A trip to Stockport Museum in pictures, part 2!

Continuing from yesterday's post, here's more of Stockport Museum. Picking up right where we left off with an intriguing array of objects from bygone eras. There's significantly less death involved this time 'round!



Starting with these lovely wooden printing blocks - look at those lovingly carved details! Absolutely sublime. My favourite of these is the lavishly rendered "First and foremost" - that would be an excellent opening to a really angry letter. (If anyone fancies doing a comedy sketch around that, do let me know because I'd love to see/hear it.)




A bit of railway history complete with losenge-style sign, some very cosy-looking old-fashioned holiday remnants and a striking commemorative plaque from the fire station.





Onto the Strawberry Studios exhibit, complete with a gorgeous mixing desk, a bit of Joy Division and more needlework! The little cross-stitched John Cooper Clarke made me very happy indeed. This sampler is by 8bitNorthXStitch and you can check out her work here.




Onto a 1940s living room, a 1950s kitchen (loving those curved units!) and some odds and ends from the '60s. Of course, the Babycham prompted a dutiful call and response of "'Ave yer got any booze fer t'baby?", "You can't give a baby booze!!!"





On the lowest level, there was a display of photos by Heidi Alexander, showing what Stockport Market was like in the 1970s; you can have a look at those on her website here. I picked a copy of her book from the shop as a souvenir, it's a lovely memento of a good day out. Here in these cabinets we have more objects from the '70s, including Robinson's Brewery goodies (based in Stockport, I went walked past it and took a picture of the sign, but that's for another post - also their Unicorn ale is very nice), an HMV branded TV with some delicious woodgrain, a cheerful yellow rotary phone, assorted groceries and a brilliant sign. Mr Carefree sounds like goals to me.

Heading back up the stairs, what should emerge in the gift shop but... yes... it's happened. There was a cat out in the wild. Yes, it's a tiger, but that's a big cat, so it still counts.


And heading out of the museum, we were treated to a very pleasant view of the market place in the sunshine. Just my luck, the day we came here, it wasn't a market day, but still, we had a great time in the museum and stopped off at Goodness Foods for lunch. Hopefully it's still there next time we go to Stockport, because the food there was lush and the staff were delightfully down-to-earth.

And now, on a significantly less sunny note, it's time to get ready for work...

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Further rambling

Twa Thousand Corbies

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Going to start this post with an illustration, because of this blog layout, posts lacking images tend to look a bit pants. The art here is by G. Howell-Baker. A while back, I was joking about gathering together as many versions of Twa Corbies as possible, and finally, here we are. This is going to be a continually evolving list, so if you know of a version that needs to be included, or if you've recorded one of your own, then by all means, let me know. You can put a comment here or e-mail me at looksinnocuousnenoughchaps [at] gmail [dot] com. Let's begin! 1.  Folly Bridge - My personal favourite, performed completely a capella with some beautiful, eerie harmonies. 2.  Hamish Imlach - A live version, and a very close second favourite. Hamish's distinctive voice works wonders here and we're treated to some elegant sitar as well. 3.  Ayreheart - This one features the lute and a passionate vocal performance, it's quite pleasant. 4.  The Corries - Quite a brisk and e...
'Ave a gander 'ere

Some thoughts regarding Silent Hill Downpour

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Getting up at 3am for work is never a recipe for focussed and cogent thought, but it does seem to result in getting down some rabbit holes. On this occasion, after feeling an overwhelming desire to know what A Lyke Wake Dirge would sound like done in the style of Pookiesnackenburger (for the record, Alisdair Reynolds' version is my personal favourite) and weighing up whether or not to pursue a change of setting in an absurdist comedy script-in-progress because it feels like a repurposed shipwreck might provide more fertile ground than a haunted theatre, I got to thinking about Silent Hill Downpour for a bit. This game gives me some very mixed feelings; overall, I'd come down on the side of being fond of it, there's definitely a lot to love here but there's a near-equal measure of things that are frustrating about it. I guess the one-word summary would be "undercooked". It's got a lot of potential, and the green shoots of some really interesting ideas, but...
'Ave a gander 'ere

Revisiting Crapston Villas (while actually sober)

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So recently, I played the Silent Hill 2 remake (really enjoyed it, a nicely done update of an old favourite) and while scrambling about in the flats, something emerged from the dusty caverns of long-buried memories: namely this stop-motion animated cat, lurking in the sallow light of a knackered hallway with blood dripping from his jaws. Quite the sight. Look upon him!!! To be honest, if it were a toss-up between the cat and Pyramid Head, yeah, I'd rather take me chances with the Traffic Cone Twat, thank you. So as it was, the only other things I could remember about Crapston Villas were an homage to that one King Crimson album, a scene involving a horrific-looking fish, there was a lot of gallows humour and the fact that I was howlingly drunk on questionable ale when I watched it (this was around 2013.) Incidentally, it seems to be a running theme with people that I've talked to over the years, whenever the topic of Newcastle Brown comes up, someone always has a story about...
'Ave a gander 'ere