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.
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…
Tuesday 2 September
Time waits for no man, except, curiously, in the year of the Batson: 1863. From my angle (45 degrees, bent at the top) time has stood still for some months now. On my beloved Princess Street I have gone about my business as usual, always surprised to find the same carthorse mid-rear, hoof perilously close to that familiar gurning urchin, caught mid-scamper but still yards ahead of what appears to be a marble Policeman. Were it not for the funky and contemporaneous dress of my frozen peers I would imagine myself live in Pompeii. Today I touched a lady. She didn’t respond. Something’s wrong. While I sense the cotton crunch may by now be an enormous coal shitbag, the flying monkeys at the Exchange haven’t changed the numerals for months. The mechanical journal has been at rest – the whole worldwidewotsit mildewed – but fear not, while others basked in inertia I have been busy planning out my whole life between now and January 1864 (1864! Can you imagine it! Remember when we wondered what we’d be doing in..! etc) and feel confident I can follow its course almost to the letter. So wish me luck as slowly, as if after some distant, brutal winter, the rigid limbs upon the street begin to drip and thaw; horsey stamping some sense into the young man’s brains, a lady in the finest turquoise slapping me full across the face.
Time waits for no man, except, curiously, in the year of the Batson: 1863. From my angle (45 degrees, bent at the top) time has stood still for some months now. On my beloved Princess Street I have gone about my business as usual, always surprised to find the same carthorse mid-rear, hoof perilously close to that familiar gurning urchin, caught mid-scamper but still yards ahead of what appears to be a marble Policeman. Were it not for the funky and contemporaneous dress of my frozen peers I would imagine myself live in Pompeii. Today I touched a lady. She didn’t respond. Something’s wrong. While I sense the cotton crunch may by now be an enormous coal shitbag, the flying monkeys at the Exchange haven’t changed the numerals for months. The mechanical journal has been at rest – the whole worldwidewotsit mildewed – but fear not, while others basked in inertia I have been busy planning out my whole life between now and January 1864 (1864! Can you imagine it! Remember when we wondered what we’d be doing in..! etc) and feel confident I can follow its course almost to the letter. So wish me luck as slowly, as if after some distant, brutal winter, the rigid limbs upon the street begin to drip and thaw; horsey stamping some sense into the young man’s brains, a lady in the finest turquoise slapping me full across the face.
Wednesday 27 August
A visit from Barton and his fiancé Marny – soon returning to North West territories even more remote, and possibly wilder than Wigan – do well to calm me before my interview for the controversial course of study I wish to partake of. While many Britons still feel the foreigner is doing little more than feigning ignorance of God’s own Queen’s English, I believe the savage requires some gentle persuasion towards the universal tongue, especially if he will cough up some shiny stones in exchange for native tuition. And so it is relief that after an improvised lesson to my equally embarrassed future classmates I gain a starting spot on the intensive TMPUEBN (Teaching Manners to People Unfortunate Enough to be Born Non-British) Certificate beginning late September.
Saturday 23 August
The annual ‘Modesty’ festival passes just outside the warehouse so I have no excuse not to view the outrageously tame floats and marchers who pass by, embracing the mute applause, paranoid glances and below-the-knee miniature flag waving of the heavily-disguised crowd (is that not Patty Persil, my first Manchester love, laughing heartily beneath an unconvincing beard?) The steps of my building are populated by a rum tribe of teenage girls, all holding aloft their modern little lithograph machines while liberally-greased, gripping it hard, I fire mine off at anyone worth blackmailing. Sadly it proves to be the Mayor in suspension belt and southbound platform shoes, not Byron Badger; nor could my nemesis do a better Queen Vic than Dempson Makepeace, plastered with slap but unmistakably himself, waving feyly from a clip-clopping carriage. I divert my gaze, blush for England and pretend to play with my telescopic tool as the Fire Brigade parades past in trousers a full half-inch above the ankle. It seems to do the job for Doris and Danielle, both of whom ‘Hoorah!’ with delight until their false moustaches fall off. Meanwhile the entrance to the warehouse itself is looking scruffier than during Scarface Jones and Shifty McQuiggins’ most recent sit down protest (‘less soap, more beans’ I think it was) as half-a-dozen strangers smoke black cigars and heavy shag upon the sacred stone.
It is time for some air. Or at least that is the old excuse. I crane my neck to see what remains of the cavalcade – Mad Richard and his snarling pack of pint-sized doggy war veterans – but, I must confess, I’m more-than-half looking for Sally Pepper who less-than-half-promised to join me here. With the efficiency we expect with a sigh from modern society, the bin men have soon moved in to clear up the abandoned facial hair, lippy and ripped military uniforms that are all that remain of the day. I troop up to the flat alone and discouraged and sit on the roof with a glass of wine, hoping the street cleaners can somehow summon Sally’s tidy figure. Then suddenly, with silent violence I am reaching for my rod. Down below: a straggler – clearly drunk I recognize him as a ‘hooray horseman’ of the Peterloo type. He barely notices as I fish a flowing blonde wig from atop his port-red dome. And all-at-once I have the prop required to enter Byron’s citadel of chaos.
A visit from Barton and his fiancé Marny – soon returning to North West territories even more remote, and possibly wilder than Wigan – do well to calm me before my interview for the controversial course of study I wish to partake of. While many Britons still feel the foreigner is doing little more than feigning ignorance of God’s own Queen’s English, I believe the savage requires some gentle persuasion towards the universal tongue, especially if he will cough up some shiny stones in exchange for native tuition. And so it is relief that after an improvised lesson to my equally embarrassed future classmates I gain a starting spot on the intensive TMPUEBN (Teaching Manners to People Unfortunate Enough to be Born Non-British) Certificate beginning late September.
Saturday 23 August
The annual ‘Modesty’ festival passes just outside the warehouse so I have no excuse not to view the outrageously tame floats and marchers who pass by, embracing the mute applause, paranoid glances and below-the-knee miniature flag waving of the heavily-disguised crowd (is that not Patty Persil, my first Manchester love, laughing heartily beneath an unconvincing beard?) The steps of my building are populated by a rum tribe of teenage girls, all holding aloft their modern little lithograph machines while liberally-greased, gripping it hard, I fire mine off at anyone worth blackmailing. Sadly it proves to be the Mayor in suspension belt and southbound platform shoes, not Byron Badger; nor could my nemesis do a better Queen Vic than Dempson Makepeace, plastered with slap but unmistakably himself, waving feyly from a clip-clopping carriage. I divert my gaze, blush for England and pretend to play with my telescopic tool as the Fire Brigade parades past in trousers a full half-inch above the ankle. It seems to do the job for Doris and Danielle, both of whom ‘Hoorah!’ with delight until their false moustaches fall off. Meanwhile the entrance to the warehouse itself is looking scruffier than during Scarface Jones and Shifty McQuiggins’ most recent sit down protest (‘less soap, more beans’ I think it was) as half-a-dozen strangers smoke black cigars and heavy shag upon the sacred stone.
It is time for some air. Or at least that is the old excuse. I crane my neck to see what remains of the cavalcade – Mad Richard and his snarling pack of pint-sized doggy war veterans – but, I must confess, I’m more-than-half looking for Sally Pepper who less-than-half-promised to join me here. With the efficiency we expect with a sigh from modern society, the bin men have soon moved in to clear up the abandoned facial hair, lippy and ripped military uniforms that are all that remain of the day. I troop up to the flat alone and discouraged and sit on the roof with a glass of wine, hoping the street cleaners can somehow summon Sally’s tidy figure. Then suddenly, with silent violence I am reaching for my rod. Down below: a straggler – clearly drunk I recognize him as a ‘hooray horseman’ of the Peterloo type. He barely notices as I fish a flowing blonde wig from atop his port-red dome. And all-at-once I have the prop required to enter Byron’s citadel of chaos.
Wednesday 20 August
Mimi Pixel, whose famous mechanical journal has inspired my own, and whose career has worked in almost inverse proportion, has committed the conjoined artistic sins of success and deciding to move to that there London. Tonight we commiserate with Mimi in her South Manchester mansion, unable to point out the pure recklessness with which she trades it for a shoebox in the city of lost souls and odd, abandoned size 11s. But despite the gloom hovering just below my surface and the faces of Tattetta, Petra and Amy-Lou – contorted in sympathy – floating clockwise across my mechanical expression, there is essentially and undeniably, and especially after a trip to Bargain Barrels, every excuse to have a party. Soon all the teeth bared in congratulation at her book deal are tinted their regulation pink; awestruck schoolmates bid goodbye to Mimi’s own Mister Pip, and Sally Pepper finds no problem in bringing her own unique flush and sparkle to the proceedings.
I leave the festivities somewhat reassured, Mimi having informed me that far from being a secret agent, the fellow representing her in London conducts no more than literary espionage (there comes a secondary pang when I realize there is little chance of him helping me pin down maverick Russians and sabre-toothed badgers). Locating the wagon stop on Mimi’s sprawling estate proves difficult for Ms Pepper and I but eventually we manage to find the isolated pub near which nocturnal hooves pause. We would get a drink, we joke, but the place is abandoned beyond the symposium of drinkers locked inside behind night-black curtains that flutter only briefly then leave ourselves to ourselves and the journey back to garrets.
Mimi Pixel, whose famous mechanical journal has inspired my own, and whose career has worked in almost inverse proportion, has committed the conjoined artistic sins of success and deciding to move to that there London. Tonight we commiserate with Mimi in her South Manchester mansion, unable to point out the pure recklessness with which she trades it for a shoebox in the city of lost souls and odd, abandoned size 11s. But despite the gloom hovering just below my surface and the faces of Tattetta, Petra and Amy-Lou – contorted in sympathy – floating clockwise across my mechanical expression, there is essentially and undeniably, and especially after a trip to Bargain Barrels, every excuse to have a party. Soon all the teeth bared in congratulation at her book deal are tinted their regulation pink; awestruck schoolmates bid goodbye to Mimi’s own Mister Pip, and Sally Pepper finds no problem in bringing her own unique flush and sparkle to the proceedings.
I leave the festivities somewhat reassured, Mimi having informed me that far from being a secret agent, the fellow representing her in London conducts no more than literary espionage (there comes a secondary pang when I realize there is little chance of him helping me pin down maverick Russians and sabre-toothed badgers). Locating the wagon stop on Mimi’s sprawling estate proves difficult for Ms Pepper and I but eventually we manage to find the isolated pub near which nocturnal hooves pause. We would get a drink, we joke, but the place is abandoned beyond the symposium of drinkers locked inside behind night-black curtains that flutter only briefly then leave ourselves to ourselves and the journey back to garrets.
Saturday 16 August
It will not have escaped the reader that in this particular year (1863); the year I have selected to share this glimpse of Manchester life via the medium of mechanical journal, I have frankly struggled to find a woman who will admit to being of same mind. There have been dark, enlightening incidents beneath closed bedding (though not many). There have been frustratingly innocent walks with tall strangers behind which straggled squat, filthy thoughts reduced to rags and mutterings. There have been dirty pleasures with pot-bellied, pipe-smoking ladies during which I have gasped and wheezed for nothing more than friendship. But on the question of which female acquaintance to lumber Byron with, and so begin the elevation of this dear monkey off my back, I am at a loss to decide. Or rather, there is not a great deal of choice and no-one who springs out and says, ‘I am thine BB, pray sacrifice me!’ as there was in the old days.
A pleasurable, if damp, afternoon, spent at a Brass Bandwidth event with Jill and Conrad in the outerskirts of town. Back in the city I find Bateman and together we canoe down the flooded canalway to Spike’s flat (all industrial chic and limited edition Spinning Jennies). A warm welcome from Spike and introduction to some of the characters with which he is working on his pilot puppet show, ‘It Ain’t ‘Alf ‘Orrible.’ As a well-known producer mixes Bateman a rum and banana cocktail he surreptitiously enquires of Spike whether the two drenched canoeists are together in more ways than meets the oar. With ‘Omosexuality some way below opium on the old tolerance scale it is some hours before we cease the awkward laughter that follows our host’s relaying of this tall tale. As we bid goodbye I feel something hard pulsating under my hat: it can only be a gem of a Batson idea taking shape.
It will not have escaped the reader that in this particular year (1863); the year I have selected to share this glimpse of Manchester life via the medium of mechanical journal, I have frankly struggled to find a woman who will admit to being of same mind. There have been dark, enlightening incidents beneath closed bedding (though not many). There have been frustratingly innocent walks with tall strangers behind which straggled squat, filthy thoughts reduced to rags and mutterings. There have been dirty pleasures with pot-bellied, pipe-smoking ladies during which I have gasped and wheezed for nothing more than friendship. But on the question of which female acquaintance to lumber Byron with, and so begin the elevation of this dear monkey off my back, I am at a loss to decide. Or rather, there is not a great deal of choice and no-one who springs out and says, ‘I am thine BB, pray sacrifice me!’ as there was in the old days.
A pleasurable, if damp, afternoon, spent at a Brass Bandwidth event with Jill and Conrad in the outerskirts of town. Back in the city I find Bateman and together we canoe down the flooded canalway to Spike’s flat (all industrial chic and limited edition Spinning Jennies). A warm welcome from Spike and introduction to some of the characters with which he is working on his pilot puppet show, ‘It Ain’t ‘Alf ‘Orrible.’ As a well-known producer mixes Bateman a rum and banana cocktail he surreptitiously enquires of Spike whether the two drenched canoeists are together in more ways than meets the oar. With ‘Omosexuality some way below opium on the old tolerance scale it is some hours before we cease the awkward laughter that follows our host’s relaying of this tall tale. As we bid goodbye I feel something hard pulsating under my hat: it can only be a gem of a Batson idea taking shape.
Friday 15 August 1863
Part I
It is almost preordained that as soon as my younger brother Barton comes to stay the flat is suddenly packed-to-bursting with nightwalkers of every disbanded gild, disinclination and disorder known to (normally) take turns harassing the good folk of this city. While last night was spent in near perfect pitter-patter with Pepper, I am stunned at the number of pigeons who circle us the moment I’ve assisted the Barton waistline from its sled. Wings vibrate against a wall of bright white sky, birdsong merges into one long disorientating chirrup; it is as though I am being given insight into some mad future world where communication is channeled as openly (but with a good deal more noise) as it is between my brother and his Lord. And as if to contradict the very diversity to which I testify amongst my friends, I note that each of their carriers wears the same miniature tux (‘awww’ coo the ladies), the same faux monocle as is de rigeur in this summer’s Pigeon Post. Are we to conclude that all my friends are as gauche and booze-ridden as each other? Perhaps inevitably when they are seen through the eyes of the abstaining Barton, however often he insists that they’re his eyes and we should dashed well leave them alone to make their own judgment.
Part I
It is almost preordained that as soon as my younger brother Barton comes to stay the flat is suddenly packed-to-bursting with nightwalkers of every disbanded gild, disinclination and disorder known to (normally) take turns harassing the good folk of this city. While last night was spent in near perfect pitter-patter with Pepper, I am stunned at the number of pigeons who circle us the moment I’ve assisted the Barton waistline from its sled. Wings vibrate against a wall of bright white sky, birdsong merges into one long disorientating chirrup; it is as though I am being given insight into some mad future world where communication is channeled as openly (but with a good deal more noise) as it is between my brother and his Lord. And as if to contradict the very diversity to which I testify amongst my friends, I note that each of their carriers wears the same miniature tux (‘awww’ coo the ladies), the same faux monocle as is de rigeur in this summer’s Pigeon Post. Are we to conclude that all my friends are as gauche and booze-ridden as each other? Perhaps inevitably when they are seen through the eyes of the abstaining Barton, however often he insists that they’re his eyes and we should dashed well leave them alone to make their own judgment.
Part II
We catch up amidst the beams and await the party. Having Byron Badger’s bird confirm our later meeting allows me a chance to relay my news of recent happenings beyond the normal, of which Barton knows much. Just a few short years ago and ten minutes hence he would have been fighting for the wine with me and Growler; smoking recklessly on the sneering lip of the building with me and Brandon Blaque. Times have certainly changed, but whereas the last five years have seen me producing a smattering of new words, he has searched a plethora to locate just the one – albeit highly original in nature. It brings him peace without any notable loosening of the mind, which is all a man can wish for his dear, deepening bro.
At a rowdy Wig Bar, Ancoats way, we meet Mimi, Tattetta and Amy-Lou amongst a group of more alleged writers. While Blaque entertains the ladies with naval tales of sea monsters in Turkish baths I fade into a dark corner of the beer garden where the Badger awaits. I steel myself, getting ready to rob one of the biggest, yet least seen beasts known to prowl the Manchester undergrowth. What price a visit to his flat to read some more of my worshipful poetry?
My question hangs in the air like a bad simile. Tattetta has found us and nothing will prevent her telling us of a nearby club we simply have to attend. Byron waits patiently for her to depart; acknowledges her lingering smile with one of his own.
‘A date – with your woman,’ he tells me, before gathering up his enormous top hat and departing with a whistle between his gleaming incisors.
We catch up amidst the beams and await the party. Having Byron Badger’s bird confirm our later meeting allows me a chance to relay my news of recent happenings beyond the normal, of which Barton knows much. Just a few short years ago and ten minutes hence he would have been fighting for the wine with me and Growler; smoking recklessly on the sneering lip of the building with me and Brandon Blaque. Times have certainly changed, but whereas the last five years have seen me producing a smattering of new words, he has searched a plethora to locate just the one – albeit highly original in nature. It brings him peace without any notable loosening of the mind, which is all a man can wish for his dear, deepening bro.
At a rowdy Wig Bar, Ancoats way, we meet Mimi, Tattetta and Amy-Lou amongst a group of more alleged writers. While Blaque entertains the ladies with naval tales of sea monsters in Turkish baths I fade into a dark corner of the beer garden where the Badger awaits. I steel myself, getting ready to rob one of the biggest, yet least seen beasts known to prowl the Manchester undergrowth. What price a visit to his flat to read some more of my worshipful poetry?
My question hangs in the air like a bad simile. Tattetta has found us and nothing will prevent her telling us of a nearby club we simply have to attend. Byron waits patiently for her to depart; acknowledges her lingering smile with one of his own.
‘A date – with your woman,’ he tells me, before gathering up his enormous top hat and departing with a whistle between his gleaming incisors.
Sunday 3 August
Early hours spent poking the fire at Daisy’s. Sadly she is staying with friends. It is Hogarth and I who sit round their outdoor wood burner, discussing life in the light of another departure (across the oceans, up the aisle or into the cells they go). Hogarth concludes I’m a hopeless writer; I inform him he’s a useless footberballer. We must have been drunk to countenance such opinions!
I wake on the kitchen floor, having slept on a latticework of crusts. Squinting up I see more stark and unsettling evidence of Daisy’s injury. Cups, plates and cutlery litter the surfaces along with stripy drinking straws – trademark of the invalid, or idiot. Hogarth has my sympathy (it was Daisy’s offer to keep things shipshape that forestalled his replacement of Miss Marsh, who famously ran off with the Vacuum) but Daisy my undivided. After a quick slurp from a watering can I make my way to her friends’ round the corner, one of whom makes the lass presentable while downstairs I try to scrape off whatever is making my tongue that shade of yellow.
My luck is in – not in the old sense of the cliché, but in escorting Daisy home, making her a drink (not forgetting the straw), setting up an old favourite on her portable puppet show, I gain a sense of selfless happiness, which isn’t quite the point but… we can chat without my lusts protruding for a change. For who would pounce on a defenceless woman incapable of using her arms? Whether you choose to believe me or not, I leave Daisy fed and watered and stocked full of the steely determination one forgets at one's peril.
Early hours spent poking the fire at Daisy’s. Sadly she is staying with friends. It is Hogarth and I who sit round their outdoor wood burner, discussing life in the light of another departure (across the oceans, up the aisle or into the cells they go). Hogarth concludes I’m a hopeless writer; I inform him he’s a useless footberballer. We must have been drunk to countenance such opinions!
I wake on the kitchen floor, having slept on a latticework of crusts. Squinting up I see more stark and unsettling evidence of Daisy’s injury. Cups, plates and cutlery litter the surfaces along with stripy drinking straws – trademark of the invalid, or idiot. Hogarth has my sympathy (it was Daisy’s offer to keep things shipshape that forestalled his replacement of Miss Marsh, who famously ran off with the Vacuum) but Daisy my undivided. After a quick slurp from a watering can I make my way to her friends’ round the corner, one of whom makes the lass presentable while downstairs I try to scrape off whatever is making my tongue that shade of yellow.
My luck is in – not in the old sense of the cliché, but in escorting Daisy home, making her a drink (not forgetting the straw), setting up an old favourite on her portable puppet show, I gain a sense of selfless happiness, which isn’t quite the point but… we can chat without my lusts protruding for a change. For who would pounce on a defenceless woman incapable of using her arms? Whether you choose to believe me or not, I leave Daisy fed and watered and stocked full of the steely determination one forgets at one's peril.
Saturday 2 August
Inspired by Ms Pepper, and her effortless fluttering around the palpitating heart of Manchester’s poetry scene, I decide to see if I can’t coax Badger out of his ivory tower with a gentle wooing, combined with a subtle appeal to his legendary vanity.
Esteemed Badger, could I cadge-a
Favour?
One I would return with interest to any likewise encumbered
City Centre neighbour?
Myself and worthy friends are launching a poetry pamphlet that may be of some interest and benefactors are sought but between you and me they are not a patch on you for who could be bolder and braver?
While those cursed with lesser constitutions might consider a re-draft, I simply haven’t the lifestyle to realize such niceties. The poem is passed to Mandy for delivery, along with a proposed meeting time & place, and I am off with Hogarth to Chorlton village to bid goodbye to Laughton, who aims to transport himself and his girl to New Zealand using only the power of gin. There is shocking news at the Shoebox Tavern en route; Hogarth breaking it to me that Daisy – his housemate, my hearbreaker – has broken not one but two of her elbows while tumbling from her penny farthing. Shocked, I send my most musical carrier; ‘mend these broken wings’ the message I wish to relay, before deciding that’s (quite) enough poetry for one day.
Inspired by Ms Pepper, and her effortless fluttering around the palpitating heart of Manchester’s poetry scene, I decide to see if I can’t coax Badger out of his ivory tower with a gentle wooing, combined with a subtle appeal to his legendary vanity.
Esteemed Badger, could I cadge-a
Favour?
One I would return with interest to any likewise encumbered
City Centre neighbour?
Myself and worthy friends are launching a poetry pamphlet that may be of some interest and benefactors are sought but between you and me they are not a patch on you for who could be bolder and braver?
While those cursed with lesser constitutions might consider a re-draft, I simply haven’t the lifestyle to realize such niceties. The poem is passed to Mandy for delivery, along with a proposed meeting time & place, and I am off with Hogarth to Chorlton village to bid goodbye to Laughton, who aims to transport himself and his girl to New Zealand using only the power of gin. There is shocking news at the Shoebox Tavern en route; Hogarth breaking it to me that Daisy – his housemate, my hearbreaker – has broken not one but two of her elbows while tumbling from her penny farthing. Shocked, I send my most musical carrier; ‘mend these broken wings’ the message I wish to relay, before deciding that’s (quite) enough poetry for one day.
Thursday 31 July
Approaching my mid-30s quicker than a runaway steamship heading downhill towards the equator, it is perhaps time I began at least a tentative mapping of the (presumed) years ahead. In the past, due to my contrary nature, it was very easy to plan what I wanted for the future: precisely what I couldn’t get. This led to any number of distracting and diversionary romantic pursuits over the last decade that have left me, this time on, exhausted, alone but – crucially – either still alive or enduring a vaguely underwhelming afterlife. So it is that I sit down tonight and construct an Excel worksheet from some old piping I find lying about on the roof. ‘Lifeplan 35’ I name the thing, a touch grandly.
With qualifications as abstract as my art it may seem rash to add to them but, in accordance with their global aims, my employers have offered to subsidize a course in TMPUEBN (Teaching Manners to People Unfortunate Enough to be Born Non-British) and it would seem churlish not to sign up, perhaps one day practicing abroad (I hear Bolton is nice this time of year). So there's something to place upon the crooked shelf marked ‘self-development.’ ‘Boozing’ and ‘smoking’ are unsurprisingly adjacent to ‘Cut down’ and ‘Give up’ spelt out in screws as old and rusty as the sentiments themselves; which is not to say that the evening passes without fresh achievement – for the first time in my life I succeed in cooking for more than two people. And who could be more deserving of my decapitated peppers (stuffed with bolog, topped with goat’s cheese) than my old Levenshulme friends, Louis and Rouge? Family, friends and music are discussed, as always when we meet; but the smoking is cut down, the beers non-excessive. Perhaps this is the key to plotting the years hence: maintaining a clear head, even if the final decision is simply to foggy it up again with future excess. From next door comes the howl of someone trapped in a cold shower; their approach to modern lusts a little more radical than mine.
Approaching my mid-30s quicker than a runaway steamship heading downhill towards the equator, it is perhaps time I began at least a tentative mapping of the (presumed) years ahead. In the past, due to my contrary nature, it was very easy to plan what I wanted for the future: precisely what I couldn’t get. This led to any number of distracting and diversionary romantic pursuits over the last decade that have left me, this time on, exhausted, alone but – crucially – either still alive or enduring a vaguely underwhelming afterlife. So it is that I sit down tonight and construct an Excel worksheet from some old piping I find lying about on the roof. ‘Lifeplan 35’ I name the thing, a touch grandly.
With qualifications as abstract as my art it may seem rash to add to them but, in accordance with their global aims, my employers have offered to subsidize a course in TMPUEBN (Teaching Manners to People Unfortunate Enough to be Born Non-British) and it would seem churlish not to sign up, perhaps one day practicing abroad (I hear Bolton is nice this time of year). So there's something to place upon the crooked shelf marked ‘self-development.’ ‘Boozing’ and ‘smoking’ are unsurprisingly adjacent to ‘Cut down’ and ‘Give up’ spelt out in screws as old and rusty as the sentiments themselves; which is not to say that the evening passes without fresh achievement – for the first time in my life I succeed in cooking for more than two people. And who could be more deserving of my decapitated peppers (stuffed with bolog, topped with goat’s cheese) than my old Levenshulme friends, Louis and Rouge? Family, friends and music are discussed, as always when we meet; but the smoking is cut down, the beers non-excessive. Perhaps this is the key to plotting the years hence: maintaining a clear head, even if the final decision is simply to foggy it up again with future excess. From next door comes the howl of someone trapped in a cold shower; their approach to modern lusts a little more radical than mine.
Saturday 26 July
In the same way that Byron Badger, so I’ve heard, will not get warm and fuzzy on his own supply, the shady philanthropist would no more countenance inhabiting the Northern Quarter, an area named in honour of his popular pot-based package, than I would backstreet Scouserpool. Yes, my bookish, hopelessly weedy reader, I have been compelled to begin my trailing of this enigmatic figure; to extract a bounty from him or face the mixed metaphors and organ rearrangement so beloved of my Russian friends. And here I am at the foot of Manchester’s newest sky-tickler, the all-glass Milton Tower, the thirteenth floor of which hosts Badger and his entourage. Having tamed the gorillas on the door using an old red-eye mind trick I am ushered into a velveteen elevation machine that makes my own look like Davy Jones’ locker. And it is with the sure knowledge that I should have seen it coming that I note shiny, mother of pearl buttons marked ‘12’ and 14’ but nothing to assist my pressing need to reach the elusive ‘13’. While considering whether or not to buy an oxygen flannel and face the stairs, a fortuitous carrier from Mimi arrives, summoning me to the nearby Briton’s Protectorate. Here a celebration of Mandy Candeur’s birthday is underway. While a good friend of Mimi’s, Mandy is also a member of Badger’s inner circle; one who has been trying to persuade him into more salubrious pursuits. Yet it is difficult for me to concentrate on her (beer) garden of delights when out-of-season and from a leftfield that still feeds half of the city springs unknown Sally Pepper, both bountiful and bounty-less. The rest is drink and talk and wondering how Mr Badger, despite his wealth, could have spent his evening more pleasurably. The twinkle of a moonlit telescope suggests he’s seeking inspiration.
In the same way that Byron Badger, so I’ve heard, will not get warm and fuzzy on his own supply, the shady philanthropist would no more countenance inhabiting the Northern Quarter, an area named in honour of his popular pot-based package, than I would backstreet Scouserpool. Yes, my bookish, hopelessly weedy reader, I have been compelled to begin my trailing of this enigmatic figure; to extract a bounty from him or face the mixed metaphors and organ rearrangement so beloved of my Russian friends. And here I am at the foot of Manchester’s newest sky-tickler, the all-glass Milton Tower, the thirteenth floor of which hosts Badger and his entourage. Having tamed the gorillas on the door using an old red-eye mind trick I am ushered into a velveteen elevation machine that makes my own look like Davy Jones’ locker. And it is with the sure knowledge that I should have seen it coming that I note shiny, mother of pearl buttons marked ‘12’ and 14’ but nothing to assist my pressing need to reach the elusive ‘13’. While considering whether or not to buy an oxygen flannel and face the stairs, a fortuitous carrier from Mimi arrives, summoning me to the nearby Briton’s Protectorate. Here a celebration of Mandy Candeur’s birthday is underway. While a good friend of Mimi’s, Mandy is also a member of Badger’s inner circle; one who has been trying to persuade him into more salubrious pursuits. Yet it is difficult for me to concentrate on her (beer) garden of delights when out-of-season and from a leftfield that still feeds half of the city springs unknown Sally Pepper, both bountiful and bounty-less. The rest is drink and talk and wondering how Mr Badger, despite his wealth, could have spent his evening more pleasurably. The twinkle of a moonlit telescope suggests he’s seeking inspiration.
Wednesday 23 July
Not content with our colourful, occasionally lurid, set of Manc-made characters, often existing more for our own amusement than theirs, Bateman is deserting them and I for some weeks in the Mexican sun. Naturally I accuse him of gross cowardice, insinuate that he is simply distancing himself from a friend with powerful enemies; go on to threaten a civilian court martial which could lead to him being blanked at dawn (if either of us ever saw such a thing). In actual fact being guest of honour at a Day of the Dead parade, dressed as a skeleton while navigating scores of wailing foreign types, will probably be at least as frightening as remaining my right-hand man (though his main preoccupation is wondering which skin conditioner will best show off his bone structure). Tonight Bateman hosts a send-off at his apartment, or more accurately upon his smoking gallery (the first of many lapses). We may be high up but the tone is reassuringly low - DH and Bron providing the (outside) toilet humour while on departure I know not whether to worry more about Sydney’s short stagger down Oldham Street or Moony’s moonlit cycle to the shaky suburbs. Both make it home, I’m happy to report, while the latest transatlantic news is that while Bateman’s clipper appears to be manned only by a skeleton crew, the silhouette of his well-sculpted hair has been spotted off the coast of Cancun, its owner cackling at the thought of sordid adventures ahead.
Not content with our colourful, occasionally lurid, set of Manc-made characters, often existing more for our own amusement than theirs, Bateman is deserting them and I for some weeks in the Mexican sun. Naturally I accuse him of gross cowardice, insinuate that he is simply distancing himself from a friend with powerful enemies; go on to threaten a civilian court martial which could lead to him being blanked at dawn (if either of us ever saw such a thing). In actual fact being guest of honour at a Day of the Dead parade, dressed as a skeleton while navigating scores of wailing foreign types, will probably be at least as frightening as remaining my right-hand man (though his main preoccupation is wondering which skin conditioner will best show off his bone structure). Tonight Bateman hosts a send-off at his apartment, or more accurately upon his smoking gallery (the first of many lapses). We may be high up but the tone is reassuringly low - DH and Bron providing the (outside) toilet humour while on departure I know not whether to worry more about Sydney’s short stagger down Oldham Street or Moony’s moonlit cycle to the shaky suburbs. Both make it home, I’m happy to report, while the latest transatlantic news is that while Bateman’s clipper appears to be manned only by a skeleton crew, the silhouette of his well-sculpted hair has been spotted off the coast of Cancun, its owner cackling at the thought of sordid adventures ahead.
Monday 14 July
With what is perhaps my single most act of maturity thus far into adult life, I have decided to give up smoking. While the fatal health problems caused by biffing/jiggery pipery remain largely unproven, I sense that the roll-ups are in no way contributing towards my plan to live forever. But it isn't easy, the tobacco worm having grown to inhabit the armchair of my brain when not swimming its leisurely backstroke up and down the bloodstream. And from such a vantage point it may easily convince one that the two old fellows sharing a street corner gasper seem a rough outline, if not a complete picture, of health: a resemblance I could not unreasonably expect to share with them at that age. It is, however, a thesis that compels one to forget the third of the trio – perhaps the first of the gang to die, quite possibly some considerable time before, with an emphysemic cough relieved only once his ashes had joined the ether. It is a challenge and one I will rise to; the cutting down I have thus far undertaken only invites the first of the day (night) to produce a giddying rush not dissimilar to sniffing industrial glue, quickly followed by a morbid desire to chain-smoke my way back to grim-faced happiness. But a couple of acts before I give up the cigarette sponsorship (all those logos so effectively patching the holes in my racing britches...) – a last, massive cigar and a necessary dance with 'Miss Green' (and yes, I will inhale her perfume) in order to move as seamlessly as possible within Badger's squareless circle.
With what is perhaps my single most act of maturity thus far into adult life, I have decided to give up smoking. While the fatal health problems caused by biffing/jiggery pipery remain largely unproven, I sense that the roll-ups are in no way contributing towards my plan to live forever. But it isn't easy, the tobacco worm having grown to inhabit the armchair of my brain when not swimming its leisurely backstroke up and down the bloodstream. And from such a vantage point it may easily convince one that the two old fellows sharing a street corner gasper seem a rough outline, if not a complete picture, of health: a resemblance I could not unreasonably expect to share with them at that age. It is, however, a thesis that compels one to forget the third of the trio – perhaps the first of the gang to die, quite possibly some considerable time before, with an emphysemic cough relieved only once his ashes had joined the ether. It is a challenge and one I will rise to; the cutting down I have thus far undertaken only invites the first of the day (night) to produce a giddying rush not dissimilar to sniffing industrial glue, quickly followed by a morbid desire to chain-smoke my way back to grim-faced happiness. But a couple of acts before I give up the cigarette sponsorship (all those logos so effectively patching the holes in my racing britches...) – a last, massive cigar and a necessary dance with 'Miss Green' (and yes, I will inhale her perfume) in order to move as seamlessly as possible within Badger's squareless circle.
Saturday 12 July
Forever clasping almost anything warm-blooded to her bosom, it won’t take Sanchez long to recover post-op in Miss Jordan’s mountainous retreat, but the warning has been heeded. This trio of intruders, like the baddies in classic puppet show Supersurf II, are winning the crucial battle of the skies and I must at least pretend to acquiesce to their demands. In fact I must DEFINITELY concede UNILATERAL and UNAMBIGUOUS defeat (let’s presume they’re peering over your shoulder, sweet reader). The cotton crunch means I cannot replenish the ranks of my exhausted carriers and today I find only Bilko fit enough to take my message to the crazy Easterners, one assuring them that I will befriend and then betray Byron Badger as requested (or not, should HE be reading this). I turn Bilko’s tiny, bespectacled head towards Sanchez in his quilted shoebox, thermometer in beak, reminding him that any of his clever spiel might spell the end of us all today.
With words dispatched, time is bought and I use it wisely: taking the wagon to Hebden Bridge with Swarthy Erick to camp it up in lush fields with old friends, the newly Francophiled (and bloody tanned) Cameron and Carmona. It is Carmona’s 40th yet she looks better than I’ve ever seen her, straining to control their continental pooch ‘Spirit’ while catching up with roses red & white. So here is yet another option for escape – the invigorating South of France (Cameron enjoys a 5-mile run each morning, pursued by the natives with pitch forks) – yet for all the rain and pain can I really leave Manchester again? If my standard of poetry drops much further I will be run out of town regardless.
Forever clasping almost anything warm-blooded to her bosom, it won’t take Sanchez long to recover post-op in Miss Jordan’s mountainous retreat, but the warning has been heeded. This trio of intruders, like the baddies in classic puppet show Supersurf II, are winning the crucial battle of the skies and I must at least pretend to acquiesce to their demands. In fact I must DEFINITELY concede UNILATERAL and UNAMBIGUOUS defeat (let’s presume they’re peering over your shoulder, sweet reader). The cotton crunch means I cannot replenish the ranks of my exhausted carriers and today I find only Bilko fit enough to take my message to the crazy Easterners, one assuring them that I will befriend and then betray Byron Badger as requested (or not, should HE be reading this). I turn Bilko’s tiny, bespectacled head towards Sanchez in his quilted shoebox, thermometer in beak, reminding him that any of his clever spiel might spell the end of us all today.
With words dispatched, time is bought and I use it wisely: taking the wagon to Hebden Bridge with Swarthy Erick to camp it up in lush fields with old friends, the newly Francophiled (and bloody tanned) Cameron and Carmona. It is Carmona’s 40th yet she looks better than I’ve ever seen her, straining to control their continental pooch ‘Spirit’ while catching up with roses red & white. So here is yet another option for escape – the invigorating South of France (Cameron enjoys a 5-mile run each morning, pursued by the natives with pitch forks) – yet for all the rain and pain can I really leave Manchester again? If my standard of poetry drops much further I will be run out of town regardless.
Wednesday 9 July
Mimi Pixel, my inspirational friend and comrade in the literary trenches of Manchester (sandbags stuffed full of rejected manuscripts) is off to London, armed with her dangerous first book, I Don’t Need Your Money to Bring Up My Boy Lord Archibald. Guaranteed to inflame the ultra-conservative and ultra-liberal crowds alike, especially if the puppet show adaptation goes ahead, I look forward to seeing both groups toasted; such bigots a modern (wo)man can do without.
Yet for all the shared excitement, the inevitable trips darn south, life here sans Mimi will be strange. To lose a friend from Manchester is unfortunate but not uncommon; to lose a friend from Manchester is like a red brick being looted from the very warehouse of one’s soul. My carrier finds hers in confrontational mood tonight. Mimi will be leaving with quill sharpened, ready to take on love and life. And while I may be tempted to join her, brandishing my stubby pencil amidst sundry southerners, I cannot flee Manchester for reasons less valiant than hers. I must stick it out until I too get the call – first finishing the Hatbox Project, then this mechanical journal; signing off my latest Dickensian/headian manuscript before ridding Manchester of those who would spread misery & mischief instead of love & head massages. Suddenly I need a lie down.
Seeming seconds later Sanchez is pecking me awake, a tiny silver banana protruding from his side-feathers. And thus the flying monkeys do return. A greasy caff of your choice, dear Mimi, should I survive the work at hand.
Mimi Pixel, my inspirational friend and comrade in the literary trenches of Manchester (sandbags stuffed full of rejected manuscripts) is off to London, armed with her dangerous first book, I Don’t Need Your Money to Bring Up My Boy Lord Archibald. Guaranteed to inflame the ultra-conservative and ultra-liberal crowds alike, especially if the puppet show adaptation goes ahead, I look forward to seeing both groups toasted; such bigots a modern (wo)man can do without.
Yet for all the shared excitement, the inevitable trips darn south, life here sans Mimi will be strange. To lose a friend from Manchester is unfortunate but not uncommon; to lose a friend from Manchester is like a red brick being looted from the very warehouse of one’s soul. My carrier finds hers in confrontational mood tonight. Mimi will be leaving with quill sharpened, ready to take on love and life. And while I may be tempted to join her, brandishing my stubby pencil amidst sundry southerners, I cannot flee Manchester for reasons less valiant than hers. I must stick it out until I too get the call – first finishing the Hatbox Project, then this mechanical journal; signing off my latest Dickensian/headian manuscript before ridding Manchester of those who would spread misery & mischief instead of love & head massages. Suddenly I need a lie down.
Seeming seconds later Sanchez is pecking me awake, a tiny silver banana protruding from his side-feathers. And thus the flying monkeys do return. A greasy caff of your choice, dear Mimi, should I survive the work at hand.
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