Nothing shall get through the Red Screen of Doom. Behind, a car park and some undefined ‘businesses’ may be ‘open as usual’ but we cannot know this for sure: these things may as well exist in another dimension.
One of those occasions where it’s a case of — yes, I’ll go with that. There is nothing more to be said.
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.
Another day with a photo that will fail to enter the world’s, or even my own, stock of Great Pictures, but it’ll be like this for a while, I’m afraid. It’s always a little worrying to come home and find an ambulance and police van parked outside the house, but whatever had been going on, it wasn’t at our place. These little moments of incident take place behind walls, and we see the outcome but never discover their origin.
In the 20 years and 2 months I have been working in Manchester I have driven into work precisely six times. Three of those were in the first couple of months: of the three since, two were forced on me due to train strikes (and for those, I parked north of the centre and finished the journey by tram) and the other one was a Sunday morning. There are reasons for this. I’m not usually still in the area for full-on rush hour/Carmageddon but I was there this evening.
It seems to have happened slightly later than usual this year, though that’s just a quirk of the calendar, but today was the day I could no longer avoid going onto campus and being faced by a large number of people who were not in the vicinity two weeks ago. Yes, it’s the first week of teaching. So be it.
Staying over in the Premier Inn after last night’s gig provides the opportunity to observe the morning traffic on the Mancunian Way from fifteen floors up. Heading west seems to be the route of choice, but the one car going east has the preferable journey at the moment, if you ask me.
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.
A terrifically dull situation, but that was my day for you, with much of the morning spent negotiating seemingly endless roadworks in order to run a relatively simple (but necessary) errand. And I did so in both directions too – this was on the way home. I was waiting at the latest red light, in case you want to report me to the traffic police.
The week has been a busy one but ends uneventfully. The weather was unconducive to a spell sat outside the pub, so the drinking was done indoors today. I believe this shot was captured through the window; a sensible approach under the circumstances.
