Lincoln Square Manchester

A day trip to Manchester to source an outfit for Santana's daughter's wedding in June.  Success.  Relief.  Happy.

Tapas lunch at a very nice Italian restaurant - yes we thought tapas was Spanish - and then a good browse in a brilliant book shop on Deansgate.  Great day.

I liked this statue of Abraham Lincoln and thought it appropriate given the visit of No 1 son's american girlfriend this weekend.  

George Grey Barnard's bronze statue of Abraham Lincoln was originally intended to stand outside the Houses of Parliament, a tribute from the USA to Britain to mark the 100 years of unbroken peace that had existed between the two countries since 1814. Barnard’s depiction of Lincoln proved controversial and eventually led to a more statesmanlike image of the president being sent to London at the end of the First World War. Barnard’s Lincoln was without a home. Manchester argued that it was an appropriate city for such a statue because of its connections with Lincoln. This was a reference to the sacrifices that Lancashire cotton operatives had made in support of the Union and the abolition of slavery during the American Civil War, a sacrifice that Lincoln himself acknowledged. No reference was made to the fact that not all of the people working in the cotton industry during the cotton famine, let alone those in other parts of the country, were sympathetic to the northern states.