21st Century Schizoid Man

Wahey, sat here typing straight from my phone. I've inherited one of those MDA phone jobbies. I have a phone and what can only be described as a mobile mini computer with internet access that fits in my shirt pocket. And the Internet access is free! It's also a 2 megapixel camera although the camera is CRAP.

I watched the John Prescott investigation into the class system on iPlayer tonight. My God but his wife's a snob. For a Northern woman, I hsve to say her vowels weren't exactly gutteral.

A Royalist who obviously disagrees with her husband on so many fundamental (in John's eyes) issues, it beggars belief that thay are still together.

John does come across as having a chip on his shoulder though. I would recommend anyone to watch it. It gives a kind of 'Ozzie Osmond' insight into the wonderful world of the Prescotts attempting to still come across as 'working class' and failing.

Right let's see if I can upload this direct from my phone.

Walk Between the Raindrops

Well it looks like Autumn's definitely settled in for the duration. Truly crap weather has been the order of the day for the past week or two. Scudding clouds, wet, damp, cold, windy. Crap.

Still, mustn't grumble. Could be worse I'm sure.

We celebrated the marriage of Mr and Mrs Eldest at Manchester's wonderful town hall the other Saturday and a great success it was too. They had an excellent Beatles tribute band, The Mersey Beatles, who play at The Cavern every week and they were uncannily accurate - 'John' especially. It's a great venue is Alfred Waterhouse's gothic creation, set in Albert Square, it's an architectral delight. Minstrel's galleries, fan vaulting, miles of eerie corridors and Ford Madox Brown's murals. A fitting culmination of marriage festivities. It's real life for the newlyweds from here on.

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I took a trip to the Lowry Centre in Salford Quays to see the wonderful 100 years of Guardian photography exhibition. In 1908 the Manchester Guardian employed its first press photographer Walter Doughty and has only actually employed a handful since. There's a great slideshow and discussion between the late Guardian photographer Denis Thorpe and northern editor Martin Wainwright here. There's some gob-smackingly good work there especially from two of my heroes Don McPhee and Denis Thorpe. Throughout the 1980s I would read the Guardian and these two unfailingly produced great work and had me forlornly trying to reproduce it with my trusty Pentax K1000 and home darkroom. Happy days.

What I did find out at the exhibition was that a familiar face to anyone in the North West, Bob Smithies - TV presenter along with Tony (aka Anthony, aka Anthony H) Wilson on Granada's early evening local news programme, was a Guardian photographer up to 1974. And a bloody good photographer he was too. The clever bugger also had sidline as the Guardian crossword compiler 'Bunthorne'. Sadly he's best remembered round here for a piece to camera he did at Chester Zoo where an elephant kept sticking its trunk in his crotch in search of buns. It still turns up on out takes shows to this day. A true polymath. Big up to you Bob.

So, with a nod and a wink to the above, here are a few of my recent efforts.....


Albert Square, Manchester.


D. I. S. C. O. Manchester Town Hall.


D. I. S. C. O. 2. Manchester Town Hall.


Fountain, Albert Square, Manchester.


The Newly Weds arrive at the town hall.

That's all folks.

Rainy days and Mondays always bring me down.

Back from Santorini where we all (30+ of us) enjoyed a fabulous week that culminated in the marriage of Eldest and Mrs Eldest. The sun shone and occasionally the rain fell, but it shone and fell on a happy band of Brothers and Sisters who made the most of a technicolour interlude away from the constant dull grey of the Mancunian summer of 2008. And guess what we came back to? Constant. Dull. Incessant.

And while we were away Western Capitalism collapsed. I don't know....yer take yer eye off it for a moment......

Still, I'm just glad I'm being given the opportunity to shore up these failing financial institutions and the blood sucking twats who have been doing 'very-nicely-thank-you' over the past 25 years or so via my tax contributions. Can't help but feel that Lloyd-George, Beveridge and Bevin had other ideas for that revenue though. Still......mustn't grumble.

Nice to see City settling down to being a team with magnificent attacking flair and one that has also embraced a defensive naivety that harks back to the good ol' days of the naive defensiveness of the Keegan era. It's good to see these new owners understanding that we need some absolute crapness in order to stay connected with the 'richest club on the planet'.

Here's some pics.......


Oia, Santorini. I defy anyone not to fall in love with this place. Gorgeously photogenic from top to toe. A wonder of the world.


Thira, Santoroni. Just after the sunset. Just perfect.


And the cruise ships head off to their next destination as the Aegian sun starts to disappear.


This just looks like Toytown to me. What a fabulously photogenic place. My eyes couldn't take it all in.


And again.


Obligatory blue church in Greece shot.


A ginnel in Oia, Santorini.

And so, there you have it. Eldest has now tied the knot as well as Youngest. Given the fact that have lived together for almost 2 years, I just hope the change that marriage brings about in the dynamics of a relationship doesn't ultimately rent asunder what that cool Greek guy put together on the top of that cliff last week.

Let's raise a glass to Eldest and Mrs Eldest....Hip Hip......

I'll leave you with a couple of photograph which are amongst my favourites of the past few months.....




I left my tonsils here in 1958.

They're 'regenerating' the part of Manchester that was the World's first Industrial City, although they've renamed it 'New Islington' as opposed to 'Ancoats'. Marketing eh? It's a bitch.