The Eternal Sunshine of agreeing to disagree

Well I suppose it had to happen sooner or later, Sarah and I went to the cinema tonight and came out with completely opposite opinions about the film.

This is not to say I ever believed our tastes were identical, but we’re usually pretty good about knowing which films we’ll both like, which we need to see with other people and which we both need to avoid like the plague.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is one that we expected to fall into the first category. I loved it; Sarah, checked the time on her mobile every 15 minutes.

I’ll accept it did need sharper editing, particularly in the central section and that the time shift techniques are hardly new in either film or literature, but despite this I found it a charming, intelligent and engaging film - probably one of the best I have seen for a good while.

Maybe I was predisposed to like it; after all I love the previous work of the write Charlie Kaufman (such as Being John Malkovich and Adaptation) and Michel Gondry (how's your French?) is one of my favourite music video directors. So, OK the jump to feature film is a fairly major one, but like Spike Jonze I think he’s carried it off with aplomb, but then what else would one expect from the guy who transformed the White Stripes into Lego?

On the other hand, I still struggle to feel positive in advance about a Jim Carrey film, who, despite other excellent parts over the years (The Truman Show, Man on the Moon etc), I still have trouble separating from his Liar Liar/Cable Guy type personae. This film should help me get over that prejudice - it’s a cracking performance, probably his best to date.

Tom Wilkinson is another actor for whom I find it hard to shake off past roles. In Eternal Sunshine… he plays the doctor who has pioneered the memory wipe procedure. For me however I still had strong associations of British TV roles and The Full Monty running through my mind whilst he was on screen. I half expected some garden gnomes to start dancing outside his bedroom window!

So what were Sarah’s reasons for dissing the film? Well the primary candidate was “I’d worked out the ending within the first few minutes of the film.”. I countered that this was hardly surprising given that we see the (almost) ending at the start, but this observation was received with a withering look…

Oh,, and apparently the other reason I like the film was “because Kate Winslet’s character’s relationship with hair colour is pretty similar to your own!”.

Best friends can be so cutting at times!

Warrington Old Town

Very occasionally people enquire why I work in W@rrington, but don’t live there, preferring instead the hellish motorway commute. My stock response is “you’ve never been to W@rrington, have you?”.

Maybe that’s harsh, but I need to live in a place that has some form of culture that I can relate to. I’ve been working in and around the W@rrington area for more than ten years now and in that time I can only list the following two events that have enthused me to any significant degree:

1. The original Virgin Festival, V96, in Victoria Park – a fabulous day that included Gorkys Zygotic Mynci, Lamb, Gary Numan (hilarious!) and culminated with Pulp at the height of their powers.


2. Radiohead - again in Victoria Park, this time in a tent in 2000.

So much of W@rrington is “New Town” that it can be easy to forget that beneath and alongside the acres upon acres of anonymous housing estates, employment parks and road networks devoid of pavements, lies a very old town with it’s own history and heritage.

I was reminded of this last night however on a trip to The Cottage on Church Street. This ancient building dates back to the 17th century and it’s claimed that Oliver Cromwell stayed here in 1648, after defeating the Royalists.

Nowadays it functions as an Indian eaterie, with a modern twist. The interior is unexpectedly spacey due to a clever conversion and the food comes with the swirls of jus and garnishes that one might expect in a more nouvelle establishment.

I have to say though that the food wasn’t bad at all. I wouldn’t quite rave about it like some of my W@rringtonian colleagues, but then I’m probably spoilt in this arena by having Rusholme on my doorstep. Compared to other eating experiences I’ve had in Warrington however, this was streets ahead.

How do you know that?

It's more usual for me to see how I take skills from the day job and utilise them in the work I do for Greenbelt, but just occasionally the tables are turned.

Today a colleague and I were discussing the noise constraints being applied to one of our schemes by the local council. "How come you know so much about noise monitoring, ambient levels and so forth?" he innocently enquired.

Pathways of Desire

One of the concepts we’ve been discussing in our meetings about how to improve the Nutsford Vale open space, is “pathways of desire”.

This is an approach that says that rather than planning new footpaths in a development, you hold back and let people ‘tell you’ where they need paths to go. Very quickly tracks appear that denote the common routes. You can then form the pathways to meet the established needs.

Looking at the aerial photos, I think our lines of desire are incredibly clear!

I like this idea of planning, it has humility in its founding principals. Such a refreshing change from the all too common approach of many professionals, which focuses more on a “we know what you need” line of thinking.

Of course it is entirely possible to go too far in the other direction, pathways of desire can be compromises forced by external factors (areas of poor draining boggy ground or inappropriate planting would be two that spring to mind on Nutsford Vale). Maybe the role of the professional is to use their skills to understand all these inputs, listening strongly to people’s needs, but also being able to see the wider picture and bring their skills to bare (“if we improved the dr@inage would you take the more direct route?”).

I suspect that the concept of Pathways of Desire has resonance far beyond landscaping work. In all our dealings with others how do we map and understand their pathways and avoid simply imposing our own?

I want to think about this more.

Slugfest 2004

After the glorious weather of the weekend, it rained a little today, enough to leave the roads and pavements damp. Accordingly today appeared to be the first day of the new slug season.

As I called round to my best mates tonight, it was a veritable obstacle course getting down her front path.

I loathe slugs. They leave disgusting trails everywhere, they eat your vegetables and valued plants and, dear lord, if you accidentally step on one… .

They also look completely unpleasant. At least snails veil their sliminess in a shell.

I can’t think of a single thing slugs are useful for.

Do they eat other garden pests? No just my plants.

Do they provide food for something further up the foodchain? Well, hedgehogs if you’re lucky, but I haven’t seen one in our neighbourhood for years. Judging by the shameless way the slugs flaunt themselves over paths and walls they would certainly appear to be untroubled by the prospect of potential predators.

So what is the point of slugs? Do let me know if you have any ideas, it could help me tolerate them better.

A little more co-operation

Another work trip to Rochdale today; this time in search of old design drawings.

As I drive into the town I pass under a railway bride that proudly announces “Rochdale the Birthplace of Co-operation”.

Quite a grand claim; even when you realise from the typeface that this is a reference to the modern co-operative movement.

Not a bad thing for a town to have produced; especially given that the only contribution to more recent cultural heritage that I can associate with Rochdale is Gracie Fields and Lisa Stansfield.

When I get home, the Co-op is still on my mind as I quickly design a poster and leaflets for an Open Public Meeting next month, which will be held in the new Northmoor Community Centre located in a former Co-op building.

The meeting is for the Nutsford Vale Park Project, a local project trying and preserve and improve a large expanse of informal open/green space in our inner city neighbourhood. The land was original clay pits for the brickworks, then in the 70’s it was landfilled and capped over. This most un-environmentally friendly of histories has perversely preserved this area of wild space from building development. Accordingly the land has now become home to a diverse range of wildlife and is also a valuable amenity in the area.

This is not to say that it is without problems. Over the past 6 years the NVPP have raised ten’s of thousands of pounds to improve the perimeter security to deter fly-tipping and misuse of the space my trail-bikes, relay hedgerows, manage the vegetation, plant wildflower meadows and so forth. The group has also undertaken numerous clean-up days on the land and lobbied for a proper future plan for the land.

Sometimes it feels like we are fighting a losing battle trying to get the voices of local residents heard. Major plans for the land happen with zero or minimal consultation. The frustration of having well meaning parties undertaking schemes that fail to appreciate the dynamics of the local context continues.

My personal bête noire, is the planting of dense bushes and shrubs in vast swathes of formally open land immediately adjacent to major footpaths (you can see the areas being prepared for this in the aerial photo). Surely it doesn’t take the brains of a rocket scientist to grasp that dense planting in an area with one of the highest crime rates in Britain is just a little foolish…

Sun and the City

Around this time each year there is the ‘sunshine weekend’. The weekend, when, after the long winter months, the sun really breaks through, showering down promises of summer.

It’s the first weekend, when you can go out safely without a jacket, when evenings in a beer garden become attractive and when you can sit out in the sunshine and feel the warmth spread to your bones.

This was that weekend.

I spent Saturday in the city centre, shopping and getting the old barnet trimmed and coloured (well hey you didn’t think it was naturally this colour did you?). Exchange Square was absolutely packed. Crowds covered the sloping benches, watching the big screen, kids jumped from stone to stone in the water feature/stream beneath your feet, passers-by stopped to discuss the new sculpture being erected and drinkers at The Wellington Inn and Sinclair’s Oyster Bar pubs, spilled over far beyond their outdoor seating area.

This has to be about my favourite bit of the recent changes to the city centre. However, the catalyst was so terrible, that it still feels slightly bittersweet. Rejoicing in the wonderful new layout and structures that replaced some truly hideous carbuncles comes tinged with an underside of guilt.

I suppose that a more productive way of looking at it is that good things were made to form out of bad. Although the bombing can never be redeemed it can at least be recovered from and triumphed over in a way that says that this city will not be held back by such things.

The new M&S and Selfridges building that stands on the site of the bomb blast is top to toe glass. If buildings could speak I reckon this one would be saying “Screw you!” as it flicked the finger at those who choose the path of violence and destruction.

I’m not sure what the Wellington and Sinclair’s buildings would say. They’ve seen it all. The Wellington dates back to the 16th century and Sinclair's is part Georgian. Back in 1972 they were raised by several feet to accommodate the building of the concrete jungle that was Shambles Square (oh if ever a name were more appropriate!). Following the destruction of the square by the bomb blast, these timber-framed buildings were dismantled piece by piece, wooden peg by wooden peg, then shifted over towards the cathedral and lovingly reassembled – piece by piece, wooden beam by wooden beam.

I suspect they enjoy their new location better. They now have a wide vista and sit proudly, asking to be admired. They overlook the newer buildings with slight detachment, the older relatives who have seen fashions come and go and sit back secure in their own identity.

Gender Identity Crisis or Crap Science?

In his blog the other day, James referred to a page on the bookblog website that proposes it can identify the gender of the Blogger by analysing the text.

It appears that every one of my last 7 blogs have allegedly been written by a male.

In fact analysing my entire blog gives me a male score of 14,393 as opposed to a female score of 7,416. Which certainly highlights the dangers that can arise when people start working on generalisations of men/women are good at x, or write like y, or think like z etc.

Which in turn leads me to ponder the age old nurture versus nature debate. Maybe my written style appears masculine because I work in a hugely male dominated industry. Although things are getting better; when I started work 10 years ago, I was the first female graduate they had ever had in a design department of around 100; today I sit in a similar sized department and have 7 female colleagues. Which could suggest that it's not so much that women inherently aren't cut out to be engineers, but rather that they haven't been cut out to be engineers.

Then again, I’m not aware that my communication style has been significantly influenced by engineers. After all, I regularly achieve more than a grunt in greeting (early mornings excepted) and frequently use words with more than two syllables…

Blogging and self-censorship

In a discussion with a fellow blogger last night, the subject of ‘not bitching about people on a public blog’ cropped up.

Of course you never now who might read one of these things. Hence it’s probably best not to say too much about the muppet of a co-worker who pissed you off today, moan about the acquaintance who’s seriously getting on your tits or even share your thoughts on the latest blatherings of some idiot on a discussion board or newsgroup.

Now obviously having to avoid such subjects is no problem at all for myself or my fellow blogger – seeing as we are indeed the very personification of sweetness and light. Certainly not the sort of people who might, for example, have the motto "If you haven't got anything nice to say about anyone...........come and sit next to me".

It must however, be quite a restriction for anyone who finds such subject manner a rich comedy furrow that never tires of being ploughed.

They must find it very difficult indeed…

Birthday celebrations - round 1

One advantage of having a good friend's birthday on the day before yours, is that it’s an easy date to remember.

A second advantage is that it makes for excellent combined celebrations.

A third advantage is that between the two of you, it becomes acceptable to actually have two lots of celebrations.

Hence last night Phil (aka birthday boy), Sarah and I had a small celebration meal round the corner at That Café in advance of the bigger party planned for the Strawbury Duck sometime next week.

These two venues are great examples of what I love about living in Manchester.

Even in the most run down of areas you find pearls like That Cafe - probably the best food I have ever eaten anywhere. Check the weekly menu and tell me your mouth doesn't water! Of course I could go on to mention that before 7pm you can get two courses for £10.95, but that would just make any Southerners reading this jealous...or worse still, move here.

However if you prefer a more rural location for your drink/meal, the Duck is well and truly out in the sticks. Popular with ramblers it's nestled on the side of a hill up above the series of picturesque reservoirs that lie beyond Bolton. For those less inclined to walk for their pint, it handily has it's very own railway station - requests stops only - on the direct line from Manchester.

And before, you ask, yes the spelling is right. You can discover the reason for this and many other bizarre Lancashire mysteries here.

Sometimes even the www lets you down

More nostalgia today as we passed my old high school as part of our trips out and about. There are small changes, but by and large it looks much the same. There’s not much you can do to improve the look of that particular style of 60’s architecture.

It’s not as bad as some, there is at least brickwork to compliment the concrete; even so it’s hardly “inspirational” for potential scholars.

The architecture of the new high school around the corner from me in Manchester seems a little better. It's still highly functional, but at least a nod has been given to aesthetics. I'm not sure how the feature wood panelling will weather though. I'd assumed google would throw up a link with photos of the new building so you could see what I mean, but the best I can get is this St Peter's.

Could it be magic?

My brother, sister-in-law and niece and nephew travel across from West London today to spend the day with Nana, Grandad and Aunty L1z.

Over lunch I tell Ruth and Jamie about how Grandad and I can do magic and make objects fall through the ceiling from upstairs onto the dining room table. They obediently stare intently at the ceiling to see if they can see anything come through. Despite their intense concentration they manages to miss them however and time after time various hazelnuts, almonds and brazil nuts magically appear on the table.

Jamie at three accepts all this but at the grand age of five (and a half), Ruth is way too smart for this and after being initially impressed, the suspicions quickly start to form in her mind and I’m dragged upstairs to investigate the source of the nuts. Fortunately we’re one step ahead and with a bit of co-operation nuts really do proceed to disappear from upstairs only to reappear downstairs.

I give it a year before she twigs that there are two of us magicians, whilst she can only be in one place at a time. Simple misdirection works fine for now however and a new generation of Chapmans believing in the ceiling trick is born.

Five years old is too young to stop believing in the wonder of things. I’m glad we’ve postponed her loss of innocence in this area a little longer. After all her first tooth is about to fall out, so now would be no time to stop believing in the tooth fairy ;-)

Back in the world where innocence has long since departed, I receive a call from a neighbour, Peter:
“L1z, just ringing to tell you that a stolen car has been dumped in your garden.”
“Oh…right…how do you know it’s stolen?”
“What other than the fact it’s dumped in your garden? Well the driver was about 12 years old”
“Ahhhh!”
“I’ll call the police and keep an eye out to make sure the scallies don’t come back and torch it.”

Eco-guilt and tax-free shopping

A manic day at work, major deadlines to hit and one of my team finishes his contract today. All in all this means I’m later leaving the office than I had hoped and that combined with heavy rain on the motorway, means that it’s a major rush to get to the airport in time for my flight to London.

The height of decadence I know, but whilst they are continuing major engineering works on the West Coast Mainline the Manchester to London train journey can be unbearable. My return leg would likely take me nearly 7 hours door to door, which is just ridiculous for a weekend visit. Alternatively I can pay an extra £20 and do it in well under 3 hrs. Ecologically I feel guilty, but I decide to suffer that for the extra time it gives me with my folks.

Of course it also helps that the whole experience of airports is so much more civilised than the scrum of train and tube – even if the boarding gate's always three miles away. The opportunities for retail therapy in the departure lounge are also a plus that I invariable make the most of (this time: two posh lipsticks for mum and two for me). Just think of the savings!

All in all, by the time I settle back into my seat with my free 'vodka and coke', my eco-guilt has almost entirely disappeared.

A story involving horses and a fire crew, that has nothing to do with Greenbelt

As a kid on the beach, did you ever pat a lump of moist sand until it went runny and turned to quicksand? Well if you did you were unwittingly conducting experiments into the liquefaction of granular soil types through cyclic loading (and your mum thought you were just making a mess!).

Weird how a bit of vibration can turn something solid into something liquid like that. In fact I spent a good part of the final year of my degree course in a geotechnical lab studying this very subject; so I could explain this phenomena in a few thousand words if you’d like?

No, thought not.

So why am I thinking about this today? Well just occasionally these weird bits of scientific research find an everyday example, such as the story I was told today.

Imagine if you will, a construction site with pretty little stream that passes to its side. Being responsible contractors, they had created a bund of hay bales, to ensure that any slurry spilt on site in the course of the construction work, wouldn’t enter the stream.

All very innocent and unremarkable until you add two extra ingredients:
a) an area of ground that has experienced liquefaction as a result of the vibrations from the construction plant, and
b) a greedy horse that decides to break out of its nearby paddock and make a bee-line for the hay bales

I’m told it’s not easy to extract a horse that has sunk up to its back into the ground…

Of course we shouldn’t be too surprised that even this wasn’t too much of a challenge for the local fire and rescue service and the horse was duly rescued unharmed.

So a happy ending…which is just as well considering how funny we’re finding this.

Love to see their revised risk assessment though!

Aliens Return Captive Alive and Well!

A subsequent phone call to best mate has ascertained that:

1. said book was purchased second hand as the desperation third title in a three for one pound offer in a Southport bookstore


2. she will not be attempting any of the twee flower twists around a straw hat style that surely constitute an offence to persons of taste everywhere


3. the purpose of such efforts is due to her having to do arrangements as part of her priestly duties at present and hence allowances should be made

< sighs with relief as world recomences turning around it's axis >