Somebody.....

A very interesting but wet (good old Manchester 'stair rods' bucketing it down) morning spent navigating the Ashton and Rochdale Canal towpaths in Manchester city centre today with the new Canal & Rivers Trust. Net result was I came up with nothing Blippable except this forlorn lost or left book on a lock gate arm in the bowels of the Rochdale Canal as it passes under Piccadilly Road. This was exactly how I found it: all neatly positioned.

It seems Somebody by Anita Anderson is according to Amazon 'A perfect cappuccino of a book - hot, frothy and totally irresistable''. Not sure about the merits of that, but reminded me of the Dame Barbara Cartland installation called The Colditz Cock seen at Tatton Biennial the other day. Likewise, this Somebody also had an interesting hidden story behind the pulp fiction: Who had left it? Did they leave or were they dumped in the canal? What were they doing reading romantic fiction in this subterranean no-go area?

This undercroft is part of the Red Light area used for a quickie after dark, and forms the biggest headache for Manchester canal types, in that to traverse the city and join either the Cheshire or Pennine Ring, boats have to pass through this underground rat run. Manchester canals are starved of boat visits because of fear of cruising through this place.

Maybe the book was just a literary leftover from something like the Guardian Book Swap, where books were left in public places as gifts. I had assumed it would have belonged to a lady tasked with lock gate duties who in the rush to get the hell out of there, left behind her guilty little secret - but who knows, maybe it was a grungy bearded barge enthusiast or a lady-boy waiting for a passing trick.

Maybe they were one and the same. Now there's a sobering thought to end with.

Postscript: Original colour image replaced with the same one manipulated by new Coloursplash App.