all that blackens is mould

After that server trouble last night when I couldn't post I've forgotten what I was going to say. I shall dwell upon it and put it in later.

Aha. Wandering past this wall, its brethren closer to traffic and with thicker streaks of partially-rain-washed particulate traffic-filth, another wall further up the lane which has been scraped clean by a van, the new bit of the museum where a few chunks of clip-on sandstone fascia have been clipped off by delivery vans and the already-filthy sections which demonstrate how fast clean and new walls can be grubbied-up, other walls elsewhere in the city where the occasional bit of fresh sandstone can be seen peeping out where a grimy outer layer has flaked off and the bits where the ghost of an old sign can be seen always makes me wonder what a city would look like when brand new. Pyramids started out all shinily mica-coated; the insides of old stone churches and cathedrals were sometimes gaily slathered in brightly-coloured paint; sandstone buildings once sparkled and render and harling were once bright and white and shiny. It's a pity that paintings of such buildings when they were new have themselves faded and photography hadn't progressed to capturing things photorealistically and in colour until a good layer of industrial and biological gak dulled everything. Even when the New Town was built by the time they'd completed the end of a road the start was probably already feeling the effects of the significantly sootier atmosphere of the time.

Maybe it all looked slightly weird and wrongish in the way of new housing developments before the seams are blurred slightly by time, weathering and growth.