It says "The image you are requesting does not exist".
Yes - I mistakenly posted some old data. My bad.
Not sure I should spam PB with the whole thing over again....
Well, please just keep up the good work. I do think it would be worth your posting comparative data for other countries though. Maybe all the EU member states plus a dozen other major industrialised nations for comparison.
Re Ancoats & Beswick. I know the area fairly well (I work just over the other side of Gt Ancoats Street) and while the New Islington bit is becoming a bit yuppified, most of Beswick, Miles Platting and Bradford is still very solidly working class.
As I understand it, a lot of the vote here has gone against Labour because of a bullying issue forcing out the previous councillor. There's also the background issue of how badly the refurbishment of Great Ancoats Street has gone (city centre LDs have focused on transport in their campaigning for a while now), and perhaps an underlying discontent with the absolute (unrepresentative) stranglehold Labour councillors have on Manchester, with attendant complacency and sloppiness.
I wouldn't draw any conclusions at all about the national picture from this.
I'd say Great Ancoats Street is looking splendid. A real success story. Granted the works were a right kerfuffle. But which works aren't?
It's not my idea of splendour, though I'd have accepted merely practical.
Well ok, it's not the Champs Elysees, yet. But it's almost unrecognisable from what it was 15 years ago. Importantly, it's lined with active frontages of businesses you might like to frequent. And the interruption of the canal and the space next to it is rather nicely done. I'd say a step up from 'practical' - Trinity Way is 'practical'. Manchester does get some things wrong, but it gets far more right than it does wrong, and it does such a lot, that the frequency of success is gratifyingly high. And I'd put Great Ancoats Street firmly in the 'success' category.
Er, what? It looks boring and in parts hideous on that Google Street View
And I would LOVE to believe you. It would be great to think we are rebuilding our cities better. Any links?
That Streetview is from 18 months ago and a lot has changed since then. Look, it's a dual carriageway. It's part of the Manchester and Salford Inner Ring Road. It's not the Shambles in York. But it looks substantially better than that now. It's moderatly pleasant to walk down - that section which has recently been redone, anyway. It's certainly got life and businesses on it, where it used to be a godforsaken stretch of tamac and a rubbish retail park. It separates Ancoats and the Northern Quarter but doesn't sever them. Where once was a ring road there emerges a neighbourhood.
This is not a 60s demolition of the commercial core of the city to replace with something uglier, but a 2020s demolition of post-inudtrial nothing with a functioning neighbourhood.
You should, when you get the chance, come to Manchester; take a walk around Ancoats, and the Northern Quarter, and Crown Street, and the left bank, and Chapel Street, and NOMA. Regeneration far outranks decay. Not all of it perfect. But Leon, the energy and pace of change: not something I ever thought I'd see in this country outside of London.
Sure, I'd like perfect Georgian cityscapes. But we never had that to start with in Manchester. Ancoats moved straight from dark satanic mills to post-industrial wasteland. And now it is one of the most sought-after areas in the North. It is astonishing.
Fair enough, and Yay if it is true. You are right, I need to see it for myself. And I have heard this from others: Manc is much improved, becoming a proper, handsome European city
I seldom ever go there, the last time was maybe 15-20 years ago, and it was quite depressing then. For some reason my job/life takes me to many other UK cities, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Cardiff, Newcastle, Bristol, but not Manchester
However, on my last visit, I DO remember wandering around some of the down-at-heel Victorian districts and thinking: wow, if they ever do this up, it will be spectacular. Glasgow's Victorian quarter, for example, is now quite something
When I visit our Manchester office I can see the statue of Engels out of the window. Reason enough to pay a visit.
Re Ancoats & Beswick. I know the area fairly well (I work just over the other side of Gt Ancoats Street) and while the New Islington bit is becoming a bit yuppified, most of Beswick, Miles Platting and Bradford is still very solidly working class.
As I understand it, a lot of the vote here has gone against Labour because of a bullying issue forcing out the previous councillor. There's also the background issue of how badly the refurbishment of Great Ancoats Street has gone (city centre LDs have focused on transport in their campaigning for a while now), and perhaps an underlying discontent with the absolute (unrepresentative) stranglehold Labour councillors have on Manchester, with attendant complacency and sloppiness.
I wouldn't draw any conclusions at all about the national picture from this.
I'd say Great Ancoats Street is looking splendid. A real success story. Granted the works were a right kerfuffle. But which works aren't?
It's not my idea of splendour, though I'd have accepted merely practical.
Well ok, it's not the Champs Elysees, yet. But it's almost unrecognisable from what it was 15 years ago. Importantly, it's lined with active frontages of businesses you might like to frequent. And the interruption of the canal and the space next to it is rather nicely done. I'd say a step up from 'practical' - Trinity Way is 'practical'. Manchester does get some things wrong, but it gets far more right than it does wrong, and it does such a lot, that the frequency of success is gratifyingly high. And I'd put Great Ancoats Street firmly in the 'success' category.
Er, what? It looks boring and in parts hideous on that Google Street View
And I would LOVE to believe you. It would be great to think we are rebuilding our cities better. Any links?
That Streetview is from 18 months ago and a lot has changed since then. Look, it's a dual carriageway. It's part of the Manchester and Salford Inner Ring Road. It's not the Shambles in York. But it looks substantially better than that now. It's moderatly pleasant to walk down - that section which has recently been redone, anyway. It's certainly got life and businesses on it, where it used to be a godforsaken stretch of tamac and a rubbish retail park. It separates Ancoats and the Northern Quarter but doesn't sever them. Where once was a ring road there emerges a neighbourhood.
This is not a 60s demolition of the commercial core of the city to replace with something uglier, but a 2020s demolition of post-inudtrial nothing with a functioning neighbourhood.
You should, when you get the chance, come to Manchester; take a walk around Ancoats, and the Northern Quarter, and Crown Street, and the left bank, and Chapel Street, and NOMA. Regeneration far outranks decay. Not all of it perfect. But Leon, the energy and pace of change: not something I ever thought I'd see in this country outside of London.
Sure, I'd like perfect Georgian cityscapes. But we never had that to start with in Manchester. Ancoats moved straight from dark satanic mills to post-industrial wasteland. And now it is one of the most sought-after areas in the North. It is astonishing.
Fair enough, and Yay if it is true. You are right, I need to see it for myself. And I have heard this from others: Manc is much improved, becoming a proper, handsome European city
I seldom ever go there, the last time was maybe 15-20 years ago, and it was quite depressing then. For some reason my job/life takes me to many other UK cities, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Cardiff, Newcastle, Bristol, but not Manchester
However, on my last visit, I DO remember wandering around some of the down-at-heel Victorian districts and thinking: wow, if they ever do this up, it will be spectacular. Glasgow's Victorian quarter, for example, is now quite something
I love Manchester beyond the point of reasonableness, but I'd never describe it as handsome. Unlike e.g. Liverpool, Glasgow or Newcastle, it's never known true grandeur, despite a few genuinely gorgeous buildings.
That said, I do enjoy strolling round NQ and seeing all the knackered old former garment factories, mucky book shops and abandoned slum flats amid the fancy shops and bars. It's a compelling place, full of life. Still one or two proper old boozers as well. And I agree - some of the new development has been good; not all of it though: a lot of big box ugly skyscrapers (the Angel Meadow development is especially crummy).
Incidentally, it's not unusual to see the streets dressed up to look like the US, as it's often used as a substitute for New York in films and TV. Lots of external fire escapes and whatnot.
But Manchester has the HISTORY. It is one of the most important cities in the world, in terms of human development. Cottonopolis, the metropole of the Industrial Revolution
There are a few places on this earth where you can say human civilisation changed, and they are all superbly resonant
The Ice Caves of France (perhaps): the birth of human self awareness
Gobekli Tepe and environs: the end of hunter gathering, the dawn of agriculture: the Fall
Jerusalem (and maybe an honourable mention for Akhetaten): the cradle of monotheism
Florence: the Renaissance
Manchester, down to Coalbrookdale: the Industrial Revolution
Somewhere in California: the dawn of the internet, social media and the smartphone
Coalbrookdale is especially amazing. The ironbridge made me nearly cry. I can get sentimental about epochal history
Re Ancoats & Beswick. I know the area fairly well (I work just over the other side of Gt Ancoats Street) and while the New Islington bit is becoming a bit yuppified, most of Beswick, Miles Platting and Bradford is still very solidly working class.
As I understand it, a lot of the vote here has gone against Labour because of a bullying issue forcing out the previous councillor. There's also the background issue of how badly the refurbishment of Great Ancoats Street has gone (city centre LDs have focused on transport in their campaigning for a while now), and perhaps an underlying discontent with the absolute (unrepresentative) stranglehold Labour councillors have on Manchester, with attendant complacency and sloppiness.
I wouldn't draw any conclusions at all about the national picture from this.
I'd say Great Ancoats Street is looking splendid. A real success story. Granted the works were a right kerfuffle. But which works aren't?
It's not my idea of splendour, though I'd have accepted merely practical.
Well ok, it's not the Champs Elysees, yet. But it's almost unrecognisable from what it was 15 years ago. Importantly, it's lined with active frontages of businesses you might like to frequent. And the interruption of the canal and the space next to it is rather nicely done. I'd say a step up from 'practical' - Trinity Way is 'practical'. Manchester does get some things wrong, but it gets far more right than it does wrong, and it does such a lot, that the frequency of success is gratifyingly high. And I'd put Great Ancoats Street firmly in the 'success' category.
Er, what? It looks boring and in parts hideous on that Google Street View
And I would LOVE to believe you. It would be great to think we are rebuilding our cities better. Any links?
That Streetview is from 18 months ago and a lot has changed since then. Look, it's a dual carriageway. It's part of the Manchester and Salford Inner Ring Road. It's not the Shambles in York. But it looks substantially better than that now. It's moderatly pleasant to walk down - that section which has recently been redone, anyway. It's certainly got life and businesses on it, where it used to be a godforsaken stretch of tamac and a rubbish retail park. It separates Ancoats and the Northern Quarter but doesn't sever them. Where once was a ring road there emerges a neighbourhood.
This is not a 60s demolition of the commercial core of the city to replace with something uglier, but a 2020s demolition of post-inudtrial nothing with a functioning neighbourhood.
You should, when you get the chance, come to Manchester; take a walk around Ancoats, and the Northern Quarter, and Crown Street, and the left bank, and Chapel Street, and NOMA. Regeneration far outranks decay. Not all of it perfect. But Leon, the energy and pace of change: not something I ever thought I'd see in this country outside of London.
Sure, I'd like perfect Georgian cityscapes. But we never had that to start with in Manchester. Ancoats moved straight from dark satanic mills to post-industrial wasteland. And now it is one of the most sought-after areas in the North. It is astonishing.
Fair enough, and Yay if it is true. You are right, I need to see it for myself. And I have heard this from others: Manc is much improved, becoming a proper, handsome European city
I seldom ever go there, the last time was maybe 15-20 years ago, and it was quite depressing then. For some reason my job/life takes me to many other UK cities, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Cardiff, Newcastle, Bristol, but not Manchester
However, on my last visit, I DO remember wandering around some of the down-at-heel Victorian districts and thinking: wow, if they ever do this up, it will be spectacular. Glasgow's Victorian quarter, for example, is now quite something
I love Manchester beyond the point of reasonableness, but I'd never describe it as handsome. Unlike e.g. Liverpool, Glasgow or Newcastle, it's never known true grandeur, despite a few genuinely gorgeous buildings.
That said, I do enjoy strolling round NQ and seeing all the knackered old former garment factories, mucky book shops and abandoned slum flats amid the fancy shops and bars. It's a compelling place, full of life. Still one or two proper old boozers as well. And I agree - some of the new development has been good; not all of it though: a lot of big box ugly skyscrapers (the Angel Meadow development is especially crummy).
Incidentally, it's not unusual to see the streets dressed up to look like the US, as it's often used as a substitute for New York in films and TV. Lots of external fire escapes and whatnot.
Yes, you're quite right - we're starting from a much lower base than other cities, architecturally.
Angel Meadow is particularly depressing. I'm not one for ghosts, but there is an air of hopeless sadness about the place. And when you learn it is, I think, the site of a mass children's paupers' grave(?) - you hurry onto brighter corners of the city. I certainly wouldn't fancy living there.
Not just children, but a mass burial site for the very poor; 40-odd thousand bodies under your feet in that little park. Nice example of a Ragged School on northern side (though now looking pretty actually ragged, and its days are numbered). There's a lovely bike repair/coffee place in the nearby arches too.
I *think* the living conditions around Angel Meadows were one of the prime movers of Engels's shift from bourgeois industrialist to radical revolutionary.
At this point we have to accept they are an actively hostile power. Withdraw from any co-operation, and meanwhile encourage Putin to invade them, while maintaining Splendid Isolation
At this point? They have never, ever, stopped being a hostile power. The hundred years war never ended. Sure we fought in France in 1914-18, but that was for the Belgians. We did the same in 1939-45, but that was for the Belgians and the Dutch. And the French are not grateful to us for liberating them. Oh no. It was the worst thing we could do.
When Britain and France together built probably the world's most beautiful ever aircraft and fastest airliner, the Concorde, the CIA sent a message to Douglas-Home saying "Britain was biting off more than it can chew". Were it not the fuel crisis of the 1970's, it could also have single-handedly revived a major global British industry ; that had also already been partly finished off by U.S. copying of aircraft like the Comet to begin with, from the early 1950's onward.
That is so wrong it is hard to know where to start. Concorde was built on a lie.
When the jet age began, the phenomenon of apparent increases in fuel efficiency the faster you went seem to make Mach 2 cruise use less fuel than subsonic.
Unfortunately, when real world data became available, it turned out that the cross over was past Mach 3.
A Mach 3 cruise airliner was beyond the technical capabilities of the day - you could build Mach 3 cruising airplanes. The Americans built 2 completely different approaches to that. But the design, build and maintenance was nearly impossible.
But Concorde was now rolling. So the politicians and engineers bullshitted along. They were too invested to stop.
In the end they created a very nice, very small airliner, which could *just* make it across the Atlantic. With massive fuel costs and high maintenance costs.
The airlines hadn't been really enthused before the fuel crisis. It was already obvious the market was moving rapidly towards cheap mass transit.
As to the Comet, no. Boeing had successfully built multiple aircraft with whole fuselage pressurisation - see the B-29. So when they built the 707, they got it right. You only have to look at the British wartime ideas about pressurised aircraft to understand what went wrong....
But there was still strong interest at the turn of the '70s. The Jumbo had only just come out, and almost 20 airlines wanted them, from Iran to the USA. Most of those orders were cancelled straight after the 1973 oil crisis.
The US had been very unhappy about the project to begin with, as it had been with the earlier U.K. lead in jet technology. McCone of the CIA attempted both industrial espionage and effective intimidation of the British government. What emerged was a compromise, but it still could have done a significant amount to revive a major UK global and strategic industry that was effectively ended by U.S. competition.
On their own, the UK and France were too small until Airbus, with the the help of other nations, which the UK government has now idiotically sold its stake in ; with the same weird strategic sense that has given us Chinese-built nuclear power stations and German-owned rail.
I went to school with someone, whose father had as a scientist at Farnborough written a paper pointing out the problems with Concorde and recommended that the government look at a subsonic wide body carrying 500 passengers.
His rewarded was to be fired systematically black listed in UK aviation. So he went off to the US. Came back to the UK long after to work in non-aviation stuff.
While working for NASA, he discovered that the permanent official who, at the behest of a certain pipe-smoking politician had trashed his career, was applying to work in the US aviation industry as well. This was when he was contacted by the FBI for back ground for security checks.
As he related it, he laid on a bit thick the relationship between his tormentor and said pipe-smoking politician. Who was a bit left by US standards.
Strangely, the US denied a visa to the chap in question, let alone cleareing him for the job.
Re Ancoats & Beswick. I know the area fairly well (I work just over the other side of Gt Ancoats Street) and while the New Islington bit is becoming a bit yuppified, most of Beswick, Miles Platting and Bradford is still very solidly working class.
As I understand it, a lot of the vote here has gone against Labour because of a bullying issue forcing out the previous councillor. There's also the background issue of how badly the refurbishment of Great Ancoats Street has gone (city centre LDs have focused on transport in their campaigning for a while now), and perhaps an underlying discontent with the absolute (unrepresentative) stranglehold Labour councillors have on Manchester, with attendant complacency and sloppiness.
I wouldn't draw any conclusions at all about the national picture from this.
I'd say Great Ancoats Street is looking splendid. A real success story. Granted the works were a right kerfuffle. But which works aren't?
It's not my idea of splendour, though I'd have accepted merely practical.
Well ok, it's not the Champs Elysees, yet. But it's almost unrecognisable from what it was 15 years ago. Importantly, it's lined with active frontages of businesses you might like to frequent. And the interruption of the canal and the space next to it is rather nicely done. I'd say a step up from 'practical' - Trinity Way is 'practical'. Manchester does get some things wrong, but it gets far more right than it does wrong, and it does such a lot, that the frequency of success is gratifyingly high. And I'd put Great Ancoats Street firmly in the 'success' category.
Er, what? It looks boring and in parts hideous on that Google Street View
And I would LOVE to believe you. It would be great to think we are rebuilding our cities better. Any links?
That Streetview is from 18 months ago and a lot has changed since then. Look, it's a dual carriageway. It's part of the Manchester and Salford Inner Ring Road. It's not the Shambles in York. But it looks substantially better than that now. It's moderatly pleasant to walk down - that section which has recently been redone, anyway. It's certainly got life and businesses on it, where it used to be a godforsaken stretch of tamac and a rubbish retail park. It separates Ancoats and the Northern Quarter but doesn't sever them. Where once was a ring road there emerges a neighbourhood.
This is not a 60s demolition of the commercial core of the city to replace with something uglier, but a 2020s demolition of post-inudtrial nothing with a functioning neighbourhood.
You should, when you get the chance, come to Manchester; take a walk around Ancoats, and the Northern Quarter, and Crown Street, and the left bank, and Chapel Street, and NOMA. Regeneration far outranks decay. Not all of it perfect. But Leon, the energy and pace of change: not something I ever thought I'd see in this country outside of London.
Sure, I'd like perfect Georgian cityscapes. But we never had that to start with in Manchester. Ancoats moved straight from dark satanic mills to post-industrial wasteland. And now it is one of the most sought-after areas in the North. It is astonishing.
Fair enough, and Yay if it is true. You are right, I need to see it for myself. And I have heard this from others: Manc is much improved, becoming a proper, handsome European city
I seldom ever go there, the last time was maybe 15-20 years ago, and it was quite depressing then. For some reason my job/life takes me to many other UK cities, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Cardiff, Newcastle, Bristol, but not Manchester
However, on my last visit, I DO remember wandering around some of the down-at-heel Victorian districts and thinking: wow, if they ever do this up, it will be spectacular. Glasgow's Victorian quarter, for example, is now quite something
I love Manchester beyond the point of reasonableness, but I'd never describe it as handsome. Unlike e.g. Liverpool, Glasgow or Newcastle, it's never known true grandeur, despite a few genuinely gorgeous buildings.
That said, I do enjoy strolling round NQ and seeing all the knackered old former garment factories, mucky book shops and abandoned slum flats amid the fancy shops and bars. It's a compelling place, full of life. Still one or two proper old boozers as well. And I agree - some of the new development has been good; not all of it though: a lot of big box ugly skyscrapers (the Angel Meadow development is especially crummy).
Incidentally, it's not unusual to see the streets dressed up to look like the US, as it's often used as a substitute for New York in films and TV. Lots of external fire escapes and whatnot.
Yes, you're quite right - we're starting from a much lower base than other cities, architecturally.
Angel Meadow is particularly depressing. I'm not one for ghosts, but there is an air of hopeless sadness about the place. And when you learn it is, I think, the site of a mass children's paupers' grave(?) - you hurry onto brighter corners of the city. I certainly wouldn't fancy living there.
Though I always admired the vision behind the population reduction sculpture in Manchester, though not the implementation as it would probably kill people too randomly.
Have any of the Great Minds on this board - or those with even greater bank balances! - given serious thought to this humble proposition?
Specifically, for PB to commission, staff and fuel (in more ways than one) a quasi-official Mobile Operational Base (MOB) for the upcoming May 2022 locals and for any other UK electoral activity that may transpire this year.
Will leave to others the mundane details re: vehicle, equipage, capacity (mechanical and human), route, etc., etc. PROVIDED that no PBer is allowed to drive the Battle Bus under any circumstances short of volcanic eruption or martial law.
It says "The image you are requesting does not exist".
Yes - I mistakenly posted some old data. My bad.
Not sure I should spam PB with the whole thing over again....
Well, please just keep up the good work. I do think it would be worth your posting comparative data for other countries though. Maybe all the EU member states plus a dozen other major industrialised nations for comparison.
Comparison across different nations is basically impossible in any kind of detail. Different metrics, counting etc.
Deja vu all over again. ONS reckons Omicron prevalence has now peaked in youngest (at last). So now we watch the parental "resonance" and hope there isn't a grandparental one
BBC reporting 17 letters have been submitted to the 1922
Not sure how that compares with other reports
Much lower than even my estimate.
Pathetic.
As seen last time it was publicly known there were 20ish letters, when it was announced the threshold of late 40s had been reached. So extrapolating beyond the public ones a bit is probably reasonable, but Omnium's guess of 35 seems plausible.
Re Ancoats & Beswick. I know the area fairly well (I work just over the other side of Gt Ancoats Street) and while the New Islington bit is becoming a bit yuppified, most of Beswick, Miles Platting and Bradford is still very solidly working class.
As I understand it, a lot of the vote here has gone against Labour because of a bullying issue forcing out the previous councillor. There's also the background issue of how badly the refurbishment of Great Ancoats Street has gone (city centre LDs have focused on transport in their campaigning for a while now), and perhaps an underlying discontent with the absolute (unrepresentative) stranglehold Labour councillors have on Manchester, with attendant complacency and sloppiness.
I wouldn't draw any conclusions at all about the national picture from this.
I'd say Great Ancoats Street is looking splendid. A real success story. Granted the works were a right kerfuffle. But which works aren't?
It's not my idea of splendour, though I'd have accepted merely practical.
Well ok, it's not the Champs Elysees, yet. But it's almost unrecognisable from what it was 15 years ago. Importantly, it's lined with active frontages of businesses you might like to frequent. And the interruption of the canal and the space next to it is rather nicely done. I'd say a step up from 'practical' - Trinity Way is 'practical'. Manchester does get some things wrong, but it gets far more right than it does wrong, and it does such a lot, that the frequency of success is gratifyingly high. And I'd put Great Ancoats Street firmly in the 'success' category.
Er, what? It looks boring and in parts hideous on that Google Street View
And I would LOVE to believe you. It would be great to think we are rebuilding our cities better. Any links?
That Streetview is from 18 months ago and a lot has changed since then. Look, it's a dual carriageway. It's part of the Manchester and Salford Inner Ring Road. It's not the Shambles in York. But it looks substantially better than that now. It's moderatly pleasant to walk down - that section which has recently been redone, anyway. It's certainly got life and businesses on it, where it used to be a godforsaken stretch of tamac and a rubbish retail park. It separates Ancoats and the Northern Quarter but doesn't sever them. Where once was a ring road there emerges a neighbourhood.
This is not a 60s demolition of the commercial core of the city to replace with something uglier, but a 2020s demolition of post-inudtrial nothing with a functioning neighbourhood.
You should, when you get the chance, come to Manchester; take a walk around Ancoats, and the Northern Quarter, and Crown Street, and the left bank, and Chapel Street, and NOMA. Regeneration far outranks decay. Not all of it perfect. But Leon, the energy and pace of change: not something I ever thought I'd see in this country outside of London.
Sure, I'd like perfect Georgian cityscapes. But we never had that to start with in Manchester. Ancoats moved straight from dark satanic mills to post-industrial wasteland. And now it is one of the most sought-after areas in the North. It is astonishing.
Fair enough, and Yay if it is true. You are right, I need to see it for myself. And I have heard this from others: Manc is much improved, becoming a proper, handsome European city
I seldom ever go there, the last time was maybe 15-20 years ago, and it was quite depressing then. For some reason my job/life takes me to many other UK cities, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Cardiff, Newcastle, Bristol, but not Manchester
However, on my last visit, I DO remember wandering around some of the down-at-heel Victorian districts and thinking: wow, if they ever do this up, it will be spectacular. Glasgow's Victorian quarter, for example, is now quite something
I love Manchester beyond the point of reasonableness, but I'd never describe it as handsome. Unlike e.g. Liverpool, Glasgow or Newcastle, it's never known true grandeur, despite a few genuinely gorgeous buildings.
That said, I do enjoy strolling round NQ and seeing all the knackered old former garment factories, mucky book shops and abandoned slum flats amid the fancy shops and bars. It's a compelling place, full of life. Still one or two proper old boozers as well. And I agree - some of the new development has been good; not all of it though: a lot of big box ugly skyscrapers (the Angel Meadow development is especially crummy).
Incidentally, it's not unusual to see the streets dressed up to look like the US, as it's often used as a substitute for New York in films and TV. Lots of external fire escapes and whatnot.
Yes, you're quite right - we're starting from a much lower base than other cities, architecturally.
Angel Meadow is particularly depressing. I'm not one for ghosts, but there is an air of hopeless sadness about the place. And when you learn it is, I think, the site of a mass children's paupers' grave(?) - you hurry onto brighter corners of the city. I certainly wouldn't fancy living there.
Though I always admired the vision behind the population reduction sculpture in Manchester, though not the implementation as it would probably kill people too randomly.
BBC reporting 17 letters have been submitted to the 1922
Not sure how that compares with other reports
Much lower than even my estimate.
Pathetic.
Look on the bright side. Darwinian evolution is still working. Without fat salaries, stupid people won't be able to support so many children. I'm sure Boris Johnson wouldn't be so grasping if he didn't have so many children to support.
It says "The image you are requesting does not exist".
Yes - I mistakenly posted some old data. My bad.
Not sure I should spam PB with the whole thing over again....
Well, please just keep up the good work. I do think it would be worth your posting comparative data for other countries though. Maybe all the EU member states plus a dozen other major industrialised nations for comparison.
What @Malmesbury is doing is fantastic, and deserves 28 rounds of drinks at the PB glugfest.
But even I could not cope with 29 sets per day...
(Having got back from the ologist, and now having my pizza oven, I just realised that I am totally out of mozarella. Gah.)
Re Ancoats & Beswick. I know the area fairly well (I work just over the other side of Gt Ancoats Street) and while the New Islington bit is becoming a bit yuppified, most of Beswick, Miles Platting and Bradford is still very solidly working class.
As I understand it, a lot of the vote here has gone against Labour because of a bullying issue forcing out the previous councillor. There's also the background issue of how badly the refurbishment of Great Ancoats Street has gone (city centre LDs have focused on transport in their campaigning for a while now), and perhaps an underlying discontent with the absolute (unrepresentative) stranglehold Labour councillors have on Manchester, with attendant complacency and sloppiness.
I wouldn't draw any conclusions at all about the national picture from this.
I'd say Great Ancoats Street is looking splendid. A real success story. Granted the works were a right kerfuffle. But which works aren't?
It's not my idea of splendour, though I'd have accepted merely practical.
Well ok, it's not the Champs Elysees, yet. But it's almost unrecognisable from what it was 15 years ago. Importantly, it's lined with active frontages of businesses you might like to frequent. And the interruption of the canal and the space next to it is rather nicely done. I'd say a step up from 'practical' - Trinity Way is 'practical'. Manchester does get some things wrong, but it gets far more right than it does wrong, and it does such a lot, that the frequency of success is gratifyingly high. And I'd put Great Ancoats Street firmly in the 'success' category.
Er, what? It looks boring and in parts hideous on that Google Street View
And I would LOVE to believe you. It would be great to think we are rebuilding our cities better. Any links?
That Streetview is from 18 months ago and a lot has changed since then. Look, it's a dual carriageway. It's part of the Manchester and Salford Inner Ring Road. It's not the Shambles in York. But it looks substantially better than that now. It's moderatly pleasant to walk down - that section which has recently been redone, anyway. It's certainly got life and businesses on it, where it used to be a godforsaken stretch of tamac and a rubbish retail park. It separates Ancoats and the Northern Quarter but doesn't sever them. Where once was a ring road there emerges a neighbourhood.
This is not a 60s demolition of the commercial core of the city to replace with something uglier, but a 2020s demolition of post-inudtrial nothing with a functioning neighbourhood.
You should, when you get the chance, come to Manchester; take a walk around Ancoats, and the Northern Quarter, and Crown Street, and the left bank, and Chapel Street, and NOMA. Regeneration far outranks decay. Not all of it perfect. But Leon, the energy and pace of change: not something I ever thought I'd see in this country outside of London.
Sure, I'd like perfect Georgian cityscapes. But we never had that to start with in Manchester. Ancoats moved straight from dark satanic mills to post-industrial wasteland. And now it is one of the most sought-after areas in the North. It is astonishing.
Fair enough, and Yay if it is true. You are right, I need to see it for myself. And I have heard this from others: Manc is much improved, becoming a proper, handsome European city
I seldom ever go there, the last time was maybe 15-20 years ago, and it was quite depressing then. For some reason my job/life takes me to many other UK cities, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Cardiff, Newcastle, Bristol, but not Manchester
However, on my last visit, I DO remember wandering around some of the down-at-heel Victorian districts and thinking: wow, if they ever do this up, it will be spectacular. Glasgow's Victorian quarter, for example, is now quite something
I love Manchester beyond the point of reasonableness, but I'd never describe it as handsome. Unlike e.g. Liverpool, Glasgow or Newcastle, it's never known true grandeur, despite a few genuinely gorgeous buildings.
That said, I do enjoy strolling round NQ and seeing all the knackered old former garment factories, mucky book shops and abandoned slum flats amid the fancy shops and bars. It's a compelling place, full of life. Still one or two proper old boozers as well. And I agree - some of the new development has been good; not all of it though: a lot of big box ugly skyscrapers (the Angel Meadow development is especially crummy).
Incidentally, it's not unusual to see the streets dressed up to look like the US, as it's often used as a substitute for New York in films and TV. Lots of external fire escapes and whatnot.
But Manchester has the HISTORY. It is one of the most important cities in the world, in terms of human development. Cottonopolis, the metropole of the Industrial Revolution
There are a few places on this earth where you can say human civilisation changed, and they are all superbly resonant
The Ice Caves of France (perhaps): the birth of human self awareness
Gobekli Tepe and environs: the end of hunter gathering, the dawn of agriculture: the Fall
Jerusalem (and maybe an honourable mention for Akhetaten): the cradle of monotheism
Florence: the Renaissance
Manchester, down to Coalbrookdale: the Industrial Revolution
Somewhere in California: the dawn of the internet, social media and the smartphone
Coalbrookdale is especially amazing. The ironbridge made me nearly cry. I can get sentimental about epochal history
I can get quite patriotic about this. The world's first industrial city (and Ancoats, despite the gentrification, still retains an astonishing atmosphere of this) and the world's first post-industrial city. Manchester invented both communism (Engels) AND capitalism (aka Manchester liberalism - where else has an equivalent of the Free Trade Hall - a concert hall named after the concept of trading freely?). And also feminism (the suffragettes) and, I think, vegetarianism. No doubt one or two others. And our contribution to popular culture, etc, etc. Admittedly we can go on about all this a bit. My daughter's infant school had a singing club, where 8 6 yearolds put on a song called 'We're proud to come from Greater Manchester', basically listing the conurbation's achievments to music. Quite a feat in itself.
Re Ancoats & Beswick. I know the area fairly well (I work just over the other side of Gt Ancoats Street) and while the New Islington bit is becoming a bit yuppified, most of Beswick, Miles Platting and Bradford is still very solidly working class.
As I understand it, a lot of the vote here has gone against Labour because of a bullying issue forcing out the previous councillor. There's also the background issue of how badly the refurbishment of Great Ancoats Street has gone (city centre LDs have focused on transport in their campaigning for a while now), and perhaps an underlying discontent with the absolute (unrepresentative) stranglehold Labour councillors have on Manchester, with attendant complacency and sloppiness.
I wouldn't draw any conclusions at all about the national picture from this.
I'd say Great Ancoats Street is looking splendid. A real success story. Granted the works were a right kerfuffle. But which works aren't?
It's not my idea of splendour, though I'd have accepted merely practical.
Well ok, it's not the Champs Elysees, yet. But it's almost unrecognisable from what it was 15 years ago. Importantly, it's lined with active frontages of businesses you might like to frequent. And the interruption of the canal and the space next to it is rather nicely done. I'd say a step up from 'practical' - Trinity Way is 'practical'. Manchester does get some things wrong, but it gets far more right than it does wrong, and it does such a lot, that the frequency of success is gratifyingly high. And I'd put Great Ancoats Street firmly in the 'success' category.
Er, what? It looks boring and in parts hideous on that Google Street View
And I would LOVE to believe you. It would be great to think we are rebuilding our cities better. Any links?
That Streetview is from 18 months ago and a lot has changed since then. Look, it's a dual carriageway. It's part of the Manchester and Salford Inner Ring Road. It's not the Shambles in York. But it looks substantially better than that now. It's moderatly pleasant to walk down - that section which has recently been redone, anyway. It's certainly got life and businesses on it, where it used to be a godforsaken stretch of tamac and a rubbish retail park. It separates Ancoats and the Northern Quarter but doesn't sever them. Where once was a ring road there emerges a neighbourhood.
This is not a 60s demolition of the commercial core of the city to replace with something uglier, but a 2020s demolition of post-inudtrial nothing with a functioning neighbourhood.
You should, when you get the chance, come to Manchester; take a walk around Ancoats, and the Northern Quarter, and Crown Street, and the left bank, and Chapel Street, and NOMA. Regeneration far outranks decay. Not all of it perfect. But Leon, the energy and pace of change: not something I ever thought I'd see in this country outside of London.
Sure, I'd like perfect Georgian cityscapes. But we never had that to start with in Manchester. Ancoats moved straight from dark satanic mills to post-industrial wasteland. And now it is one of the most sought-after areas in the North. It is astonishing.
Fair enough, and Yay if it is true. You are right, I need to see it for myself. And I have heard this from others: Manc is much improved, becoming a proper, handsome European city
I seldom ever go there, the last time was maybe 15-20 years ago, and it was quite depressing then. For some reason my job/life takes me to many other UK cities, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Cardiff, Newcastle, Bristol, but not Manchester
However, on my last visit, I DO remember wandering around some of the down-at-heel Victorian districts and thinking: wow, if they ever do this up, it will be spectacular. Glasgow's Victorian quarter, for example, is now quite something
I love Manchester beyond the point of reasonableness, but I'd never describe it as handsome. Unlike e.g. Liverpool, Glasgow or Newcastle, it's never known true grandeur, despite a few genuinely gorgeous buildings.
That said, I do enjoy strolling round NQ and seeing all the knackered old former garment factories, mucky book shops and abandoned slum flats amid the fancy shops and bars. It's a compelling place, full of life. Still one or two proper old boozers as well. And I agree - some of the new development has been good; not all of it though: a lot of big box ugly skyscrapers (the Angel Meadow development is especially crummy).
Incidentally, it's not unusual to see the streets dressed up to look like the US, as it's often used as a substitute for New York in films and TV. Lots of external fire escapes and whatnot.
Yes, you're quite right - we're starting from a much lower base than other cities, architecturally.
Angel Meadow is particularly depressing. I'm not one for ghosts, but there is an air of hopeless sadness about the place. And when you learn it is, I think, the site of a mass children's paupers' grave(?) - you hurry onto brighter corners of the city. I certainly wouldn't fancy living there.
Though I always admired the vision behind the population reduction sculpture in Manchester, though not the implementation as it would probably kill people too randomly.
It says "The image you are requesting does not exist".
Yes - I mistakenly posted some old data. My bad.
Not sure I should spam PB with the whole thing over again....
Well, please just keep up the good work. I do think it would be worth your posting comparative data for other countries though. Maybe all the EU member states plus a dozen other major industrialised nations for comparison.
What @Malmesbury is doing is fantastic, and deserves 28 rounds of drinks at the PB glugfest.
But even I could not cope with 29 sets per day...
I think the UN used to have 144 members (as in the book of Revelation). I'm sure it's more now. 144 sets of data would give us a lot more to chew on.
WTF? They are raving bonkers. In any case, the time to improve ventilation in schools was a year ago.
There's been some curious missteps of late. This, but also, a demand that all households install interlinked fire alarms at £200+ a pop by the end of last month - been routinely ignored, of course, not least because the supply has dried up. But questions over validity of house insurance. And then, of course, the utter bullsh*t about pensions - though this maybe has a wierd logic in NatLand. What they have in common is they are all risible and to be laughed at. Something which Ms Sturgeon is not appreciative of. Strange, as SNP are usually very well-drilled and red hot on presentation.
At this point we have to accept they are an actively hostile power. Withdraw from any co-operation, and meanwhile encourage Putin to invade them, while maintaining Splendid Isolation
At this point? They have never, ever, stopped being a hostile power. The hundred years war never ended. Sure we fought in France in 1914-18, but that was for the Belgians. We did the same in 1939-45, but that was for the Belgians and the Dutch. And the French are not grateful to us for liberating them. Oh no. It was the worst thing we could do.
When Britain and France together built probably the world's most beautiful ever aircraft and fastest airliner, the Concorde, the CIA sent a message to Douglas-Home saying "Britain was biting off more than it can chew". Were it not the fuel crisis of the 1970's, it could also have single-handedly revived a major global British industry ; that had also already been partly finished off by U.S. copying of aircraft like the Comet to begin with, from the early 1950's onward.
That is so wrong it is hard to know where to start. Concorde was built on a lie.
When the jet age began, the phenomenon of apparent increases in fuel efficiency the faster you went seem to make Mach 2 cruise use less fuel than subsonic.
Unfortunately, when real world data became available, it turned out that the cross over was past Mach 3.
A Mach 3 cruise airliner was beyond the technical capabilities of the day - you could build Mach 3 cruising airplanes. The Americans built 2 completely different approaches to that. But the design, build and maintenance was nearly impossible.
But Concorde was now rolling. So the politicians and engineers bullshitted along. They were too invested to stop.
In the end they created a very nice, very small airliner, which could *just* make it across the Atlantic. With massive fuel costs and high maintenance costs.
The airlines hadn't been really enthused before the fuel crisis. It was already obvious the market was moving rapidly towards cheap mass transit.
As to the Comet, no. Boeing had successfully built multiple aircraft with whole fuselage pressurisation - see the B-29. So when they built the 707, they got it right. You only have to look at the British wartime ideas about pressurised aircraft to understand what went wrong....
But there was still strong interest at the turn of the '70s. The Jumbo had only just come out, and almost 20 airlines wanted them, from Iran to the USA. Most of those orders were cancelled straight after the 1973 oil crisis.
The US had been very unhappy about the project to begin with, as it had been with the earlier U.K. lead in jet technology. McCone of the CIA attempted both industrial espionage and effective intimidation of the British government. What emerged was a compromise, but it still could have done a significant amount to revive a major UK global and strategic industry that was effectively ended by U.S. competition.
On their own, the UK and France were too small until Airbus, with the the help of other nations, which the UK government has now idiotically sold its stake in ; with the same weird strategic sense that has given us Chinese-built nuclear power stations and German-owned rail.
I went to school with someone, whose father had as a scientist at Farnborough written a paper pointing out the problems with Concorde and recommended that the government look at a subsonic wide body carrying 500 passengers.
His rewarded was to be fired systematically black listed in UK aviation. So he went off to the US. Came back to the UK long after to work in non-aviation stuff.
While working for NASA, he discovered that the permanent official who, at the behest of a certain pipe-smoking politician had trashed his career, was applying to work in the US aviation industry as well. This was when he was contacted by the FBI for back ground for security checks.
As he related it, he laid on a bit thick the relationship between his tormentor and said pipe-smoking politician. Who was a bit left by US standards.
Strangely, the US denied a visa to the chap in question, let alone cleareing him for the job.
The UK did make a mistake with not trying to build big instead. But, as you mentioned, the flaws only became visible gradually. For a long time the U.S was very worried about the project, and wanted to do everything to stop the anglo-french collaboration, as it knew that in the pre-1973 climate it could still represent a valuable lead. Boeing's version wasn't working out, and I think personally, without the huge spike of the oil crisis, it probably would have been a moderate but politically very important success.
It says "The image you are requesting does not exist".
Yes - I mistakenly posted some old data. My bad.
Not sure I should spam PB with the whole thing over again....
Well, please just keep up the good work. I do think it would be worth your posting comparative data for other countries though. Maybe all the EU member states plus a dozen other major industrialised nations for comparison.
What @Malmesbury is doing is fantastic, and deserves 28 rounds of drinks at the PB glugfest.
But even I could not cope with 29 sets per day...
(Having got back from the ologist, and now having my pizza oven, I just realised that I am totally out of mozarella. Gah.)
It says "The image you are requesting does not exist".
Yes - I mistakenly posted some old data. My bad.
Not sure I should spam PB with the whole thing over again....
Well, please just keep up the good work. I do think it would be worth your posting comparative data for other countries though. Maybe all the EU member states plus a dozen other major industrialised nations for comparison.
Comparison across different nations is basically impossible in any kind of detail. Different metrics, counting etc.
I've seen tons & tons of discussion in various places about if the pandemic is over in the UK, and if it isn't when it will be, and what the metrics & signs will be that tell us so. For me this is a no-brainer. The pandemic in the UK is over when you stop posting your graphs on PB.com. If there's a better way of calling this I'd like to hear it.
Re Ancoats & Beswick. I know the area fairly well (I work just over the other side of Gt Ancoats Street) and while the New Islington bit is becoming a bit yuppified, most of Beswick, Miles Platting and Bradford is still very solidly working class.
As I understand it, a lot of the vote here has gone against Labour because of a bullying issue forcing out the previous councillor. There's also the background issue of how badly the refurbishment of Great Ancoats Street has gone (city centre LDs have focused on transport in their campaigning for a while now), and perhaps an underlying discontent with the absolute (unrepresentative) stranglehold Labour councillors have on Manchester, with attendant complacency and sloppiness.
I wouldn't draw any conclusions at all about the national picture from this.
I'd say Great Ancoats Street is looking splendid. A real success story. Granted the works were a right kerfuffle. But which works aren't?
It's not my idea of splendour, though I'd have accepted merely practical.
Well ok, it's not the Champs Elysees, yet. But it's almost unrecognisable from what it was 15 years ago. Importantly, it's lined with active frontages of businesses you might like to frequent. And the interruption of the canal and the space next to it is rather nicely done. I'd say a step up from 'practical' - Trinity Way is 'practical'. Manchester does get some things wrong, but it gets far more right than it does wrong, and it does such a lot, that the frequency of success is gratifyingly high. And I'd put Great Ancoats Street firmly in the 'success' category.
Er, what? It looks boring and in parts hideous on that Google Street View
And I would LOVE to believe you. It would be great to think we are rebuilding our cities better. Any links?
That Streetview is from 18 months ago and a lot has changed since then. Look, it's a dual carriageway. It's part of the Manchester and Salford Inner Ring Road. It's not the Shambles in York. But it looks substantially better than that now. It's moderatly pleasant to walk down - that section which has recently been redone, anyway. It's certainly got life and businesses on it, where it used to be a godforsaken stretch of tamac and a rubbish retail park. It separates Ancoats and the Northern Quarter but doesn't sever them. Where once was a ring road there emerges a neighbourhood.
This is not a 60s demolition of the commercial core of the city to replace with something uglier, but a 2020s demolition of post-inudtrial nothing with a functioning neighbourhood.
You should, when you get the chance, come to Manchester; take a walk around Ancoats, and the Northern Quarter, and Crown Street, and the left bank, and Chapel Street, and NOMA. Regeneration far outranks decay. Not all of it perfect. But Leon, the energy and pace of change: not something I ever thought I'd see in this country outside of London.
Sure, I'd like perfect Georgian cityscapes. But we never had that to start with in Manchester. Ancoats moved straight from dark satanic mills to post-industrial wasteland. And now it is one of the most sought-after areas in the North. It is astonishing.
Fair enough, and Yay if it is true. You are right, I need to see it for myself. And I have heard this from others: Manc is much improved, becoming a proper, handsome European city
I seldom ever go there, the last time was maybe 15-20 years ago, and it was quite depressing then. For some reason my job/life takes me to many other UK cities, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Cardiff, Newcastle, Bristol, but not Manchester
However, on my last visit, I DO remember wandering around some of the down-at-heel Victorian districts and thinking: wow, if they ever do this up, it will be spectacular. Glasgow's Victorian quarter, for example, is now quite something
I love Manchester beyond the point of reasonableness, but I'd never describe it as handsome. Unlike e.g. Liverpool, Glasgow or Newcastle, it's never known true grandeur, despite a few genuinely gorgeous buildings.
That said, I do enjoy strolling round NQ and seeing all the knackered old former garment factories, mucky book shops and abandoned slum flats amid the fancy shops and bars. It's a compelling place, full of life. Still one or two proper old boozers as well. And I agree - some of the new development has been good; not all of it though: a lot of big box ugly skyscrapers (the Angel Meadow development is especially crummy).
Incidentally, it's not unusual to see the streets dressed up to look like the US, as it's often used as a substitute for New York in films and TV. Lots of external fire escapes and whatnot.
But Manchester has the HISTORY. It is one of the most important cities in the world, in terms of human development. Cottonopolis, the metropole of the Industrial Revolution
There are a few places on this earth where you can say human civilisation changed, and they are all superbly resonant
The Ice Caves of France (perhaps): the birth of human self awareness
Gobekli Tepe and environs: the end of hunter gathering, the dawn of agriculture: the Fall
Jerusalem (and maybe an honourable mention for Akhetaten): the cradle of monotheism
Florence: the Renaissance
Manchester, down to Coalbrookdale: the Industrial Revolution
Somewhere in California: the dawn of the internet, social media and the smartphone
Coalbrookdale is especially amazing. The ironbridge made me nearly cry. I can get sentimental about epochal history
Manchester was Shock City. I need to go back after listyening to this discussion, not having been there since a conference ca 1995 when I wandered off one afternoon to Castlefields to pay homage to the Liverpool and Manchester Railway terminus and explore the museums. It sounds so different now.
But Coalbrookdale ... Mrs C and I stayed bang in the middle, almost on the bridge, for several days and wandered around all the old canals and railways and towpaths and inclines we could find, often off the tourist track. Simple things like tombestones made in cast iron in the chapel yard, and garden walls made of old pottery saggars. One of our greatest holidays ever.
WTF? They are raving bonkers. In any case, the time to improve ventilation in schools was a year ago.
There's been some curious missteps of late. This, but also, a demand that all households install interlinked fire alarms at £200+ a pop by the end of last month - been routinely ignored, of course, not least because the supply has dried up. But questions over validity of house insurance. And then, of course, the utter bullsh*t about pensions - though this maybe has a wierd logic in NatLand. What they have in common is they are all risible and to be laughed at. Something which Ms Sturgeon is not appreciative of. Strange, as SNP are usually very well-drilled and red hot on presentation.
Quite surprised that they have run out.
There should be normal stock for sales to a market of 28m households in the country available for relocation.
Re Ancoats & Beswick. I know the area fairly well (I work just over the other side of Gt Ancoats Street) and while the New Islington bit is becoming a bit yuppified, most of Beswick, Miles Platting and Bradford is still very solidly working class.
As I understand it, a lot of the vote here has gone against Labour because of a bullying issue forcing out the previous councillor. There's also the background issue of how badly the refurbishment of Great Ancoats Street has gone (city centre LDs have focused on transport in their campaigning for a while now), and perhaps an underlying discontent with the absolute (unrepresentative) stranglehold Labour councillors have on Manchester, with attendant complacency and sloppiness.
I wouldn't draw any conclusions at all about the national picture from this.
I'd say Great Ancoats Street is looking splendid. A real success story. Granted the works were a right kerfuffle. But which works aren't?
It's not my idea of splendour, though I'd have accepted merely practical.
Well ok, it's not the Champs Elysees, yet. But it's almost unrecognisable from what it was 15 years ago. Importantly, it's lined with active frontages of businesses you might like to frequent. And the interruption of the canal and the space next to it is rather nicely done. I'd say a step up from 'practical' - Trinity Way is 'practical'. Manchester does get some things wrong, but it gets far more right than it does wrong, and it does such a lot, that the frequency of success is gratifyingly high. And I'd put Great Ancoats Street firmly in the 'success' category.
Er, what? It looks boring and in parts hideous on that Google Street View
And I would LOVE to believe you. It would be great to think we are rebuilding our cities better. Any links?
That Streetview is from 18 months ago and a lot has changed since then. Look, it's a dual carriageway. It's part of the Manchester and Salford Inner Ring Road. It's not the Shambles in York. But it looks substantially better than that now. It's moderatly pleasant to walk down - that section which has recently been redone, anyway. It's certainly got life and businesses on it, where it used to be a godforsaken stretch of tamac and a rubbish retail park. It separates Ancoats and the Northern Quarter but doesn't sever them. Where once was a ring road there emerges a neighbourhood.
This is not a 60s demolition of the commercial core of the city to replace with something uglier, but a 2020s demolition of post-inudtrial nothing with a functioning neighbourhood.
You should, when you get the chance, come to Manchester; take a walk around Ancoats, and the Northern Quarter, and Crown Street, and the left bank, and Chapel Street, and NOMA. Regeneration far outranks decay. Not all of it perfect. But Leon, the energy and pace of change: not something I ever thought I'd see in this country outside of London.
Sure, I'd like perfect Georgian cityscapes. But we never had that to start with in Manchester. Ancoats moved straight from dark satanic mills to post-industrial wasteland. And now it is one of the most sought-after areas in the North. It is astonishing.
Fair enough, and Yay if it is true. You are right, I need to see it for myself. And I have heard this from others: Manc is much improved, becoming a proper, handsome European city
I seldom ever go there, the last time was maybe 15-20 years ago, and it was quite depressing then. For some reason my job/life takes me to many other UK cities, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Cardiff, Newcastle, Bristol, but not Manchester
However, on my last visit, I DO remember wandering around some of the down-at-heel Victorian districts and thinking: wow, if they ever do this up, it will be spectacular. Glasgow's Victorian quarter, for example, is now quite something
I love Manchester beyond the point of reasonableness, but I'd never describe it as handsome. Unlike e.g. Liverpool, Glasgow or Newcastle, it's never known true grandeur, despite a few genuinely gorgeous buildings.
That said, I do enjoy strolling round NQ and seeing all the knackered old former garment factories, mucky book shops and abandoned slum flats amid the fancy shops and bars. It's a compelling place, full of life. Still one or two proper old boozers as well. And I agree - some of the new development has been good; not all of it though: a lot of big box ugly skyscrapers (the Angel Meadow development is especially crummy).
Incidentally, it's not unusual to see the streets dressed up to look like the US, as it's often used as a substitute for New York in films and TV. Lots of external fire escapes and whatnot.
But Manchester has the HISTORY. It is one of the most important cities in the world, in terms of human development. Cottonopolis, the metropole of the Industrial Revolution
There are a few places on this earth where you can say human civilisation changed, and they are all superbly resonant
The Ice Caves of France (perhaps): the birth of human self awareness
Gobekli Tepe and environs: the end of hunter gathering, the dawn of agriculture: the Fall
Jerusalem (and maybe an honourable mention for Akhetaten): the cradle of monotheism
Florence: the Renaissance
Manchester, down to Coalbrookdale: the Industrial Revolution
Somewhere in California: the dawn of the internet, social media and the smartphone
Coalbrookdale is especially amazing. The ironbridge made me nearly cry. I can get sentimental about epochal history
I can get quite patriotic about this. The world's first industrial city (and Ancoats, despite the gentrification, still retains an astonishing atmosphere of this) and the world's first post-industrial city. Manchester invented both communism (Engels) AND capitalism (aka Manchester liberalism - where else has an equivalent of the Free Trade Hall - a concert hall named after the concept of trading freely?). And also feminism (the suffragettes) and, I think, vegetarianism. No doubt one or two others. And our contribution to popular culture, etc, etc. Admittedly we can go on about all this a bit. My daughter's infant school had a singing club, where 8 6 yearolds put on a song called 'We're proud to come from Greater Manchester', basically listing the conurbation's achievments to music. Quite a feat in itself.
THAT is the feeling I got 20 years ago, wandering around the old, grubby, early Victorian bit. An absolutely haunted place, but in the best way. Haunted by a grandiose movement in human history, which took place RIGHT THERE
Not entirely benign, by any means. But profound and moving? YES
It says "The image you are requesting does not exist".
Yes - I mistakenly posted some old data. My bad.
Not sure I should spam PB with the whole thing over again....
Well, please just keep up the good work. I do think it would be worth your posting comparative data for other countries though. Maybe all the EU member states plus a dozen other major industrialised nations for comparison.
What @Malmesbury is doing is fantastic, and deserves 28 rounds of drinks at the PB glugfest.
But even I could not cope with 29 sets per day...
I think the UN used to have 144 members (as in the book of Revelation). I'm sure it's more now. 144 sets of data would give us a lot more to chew on.
It says "The image you are requesting does not exist".
Yes - I mistakenly posted some old data. My bad.
Not sure I should spam PB with the whole thing over again....
Well, please just keep up the good work. I do think it would be worth your posting comparative data for other countries though. Maybe all the EU member states plus a dozen other major industrialised nations for comparison.
Comparison across different nations is basically impossible in any kind of detail. Different metrics, counting etc.
You're probably right. But I think it would still be interesting to see the comparative data.
Rome is one of my favourite cities in the world. It seems to be like marmite: some hate it, others love it.
I'm in the latter and in terms of cities which shaped civilisation then it has to be right up there, although I would certainly add some Islamic ones to Leon's list and Alexandria should definitely be on it: the library alone merits its entry.
Rome is fantastic. Trastevere is probably the place I'd most like to live if I had to live in any European city.
It says "The image you are requesting does not exist".
Yes - I mistakenly posted some old data. My bad.
Not sure I should spam PB with the whole thing over again....
Well, please just keep up the good work. I do think it would be worth your posting comparative data for other countries though. Maybe all the EU member states plus a dozen other major industrialised nations for comparison.
What @Malmesbury is doing is fantastic, and deserves 28 rounds of drinks at the PB glugfest.
But even I could not cope with 29 sets per day...
I think the UN used to have 144 members (as in the book of Revelation). I'm sure it's more now. 144 sets of data would give us a lot more to chew on.
193 now.
A couple more after I finish a small project I am working on
Re Ancoats & Beswick. I know the area fairly well (I work just over the other side of Gt Ancoats Street) and while the New Islington bit is becoming a bit yuppified, most of Beswick, Miles Platting and Bradford is still very solidly working class.
As I understand it, a lot of the vote here has gone against Labour because of a bullying issue forcing out the previous councillor. There's also the background issue of how badly the refurbishment of Great Ancoats Street has gone (city centre LDs have focused on transport in their campaigning for a while now), and perhaps an underlying discontent with the absolute (unrepresentative) stranglehold Labour councillors have on Manchester, with attendant complacency and sloppiness.
I wouldn't draw any conclusions at all about the national picture from this.
I'd say Great Ancoats Street is looking splendid. A real success story. Granted the works were a right kerfuffle. But which works aren't?
It's not my idea of splendour, though I'd have accepted merely practical.
Well ok, it's not the Champs Elysees, yet. But it's almost unrecognisable from what it was 15 years ago. Importantly, it's lined with active frontages of businesses you might like to frequent. And the interruption of the canal and the space next to it is rather nicely done. I'd say a step up from 'practical' - Trinity Way is 'practical'. Manchester does get some things wrong, but it gets far more right than it does wrong, and it does such a lot, that the frequency of success is gratifyingly high. And I'd put Great Ancoats Street firmly in the 'success' category.
Er, what? It looks boring and in parts hideous on that Google Street View
And I would LOVE to believe you. It would be great to think we are rebuilding our cities better. Any links?
That Streetview is from 18 months ago and a lot has changed since then. Look, it's a dual carriageway. It's part of the Manchester and Salford Inner Ring Road. It's not the Shambles in York. But it looks substantially better than that now. It's moderatly pleasant to walk down - that section which has recently been redone, anyway. It's certainly got life and businesses on it, where it used to be a godforsaken stretch of tamac and a rubbish retail park. It separates Ancoats and the Northern Quarter but doesn't sever them. Where once was a ring road there emerges a neighbourhood.
This is not a 60s demolition of the commercial core of the city to replace with something uglier, but a 2020s demolition of post-inudtrial nothing with a functioning neighbourhood.
You should, when you get the chance, come to Manchester; take a walk around Ancoats, and the Northern Quarter, and Crown Street, and the left bank, and Chapel Street, and NOMA. Regeneration far outranks decay. Not all of it perfect. But Leon, the energy and pace of change: not something I ever thought I'd see in this country outside of London.
Sure, I'd like perfect Georgian cityscapes. But we never had that to start with in Manchester. Ancoats moved straight from dark satanic mills to post-industrial wasteland. And now it is one of the most sought-after areas in the North. It is astonishing.
Fair enough, and Yay if it is true. You are right, I need to see it for myself. And I have heard this from others: Manc is much improved, becoming a proper, handsome European city
I seldom ever go there, the last time was maybe 15-20 years ago, and it was quite depressing then. For some reason my job/life takes me to many other UK cities, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Cardiff, Newcastle, Bristol, but not Manchester
However, on my last visit, I DO remember wandering around some of the down-at-heel Victorian districts and thinking: wow, if they ever do this up, it will be spectacular. Glasgow's Victorian quarter, for example, is now quite something
I love Manchester beyond the point of reasonableness, but I'd never describe it as handsome. Unlike e.g. Liverpool, Glasgow or Newcastle, it's never known true grandeur, despite a few genuinely gorgeous buildings.
That said, I do enjoy strolling round NQ and seeing all the knackered old former garment factories, mucky book shops and abandoned slum flats amid the fancy shops and bars. It's a compelling place, full of life. Still one or two proper old boozers as well. And I agree - some of the new development has been good; not all of it though: a lot of big box ugly skyscrapers (the Angel Meadow development is especially crummy).
Incidentally, it's not unusual to see the streets dressed up to look like the US, as it's often used as a substitute for New York in films and TV. Lots of external fire escapes and whatnot.
Yes, you're quite right - we're starting from a much lower base than other cities, architecturally.
Angel Meadow is particularly depressing. I'm not one for ghosts, but there is an air of hopeless sadness about the place. And when you learn it is, I think, the site of a mass children's paupers' grave(?) - you hurry onto brighter corners of the city. I certainly wouldn't fancy living there.
Though I always admired the vision behind the population reduction sculpture in Manchester, though not the implementation as it would probably kill people too randomly.
Re Ancoats & Beswick. I know the area fairly well (I work just over the other side of Gt Ancoats Street) and while the New Islington bit is becoming a bit yuppified, most of Beswick, Miles Platting and Bradford is still very solidly working class.
As I understand it, a lot of the vote here has gone against Labour because of a bullying issue forcing out the previous councillor. There's also the background issue of how badly the refurbishment of Great Ancoats Street has gone (city centre LDs have focused on transport in their campaigning for a while now), and perhaps an underlying discontent with the absolute (unrepresentative) stranglehold Labour councillors have on Manchester, with attendant complacency and sloppiness.
I wouldn't draw any conclusions at all about the national picture from this.
I'd say Great Ancoats Street is looking splendid. A real success story. Granted the works were a right kerfuffle. But which works aren't?
It's not my idea of splendour, though I'd have accepted merely practical.
Well ok, it's not the Champs Elysees, yet. But it's almost unrecognisable from what it was 15 years ago. Importantly, it's lined with active frontages of businesses you might like to frequent. And the interruption of the canal and the space next to it is rather nicely done. I'd say a step up from 'practical' - Trinity Way is 'practical'. Manchester does get some things wrong, but it gets far more right than it does wrong, and it does such a lot, that the frequency of success is gratifyingly high. And I'd put Great Ancoats Street firmly in the 'success' category.
Er, what? It looks boring and in parts hideous on that Google Street View
And I would LOVE to believe you. It would be great to think we are rebuilding our cities better. Any links?
That Streetview is from 18 months ago and a lot has changed since then. Look, it's a dual carriageway. It's part of the Manchester and Salford Inner Ring Road. It's not the Shambles in York. But it looks substantially better than that now. It's moderatly pleasant to walk down - that section which has recently been redone, anyway. It's certainly got life and businesses on it, where it used to be a godforsaken stretch of tamac and a rubbish retail park. It separates Ancoats and the Northern Quarter but doesn't sever them. Where once was a ring road there emerges a neighbourhood.
This is not a 60s demolition of the commercial core of the city to replace with something uglier, but a 2020s demolition of post-inudtrial nothing with a functioning neighbourhood.
You should, when you get the chance, come to Manchester; take a walk around Ancoats, and the Northern Quarter, and Crown Street, and the left bank, and Chapel Street, and NOMA. Regeneration far outranks decay. Not all of it perfect. But Leon, the energy and pace of change: not something I ever thought I'd see in this country outside of London.
Sure, I'd like perfect Georgian cityscapes. But we never had that to start with in Manchester. Ancoats moved straight from dark satanic mills to post-industrial wasteland. And now it is one of the most sought-after areas in the North. It is astonishing.
Fair enough, and Yay if it is true. You are right, I need to see it for myself. And I have heard this from others: Manc is much improved, becoming a proper, handsome European city
I seldom ever go there, the last time was maybe 15-20 years ago, and it was quite depressing then. For some reason my job/life takes me to many other UK cities, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Cardiff, Newcastle, Bristol, but not Manchester
However, on my last visit, I DO remember wandering around some of the down-at-heel Victorian districts and thinking: wow, if they ever do this up, it will be spectacular. Glasgow's Victorian quarter, for example, is now quite something
I love Manchester beyond the point of reasonableness, but I'd never describe it as handsome. Unlike e.g. Liverpool, Glasgow or Newcastle, it's never known true grandeur, despite a few genuinely gorgeous buildings.
That said, I do enjoy strolling round NQ and seeing all the knackered old former garment factories, mucky book shops and abandoned slum flats amid the fancy shops and bars. It's a compelling place, full of life. Still one or two proper old boozers as well. And I agree - some of the new development has been good; not all of it though: a lot of big box ugly skyscrapers (the Angel Meadow development is especially crummy).
Incidentally, it's not unusual to see the streets dressed up to look like the US, as it's often used as a substitute for New York in films and TV. Lots of external fire escapes and whatnot.
But Manchester has the HISTORY. It is one of the most important cities in the world, in terms of human development. Cottonopolis, the metropole of the Industrial Revolution
There are a few places on this earth where you can say human civilisation changed, and they are all superbly resonant
The Ice Caves of France (perhaps): the birth of human self awareness
Gobekli Tepe and environs: the end of hunter gathering, the dawn of agriculture: the Fall
Jerusalem (and maybe an honourable mention for Akhetaten): the cradle of monotheism
Florence: the Renaissance
Manchester, down to Coalbrookdale: the Industrial Revolution
Somewhere in California: the dawn of the internet, social media and the smartphone
Coalbrookdale is especially amazing. The ironbridge made me nearly cry. I can get sentimental about epochal history
Manchester was Shock City. I need to go back after listyening to this discussion, not having been there since a conference ca 1995 when I wandered off one afternoon to Castlefields to pay homage to the Liverpool and Manchester Railway terminus and explore the museums. It sounds so different now.
But Coalbrookdale ... Mrs C and I stayed bang in the middle, almost on the bridge, for several days and wandered around all the old canals and railways and towpaths and inclines we could find, often off the tourist track. Simple things like tombestones made in cast iron in the chapel yard, and garden walls made of old pottery saggars. One of our greatest holidays ever.
Yes! Exactly my impression. I had no idea it would be so fascinating, compelling, affecting, and just bloody incredible
The entire world pivoted around that strange little valley, in a fundamental way
It's as interesting as Florence if you are so minded, Cheaper hotels, too
Re Ancoats & Beswick. I know the area fairly well (I work just over the other side of Gt Ancoats Street) and while the New Islington bit is becoming a bit yuppified, most of Beswick, Miles Platting and Bradford is still very solidly working class.
As I understand it, a lot of the vote here has gone against Labour because of a bullying issue forcing out the previous councillor. There's also the background issue of how badly the refurbishment of Great Ancoats Street has gone (city centre LDs have focused on transport in their campaigning for a while now), and perhaps an underlying discontent with the absolute (unrepresentative) stranglehold Labour councillors have on Manchester, with attendant complacency and sloppiness.
I wouldn't draw any conclusions at all about the national picture from this.
I'd say Great Ancoats Street is looking splendid. A real success story. Granted the works were a right kerfuffle. But which works aren't?
It's not my idea of splendour, though I'd have accepted merely practical.
Well ok, it's not the Champs Elysees, yet. But it's almost unrecognisable from what it was 15 years ago. Importantly, it's lined with active frontages of businesses you might like to frequent. And the interruption of the canal and the space next to it is rather nicely done. I'd say a step up from 'practical' - Trinity Way is 'practical'. Manchester does get some things wrong, but it gets far more right than it does wrong, and it does such a lot, that the frequency of success is gratifyingly high. And I'd put Great Ancoats Street firmly in the 'success' category.
Er, what? It looks boring and in parts hideous on that Google Street View
And I would LOVE to believe you. It would be great to think we are rebuilding our cities better. Any links?
That Streetview is from 18 months ago and a lot has changed since then. Look, it's a dual carriageway. It's part of the Manchester and Salford Inner Ring Road. It's not the Shambles in York. But it looks substantially better than that now. It's moderatly pleasant to walk down - that section which has recently been redone, anyway. It's certainly got life and businesses on it, where it used to be a godforsaken stretch of tamac and a rubbish retail park. It separates Ancoats and the Northern Quarter but doesn't sever them. Where once was a ring road there emerges a neighbourhood.
This is not a 60s demolition of the commercial core of the city to replace with something uglier, but a 2020s demolition of post-inudtrial nothing with a functioning neighbourhood.
You should, when you get the chance, come to Manchester; take a walk around Ancoats, and the Northern Quarter, and Crown Street, and the left bank, and Chapel Street, and NOMA. Regeneration far outranks decay. Not all of it perfect. But Leon, the energy and pace of change: not something I ever thought I'd see in this country outside of London.
Sure, I'd like perfect Georgian cityscapes. But we never had that to start with in Manchester. Ancoats moved straight from dark satanic mills to post-industrial wasteland. And now it is one of the most sought-after areas in the North. It is astonishing.
Fair enough, and Yay if it is true. You are right, I need to see it for myself. And I have heard this from others: Manc is much improved, becoming a proper, handsome European city
I seldom ever go there, the last time was maybe 15-20 years ago, and it was quite depressing then. For some reason my job/life takes me to many other UK cities, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Cardiff, Newcastle, Bristol, but not Manchester
However, on my last visit, I DO remember wandering around some of the down-at-heel Victorian districts and thinking: wow, if they ever do this up, it will be spectacular. Glasgow's Victorian quarter, for example, is now quite something
I love Manchester beyond the point of reasonableness, but I'd never describe it as handsome. Unlike e.g. Liverpool, Glasgow or Newcastle, it's never known true grandeur, despite a few genuinely gorgeous buildings.
That said, I do enjoy strolling round NQ and seeing all the knackered old former garment factories, mucky book shops and abandoned slum flats amid the fancy shops and bars. It's a compelling place, full of life. Still one or two proper old boozers as well. And I agree - some of the new development has been good; not all of it though: a lot of big box ugly skyscrapers (the Angel Meadow development is especially crummy).
Incidentally, it's not unusual to see the streets dressed up to look like the US, as it's often used as a substitute for New York in films and TV. Lots of external fire escapes and whatnot.
But Manchester has the HISTORY. It is one of the most important cities in the world, in terms of human development. Cottonopolis, the metropole of the Industrial Revolution
There are a few places on this earth where you can say human civilisation changed, and they are all superbly resonant
The Ice Caves of France (perhaps): the birth of human self awareness
Gobekli Tepe and environs: the end of hunter gathering, the dawn of agriculture: the Fall
Jerusalem (and maybe an honourable mention for Akhetaten): the cradle of monotheism
Florence: the Renaissance
Manchester, down to Coalbrookdale: the Industrial Revolution
Somewhere in California: the dawn of the internet, social media and the smartphone
Coalbrookdale is especially amazing. The ironbridge made me nearly cry. I can get sentimental about epochal history
I can get quite patriotic about this. The world's first industrial city (and Ancoats, despite the gentrification, still retains an astonishing atmosphere of this) and the world's first post-industrial city. Manchester invented both communism (Engels) AND capitalism (aka Manchester liberalism - where else has an equivalent of the Free Trade Hall - a concert hall named after the concept of trading freely?). And also feminism (the suffragettes) and, I think, vegetarianism. No doubt one or two others. And our contribution to popular culture, etc, etc. Admittedly we can go on about all this a bit. My daughter's infant school had a singing club, where 8 6 yearolds put on a song called 'We're proud to come from Greater Manchester', basically listing the conurbation's achievments to music. Quite a feat in itself.
An absolutely haunted place, but in the best way.
Not entirely benign, by any means.
In the worst way.
I am utterly ashamed of the British empire and my nation's part in (mostly) utterly reprehensible deeds around the world, commercialisation and exploitation dressed up in our education system as 'civilisation.'
It's shameful.
I'd rip down every statue of the colonialist, grind them into dust and return every artefact stolen from abroad.
It says "The image you are requesting does not exist".
Yes - I mistakenly posted some old data. My bad.
Not sure I should spam PB with the whole thing over again....
Well, please just keep up the good work. I do think it would be worth your posting comparative data for other countries though. Maybe all the EU member states plus a dozen other major industrialised nations for comparison.
Comparison across different nations is basically impossible in any kind of detail. Different metrics, counting etc.
You're probably right. But I think it would still be interesting to see the comparative data.
That would be a massive project - I would need the raw data, and explanations of the differences in reporting.... You might well be able to knit a PhD out of that.
WTF? They are raving bonkers. In any case, the time to improve ventilation in schools was a year ago.
There's been some curious missteps of late. This, but also, a demand that all households install interlinked fire alarms at £200+ a pop by the end of last month - been routinely ignored, of course, not least because the supply has dried up. But questions over validity of house insurance. And then, of course, the utter bullsh*t about pensions - though this maybe has a wierd logic in NatLand. What they have in common is they are all risible and to be laughed at. Something which Ms Sturgeon is not appreciative of. Strange, as SNP are usually very well-drilled and red hot on presentation.
Quite surprised that they have run out.
There should be normal stock for sales to a market of 28m households in the country available for relocation.
Are they required to be mains-powered?
No: just sealed battery (to stop tenants stealing them I assume). Also wireless interlink is fine.
Availability depended on supplier but I had no trouble despite having to order twice in the last two months, and again, very recently thanks to cockup on my part in adding up the needs for 2 houses. But looking at the supplier I used (specialist, not general DIY) they have run out of the ones I bought.
Deja vu all over again. ONS reckons Omicron prevalence has now peaked in youngest (at last). So now we watch the parental "resonance" and hope there isn't a grandparental one
Probably best to bin daily cases now, they have ceased to have much relevance to anything.
Infection in kids has peaked and is declining We may still see the effect of them infecting their parents and With a bit of luck they won't infect too many of their grandparents.
It says "The image you are requesting does not exist".
Yes - I mistakenly posted some old data. My bad.
Not sure I should spam PB with the whole thing over again....
Well, please just keep up the good work. I do think it would be worth your posting comparative data for other countries though. Maybe all the EU member states plus a dozen other major industrialised nations for comparison.
Comparison across different nations is basically impossible in any kind of detail. Different metrics, counting etc.
You're probably right. But I think it would still be interesting to see the comparative data.
That would be a massive project - I would need the raw data, and explanations of the differences in reporting.... You might well be able to knit a PhD out of that.
I must confess I am pulling your leg slightly. But do keep up the good work.
Re Ancoats & Beswick. I know the area fairly well (I work just over the other side of Gt Ancoats Street) and while the New Islington bit is becoming a bit yuppified, most of Beswick, Miles Platting and Bradford is still very solidly working class.
As I understand it, a lot of the vote here has gone against Labour because of a bullying issue forcing out the previous councillor. There's also the background issue of how badly the refurbishment of Great Ancoats Street has gone (city centre LDs have focused on transport in their campaigning for a while now), and perhaps an underlying discontent with the absolute (unrepresentative) stranglehold Labour councillors have on Manchester, with attendant complacency and sloppiness.
I wouldn't draw any conclusions at all about the national picture from this.
I'd say Great Ancoats Street is looking splendid. A real success story. Granted the works were a right kerfuffle. But which works aren't?
It's not my idea of splendour, though I'd have accepted merely practical.
Well ok, it's not the Champs Elysees, yet. But it's almost unrecognisable from what it was 15 years ago. Importantly, it's lined with active frontages of businesses you might like to frequent. And the interruption of the canal and the space next to it is rather nicely done. I'd say a step up from 'practical' - Trinity Way is 'practical'. Manchester does get some things wrong, but it gets far more right than it does wrong, and it does such a lot, that the frequency of success is gratifyingly high. And I'd put Great Ancoats Street firmly in the 'success' category.
Er, what? It looks boring and in parts hideous on that Google Street View
And I would LOVE to believe you. It would be great to think we are rebuilding our cities better. Any links?
That Streetview is from 18 months ago and a lot has changed since then. Look, it's a dual carriageway. It's part of the Manchester and Salford Inner Ring Road. It's not the Shambles in York. But it looks substantially better than that now. It's moderatly pleasant to walk down - that section which has recently been redone, anyway. It's certainly got life and businesses on it, where it used to be a godforsaken stretch of tamac and a rubbish retail park. It separates Ancoats and the Northern Quarter but doesn't sever them. Where once was a ring road there emerges a neighbourhood.
This is not a 60s demolition of the commercial core of the city to replace with something uglier, but a 2020s demolition of post-inudtrial nothing with a functioning neighbourhood.
You should, when you get the chance, come to Manchester; take a walk around Ancoats, and the Northern Quarter, and Crown Street, and the left bank, and Chapel Street, and NOMA. Regeneration far outranks decay. Not all of it perfect. But Leon, the energy and pace of change: not something I ever thought I'd see in this country outside of London.
Sure, I'd like perfect Georgian cityscapes. But we never had that to start with in Manchester. Ancoats moved straight from dark satanic mills to post-industrial wasteland. And now it is one of the most sought-after areas in the North. It is astonishing.
Fair enough, and Yay if it is true. You are right, I need to see it for myself. And I have heard this from others: Manc is much improved, becoming a proper, handsome European city
I seldom ever go there, the last time was maybe 15-20 years ago, and it was quite depressing then. For some reason my job/life takes me to many other UK cities, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Cardiff, Newcastle, Bristol, but not Manchester
However, on my last visit, I DO remember wandering around some of the down-at-heel Victorian districts and thinking: wow, if they ever do this up, it will be spectacular. Glasgow's Victorian quarter, for example, is now quite something
I love Manchester beyond the point of reasonableness, but I'd never describe it as handsome. Unlike e.g. Liverpool, Glasgow or Newcastle, it's never known true grandeur, despite a few genuinely gorgeous buildings.
That said, I do enjoy strolling round NQ and seeing all the knackered old former garment factories, mucky book shops and abandoned slum flats amid the fancy shops and bars. It's a compelling place, full of life. Still one or two proper old boozers as well. And I agree - some of the new development has been good; not all of it though: a lot of big box ugly skyscrapers (the Angel Meadow development is especially crummy).
Incidentally, it's not unusual to see the streets dressed up to look like the US, as it's often used as a substitute for New York in films and TV. Lots of external fire escapes and whatnot.
But Manchester has the HISTORY. It is one of the most important cities in the world, in terms of human development. Cottonopolis, the metropole of the Industrial Revolution
There are a few places on this earth where you can say human civilisation changed, and they are all superbly resonant
The Ice Caves of France (perhaps): the birth of human self awareness
Gobekli Tepe and environs: the end of hunter gathering, the dawn of agriculture: the Fall
Jerusalem (and maybe an honourable mention for Akhetaten): the cradle of monotheism
Florence: the Renaissance
Manchester, down to Coalbrookdale: the Industrial Revolution
Somewhere in California: the dawn of the internet, social media and the smartphone
Coalbrookdale is especially amazing. The ironbridge made me nearly cry. I can get sentimental about epochal history
I can get quite patriotic about this. The world's first industrial city (and Ancoats, despite the gentrification, still retains an astonishing atmosphere of this) and the world's first post-industrial city. Manchester invented both communism (Engels) AND capitalism (aka Manchester liberalism - where else has an equivalent of the Free Trade Hall - a concert hall named after the concept of trading freely?). And also feminism (the suffragettes) and, I think, vegetarianism. No doubt one or two others. And our contribution to popular culture, etc, etc. Admittedly we can go on about all this a bit. My daughter's infant school had a singing club, where 8 6 yearolds put on a song called 'We're proud to come from Greater Manchester', basically listing the conurbation's achievments to music. Quite a feat in itself.
An absolutely haunted place, but in the best way.
Not entirely benign, by any means.
In the worst way.
I am utterly ashamed of the British empire and my nation's part in (mostly) utterly reprehensible deeds around the world, commercialisation and exploitation dressed up in our education system as 'civilisation.'
It's shameful.
I'd rip down every statue of the colonialist, grind them into dust and return every artefact stolen from abroad.
You are seriously confused. We are talking about industrialisation, the Industrial Revolution that began in Staffs, Salop and Lancs, not imperialism and colonialism. These are two ENTIRELY different things
It says "The image you are requesting does not exist".
Yes - I mistakenly posted some old data. My bad.
Not sure I should spam PB with the whole thing over again....
Well, please just keep up the good work. I do think it would be worth your posting comparative data for other countries though. Maybe all the EU member states plus a dozen other major industrialised nations for comparison.
What @Malmesbury is doing is fantastic, and deserves 28 rounds of drinks at the PB glugfest.
But even I could not cope with 29 sets per day...
(Having got back from the ologist, and now having my pizza oven, I just realised that I am totally out of mozarella. Gah.)
Rome is one of my favourite cities in the world. It seems to be like marmite: some hate it, others love it.
I'm in the latter and in terms of cities which shaped civilisation then it has to be right up there, although I would certainly add some Islamic ones to Leon's list and Alexandria should definitely be on it: the library alone merits its entry.
Rome is fantastic. Trastevere is probably the place I'd most like to live if I had to live in any European city.
Rome is one of my favourite cities in the world. It seems to be like marmite: some hate it, others love it.
I'm in the latter and in terms of cities which shaped civilisation then it has to be right up there, although I would certainly add some Islamic ones to Leon's list and Alexandria should definitely be on it: the library alone merits its entry.
Rome is fantastic. Trastevere is probably the place I'd most like to live if I had to live in any European city.
Getting up the Palatine Hill really early, and being the only person there. That for me is Rome. Empire in the morning.
Re Ancoats & Beswick. I know the area fairly well (I work just over the other side of Gt Ancoats Street) and while the New Islington bit is becoming a bit yuppified, most of Beswick, Miles Platting and Bradford is still very solidly working class.
As I understand it, a lot of the vote here has gone against Labour because of a bullying issue forcing out the previous councillor. There's also the background issue of how badly the refurbishment of Great Ancoats Street has gone (city centre LDs have focused on transport in their campaigning for a while now), and perhaps an underlying discontent with the absolute (unrepresentative) stranglehold Labour councillors have on Manchester, with attendant complacency and sloppiness.
I wouldn't draw any conclusions at all about the national picture from this.
I'd say Great Ancoats Street is looking splendid. A real success story. Granted the works were a right kerfuffle. But which works aren't?
It's not my idea of splendour, though I'd have accepted merely practical.
Well ok, it's not the Champs Elysees, yet. But it's almost unrecognisable from what it was 15 years ago. Importantly, it's lined with active frontages of businesses you might like to frequent. And the interruption of the canal and the space next to it is rather nicely done. I'd say a step up from 'practical' - Trinity Way is 'practical'. Manchester does get some things wrong, but it gets far more right than it does wrong, and it does such a lot, that the frequency of success is gratifyingly high. And I'd put Great Ancoats Street firmly in the 'success' category.
Er, what? It looks boring and in parts hideous on that Google Street View
And I would LOVE to believe you. It would be great to think we are rebuilding our cities better. Any links?
That Streetview is from 18 months ago and a lot has changed since then. Look, it's a dual carriageway. It's part of the Manchester and Salford Inner Ring Road. It's not the Shambles in York. But it looks substantially better than that now. It's moderatly pleasant to walk down - that section which has recently been redone, anyway. It's certainly got life and businesses on it, where it used to be a godforsaken stretch of tamac and a rubbish retail park. It separates Ancoats and the Northern Quarter but doesn't sever them. Where once was a ring road there emerges a neighbourhood.
This is not a 60s demolition of the commercial core of the city to replace with something uglier, but a 2020s demolition of post-inudtrial nothing with a functioning neighbourhood.
You should, when you get the chance, come to Manchester; take a walk around Ancoats, and the Northern Quarter, and Crown Street, and the left bank, and Chapel Street, and NOMA. Regeneration far outranks decay. Not all of it perfect. But Leon, the energy and pace of change: not something I ever thought I'd see in this country outside of London.
Sure, I'd like perfect Georgian cityscapes. But we never had that to start with in Manchester. Ancoats moved straight from dark satanic mills to post-industrial wasteland. And now it is one of the most sought-after areas in the North. It is astonishing.
Fair enough, and Yay if it is true. You are right, I need to see it for myself. And I have heard this from others: Manc is much improved, becoming a proper, handsome European city
I seldom ever go there, the last time was maybe 15-20 years ago, and it was quite depressing then. For some reason my job/life takes me to many other UK cities, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Cardiff, Newcastle, Bristol, but not Manchester
However, on my last visit, I DO remember wandering around some of the down-at-heel Victorian districts and thinking: wow, if they ever do this up, it will be spectacular. Glasgow's Victorian quarter, for example, is now quite something
I love Manchester beyond the point of reasonableness, but I'd never describe it as handsome. Unlike e.g. Liverpool, Glasgow or Newcastle, it's never known true grandeur, despite a few genuinely gorgeous buildings.
That said, I do enjoy strolling round NQ and seeing all the knackered old former garment factories, mucky book shops and abandoned slum flats amid the fancy shops and bars. It's a compelling place, full of life. Still one or two proper old boozers as well. And I agree - some of the new development has been good; not all of it though: a lot of big box ugly skyscrapers (the Angel Meadow development is especially crummy).
Incidentally, it's not unusual to see the streets dressed up to look like the US, as it's often used as a substitute for New York in films and TV. Lots of external fire escapes and whatnot.
But Manchester has the HISTORY. It is one of the most important cities in the world, in terms of human development. Cottonopolis, the metropole of the Industrial Revolution
There are a few places on this earth where you can say human civilisation changed, and they are all superbly resonant
The Ice Caves of France (perhaps): the birth of human self awareness
Gobekli Tepe and environs: the end of hunter gathering, the dawn of agriculture: the Fall
Jerusalem (and maybe an honourable mention for Akhetaten): the cradle of monotheism
Florence: the Renaissance
Manchester, down to Coalbrookdale: the Industrial Revolution
Somewhere in California: the dawn of the internet, social media and the smartphone
Coalbrookdale is especially amazing. The ironbridge made me nearly cry. I can get sentimental about epochal history
Manchester was Shock City. I need to go back after listyening to this discussion, not having been there since a conference ca 1995 when I wandered off one afternoon to Castlefields to pay homage to the Liverpool and Manchester Railway terminus and explore the museums. It sounds so different now.
But Coalbrookdale ... Mrs C and I stayed bang in the middle, almost on the bridge, for several days and wandered around all the old canals and railways and towpaths and inclines we could find, often off the tourist track. Simple things like tombestones made in cast iron in the chapel yard, and garden walls made of old pottery saggars. One of our greatest holidays ever.
Yes! Exactly my impression. I had no idea it would be so fascinating, compelling, affecting, and just bloody incredible
The entire world pivoted around that strange little valley, in a fundamental way
It's as interesting as Florence if you are so minded, Cheaper hotels, too
There's also the Longton aqueduct (cast iron pioneer nearby). And so on and so forth.
One might well mull over booking this Landmark Trust property, almost on the abutment of the Bridge:
Re Ancoats & Beswick. I know the area fairly well (I work just over the other side of Gt Ancoats Street) and while the New Islington bit is becoming a bit yuppified, most of Beswick, Miles Platting and Bradford is still very solidly working class.
As I understand it, a lot of the vote here has gone against Labour because of a bullying issue forcing out the previous councillor. There's also the background issue of how badly the refurbishment of Great Ancoats Street has gone (city centre LDs have focused on transport in their campaigning for a while now), and perhaps an underlying discontent with the absolute (unrepresentative) stranglehold Labour councillors have on Manchester, with attendant complacency and sloppiness.
I wouldn't draw any conclusions at all about the national picture from this.
I'd say Great Ancoats Street is looking splendid. A real success story. Granted the works were a right kerfuffle. But which works aren't?
It's not my idea of splendour, though I'd have accepted merely practical.
Well ok, it's not the Champs Elysees, yet. But it's almost unrecognisable from what it was 15 years ago. Importantly, it's lined with active frontages of businesses you might like to frequent. And the interruption of the canal and the space next to it is rather nicely done. I'd say a step up from 'practical' - Trinity Way is 'practical'. Manchester does get some things wrong, but it gets far more right than it does wrong, and it does such a lot, that the frequency of success is gratifyingly high. And I'd put Great Ancoats Street firmly in the 'success' category.
Er, what? It looks boring and in parts hideous on that Google Street View
And I would LOVE to believe you. It would be great to think we are rebuilding our cities better. Any links?
That Streetview is from 18 months ago and a lot has changed since then. Look, it's a dual carriageway. It's part of the Manchester and Salford Inner Ring Road. It's not the Shambles in York. But it looks substantially better than that now. It's moderatly pleasant to walk down - that section which has recently been redone, anyway. It's certainly got life and businesses on it, where it used to be a godforsaken stretch of tamac and a rubbish retail park. It separates Ancoats and the Northern Quarter but doesn't sever them. Where once was a ring road there emerges a neighbourhood.
This is not a 60s demolition of the commercial core of the city to replace with something uglier, but a 2020s demolition of post-inudtrial nothing with a functioning neighbourhood.
You should, when you get the chance, come to Manchester; take a walk around Ancoats, and the Northern Quarter, and Crown Street, and the left bank, and Chapel Street, and NOMA. Regeneration far outranks decay. Not all of it perfect. But Leon, the energy and pace of change: not something I ever thought I'd see in this country outside of London.
Sure, I'd like perfect Georgian cityscapes. But we never had that to start with in Manchester. Ancoats moved straight from dark satanic mills to post-industrial wasteland. And now it is one of the most sought-after areas in the North. It is astonishing.
Fair enough, and Yay if it is true. You are right, I need to see it for myself. And I have heard this from others: Manc is much improved, becoming a proper, handsome European city
I seldom ever go there, the last time was maybe 15-20 years ago, and it was quite depressing then. For some reason my job/life takes me to many other UK cities, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Cardiff, Newcastle, Bristol, but not Manchester
However, on my last visit, I DO remember wandering around some of the down-at-heel Victorian districts and thinking: wow, if they ever do this up, it will be spectacular. Glasgow's Victorian quarter, for example, is now quite something
I love Manchester beyond the point of reasonableness, but I'd never describe it as handsome. Unlike e.g. Liverpool, Glasgow or Newcastle, it's never known true grandeur, despite a few genuinely gorgeous buildings.
That said, I do enjoy strolling round NQ and seeing all the knackered old former garment factories, mucky book shops and abandoned slum flats amid the fancy shops and bars. It's a compelling place, full of life. Still one or two proper old boozers as well. And I agree - some of the new development has been good; not all of it though: a lot of big box ugly skyscrapers (the Angel Meadow development is especially crummy).
Incidentally, it's not unusual to see the streets dressed up to look like the US, as it's often used as a substitute for New York in films and TV. Lots of external fire escapes and whatnot.
But Manchester has the HISTORY. It is one of the most important cities in the world, in terms of human development. Cottonopolis, the metropole of the Industrial Revolution
There are a few places on this earth where you can say human civilisation changed, and they are all superbly resonant
The Ice Caves of France (perhaps): the birth of human self awareness
Gobekli Tepe and environs: the end of hunter gathering, the dawn of agriculture: the Fall
Jerusalem (and maybe an honourable mention for Akhetaten): the cradle of monotheism
Florence: the Renaissance
Manchester, down to Coalbrookdale: the Industrial Revolution
Somewhere in California: the dawn of the internet, social media and the smartphone
Coalbrookdale is especially amazing. The ironbridge made me nearly cry. I can get sentimental about epochal history
I can get quite patriotic about this. The world's first industrial city (and Ancoats, despite the gentrification, still retains an astonishing atmosphere of this) and the world's first post-industrial city. Manchester invented both communism (Engels) AND capitalism (aka Manchester liberalism - where else has an equivalent of the Free Trade Hall - a concert hall named after the concept of trading freely?). And also feminism (the suffragettes) and, I think, vegetarianism. No doubt one or two others. And our contribution to popular culture, etc, etc. Admittedly we can go on about all this a bit. My daughter's infant school had a singing club, where 8 6 yearolds put on a song called 'We're proud to come from Greater Manchester', basically listing the conurbation's achievments to music. Quite a feat in itself.
An absolutely haunted place, but in the best way.
Not entirely benign, by any means.
In the worst way.
I am utterly ashamed of the British empire and my nation's part in (mostly) utterly reprehensible deeds around the world, commercialisation and exploitation dressed up in our education system as 'civilisation.'
It's shameful.
I'd rip down every statue of the colonialist, grind them into dust and return every artefact stolen from abroad.
What? I thought we were talking about industrial revolution Manchester?
Rome is one of my favourite cities in the world. It seems to be like marmite: some hate it, others love it.
I'm in the latter and in terms of cities which shaped civilisation then it has to be right up there, although I would certainly add some Islamic ones to Leon's list and Alexandria should definitely be on it: the library alone merits its entry.
Rome is fantastic. Trastevere is probably the place I'd most like to live if I had to live in any European city.
Getting up the Palatine Hill really early, and being the only person there. That for me is Rome. Empire in the morning.
My daughter said that only the Italians would have left the probable site of Caesar's murder as it was.
The smell of the cat sanctuary was certainly something.....
Re Ancoats & Beswick. I know the area fairly well (I work just over the other side of Gt Ancoats Street) and while the New Islington bit is becoming a bit yuppified, most of Beswick, Miles Platting and Bradford is still very solidly working class.
As I understand it, a lot of the vote here has gone against Labour because of a bullying issue forcing out the previous councillor. There's also the background issue of how badly the refurbishment of Great Ancoats Street has gone (city centre LDs have focused on transport in their campaigning for a while now), and perhaps an underlying discontent with the absolute (unrepresentative) stranglehold Labour councillors have on Manchester, with attendant complacency and sloppiness.
I wouldn't draw any conclusions at all about the national picture from this.
I'd say Great Ancoats Street is looking splendid. A real success story. Granted the works were a right kerfuffle. But which works aren't?
It's not my idea of splendour, though I'd have accepted merely practical.
Well ok, it's not the Champs Elysees, yet. But it's almost unrecognisable from what it was 15 years ago. Importantly, it's lined with active frontages of businesses you might like to frequent. And the interruption of the canal and the space next to it is rather nicely done. I'd say a step up from 'practical' - Trinity Way is 'practical'. Manchester does get some things wrong, but it gets far more right than it does wrong, and it does such a lot, that the frequency of success is gratifyingly high. And I'd put Great Ancoats Street firmly in the 'success' category.
Er, what? It looks boring and in parts hideous on that Google Street View
And I would LOVE to believe you. It would be great to think we are rebuilding our cities better. Any links?
That Streetview is from 18 months ago and a lot has changed since then. Look, it's a dual carriageway. It's part of the Manchester and Salford Inner Ring Road. It's not the Shambles in York. But it looks substantially better than that now. It's moderatly pleasant to walk down - that section which has recently been redone, anyway. It's certainly got life and businesses on it, where it used to be a godforsaken stretch of tamac and a rubbish retail park. It separates Ancoats and the Northern Quarter but doesn't sever them. Where once was a ring road there emerges a neighbourhood.
This is not a 60s demolition of the commercial core of the city to replace with something uglier, but a 2020s demolition of post-inudtrial nothing with a functioning neighbourhood.
You should, when you get the chance, come to Manchester; take a walk around Ancoats, and the Northern Quarter, and Crown Street, and the left bank, and Chapel Street, and NOMA. Regeneration far outranks decay. Not all of it perfect. But Leon, the energy and pace of change: not something I ever thought I'd see in this country outside of London.
Sure, I'd like perfect Georgian cityscapes. But we never had that to start with in Manchester. Ancoats moved straight from dark satanic mills to post-industrial wasteland. And now it is one of the most sought-after areas in the North. It is astonishing.
Fair enough, and Yay if it is true. You are right, I need to see it for myself. And I have heard this from others: Manc is much improved, becoming a proper, handsome European city
I seldom ever go there, the last time was maybe 15-20 years ago, and it was quite depressing then. For some reason my job/life takes me to many other UK cities, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Cardiff, Newcastle, Bristol, but not Manchester
However, on my last visit, I DO remember wandering around some of the down-at-heel Victorian districts and thinking: wow, if they ever do this up, it will be spectacular. Glasgow's Victorian quarter, for example, is now quite something
I love Manchester beyond the point of reasonableness, but I'd never describe it as handsome. Unlike e.g. Liverpool, Glasgow or Newcastle, it's never known true grandeur, despite a few genuinely gorgeous buildings.
That said, I do enjoy strolling round NQ and seeing all the knackered old former garment factories, mucky book shops and abandoned slum flats amid the fancy shops and bars. It's a compelling place, full of life. Still one or two proper old boozers as well. And I agree - some of the new development has been good; not all of it though: a lot of big box ugly skyscrapers (the Angel Meadow development is especially crummy).
Incidentally, it's not unusual to see the streets dressed up to look like the US, as it's often used as a substitute for New York in films and TV. Lots of external fire escapes and whatnot.
But Manchester has the HISTORY. It is one of the most important cities in the world, in terms of human development. Cottonopolis, the metropole of the Industrial Revolution
There are a few places on this earth where you can say human civilisation changed, and they are all superbly resonant
The Ice Caves of France (perhaps): the birth of human self awareness
Gobekli Tepe and environs: the end of hunter gathering, the dawn of agriculture: the Fall
Jerusalem (and maybe an honourable mention for Akhetaten): the cradle of monotheism
Florence: the Renaissance
Manchester, down to Coalbrookdale: the Industrial Revolution
Somewhere in California: the dawn of the internet, social media and the smartphone
Coalbrookdale is especially amazing. The ironbridge made me nearly cry. I can get sentimental about epochal history
I can get quite patriotic about this. The world's first industrial city (and Ancoats, despite the gentrification, still retains an astonishing atmosphere of this) and the world's first post-industrial city. Manchester invented both communism (Engels) AND capitalism (aka Manchester liberalism - where else has an equivalent of the Free Trade Hall - a concert hall named after the concept of trading freely?). And also feminism (the suffragettes) and, I think, vegetarianism. No doubt one or two others. And our contribution to popular culture, etc, etc. Admittedly we can go on about all this a bit. My daughter's infant school had a singing club, where 8 6 yearolds put on a song called 'We're proud to come from Greater Manchester', basically listing the conurbation's achievments to music. Quite a feat in itself.
An absolutely haunted place, but in the best way.
Not entirely benign, by any means.
In the worst way.
I am utterly ashamed of the British empire and my nation's part in (mostly) utterly reprehensible deeds around the world, commercialisation and exploitation dressed up in our education system as 'civilisation.'
It's shameful.
I'd rip down every statue of the colonialist, grind them into dust and return every artefact stolen from abroad.
You are seriously confused. We are talking about industrialisation, the Industrial Revolution that began in Staffs and Lancs, not imperialism and colonialism. These are two ENTIRELY different things
Not for me. I loathe both and they are not even remotely different.
The expansion of Victorian Britain around the world went hand in glove with the industrial revolution. As did allegedly benign Christianity with it: the betterment of people abroad by missionary endeavours on the back of colonialsm.
Yuck.
But until you have walked in the moccasins of the 'other' you will never get it.
Re Ancoats & Beswick. I know the area fairly well (I work just over the other side of Gt Ancoats Street) and while the New Islington bit is becoming a bit yuppified, most of Beswick, Miles Platting and Bradford is still very solidly working class.
As I understand it, a lot of the vote here has gone against Labour because of a bullying issue forcing out the previous councillor. There's also the background issue of how badly the refurbishment of Great Ancoats Street has gone (city centre LDs have focused on transport in their campaigning for a while now), and perhaps an underlying discontent with the absolute (unrepresentative) stranglehold Labour councillors have on Manchester, with attendant complacency and sloppiness.
I wouldn't draw any conclusions at all about the national picture from this.
I'd say Great Ancoats Street is looking splendid. A real success story. Granted the works were a right kerfuffle. But which works aren't?
It's not my idea of splendour, though I'd have accepted merely practical.
Well ok, it's not the Champs Elysees, yet. But it's almost unrecognisable from what it was 15 years ago. Importantly, it's lined with active frontages of businesses you might like to frequent. And the interruption of the canal and the space next to it is rather nicely done. I'd say a step up from 'practical' - Trinity Way is 'practical'. Manchester does get some things wrong, but it gets far more right than it does wrong, and it does such a lot, that the frequency of success is gratifyingly high. And I'd put Great Ancoats Street firmly in the 'success' category.
Er, what? It looks boring and in parts hideous on that Google Street View
And I would LOVE to believe you. It would be great to think we are rebuilding our cities better. Any links?
That Streetview is from 18 months ago and a lot has changed since then. Look, it's a dual carriageway. It's part of the Manchester and Salford Inner Ring Road. It's not the Shambles in York. But it looks substantially better than that now. It's moderatly pleasant to walk down - that section which has recently been redone, anyway. It's certainly got life and businesses on it, where it used to be a godforsaken stretch of tamac and a rubbish retail park. It separates Ancoats and the Northern Quarter but doesn't sever them. Where once was a ring road there emerges a neighbourhood.
This is not a 60s demolition of the commercial core of the city to replace with something uglier, but a 2020s demolition of post-inudtrial nothing with a functioning neighbourhood.
You should, when you get the chance, come to Manchester; take a walk around Ancoats, and the Northern Quarter, and Crown Street, and the left bank, and Chapel Street, and NOMA. Regeneration far outranks decay. Not all of it perfect. But Leon, the energy and pace of change: not something I ever thought I'd see in this country outside of London.
Sure, I'd like perfect Georgian cityscapes. But we never had that to start with in Manchester. Ancoats moved straight from dark satanic mills to post-industrial wasteland. And now it is one of the most sought-after areas in the North. It is astonishing.
Fair enough, and Yay if it is true. You are right, I need to see it for myself. And I have heard this from others: Manc is much improved, becoming a proper, handsome European city
I seldom ever go there, the last time was maybe 15-20 years ago, and it was quite depressing then. For some reason my job/life takes me to many other UK cities, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Cardiff, Newcastle, Bristol, but not Manchester
However, on my last visit, I DO remember wandering around some of the down-at-heel Victorian districts and thinking: wow, if they ever do this up, it will be spectacular. Glasgow's Victorian quarter, for example, is now quite something
I love Manchester beyond the point of reasonableness, but I'd never describe it as handsome. Unlike e.g. Liverpool, Glasgow or Newcastle, it's never known true grandeur, despite a few genuinely gorgeous buildings.
That said, I do enjoy strolling round NQ and seeing all the knackered old former garment factories, mucky book shops and abandoned slum flats amid the fancy shops and bars. It's a compelling place, full of life. Still one or two proper old boozers as well. And I agree - some of the new development has been good; not all of it though: a lot of big box ugly skyscrapers (the Angel Meadow development is especially crummy).
Incidentally, it's not unusual to see the streets dressed up to look like the US, as it's often used as a substitute for New York in films and TV. Lots of external fire escapes and whatnot.
But Manchester has the HISTORY. It is one of the most important cities in the world, in terms of human development. Cottonopolis, the metropole of the Industrial Revolution
There are a few places on this earth where you can say human civilisation changed, and they are all superbly resonant
The Ice Caves of France (perhaps): the birth of human self awareness
Gobekli Tepe and environs: the end of hunter gathering, the dawn of agriculture: the Fall
Jerusalem (and maybe an honourable mention for Akhetaten): the cradle of monotheism
Florence: the Renaissance
Manchester, down to Coalbrookdale: the Industrial Revolution
Somewhere in California: the dawn of the internet, social media and the smartphone
Coalbrookdale is especially amazing. The ironbridge made me nearly cry. I can get sentimental about epochal history
I can get quite patriotic about this. The world's first industrial city (and Ancoats, despite the gentrification, still retains an astonishing atmosphere of this) and the world's first post-industrial city. Manchester invented both communism (Engels) AND capitalism (aka Manchester liberalism - where else has an equivalent of the Free Trade Hall - a concert hall named after the concept of trading freely?). And also feminism (the suffragettes) and, I think, vegetarianism. No doubt one or two others. And our contribution to popular culture, etc, etc. Admittedly we can go on about all this a bit. My daughter's infant school had a singing club, where 8 6 yearolds put on a song called 'We're proud to come from Greater Manchester', basically listing the conurbation's achievments to music. Quite a feat in itself.
An absolutely haunted place, but in the best way.
Not entirely benign, by any means.
In the worst way.
I am utterly ashamed of the British empire and my nation's part in (mostly) utterly reprehensible deeds around the world, commercialisation and exploitation dressed up in our education system as 'civilisation.'
It's shameful.
I'd rip down every statue of the colonialist, grind them into dust and return every artefact stolen from abroad.
What? I thought we were talking about industrial revolution Manchester?
WTF? They are raving bonkers. In any case, the time to improve ventilation in schools was a year ago.
There's been some curious missteps of late. This, but also, a demand that all households install interlinked fire alarms at £200+ a pop by the end of last month - been routinely ignored, of course, not least because the supply has dried up. But questions over validity of house insurance. And then, of course, the utter bullsh*t about pensions - though this maybe has a wierd logic in NatLand. What they have in common is they are all risible and to be laughed at. Something which Ms Sturgeon is not appreciative of. Strange, as SNP are usually very well-drilled and red hot on presentation.
Quite surprised that they have run out.
There should be normal stock for sales to a market of 28m households in the country available for relocation.
Are they required to be mains-powered?
No: just sealed battery (to stop tenants stealing them I assume). Also wireless interlink is fine.
Availability depended on supplier but I had no trouble despite having to order twice in the last two months, and again, very recently thanks to cockup on my part in adding up the needs for 2 houses. But looking at the supplier I used (specialist, not general DIY) they have run out of the ones I bought.
Hard wired ones are harder to pinch.
I tend to install 5 or 10 year batteries so the T has no responsibility, and I keep fire-protection, or hard wired where I do the conversion.
One student let has had a problem this year with students removing them because they wanted to smoke (violation of tenancy).
Re Ancoats & Beswick. I know the area fairly well (I work just over the other side of Gt Ancoats Street) and while the New Islington bit is becoming a bit yuppified, most of Beswick, Miles Platting and Bradford is still very solidly working class.
As I understand it, a lot of the vote here has gone against Labour because of a bullying issue forcing out the previous councillor. There's also the background issue of how badly the refurbishment of Great Ancoats Street has gone (city centre LDs have focused on transport in their campaigning for a while now), and perhaps an underlying discontent with the absolute (unrepresentative) stranglehold Labour councillors have on Manchester, with attendant complacency and sloppiness.
I wouldn't draw any conclusions at all about the national picture from this.
I'd say Great Ancoats Street is looking splendid. A real success story. Granted the works were a right kerfuffle. But which works aren't?
It's not my idea of splendour, though I'd have accepted merely practical.
Well ok, it's not the Champs Elysees, yet. But it's almost unrecognisable from what it was 15 years ago. Importantly, it's lined with active frontages of businesses you might like to frequent. And the interruption of the canal and the space next to it is rather nicely done. I'd say a step up from 'practical' - Trinity Way is 'practical'. Manchester does get some things wrong, but it gets far more right than it does wrong, and it does such a lot, that the frequency of success is gratifyingly high. And I'd put Great Ancoats Street firmly in the 'success' category.
Er, what? It looks boring and in parts hideous on that Google Street View
And I would LOVE to believe you. It would be great to think we are rebuilding our cities better. Any links?
That Streetview is from 18 months ago and a lot has changed since then. Look, it's a dual carriageway. It's part of the Manchester and Salford Inner Ring Road. It's not the Shambles in York. But it looks substantially better than that now. It's moderatly pleasant to walk down - that section which has recently been redone, anyway. It's certainly got life and businesses on it, where it used to be a godforsaken stretch of tamac and a rubbish retail park. It separates Ancoats and the Northern Quarter but doesn't sever them. Where once was a ring road there emerges a neighbourhood.
This is not a 60s demolition of the commercial core of the city to replace with something uglier, but a 2020s demolition of post-inudtrial nothing with a functioning neighbourhood.
You should, when you get the chance, come to Manchester; take a walk around Ancoats, and the Northern Quarter, and Crown Street, and the left bank, and Chapel Street, and NOMA. Regeneration far outranks decay. Not all of it perfect. But Leon, the energy and pace of change: not something I ever thought I'd see in this country outside of London.
Sure, I'd like perfect Georgian cityscapes. But we never had that to start with in Manchester. Ancoats moved straight from dark satanic mills to post-industrial wasteland. And now it is one of the most sought-after areas in the North. It is astonishing.
Fair enough, and Yay if it is true. You are right, I need to see it for myself. And I have heard this from others: Manc is much improved, becoming a proper, handsome European city
I seldom ever go there, the last time was maybe 15-20 years ago, and it was quite depressing then. For some reason my job/life takes me to many other UK cities, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Cardiff, Newcastle, Bristol, but not Manchester
However, on my last visit, I DO remember wandering around some of the down-at-heel Victorian districts and thinking: wow, if they ever do this up, it will be spectacular. Glasgow's Victorian quarter, for example, is now quite something
I love Manchester beyond the point of reasonableness, but I'd never describe it as handsome. Unlike e.g. Liverpool, Glasgow or Newcastle, it's never known true grandeur, despite a few genuinely gorgeous buildings.
That said, I do enjoy strolling round NQ and seeing all the knackered old former garment factories, mucky book shops and abandoned slum flats amid the fancy shops and bars. It's a compelling place, full of life. Still one or two proper old boozers as well. And I agree - some of the new development has been good; not all of it though: a lot of big box ugly skyscrapers (the Angel Meadow development is especially crummy).
Incidentally, it's not unusual to see the streets dressed up to look like the US, as it's often used as a substitute for New York in films and TV. Lots of external fire escapes and whatnot.
But Manchester has the HISTORY. It is one of the most important cities in the world, in terms of human development. Cottonopolis, the metropole of the Industrial Revolution
There are a few places on this earth where you can say human civilisation changed, and they are all superbly resonant
The Ice Caves of France (perhaps): the birth of human self awareness
Gobekli Tepe and environs: the end of hunter gathering, the dawn of agriculture: the Fall
Jerusalem (and maybe an honourable mention for Akhetaten): the cradle of monotheism
Florence: the Renaissance
Manchester, down to Coalbrookdale: the Industrial Revolution
Somewhere in California: the dawn of the internet, social media and the smartphone
Coalbrookdale is especially amazing. The ironbridge made me nearly cry. I can get sentimental about epochal history
I can get quite patriotic about this. The world's first industrial city (and Ancoats, despite the gentrification, still retains an astonishing atmosphere of this) and the world's first post-industrial city. Manchester invented both communism (Engels) AND capitalism (aka Manchester liberalism - where else has an equivalent of the Free Trade Hall - a concert hall named after the concept of trading freely?). And also feminism (the suffragettes) and, I think, vegetarianism. No doubt one or two others. And our contribution to popular culture, etc, etc. Admittedly we can go on about all this a bit. My daughter's infant school had a singing club, where 8 6 yearolds put on a song called 'We're proud to come from Greater Manchester', basically listing the conurbation's achievments to music. Quite a feat in itself.
Don't forget the work of Rutherford and Turing and Kilburn and Williams at the University.
It’s been a while since I was there, but it does have all those handsome large warehouses which I can certainly imagine doubling for New York. But much of the new architecture I saw was disappointing.
Ironically, Boris may be to thank for much of the good new architecture in London. It was under his aegis that the London Plan recommended the “London New Vernacular” which is still going strong. Do a Google Image Search, you will recognise the type.
Both Stratford and Nine Elms/Vauxhall are disasters.
The reason Britain doesn’t often bulld terribly well - apart from architectural ideology about which Leon is actually mostly correct - is the bizarre planning laws which incentivise a kind of piecemeal mediocrity.
What a great project for 21st Britain it would be, to restore the beauty of Coventry, Exeter, Nottingham.
Rome is one of my favourite cities in the world. It seems to be like marmite: some hate it, others love it.
I'm in the latter and in terms of cities which shaped civilisation then it has to be right up there, although I would certainly add some Islamic ones to Leon's list and Alexandria should definitely be on it: the library alone merits its entry.
Rome is fantastic. Trastevere is probably the place I'd most like to live if I had to live in any European city.
But if you object to Manchester for colonial reasons, surely the same could be said about Rome? The Roman empire was a much less 'nice' occupier than the British, and Rome owes its ancient treasures almost entirely to imperialism and colonialism.
Re Ancoats & Beswick. I know the area fairly well (I work just over the other side of Gt Ancoats Street) and while the New Islington bit is becoming a bit yuppified, most of Beswick, Miles Platting and Bradford is still very solidly working class.
As I understand it, a lot of the vote here has gone against Labour because of a bullying issue forcing out the previous councillor. There's also the background issue of how badly the refurbishment of Great Ancoats Street has gone (city centre LDs have focused on transport in their campaigning for a while now), and perhaps an underlying discontent with the absolute (unrepresentative) stranglehold Labour councillors have on Manchester, with attendant complacency and sloppiness.
I wouldn't draw any conclusions at all about the national picture from this.
I'd say Great Ancoats Street is looking splendid. A real success story. Granted the works were a right kerfuffle. But which works aren't?
It's not my idea of splendour, though I'd have accepted merely practical.
Well ok, it's not the Champs Elysees, yet. But it's almost unrecognisable from what it was 15 years ago. Importantly, it's lined with active frontages of businesses you might like to frequent. And the interruption of the canal and the space next to it is rather nicely done. I'd say a step up from 'practical' - Trinity Way is 'practical'. Manchester does get some things wrong, but it gets far more right than it does wrong, and it does such a lot, that the frequency of success is gratifyingly high. And I'd put Great Ancoats Street firmly in the 'success' category.
Er, what? It looks boring and in parts hideous on that Google Street View
And I would LOVE to believe you. It would be great to think we are rebuilding our cities better. Any links?
That Streetview is from 18 months ago and a lot has changed since then. Look, it's a dual carriageway. It's part of the Manchester and Salford Inner Ring Road. It's not the Shambles in York. But it looks substantially better than that now. It's moderatly pleasant to walk down - that section which has recently been redone, anyway. It's certainly got life and businesses on it, where it used to be a godforsaken stretch of tamac and a rubbish retail park. It separates Ancoats and the Northern Quarter but doesn't sever them. Where once was a ring road there emerges a neighbourhood.
This is not a 60s demolition of the commercial core of the city to replace with something uglier, but a 2020s demolition of post-inudtrial nothing with a functioning neighbourhood.
You should, when you get the chance, come to Manchester; take a walk around Ancoats, and the Northern Quarter, and Crown Street, and the left bank, and Chapel Street, and NOMA. Regeneration far outranks decay. Not all of it perfect. But Leon, the energy and pace of change: not something I ever thought I'd see in this country outside of London.
Sure, I'd like perfect Georgian cityscapes. But we never had that to start with in Manchester. Ancoats moved straight from dark satanic mills to post-industrial wasteland. And now it is one of the most sought-after areas in the North. It is astonishing.
Fair enough, and Yay if it is true. You are right, I need to see it for myself. And I have heard this from others: Manc is much improved, becoming a proper, handsome European city
I seldom ever go there, the last time was maybe 15-20 years ago, and it was quite depressing then. For some reason my job/life takes me to many other UK cities, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Cardiff, Newcastle, Bristol, but not Manchester
However, on my last visit, I DO remember wandering around some of the down-at-heel Victorian districts and thinking: wow, if they ever do this up, it will be spectacular. Glasgow's Victorian quarter, for example, is now quite something
I love Manchester beyond the point of reasonableness, but I'd never describe it as handsome. Unlike e.g. Liverpool, Glasgow or Newcastle, it's never known true grandeur, despite a few genuinely gorgeous buildings.
That said, I do enjoy strolling round NQ and seeing all the knackered old former garment factories, mucky book shops and abandoned slum flats amid the fancy shops and bars. It's a compelling place, full of life. Still one or two proper old boozers as well. And I agree - some of the new development has been good; not all of it though: a lot of big box ugly skyscrapers (the Angel Meadow development is especially crummy).
Incidentally, it's not unusual to see the streets dressed up to look like the US, as it's often used as a substitute for New York in films and TV. Lots of external fire escapes and whatnot.
But Manchester has the HISTORY. It is one of the most important cities in the world, in terms of human development. Cottonopolis, the metropole of the Industrial Revolution
There are a few places on this earth where you can say human civilisation changed, and they are all superbly resonant
The Ice Caves of France (perhaps): the birth of human self awareness
Gobekli Tepe and environs: the end of hunter gathering, the dawn of agriculture: the Fall
Jerusalem (and maybe an honourable mention for Akhetaten): the cradle of monotheism
Florence: the Renaissance
Manchester, down to Coalbrookdale: the Industrial Revolution
Somewhere in California: the dawn of the internet, social media and the smartphone
Coalbrookdale is especially amazing. The ironbridge made me nearly cry. I can get sentimental about epochal history
I can get quite patriotic about this. The world's first industrial city (and Ancoats, despite the gentrification, still retains an astonishing atmosphere of this) and the world's first post-industrial city. Manchester invented both communism (Engels) AND capitalism (aka Manchester liberalism - where else has an equivalent of the Free Trade Hall - a concert hall named after the concept of trading freely?). And also feminism (the suffragettes) and, I think, vegetarianism. No doubt one or two others. And our contribution to popular culture, etc, etc. Admittedly we can go on about all this a bit. My daughter's infant school had a singing club, where 8 6 yearolds put on a song called 'We're proud to come from Greater Manchester', basically listing the conurbation's achievments to music. Quite a feat in itself.
An absolutely haunted place, but in the best way.
Not entirely benign, by any means.
In the worst way.
I am utterly ashamed of the British empire and my nation's part in (mostly) utterly reprehensible deeds around the world, commercialisation and exploitation dressed up in our education system as 'civilisation.'
It's shameful.
I'd rip down every statue of the colonialist, grind them into dust and return every artefact stolen from abroad.
What? I thought we were talking about industrial revolution Manchester?
You were but it did not end there, alas.
Bristol makes for an interesting comparison. I still feel the slaves' pain when I stand in the streets. I hear their cries, feel their burden, the hopelessness, the crushing repression, the hideous horror of this country's history as we crushed other human beings in the name of commercial expansion.
Re Ancoats & Beswick. I know the area fairly well (I work just over the other side of Gt Ancoats Street) and while the New Islington bit is becoming a bit yuppified, most of Beswick, Miles Platting and Bradford is still very solidly working class.
As I understand it, a lot of the vote here has gone against Labour because of a bullying issue forcing out the previous councillor. There's also the background issue of how badly the refurbishment of Great Ancoats Street has gone (city centre LDs have focused on transport in their campaigning for a while now), and perhaps an underlying discontent with the absolute (unrepresentative) stranglehold Labour councillors have on Manchester, with attendant complacency and sloppiness.
I wouldn't draw any conclusions at all about the national picture from this.
I'd say Great Ancoats Street is looking splendid. A real success story. Granted the works were a right kerfuffle. But which works aren't?
It's not my idea of splendour, though I'd have accepted merely practical.
Well ok, it's not the Champs Elysees, yet. But it's almost unrecognisable from what it was 15 years ago. Importantly, it's lined with active frontages of businesses you might like to frequent. And the interruption of the canal and the space next to it is rather nicely done. I'd say a step up from 'practical' - Trinity Way is 'practical'. Manchester does get some things wrong, but it gets far more right than it does wrong, and it does such a lot, that the frequency of success is gratifyingly high. And I'd put Great Ancoats Street firmly in the 'success' category.
Er, what? It looks boring and in parts hideous on that Google Street View
And I would LOVE to believe you. It would be great to think we are rebuilding our cities better. Any links?
That Streetview is from 18 months ago and a lot has changed since then. Look, it's a dual carriageway. It's part of the Manchester and Salford Inner Ring Road. It's not the Shambles in York. But it looks substantially better than that now. It's moderatly pleasant to walk down - that section which has recently been redone, anyway. It's certainly got life and businesses on it, where it used to be a godforsaken stretch of tamac and a rubbish retail park. It separates Ancoats and the Northern Quarter but doesn't sever them. Where once was a ring road there emerges a neighbourhood.
This is not a 60s demolition of the commercial core of the city to replace with something uglier, but a 2020s demolition of post-inudtrial nothing with a functioning neighbourhood.
You should, when you get the chance, come to Manchester; take a walk around Ancoats, and the Northern Quarter, and Crown Street, and the left bank, and Chapel Street, and NOMA. Regeneration far outranks decay. Not all of it perfect. But Leon, the energy and pace of change: not something I ever thought I'd see in this country outside of London.
Sure, I'd like perfect Georgian cityscapes. But we never had that to start with in Manchester. Ancoats moved straight from dark satanic mills to post-industrial wasteland. And now it is one of the most sought-after areas in the North. It is astonishing.
Fair enough, and Yay if it is true. You are right, I need to see it for myself. And I have heard this from others: Manc is much improved, becoming a proper, handsome European city
I seldom ever go there, the last time was maybe 15-20 years ago, and it was quite depressing then. For some reason my job/life takes me to many other UK cities, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Cardiff, Newcastle, Bristol, but not Manchester
However, on my last visit, I DO remember wandering around some of the down-at-heel Victorian districts and thinking: wow, if they ever do this up, it will be spectacular. Glasgow's Victorian quarter, for example, is now quite something
I love Manchester beyond the point of reasonableness, but I'd never describe it as handsome. Unlike e.g. Liverpool, Glasgow or Newcastle, it's never known true grandeur, despite a few genuinely gorgeous buildings.
That said, I do enjoy strolling round NQ and seeing all the knackered old former garment factories, mucky book shops and abandoned slum flats amid the fancy shops and bars. It's a compelling place, full of life. Still one or two proper old boozers as well. And I agree - some of the new development has been good; not all of it though: a lot of big box ugly skyscrapers (the Angel Meadow development is especially crummy).
Incidentally, it's not unusual to see the streets dressed up to look like the US, as it's often used as a substitute for New York in films and TV. Lots of external fire escapes and whatnot.
But Manchester has the HISTORY. It is one of the most important cities in the world, in terms of human development. Cottonopolis, the metropole of the Industrial Revolution
There are a few places on this earth where you can say human civilisation changed, and they are all superbly resonant
The Ice Caves of France (perhaps): the birth of human self awareness
Gobekli Tepe and environs: the end of hunter gathering, the dawn of agriculture: the Fall
Jerusalem (and maybe an honourable mention for Akhetaten): the cradle of monotheism
Florence: the Renaissance
Manchester, down to Coalbrookdale: the Industrial Revolution
Somewhere in California: the dawn of the internet, social media and the smartphone
Coalbrookdale is especially amazing. The ironbridge made me nearly cry. I can get sentimental about epochal history
I can get quite patriotic about this. The world's first industrial city (and Ancoats, despite the gentrification, still retains an astonishing atmosphere of this) and the world's first post-industrial city. Manchester invented both communism (Engels) AND capitalism (aka Manchester liberalism - where else has an equivalent of the Free Trade Hall - a concert hall named after the concept of trading freely?). And also feminism (the suffragettes) and, I think, vegetarianism. No doubt one or two others. And our contribution to popular culture, etc, etc. Admittedly we can go on about all this a bit. My daughter's infant school had a singing club, where 8 6 yearolds put on a song called 'We're proud to come from Greater Manchester', basically listing the conurbation's achievments to music. Quite a feat in itself.
Don't forget the work of Rutherford and Turing and Kilburn and Williams at the University.
And the practicalisation of the electronic computer? Not sure just what they were responsible for, though.
Re Ancoats & Beswick. I know the area fairly well (I work just over the other side of Gt Ancoats Street) and while the New Islington bit is becoming a bit yuppified, most of Beswick, Miles Platting and Bradford is still very solidly working class.
As I understand it, a lot of the vote here has gone against Labour because of a bullying issue forcing out the previous councillor. There's also the background issue of how badly the refurbishment of Great Ancoats Street has gone (city centre LDs have focused on transport in their campaigning for a while now), and perhaps an underlying discontent with the absolute (unrepresentative) stranglehold Labour councillors have on Manchester, with attendant complacency and sloppiness.
I wouldn't draw any conclusions at all about the national picture from this.
I'd say Great Ancoats Street is looking splendid. A real success story. Granted the works were a right kerfuffle. But which works aren't?
It's not my idea of splendour, though I'd have accepted merely practical.
Well ok, it's not the Champs Elysees, yet. But it's almost unrecognisable from what it was 15 years ago. Importantly, it's lined with active frontages of businesses you might like to frequent. And the interruption of the canal and the space next to it is rather nicely done. I'd say a step up from 'practical' - Trinity Way is 'practical'. Manchester does get some things wrong, but it gets far more right than it does wrong, and it does such a lot, that the frequency of success is gratifyingly high. And I'd put Great Ancoats Street firmly in the 'success' category.
Er, what? It looks boring and in parts hideous on that Google Street View
And I would LOVE to believe you. It would be great to think we are rebuilding our cities better. Any links?
That Streetview is from 18 months ago and a lot has changed since then. Look, it's a dual carriageway. It's part of the Manchester and Salford Inner Ring Road. It's not the Shambles in York. But it looks substantially better than that now. It's moderatly pleasant to walk down - that section which has recently been redone, anyway. It's certainly got life and businesses on it, where it used to be a godforsaken stretch of tamac and a rubbish retail park. It separates Ancoats and the Northern Quarter but doesn't sever them. Where once was a ring road there emerges a neighbourhood.
This is not a 60s demolition of the commercial core of the city to replace with something uglier, but a 2020s demolition of post-inudtrial nothing with a functioning neighbourhood.
You should, when you get the chance, come to Manchester; take a walk around Ancoats, and the Northern Quarter, and Crown Street, and the left bank, and Chapel Street, and NOMA. Regeneration far outranks decay. Not all of it perfect. But Leon, the energy and pace of change: not something I ever thought I'd see in this country outside of London.
Sure, I'd like perfect Georgian cityscapes. But we never had that to start with in Manchester. Ancoats moved straight from dark satanic mills to post-industrial wasteland. And now it is one of the most sought-after areas in the North. It is astonishing.
Fair enough, and Yay if it is true. You are right, I need to see it for myself. And I have heard this from others: Manc is much improved, becoming a proper, handsome European city
I seldom ever go there, the last time was maybe 15-20 years ago, and it was quite depressing then. For some reason my job/life takes me to many other UK cities, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Cardiff, Newcastle, Bristol, but not Manchester
However, on my last visit, I DO remember wandering around some of the down-at-heel Victorian districts and thinking: wow, if they ever do this up, it will be spectacular. Glasgow's Victorian quarter, for example, is now quite something
I love Manchester beyond the point of reasonableness, but I'd never describe it as handsome. Unlike e.g. Liverpool, Glasgow or Newcastle, it's never known true grandeur, despite a few genuinely gorgeous buildings.
That said, I do enjoy strolling round NQ and seeing all the knackered old former garment factories, mucky book shops and abandoned slum flats amid the fancy shops and bars. It's a compelling place, full of life. Still one or two proper old boozers as well. And I agree - some of the new development has been good; not all of it though: a lot of big box ugly skyscrapers (the Angel Meadow development is especially crummy).
Incidentally, it's not unusual to see the streets dressed up to look like the US, as it's often used as a substitute for New York in films and TV. Lots of external fire escapes and whatnot.
But Manchester has the HISTORY. It is one of the most important cities in the world, in terms of human development. Cottonopolis, the metropole of the Industrial Revolution
There are a few places on this earth where you can say human civilisation changed, and they are all superbly resonant
The Ice Caves of France (perhaps): the birth of human self awareness
Gobekli Tepe and environs: the end of hunter gathering, the dawn of agriculture: the Fall
Jerusalem (and maybe an honourable mention for Akhetaten): the cradle of monotheism
Florence: the Renaissance
Manchester, down to Coalbrookdale: the Industrial Revolution
Somewhere in California: the dawn of the internet, social media and the smartphone
Coalbrookdale is especially amazing. The ironbridge made me nearly cry. I can get sentimental about epochal history
I can get quite patriotic about this. The world's first industrial city (and Ancoats, despite the gentrification, still retains an astonishing atmosphere of this) and the world's first post-industrial city. Manchester invented both communism (Engels) AND capitalism (aka Manchester liberalism - where else has an equivalent of the Free Trade Hall - a concert hall named after the concept of trading freely?). And also feminism (the suffragettes) and, I think, vegetarianism. No doubt one or two others. And our contribution to popular culture, etc, etc. Admittedly we can go on about all this a bit. My daughter's infant school had a singing club, where 8 6 yearolds put on a song called 'We're proud to come from Greater Manchester', basically listing the conurbation's achievments to music. Quite a feat in itself.
An absolutely haunted place, but in the best way.
Not entirely benign, by any means.
In the worst way.
I am utterly ashamed of the British empire and my nation's part in (mostly) utterly reprehensible deeds around the world, commercialisation and exploitation dressed up in our education system as 'civilisation.'
It's shameful.
I'd rip down every statue of the colonialist, grind them into dust and return every artefact stolen from abroad.
You are seriously confused. We are talking about industrialisation, the Industrial Revolution that began in Staffs and Lancs, not imperialism and colonialism. These are two ENTIRELY different things
Not for me. I loathe both and they are not even remotely different.
The expansion of Victorian Britain around the world went hand in glove with the industrial revolution. As did allegedly benign Christianity with it: the betterment of people abroad by missionary endeavours on the back of colonialsm.
Yuck.
But until you have walked in the moccasins of the 'other' you will never get it.
The logical conclusion of what you're saying is that the world would be a better place if there had never been an industrial revolution.
Re Ancoats & Beswick. I know the area fairly well (I work just over the other side of Gt Ancoats Street) and while the New Islington bit is becoming a bit yuppified, most of Beswick, Miles Platting and Bradford is still very solidly working class.
As I understand it, a lot of the vote here has gone against Labour because of a bullying issue forcing out the previous councillor. There's also the background issue of how badly the refurbishment of Great Ancoats Street has gone (city centre LDs have focused on transport in their campaigning for a while now), and perhaps an underlying discontent with the absolute (unrepresentative) stranglehold Labour councillors have on Manchester, with attendant complacency and sloppiness.
I wouldn't draw any conclusions at all about the national picture from this.
I'd say Great Ancoats Street is looking splendid. A real success story. Granted the works were a right kerfuffle. But which works aren't?
It's not my idea of splendour, though I'd have accepted merely practical.
Well ok, it's not the Champs Elysees, yet. But it's almost unrecognisable from what it was 15 years ago. Importantly, it's lined with active frontages of businesses you might like to frequent. And the interruption of the canal and the space next to it is rather nicely done. I'd say a step up from 'practical' - Trinity Way is 'practical'. Manchester does get some things wrong, but it gets far more right than it does wrong, and it does such a lot, that the frequency of success is gratifyingly high. And I'd put Great Ancoats Street firmly in the 'success' category.
Er, what? It looks boring and in parts hideous on that Google Street View
And I would LOVE to believe you. It would be great to think we are rebuilding our cities better. Any links?
That Streetview is from 18 months ago and a lot has changed since then. Look, it's a dual carriageway. It's part of the Manchester and Salford Inner Ring Road. It's not the Shambles in York. But it looks substantially better than that now. It's moderatly pleasant to walk down - that section which has recently been redone, anyway. It's certainly got life and businesses on it, where it used to be a godforsaken stretch of tamac and a rubbish retail park. It separates Ancoats and the Northern Quarter but doesn't sever them. Where once was a ring road there emerges a neighbourhood.
This is not a 60s demolition of the commercial core of the city to replace with something uglier, but a 2020s demolition of post-inudtrial nothing with a functioning neighbourhood.
You should, when you get the chance, come to Manchester; take a walk around Ancoats, and the Northern Quarter, and Crown Street, and the left bank, and Chapel Street, and NOMA. Regeneration far outranks decay. Not all of it perfect. But Leon, the energy and pace of change: not something I ever thought I'd see in this country outside of London.
Sure, I'd like perfect Georgian cityscapes. But we never had that to start with in Manchester. Ancoats moved straight from dark satanic mills to post-industrial wasteland. And now it is one of the most sought-after areas in the North. It is astonishing.
Fair enough, and Yay if it is true. You are right, I need to see it for myself. And I have heard this from others: Manc is much improved, becoming a proper, handsome European city
I seldom ever go there, the last time was maybe 15-20 years ago, and it was quite depressing then. For some reason my job/life takes me to many other UK cities, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Cardiff, Newcastle, Bristol, but not Manchester
However, on my last visit, I DO remember wandering around some of the down-at-heel Victorian districts and thinking: wow, if they ever do this up, it will be spectacular. Glasgow's Victorian quarter, for example, is now quite something
I love Manchester beyond the point of reasonableness, but I'd never describe it as handsome. Unlike e.g. Liverpool, Glasgow or Newcastle, it's never known true grandeur, despite a few genuinely gorgeous buildings.
That said, I do enjoy strolling round NQ and seeing all the knackered old former garment factories, mucky book shops and abandoned slum flats amid the fancy shops and bars. It's a compelling place, full of life. Still one or two proper old boozers as well. And I agree - some of the new development has been good; not all of it though: a lot of big box ugly skyscrapers (the Angel Meadow development is especially crummy).
Incidentally, it's not unusual to see the streets dressed up to look like the US, as it's often used as a substitute for New York in films and TV. Lots of external fire escapes and whatnot.
But Manchester has the HISTORY. It is one of the most important cities in the world, in terms of human development. Cottonopolis, the metropole of the Industrial Revolution
There are a few places on this earth where you can say human civilisation changed, and they are all superbly resonant
The Ice Caves of France (perhaps): the birth of human self awareness
Gobekli Tepe and environs: the end of hunter gathering, the dawn of agriculture: the Fall
Jerusalem (and maybe an honourable mention for Akhetaten): the cradle of monotheism
Florence: the Renaissance
Manchester, down to Coalbrookdale: the Industrial Revolution
Somewhere in California: the dawn of the internet, social media and the smartphone
Coalbrookdale is especially amazing. The ironbridge made me nearly cry. I can get sentimental about epochal history
Manchester was Shock City. I need to go back after listyening to this discussion, not having been there since a conference ca 1995 when I wandered off one afternoon to Castlefields to pay homage to the Liverpool and Manchester Railway terminus and explore the museums. It sounds so different now.
But Coalbrookdale ... Mrs C and I stayed bang in the middle, almost on the bridge, for several days and wandered around all the old canals and railways and towpaths and inclines we could find, often off the tourist track. Simple things like tombestones made in cast iron in the chapel yard, and garden walls made of old pottery saggars. One of our greatest holidays ever.
Yes! Exactly my impression. I had no idea it would be so fascinating, compelling, affecting, and just bloody incredible
The entire world pivoted around that strange little valley, in a fundamental way
It's as interesting as Florence if you are so minded, Cheaper hotels, too
There's also the Longton aqueduct (cast iron pioneer nearby). And so on and so forth.
One might well mull over booking this Landmark Trust property, almost on the abutment of the Bridge:
The weird thing is, as you can see from that photo, Coalbrookdale is also beautiful, in its natural setting. Like a kind of divine joke. This revolution which would ravage the world, and scar the planet, began in this idyllic locale
Rome is one of my favourite cities in the world. It seems to be like marmite: some hate it, others love it.
I'm in the latter and in terms of cities which shaped civilisation then it has to be right up there, although I would certainly add some Islamic ones to Leon's list and Alexandria should definitely be on it: the library alone merits its entry.
Rome is fantastic. Trastevere is probably the place I'd most like to live if I had to live in any European city.
But if you object to Manchester for colonial reasons, surely the same could be said about Rome? The Roman empire was a much less 'nice' occupier than the British, and Rome owes its ancient treasures almost entirely to imperialism and colonialism.
And much of the current state of the Roman ruins in Rome is down to "restoration" by Mussolini.
Plexus filed accounts which misstated its turnover, profits, and headcount, and omitted multimillion pound transactions, it has emerged.
"During the preparation of the financial statements for the year ended 31 March 2020, the LLP discovered several errors in financial statements for the year ended 2019 ", Plexus conceded in its 2020 accounts, which it filed 11 months late last week.
The personal injury defendant firm's 2020 accounts reveal that in its 2019 accounts, Plexus:
overstated its revenue by £1.4m, incorrectly recording revenue as £58m, not £56.6m
overstated its profits by £1.9m, incorrectly recording a profit of £11m, not £9.1m, equivalent to an erroneous uplift of 20%
overstated its debtors by £3.8m, incorrectly recording that it was owed £33.1m not £29.3m
understated its creditors by £3.1m, incorrectly recording that it owed £8.9m, not £12m
Asked why RSM UK Audit was replaced as the firm's auditor in 2020, Plexus told RollOnFriday that, "Following the private equity investment in March 2019, PwC, one of the world’s leading accountancy firms, was appointed as the firm’s auditor and tax advisor".
The arrival of Origin Equity's £15m investment was greeted in 2019 with a fanfare of positive PR, and Plexus's then-Chief Executive Fiona Scott claimed that, unlike an IPO or merger, "This approach doesn’t compromise management control". It compromised her control, however, as within six months she was out of Plexus and Origin Equity's co-founder, Olivia Roberts, was the new Plexus CEO. A few months later, Senior Partner Andrew McDougall, who led the buy-out of Plexus when the Parabis Group collapsed in 2015, followed Scott out the door.
Plexus's 2019 accounts failed to include the large pay-offs which accompanied these shifts in ownership, including the fact that £13.5m was paid into Plexus by Origin, then paid out again to a company half-owned by McDougall. The transactions "were omitted from the 2019 accounts in error", the 2020 accounts state.
The sheer number of material mistakes suggests that someone involved in compiling Plexus's accounts was either wildly drunk or far worse at maths than they claimed. Plexus would not tell RollOnFriday who was responsible for the fiasco.
One of the most baffling mistakes saw Plexus record dozens more staff than it actually had, stating in the 2019 accounts that its headcount was 996, when it was actually 948.
Re Ancoats & Beswick. I know the area fairly well (I work just over the other side of Gt Ancoats Street) and while the New Islington bit is becoming a bit yuppified, most of Beswick, Miles Platting and Bradford is still very solidly working class.
As I understand it, a lot of the vote here has gone against Labour because of a bullying issue forcing out the previous councillor. There's also the background issue of how badly the refurbishment of Great Ancoats Street has gone (city centre LDs have focused on transport in their campaigning for a while now), and perhaps an underlying discontent with the absolute (unrepresentative) stranglehold Labour councillors have on Manchester, with attendant complacency and sloppiness.
I wouldn't draw any conclusions at all about the national picture from this.
I'd say Great Ancoats Street is looking splendid. A real success story. Granted the works were a right kerfuffle. But which works aren't?
It's not my idea of splendour, though I'd have accepted merely practical.
Well ok, it's not the Champs Elysees, yet. But it's almost unrecognisable from what it was 15 years ago. Importantly, it's lined with active frontages of businesses you might like to frequent. And the interruption of the canal and the space next to it is rather nicely done. I'd say a step up from 'practical' - Trinity Way is 'practical'. Manchester does get some things wrong, but it gets far more right than it does wrong, and it does such a lot, that the frequency of success is gratifyingly high. And I'd put Great Ancoats Street firmly in the 'success' category.
Er, what? It looks boring and in parts hideous on that Google Street View
And I would LOVE to believe you. It would be great to think we are rebuilding our cities better. Any links?
That Streetview is from 18 months ago and a lot has changed since then. Look, it's a dual carriageway. It's part of the Manchester and Salford Inner Ring Road. It's not the Shambles in York. But it looks substantially better than that now. It's moderatly pleasant to walk down - that section which has recently been redone, anyway. It's certainly got life and businesses on it, where it used to be a godforsaken stretch of tamac and a rubbish retail park. It separates Ancoats and the Northern Quarter but doesn't sever them. Where once was a ring road there emerges a neighbourhood.
This is not a 60s demolition of the commercial core of the city to replace with something uglier, but a 2020s demolition of post-inudtrial nothing and replacement with a functioning neighbourhood.
You should, when you get the chance, come to Manchester; take a walk around Ancoats, and the Northern Quarter, and Crown Street, and the left bank, and Chapel Street, and NOMA. Regeneration far outranks decay. Not all of it perfect. But Leon, the energy and pace of change: not something I ever thought I'd see in this country outside of London.
Sure, I'd like perfect Georgian cityscapes. But we never had that to start with in Manchester. Ancoats moved straight from dark satanic mills to post-industrial wasteland. And now it is one of the most sought-after areas in the North. It is astonishing.
Last time I was in Ancoats it was to go clubbing in the nineties at Sankeys Soap. It was, memorably, a slightly terrifying dump in those days. Sounds like I should pay it another visit.
Generally, the renaissance of central Manchester has been astounding.
Yes, it is. Much of it of it is far from perfect, it should be said. But so much of it. 'Just do SOMETHING - we can always do it again, later' seems to be the motto. We have ended up with a lot as a result.
I counted Manchester as my workplace from early 2017 having been to the centre periodically, but not particularly frequently, since childhood.
Watching the towers go up.one by one, Salford / Greengates side, around NOMA, out into Trafford has been something, I love the odd walk round, saw Deangate Square from about 8 stories high, and the 100m towers increased, 4 - 5 - 6 - 10 ...over 20 with significant cores now.
Never really knew Ancoats apart from the retail park once, the red brick has been opened up and a wander round the back streets, it is real smart.
Beyond that side it becomes low units and scrubland as you head east beyond the Medlock's dash north, but you get the sense it won't stay that way.
incorrectly stated that its 46 equity partners were paid an average of £306k, rather than £260k, in 2019 (their income dropped to £106k in 2020).
"incorrectly recognised" over £2 million of work it should have written off, "due to the requisite processes and accounting practices not being in place"
omitted to disclose a "contingent liability for indemnities" payable to two employees, totalling £223k (the firm declined to elaborate on the reason for the payments)
wrongly stated that Plexus was liable for £860k of property repairs if its leases were terminated
failed to include details of an "Onerous Contract" which obliged Plexus to work for legacy Parabis Group clients for free, resulting in unrecoverable costs of £250k
One of the most startling admissions was that Plexus took £146k from a "customer" without issuing an invoice, and because it had "neither been billed to the customer nor recorded", the money never showed up in the accounts. "This treatment was not in line with the accounting policies of the LLP", said the firm.
Re Ancoats & Beswick. I know the area fairly well (I work just over the other side of Gt Ancoats Street) and while the New Islington bit is becoming a bit yuppified, most of Beswick, Miles Platting and Bradford is still very solidly working class.
As I understand it, a lot of the vote here has gone against Labour because of a bullying issue forcing out the previous councillor. There's also the background issue of how badly the refurbishment of Great Ancoats Street has gone (city centre LDs have focused on transport in their campaigning for a while now), and perhaps an underlying discontent with the absolute (unrepresentative) stranglehold Labour councillors have on Manchester, with attendant complacency and sloppiness.
I wouldn't draw any conclusions at all about the national picture from this.
I'd say Great Ancoats Street is looking splendid. A real success story. Granted the works were a right kerfuffle. But which works aren't?
It's not my idea of splendour, though I'd have accepted merely practical.
Well ok, it's not the Champs Elysees, yet. But it's almost unrecognisable from what it was 15 years ago. Importantly, it's lined with active frontages of businesses you might like to frequent. And the interruption of the canal and the space next to it is rather nicely done. I'd say a step up from 'practical' - Trinity Way is 'practical'. Manchester does get some things wrong, but it gets far more right than it does wrong, and it does such a lot, that the frequency of success is gratifyingly high. And I'd put Great Ancoats Street firmly in the 'success' category.
Er, what? It looks boring and in parts hideous on that Google Street View
And I would LOVE to believe you. It would be great to think we are rebuilding our cities better. Any links?
That Streetview is from 18 months ago and a lot has changed since then. Look, it's a dual carriageway. It's part of the Manchester and Salford Inner Ring Road. It's not the Shambles in York. But it looks substantially better than that now. It's moderatly pleasant to walk down - that section which has recently been redone, anyway. It's certainly got life and businesses on it, where it used to be a godforsaken stretch of tamac and a rubbish retail park. It separates Ancoats and the Northern Quarter but doesn't sever them. Where once was a ring road there emerges a neighbourhood.
This is not a 60s demolition of the commercial core of the city to replace with something uglier, but a 2020s demolition of post-inudtrial nothing with a functioning neighbourhood.
You should, when you get the chance, come to Manchester; take a walk around Ancoats, and the Northern Quarter, and Crown Street, and the left bank, and Chapel Street, and NOMA. Regeneration far outranks decay. Not all of it perfect. But Leon, the energy and pace of change: not something I ever thought I'd see in this country outside of London.
Sure, I'd like perfect Georgian cityscapes. But we never had that to start with in Manchester. Ancoats moved straight from dark satanic mills to post-industrial wasteland. And now it is one of the most sought-after areas in the North. It is astonishing.
Fair enough, and Yay if it is true. You are right, I need to see it for myself. And I have heard this from others: Manc is much improved, becoming a proper, handsome European city
I seldom ever go there, the last time was maybe 15-20 years ago, and it was quite depressing then. For some reason my job/life takes me to many other UK cities, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Cardiff, Newcastle, Bristol, but not Manchester
However, on my last visit, I DO remember wandering around some of the down-at-heel Victorian districts and thinking: wow, if they ever do this up, it will be spectacular. Glasgow's Victorian quarter, for example, is now quite something
I love Manchester beyond the point of reasonableness, but I'd never describe it as handsome. Unlike e.g. Liverpool, Glasgow or Newcastle, it's never known true grandeur, despite a few genuinely gorgeous buildings.
That said, I do enjoy strolling round NQ and seeing all the knackered old former garment factories, mucky book shops and abandoned slum flats amid the fancy shops and bars. It's a compelling place, full of life. Still one or two proper old boozers as well. And I agree - some of the new development has been good; not all of it though: a lot of big box ugly skyscrapers (the Angel Meadow development is especially crummy).
Incidentally, it's not unusual to see the streets dressed up to look like the US, as it's often used as a substitute for New York in films and TV. Lots of external fire escapes and whatnot.
But Manchester has the HISTORY. It is one of the most important cities in the world, in terms of human development. Cottonopolis, the metropole of the Industrial Revolution
There are a few places on this earth where you can say human civilisation changed, and they are all superbly resonant
The Ice Caves of France (perhaps): the birth of human self awareness
Gobekli Tepe and environs: the end of hunter gathering, the dawn of agriculture: the Fall
Jerusalem (and maybe an honourable mention for Akhetaten): the cradle of monotheism
Florence: the Renaissance
Manchester, down to Coalbrookdale: the Industrial Revolution
Somewhere in California: the dawn of the internet, social media and the smartphone
Coalbrookdale is especially amazing. The ironbridge made me nearly cry. I can get sentimental about epochal history
I can get quite patriotic about this. The world's first industrial city (and Ancoats, despite the gentrification, still retains an astonishing atmosphere of this) and the world's first post-industrial city. Manchester invented both communism (Engels) AND capitalism (aka Manchester liberalism - where else has an equivalent of the Free Trade Hall - a concert hall named after the concept of trading freely?). And also feminism (the suffragettes) and, I think, vegetarianism. No doubt one or two others. And our contribution to popular culture, etc, etc. Admittedly we can go on about all this a bit. My daughter's infant school had a singing club, where 8 6 yearolds put on a song called 'We're proud to come from Greater Manchester', basically listing the conurbation's achievments to music. Quite a feat in itself.
An absolutely haunted place, but in the best way.
Not entirely benign, by any means.
In the worst way.
I am utterly ashamed of the British empire and my nation's part in (mostly) utterly reprehensible deeds around the world, commercialisation and exploitation dressed up in our education system as 'civilisation.'
It's shameful.
I'd rip down every statue of the colonialist, grind them into dust and return every artefact stolen from abroad.
You are seriously confused. We are talking about industrialisation, the Industrial Revolution that began in Staffs and Lancs, not imperialism and colonialism. These are two ENTIRELY different things
Not for me. I loathe both and they are not even remotely different.
The expansion of Victorian Britain around the world went hand in glove with the industrial revolution. As did allegedly benign Christianity with it: the betterment of people abroad by missionary endeavours on the back of colonialsm.
Yuck.
But until you have walked in the moccasins of the 'other' you will never get it.
The industrial revolution has had environmental effects that still need grappling with, but surely has led to incalculable good as far as the average experience of the average human goes? For all the ills of the world most people, even poorer ones, live better lives.
Imperialism, sure, I get feeling historical guilt, but the industrial revolution? It's something I even have to disagree with Saint David Attenborough about.
Rome is one of my favourite cities in the world. It seems to be like marmite: some hate it, others love it.
I'm in the latter and in terms of cities which shaped civilisation then it has to be right up there, although I would certainly add some Islamic ones to Leon's list and Alexandria should definitely be on it: the library alone merits its entry.
Rome is fantastic. Trastevere is probably the place I'd most like to live if I had to live in any European city.
But if you object to Manchester for colonial reasons, surely the same could be said about Rome? The Roman empire was a much less 'nice' occupier than the British, and Rome owes its ancient treasures almost entirely to imperialism and colonialism.
Oh absolutely
I gaze down from the Trastevere on the Coliseum in horror. But at least the Italians don't pretend that it was benign.
Rome is one of my favourite cities in the world. It seems to be like marmite: some hate it, others love it.
I'm in the latter and in terms of cities which shaped civilisation then it has to be right up there, although I would certainly add some Islamic ones to Leon's list and Alexandria should definitely be on it: the library alone merits its entry.
Rome is fantastic. Trastevere is probably the place I'd most like to live if I had to live in any European city.
Getting up the Palatine Hill really early, and being the only person there. That for me is Rome. Empire in the morning.
My daughter said that only the Italians would have left the probable site of Caesar's murder as it was.
The smell of the cat sanctuary was certainly something.....
WTF? They are raving bonkers. In any case, the time to improve ventilation in schools was a year ago.
There's been some curious missteps of late. This, but also, a demand that all households install interlinked fire alarms at £200+ a pop by the end of last month - been routinely ignored, of course, not least because the supply has dried up. But questions over validity of house insurance. And then, of course, the utter bullsh*t about pensions - though this maybe has a wierd logic in NatLand. What they have in common is they are all risible and to be laughed at. Something which Ms Sturgeon is not appreciative of. Strange, as SNP are usually very well-drilled and red hot on presentation.
Quite surprised that they have run out.
There should be normal stock for sales to a market of 28m households in the country available for relocation.
Are they required to be mains-powered?
No: just sealed battery (to stop tenants stealing them I assume). Also wireless interlink is fine.
Availability depended on supplier but I had no trouble despite having to order twice in the last two months, and again, very recently thanks to cockup on my part in adding up the needs for 2 houses. But looking at the supplier I used (specialist, not general DIY) they have run out of the ones I bought.
Hard wired ones are harder to pinch.
I tend to install 5 or 10 year batteries so the T has no responsibility, and I keep fire-protection, or hard wired where I do the conversion.
One student let has had a problem this year with students removing them because they wanted to smoke (violation of tenancy).
Ah! re pinchability. Now I see why the make I use has
(a) a base that screws to the ceiling and only then can the unit itself be put on and function (because of a widget on thge base) - so no access to remove (b) pin that can be broken off to make it much harder to remove without tools, and only if you know where ti insert the screwdriver to lever it off (c) option for using a screw ditto
Anyway tt has 10 year battery which doesn't engage till locked onto the base.
Britain (London, but also the rest) needs to build higher, higher!
The Upper West Side - in which I now inhabit an 11th floor eyrie - was pretty much all thrown up between 1890 and 1930. It’s dense as fuck but weirdly one still feels a strong sense of community.
Re Ancoats & Beswick. I know the area fairly well (I work just over the other side of Gt Ancoats Street) and while the New Islington bit is becoming a bit yuppified, most of Beswick, Miles Platting and Bradford is still very solidly working class.
As I understand it, a lot of the vote here has gone against Labour because of a bullying issue forcing out the previous councillor. There's also the background issue of how badly the refurbishment of Great Ancoats Street has gone (city centre LDs have focused on transport in their campaigning for a while now), and perhaps an underlying discontent with the absolute (unrepresentative) stranglehold Labour councillors have on Manchester, with attendant complacency and sloppiness.
I wouldn't draw any conclusions at all about the national picture from this.
I'd say Great Ancoats Street is looking splendid. A real success story. Granted the works were a right kerfuffle. But which works aren't?
It's not my idea of splendour, though I'd have accepted merely practical.
Well ok, it's not the Champs Elysees, yet. But it's almost unrecognisable from what it was 15 years ago. Importantly, it's lined with active frontages of businesses you might like to frequent. And the interruption of the canal and the space next to it is rather nicely done. I'd say a step up from 'practical' - Trinity Way is 'practical'. Manchester does get some things wrong, but it gets far more right than it does wrong, and it does such a lot, that the frequency of success is gratifyingly high. And I'd put Great Ancoats Street firmly in the 'success' category.
Er, what? It looks boring and in parts hideous on that Google Street View
And I would LOVE to believe you. It would be great to think we are rebuilding our cities better. Any links?
That Streetview is from 18 months ago and a lot has changed since then. Look, it's a dual carriageway. It's part of the Manchester and Salford Inner Ring Road. It's not the Shambles in York. But it looks substantially better than that now. It's moderatly pleasant to walk down - that section which has recently been redone, anyway. It's certainly got life and businesses on it, where it used to be a godforsaken stretch of tamac and a rubbish retail park. It separates Ancoats and the Northern Quarter but doesn't sever them. Where once was a ring road there emerges a neighbourhood.
This is not a 60s demolition of the commercial core of the city to replace with something uglier, but a 2020s demolition of post-inudtrial nothing with a functioning neighbourhood.
You should, when you get the chance, come to Manchester; take a walk around Ancoats, and the Northern Quarter, and Crown Street, and the left bank, and Chapel Street, and NOMA. Regeneration far outranks decay. Not all of it perfect. But Leon, the energy and pace of change: not something I ever thought I'd see in this country outside of London.
Sure, I'd like perfect Georgian cityscapes. But we never had that to start with in Manchester. Ancoats moved straight from dark satanic mills to post-industrial wasteland. And now it is one of the most sought-after areas in the North. It is astonishing.
Fair enough, and Yay if it is true. You are right, I need to see it for myself. And I have heard this from others: Manc is much improved, becoming a proper, handsome European city
I seldom ever go there, the last time was maybe 15-20 years ago, and it was quite depressing then. For some reason my job/life takes me to many other UK cities, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Cardiff, Newcastle, Bristol, but not Manchester
However, on my last visit, I DO remember wandering around some of the down-at-heel Victorian districts and thinking: wow, if they ever do this up, it will be spectacular. Glasgow's Victorian quarter, for example, is now quite something
I love Manchester beyond the point of reasonableness, but I'd never describe it as handsome. Unlike e.g. Liverpool, Glasgow or Newcastle, it's never known true grandeur, despite a few genuinely gorgeous buildings.
That said, I do enjoy strolling round NQ and seeing all the knackered old former garment factories, mucky book shops and abandoned slum flats amid the fancy shops and bars. It's a compelling place, full of life. Still one or two proper old boozers as well. And I agree - some of the new development has been good; not all of it though: a lot of big box ugly skyscrapers (the Angel Meadow development is especially crummy).
Incidentally, it's not unusual to see the streets dressed up to look like the US, as it's often used as a substitute for New York in films and TV. Lots of external fire escapes and whatnot.
But Manchester has the HISTORY. It is one of the most important cities in the world, in terms of human development. Cottonopolis, the metropole of the Industrial Revolution
There are a few places on this earth where you can say human civilisation changed, and they are all superbly resonant
The Ice Caves of France (perhaps): the birth of human self awareness
Gobekli Tepe and environs: the end of hunter gathering, the dawn of agriculture: the Fall
Jerusalem (and maybe an honourable mention for Akhetaten): the cradle of monotheism
Florence: the Renaissance
Manchester, down to Coalbrookdale: the Industrial Revolution
Somewhere in California: the dawn of the internet, social media and the smartphone
Coalbrookdale is especially amazing. The ironbridge made me nearly cry. I can get sentimental about epochal history
I can get quite patriotic about this. The world's first industrial city (and Ancoats, despite the gentrification, still retains an astonishing atmosphere of this) and the world's first post-industrial city. Manchester invented both communism (Engels) AND capitalism (aka Manchester liberalism - where else has an equivalent of the Free Trade Hall - a concert hall named after the concept of trading freely?). And also feminism (the suffragettes) and, I think, vegetarianism. No doubt one or two others. And our contribution to popular culture, etc, etc. Admittedly we can go on about all this a bit. My daughter's infant school had a singing club, where 8 6 yearolds put on a song called 'We're proud to come from Greater Manchester', basically listing the conurbation's achievments to music. Quite a feat in itself.
An absolutely haunted place, but in the best way.
Not entirely benign, by any means.
In the worst way.
I am utterly ashamed of the British empire and my nation's part in (mostly) utterly reprehensible deeds around the world, commercialisation and exploitation dressed up in our education system as 'civilisation.'
It's shameful.
I'd rip down every statue of the colonialist, grind them into dust and return every artefact stolen from abroad.
You are seriously confused. We are talking about industrialisation, the Industrial Revolution that began in Staffs and Lancs, not imperialism and colonialism. These are two ENTIRELY different things
Not for me. I loathe both and they are not even remotely different.
The expansion of Victorian Britain around the world went hand in glove with the industrial revolution. As did allegedly benign Christianity with it: the betterment of people abroad by missionary endeavours on the back of colonialsm.
Yuck.
But until you have walked in the moccasins of the 'other' you will never get it.
The logical conclusion of what you're saying is that the world would be a better place if there had never been an industrial revolution.
Re Ancoats & Beswick. I know the area fairly well (I work just over the other side of Gt Ancoats Street) and while the New Islington bit is becoming a bit yuppified, most of Beswick, Miles Platting and Bradford is still very solidly working class.
As I understand it, a lot of the vote here has gone against Labour because of a bullying issue forcing out the previous councillor. There's also the background issue of how badly the refurbishment of Great Ancoats Street has gone (city centre LDs have focused on transport in their campaigning for a while now), and perhaps an underlying discontent with the absolute (unrepresentative) stranglehold Labour councillors have on Manchester, with attendant complacency and sloppiness.
I wouldn't draw any conclusions at all about the national picture from this.
I'd say Great Ancoats Street is looking splendid. A real success story. Granted the works were a right kerfuffle. But which works aren't?
It's not my idea of splendour, though I'd have accepted merely practical.
Well ok, it's not the Champs Elysees, yet. But it's almost unrecognisable from what it was 15 years ago. Importantly, it's lined with active frontages of businesses you might like to frequent. And the interruption of the canal and the space next to it is rather nicely done. I'd say a step up from 'practical' - Trinity Way is 'practical'. Manchester does get some things wrong, but it gets far more right than it does wrong, and it does such a lot, that the frequency of success is gratifyingly high. And I'd put Great Ancoats Street firmly in the 'success' category.
Er, what? It looks boring and in parts hideous on that Google Street View
And I would LOVE to believe you. It would be great to think we are rebuilding our cities better. Any links?
That Streetview is from 18 months ago and a lot has changed since then. Look, it's a dual carriageway. It's part of the Manchester and Salford Inner Ring Road. It's not the Shambles in York. But it looks substantially better than that now. It's moderatly pleasant to walk down - that section which has recently been redone, anyway. It's certainly got life and businesses on it, where it used to be a godforsaken stretch of tamac and a rubbish retail park. It separates Ancoats and the Northern Quarter but doesn't sever them. Where once was a ring road there emerges a neighbourhood.
This is not a 60s demolition of the commercial core of the city to replace with something uglier, but a 2020s demolition of post-inudtrial nothing with a functioning neighbourhood.
You should, when you get the chance, come to Manchester; take a walk around Ancoats, and the Northern Quarter, and Crown Street, and the left bank, and Chapel Street, and NOMA. Regeneration far outranks decay. Not all of it perfect. But Leon, the energy and pace of change: not something I ever thought I'd see in this country outside of London.
Sure, I'd like perfect Georgian cityscapes. But we never had that to start with in Manchester. Ancoats moved straight from dark satanic mills to post-industrial wasteland. And now it is one of the most sought-after areas in the North. It is astonishing.
Fair enough, and Yay if it is true. You are right, I need to see it for myself. And I have heard this from others: Manc is much improved, becoming a proper, handsome European city
I seldom ever go there, the last time was maybe 15-20 years ago, and it was quite depressing then. For some reason my job/life takes me to many other UK cities, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Cardiff, Newcastle, Bristol, but not Manchester
However, on my last visit, I DO remember wandering around some of the down-at-heel Victorian districts and thinking: wow, if they ever do this up, it will be spectacular. Glasgow's Victorian quarter, for example, is now quite something
I love Manchester beyond the point of reasonableness, but I'd never describe it as handsome. Unlike e.g. Liverpool, Glasgow or Newcastle, it's never known true grandeur, despite a few genuinely gorgeous buildings.
That said, I do enjoy strolling round NQ and seeing all the knackered old former garment factories, mucky book shops and abandoned slum flats amid the fancy shops and bars. It's a compelling place, full of life. Still one or two proper old boozers as well. And I agree - some of the new development has been good; not all of it though: a lot of big box ugly skyscrapers (the Angel Meadow development is especially crummy).
Incidentally, it's not unusual to see the streets dressed up to look like the US, as it's often used as a substitute for New York in films and TV. Lots of external fire escapes and whatnot.
But Manchester has the HISTORY. It is one of the most important cities in the world, in terms of human development. Cottonopolis, the metropole of the Industrial Revolution
There are a few places on this earth where you can say human civilisation changed, and they are all superbly resonant
The Ice Caves of France (perhaps): the birth of human self awareness
Gobekli Tepe and environs: the end of hunter gathering, the dawn of agriculture: the Fall
Jerusalem (and maybe an honourable mention for Akhetaten): the cradle of monotheism
Florence: the Renaissance
Manchester, down to Coalbrookdale: the Industrial Revolution
Somewhere in California: the dawn of the internet, social media and the smartphone
Coalbrookdale is especially amazing. The ironbridge made me nearly cry. I can get sentimental about epochal history
I can get quite patriotic about this. The world's first industrial city (and Ancoats, despite the gentrification, still retains an astonishing atmosphere of this) and the world's first post-industrial city. Manchester invented both communism (Engels) AND capitalism (aka Manchester liberalism - where else has an equivalent of the Free Trade Hall - a concert hall named after the concept of trading freely?). And also feminism (the suffragettes) and, I think, vegetarianism. No doubt one or two others. And our contribution to popular culture, etc, etc. Admittedly we can go on about all this a bit. My daughter's infant school had a singing club, where 8 6 yearolds put on a song called 'We're proud to come from Greater Manchester', basically listing the conurbation's achievments to music. Quite a feat in itself.
An absolutely haunted place, but in the best way.
Not entirely benign, by any means.
In the worst way.
I am utterly ashamed of the British empire and my nation's part in (mostly) utterly reprehensible deeds around the world, commercialisation and exploitation dressed up in our education system as 'civilisation.'
It's shameful.
I'd rip down every statue of the colonialist, grind them into dust and return every artefact stolen from abroad.
Do you not find it a little bit hypocritical to be singing paens to Rome, built on reprehensible deeds around the world, commercialisation (for it’s time) and exploitation (slavery) dressed up as civilisation but then raging against the British Empire?
Would you rip down every statue of Roman Emperors and generals and grind them to dust? Tear down the buildings resplendent in marble hewn from quarries by slaves working in terrible conditions etc? Rome would be a bleak place indeed then. Goodbye Colosseum for example.
PS I also love Rome and it’s possibly my favourite City to visit ties with Delhi.
Anyway, I shall take my alternative view of the universe off to prepare some supper. Not, alas, on this occasion using wood which I've chopped myself but my current circumstances don't permit it.
Rome is one of my favourite cities in the world. It seems to be like marmite: some hate it, others love it.
I'm in the latter and in terms of cities which shaped civilisation then it has to be right up there, although I would certainly add some Islamic ones to Leon's list and Alexandria should definitely be on it: the library alone merits its entry.
Rome is fantastic. Trastevere is probably the place I'd most like to live if I had to live in any European city.
But if you object to Manchester for colonial reasons, surely the same could be said about Rome? The Roman empire was a much less 'nice' occupier than the British, and Rome owes its ancient treasures almost entirely to imperialism and colonialism.
Oh absolutely
I gaze down from the Trastevere on the Coliseum in horror. But at least the Italians don't pretend that it was benign.
Hmm. I'm not sure I agree with you. Mussolini built his reputation on a new Empire of Rome, and he's still quite popular among Italians.
And even if they didn't, others would do it for them, like that ignorant fool Catherine Nixey.
Re Ancoats & Beswick. I know the area fairly well (I work just over the other side of Gt Ancoats Street) and while the New Islington bit is becoming a bit yuppified, most of Beswick, Miles Platting and Bradford is still very solidly working class.
As I understand it, a lot of the vote here has gone against Labour because of a bullying issue forcing out the previous councillor. There's also the background issue of how badly the refurbishment of Great Ancoats Street has gone (city centre LDs have focused on transport in their campaigning for a while now), and perhaps an underlying discontent with the absolute (unrepresentative) stranglehold Labour councillors have on Manchester, with attendant complacency and sloppiness.
I wouldn't draw any conclusions at all about the national picture from this.
I'd say Great Ancoats Street is looking splendid. A real success story. Granted the works were a right kerfuffle. But which works aren't?
It's not my idea of splendour, though I'd have accepted merely practical.
Well ok, it's not the Champs Elysees, yet. But it's almost unrecognisable from what it was 15 years ago. Importantly, it's lined with active frontages of businesses you might like to frequent. And the interruption of the canal and the space next to it is rather nicely done. I'd say a step up from 'practical' - Trinity Way is 'practical'. Manchester does get some things wrong, but it gets far more right than it does wrong, and it does such a lot, that the frequency of success is gratifyingly high. And I'd put Great Ancoats Street firmly in the 'success' category.
Er, what? It looks boring and in parts hideous on that Google Street View
And I would LOVE to believe you. It would be great to think we are rebuilding our cities better. Any links?
That Streetview is from 18 months ago and a lot has changed since then. Look, it's a dual carriageway. It's part of the Manchester and Salford Inner Ring Road. It's not the Shambles in York. But it looks substantially better than that now. It's moderatly pleasant to walk down - that section which has recently been redone, anyway. It's certainly got life and businesses on it, where it used to be a godforsaken stretch of tamac and a rubbish retail park. It separates Ancoats and the Northern Quarter but doesn't sever them. Where once was a ring road there emerges a neighbourhood.
This is not a 60s demolition of the commercial core of the city to replace with something uglier, but a 2020s demolition of post-inudtrial nothing with a functioning neighbourhood.
You should, when you get the chance, come to Manchester; take a walk around Ancoats, and the Northern Quarter, and Crown Street, and the left bank, and Chapel Street, and NOMA. Regeneration far outranks decay. Not all of it perfect. But Leon, the energy and pace of change: not something I ever thought I'd see in this country outside of London.
Sure, I'd like perfect Georgian cityscapes. But we never had that to start with in Manchester. Ancoats moved straight from dark satanic mills to post-industrial wasteland. And now it is one of the most sought-after areas in the North. It is astonishing.
Fair enough, and Yay if it is true. You are right, I need to see it for myself. And I have heard this from others: Manc is much improved, becoming a proper, handsome European city
I seldom ever go there, the last time was maybe 15-20 years ago, and it was quite depressing then. For some reason my job/life takes me to many other UK cities, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Cardiff, Newcastle, Bristol, but not Manchester
However, on my last visit, I DO remember wandering around some of the down-at-heel Victorian districts and thinking: wow, if they ever do this up, it will be spectacular. Glasgow's Victorian quarter, for example, is now quite something
I love Manchester beyond the point of reasonableness, but I'd never describe it as handsome. Unlike e.g. Liverpool, Glasgow or Newcastle, it's never known true grandeur, despite a few genuinely gorgeous buildings.
That said, I do enjoy strolling round NQ and seeing all the knackered old former garment factories, mucky book shops and abandoned slum flats amid the fancy shops and bars. It's a compelling place, full of life. Still one or two proper old boozers as well. And I agree - some of the new development has been good; not all of it though: a lot of big box ugly skyscrapers (the Angel Meadow development is especially crummy).
Incidentally, it's not unusual to see the streets dressed up to look like the US, as it's often used as a substitute for New York in films and TV. Lots of external fire escapes and whatnot.
But Manchester has the HISTORY. It is one of the most important cities in the world, in terms of human development. Cottonopolis, the metropole of the Industrial Revolution
There are a few places on this earth where you can say human civilisation changed, and they are all superbly resonant
The Ice Caves of France (perhaps): the birth of human self awareness
Gobekli Tepe and environs: the end of hunter gathering, the dawn of agriculture: the Fall
Jerusalem (and maybe an honourable mention for Akhetaten): the cradle of monotheism
Florence: the Renaissance
Manchester, down to Coalbrookdale: the Industrial Revolution
Somewhere in California: the dawn of the internet, social media and the smartphone
Coalbrookdale is especially amazing. The ironbridge made me nearly cry. I can get sentimental about epochal history
I can get quite patriotic about this. The world's first industrial city (and Ancoats, despite the gentrification, still retains an astonishing atmosphere of this) and the world's first post-industrial city. Manchester invented both communism (Engels) AND capitalism (aka Manchester liberalism - where else has an equivalent of the Free Trade Hall - a concert hall named after the concept of trading freely?). And also feminism (the suffragettes) and, I think, vegetarianism. No doubt one or two others. And our contribution to popular culture, etc, etc. Admittedly we can go on about all this a bit. My daughter's infant school had a singing club, where 8 6 yearolds put on a song called 'We're proud to come from Greater Manchester', basically listing the conurbation's achievments to music. Quite a feat in itself.
An absolutely haunted place, but in the best way.
Not entirely benign, by any means.
In the worst way.
I am utterly ashamed of the British empire and my nation's part in (mostly) utterly reprehensible deeds around the world, commercialisation and exploitation dressed up in our education system as 'civilisation.'
It's shameful.
I'd rip down every statue of the colonialist, grind them into dust and return every artefact stolen from abroad.
That is just plain silly. Colonialism is simply part of history. Yes there were bad things done by Britain and the other colonial powers, but plenty of good too, including the spread of the rule of law and the growth of the British Empire, paradoxically led the way to liberally minded parliamentarians banning the slave trade. Britain had the global clout to enforce it
I am committted to improving the way Downing Street and government works, and that process is now under way...so if I am so committed why was it not something I was working on before?
I understand the deep importance of engaging with colleagues in parliament - I understand it so well that is why I need to radically shake up my operation and introducing new ways of hearing from you, as for some reason despite understanding I have not been doing so until now.
It’s been a while since I was there, but it does have all those handsome large warehouses which I can certainly imagine doubling for New York. But much of the new architecture I saw was disappointing.
Ironically, Boris may be to thank for much of the good new architecture in London. It was under his aegis that the London Plan recommended the “London New Vernacular” which is still going strong. Do a Google Image Search, you will recognise the type.
Both Stratford and Nine Elms/Vauxhall are disasters.
The reason Britain doesn’t often bulld terribly well - apart from architectural ideology about which Leon is actually mostly correct - is the bizarre planning laws which incentivise a kind of piecemeal mediocrity.
What a great project for 21st Britain it would be, to restore the beauty of Coventry, Exeter, Nottingham.
I would vote for any party that promised to rebuild our cities the way the Poles rebuilt Warsaw and the Germans, now, Frankfurt - and others
It is time. We fucked up the stray bits left by the Luftwaffe. But we can undo the damage. This one thing would do so much to improve British urban life. People behave better in beautiful places
Re Ancoats & Beswick. I know the area fairly well (I work just over the other side of Gt Ancoats Street) and while the New Islington bit is becoming a bit yuppified, most of Beswick, Miles Platting and Bradford is still very solidly working class.
As I understand it, a lot of the vote here has gone against Labour because of a bullying issue forcing out the previous councillor. There's also the background issue of how badly the refurbishment of Great Ancoats Street has gone (city centre LDs have focused on transport in their campaigning for a while now), and perhaps an underlying discontent with the absolute (unrepresentative) stranglehold Labour councillors have on Manchester, with attendant complacency and sloppiness.
I wouldn't draw any conclusions at all about the national picture from this.
I'd say Great Ancoats Street is looking splendid. A real success story. Granted the works were a right kerfuffle. But which works aren't?
It's not my idea of splendour, though I'd have accepted merely practical.
Well ok, it's not the Champs Elysees, yet. But it's almost unrecognisable from what it was 15 years ago. Importantly, it's lined with active frontages of businesses you might like to frequent. And the interruption of the canal and the space next to it is rather nicely done. I'd say a step up from 'practical' - Trinity Way is 'practical'. Manchester does get some things wrong, but it gets far more right than it does wrong, and it does such a lot, that the frequency of success is gratifyingly high. And I'd put Great Ancoats Street firmly in the 'success' category.
Er, what? It looks boring and in parts hideous on that Google Street View
And I would LOVE to believe you. It would be great to think we are rebuilding our cities better. Any links?
That Streetview is from 18 months ago and a lot has changed since then. Look, it's a dual carriageway. It's part of the Manchester and Salford Inner Ring Road. It's not the Shambles in York. But it looks substantially better than that now. It's moderatly pleasant to walk down - that section which has recently been redone, anyway. It's certainly got life and businesses on it, where it used to be a godforsaken stretch of tamac and a rubbish retail park. It separates Ancoats and the Northern Quarter but doesn't sever them. Where once was a ring road there emerges a neighbourhood.
This is not a 60s demolition of the commercial core of the city to replace with something uglier, but a 2020s demolition of post-inudtrial nothing with a functioning neighbourhood.
You should, when you get the chance, come to Manchester; take a walk around Ancoats, and the Northern Quarter, and Crown Street, and the left bank, and Chapel Street, and NOMA. Regeneration far outranks decay. Not all of it perfect. But Leon, the energy and pace of change: not something I ever thought I'd see in this country outside of London.
Sure, I'd like perfect Georgian cityscapes. But we never had that to start with in Manchester. Ancoats moved straight from dark satanic mills to post-industrial wasteland. And now it is one of the most sought-after areas in the North. It is astonishing.
Fair enough, and Yay if it is true. You are right, I need to see it for myself. And I have heard this from others: Manc is much improved, becoming a proper, handsome European city
I seldom ever go there, the last time was maybe 15-20 years ago, and it was quite depressing then. For some reason my job/life takes me to many other UK cities, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Cardiff, Newcastle, Bristol, but not Manchester
However, on my last visit, I DO remember wandering around some of the down-at-heel Victorian districts and thinking: wow, if they ever do this up, it will be spectacular. Glasgow's Victorian quarter, for example, is now quite something
I love Manchester beyond the point of reasonableness, but I'd never describe it as handsome. Unlike e.g. Liverpool, Glasgow or Newcastle, it's never known true grandeur, despite a few genuinely gorgeous buildings.
That said, I do enjoy strolling round NQ and seeing all the knackered old former garment factories, mucky book shops and abandoned slum flats amid the fancy shops and bars. It's a compelling place, full of life. Still one or two proper old boozers as well. And I agree - some of the new development has been good; not all of it though: a lot of big box ugly skyscrapers (the Angel Meadow development is especially crummy).
Incidentally, it's not unusual to see the streets dressed up to look like the US, as it's often used as a substitute for New York in films and TV. Lots of external fire escapes and whatnot.
But Manchester has the HISTORY. It is one of the most important cities in the world, in terms of human development. Cottonopolis, the metropole of the Industrial Revolution
There are a few places on this earth where you can say human civilisation changed, and they are all superbly resonant
The Ice Caves of France (perhaps): the birth of human self awareness
Gobekli Tepe and environs: the end of hunter gathering, the dawn of agriculture: the Fall
Jerusalem (and maybe an honourable mention for Akhetaten): the cradle of monotheism
Florence: the Renaissance
Manchester, down to Coalbrookdale: the Industrial Revolution
Somewhere in California: the dawn of the internet, social media and the smartphone
Coalbrookdale is especially amazing. The ironbridge made me nearly cry. I can get sentimental about epochal history
I can get quite patriotic about this. The world's first industrial city (and Ancoats, despite the gentrification, still retains an astonishing atmosphere of this) and the world's first post-industrial city. Manchester invented both communism (Engels) AND capitalism (aka Manchester liberalism - where else has an equivalent of the Free Trade Hall - a concert hall named after the concept of trading freely?). And also feminism (the suffragettes) and, I think, vegetarianism. No doubt one or two others. And our contribution to popular culture, etc, etc. Admittedly we can go on about all this a bit. My daughter's infant school had a singing club, where 8 6 yearolds put on a song called 'We're proud to come from Greater Manchester', basically listing the conurbation's achievments to music. Quite a feat in itself.
An absolutely haunted place, but in the best way.
Not entirely benign, by any means.
In the worst way.
I am utterly ashamed of the British empire and my nation's part in (mostly) utterly reprehensible deeds around the world, commercialisation and exploitation dressed up in our education system as 'civilisation.'
It's shameful.
I'd rip down every statue of the colonialist, grind them into dust and return every artefact stolen from abroad.
You are seriously confused. We are talking about industrialisation, the Industrial Revolution that began in Staffs and Lancs, not imperialism and colonialism. These are two ENTIRELY different things
Not for me. I loathe both and they are not even remotely different.
The expansion of Victorian Britain around the world went hand in glove with the industrial revolution. As did allegedly benign Christianity with it: the betterment of people abroad by missionary endeavours on the back of colonialsm.
Yuck.
But until you have walked in the moccasins of the 'other' you will never get it.
The logical conclusion of what you're saying is that the world would be a better place if there had never been an industrial revolution.
You surely can't be saying that?
Of course I am saying that.
It's been an utter disaster for this planet.
In a few billion years this planet is toast. Thoughts?
I don’t know why anyone would object to UK colonial architecture.
Fancy going to Venice and demanding it all be ripped up because some Doge did bad things in Corfu.
Some of the colonial buildings in India are incredible, it's also quite important to remember the brutal regime and those who died building them. Tearing them down and attempting to erase that history is as bad as burning books because they are disagreeable.
Rome is one of my favourite cities in the world. It seems to be like marmite: some hate it, others love it.
I'm in the latter and in terms of cities which shaped civilisation then it has to be right up there, although I would certainly add some Islamic ones to Leon's list and Alexandria should definitely be on it: the library alone merits its entry.
Rome is fantastic. Trastevere is probably the place I'd most like to live if I had to live in any European city.
But if you object to Manchester for colonial reasons, surely the same could be said about Rome? The Roman empire was a much less 'nice' occupier than the British, and Rome owes its ancient treasures almost entirely to imperialism and colonialism.
Oh absolutely
I gaze down from the Trastevere on the Coliseum in horror. But at least the Italians don't pretend that it was benign.
Which Islamic cities do you forgive the historical imperialism and barbarity of Islam?
Have any of the Great Minds on this board - or those with even greater bank balances! - given serious thought to this humble proposition?
Specifically, for PB to commission, staff and fuel (in more ways than one) a quasi-official Mobile Operational Base (MOB) for the upcoming May 2022 locals and for any other UK electoral activity that may transpire this year.
Will leave to others the mundane details re: vehicle, equipage, capacity (mechanical and human), route, etc., etc. PROVIDED that no PBer is allowed to drive the Battle Bus under any circumstances short of volcanic eruption or martial law.
WTF? They are raving bonkers. In any case, the time to improve ventilation in schools was a year ago.
There's been some curious missteps of late. This, but also, a demand that all households install interlinked fire alarms at £200+ a pop by the end of last month - been routinely ignored, of course, not least because the supply has dried up. But questions over validity of house insurance. And then, of course, the utter bullsh*t about pensions - though this maybe has a wierd logic in NatLand. What they have in common is they are all risible and to be laughed at. Something which Ms Sturgeon is not appreciative of. Strange, as SNP are usually very well-drilled and red hot on presentation.
Quite surprised that they have run out.
There should be normal stock for sales to a market of 28m households in the country available for relocation.
Are they required to be mains-powered?
The 200 a pop is bollox as well, I replaced one recently for under 30 quid. PLus fact that there is no penalty for not having them installed means it i sno issue at all for anyone unless you are moving house or upgrading property. Unionists just love to whinge, sickening.
Re Ancoats & Beswick. I know the area fairly well (I work just over the other side of Gt Ancoats Street) and while the New Islington bit is becoming a bit yuppified, most of Beswick, Miles Platting and Bradford is still very solidly working class.
As I understand it, a lot of the vote here has gone against Labour because of a bullying issue forcing out the previous councillor. There's also the background issue of how badly the refurbishment of Great Ancoats Street has gone (city centre LDs have focused on transport in their campaigning for a while now), and perhaps an underlying discontent with the absolute (unrepresentative) stranglehold Labour councillors have on Manchester, with attendant complacency and sloppiness.
I wouldn't draw any conclusions at all about the national picture from this.
I'd say Great Ancoats Street is looking splendid. A real success story. Granted the works were a right kerfuffle. But which works aren't?
It's not my idea of splendour, though I'd have accepted merely practical.
Well ok, it's not the Champs Elysees, yet. But it's almost unrecognisable from what it was 15 years ago. Importantly, it's lined with active frontages of businesses you might like to frequent. And the interruption of the canal and the space next to it is rather nicely done. I'd say a step up from 'practical' - Trinity Way is 'practical'. Manchester does get some things wrong, but it gets far more right than it does wrong, and it does such a lot, that the frequency of success is gratifyingly high. And I'd put Great Ancoats Street firmly in the 'success' category.
Er, what? It looks boring and in parts hideous on that Google Street View
And I would LOVE to believe you. It would be great to think we are rebuilding our cities better. Any links?
That Streetview is from 18 months ago and a lot has changed since then. Look, it's a dual carriageway. It's part of the Manchester and Salford Inner Ring Road. It's not the Shambles in York. But it looks substantially better than that now. It's moderatly pleasant to walk down - that section which has recently been redone, anyway. It's certainly got life and businesses on it, where it used to be a godforsaken stretch of tamac and a rubbish retail park. It separates Ancoats and the Northern Quarter but doesn't sever them. Where once was a ring road there emerges a neighbourhood.
This is not a 60s demolition of the commercial core of the city to replace with something uglier, but a 2020s demolition of post-inudtrial nothing with a functioning neighbourhood.
You should, when you get the chance, come to Manchester; take a walk around Ancoats, and the Northern Quarter, and Crown Street, and the left bank, and Chapel Street, and NOMA. Regeneration far outranks decay. Not all of it perfect. But Leon, the energy and pace of change: not something I ever thought I'd see in this country outside of London.
Sure, I'd like perfect Georgian cityscapes. But we never had that to start with in Manchester. Ancoats moved straight from dark satanic mills to post-industrial wasteland. And now it is one of the most sought-after areas in the North. It is astonishing.
Fair enough, and Yay if it is true. You are right, I need to see it for myself. And I have heard this from others: Manc is much improved, becoming a proper, handsome European city
I seldom ever go there, the last time was maybe 15-20 years ago, and it was quite depressing then. For some reason my job/life takes me to many other UK cities, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Cardiff, Newcastle, Bristol, but not Manchester
However, on my last visit, I DO remember wandering around some of the down-at-heel Victorian districts and thinking: wow, if they ever do this up, it will be spectacular. Glasgow's Victorian quarter, for example, is now quite something
I love Manchester beyond the point of reasonableness, but I'd never describe it as handsome. Unlike e.g. Liverpool, Glasgow or Newcastle, it's never known true grandeur, despite a few genuinely gorgeous buildings.
That said, I do enjoy strolling round NQ and seeing all the knackered old former garment factories, mucky book shops and abandoned slum flats amid the fancy shops and bars. It's a compelling place, full of life. Still one or two proper old boozers as well. And I agree - some of the new development has been good; not all of it though: a lot of big box ugly skyscrapers (the Angel Meadow development is especially crummy).
Incidentally, it's not unusual to see the streets dressed up to look like the US, as it's often used as a substitute for New York in films and TV. Lots of external fire escapes and whatnot.
But Manchester has the HISTORY. It is one of the most important cities in the world, in terms of human development. Cottonopolis, the metropole of the Industrial Revolution
There are a few places on this earth where you can say human civilisation changed, and they are all superbly resonant
The Ice Caves of France (perhaps): the birth of human self awareness
Gobekli Tepe and environs: the end of hunter gathering, the dawn of agriculture: the Fall
Jerusalem (and maybe an honourable mention for Akhetaten): the cradle of monotheism
Florence: the Renaissance
Manchester, down to Coalbrookdale: the Industrial Revolution
Somewhere in California: the dawn of the internet, social media and the smartphone
Coalbrookdale is especially amazing. The ironbridge made me nearly cry. I can get sentimental about epochal history
Manchester was Shock City. I need to go back after listyening to this discussion, not having been there since a conference ca 1995 when I wandered off one afternoon to Castlefields to pay homage to the Liverpool and Manchester Railway terminus and explore the museums. It sounds so different now.
But Coalbrookdale ... Mrs C and I stayed bang in the middle, almost on the bridge, for several days and wandered around all the old canals and railways and towpaths and inclines we could find, often off the tourist track. Simple things like tombestones made in cast iron in the chapel yard, and garden walls made of old pottery saggars. One of our greatest holidays ever.
Yes! Exactly my impression. I had no idea it would be so fascinating, compelling, affecting, and just bloody incredible
The entire world pivoted around that strange little valley, in a fundamental way
It's as interesting as Florence if you are so minded, Cheaper hotels, too
There's also the Longton aqueduct (cast iron pioneer nearby). And so on and so forth.
One might well mull over booking this Landmark Trust property, almost on the abutment of the Bridge:
The weird thing is, as you can see from that photo, Coalbrookdale is also beautiful, in its natural setting. Like a kind of divine joke. This revolution which would ravage the world, and scar the planet, began in this idyllic locale
Yes, rewilded. Such things as huge dumps of pottery shards now modern sediment eroding into the Severn. We didn't bother with a car - just shank's pony up and down in the on/off wooded glen, including Buildwas Abbey. I got some books from a specialist academic library beforehand and that was it.
Rome is one of my favourite cities in the world. It seems to be like marmite: some hate it, others love it.
I'm in the latter and in terms of cities which shaped civilisation then it has to be right up there, although I would certainly add some Islamic ones to Leon's list and Alexandria should definitely be on it: the library alone merits its entry.
Rome is fantastic. Trastevere is probably the place I'd most like to live if I had to live in any European city.
Getting up the Palatine Hill really early, and being the only person there. That for me is Rome. Empire in the morning.
My daughter said that only the Italians would have left the probable site of Caesar's murder as it was.
The smell of the cat sanctuary was certainly something.....
Not sure your cats are relevant.
The site of Ceasars murder - the presumed site of Pompey's theatre - has been left as an inaccessible, badly maintained area in the middle of what would be a square in London.
Inhabited by vast numbers of feral cats. At one end is a cat sanctuary. Which smells special in Summer.
Rome is one of my favourite cities in the world. It seems to be like marmite: some hate it, others love it.
I'm in the latter and in terms of cities which shaped civilisation then it has to be right up there, although I would certainly add some Islamic ones to Leon's list and Alexandria should definitely be on it: the library alone merits its entry.
Rome is fantastic. Trastevere is probably the place I'd most like to live if I had to live in any European city.
But if you object to Manchester for colonial reasons, surely the same could be said about Rome? The Roman empire was a much less 'nice' occupier than the British, and Rome owes its ancient treasures almost entirely to imperialism and colonialism.
Oh absolutely
I gaze down from the Trastevere on the Coliseum in horror. But at least the Italians don't pretend that it was benign.
Hmm. I'm not sure I agree with you. Mussolini built his reputation on a new Empire of Rome, and he's still quite popular among Italians.
And even if they didn't, others would do it for them, like that ignorant fool Catherine Nixey.
Florence train station is quintessentially Mussolini-fascist, but it’s a splendid place nonetheless.
Mind you I also think Eric Gill was a wonderful sculptor, and that it’s even possible to listen to Gary Glitter without being morally damaged.
Re Ancoats & Beswick. I know the area fairly well (I work just over the other side of Gt Ancoats Street) and while the New Islington bit is becoming a bit yuppified, most of Beswick, Miles Platting and Bradford is still very solidly working class.
As I understand it, a lot of the vote here has gone against Labour because of a bullying issue forcing out the previous councillor. There's also the background issue of how badly the refurbishment of Great Ancoats Street has gone (city centre LDs have focused on transport in their campaigning for a while now), and perhaps an underlying discontent with the absolute (unrepresentative) stranglehold Labour councillors have on Manchester, with attendant complacency and sloppiness.
I wouldn't draw any conclusions at all about the national picture from this.
I'd say Great Ancoats Street is looking splendid. A real success story. Granted the works were a right kerfuffle. But which works aren't?
It's not my idea of splendour, though I'd have accepted merely practical.
Well ok, it's not the Champs Elysees, yet. But it's almost unrecognisable from what it was 15 years ago. Importantly, it's lined with active frontages of businesses you might like to frequent. And the interruption of the canal and the space next to it is rather nicely done. I'd say a step up from 'practical' - Trinity Way is 'practical'. Manchester does get some things wrong, but it gets far more right than it does wrong, and it does such a lot, that the frequency of success is gratifyingly high. And I'd put Great Ancoats Street firmly in the 'success' category.
Er, what? It looks boring and in parts hideous on that Google Street View
And I would LOVE to believe you. It would be great to think we are rebuilding our cities better. Any links?
That Streetview is from 18 months ago and a lot has changed since then. Look, it's a dual carriageway. It's part of the Manchester and Salford Inner Ring Road. It's not the Shambles in York. But it looks substantially better than that now. It's moderatly pleasant to walk down - that section which has recently been redone, anyway. It's certainly got life and businesses on it, where it used to be a godforsaken stretch of tamac and a rubbish retail park. It separates Ancoats and the Northern Quarter but doesn't sever them. Where once was a ring road there emerges a neighbourhood.
This is not a 60s demolition of the commercial core of the city to replace with something uglier, but a 2020s demolition of post-inudtrial nothing with a functioning neighbourhood.
You should, when you get the chance, come to Manchester; take a walk around Ancoats, and the Northern Quarter, and Crown Street, and the left bank, and Chapel Street, and NOMA. Regeneration far outranks decay. Not all of it perfect. But Leon, the energy and pace of change: not something I ever thought I'd see in this country outside of London.
Sure, I'd like perfect Georgian cityscapes. But we never had that to start with in Manchester. Ancoats moved straight from dark satanic mills to post-industrial wasteland. And now it is one of the most sought-after areas in the North. It is astonishing.
Fair enough, and Yay if it is true. You are right, I need to see it for myself. And I have heard this from others: Manc is much improved, becoming a proper, handsome European city
I seldom ever go there, the last time was maybe 15-20 years ago, and it was quite depressing then. For some reason my job/life takes me to many other UK cities, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Cardiff, Newcastle, Bristol, but not Manchester
However, on my last visit, I DO remember wandering around some of the down-at-heel Victorian districts and thinking: wow, if they ever do this up, it will be spectacular. Glasgow's Victorian quarter, for example, is now quite something
I love Manchester beyond the point of reasonableness, but I'd never describe it as handsome. Unlike e.g. Liverpool, Glasgow or Newcastle, it's never known true grandeur, despite a few genuinely gorgeous buildings.
That said, I do enjoy strolling round NQ and seeing all the knackered old former garment factories, mucky book shops and abandoned slum flats amid the fancy shops and bars. It's a compelling place, full of life. Still one or two proper old boozers as well. And I agree - some of the new development has been good; not all of it though: a lot of big box ugly skyscrapers (the Angel Meadow development is especially crummy).
Incidentally, it's not unusual to see the streets dressed up to look like the US, as it's often used as a substitute for New York in films and TV. Lots of external fire escapes and whatnot.
But Manchester has the HISTORY. It is one of the most important cities in the world, in terms of human development. Cottonopolis, the metropole of the Industrial Revolution
There are a few places on this earth where you can say human civilisation changed, and they are all superbly resonant
The Ice Caves of France (perhaps): the birth of human self awareness
Gobekli Tepe and environs: the end of hunter gathering, the dawn of agriculture: the Fall
Jerusalem (and maybe an honourable mention for Akhetaten): the cradle of monotheism
Florence: the Renaissance
Manchester, down to Coalbrookdale: the Industrial Revolution
Somewhere in California: the dawn of the internet, social media and the smartphone
Coalbrookdale is especially amazing. The ironbridge made me nearly cry. I can get sentimental about epochal history
I can get quite patriotic about this. The world's first industrial city (and Ancoats, despite the gentrification, still retains an astonishing atmosphere of this) and the world's first post-industrial city. Manchester invented both communism (Engels) AND capitalism (aka Manchester liberalism - where else has an equivalent of the Free Trade Hall - a concert hall named after the concept of trading freely?). And also feminism (the suffragettes) and, I think, vegetarianism. No doubt one or two others. And our contribution to popular culture, etc, etc. Admittedly we can go on about all this a bit. My daughter's infant school had a singing club, where 8 6 yearolds put on a song called 'We're proud to come from Greater Manchester', basically listing the conurbation's achievments to music. Quite a feat in itself.
Don't forget the work of Rutherford and Turing and Kilburn and Williams at the University.
And the practicalisation of the electronic computer? Not sure just what they were responsible for, though.
Re Ancoats & Beswick. I know the area fairly well (I work just over the other side of Gt Ancoats Street) and while the New Islington bit is becoming a bit yuppified, most of Beswick, Miles Platting and Bradford is still very solidly working class.
As I understand it, a lot of the vote here has gone against Labour because of a bullying issue forcing out the previous councillor. There's also the background issue of how badly the refurbishment of Great Ancoats Street has gone (city centre LDs have focused on transport in their campaigning for a while now), and perhaps an underlying discontent with the absolute (unrepresentative) stranglehold Labour councillors have on Manchester, with attendant complacency and sloppiness.
I wouldn't draw any conclusions at all about the national picture from this.
I'd say Great Ancoats Street is looking splendid. A real success story. Granted the works were a right kerfuffle. But which works aren't?
It's not my idea of splendour, though I'd have accepted merely practical.
Well ok, it's not the Champs Elysees, yet. But it's almost unrecognisable from what it was 15 years ago. Importantly, it's lined with active frontages of businesses you might like to frequent. And the interruption of the canal and the space next to it is rather nicely done. I'd say a step up from 'practical' - Trinity Way is 'practical'. Manchester does get some things wrong, but it gets far more right than it does wrong, and it does such a lot, that the frequency of success is gratifyingly high. And I'd put Great Ancoats Street firmly in the 'success' category.
Er, what? It looks boring and in parts hideous on that Google Street View
And I would LOVE to believe you. It would be great to think we are rebuilding our cities better. Any links?
That Streetview is from 18 months ago and a lot has changed since then. Look, it's a dual carriageway. It's part of the Manchester and Salford Inner Ring Road. It's not the Shambles in York. But it looks substantially better than that now. It's moderatly pleasant to walk down - that section which has recently been redone, anyway. It's certainly got life and businesses on it, where it used to be a godforsaken stretch of tamac and a rubbish retail park. It separates Ancoats and the Northern Quarter but doesn't sever them. Where once was a ring road there emerges a neighbourhood.
This is not a 60s demolition of the commercial core of the city to replace with something uglier, but a 2020s demolition of post-inudtrial nothing with a functioning neighbourhood.
You should, when you get the chance, come to Manchester; take a walk around Ancoats, and the Northern Quarter, and Crown Street, and the left bank, and Chapel Street, and NOMA. Regeneration far outranks decay. Not all of it perfect. But Leon, the energy and pace of change: not something I ever thought I'd see in this country outside of London.
Sure, I'd like perfect Georgian cityscapes. But we never had that to start with in Manchester. Ancoats moved straight from dark satanic mills to post-industrial wasteland. And now it is one of the most sought-after areas in the North. It is astonishing.
Fair enough, and Yay if it is true. You are right, I need to see it for myself. And I have heard this from others: Manc is much improved, becoming a proper, handsome European city
I seldom ever go there, the last time was maybe 15-20 years ago, and it was quite depressing then. For some reason my job/life takes me to many other UK cities, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Cardiff, Newcastle, Bristol, but not Manchester
However, on my last visit, I DO remember wandering around some of the down-at-heel Victorian districts and thinking: wow, if they ever do this up, it will be spectacular. Glasgow's Victorian quarter, for example, is now quite something
I love Manchester beyond the point of reasonableness, but I'd never describe it as handsome. Unlike e.g. Liverpool, Glasgow or Newcastle, it's never known true grandeur, despite a few genuinely gorgeous buildings.
That said, I do enjoy strolling round NQ and seeing all the knackered old former garment factories, mucky book shops and abandoned slum flats amid the fancy shops and bars. It's a compelling place, full of life. Still one or two proper old boozers as well. And I agree - some of the new development has been good; not all of it though: a lot of big box ugly skyscrapers (the Angel Meadow development is especially crummy).
Incidentally, it's not unusual to see the streets dressed up to look like the US, as it's often used as a substitute for New York in films and TV. Lots of external fire escapes and whatnot.
But Manchester has the HISTORY. It is one of the most important cities in the world, in terms of human development. Cottonopolis, the metropole of the Industrial Revolution
There are a few places on this earth where you can say human civilisation changed, and they are all superbly resonant
The Ice Caves of France (perhaps): the birth of human self awareness
Gobekli Tepe and environs: the end of hunter gathering, the dawn of agriculture: the Fall
Jerusalem (and maybe an honourable mention for Akhetaten): the cradle of monotheism
Florence: the Renaissance
Manchester, down to Coalbrookdale: the Industrial Revolution
Somewhere in California: the dawn of the internet, social media and the smartphone
Coalbrookdale is especially amazing. The ironbridge made me nearly cry. I can get sentimental about epochal history
I can get quite patriotic about this. The world's first industrial city (and Ancoats, despite the gentrification, still retains an astonishing atmosphere of this) and the world's first post-industrial city. Manchester invented both communism (Engels) AND capitalism (aka Manchester liberalism - where else has an equivalent of the Free Trade Hall - a concert hall named after the concept of trading freely?). And also feminism (the suffragettes) and, I think, vegetarianism. No doubt one or two others. And our contribution to popular culture, etc, etc. Admittedly we can go on about all this a bit. My daughter's infant school had a singing club, where 8 6 yearolds put on a song called 'We're proud to come from Greater Manchester', basically listing the conurbation's achievments to music. Quite a feat in itself.
An absolutely haunted place, but in the best way.
Not entirely benign, by any means.
In the worst way.
I am utterly ashamed of the British empire and my nation's part in (mostly) utterly reprehensible deeds around the world, commercialisation and exploitation dressed up in our education system as 'civilisation.'
It's shameful.
I'd rip down every statue of the colonialist, grind them into dust and return every artefact stolen from abroad.
What? I thought we were talking about industrial revolution Manchester?
I’m a centrist liberal, even (these days) a leftish centrist liberal.
But I’m about the only person left it seems that doesn’t get het up about the Empire. I’m squarely in the Niall Ferguson camp.
Without the Empire, I literally wouldn’t exist!
I try not to get worked up about it. Yes there are lingering effects, but I don't see what emotional handwringing achieves to assess and reflect on that history. Yes, that is easier for a middle class white person, but I still think success in addressing anything that needs addressing is more likely to be achieved by being more cold about it all, especially bringing along people who are not het up about it.
Re Ancoats & Beswick. I know the area fairly well (I work just over the other side of Gt Ancoats Street) and while the New Islington bit is becoming a bit yuppified, most of Beswick, Miles Platting and Bradford is still very solidly working class.
As I understand it, a lot of the vote here has gone against Labour because of a bullying issue forcing out the previous councillor. There's also the background issue of how badly the refurbishment of Great Ancoats Street has gone (city centre LDs have focused on transport in their campaigning for a while now), and perhaps an underlying discontent with the absolute (unrepresentative) stranglehold Labour councillors have on Manchester, with attendant complacency and sloppiness.
I wouldn't draw any conclusions at all about the national picture from this.
I'd say Great Ancoats Street is looking splendid. A real success story. Granted the works were a right kerfuffle. But which works aren't?
It's not my idea of splendour, though I'd have accepted merely practical.
Well ok, it's not the Champs Elysees, yet. But it's almost unrecognisable from what it was 15 years ago. Importantly, it's lined with active frontages of businesses you might like to frequent. And the interruption of the canal and the space next to it is rather nicely done. I'd say a step up from 'practical' - Trinity Way is 'practical'. Manchester does get some things wrong, but it gets far more right than it does wrong, and it does such a lot, that the frequency of success is gratifyingly high. And I'd put Great Ancoats Street firmly in the 'success' category.
Er, what? It looks boring and in parts hideous on that Google Street View
And I would LOVE to believe you. It would be great to think we are rebuilding our cities better. Any links?
That Streetview is from 18 months ago and a lot has changed since then. Look, it's a dual carriageway. It's part of the Manchester and Salford Inner Ring Road. It's not the Shambles in York. But it looks substantially better than that now. It's moderatly pleasant to walk down - that section which has recently been redone, anyway. It's certainly got life and businesses on it, where it used to be a godforsaken stretch of tamac and a rubbish retail park. It separates Ancoats and the Northern Quarter but doesn't sever them. Where once was a ring road there emerges a neighbourhood.
This is not a 60s demolition of the commercial core of the city to replace with something uglier, but a 2020s demolition of post-inudtrial nothing with a functioning neighbourhood.
You should, when you get the chance, come to Manchester; take a walk around Ancoats, and the Northern Quarter, and Crown Street, and the left bank, and Chapel Street, and NOMA. Regeneration far outranks decay. Not all of it perfect. But Leon, the energy and pace of change: not something I ever thought I'd see in this country outside of London.
Sure, I'd like perfect Georgian cityscapes. But we never had that to start with in Manchester. Ancoats moved straight from dark satanic mills to post-industrial wasteland. And now it is one of the most sought-after areas in the North. It is astonishing.
Fair enough, and Yay if it is true. You are right, I need to see it for myself. And I have heard this from others: Manc is much improved, becoming a proper, handsome European city
I seldom ever go there, the last time was maybe 15-20 years ago, and it was quite depressing then. For some reason my job/life takes me to many other UK cities, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Cardiff, Newcastle, Bristol, but not Manchester
However, on my last visit, I DO remember wandering around some of the down-at-heel Victorian districts and thinking: wow, if they ever do this up, it will be spectacular. Glasgow's Victorian quarter, for example, is now quite something
I love Manchester beyond the point of reasonableness, but I'd never describe it as handsome. Unlike e.g. Liverpool, Glasgow or Newcastle, it's never known true grandeur, despite a few genuinely gorgeous buildings.
That said, I do enjoy strolling round NQ and seeing all the knackered old former garment factories, mucky book shops and abandoned slum flats amid the fancy shops and bars. It's a compelling place, full of life. Still one or two proper old boozers as well. And I agree - some of the new development has been good; not all of it though: a lot of big box ugly skyscrapers (the Angel Meadow development is especially crummy).
Incidentally, it's not unusual to see the streets dressed up to look like the US, as it's often used as a substitute for New York in films and TV. Lots of external fire escapes and whatnot.
But Manchester has the HISTORY. It is one of the most important cities in the world, in terms of human development. Cottonopolis, the metropole of the Industrial Revolution
There are a few places on this earth where you can say human civilisation changed, and they are all superbly resonant
The Ice Caves of France (perhaps): the birth of human self awareness
Gobekli Tepe and environs: the end of hunter gathering, the dawn of agriculture: the Fall
Jerusalem (and maybe an honourable mention for Akhetaten): the cradle of monotheism
Florence: the Renaissance
Manchester, down to Coalbrookdale: the Industrial Revolution
Somewhere in California: the dawn of the internet, social media and the smartphone
Coalbrookdale is especially amazing. The ironbridge made me nearly cry. I can get sentimental about epochal history
I can get quite patriotic about this. The world's first industrial city (and Ancoats, despite the gentrification, still retains an astonishing atmosphere of this) and the world's first post-industrial city. Manchester invented both communism (Engels) AND capitalism (aka Manchester liberalism - where else has an equivalent of the Free Trade Hall - a concert hall named after the concept of trading freely?). And also feminism (the suffragettes) and, I think, vegetarianism. No doubt one or two others. And our contribution to popular culture, etc, etc. Admittedly we can go on about all this a bit. My daughter's infant school had a singing club, where 8 6 yearolds put on a song called 'We're proud to come from Greater Manchester', basically listing the conurbation's achievments to music. Quite a feat in itself.
Don't forget the work of Rutherford and Turing and Kilburn and Williams at the University.
They were part of the song too. It went on for some time... Right off to cook tea. I shall graciously allow the conversation to move on from talking about Manchester. No doubt I will turn up again soon and brashly try to steer it back. It's what we do, I'm afraid...
Rome is one of my favourite cities in the world. It seems to be like marmite: some hate it, others love it.
I'm in the latter and in terms of cities which shaped civilisation then it has to be right up there, although I would certainly add some Islamic ones to Leon's list and Alexandria should definitely be on it: the library alone merits its entry.
Rome is fantastic. Trastevere is probably the place I'd most like to live if I had to live in any European city.
Getting up the Palatine Hill really early, and being the only person there. That for me is Rome. Empire in the morning.
My daughter said that only the Italians would have left the probable site of Caesar's murder as it was.
The smell of the cat sanctuary was certainly something.....
Not sure your cats are relevant.
The site of Ceasars murder - the presumed site of Pompey's theatre - has been left as an inaccessible, badly maintained area in the middle of what would be a square in London.
Inhabited by vast numbers of feral cats. At one end is a cat sanctuary. Which smells special in Summer.
Re Ancoats & Beswick. I know the area fairly well (I work just over the other side of Gt Ancoats Street) and while the New Islington bit is becoming a bit yuppified, most of Beswick, Miles Platting and Bradford is still very solidly working class.
As I understand it, a lot of the vote here has gone against Labour because of a bullying issue forcing out the previous councillor. There's also the background issue of how badly the refurbishment of Great Ancoats Street has gone (city centre LDs have focused on transport in their campaigning for a while now), and perhaps an underlying discontent with the absolute (unrepresentative) stranglehold Labour councillors have on Manchester, with attendant complacency and sloppiness.
I wouldn't draw any conclusions at all about the national picture from this.
I'd say Great Ancoats Street is looking splendid. A real success story. Granted the works were a right kerfuffle. But which works aren't?
It's not my idea of splendour, though I'd have accepted merely practical.
Well ok, it's not the Champs Elysees, yet. But it's almost unrecognisable from what it was 15 years ago. Importantly, it's lined with active frontages of businesses you might like to frequent. And the interruption of the canal and the space next to it is rather nicely done. I'd say a step up from 'practical' - Trinity Way is 'practical'. Manchester does get some things wrong, but it gets far more right than it does wrong, and it does such a lot, that the frequency of success is gratifyingly high. And I'd put Great Ancoats Street firmly in the 'success' category.
Er, what? It looks boring and in parts hideous on that Google Street View
And I would LOVE to believe you. It would be great to think we are rebuilding our cities better. Any links?
That Streetview is from 18 months ago and a lot has changed since then. Look, it's a dual carriageway. It's part of the Manchester and Salford Inner Ring Road. It's not the Shambles in York. But it looks substantially better than that now. It's moderatly pleasant to walk down - that section which has recently been redone, anyway. It's certainly got life and businesses on it, where it used to be a godforsaken stretch of tamac and a rubbish retail park. It separates Ancoats and the Northern Quarter but doesn't sever them. Where once was a ring road there emerges a neighbourhood.
This is not a 60s demolition of the commercial core of the city to replace with something uglier, but a 2020s demolition of post-inudtrial nothing with a functioning neighbourhood.
You should, when you get the chance, come to Manchester; take a walk around Ancoats, and the Northern Quarter, and Crown Street, and the left bank, and Chapel Street, and NOMA. Regeneration far outranks decay. Not all of it perfect. But Leon, the energy and pace of change: not something I ever thought I'd see in this country outside of London.
Sure, I'd like perfect Georgian cityscapes. But we never had that to start with in Manchester. Ancoats moved straight from dark satanic mills to post-industrial wasteland. And now it is one of the most sought-after areas in the North. It is astonishing.
Fair enough, and Yay if it is true. You are right, I need to see it for myself. And I have heard this from others: Manc is much improved, becoming a proper, handsome European city
I seldom ever go there, the last time was maybe 15-20 years ago, and it was quite depressing then. For some reason my job/life takes me to many other UK cities, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Cardiff, Newcastle, Bristol, but not Manchester
However, on my last visit, I DO remember wandering around some of the down-at-heel Victorian districts and thinking: wow, if they ever do this up, it will be spectacular. Glasgow's Victorian quarter, for example, is now quite something
I love Manchester beyond the point of reasonableness, but I'd never describe it as handsome. Unlike e.g. Liverpool, Glasgow or Newcastle, it's never known true grandeur, despite a few genuinely gorgeous buildings.
That said, I do enjoy strolling round NQ and seeing all the knackered old former garment factories, mucky book shops and abandoned slum flats amid the fancy shops and bars. It's a compelling place, full of life. Still one or two proper old boozers as well. And I agree - some of the new development has been good; not all of it though: a lot of big box ugly skyscrapers (the Angel Meadow development is especially crummy).
Incidentally, it's not unusual to see the streets dressed up to look like the US, as it's often used as a substitute for New York in films and TV. Lots of external fire escapes and whatnot.
But Manchester has the HISTORY. It is one of the most important cities in the world, in terms of human development. Cottonopolis, the metropole of the Industrial Revolution
There are a few places on this earth where you can say human civilisation changed, and they are all superbly resonant
The Ice Caves of France (perhaps): the birth of human self awareness
Gobekli Tepe and environs: the end of hunter gathering, the dawn of agriculture: the Fall
Jerusalem (and maybe an honourable mention for Akhetaten): the cradle of monotheism
Florence: the Renaissance
Manchester, down to Coalbrookdale: the Industrial Revolution
Somewhere in California: the dawn of the internet, social media and the smartphone
Coalbrookdale is especially amazing. The ironbridge made me nearly cry. I can get sentimental about epochal history
I can get quite patriotic about this. The world's first industrial city (and Ancoats, despite the gentrification, still retains an astonishing atmosphere of this) and the world's first post-industrial city. Manchester invented both communism (Engels) AND capitalism (aka Manchester liberalism - where else has an equivalent of the Free Trade Hall - a concert hall named after the concept of trading freely?). And also feminism (the suffragettes) and, I think, vegetarianism. No doubt one or two others. And our contribution to popular culture, etc, etc. Admittedly we can go on about all this a bit. My daughter's infant school had a singing club, where 8 6 yearolds put on a song called 'We're proud to come from Greater Manchester', basically listing the conurbation's achievments to music. Quite a feat in itself.
Don't forget the work of Rutherford and Turing and Kilburn and Williams at the University.
They were part of the song too. It went on for some time... Right off to cook tea. I shall graciously allow the conversation to move on from talking about Manchester. No doubt I will turn up again soon and brashly try to steer it back. It's what we do, I'm afraid...
I thought you were one of those types who refuse to concede that Wigan etc are part of Greater Manchester.
I'd guess there's a pretty good chance any impressive monument from ancient or even closer to modern times was built by shits, or as part of a society and culture that had shitty elements to it. It isn't pretending it was all benign to not focus on the downsides of that.
Rome is one of my favourite cities in the world. It seems to be like marmite: some hate it, others love it.
I'm in the latter and in terms of cities which shaped civilisation then it has to be right up there, although I would certainly add some Islamic ones to Leon's list and Alexandria should definitely be on it: the library alone merits its entry.
Rome is fantastic. Trastevere is probably the place I'd most like to live if I had to live in any European city.
Getting up the Palatine Hill really early, and being the only person there. That for me is Rome. Empire in the morning.
My daughter said that only the Italians would have left the probable site of Caesar's murder as it was.
The smell of the cat sanctuary was certainly something.....
Not sure your cats are relevant.
The site of Ceasars murder - the presumed site of Pompey's theatre - has been left as an inaccessible, badly maintained area in the middle of what would be a square in London.
Inhabited by vast numbers of feral cats. At one end is a cat sanctuary. Which smells special in Summer.
Reads to me as if he knows he can buy them off cheaply, and will take revenge sharply once the tables are turned. The Tory MPs really are the fools Boris thinks they are.
Comments
There are a few places on this earth where you can say human civilisation changed, and they are all superbly resonant
The Ice Caves of France (perhaps): the birth of human self awareness
Gobekli Tepe and environs: the end of hunter gathering, the dawn of agriculture: the Fall
Jerusalem (and maybe an honourable mention for Akhetaten): the cradle of monotheism
Florence: the Renaissance
Manchester, down to Coalbrookdale: the Industrial Revolution
Somewhere in California: the dawn of the internet, social media and the smartphone
Coalbrookdale is especially amazing. The ironbridge made me nearly cry. I can get sentimental about epochal history
I *think* the living conditions around Angel Meadows were one of the prime movers of Engels's shift from bourgeois industrialist to radical revolutionary.
Pathetic.
His rewarded was to be fired systematically black listed in UK aviation. So he went off to the US. Came back to the UK long after to work in non-aviation stuff.
While working for NASA, he discovered that the permanent official who, at the behest of a certain pipe-smoking politician had trashed his career, was applying to work in the US aviation industry as well. This was when he was contacted by the FBI for back ground for security checks.
As he related it, he laid on a bit thick the relationship between his tormentor and said pipe-smoking politician. Who was a bit left by US standards.
Strangely, the US denied a visa to the chap in question, let alone cleareing him for the job.
https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2017/jun/07/paris-promenade-plantee-free-elevated-park-walkway-bastille-bois-de-vincennes
Though I always admired the vision behind the population reduction sculpture in Manchester, though not the implementation as it would probably kill people too randomly.
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2008/nov/19/art-thomas-heatherwick-sculpture-councils
Have any of the Great Minds on this board - or those with even greater bank balances! - given serious thought to this humble proposition?
Specifically, for PB to commission, staff and fuel (in more ways than one) a quasi-official Mobile Operational Base (MOB) for the upcoming May 2022 locals and for any other UK electoral activity that may transpire this year.
Will leave to others the mundane details re: vehicle, equipage, capacity (mechanical and human), route, etc., etc. PROVIDED that no PBer is allowed to drive the Battle Bus under any circumstances short of volcanic eruption or martial law.
Probably best to bin daily cases now, they have ceased to have much relevance to anything.
But even I could not cope with 29 sets per day...
(Having got back from the ologist, and now having my pizza oven, I just realised that I am totally out of mozarella. Gah.)
The world's first industrial city (and Ancoats, despite the gentrification, still retains an astonishing atmosphere of this) and the world's first post-industrial city.
Manchester invented both communism (Engels) AND capitalism (aka Manchester liberalism - where else has an equivalent of the Free Trade Hall - a concert hall named after the concept of trading freely?). And also feminism (the suffragettes) and, I think, vegetarianism. No doubt one or two others.
And our contribution to popular culture, etc, etc.
Admittedly we can go on about all this a bit. My daughter's infant school had a singing club, where 8 6 yearolds put on a song called 'We're proud to come from Greater Manchester', basically listing the conurbation's achievments to music. Quite a feat in itself.
My felicitations on your lack of mozarella. Just so long as no pre-flaked Parmesan is involved, mind.....
But Coalbrookdale ... Mrs C and I stayed bang in the middle, almost on the bridge, for several days and wandered around all the old canals and railways and towpaths and inclines we could find, often off the tourist track. Simple things like tombestones made in cast iron in the chapel yard, and garden walls made of old pottery saggars. One of our greatest holidays ever.
There should be normal stock for sales to a market of 28m households in the country available for relocation.
Are they required to be mains-powered?
Not entirely benign, by any means. But profound and moving? YES
I'm in the latter and in terms of cities which shaped civilisation then it has to be right up there, although I would certainly add some Islamic ones to Leon's list and Alexandria should definitely be on it: the library alone merits its entry.
Rome is fantastic. Trastevere is probably the place I'd most like to live if I had to live in any European city.
Like most of Damien Hurst's oeuvre.
And the My Monumental Pony of Ebbsfleet, for Kent.
The entire world pivoted around that strange little valley, in a fundamental way
It's as interesting as Florence if you are so minded, Cheaper hotels, too
I am utterly ashamed of the British empire and my nation's part in (mostly) utterly reprehensible deeds around the world, commercialisation and exploitation dressed up in our education system as 'civilisation.'
It's shameful.
I'd rip down every statue of the colonialist, grind them into dust and return every artefact stolen from abroad.
Availability depended on supplier but I had no trouble despite having to order twice in the last two months, and again, very recently thanks to cockup on my part in adding up the needs for 2 houses. But looking at the supplier I used (specialist, not general DIY) they have run out of the ones I bought.
We may still see the effect of them infecting their parents and
With a bit of luck they won't infect too many of their grandparents.
One might well mull over booking this Landmark Trust property, almost on the abutment of the Bridge:
https://www.landmarktrust.org.uk/search-and-book/properties/iron-bridge-house-8709/#Overview
....
The smell of the cat sanctuary was certainly something.....
The expansion of Victorian Britain around the world went hand in glove with the industrial revolution. As did allegedly benign Christianity with it: the betterment of people abroad by missionary endeavours on the back of colonialsm.
Yuck.
But until you have walked in the moccasins of the 'other' you will never get it.
I tend to install 5 or 10 year batteries so the T has no responsibility, and I keep fire-protection, or hard wired where I do the conversion.
One student let has had a problem this year with students removing them because they wanted to smoke (violation of tenancy).
It’s been a while since I was there, but it does have all those handsome large warehouses which I can certainly imagine doubling for New York. But much of the new architecture I saw was disappointing.
Ironically, Boris may be to thank for much of the good new architecture in London. It was under his aegis that the London Plan recommended the “London New Vernacular” which is still going strong. Do a Google Image Search, you will recognise the type.
Both Stratford and Nine Elms/Vauxhall are disasters.
The reason Britain doesn’t often bulld terribly well - apart from architectural ideology about which Leon is actually mostly correct - is the bizarre planning laws which incentivise a kind of piecemeal mediocrity.
What a great project for 21st Britain it would be, to restore the beauty of Coventry, Exeter, Nottingham.
Bristol makes for an interesting comparison. I still feel the slaves' pain when I stand in the streets. I hear their cries, feel their burden, the hopelessness, the crushing repression, the hideous horror of this country's history as we crushed other human beings in the name of commercial expansion.
You surely can't be saying that?
The weird thing is, as you can see from that photo, Coalbrookdale is also beautiful, in its natural setting. Like a kind of divine joke. This revolution which would ravage the world, and scar the planet, began in this idyllic locale
Fancy going to Venice and demanding it all be ripped up because some Doge did bad things in Corfu.
(and other bean counters.)
Plexus filed accounts which misstated its turnover, profits, and headcount, and omitted multimillion pound transactions, it has emerged.
"During the preparation of the financial statements for the year ended 31 March 2020, the LLP discovered several errors in financial statements for the year ended 2019 ", Plexus conceded in its 2020 accounts, which it filed 11 months late last week.
The personal injury defendant firm's 2020 accounts reveal that in its 2019 accounts, Plexus:
- overstated its revenue by £1.4m, incorrectly recording revenue as £58m, not £56.6m
- overstated its profits by £1.9m, incorrectly recording a profit of £11m, not £9.1m, equivalent to an erroneous uplift of 20%
- overstated its debtors by £3.8m, incorrectly recording that it was owed £33.1m not £29.3m
- understated its creditors by £3.1m, incorrectly recording that it owed £8.9m, not £12m
- Asked why RSM UK Audit was replaced as the firm's auditor in 2020, Plexus told RollOnFriday that, "Following the private equity investment in March 2019, PwC, one of the world’s leading accountancy firms, was appointed as the firm’s auditor and tax advisor".
The arrival of Origin Equity's £15m investment was greeted in 2019 with a fanfare of positive PR, and Plexus's then-Chief Executive Fiona Scott claimed that, unlike an IPO or merger, "This approach doesn’t compromise management control". It compromised her control, however, as within six months she was out of Plexus and Origin Equity's co-founder, Olivia Roberts, was the new Plexus CEO. A few months later, Senior Partner Andrew McDougall, who led the buy-out of Plexus when the Parabis Group collapsed in 2015, followed Scott out the door.Plexus's 2019 accounts failed to include the large pay-offs which accompanied these shifts in ownership, including the fact that £13.5m was paid into Plexus by Origin, then paid out again to a company half-owned by McDougall. The transactions "were omitted from the 2019 accounts in error", the 2020 accounts state.
The sheer number of material mistakes suggests that someone involved in compiling Plexus's accounts was either wildly drunk or far worse at maths than they claimed. Plexus would not tell RollOnFriday who was responsible for the fiasco.
One of the most baffling mistakes saw Plexus record dozens more staff than it actually had, stating in the 2019 accounts that its headcount was 996, when it was actually 948.
https://www.rollonfriday.com/news-content/exclusive-plexus-accounts-riddled-multimillion-pound-errors
Watching the towers go up.one by one, Salford / Greengates side, around NOMA, out into Trafford has been something, I love the odd walk round, saw Deangate Square from about 8 stories high, and the 100m towers increased, 4 - 5 - 6 - 10 ...over 20 with significant cores now.
Never really knew Ancoats apart from the retail park once, the red brick has been opened up and a wander round the back streets, it is real smart.
Beyond that side it becomes low units and scrubland as you head east beyond the Medlock's dash north, but you get the sense it won't stay that way.
https://twitter.com/ThatTimWalker/status/1489645144102088713?s=20&t=mUDFtkgD_8EXRxsvwebWxA
Imperialism, sure, I get feeling historical guilt, but the industrial revolution? It's something I even have to disagree with Saint David Attenborough about.
I gaze down from the Trastevere on the Coliseum in horror. But at least the Italians don't pretend that it was benign.
(a) a base that screws to the ceiling and only then can the unit itself be put on and function (because of a widget on thge base) - so no access to remove
(b) pin that can be broken off to make it much harder to remove without tools, and only if you know where ti insert the screwdriver to lever it off
(c) option for using a screw ditto
Anyway tt has 10 year battery which doesn't engage till locked onto the base.
So it's different.
The Upper West Side - in which I now inhabit an 11th floor eyrie - was pretty much all thrown up between 1890 and 1930. It’s dense as fuck but weirdly one still feels a strong sense of community.
It's been an utter disaster for this planet.
It’s the 21st century of Victorians covering piano legs.
Would you rip down every statue of Roman Emperors and generals and grind them to dust? Tear down the buildings resplendent in marble hewn from quarries by slaves working in terrible conditions etc? Rome would be a bleak place indeed then. Goodbye Colosseum for example.
PS I also love Rome and it’s possibly my favourite City to visit ties with Delhi.
One day I shall return to the wild.
And even if they didn't, others would do it for them, like that ignorant fool Catherine Nixey.
But I’m about the only person left it seems that doesn’t get het up about the Empire. I’m squarely in the Niall Ferguson camp.
Without the Empire, I literally wouldn’t exist!
I understand the deep importance of engaging with colleagues in parliament - I understand it so well that is why I need to radically shake up my operation and introducing new ways of hearing from you, as for some reason despite understanding I have not been doing so until now.
It is time. We fucked up the stray bits left by the Luftwaffe. But we can undo the damage. This one thing would do so much to improve British urban life. People behave better in beautiful places
https://virtualbus360.co.uk/
Inhabited by vast numbers of feral cats. At one end is a cat sanctuary. Which smells special in Summer.
Ah, they are re-opening it...
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/575565/julius-caesar-assassination-site
Mind you I also think Eric Gill was a wonderful sculptor, and that it’s even possible to listen to Gary Glitter without being morally damaged.
Right off to cook tea. I shall graciously allow the conversation to move on from talking about Manchester. No doubt I will turn up again soon and brashly try to steer it back. It's what we do, I'm afraid...
I've been to exactly that spot several times - there's no smell.
My daughter was shoving tissues in her nose.