Self-thought in the face of sadness

Yesterday, a woman in Manchester tried to stop someone from stealing her car from in front of her own house, and was run over and killed. Her partner and five year-old son witnessed this.

Looking at the photo of the woman, she might have been one of our regular customers at the takeaway my parents own. When people have died, they are remembered perhaps extra fondly, but if it was the woman I’m thinking of, she really was always very smiley and chatty. I hope it wasn’t.

It’s awful that even when I’m reading the news like this, although my reaction is sorrow for the victim and family, and disbelief at the callousness of the act it’s also horror that I can’t work out whether the woman is someone I recognise and have talked to many times or if it’s someone I don’t know. I always feel that my natural reactions are more selfish than they should be.

This happened about a mile away from my parents’ house, so it’s a really high chance that it was one of our customers. It was in quite a nice, relatively well-off area too, which you might expect to be fairly safe. But then again, the car thieves were probably an organised group who target relatively well-off areas. Opportunistic thieves wouldn’t usually be so brutal, would they?

I don’t know whether it was her. If I was at home in Manchester I would find out very quickly. People know each other there, so the community might be a bit subdued.

Have you ever wondered, how all the people you’ve known are doing now? Whether they are married, migrated away, divorced, still alive even? Whether they are happy? People that used to play important parts of our lives but we have now lost touch with…

I wonder if anyone ever wonders how I am, if they still remember me after many years of non-contact.

Christmas market

Last night I went for a browse around the German Christmas market set up on Parkers Piece. The smells of stollen and mulled wine were lovely, but the atmosphere was rather flat, probably because it was only 6pm on a Wednesday evening. It made me very homesick for Manchester, where there's been a German market every December that I remember, filled with shoppers and children and people milling around with mugs of hot German-style toddies. My friend always enthuses about the German Xmas market in Manchester, he says it's massive, and the highlight of his trip to Manchester. I don't know if it's that big, to me it always seems cosy, but the atmosphere is always great.

Maybe on a weekend, or later in the evening, the Cambridge market is busier and more holiday-like. I wonder if it's also to do with people tightening their belts this year and spending less. With the strong Euro and unusually weak GB pound, the gifts and crafts at the stalls were on the expensive side. Perhaps luckily for me, as there was a stall that was selling really exquisite music boxes, with tiny beautifully carved wooden figurines. But with the simplest music boxes starting from £13 and the ones that caught my eye being £43, I think my music box collection will stay this size for now.

Quiet Cambridge

What to do in Manchester

People often ask me what there is to do in Manchester. I guess in actual fact, it's not so much what there is to DO but rather what there is to see. Especially if you love architecture. The juxtaposition of so many architectural styles is part of what I love about Manchester, and to me represents the hotpot of people that you can meet there.

But what is there to do?
- Wander around the crafts markets either at Piccadilly Gardens or St Ann's Square
- People-watch on the balcony overlooking Piccadilly train station (modern but with Victorian elements)
- Ponder over the tulip/onion-like fountains in St Ann's square (Victorian/Edwardian buildings) with the live music in the background if it's a Sunday.
- dim sum lunch in chinatown or further out (the Chinese arch is much nicer than those in London)
- study egyptian mummies or measure your heart rate at the Manchester Museum inside the University of Manchester main building (gothic)
- stand and squint at the Town Hall (gothic), Central Library (neo-classical?), G-Mex (Victorian aspects) and Bridgewater Hall (modern), all within a few hundred metres of each other.
- Broaden your cultural education at the Manchester Art Gallery (neo-classical facade with a strangely sympathetic brick/glass/steel extension)
- Cocktails at one of the bars in Deansgate
- walk around Castlefield (ex-Roman fort) and pretend to pilot a biplane or steam engine at the Museum of Science and Technology (Victorian ex-railway station)
- squint through the gate at the Coronation Street film set at Granada Studios.
- shopping!
- Feel arty at the Cornerhouse or catch an art film/play/ballet down Oxford Rd
- Have some 'PROPER' curry, complete with chip butty and mushy peas (the fluorescent green kind)
- Wander round the free exhibits at Urbis and then go over to the Triangle and sit in that peeled orange that is supposed to be a Cafe Nero
- Have a hot chocolate (with marshmallows!) in the Moet and Chandon cafe and look out of the window into the space pods on the Manchester wheel.

Further outside Manchester -
- Manchester United stadium, just to say you've been
- Salford Quays! Just to get some calm and quiet, or to visit the Lowry, or shopping outlets, or the Imperial War Museum North, or to look at all the different bridges constructed in the area....
I love this place
- shopping at the Trafford Centre, if only to look at the over-the-top kitschness of it all (modelled on Meadowhall, Sheffield, by the way)
- Bolton fish market, where you can get a crate of sea-bass for 25 quid
- ice-skating at Altrincham (where I wore out several pairs of jeans during my teenage years)

- Alton towers. Yesss!
- Blackpool. Not so sure, but must go at least once in your teenage years if you're a Mancunian. Ideally on bank holidays where there's so many people you can't see in front of you. And ooh and ahh at the rather skimpy (but famous) night illuminations. But full of Victorian elements. Including some Victorian bathing huts still scattered around further away from the iron Blackpool Tower.

The list goes on...and on.....and Ariston. (If you remember the washing machine advert back from when we were kids...)

Manchester is fun. :P

Only problem is of course............ it's always raining. So don't forget your brolly.

Home

I went up to Manchester for the weekend, to get away from Cambridge and recharge my batteries at my 'other home'. Originally three of my friends were going to come with me, but two of them dropped out quite late and so only one was brave enough to put his life in my hands and risk the drive up to Manchester with me at the front wheel. I guess maybe I shouldn't have told them that I've never driven so far before and that I only got my licence at Christmas....

There's something about going back to Manchester that never fails to make my heart lift everytime I see the familiar buildings and when I know I'm nearly back. Manchester is still very much my home, having spent the first 18 years of my life living on the same street, within walking distance of the hospital I was born in, and close to my first school. Many of my friends still live in Manchester, and my friend from Cambridge was dragged around with me as I met up with friends and family (my parents are away, but several of my cousins have now located there).

However, part of me felt rather sad. There are so many memories attached to Manchester for me, both happy and sad. Parts of the city has changed a lot, but still recognisable, and at every corner images from the past flooded my memory. But I think Manchester will no longer be a big part of my future, because I don't feel strong enough to move on from the past if I were to stay there. So where to go next?

Although I'm torn between anticipating the future and fear as my ties are cut away, I know I'm very lucky. My friends in Cambridge have helped me learn to soar up and aim high, but my friends in Manchester keep me grounded and lend me their strength to keep going. And my family? My extended family are my safety net, because I know they will always catch me if I fall. And although I doubt that I'll go back to live in Manchester, at least I always know where to go to touch base.

Manga at Urbis

I went to Manchester this weekend, and there was an exhibition on manga ^_^. So I thought I would just rub it in for Daniel (My project deadline is not so urgent, so I can find the time to go away, and to cap it, I have manga to look at. So :P)

Actually, the bits I loved most were the cute doodles that were decorating the wall spaces AROUND the main manga images. And there was a Darth Vader helmet with a Pikachu-like smiley face on the headpiece.

http://www.urbis.org.uk/page.asp?id=3225

Sorry Jon, I went without you. But I'll go again next time I'm in Manchester and your exams are over!! Yaku soku...

PS More blog on Manchester later.....