Somebody's been busy. Seen on Shudehill in town. Poster advertising FC United's next three fixtures. You can't say they're not eye-catching and highlight the real alternative to the Glazers and 'The Red Knights'; fan-owned football clubs.
If I opened up the BBC News website one day, and discovered a link to a story which said that scientists had conclusively proved that birds operate a shift system I wouldn’t be in the slightest bit surprised. It was something that I first started noticing when I was pushing my eldest son around Heaton Park on a daily basis, back in the Summer of 2001 when he was brand new and all that.
On different days and at different times there would be a noticeable surfeit of one species of bird in particular. One day it might be blue tits, other days, robins, twittering across the paths, breaking the daytime silence. Half an hour later, another species would be in the ascendancy. I’m sure that there’s a logical and no doubt scientific explanation for it, but it always felt like they were taking turns, clocking on and off duty, as the day went by.
I was put in mind of this early today when walking to work between Salford University and Manchester House I was confronted by a small army of blackbirds. Male, female, on paths, in bushes, up trees, static and scattering to the four winds as I passed by. Normally, I may see one or two, but today was definitely their day at the coalface.
I also had happy encounters with a pair of Little Grebes - a male by the abandoned footbridge, and a tiny female bobbing up and down into the water by The Old Pint Pot, and a Kingfisher skirting the Manchester bank of the river as I peered over the metal and wood-barrier round the back of Café Rouge in Spinningfields.
Thanks to LuLu Witch on Flickr for this great photograph of 'Papa Blackbird' in Sheffield.
Spotted at the end of Greengate, Salford, near the old Victoria Bus Station, ghosts from the past. Dating from the time of the Miners' Strike (1984-85) , nearly twenty-five years on they've almost faded away.
This poster refers to the Wapping Dispute of 1986, another to a May Day Rally of 1983.
Last week’s relentless and heavy downpours meant that the water levels in The Irwell rose quite dramatically. It also meant that many of the usual birds to be spotted, either in the river or on the bank, were taking shelter elsewhere. The Grey Wagtails which feed between Victoria Bridge and the Irwell Street Bridge came up with a novel way to ensure they got their fill. In the river, vast islands of debris, comprised of garden waste, twigs, furniture, and an inordinately large number of footballs, careered, Laputa-like towards the sea at great speed. As they passed, the wagtails would fly aboard, then rapidly bob around searching for insects, before disembarking further down the river.
Thanks to nickpix2009 on flickr for this picture of a grey wagtail.
I went through the first 44 years of my life only managing to see two; more recently I began to notice flashes of colour out of the side of my eye, now I can barely look at The Irwell between Peel Park and Boddies without seeing Kingfishers. It reminds me of the time when my mother-in-law was slightly obsessed with those magic eye 3D images that were all the rage a few years back. I looked and I looked and I couldn't see anything. One day she said, just defocus your eyes while looking at one. I did. WOW! A 3D cowboy on a horse. From then on whenever I was looking at one I'd just go 'doink', and defocus my eyes. Two seconds later, there was the image in full effect.
It's like that with the Kingfishers, as if my eyes and my brain suddenly worked out how to go 'doink' so I could see them. This has meant over the past three or four weeks I've been seeing them almost as often as I see the Grey Wagtails, and more often than the Goosanders. Best of all was this morning when I was looking from inside Peel Park towards the opposite bank of the river and heard the now familiar twitter-gargle they make - a bit like a more high-pitched finch song. My eyes went 'doink' and I found it heading up towards Castle Irwell, low above the water. When it reached the gated and locked footbridge, which no longer takes students over the river between Salford University campusses, it turned and headed back, landing about twenty feet in front of me on the concrete riverbank. I tried to get a better look with the binoculars but the movement must have disturbed it and it flew off.
Earlier, I'd been looking from the bridge described above and heard a commotion among some carrion crows in trees on the far bank. Some swooped out and swooped into the foliage, again and again, calling angrily. They were obviously mobbing something. I tried to see clearer what it was, but as I only use a pair of 10x25 bought from Walmart in Canada purely functional compact binoculars it was difficult, but it looked a crow with a thin white stripe along each upper wing. I couldn't get a clear enough view as it, and they, kept moving, but I can only presume it was a crow with a few stray, mutant white feathers. Further along, and now opposite the tree, I looked again, but this time they seemed to be working out their anger on a smaller, brown bird, possibly one of the sparrowhawks which can be seen along there.
Following on from this blog's first anniversary at the weekend I've decided to post a few more of these longer, more city centre nature-focussed pieces, and also to source more photographs from Creative Commons (as I'm never going to get good wildlife photographs). So, thanks to Melvin Heng for the usage of the photograph.
Just a few tiny things to catch up on.
First up, I’ve now seen Kingfishers on the Irwell in town/Salford two mornings in a row. Yesterday, two shot under Millennium Bridge, near Salford's five-star Lowry Hotel, heading towards Victoria Bridge at quite a pace. This morning, as I sped along The Crescent towards The Old Pint Pot, I saw one heading in the counter direction following the course of The Irwell, low above the river, towards Castle Irwell. Their colours seemed more muted than previous viewings, and I’m not sure if this was because they were juveniles (I hope not, it’s getting cold) or because their colours flare or wane according to seasonal need.
Second, there’s a new issue of Under The Boardwalk out. Under The Boardwalk, FC United's Fanzine! Get one while there are still some left, or download an excerpt, from http://www.undertheboardwalk.net/
Thirdly, I’ve added a Library Thing widget to this blog, and decided to theme it. Have I got 200 graphic literature books? You’re going to find out soon enough.
Finally, a quick plug for little adele - funemployed , a blog put together by one of the wittiest people I know to detail the journey from restructure to relief. Or something like that…
Sometimes things just fall into place. Spent some time on Twitter recently wondering what had happened to Rachael Ball, the fantastic and talented comic book artist who I was lucky to work with for a very short while at City Life. Then, on Sunday, having been instructed that 'those shelves will have to go' I was going through some old boxes of stuff and came across various issues of Hungry and Homeless, a free magazine I used to produce with Mr. Richard Hector-Jones and Mr. Jay Taylor. On top was the one which had a cover drawn by Rachael Ball.
Hungry and Homeless started out as an A4 sheet, folded down to A7 in order to create a pleasing little beast which we used to leave in the bars, shops and public conveniences of Manchester. To quote one issue, "Reviews hardly ever exceed 20 words, features end around fifty, and interviews are usually one question." Those were the rules. We accidentally invented Twitter. In the end we produced about 16 issues, the later ones, including the Rachael Ball one above, were A3 folded down to A6, with covers drawn by a number of comic book 'superstars', including D'Israeli, Evan Dorkin, Sue Platt, Phillip Bond and (to his great confusion) Art Spiegelman. Random interviewees included Arthur Lee of Love, DJ Superstar Justin Robertson, Her out of Bikini Kill, Al Jourgensen of Ministry and Ornette Coleman.
In the spirit of giving, I rescued a small number of spare copies from the bin and will send them to those of you who want them, and who promise me they will not be offended, insulted or otherwise outraged by the offensive juvenalia contained therein. e-mail details to rapwithlester -AT- googlemail -DOT- com (reconstruct the address using Airfix Glue).
What are we all going to do when the work on Deansgate is finally finished and the chaos returns? No more ambling down the middle of the road, no more dancing between the single line of slow-moving motor traffic, no more disregarding the traffic signals and just going.
I've just been outside to get some GT85 for the bike from Evans and found out that the sun is shining and there's an end of Summer, grab-it-while-you-can atmosphere about the place. Imagine how fantastic it would all feel if Deansgate were permanently closed to traffic.
No more footballer wannabees revving their (inevitably, head-shakingly, dull-as-dishwater black) cars up outside whichever current ludicrously-named bar attracts them like rap-spurting, bass-addicted thunderfly, insinuating themselves, Thrip-like, under, in and through the fabric of everything, outside Sofa, Pram, Log or Head.
No more stop/start queues of traffic everynight. Jumping the lights, blocking the crossings, stinking the place up in their selfish desperation to lop ten seconds off the journey between Kendals and The Model Shop.
No more buses, vans, trucks and lorries bullying and bulldozing their way through. Instead, you could have a pedestrian superhighway, with all the space you would need to overtake a slow-moving, prevaricating tourist pensioner. Enough space to accomodate the Golf Umbrella pavement posse. Room enough even for those groups of shoppers who like to spread themselves in a line right across the pavement, holding invisible hands and tutting when you head through them, even though the alternative would send you into the road.
Hell, we could even invite the cyclists in. As long as they all agreed to stop dressing like twats and use some deodorant...
(Thanks to pit-yacker for the fantastic photograph).
Sorry to moan but it's what I do best.
We're just into day four of our annual summer holiday to the usual place you can only really drive to. In this case, Tresaith in Mid Wales. It's a nice enough place but I wouldn't want to live here. I wouldn't even want to be here for more than a day if I was being honest. The things I need around me are not easily found in a place like this, but are often the things taken for granted and often ignored on a daily basis. Like a newspaper. My heart sang like a lovelorn lark yesterday when we deviated (in the car - always in the car) far enough from our new routine of cottage - path - beach - path - cottage - path - beach to pass a Spar from which I was able to buy a copy of The Guardian. The Monday Guardian too; Media Guardian, round-ups of the weekend's 'football action' and, usually, the most-straightforward Cryptic Crossword of the week. And that's sad. I don't even buy the paper everyday when I'm back in Manchester, but there's the requisite amount of stimulation there. And if there isn't I can always walk to the papershop at the top of the street and buy myself a newspaper. And The Beano, if I'm so inclined.
"Slags go Prestwich! haha", back seat of The Village Bus.
Male slags...
In the cold nearly old ska Jamaican dawn
Dead publisher's sons
Material hardship pawns
The Beat, Wah! Heat
Male slags...
The first Village Bus of the day runs past the bottom of my street at 7.55, the last one leaves Shudehill Interchange at 17.27. A single fare is more expensive than a single fare on the other buses which get me home, or into town, but a day pass is notably cheaper. Ho, and also Hum, you say, but the good thing about The Village Bus is that there's only one an hour, which takes a lot of the randomness and pain out of journeys into and out of town. I have to be in the Interchange at a twenty-seven minutes past the hour, or waiting on Heywood Road at five-to. Previously, when I took the 135, "Bus of the Stars", I would turn up at a bus stop and wait, sometimes for up to twenty minutes, whereupon one, two or even three would turn up at the same time and stutter into town, picking up and dropping off at virtually every stop along the way.
In more recent times, before I discovered the mono-glory of The Village Bus, I had started getting the 137, the 135's shorter, less glamorous cousin, from a stop near Blackfriar's Bridge. This runs every twenty minutes, which was good for organising my life, but less good when it didn't turn up. Which was often.
Now, I take The Village Bus as far as the site of the old Boddies Brewery cross Great Ducie Street and head onto New Bridge Street to stare at wildlife from the runtish bridge which crosses The Irwell there. It's a fairly deserted spot - most of the activity along there comes from cars heading towards the crofts of car parks - and I've been lucky enough to watch an American Mink climb up and down the bankside vegetation, searching for something or other, herons fishing, fish-jumping and bizarrely, but weirdly appropriately, a moorhen chasing a rat.
Poetry in motion. 'Big Giant Poo Stain'. Just off Swan Street, near The Band on the Wall, Manchester.
Not the greatest photograph I ever took, but the last time I attempted to blog on this subject I used somebody else's YouTube content, pressed the 'blog this' button, spent a not inconsiderable amount of time writing, pressed send... and nothing. Into the white.
So, this time, playing it safe, I've used a picture I took myself, last July, of the actual spot where I saw it. In case you're wondering why I took this picture of an indiscriminate part of the Irwell, well the tiny grey smudge near the far right of the greenery is a grey heron with its wings spread out, as if it's taking the applause of the river.
Anyway, I've tested this with a few people I know. The types who know I'm not a bullshitter. The types who know, colour-blindness aside, my eyesight is, to quote my dear dead Dad, "like that of a shit-house rat'. The types who know I say what I see, without any prompting from Roy 'Catchphrase' Walker. I've mulled it over, I've rolled it around in my head, I've even tried blogging it a couple of weeks back.
It was the afternoon of The Big Cup Final back in May. A Wednesday. Too eager to get home and enjoy the feast of football which was due to be served up I logged off my computer prematurely and found myself with half an hour to kill before the last Village Bus left Shudehill Interchange at 17.26. I decided I would take the scenic route in order to do a tiny bit of birdwatching.
So, across Bridge Street and left onto the footbridge which takes Inland Revenue Staff and the odd confused foreign tourist over The Irwell into Salford. Right along the river, keeping my eyes open for something. Anything. Nothing but boring bastard black-headed gulls on the mither for food.
Up the steps and left down Blackfriars Road onto the scrag-end of Chapel Street, right towards the old Victoria Bus Station, then right again up the hill and over the river again. Look right, back towards where I'd come from, as a heron sometimes fishes under Blackfriars Bridge, commuters and shoppers passing oblivious over his head. Nothing.
So up and left, opposite the Cathedral. Further round to the left than the view in the photo above, which was taken on the approach to the car park where Exchange Railway Station used to sit. Bear in mind I'm a pretty happy bunny at this point - off to watch his team play in the European Cup Final, with two days off work in front of him. (Just in case). Anyhow, I pause again and look over the metal fence, down towwards Victoria Bus Station where we used to come into town on the 95 bus from Broughton. Back in the day. Still nothing. Time to kill. I notice a grey wagtail and begin to follow its progress around the banks, eyes left, eyes right.
Then, in the water I spot a large fish. I'm intrigued. I've seen fish jumping in the river several times, but they were small and silver. This is much larger. I watch its movements for a few seconds until it's head comes up. Ah, a rat. Not seen one in the river since I used to go down The Landslide in the 70s. It's a bloody big one, though. I carry on tracking it until it reaches the bank you can see in the photograph (although there was less of it, the river being higher). Out it comes. It's not a rat. No rat-like tail, no pointed head, no ratty little ears.
It's an otter. Long, bendy and with the tail of an otter.
The otter, my otter, ran along the bank and headed behind the greenery in the photograph. I exclaimed, I grinned, I high-fived myself. I blinked, I doubted, I watched the spot for as long as I could and then I headed off to get the bus.
At home I hit the books, the internet and the descriptions of things that it might have been. The closest thing was a mink. It wasn't a mink. The shape was wrong, the tail was wrong. It was an otter.
In the end, losing to Barcelona carried no shame. They're sort of fan-owned, they play attractive attacking football and they're not Chelsea. Which is nice.
The football went wrong, but I had my otter to keep me warm.
I've had some interesting stuff from this place over the years, mainly obscure and out of print VHS tapes and the odd morsel of indie or punk vinyl. Episodes of Spectreman, Godzilla films, even an uncut copy of John Waters' Female Trouble. The vinyl was more of a problem - seven inch singles were often adrift of their sleeves and given a burnishing by the grit of Church Street. A single by The Pop Rivets, Billy Childish's first band, and much desired, had to be abandoned as it was so scratched the sound of an egg frying would have dominated. On a positive note, I did pick up the one and only single put out by Kevin Rowlands' punk band, The Killjoys, and then moved it further up the food chain via an eBay transaction with an enthusiastic fan in Japan.
It was never a place for spectacular finds like Rare Records (Damn the IRA and their shitty fucking bomb) or Paramount Books during the time when they were buying in amazing stuff and selling it at a pound an LP (Scott Engel's 'Scott 4', Big Black's 'Sound of Impact' and Neil Young's 'After The Goldrush' on vinyl in the same day made Lester Sands a happy boy), but it was there and it was steady, and there was always the chance that something might turn up.
Now, it's set to close. I don't think it's a Recession Thing, more that the bloke who runs it is getting on and I don't think there's the money in crap porn DVDs there used to be.
I posted this picture and two others from outside The Black Lion hotel back in January. Cycling past today I saw it was boarded up with corrugated iron. I used to go in there a few years ago, playing pool and boozing at dinner time with a friend who used to work in the tax office round the corner. Last time I was in there was during In The City, to see The Raveonettes. They were shite, and I was drunk, so I heckled. If I had been them I would have shown me my arse, but they let me be. The room upstairs was good, though. Round, with a high ceiling. Now, it may never see light again. Two years ago it would have been redeveloped into flats, without a doubt, but now? Who knows?
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