Sunday afternoon was the final day of the Queer Up North arts festival and a village fete was held in Sackville Park. There was a cake judging competition, stalls and a great punch and judy show.
These are three photographs that I took on 11 February 2004 at about 6pm. At the time I thought they were rather odd and sent them to a few friends. Now it seems that other people have experienced strange circles and ‘orbs’ on digital images, so I thought I would publish them with some information.

Manchester’s former Odeon cinema, on Oxford Street, has been subjected to a ’systematic and methodical’ assault to prevent it being preserved, according to the man who tried to save it.
The Neighbourhood Fix It website is an effective way to highlight and report problems in your local neighbourhood.
In an interview for the BBC Radio 4 programme Today, former US president Jimmy Carter described Tony Blair’s support for the Iraq war as a ‘major tragedy for the world’.
In the show, which was broadcast this morning, Mr Carter said that Blair’s attitude to Bush had been ‘abominable. Loyal, blind, apparently subservient.’
And he said that Tony Blair could have made a crucial difference to American political and public opinion by distancing himself during the build-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
As a photographer myself, I broke out into a cold sweat reading how this poor man lost most of his image library in the Lever Street fire. Equipment can be replaced but unique transparencies, negatives and digital images can’t be.
On 30 April, just four days after I wrote about the Basement Social Centre in Manchester city centre and said what a unique and absolutely spiffing place it was, a huge fire ripped through a building to the rear of it. (more…)
We tend to think that guns, robberies and violent crime in Manchester are a modern phenomenon. But there was lots of it going on in Victorian times too. Even in Didsbury (heaven forbid).
Recently I mentioned how I called United Utilities and was asked for my date of birth for ‘data protection’ reasons. I refused to give it and they wouldn’t discuss my water bill.

