...HE WAS A FRIEND OF MINE

....He was a friend of mine , he was a friend of mine...................

I am writing this on a Tuesday morning , and finding it very hard ; a week ago , last Tuesday , I was at a meeting at Velvet on Canal Street in Manchester with Mark , Sunni and Sue fine tuning the proposals for re-vamping the ground floor bar , the future wide open.............



Mark was found dead in the early hours of Saturday morning in a hotel in the center of Manchester.



Having spent all my working life , 45 years and counting , as a designer then I know that good clients , those you enjoy working with , are to be cherished . I have known and worked with Mark for the past twenty five years or so , from those early meetings at Atticus through to the opening of Velvet as a basement bar in 1996 , through the opening of the ground floor bar , the development of it as a boutique hotel and the positioning of Velvet now as pre-eminent on Canal street  , an institution in Manchester. It's fair to say that Velvet has shared my best of times , my worst of times................... Mark showed faith in us as a design practice and let me breath , and few clients let me do that.



And now he is gone ; everything else is still here - Velvet , Canal street , Sunni , Sue - but it doesn't feel the same at the moment . No more grumpy Mr Toad , no more acerbic wit , no more grudging
appreciation of effort , no more carping put-downs.................... I shall really miss you , you bastard.

.....ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST............

" Another one bites the dust , another one bites the dust ............
  ....... and another one gone , and another one gone .................
  ....... another one bites the dust "

Another day and another scheme doesn't see the light of day . Not our fault this time , or indeed the client's , who had been in negotiations with a particular PubCo for the past nine months or so with
regard to taking over the lease of a particular pub in Cheshire . Deal done , keys handed over at the end of January - or so our client thought.


Without much fuss or warning , the government pushed through legislation at the back end of last November revising / relinquishing the tied trade agreement between PubCos and their tenants . Good
deal for the tenant , who can now buy his beer from wherever he wants without being tied to a fixed supplier . The collateral damage / fallout , however , is that the PubCos , having realised that they can no longer screw the tenant , are now taking tenancies back as managed houses - over which they have better financial control .


Result - the keys to the property are no longer available . Sorry lads , nine months work now in the bin , along with our fees , clients solicitors fees , etc etc etc. Anyway , here are the sketches............

........TEA 4/2

Tea4/2 , Manchester.......................

Yet another client who fucked me over and didn't pay......

" Oh we've decided to go with someone else . thanks but no thanks ".............You would think that I would have learnt by now . Did they tell me I was in competition ?

No.....

This was for a tea shop over at Media City in Salford , wanted for the end of last

November . Did it get built ? Did it end up like this ? I have no idea , but I might as well put the sketches out there.......

..........someone might like them and fancy a tea room.................