I once said jokingly that, when you live in Manchester, you may never need to visit London. You’ve got Pall Mall, Albert Sq, Oxford St (albeit the latter is probably four times as short as the London’s Shopping Mile). Instead of Piccadilly Circus there are Piccadilly Gardens. Last year I discovered Corner House somewhere in Kensington, comparing to which Manchester’s Cornerhouse is a very welcome substitute. In short, although never visiting the capital may not be particularly good, you should not feel too distressed, at least as far as the place names are concerned.
However, as I was recently going through some of the archived photos I found several pictures of Manchester’s Albert Square, which I just wanted to share. The black-and-white picture you might already have seen a year ago: it was taken in 2007 with my cameraphone. The colour pictures all date back to 2002 when I first visited Manchester, and England. On my memory in 2002, in spite of the Commonwealth Games, and even in 2003 (and maybe even in 2004) Albert Sq was not used so extensively to host diverse and sundry bazaars, live events and even political meetings. I cannot say if this is for the good or for the bad as my main concern is the effect of the multitudes of people and machinery on the historic landmarks. Then, of course, instead of peaceful bazaars and meetings we could have a revolution, and the effect would be completely unpredictable.
