Sunday 20 July 2008

a long long time ago in a land far away…


once upon a time before the present era of METROPOLIS, glittering mecca of glass and steel, spectacular wall of mirrors, its shimmering shards of glass reflecting the unique, original and pioneering way of life of we its fortunate inhabitants, there was, they say, another city - a shabby mundane town of brick and stone, filthy and derelict beyond repair, its centre barely accessible to tourists and pleasure seekers, obstructed and obscured by acre upon acre of industrial decline, putrid rivers and disease carrying canal ways with vast concrete jungles to traverse at every point of the compass. its citizens lived in despair and destitution, no holy temples to worship and adore or guide their path to materialism, no big wheel of fortune to enlightenment, no luminous metropolis, incandescent beacon to pilgrims and visionaries everywhere…its name they say was manchester.

some say this pitiful 'manchester' is merely a gothic fable, a grimm’s fairytale to frighten the children, but others maintain that its remnants can still be discerned in far off corners of our great metropolis, in the badlands beyond the glass and steel, out beyond our city guardians the giant cranes, where no-one now goes. a few claim that there was perhaps another settlement before the unfortunate manchester, but the truth remains lost in the mists of time – the names granadaland, mamuciun, or castle-in-the-field cropping up in the sagas of this mythical island, that doomed realm.


this journal if you find it, dear reader, is a record, an archive of my humble endeavours to locate this mysterious land behind the waterways, beyond the cranes, beneath the shards of glass...

…read on dear friend but beware, for beyond this point i cannot vouch for your safety or indeed my own…

2 comments:

Seán said...

I have explored some small few of the edges of these secretive and hidden ancient parts of our fair city. Surely their existence goes beyond mere history and physical space into the dreamtime of manchester itself.

Some nice pubs too!

Love,
Seán

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