Wednesday 14 May

Manchester is a city that welcomes all. Sometimes gruffly, sometimes conditionally, but as a rule the traveler is unlikely to be labelled a stranger or an oddity upon limping through trusting town gates. Tonight that laissez-faire attitude is put to the sternest of tests as scrambling over the city walls and bursting from the ginnels come thousands upon thousands of wild-eyed, shaggy-breasted Caledonian footerball fans.

Calling at the flat with Charlton of Chorlton, Dempson - like many friends glued to the weekly adventures of his apprentices - suggests I should be supervising the buttering up of Miss Jordan’s most pastry-heavy snacks, before flinging them down to the Scots from my rooftop, pocketing the coins, oats and trinkets tossed up in return. In the end I consider it too much effort even to go witness the singing hordes in Piccadilly or Albert Square, where special puppet shows have been erected for those unable to gain entry to the city’s second-best stadium. The lads are keen to enter the swelling ruckus but my excuses are set in stone – I’m tired, have no nerve for the unpredictable tonight and am all too aware that drunk Glaswegians, like drunk Scousers, can turn from your best friend to sworn Papal enemy within a matter of sips.

Bidding goodbye to my guests, wondering where to secrete another dozen empty beer bottles, I spy Bateman on the communal stairway. Curiously, for one with the vocal range of the Howler Monkey and confidence of the Gibbon, he says nothing; instead placing a finger to his lips before employing the subversive eye-pointing technique picked up from Jan in Krakow. I think little of it as I close my flat door, gaining only the creeping suspicion that I may well be the last sober person left in town tonight.