Soup of the Day

Well, January came and went

It feels like it was yesterday I was writing about the beginning of 2007 and the fortunes (or failures) ahead. Suddenly it is February and we only have eleven months left of this year.

Still, January didn’t hang around and quickly got set into making life more interesting. Manchester has certainly been in the news this month as the BBC confirm they are moving to Salford (across the river from Manchester). The new MediaCity in Salford will create thousands of jobs and a new creative pool, at least that is what Salford City Council hope.

Also Manchester is to get a ’super’ casino. This news was both shocking and completely unwanted. Manchester folk had pretty much assumed the casino was going to Blackpool, if anywhere in the North West. But at 11am on Tuesday morning we got the news and everyone around here was mighty dissappointed. Of course the people of Beswick are delighted because of the promise of more jobs. But is it socially ethical to place a casino in one of the most deprived areas of Manchester, where the locals could pin all their hopes and dreams on a Casino to improve their life - and that’s before they start gambling in it.

Siân had her birthday last weekend, which included a random evening of drinking, more drinking and salsa dancing in the Copacabana club in the Northern Quarter of Manchester. I was expecting… well actually I don’t know what I was expecting, but it was thoroughly good fun and felt like a tiny bit of Latin America had been landed in Manchester, with a lot of locals sprinkled on top. It was greasy, it was sweaty, but it was unadulturated fun. Siân had a wonderful time which is of course the most important factor.

My sister went to South Africa for two weeks, making me incredibly jealous along the way. I am not particularly attracted to the idea of going to South Africa, but to go to the Southern Hemisphere would be an experience. Somewhere like Chile or Brazil would be enticing to me.

Speaking of long trips, Siân and I are curently planning our 2007 long trip around Europe. Keeping with our tradition of low-carbon holidays, we are now planning to travel around the bulk of Europe using the increasily accessible high-speed rail network. The trip will take in France, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Czech Republic, maybe Slovakia, Hungry, Austria, Italy, Switzerland, France and back to the UK. We will be taking the whole of August out to complete this 4,000 mile round trip. More on this soon.

Finally, my nine month retaining contract with The University of Manchester ended yesterday. I have had a great time working with the University, helping launch a new web presence for JISC and JISC Collections and developing a new service for JISC, the JISC Information Governance Gateway.