Life Less Literary

My night in Manchester..

I didn’t manage to keep it a secret from Gill until the day - she’d started
booking house viewings for the Saturday afternoon; when I told her to cancel
them I had to let slip a little more of the plan. But it did at least reassure
her that Rowan and Lola were being taken care of. I met her at Sheffield Station,
1.30pm Saturday, and we caught the train 40 minutes later. Chilled on first
class, reading the papers, looking at the Pennines, and got off all excited
at Manchester Piccadilly.

We followed the Manchester A-Z (one of my many bits of "preparation"
was buying the map) along Canal Street, Manchester’s Gay Village, to the Somerset
Atrium. Found our apartment (after two trips back to reception - the first room
was locked initially and turned out to have only a single bed, the second was
much nicer) and freshened up.

I got in extra supplies from a crap Sainsbury’s Local, whose only redeeming
feature was that it was local. I circled it three or four times looking for
sparkling wine and ice cream, before finally discovering tiny quantities of
both. The local Boots (not a Boots Local) was crap too.

Our evening meal was at Simply Heathcotes - very speedy service and pretty excellent
food - I had a "terrine of waldorf salad in goat’s cheese" - amazing
crunchy bits of apple encased in cheese, with walnuts sprinkled in a sweet vinegary
sauce, while Gill had a mezze including the tastiest ever hummus and pesto.
Next I had linguine - a rugby ball-shaped basket-weave of gorgeous fresh pasta, with
smoked salmon, asparagus tips and a huge puddle of buttery sauce or saucy butter.
Gill had duck - pink oozing red. And for dessert I had vanilla bean ice cream
drizzled with sherry, and Gill had… oh, I don’t remember. It was delicious
anyway.

Our meal was perfectly timed for our arrival at the Library Theatre, where we
took our seats for the Good Soldier Schweik. The play was good… though I prefer
the book. I recognised the plot from the novel initially - "they’ve assisinated
our Ferdinand" being changed to something about an attempt on the life
of Adolf ("which Adolf, I know two…"), but soon the script departed.
The action was watched over by Adolf Hitler and his henchmen, played larger-than-life
with scary papier-maché faces. The play was a little long - 105 minutes
for the first half along - and a little warm in the theatre, so I was quite
glad to get out by the end.

And then we went back to the hotel. And drank Cava. And ate ice-cream (actually,
I bought rasberry sorbet by accident <sigh>)

And the next day, we got up vary lazy and late, went to a nearby arts centre
for some amazing fried pizzas, and watched the pennines again on the way home.
We couldn’t find a film in Sheffield on soon enough to prolong our return home.
So we returned home.

I really ought to post something about this weekend’s demonstration, except I don’t know that I can muster up the right words, so I’ll try to give a brief impression. It was wonderful. I’d been on lots of demos during the 80s, not so many recently as I don’t always feel quite so sympathetic to the causes and as I get old and cantankerous I get more and more pissed off with the kind of nutters who increasingly turn up looking for aggro, but this was something totally different - all human life was there, Guardian readers to Telegraph readers, Class War anarchists to Countryside Alliance members, Palestinian militants to Jews for Peace. It really was the whole spectrum, and it felt great.

We arrived at Waterloo at midday, Hungerford Bridge was closed so we walked to Waterloo Bridge, as we got there they closed that because the weight of people standing on it was more than it could take, so we walked to Blackfriars, crossed over and finally joined the march. Shuffle would be a more appropriate word, it was slow going. We didn’t reach Hyde Park, about two miles away, until about 5.30pm. And I was knackered, having carried Lola in my arms most of the way, but was very happy. It really made me feel like moving this thing forward as well - whereas previously my opposition to the almost inevitable war was “in my head” and to be honest I wasn’t really that bothered, now I feel incensed that the government can ignore such a huge body of people (the Sun’s comment made me furious - 1 million people may have marched, but 58 million didn’t - FFS do they really [rhetorical question] think this means that 58 million people support the war or couldn’t give a toss - some people have to work, you know, and others can’t afford time/money-wise to travel to London, Glasgow or wherever). I feel like boycotting American good because of the stupid comments emanating from that country about causing as much economic damage as possible to France and Germany. I feel like doing everything I can to get this government out of office, a government that I broadly support and think are doing a good job on most things, because they need to be shown that you don’t fuck about like this when public opinion is so overwhelmingly against you (this runs a little counter to my general misanthropic tendencies, but WTF).

The day after the demo I took Rowan and Lola to London Zoo before driving back up to Sheffield - the gits, they didn’t appreciate it, though Lola did love the Monkeys. £21 bloody quid just for me and Rowan to get in (Lola was, thankfully, free) - don’t think I shall be going there in a while, I really should have tried Whipsnade.

Crikey… searching for stuff on David and Zero just now, I found a whole website devoted to Ishval and Eugene. Made me come over slightly wobbly. I’d love to write tracts on this… if I understood any of it - it’s all slightly shadowy but exciting stuff from my youth. So for now, just the link.

Oh, David is also on IMDB. And this page had the same intense staring picture of Eugene, taken shortly before his death, that stared down at my from the wall by my bed for many years. And this one has the picture of God walking in the Garden of Eden that still graces my wall.

Another very strange, very vivid dream last night, at about 2am. I was reading a series of books - they were childrens’ books, which had recently been made into a film, but equally enjoyable for an adult, in fact probably the best read I’d had in years. Each book in the series was very different, despite following one person’s story. Y’see, this person was a samurai, the most incredibly wonderful and talented who had ever lived, and somehow he travelled half way around the world and became a viking chief (yeah, time-lines maybe a bit wrong, but this was a dream). He excelled at that too, and became the most feared and respected raider of his times. He had, obviously, lots of adventures.

Cut to the second book, somewhere in outer space, far far in the future. An alien race are having some kind of problem, and despite their incredible skills and technology, they can’t solve it alone. They need a human to help them, and they scan every individual on the planet through the entirety of human history before settling upon our samurai viking as the most outstanding specimen of human-kind. Spaceships and time-travel and all that jazz ensue, and our hero ends up in a galaxy far, far away, learning another whole new culture.

The third book of the series is in some ways a light interlude, introducing our hero to the culture and surroundings of his new home. The alien race have incredible control over their environment and their selves, somewhat like the Dancers at the end of Time although with a little less control and a lot more insight - they are a race of intellectuals who love to play inside their own minds, control their emotions and demonstrate their mental powers. At this point I started to drift - the decriptions of their colorful cities and exotic nightlife were captivating. I wandered off into them myself, I became the samurai-viking enjoying the thrills of a new setting. I was out on my stag night, brushing with danger and dazzling those around me. I met a woman in a club who I was chatting to - I thought she looked a little like a bedraggled, uglier version of Winona Ryder. I asked her her name - she said “Winona Ryder”. Bizarre. Then I realised that I was so much at the height of my powers, that other people paled somewhat beside me.

Then I woke up. I was gutted. I still had three-and-a-half books of the series left to go, and I was so eager to find out what happened next. I never did.

Hmmm… what’s with the MC5 T-Shirts? Just saw on the Saturday Show (I don’t watch it, I swear… I just notice it when Rowan has it on) that Sinead from Fame Academy is wearing an ancient MC5 T. Which would be weird enough in itself, if it weren’t for the fact that last week I saw Natalie and Nicole Appleton on the same program, and one of them was wearing the same T-Shirt. Is the film about to break it big over here? Are the MC5 the next big thing all over again? Or is it just a T-Shirt they had in the wardrobe which they handed out to two different artists in succesive weeks? Y’know, I’m strangely tempted to go buy myself an MC5 shirt.

Also in “things I have noticed recently” - I took Rowan and Beth to see The Wild Thornberrys Movie yesterday - it was quite fun, short enough not to get boring, not too cartoon fantasized in its takes on Africa and London (hmmm) and had some great music. Anyway, when Eliza got on the plane back from London to Africa, I noticed that Eddie Jordan was sitting across the aisle from her. I’m sure it was him, nobody else looks quite like that (although my dad comes slightly close-ish, I guess). I also noticed that at one point in the movie, Nigel shows Eliza some stuff on his laptop, then closes the lid, but in the next shot the laptop is visible on the table behind them with its lid open. Hmph.