It lives in Heaton Park. What I like about it is that it does its own thing and doesn’t care a fig what everyone thinks of it.
Yay for dancing tree.
Dancing Tree
Author: Linda Gukicova
Cat person. European; Bratislava-born, Manchester-based. Stressed out. I like taking pictures a bit.
Random and Weird Phone Shots – Spidey and The Duck
Duck: “So how was your day?”
Spiderman: “Don’t even ask.”
Arya Stark Mural, Manchester
It’s in Northern Quarter, an area in Central Manchester that has popped up on this blog before, but not enough, though I always say I need to post more pics from there and then I forget.
For those who don’t know, Arya Stark is a character on Game of Thrones, one of the best ones and most popular ones, who is also a real badass. I won’t say any more to keep spoilers away.
Useful Bench
This is the opposite of my past post titled Useless Bench. The vast majority of them are actually useful.
The above one is from Heaton Park, the below one from Abney Hall Park.
I don’t have any more photos of benches because… I don’t know why.
Do you ever photograph benches? Do you know anyone who does? Why would anyone do it–or why not?
Yes it is election today
Election of the Members of the EU parliament, that is!
And this time around, I AM allowed to vote–and sure as hell I AM voting!
You may be astonished, shocked even. Are you telling me that EU is actually not unelected? Are you telling me I can vote for MEPs?
Why yes. How else do you think that horrible nicotine-riddled repulsive frog-face that shouts so much and whose initials are the same as National Front got that job? (I am not typing his name here because I refuse to soil my blog with it–not because he’s Voldemort. He wishes he was Voldemort, but he’s more like Uncle Vernon.) He also passionately loves that job, because why else would he lead such a loud campaign for his new party? Because he wants to get elected again so that he can still have the said job.
But forget about ugly fascists, that’s not why I’m here, I’m here to tell you to GO AND VOTE. If you don’t want Brexit, vote for a Remain party. (This would be Greens or Lib Dems in England.)
Something else I want to say now.
As I say in the linked post, I am–as an EU citizen–allowed to vote in local elections but not in general elections or referendums (yeah, that one that affects my life most, isn’t democracy great?) I am also allowed to vote in EU Parliament elections–but this was not so straight forward.
The way it works in UK is: you register to vote at your local electoral office. Every time you move house, you should do this, so that your address is up to date (also it helps with getting credit). Before an election takes place, you will receive a poll card, like the one on my picture. You don’t need to take this with you to vote, it’s just for information. Now, like lots of people, I never paid attention to any EU elections before 2016. I didn’t even know when they took place and were not on my radar. I was under the impression that I couldn’t vote in those either, because of something someone told me (someone who was either lying or didn’t know). I only found out I could because now I’m connected with other EU citizens in UK and activists through social media. And wouldn’t be connected to them if it wasn’t for Brexit, so ironically, it was Brexit that made me learn about my right to vote in EU parliament elections.
Why was it not so straight-forward, though? Well, because I had to register for EU Parliament elections separately from the usual register. Someone I follow on Twitter, a fellow EU citizen, tweeted a link to the necessary form. So I printed the form, filled it in and posted it to the electoral office. A few days later I received the form back, not the one I sent but a new one, same but with my details filled in by computer and with a barcode at the bottom. So I sighed, filled the fields I needed to fill in, signed it again and personally dropped it at the council offices in their mailbox, while out on a lunch break. I heard nothing from them. In the meantime, poll cards arrived for the other tenants in this house (I live in a house converted to flats with shared letterbox) but not for me (don’t you just love being excluded?) I felt so stressed about it that I rang the electoral office and they confirmed I was indeed registered. I was so relieved.
And my poll card eventually came.
The reason I write all of this is: why does it take grassroots activists for me to find out about my right? Why was I not informed about this?
And it’s not just me, I know the other EU citizens also didn’t know. Luckily groups like The3Million have been doing a great job raising awareness to get everyone registered. But it’s not their job to do so. The councils know if you’re an EU citizen. They know it well enough not to let you vote in general elections and referendums that may ruin your life. So they should know it well enough to inform you in time that you need to register separately for EU elections. The issue is not that there is a separate form for a separate register. I don’t mind filling in another form to get what I need. The issue is that we were never told about it.
Why is there a separate register for EU citizens to vote in EU Parliament elections? If I’m not mistaken it’s because the form is also a declaration that you are not also registered in another EU country, so you won’t vote twice, in two different countries. If you’re an EU citizen living in UK, you can vote either in your home country, or in UK, but not both. I get that.
Of course we don’t do that. That’s cheating and we don’t do cheating because that’s what bad guys do and we’re not bad guys, we’re good guys. For me it makes sense on every level to vote for UK MEPs. Like, I left Slovakia before it even was an EU country, I don’t even know how it works there and what parties there are. I don’t follow Slovak politics. I know they recently elected a woman for a President but I already forgot her name. (BTW, Slovakia is a parliamentary democracy and the Prime Minister has bigger power than a President.) Point is, I want to vote for UK representatives.
How it should work, in my opinion is: electoral offices should send every EU citizen who is registered to vote a letter some time before EU Parliament elections, informing them that they are eligible to vote either in their home country or in UK, but not in both and that if they wish to vote in UK, to complete the enclosed form. Simple.
Why this is not done, I don’t know.
It almost sounds like they don’t want us to vote.
It also almost sounds like voter suppression.
But that can’t be.
Or can it?
PS: Don’t forget to vote.
Close To You
Said the young tree to the old tree.
Roses of Colours
I bought them in Tesco. I think they look rather nice.
Me as ever, coming to you with my mundane photography.
So I did find Anne of Green Gables in print… and it’s pink
I’ve never seen Anne of Green Gables series in printed format, she said.
She was looking in the wrong section.
The other day I was in Waterstones, an incredibly wonderful UK bookstore, which also sells stationery and other cool silly stuff. While I was paying at the till, for one reason or another (I don’t know where I get the urge to talk to people these days, I never used to be like that), I asked the checkout guy if they ever had Anne of Green Gables in stock. He searched the database and confirmed they did have it–in the children’s 9-12 years section.
You know how much Anne means to me. So yesterday when I was in Waterstones again, I went to check the said section and indeed, there it was. I picked the hardback, because when it comes to physical books, I prefer them to paperbacks.
This is the treasure.
Actually… a few days before I bought it, I was in Paperchase (a mega cool stationery shop) just browsing around and I saw this same edition. They don’t normally sell books, so I thought it was some hipster thing and didn’t pick it up and open it. So when I saw it at Waterstones, I was like, OMG it’s real!
Can I just say… okay, I know nothing about sorting of the books, but it doesn’t seem right to me to have the Anne series in the children’s section. Little Women is always with the classics, yet has a similar theme. Anne is also far more fun, far less patronising, has better characters and the right people end up coupled at the end; as opposed to wrong people marrying the wrong people in Little Women. Maybe I shouldn’t be bothered about it, because after all, there is nothing wrong with children’s books, but why can’t it be in both sections at once? I spent ages desperately looking for Anne when I came to UK, in libraries and bookshops. When I couldn’t find any LM Montgomery books here, I concluded that she wasn’t as popular here as in Slovakia (where her books certainly aren’t in the children’s section). I know you think I could have just asked the staff in library or a bookshop, but well, I didn’t. I have social anxiety for one and I hate asking for help and then, I used to feel stupid about liking certain things. Like, nobody cared about Anne anymore after they’d finished all the books and I was the only one who did. Also, I could not have been sure what the book was called in English. Green Gables is translated into “green house” in my language. I don’t think we even have a word for “gable”, Anne’s room in east gable is translated as “east attic room”. Different countries, different architecture styles.
For the inside the book shot, I chose this unforgettable chapter, in which Anne and her friends Diana, Jane and Ruby decide to play out Elaine (I believe it’s the poem The Lady of Shallot by Alfred Tennyson) in real life and Anne nearly drowns in a pond. After this, she makes a sensible decision to not be romantic again. “It was probably easy enough in towered Camelot hundreds of years ago, but romance is not appreciated now,” she says to Marilla. This however saddens Matthew and he tells her:
Don’t give up all your romance, Anne. A little of it is a good thing–not too much, of course–but keep a little of it, Anne, keep a little of it.
Dear, dear Matthew Cuthbert. We need more like him.
It’s Getting Green
On my way to work this morning I noticed it was looking a bit greener.
Pigeon Takeover
More pigeons!
Last Friday (3rd May), Piccadilly Gardens, an area in Manchester city centre, got evacuated due to a suspicious package. The police and bomb disposal squad were called, did their thing, the device was not viable, nothing bad happened and the culprit was arrested. So what has this got to do with pigeons?
I went out on my lunch break to see what Piccadilly Gardens looked like when it was empty. It was empty of people, but not of all living creatures, as you can see on these shots.
This wasn’t more than half an hour after the evacuation. It’s amazing how fast they took over once people were gone. But that is more of a topic for my Gloomscapes series.
