Author: ChrisC

More of the Glass Works, Barnsley

Some more shots from the Glass Works redevelopment in the centre of Barnsley. There seems to have been quite a lot of progress since I last posted about this project at the end of August.

A shot of the steelworks on Cheapside taken from further up the hill. Since the last set of images they have finished constructed what will be the second floor celling. Behind you can see the structural work for what will be the cinema.

A closeup of the Cheapside steelworks.

Groundworks for bowling ally and restaurants on the north side Kendray Street. The small grey building in the centre is a new electricity substation.

The same area taken from Midland Street.

A shot of the main part of the project. This was taken on the corner of Kendray Street and May Day Green. The steelworks to the right will become the shops that back onto the existing market. The steelworks in the centre comprise of elements of the new cinema and the shops and restaurants on the east side of the project. The near centre – where the dumper truck is parked – will become a public square.

Equipment and supplies compound with cinema structure behind. Beyond you can see the steelworks for the shops that back onto the existing market structure.

Panorama of the entire site taken from the temporary pedestrian bridge over the railway line.

From left to right:

Cinema and restaurants structure
(Back) Shops structure
(Fore) Location of new public square
Completed library
Kendray Street
Bowling alley and additional restaurants
Existing transport hub

The Sunrise over the Minster

A pleasant little video of the sun rising over York railway station. Towards the rear left you can see the permanently-lit York Minster towering over the rest of the city. The large yellow crane in the centre of the image is part of the building site on the former Hudson House plot and sits just in side the city walls. And, of course, prior to that this plot of land had been the original York station.

Ad Astra – The ‘Is this a review?’ Post

Is this a review? Probably, but sometimes it’s quite hard to tell. Anyway, earlier today I braved the train-tram combination to see Ad Astra at the local IMAX.

And it’s a funny little thing – part 2001: A Space Odyssey, part Apocalypse Now, odd little bits that felt almost like b-reel from Beyond the Black Rainbow (especially certain parts of the Mars sequence) and what appeared to be some very visible sellotape.

The plot is relatively straight forward; bad things start happening to Earth, the military dispatch a man to the outer reaches of the solar system where they think his estranged father might be responsible for these bad things occurring, the hero stops them and then comes home to tell everyone that the universe is otherwise empty of life and so we should be happier and nicer to each other.

And yet we take a number of odd diversions along the way. Lunar rover driving moon pirates attack the hero as he transits between two American controlled installations and then, shortly afterwards, a brief stop-off at a Norwegian space station sees a barely introduced secondary character die via free-floating space baboon. Major actors (Sutherland, Negga]) turn up for a few minutes, move the plot along a little and then disappear, never to be seen again. Liv Tyler – who, miraculously, actually manages to appear in all three acts! – seems to live in a parallel universe where every camera has a thin sheen of vaseline covering every lens. FX are what you would expect from a film of this budget and time-period but with only limited moments where it goes beyond the norm. There were no real moments where the IMAX format was used to it’s full effect.

I came away confused at what this film wanted to be – Apocalypse Now? 2001? A mediation on the need for family and community? A condemnation of the idea of sending people far outside of their natural habitat? – and, because of that, I walked away with a strong feeling that Ad Astra was far less than the sum of it’s influences and that this flaw ran all the way back to the beginnings of the production.

Dust Coated Departure by miserable.noise.club

Dust Coated Departure; a pleasant little EP from the miserable.noise.club. I particularly like track three and, as Bandcamp seem to be offering it for free, I have taken an Apple Lossless copy of the entire thing.

A very long time ago one of Warren Ellis’ newsletters used to contain a section where he’d link out to new and interesting little things like this and I’d find a whole bunch of interesting things that way. Unfortunately, that seems to have fallen by the wayside and, horror of horrors, these days I actually have to look for new stuff!