One of the many signs that age is catching up on you is when you visit a statue that memorialise something or someone from your formative period and you appear to be the only one who notices. Yesterday we visited Huddersfield to view the Contemporary British Painting Prize 2003 and whilst there I wanted to visit the Harold Wilson statue. It was a damp day which added to the cragy splendor of the statue and yet we were the only people paying any attention to a statue to one of the greats of 20th century British politics. The people walking by didn’t care and I suspect for many of them he meant nothing.

I won’t dwell on the exhibition we came to see at the Temporary Contemporary Gallery because my travelling companion David Manley will be more eloquent and informed in his review on his blog.

There was another small exhibition, well at least I think it was but I forgot to take a photo of the introduction so I can’t say for definite. I have tried to find out the name of the artist from the gallery website and well the site, such as it is, appalling with little or no information. This is such a shame but there we are.

Huddersfield town centre is really quite small but packed with excellent Victorian or Edwardian architecture. Unfortunately, it is a town that appears to have seen better times and whilst the local council is really trying its best the place does have sense of decline. It is no wonder that many of the so called ‘Red Wall‘ parliamentary constituencies are scattered around the area – central government has over the years slowly disemboweled local government and given them little or no chance of trying to make things better. Hopefully, things might improve should we get a change of government next year.