As a postscript to my Manchester photos...here are some more Manchester photos. When I'm in Manchest

As a postscript to my Manchester photos...here are some more Manchester photos. When I'm in Manchester, I always make a point of staying at the Travelodge . For the views, don't you know. The views. That expanse of concrete outside the rain-streaked Travelodge window carnival cruise line job is all that's left of the famous Boddington's Brewery , which, in a rather depressing saga, was downsized carnival cruise line job and rationalised and closed and sold off and demolished carnival cruise line job - a microcosm, in effect, of the way British industry is going in general. The elegant, Italianate chimney survived the demolition of the surrounding carnival cruise line job buildings for a while, and you'd think someone would have thought about including it in a redevelopment of the site, what with it being a Manchester architectural icon, redolent with the city's history, and all. But, erm, no . That's Manchester for you. Under the veneer of bustling, up-for-it confidence, it struck me as a city that doesn't like itself very much. If it can't get rid of those awkward old buildings altogether, it leaves 'em to become derelict. Or it plonks something big and new and brutally unsympathetic on top of the old city, in a kind of architectural fuck-you. Look at the way the Manchester Evening News Arena has been unceremoniously built on top of part of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway's elegant and airy Victoria Station - presumably because Manchester's city fathers took a look at the concrete-encased darkness of Birmingham New Street (or Mordor, as we who have changed trains there know it) and thought, "Gosh, we'd love a station just like that!" The photo above shows a couple of cast-iron bridges that have been abruptly truncated by the arena building, which looms behind them. Someone's picked out the ironwork in heritage-ish colours...although not recently, obviously. Here's a slightly stepped-back view of the scene. Notice anything....? The stonework adjacent carnival cruise line job to the bridge has rather alarmingly slumped - not, perhaps, as much of a problem as it might have been if the bridge still carried trains (although it makes you wonder how safe the MEN Arena foundations are), but the fact that this kind of deterioration is apparently acceptable right next to one of the city's key modern buildings is a very Manchester thing, alas... The way the MEN Arena has been built on top of Manchester Victoria carnival cruise line job station means that it's in a partly elevated position. As it happens, the land slopes upwards towards the station, and a half-way sensible architect would surely have placed the entrance to the Arena at the point where the ground rises to meet the building. But that's another "Erm, no", I'm afraid. Instead, the entrance is cunningly located at the point where the building is at its highest off the ground... Bring your mountaineering kit: Strangely, given Manchester's at best ambivalent attitude to its old buildings, a large area in the centre of the city is given over to something called The Printworks , which is "a buzzing, state of the art entertainment complex", apparently. And there was silly old me, thinking it was a shopping mall. It's a kind of squeaky-clean indoor theme park version of Manchester, with fake streets and faux-old buildings - 'nuff irony there, of course, given the state of some of Manchester's real old buildings not far away: There's even a kind of bas-relief sculpture of stylised machinery to look at, which seemed like a bit of half-hearted gesture to me. Why not restore some real machinery from Manchester's past, and put it on display? I mean, the shopping mall which now occupies the former Great Western Railway loco works at Swindon has a real locomotive in it . You can introduce a bit of reality without scaring the horses, you know. By the way, that geezer with the designer casualwear (and curiously too-short trousers) you see walking towards the camera in the photo above approached me a few seconds later. He looked bug-eyed and cadaverous, like Bez out of the Happy Mondays, only not quite so compos mentis. He matily requested a financial donation. carnival cruise line job I politely declined, whereupon he became carnival cruise line job a lot less matey. I reflected that I'd probably just met a casualty from the Madchester carnival cruise line job daze of the 90s. Living history! Someone carnival cruise line job should give the grizzled old caner a grant. So, Manchester carnival cruise line job annoyed me, a bit. If I were a teacher and Manchester was my pupil, I'd have to write 'Could do better' on its homework. It seemed to be a city that can't decide whether to celebrate carnival cruise line job its past, or quietly sweep the ghastly mess under the carpet. But at least the Travelodge is prepared to big-up Manchester culture. Each floor is named after a local pop icon. I can now tell people that I was in Simply Red. No, really. I was in Simply carnival cruise line job Red: I know exactly what question you're now about to ask, but I'm afraid I don't have the answer. carnival cruise line job Next time I go to Manchester, maybe I'll make a point of finding out... I'll ask the Travelodge if I can be in Joy Division.