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Dr. Who's PicturesWhen deciding where to go today I thought about Crich Tram Museum partly because of this. I remembered that they had an old police call box and knew I wanted to complete the set. Yes I know I'm like some sad train spotter just worse. Turning up like some weird nerd at a Tram Museum with my camera bag, not to collect tram numbers but to take a picture of the police call box. My memory of the Tram Museum was favourable of course so I'm really not that bad. If the Museum wasn't up to much then I'd really not have bothered. To be honest the trip allowed me to add to two of my nerdy collections, the first being Dr Who's House and the second being Chainsaw Sculptures. Anyway the promise this weekend was for good weather and we were slightly let down and it was rather cold and add to that one tram ride on the top deck outside and I was frozen. Even so it was a good day out what with the walk back where the wood sculptures were. Today there was a small display of Robin Reliants which we saw struggling what with the single front wheel and the tram tracks as the left for the day. Still a good day was had by all and I am sure in the future I'll add some more pictures of the day when there's a quiet weekend.
It's been a busy day. At first we headed off to see the Halo, one of the Panopticons. So far we have seen the Singing Ringing Tree which was months ago and in the same day we attempted to find the Halo but didn't find it. This might have been to do with the low cloud that made the Singing Ringing Tree pointless in that there was no wind and there was no view. So today we headed to find the Halo. This time we were prepared. Multiple searches on Google Maps found the blighter and we put a street name into the GPS which gave me a vague feeling that at least we might get into the area which was right. I must admit that the GPS did dump us in a place that didn't look like the picture on Google Maps but we were at least near enough for me to navigate a way. When we got there the problem was that there was little to see again because of the weather and the fact that despite Haslingden looks pretty(ish) when you're going through it, from the top it looks less so. So what to do now? I hammered the GPS for a shopping place and it directed me to Bury... thinking that this might not be great I remembered the place I drove past every day when I worked in Blackburn... “Botany Bay”. Turn off the GPS and let's go! Half way there I had a crisis... “is Botany Bay north or south of Bolton?”. GPS back on. Not found. Internet on phone, found postcode, set GPS and away we go again. Anyway back to the picture. Whilst in the 6 or so floors of Botany Bay we saw this, and I'm starting to worry whether Dr. Who is following me. In this one you can go in and see the whole Dr. Who Tardis expanse, but in this case I think there is some connection to the brick like structure behind... but I'm not sure. Of course I think that Dr. Who had missed a trick here. As yet I'm not sure that he's found a way of stopping the Cybermen totally but here they wait patiently behind a rope. My advice here to the Dr would be to get a rope.
Dr Who seems to get about a bit which being a Time Lord I suspect is rather easy. Last time I spotted his vehicle at a Dr Who museum, before that I saw it at Crich Tram museum and now the latest spotting was at the Kent Police Museum strangely enough in Chatham's Historic Dock. The Police museum is small but rather interesting with a full display of cap badges for the whole of England a mock prison cell and a cheery retired policeman of 30 years to answer any questions. Of course that museum wasn't the point of the trip. We were at the historic dock with a range of ships to walk around including a submarine and a ropewalk tour which sort of explained ropemaking giving you the opportunity to view the longest rope shed in thw world at a quarter of a mile long. Unfortunately whilst they were making rope at the time we didn't see anything much going on.
It was an interesting day but the only picture I got was bad, Perhaps at some point I can go back to the places I saw today to capture the pictures I saw this morning. Today started with a 20 mile bike ride. Denton->Manchester->Cheadle->Stokport->Denton. The sun was out and the traffic wasn't which was good. It was cold but it was one of those wintry sunny days where the sun spreads a gold hue on everything. The first missed picture was of the Islamic Academy on Upper Brook Street which is situated right next to a church that is crumbling or being knocked down. The image would have been good (I hope) with the sun passing through a stained glass window only because there was no roof on the church. Further down is a new building I haven't seen before which I assume is part of the hospital. It used to be a Happy Eater and sits on the angle between Upper Brook Street and Plymouth Grove. It wouldn't have been much of a pic without the sun glinting from the top of the building. Of course I was more bothered about peddling especially since I'd only completed 7 miles of the full 20 or 21.3 as I finally completed. Later in the day this is where this picture came in. I have taken a picture of a police call box before which was at Crich's Tram Museum but I don't seem to have put it on here. It's a great day out and I would recommend it. There's so much to see and you don't have to be a train spotter to appreciate it which is similar to the Manchester Museum of Transport where you don't have to be a bus spotter to enjoy it. Anyway this police call box is at MOSI, whether it is a permanent fixture or not I don't know but we were off for the BodyWorlds exhibit which is Dr Gunther von Hagens exhibit of of corpses that have been put through his process of plastination in effect bodies that do not decay with their organs exposed to varying degrees supposedly to educate the layman about how the body works. To me they look too much like plasticine/plastic models of people. Perhaps it wasn't meant for me because there was nothing new here, the basic gist was smoking is bad, drinking is bad, disease does bad things to you and all three can kill you so all I can think is that's it's just pure Voyeurism or perhaps that's the wrong word, but there's a perverse interest to witness what feels like it shouldn't be witnessed which is a sliced up or open corpse, it's just been dressed up as education. The other two interesting pictures today are of the Etape Hotel in Salford which is an weird block that looks part like a hospital and part like some strange mad European (Dutch I think) building with it's strange coloured outside panels of green blue and grey. Finally with all the building that's going on, on the East side of the Mancunian Way there's a University building in a state of part deconstruction which will probably be gone next time I have a chance to whip my camera out perhaps the reason why I like this is because you get a view into the building, able to see the rooms and offices as they were left, opened up in the same way as Dr Gunther von Hagens corpses perhaps, it's just that the buildings seem more interesting to me, maybe it's the fact that they describe more about people than their individual fragile selves.
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