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Flag of the United Kingdom.

  

Manchester is the aerial hub of the U.K.

     Established as a Roman fort in 79 AD, on a sandstone bluff near the confluence of the rivers Medlock and Irwell, Manchester began to expand at an astonishing rate at the turn of the 19th century.  Brought on by a boom in textile manufacture throughout the Industrial Revolution; becoming the world's first industrialized city.

     Oh boy, dear reader, a location where one would want to spend their vacation. 

 Manchester Airport when it had a single runway. 

The infamous Mach 2.0 Concorde at Manchester before it got grounded.

The fog at Manchester could come suddenly... grounding everybody.

Please explain to me how people in Manchester can live like sardines. I now have a terrible case of claustrophobia.

Alan Turing, Manchester’s favorite gay-mathematician. 

     During WWII, Turing broke the unbreakable German Enigma machine code by becoming the “father” of the modern computer.  

The German Enigma Machine.

The Film "The Imitation Game."

     The film, “The Imitation Game,” portrays Turing’s amazing story. Note the apple he’s holding. Turing is purported to have committed suicide by lacing an apple with cyanide. Was this what inspired Steve Jobs to choose an apple, with a bite out of it, for Apple Computers?  

     A particular layover there stands out in my mind, when a British Captain took me to a “Pantomime” during the Christmas holidays.  It was a type of musical comedy stage production of “Cinderella” - designed for the family – where the boys play the girls’ parts, and the girls the boys’ parts.  

    

     Flying with many Brit Pilots, between SAUDIA and SIA, I possibly uncovered a clue as to why several of them were “switch-hitters.”  Could being exposed to “Pantomimes,” at such a tender age, be the cause?  Another British mystery.

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