I’LL SAY it again: if the Tower of London had been built in Manchester it would have been demolished by now – probably to make way for flats.

Something strange has been going on within the city’s planning authority. Quite recently – I reported it at the time – the authority refused permission to demolish 250-year old derelict weavers cottages in the city’s Northern Quarter to make way for flats.

Conservationists applauded the decision.

But it seems the same application – totally unchanged – went back before the authority this week and members, or a majority, changed their minds, this time approving the demolition.

Three city centre councillors who objected to the original application claim they were kept in the dark over the authority’s decision to reconsider it.

One of them, Sam Wheeler, says the new decision to demolish what he described as “monuments to the working class history of Manchester” is “a cowardly and unconscionable surrender.”

Quite what has happened in the interim to make them approve an application that only weeks ago they rejected remains a mystery.

Perhaps whatever is now built on the site …should contain a fish stall!

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HAVE you seen the state of Moston’s Hough Hall recently? Utterly shameful!

The council approved the demolition of part of the Grade II listed building dating back 500 years because it was unsafe.

Well if it was or wasn’t unsafe at that time the decision was made … it sure as hell is now.

Nevertheless, I think it should remain as it is – it could serve as a legacy to the philistines who claim to represent us in the town hall.

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THE M.E.N. reports that “a tsunami of opposition” greeted plans to build what it described as “a tombstone skyscraper” on the site of an old car park in the city centre.

The 53-storey tower – designed like so many of Manchester’s tall buildings by someone one with a Lego fetish – will house 850 students flats: 750 letters were received objecting to the plans.

… the planning authority gave it the go ahead!

The Dukes of Cambridge and Sussex united to unveil the official statue of Diana, Princess of Wales, saying “every day we wish she were still with us”.

William and Harry were at Kensington Palace’s Sunken Garden, on what would have been their mother’s 60th birthday.

But did they really like the statue? After all they ‘stumped up’ for a least part of it?

They were spotted guffawing at one point … but it was a more-or-less private ceremony, so a private joke perhaps?

However, the statue, by British sculptor Ian Rank-Broadley, is yet another green one for God-sake!

And nobody should be laughing at that!

Now this is only my own opinion – but it is a bit rank Ian. And it does make me want to ask, why does the middle-crass world of sculpting think the woman who was thought of as one of the most beautiful in the world by so many, looks pretty in green?

When I met Diana, very, very briefly and so many moons ago, she wasn’t the colour of a frog, or a broad bean or a bit of mildewed bronze.

She was a natural beauty, vibrant and, yes, alluring and mysterious.

This new statue – partly paid for by the princes of dysfunctionality apparently – is reminiscent of that very strange tribute which has graced the former mining town of Bloxwich in the West Midlands for the last two decades.

It stood alone by the side of a busy road an outlandish and often neglected relic mawkishly parked outside a funeral directors.

The granite statue was supposed to have been the centrepiece of an exhibition of burial art in May 2000.

But algae turned it green, a far cry from its first look when Black Country stonemason Andrew Walsh carved it in black granite.

At the time, the plan for the the Indian granite statue was to make it the centrepiece of the burial art exhibition. It was scrapped apparently after complaints by Earl Spencer, the younger brother of Princess Diana.

And when Bloxwich and Walsall residents called for the statue  to go on display at the New Art Gallery in Walsall, the idea was rejected by councillors along with a local MP, saying – tastelessly –  that the statue “looked more like Diana Ross”.

The statue was  dealt another blow when the Queen expressed her displeasure about a plan to display it at Walsall bus station.

Finally this particular Diana found a resting place outside the funeral director’s shop.

However, in recent years the statue has started to age.

The weathered figure had green moss over the hair and neckline. Bosses at the firm responded to feedback and cleaned the princess.

Jacky Campbell of Strongs Memorials, which is apparently incorporated into Andrew Walsh Funerals, was quoted as saying: “Moss build up will always be an issue with natural carved granite stone but we always endeavour to clean it off as often as we can.

“We hope that nobody has felt she has been neglected as we receive only positive feedback about her.”

Walsall councillor Richard Worrall has called for a new home for the statue. He said: “I think it deserves prominence somewhere in the borough, it’s a bit of okay public art and we don’t do too well on public art in Walsall. I think it deserves display.”

Recently, members of Facebook group Walsall in Pictures complained over its appearance.

And now we have another mildewy-looking memory of one of the most beautiful women in the world.

#mildew #diana #dianaprincessofwales #sunkengarden #kensingtonpalace #harryandwills #bloxwich #royals #diana@60 #IanRank-Broadley

The ‘lost boy’, a briefcase of secrets – and Pauline’s body parts forgotten about by police and a university

The legacies of Ian Brady and his monstrous lover Myra Hindley horrify the world.

And still today the families of victims are haunted by the secrets the evil pair of child killers have left behind.

At least two of the secrets are twisted games played from beyond the grave by psychopath Brady.

Not least of course is the continuing search for Keith Bennett’s body on the bleak moors above Manchester, almost 60 years after he vanished.

Surely, this must be Brady and Hindley’s most prolonged and agonising legacy?

But we must not forget the agonies of the family of Pauline Reade who was 16 when she disappeared on her way to a disco.

Think of it, she disappeared on July 12, 1963. And only now her family might be finding some kind of peace.

Let’s be honest, the true horror of having parts of your daughter’s body found in a dusty storage room at a university more than half a century after her murder is unimaginable.

Alan Bennett had this to say about Pauline. In so many ways it is a message of positivity.

I have been in contact with Alan a handful of times, so I do not know him well. But I have no doubt Alan is a good and caring man despite the traumas the evil monsters left behind for him.

Alan wrote: “On this day ( July 1st ) in 1987 the body of Pauline Reade was discovered and brought off Saddleworth Moor, 24 years after Pauline had been murdered and buried on the moor by Brady and Hindley.

After being returned to her family Pauline’s mum, Joan, told us that ‘It was like a big dark cloud had been lifted off my shoulders.’ Joan found some small peace of mind eventually and the change in her life after Pauline was found was so very good to see.

I met Pauline’s immediate family and I can honestly say that Pauline’s mum, Joan, who I met and got hugs from on quite a few occasions, was one of the nicest, gentle and sincere people I have ever met.

Thinking of and remembering Pauline and her family today.”

And we should not forget that 12-year-old John Kilbride was snatched in November the same year. He would have been 70 now but died after being sexually abused and strangled.

Hindley and Brady buried beneath the howling winds and curtains of rain which dominate Saddleworth Moor, on the outskirts of Greater Manchester.

Pauline was the first to die.

And decades later it was the emergence from the moorlands peat of a once-white stiletto shoe that finally brought her home. As the shoe was found Greater Manchester Police knew they had found her shallow grave.

But the legacy of Brady’s cruelty continued because of the bureaucracy of investigation.

More than 30 years after Pauline’s remains were uncovered, the shoes she was wearing and her broken necklace were returned to her family. Police also had her metal chain belt, a piece of material from her dress, a safety pin, a number of buttons and a press stud.

The return of these small and cheap personal items was the second shock in months for her relatives …

Parts of Pauline had been kept by police without her family’s knowledge. After decades an audit had taken place and her jawbone and some of her hair. were found at Leeds University.

This legacy meant planning a second funeral for the teenager at Gorton cemetery.

Greater Manchester Police apologised and said at the time: “Pauline and the other Moors Murders victims are ever present in our minds and Greater Manchester Police will always do everything we can to support their relatives and honour their memory.”

Martin Bottomley, head of GMP’s Cold Case Unit also said: “This is a deeply sensitive matter and understandably it has caused some upset with the family however, we felt contacting them was the right thing to do and we have given them a number of options, all of which GMP will pay for.”

Meanwhile, we wait for Priti Patel’s new access to justice Bill to finally arrive. It could finally force Liverpool solicitor Robin Makin to open two briefcases entrusted to him by Brady just before he died.

It is possible the briefcases, kept securely in storage, could contain clues to where the body of Keith is buried.

John Ainley, senior partner at North Ainley solicitors, in Oldham who is working with Alan Bennett to reveal the secrets of Brady’s suitcases, said: “We have been hoping for a change in the law so police have wider powers to obtain documents that belonged to Ian Brady and may contain information to help find the whereabouts of Keith’s body.

“There are two briefcases of particular interest containing papers which belonging to Ian Brady and now held by his executors but despite several requests to view the contents, access has not been granted.”

We should never forget these names, names forever linked with true horror:

Pauline Reade

John Kilbride

Keith Bennett

Lesley Ann Downey

Edward Evans

#Pauline Reade #John Kilbride #Keith Bennett #Lesley Ann Downey #Edward Evans #ianbrady #myrahindley #moorsmurders #saddleworth

Two years ago I was asked to write something about Slovakia’s dream machine .. a prototype flying car.

I loved it, but worried I was being a bit of an Icarus about it all. I waxed lyrical anyway!

And now it has just completed a 35-minute 80K flight between airports in Nitra and Bratislava.

The hybrid car-aircraft, AirCar, has a BMW petrol engine which you can fill up at the pumps.

Its creator, Prof Stefan Klein, who I interviewed in 2019, said it could fly about 1,000km (600 miles), at a height of 8,200ft (2,500m), and has completed 40 hours in the air so far.

And it only takes two minutes and 15 seconds to transform it from car into a plane!

Its wings fold down along the sides of the car.

Prof Klein said the vehicle reached a cruising speed of 170km/h and carry two people. At the moment it requires a runway though.

Flying cars are finally the way forward – or the way up in reality.

In 2019, consultant company Morgan Stanley predicted the sector could be worth $1.5trillion (£1tn) by 2040.

However, AirCar, Klein Vision, says the prototype has cost “less than 2m euros” (£1.7m).

Dr Stephen Wright, senior research fellow in avionics and aircraft, at the University of the West of England, described the AirCar as “the lovechild of a Bugatti Veyron and a Cesna 172”.

And he did not think the vehicle would be particularly loud or uneconomical in terms of fuel costs, compared with other aircraft.

And he revealed how 40 people from eight countries, including the UK, had worked hard on it, making it another international project emanating from the Little Big Country. 

But Aeromobil are not alone and at least 20 companies are on working flying machines.

Uber for instance is working to create an aerial taxi service in Dallas, Fort Worth, Los Angeles, and Dubai. Uber wants a plane-helicopter hybrid with fixed wings and tilt prop-rotors. The vehicles will take passengers from rooftop to rooftop.

Terrafugia Inc. in the US, also has a prototype flying and it has completed its first flight,

And Dr Paul Moller, of Davis, California, has spent 40 years developing a flying car that can be mass produced. He built his first one in 1967 in his garage.

#slovakia #flyingcar #klein #bratislava #nitra #flyingcarflies #icarus