Summer at uni, a time to get renovations done to buildings (like the Ellen Wilkinson) which sorely need it. A scaffold and a red tool box set off the view from up on the third floor landing. It would be nice if I was on a proper summer break by now, but not yet: ten days to go.
I’d say ‘it’s that time of year again’ but this is the first mid-July since 2019 where there have been such scenes around campus. Ceremony does matter: it’s good to see these return.
The Beyer Building‘s exterior has featured before. It was constructed in 1887, meaning this lecture theatre basically reflects assumptions about pedagogy from 135 years ago. And it looks pretty much the same as lecture theatres still do, only with many fewer plug sockets. Alex awaits my talk at 9:30; there were a few other people in the room by the time I started (honestly).
Whatever it takes to make two-dimensional snowflakes of carbon, the National Graphene Institute sure seems to need to keep things cold. Deliveries of liquid nitrogen are a regular sight on my walking route onto campus.
Jays are very handsome birds and it’s a shame we don’t see more of them. I could say that this specimen is the second jay to appear on the blog, but it may be the same one as depicted just under four years ago — as this photo was taken only around 100 yards from that one; both in close proximity to the Ellen Wilkinson building on campus (a.k.a. ‘the office’). I can’t spot any obvious differences in plumage, and I have a feeling that corvids like this can happily live for a decade or more, so I think I will declare this to be only the third bird — after two herons (Humph and Maris Crane) — that might have appeared on here more than once.
Not an exciting shot, but then it wasn’t an exciting day; when is a day spent in an office exciting? There are perhaps better things to do in life. But that’s OK, as soon, I’ll be off doing them: this was my last day working in Manchester for two weeks.
When academics grow up they still behave as their students do: sitting at the back and hoping no one picks on them for input. I wonder how many chairs there are at the University: tens of thousands I imagine. Perhaps the entire student population could sit down there at once, but many of them would definitely be visible at the front.
We don’t normally do spring graduations. These are replacements for the ceremonies that were going to take place in December and then were cancelled at two day’s notice because everyone in ‘Authority’ had another outbreak of paranoia that — let’s look back and be honest about this — turned out to have very little basis in sensible judgments of risk. Anyway, I’m glad they finally made it. It offers a, hopefully singular, opportunity to picture the daffodil/graduation conjunction. And yes, the litter is there but let’s try to work it into the composition somehow.
Not quite Wordsworth’s multitude but there are certainly a lot of these sprouting outside the Ellen Wilkinson Building on campus at the moment, something the rather random focus point of this shot is intended to capture. This is the 700th Manchester shot to feature on here, by the way.
It’s voting season for the Students’ Union. I’m certainly endorsing Candy’s candidacy. With a name like Candy Kong how, indeed, can one go wrong. She should be given a position of power with immediate effect.
Being 42 