Lapland

At Christmas time in the UK, Lapland theme parks appear around the country. They claim to offer a 'genuine' Arctic Christmas experience, with snow, elves, reindeer, huskies, and the rest. The best of these was Lapland New Forest, which was closed down after being uncovered as a scam. Members of the public described it as a 'joke' and 'hell'. There was no snow, just a muddy field and some under-nourished huskies. One punter was so unhappy with the attraction he attacked Santa and one of the elves. See the BBC story: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/dorset/7765080.stm

Another theme park's opening was cancelled altogether, which seems a pity since it promised a winter wonderland overlooking a motorway near Wolverhampton. Some customers had pre-paid 25 pounds a ticket (yes...25 pounds), only to be turned away at the gate. At another Lapland in scenic Kent, the cost for 3 kids and 2 adults is 117.50!

They sure know how to do value entertainment here in the UK.

Skating

At Christmas time, the Council sets up an ice rink in the city. It used to be at Piccadilly Gardens, which was a dog's breakfast. The new one is at Spinningfields, away from the bars, so it's a much better location.

I went skating, and surprisingly managed to say on my feet the entire time. Most people were falling all over the place, careening around the rink in complete chaos. In the photograph, the kid behind me was a total menace, staggering around the rink at speed knocking people over. I spent a lot of time avoiding him. But, given my success, I might give it another go.

Congestion charge defeated

The referendum on the proposed congestion charge for Greater Manchester was defeated on Friday. Every borough voted heavily against it, so the comprehensive loss may see the end of proposals for similar schemes all around the country. It is also the end for any large investment in transport infrastructure for the city. Any new transport funds will be shared around the country, so a major expansion of public transport here is off the table. Well done, drivers. I hope you enjoy your traffic jams.

Como

Como is a beautiful town on the shores of Lake Como, in Lombardia, northern Italy. The old town nudges right up against the lake, and the newer suburbs spread out through the valley. The lake itself is beautiful. It is narrow and stretches a long way north towards the Swiss border. You can see the alps from the lake. Small villages line the shores at the foot of large hills, and they are too picturesque for words. In autumn it was pretty quiet, as most of the tourists are there in summer. But this was the best time to be there. And the lake, good food, wine and coffee would be enough to make it a fantastic visit anytime. I wonder if they have a university I can teach at for a semester?

Congestion charge

Manchester is currently considering whether to introduce a congestion charge, similar to that in London. The government has offered 3 billion pounds to implement the scheme and make a massive investment in public transport at the same time. This would involve a large extension of the tram network, along with new bus routes and interchanges throughout Greater Manchester, from Wigan to Stockport (the extensions are marked in red on the transport map).

http://www.bbc.co.uk/manchester/content/articles/2007/01/24/240106_road_pricing_feature.shtml

http://www.stopthecharge.co.uk/?gclid=CMKBtZSmvpYCFRlPEAodWS0ByQ

The congestion charge would operate through cameras which record number plates, located on every street inside the M60 circular freeway, and a second charge on an inner ring around the city centre. This is an area much larger than London, although motorists would only be charged during peak hour travel on weekdays.

Initially, there was considerable opposition in the local press, however, opinion polls since then indicate majority public support. The main argument in favour of it is that traffic congestion is limiting business development in Manchester, particularly business traffic to the city centre and the Trafford industrial area. Motorist groups are organising against it, and several local councils have opposed it. The loss of traditionally safe Labour councils to the Conservatives in this year's local government elections was blamed on the unpopularity of the charge.

A referendum is to take place in November.

Altrincham FC 1 Oxford United 0

On a bizarrely sunny and warm afternoon, Altrincham, bizarrely, played well at home and defeated the full-time professionals of Oxford Utd. It was a close match, and the first half saw the visitors well on top, pressing the home team into their own half for long periods. But Altrincham have acquired three new taller, better defenders and look much stronger at the back. They dealt with corners and crosses much better than last season, but still looked vulnerable down the middle. Oxford missed a couple of great chances, and one shot from only 6 yards went all the way onto the roof of the new three storey townhouse behind the away end. Home fans chanted, ‘We’re in the same league, for all your money’ and ‘You’ll be here for years’, as Alty came back into the match with a good shot on goal, and made it to half time at 0-0. Sadly, the promised half-time entertainment – the ‘keepy-uppy challenge’ – failed to materialise, but the sunshine amused the 1,800 fans sufficiently to forestall rebellion.

Alty came out strongly in the second half and got on top by running at defenders. I don’t know where these skills and sense of adventure came from, but it worked. At 63 minutes an excellent move through the middle was spread wide to the right, the cross was good, and Little trapped it and thumped it in for 1-0. Oxford never really got back into the match and the sun was still shining at full-time.

Incredibly, Alty are now equal eighth on 22 points, better than half the points tally they managed all last season. And with the club’s stern policy of staying in the black, the strategy of financial prudence is paying off in the Credit Crunch.

Berries

Summer here isn't much to write home about. The last day of summer was 18C and drizzling, just like all the other August days bar one. At this time you do, however, get some fantastic fruit. Berries. The strawberries, raspberries, and blackberries are all delicious, as well as amazingly cheap. When they're discounted, the big 450g punnets of strawberries sell for one pound. They are deep red and full of flavour, nothing like the Australian ones.

Hathersage

Saturday was a beautiful summers day, so I travelled out to the Peak District to walk around the not-ironically named Hathersage. I must be fully acclimatized, because after walking around 11km in 19C temperatures I found it just a little too warm. But it was, indeed, a balmy day in the countryside.

Hathersage is a pretty village in a valley above the Derwent river (they steal all our place names here!). Sheep farms dot the hillsides in an impossibly domesticated rural landscape. Public footpaths wind around the hills, taking you through private farmlands as well as country paths.

The most entertaining aspect of the trip was trying to decipher the guidebook. These walking guides have a language all their own. I suppose the authors think it all very clever and parsimonious, but half the time the instructions left me bewildered. For example: 'leave through a gate on the left and walk upfield above the beck...Eventually, pass out through a gate in the right-hand wall and bear left up the field to a stile.' And this one: 'A contained path drops through the field, a trod continuing beyond down the hill leading you to the banks of the River Derwent.' And my favourite, 'Climb on at the edge of successive fields, bypassing a redundant stile...Carry on, the way now more level, to another stile, over which keep right to a small gate. Now strike out across a final field to a squeeze gap onto a lane.' The reality is that 'strike out across a final field' could have taken me in almost any direction, and led me to miss the path by half a mile. I wandered around a field among curious cows for 20 minutes trying to find the path at the other end. After reading several pages of this it really does get too much. Is it too difficult to use the words, 'straight ahead', 'left' and 'right'? Apparently it is.

Anyway, it was a very nice walk. And I encountered no bobble-hatted ramblers, and only one idiot carrying a ski pole to help him walk up and down those rugged hills. I mean, really! It would be like carrying a walking to stick to make your way around a golf course.

Manchester

21 August, 2008

Today marks two years since I arrived in Manchester. And the entire time, people have sympathized with me about living here. But I still don't get it. The sky cries every other day, it's winter in summer, the Magic Bus takes me to work, and music is more important than sport. What on Earth is there to complain about?

Manchester is fabulous.

Rangers

Between 100,000 and 150,000 Glasgow Rangers supporters came to Manchester for the UEFA Cup final last Wednesday. They started arriving – and drinking – on Tuesday. They booked out every hotel in the city and those who couldn’t find rooms camped out. By Wednesday afternoon, blue and white face-painted Scots were rolling up and down Oxford Road, draped in Union flags. They bought cases of beer (one each) and were drinking in the squares from before 9am, more than 10 hours before kickoff. The council had relaxed the no-drinking by-laws because they knew they couldn’t stop them, but the city was happy to have what seemed to be good natured visitors who turned the city into what was called ‘Mac-chester’. The council set up large screens in different locations, provided with portaloos, and it was all one big party.

But it didn’t take long to turn very, very sour. Colleagues reported them singing sectarian songs during the day, although this got little mention in the post-riot media coverage. The trams were stopped by 2pm for the supporters’ own safety because they couldn’t clear the crowds from the tracks. By the early evening, one of my students said it took her an hour to get home through the crowds. Along with many local passers-by, she was abused by the Scots and one of them even took a swing at her head. Luckily he was too drunk to connect. And this was a long way from the trouble in Piccadilly Gardens.

When the main screen in the Gardens went down due to technical trouble at the start of the match, some supporters started throwing bottles at the screen and the television technicians. While the council was providing transport for half the 20,000 crowd to a screen at another venue, the police came to stop the trouble. Then it turned into a small riot, with supporters attacking the police and the police charging into the crowd. The trouble extended up Oldham Street, where rioters smashed a car and a dozen of them trampled on a policeman. It went on for some hours, with local residents chased into their apartment buildings. Others were sheltered by the staff of closed restaurants.

The next morning, different media gave competing accounts of who was to blame. One channel blamed the police, another the supporters, another the city council, and some in Glasgow claimed it was a Celtic conspiracy. But everyone seemed to agree that it was only a few hundred people who started the trouble. But whatever the nature of the violence, the state of the city afterwards suggested that it wasn’t just a couple of hundred people who caused the damage. Piccadilly Gardens was covered in – and a I quote the local newspaper – ‘urine-soaked rubbish’. They were cleaning it up with a bulldozer. Several people told me that the next day much of the city centre smelled of urine and vomit.

As for the match itself, Rangers were dreadful, and lost 2-0. Good.

Vini Reilly

I saw Vini Reilly at Pizza Express. At lunch time today, I was returning videos on Lapwing Lane and as I left the shop, I saw him sitting on his haunches in the door of Pizza Express, smoking a cigarette. He had very large headphones on, and was nodding quietly along with the music. Even hunched up he looked like a collection of odd angles, with a long face that you can’t mistake for anyone else.

Vini Reilly is the Durutti Column and released albums through Factory Records. He played guitar with many other groups, not the least being with Morrissey on his first solo album.

Website: http://www.column.freeuk.com/index.htm

Bilbao and Oñati

Bilbao is a great city. The museum is clearly fabulous, but the rest of the town has a great feel about it as well. It is a former industrial city, so it is no museum of pre-modern times with obvious tourist appeal. Instead, it is an ordinary but thriving city with a very human appeal to it. The food is excellent - lots of seafood and great coffee - the public transport is good, and in the evening the locals walk in the park and talk animatedly with each other.

Oñati is a beautiful small town about an hour south of Bilbao by bus. It's up in the hills, which surround the town. I took the photographs on a short walk in the countryside one evening. It's very pretty, although it wasn't too easy to frame the powerlines out of the shot. The Institute where the workshop was held was built in the 16th century, a beautiful building where the warm sun filled the courtyard in the afternoons. It is a pleasant, old Basque town, where the walls of the buildings are decorated with ETA graffiti. The food in the local restaurants was also excellent, although we drank too much local red in the bars late into the evenings. No, not really too much.

Burton Road

My new apartment is on Burton Road, West Didsbury. it's a nice street, with a couple of pubs, some small clothes shops, a bakery, convenience stores, and even a nice cafe that makes decent coffee. I know, many of you won't believe this, but it's true. There is also a very small but pleasantly dark wine bar.

I can sit in my window sill and watch the street life, looking up Burton Road towards Lapwing Lane (this fabulously named street becomes the even better named Fog Lane in Didsbury). It's busy, but not noisy, and has a good feel about it. There are lots of students here, so it's a young crowd, as well as more well-heeled members of the professional classes who cluster wherever the wine and coffee is. The 'other side of the tracks' is two blocks up the street, in Withington, and with any luck the tram will be built through here on the airport route, which would conveniently put some literal tracks where the metaphorical line is. In Manchester, the layout of the city doesn't reflect clearly delineated class borders, like in Sydney. The neighbourhoods here are very small, so all the classes are much closer together. This doesn't mean they get along any better, however.

It's about 30-40 mins to work on the double decker bus, but only 15 mins back home in the evenings. I never get tired of sitting in the front seats of the top deck. I buy a Megarider ticket, which gets me a week's travel on any Stagecoach or Magic Bus in Manchester. It's expensive, but given that a day ticket on one route only is 3.30 pounds, it's worthwhile.

The photos are all taken looking out from my apartment, to the April snow.

Morecambe

Morecambe made it to number 3 in the UK Crap Towns top 50 book. Despite this reputation, the fashionable developer, Urban Splash, is redeveloping the Midland Hotel, which they hope will provide a new attraction to the town. I’ve seen the inside on a Channel Four news programme, and it looks like a very impressive art deco hotel. Still, the developers do admit that the hotel has to be an attraction ‘in itself’ because the rest of Morecambe is ‘like Liverpool in the 80s’. The reporter described Morecambe as being so dire that ‘it even makes Margate look good’.

Morecambe is truly the coastal town they forgot to close down. Although, quite a bit of it is actually closed down. The photos show a dilapidated theme park, long forgotten except for a tragic bar still open behind the crumbling façade.

But hey, perhaps I’m being too negative. How about this… The view from anywhere along the seaside is not bleak. It is not freezing cold and an icy wind does not whip in from the Irish Sea. The drizzle does not sting your face as you make your way along the promenade. The sea does not have a weird glow to it, like radioactive dishwater. No, Morecambe is not horrible. Not at all.

Snow

In early February we had some snow. It was a beautiful sunny day, which meant that the snow didn't last. But it's nice to get the good bits of winter. Hey, who am I kidding?! ALL winter is good!

Frozen Mix

‘Frozen mix’, also known as ‘wintery mix’, is not a mixture of frozen berries and ice cream. It is, in fact, a hideous weather phenomenon that occurs once or twice each winter in Manchester.

Frozen mix is a combination of frozen precipitation: snow, freezing rain, hail, and sleet, in any combination but all falling at once. It is not quite biblical, apocalyptic weather, but it is truly disturbing. There is something sinister about frozen mix, most likely because it is scarcely believable.

It is best not to go out during frozen mix. When it fell last week the frozen material came down in torrents, swirling around in brutal fashion, battering the cars and coating the ground. But the ice melted soon after as sleet wet everything in sight. But then, shortly afterwards, another burst of freezing rain and snow.

I wanted to get a picture of it, but there was no way I was going outside in it. And it seems nothing is available on the internet. This is not surprising, as no idiot has ever gone out during frozen mix. It remains unphotographed and undocumented, a visitation of Satan upon the Earth. All residents of the UK remain safely inside during frozen mix, steadfastly and determinedly ignoring it by fixing our eyes and lobotomised minds on the 'tele', on endless hours of documentaries about The Trees That Made Britain and overweight teenagers. Terrible weather, what? Put the kettle on, love!

Armed Robbery

When the English aren’t playing darts, plane spotting, or watching snooker on television, they like to engage in a spot of armed robbery. It’s a very popular activity, particularly enjoyed by the younger male residents of Greater Manchester. Several bars in Chorlton have recently been robbed during the evening, the latest by a group of youths wearing balaclavas and brandishing shotguns and tomahawks. They moved all the customers out the back and took their mobile phones, while a staff member emptied the till. Unfortunately all that effort netted them only £30. The Trevor Arms Hotel in Beech Road has been robbed four times in the last 18 months, although last time the punters ran outside after the robbers who dropped the £6,000 pounds cash and fled. The locals managed to collect every last note and returned it to the publican, who says he will buy them all a round. Armed robbery is now so popular in Chorlton that the local bars have set up a walkie talkie system to warn other bars and restaurants in the area of the danger.

The latest statistics have Greater Manchester’s overall crime rate impressively above the national average. Although the crime rate overall has fallen considerably under Labour, the public believes that crime is worse than ever. Interestingly, violence committed by acquaintances is way down but crime against strangers has stayed the same, and is now makes up the highest proportion of violent crimes. Those most likely to become the victims of violent crime are the poor and young men aged 16 to 24 years. But even though Manchester is up there with the top regions for violent crime, Merseyside still beats it for violent crimes per head of population. Damn those Scousers! Even then, London outdoes them both by a long, long way.

But potential villains need to be careful about which pubs they go into in Manchester. Not long after I first arrived, I read about an assassination attempt gone wrong in Salford. Two armed assailants wearing balaclavas burst into the Brass Handles pub and fired shots at a man they were trying to assassinate, wounding him and another person. Initially all the drinkers ducked for cover, but then they turned on the attackers, overpowered them, and shot them both. The two men, fatally wounded, staggered out of the building and fell down across the street. The punters surged out of the pub and commenced kicking the men as they lay dying on the ground.

I haven’t been to the Brass Handles, but I bet you could enjoy your beer there without any fear at all of armed robbery.

Spotting

What is there to do on a rainy day in Manchester? How about a little spotting? The locals enjoy all kinds of spotting activity: trainspotting at Piccadilly, tram spotting in the park along the Altrincham line, or—my favourite—plane spotting at Manchester Airport. The ‘Aviation Viewing Park’ is set up for plane spotters, comprising three raised platforms, which I reckon would fit about 30 people on each one (although this is looking at it from a distance, as I’ve never been in). They have an excellent view of the runway, so the plane spotters can happily write down the plane numbers, airlines, and time of take off/landing. There is also a large car park, where many spotters like to sit in their cars, eat sandwiches, and while away the weekend watching flights that more sensible people take to and from other places.

On one weekend I saw about 50 people on the platforms and a full carpark (say, 50 cars). It costs £3 entry for each car, plus £1 for each extra adult, or you can get a 3 month ticket, which I think is around £40. Now that’s value entertainment. There is even an ‘aviation shop’ and a kiosk where you can buy bacon butties and other local delicacies. Indeed, plane spotting is so popular in Manchester that 250,000 people visited the Park in the past year. Yes, 250,000 people. The airport claims they the Concorde which is also parked there is a big part of the attraction, but whenever I’ve driven past I have never seen anyone coming out of the Concorde. They’re all spotting.

But to explain how much they love spotting here, I must report my experience in WH Smith, the stationery store. I recently purchased a diary for the new year, and sitting behind the diaries was a Spotters Book. It’s the size of an address book, but each page contains a table for entering the spotting event, with separate columns to note down the time and date. The great thing is it works just as well for any type of spotting! Although I suspect the avid spotter needs a much, much bigger book to document all those fun-filled days standing in the rain at Manchester International.

Darts

If it’s winter in the UK, it’s time for darts on television. The British haven’t been doing very well at sport lately and they feel terribly anxious about it. So, to compensate, they praise sports which they are good at and pretend that no-one else cares about them. Darts. Currently, the World Darts Championship is screening on BBC1 for around 5 hours a day. Yes, I said ‘world’. And it’s true – people come from far and wide to compete, from exotic locations such as Stockport, Gateshead, and Hull.

Darts – apparently – is a ‘sport’, a sport for obese, alcoholic, tattooed, ex-cons (for the female contests, simply add a mullet). Although, the audience is even more entertaining. The tournament is played in something like an RSL club, with the punters indulging in heavy drinking throughout the competition. They’re a boisterous bunch, and fair enough. You have to do something to get some entertainment from darts. To liven things up, the television coverage includes a camera in the board and even super-slow motion shots of the darts spinning majestically towards the triple twenty. Best of all is the guy who calls the scores, exaggerating the middle syllable the higher the score – ‘one hundred and foooooooorrrrrrrrrty’.

For a taste of the excitement, go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDYJYzj4PMk

But if you think darts raises the blood pressure to dangerous levels, the snooker is only just around the corner…

The Singing Christmas Moose

From late November through to Christmas Manchester hosts a large European-style market. You can get loads of German sausages, Dutch Cheese, French sausages (fantastic) and Belgian chocolates. Thousands of people go along, stand out in the cold and the drizzle, drinking gluhwein or beer and eating. But the highlight is the moose (see the video). What can I say... he sings, he talks, he's bilingual, he even blinks. And he is so charismatic, people sing along.

Christmas Day 2007

Christmas 2007, Manchester

Christmas cooking started on Christmas Eve, when we made the stuffing, baked the potatoes and made the vegetarian dish, the Caponata. Christmas day started at 7am to prepare the turkey and put in the oven. Every 20 minutes after that the alarm went off and someone had to remove the turkey from the oven, baste it and reset the timer. It took more than four hours overall, and was very nice. Aroun 10 o’clock we opened loads of presents, many from Australia courtesy of various relatives but also given to each other, courtesy of Poundland. By 12pm there were five or six people in the kitchen, but through a controlled form of chaos (just like a professional kitchen!) we managed to prepare all the food on time. Of course, we over-cooked, but we also over-ate, so it all worked out in the end. Enjoying the feast were Lucy, Alex, Megan, Ally, Mark (Megan’s boyfriend from Connecticut), Catharine Abell (an Australian philosopher at the Uni of Manchester), and me.

As is the tradition here in the UK, we played The Pogues’ ‘Fairytale of New York’ several times at loud volume and drank some beer and/or nice Australian wine. After lunch we watched the Queen's message - listed in the television guide simply as, 'The Queen' - which I suppose might be seen as annoying and anti-Republican, but here it just seems ludicrously quaint, and a little camp. Then some of us went for a walk while others simply went to sleep.