Manchester Blog

The CRB requirements continue to amaze me.

My wife got a CRB check done so she could do supply work in Manchester and the surrounding areas. Which she had to pay for of course.

Then she got a part-time job working for a high school in the same area. This high school saw her supply CRB certificate and let her start work on the strength of it. However, for some strange reason, which I’ve discussed previously, each new place of involvement with children requires a new CRB certificate especially for them. So she needs to get a CRB certificate for them too.

This exercise has been made much easier as she has been able to send her P60 and a wage slip from her part-time school as “evidence” that she is who she says she is! So that means they’re basing the check on the fact that she told the truth to the payroll team at the school.

The CRB needs reform it is just ridiculous. It would be better to simply get a “working with children” passport that everyone who employs you can check against a central database. Then the central database can be used to notify employers if one of their ex-employees offended. The employers can check whether offences were committed at their school. Doesn’t that just make a mite more sense?

I was minding my own business on the M60 car park the other day when I noticed a tiny car zip by in the middle lane. The thing that caught my attention was that it had a large pole stuck vertically up on the roof to which were attached what looked like 4 cameras.

Then another few days later I saw a similar car driving through Blackley.

I noticed one of these same types of cars in London earlier this year when I was with a client. He explained that the cars had been used by Google to take images of every corner of London so they could create a virtual London anyone could “walk” through. The cars had then been taken by Ken Livingston (then Mayor of London) to help him with policing of the congestion charge and/or parking.

So it looks as though we’ll be able to walk through a virtual Manchester in due course.  Will the little cars be used to police the congestion charge I wonder?

It does all seem to be very Big Brother. Maybe George Orwell’s vision didn’t arrive in 1984. Maybe he was 24 years late in his prediction?

And then to cap it all I got caught by a mobile speed camera operating from one of those anonymous looking white vans!

A virtual Manchester is going to really help anyone looking for a house as they’ll be able to wander around the neighbourhood and see the shops, the schools and all the houses.

The only downside maybe Greater Manchester will adopt the cars for enforcement of everything - litter, jay walking, speeding, incorrect parking, congestion charging .

Is the next step to equip everyone with a pair of glasses with cameras on them to record everything you do to see if you break the law? Interesting times…

I like the Place Hotel. Formerly an enormous warehouse next to Piccadilly Station it took many months to dry out before the developer could begin converting it into an apartment hotel. The hotel front is on Ducie Street and now includes a restaurant.

Piccadilly Station’s covered platforms can be seen from the top of The Place hotel where there are some rather delightful penthouses.

In its earlier days I went along to a Simply Networking session (business networking meetings run by Mark Greenwood) which was at The Place hotel.

The then marketing manager, Clare Johnson, did a presentation on the hotel and gave out some nice little cameras that we all started to flash around. I used mine to take some photographs of the hotel and of some of the people at Simply Networking.

In fact all the photos on this post were taken courtesy of The Place’s own camera. The picture to the right shows another view from the penthouses at The Place. It’s towards East Manchester and in the distance you can see The City of Manchester Stadium - home to Manchester City. Speaking of which,  good luck Sven, and also to new incumbent Mark Hughes!

And of course photographs during a networking meeting wouldn’t be complete without a photo of the organiser, Mark Greenwood.

So the final photograph shows a group of Simpler Networkers with Mark grinning away on the right of the photo.

Just to explain a little further about The Place hotel. It seems as though it was originally developed as apartments that people could buy, because it was so close to the city centre.

And renting the apartments out was meant to be a short-term measure until they were all sold.

In the end though The Place is in the right place for a lot of business and professional people (close to the communications network and Manchester’s city centre). So it is doing well as a hotel.

And to round it off there’s a nice roomy underground car park!

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