Tag Archives: University of Manchester

Lunch in the courtyard

Tuesday 13th June 2023, 12.35pm (day 4,310)

EWB courtyard, 13/6/23

Too nice a day to have lunch sat inside, and a few minutes after I made this decision this group joined me in the courtyard. This space has appeared on here several times before, and as it’s still not exactly easy to work out how to get in it, this is as many people as I’ve ever seen using it at one time.

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Louis waits for our meeting

Tuesday 6th June 2023, 2.05pm (day 4,303)

On the basis that it was going to be warm enough to sit outside, colleague Louis stood by the exit out to the courtyard. However, today was about 10º cooler than it’s been lately — so we met inside in any case. I was running a couple of minutes late. But I did see him down there, patiently waiting.

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The foyer

Friday 19th May 2023, 3.10pm (day 4,285)

EWB foyer, 19/5/23

I said on Tuesday that campus was busying up. I withdraw that assessment after today’s visit, on which I reckoned I might have been the only member of uni staff in the whole Ellen Wilkinson Building that turned up today. And I only really did that for the step count. I have worked (occasionally) in the EWB for coming up to 18 years now, and it does not ever get much more visually interesting than this.

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Study space (abstract)

Tuesday 16th May 2023, 2.10pm (day 4,282)

Study space, 16/5/23

Did something I have not done for 11 days and went onto campus. It seemed busy today: ‘revision week’ has kicked in. This student was one of many using the various little pods and cubbyholes that are littered around the place. This is intended as an abstract, a study in yellow (or is it green?), shapes and shadows. And portrait format rather than landscape, something else I don’t do much of lately.

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Mark in his office

Thursday 4th May 2023, 10.10am (day 4,270)

Mark in office, 4/5/23

Another photo of a pack member — in a sense. Mark is one of the colleagues with whom I work most closely. We were recording a podcast this morning, hence the microphone.

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Innocent enquiry

Friday 28th April 2023, 10.50am (day 4,264)

Communist inquiry, 28/4/23

Am I a Communist….? well, ‘from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs’ always sounded reasonable enough to me. On the other hand, gulags, no freedom of speech, etc. Maybe I should just follow Lila Zing on Spotify instead.

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Independent thought

Friday 24th March 2023, 12.05pm (day 4,229)

DMIL students, 24/3/23

I think I might finally have provoked the students into some independent thinking. They were talking about something, anyway.

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Portal to another dimension

Friday 17th March 2023, 1.55pm (day 4,222)

Chadwick building reflection, 17/3/23

Normally I would object to photos with bins and boxes in them but, you see, this only looks like a grit bin. In fact, like that luggage trolley sticking out of the wall of King’s Cross on its way to Hogwarts, it is actually on its way to another dimension. The guy’s parallel self also makes a fleeting, fragmented appearance. All I need to do is step to the left, melt through the mirror and I can be there too…..

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The loneliness of the Sunday morning car park

Sunday 5th March 2023, 8.55am (day 4,210)

Sunday morning car park, 5/3/23

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.

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Holy razor wire

Monday 20th February 2023, 10.50am (day 4,197)

Holy razor wire, 20/2/23

Almost every time I am on campus I pass by the front of this building — the Holy Name Church on Oxford Road. Today saw a rare excursion around the back, and thus a chance to inspect its adornment of razor wire, a deterrent you’d think a consecrated place could do without. But clearly divine intervention is not something that puts off the lead thieves (which I assume is the point of all this).

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