Life in a Northern Town

On September 8-10 I was in Manchester for a MANCEPT Workshop on the current state of libertarian political philosophy. Organiser Andreas Wolkenstein put an interesting group together; one of the participants was left-libertarian Billy Christmas, who will also be on the Molinari Society’s panel on privilege in December.

My own MANCEPT talk was essentially an historical introduction to left-libertarianism; I’ve posted the abstract previously, and I now post my powerpoint presentation as well.

In honour of Manchester’s industrial heritage (and also because it was cheap), I stayed at a former warehouse converted into a hotel. (It’s industrial! It’s radical!) I also enjoyed dining on the Curry Mile, a section of Middle Eastern and South Asian restaurants; Mughli was especially good.

William Morris woodcut

Touristic informations – Mancunian edition:

To catch a bus, it is not sufficient to stand by the correct bus stop with an expression of expectation. The bus will whiz right by you. You need to flag it down like a taxi.

Also the price for the same ride will be different every day.

In London, vendors are familiar with American credit cards; but they’re a puzzle for vendors in Manchester. They look for the chip instead of the strip.

The Lebanese version of baklava has halvah in it.

After the conference I squeezed in a couple of days in London: caught a beer at the Harp with Sam Bowman and Ben Southwood; visited the William Morris Museum; visited the graves of Herbert Spencer and Douglas Adams at Highgate Cemetery; walked around on Hampstead Heath; and visited Forbidden Planet and the National Gallery.

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2 Responses to Life in a Northern Town

  1. tristan September 30, 2014 at 7:48 am #

    Ah, William Morris Gallery and Lloyd Park. I remember going there quite often as a child – growing up down the road from Walthamstow.

    I should go back now I know more about the man… Perhaps I’ll take a diversion next time I visit the parents…

    Hope you enjoyed the UK, and good to see more Left Libertarianism in the UK – any sign of Libertarian Alliance people there?

  2. Sergio Méndez October 2, 2014 at 10:48 am #

    I will love to see a copy of the conference you gave in Manchester on left libertarian history (video, transcript)…the power point itself seems really interesting, specially the XIX century stuff

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