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Some time mid May 2006. Travelling back on the Midlands Express train to Wycombe. The end of another week of clearing up the mess made by incompetent corporate bankers who love to say yes. The phone rings. Normally I’d avoid answering on a crowed train, purely because it pisses me off so much when others do it. However this was different, it was my old mukker T. T is a one off. Nicest guy you could ever meet, combining all the naughtiness of someone that loves everything you shouldn’t, with the exterior of an upstanding, hardworking and successful businessman.

‘Fancy a bit of work in Liverpool?’. Yes I said before I’d even heard the question. T has the manner and rounded voice that makes everything sound like the greatest opportunity ever to present itself to you. What I hadn’t realised at the time was that I was about to sign up for what would become the now infamous ‘Year in Liverpool’.
Not one to speak ill of the dead, but John Thaw, A Year in Provance? You haven’t got a clue my old son.

So, a couple of weeks off, up to Norfolk to visit the family for a bit, via a brief stop off in Suffolk to meet this bird I’d been speaking to for a while but never met. Chance of a bit of girly action I thought, it had been a while. I had the advantage of knowing what she looked like, as she had unwisely sent me several photos, I had sent her none. Relying on razor sharp wit, and the charm of Nigel Havers, I couldn’t fail. Obviously the camera does still lie on occasions. To say she was pig-ugly is perhaps slightly offensive to the farmers of East Anglia. I still don’t know if it’s possible to milk a pig. Lactating or not, time for a sharp exit.

So Saturday 22nd July, and in a rare moment of forward planning I decided two things were a must. Book a hotel and have a quick look at a map. The map bit was pretty plain sailing, M40, M60, M62. Couldn’t be easier, I already had a picture in my head of exactly where everything in the city was, even though the only time I had ever been to Liverpool was in the late eighties for the football. Plucky little Norwich against one of the giants of Europe. Although the drunken haze of that strange day has still to lift, I’m pretty sure we won. That’s the result in my bent up head anyway. If any Koppite ever contradicts me I always remind them of the last player to ever score in front of the old Kop. Jeremy Goss, but you knew that of course.

So, book the Hotel. Shouldn’t be too tricky, after all, who the f**k stays in Liverpool through their own choice? Well quite a lot of people these days it seems. Particularly this week as there was some kind of rather important golf tournament taking place close by. Golf fanatics and scousers. You really do get some obscure images if you think about that combination for too long. So not only does said tournament make it tricky to find a room within a sensible distance, it provides the opportunity for the entrepreneurial hoteliers to invoke what they charmingly call ‘Event Rates’.

After several hours searching, and a few ‘difficult’ phone conversations, I plumped for the inappropriately named ‘Premier’ Travel Tavern on the Albert Dock. Aside from the availability of the last remaining smoking room in Liverpool, the other main attraction was that due to having previously installed a street map into my head, I of course knew exactly how to get there without any real problems.

Sunday 23rd, after half an hour of frantic packing and ironing of shirts, I selected what I considered to be my most impressive range of pens, calculators and other tools of the trade, and stuffed them into my recently polished briefcase. No half measures here, this was after all a very important contract, one I was determined to take seriously, responsibly and with the utmost degree of professionalism.

I) The Call
II) Unstable John – He’s Here To Work
III) And The Beak Goes On
IV) The Gary Situation
V) These’ll Never Work (Not the Fatties)
VI) End Of An Era – Probably For The Best
VII)

Posted By: tudders, Jul 13, 15:36:25