Congestion.

I don’t normally use this blog for sounding off, its really just meant as somewhere for me to store my photographs, but sometimes you come across something that makes you laugh, so you just have to share it.

A couple of days ago a friend asked whether I had seen the leaflet outlining Manchester Councils brave new vision for the future of transport, I admitted I hadn’t, I have a feeling that the dog may have ‘recycled’ it as he does with most of the spam that comes through the door, “anyway” they continued “I thought you may be interested because in this vision of traffic utopia the pamphlet mentioned the word ‘cycle’ a grand total of 1 times.”

Now this did interest me, I have all but given up driving around Manchester, as it happens I think the cycling facilities around South Manchester for cyclists are pretty good – but as with anywhere could do with improving and when I heard about this 3bn transport overhaul I was keen to know how this would facilitate cyclists…. it seems it doesn’t.

So on seeing an ad in the paper I went to the website:
www.gmfuturetransport.co.uk

Where apparently ‘we have got to tackle congestion together’ and ‘doing nothing is not an option’ – neither, it would seem is cycling. I got tired pretty quickly of the rhetoric and cut right to the chase – is cycling even mentioned at all on this site?:

a grand total of 3 times. Some vision for a £3 billion package of changes that “could also cut our carbon emissions and help us to tackle climate change”
.

So, feeling a little deflated* I continued browsing around the site, and my attention was immediately grabbed by the case studies, real people with real stories about how the new travel plans will affect them, people like Terry from Rochdale:

“Terry”, we are told, “is a self employed van driver who makes several deliveries across Greater Manchester from 7am.”"

it gets better, Tony is just like us, “Terry likes to go to football matches and because they are out of peak times, he doesn’t have to pay.”

This is just great, If the new travel plans don’t affect Tony the van driver who likes football why should they affect me? look at Tony with his carefree laugh, but then why should tony care, if the van driving doesn’t work out he could always take up modelling like his uncannily similar looking doppelganger from Seattle: Erich Dalke

Hang on I think i have discovered why Tony is so laid back about this whole congestion charge thingy:

Next in the real life people with real life stories, who are just like you and even live in Manchester, we have Ann from Ashton

Ann is doing well for herself, not only is she “a solicitor who lives in Ashton and drives to work in central Manchester to start work at 9am every day.” but she also appears to be a succesful model called Kiki on the side… as well as world champion gold fish starer:

Next up is Rachel from Trafford:

Hang on a minute…. I’m beginning to suspect… now call me a paranoid old conspiracy theorist… but I’m beginning to get suspicious of these local people who are just like me and you, because they all happen to be models on the side…. they also seem to be based in the United States…..

Last up is Neil from Beswick….

Now “Neil is out of work and only just manages to afford to keep his car on the road. It’s essential for him to drive to see his elderly mum and his auntie on Sunday afternoons. He lives in Beswick and needs to drive to their house in Harpurhey” So the last thing Neil needs on top of a congestion charge is someone risking his dole by shopping him in for his sideline in modelling – no one likes a snitch.

So… real stories from real people. real people on different continents, who may or not be the ‘real people’ that the council has sought out to sell us their dream of a car and bike free revenue stream…

Its all a bit embarrasing really, PR companies, you can avoid this embarrasment in the future by perhaps using real live local people, with real live local photographers to take real live photos – we aren’t as cheap as penny stock outlets like istockphoto.com and shutterstock.com but i’ll wager it causes clients less embarassment when word gets out.

*DYSWIDT?

Just playing with this tool at 123Flickr which is very nice and simple indeed.

one more feature would be great tho, to be able to limit the pictures displayed, by ’sets’ – other than that, a great tool

Photographing today at Pennington Flash for the NW Corporate Regatta

Click Here to see the full coverage of training and the final

Sheep in Mallerstang… taken last week after the Horse Fair

And a curlew in the grass… These are up for 2 reasons – firstly i quite like the pics and secondly to test out flickr as a place to store my pics…. i seem to be filling up my allocation on my webspace at an alarming rate so i think the more i put on flickr the better.

First time at the Appleby Horse Fair, which really is a site worth seeing
Unfortunately this years fair is likely to be remembered for the wrong reasons
Daily Mail link to story here

Full Gallery Here

Well… i think i am fooling no-one anymore ;-) the past couple of weeks have been patchy… the past month has been patchy so i think its time i called an end to my dear old friend, pic-of-the-day… 126 pics was more than i thought i would get out, i genuinely expected it to last a week – the idea behind it was to learn more about my SLR, but as it went on i found myself using a compact camera just so i could capture a shot each day – it has been very interesting though, in terms of what I have learnt about photography and my camera as well as looking at things differently.

I think now, tho i need to change tack and perhaps think a little longer about the photographs, do some prep and set up shots rather than every day just trying to get any photo.

Thank you all for your feedback and kind words, I know that some of you have been checking back regularly and don’t worry, there will be lots more photographs just not with the same regularity, but hopefully better quality…

The Kirkby Stephen Yomp is a whole new world of pain, we discussed whether its harder than the Manchester 10k run, and came to the conclusion that yes, as its 23 miles rather than 10k, and yes as it is over hills, down fells and if the weather is permitting through streams, yes, yes it is tougher – that said you don’t have to run it all. – 6hrs 20minutes this year, which is a time i am very proud of, but my god it hurt.

Its somewhere between a fell-race and a leisurely stroll in the hills…. that turns nasty and causes a great deal of pain and suffering.

It is fantastic tho… I don’t why it is, because it hurts, but it is