Volcanic Ash and Pollen Clouds
I don’t care a fig about the volcanic ash from Iceland, but I do find all of this pollen horrendous. And speaking to others, it would appear that I’m not the only one in London, who is suffering badly.
Looking at the pollen forecast, it would appear that I should emigrate to somewhere like Manchester! I think I’ll stay here and fight it out!
Is BBC Breakfast in Tatters?
I like BBC Breakfast on the television and generally watch it, as I do my morning chores.
It would appear now, that Sian Williams is to follow others and leave the show, when it goes to Salford.
THe move to Salford is surely one of the most ill-judged moves in British media history, as it will surely mean that many of the best presenters will leave. After all Manchester is not the place many would choose to live and there are many other jobs in London.
I also fear for the quality of other victims of this move, like Radio 5 and BBC Sport.
I feel fairly badly victimised here, as it appears the quality of what I like to watch and listen is about to suffer. As you know, I don’t watch ITV and other channels, unless what is on, is really unmissable, as I’m allergic to adverts.
Manchester is a Top Place to Go
Who says this crap? It’s apparently in the New York Times list at number 20 of 41 places to go in 2011 ahead of Miami and Zanzibar.
Manchester is a poor city and is very much second class compared to Liverpool, Glasgow, Newcastle, Leeds and of course London. You could argue it does have two good football teams, but London has three. It’s got no iconic buildings and it is not a World Heritage Site like Liverpool. I suppose you could argue, that Manchester has a couple of good hotels and is well connected by train to Liverpool and Leeds for days out. It also has a real tennis club.
A Bad Move by the BBC?
It has now been confirmed that the BBC is moving its flagship BBC Breakfast program to Salford Quays in Manchester.
It has also been reported that some of the presenters and broadcasting staff are not that happy.
I don’t think I am either, as will some of the more interesting guests bother to go up to Manchester, when they can get as much publicity by sitting on the sofa at GMTV in London? I will still probably watch the BBC, as I’m allergic to adverts.
To illustrate this problem this morning, where the Pakistan floods are dominating the news, they called in a representative of the charity, World Vision, which is based in Milton Keynes, who talked with great knowledge about the problem. Would they get the same quality of expert in Manchester, especially as most charities seem to be south-east based? It is also the day when many of the major banks are reporting. This would have to be an outside broadcast no doubt.
It is a bad move, especially as the guy in charge of it won’t be moving.
I actually think that if the BBC Breakfast program suffers badly in quality because of the move North, then there would be a gap for a high-quality, serious news program based in London, probably paid for by some means like a subscription.
The Hoax Call Rapper
This idiot is plaguing Manchester with hoax calls. He has made hunreds of calls and they cost the fire service about a thousand pounds a month.
Just like the thieves who stole the cables yesterday, perhaps we need an offence of endangering the lives of the general public, that has an effect.
The Bridge at Glossop
Last week, I went to Manchester. I did post about The Petticoat Line and the Ladies Night that I listened to on the way down. I didn’t travel to Manchester by the obvious route of the A14 and M6, but by a route that is ingrained in my past.
When I was at Liverpool University in the 1960s, there was no M6 link and to travel between the M1 at Watford Gap and the M6 at Cannock Chase was a slow crawl through a lot of Coventry and Birmingham. So you found other routes!
Typically, from London, I’d take the A5 from the M1 and then head north-west past Lichfield and Stone to join the M6 at Stoke, just south of Keele Services. I did that trip a lot of times, both in my Morris Minor and also by hitching. The latter was fun and sometimes I’d take six or seven hours, but I once did it in under four from Barnet to Liverpool and every lift was an HGV. There was also the tale of the commercial traveller after the 1966 Cup Final between Everton and Sheffield Wednesday. He was an Everton supporter and I got a lift from Watford all the way back to Liverpool.
But my parents had a house in Felixstowe and after 1966 or so, they lived there permanently.
Travel from there was a nightmare. If I had chosen to go by train, it would have meant a journey via London, as there was only one train a day from Ipswich to the North West. And then I’d have had to change at Manchester. Now there are several trains a day to Liverpool and they do the journey in a lot shorter time.
I did try hitching a couple of times, but once in East Anglia, lifts were few and far between and I often took up to four hours to get from the M1 at Northampton to the Suffolk coast.
So I had to use the faithful Morris Minor.
But the drive from there to Liverpool was even worse than from London. The A14 as we know it today wasn’t even a dream in anybody’s eye. Ipswich, Needham Market, Stowmarket, Bury St. Edmunds, Newmarket and Cambridge were not bypassed and there was little dual-carriageway road in between. Believe it or not, it was quicker to cut north, via Thetford and Kings Lynn. Then it was over Sutton Bridge, past Spalding and through Bourne before joining the A1 to go north.
The A1 was mostly dual carriageway from there, although the Tuxford section was still a single lane crawl. I then turned east and took the A57, through Worksop and Sheffield, before taking Snake Pass towards Manchester.
So this was the route I took to Manchester last week. Or at least the last part, as now the A1 from Cambridge is a very good and open road, with no roundabouts and only a short stretch at Exton with a 50 limit.
I still love that pass through the moors. The colours made me feel so much better.
But as I remember it Glossop was a lot less busy in the 1960s. Then it really marked the end of the difficult journey and it was straight through Manchester and on the East Lancs Road to Liverpool.
But now it marks the start of a slow crawl through the villages of Hollingworth and Tintwhistle to the M67. If there was ever the need for a by-pass then surely that place needs it. One was proposed in 1989, but is not planned to be built until 2016-7. So in other words, like the missing A11 link, it will not be built.
One thing though stood out on the route and that was where the Glossop railway passed over the road.
Dinfield Viaduct at Glossop
Note the extra piers, that were I think put in when they electrified the line in the 1950s. Then it was electrified all the way to Sheffield, but now you can only go from Manchester to Glossop. Sad, because if I remember my Meccano Magazine correctly, the Woodhead Line was one of the most spectacular railway lines in the UK. It has since acquired cult status among railway enthusiasts.
Perhaps one day, they’ll do something useful with the tunnels under the Pennines.
Cricket in Manchester?
It rained on the first Twenty20 in Manchester on Sunday and there was no result.
And guess what?
It looks like it’s going to rain in Manchester again today.
No wonder they decided not to hold a test match at Old Trafford in the City of Rain.
Tommy Ducks, Manchester
Having been to Manchester a couple of times lately and especially a few of my memories of the city start to return. Years ago, I worked with a salesman called Brian Birtwistle and I think it was him, who took me to a pub called Tommy Ducks. I seemed to remember that it some bizarre decor and that ladies were invited to donate their knickers and these were then promptly nailed to the ceiling by the landlord.
Initial searches with Google didn’t seem to find anything, but after changing the terms a bit I found this on Sigma Leisure Books.
It is 100 Barbirolli Square (not 101). It should be recorded that this building stands on the site of ‘Tommy Duck’s’, one of the great pubs of Manchester. It was located in a late eighteenth century house, and got its name in a most singular way. A signwriter was inscribing the name of the landlord, one Thomas Duckworth, on the fascia boarding – but ran out of space. Thus ‘Duckworth’s’ became ‘Duck’s’! In its final incarnation, the interior was unique, owing nothing whatsoever to a ‘designer’ but deriving from the interests and eccentricities of the landlord and his cronies. There was a priceless collection of Victorian theatre and music hall posters, a skeleton within a glass lidded coffin, and the ‘piece de resistance’, a ceiling covered with a fine collection of ladies knickers. These ranged from the skimpiest pieces of lace to capacious ‘bloomers’. (Female regulars were asked to donate a pair, which was duly autographed, dated, and pinned up with due ceremony.) A raid by a group of women who were determined to reclaim them soon passed into the city’s folklore. Sadly, the pub was demolished in a rather dubious episode. It is said that the perpetrators were fined for knocking down a listed structure without consent. ‘Hanging, drawing, and quartering’ would have been more appropriate.
There is also a picture on Flickr.
My memory says that whilst we were drinking in the pub, a lady was asked to donate and the due ceremony took place. It’s probably been upgraded with the passage of time!
They don’t make pubs like that anymore.
Drivers in the Rain
I came down the M6 in heavy rain from Manchester.
It wouldn’t have been my preferred route, but on leaving the Trafford Centre, I lost the signs sending me eastwards on the M60 and hence over Snake Pass, which is an ideal road for a Lotus Elan. It used to be on my route to Liverpool University from where I lived with my parents in Felixstowe. Today that seems strange, but remember in 1965, there was no M6 from the M1 to Stafford and no M62, so you had to go round the major traffic jam that was the Midlands.
Yesterday, the traffic was heavy on the M6 and I drove most of the way sensibly in the middle lane on the legal limit for most of the way.
What got me was the number of 4x4s that were driving at perhaps ninety in the outside lane. The Lotus was handling the conditions well, but a 4×4 handles several times worse and I would not have felt safe at that sort of speed in such a vehicle. Perhaps they feel safe with all metal around them.
But no wonder why there are so many accidents. In fact, it was more by luck than judgement that I didn’t meet any, as several motorways were closed.
But you need some luck sometimes and I got home safely just before seven.
Golf Clubs
I bought my son, who works in Manchester, a golf club for his birthday. Some I noticed cost about £500 and I couldn’t see any difference between those and the ones at a hundred pounds or so.
But what do I know about golf?
At least with real tennis everybody uses the same basic rackets.
The Anonymous Widower 