I love Liverpool…

I managed to scam my way from London to Liverpool by train, ok here is the story. When I booked the train ticket online I mistakenly booked it for Thursday the 7th of September as opposed to Friday the 8th. Now I did try to rectify seconds after the confirmation email came through and I had realised my mistake, but the nasty women on the line insisted that I have to pay £68 for a Friday ticket (how fucking expensive is that for a train? The flight to London was £40) and go through some procedure to get back the original £12 I paid for the Thursday journey.

Anyway I turned up at Euston, collected my tickets from the ticket credit card machine and boarded the train and took my chances. The ticket guy came, I nonchalantly handed my tickets, he looked at them and said “This is yesterdays tickets” I gasped in horror and explained “That cant be right, I just collected them from the ticket machine, my journey was booked for Friday, look at my booking online on my laptop” I showed him the receipt I pasted and copied onto my desk top from my email, except I had obviously altered the date and day in the same font. (I am sneaky).
He looked at my laptop, looked at me and said “Ok there must be a mistake”
I know I am going to hell, but even Jesus would understand why I refused to pay over £60 to go two hours on a train from London to Liverpool!

I finally get to the amazingly unique Parr Street Studio hotel. This is one of the oldest recording studios in Liverpool and now has some very basic but comfortable hotel rooms. They give you a key to the LIFT! It is ancient and one of those old trellis type sliding doors (again…remember I had one of those in Oban last weekend?) then you insert your key and pull the shutters over and get up to your room.
I think this place is really good for musicians and performers to come to, I think when the refurbishment is complete ordinary members of the public will love it, yet I think that will make it lose some of its eccentric charm.
The great news is it has a wonderful cool private members bar where musicians all hang out and that’s where I am sitting right now.
I did the gig at Bar Blue and it was awesome, I do love that club and the audience are excellent.

The dockside of Liverpool has all been renovated and so trendy, they have a Beatles Museum and there are thousands of tourists visiting the area, mostly they are Oriental from what I have seen, those Eastern people really love the Beatles!

The whole city is geared up to be European City Of Culture in 2008 and I am sure it will make a great host city, I remember when Glasgow was the City of Culture in 1990, it is a wonderful accolade to have and bring millions of regeneration to industrial towns in UK.

Parts of Liverpool are still run down, even just off the city centre and I do hope those beautiful old buildings get recovered as they are wonderful.

I walked home from the gig and stopped in the bus station to check a text on my phone, the bus station is brand new and all shiny and very well lit but was completely deserted.
Just as I sat on shiny chrome bench I heard footsteps coming towards me and there was a fucking smelly stumbling drunk heading for me. I sat there and sighed inwardly, always me, they always come to me every time I am a nutter magnet.
He sat right beside me, pressing his thigh against mine- that’s how close he got.

“There are hundreds of benches empty and you come to sit beside me” I snapped at him
“Do you have a fucking problem?” He mumbled with the alcohol reeking off his mouth.
Great! He was actually Scottish. “Yes I have a problem, get your manky leg off my thigh and fuck off; I don’t want to talk to you” I said back.
I stood up and walked on, he followed me, I walked faster- he walked faster.
I then turned on my heels in this empty big bright yellow and white bus station and shouted right at him “Fuck Off! I will actually kill you, I have killed before”
He stopped in his tracks.
“Get fucked, do you want me to stab you, I once set a man on fire and took photo’s as he burned, then I ate his barbequed leg and God told me to do it” I screamed into his face and jumped up and down like a mental patient.
He ran off in the opposite direction, screaming as he went, arms flailing and sloppy trousers flapping in the breeze.

I sat back down and finished my text and out of the corer of my eye I saw a bus station attendant watching me closely! Now I was the bus station nutter- I could see him tentatively talking into his radio.
Now we all know I have never killed before and I wasn’t going to stab him but it really works sometimes to OUT CRAZY the NUTTERS! They hate it if you are more mentally damaged than them, it is too much competition, I learned that trick from days in the bar when I worked in the roughest part of Glasgow, whenever some crazy fucker come up and whispers evil stuff, just agree with them and tell them you really want to fuck a dead body or can you cut him and drink his blood…..it works most times – except when you once meet that man who does like that – then run for your life!

So I am in Liverpool for one more night and then it is back home to husband and possibly normality.