Tag: urban

December 10th – If I’ve got time, when cycling to Darlaston, I like to hop onto the canal. It’s a quieter, more interesting and contemplative route, and depending how much time I have dictates where I join the towpath. Today, I was running a bit tight for time so I left it until Bridgman Street, in the industrial centre of Walsall. This is an area of small units, some old, some very new. About ten years ago, it seemed the industry here was threatened with encroaching apartments and gentrification, but the credit crunch saw to that.It’s generally a thriving, humming area with frantic commerce of the daytime being replaced by an eerie desolateness at night. 

The view from the canal bridge is quite good, if not beautiful, showing many of the architectural and development phases of Walsall. Interesting to note that you can now see St. Matthew’s Church from here, a sight impossible until the BOAK building burnt down last year.

December 6th – I finished work early, and headed to Lichfield to get some shopping in. The weather was horrid – a constant not-quite-rain that soaked everything all the same and painted the city in shades of miserable.

I quite enjoyed it, all the same. Lichfield is quite Christmassy, but for me the magic here at this time of year is exemplified by Dam Street after the crowds have receded. 

Sad to see there’s no lights up along Minster Pool this year – they normally look wonderful.

Sadly, at that point, the camera battery died. Think I might need a new one…

November 14th – Now winter darkness is upon me, that Late Night Feelings thing is haunting me once again. I pitched up at Tyseley station this evening on the threshold between day and night, and all it took between the two was the journey downstairs to the platform.

The lights, the skyline, the signals. Bright, warming, steady, reassuring, control. The glistening, ever-crossing parabolas of the rails; the ever present shadow of the incinerator, innocuously operating unnoticed in the dry warm air of summer, but now with it’s dirty secrets revealed into the chill air in the form of a plume of steam.

Cityscape, geometry, light. Can’t stop the fascination, I really can’t. 

November 14th – I spotted this interesting – if slightly bizarre – fixie locked to the railings outside Moor Street Station. That’s actually a really nice frame, and is quite old, although I think something’s been done to the bottom bracket looking at the dark marks on the frame. I didn’t look at the time, as I never noticed. I wished I had. 

That’s a great set of wheels, and quite a high gear ratio, but the chain needs an oil and retension.

What’s with the ball-crushing saddle angle? And the oh-shit! brake lever is front-acting, but mounted left handed, USA style. Note the way narrow bars, too. 

This is the steed of a serious hipster. Fascinating.

October 31st – I passed through Walsall’s ‘Civic Quarter’ on the way home, having to post some mail, which I always prefer to do at a main post office. Some years ago, the area of Leicester, Darwall and Tower Streets was refurbished in a peculiar style, with striped limestone paving, and oddly discordant street furniture and lighting. Although most of the town’s civic buildings are here – Council House, Town Hall, Civic Centre, Post Office –  this is also a place of bars and night-time economy. Tonight, as darkness fell, it was oddly busy at the top end, but more deserted behind me.

An odd part of town, really, and I could never love that paving.

October 30th – I spotted this yesterday, but it’s surprisingly hard to photograph. Growing from the thinnest of fissures in a capstone 20ft above Park Street in Birmingham, a small shrub. I’m not sure what it is, but it’s bearing the most beautiful red berries. It’s way out of reach beyond the platform fence of Moor Street Station, where the line crosses the street below. Here, the parapets and abutments of the bridge ramble and cross, and this small plant is clearly thriving, unseen, unchecked and unappreciated, presumably seeded by the local birdlife.

Give nature half a chance and it’s in like Flynn. Wonderful.

October 10th – In Birmingham late, and the autumn has brought the night back, actually with some shock to me at the time. I emerged from a function to find the city at its very best; light, hard surfaces, wet paving and exaggerated perspective. I only had minutes until my train left, and grabbed quick shots around the Cathedral area. My train turned out to be late, so taking my life in my hands, I took some on the platforms of a darkened New Street Station, where a combination of ongoing construction and desertion make the environment fascinating.

I love playing with photography at night, and there’s no better place than at the city sliding into its own wonderful nocturne.

August 7th – There is a destructive force in our midst, reducing brickwork to rubble and invading any scrap of greenspace. Alien? Hardly. It’s buddleia  – an invasive shrub that infests the hinterlands, margins and rooftops of urban areas. Able to grow in the most precarious of situations, an accumulation of soot and grime in a brickwork fissure is all it takes to grow. Once taken hold, it’s very hard to eradicate, and the power of the roots to split apart man-made masonry cannot be overestimated.

This time of year, it’s in full, glorious purple flower. A joy to behold, unlike the damage it causes. 

April 20th – Today, I cycled into Birmingham to meet a friend. I used to know this place like the back of my hand, and loved it as my hometown, but these days, not so much. I mooched around in the gorgeous afternoon sun, but Brum is a little bit lost to me now. All the shops I used to love have gone, and the crowds were dense and impenetrable. The city has moved on, and not taken me with it.

Some things are changeless, though. The gems of architecture hidden in dark corners, or the bold terracotta of the Citadel, or Methodist Central Hall. The view from the Bullring is as wonderful as ever, and Hancock still scornfully watches Priory Circus over his cuppa.

Still there too is the little old fellow who walks endlessly around town all day. He’s been doing it for years – I recall him doing this endless loop 2 decades ago – always immaculately turned out, coat slung over one arm.

When I saw him today, I realised that some old Birmingham features never fade.