The journey began in Perth, initially heading south to Edinburgh, and we were accompanied by a gang of girls and boys off to the big city for a day out. I'd met them in the railway station cafe where they were enjoying pints of lager and glasses of sparkling wine for breakfast. At certain points the route followed the coast alongside the grey and freezing North Sea, surely the world's least welcoming body of water yet glittering today in winter sun, dotted with oil rigs, and crossed the iron clad Forth Bridge past Inverkeithing onto Murrayfield rugby stadium and the city.
All change at Edinburgh Waverley sitting sootily below the Scott Monument and a big wheel that every city now seems to possess. We all got off, the boys and girls tottering sleepily, and I got on an express bound for London, grey skies and fog all the way and no doubt as grim down south as it is up north. Through Lockerbie, Gretna Green, into England at Carlisle, Penrith, the Lake District and onto Lancaster where we saw the sea again, equally uninviting on the west coast.
There was a quick change at Preston, covered in fog, the first and hopefully last time I've ever been there, pie shack on the platform, and then onto a decrepit train, brought into service circa 1967, bound for Manchester with six inches leg room maybe designed for the Chinese students who were more numerous than any other nationality in the carriage, shivering within heavy coats, gawping at telephones, one girl filming the whole, depressing experience.
At Bolton only one person got off, the poor sod, and I could see why when witnessing the end-of-the-world-is-nigh industrial wasteland devouring the scene from the window, taking us up to the suburbs of Manchester, which could have been Detroit, and which at night became legendary Mad-chester, known for its roaring drug-fueled social scene. There was a very pleasant and tempting whiff of ganja in the air as I walked up from Piccadilly station.
I hadn't been here in donkeys years, not since my days following Arsenal football club around the country, days when I would kip at the student digs of the only other Arsenal fan I knew before attending the match the next afternoon. It's gone ultra grey steel and glass nowadays, cheap and modern, alluding to pretentiousness, not looking as if it will last, cranes on the horizon, new wealth putting up apartments and shopping centres, heavy industry nowhere in sight. Christ knows where all the money comes from ... Drugs? China? And for sure China is where the industry has gone.
The hotel was bang in the centre of things and the entire area was awash with people engaged in christmas/rip-off shopping. It was very multi-ethnic too and some people even seemed to be on holiday. Why on earth would they do that? No idea. Finding the hotel with directions from a stationary taxi driver - "You're standing right next to it, mate" - I then took a walk in early evening, spotting that many others were combining a shopping trip with a drinking binge. It was Saturday night. Mothers dragged tired kids around, lugging bags bursting with gifts and rolls of wrapping paper.
At Bolton only one person got off, the poor sod, and I could see why when witnessing the end-of-the-world-is-nigh industrial wasteland devouring the scene from the window, taking us up to the suburbs of Manchester, which could have been Detroit, and which at night became legendary Mad-chester, known for its roaring drug-fueled social scene. There was a very pleasant and tempting whiff of ganja in the air as I walked up from Piccadilly station.
I hadn't been here in donkeys years, not since my days following Arsenal football club around the country, days when I would kip at the student digs of the only other Arsenal fan I knew before attending the match the next afternoon. It's gone ultra grey steel and glass nowadays, cheap and modern, alluding to pretentiousness, not looking as if it will last, cranes on the horizon, new wealth putting up apartments and shopping centres, heavy industry nowhere in sight. Christ knows where all the money comes from ... Drugs? China? And for sure China is where the industry has gone.
The hotel was bang in the centre of things and the entire area was awash with people engaged in christmas/rip-off shopping. It was very multi-ethnic too and some people even seemed to be on holiday. Why on earth would they do that? No idea. Finding the hotel with directions from a stationary taxi driver - "You're standing right next to it, mate" - I then took a walk in early evening, spotting that many others were combining a shopping trip with a drinking binge. It was Saturday night. Mothers dragged tired kids around, lugging bags bursting with gifts and rolls of wrapping paper.
A wide variety of modern day restaurants all looking as if they were designed to look like upmarket hotel lobbies offering £15 pizzas and kebabs wrapped up under poncy lighting and bijou decor, just what I didn't want, and so after a lot of searching I sat down to haddock and chips in Leo's greasy spoon cafe in backstreets through which lurched parties of drunks, women in miniskirts - tits spilling out - and men in t-shirts in minus 2 degree temperatures. I went to bed cold, woke up cold, made it to an appointment thanks to a cabbie from Eritrea who told me "I live in Oldham. There's too many people in Manchester and the architecture is shit" and then got the hell out of there, back the same way I'd come in, pondering 'no wonder they all drink so much.'