Manchester

This entry was posted in Comics God Manchester Slough on by

Friendly_Bombs:
�I can see what he meant.�
�Sorry?�
Mike pointed down the street, filled with Saturday shoppers. �The guy who wrote that poem. �Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough.� Who was he?�
�Don�t know.� Owen was trying to concentrate on driving. He still got trapped in pointless circuits of the town centre when trying to escape from Slough.
�I�ll text my sister. She knows this sort of thing.� Paul had a new phone, though he had been complaining that the flip action wasn�t what he really wanted. If his head stayed down too long, he was going to get car sick from the round about route out of town.
�God, I was expecting it to be y�know�. I don�t know. Better. Down here.� Mike wasn�t impressed. They were on a road which promised to take them somewhere nicer. On the left were out of town shopping boxes, to the right identikit corporate buildings. They went past The Company�s headquarters.
�You�re not going to come over all Northern on me are you.� Owen averted his gaze from the office.
�What, and you haven�t been trading on it for the last six months. It has to have some redeeming features, doesn�t it?�
�There�s a BMX track. And I get to ride in through Windsor every day.�
�That may redeem it for you. What about me? Comic shop?�
�I think there�s one in Richmond.�
�It�s a start, I guess.�
�There. Sent it.�
�What was the answer?�
�Give her a chance, she won�t even have received it yet.�

They�d wound up in Staines, on the look out for Ali G, and gravitated to The Swan. Mike had found his redeeming feature. He loved rivers, and the Thames was better than most because it was alive with boats and the eponymous birds. He watched a cruiser going up stream. Maybe, one day, he could do that.
The beer wasn�t so bad, either. More expensive than in Manchester, but not as bad as he had expected. Owen, as designated driver, nursed his half pint of Speckled Hen. �The car has to go back on Tuesday.�
�What you got it for?�
�I�ve got to go down to Southampton and have a look at one of the offices. Dull as fuck, but someone�s got to.� He turned to Paul, �So tell us about this mystery woman.�
�There�s no mystery. I�m just not telling you anything.�
�Nothing.�
�She�s someone I know.�
�I should fuckin� well hope so.�
�What�s her name?�
Paul�s pocket beeped. He pulled out his phone and flipped it open as nonchalantly as possible, read the TXT and nodded. �John Betjeman.�
�Your girlfriend?�
�The guy who wrote the poem you were on about.�

This entry was posted in Manchester on by

Career_Opportunities_1:

There was no reason to be at Kate�s desk, except Kate herself, but Owen pretended they weren�t just chatting. He flicked through Marketing Week, registering one headline per page.

�How many bikes do you have?� Kate asked.

�Oh, just the three.�

�Three?�

�Yeah.�

�Three?�

�I�m thinking of getting another. I�ve got a mountain bike, a play bike and a commuter. I really want a proper road bike.�

�Ah, there you are.� It was a familiar voice. They both looked up at Bill Walsh. He was tall, stood straight to emphasise it and had a full head of white hair. Depending upon lighting, the lines on his face could equally cast benign shadows as scary ones. �I wanted to have a word with you.� For a moment, Owen hoped he meant Kate, but he followed as Bill walked away.

�You�re the guy who cycles in every day, aren�t you?� Bill asked over his shoulder. �I�ve seen your bike in the carpark.�

�Er, yeah.�

�Why do you do it? You must have been sorted with a company car by now.�

�It keeps me fit. And I�m only a temp, I don�t think I qualify for a company car.� Or the sharesave scheme, or a pension, he didn�t add.

Bill stared at Owen for a moment, his hand on the meeting room door knob. He seemed ready to cancel the whole meeting. �We�ll have to see about that.�

Owen took the seat facing away from the window, so he wouldn�t be distracted by the planes gliding into Heathrow.

�You know two lads in Manchester, Mike and Paul- I forget their surnames. Work for Sales up there?�

�Yes. Mike took over from me and he recommended Paul when the workload ramped up.�

�Good. They�ve revolutionised the stock control system up there. And returns. Sharon Walker recommended it for our all our new offices.�

�Really?�

�I�d like you to work with them when they come down here. You don�t have any major projects coming up do you?�

�No. None.�

�Good. Sharon will fill you in when their move is arranged.�

This entry was posted in Bryan Talbot Chorlton Comics on by

Busy day.

I bought the bike. It was practically half price, and still quite expensive. To be honest, it’s probably more bike than my current riding ability deserves, but I guess I’ll just have to improve.

Then this evening, I went to see a talk by Bryan Talbot at Chorlton library. Very interesting, I learnt a lot about page layout, pacing, speech ballon placement and colour. A lot of it is stuff that’s lodged in your subconcious if you’ve read enough comics, but it’s good to hear a master of the art on the subject. You absolutely must buy Tale of One Bad Rat, one of the best graphic novels ever.

I feel a little embarassed to mention Bulletproof Poets after talking about the man. But, hey, here’s page twelve.

This entry was posted in Manchester sex on by

Today’s picture.
Manchester welcomed me back to work with heavy rain just before I got to the office. And apparently, tomorrow’s going to be even worse.
I’m just counting down my days until the end, though next week’s going to be busy. I was thinking about it in France, and came to the conclusion that the jobs been a bit like a relationship. In fact, a bit like the relationship I had in 1993-94, horribly dysfunctional, with more demanded of me than I got in return. I started thinking of metaphors about the sex, but, well, no.

This entry was posted in internet Manchester on by

Gah!

I was supposed to have a snowboarding lesson tonight in Sheffield. I got to the city with a half hour to find the ski centre and promptly got lost. Then I drove round for an hour trying to make sense of a piss poor map I’d downloaded from the internet.

I guess I could have found my way easily if I’d known that Sheffield Wednesday played at Hilsborough. But I didn’t, and all the other stadia were in the other direction. Finally, I gave up and started following signs for Manchester, which was when- you guessed it- I found the bloody ski village!

No snow board lessons for me, but I should be able to find it next time.

This entry was posted in Croydon Manchester on by

Back in Manchester again after the jaunt down to Croydon. I’m still sleeping on the bedroom floor because there wasn’t enough time to get fully unpacked. By Wednesday I should have everything, including myself, into the right rooms.
Based upon the rucksacks I used to carry them, I’ve brought about 80 litres of CDs and over 90 litres of books up with me. How many CDs in 80 litres? I’ll tell you when I’ve racked them all.
Time for bed.

This entry was posted in Manchester on by

First day back in Manchester. There are some people who would rather I wasn’t here, but they’re exactly the people I don’t care about any more. (I went off and did a national project. I’m only interested in talking to people who could go off and do the same.)

Part of me wishes I were above this pettiness. But most of me just wants to point and snigger.

This entry was posted in Croydon london Manchester sex on by

Moving Music- Embrace, The Good Will Out, Queen, Greatest Hits, Rolling Stones, The London Years (Disk 3)

I’m back! The money’s paid, the lease is signed and I’m in an empty house in Manchester. And when I say empty, I mean empty. If it didn’t fit in the back of a Volkswagen Polo this morning it ain’t here.

Of course, the first thing I’ve got to do now I’m back in Manchester is drive South again on Sunday and visit the Croydon office. A last chance, at least, to see one of the few people down there who I’ll miss.

Other random thoughts for the day- Queen gave me another song for the soundtrack of my next (but one) project. The Eliza Effect might just make it to a script as well as a novel. I can see it all wrapping up with our three heroes karaoke’ing ‘We Are The Champions’ as a sort of drunken finger to everyone who’s caused them trouble during their project. Other soundtrack snippets- Stress, by Jim’s Big Ego and Only Living Boy In New Cross/ Re-Educating Rita, by Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine.

I haven’t told you anything about The Eliza Effect yet have I? Let’s just say I’m going to be writing a novel/ script based upon my experiences travelling the country trying to get an IT project off the ground.

It’s going to be a farce.

This entry was posted in london Manchester on by

I was in Kingston on Sunday night and I realised that there is one thing I’ll miss down here. The Thames.

I’ve always maintained that rivers are good for the soul and ol’ father Thames is particularly special because it’s alive. There’s human activity all the way along it. You just don’t get that on the Mersey, which is little more than a glorified drainage ditch while it runs through Manchester.

This entry was posted in Manchester on by

Ah, Manchester, so much to answer for.

In, roughly, chronological order- Went up to Manchester to ‘work’ (well, I did two hours worth, and I discovered my ex-boss hates me- which makes me happy) with a lift from John. It’s his last fortnight at work, so we lined up many beers in Rain. Lots of beer was consumed. I lost at arm wrestling to a girl who was all of five feet tall and off her head on caffeine, then tried to swap tops with her (I was drunk enough to think I’d get away with it too!)

More beer, a boogie in Springbok (didn’t I go into one of those in Cardiff? Or was that the Kangaroo? or the Sloth? I’m losing track of all the theme bars!) This bit is all a little fuzzy, I’ll have to wait until I develop the photos.

The evening was rounded off with disgusting greasy chicken on St. Peter’s Square and a ‘King of the World’ moment on the pebble.

And then there was Saturday, spent in that wierd netherworld of the heavy duty hangover, wandering around the city centre and then having random renditions of ‘Jerusalem’ sung at me in the pub. But that’s another story.

This entry was posted in Manchester on by

I haven’t had much to say for the last few days. I’ve been looking at accomodation in Manchester, as I’m getting more determined to move North again.

Found this interesting site on American Civil War history. It is the stuff of movies, but you can bet they’d edit out the killings.

I’ve dumped RealPlayer and reinstalled MusicMatch, WinAmp and Sonique. Somewhere in amongst all of that I have to find a media player that won’t crash my system.