Mersey paradise

Far have I travelled and much have I seen.

Those aren't my words. Those are the words of Sir Paul McCartney who, as regular readers will know, is something of a second father figure to me.

Two questions.

1. Where have I travelled?
To Liverpool, the birthplace of Sir Paul. (I don't just throw these things together. Well, I do, but it's more of a half-arsed underarm lob.) Not recently, of course. You should know how this works by now. Two weeks ago.

(Generally, 'going forward' – as people I instantly dislike are wont to say – assume that anything I talk about here happened at least two weeks ago.)

2. What have I seen?
Things.

a) I have seen the Beatles-themed hotel – although only from the outside, which, honestly, was enough. The exterior features some of the most unfortunate rock 'n' roll effigies I have seen since the days of the 'Rock Circus' waxworks at Piccadilly Circus, where a figure who may or may not have been conceived as David Bowie would wave a mute coo-ee from a flaking plaster balcony at a figure lurching out of a neighbouring window, who probably looked a little bit like Jimi Hendrix in a dim light.

Considering that the Beatles are about the best known band ever, it's amazing how many artists and craftsmen seem to have absolutely no idea what they look like. Ringo, in particular, seems badly served. Of course, when performing, his head must often have been obscured by a cymbal, but I think there are enough photos of him leaping high-spiritedly off walls and larking around with Cilla Black to ensure there's no need for him to be depicted on plates, ashtrays and keyrings as a cross between some kind of melted Gary Lineker and an Afghan hound.

We didn't stay at the Beatles-themed hotel. We stayed elsewhere, in a room which seemed be channelling another strand of Liverpool's cultural iconography. With its wave-motif headboard and the aquatic colour scheme, it took me back to the watery opening titles of This Morning in the mid 90s. (This Morning, you will recall, being filmed at Liverpool's Albert Dock.)



Perhaps this was a room where Richard and Judy would retire once they were off-air, in an attempt to keep some magic in their live-together-work-together relationship, despite the grind of five live shows a week. Then, later, it was redecorated in their honour.

The headboard lights up, which may or may not be a tribute to the bedroom prowess of Richard Madeley.

Ta-da! (As I'm sure he was fond of saying to Judy at key moments.)

In other themed hotel-room news, here is a Sound Of Music-styled room I once stayed in when I went to Salzburg to do the Sound Of Music tour. Really, they just got some poster paints and put a castle and some edelweiss on the walls. Still, I appreciated the effort.


b) I have seen written testimony that I share a birthday with The Cavern.


I'd like to point out that despite my tea-scones-and-a-sit-down mindset, I am SIGNIFICANTLY younger than the Cavern.

c) I have seen many, many Beatles souvenirs. Here's one of my favourites…


…although I would only want to buy the apron if they threw in Sir Paul too.

I like to imagine this is how you might find Macca if you were ever invited to a barbecue at his house (a scenario I fantasise about frequently). Macca would be holding court on the patio, wielding the barbecue tongs, asking if anyone wanted to try one of his spicy Let It Bean burgers or a Mean Mr Mustard-Marinated Pork-Substitute Kebab.

I'm a bit disappointed I didn't score a wedding invitation, if I'm honest.

Thursday in three parts

Of course, we're talking about the Thursday that happened two weeks ago, because I don't like to rush these things, as you know.

1) I was quite taken with this arrangement of rubbish outside the Barbican, which I observed on my way to see South Pacific with my pals from choir. My favourite thing about it is that it looks exactly like the wrapped up body of a giant-headed man with no arms or legs.


There are many reasons why a man may have an abnormally large head. Illness, an unfortunate accident of genes... OK, there are two reasons. Or, in fact, three, since I imagine this man's head – the head of a disgraced Barbican employee, I believe – was so gigantic because it was bursting with ideas.

Ideas such as: 'Wouldn't it be an amazing idea to have more ladies' toilets near the Barbican's main theatre auditorium, so that people could do more during the interval than locate the toilets, queue, use them, then sprint, sweaty and flustered, back to their seats just as the curtain goes up again?'

The enterprising Barbican employee's plan must have been rejected because it would interfere with the precious bloody architecture of the building. Presumably people urinated less in the '70s.

Another idea: 'Wouldn't it be good if the dedicated email account for Barbican lost property actually responded to emails regarding lost property*?'

The response was clearly to cut off his arms and legs for insubordination and throw him out with the rubbish.

Arts administration is a cut-throat world. If, by throat, you mean legs. And also arms. Which I do.

2) When I was sitting in Starbucks, killing some time before I went to the Barbican, a woman spent several minutes eyeing me nervously, before walked across the room towards me. 'Are you waiting to interview someone for a job?' she said to me. 'Erm... no,' I said. 'Oh...' she said, 'it's just you look like someone who might be.'

Now I wish I'd said yes. I feel quite confident that I could have conducted a searching 30-minute interrogation without having any idea what the job was. People believe anything when you wear glasses and have a notebook out on the table.

3) When you are sitting in the highest, cheapest seats of the theatre, you have a great view down into the orchestra pit. The massive square in me (most of me is a massive square, apart from the bit that sometimes eats a Marks & Spencer's sandwich in Starbucks) was a little shocked to see the clarinettist flicking through a magazine during the idle moments when she wasn't playing. I wonder what is the most elaborate extra-curricular activity you could get away with doing in an orchestra pit during the performance, while still technically meeting the demands of your job. Yoga? Your ironing? Building a matchstick scale model of the Barbican inside the Barbican?

Pottery would be a good one, of course. Imagine attempting to keep your wheel turning with the foot pedals while simultaneously negotiating the tricky rhythms of Happy Talk.

Metal detecting is a popular hobby, but I would not recommend carrying this out in an orchestra pit during a performance.

*First world problems: I have lost a beautiful blue leopard-print Whistles scarf. First world solutions: It's either in the Barbican, Starbucks or cute cupcake-vending cafe Bea's Of Bloomsbury.

Wheels on fire

Look. Mobile libraries are cool again. They must be – this one was parked between the Tate Modern and a branch of Leon.


Admittedly neither of these places would pass for cutting edge in certain parts of Berlin or Brooklyn, but open the I-Spy Middle Class Cool book and they'll be right there next to The Big Chill and a Riverford organic vegetable box.

It seems strange to think of a roving library stopping off somewhere so urban. This is not a location that would strike me as culturally barren. But in the rarefied atmosphere of the Southbank, perhaps this van provides some kind of vital lowbrow lifeline, where punters can borrow a Dan Brown, no questions asked, and tuck it away in their fashionably sloganed canvas tote bag, just beneath their Malcolm Gladwell.

With Borough Market just a couple of hundred metres away, the mobile librarian probably does a roaring under-the-counter trade in Ginsters Pasties and Liebfraumilch too.

Postcards from the weekend

I found this card tucked into the top of my seat at the Proms on Friday…

I'm in the slow readers' group when it comes to classical music. I don't know a lot. Although I know you're not meant to clap between movements of a symphony as this is a time that is reserved for coughing. I also know that I do not want classical music to be sexed up, solely to pique my interest further. But superheroed up, Lichtenstein-style? Oh yes.

Then there's this card that I found at Tea & Make, a cool craft event in south-east London full of idiosyncratic, wildly creative, quirkily stylish people – the kind I am constantly and disappointingly rediscovering I don't quite fit in with, instead having to content myself with throwing money at their work to try to make them like me, like some bloated Renaissance patron.

The Storkupine is part of a set of amazing animal hybrid creations from Garudio Studiage that also includes, among others, The Badgerigar, The Puffalo and The Stagpie. I like the fact you could tell a small child that this was a real creature that once walked the earth, before evolution dealt it a fatal blow, and they would totally believe you.

Stupid posh men

Hello, middle-aged man in navy blazer and pinstriped shirt, standing behind me at the Regent's Park Open Air Theatre bar on Friday night, thrusting your vile self forwards by shoulder-barging my mother, 65, out of the way, then lunging your arm over my shoulder and waving your £20 note across my face in an attempt to be served before me, even though I had been standing there an awful lot longer, as evidenced by the fact that I was actually in front of you. Yes, you, calling for the bartender's attention as though she was some deliquent canine. I never knew it was possible to be simultaneously summoning and dismissive. I imagine this to be a source of pride to you.

Hello, different middle-aged man in blazer and pinstriped shirt, same repulsive air of superiority and entitlement, two bouffy-haired, Fauntleroy-style sons in tow, at the door of the Albert Hall on Saturday night, ignoring the queue of rain-blasted people waiting patiently to have their tickets checked, and striding straight to its head. Yes, you, talking loudly to the increasingly flustered but admirably principled usher about how your wife is ONE OF THE SINGERS tonight and you HAVE TO get to Box 3, then responding to their meek and very polite request that you go to the appropriate entrance for that box, or indeed the stage door, with an immediate demand to SEE THE MANAGER.

You are both bastards.

In which I am mistaken for a member of the orchestra

This weekend: more culture. It is practically pouring out of me and pooling around my silver sandals. Obviously it is raining a lot too. But still. I may as well be Melvyn Bragg. Lord knows, I'd love to have hair that thick.

Friday was West Side Story at Sadler's Wells, which was sometimes excellent but, ultimately, strangely unmoving. This is a significant flaw, clearly, since by the end of West Side Story, you should by rights be too distraught to connect one palm with other and applaud. I don't like to point the finger, but Tony, with his sensible chinos and buttoned-up pale blue shirt, just didn't seem to be the kind of man you fall in love with across a dancefloor. Maybe it was because I had been watching the introductary coverage of the Olympics earlier that day, but all I could think of when I looked at him, from our seats in the far reaches of the upper-upper-upper circle, was Matthew Pinsent...

...who has many excellent qualities which I lack – commitment, courage, strength, a history of getting up early – but impassioned leading man material he is, perhaps, not.

Then, on Saturday, back to the Proms at the Royal Albert Hall, for which I wore a black dress. While we were sitting in the bar beforehand, sharing our table with a lovely all-male couple ('They're very friendly, the gays,' said Mrs Jones) one of them asked me if I was playing in the orchestra. Hmm. At least he didn't ask me to clean the table or fetch him a gin and tonic. Perhaps I just look like the kind of person who spent their childhood indoors practising scales rather than running around breathing in fresh air and sunshine (actually, that is exactly what I look like). 

But on with the show. Mrs Jones and I found ourselves in quite brilliant seats –  very close to the stage in an actual posho's box-type area, with room to stash your shopping and hooks to hang up your coat. The orchestra were right beneath us, playing the Romeo to our over-excited Juliet. 

We could see every bead of sweat on Charles Hazelwood's forehead. We could read the sheet music over the shoulders of the double basses. We did have binoculars. But anyway. Only a couple of weeks ago, when Miss W and I been in the same venue, gently perspiring in our cramped seats in the gods, we were wistfully wondering what it took to sit in one of those boxes. And now I know. Like the secret of good skin or a long life, it is old-fashioned good fortune, and nothing more. 

That was the last good fortune of the weekend. So much for the Canadians being a race of warm, friendly checked-shirt wearers. After I booked a hotel in Nova Scotia online last week, one of them has been attempting to take my credit card details out for a spend-up. O Canada. Bryan Adams would not endorse that, I am sure.