Stuart Ford

Manchester (and the rest of the north of England) received a record breaking snow dump last night, the likes of which I’ve never seen in Manchester and not seen since my childhood. It started around 11.00pm last night and by 1.00am when I went to bed about an inch had fell, which is extraordinary enough for the city centre, but when I woke up this morning it had apparently been snowing all night and there was around 7-8 inches on the ground.

I went into town to go to the post office and the bank and it was a like a ghost town, hardly anybody had bothered to come in to work. There was hardly any traffic and hardly anyone walking around. Snow was piled up on the pavements, it was like Whistler (ski resort). I walked past Albert Square where the council were dismantling the town hall’s Christmas installations, and they had taken the large Santa model down from the building and placed him on the ground, where he looked a bit crestfallen all covered in snow, as if to say “well it’s a bit late now!”.

The midlands and the south are going to to be hit later today and overnight. There’s no more snow forecast for the north west for the time being, but of course it’ll freeze overnight and it’s going to remain cold so the already fallen snow isn’t going to go anywhere in a hurry. Truly extraordinary. Global warming? What global warming. We’re having cold winters and persistently shit summers. Show me the global warming!

I’m just glad that I don’t have to travel anywhere this week!

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On Wednesday of this week I attended a postgraduate open day at the University of Manchester. The world-renowned department of computer science at this institution runs a one year postgraduate MSc course in Advanced Computer Science and I.T. Management, designed for students with existing degrees in computer science. Parts of the course are taught by the Manchester Business School, well known for its MBA programme.

Why am I doing this, 11 years after graduating? There are several reasons:

1. The industry I work in and the technology and knowledge that drives it changes rapidly and all the time. I can at this point only imagine how much the content of the average computer science course has changed in the ten years since I graduated. I expect to have my existing skills refreshed and to learn new skills and methodologies.
2. My managerial skills aren’t particularly strong, which is why the I.T. management parts of the course taught by the Manchester Business School particularly interest me. From what I have researched, the course contains the parts of the MBA that are geared towards I.T. At some point in the future I might consider doing a full MBA, but in the meantime this will serve as an important and appropriate stepping stone.
3. Returning to university after spending over a decade working will be a completely different experience from my first tenure. With such experience I shall be returning to study with “eyes wide open”. Many of my peers have said that they wish they could re-do their university courses armed with their years of subsequent industry experience.
4. Teaching and study methods have completely transformed since I graduated and it will be very interesting to see what difference they will make to my learning abilities.

The entry requirements state that a first or an upper second class degree is required. I only have a 2:2 from Aberystwyth University in Computer Science, however, I do also have eleven years of industry experience and during the open day I discussed this with a member of the department’s admissions staff and she said to my delight that this experience would compensate suitably in my application. I also need to provide academic and professional references to support my application, along with “transcripts” from Aberystwyth University, which I believe are basically individual module results.

I intend to get my application finished and submitted before Christmas. It being a postgraduate course I don’t have to use UCAS; the application is direct. I’ll keep you posted, wish me luck!

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Another year, another Pride. Four days of hard work, hard play and general excess have once again come to an end. It wasn’t the best Prides I’ve had but all things considered I wasn’t disappointed with it. A combination of recession and bad weather meant that it was never going to be the best Pride ever, but despite that, everyone made the best of it and there was a great turnout and a fantastic atmosphere all throughout the festival. I’ve little to complain about, all told.

I spent Friday night in the Village and saw the opening events on the main stage before spending a couple of hours flyering for Manfest, an event that took place on Sunday run by a friend. I didn’t stay out late on Friday because I needed to be up on time on Saturday to prepare for the parade, with the Manfest float. The weather just about held off for the parade, which is good because the parade is hard work enough without having to deal with rain at the same time.

The parade is a wonderful event. It brings thousands of people from all around in to Manchester to line the streets. It truly is the highlight of the Manchester calendar, nothing else comes close to it. Manchester Pride as a whole is the single most important annual event for Manchester, since it’s not just about promoting and supporting the LGBT community but also Manchester as a whole, which is why it’s so heavily supported by the city council and the Greater Manchester Police.

On Saturday evening I took a break from the festivities and met an old friend from university in Spinningfields for a drink before succumbing to the exhaustion of the day, meaning that I didn’t get to do Federation’s University Challenge this year.

I didn’t do much on Sunday save for a mooch about the Village marketplace and lifestyle exhibition. I bought another leather cuff from Rebel Dogg who have a stall at Pride every year. Their products are beautiful and almost collector’s items; I intend to buy one every year from now on.

On Sunday evening I helped set up Manfest but I was unable to attend the event itself, unfortunately, because I was knackered again, but I understand that it went off very well. It was held at Satan’s Hollow next door to Cruz 101, which is normally a straight rock club and it’s a fabulous venue. The dark and spooky theming inside is outstanding, I’ve only seen better in Disneyland. A lot of money and creativity has clearly been put into it.

I got up at a decent hour on Monday and see some of the fantastic live acts on the main stage. The sun came out and it was actually quite warm for a while before the clouds came back. On Monday evening I attended the Candlelit Vigil in Sackville Park, which I like to do every year because it’s a very touching event and I love the feeling of togetherness that it creates.

I had some nosh and a few drinks in the Village after the vigil and then went over to AXM for Sugarpops (a cabaret show) before turning in at about 3.00am. Walking back home through the village was quite surreal, everything was being packed up, with various lorries and machines scurrying everywhere, yet still there were people out on the streets drinking and enjoying themselves despite the rain.

By Tuesday morning when I went back in to the Village on the way to somewhere, everything was back to normal and it was as if it had never happened. Back to reality for another year. Almost overnight it has become autumn and the world feels like a completely different place. Nevertheless, it’ll all happen all over again next year :)

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The long awaited and long time coming event of the year that is Manchester Pride kicks off tomorrow evening. I’m off work from this evening and for ten days until Monday 1st September, so Pride and the week that follows it represents a very welcome break for both myself and H, as we’re both absolutely knackered after the events and work of the past three months. That said, we’re both working over the Pride “big weekend“; H is DJing on Friday night, Sunday afternoon and Sunday night, while I am doing a shift at a health club that’s run by one of our friends on Friday night (because he’s short staffed) and then helping to run a club night on Sunday night, run by some other of our friends. It’s for these reasons why we’ve taken some time off afterwards because we’re unlikely to get the rest that we need during the weekend itself!

We will be enjoying ourselves too though, of course. The village is closed at about 6.00pm on Friday (cordoned off), at which point only Big Weekend ticketholders are allowed in, heralding the start of the weekend. The Friday evening in the village always has a good atmosphere so we’ll go and join in with that and have a few drinks before we go to our respective jobs. Then on Saturday afternoon is the main parade through the city, which we’re both taking part in, after which we’ll go home and get some sleep before the really massive Pride club party on Saturday evening, Uni Challenge, which is this giant event held at the students’ union complex, incorporating five different nightclubs (including Federation and Trade) and a funfair all in one place. Various afterparties will no doubt follow that, either public or private.

On Monday afternoon, after some more sleep, Heather Small is headlining on the main stage in the car park and then in the evening it’s the annual HIV Candlelit Vigil, which is always a touching and emotional affair and a nice way to finish off the Big Weekend, that is, before the closing party at Essential, which we may or may not go to because, despite promises of a refit, Essential is a fucking awful, awful venue and the whole community is very, very tired of it. Really the sensible thing to do would have been to refit it in time for Pride, not afterwards, but hey, what do I know?

Next week we plan to take it easy. There is a chance that H may have to go in to work on the Friday and possibly the Thursday too, however. This is because he started at new job at the soon to be opened Crowne Plaza hotel this week, and he’s supposed to be a member of a team of three, and the other two team members never showed up for their first day and still haven’t shown up, so it’s up to H to do most of the required maintenance in the 220 room hotel before they open on 1st September. Although this’ll certainly make him the golden boy amongst the hotel’s management it does rather have the potential to throw a spanner in the works with regards to our week “off”. Never mind, needs must.

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BBC NEWS | England | Manchester | Public to decide C-charge future – I received the public consultation documents regarding this a couple of weeks ago and, rather than dismiss them out of hand, I actually sat down and carefully read through them with an open mind, suspecting that one day I might be asked to vote on the issue. The pack had a comments form, which invited residents to anonymously submit their opinions on the proposals.

The proposals themselves are actually very reasonable. The planned improvements in public transport are widespread and comprehensive and I can see that they would be very effective. In an ideal world it would be difficult to argue against raising the money to pay for them from a congestion charge, especially since the proposed congestion charges are extremely reasonable, both in their cost and their application, when compared to the ludicrous and punitive charges levied against those who dare to have business in the centre of London on a weekday. It is, however, not an ideal world.

Unfortunately for the proponents of the proposed charging scheme and those who have planned how to spend its potential financial yield, we live in a country whose government has deliberately and consistently raped and pillaged both the car driving and public transport using public for over eleven years now. Every year the cost of both forms of transport has increased well beyond the rate of inflation and service and performance in both regards has consistently and dramatically decreased. The traveling public is constantly promised improvements in return for price increases and such improvements are rarely, if ever, delivered.

It is regretful, therefore, that no matter how good the proposals for improving public transport in Manchester are, I simply cannot advocate or support the introduction of a congestion charge to pay for them. I need to see the rewards for this scheme first, because too many times I feel I have been stiffed by being made to pay for promised improvements up front and then being let down. I’m quite willing to pay for improvements to public transport, but this time I need to see the goods before I’m going to get my wallet out. I insist on paying in arrears, this time, not in advance, because whenever I pay in advance the government just takes my money and runs, shouting vague promises and throwing hastily written IOUs over its shoulder as it trousers my cash. Enough is enough.

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The whole of Manchester city centre is in a terrible state this morning. Every street is covered in empty cans, beer bottles, plastic glasses, discarded fast food, newspapers and other miscellaneous detritus. It’s absolutely fucking revolting and I am nothing short of appalled at the way that these 150,000 people, who clearly had absolutely no respect for their hosts, have behaved. Frankly, they deserved to lose the game. The debris is everywhere, even the station concourse this morning was covered in beer, puke, chips and what have you, with some still drunken fans wandering around shouting about how “shite” Manchester is, despite treating our police force like hunted prey, wrecking residents’ property and complaining when their expectations weren’t met to their standards.

Tell you what, I’ve got an idea that will keep us all happy. Why don’t you all fuck off back to fucking Glasgow, or wherever it is your crawled out from, where it’s apparently completely acceptable to treat your city like a sub-human pigsty, fucking stay there, and never fucking come back? I’d be game for that, and since you consider Manchester to be so fucking awful, you should be too. I, nor anyone else who lives or works in Manchester I expect, ever want to see the likes of you here ever again and I’d be surprised if any other city felt differently.

Furthermore, whichever organisation made all the profit out of yesterday, be it UEFA, City stadium or Rangers FC, I don’t fucking care, should be made to foot the bill for the cleanup. Why on earth should I have to put up with this when someone else has made a killing out of it? Glasgow should be made to make an official and public apology to Manchester for the way in which its residents have behaved; certainly if 150,000 Mancuncians descended upon Glasgow and left it in that sort of state there would be an outcry, swiftly followed by yet another handout from English taxpayers to clean it up.

I hate football at the best of times, and yesterday has done absolutely nothing to improve my opinion on it. The “beautiful game” and all its “supporters” can fuck right off and fucking stay there.

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This is from the Wikipedia article on Beetham Tower in Manchester:

During the installation of the glass and steel ‘blade’ on the roof, a strange noise problem emerged. People reported that the building “whistles” (more like an intermittent hum) in windy weather. The sound is close to standard musical C (approximately 262 Hertz); some say it is like a “UFO landing” in sci-fi films. The noise also affected the production of local soap opera, Coronation Street with producers having to create extra background noise as the tower is close to the show’s set. Despite apparently rectifying the problem, the humming sound can still be heard on occasion in the area, depending on wind direction.

Yeah, like LAST FUCKING NIGHT between the hours of 4.30am and 7.30am when there was a monsoon outside and the winds were, apparently, blowing in the right direction to make it sound like I was in an episode of the fucking X-Files. It’s a miracle that I didn’t kill someone at the station this morning when they announced a last minute platform change from one side of the concourse right to the fucking other side.

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These days, we live in a culture where health and safety is considered to be of paramount importance above all else. Everything is secured and sanitised in order that the possibility of danger is kept to an absolute minimum, and for the most part, this is entirely correct. However, often health and safety rules, regulations and restrictions, dreamt up and put in place by well meaning lawmakers and council officials, are impractical, expensive and inconvenient. Nonetheless, they are forced upon us by these health and safety Nazis under the principle that “it’s for our own good” and that we need to be protected from danger (including ourselves) at all times.

Fine. It’s inconvenient and annoying but the principles are at the end of the day difficult to argue with, so I have to accept it. But there’s one area in which this culture of health and safety seems to be completely ineffectual, and I want to know why. I can’t speak for other places, although I suspect it’s much the same, but in Manchester there’s another annoying “culture”: Stupid pedestrians.

Why are the health and safety handwringers not doing anything to stop people from wandering out in the middle of the road without looking? Where is the council worker with his clipboard and his rulebook when there’s a mother with her push-chair standing between two opposing lanes of traffic waiting to cross the road 50 yards away from a pedestrian crossing? Where is the fat-pensioned civil servant from the Health & Safety Executive when the group of drunken tarts from the University with all their skin hanging out choose to walk along the double yellow lines of Oxford Road in the small hours of the morning instead of the empty pavement? Where is the patronising government advertising campaign that many people quite clearly need to tell them the purpose of and difference between the red man and the green man at traffic light crossings?

Stupid pedestrian culture is clearly very very dangerous, much more dangerous than not having a contrasting border around your electrical sockets, or having your kitchen worksurfaces above a certain maximum height, or not recording every single little bruise and graze in a fucking “accident book”. And yet, nothing is done about it. Why?

I know why. The question was rhetorical. It’s one thing to create rules, regulations and restrictions, it’s quite another to enforce them upon the unwashed masses. Controlling the public as they walk through the streets will be seen as an infringement on civil liberties, and the civil liberties/human rights handwringers can wring their hands a lot harder than any health and safety handwringer could possibly ever dream of doing.

It’s still not right though, and it fucking pisses me off.

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I find maps fascinating, I think they are beautiful works of art and I spend many many hours studying them, whether they are current, out of date, or even proposed. I find that no matter how long you’ve had a map or how many times you’ve seen it, each time you look at it you notice something that you hadn’t noticed before, and I really love that, it’s like an everlasting film that you don’t have to watch all the way through to find something else that you like.

Since moving to Manchester I have developed an active interest in the city’s history. I’ve bought many books with old photographs and accounts of how the city has developed over the past couple of hundred years and I study these avidly too. I was therefore delighted yesterday to find a whole bunch of websites using the power of Google which have some old maps of Manchester going back to 1801, some 203 years ago now. These, I found, were the best:

• Your Old Maps Online – Lancashire (free)
• Genmaps – Lancashire Old Maps (free)
• Old Ordnance Survey Maps of Manchester (not free, but intriguing nonetheless)

Many have asked me what used to be on the site that my apartment building is now built upon. As far as I can tell from the history books and peoples’ own accounts, before 2000 (which is when they starting building it) it was just a car park, land ready to be developed (as indeed it was). Before that it was a bit of wasteland for a bit in the years immediately following the demolition of St. Mary’s Hospital, which stood on the site, the site of the Ritz nightclub next door, and the site of the Lock Building which is next door to that:

I’ve no idea when this hospital was built or indeed demolished, but I do know that before the hospital was built there was a collection of buildings on the site, one of which was apparently a world-famous musical instrument store, situated about where the Sainsbury’s Local is now. Before that I don’t know, I suspect that was probably the original collection of buildings put there when the area was initially developed from farmland. Speaking of which, I found this street plan from 1801 particularly interesting, as it shows a very young and small Manchester, and while obviously in the throws of expansion, it was still absolutely tiny compared to what it is today, to the extent that not only is my building’s site out in the middle of nowhere, but so is St. Peter’s Church, which used to stand in St. Peter’s Square, now considered one of the principle city centre focal points.

Observe: Funnily enough this tiny farm building is built almost exactly where my actual flat stands now (the whole W3 building itself obviously covers a larger area):

And to put all this in context with the surrounding area, including St. Peter’s Church:

This particular map is obviously very old, 203 years to be exact, and if you examine the whole map you’ll see that there isn’t even a hint of a railway anywhere in the city, let alone any tram-like installations. This is firmly entrenched in the age of the canals, and even then the canal network has not yet been fully built (you’ll remember from paying attention at school that canals were basically superceded by the railways in the late 1800s).

So yeah, there’s my anorak bit for the week :)

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