Scraping Skies...

THE BEETHAM TOWER.
I looked out of Jack's bedroom window today and I saw the Beetham Tower. Nothing unusual in that, if you know Manchester, you'll know that you can see this sky scraper from more places than you can't. The reason I mention it is because, only yesterday I couldn't see it at all. I looked for it yesterday and the day before that, but it wasn't there. You see, it was there really, I just couldn't see it because of the leaves on the trees. However, the last few days have been quite windy and cold at times and enough of the autumn gold things have dropped off the trees to allow me to see the Beetham Tower.
HILTON HOTEL.
The bottom half of the Beetham Tower is a hotel. And on the twenty third floor, which is sort of halfway up the building, there is a panoramic viewing room. Jack was telling me that when he went to the cinema across the street, in the old Great Nothern Warehouse, he could see a queue of people waiting to be admitted to the Hilton Hotel. How mad is that?
Although, I do know that the view is pretty good from up there, because I used to live on the sixteenth floor of a tower a mile or so away in Salford. From my kitchen window, in those days, I could see the Runcorn Bridge, which is thirty five miles up the Manchester Ship Canal. Heady days!
THE PENTHOUSE.
Before I go, I must mention the Penthouse apartment, or whole top floor, I believe in the case of The Beetham Tower, which is occupied by the architect who designed the building. I've read that it's worth in excess of £3,000,000 (yes, that's Three Million British Pounds!) and that he has imported an olive grove of three hundred year old olive trees from Italy and has replanted them in a giant conservatory on the roof of the tower, five hundred and sixty one feet above the Deansgate pavement. The highest residential accomodation in Britain? Go on Tarzan, eat your heart out!