Mancunian Blues
Created | Updated Aug 26, 2004
Okay, there are five things I learnt today.
The first was that my pen can't survive two hours of tense women's marathon watching related chewing without spurting me with ink.
The second was that when a British (read English) hope fails valiantly in their marathon attempt, loads of Irish (yep, where are you on the medal table?) athletics fans turn up across the nation
laughing saying she never had a chance, ever, at anything, at all.
The third insight into life is that just because something is novel and different doesn't mean it is good. This moment of clarity came to me while perched on a table a far corner of 'Grand Central'. I'm
not fond of the bar itself, it used to be a dark run-down rock pub with a dodgy clientele and expensive beer, now it is just a dark rock pub with a dodgy clientele and expensive beer. It does have one big
positive, and that is that it is fairly long, so when a band is playing at one end, some relief can sought as I am doing as I write this (note, I am currently actually at a computer typing, but this article was
written with a leaky chewed pen in the pub).
The band that currently is breaching the piece is called 'Mrs. Cakehead', and I really think a name like that says it all. It was a three piece act, with the music coming from a theremin, some pre-recorded backing tracks and a weird keyboard thing that you have to blow into from a plastic pipe (obviously for people who can't afford the batteries of a proper keyboard). Three left over hippies manned the stage, looking like a band that not only the 60s forgot about, but the 70s, 80s and 90s too, and the 00s were wishing for a bout of amnesia round about 20 seconds into the set. Vocals (mainly about pickled eggs) were provided by someone who could only be a drunk uncle doing a poor 'The Streets' impression. Sadly the only impression I was getting was that there was a room of old ladies in Droylesdon or some other god-forsaken backwater of the rainy city that are missing their bingo caller.
Sure, the band were brave to get up and do their own thing, and me more than anybody has to applaud that, but a lion-tamer who sticks his head in a lions mouth is brave, when the lion closed his month, the tamer was instantly deemed stupid.
The fourth thing I found out today was never exaggerate your own knowledge.
Love, Peace and Blues
tjm
