Saturday morning

In my teens - when I bought the NME (bit political) and Melody Maker (my favourite) but not Sounds (rubbish) - my perception of Manchester was very much coloured by those newspapers.

Or, in fact, uncoloured. The word Manchester to me summoned up monochromes, and made me think of rain and snow. In fact, my abiding and immediate image of Manchester is disproportionately indebted to this one photo. Furthermore, the distance of the subjects from the shot somehow chimed in with the fact that I only had the vaguest idea where Manchester actually was; just somewhere, up north, far away.

These days I go to Manchester quite regularly and the recent spate of sunny weather has put the city's appearance at odds with my mental image. The absence of the rain has made me notice the brickwork for a start and there's more greenery than I imagine.

I took this photo from Piccadilly station at about a quarter to nine. There's a lot of red brick in Manchester so this building leapt out at me, almost luminous in the morning sun.