slacker

Yep, that’s me. I won’t apologise for my lack of blogging.

That is all.

kthxbye.

Destroying Icons: Save The Tinsley Towers

I only spent a year living in Sheffield, but it’s always held a place in my heart. I’d move back there in a heartbeat and probably should have instead of my last move. That, however, is another story.

It’s kind of hard to explain why I love Sheffield so much, but I guess that it is mostly wrapped up in the fact that jackie lived there when we first met, that we have some great friends who live in said city and that I also fell in love with Sheffield Wednesday when I was there.

A short year, but somewhat defining in my life.

Anyway. Somehow I was watching The One Show on BBC One last week (lord knows why, even the strangely alluring charms of Christine Bleackley can’t save that show) and they had a feature on the Tinsley Towers. Or, rather, they had a feature on how they are about to be demolished.

They’ve stood useless for a good few years, are only about 70-odd years old and some say ugly. If you are unfamiliar with them, they are the two huge cooling towers that stand about 50 feet from the M1 as you reach the Sheffield exits.

They’ve obviously also been silent for years, but have welcomed every single car that whizzed past them…silently saying “This is Sheffield”. The city has a proud industrial heritage that was decimated in the latter decades of the last century and destroying the towers would remove the last reminders of this.

It’d be a travesty and I can’t help feeling that Sheffield will lose some of it’s charm as a result. Those towers welcomed me to the city over a decade ago and they have done ever since. It just won’t be the same.

Of course some would argue that they are reminders of the pain that the city felt when the steel industry was in almost terminal decline. For me they are a small, but important part of the fabric of the steel city that should be retained.

They are iconic, majestic and harmless. Save the Tinsley Towers.

http://www.new.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2217710744

-pc.

unplanned blog holiday

Should have said this two weeks ago, but my blog holiday has been unplanned.

I need more time. Does anyone have any?

In the meantime, I want a new iPhone and the kind people at o2 are going to let me do that…they never miss an opportunity to take my cash.

I’ll be back soon. I have to update you on my battles with large corporates.

-pc.

if 2008 is like today, I like it…

Had a great day today. Well, mostly…the only bit I didn’t like was ripping my trousers. That wasn’t good. Especially because they are part of a nice Ted Baker suit and because they ripped up the backside. in a comedy style…rrrrrrriiipppp…and I was in a meeting at the time. So, I had no access to a needle and thread and had only one option. Staples…so I had to lock the door, drop my trousers and staple the seam. Not very dignified.

But it was funny. Ha bloody ha.

Anyhow, if today is a signal for 2008 then I like it. We had an early stage meeting of an initiative that we are working on at Manchester Business School today and it was good to see such a high level of interest in it from those assembled.  More to follow soon. We’ll not keep it under our hat for much longer and I can assure you it is going to be good and very relevant. *relevant to what I hear you cry*

Wait and see. I will spill some beans soon.

Ewan McIntosh came down from Edinburgh for the meet. In conversation I rapidly came to the conclusion that he never sleeps. It’s not possible to be so in tune to the world of social media, work as hard as he undoubtedly does, be a recent new dad and sleep.

Actually, I also think that about the Prof. He can’t sleep either. I reckon he and Ewan have collaborated on some bizarre time ripping vortex that enables them to be in two, or more, places at once. So, if you were also with Ewan today, drop me a line to confirm my hypothesis.

Or, perhaps it is simply that they are just super efficient?

So a good day. I learned a lot from people I totally respect and set an agenda for the year ahead. Bring it on.

-pc.

*ps*. I finished Tuesdays with Morrie. My sister in law told me I would cry when I got near the end. I may have done if I hadn’t been on the train. Damn, that book has made me think. I’m not a spiritual person, but it has certainly changed one or two things about me. More on that soon too.

Now I am reading Lance Armstrongs autobiography. It is helping me. I will say no more.

Except to say that these are not the kind of books I normally read, but they have re-ignited my joy for reading that was somewhat lost last year. Of that I am glad.

Apple Addict

Surprised it’s not higher!

via Euan.

resolutions?

a new year means new years resolutions.

balls to that. live your life how you think it should be lived, be happy and try to be nice to those around you. i guess it isn’t always that simple, but aim for the middle one.

today, i enjoyed how someone described mine and jackies life as ‘building a big life story’. never thought of it like that. it has made me think more about the direction. i have been impossibly fortunate in my life up to now and it has enabled me to work on that big life story. the next chapter or two looks to be pretty exciting too.

i did make one resolution though, after all my ‘balls to that’ bravado. read more. i found myself starting books and not finishing them last year and that has irritated me. the laptop just got in the way too often and i must find time to finish at least one of them.

so i will seek to make time to read more books (for they are still great), blogs, feeds, minds, even newspapers and magazines.

i have started well. my sister in law bought me “The five people you meet in heaven” by Mitch Albom for christmas. thought provoking and with so many huge happenings going on around me at the moment it has made me look differently on a few things. not on the R word though.

now i am on to “Tuesdays with Morrie” by the same chap. next week the tack will change slightly. i am not normally one for biographies but jc tells me that Lance Armstrongs autobiography is good. pertinent too.

i also would like to read “The Puritan Gift“. i think i know a man who will lend it me. if you are reading this, how about it?

so, be happy, read more and have a nice year.

-pc.

A light note to end the year

I’m wondering if it is just my age. With just 35 and half years behind me, 2007 has been a year of crap news and worry. It has kept rolling in right until the end of the year.

It must be the time of my life. People die, get ill or break up all the time and I suppose as you get older the frequency of these events increases. Even so, by anyone’s standards I’d say 2007 has been poo. And I know it is not just my experience.

Anyway, cheerier now. A couple of light notes to end the year from my friends over the Pennines in Sheffield.

1. The peculiar case of the Xbox allergy. Imagine the delight as the 14 year old son of my mate Neil unwraps an Xbox 360 on Christmas day. Imagine his horror as he breaks out in an allergic reaction. The current theory is that he is allergic to the rubber or plastic casing used on the 360’s controller.

They are now going through cntrolled experiments to see what the cause is. Elliott is adamant that it isn’t the Xbox…but then he would be, wouldn’t he!

Is this the first case of a Xbox-itis?

2. The best message written in a card ever. Joely, the 4 year old daughter of Jan and Barney is going through a bit of a card writing phase at the moment. Her best yet???

To Jan,

Made in China.

Love Joely.

Brilliant.

Mrs C and I wish you all the luck in the world for 2008. Be happy.

-pc.

Merry Christmas…Happy Holidays…

keep smiling through the festive period.

my best to you all in 2008.

pc goes elf

-pc.

Grinding to a halt.

I’m an impatient man. Some of you may have picked up on this over the years. Mrs C
knows this better than most (I include both Mrs C’s in there and that’s Mum and Jax in case you were wondering) and it gets plainly obvious whenever I get behind the wheel of a car.

So, yes I admit it I’m an impatient driver. Years ago I remember being on the M63 (remember that?) near Sale and wanting to get out, Falling Down style, and walk because it would have been faster. That was a rare occurrence, it seemed, back then and particularly odd because it was on a Saturday morning. That first road impatience incident was before we went to Houston.

Five years later and traffic was noticeably heavier around Manchester. The M63 became the M60 and started it’s journey to being the second biggest car park in the UK.

Five more years and I wonder how long it will be before Greater Manchester comes to a complete standstill, a picture that I’m sure is replicated across the country.

Yesterday I left for Liverpool at 9:30, for a journey that is about 45 minutes. It’s a mile to the motorway, the dreaded M61, and then onto the M60 and then the M62.  Now normally this would be OK, not a breeze, but OK at 9:30. Not yesterday. I stopped after a mile on the M61 and it took me 45 minutes to do the 8 miles or to the M62.  At this point I turned off and went home. The whole area was gridlocked.

Apparently caused by a car fire on the M62 westbound, the knock on effect at rush hour is horrendous as the whole place just grinds to a halt. Surely one incident shouldn’t cause such chaos…I guess it wouldn’t if we had a decent transport infrastructure in and around Manchester.

If you want to get to a meeting at 9am in Manchester and have to drive in from the North West, you need to be through the M61 M60 junction by 7am or you’ll lose all hope of living. 20 minute journeys take an hour after 7am around here. So, if I need to be in Manchester in the morning I have to leave at 6:45. That’s nuts.

I’d go on the train, if there were seats, or even standing space, available. I’d go on the bus if they weren’t packed, inconvenient and slow. Welcome to Manchester. I’d go on the tram, but I don’t live in Bury or Altrincham or Eccles, so no go. And we have Mr Darling to thank for the delays in getting the Manchester tram extended out into other places. That was, for me, the first indication that Darling was incompetent. Recent events prove me to be correct.

So, people are forced to travel by car, me included, and clog up the roads around Manchester. The Manchester rush hours(!) are now 7am to 10am and 3:30pm to 6:30pm – in anyone’s book that has to point to some serious problems.

Plus I have to get up early and that makes me tired, irritable and impatient. Even worse, it makes Mrs C (the younger) tired and that’s something that should never be experienced.

Seriously though, how long before we can’t move around this wonderful city of ours?

Me, I’m looking for somewhere else to live…

-pc.

Freshers week – the age threshold

It’s freshers week in Manchester this week, which apart from making a colleague of mine’s head spin with all the young ladies that are wandering about is another sign that I’m getting older.

It’s easy to spot if you have gone across this threshold. Just walk down Oxford Road near the Student Union and see how many flyers you get handed. If, like me and a couple of other people I know, you see loads being handed out but fail to be offered a single one, you are officially ‘past it’.

MC, who is but a slip of a lad at 29, noticed it this week too. Convinced that it was because he was wearing his suit, he tried dressing down the next day. Same result – no flyers. Sorry mate, you is old.