Post #4441608

I’m sat on a bench in Lincoln Square, Manchester, surrounded by a buzz of expectation. The Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, is in town for his first day at Number 10 North -- the government’s new northern base inside Heron House, immediately in front of me. Police officers are stationed around the square, keeping watch on all the entrances. In the middle of it all, Abraham Lincoln stands looking out across the square with the weary air of somebody who has seen it all I’m here to sketch the Lincoln statue. Twenty minutes into the sketch, I’m approached by two plain-clothes officers. While one stands in front of me, the other sits beside me and, while looking at my sketchbook, asks me what I’m doing. “I’m sketching Lincoln,” I reply. The officer explains that I’ve been observed looking towards Heron House and taking notes. For a few seconds, I don’t know what to say. I look down at the page and try to see what he sees. Bizarrely, I notice all the flecks from my constant erasing on my trousers and feel a bit embarrassed. As the officer turns to speak to his colleague, I look around me. Apart from a couple to my left, vaping next to a bin, everybody else is sat on a bench scrolling through their devices. I feel as though I’m in a kind of dystopian bubble of my own making - an aberration in the continuum, as though I’ve slipped into the square from another century, carrying some obsolete way of looking at the world. The act of drawing seems to have marked me out. My visible and repetitive form of attention is difficult to disguise, whereas the phones around me might be recording all and sundry without earning a second glance. For me, in this moment, the spirit of the place suddenly seems altered. I notice the gaps between people and place, the pigeons and the vape cloud, and wonder how many people here know the story behind the Lincoln statue https://www.digest.andymarshall.co/andy-marshalls-genius-loci-digest-7-aug-2026/