rainy city Archives - Page 4 of 4

24 Nov 2015

WHITTLE’S CROFT, MANCHESTER 6.17AM

WHITTLE’S CROFT 6.17AM The rain was bouncing off my hood, the tippy-tap noise being my only company in this small side street tucked away behind Ducie House. I saw no-one and no-one saw me. If I’d been more of an animal than my modern, city self I’d have gone to shelter on higher ground. The lemming leaves lay dead on the ground, except for two which remained like young lovers looking into the sunset on the last night of their […]

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20 Nov 2015

NEWTON STREET & THE ACCIDENTAL TRICOLOUR 6.53AM

NEWTON STREET & THE ACCIDENTAL TRICOLOUR 6.35AM Following the awful events in Paris a few days previously, the world had become cloaked in the Tricolour. It was before my eyes wherever I turned. At the previous night’s concert, or in Blackpool at the weekend, and my social media timelines appeared to be entirely decorated in red, white and blue. I seemed to notice it even when it wasn’t there. I was gazing at the sandwich shop across from me, wondering […]

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26 Oct 2015

GUN STREET, ANCOATS 6.32AM

GUN STREET, ANCOATS 6.32AM Today the clocks were turned back. Rain lingered like a truculent teenager, smearing the cobbled streets of Ancoats with a Brylcreem sheen. The area is a work in progress. Old buildings, like patients screened off in a hospital ward, are surrounded by scaffolding, as the heart of the world’s first industrial city is given a new life by Manchester’s pacemakers. Original brickwork and Victorian grandeur have been retained where possible, causing streets which until recently were […]

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06 Oct 2015

RUSTICA, TIB STREET, 7.03AM

RUSTICA, TIB STREET, 7.03AM The day before had started chaotically, as my alarm didn’t go off, and a non-committal drizzle had doused the weekend warmth in streets that now seemed disjointed. An old fella in a tweed flat cap, walking slowly and unsteadily with a stick, had stood in the middle of the road and loudly denounced a driver going in the wrong direction up a one way street. There’d also been a small altercation with a young lad in […]

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02 Oct 2015

VICTORIA STATION, MANCHESTER 6.47AM

VICTORIA STATION, MANCHESTER 6.47AM Two nights before there had been the Autumn Equinox, when summer ends and the days tip towards winter. The moon had shone like a torch and was perfectly round, as if it had been drawn by an eager to please schoolboy with a compass. This morning, partly covered by cloud, it had the deflated look of an old leather football that had just been clogged towards touch by an uncultured centre half. Outside Victoria Station there’s […]

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26 Aug 2015

radium-street-wing-yip-andcoats-manchester

RADIUM STREET, ANCOATS 5.43AM

RADIUM STREET, ANCOATS 5.43AM My alarm went off at 4am, and a couple of early birds were already chirruping as I turned on the light, causing me to hurry onto the street around 20 minutes later. In the the sky above me, though, there was not even a hint of daylight. For some reason, they’d begun their songs of hope a full hour before the dawn actually arrived, and I felt deceived. I pulled up my hood against the thumping […]

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17 Jun 2015

JERSEY STREET, ANCOATS, 6.33AM

JERSEY STREET, ANCOATS 6.33AM – There’s a sense of growing affection for Ancoats. No longer do people scurry from doorway to cab, fearful of being mugged, or “taxed” as I recently heard a Glaswegian refer to it. Ancoats is maybe the best of Manchester’s efforts to reinvent itself. The area used to pulse with endeavour, power and anger but now, whilst it still gives sanctuary to its ghosts, it increasingly neutralises their presence. Soon the streets around the dark brick […]

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07 May 2015

DERBY STREET, CHEETHAM HILL 5.15AM

DERBY STREET, CHEETHAM HILL 5.15AM – At 4AM, which is now my waking up time for Not Quite Light, I feel like death and it is only the thought of life that takes me from my tomb and out into the day. It was dark and felt as dawn could never arrive. Even the birds seemed reluctant to announce dawn this morning, as the consistent rain spattered onto the pavements. I made my way up towards Cheetham Hill to an […]

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04 Apr 2015

LEVER STREET, MANCHESTER 6.00AM

LEVER STREET, MANCHESTER 6.00AM – On the streets at dawn there is a relationship to the space which feels highly personal, a temporary sense of ownership even. Without the distraction of traffic and people and purifying daylight there exists an awareness of detail often absent without the collusion of shadow and streetlight. Also, and unbeknownst to them, I’ve begun to develop a relationship with the workers of the morning, the hidden heroes of our city, who have become familiar to […]

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16 Feb 2015

CAGED JAGUAR, FARADAY STREET. 7.35AM

CAGED JAGUAR, FARADAY STREET. 7.35AM Manchester is unfairly famed for its rain. If it’s raining in Manchester, then somewhere else along the west of Britain is also getting it, and I’d rather this new, soft water than drought and lime. It’s not easy to photograph in though. The camera drips miserably and the lens needs constant attention. This morning my hood was up and my chilled hands were thrust deep into dampened pockets. A bin lorry, or waste re-cycling vehicle, […]

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Tag : rainy city

WHITTLE’S CROFT, MANCHESTER 6.17AM

NEWTON STREET & THE ACCIDENTAL TRICOLOUR 6.53AM

GUN STREET, ANCOATS 6.32AM

RUSTICA, TIB STREET, 7.03AM

VICTORIA STATION, MANCHESTER 6.47AM

RADIUM STREET, ANCOATS 5.43AM

JERSEY STREET, ANCOATS, 6.33AM

DERBY STREET, CHEETHAM HILL 5.15AM

LEVER STREET, MANCHESTER 6.00AM

CAGED JAGUAR, FARADAY STREET. 7.35AM

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