I hate multi-storey car-parks

click photo to enlarge
I hate multi-storey car-parks. I always have done and I don't see that viewpoint changing in the future. I know that they offer parking close to shops and the centres of towns and cities, and perhaps if my mobility were to be impaired my view might change. However, I don't think those circumstances would make me love them.

I've long felt that multi-storeys have the character of a building designed to be a slum: everything is pared down to a functional minimum with bare concrete being the main surface on view and, internally at least, no attempt made to embellish the basic internal structural skeleton. The aim of this, as with slums, is to extract the maximum income from the minimum infrastructure. To that end the ramps are always narrower than anyone would wish, the curves always tighter, the scuffs and scratches on the bends marking where drivers have caught their bumpers on the unyielding concrete, and the parking spaces have barely enough room to get out of your car. They have a general ambience akin to a slaughter house, and that's perhaps the reason that a modern "thriller" cliché is the confrontation of the hero and the "baddies" in the dimly lit  floors of the multi-storey car-park.

Today's photograph shows a typically grim, grey prospect highlighted by the primary colours of warning dazzle and signs. Here, unusually in my limited experience of such places, the area reserved for cars is green and that for pedestrians is marked in red. Incidentally, I have seen a number of poor attempts to decorate the outside of a multi-storey car-park, including one that featured pointed arches in a pitiful attempt to "fit in" with the nearby Gothic cathedral. The only one I have seen and liked featured in this blog post.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo Title: Multi-Storey Car-Park, Gloucester
Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 75mm (150mm - 35mm equiv.) cropped
F No: f5.5
Shutter Speed: 1/160 sec
ISO:640
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Gloucester Day and the English Civil War

click photo to enlarge
On a recent afternoon in Gloucester we kept coming upon groups of re-enactors dressed and armed in the manner of the Parliamentary forces of the English Civil War. We assumed that they were taking part in a re-enactment somewhere in the locality and, apart from taking a couple of photographs of them, we thought no more about it.

Once I was back home, however, I made a point of finding out precisely what they were about and in so doing I learned about an episode of the English Civil War of which I was previously ignorant. The roving bands were in fact taking part in the Gloucester Day weekend that celebrates the city's history and culture. Gloucester Day as it is currently staged dates from 2009 but prior to that was for over two hundred years a celebration of the lifting of the Siege of Gloucester on 5th September 1643, an event in the English Civil War. Apparently the city was under siege by the Royalist army under Prince Rupert and Charles I. The besieging force was about 30,000 strong and the city's garrison of 1,500 regulars plus some militia was heavily outnumbered. But, they took every advantage of their defences and even made sallies from the fortifications to attack the surrounding troops. The siege lasted from August 10th until 5th September when a relieving force of 15,000 troops arrived. Despite the overwhelming advantage possessed by the Royalist forces they lost over 3,000 men killed and wounded compared with the approximately 50 losses on the Parliamentary side. The incident was counted a victory for the forces opposed to the king and celebrated as such.

It seems that if we stumble upon such events they are usually re-creating the Civil War - as were these re-enactors in Lincolnshire.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Nikon D5300
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 140mm (210mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/250 sec
ISO:160
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On