Half A World Away

On the day the UK’s clocks went forward – which always makes it seem closer – and the temperatures in Cape Town were a mere 5C warmer than Sheffield, there were also a couple of similar poses on display in the respective cities:

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That’s me watching the boy swim and my Dad enjoying a Boddington’s.

Obviously, the feet are crossed differently because we’re in different hemispheres.

192 Shoreham Street

Wow. I love this conversion of an old warehouse near Sheffield city centre.

“The upward extension replaces a pitched roof, creating three duplex studio offices within a powder-coated steel volume that both overlaps and bites through the original brick structure. A new restaurant and bar occupies the double-height warehouse space below, where it benefits from light through the original two-storey-high arched windows.”

According to the architects: “192 Shoreham Street is a Victorian industrial brick building sited at the edge of the Cultural Industries Quarter Conservation Area of Sheffield. It is not listed but considered locally significant.
The completed development seeks to rehabilitate the once redundant building, celebrate its industrial heritage and make it relevant to its newly vibrant context.”

   

“The brief was to provide mixed use combining a desirable double height restaurant/bar within the original shell (capitalising on the raw industrial character of the existing building) with duplex studio office units above.”

Nicely done. Anything which preserves the industrial heritage of the city while dragging it kicking and screaming into the 21st century is absolutely fine by me.

Thinned Sheffield Sky

Earlier today, I was wandering around arepeejee’s flickr (you may remember him from such blog posts as What were the skies like when you were young? and Eccy Rd Hoff Stolen), having seen a link to this masterpiece.

It was there that I saw the full version of this superb photo: “Sheffield Sky”

…which I have thinned (as I am wont to do to sunsets) and which, thanks to The Guru, can now be stretched to 678px without disrupting the sidebar.

Winning.

Comedians like Sheffield

And they’re not being funny, either.

Who could forget Alexander Armstrong’s kind words about my hometown last year? And those were followed up by Michael Legge last month, which were emailed to me by regular reader, Darthfarter. I would probably have got to this sooner, but I only found it by chance in my deleted spam folder last night while I was desperately trying to find an ancient email to prove my wife wrong on some inconsequential matter or other.
(Needless to say, I lost.)

But Legge’s blog made for good reading.

I’ve never been to Sheffield before until this weekend. I’m not sure what I was expecting but it wasn’t this. I’m not saying that I was just assuming that Sheffield was one big coalmine. No. It’s just I didn’t think it would be… well… beautiful. But it is. I genuinely can’t think of a nicer city I’ve visited in Britain.

I arrived on Thursday and spent the night in two bars in what looked like a pretty boho area of town. This must be the nice part of Sheffield. I’m sure the centre of town is constantly on fire with rapists, murderers and Hitler drinking, puking and shouting outside every branch of Greggs. Also, I thought, every shop in Sheffield will be a branch of Greggs. It was good to spend the night in these two cool and relaxing bars because surely seeing the centre of Sheffield tomorrow will be a nightmare of biblical proportions, if The Bible was written and directed by Wes Craven.

But of course, it wasn’t. And it’s not just the vibe, the atmosphere and the architecture of Sheffield that Legge enjoys. Even the people are great (as those of you who have met me will happily testify) (or else):

Here’s the most important bit: I have yet to see a Sheffield dickhead. Every single person has been friendly. Properly friendly. Like you know when you go somewhere and you say “Oh, I like it there. People are very friendly there” but you realise you only met about 3 people so you have no authority at all to claim people are friendly there? Well, I must have met 50 people since arriving in Sheffield and they’ve ALL been lovely. And how many people are there in Sheffield? 70? 80? Something like that, so I’m definitely right to say they are friendly in Sheffield because I’ve met nearly all of them.

It’s another feather in the cap for Sheffield, further evidence that the dark days of the 1980’s (which I still actually quite enjoyed) are passed and another reason for people to put away their misconceptions and take a visit to the Steel City.

I do realise that it’s a bit out of the way for South Africans.