To scrape the skies in Manchester, you may want to go to Cloud 23 - a chic bar at the Hilton Hotel in the Beetham Tower in Deansgate. The image I took last weekend during the walk around town isn't original in its idea: arguably, this is the way (or one of the definitive ways) to photograph a skyscraper in all its glory. It was one of those snaps you make to document a fleeting sensation.
The title of the photo isn't original either: it is the title of the 1948 book by George Mikes. How To Scrape Skies: The United States Explored, Rediscovered, and Explained was published on the back of the astounding success of Mikes's best-seller, How To Be An Alien (1946). Like How To Be An Alien, and similar to a few other "how-to" books published subsequently, How To Scrape Skies documented the American peculiarities, comparing them to what could be seen in Europe or Britain. But perhaps the reason why How To Be An Alien was so successful was that it dwelt on Mikes's own life in England as a Hungarian emigrant, whereas in subsequent books Mikes couldn't rely on such a vast personal experience, and also was evidently trapped by his own success.
But over at GoofButton there is a page with the illustrations to How To Scrape Skies: these were made by Nicolas Bentley, a British author and cartoonist. The site is created by Jeffrey Meyer. As Jeffrey correctly notes, the reason why this Mikes's book was "not for sale in the U.S." is that the illustrations were arguably even more inflammatory than the text. Below are a few examples. To see them all, visit GoofButton.
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