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Its become a surreal place has the center of Darwen, millions of pounds have been spent just flagging the market and town hall square, to exactly what purpose no one really knows, these are granite paving stones, and the effect looks just like a beach or better still a desert, and that's what people are calling it the beach, and all there is for bus shelters are two bland square glass cubes, what was spent on flagging this huge area, could have built a whole new town center and a bus station to boot.
   I've tried to emphasise this feeling of emptiness by including the two isolated figures in the entrance to the bus shelter, and included the warped perspex roof to lend the scene a sense of distortion, incidently the woman in the picture is Margery's daughter, Shirley, and she's 72, yes 73 in July, Margery's 88th August.
   Bill Bryson, I think would have really berated the pratt's who dreamed up this little folly. Just wait until I get a picture of the jade tower we have here in Darwen, another glorious eyesore. And you'll never guess, the pratt's that be built a health center on top of a hill, it has its own bus service to get people there. and the best of Darwen's follies, is a sculpture, that looks just like the gadget, the Trinity site's atom bomb test in Nevada, and the best part about that is the inscription on its base, Nothing without labour, translated into German it reads, Arbite Macht Frei. The inscription over the gates of every one of the Nazi concentration camps.
   And I thought I lived in the most boring place on earth.

Did you take this from inside the booth?

Yes I did Marilyn, waiting for the Bolton bus, the place was deserted, then I noticed Shirley talking to someone, and saw that they were standing nicely within the frame of the bus shelter, now when I look at the roof of the bus shelter its acting as a polarising filter, if I'd had one on the camera there would have been some amazing colours, but I can't get a 32mm dia polarising filter for the Summicron, I could just imagine a camel train, trekking across the scene. At other times.
    you can imagine a 747 parked there, it wouldn't look out of place. A lot of people have tripped on the nicks of the pavement and really hurt themselves, granite is just such a hard surface that a bang on that can cause more severe injuries than on say tarmac.
    Then there are the blue granite setts, square cobblestones of the bus lane, that's even more trecherous to walk on, they need tarmacking over, but the historical society want to have some of the old cobblestones on display, so people trip on those nicks and get hurt. I must admit I utterly hate what has happened to the town over the past couple of years, all in the name of tarting up the town.