A picture of... Manchester

One thing I love is photography and today I am going to be taking a few photographs from around Manchester.

The pictures will be used on a friends website so it is a mini-commission I guess.

I especially love taking landscape shots and today I am going to be shooting on my new wide-angle lense so I'm hopefully going to get some great shots from around the Quays. Manchester is a great place to photograph as theres so much growth and redevelopment, yet nestled in there, there's still some of the old city waiting to catch out the casual observer.

Ill post some of my pictures here on the blog for anyone who's interested, in the meantime, check out the BBCs 'Picture of Britain' website where you can view pictures from all over the country in a special gallery. You can vote for the ones you like and you may even see a few of mine in there :-) www.bbc.co.uk/arts/apictureofbritain/

Pics to follow....

Welcome to Glastonbury!

Right on cue, the heavens opened to welcome the crowds to the 35th Festival but despite power failures and lots of the usual mud, it looks like being a big hit as always, especially as 'snooker loopy' Chas and Dave will be making an appearance!

Forget the big names and also welcome the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain too! (turned out nice again!) and in an attempt to keep the neighbors happy, Glastonbury will be hosting a silent disco at 1 am in the morning, a novel idea, maybe everyone has to take their ipod?


One name missing from the guestlist however is that of 'Crazy frog'. I thought he may have been lurking in the undergrowth somewhere but he wont be appearing. What a blow to the music world! Maybe he just couldn't get his moped started?

It's nearly ten o'clock here on Thursday 23/6 and I'm sat, awkwardly with laptop in hand to write my very first blog.

On such an eventful day, I could write about so much, especially with this being my first blog as well.

World politics, sport and art aside I've decided to write about something which is effecting me greatly at the moment. Tonsillitis.

I woke on Saturday feeling slightly 'under the weather' and as the day went on I began to feel gradually worse and worse. By the evening I was becoming feverish but popped a few pills and retired to bed, hopefully to feel better for work the next morning...

How WRONG could I have been? Although I did go into work, I noticed I had a sore throat and a massive headache. I worked through the radio programme in as much silence as is generally possible in that kind of environment and was pleased when it was time to go home. Back at home, I had a quick look at my throat and saw that apart from being swollen, white blotches where starting to appear on one side. I took more tablets and went to bed.



Later that day, I nipped out for some throat spray but then soon began to feel the feverish symptoms were now getting worse, I returned home to bed for what must have been the WORST 24 hours of my modern life!

Fevers, vomiting, headaches, sore throat, restlessness, throbbing and clammy skin followed in what seemed like hourly cycles. At one point, during the night I thought I needed to call the doctors but decided that i was too 'ill' for the hassle, trying instead to steal a few more hours rest instead.

I finally began to feel better on Tuesday after my doctor prescribed penicillin which began to reverse the infection growing in my throat. My temperature came down, the headaches became less intense and I began to feel like I would actually live to see 31!

As I write this, I'm about to take my 12th Penicillin tablet from a course of 28. I'm still nowhere near full health yet but I feel well enough to set up my own blog site and publish my first post so maybe I'm not far off.

Tonsillitis may not feature in many peoples first blogs, but as my first illness of my 30's bows out, it will certainly always keep a place close to my heart... about 1.5 feet higher up to be precise!

The tablets do exactly what it says on the box (whatever that is!)

Does it look bigger tonight?

according to NASA, The Royal Astronomical Society and the Daily Mail (!), the moon looks bigger and closer than it has done for several hundred years, but just before NASA dust off the space capsules to head back. Alas! Its all an optical illusion. It's not the only 'illusion' of this type though thats doing the rounds. How about these other Astronomical absurdities.

The end of Allied involvement in Iraq, nope this one looks set to run and run and don't let anyone tell you how close we are to the end.

A successful role for some kind of European Constitution.... Errr lets dust of those space capsules again!

And finally, Robert Massey from the Royal Greenwich Obervatory who commented that "It will appear unusually big and of course it isn't really but that is the optical illusion." Now was he talking about astronomy or Tim Henman's chances of ever winning Wimbledon? There you go Tim, some things are just written in the stars...