Nope, Nothing To Do With Venice
Although you are kind of wrong tent, right desert. You see, I can legitimately lead with a picture that encapsulates what we're going to be leading onto, whilst only being a little clickbaity. Art!
A film worth seeing
This is Marcello Mastroianni and Anita Ekberg, in a famous scene from "La Dolce Vita", where they cavort in the Trevi Fountain, and it's pretty steamy, despite everybody keeping their clothes on, and the fountains being at room temperature. 'Trevi', for your information, means 'Three ways', hence today's title.
Why are we here? O I thought you'd never ask! Because we're on a theme for an Intro, which hasn't happened for a geological age. Mind you, I've not annotated this out, so am unsure how long it's going to be.
So - Fountains it is! Art?
The Trevi Fountain in Rome, which Conrad has actually visited. Don't be fooled by the perspective here, the fountain is contained in a dense network of streets with no artistic vista and you literally stumble across it whilst traversing The Eternal City. Also, there are hordes of tourists.
The Pale Fountains were one of the indie bands that mushroomed after the surge of punk rock ebbed, allowing bands with actual musical ability to emerge. Conrad did not ever see them live, although they were around at the time I was attending gigs in Gomorrah-on-the-Irwell on a regular basis. Art!
Ho ho ho, how ironic, 'pacific' and a man bestrewn with belts of bullets. This implies he's part of a machine gun team, carrying ammunition in bel
ANYWAY I think we need a few definitions, forsooth I usually start with a definition, bring on the 'Collins Concise English Dictionary'!
"Fountain,n: A jet or spray of water or some other liquid. From the Latin 'Fons' meaning 'Spring'".
So glad we got that out of the way.
Fountain Of Youth: A fountain that was able to restore anyone who drank from it to a state of youth. Art!
In Conrad's opinion this raises a whole lot of questions. For one thing, how much water of the FoY do you have to consume in order for it to have an effect? Litres? Hogsheads? Tuns? Is there an on-site lavatory facility? Can you accidentally overdose and end up aged 7 not 17? Has it been properly sterilised and rendered fit for human consumption? What happens to toddlers who ingest it? Can it be sprayed on crops and arable land to rejuvenate, and will the government require a cut of it?
Just to be going on with.
ANYWAY gentle readers, welcome to the meat of the matter, namely a fantastic descent below ground-level into the beating heart of Gomorrah-on-the-Irwell. Well, maybe an arrhythmic heart. Art!
The current state
Welcome back, gentle reader, to 'Martin Zero', Mancunian industrial archaeology explorer, whom has cropped up on the blog before, and who has now gotten an opportunity to explore the fountains in Piccadilly before they are gone forever. Art!
Nor is that all, for at night - Art!
The fountains are now long shut down, the whole area is fenced off and about to be turned over, with the fountain's infrastructure being ripped out, and the hideous 'Berlin Concrete Wall' being torn down, at which there will be cheers. It was a Dog Buns eyesore, and I bet bri
ANYWAY - the fountains required a lot of subsurface machinery to operate, much more than you might imagine. Art!
All pictures from now on courtesy Martin Zero
The somewhat forbidding entrance, usually inaccessible to the public, although at one time it was - Art!
This is one of the electrical control rooms for all the machinery on site, and it required more than a junction box and a switch. There's just as much around the corner that you can't see. Art!
One of the requirements of having fountains that are accessible to the public is that the water used has to be potable at contact point, hence the need for chlorination and sterilization kit as above. You can't have kids frolicking through a liquid solution of cholera. Art!
The second power utility room, where power can be supplied to other events taking place above ground such as concerts, seasonal markets, etcetera. Art!
These are the gadgets that turned the fountains different colours at night and yes there's a lot of them. Doubtless very expensive yet with no moving parts, which comes into play shortly. You see, this underground installation has a second, lower level. Art!
This is where all the pumping equipment is located, and there's a lot of it. Martin stated - not sure how accurately - that the company contracted to maintain this equipment went bust, which may well be true. Because there were severe and accumulating problems over time as equipment wore out or broke down. Art!
If this gear malfunctioned, the fountains went dead until repairs could be carried out, and Manchester City Council usually had more pressing problems to fund than decorative fountains. This meant them being out of order for months or even years, and verrrry expensive maintenance bills, which is one reason why they are being shut down.
Herein the link for Martin's Youtube vlog.
The forgotten history of Piccadilly Gardens. Manchester + Underground
Well That Figures
Conrad has come across another Youtube compilation of horrible disasters caused by neglect, incompetence, stupidity or drunkenness, on the '#Mind Warehouse' channel, which merely posts them with no explanatory narrative, so I'm going to use this one sequence and then bin it. Tee hee! Art!
Truck rolling along. At this point, all is well, no problems intervening, except a bridge underpass looms ahead. Art!
Note what appears to be an overhead warning sign about maximum permitted height, as well as the bright red-and-white warning stripes, cautioning that this is an extremely robust structure, I warrant. Art!
An Ooops! moment if ever there was one. O I wonder what 'Poshta Rossiy' means? 'Russian Post', so possibly all four of 'neglect, incompetence, stupidity or drunkenness' apply here.
The Pen Is Sharper Than Any Sword
Especially when wielded with malice and wit, two quantities that came as naturally as breathing to Ambrose Bierce, whom we at BOOJUM! are big fans of. You may recollect his dictionary entry for 'Literature', where he lambasted two contemporaries of his, one being Adair Welker, a poet of those times. Art!
A cabbage
There are no pictures of Adair, so a cabbage will have to do. Welker liked to blow his own entire horn section, not merely a single trumpet, and dubbed himself the 'Sacramento Shakespeare', which was like metaphorically giving Ol' Ammy a slap around the chops; he couldn't help criticising.
It's ironic that I cannot find any trace of Welker pictorially. Bierce, on the other hand -
And For Another Person Frequently In The News -
For Lo! It's time to give Donnie Dorko another kick in the teeth, with a pair of steel-toecapped work boots - metaphorically, I hasten to correct, as otherwise the CIA will be getting tasked to snoop on us, and having UNIT and Spectrum already doing that is quite enough. Art!
Here's Weary Willie, looking every day of 89 years old, jowly as ever. Plus, what on earth, Moon and Mars is his hair doing? It looks ready to take off and secede as a separate sentient entitiy.
Finally -
Another quote.
"Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself." - Mark Twain. As true now as then.
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