that kind of thing. One thing I like about Berlin is that it’s all quite laid back: it certainly doesn’t have the over-energised manicness of some capital cities. Perhaps this shot captures that.
Shops have always advertised themselves. I mean, they have to, don’t they? All advertising is text, and looking at how texts change over time is as good a way as any of understanding social change. This juxtaposition caught my eye: the shapes, the textures and the words themselves.
For the second semester in a row I have been allocated a 4-6pm teaching slot, and, as yet, we are nowhere near far enough into the spring for me to be seeing sunsets on a Tuesday; it’s dark by the time I emerge. The walk home then begins up Brook Street, which for some time now has been consistently a traffic jam at about 6.10pm. The cause is obvious, and I’m sure all the Manchester drivers are very happy when they realise there is, as far as I can tell, nothing in particular going on in the coned-off lane.
A small, but nice thing about coming to work somewhere else is that it changes my commute to ‘the office’, or in this case, ‘the hotel in which the teaching is taking place’. Instead of sitting on a Northern Rail cattle truck in the February rain I get, for a couple of days, to take a 10-minute walk in the sunshine. I can’t just walk through the park though, as currently it is occupied by a food festival, the gate of which can be seen behind the sign. Maybe I’ll have time to check it out on Sunday, but not today.
Yes, I know, the skyscrapers are somewhat on the slant; but it was either them, or the sign. Such is the impact of cheapo gear. I’m impressed my camera still works, in fact: it’s reaching the three-year mark, which has been the historic limit for them since I started taking pictures every day.
Platforms 4 and 5 of Manchester Victoria station, to be precise (making this, incidentally, the 900th shot taken in Manchester). The sign is meaningless in context, but the pigeon seems to be wilfully defying it anyway. On the left (4), the 12:15 to Redcar Central and on the right, the 12:15 to Blackburn, both punctual. But was I on my way into work late, or coming home early?
Well, yes. I’d be inclined to pay attention to this one.
Maybe not ‘outstanding’, but Friday night was pretty good; the first part of a fine weekend away, to celebrate Clare’s birthday (Saturday).
If you’re wondering what exactly is so outstanding here, it’s a school, trumpeting its Ofsted (Office for Standards in Education) rating. Not a modest institution.
In 2025, Bradford will become the UK’s City of Culture, and the sign proclaims this: from the rear, the slope on the left is one of the 2s, with the zero to the other side. Behind, a small part of the gigantic, desperate building site that constitutes most of its city centre at the present time. The bus station is entirely closed, having been declared unsafe a while back. You can’t get a taxi from anywhere particularly near the railway station. And all this with exactly eleven weeks to go until 1st January. City of Culture? Perhaps this chaos and neglect is, indeed, representative of the UK in this epoch.
What is this for, really? Surely if you want people to ‘drive normally’ up Oxford Road into Manchester city centre putting up a sign suggesting that they do so is exactly the way not to achieve this? “Hmmm, I thought I was driving normally, but… now I’m confused, what do they mean….” (screech of brakes as the now-distracted driver drifts to the side and takes out the Deliveroo guy).
I imagine this scene may well have looked much the same 100 years ago. Only the blue plastic Co-op bag really gives it away. A good day today — proof that while travel can be good, it’s almost always nice to come home. And the sun was shining too.
Being 42 