A Mancunian double bill

Apologies for the tardiness of this post. Believe it or not, I couldn’t find a single place with wireless technology in Manchester...

03.03.12 (4pm)

I’m on my way to Manchester. I’m officially sick and tired of train journeys. I need to spend a little time nesting at home again. I also need a lie-in. I need a day off. I need to lose weight. I need a massage. I need therapy.

A group of lads on a stag do are in the same carriage as me. They’re being deliberately noisy. They’re coming to Manchester to let their collective tightly-gelled hair down and they don’t care who knows it. They keep pressing some kind of alarm button and they’re doing laddy banter, talking about “fat birds” and “big norks” and all manner of tragic nonsense. When men go on the prowl in a pack they tend to turn into cavemen. One of them keeps shouting “word up”- every 30 seconds. If I was sitting any closer I’d defenestrate him. One is laughing like a little girl – a tiny little girl with special needs. The rest of the laughter sounds really false; like Claudia Winkleman on Film 2012.They’ve started on the cans of beer. I keep hearing the familiar “schhhtuzzz” as another one is opened. By the time they head out on the town tonight, they’ll be rat-arsed and too drunk to pull. They’ll stand outside a pub; one hand holding a pint of beer, one hand in the pocket of their neatly ironed jeans. They’ll feel increasingly angry with the word as their surroundings start to spin. Someone will make a drunken pass at a girl with too much makeup, and not enough clothing and there will be a fight in my hotel whilst I’m trying to sleep.

The girl opposite me is very pretty, but she sounds like Raquel, that used to be on Corrie. I wasn’t aware that people actually spoke like that. Does Sarah Lancashire do any acting these days? She was good.

I’ve been trying to do some work on the train, but the seats are really uncomfortable when you’re not at a table. There’s nowhere to put my legs and the heating is too hot. The carriage smells of cabbages.

The theme of Ellen’s 40^th birthday is black and white. I guess if you’re going to theme a party, it’s good to do something generic like that. I’ve decided to wear shaving foam in my hair. It’s something I saw Philip Sallon doing once, and it looked quite cool, but I’ll probably make it look really stupid. I did joke with Ellen that I might come as my favourite black person. “Who’s your favourite black person?” she said, and I pulled the first comedy name I could think of out of my head, “Robert Mugabe,” I said. She laughed like a drain, “PLEASE come as Robert Mugabe. You’ll make my birthday if you come as Robert Mugabe, with the dodgy glasses and everything.” But I couldn’t bring myself to. He may look like a complete tit, but he’s one of the vilest creatures on this planet.

Very soon the train will pass quite close to Hattersley and I shall wonder how all the people up there are doing. I remembered last night a rather funny encounter with a chap called Maurice, who lives on the estate and is currently trying to write a book about its history. We talked about how unlucky Hattersley had been, and how the outside world tended to perceive it as quite a dangerous place. “Well,” he said, proudly, “here’s a fact. There have actually only been 6 murders on the estate in the 50 years since it was built.” Six murders sounded quite a lot to me, but then a thought occurred to me; “but surely the moors murderers count for most of those?” “Oh” he said, “I counted them as one.” “But what about Harold Shipman?” I said. He laughed. “No one knows how many people he killed, so I haven’t included that business at all!”

350 years ago, Pepys sat down and wrote a strict list of rules for his future spending which he bound himself to “in the presence of God.” Not quite sure how he managed that. In a church? Was God summonsed? I’m sure he was quite disheartened at the news of the day, which was that parliament had decided to tax every chimney in England. Two shillings per year. I wonder how many chimneys Pepys had...

04.03.12

Last night I went to Ellen’s 40^th birthday, which was in a beautiful boutique hotel – a former school house - somewhere near Granada television in Manchester. A group of us met before the event to sing through a special song we’d prepared; a version of I Know Him So Well, with alternative words by Pete, Claire and Jim about Ellen’s colourful and often chequered past.

As promised, I wore shaving foam in my hair. I thought it looked quite cool, like something from Red Dwarf, but everyone at the rehearsal assumed I was part way through the process of dying my hair with some kind of mousse. They probably thought I was vainly trying to get rid of a few grey hairs before seeing a bunch of friends from university whom I hadn’t clapped eyes on in years.  When I appeared at the do with the shaving foam still there, I think people were more perplexed than impressed!

The party took place on the roof terrace of the building. You could see the cobbled streets on the set of Coronation Street from one side. Everyone was given a glass of champagne as we arrived, including a table of old ladies celebrating a 60^th birthday, who’d stumbled up to the roof bar, and were nothing to do with us. I bet they couldn’t believe their luck.

Apart from the old lady imposters, everyone was dressed in black and white, and looked astonishingly glamorous. Some wore tuxes. Nic Harrison wore a beautiful retro dress. Helen’s lipstick looked like a delicate heart painted onto her face. There were mime artists, and silent movie actors, the tallest hats and the most beautifully-tailored suits. Ellen had her hair twisted into a chignon, like some kind of alluring 1960s film star. She looked a picture.

Because Ellen is a writer on Corrie, there were all sorts of actors and directors and telly people floating about. I had a lovely chat with a writer from Shameless who lives a stone’s throw away from Hattersley. His wife was planning to take their daughter to a trampoline class at the Ken Ward sports centre on the estate this morning.

I think I also met Jonathan Harvey, who’s the big cheese at Corrie. He’s the man responsible for writing the seminal film Beautiful Thing. I introduced myself to a Liverpudlian with a friendly face, who I thought was probably Harvey, but he made the classic error of not saying anything but “nice to meet you” when I held out my hand to introduce myself. I plainly couldn’t have asked him what he did for a job, because he assumed I already knew. I think it was him, because I once saw one of his plays at the Hampstead Theatre. The actor Andrew Lincoln told the audience in a Q and A afterwards that he’d based his rather extreme performance on the writer. The man I introduced myself to last night acted a bit like Andrew Lincoln’s character!

There were a few chilling blasts from the past including one girl who I hadn’t seen for 18 years. She stumbled around the party, getting more and more plastered, and every time I came within a few yards, I was forced to dart in the opposite direction because I couldn’t think of anything but really inappropriate things to say to her. When we were students she always seemed a bit edgy. We didn’t have anything to say to each other then, and she still had that same look of torment in her eye; the weird steely glare of a woman trying to control her demons.

But there were some lovely surprises as well. I had a long chat with Pete, a very dear friend from college days, and his beautiful wife, Rachel. The other Pete and the other Rachel both seemed very content as well. I think we can all feel rather proud of the people we became now that the chaotic ash clouds of youth have cleared.

Watching over the proceedings all evening was Ellen’s Dad, who died very suddenly about three weeks ago. His framed photograph sat at the bar all night and we raised a toast to him half way through the evening. His last words, apparently, were “give us another glass of wine” before he fell asleep on his wife’s shoulder and never woke up again.  I can think of no better way to go.

Star of the night was Ellen’s sister, Katie, who delivered an extraordinary speech which was brilliantly prepared, hysterically funny, and deeply touching. There’s plainly a serious stroke of genius running through the Taylor family.

350 years ago, Pepys, Elizabeth and Sir William Penn went walking in Moorfields. It was murky and cold, and they walked for quite some time. On the way home they went to The Pope’s Head to eat “cakes and other fine things.” It sounds like the perfect end to a wintry day. I ate a muffin to celebrate!