Thursday 4 February – The Thievery Corporation, a Case for Porthole Drift
With all the birthdays flying around at this time of year – Sir Dempson’s celebrated last weekend by way of deer stalking at Denham Massey; Miss Shazhorn’s within touching distance (not that I will until our impending anniversary) – it’s easy for a man (that’s what I am) to take his eye off the ball, especially if that ball is sat in premature retirement above the boiler, as deflated as Miss Jordan’s chest before that suspicious trip to Switzerland. Or perhaps it was the daydreaming of Voluntary Early Death that led me to mislay an entire barge full of coal last Tuesday. Now I’ve lost the odd bit of coke in the past, you won’t be surprised to learn, and I once lent a chunk of our finest ‘black gold’ to a tinker who carved it into a slightly racist likeness of me before selling it back to me for thrupence, but honestly – a whole barge of the stuff?
Having spent this long with me, in this deliciously seedy corner of The One Great Northern City (voted top ironic tourist destination north of the Cotswolds by readers of Country Life for the last sixteen seasons), you will no doubt have some suspects in mind for the theft of all this dusty goodness. And theft it must be, for the good ship Sludger is nowhere to be seen the length and breadth of this canal – or at least nowhere between here and Old Trafford, at which point my morning run gets painful and I have to return home to wash my feet in iced rum. But while Shifty McQuiggin has indeed been redeployed at the Warehouse he is serving his multiple debts to society by wearing diamante shackles and a distressed rat-skin coat. With a balloon glued to his forehead, a pencil and some extremely thin paper, he can now be traced almost anywhere with ease. Swarthy Erick? How dare you! Thanks to the papers, we’re all aware of my childhood friend’s arrest in Morocco for terror wrist offences, but it later transpired that the distended muscle was caused by one-armed press-ups – something to take the mind of the monotony of his summer job in the steam rooms.
No, no and no – and don’t even remind me of the Russians. Last time I implicated them (and their talking cat) in crimes against the Batson body, fifteen of my carriers disappeared over St Petersburg (long-distance chat-line), my worldwidewotsit connection was hacked into, and I found a mysterious pipeline in the wall of the flat through which my ‘special shag’ was fast disappearing. Yes, the trail was cold, and the clues were few and far-between – but I knew it was a challenge that Porthole Drift would rise to, while scratching his great hairy sea legs. I blew on the special whistle he’d given me as a boy and soon I saw his barge, Gypsy Lady, racing towards me at a rate of knots. An extremely slow rate of knots. But he got there. In the end. But it was five-fifteen by then. And I was really tired after a day at work twiddling my gums. So I said I’d speak to him later in the week.
TO BE CONTINUED....
Friday 22nd January – A Winter Ghost Story
So are ghosts as we understand them truly spirits trapped in limbo, betwixt heaven and hell, or merely the frozen pictorial ‘footprints’ of lives gone by – ever to be replayed in one particular location, like that dodgy puppet show that got jammed in your mechanical puppet show player at your college halls of residence (since demolished)? I for one never really paid such a long and convoluted question any mind, until one evening (this evening) when I became inadvertently trapped with the, and to some extent, my past. The day had started and ended reasonably enough – I ‘logged off’ at five, sending the carriers home to roost and telling Tim Talooly to write up the day’s trading at his leisure (‘be off now Tim, enjoy the weekend, and steer clear of my arch-rival Sedmond Divuck’s fantasy novels – you know how they play with one’s mind!’) It was then just myself and Delia Doogood remaining in the open plan, she immersed in a cauldron of filth brewed up by our supposed colleagues in the immigration service (‘I be off now Delia, I’ll enjoy my weekend, be sure to log off soon, lest reality subsume a fantastical weekend’). Imagine my surprise to be at the kitchenette – regurgitating my packed lunch into something resembling dinner – when the warehouse was suddenly plunged into DARKNESS.
‘Tim?’ I enquired. No answer.
‘Delia?’ I pined. Not a sausage.
‘Stephen?’ I hazarded. Nothing. Alone.
Without carriers I had no hope of attracting Licky (at the gymnasium), nor Bateman (packing for America), nor Sir Dempson (breaking into his own house), nor Pekalowski (picture-framing maids on their commute home), nor that girl I really fancied at primary school (even though I now have a deep voice and an apartment with two toilets). There was nothing for it but to ‘man up’ (a request so often at Licky’s lips), ‘get on with it’ (likewise) and see what was amiss in the workplace I hope to escape in mere months.
As regular readers will know I have worked at this particular cotton warehouse for almost ten years – hence the generous payout I anticipate for Voluntary Early Death – and it has always been a most comfortable environment, give or take the odd Shifty McQuiggin or Simon Slimon. Tonight things are very different. The doors are all locked tight, the heating off, the only light is from my lighter (a mémoire morte to a long-doomed Clipper); the only sound my own breathing. Until it stops. There in the corner, bending over the facts machine – his bald head as luminescent as the moon ricocheting off an icy lake wearing mink, is my former boss Marcus Kamp.
‘Morning Batson!’ he cries.
‘But it’s...’ I butt in – the tension, like my change of tenses, irredeemably tense.
‘Those figures ready for Sierra Leone?’
‘Oh yes,’ I lie, and am suddenly with myself eight years before – a smelly young upstart and no mistake. Yet there is with the figures, and I know it. I have failed to take account of the cost of the horse-drawn required to take the emergency cotton to the semi-clothed civilians in Kenema. Disaster. And while Marcus himself seems unperturbed what is this rising from his bald spot? A ghostly vision and no mistake – Mistress Guilt in all her glory – torn nightdress, fangs bared. Terrified I yell:
‘I’m sorry!’
And she vanishes in a puff of smoke. Alone again, patrolling the corridors.
‘Licky?’ Nothing.
‘Bateman?’ Nowt.
‘Pekalowski?’ ‘Shaddap, I’m sketching this.’
I venture onwards, upstairs or downstairs – my feet feeling no distinction in the pitched darkness. Suddenly a woman in white, bent over the cast-iron printer.
‘Hello?’ I address her bonnet, ‘Hello?’
When she finally turns I both recognise her and don’t. ‘Give her a kiss,’ urges my twenty-five year old self out of nowhere, but when I look at her eyes (a vivid blue but sad and old before her time) I see now that this is the last thing she needs. Where have I seen her before? I search within myself until all is clear: buoyant and happy at the start of a work’s night out; guilty and remorseful in the morning – she is every maiden I have ever harmed, who has ever made the mistake of sacrificing herself to me. ‘Kiss her,’ is the urge from within. But then that pretty face begins to distort – Mistress Guilt pulsates beneath the perfectly made-up skin.
‘I’m sorry!’ I yell, and while no sound comes out I am ultimately, inexplicably back at my flat, Miss Jordan’s suspiciously tanned arms all about me.
‘I’m sorry,’ I mutter, exhausted – so glad to be in familiar surroundings, and good company.
‘No need to apologise to me love,’ Miss Jordan oozes reassuringly, ‘just give us a cut of your Voluntary Death Allowance.’
Like ravens in the rafters my pigeons squawk agreement.
So are ghosts as we understand them truly spirits trapped in limbo, betwixt heaven and hell, or merely the frozen pictorial ‘footprints’ of lives gone by – ever to be replayed in one particular location, like that dodgy puppet show that got jammed in your mechanical puppet show player at your college halls of residence (since demolished)? I for one never really paid such a long and convoluted question any mind, until one evening (this evening) when I became inadvertently trapped with the, and to some extent, my past. The day had started and ended reasonably enough – I ‘logged off’ at five, sending the carriers home to roost and telling Tim Talooly to write up the day’s trading at his leisure (‘be off now Tim, enjoy the weekend, and steer clear of my arch-rival Sedmond Divuck’s fantasy novels – you know how they play with one’s mind!’) It was then just myself and Delia Doogood remaining in the open plan, she immersed in a cauldron of filth brewed up by our supposed colleagues in the immigration service (‘I be off now Delia, I’ll enjoy my weekend, be sure to log off soon, lest reality subsume a fantastical weekend’). Imagine my surprise to be at the kitchenette – regurgitating my packed lunch into something resembling dinner – when the warehouse was suddenly plunged into DARKNESS.
‘Tim?’ I enquired. No answer.
‘Delia?’ I pined. Not a sausage.
‘Stephen?’ I hazarded. Nothing. Alone.
Without carriers I had no hope of attracting Licky (at the gymnasium), nor Bateman (packing for America), nor Sir Dempson (breaking into his own house), nor Pekalowski (picture-framing maids on their commute home), nor that girl I really fancied at primary school (even though I now have a deep voice and an apartment with two toilets). There was nothing for it but to ‘man up’ (a request so often at Licky’s lips), ‘get on with it’ (likewise) and see what was amiss in the workplace I hope to escape in mere months.
As regular readers will know I have worked at this particular cotton warehouse for almost ten years – hence the generous payout I anticipate for Voluntary Early Death – and it has always been a most comfortable environment, give or take the odd Shifty McQuiggin or Simon Slimon. Tonight things are very different. The doors are all locked tight, the heating off, the only light is from my lighter (a mémoire morte to a long-doomed Clipper); the only sound my own breathing. Until it stops. There in the corner, bending over the facts machine – his bald head as luminescent as the moon ricocheting off an icy lake wearing mink, is my former boss Marcus Kamp.
‘Morning Batson!’ he cries.
‘But it’s...’ I butt in – the tension, like my change of tenses, irredeemably tense.
‘Those figures ready for Sierra Leone?’
‘Oh yes,’ I lie, and am suddenly with myself eight years before – a smelly young upstart and no mistake. Yet there is with the figures, and I know it. I have failed to take account of the cost of the horse-drawn required to take the emergency cotton to the semi-clothed civilians in Kenema. Disaster. And while Marcus himself seems unperturbed what is this rising from his bald spot? A ghostly vision and no mistake – Mistress Guilt in all her glory – torn nightdress, fangs bared. Terrified I yell:
‘I’m sorry!’
And she vanishes in a puff of smoke. Alone again, patrolling the corridors.
‘Licky?’ Nothing.
‘Bateman?’ Nowt.
‘Pekalowski?’ ‘Shaddap, I’m sketching this.’
I venture onwards, upstairs or downstairs – my feet feeling no distinction in the pitched darkness. Suddenly a woman in white, bent over the cast-iron printer.
‘Hello?’ I address her bonnet, ‘Hello?’
When she finally turns I both recognise her and don’t. ‘Give her a kiss,’ urges my twenty-five year old self out of nowhere, but when I look at her eyes (a vivid blue but sad and old before her time) I see now that this is the last thing she needs. Where have I seen her before? I search within myself until all is clear: buoyant and happy at the start of a work’s night out; guilty and remorseful in the morning – she is every maiden I have ever harmed, who has ever made the mistake of sacrificing herself to me. ‘Kiss her,’ is the urge from within. But then that pretty face begins to distort – Mistress Guilt pulsates beneath the perfectly made-up skin.
‘I’m sorry!’ I yell, and while no sound comes out I am ultimately, inexplicably back at my flat, Miss Jordan’s suspiciously tanned arms all about me.
‘I’m sorry,’ I mutter, exhausted – so glad to be in familiar surroundings, and good company.
‘No need to apologise to me love,’ Miss Jordan oozes reassuringly, ‘just give us a cut of your Voluntary Death Allowance.’
Like ravens in the rafters my pigeons squawk agreement.
Monday 4 January 1865
A slipshod slide back to work after holidays branded by the extreme temperatures therein – from the warm welcome extended by our families in the Lakes and Hull to the frozen groans of my apartment back in Manchester; an icebreaker on so many occasions it now sits trapped in sub-dinner party temperatures. With Voluntary Early Death and its accompanying payout pending in April will this be the year that I finally get to write professionally, or will I career off the tracks like that milk float sliding towards the Exchange on a dirty great sheet of polar paving? I rescue a Health Shake from the burning wreckage and thank the stars that such a confusing ’65 is starting soberly – Licky and I having been worn down by such saucy seasonal merriment as cigars (inhale) and bagpipes (exhale) at Dr and Mrs Shazhorns’, intoxicating puddings at the Bargreaves’ residence, and a party dans l’apartment that saw Bateman first go Dutch with Spike upon the love seat (actually a second chaise longue, a wonderful present from Licky), then Greek in a generous attempt to purge me of all unnecessary glassware. Such hangovers I will not miss this month, yet I sense your need for insight more intoxicating than how to mix a perfect lime and soda. Very well – the Gentleman’s Annual Tupperware party, 23rd December, The Peaky Peveril. High marks all round (a 9 from me, for the soulful journeys made in ’64); the pool won by Sir Dempson (who took out an innocent maid in the half-time snowball fight) and Charlton of Chorlton; Swarthy Erick talks of his moving plans (opening an orphanage?) while the rest of us talk children like naughty ones in the corner. Just as last year I’d struggle to eat a whole one but there’s no doubt they continue to fascinate such whisky-seared hearts as ours; Ted and Arnold explaining how closely they follow a healthy man’s bathroom habits enough to put most of us off for now.
A slipshod slide back to work after holidays branded by the extreme temperatures therein – from the warm welcome extended by our families in the Lakes and Hull to the frozen groans of my apartment back in Manchester; an icebreaker on so many occasions it now sits trapped in sub-dinner party temperatures. With Voluntary Early Death and its accompanying payout pending in April will this be the year that I finally get to write professionally, or will I career off the tracks like that milk float sliding towards the Exchange on a dirty great sheet of polar paving? I rescue a Health Shake from the burning wreckage and thank the stars that such a confusing ’65 is starting soberly – Licky and I having been worn down by such saucy seasonal merriment as cigars (inhale) and bagpipes (exhale) at Dr and Mrs Shazhorns’, intoxicating puddings at the Bargreaves’ residence, and a party dans l’apartment that saw Bateman first go Dutch with Spike upon the love seat (actually a second chaise longue, a wonderful present from Licky), then Greek in a generous attempt to purge me of all unnecessary glassware. Such hangovers I will not miss this month, yet I sense your need for insight more intoxicating than how to mix a perfect lime and soda. Very well – the Gentleman’s Annual Tupperware party, 23rd December, The Peaky Peveril. High marks all round (a 9 from me, for the soulful journeys made in ’64); the pool won by Sir Dempson (who took out an innocent maid in the half-time snowball fight) and Charlton of Chorlton; Swarthy Erick talks of his moving plans (opening an orphanage?) while the rest of us talk children like naughty ones in the corner. Just as last year I’d struggle to eat a whole one but there’s no doubt they continue to fascinate such whisky-seared hearts as ours; Ted and Arnold explaining how closely they follow a healthy man’s bathroom habits enough to put most of us off for now.
Saturday 26 December
At this time of year it is a Bargreaves’ family tradition to ensure everything is nailed down in our idyllic, snow-covered cottage and to group-canter to Ambleside where my parents’ friends Derek and Sandy host the Boxing Day hunt from their beautiful five-bedroom house. What makes this year extra-special is that accompanying Barton, myself and the perfectly-matched parenthesis, are Marny and Licky, the former better-half soon to have the better brother over in Canadia for a turn – perhaps a five year turn; the latter recovering from the journey from her own folks’ home in Hull, during which she had to carry her little pony over the Pennines when it got tangled up in the Snakeskin Pass.
As long-standing philanthropists Derek and Sandy have been busy organising their Christmas Soap Kitsch Hen in which Derek dresses as a hen and distributes eggs to the region’s homeless while Sandy provides all-manner of scrubbers with a decent all-over wash before dressing them in retro styles. Sadly, due to the face-freezingly cold conditions this winter their plans have snowballed, as has Derek, slipping on an unwanted puddle outside the poor house – children are so wasteful – and ending up on the banks of Derwent Water fifteen times his own body size. With all their eggs in one basket, and the ‘40s style clothing irredeemably crumpled, this year they must think of new ways of helping those living on or in the streets, woodlands, badly converted barns or new-builds of Cumbria. So it is that sons Packer and Frisby arrange the mob into teams of modestly-paid beaters as the two families saddle up their hunting reindeer after a preternatural feast of overlapping meats.
A word about Lakeland hunting traditions – such is the perfect isolation to be found in these parts that many small tribes of former invaders continue to grow fat in tiny, bespoke enclaves, despite having been happily trounced by native armies as long ago as 1864 BC. Last year saw an unforgettable battle against a band of Vikings whose removal and collection of Modern Warfare books from Kendal library were both significantly overdue. Never has an axe been so skilfully applied than by Mrs Bargreaves in giving several fleeing Olafs a dangerously dapper short back and sides. And who could forget Derek and Batson Snr, at nearby Sweden Bridge, fending off a vastly superior enemy with a merciless string of ancient one-liners and rehashed cracker jokes – the enemy contorted with pain, then deported to Spain.
This year, prompted by a bloody campaign in the Westmorland Gazette, our chosen targets are lingering Legionaries, left over from the anti-Scotch DIY boom of AD 122, and now reliant on their dwindling supplies of dented tagliatelli. Always a healthy competition between the lads of the two families (despite a unifying appreciation of Man:United) it is with concern that I note that my nose appears redder than my reindeer’s – is 1864 to be remembered as the year my body finally went to port? Will I really be able to compete with Packer, fresh from the Ozzie sunshine, where he lives on a press-up farm with his charming wife Inspira? First blood to Barton who, as a lapsed vegetarian, is best placed to sniff out the wild boar being roasted round the back of Boots by two unsuspecting Roman footmen. Only able to run in straight lines it takes our baby rhino just minutes to wallop them over the border to face a tardy dose of Caledonian hospitality. Frisby weighs in by tying together the shoelaces of an entire garrison of tortoise-forming mincers, then pouring himself a dry sherry atop his steed while watching them slowly topple over. Packer has collected five helmets to my three with just ten minutes to the supper gong when I spot a quivering cohort behind a nearby hedge. Tall, angular, full of Christmas pudding and supremely generous, it is then that I notice Licky at my side, quickly forming herself into a menhir that I can fling at the fleeing soldiers, flattening half-a-dozen of them. With such teamwork I can only see Miss Shazhorn and myself conquering the world next year, perhaps following an overdue detox.
At this time of year it is a Bargreaves’ family tradition to ensure everything is nailed down in our idyllic, snow-covered cottage and to group-canter to Ambleside where my parents’ friends Derek and Sandy host the Boxing Day hunt from their beautiful five-bedroom house. What makes this year extra-special is that accompanying Barton, myself and the perfectly-matched parenthesis, are Marny and Licky, the former better-half soon to have the better brother over in Canadia for a turn – perhaps a five year turn; the latter recovering from the journey from her own folks’ home in Hull, during which she had to carry her little pony over the Pennines when it got tangled up in the Snakeskin Pass.
As long-standing philanthropists Derek and Sandy have been busy organising their Christmas Soap Kitsch Hen in which Derek dresses as a hen and distributes eggs to the region’s homeless while Sandy provides all-manner of scrubbers with a decent all-over wash before dressing them in retro styles. Sadly, due to the face-freezingly cold conditions this winter their plans have snowballed, as has Derek, slipping on an unwanted puddle outside the poor house – children are so wasteful – and ending up on the banks of Derwent Water fifteen times his own body size. With all their eggs in one basket, and the ‘40s style clothing irredeemably crumpled, this year they must think of new ways of helping those living on or in the streets, woodlands, badly converted barns or new-builds of Cumbria. So it is that sons Packer and Frisby arrange the mob into teams of modestly-paid beaters as the two families saddle up their hunting reindeer after a preternatural feast of overlapping meats.
A word about Lakeland hunting traditions – such is the perfect isolation to be found in these parts that many small tribes of former invaders continue to grow fat in tiny, bespoke enclaves, despite having been happily trounced by native armies as long ago as 1864 BC. Last year saw an unforgettable battle against a band of Vikings whose removal and collection of Modern Warfare books from Kendal library were both significantly overdue. Never has an axe been so skilfully applied than by Mrs Bargreaves in giving several fleeing Olafs a dangerously dapper short back and sides. And who could forget Derek and Batson Snr, at nearby Sweden Bridge, fending off a vastly superior enemy with a merciless string of ancient one-liners and rehashed cracker jokes – the enemy contorted with pain, then deported to Spain.
This year, prompted by a bloody campaign in the Westmorland Gazette, our chosen targets are lingering Legionaries, left over from the anti-Scotch DIY boom of AD 122, and now reliant on their dwindling supplies of dented tagliatelli. Always a healthy competition between the lads of the two families (despite a unifying appreciation of Man:United) it is with concern that I note that my nose appears redder than my reindeer’s – is 1864 to be remembered as the year my body finally went to port? Will I really be able to compete with Packer, fresh from the Ozzie sunshine, where he lives on a press-up farm with his charming wife Inspira? First blood to Barton who, as a lapsed vegetarian, is best placed to sniff out the wild boar being roasted round the back of Boots by two unsuspecting Roman footmen. Only able to run in straight lines it takes our baby rhino just minutes to wallop them over the border to face a tardy dose of Caledonian hospitality. Frisby weighs in by tying together the shoelaces of an entire garrison of tortoise-forming mincers, then pouring himself a dry sherry atop his steed while watching them slowly topple over. Packer has collected five helmets to my three with just ten minutes to the supper gong when I spot a quivering cohort behind a nearby hedge. Tall, angular, full of Christmas pudding and supremely generous, it is then that I notice Licky at my side, quickly forming herself into a menhir that I can fling at the fleeing soldiers, flattening half-a-dozen of them. With such teamwork I can only see Miss Shazhorn and myself conquering the world next year, perhaps following an overdue detox.
10 December 1864
The green-eyed monster is not only a free gift that has seen an unprecedented rise in the popularity of Sawdust Melts from 1856 – present, but also a ‘yours-for-nothing’ emotion that comes with every human package, and one that if used liberally can lead to more discomfort and heartache than a 180g serving of nobody’s favourite breakfast cereal. So how can one treat such a beast – starve him, as a foreman in the Sawdust Melts factory might isolate a nut ferret in a particularly dank and fruitless corner? It is a noble idea and one I grow increasingly tempted to try. But in the meantime, using a method I can trace back to my first sip of noggin at 15, I have concentrated on the opposite approach – feeding the cute little bitey thing with as much liquor as I can lay my hands on. Reader, I am not sure of your own experiences, but to me this has been an experimental treatment which has failed time after time. For whenever a new love enters my life, it is the Jolly Green Dragon that they are soon shaking hands with, not long after Mr Trousersnake.
In many aspects of my life I am fortune to be seemingly immune to jealousy. Professional jealousy? It would seem churlish to complain as others catch the wave generated by a notoriously fickle publishing industry. I am nearby on the beach in any case, sipping G&Ts in my skimpy briefs, braced to re-enter the Medlock with my stiff homemade board at a moment’s notice and – who knows – maybe ride the next ‘big thing’. No, there be no monsters here, nor on the issue of money, for as we approach the good season all I can ask present-wise is: what do I really need? (Okay, my bed – constructed one dim and distant night while Bateman helpfully fed me beers – has finally fallen to bits, but where am I going to find a stocking even big enough for a single?) Hierarchical office jealousy? I don’t even know what that means. Stagecoach riding jealousy? I have no case to answer. In matters of the heart, however, I am regularly an uncharitable nightmare record of disaster. So let’s try and find out why.
Autumn 1845: a gang of friends – of (thrillingly) both sexes are out for the night in Liverpool. The airborne sexual tension is palpable and merges with the cheap and ineffective sweat preventatives of the lads; the ‘trog oil’ of the more gothic ladies amongst us; vinegar from the nearest chippy, and the exotic aroma of rotting mangoes, cast asunder by drunken dockside porters. Gretna Gallweather and I are getting on famously – as was meant to be, as was written in the stars. We watch a friend’s nascent string band die on stage, the schadenfreude just one more bond between us (turns out we both like history, boiled eggs and repression). Then, returning smiling from a piddle, disaster strikes – my apparent best friend Jaz Funkpantz (long since off the devil juice but charmingly louche at the time) and Gretna are hand-in-hand, smiling at me like I’m the celibate priest about to marry them, not simply a vessel for the heady brew of impotency that marks the beginning of my adult life.
Of course as the years flew by I had my fair share of fortune and misfortune in love, before finally reaching the point where I could have no tangible regrets. But despite this there were always times when I lashed out jealously; more-often-than-not this took the form of an unwarranted outburst, always about as helpful to the situation as a chocolate teapot at an orgy (has yelling at someone ever sapped them of their Sapphic tendencies? I don’t think so). At other times I have used incitement to jealousy as my weapon of choice – more rewarding (in an empty kind of way) when used on those girlfriends who have driven me to a rage with their incessant flirting or pander-free use of my ego (if you haven’t fallen out of love with me yet, dear reader, you can imagine how others may have done so).
So who’s to blame when I find myself once again up to the ears in green-hued monster dung? Greta? Jaz? Coldly Strange Grammar School (‘turning boys into men into boys since 1636’)? It’s very easy to blame the past, in whatever form, except that I suspect mine is not much different from any other man’s, unless they are blessed with the fatal magnetism of a Henry VIII, or the saint-like demeanour of a Thomas More. So when it comes to the work Christmas meal this week, well before my humble pie, I intend to crunch on Sawdust Melts, having poured my remaining whisky down the drain, and placed the green-eyed monster (collector’s issue/product recall pending) at the bottom of my waste (of time) bin. We’ll see how long it stays there.
The green-eyed monster is not only a free gift that has seen an unprecedented rise in the popularity of Sawdust Melts from 1856 – present, but also a ‘yours-for-nothing’ emotion that comes with every human package, and one that if used liberally can lead to more discomfort and heartache than a 180g serving of nobody’s favourite breakfast cereal. So how can one treat such a beast – starve him, as a foreman in the Sawdust Melts factory might isolate a nut ferret in a particularly dank and fruitless corner? It is a noble idea and one I grow increasingly tempted to try. But in the meantime, using a method I can trace back to my first sip of noggin at 15, I have concentrated on the opposite approach – feeding the cute little bitey thing with as much liquor as I can lay my hands on. Reader, I am not sure of your own experiences, but to me this has been an experimental treatment which has failed time after time. For whenever a new love enters my life, it is the Jolly Green Dragon that they are soon shaking hands with, not long after Mr Trousersnake.
In many aspects of my life I am fortune to be seemingly immune to jealousy. Professional jealousy? It would seem churlish to complain as others catch the wave generated by a notoriously fickle publishing industry. I am nearby on the beach in any case, sipping G&Ts in my skimpy briefs, braced to re-enter the Medlock with my stiff homemade board at a moment’s notice and – who knows – maybe ride the next ‘big thing’. No, there be no monsters here, nor on the issue of money, for as we approach the good season all I can ask present-wise is: what do I really need? (Okay, my bed – constructed one dim and distant night while Bateman helpfully fed me beers – has finally fallen to bits, but where am I going to find a stocking even big enough for a single?) Hierarchical office jealousy? I don’t even know what that means. Stagecoach riding jealousy? I have no case to answer. In matters of the heart, however, I am regularly an uncharitable nightmare record of disaster. So let’s try and find out why.
Autumn 1845: a gang of friends – of (thrillingly) both sexes are out for the night in Liverpool. The airborne sexual tension is palpable and merges with the cheap and ineffective sweat preventatives of the lads; the ‘trog oil’ of the more gothic ladies amongst us; vinegar from the nearest chippy, and the exotic aroma of rotting mangoes, cast asunder by drunken dockside porters. Gretna Gallweather and I are getting on famously – as was meant to be, as was written in the stars. We watch a friend’s nascent string band die on stage, the schadenfreude just one more bond between us (turns out we both like history, boiled eggs and repression). Then, returning smiling from a piddle, disaster strikes – my apparent best friend Jaz Funkpantz (long since off the devil juice but charmingly louche at the time) and Gretna are hand-in-hand, smiling at me like I’m the celibate priest about to marry them, not simply a vessel for the heady brew of impotency that marks the beginning of my adult life.
Of course as the years flew by I had my fair share of fortune and misfortune in love, before finally reaching the point where I could have no tangible regrets. But despite this there were always times when I lashed out jealously; more-often-than-not this took the form of an unwarranted outburst, always about as helpful to the situation as a chocolate teapot at an orgy (has yelling at someone ever sapped them of their Sapphic tendencies? I don’t think so). At other times I have used incitement to jealousy as my weapon of choice – more rewarding (in an empty kind of way) when used on those girlfriends who have driven me to a rage with their incessant flirting or pander-free use of my ego (if you haven’t fallen out of love with me yet, dear reader, you can imagine how others may have done so).
So who’s to blame when I find myself once again up to the ears in green-hued monster dung? Greta? Jaz? Coldly Strange Grammar School (‘turning boys into men into boys since 1636’)? It’s very easy to blame the past, in whatever form, except that I suspect mine is not much different from any other man’s, unless they are blessed with the fatal magnetism of a Henry VIII, or the saint-like demeanour of a Thomas More. So when it comes to the work Christmas meal this week, well before my humble pie, I intend to crunch on Sawdust Melts, having poured my remaining whisky down the drain, and placed the green-eyed monster (collector’s issue/product recall pending) at the bottom of my waste (of time) bin. We’ll see how long it stays there.
Monday 2 November
How strange it will be to leave the flat; to step outside the soothing machinations of the cotton warehouse, to stumble beyond the slippery trading house floor. Locked into these worlds you presume I am, and until today I could not countenance meeting you elsewhere but meandering down Oxford Road, looking for the nearest grog trough when your pounds and pennies would be better spent on fixing those gangrenous teeth; could think of nowhere but the handy Bar That Twas a Bog when it came to taking you aside and thrusting a temperance pamphlet into your gnarly old paws while standing you ‘one last drink.’ Yet all that may change, my fair-weather friend, for today – in the time that it takes you to adjust your corset, apply your lippy, and career blinking back out into the street – a communiqué rustles its way round work; a fresh breeze that prompts amongst my colleagues a mixture of airless gasps and prolonged heavy breathing. For we are to be offered Voluntary Early Death (VED), a scheme dreamt up by the uber-bosses in London to separate the wheat from the chaff. Yes, short-term riches may be (y)ours, in exchange for lifelong unemployment and a pauper’s grave.
Short-term riches!! Seconds before the wind of hope is deoxygenated by the guff of indecision, I have applied for release. There is no guarantee that it will be granted. You more than anyone know how my financial skills have come to be relied upon (when, sated, you told me that the dimpled ceiling of the Rochdale Ritz was ‘as of the stars an’ heavens an’ that’, remember how quick I was to use said imperfections to demonstrate basic tax law?) Nevertheless, I live in hope of a new beginning – a chance to write, a chance to sing, a chance to dance, a never-to-be-repeated opportunity to buy a solid gold bong encrusted with images of semi-precious stoners. Never has impending doom given me quite as light a head. Walking home along the canal, wondering what career a man could pursue after 12 months bitter struggle with the page, who should I spy but my old friend Porthole Drift, the famous detective, coming my way on his crimson barge ‘Gypsy Lady’, enjoying a pipe while Muff the dog hunts out some tea for the tillerman?
‘Ahoy Porthole!’ I harangue.
‘What-ho,’ he replies with added pith.
No doubt in town to solve one of his cases with a leisurely disregard for the mounting death toll, I see a future beyond the piles of rejected manuscripts with which I’ll insulate myself next winter, if only in penning the unpublishable biography of this distinctly peculiar fellow.
How strange it will be to leave the flat; to step outside the soothing machinations of the cotton warehouse, to stumble beyond the slippery trading house floor. Locked into these worlds you presume I am, and until today I could not countenance meeting you elsewhere but meandering down Oxford Road, looking for the nearest grog trough when your pounds and pennies would be better spent on fixing those gangrenous teeth; could think of nowhere but the handy Bar That Twas a Bog when it came to taking you aside and thrusting a temperance pamphlet into your gnarly old paws while standing you ‘one last drink.’ Yet all that may change, my fair-weather friend, for today – in the time that it takes you to adjust your corset, apply your lippy, and career blinking back out into the street – a communiqué rustles its way round work; a fresh breeze that prompts amongst my colleagues a mixture of airless gasps and prolonged heavy breathing. For we are to be offered Voluntary Early Death (VED), a scheme dreamt up by the uber-bosses in London to separate the wheat from the chaff. Yes, short-term riches may be (y)ours, in exchange for lifelong unemployment and a pauper’s grave.
Short-term riches!! Seconds before the wind of hope is deoxygenated by the guff of indecision, I have applied for release. There is no guarantee that it will be granted. You more than anyone know how my financial skills have come to be relied upon (when, sated, you told me that the dimpled ceiling of the Rochdale Ritz was ‘as of the stars an’ heavens an’ that’, remember how quick I was to use said imperfections to demonstrate basic tax law?) Nevertheless, I live in hope of a new beginning – a chance to write, a chance to sing, a chance to dance, a never-to-be-repeated opportunity to buy a solid gold bong encrusted with images of semi-precious stoners. Never has impending doom given me quite as light a head. Walking home along the canal, wondering what career a man could pursue after 12 months bitter struggle with the page, who should I spy but my old friend Porthole Drift, the famous detective, coming my way on his crimson barge ‘Gypsy Lady’, enjoying a pipe while Muff the dog hunts out some tea for the tillerman?
‘Ahoy Porthole!’ I harangue.
‘What-ho,’ he replies with added pith.
No doubt in town to solve one of his cases with a leisurely disregard for the mounting death toll, I see a future beyond the piles of rejected manuscripts with which I’ll insulate myself next winter, if only in penning the unpublishable biography of this distinctly peculiar fellow.
Monday 5 October
The beginning of my birthday week and like Mr Scruff, my tailor (who presents me with a brand new DJ to mark my 36th) I determine to keep it real. Although off work, I go about my chores as usual – anything but face the (real/metaphorical) blank page/blank cheque that represent my much-delayed literary career. However, when Miss Jordan reminds me that I have an optician’s appointment at lunchtime I get a stomach-based feeling not dissimilar to that encountered on my 6th birthday when a giant horse-fat jelly was delivered to my boarding school, fresh from Uncle Horace’s glue factory. Yes, an appointment with the eye people is always a lot more exciting than it should be to someone of increasingly blinkered vision.
11.30am I finding myself huffing and puffing about Cross Street. Am I propositioned in the Patagonian Poultry Parlour? No. Am I Lothario’d in Larry’s ‘Laser Finish’ Laundrette (aka Pekalowski’s new ‘Dirty Clothes in Public’ Company)? Rarely. Then why must I always be salaciously seduced in Superspex? Should this read like a complaint then you too require an eye test – the ladies here are for the most part twinkling goddesses and if one or two are a little blurry round the edges then that’s probably for the best. Here, as in no other part of my existence, there are no awkward silences, no askance glances while I complete life’s necessary forms, try to read mixed messages or the writing on the wall; here soothing voices gently stroke what remains of my ego – telling me what a treat for the staff it is for me to appear in person when collecting my latest patent leather eyewear.
A TRAP, dear Reader, we’ve seen them on these pages before. A WOMAN is no doubt behind it, we can safely assume. With Licky sent to Australia in diamond chains (a desperate attempt by her family to wean her off effeminate men) I can only think this an arrangement she has made to test my undying, eternal faithfulness to her. By good fortune I have my hip flask about me and, taking an almighty swig, I proceed to smash up Superspex – at one point flinging a two-for-one Top Hat and periscope combo at a wall-sized display of wire-and-crystal kitten glasses. Back home, having presented Miss Jordan with the almighty bill, I proceed to bash seven shades out of the opposition in two rounds of footerball tonight. Yes, I am dealing with Licky’s absence fine, thank you for asking.
The beginning of my birthday week and like Mr Scruff, my tailor (who presents me with a brand new DJ to mark my 36th) I determine to keep it real. Although off work, I go about my chores as usual – anything but face the (real/metaphorical) blank page/blank cheque that represent my much-delayed literary career. However, when Miss Jordan reminds me that I have an optician’s appointment at lunchtime I get a stomach-based feeling not dissimilar to that encountered on my 6th birthday when a giant horse-fat jelly was delivered to my boarding school, fresh from Uncle Horace’s glue factory. Yes, an appointment with the eye people is always a lot more exciting than it should be to someone of increasingly blinkered vision.
11.30am I finding myself huffing and puffing about Cross Street. Am I propositioned in the Patagonian Poultry Parlour? No. Am I Lothario’d in Larry’s ‘Laser Finish’ Laundrette (aka Pekalowski’s new ‘Dirty Clothes in Public’ Company)? Rarely. Then why must I always be salaciously seduced in Superspex? Should this read like a complaint then you too require an eye test – the ladies here are for the most part twinkling goddesses and if one or two are a little blurry round the edges then that’s probably for the best. Here, as in no other part of my existence, there are no awkward silences, no askance glances while I complete life’s necessary forms, try to read mixed messages or the writing on the wall; here soothing voices gently stroke what remains of my ego – telling me what a treat for the staff it is for me to appear in person when collecting my latest patent leather eyewear.
A TRAP, dear Reader, we’ve seen them on these pages before. A WOMAN is no doubt behind it, we can safely assume. With Licky sent to Australia in diamond chains (a desperate attempt by her family to wean her off effeminate men) I can only think this an arrangement she has made to test my undying, eternal faithfulness to her. By good fortune I have my hip flask about me and, taking an almighty swig, I proceed to smash up Superspex – at one point flinging a two-for-one Top Hat and periscope combo at a wall-sized display of wire-and-crystal kitten glasses. Back home, having presented Miss Jordan with the almighty bill, I proceed to bash seven shades out of the opposition in two rounds of footerball tonight. Yes, I am dealing with Licky’s absence fine, thank you for asking.
Wednesday 9 September
To Chorlton Village, sitting within Strangest Bar, though it’s never too odd to have Jill’s company over several yards of ale, or metres of wine in her case. But while old times would normally be danced around, tonight there is no skirting from the present and the recent loss of her Mum, Sandy. An independent, strongly-humoured woman, living alone in the ferocious Welsh borderlands, it is with heavy pen that I note down the songs she chose for her service, enabling me to remember her via a host of heroines on phonograph later this week; but it is with pride and a smile, and no disrespect to my own family’s choice of path, that I listen to how Jill and her siblings arranged for Sandy the first humanist funeral conducted in Llangollen that anyone can remember, to the chagrin of the local Vicar. As ever tragedy and comedy aren’t too far apart and the evening ends with my fingers jammed into Jill’s shell-likes while she swallows iced water backwards – the only known cure for her indiscriminate hiccups, and my sincere helplessness.
To Chorlton Village, sitting within Strangest Bar, though it’s never too odd to have Jill’s company over several yards of ale, or metres of wine in her case. But while old times would normally be danced around, tonight there is no skirting from the present and the recent loss of her Mum, Sandy. An independent, strongly-humoured woman, living alone in the ferocious Welsh borderlands, it is with heavy pen that I note down the songs she chose for her service, enabling me to remember her via a host of heroines on phonograph later this week; but it is with pride and a smile, and no disrespect to my own family’s choice of path, that I listen to how Jill and her siblings arranged for Sandy the first humanist funeral conducted in Llangollen that anyone can remember, to the chagrin of the local Vicar. As ever tragedy and comedy aren’t too far apart and the evening ends with my fingers jammed into Jill’s shell-likes while she swallows iced water backwards – the only known cure for her indiscriminate hiccups, and my sincere helplessness.
Friday 28 August – Paris
Much excitement today as our trip coincides with a decree from Emperor Napoleon III that a great/grande Exposition Universelle is to be held in Paris come 1867 (should the world still be in one piece b’then!) Exhibits will include a giant Iced Bun on which schoolchildren are to recreate famous battles from the Russian front, a violin concerto performed by a child prodigy inside a special crystal in which he is to be incubated and raised from next Thursday, not to mention – for the nature lovers amongst you – a man dressed as a bear fighting a bear dressed as a man, to the death! It is sure to be spectacular but in the meanwhile it is exciting to hear that a band once local to our beloved Manchester – Pastis (pronounced ‘Past it’) – will play in celebration of this massive indulgence on the festival site tonight.
After a day of sightseeing, buying miniature Eifel Towers in anticipation of forthcoming erections, we arrive at the riverside venue. Excitement ripples through the crowd like flatulence at a bean factory. The facilities are impeccable, the queues for beer significantly less, and less violent than their English equivalent. What Licky and I cannot find anywhere are the tobacco tubes that would allow us at least a frisson of bad behavior. We decide to split up and pursue the most attractive smokers, of the appropriate sex, available within our immediate circumference. Needless to say, while I charm several young lady models into submission, Licky makes a right exposition of herself. Speaking French – or even English – is so ‘last season’ the lady models have already told me (with their eyes), something Licky doesn’t seem to appreciate. However unfashionable, and having missed the Afro-chirrup of Vladimir’s Weekday, we reunite in anticipation of Pastis – their famous ‘dirge’ nothing if not momentous in its attitude. Alas, the emotions have already spilled over, and a trembling announcer comes on stage to tell us that the famously blue brothers have argued backstage and split. Such is the size of the ensuing Gallic shrug that I fear the lads will have seen it from their private hot air balloon home. We disperse to paint the town (a very united) red, and over several ‘giraffes’ of wine talk about the old days, of which the music was only ever a background to the irreplaceable friendship and love.
Much excitement today as our trip coincides with a decree from Emperor Napoleon III that a great/grande Exposition Universelle is to be held in Paris come 1867 (should the world still be in one piece b’then!) Exhibits will include a giant Iced Bun on which schoolchildren are to recreate famous battles from the Russian front, a violin concerto performed by a child prodigy inside a special crystal in which he is to be incubated and raised from next Thursday, not to mention – for the nature lovers amongst you – a man dressed as a bear fighting a bear dressed as a man, to the death! It is sure to be spectacular but in the meanwhile it is exciting to hear that a band once local to our beloved Manchester – Pastis (pronounced ‘Past it’) – will play in celebration of this massive indulgence on the festival site tonight.
THE EXPOSITION ARENA: TO BE MADE ENTIRELY OF CHEESE BY AN ENTHUSIASTIC TEAM OF NORTH AFRICAN VOLUNTEERS
After a day of sightseeing, buying miniature Eifel Towers in anticipation of forthcoming erections, we arrive at the riverside venue. Excitement ripples through the crowd like flatulence at a bean factory. The facilities are impeccable, the queues for beer significantly less, and less violent than their English equivalent. What Licky and I cannot find anywhere are the tobacco tubes that would allow us at least a frisson of bad behavior. We decide to split up and pursue the most attractive smokers, of the appropriate sex, available within our immediate circumference. Needless to say, while I charm several young lady models into submission, Licky makes a right exposition of herself. Speaking French – or even English – is so ‘last season’ the lady models have already told me (with their eyes), something Licky doesn’t seem to appreciate. However unfashionable, and having missed the Afro-chirrup of Vladimir’s Weekday, we reunite in anticipation of Pastis – their famous ‘dirge’ nothing if not momentous in its attitude. Alas, the emotions have already spilled over, and a trembling announcer comes on stage to tell us that the famously blue brothers have argued backstage and split. Such is the size of the ensuing Gallic shrug that I fear the lads will have seen it from their private hot air balloon home. We disperse to paint the town (a very united) red, and over several ‘giraffes’ of wine talk about the old days, of which the music was only ever a background to the irreplaceable friendship and love.
Thursday 27 August - Paris
Due to the collapse of so many notable institutions this year the summer bank holiday has been specially extended, ‘And Don’t Come Back’ was the rather specific message unfurled at Dover to anyone playing the markets, such as yours almost-completely-truly, and I was only too happy to obey my public and whisk Licky away to Paris. It is our first holiday abroad as it’s long and abreast of Brest, but its planning was by no means down to my huge romantic bone, more the combined funny bones of several friends from Chorlton Village days, most especially the teasing tibias of Cameron (no relation) and Carmona who these days spend their days in and around Grenoble. Swarthy Erick and Swervy Thelma; Jefferson and Melinda Cake make up the numbers with us – much fun spending this year’s modest bonus, plus the best-in-show award that Sanchez picked up at Blackpool Birdz (he’ll never know); later the gold doubloons Miss Jordan has sewn into my chest hair, in this wonderful metropolis. Cheap the Frenchies, nor their city, ain’t – whatever you may read in the papers or cheerily racist periodicals I’ve brought along in a last, ultimately fruitless attempt to stereotype Cameron. A Kiwi friend of the ‘big man’ takes us to a dark and dingy eatery off Rue Oberkampf tonight where we tuck into three courses of the most delicious five star cliché.
Due to the collapse of so many notable institutions this year the summer bank holiday has been specially extended, ‘And Don’t Come Back’ was the rather specific message unfurled at Dover to anyone playing the markets, such as yours almost-completely-truly, and I was only too happy to obey my public and whisk Licky away to Paris. It is our first holiday abroad as it’s long and abreast of Brest, but its planning was by no means down to my huge romantic bone, more the combined funny bones of several friends from Chorlton Village days, most especially the teasing tibias of Cameron (no relation) and Carmona who these days spend their days in and around Grenoble. Swarthy Erick and Swervy Thelma; Jefferson and Melinda Cake make up the numbers with us – much fun spending this year’s modest bonus, plus the best-in-show award that Sanchez picked up at Blackpool Birdz (he’ll never know); later the gold doubloons Miss Jordan has sewn into my chest hair, in this wonderful metropolis. Cheap the Frenchies, nor their city, ain’t – whatever you may read in the papers or cheerily racist periodicals I’ve brought along in a last, ultimately fruitless attempt to stereotype Cameron. A Kiwi friend of the ‘big man’ takes us to a dark and dingy eatery off Rue Oberkampf tonight where we tuck into three courses of the most delicious five star cliché.
Wednesday 12 August
The Hatbox Project is finally yours, having been ours for far too long. Admittedly you will have to fork out 20 shillings for a mixed bag (box) of work squeezed, shaken, or gamely extracted from a range of Manchester artists; price being just one of the issues that has sustained its three ‘masterminds’ on a journey of self and mutual discovery (as literary editors Spike and I clashed over Petra Couture’s contribution – there being no casting vote we were forced to undertake a dual, lost by me – Ouch! – while Dylan, as the sole artistic editor, had double the work, if only half the arguments; something he was compelled to raise with us aggressively). I have nothing but respect for creatives who collaborate more than occasionally – perhaps it’s no coincidence that these pairings are usually writers of Puppet Show comedies situationale, and that the characters therein are almost always catatonically dysfunctional. Certainly it’s no surprise to learn that my inviting Larry Pekalowski and his sixteen-man, four-carrier, and one- monkey strong crew to record tonight’s launch in As Muck bar is seen as a distraction rather than a boon by my partners. In the event it is Bateman and Licky who take on most of the photographic duties, though the anticipation is clearly for them both to be more drinking/violent than shrinking violet.
Even after all, the fussing and fighting – the numbering of the little blighters under the shadow of Bateman’s giant concentrating tongue and oversized colouring book – the launch proves well-populated and, eventually, relaxing. 100+ people turn up, not in any way swayed by the free drink on offer, and as well as the literary circle/female cycle of Mimi, Tattetta, Mandy Candeur, and Amy-Lou (who brings along her famous, and friendly, fella, Gisbo Gibson, from folk band Tennyson) it is great to have Sir Dempson and Swarthy Erick amongst a scattering of near life-long supporters/hecklers – likewise DH selecting the tunes; Daisy making an appearance – so rare I see her these days – before the whole night comes under threat from an impromptu reading, inspired by this very (quite..) mechanical journal. Shuddering in the toilets – not for the first time – Bateman struggles to affix his false moustache while I admire my real McCoy; sweats over his lines while mine are firmly pressed into the old grey spongy matter, yet on stage, frustratingly, it is the young pretender who gets all the laughs (not that there’s many) precisely because of his well-rehearsed ineptitude! Spike comes up to run the bingo and order is restored, until the same lucky lady wins two boxes in a row – and promptly faints with surprise, gratitude or fear. Three of us at least knowing just how she may feel.
The Hatbox Project is finally yours, having been ours for far too long. Admittedly you will have to fork out 20 shillings for a mixed bag (box) of work squeezed, shaken, or gamely extracted from a range of Manchester artists; price being just one of the issues that has sustained its three ‘masterminds’ on a journey of self and mutual discovery (as literary editors Spike and I clashed over Petra Couture’s contribution – there being no casting vote we were forced to undertake a dual, lost by me – Ouch! – while Dylan, as the sole artistic editor, had double the work, if only half the arguments; something he was compelled to raise with us aggressively). I have nothing but respect for creatives who collaborate more than occasionally – perhaps it’s no coincidence that these pairings are usually writers of Puppet Show comedies situationale, and that the characters therein are almost always catatonically dysfunctional. Certainly it’s no surprise to learn that my inviting Larry Pekalowski and his sixteen-man, four-carrier, and one- monkey strong crew to record tonight’s launch in As Muck bar is seen as a distraction rather than a boon by my partners. In the event it is Bateman and Licky who take on most of the photographic duties, though the anticipation is clearly for them both to be more drinking/violent than shrinking violet.
Even after all, the fussing and fighting – the numbering of the little blighters under the shadow of Bateman’s giant concentrating tongue and oversized colouring book – the launch proves well-populated and, eventually, relaxing. 100+ people turn up, not in any way swayed by the free drink on offer, and as well as the literary circle/female cycle of Mimi, Tattetta, Mandy Candeur, and Amy-Lou (who brings along her famous, and friendly, fella, Gisbo Gibson, from folk band Tennyson) it is great to have Sir Dempson and Swarthy Erick amongst a scattering of near life-long supporters/hecklers – likewise DH selecting the tunes; Daisy making an appearance – so rare I see her these days – before the whole night comes under threat from an impromptu reading, inspired by this very (quite..) mechanical journal. Shuddering in the toilets – not for the first time – Bateman struggles to affix his false moustache while I admire my real McCoy; sweats over his lines while mine are firmly pressed into the old grey spongy matter, yet on stage, frustratingly, it is the young pretender who gets all the laughs (not that there’s many) precisely because of his well-rehearsed ineptitude! Spike comes up to run the bingo and order is restored, until the same lucky lady wins two boxes in a row – and promptly faints with surprise, gratitude or fear. Three of us at least knowing just how she may feel.
Saturday 8 August
Having produced a Batson’s Guide to Manchester some (ahem) months back – to a high personal standard yet in the company of friends who exceeded expectations (Tattetta’s beautiful pen-and-inks of contemporary tankard, footerball and monographed water closet; Jill and Conrad’s expert use of ‘daguerreotype shoppe’ to aid presentation), it is of great relief to be preparing it for the world today, albeit in leafy Didsbury – a barely lukewarm hotbed of radical pamphleteering. If the language within the Guide is occasionally fruity it is as nothing compared to the five-a-day that tumble from Licky’s raspberry-prone lips as we sit at opposite ends of her dining table – she folding the things together, me thinking of a line or two to make each one unique. The cause of her unrest? 100% jealousy (with added juicy bits). As the creative within the couple, it is up (or down) to me to sit at the typewriter, smoking, thinking, as I ape the portraitbook status bar in creating a label for every last guide, i.e. ‘Batson is…a troubled genius.’ Some of Licky’s suggestions, tossed like whizz-bombs in my direction, suggest that she may have a future in print – albeit in a future world of filth and insult in which I will play no part (‘Baston is….a twook’, ‘a wazpants’, ‘a misguided old fool’, ‘cruising for a bruising’, ‘single’, ‘probably the worst writer in the world’, ‘sic’, ‘hairy chicken thighs cod breath’, ‘baboon off-day face’, ‘conclusively unpublished’ etc). Roll on the Hatbox launch on Wednesday, at which Spike, Dylan and I will have VINDICATION written all over our faces (unless we can think of a better idea).
Having produced a Batson’s Guide to Manchester some (ahem) months back – to a high personal standard yet in the company of friends who exceeded expectations (Tattetta’s beautiful pen-and-inks of contemporary tankard, footerball and monographed water closet; Jill and Conrad’s expert use of ‘daguerreotype shoppe’ to aid presentation), it is of great relief to be preparing it for the world today, albeit in leafy Didsbury – a barely lukewarm hotbed of radical pamphleteering. If the language within the Guide is occasionally fruity it is as nothing compared to the five-a-day that tumble from Licky’s raspberry-prone lips as we sit at opposite ends of her dining table – she folding the things together, me thinking of a line or two to make each one unique. The cause of her unrest? 100% jealousy (with added juicy bits). As the creative within the couple, it is up (or down) to me to sit at the typewriter, smoking, thinking, as I ape the portraitbook status bar in creating a label for every last guide, i.e. ‘Batson is…a troubled genius.’ Some of Licky’s suggestions, tossed like whizz-bombs in my direction, suggest that she may have a future in print – albeit in a future world of filth and insult in which I will play no part (‘Baston is….a twook’, ‘a wazpants’, ‘a misguided old fool’, ‘cruising for a bruising’, ‘single’, ‘probably the worst writer in the world’, ‘sic’, ‘hairy chicken thighs cod breath’, ‘baboon off-day face’, ‘conclusively unpublished’ etc). Roll on the Hatbox launch on Wednesday, at which Spike, Dylan and I will have VINDICATION written all over our faces (unless we can think of a better idea).
Tuesday 21 July
For some years now we have been warned of the imminence of a worldwide attack of Wine Flu – a robust kind of a virus that threatens to floor around 40% of the planet’s pop. Well finally it has hit us where it hurts – in the loved ones. Readers will know there are few things Licky likes more than a drop of cab sauv or pin noir and it seems despite regular use of the alcoholic hand rub at work (which when combined with extra strong perfume/aftershave offers decent cover should you have over-indulged the night before) the beastly germs have at last found a way through her defences.
A pigeon flutters in through the skylight, then plunges like a stone onto the sofa, folds her wings and demands a cup of tea before parting with her news. Yes, dear readers, her – the very strain apparent in the very italics – the agency having insisted that I take on my first ever female carrier, Bacha. I finish off my sausages and absinthe (all that’s left safe to consume these days?) with feigned casuality but eventually can wait no longer, “How is she?” The good news: Licky is recovering, bedbound yet in high spirits, though I cannot visit. The bad news: her doctor ex can, being a doctor and all that; but being a man, undoubtedly wanting Miss Shazhorn’s return to his life by way of a tip. It is with mixed emotions that I retire restlessly:
Will the distinctions between the sexes, that birds like Bacha have pecked apart, re-form like so much cheap meat in the wake of this outbreak? Is it not to be expected that the weaker sex should look to the more robust components of the stronger at times like this? What good a part-time pamphleteer to a maiden amongst all this? The latest bulletins via the worldwidewotsit do little to settle the mind. Apparently a second wave of flu will snaffle us over winter so perhaps it’s best to glug it down first time round. Colloquially, in any case, it seems that infected friends and friends-of-friends are collectively riding things out – something I seek to confirm with Bacha once she gets down from that sanctimonious perch in the rafters she insisted on building herself.
For some years now we have been warned of the imminence of a worldwide attack of Wine Flu – a robust kind of a virus that threatens to floor around 40% of the planet’s pop. Well finally it has hit us where it hurts – in the loved ones. Readers will know there are few things Licky likes more than a drop of cab sauv or pin noir and it seems despite regular use of the alcoholic hand rub at work (which when combined with extra strong perfume/aftershave offers decent cover should you have over-indulged the night before) the beastly germs have at last found a way through her defences.
A pigeon flutters in through the skylight, then plunges like a stone onto the sofa, folds her wings and demands a cup of tea before parting with her news. Yes, dear readers, her – the very strain apparent in the very italics – the agency having insisted that I take on my first ever female carrier, Bacha. I finish off my sausages and absinthe (all that’s left safe to consume these days?) with feigned casuality but eventually can wait no longer, “How is she?” The good news: Licky is recovering, bedbound yet in high spirits, though I cannot visit. The bad news: her doctor ex can, being a doctor and all that; but being a man, undoubtedly wanting Miss Shazhorn’s return to his life by way of a tip. It is with mixed emotions that I retire restlessly:
Will the distinctions between the sexes, that birds like Bacha have pecked apart, re-form like so much cheap meat in the wake of this outbreak? Is it not to be expected that the weaker sex should look to the more robust components of the stronger at times like this? What good a part-time pamphleteer to a maiden amongst all this? The latest bulletins via the worldwidewotsit do little to settle the mind. Apparently a second wave of flu will snaffle us over winter so perhaps it’s best to glug it down first time round. Colloquially, in any case, it seems that infected friends and friends-of-friends are collectively riding things out – something I seek to confirm with Bacha once she gets down from that sanctimonious perch in the rafters she insisted on building herself.
Sunday 19 July
To those confused by my recital at the desperately damp Manchester Book Fair today (a majority of the 20-30 good souls huddled in Tent A as I read from Tent B – a vision behind a waterfall – all of whom appeared to sense that something fishy was up, and that the something fishy was quite possibly swimming upstream, occasionally floundering, all the while inexplicably wearing a top hat) I offer this self-indulgent, self-published interview by way of introduction and enlightenment.
BARGREAVES EXPOSED
When were you happiest? Cotton and coal shares hit new highs, I learn from my favourite carrier, while in bed with my favourite gal.
What is your greatest fear? Missing out on future gossip due to irritating mortality.
What is your earliest memory? Desperately pulling the cord in the steam pram while bearing down on Great Aunt V.
What is the trait you most deplore in others? Duplicity.
What is the trait you most deplore in yourself? Being scrupulously honest, at the expense of good punch-lines.
Your most embarrassing moment? Manchester Book Fair, Chorlton Poetry Festival etc etc.
What is your most treasured possession? Daguerreotypes of ancestors, diaries.
What do you dislike about your appearance? My blue-white ‘plates of meat’ appear to have given up the ghost several years ago.
Who would play you in a Puppet Show of your life? Oscar Wilde’s butch sister.
What is your guiltiest pleasure? Non-British wine.
What is your most unappealing habit? French cigarettes (consumed anally).
Where would you like to live? By the sea (Miss Jordan insists on running me consecutive baths after my morning dip in the Rochdale Canal).
What does love feel like? Coming up for air/repeal of pro-smog laws (1862).
What was the best kiss of your life? Swarthy Erick side-stubble on countless birthdays.
Worst job? Pot washing is hard work, but there are perks (if you don’t mind a soapy aftertaste to your half-eaten pie).
If you could edit your past, what would you change? A history degree somewhere posh and dusty may have aided projects past and present.
How do you relax? Like every man alive and a surprisingly large amount of women.
What single thing would most improve the quality of your life? Better class of pigeon.
Greatest achievement? Writing a novel (the unpublished Blaggard, 1860)
What keeps you awake at night? Fear of insomnia.
What is the most important lesson life has taught you? Seize the day, wrestle it to the ground, and give it a good, firm beating.
Where would you like to be right now? Pretending to fish in turquoise waters while contemplating world domination/belly button fluff (mine the latter to achieve the former?)
Tell us a secret: I am ¾ Ponce but rarely visit my homeland.
Sterling (not literally) support today comes from long-time Hatbox collaborators Spike and Dylan and it is to the latter’s chuckling form that I direct much of my reading (a pseudo footerball commentary that simultaneously describes a date with Daisy). Meanwhile Licky feeds the crowd cans of imported larger and homegrown smiles. In genuine news from the world of literature, Mimi Pixel celebrated the launch of her (published) book on the 2nd July while I was in Spain. I raise a can to her, then hurl it towards a funky young poet half my age and trouser size.
To those confused by my recital at the desperately damp Manchester Book Fair today (a majority of the 20-30 good souls huddled in Tent A as I read from Tent B – a vision behind a waterfall – all of whom appeared to sense that something fishy was up, and that the something fishy was quite possibly swimming upstream, occasionally floundering, all the while inexplicably wearing a top hat) I offer this self-indulgent, self-published interview by way of introduction and enlightenment.
BARGREAVES EXPOSED
When were you happiest? Cotton and coal shares hit new highs, I learn from my favourite carrier, while in bed with my favourite gal.
What is your greatest fear? Missing out on future gossip due to irritating mortality.
What is your earliest memory? Desperately pulling the cord in the steam pram while bearing down on Great Aunt V.
What is the trait you most deplore in others? Duplicity.
What is the trait you most deplore in yourself? Being scrupulously honest, at the expense of good punch-lines.
Your most embarrassing moment? Manchester Book Fair, Chorlton Poetry Festival etc etc.
What is your most treasured possession? Daguerreotypes of ancestors, diaries.
What do you dislike about your appearance? My blue-white ‘plates of meat’ appear to have given up the ghost several years ago.
Who would play you in a Puppet Show of your life? Oscar Wilde’s butch sister.
What is your guiltiest pleasure? Non-British wine.
What is your most unappealing habit? French cigarettes (consumed anally).
Where would you like to live? By the sea (Miss Jordan insists on running me consecutive baths after my morning dip in the Rochdale Canal).
What does love feel like? Coming up for air/repeal of pro-smog laws (1862).
What was the best kiss of your life? Swarthy Erick side-stubble on countless birthdays.
Worst job? Pot washing is hard work, but there are perks (if you don’t mind a soapy aftertaste to your half-eaten pie).
If you could edit your past, what would you change? A history degree somewhere posh and dusty may have aided projects past and present.
How do you relax? Like every man alive and a surprisingly large amount of women.
What single thing would most improve the quality of your life? Better class of pigeon.
Greatest achievement? Writing a novel (the unpublished Blaggard, 1860)
What keeps you awake at night? Fear of insomnia.
What is the most important lesson life has taught you? Seize the day, wrestle it to the ground, and give it a good, firm beating.
Where would you like to be right now? Pretending to fish in turquoise waters while contemplating world domination/belly button fluff (mine the latter to achieve the former?)
Tell us a secret: I am ¾ Ponce but rarely visit my homeland.
Sterling (not literally) support today comes from long-time Hatbox collaborators Spike and Dylan and it is to the latter’s chuckling form that I direct much of my reading (a pseudo footerball commentary that simultaneously describes a date with Daisy). Meanwhile Licky feeds the crowd cans of imported larger and homegrown smiles. In genuine news from the world of literature, Mimi Pixel celebrated the launch of her (published) book on the 2nd July while I was in Spain. I raise a can to her, then hurl it towards a funky young poet half my age and trouser size.
Monday 29 June – Friday 10 July
Since qualifying in Teaching Manners to People Unfortunate Enough to be Born Non-British (TEMPUEBN) I have had few opportunities to test my mettle in this most challenging of arenas. Chance would be a fine thing – especially when one requires a new steam mangle for the apartment – and here it comes, hair all piled up like a Dockside dame, in the form of co-worker Barry, whose former roommate at the University of Life, Sunderland, is running classes in even more isolated Aragon, Spain. I am invited to be the extra pair of hands, though as we’re teaching youngsters, the extra (pleading) voice, or pair of legs (to catch up with/flee from the little ones) may both be more appropriate expressions.
My going away party is an elongated affair (though as nothing compared to the apparently lifelong relationship we enjoy/endure with the pricey and ever-so-easy Crow 2 at which it’s staged) and someone forgets to set the alarm correctly for tomorrow; the same someone who insists on one more drink with the gang; the same someone I resolve to leave firmly behind here in the UK. No, not darling Licky (who kindly transports me to the balloon-port where I get the second flight of the day to Barcelona) but the BB who was relaxed, and chilled and ever so English over here, and hadn’t seen a child since…
Teaching English in Spain? More like teaching aliens on the less-populated, treeless and unshaded side of Mars, I pen to Licky in desperation. The temperature hovers around the mid-30s and although the ale (‘lager’, the Spaniards pronounce it – mispronouncing our ‘larger’ while ironically serving it in smaller glasses) and (chin-dribblingly succulent) fruits of our labour taste infinitely better after long days in the classroom and racketball court, it is clear why Steve and his partner, Brucinda, run this two-week summer school only once a year (usually in summer). Yet the location is undeniably stunning – Abenfigo is a cactus and elderly senora-strewn village on the edge of nowhere, accessible from sleepy Alcaniz only on the school donkey, which I am forced to ride in and out each day, to the amusement of the children.
Perhaps the most memorable, and saddest, incident I came across while Englishing out here was the almost inevitable rivalry and subsequent scrap between two of my charges. If Barton is my ‘baby rhino’ then Steed was my ‘baby bull’. A strapping lad of around 13 he possessed both an intelligence that gave him little patience with his classmates and a wild, unwilled, and (essentially) ‘uncool’ unruliness that gave them little patience with him. I would eat my packed lunch on a step with Steed each day, discussing the latest news from Pamplona’s occasionally fatal bull runs. Yet anyone who has ever seen the children’s puppet show ‘Grunge Hill’ will know how this particular story ends – with Steed finally cracking on the penultimate day of school, scrapping in the yard with popular wind-up merchant Paulo, until Steve and myself are able to separate them with a well-placed ‘Riiiiiiggggghhhhhhtttttt!’ or two. Steed misses the last day – of water-fights, pantomimes and tuck – and I can only hope he remembers my salami-stained words: ‘it gets better,’ and hope they come true for him as they did, eventually, for me.
Since qualifying in Teaching Manners to People Unfortunate Enough to be Born Non-British (TEMPUEBN) I have had few opportunities to test my mettle in this most challenging of arenas. Chance would be a fine thing – especially when one requires a new steam mangle for the apartment – and here it comes, hair all piled up like a Dockside dame, in the form of co-worker Barry, whose former roommate at the University of Life, Sunderland, is running classes in even more isolated Aragon, Spain. I am invited to be the extra pair of hands, though as we’re teaching youngsters, the extra (pleading) voice, or pair of legs (to catch up with/flee from the little ones) may both be more appropriate expressions.
My going away party is an elongated affair (though as nothing compared to the apparently lifelong relationship we enjoy/endure with the pricey and ever-so-easy Crow 2 at which it’s staged) and someone forgets to set the alarm correctly for tomorrow; the same someone who insists on one more drink with the gang; the same someone I resolve to leave firmly behind here in the UK. No, not darling Licky (who kindly transports me to the balloon-port where I get the second flight of the day to Barcelona) but the BB who was relaxed, and chilled and ever so English over here, and hadn’t seen a child since…
Teaching English in Spain? More like teaching aliens on the less-populated, treeless and unshaded side of Mars, I pen to Licky in desperation. The temperature hovers around the mid-30s and although the ale (‘lager’, the Spaniards pronounce it – mispronouncing our ‘larger’ while ironically serving it in smaller glasses) and (chin-dribblingly succulent) fruits of our labour taste infinitely better after long days in the classroom and racketball court, it is clear why Steve and his partner, Brucinda, run this two-week summer school only once a year (usually in summer). Yet the location is undeniably stunning – Abenfigo is a cactus and elderly senora-strewn village on the edge of nowhere, accessible from sleepy Alcaniz only on the school donkey, which I am forced to ride in and out each day, to the amusement of the children.
Perhaps the most memorable, and saddest, incident I came across while Englishing out here was the almost inevitable rivalry and subsequent scrap between two of my charges. If Barton is my ‘baby rhino’ then Steed was my ‘baby bull’. A strapping lad of around 13 he possessed both an intelligence that gave him little patience with his classmates and a wild, unwilled, and (essentially) ‘uncool’ unruliness that gave them little patience with him. I would eat my packed lunch on a step with Steed each day, discussing the latest news from Pamplona’s occasionally fatal bull runs. Yet anyone who has ever seen the children’s puppet show ‘Grunge Hill’ will know how this particular story ends – with Steed finally cracking on the penultimate day of school, scrapping in the yard with popular wind-up merchant Paulo, until Steve and myself are able to separate them with a well-placed ‘Riiiiiiggggghhhhhhtttttt!’ or two. Steed misses the last day – of water-fights, pantomimes and tuck – and I can only hope he remembers my salami-stained words: ‘it gets better,’ and hope they come true for him as they did, eventually, for me.
Saturday 20 June
Smokeless Uncle Bargreaves has been a professional musician since he was half my age, but tonight will admit to being nervous on stage for the first time in years. At a full Phil’s Harmonica Hall in Liverpool, he and long-time cohort Hovis McSilkut, are backed by a full orchestra – a twitching mass of highly-strung egos – which is nothing if not an intimidating tribute to their near-30 years of tunes. Used to bashing it out at 11, the musos later admit to sneaking clockwork amplifiers beneath the feet of the string players, the better to pump up the volume. Sure enough, around halfway through, the audience – including Licky, the Bargreaves family, and Uncle’s partner Hana – rise for an indiscrete, but very enjoyable, dance. Currently working with Desmond Cakeland, author of the groundbreaking Generation K, Smokeless Unc later agrees to show this grand old/neu man of letters/worldwidewotsitting some of my own craft. I can’t help but wonder whether the cutting-edge contemporariness of my/your mechanical journal may be overshadowed by the quant, very English nature of my befuddling novellas.
Smokeless Uncle Bargreaves has been a professional musician since he was half my age, but tonight will admit to being nervous on stage for the first time in years. At a full Phil’s Harmonica Hall in Liverpool, he and long-time cohort Hovis McSilkut, are backed by a full orchestra – a twitching mass of highly-strung egos – which is nothing if not an intimidating tribute to their near-30 years of tunes. Used to bashing it out at 11, the musos later admit to sneaking clockwork amplifiers beneath the feet of the string players, the better to pump up the volume. Sure enough, around halfway through, the audience – including Licky, the Bargreaves family, and Uncle’s partner Hana – rise for an indiscrete, but very enjoyable, dance. Currently working with Desmond Cakeland, author of the groundbreaking Generation K, Smokeless Unc later agrees to show this grand old/neu man of letters/worldwidewotsitting some of my own craft. I can’t help but wonder whether the cutting-edge contemporariness of my/your mechanical journal may be overshadowed by the quant, very English nature of my befuddling novellas.
Friday 12 June 1864
An 1840s-themed party at Bron and Sasha’s place in Chorlton sees friends and friends-of-friends plus everyone’s favourite maniacally laughing best-mate Ivan T Watt-Eason trapped happily beneath the same billowing Bedouin tent out back. DH wears an inflatable rubber ‘bodybalmer’, Larry Pekalowski a bright white coal-sack and slacks, while Sasha herself is dressed as an incredibly classy bowl of fruit. Memories of my youth (shockingly Bron, whose birthday we celebrate, only entered stage left in 1838) mingle with apparently grown up gossip. Bateman – dressed as a chutzy-faced WG Grace – tells us how, marooned in the Ukraine, he recruited two young local ladies to re-start his malfunctioning flying machine. But it’s left to Licky to provide the knock-out blow – her high spirits blended into a powerful punch that sees us partying like its 1899, a year that hangovers suggest we will be fortunate to incorporate into such pronounced purple patches, however prolonged.
An 1840s-themed party at Bron and Sasha’s place in Chorlton sees friends and friends-of-friends plus everyone’s favourite maniacally laughing best-mate Ivan T Watt-Eason trapped happily beneath the same billowing Bedouin tent out back. DH wears an inflatable rubber ‘bodybalmer’, Larry Pekalowski a bright white coal-sack and slacks, while Sasha herself is dressed as an incredibly classy bowl of fruit. Memories of my youth (shockingly Bron, whose birthday we celebrate, only entered stage left in 1838) mingle with apparently grown up gossip. Bateman – dressed as a chutzy-faced WG Grace – tells us how, marooned in the Ukraine, he recruited two young local ladies to re-start his malfunctioning flying machine. But it’s left to Licky to provide the knock-out blow – her high spirits blended into a powerful punch that sees us partying like its 1899, a year that hangovers suggest we will be fortunate to incorporate into such pronounced purple patches, however prolonged.
Thantom Legg
The cotton crunch has seen building work forestalled on the Crystal Maize project, destined for the bunion-ridden foot of my dirty old Princess, but in one of the huge residential blocks on Whitworth Street I monitor the progress of Thantom Legg, as I have since I arrived in this neck of the woods. While always keen to use genuine names in this journal – preferring a direct slander to a vicarious gander – you may note that this chap’s name is a tad unconvincing. You would be right, if a little damned petty, to be suspicious. I admit to never having spoken to the man, yet on Sunday streets round here, the weekend boozers dispersed, you get to know by sight those shuffling about their business. And shuffle he does. Often I have wondered how such an injury befell him – one that sees a fit young man (early 40s – my new definition of late youth) with a permanent limp for the last eighteen months at least. With modern medical treatment now available to any male over 5’4” it seems almost unbelievable that a bash or funk of any description could lead to such an extended recuperation. I cast my mind back to when I first saw him, a slab of butter-coloured hair failing to obscure music hall good looks, arguing with a beautiful young woman at the foot of his building. Vicious words were exchanged – I missed their exact nature due to the passing of a farting horse – but it was evident that Thantom was more-than-able to nimbly circle his prey – or his quarry? Two weeks on, drained of colour, he was navigating the streets with difficulty, as now. There is little more to say. I leave you with, I hope, a little of the lingering mystery inherent in the private lives that surround us. I wonder who you wonder about (with only a little curiosity, truth be told: your business, dear reader – just as long as you’re retaining your own healthy fascinations). Licky arrives home with yet another bruise – hurdling a gate while running through the rich Hulme countryside. They say the heart is the body’s most resilient organ – it is certainly not the old pegs (legs).
The cotton crunch has seen building work forestalled on the Crystal Maize project, destined for the bunion-ridden foot of my dirty old Princess, but in one of the huge residential blocks on Whitworth Street I monitor the progress of Thantom Legg, as I have since I arrived in this neck of the woods. While always keen to use genuine names in this journal – preferring a direct slander to a vicarious gander – you may note that this chap’s name is a tad unconvincing. You would be right, if a little damned petty, to be suspicious. I admit to never having spoken to the man, yet on Sunday streets round here, the weekend boozers dispersed, you get to know by sight those shuffling about their business. And shuffle he does. Often I have wondered how such an injury befell him – one that sees a fit young man (early 40s – my new definition of late youth) with a permanent limp for the last eighteen months at least. With modern medical treatment now available to any male over 5’4” it seems almost unbelievable that a bash or funk of any description could lead to such an extended recuperation. I cast my mind back to when I first saw him, a slab of butter-coloured hair failing to obscure music hall good looks, arguing with a beautiful young woman at the foot of his building. Vicious words were exchanged – I missed their exact nature due to the passing of a farting horse – but it was evident that Thantom was more-than-able to nimbly circle his prey – or his quarry? Two weeks on, drained of colour, he was navigating the streets with difficulty, as now. There is little more to say. I leave you with, I hope, a little of the lingering mystery inherent in the private lives that surround us. I wonder who you wonder about (with only a little curiosity, truth be told: your business, dear reader – just as long as you’re retaining your own healthy fascinations). Licky arrives home with yet another bruise – hurdling a gate while running through the rich Hulme countryside. They say the heart is the body’s most resilient organ – it is certainly not the old pegs (legs).
Monday 8 June
Sometimes, no matter how scrupulously one prepares for the inevitable, it is still a great shock when it arrives, kicking and screaming, or whispering significantly into your life. Today, my surviving Grandma (Bargreaves) passes away in her sleep, and we must take consolation in the fact that she herself – at 89 – was more than prepared to be released from this mortal coil upon which we spin and stagger. Several years of ill-health had seen her body deteriorate while her mind and, for the most part, her humour, remained sharper than many of the younger Bargreaves who so adored her (is it too much to ask for our mind and bodies to go together? And if not, who do we ask?). She spoke of death often; insisted we should make the most of our lives while young, relished telling stories of old Lancashire, and the husband she lost too soon after he was force-marched across Europe by the Prussians. The family strain to picture them reunited in a summer meadow.
At 35, naked – if not always alone – I console myself with the words of author John Otter’s Dyke who tells us that at the midpoint of life’s arc one has lost the ‘curling, warm darkness’ you could snuggle into as a child on sleepless nights, but not yet become comfortable with the ‘second darkness’ still to come. Certainly death has been on my mind more than ever this year – because of my beloved Gran, my own (irreversible) wrinkles and greys, but also the sheer quality of the vintage (who would wish to lose all this?) which has conversely placed old cave face between the (increasingly hairy) ears.
Smokeless Uncle Bargreaves had been caring for his Mum, our matriarch, while the rest of us stayed on in Canadia. In hospital, so poorly, and with the doctors giving her only days, he recounts a dream she had. Offered, by a figure just out of shot, the choice between leaving right away and staying to see her ‘lambs’, she chose the latter – despite her readiness to go, despite her apparent lack of faith. Big, grey and wrinkled we may have become but it’s a privilege for Barton and I to see Grandma B on our return. Don’t bleat – look after each other, her last words to us. It’s hard to think of any simpler, more profound truth in life.
Sometimes, no matter how scrupulously one prepares for the inevitable, it is still a great shock when it arrives, kicking and screaming, or whispering significantly into your life. Today, my surviving Grandma (Bargreaves) passes away in her sleep, and we must take consolation in the fact that she herself – at 89 – was more than prepared to be released from this mortal coil upon which we spin and stagger. Several years of ill-health had seen her body deteriorate while her mind and, for the most part, her humour, remained sharper than many of the younger Bargreaves who so adored her (is it too much to ask for our mind and bodies to go together? And if not, who do we ask?). She spoke of death often; insisted we should make the most of our lives while young, relished telling stories of old Lancashire, and the husband she lost too soon after he was force-marched across Europe by the Prussians. The family strain to picture them reunited in a summer meadow.
At 35, naked – if not always alone – I console myself with the words of author John Otter’s Dyke who tells us that at the midpoint of life’s arc one has lost the ‘curling, warm darkness’ you could snuggle into as a child on sleepless nights, but not yet become comfortable with the ‘second darkness’ still to come. Certainly death has been on my mind more than ever this year – because of my beloved Gran, my own (irreversible) wrinkles and greys, but also the sheer quality of the vintage (who would wish to lose all this?) which has conversely placed old cave face between the (increasingly hairy) ears.
Smokeless Uncle Bargreaves had been caring for his Mum, our matriarch, while the rest of us stayed on in Canadia. In hospital, so poorly, and with the doctors giving her only days, he recounts a dream she had. Offered, by a figure just out of shot, the choice between leaving right away and staying to see her ‘lambs’, she chose the latter – despite her readiness to go, despite her apparent lack of faith. Big, grey and wrinkled we may have become but it’s a privilege for Barton and I to see Grandma B on our return. Don’t bleat – look after each other, her last words to us. It’s hard to think of any simpler, more profound truth in life.
Sunday 17 May
Each summer those people of Manchester fortunate enough to have get up and go, go out and get incredibly sweaty in the ages old running of the almost completely knackered bovines. Initially called a ‘fun run’ a massively successful legal action by the pipe-snorting Byron Badger almost bankrupt the city five years ago, since when the race has been known as ‘an adequate trot, if you like that sort of thing’ by Mayoral decree. Yet again work commitments prevent me from entering this year’s race but I am happy to lob mustard bombs from my rooftop in a bid to encourage the notoriously sluggish cattle to prang the odd adversary, and generally pep things up. Even in today’s poor weather it is certainly a site to behold – the young men literally running their bullocks off while the last half-dozen Miss Lancashire’s, fancy-dressed as bunnies, prick up their tails and flee from several hews of heifer.
Despite sharing an undisclosed number of small pints with me the previous night, and an initial, protracted nudging by an over-affectionate Friesian, Licky manages a record time this year, beating several workmates and an elderly Kenyan man in a go-cart. Pigeons swoop over the field, relaying news to a giant mechanical owl capable of calculating the times of runners to the nearest flashback; something complicated by the fact that at around 9.5k many participants witness their entire lives flashing before them. The finish time of one senior plodder is thereby recorded on the worldwidewotsit as 78 years, 11 months, three hours and a vivid image of ‘that bonny lass from French revolution.’ Within such a vast array of inappropriately clad peoples there will always be some who try to use the event to their own advantage. His manservant having reported him lost somewhere in darkest Ancoats (‘probably eaten by a Homeless’) it is small surprise to read in more than one gossip column of Lord Gallagher cavorting with a milk maid in a lopsided giraffe suit while completely off his bypass. Still, nothing unites a town like a giant, bloody feast and I eagerly make my way to meet Licky on Deansgate, off which all participating animals are assembled, roasted and served on a giant bun roughly the size and texture of Bolton. I offer Licky some wooden sachets of tomato sauce stolen especially from work. Then quickly wish I’d remembered the water.
Each summer those people of Manchester fortunate enough to have get up and go, go out and get incredibly sweaty in the ages old running of the almost completely knackered bovines. Initially called a ‘fun run’ a massively successful legal action by the pipe-snorting Byron Badger almost bankrupt the city five years ago, since when the race has been known as ‘an adequate trot, if you like that sort of thing’ by Mayoral decree. Yet again work commitments prevent me from entering this year’s race but I am happy to lob mustard bombs from my rooftop in a bid to encourage the notoriously sluggish cattle to prang the odd adversary, and generally pep things up. Even in today’s poor weather it is certainly a site to behold – the young men literally running their bullocks off while the last half-dozen Miss Lancashire’s, fancy-dressed as bunnies, prick up their tails and flee from several hews of heifer.
Despite sharing an undisclosed number of small pints with me the previous night, and an initial, protracted nudging by an over-affectionate Friesian, Licky manages a record time this year, beating several workmates and an elderly Kenyan man in a go-cart. Pigeons swoop over the field, relaying news to a giant mechanical owl capable of calculating the times of runners to the nearest flashback; something complicated by the fact that at around 9.5k many participants witness their entire lives flashing before them. The finish time of one senior plodder is thereby recorded on the worldwidewotsit as 78 years, 11 months, three hours and a vivid image of ‘that bonny lass from French revolution.’ Within such a vast array of inappropriately clad peoples there will always be some who try to use the event to their own advantage. His manservant having reported him lost somewhere in darkest Ancoats (‘probably eaten by a Homeless’) it is small surprise to read in more than one gossip column of Lord Gallagher cavorting with a milk maid in a lopsided giraffe suit while completely off his bypass. Still, nothing unites a town like a giant, bloody feast and I eagerly make my way to meet Licky on Deansgate, off which all participating animals are assembled, roasted and served on a giant bun roughly the size and texture of Bolton. I offer Licky some wooden sachets of tomato sauce stolen especially from work. Then quickly wish I’d remembered the water.
Friday 8 May
Night starts in the Old New York Bar where Licky is with what can only be (reluctantly) described as the next generation of cotton traders. While I still consider DH, Moony and myself as young soul rebels, it is clear that despite the immense wisdom we retain between us (diluted slightly as we move to sit with Swarthy Erick; the balance restored once his better half Swervy Thelma veers in from the bar), we are no longer regarded as cutting edge. Despite the fifteen-year age difference it is nice to see Licky soon join us, as I marvel at the cheekbones, and cheek, of rival admirers. Later meeting up with Che O’Gooner, on a rare visit to Manchester, Licky further struggles to raise the average age of the gang; some of us still able to able to recall the heady days of the Plantation club and the cardboard discs so expensively produced by Call Centre records some 20 years whence. But there is little time for stories – hugs and dancing being the order of the day, as they were back then (I think).
Night starts in the Old New York Bar where Licky is with what can only be (reluctantly) described as the next generation of cotton traders. While I still consider DH, Moony and myself as young soul rebels, it is clear that despite the immense wisdom we retain between us (diluted slightly as we move to sit with Swarthy Erick; the balance restored once his better half Swervy Thelma veers in from the bar), we are no longer regarded as cutting edge. Despite the fifteen-year age difference it is nice to see Licky soon join us, as I marvel at the cheekbones, and cheek, of rival admirers. Later meeting up with Che O’Gooner, on a rare visit to Manchester, Licky further struggles to raise the average age of the gang; some of us still able to able to recall the heady days of the Plantation club and the cardboard discs so expensively produced by Call Centre records some 20 years whence. But there is little time for stories – hugs and dancing being the order of the day, as they were back then (I think).
Saturday 25 April
Home from the annual Pigeon Emancipation Conference in Kent (PECK) where unflappable guest speakers seek lofty discourse on topics including Feather Allergies: Why Was I Born a Bird? and Hat Splatting the Abusive Boss: Moral High Ground or So Much Thin Air? While supposed to be clubbing with Sasha and Zack I suddenly become as tired and contented-looking as Sanchez in his wicker casket beside me on the train (he pulled of course, the little minx – first night). Licky, I’m finding, against my better judgment (and larger girth), is able to fill the plainest of rooms with her presence, and the promise of mixing drinks in her West Didsbury kitchen (the cocktail maid is away) is prospect enough for this sleepy old dog tonight. However, ever thoughtful, Ms Shazhorn has invited round two of the most glamorous ladies in the whole cotton trade – Deirdre Darknight and Ursula Grunbrun – to join us for high jinx and dancing. Having convinced ourselves it’s 1799, Deirdre takes a tumble on a high note, something dealt with using her usual determined laughter, as I look on aghast. How strange, or not, that it is Licky who shines brightest for me these days. How odd, or not, of her to invite me to come to this conclusion in such a public way.
Home from the annual Pigeon Emancipation Conference in Kent (PECK) where unflappable guest speakers seek lofty discourse on topics including Feather Allergies: Why Was I Born a Bird? and Hat Splatting the Abusive Boss: Moral High Ground or So Much Thin Air? While supposed to be clubbing with Sasha and Zack I suddenly become as tired and contented-looking as Sanchez in his wicker casket beside me on the train (he pulled of course, the little minx – first night). Licky, I’m finding, against my better judgment (and larger girth), is able to fill the plainest of rooms with her presence, and the promise of mixing drinks in her West Didsbury kitchen (the cocktail maid is away) is prospect enough for this sleepy old dog tonight. However, ever thoughtful, Ms Shazhorn has invited round two of the most glamorous ladies in the whole cotton trade – Deirdre Darknight and Ursula Grunbrun – to join us for high jinx and dancing. Having convinced ourselves it’s 1799, Deirdre takes a tumble on a high note, something dealt with using her usual determined laughter, as I look on aghast. How strange, or not, that it is Licky who shines brightest for me these days. How odd, or not, of her to invite me to come to this conclusion in such a public way.
Wednesday 22 April 1864
Still very much in denial about our nascent relationship, Licky and I attempt a small-scale skirmish; a joint storming of Beach Bar to thrash out some intimacy in the Ronson-lit beer garden. However, no sooner have we downed a dirty bitter than the presence of Bateman and Larry Pekalowski, 'fresh' from their latest round of Harrow Fives, is announced by the sound of rackets slapping against any available backside. Their last fifteen encounters have all been won by the American and we can little imagine his reaction should Bateman finally beat him, though a fair guess would be UNPRINTABLE, you little UNPRINTABLE (UNPRINTABLE being the worst of all contemporary insults, oft aimed at the writer sans publishing deal). Tonight boyish banter is the order of the day. Now Licky is no prude, her soft voice enshrouding a multitude of sins, but when the language turns a certain shade of blue we realize that to rekindle our date we should head back down Oxford Road and find some privacy in the lair (I have had the foresight to send Miss Jordan and my entire army of carriers to the gala night of Birds, an erotic shoulder dancing club opened opposite us on Princess Street). Licky and I walk arm-in-arm. A takeaway Italian reverse pie sits in a cardboard box that warms my hand; all is well.
Then on this most romantic of nights, under the bridge outside Crow 2 who should I spot but the blasted troll? Crutches splayed he sits next to Shifty McQuiggin, both snarling their way through a drink. Brilliant – my two prime sources of middle-class guilt in one convenient yet unsanitary location. Normally I’d give them a pound and have done with it, but I’m damned if I’m going to let Licky see me tremble under the weight of their combined gnarliness. Before we reach the underpass I begin our necessary acceleration, eyes locked dead ahead I encourage Licky to do the same by suggesting I can see a two-for-one sale at Bumbles Wine Merchants some 2,000 yards hence. It is no good – the second we are past them I hear that voice, terrible in its familiarity.
‘Marry her!’
We continue walking.
‘Marry her!’ he shouts again. I run the voice through the primitive data analysis machine recently installed within my top hat. Drunk – certainly. Aggressive – no, the troll must have consumed his optimum dose of cooking sherry. I stop, Licky’s curiosity encouraging me to turn and touch the peak of my hat. The troll’s toothy smile, the colour of an albino pit pony, strains to break the darkness.
Almost home, the talk unusually small for us too, I finally scratch the itch in my britches. Although I have carefully handpicked the delicious toppings for our reverse pie – double-cheese, banana, salami and garlic – I know we shall never consume them. A poor old fellow, down on his luck, needs all that healthy nourishment more than the randiest couple in Manchester. ‘Wait here,’ I command Licky, and run back towards the bridge. Although he has seen me just minutes before, it is clearly a struggle for the troll to recognize one half of the above (and former victim no. 14825) but more disturbing still is his inability to comprehend good grub, sourced from the finest gift horse.
‘Ta,’ he manages reluctantly, then grins up at me like some hideous giant child, ‘couldn’t give us a quid for a drink to go with it?’
Still very much in denial about our nascent relationship, Licky and I attempt a small-scale skirmish; a joint storming of Beach Bar to thrash out some intimacy in the Ronson-lit beer garden. However, no sooner have we downed a dirty bitter than the presence of Bateman and Larry Pekalowski, 'fresh' from their latest round of Harrow Fives, is announced by the sound of rackets slapping against any available backside. Their last fifteen encounters have all been won by the American and we can little imagine his reaction should Bateman finally beat him, though a fair guess would be UNPRINTABLE, you little UNPRINTABLE (UNPRINTABLE being the worst of all contemporary insults, oft aimed at the writer sans publishing deal). Tonight boyish banter is the order of the day. Now Licky is no prude, her soft voice enshrouding a multitude of sins, but when the language turns a certain shade of blue we realize that to rekindle our date we should head back down Oxford Road and find some privacy in the lair (I have had the foresight to send Miss Jordan and my entire army of carriers to the gala night of Birds, an erotic shoulder dancing club opened opposite us on Princess Street). Licky and I walk arm-in-arm. A takeaway Italian reverse pie sits in a cardboard box that warms my hand; all is well.
Then on this most romantic of nights, under the bridge outside Crow 2 who should I spot but the blasted troll? Crutches splayed he sits next to Shifty McQuiggin, both snarling their way through a drink. Brilliant – my two prime sources of middle-class guilt in one convenient yet unsanitary location. Normally I’d give them a pound and have done with it, but I’m damned if I’m going to let Licky see me tremble under the weight of their combined gnarliness. Before we reach the underpass I begin our necessary acceleration, eyes locked dead ahead I encourage Licky to do the same by suggesting I can see a two-for-one sale at Bumbles Wine Merchants some 2,000 yards hence. It is no good – the second we are past them I hear that voice, terrible in its familiarity.
‘Marry her!’
We continue walking.
‘Marry her!’ he shouts again. I run the voice through the primitive data analysis machine recently installed within my top hat. Drunk – certainly. Aggressive – no, the troll must have consumed his optimum dose of cooking sherry. I stop, Licky’s curiosity encouraging me to turn and touch the peak of my hat. The troll’s toothy smile, the colour of an albino pit pony, strains to break the darkness.
Almost home, the talk unusually small for us too, I finally scratch the itch in my britches. Although I have carefully handpicked the delicious toppings for our reverse pie – double-cheese, banana, salami and garlic – I know we shall never consume them. A poor old fellow, down on his luck, needs all that healthy nourishment more than the randiest couple in Manchester. ‘Wait here,’ I command Licky, and run back towards the bridge. Although he has seen me just minutes before, it is clearly a struggle for the troll to recognize one half of the above (and former victim no. 14825) but more disturbing still is his inability to comprehend good grub, sourced from the finest gift horse.
‘Ta,’ he manages reluctantly, then grins up at me like some hideous giant child, ‘couldn’t give us a quid for a drink to go with it?’
Wedding Smells
Another momentous occasion in a year I sense will have many. First Dempson and Lady Makepeace introduce young Groucho into the world, now Parson and Marny can get cracking on exactly that sort of thing. The lime green trimmings, so patiently acquired in Piccadilly station’s Tie Stocks over the last few weeks; so unlikely under a dun Manchester sky, sparkle as they were meant to, beneath a sunny Albertan dome; against the snow and awesome white of the Cardston temple.
In order to authentisize my big speech Barton kindly runs my wooden microphone through a clockwork wah-wah pedal, the resultant slurring an almost perfect imitation of one ‘over-the-eight’. However, when it’s time for me and Smoky Uncle to mingle with the other guests we cannot help but feel that water-into-wine should be more than a metaphor at such religious gatherings. It turns out there's little to fear – the room is set up in such a way that two long lines of guests shuffle past each other, exchanging greetings and good wishes, until you've met the whole darn troupe. Near neighbours strapped in snowshoes have come from far and wide, while carefully removing layers of fur reveals a shivering of former Brits contained within this most pleasant of ID parades. Only the dehydration caused by a hundred polite conversations proved a problem – and we all know that alcohol is the last thing one requires for that condition.
Once the deed is done the most enduring daguerreotype of the day must be of Marny lifting aloft my besuited 'baby rhino' (stuffed full of competing lasagnes and victorious ice cream). Yet there is no need for my sister-in-law to prove her superhuman strength – we have already surrendered to the tough and tender charms of our new home-from-home and those who grace it. Home from home-from-home will take a little adjustment but at least I have a certain someone to help with the inevitable trouser lag.
Another momentous occasion in a year I sense will have many. First Dempson and Lady Makepeace introduce young Groucho into the world, now Parson and Marny can get cracking on exactly that sort of thing. The lime green trimmings, so patiently acquired in Piccadilly station’s Tie Stocks over the last few weeks; so unlikely under a dun Manchester sky, sparkle as they were meant to, beneath a sunny Albertan dome; against the snow and awesome white of the Cardston temple.
In order to authentisize my big speech Barton kindly runs my wooden microphone through a clockwork wah-wah pedal, the resultant slurring an almost perfect imitation of one ‘over-the-eight’. However, when it’s time for me and Smoky Uncle to mingle with the other guests we cannot help but feel that water-into-wine should be more than a metaphor at such religious gatherings. It turns out there's little to fear – the room is set up in such a way that two long lines of guests shuffle past each other, exchanging greetings and good wishes, until you've met the whole darn troupe. Near neighbours strapped in snowshoes have come from far and wide, while carefully removing layers of fur reveals a shivering of former Brits contained within this most pleasant of ID parades. Only the dehydration caused by a hundred polite conversations proved a problem – and we all know that alcohol is the last thing one requires for that condition.
Once the deed is done the most enduring daguerreotype of the day must be of Marny lifting aloft my besuited 'baby rhino' (stuffed full of competing lasagnes and victorious ice cream). Yet there is no need for my sister-in-law to prove her superhuman strength – we have already surrendered to the tough and tender charms of our new home-from-home and those who grace it. Home from home-from-home will take a little adjustment but at least I have a certain someone to help with the inevitable trouser lag.
The Borderlands and Beyond (Bachelorhood)
A record turnaround and I’m off to Canadia for Barton’s wedding. I use my few hours back in Manchester to great effect – supping wine while Licky massages my steaming feet/washes the carbon from my footprints. Then it’s away to London (a city which I know only from the postcards, following the ancient Manchester tradition of thoroughly ignoring it while there) and on across the Atlantic, by way of clockwork catapult this time. While hardly smooth, the journey in our specially hollowed-out comet is going well, until a familiar-looking shape appears from the blackest of clouds. It is Bateman, of course, in his famous Phallic Flyer – a machine so suggestive that even the brawniest of our air stewardesses blushes like a pilot caught (twice) over the limit (again).
‘Woah there!’ he bellows, slapping a leather glove against our stony-faced exterior, ‘Where do you thing you’re going?’
Fortunately for us, the navigator is able to maintain just enough speed to prevent us becoming but a drop in the ocean.
‘To bloomin’ Canadia,’ I retort – omitting curses to spare my bucolic family from the muck and brass of town.
‘Behold my Bachelor preserver,’ he gestures up and down his silver sheath, ‘come to save Barton from eternal error!’
‘He’s getting bloomin’ married,’ I splutter, ‘like all of us – most of us – will one day, now get out of our way good sir.’
At which Bateman fires what can only be described as a salami-based projectile towards our vessel. Mrs Bargreaves, preparing an eight-inch thick lasagne for the assembled passengers and crew, reacts quicker than those salivating around her, lifing her prized baking tray to the heavens and deflecting Bateman’s ill-intended missile towards Alderon. Defeated, he reverses dangerously - back towards his Cheshire headquarters.
We touch down safely in Alberta, are met by Marny, her brother and his wife and begin the short journey to their folks’ snug retreat in the Borderlands. Eighteen hours later we are sat eating pancakes and maple syrup while looking out at a wedding cake landscape that encompasses British Columbia, Montana and lots of white space in between. If the geography is intimidating the new family is anything but. With Smoky Uncle Bargreaves due to arrive the next day the only daunt taunting me is how to deliver a memorable best man’s speech while sober, to the sober, who will no doubt remember it as faithfully as the hymns I can only mime to.
A record turnaround and I’m off to Canadia for Barton’s wedding. I use my few hours back in Manchester to great effect – supping wine while Licky massages my steaming feet/washes the carbon from my footprints. Then it’s away to London (a city which I know only from the postcards, following the ancient Manchester tradition of thoroughly ignoring it while there) and on across the Atlantic, by way of clockwork catapult this time. While hardly smooth, the journey in our specially hollowed-out comet is going well, until a familiar-looking shape appears from the blackest of clouds. It is Bateman, of course, in his famous Phallic Flyer – a machine so suggestive that even the brawniest of our air stewardesses blushes like a pilot caught (twice) over the limit (again).
‘Woah there!’ he bellows, slapping a leather glove against our stony-faced exterior, ‘Where do you thing you’re going?’
Fortunately for us, the navigator is able to maintain just enough speed to prevent us becoming but a drop in the ocean.
‘To bloomin’ Canadia,’ I retort – omitting curses to spare my bucolic family from the muck and brass of town.
‘Behold my Bachelor preserver,’ he gestures up and down his silver sheath, ‘come to save Barton from eternal error!’
‘He’s getting bloomin’ married,’ I splutter, ‘like all of us – most of us – will one day, now get out of our way good sir.’
At which Bateman fires what can only be described as a salami-based projectile towards our vessel. Mrs Bargreaves, preparing an eight-inch thick lasagne for the assembled passengers and crew, reacts quicker than those salivating around her, lifing her prized baking tray to the heavens and deflecting Bateman’s ill-intended missile towards Alderon. Defeated, he reverses dangerously - back towards his Cheshire headquarters.
We touch down safely in Alberta, are met by Marny, her brother and his wife and begin the short journey to their folks’ snug retreat in the Borderlands. Eighteen hours later we are sat eating pancakes and maple syrup while looking out at a wedding cake landscape that encompasses British Columbia, Montana and lots of white space in between. If the geography is intimidating the new family is anything but. With Smoky Uncle Bargreaves due to arrive the next day the only daunt taunting me is how to deliver a memorable best man’s speech while sober, to the sober, who will no doubt remember it as faithfully as the hymns I can only mime to.
Biker Boys, Sao Paolo
It is of some obscure comfort to me that my brother Parton retains some of the famous Bargreaves absent-mindedness, despite his last drink being some half-decade whence (a decade he sees as half-full and I as half-empty). On the last day of the fair I realize, somewhat characteristically, and with a long-distance doff of the filial cap, that I’ve left our all-important banner at the English Old Boy’s Club the night before. With the doors about to open and my greatest besiegement outside active service about to begin, there is no way I can fetch it from the other side of town, but the advice of a colleague leads me into a hitherto unexplored realm – that of the ‘biker boy.’ With one killed on the roads each day, this is no job for the faint-hearted. Upon meeting the rogue entrusted to weave through traffic on my behalf I wouldn’t wonder if he had no heart at all – a xylophone of ribs over which hangs a battered leather jacket; a cigarillo dripping from a face smeared head-to-toe in engine oil and city smog. The discernible expression is one of melancholy – changing to desperate greed only as he whips away my cash, in return for said rolled-up advertisement.
Perhaps I would be a shade lighter in my appraisal had his fellow biker not later walloped my fellow delegate with his helmet; my fellow having tried to take down said fellow’s vehicle license plate (this following – almost inevitably – a hairy smash-up on a major highway into town). Siamee tells me that once reported the biker boy will almost inevitably be sent tumbling into a life of far lesser volition, so in this case took drastic action – perhaps in the hope of preserving his family. Mixed feelings on these desperate warriors then, as on much of the Brazil I see. It is a country striving for better things, many of which it will achieve, but the crime is criminal and – shuddering in my taxi en route to the Balloon Port – likewise the hellish-looking prisons. Yet something amazing happens in the queue through customs to persuade me into positive thinking. Imagining I am joining my fellow travelers, I brandish my documents within a line of all creeds and colours, only to realize (characteristically slowly) that I am actually amongst those most at home here, and nowhere else but this diverse, pulsating nation.
Ibirapuera
I spend a last morning in my adopted coffee shop on well-healed Jose Maria Lisboa before heading onwards to Ibirapuera Park and the grand exhibition hall within which my work here begins. So it appears I will never discover the filling of my favoured stuffed croissant (sugared salmon would be my best guess, strange as it sounds) but have at least a pretty good idea of the routines of the security men opposite; all tinted glasses, blacked-out pigeons and barely concealed pistols as they seek to protect the rich and famous from the kidnappers and cracked heads on the street.
A banner above my head pronounces Cotton and Coal: fresh from the UK and combined with my ultra-professional demeanor, entices a steady stream of interested customers to our stand. All good for business but my own interest is with our translator, Siamee – so quick at her job that askance she can tell me something of her life here. Siamee’s family are pioneers in what will become a wave of Japanese immigrants in the 1920s and ‘30s (she predicts), and while she studies in Sao Paolo she grew up by the Amazon, in the sweltering trading port of Manaus (‘much too humid for you, look how you sweat now!’) where her dad taught her to shoot at nine, in case attacked by man or beast. As if to counteract the contraband flowing up and down river from Manaus, Siamee tells me of (yet) another European’s folly and how an Opera House was transported, cut stone-by-cut stone, through the jungle to where it now sits in fetid surroundings, hosting piercing arguments between the untamed and the cultured. A dirty great pile of coal will serve your country better, I tell her while dabbing my forehead with the nearest bit of cotton available.
Sao Paolo
A city of many layers, from what I could gather through my limited Portuguese (I imagine Rio is more geared to English tongues and fancies) and restricted time here. Towering apartment blocks and offices keep snug the middle-classes but pounding the streets reveals the vibrantly aspirational along with those content – or doomed – to spend their days outdoors; possessions loosely bound in brightly coloured bags, bottles of cachaça glinting in the sun. Then what delight to enter the cool of the art gallery between banking houses on Paulista; so close to neglected old masters that I could have defaced them with my quill. The same street gives a fascinating insight into what once was here, when the use of oils was still restricted to cooking and lubing…
Regular pedants will know that on my every foreign trip I insist on assembling local bread, cheese and salami into a reassuring picnic, chewing the fat while overlooking some great site or simply staring at foreigners. And what could be a nicer spot to do this from than the small, gated park of Trianon? Within minutes I am utterly terrified, to the amusement of assorted office hounds on their own lunch-breaks. Tough policemen break into girlish laughter at my demeanor. The cause? Admiring the palms above my humble bench my eyes reach a delicate, floating gauze of…spiders…spiders EVERYWHERE…webs with legs protruding across the very paths I came by (they must be in my hair, have laid their eggs by now!). Fat spiders, skinny spider, little spiders, GIANT spiders, all of them laughing their tiny/huge venomous chops off. Yes, that’s right – a little bit of jungle is preserved right here, in this supposed sanctuary, simply to ruin the peace of jelly-limbed Europeans like myself.
A city of many layers, from what I could gather through my limited Portuguese (I imagine Rio is more geared to English tongues and fancies) and restricted time here. Towering apartment blocks and offices keep snug the middle-classes but pounding the streets reveals the vibrantly aspirational along with those content – or doomed – to spend their days outdoors; possessions loosely bound in brightly coloured bags, bottles of cachaça glinting in the sun. Then what delight to enter the cool of the art gallery between banking houses on Paulista; so close to neglected old masters that I could have defaced them with my quill. The same street gives a fascinating insight into what once was here, when the use of oils was still restricted to cooking and lubing…
Regular pedants will know that on my every foreign trip I insist on assembling local bread, cheese and salami into a reassuring picnic, chewing the fat while overlooking some great site or simply staring at foreigners. And what could be a nicer spot to do this from than the small, gated park of Trianon? Within minutes I am utterly terrified, to the amusement of assorted office hounds on their own lunch-breaks. Tough policemen break into girlish laughter at my demeanor. The cause? Admiring the palms above my humble bench my eyes reach a delicate, floating gauze of…spiders…spiders EVERYWHERE…webs with legs protruding across the very paths I came by (they must be in my hair, have laid their eggs by now!). Fat spiders, skinny spider, little spiders, GIANT spiders, all of them laughing their tiny/huge venomous chops off. Yes, that’s right – a little bit of jungle is preserved right here, in this supposed sanctuary, simply to ruin the peace of jelly-limbed Europeans like myself.
A Batson in the Americas
It is my whopping great good fortune to spend the last days of March and a significant chunk of April in the Americas, beginning with a succulent taste of Brazil and ending up in the crisp, horizon-baiting landscapes of Canada where my brother Barton and his wonderful Marny tie the knot amongst friends, family and the kind of decorative snow that doesn’t get all slushy and in your socks. In between the two trips I am home for a matter of hours, thrusting my soiled Brazilian outfits towards Miss Jordan on the way up to my boudoir while demanding that the sealskin woolies are out and lunchbox packed for North America five hours hence. Such speed in and out is demanded if I am to make the most of my time with Miss Shazhorn who has kindly come over with a bottle of claret, in celebration of my midway point. On departure – all too soon – Licky tells me to look to the skies mid-Atlantic, Bateman having promised a display, if not a lift, in his nascent (and knowing him, narcissistic) flying machine.
It is my whopping great good fortune to spend the last days of March and a significant chunk of April in the Americas, beginning with a succulent taste of Brazil and ending up in the crisp, horizon-baiting landscapes of Canada where my brother Barton and his wonderful Marny tie the knot amongst friends, family and the kind of decorative snow that doesn’t get all slushy and in your socks. In between the two trips I am home for a matter of hours, thrusting my soiled Brazilian outfits towards Miss Jordan on the way up to my boudoir while demanding that the sealskin woolies are out and lunchbox packed for North America five hours hence. Such speed in and out is demanded if I am to make the most of my time with Miss Shazhorn who has kindly come over with a bottle of claret, in celebration of my midway point. On departure – all too soon – Licky tells me to look to the skies mid-Atlantic, Bateman having promised a display, if not a lift, in his nascent (and knowing him, narcissistic) flying machine.
Saturday 21 March
In the same way that viewing risqué material on the worldwidewotsit never quite quenches the thirst, so our consumption of multivarious ales at the annual Wigan beer fest still leaves some of us acting like bankers; namely: Sir Dempson Makepeace and your humble narrator, electrified by the scrumpy and on the wrong side of the tracks. There has been some recent debate concerning the ready availability of cheap alcohol in your average supergrocers. Your connoisseur will counter this by highlighting the gulf in quality between the hand-reared stouts of Wigan and the tinned continental pish stacked high down the road at an almost identical price. Who would bother sampling cotton when they’ve just consumed seven pints of silk? No-one is more surprised than I to find the two of us, minutes after leaving the arena of the overweight, standing in a snapping crocodile of queue, trying to buy four ciders for the train home from a hand-rubbing corporation too tight to hire enough staff.
Regular readers will be aware that any previous crimes committed within the yellowing pages of this mechanical journal were of the heart. Only once have I been cautioned by a ‘Peeler’ and that took the form of a quiet word on Portland Street, informing me that I looked rather too dangerous in my latest sartorial mash-up. So prepare to be shocked, dear reader, as I tell you of what happened next. The cuckoo-clock mechanism of the self-serve gently sleeping, the snaking lines of people confounding our need for joyous fun, we abandoned our four-pack of ecstasy in the soft fruit! Then, aghast at the foibles of the system, we re-entered the store, picked it up and ran. Or would have done had we not remembered at that very moment Sir Dempson’s gammy leg (remarkable as he’d spoken of little else all night). Arm-in-arm, cackling, in a scene that must never be relayed to (but will no doubt be repeated by) Sir Dempson and Lady Sparkles’ young son Ernie, we shuffled, staggered, hopped and jiggled our way back to Wigan station.
So how does this action, so out-of-character, sit with me after the event? At first guilt manifests itself like a glorious shining boil as I yell cider-fuelled abuse towards a uniformed grunt as he threatens to expel a drunk from our locomotive. Fine behavior, were the drunk not manifestly more sober than I, Erick hisses. Back home unpunished I maintain a more levelheaded demeanor; consider repaying the supergrocers’ before recalling all the times I’ve been overcharged by their ‘faulty’ machines having purchased a ‘special offer’. Still, you may rest assured that the next time I break the law to this extent will be when refusing to sign up for an identity card when they’re finally introduced to our country; the results of their laughable trialing in Manchester doubtless long ignored by the authorities. Come visit me in gaol on that non-too-distant date. And bring some cider.
In the same way that viewing risqué material on the worldwidewotsit never quite quenches the thirst, so our consumption of multivarious ales at the annual Wigan beer fest still leaves some of us acting like bankers; namely: Sir Dempson Makepeace and your humble narrator, electrified by the scrumpy and on the wrong side of the tracks. There has been some recent debate concerning the ready availability of cheap alcohol in your average supergrocers. Your connoisseur will counter this by highlighting the gulf in quality between the hand-reared stouts of Wigan and the tinned continental pish stacked high down the road at an almost identical price. Who would bother sampling cotton when they’ve just consumed seven pints of silk? No-one is more surprised than I to find the two of us, minutes after leaving the arena of the overweight, standing in a snapping crocodile of queue, trying to buy four ciders for the train home from a hand-rubbing corporation too tight to hire enough staff.
Regular readers will be aware that any previous crimes committed within the yellowing pages of this mechanical journal were of the heart. Only once have I been cautioned by a ‘Peeler’ and that took the form of a quiet word on Portland Street, informing me that I looked rather too dangerous in my latest sartorial mash-up. So prepare to be shocked, dear reader, as I tell you of what happened next. The cuckoo-clock mechanism of the self-serve gently sleeping, the snaking lines of people confounding our need for joyous fun, we abandoned our four-pack of ecstasy in the soft fruit! Then, aghast at the foibles of the system, we re-entered the store, picked it up and ran. Or would have done had we not remembered at that very moment Sir Dempson’s gammy leg (remarkable as he’d spoken of little else all night). Arm-in-arm, cackling, in a scene that must never be relayed to (but will no doubt be repeated by) Sir Dempson and Lady Sparkles’ young son Ernie, we shuffled, staggered, hopped and jiggled our way back to Wigan station.
So how does this action, so out-of-character, sit with me after the event? At first guilt manifests itself like a glorious shining boil as I yell cider-fuelled abuse towards a uniformed grunt as he threatens to expel a drunk from our locomotive. Fine behavior, were the drunk not manifestly more sober than I, Erick hisses. Back home unpunished I maintain a more levelheaded demeanor; consider repaying the supergrocers’ before recalling all the times I’ve been overcharged by their ‘faulty’ machines having purchased a ‘special offer’. Still, you may rest assured that the next time I break the law to this extent will be when refusing to sign up for an identity card when they’re finally introduced to our country; the results of their laughable trialing in Manchester doubtless long ignored by the authorities. Come visit me in gaol on that non-too-distant date. And bring some cider.
Tuesday 10 March
Incredible lunch for just five shillings fifty at the unbeatable Briton’s Protectorate. On leave from the warehouse, and with no afternoon’s travail to trail back to, it is a delight to see Dempson and Growler struggling to unseat themselves from the fireside following game and pheasant pie washed down with ale the colour of exotic dishwater. Had the sun not been out I may be there still but after my second pint, and having completed the synopsis for my breakthrough novel, Breakthrough, I haul my slovenly bones down to the Museum of Science and Industry for examination and possible extra-existential donation. It is to the memory of my Great Uncle Trafford that I dedicate this particular visit. As a little bratwurst I would yawn and ball as he took Barton and I around these very exhibits, explaining the inner doings of mysterious machines without which ‘we wouldn’t be here today’ (‘But I don’t wanna be here today!’ would come the wailing riposte). I see now how strong the temptation must have been for Trafford to place me inside the Toddlermatic, a fearsome, piston-heavy beast – banned only last year – which, powered by the vanishing souls of slum-dwelling infants, created perfect ice cubes for various sporting regattas down south.
Alone with sentimental memories in the transport hall it is a shock to see Bateman polishing what appears at first to be a giant silver cigar, dressed top to tail in leathers, from shining knee-length boots to peek-a-boo eye-mask (this is a flying machine, he explains, and pork pies are rumoured to explode at high altitude). Yearning for a return to the East and some sort of recreation (if such a thing were possible) of our endurance-themed holiday last year, the ‘man has decided to save on steam train fare and propel himself thataways by means of this elastic-powered airship. While it will be a stretch for Larry, DH or myself to find the time or money to join this foolhardy mission we would certainly be happy to twang our friend across the sea, I reassure the begoggled adventurer. We shall have to see who snaps first.
Incredible lunch for just five shillings fifty at the unbeatable Briton’s Protectorate. On leave from the warehouse, and with no afternoon’s travail to trail back to, it is a delight to see Dempson and Growler struggling to unseat themselves from the fireside following game and pheasant pie washed down with ale the colour of exotic dishwater. Had the sun not been out I may be there still but after my second pint, and having completed the synopsis for my breakthrough novel, Breakthrough, I haul my slovenly bones down to the Museum of Science and Industry for examination and possible extra-existential donation. It is to the memory of my Great Uncle Trafford that I dedicate this particular visit. As a little bratwurst I would yawn and ball as he took Barton and I around these very exhibits, explaining the inner doings of mysterious machines without which ‘we wouldn’t be here today’ (‘But I don’t wanna be here today!’ would come the wailing riposte). I see now how strong the temptation must have been for Trafford to place me inside the Toddlermatic, a fearsome, piston-heavy beast – banned only last year – which, powered by the vanishing souls of slum-dwelling infants, created perfect ice cubes for various sporting regattas down south.
Alone with sentimental memories in the transport hall it is a shock to see Bateman polishing what appears at first to be a giant silver cigar, dressed top to tail in leathers, from shining knee-length boots to peek-a-boo eye-mask (this is a flying machine, he explains, and pork pies are rumoured to explode at high altitude). Yearning for a return to the East and some sort of recreation (if such a thing were possible) of our endurance-themed holiday last year, the ‘man has decided to save on steam train fare and propel himself thataways by means of this elastic-powered airship. While it will be a stretch for Larry, DH or myself to find the time or money to join this foolhardy mission we would certainly be happy to twang our friend across the sea, I reassure the begoggled adventurer. We shall have to see who snaps first.
Saturday 7 March
Lit by intermittent gaslight, as my tumbling horsedrawn gallops through the dusk towards yet another party, I take a good look at my hands for the first time in years. Prematurely veined, with the same blood-pumping deltas I recognize from my father's as a boy, I now notice my very first liver spots. Prematurely vain (as a teen I couldn't leave the house without an up-top slop of beeswax) it may surprise my older friends to know that I greeted this sight with a smile. Not of happiness - for who wants to be reminded of the receding years or hairline? - but of relief. An indication that some day I'll be able to give up worrying about my physical and sartorial elegance altogether; simply waking up and requesting the aged Miss Jordan cover my tummy-banana with a squirrel-skin sheath, or whichever rag we've been using to buff the grandfather clock, before setting out for a day of startling jetpack-wearing youngsters.
Am I making a serious point? Not yet, I don't feel quite old enough to and this is another reason for the smile. I am content with my lot (if not the world at large) in a way that would not have occurred to me in my younger days. I feel better, healthier, more positive, helped by the fact that much of the time I'm having an absolute ball. Yet one can't help but wonder about my generation's gentle approach to middle-age. Only ten years ago we were all munching on barndance biscuits and even now more seem to be taking up hazardous pursuits (e.g. marriage) than forsaking them. I don't imagine for one second that this lot will be making way politely for the next. I foresee their remaining hair being dyed bright pink, pensions traded for magic monkey juice; all night waltzing in mechanized bathchairs. This is truly a generation that will refuse to grow old, unless .......children....... once you have them it seems they refuse to grow old more vehemently than anyone else ever previously alive. ‘Send them down the mines’ is the learned advice of this increasingly wizened old tortoise.
Lit by intermittent gaslight, as my tumbling horsedrawn gallops through the dusk towards yet another party, I take a good look at my hands for the first time in years. Prematurely veined, with the same blood-pumping deltas I recognize from my father's as a boy, I now notice my very first liver spots. Prematurely vain (as a teen I couldn't leave the house without an up-top slop of beeswax) it may surprise my older friends to know that I greeted this sight with a smile. Not of happiness - for who wants to be reminded of the receding years or hairline? - but of relief. An indication that some day I'll be able to give up worrying about my physical and sartorial elegance altogether; simply waking up and requesting the aged Miss Jordan cover my tummy-banana with a squirrel-skin sheath, or whichever rag we've been using to buff the grandfather clock, before setting out for a day of startling jetpack-wearing youngsters.
Am I making a serious point? Not yet, I don't feel quite old enough to and this is another reason for the smile. I am content with my lot (if not the world at large) in a way that would not have occurred to me in my younger days. I feel better, healthier, more positive, helped by the fact that much of the time I'm having an absolute ball. Yet one can't help but wonder about my generation's gentle approach to middle-age. Only ten years ago we were all munching on barndance biscuits and even now more seem to be taking up hazardous pursuits (e.g. marriage) than forsaking them. I don't imagine for one second that this lot will be making way politely for the next. I foresee their remaining hair being dyed bright pink, pensions traded for magic monkey juice; all night waltzing in mechanized bathchairs. This is truly a generation that will refuse to grow old, unless .......children....... once you have them it seems they refuse to grow old more vehemently than anyone else ever previously alive. ‘Send them down the mines’ is the learned advice of this increasingly wizened old tortoise.
Fri 27 Feb
I was aware of Licky Shazhorn chiefly through the socioeconomic expertise that saw her first lending me tuppence towards an iced bun in the warehouse café, then trading hypotheses with Freddy Bangles and Earnest Groucho, two mutual friends from Germany who’ve been sniffing around the working class these last few summers. Renowned as one of the few women capable of taking on Bateman face-to-face (most preferring to simply smash him over the head, or up a dark alley, with a tea tray, from behind) it is Licky’s latent skills as nursemaid that are unexpectedly put to the test tonight.
Another work night out ends in tragedy
Perhaps the dry mouth that results from coughing up a last-minute public tribute to colleague and footer bud Hicks is responsible for my choosing Starjuice over champers at his well-stocked leaving do. If we are to blame the recession for my choosing the cheapest (and strongest) option at the Status Quo cocktail bar then how to explain mine and Licky’s buying double pints at two-for-one, and then drinking them twice as fast? Surely one for her statistical chalkboard and something for the more sober to muse over as cake is nibbled, cigars half-smoked, and the remnants tossed outside to my gentleman troll and his friends.
The party self-selects down Oxford Road to Cramped where, upstairs amidst the palms, screened until the last minute, Daisy joins us looking…Daisyish. Ever the gentleman, and to avoid any kind of misunderstanding, I am quick to dangle my new drinking partner over the side of the building – allowing Licky a comprehensive yet terrifying view of the freshly demolished Spa shop before we move on. Do I deserve punishment for such actions? Here it comes dear reader, despite your protestations. Innocently attempting to trip Licky over – several more pints to the good – I take a tumble, a single blonde forelock and several pounds of forehead smashing into an unrepentant Manchester. So the city had been waiting all this time, almost a year, since I Glasgow kissed Krakow in much the same way? Jealousy is a terrible thing, pride too, of which there is little as Licky dabs my wounds with just a smidgen more pressure than is strictly necessary.
I was aware of Licky Shazhorn chiefly through the socioeconomic expertise that saw her first lending me tuppence towards an iced bun in the warehouse café, then trading hypotheses with Freddy Bangles and Earnest Groucho, two mutual friends from Germany who’ve been sniffing around the working class these last few summers. Renowned as one of the few women capable of taking on Bateman face-to-face (most preferring to simply smash him over the head, or up a dark alley, with a tea tray, from behind) it is Licky’s latent skills as nursemaid that are unexpectedly put to the test tonight.
Another work night out ends in tragedy
Perhaps the dry mouth that results from coughing up a last-minute public tribute to colleague and footer bud Hicks is responsible for my choosing Starjuice over champers at his well-stocked leaving do. If we are to blame the recession for my choosing the cheapest (and strongest) option at the Status Quo cocktail bar then how to explain mine and Licky’s buying double pints at two-for-one, and then drinking them twice as fast? Surely one for her statistical chalkboard and something for the more sober to muse over as cake is nibbled, cigars half-smoked, and the remnants tossed outside to my gentleman troll and his friends.
The party self-selects down Oxford Road to Cramped where, upstairs amidst the palms, screened until the last minute, Daisy joins us looking…Daisyish. Ever the gentleman, and to avoid any kind of misunderstanding, I am quick to dangle my new drinking partner over the side of the building – allowing Licky a comprehensive yet terrifying view of the freshly demolished Spa shop before we move on. Do I deserve punishment for such actions? Here it comes dear reader, despite your protestations. Innocently attempting to trip Licky over – several more pints to the good – I take a tumble, a single blonde forelock and several pounds of forehead smashing into an unrepentant Manchester. So the city had been waiting all this time, almost a year, since I Glasgow kissed Krakow in much the same way? Jealousy is a terrible thing, pride too, of which there is little as Licky dabs my wounds with just a smidgen more pressure than is strictly necessary.
Wednesday 18 February
The cotton crunch may have bitten, but the ‘he-session’ has moved in for the kill (it turns out the ladies kept wads of loot and any number of part-time jobs beneath their billowing petticoats). In an effort to economize and help keep Miss Jordan in the lack of style to which she is accustomed, I forego the steam train and instead catch the Megacoach to London for an ostensibly educational visit (missing a lecture by one of my heroes more than he missed me). As my unconvincingly Italian father used to say, ‘What a mistake-a to make-a.’ Beginning my journey in a stylish lemon woolsuit I am soon sweated to tart discomfort – the primitive air-chilling system having literally backfired. By the time I reach Rosa’s in East London I am as delayed as a pre-booked carriage and my jokes are twice as hackneyed. No matter, I am soon cheered by beers at her local alehouse, exotic London made more so by the sense of urbane Europe she exudes. Only later do we dream of ragged, windswept Swedish islands, over cooking sherry back at her flat in the early hours. In between we meet an artist in a late bar and I am reminded of the gentle acts of artifice that oil the wheels of commerce and conversation in the capital much more than in crude, rude Manchester. It is perhaps because allies are rarer in a city the size of our capital that instead of dismissing the precocious middle-aged talent soon resting a hand on her knee, Rosa is all charm until we part when she makes it clear that in this town, on this continent, in this lifetime, she has no need of his contact details.
The cotton crunch may have bitten, but the ‘he-session’ has moved in for the kill (it turns out the ladies kept wads of loot and any number of part-time jobs beneath their billowing petticoats). In an effort to economize and help keep Miss Jordan in the lack of style to which she is accustomed, I forego the steam train and instead catch the Megacoach to London for an ostensibly educational visit (missing a lecture by one of my heroes more than he missed me). As my unconvincingly Italian father used to say, ‘What a mistake-a to make-a.’ Beginning my journey in a stylish lemon woolsuit I am soon sweated to tart discomfort – the primitive air-chilling system having literally backfired. By the time I reach Rosa’s in East London I am as delayed as a pre-booked carriage and my jokes are twice as hackneyed. No matter, I am soon cheered by beers at her local alehouse, exotic London made more so by the sense of urbane Europe she exudes. Only later do we dream of ragged, windswept Swedish islands, over cooking sherry back at her flat in the early hours. In between we meet an artist in a late bar and I am reminded of the gentle acts of artifice that oil the wheels of commerce and conversation in the capital much more than in crude, rude Manchester. It is perhaps because allies are rarer in a city the size of our capital that instead of dismissing the precocious middle-aged talent soon resting a hand on her knee, Rosa is all charm until we part when she makes it clear that in this town, on this continent, in this lifetime, she has no need of his contact details.
Monday 2 February
Marks the start of a week-long stag do for my teetotal brother Barton which will culminate in double-clubbing on Friday and as close to an authentic hangover as I can possibly muster for the lad come Saturday morning. But like a groom being cast off onto an eerily silent lake, with no tangible means of return, rudderless, and with the only available wind organically sourced from his own raw bottom, Barton’s stay begins calmly enough. Womb, upstairs on King Street, is a restaurant of the highest order – a former Gentleman’s club only opened to women after a particularly political Belfast girl chained herself to the rice pudding, it boasts huge windows through which one may follow (with a soupcon of disdain) the ever-so glutinous shoppers that populate this part of town. As we scoop up scallops under gaslight, my bro-haha remarks that we could easily be mistaken for lovers who dare not speak their names. Yet in truth – our receding hairlines racing each other to 40 like two middle-aged, denim-clad celebrity charioteers – we have never looked more like siblings; our strong brows and lips still drawing the occasional fan (in Barton’s case, poor soul, quite fatally).
Marks the start of a week-long stag do for my teetotal brother Barton which will culminate in double-clubbing on Friday and as close to an authentic hangover as I can possibly muster for the lad come Saturday morning. But like a groom being cast off onto an eerily silent lake, with no tangible means of return, rudderless, and with the only available wind organically sourced from his own raw bottom, Barton’s stay begins calmly enough. Womb, upstairs on King Street, is a restaurant of the highest order – a former Gentleman’s club only opened to women after a particularly political Belfast girl chained herself to the rice pudding, it boasts huge windows through which one may follow (with a soupcon of disdain) the ever-so glutinous shoppers that populate this part of town. As we scoop up scallops under gaslight, my bro-haha remarks that we could easily be mistaken for lovers who dare not speak their names. Yet in truth – our receding hairlines racing each other to 40 like two middle-aged, denim-clad celebrity charioteers – we have never looked more like siblings; our strong brows and lips still drawing the occasional fan (in Barton’s case, poor soul, quite fatally).
Wednesday 28 January
A sad day for literature as Rabbit Dutchfinger departs this life for which his curiosity remained undimmed. Growing up, or failing to, it was always Jack Roadrunner who kicked, caught and ran with my imagination; shouldering near-peers onto the touchlines. A little older, it’s interesting to read the wider take of one respected critic – that while Jack was great on the adventures available to the free American man, it was Rabbit who possessed the compassion to consider what effect such freedom might have on the American woman (and/or child) he left behind. Obviously I cannot reveal my sympathy with this viewpoint for a few more generations, or in the pub, where ironic misanthropy is barely a whisker away from true feelings.
A sad day for literature as Rabbit Dutchfinger departs this life for which his curiosity remained undimmed. Growing up, or failing to, it was always Jack Roadrunner who kicked, caught and ran with my imagination; shouldering near-peers onto the touchlines. A little older, it’s interesting to read the wider take of one respected critic – that while Jack was great on the adventures available to the free American man, it was Rabbit who possessed the compassion to consider what effect such freedom might have on the American woman (and/or child) he left behind. Obviously I cannot reveal my sympathy with this viewpoint for a few more generations, or in the pub, where ironic misanthropy is barely a whisker away from true feelings.
Saturday 24 January
Off to Lancaster or, more accurately, off to the pub on the way to the station on the way to and the way back from Lancaster with Cameron and Jesus while in between crack medical team of Jefferson and Melinda Cake do their good doctor/insane cackling doctor hosting routine. No sooner has Jefferson added Polish beer to the trans-Europe expressway that is my stomach than Melinda has put me to bed and with this considerate act spared the pleasant plethora of party guests from my blurting of Miss January’s name for one small portion of the month at least. What she could not prevent was a small queue assembling to take daguerreotypes of my slumbering form. Apart from a few decades, and a slightly superior cape, the most recently dead pope has nothing on me.
Off to Lancaster or, more accurately, off to the pub on the way to the station on the way to and the way back from Lancaster with Cameron and Jesus while in between crack medical team of Jefferson and Melinda Cake do their good doctor/insane cackling doctor hosting routine. No sooner has Jefferson added Polish beer to the trans-Europe expressway that is my stomach than Melinda has put me to bed and with this considerate act spared the pleasant plethora of party guests from my blurting of Miss January’s name for one small portion of the month at least. What she could not prevent was a small queue assembling to take daguerreotypes of my slumbering form. Apart from a few decades, and a slightly superior cape, the most recently dead pope has nothing on me.
Friday 23 January
Q. What is worse than a three-day assault by a raving Scotsman?
A. When said guest is buffed to a prime only glimpsed (through a hedonistic haze) in our middle-‘20s when life was all shared houses and mutual hosiery.
A. When said guest has acquired an unpatriotic tan in his new home of Grenoble, has traded late night cabre-tossing for early morning boulder climbing and is consequently fit, ready and able to drink you under the table.
Yes, Cameron is in town, a bottle of bright green Chartreuse shoved into my trembling paws upon arrival, he is soon reassembling his Hulman army – no new models here amongst Presuming Ted (‘yeah, I’ve given up the drink,’ comes the deceptively reedy voice, ‘just fill half of that vase wi’ red. The flowers? I ate them. Thanks BB’), Jesus Jones (fond of a chat, the beard seems to filter out all but the best stories this weekend), Melanie (more tempting tales of Southern Abroadia), Dieter, Swish and their recent babba. Tonight’s climax sees me accidentally locking Cameron out of the flat while Bateman and I chase erotic shadows of our former selves in Macca’s Thumbs. Meanwhile Carmona tries to co-ordinate the men-children from faraway France via the Worldwidewotsit. It proves too much, even for one so experienced in controlling this particularly fiery breed.
Q. What is worse than a three-day assault by a raving Scotsman?
A. When said guest is buffed to a prime only glimpsed (through a hedonistic haze) in our middle-‘20s when life was all shared houses and mutual hosiery.
A. When said guest has acquired an unpatriotic tan in his new home of Grenoble, has traded late night cabre-tossing for early morning boulder climbing and is consequently fit, ready and able to drink you under the table.
Yes, Cameron is in town, a bottle of bright green Chartreuse shoved into my trembling paws upon arrival, he is soon reassembling his Hulman army – no new models here amongst Presuming Ted (‘yeah, I’ve given up the drink,’ comes the deceptively reedy voice, ‘just fill half of that vase wi’ red. The flowers? I ate them. Thanks BB’), Jesus Jones (fond of a chat, the beard seems to filter out all but the best stories this weekend), Melanie (more tempting tales of Southern Abroadia), Dieter, Swish and their recent babba. Tonight’s climax sees me accidentally locking Cameron out of the flat while Bateman and I chase erotic shadows of our former selves in Macca’s Thumbs. Meanwhile Carmona tries to co-ordinate the men-children from faraway France via the Worldwidewotsit. It proves too much, even for one so experienced in controlling this particularly fiery breed.
Thursday 15 January
My first crush of the year doesn't seem to be working out. As Tattetta tells me tactfully, if a woman wants to spend time with you, she'll find a way of doing so. If she doesn't, she won't. I rarely look at the 'problem pages' of Tatt's mechanical journal, lest I see myself within. However, following my every confession - whether relayed to her by pigeon or worldwidewotsit - I advise my solicitors to glance over her work and carefully calculate my commission. Ever generous, I will wait to collect my purse until she moves back from notoriously pricey London; not that this looks likely – she’s embracing it with treacherous lust, something I find myself never quite able to do, despite the tentative purchase of a Mollusk carte this year (allowing subsidized travel on anything steam or herbivore powered within 300 yards of St. Paul’s). Likewise settled in London, Mimi is undertaking a final edit of her book for Dodo and being lined up for interviews with select members of Fleet Street (Thackeray!; Parochipolitan). I expect the hacks, and soon the nation, to be steamrollered by the Northern ideas factory that is our Ms Pixel. Nearby Rosa, our Scandinavian inspiration mill, is enjoying luck more similar to my own– hacking heroically into the void while straining to save her suitors, rather than herself, or the bother.
For all the secure cells of friends my favourite part of London remains the handsome Camden drinkery where I take Sasha today, following a fleeting work trip. I like the fact that the place is just far enough way from the rush and push of the nearby souvenir shops; adore the wood and leather, the candle-lit smoking grotto at the back, the memories of drinking here with a new love, grinning like a Cheshire cat while dog-sitting for my Uncle in Hampstead. Most of all I like the way that I by now know the exact route from its exit onto Chalk Farm road to Euston and the train home. And the fact that Sasha buys our tubs of beer thereon.
My first crush of the year doesn't seem to be working out. As Tattetta tells me tactfully, if a woman wants to spend time with you, she'll find a way of doing so. If she doesn't, she won't. I rarely look at the 'problem pages' of Tatt's mechanical journal, lest I see myself within. However, following my every confession - whether relayed to her by pigeon or worldwidewotsit - I advise my solicitors to glance over her work and carefully calculate my commission. Ever generous, I will wait to collect my purse until she moves back from notoriously pricey London; not that this looks likely – she’s embracing it with treacherous lust, something I find myself never quite able to do, despite the tentative purchase of a Mollusk carte this year (allowing subsidized travel on anything steam or herbivore powered within 300 yards of St. Paul’s). Likewise settled in London, Mimi is undertaking a final edit of her book for Dodo and being lined up for interviews with select members of Fleet Street (Thackeray!; Parochipolitan). I expect the hacks, and soon the nation, to be steamrollered by the Northern ideas factory that is our Ms Pixel. Nearby Rosa, our Scandinavian inspiration mill, is enjoying luck more similar to my own– hacking heroically into the void while straining to save her suitors, rather than herself, or the bother.
For all the secure cells of friends my favourite part of London remains the handsome Camden drinkery where I take Sasha today, following a fleeting work trip. I like the fact that the place is just far enough way from the rush and push of the nearby souvenir shops; adore the wood and leather, the candle-lit smoking grotto at the back, the memories of drinking here with a new love, grinning like a Cheshire cat while dog-sitting for my Uncle in Hampstead. Most of all I like the way that I by now know the exact route from its exit onto Chalk Farm road to Euston and the train home. And the fact that Sasha buys our tubs of beer thereon.
Friday 9 January 1864
Several years ago I lived, likewise a hapless bachelor, in a splendid flat in the hamlet of Hulme. One of my favourite things about this positioning was the ease with which I could stroll into town across a freshly-built, architecturally pleasing bridge. Something I liked less about Hulme was the sheer lack of people on the streets and it was this that helped prove my undoing one fine and crisp morning.
‘Been inside y’know,’ his ratty cohort told me.
‘Really?’
The troll simply grinned at me (did he have a gold tooth in those days?)
‘Yeah, know what for?’ he continued, rattily, ‘Throwing someone off a bridge.’
They hunched their shoulders in mirth, wheezed out a couple of constipated laughs. I looked around. No-one within three hundred yards, just apartment blocks old and new. I took out some silver. ‘Pound’. They snatched at the note and from then on, almost without fail, were waiting for me patiently on that now curs’ed bridge. Most mornings, most dusks, I paid my toll to the troll. It was still cheaper than the omnibus I told myself – the logic of the coward.
The next time I saw the troll he was in the newspaper – an illustration but unmistakably him (lurching forward, challenging the artist to capture the good in him). He’d been jailed for beating upon an ex-girlfriend. Nice. I shuddered at the memory, by this point safe in Chorlton Village (the only place I’ve ever actually been ‘thugged’) then promptly forgot all about this grotesque figure.
Five years on, three months ago – smoking a cigarillo outside my warehouse on a dark, deserted Princess Street: ‘Mate,’ comes his still-familiar Manc-Liverbird tones, and then his well-lived-in face is in my Dorian Gray, just a few choice fumes between us (for me, cabernet and stilton; for my date, the cider and bin surprise). ‘Can you help us out?’ comes the inevitable request. I do everything I can to stop our eyes meeting – anything to avoid rekindling the old relationship, my regrettable subservience. While you might suppose me long-forgotten to him, it is clear from his demeanor that – out of prison – he has taken to the street. And once on the street, no matter how much you knock back, you live and die by the memory of its furnishings and populace. Were the troll to know me again I might as well give him the keys to my flat, making him a cuppa while politely refusing the offer of his sleeping bag equivalent. The cigarillo is out, ‘No,’ and I am gone, pretending I live somewhere else, perhaps some blissful future society.
And then I saw the troll again yesterday, in this freezing weather. He passed me outside the House of Angles where I was waiting for Growler ahead of our walk to the footerball court. The troll always carried with him a dangerous charm, a grizzled worldliness that must have made him attractive to ladies that way inclined. Now he carries a ripped bag of bulging rags, wears a filthy, colourless coat; drags a bad foot behind him painfully. I move out of his way. He talks to another unfortunate at the entrance and then double-backs towards me. I swiftly pull down the hat, navigate him, find Growler has been waiting there all along and we’re off. Punishing, that’s what the forecasters call this weather – punishing. I don’t expect to see the troll again. Some holy fool or selfless soul will take him in, or he will die in a doorway without ceremony. And to think, we started this exciting year together. New year’s day and I decided to visualize some family history. A great-great-great grandfather, newly widowed, lived on Hanging Bridge Lane with his young son, many moons ago. Town was not unexpectedly quiet – I had the narrow lane to myself, made some sketches. Skeletal trees against a white winter sky and then, emerging from Cathedral Gardens, a hunched figure, bag in hand, shuffled past my late, great Uncle’s favourite pub, the Adi Dassler. I return to my notes. By trade the distant me is variously described as ‘lodger’ and ‘traveler.’ How tough must life have been back then? I unfurl the pound in my pocket and head directly for the sales.
Several years ago I lived, likewise a hapless bachelor, in a splendid flat in the hamlet of Hulme. One of my favourite things about this positioning was the ease with which I could stroll into town across a freshly-built, architecturally pleasing bridge. Something I liked less about Hulme was the sheer lack of people on the streets and it was this that helped prove my undoing one fine and crisp morning.
‘Been inside y’know,’ his ratty cohort told me.
‘Really?’
The troll simply grinned at me (did he have a gold tooth in those days?)
‘Yeah, know what for?’ he continued, rattily, ‘Throwing someone off a bridge.’
They hunched their shoulders in mirth, wheezed out a couple of constipated laughs. I looked around. No-one within three hundred yards, just apartment blocks old and new. I took out some silver. ‘Pound’. They snatched at the note and from then on, almost without fail, were waiting for me patiently on that now curs’ed bridge. Most mornings, most dusks, I paid my toll to the troll. It was still cheaper than the omnibus I told myself – the logic of the coward.
The next time I saw the troll he was in the newspaper – an illustration but unmistakably him (lurching forward, challenging the artist to capture the good in him). He’d been jailed for beating upon an ex-girlfriend. Nice. I shuddered at the memory, by this point safe in Chorlton Village (the only place I’ve ever actually been ‘thugged’) then promptly forgot all about this grotesque figure.
Five years on, three months ago – smoking a cigarillo outside my warehouse on a dark, deserted Princess Street: ‘Mate,’ comes his still-familiar Manc-Liverbird tones, and then his well-lived-in face is in my Dorian Gray, just a few choice fumes between us (for me, cabernet and stilton; for my date, the cider and bin surprise). ‘Can you help us out?’ comes the inevitable request. I do everything I can to stop our eyes meeting – anything to avoid rekindling the old relationship, my regrettable subservience. While you might suppose me long-forgotten to him, it is clear from his demeanor that – out of prison – he has taken to the street. And once on the street, no matter how much you knock back, you live and die by the memory of its furnishings and populace. Were the troll to know me again I might as well give him the keys to my flat, making him a cuppa while politely refusing the offer of his sleeping bag equivalent. The cigarillo is out, ‘No,’ and I am gone, pretending I live somewhere else, perhaps some blissful future society.
And then I saw the troll again yesterday, in this freezing weather. He passed me outside the House of Angles where I was waiting for Growler ahead of our walk to the footerball court. The troll always carried with him a dangerous charm, a grizzled worldliness that must have made him attractive to ladies that way inclined. Now he carries a ripped bag of bulging rags, wears a filthy, colourless coat; drags a bad foot behind him painfully. I move out of his way. He talks to another unfortunate at the entrance and then double-backs towards me. I swiftly pull down the hat, navigate him, find Growler has been waiting there all along and we’re off. Punishing, that’s what the forecasters call this weather – punishing. I don’t expect to see the troll again. Some holy fool or selfless soul will take him in, or he will die in a doorway without ceremony. And to think, we started this exciting year together. New year’s day and I decided to visualize some family history. A great-great-great grandfather, newly widowed, lived on Hanging Bridge Lane with his young son, many moons ago. Town was not unexpectedly quiet – I had the narrow lane to myself, made some sketches. Skeletal trees against a white winter sky and then, emerging from Cathedral Gardens, a hunched figure, bag in hand, shuffled past my late, great Uncle’s favourite pub, the Adi Dassler. I return to my notes. By trade the distant me is variously described as ‘lodger’ and ‘traveler.’ How tough must life have been back then? I unfurl the pound in my pocket and head directly for the sales.
Saturday 13 December
The last wedding of the year is another success. Whatever your views on marriage – and I remain at least as uncertain as the women uncertain of me – there are few more romantic sights on earth than a bald, footerball-obsessed man in his fourth or fifth decade dribbling up the aisle to claim his bride. So it was with the Gaffer, earlier in the year, and so it is with Charlton of Chorlton today. I paint an unfair picture – both friends devise, improvise and heart-feel speeches more poignant for their lack of precedence; both lift the lid on just how much their beautiful ladies mean to them (the Gaffer – clearly drunk on the occasion – agreeing to lift the lid again every 25 years of marriage). Having prolonged the party with Bateman and Dylan at McCartney’s Thumbs last night, I am able to give Yolanda a full facial treatment on arrival – the alcohol on my breath drying her make-up instantly while simultaneously providing a complimentary shot of Dutch courage.
Barn Dance Bob mans the amplified musicbox once again, guaranteeing Jefferson Cake-initiated madness on a dancefloor over which he exerts total control. Like a despot squandering his remaining energy on the last night before revolution; like a kind of reverse-Nosferatu, Cake shows no mercy as he sinks his soft thighs into fang-sharp shoulders, holds his all-encompassing arms aloft and commands us: ‘Dance!’ The chaos is only assisted by Bob distributing inflatable violins amongst the throng – older members of both families left aghast at the sight of Dempson fiddling himself into a frenzy. Good days to me are seized, wrestled to the ground, then kicked under the fug-patterned carpet of the past. But as our shared dust settles, couples emerge: stronger, only momentarily confused, and able to give a lift home to those less decisive, or less lucky, than they.
The last wedding of the year is another success. Whatever your views on marriage – and I remain at least as uncertain as the women uncertain of me – there are few more romantic sights on earth than a bald, footerball-obsessed man in his fourth or fifth decade dribbling up the aisle to claim his bride. So it was with the Gaffer, earlier in the year, and so it is with Charlton of Chorlton today. I paint an unfair picture – both friends devise, improvise and heart-feel speeches more poignant for their lack of precedence; both lift the lid on just how much their beautiful ladies mean to them (the Gaffer – clearly drunk on the occasion – agreeing to lift the lid again every 25 years of marriage). Having prolonged the party with Bateman and Dylan at McCartney’s Thumbs last night, I am able to give Yolanda a full facial treatment on arrival – the alcohol on my breath drying her make-up instantly while simultaneously providing a complimentary shot of Dutch courage.
Barn Dance Bob mans the amplified musicbox once again, guaranteeing Jefferson Cake-initiated madness on a dancefloor over which he exerts total control. Like a despot squandering his remaining energy on the last night before revolution; like a kind of reverse-Nosferatu, Cake shows no mercy as he sinks his soft thighs into fang-sharp shoulders, holds his all-encompassing arms aloft and commands us: ‘Dance!’ The chaos is only assisted by Bob distributing inflatable violins amongst the throng – older members of both families left aghast at the sight of Dempson fiddling himself into a frenzy. Good days to me are seized, wrestled to the ground, then kicked under the fug-patterned carpet of the past. But as our shared dust settles, couples emerge: stronger, only momentarily confused, and able to give a lift home to those less decisive, or less lucky, than they.
Friday 12 December
And so I think this mechanical journal – all creaking puns and sprung confidences – is over a year old now and I take delight in the fact that its purpose is still far from clear. It has been cathartic, of course; it has secured me a small book deal while simultaneously allowing me to lie gently but shamelessly into the ether, it has let me settle some scores, in secret, coded and occasionally blatant ways. Less selfishly, it has saved countless friends from many volleys of verbal flourishment in the pub (the small likeness of me in the top left of your canvas allowing far greater right of reply than the fleshed out me, three pints in and ‘on one’). It has been responsible for six relationships (none of them mine), three children (paternity case pending) and the reunion of a poor old blind man with his beloved lost puppy, Maximillian Schnell the Younger (so how does he schnell? etc).
But I suppose its main function, if you’ll pardon the unforgivable French, is as an aide memoire. Who knows where some apparently insignificant anecdote, recorded here, will take me, or a superficially better writer in the future? How would our highlights remain so vivid without the context-heavy filler; the stodgy day-to-day from which we rise like butter pastry to taste life itself? Unless you save and iron your newspapers (like me) I find it hard to believe you have found greater access to the momentous and the trivial in so condensed and retentive a format. It has been a pleasure, and has certainly stoked my own pipe, to provide your stodge and mine in neat but irregular servings. We will be sure to look back with pleasure – or mad regret.
Cotton Exchange Christmas Party Committee, December 1863
Yet if there’s one thing I’ve needed no reminder of – not since Barton and mine old days on the saggy peninsula – it’s how to have a party in someone else’s manor. Tonight, with the help of a Christmas committee consisting of the good, the willing, the lonely and insane, I have more than my fair say on the running of the annual bash at our beloved Cotton Exchange. The poetry stall does mixed business. Thanks to our efforts in finding the finest, cheapest wine (half a bottle each, plus beer, is about right for ‘Oh go on then’ inclined workmates) a great deal of the entries are illegible. These I would have taken for the ‘protest vote’ had I not uncovered a number of others composed wholly of fruity language and lewd suggestion. I switch to helping another Batson on the bar (and before you ask, this is no confusing Folies Bergères reflection but a genuine namesake: I save my heavy drinking for Crow 2). Having sent the charmed circle spinning erratically into the night, there is just time for a quick tidy up before we workers follow them out. I spy the chocolate fountain, bunged up in mid-flow, and wonder if it’s not a little like me after ten years in the same workplace, sweet as it can be.
And so I think this mechanical journal – all creaking puns and sprung confidences – is over a year old now and I take delight in the fact that its purpose is still far from clear. It has been cathartic, of course; it has secured me a small book deal while simultaneously allowing me to lie gently but shamelessly into the ether, it has let me settle some scores, in secret, coded and occasionally blatant ways. Less selfishly, it has saved countless friends from many volleys of verbal flourishment in the pub (the small likeness of me in the top left of your canvas allowing far greater right of reply than the fleshed out me, three pints in and ‘on one’). It has been responsible for six relationships (none of them mine), three children (paternity case pending) and the reunion of a poor old blind man with his beloved lost puppy, Maximillian Schnell the Younger (so how does he schnell? etc).
But I suppose its main function, if you’ll pardon the unforgivable French, is as an aide memoire. Who knows where some apparently insignificant anecdote, recorded here, will take me, or a superficially better writer in the future? How would our highlights remain so vivid without the context-heavy filler; the stodgy day-to-day from which we rise like butter pastry to taste life itself? Unless you save and iron your newspapers (like me) I find it hard to believe you have found greater access to the momentous and the trivial in so condensed and retentive a format. It has been a pleasure, and has certainly stoked my own pipe, to provide your stodge and mine in neat but irregular servings. We will be sure to look back with pleasure – or mad regret.
Cotton Exchange Christmas Party Committee, December 1863
Yet if there’s one thing I’ve needed no reminder of – not since Barton and mine old days on the saggy peninsula – it’s how to have a party in someone else’s manor. Tonight, with the help of a Christmas committee consisting of the good, the willing, the lonely and insane, I have more than my fair say on the running of the annual bash at our beloved Cotton Exchange. The poetry stall does mixed business. Thanks to our efforts in finding the finest, cheapest wine (half a bottle each, plus beer, is about right for ‘Oh go on then’ inclined workmates) a great deal of the entries are illegible. These I would have taken for the ‘protest vote’ had I not uncovered a number of others composed wholly of fruity language and lewd suggestion. I switch to helping another Batson on the bar (and before you ask, this is no confusing Folies Bergères reflection but a genuine namesake: I save my heavy drinking for Crow 2). Having sent the charmed circle spinning erratically into the night, there is just time for a quick tidy up before we workers follow them out. I spy the chocolate fountain, bunged up in mid-flow, and wonder if it’s not a little like me after ten years in the same workplace, sweet as it can be.
Monday 10 November
If you are alive and have at least intermittent access to a portable puppet show then there is a good chance that you have watched, or simply heard about, The String, the most addictive pastime to cross the pond since the scalping craze of ’52 destroyed some of the best minds of my generation and rendered others (myself included) struggling to regain more than a limp modicum of whisp. For the uninitiated the series is set in one of America’s infamous ‘hatless’ estates, just along the coast from relatively New York. Here the boundaries of good and bad, hatted and hatless, are blurred by the obvious corruption to be found in city halls (step forward Sir Dempson Makepeace) and the reluctant honour periodically perceived amongst thieves (behold Scarface and Shifty scrapping over the tab end I’ve just nonchalantly flicked from my window). The universal appeal of such unpredictable and more than occasionally violent drama is obvious and while some wait months for the latest script to arrive via carrier eagle, others flock to the Langworthy estate where Badger Box Office presents the unusual spectacle of local lads acting out the very latest scenes – not, thank Barksdale, as a result of some winsome youth theatre programme – but due to specially trained electric eels who swim over from the States, up the nearest canal, and spasm a cast of swarthy-faced miscreants into an uncanny recreation of life ‘on the corners.’
Introducing Gerard B Spittoon as ‘Omar’
As with many such miniseries, we are soon identifying our favourite characters, then identifying with them, then – if we are not careful – being identified as them by starstruck policemen and banged up in gaol (spelt wrong). Whilst my Russian ‘friends’ will no doubt return one day to administer their fearsome vengeance as I’m tied to a chair in a cargo ship, at least part of their mission will be to retrieve the advance copy of Grime and Bumishment I stole from them mid-parody. Reading this apparent amusement some weeks ago I grew a beard, an overcoat, a rubbish alibi and a manic grin before I knew it, becoming the scoundrel Raskalbotham almost overnight. Here, Larry Pekalowski is bearing an uncanny resemblance to a smooth-faced gangland overlord while Bateman, confounding expectations, has taken on the characteristics of McGuilty – a ‘cop.’ I’m not sure where it will all end – series five presumably – but if we don’t watch out The String will have us all strung up, unable to tell right from wrong, black from white: and then where will be?
If you are alive and have at least intermittent access to a portable puppet show then there is a good chance that you have watched, or simply heard about, The String, the most addictive pastime to cross the pond since the scalping craze of ’52 destroyed some of the best minds of my generation and rendered others (myself included) struggling to regain more than a limp modicum of whisp. For the uninitiated the series is set in one of America’s infamous ‘hatless’ estates, just along the coast from relatively New York. Here the boundaries of good and bad, hatted and hatless, are blurred by the obvious corruption to be found in city halls (step forward Sir Dempson Makepeace) and the reluctant honour periodically perceived amongst thieves (behold Scarface and Shifty scrapping over the tab end I’ve just nonchalantly flicked from my window). The universal appeal of such unpredictable and more than occasionally violent drama is obvious and while some wait months for the latest script to arrive via carrier eagle, others flock to the Langworthy estate where Badger Box Office presents the unusual spectacle of local lads acting out the very latest scenes – not, thank Barksdale, as a result of some winsome youth theatre programme – but due to specially trained electric eels who swim over from the States, up the nearest canal, and spasm a cast of swarthy-faced miscreants into an uncanny recreation of life ‘on the corners.’
Introducing Gerard B Spittoon as ‘Omar’
As with many such miniseries, we are soon identifying our favourite characters, then identifying with them, then – if we are not careful – being identified as them by starstruck policemen and banged up in gaol (spelt wrong). Whilst my Russian ‘friends’ will no doubt return one day to administer their fearsome vengeance as I’m tied to a chair in a cargo ship, at least part of their mission will be to retrieve the advance copy of Grime and Bumishment I stole from them mid-parody. Reading this apparent amusement some weeks ago I grew a beard, an overcoat, a rubbish alibi and a manic grin before I knew it, becoming the scoundrel Raskalbotham almost overnight. Here, Larry Pekalowski is bearing an uncanny resemblance to a smooth-faced gangland overlord while Bateman, confounding expectations, has taken on the characteristics of McGuilty – a ‘cop.’ I’m not sure where it will all end – series five presumably – but if we don’t watch out The String will have us all strung up, unable to tell right from wrong, black from white: and then where will be?
Wednesday 15 October
I hesitate to say it, because it means excluding myself on grounds of maturity, but the last people I would turn to in this city for any demonstration of raw humanity – by which I mean love, hope and good naturedness – would be students. My undergraduate days were spent on the mean streets of the West Midlands, in a small terraced shed-conversion, smoking hashish so dark that each toke represented twice one’s recommended daily intake of fibre; sharing a communal carrier that lived in a graffiti’d cage at the top of the road and spat in your face whenever you explained, weeping, that you wanted to get a message home to Mummy, but didn’t have a ten penny piece. I wonder how many of this generation’s slim-line carrier carrying, fat-bottomed, skinny-fitted, angular-faced mannequins ever had to live off their Uncle’s rejected Crimean rations (‘a little too dry, Mavis’) while saving up for an entire term to afford two hours goggling at the opposite in a cider pit the size of your horribly-stained handkerchief?
Such stereotypes are there to be busted. Shopping on Market Street’s cheap-as-frittes Eurodeli I linger improperly on the face of a young undergraduate. He has picked up a novelty item from the baskets in-between the sensible, nut-free items – an imitation steering wheel I think. His friend – another lank haired goon – is busy sifting through the soft fruit with long, languorous fingertips. There is something about the look on the face of this first specimen that can’t fail to warm my thirty-something-year-old heart. He is so proud of the amusing mime of which he is about to partake. He is so profoundly optimistic of its success. He is thinking no further ahead than the payoff to the gag. He is with someone he may not have known very long but someone he already likes more than any of the ‘squares’ back home. He has nothing to worry about but cheap fruit, cheap gags and – if they’re lucky – an amusingly shaped vegetable. Like many such Manchester inspirations it is the sheer simplicity (fools would say stupidity) of the vision that distracts me from all ills and sees me smiling directly into my soft pillow of overpriced loaf.
I hesitate to say it, because it means excluding myself on grounds of maturity, but the last people I would turn to in this city for any demonstration of raw humanity – by which I mean love, hope and good naturedness – would be students. My undergraduate days were spent on the mean streets of the West Midlands, in a small terraced shed-conversion, smoking hashish so dark that each toke represented twice one’s recommended daily intake of fibre; sharing a communal carrier that lived in a graffiti’d cage at the top of the road and spat in your face whenever you explained, weeping, that you wanted to get a message home to Mummy, but didn’t have a ten penny piece. I wonder how many of this generation’s slim-line carrier carrying, fat-bottomed, skinny-fitted, angular-faced mannequins ever had to live off their Uncle’s rejected Crimean rations (‘a little too dry, Mavis’) while saving up for an entire term to afford two hours goggling at the opposite in a cider pit the size of your horribly-stained handkerchief?
Such stereotypes are there to be busted. Shopping on Market Street’s cheap-as-frittes Eurodeli I linger improperly on the face of a young undergraduate. He has picked up a novelty item from the baskets in-between the sensible, nut-free items – an imitation steering wheel I think. His friend – another lank haired goon – is busy sifting through the soft fruit with long, languorous fingertips. There is something about the look on the face of this first specimen that can’t fail to warm my thirty-something-year-old heart. He is so proud of the amusing mime of which he is about to partake. He is so profoundly optimistic of its success. He is thinking no further ahead than the payoff to the gag. He is with someone he may not have known very long but someone he already likes more than any of the ‘squares’ back home. He has nothing to worry about but cheap fruit, cheap gags and – if they’re lucky – an amusingly shaped vegetable. Like many such Manchester inspirations it is the sheer simplicity (fools would say stupidity) of the vision that distracts me from all ills and sees me smiling directly into my soft pillow of overpriced loaf.
Sunday 28 September
It is easy (as well as accurate) to blame our overseas allies for the fact that in many parts of a world so recently your oyster, dead-eyed sharks now lie in wait, incensed to something calmer and more horrible than madness by imperialist behaviors and as eager to bag a Brit as you might be a tiger or marmoset head for the clubhouse wall. It takes a certain amount of spunk to continue traveling indiscriminately, seeking peers willing to debate the sins of the father (not simply bump off the sons). We must remember that the alternative is isolation and regression. Likewise, even when it’s as uncomfortable as a bearskin hat in the desert, we must continue to support our brave soldiers overseas, if not every cause they fight and die for. Yet humbled are traveler and soldier alike as we read of far greater courage, displayed with a reckless logic that those bent on obliteration are too misguided to ever comprehend. Afghanistan has a long and troubled relationship with us; I wonder if the relationship between its men and women has always been so volatile. This week I read of a senior female policeman killed in a typically cowardly attack. Rumoured to have oft given those guilty of abusing women a good, informal battering, documented as having killed three men who had previously tried their luck, this time her assassins took no chances. Her colleague accepts she will be next. Many more will die before women are accepted into office. God is Great. We accept that not all causes can be so straight and true, so black and white, but we can at least equate its multiple heroes with the individual Western lives we take such great care in retaining.
It is easy (as well as accurate) to blame our overseas allies for the fact that in many parts of a world so recently your oyster, dead-eyed sharks now lie in wait, incensed to something calmer and more horrible than madness by imperialist behaviors and as eager to bag a Brit as you might be a tiger or marmoset head for the clubhouse wall. It takes a certain amount of spunk to continue traveling indiscriminately, seeking peers willing to debate the sins of the father (not simply bump off the sons). We must remember that the alternative is isolation and regression. Likewise, even when it’s as uncomfortable as a bearskin hat in the desert, we must continue to support our brave soldiers overseas, if not every cause they fight and die for. Yet humbled are traveler and soldier alike as we read of far greater courage, displayed with a reckless logic that those bent on obliteration are too misguided to ever comprehend. Afghanistan has a long and troubled relationship with us; I wonder if the relationship between its men and women has always been so volatile. This week I read of a senior female policeman killed in a typically cowardly attack. Rumoured to have oft given those guilty of abusing women a good, informal battering, documented as having killed three men who had previously tried their luck, this time her assassins took no chances. Her colleague accepts she will be next. Many more will die before women are accepted into office. God is Great. We accept that not all causes can be so straight and true, so black and white, but we can at least equate its multiple heroes with the individual Western lives we take such great care in retaining.
Thursday 25 September 1863
With an assumed identity – teacher – and a resolve for fresh beginnings I commence my course of study at Manchester Hackademy. As a purveyor of TMPUEBN (Teaching Manners to People Unfortunate Enough to be Born Non-British) perhaps I can circumnavigate the cotton crunch and even do a little good for a change. The world may yet open up for me, and while the dream of Daisy and me opening up a little school in Naples is long gone, there is still no reason why I can’t quiff my hair and travel to Cambodia for a year or two’s misadventure on my own. Four-and-a-half weeks long and as intense as an elevation ride with my half-dozen ex-girlfriends’ future fiancées, it says something for the quality of the TMPUEBN staffing and attitude of my coursemates that the closest I come to catatonic despair is when one tutor tells us that we’re sure to pick up this particular point later in the pub together. Pub?? We are as dry as I feared the Middle-Eastern students would be (nothing could be further from the truth. All our volunteer learners are resolutely charming, only turning to violence during the passive tense, where anger is the only available option). Thirty days later we are exhausted but qualified and the night out, when it comes, is worth the wait. But I can’t give up the day job just yet – I have my team of carriers to support, and Miss Jordan. And Miss Jordan has to support her burgeoning assets. But one day, on the not-too-distant horizon…
With an assumed identity – teacher – and a resolve for fresh beginnings I commence my course of study at Manchester Hackademy. As a purveyor of TMPUEBN (Teaching Manners to People Unfortunate Enough to be Born Non-British) perhaps I can circumnavigate the cotton crunch and even do a little good for a change. The world may yet open up for me, and while the dream of Daisy and me opening up a little school in Naples is long gone, there is still no reason why I can’t quiff my hair and travel to Cambodia for a year or two’s misadventure on my own. Four-and-a-half weeks long and as intense as an elevation ride with my half-dozen ex-girlfriends’ future fiancées, it says something for the quality of the TMPUEBN staffing and attitude of my coursemates that the closest I come to catatonic despair is when one tutor tells us that we’re sure to pick up this particular point later in the pub together. Pub?? We are as dry as I feared the Middle-Eastern students would be (nothing could be further from the truth. All our volunteer learners are resolutely charming, only turning to violence during the passive tense, where anger is the only available option). Thirty days later we are exhausted but qualified and the night out, when it comes, is worth the wait. But I can’t give up the day job just yet – I have my team of carriers to support, and Miss Jordan. And Miss Jordan has to support her burgeoning assets. But one day, on the not-too-distant horizon…
Thursday 18 September
Food – I am gradually accepting – is key to love. A liquid lunch, fun as it may be, can dilute feelings if served up on too regular a basis, depriving a relationship of its more nourishing qualities. My all-too-brief season with Sally is peppered with trips to Manchester’s independent eateries while at home my gnocchi surpasses itself several times during the five minutes it takes to prepare. Eventually, while we can still fit into an elevation machine, it is time for us to call on the badger at the Milton Tower.
‘The poet?’ he groans down the drainpipe, ‘I hope you’ve at least brought your muse.’
‘I have.’
‘Then come up. Press 12 and 14 together.’
Byron’s top floor apartment is less bachelor pad, more eight bedroom single man’s solarium with space for his every illegitimate child and at least half of their mothers. Naturally, he lives alone, seeing no-one but the upstarts who run his business interests and the writers and publishers who promise him literary fame while hoping he sees fit to expand theirs disproportionately. Greeted by the occupant’s steam-powered butler – coal eyes glowing more in despair at his very creation than in warm welcome – I try to show no fear while gripping Sally’s increasingly podgy hand with my own clammy set of sausages. Finally our host arrives, through a trapdoor. The smoke clears. Startlingly, Byron wears a solid gold headdress of a type I have seen once before, in Manchester museum. It is based on Birdie Num-Num, the pagan god of pigeons. Horrifyingly, he is carrying a book of his own poetry.
‘I can see why you’ve made so many powerful enemies, Byron,’ I mumble bravely.
‘Silence,’ he barks metallically.
‘I have come to collect your dues,’ I murmur heroically.
‘Batson,’ he is speaking to me, but looking at Sally, ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about. And I don’t suppose you do either. Now let me read.’
About halfway through the incoherent ramblings of someone evidently high his own supply, Sally relinquishes her grip. I wipe my freed hand upon my pantaloons in a way that makes it clear to Byron that I am in no way aroused. Conversely, I haven’t seen Sally’s eyes this wide since we were served melted scallops at The Anglican. She practically staggers through the door afterwards. I have no choice but to follow, not a cent retrieved for my masters.
‘What is it?’ I demand.
‘Did you understand not one word?’
‘I didn’t go to Cambridge. I didn’t even go to the other place.’
‘Perfect. Perfect Old Egyptian. I’m afraid he has cursed my heart forever.’
‘In a good way?’
‘Yes.’
Our happy days of going Dutch are so destroyed.
Food – I am gradually accepting – is key to love. A liquid lunch, fun as it may be, can dilute feelings if served up on too regular a basis, depriving a relationship of its more nourishing qualities. My all-too-brief season with Sally is peppered with trips to Manchester’s independent eateries while at home my gnocchi surpasses itself several times during the five minutes it takes to prepare. Eventually, while we can still fit into an elevation machine, it is time for us to call on the badger at the Milton Tower.
‘The poet?’ he groans down the drainpipe, ‘I hope you’ve at least brought your muse.’
‘I have.’
‘Then come up. Press 12 and 14 together.’
Byron’s top floor apartment is less bachelor pad, more eight bedroom single man’s solarium with space for his every illegitimate child and at least half of their mothers. Naturally, he lives alone, seeing no-one but the upstarts who run his business interests and the writers and publishers who promise him literary fame while hoping he sees fit to expand theirs disproportionately. Greeted by the occupant’s steam-powered butler – coal eyes glowing more in despair at his very creation than in warm welcome – I try to show no fear while gripping Sally’s increasingly podgy hand with my own clammy set of sausages. Finally our host arrives, through a trapdoor. The smoke clears. Startlingly, Byron wears a solid gold headdress of a type I have seen once before, in Manchester museum. It is based on Birdie Num-Num, the pagan god of pigeons. Horrifyingly, he is carrying a book of his own poetry.
‘I can see why you’ve made so many powerful enemies, Byron,’ I mumble bravely.
‘Silence,’ he barks metallically.
‘I have come to collect your dues,’ I murmur heroically.
‘Batson,’ he is speaking to me, but looking at Sally, ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about. And I don’t suppose you do either. Now let me read.’
About halfway through the incoherent ramblings of someone evidently high his own supply, Sally relinquishes her grip. I wipe my freed hand upon my pantaloons in a way that makes it clear to Byron that I am in no way aroused. Conversely, I haven’t seen Sally’s eyes this wide since we were served melted scallops at The Anglican. She practically staggers through the door afterwards. I have no choice but to follow, not a cent retrieved for my masters.
‘What is it?’ I demand.
‘Did you understand not one word?’
‘I didn’t go to Cambridge. I didn’t even go to the other place.’
‘Perfect. Perfect Old Egyptian. I’m afraid he has cursed my heart forever.’
‘In a good way?’
‘Yes.’
Our happy days of going Dutch are so destroyed.
Batson facts #3: Gangs have always been a feature of Manchester life, as demonstrated by this menacing daguerreotype, found pasted to a gaslight on Tibb Street.
Saturday 5 September
The Lively Postcards make their Manchester debut at Oldham Street’s 24 Hour Protection Bar. The eagle-eyed reader, coincidentally blessed with an elephant’s memory and a lonely moose’s lack of anything better to fill one’s head with, will recall my dreams of music management, and their beginnings at the Periscope’s end of season shindig. Barton’s band have a new promoter tonight and while the venue is infamous I can’t help feeling he could have promoted the evening a little better and, once onstage, given them at least some promotional candlelight with which to highlight their obvious talents. Luckily, the assembled friends do a good job of generating their own primitive electricity; that lustfully directed at Postcard’s singer Tobias Wolfhead of a less superior type than that crackling between Sally and I, I like to think. Which makes it all the harder to explain that she is required to attend at least one date with the notorious Byron Badger (to whose lair I must thereby gain access or risk the wrath of my Russian master, here downing margaritas at the bar). Still dealing with a world so recently defrosted it is lucky your dapper narrator is keeping up with such well-worn narrative threads…
The Lively Postcards make their Manchester debut at Oldham Street’s 24 Hour Protection Bar. The eagle-eyed reader, coincidentally blessed with an elephant’s memory and a lonely moose’s lack of anything better to fill one’s head with, will recall my dreams of music management, and their beginnings at the Periscope’s end of season shindig. Barton’s band have a new promoter tonight and while the venue is infamous I can’t help feeling he could have promoted the evening a little better and, once onstage, given them at least some promotional candlelight with which to highlight their obvious talents. Luckily, the assembled friends do a good job of generating their own primitive electricity; that lustfully directed at Postcard’s singer Tobias Wolfhead of a less superior type than that crackling between Sally and I, I like to think. Which makes it all the harder to explain that she is required to attend at least one date with the notorious Byron Badger (to whose lair I must thereby gain access or risk the wrath of my Russian master, here downing margaritas at the bar). Still dealing with a world so recently defrosted it is lucky your dapper narrator is keeping up with such well-worn narrative threads…
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