Mancunian Blues
Created | Updated Aug 27, 2008
I know it may not seem like it at the moment, but clouds are lazy things. Manchester suffers from
this.
Nice fluffy clouds are blown onto the west coast of the UK by the Gulf stream. These clouds are
nice and warm and generally happy, floating in over Liverpool and across to Manchester. However it
is here they meet the chilly dry winds blown in from cold and dry hearts of Yorkshire over the
Pennines and the Peaks. The evil cold Yorkshire winds cool the nice fluffy Lancashire clouds and once
cold, they dump all their water because they are too lazy to carry it. Instead of dumping the water
on cold dry(and nasty) Yorkshire, Manchester gets rained.
Some years can be quite dry in Manchester, some can be really wet, but no matter what, for as
far as I can remember, the day that students move back to Manchester has always been damp.
Perhaps the universities and weather stations plan it in advance. Perhaps it's the conclusive proof of
a supreme deity, one that says that for the next 3 years of your life, this is what it will be like, get
used to it. Generally the summers, except for this one, are nice and dry and it's possibly the
unleashing of a baked bean induced methane cloud that alters the microclimate and brings back the
rain, whatever it is, it always seems to happen.
The only time that people are likely to be moving bedding and expensive computer equipment
about, things that don't react well to water (such as computer science students) have to be unloaded
from a car then moved round a university hall in the drizzle. This amuses me generally. It has been
pointed out that this is because beneath my callous exterior, and even beneath my 'I just wanna be
loved' inner depth, I am in fact heartless and mean. I suppose they're right.
So what's new, well, traffic is grid locked, and I've got to move stuff for a gig and since it was
always going to rain, the bike was no options, so car and 35 mins walk to work in the Monday drizzle.
Some point this week, I'm going to have to catch a bus, and that will be fun. Honest. Normally
busses take 30 to 40 mins to trundle the 4 miles back to my cave. At peak times this is longer since
the new anti-congestion measures (as noted before, when all the other bypassing roads are
grid locked, halving the capacity of Europe's busiest bus route is dumber than George). At peak
time in Fresher's week every bus is inflicted by the same problem. Dumb People.
Okay, so it's a new city, you may not know the transport or bus routes, what do you do. You can:
- a) Look at the guide either the uni or the hall will provide saying which bus to get.
- b) You can look on the front of the bus.
- c) You can look on the cunning signs that are on every bus shelter saying where the busses go.
- d) You can get on the bus ask the driver is the bus goes to Owen’s Park / Fallowfield (same
place).
Normally plan d) is employed by Freshers. There is a plan e). Plan e) is never used. Plan e) saves time
and doesn't identify yourself as being a bit dim. This is plan e) you follow somebody else onto the
bus who is looking confused and when they ask, 'does this bus go to Fallowfield?' You see if
the person in front gets off the bus again or not. If they do stay on, ask for a ticket to Fallowfield.
If they get off, don't ask again, just turn around and get off my bus. The driver will not change his
mind at all. Strings of Freshers all on plan d) really annoy me, especially when I get a bus specially
to avoid them.
Anyway, that's my Mancunian blues for this week.
I was going to review a band, but Thirsty Scholar employed a padlock as security last
Tuesday.
Love, Peace and Blues
tjm
