Coming Home

Mrs PM and I have recently returned from a week long break in Playa Blanca, Lanzarote in the Canary Islands. We were meant to go to Malaysia but Mrs PM’s job situation scuppered that somewhat and forced us to postpone that wonderful trip until 2026. The good news is that the situation is now resolved but sadly it was too late to organise that trip to the Far East. Instead we opted for a short European trip to get some winter sun.

Whenever I am abroad, especially in winter, I barely think of Manchester. As we walked along the promenade after breakfast, listening to the Atlantic Ocean lapping up on the sandy shores and rocks, the dreadful rainy cold weather that we have to endure in February in the UK is so far from my brain that Manchester may as well be on another planet. 

Even the evenings are beautiful and clear in Lanzarote, if not a little chilly. All that means is that I have to wear long trousers instead of shorts as we dine within earshot of the waves. And talking about planets, we actually managed to see a couple of them with the naked eye. Mrs PM mentioned that the news had an article about all the planets being aligned. I love a good sunset and as we were sitting in a bar watching our star slowly descend behind the horizon, seemingly into the horizon, I used an app on my smartphone to find the planets – the app is called Sky Map and well worth a download. Here are a couple of sunset pictures I took.

Mercury was close to the sun but invisible and a bright spot nearby turned out to be Venus. As the sun disappeared and the sky became darker, other points of light in the firmament became visible and, with the aid of Sky Map, I could clearly identify Saturn, which looked a little dull compared to Venus but still there. The app also told me that just below Venus but perhaps too far away to see with the naked eye was Neptune. 

As I moves around the sky, I then identified and saw Jupiter and Uranus. Jupiter was perfectly clear and Uranus, like Saturn, was quite dull but just about visible. 

The only one I couldn’t find was Mars. 

It would have been amazing to have seen this exact sky with a telescope from the desert where there is no light pollution to shield the planets. I remember a trip to Barbados where we had a little session with an astronomer who used a telescope to find Saturn for us. That was amazing and I could even see the rings. 

On our last morning, we had a leisurely breakfast and had time to take a walk along the promenade for a coffee before having to return to the airport for our flight home. I enjoyed sitting by the ocean, listening to the waves and enjoying the clear blue skies and the sun reflecting off glistening turquoise water. 

I felt totally relaxed. 

About eight hours later we had landed at Manchester Airport and were in a cab, driving through the rainy cold streets of my home city. I looked through the rain spotted windows of the cab and the sky was dark and covered in clouds that hid any stars and planets. Part of me was disappointed and I craved sitting by the beach, stargazing while listening to the calm sea. Mrs PM was excited because she was starting her new job the following day and she was also looking forward to seeing her “babies”, that is our two domineering masters, our cats Ziggy and Star(dust).

I allowed my mind to briefly return the scene from eight hours ago, the taste of the coffee, the warm breeze, the sound of the ocean, the colours, the people. 

And then I realised that in a few moments I would be home. 

My home is my castle, the place where I feel most comfortable. It’s like my central office, even though I don’t work anymore and I love being there. My brief longing for Lanzarote gradually faded and once I had braved the rain, entered my house and unpacked, I had the chance to sit down with a cup of tea and think about my trip. Star(dust) put her two front paws on my stomach and stared at me as she purred. She then lay down next to me, clinging to my leg like a feline leech and fell asleep. Ziggy was sitting next to Mrs PM.

I then started thinking about our next trip to Malta in May, where we will be taking Mrs PM’s mum for a celebration of her 80th birthday. I will once again be beside the sea with a chance to explore Valetta. It will be warm sunny and in terms of weather, a million miles from Manchester. 

Mrs PM broke my reverie.

“I’m glad to be home,” she said. 

And, to be perfectly honest, so was I.

Progressive Thoughts - Day 8

Edging out towards the pop end of the progressive spectrum are Electric Light Orchestra a band who combine rock and pop music with classical music and have been a favourite band of mine since the 1970’s.

Today’s song is the first part of a four part piece called “Concerto for a Rainy Day”, which culminates in the final part which is the excellent and most well-known Mr Blue Sky. This song is called Standin’ in the Rain.

Many people in the world picture England as a rainy, dull place with grey skies and miserable people. Elements of that are true, but only small elements. When the rain comes, the sky can become a miserable dark grey colour and the coldness of the raindrops isn’t pleasant. Walking home in the rain is quite depressing particularly if you have forgotten your umbrella.

The rest of this myth is totally false. I regard British people to be amongst the friendliest in the world and certainly the funniest. Maybe our inclement weather helps in this regard. We are willing and able to laugh at ourselves and smile in the face of adversity.

Manchester in particular has been done a disservice in the weather stakes. It rains a lot here but we are not the rainiest city in the United Kingdom by any stretch of the imagination. Furthermore, we are really friendly too. It has been observed that when a Mancunian travels to London, for example, he assumes that he can just turn to the person next to him on the London Underground and hold a conversation. In truth he can’t because, as a rule, Londoners are less friendly.

I have had some wacky conversations with random people in my adopted home city, just in passing. That’s one of the reasons I love the place, despite the higher than average rainfall.

One good thing about the rain is that the areas surrounding Manchester, the North West in particular, are always lush and green. When William Blake wrote the poem Jerusalem, I like to think he was thinking of the North West of England when he wrote the words “green and pleasant land”.

I’m sure he wasn’t because, in truth, the whole of the United Kingdom is as green as it is pleasant.

Anyway, back to the rain. I’ve mentioned this before but, despite the common belief that Manchester is the rainiest city in the United Kingdom, we aren’t. Here is the list:

1. Cardiff

2. Glasgow

3. Preston

4. Huddersfield

5. Plymouth

6. Blackpool

7. Carlisle

8. Manchester

9. Gloucester

10. Liverpool

One of my worst experiences of rain in the United Kingdom was in Glasgow. I was at Strathclyde University for a course in November some years ago and, in the evening, I decided to go for a walk to explore the city. I love walking and just meandered around the dark streets, taking in the sights. Sadly, I wandered a little too far from my hotel and was unsure of the direction back (this was in the days before satnavs).

And then it started to rain.

I was totally unprepared. I had a relatively thin coat on and had stupidly hoped that walking would help me work up a bit of a sweat. It did but then I realised that it had little protection for sudden rainstorms. Accompanying the rain was a biting northerly wind that tore through my flimsy protection and chilled me to the bone.

And then the thunder started.

I have never seen such rain in the United Kingdom. It was like ice and totally torrential. People in Glasgow must have been aware of what it was like being stuck in the cold November rain (perhaps this was the inspiration for the song by Guns ’n’ Roses) and were safely tucked up in their warm houses.

I was alone in the cold wet streets and ended up taking quite a few wrong turns as I searched the city streets for a sign I recognised. Sadly, my glasses were useless because the rain was so intense that I simply couldn’t see a thing.

After what seemed like an eternity, I stumbled on a taxi rank and hopped into the first cab. I was drenched – utterly drenched.

The hotel was just a three minute ride away and the driver’s almost unintelligible Glaswegian accent was no help whatsoever. I couldn’t understand a single word. One thing I did understand though was his mocking laughter as he dropped me off.

Back in my hotel room, I peeled off my cold wet clothes and discovered that the rain had penetrated everything. Only my socks were dry. Even my underpants were soaking wet.

I spent about an hour in a hot shower to warm up.

I have seen worse rain in Singapore, Trinidad and Hong Kong but at least in those countries it was warm.

If you take one thing from this post, it should be this:

Always carry an umbrella with you in Glasgow in the winter and make sure that you know the way back home – or at least the way to the nearest taxi rank.

Dear Mother Nature

Dear Mother Nature,

I went for a walk at lunchtime today, as I do on every other working day. I have three routes; one is 1.5 miles, the second is 1.8 miles and, for days when I am feeling particularly stressed and/or energetic, the third is 2.1 miles.

When I left the office, the sun was shining and, although it was chilly, I was content and comfortable. I opted for the 1.8 mile walk and, having pressed reset on my pedometer, I set off, with a high tempo song pounding on my iPod to help me keep a brisk pace.

However, as I approached the 0.9 mile point, I suddenly remembered two things that I had forgotten at the start of my walk.

The first thing was that British weather is totally unpredictable.

The second, and most important thing, was that I had left my umbrella in the car.

What prompted this sudden total recall?

It suddenly started pissing down with rain. There was no warning whatsoever; it was like you had decided to turn on the shower with maximum water pressure.

And what song was playing on my iPod when this deluge occurred?

November Rain by Guns’n’Roses:




Is this your idea of a joke? You wait until exactly half way through my walk, when I am at the furthest point from the shelter of the office and decide to drench me in rainwater with no shelter but the leafless trees at the side of the pavement. The fact that November Rain was on must have been the icing on the cake.

When I finally got back to the office, having navigated my way back through steamed up and drenched spectacles, I looked like a drowned rat.

My work colleagues were merciless. I spent the entire afternoon in a state of damp despondency trying to ignore water related puns from amused colleagues.

And my hair, which is a pain at the best of times, finally dried in a style that can best be described as “disturbing to children”.

Why, Mother Nature? Why?

I’d like to ask for a few favours regarding the weather in Britain. Have you got a pen?

(1) Instead of dumping the entire contents of the Atlantic Ocean onto the UK, Manchester in particular, can you please send it to America instead?

(2) Yes, I know we need rain to survive but if it must rain, can you please make sure that it happens between the hours of midnight and 6am, when I am safely tucked up in my warm bed?

(3) British weather is unpredictable at best – even in the summer when it is supposed to be warm. Most summers, we have mostly bad cold weather, occasionally interspersed with a few good sunny days. I like those sunny days. During summer, can you please make sure that we have warm sunny days (25 °C will do – I’m not fussy).

(4) I hate snow. I used to love it as a kid but now it is horrible and also dangerous. The whole country grinds to a halt, particularly when temperatures drop so low that it freezes. Can you please take all the snow to the North Pole where it belongs?

(5) And talking of cold weather, can you please arrange for us to have mild winters? I’m looking for temperatures of 15 °C minimum.

(6) I realise that I am sounding a little selfish here so, on behalf of the rest of the world, can you stop creating hurricanes, typhoons and monsoons? I am sure the people of the world can survive with standard rainstorms with a little bit of wind rather than the monstrosities that rampage around the world – including those hurricanes that find their way over to the UK and cause lots of damage and general trauma.

Is it too much to ask?

Your name suggests that you are a mother and I am sure that a good kind mother would not want to play such a nasty prank on one of her children – i.e. me.

There are lots of us in the world and I am sure that we all have similar complaints. There’s a guy called Santa who actually takes requests at Christmas.

Can’t you do the same?

I’m sure you chuckled as I dragged my drenched and bedraggled form back to the office for hours of ridicule (I might have done the same had it happened to somebody else) – but this is not the first time it has happened. Even when I have had the foresight to take my brolly, you have somehow conjured up 100mph winds to render it useless and make me even more saturated.

I hope you listen to me – I am sure you are a nice person really.

Yours hopefully,

Plastic Mancunian.

P.S. An alternative to dumping the rain on the UK might be to dump it on France – apart from when I am there on holiday of course.

And Another Thing ...

I’m in the mood for a rant. Will you indulge me?

Too bad – I’m going to rant anyway. Let’s see where this goes. I’ll start with the Olympics.

You know how brilliantly Great Britain are doing at the Olympics? That’s something I am not going to target with my plastic wrath. Instead, I have BBC TV sports presenters in my sight.

Having endured about a week of listening to them on TV and radio, I am fed up of the constant gushing about the gold winning athletes. Please, please just offer congratulations instead of inventing superlatives and turning these athletes into deities.

I am happy that Bradley Wiggins won the road race; I am absolutely delighted that Jess Ennis beat the odds to triumph; I am over the moon that Andy Murray actually beat a legend; I couldn’t be happier for Ben Ainslie, Greg Rutherford, Victoria Pendleton or any of the other magnificent athletes.

But please stop going on about them as if they could fly to the moon and back.

And while we’re on, stop overusing the word journey.

X Factor started it.

"What a tough journey One Direction had to get here.”

These guys are BBC presenters and they prattle on about “journeys”. I know it’s difficult to talk about other things but please, for the sake of my sanity please try!

And why is X Factor still on TV? I am dreading the return of possibly the worst show ever to be conceived; a show that makes me want to destroy my television set. I could turn over but it is seriously difficult to find quality television sometimes.

I have Sky TV and I love watching sport and movies but, as Bruce Springsteen said, there are “57 Channels and nothin’ on.”

In fact it’s more like 357 channels. And that is particularly true in summer.

You may be wondering why I would want to watch TV in the summer when the weather is supposed to be  beautiful and we should all be outside basking in the heat and sunshine.

I can here you cry:

“Stop moaning at the TV, you plastic imbecile and get out there in the sunshine.”

Well, dear reader, I would – if it wasn’t pissing down outside.

July and August have been more like November and December this year.  We have had the wettest July on record and that is added to earlier months this year when it was also the wettest on record. The Jet Stream has been hovering south of the UK and bringing with it so much dreadful bloody weather that I want to put the whole thing into Room 101 together with Piers Morgan.

Constant, relentless rain has dampened my spirits to the point where I feel like running out to the middle of our street and kneeling down in the deluge with my arms skywards, pleading to whatever God is willing to listen to me:

"WHY WON’T YOU STOP RAINING?"

We had plans to take a week off work and travel to Scotland next week – but we daren’t. So instead we are spending more money – to fly south to Spain and spend a lot more money than I would have done.

Don’t get me wrong; a holiday to Spain will be most welcome, particularly Marbella, a place I haven’t been to before. The problem is that we have picked a particularly expensive part of Spain and Mrs PM has already tried to put me on a No Carbs till Marbs diet.

Don’t laugh – this is a genuine diet, inspired by yet another dumb TV show called The Only Way is Essex, full of a bunch of weirdos from (you've guessed it) Essex.

No way. The people of Marbella are going to have to put up with me waddling around with any excess body fat on show.

Not that I am fat. I might be a little bit overweight but my BMI is not bad for a guy of nearly 50. Nevertheless, if you happen to be in Marbella next week – don’t worry. I won’t be waddling around in clothes that make me look fat or ridiculous – unlike some holidaymakers I have seen.

There ought to be a law against wearing clothes that you shouldn’t.

I’m nearly 50 and I know where I’m flabby. I would never wear clothing that made me look like a total arse, under the illusion that I was the reincarnation of a muscular Greek Adonis. I would look like an absolute buffoon and probably make the Spanish throw up over their paella.

If you ever see me wandering around wearing clothes that make people ill, you have my permission to slap me.

I just wish I could do the same to some of the people who consider themselves to be athletic and absolutely attractive to the opposite sex, wearing clothes that accentuate everything that is disgusting about them.

I don’t do it (and believe me I look disgusting); why should THEY be allowed to get away with it?

If only I had the courage of my convictions. If only I had the courage to say to the 60 year old business man with a beer gut that is so huge that people scream when he turns around:

“Put a T shirt on – or should I say a tent! I don’t want to see your flabby, hairy beer belly and neither do all of these good people. And for God’s sake do NOT wear speedos.”

You see, dear reader, I am a silent ranter – one who rants to the cats, work colleagues who are entertained and my poor beleaguered and beloved Mrs PM – and nobody else.

Oh – apart from you, dear reader.

You see, I am a coward and I have to hide behind an alias here on the internet. Don’t get me wrong; I am not a troll. I would never openly insult a person, alias or no alias. I would never post a nasty comment on a blog post – even if I violently disagreed with the contents of that post.

I like to debate and allow discussions to germinate into an enjoyable experience for both parties – even if I think the other party is a clueless imbecile.

Debate is good; discussion is good. It opens up a whole new world of possibilities and, if done properly, can be an enjoyable learning experience.

So why, Mr Troll (and you know you’re out there reading this), do you insist on hurling abuse at poor innocent bloggers? Keyboard warriors wind me up so much that I have been tempted to track the buggers down.

Still, there’s no point getting upset with people who don’t know how to have a discussion about disagreements, people who just want to post vindictive nastiness under a pseudonym, in the hope that nobody will be able to track them down.

I think I’d better stop now before I get carried away.

Thanks for listening, dear reader – or should I say, thanks for reading.

Getting rid of stress by having a good rant is very therapeutic and, although I don’t genuinely get that upset over things, it eases any pressure that life has to throw at me. It is a necessary part of my existence.

I’ll finish off on a positive note.

Well done Team GB. I hate the name but 18 gold medals and counting is a majestic achievement.

Well done to each and every one of you. And well done to all athletes who have won medals for every other nation too.

I will not gush!

I WILL NOT GUSH!

And I definitely WILL NOT WEAR SPEEDOS!

Wind Of Change

One of the things that foreigners say about British people is that we are obsessed with the weather.

And do you know what? I think they are right.

There is a reason for this obsession – our weather in the British Isles is so crap, so unpredictable, so utterly irritating that it does make a good topic for conversation.

Take the last couple of weeks for example.

Two weeks ago we had unseasonably high temperatures in March; in fact it was the hottest March on record. We were basking in temperatures of 24°C. People throughout the United Kingdom were out in shorts and thoroughly enjoying the warm temperature.

Mrs PM and I walked into Didsbury and sat outside at a local café eating a nice early evening meal with a pint of fine ale; it had a definite continental feel to it. People were walking past in T-shirts and shorts, remarking that we were perhaps, for once, in for a great summer. Sunglasses were ubiquitous and I even heard people talking about using sun block for their kids.

In a little place called Aboyne in the northern reaches of Scotland, they too were enjoying the highest temperatures they had experienced in March.

Fast forward a few days and everything changed.

The temperatures plummeted. In Manchester, having enjoyed 24°C, we suddenly found ourselves waking up to frozen cars and days were the temperature barely scraped 4°C. A huge cloud, weighed down with snow, drifted south depositing several inches over the United Kingdom. The Pennine roads were blocked and impassable; a friend of mine who commutes from Halifax, found himself snowed in.

Aboyne, that pleasant little village in Aberdeenshire that had been basking in the sunshine, now found itself covered in six inches of snow.

And all of this happened in a few days.

Is it any surprise that we are so utterly obsessed with the weather?

The weather forecast is mandatory viewing for most Brits simply because we have no idea what on earth Mother Nature is going to dump on us.

I have in the past seen all four seasons in one day. One June many years ago, I woke up and saw that it was snowing – yes that is correct – snowing in the summer. By midday the snow had turned to rain and in the afternoon we had glorious sunshine.

The weather is that mad.

Nevertheless, we never get extremes. A comedian remarked on TV recently that our weather is rarely so extreme that it is dangerous.

We have had a hurricane – and the weather forecasters failed to predict that – so it caused havoc in the South of England. But that is a very rare event. We don't get cyclones or tornadoes.

We have had a fair temperature range though. The highest recorded temperature in the UK is 38.5 °C with the lowest being -26.1°C.

In my own personal experience, the highest temperature I have encountered in the UK was 35 °C and the lowest about -15 °C.

Of course, outside the UK I have experienced more extremes. The highest temperature I have had to endure was during August in Las Vegas, when the temperature soared to a massive 45°C. I remember the pain involved with that. Walking outside was agonizing and we hotel-hopped down the famous Las Vegas Strip, just so that we could avoid as much of the sun as possible. At one point, Mrs PM and I were waiting for a bus and wilting so much that we just dived into a cab.

Compare that with the lowest temperature I have had to endure; -20 °C in Moscow in Winter. I wore two pairs of socks and a coat that was so big that I looked like the Michelin man. It was so bad that my nose was running and the liquid snot was freezing as soon as it cleared the sanctuary of my nostrils.

And I lost my woolly hat and gloves, thankfully the day before I left. I thought my nose was going to drop off.

We rarely get such extremes in the UK and I am thankful for that. Yes, we have to put up with bizarre weather, damp weather, cloudy dull days, foggy mornings, snow, and rainy summers.

It will be amusing to discover what the British weather has in store for us when the Olympics come to London later this year.

But on those days in late spring, summer and early autumn, when the weather decides to become seasonal and stable and the sun shines on our lovely countryside, with blue skies and big fluffy white clouds, I realise why I love being in Britain.

I still take a coat and an umbrella with me though – because you never know.

Blogging In The Rain

The last two weeks have been strange in Manchester. Why? Because it has hardly rained. Here we are heading towards the end of September and hardly a drop of rain has fallen on the city.

In fact, as I type, I am staring out of the window onto a blue cloudless sky.

Those of you from within the UK are probably thinking “Yes that is indeed strange, Mr Plastic Mancunian”. Those of you from further away may be thinking “What’s so odd about two weeks without rain?”

Well let me tell you what’s strange about it. Manchester is perceived to be the rainiest city in Britain. Just watch a typical weather forecast.

The weatherman will say something like …

“Good news everybody, we have clear blue skies everywhere except …”

And I just know that there will be a tiny black cloud on the map. Furthermore, everybody will know exactly where I live because that cloud will be hovering directly above my house holding a huge amount of rainwater to drop on my head. The cloud will be saying "Come on - make my day".

Of course, if it is raining in the UK it will of course be raining in Manchester as well – that’s a given!

When I first moved to Manchester over twenty years ago, people told me to buy an umbrella “because I would need it”. And they were right. Apparently Mancunians spend £13million a year on umbrellas.

However, I have been doing my home city a disservice. Apparently Manchester is not the wettest city in Britain.

According to an article I recently read the following cities are wetter:

Londonderry
Plymouth
Glasgow
Cardiff
Preston
Belfast

In fact Manchester is the ninth wettest city in Britain and the average rainfall is only marginally more than the average rainfall for the whole of England.

So if you are thinking "The Plastic Mancunian comes from Manchester. He must be blogging in the rain” – think again.

It's sunny up north!

I’m off to South Africa again tomorrow so I won’t be posting for a week or so. Let’s hope it doesn’t rain there.