Manchester – Stefanie Moore

Field Study

Here’s something that I read at a charity event in support of A New Leaf, who do incredible work towards greening the centre of Manchester, I tried to write in the style of an eminent Victorian Lady Botanist (if I had more time or brains I would give you a specific name) and in this guise, imagine what she would discover on a journey across the city.

Field Study – An Exploration of Shudehill to Cornbrook, April 9^th, 2018-04-09

Weather: Cloudy, inclement showers. I ascend the tram at Shudehill, a place which seems to be a bustling interchange. My first green sighting: a Broadfoot Plantain (Plantago Major) insinuating its way out between two paving slabs beside a small peach doily of vomit which itself lies in front of the ticket machine, as if waiting its turn to purchase passage to Crumpsall or East Didsbury. I am shocked – was the vomiter unaware as to the supreme medicinal qualities of Plantago Major? If they were, they may have avoided such a distressing and public ejaculation. I journey past the pile: A large, stately bush of Rubus Fruticosus Aggregate, enmeshed in a merry dance with Leontodon Autumnalis and Glechoma Hederacea resides spreadeagled behind a wire fence. I am pleased to see that it is being protected in this way.

I traverse the road and continue towards the eponymous Market Street, a semi formalised trading post, consisting of established stalls selling goods such as communication devices, shoes and something referred to as ‘sportswear’. But I digress, perhaps because there are so few green sightings here until – Oh wonder! And I would invite all botanical enthusiasts to lift their inquiring gaze up away from potential terranean treasures and seek new bounty from the heavens above! On the roof of a somewhat brutish building I see a whole shrub, Ligustrum Vulgare. It is mostly leafless and squat, I must confess, yet it is beautiful and unexpected and it reminds me of my own dear mother at my wedding, wearing the most artful concoction of feathers and netting atop her stern, square, naturally inscrutable face.

So there is nature in the city and it moves me.

Further along, I come to the city’s rich green centre piece – Picadilly Gardens. Perhaps it is the season and weather (remaining cloudy and inclement) but there is little of the conventional sense of garden to its presentation. There are trees – bare or brown leaved, there are trees -scattered about, like sobre guests at a drunken party, their feet in concrete. As to their genus I am confounded. They defy identification! Is it the lack of foliage that leaves me nonplussed? I request clarification from five different passers by and the responses are enlightening as to the nature of the denizens of Picadilly Gardens but irrelevant to my enquiry. I will write to the council when I return to my lodging. I can be sure of a prompt reply.

Exhausted and in need of succour, I return to the tram and continue my perambulation through this elusive city. I’m ashamed to admit that I am in the doldrums, and in a fit of absolute despair I almost slam closed my encyclopedia of trees (travel edition) – when I see it. White blossom in the gardens of the Art Gallery! The glimpse is fleeting, but whose heart does not quicken at the sight of Purnus Serulata! And in full bloom – nary a petal discarded! I experience the same wonder upon every sighting – it’s transience reminds me again of my own dear mother and I remind myself again to find such wonder in all living things for we, and they, are but passing through.

I am still musing on this as we reach the river, and it gives me, as rivers often do, renewed pause for reflection. I re-open my notebook to record my observations;

Salix Sepulcralis – two fine example genuflecting at a bend in the water

A bridge – one side, framed in Ipomoea Alba, the other Hedera Helix. A fabulous, verdant conjunction.

And then crowding the far side of the bank, a battalion of fluttering Narcissus Poeticus, craning their necks for better view of the joggers and prams and canal watchers who are out in force on this full and vibrant day!

Nature in its diverse forms and richness has revived my spirit and I arrive at my destination fortified, as demonstrated by the wild flourish with which I close my notebook and nod with firm cheer at my fellow commuters. As I exeunt, I mark a crowd of Budleia pushing and jostling at the sides of the tracks. Nature’s lonely trainspotter. Their flowers are brown and crusted and the leaves are shrivelled and the weather remains cloudy and inclement and yet it prevails and we prevail and will no doubt, revive. Such is the nature of the city.

Angel Meadows and Sleeping Lions

I lived in London for 11 years and depended on the tube for every single journey I made. Even now, I can plot a route across the capital in 30 seconds; I relish the challenge of finding the quickest route from A to B.

3 years into my Manchester residency (parp) and I still miss the speed and commonality of Tfl. My commute to work now feels like a portal into ‘Last of the Summer Wine’. Trains are slow and they smell, a mixture of pollen, scotch egg and urine. So I don’t leave the city centre much. I’ve become a little insular. But it turns out that it’s okay, because I only needed to walk 5 minutes from my flat to enter a world not dissimilar to how I imagine Hells Kitchen once was, a world of more than just spit and sawdust.

On Friday I went to see Angel Meadow, the inaugural project from HOME, delivered by the acclaimed ANU Productions. We were told to meet in a square on the other side of the Oldham Road and I guess, await further instructions. Curiosity piqued, I had a look online. One reviewer had found it too much and had to leave. Great. I’d had a jangly week at work and would take ‘too little’ over ‘too much’ any day. The pull of the sofa and a bland world cup tie between whosit and the other team was very strong.

Thank God I ignored this urge, because Angel Meadow was without doubt the finest bit of theatre that I have ever experienced. And I mean experienced in the most literal sense of the word.

Angel Meadow takes place in and around the Edinburgh Castle, a derelict pub which called time 10 years ago after a particularly nasty riot of Oldham and Wrexham fans. The Castle itself is slap bang in the middle of Ancoats, an area not unfamiliar with blood grudges. Ancoats is the home of the industrial revolution and subsequently home to some seriously messy gang wars between rival factions who moved there to work, notably Irish and Italian communities. Apparently the cast and creative team had arrived in Manchester without a space in mind and having discovered the castle, they moulded the piece from the lives and histories that the pub and surrounding area revealed to them; times when women believed in the devil and drank bleach for their sins, where men formed allegiances and rivalries at remarkable speed, where children were cheap and life was very fucking quick.

I’m not going to describe the show in detail, because I wouldn’t do it justice (I’ve wrestled with how to write this since seeing the performance 2 days ago) but also on the offchance that the company may perform it again, in which case I urge you to sell your least favourite body organ to procure a ticket. Truth be told, I couldn’t speak of the full experience if I wanted to, as I only caught a fragment of it. Each performance is for eight people at a time and we were picked off, reassembled and reformed many times over the course of an hour, but always made privy to performances of such heart-breaking conviction that it felt like a gift and a blessing to bear witness.

Angel Meadow is totally immersive I’ve seen companies like Punchdrunk and Shunt and never felt truly touched – how could I with 50 other people in the room? And then, for the inhibited amongst us, there’s always the nagging anxiety: ‘Don’t pick on me, please don’t single me out’. Involving the audience can be enthralling, but it isn’t the same as making them perform. When this happens, encounters become forced, uncomfortable and leave Sue the office manager feeling exposed, like she’s fallen short all at the same time. Angel Meadow avoided this by not turning us into performers, but by taking away the audience. We fell through the space in this funny old run-down pub, sometimes landing together, sometimes alone. I might grease up a boxer for a fight or have a chat in the kitchen about flowers. Either way it’s just me (and maybe one other) and the performer, no-one to mediate or judge. We were free to play.

And if this still sounds eggy and uncomfortable, it isn’t. The performers are so extraordinarily committed that you allow them to pull you through this sordid wormhole without resistance. You move from watching a play, to watching people, to being part of the group. The final event was delivered with such energy and conviction that I came out shaking. And I know that sounds like a shitty theatre critic thing to say, but I’m not wearing a top hat, I’m not arsed about the fourth wall and I don’t cry at soliloquies. I don’t care for a lot of the stuff that I’m supposed to, stuff that’s ‘groundbreaking’ and ‘ award-winning’. I’m a human being who thought she wanted to spend the night on the sofa and ended up having an earth-shattering experience in Angel Meadow.

pho the love of God

I’m very excited today. When I’m this giddy, it has to do with one of the following: food, eating, or the anticipation of food and eating.

Tonight, I’m giong up the road, away from the delectable cool of the Northern Quarter’s restaurants, away from the big beefy steakhouses of Deansgate, away from the lovely continental snippets on offer all over central Manchester. I’m going in the opposite direction, towards a little hole in the wall, a bring your own charmpot that more convinces me that I don’t need to pay the airfare to get a taste of Vietnam.

Granted, V-Nam on the Oldham Road doesn’t look like much. It’s slap bang in the middle of a row of what used to be shops when this part of town was cheefully considered a community, but is now replaced by a few high rises and busy stretch of dual carriageway and a place that no-one calls home. The restaurant itself is really a cafe and they haven’t wasted any effort on making you think otherwise; it’s adornement-free, unless you count un-used plug sockets and undistinguishable marks on the wall. The music is always, gratifyingly R n B (think Boyz to Men, not Beyonce) and the whole thing is perfect if you don’t want to be bothered by staff or have your water topped up every two minutes. But, the food, ah the food!

I watched a programme on making pho, which is the national dish of Vietnam, a kind of soupy herby, sweet and sour broth with noodles. In it, Rick Stein had a minor aneurysm perfecting his stock, which involved roasting and boiling bones and herbs for hours. He fussed over the balance of fresh spices, the ratio of noodle to meat. He was happy with the results and gave it, beaming, to a vietnamese woman who took one slurp and declared it ‘too salty’. Stein was crestfallen, but held it together. At least he had come close to slaying the pho dragon.

But the programme convinced me that to make pho, specifically the soup mix, is not something that you can do for two people. You need to make mass quantities to make it worth your while. Which conveniently means that I can go to V-Nam to sample it, where they must make a bath load everyday and leave it simmering on a low heat for me to bathe in. So here’s what I’ll have.

I’ll have hands down the best salt and pepper squid that man has ever tried. Forget about your calamari or your fritto misto; V-Nam serves its squid in big boisterous wedges, battered and seasoned and chilli-d to perfection. Then I’ll have the prawn pho, a cauldron of soup dotted with bouncy pink shrimp, the size of a 50p coin. Most seafood places in Manchester urge you to remortgage your house to eat shellfish, but at V-Nam, they produce wonders for under a tenner. I will add to my soup some noodles, fresh coriander and mint, lime and chilli. Easy on the beansprouts (a personal thing). I will slurp until soup runs freely down my chin.

Then I will sit back and muse on Stein’s efforts, and maybe even feel a little sorry for him. I’ll enjoy it, too: it’s perhaps the only time I’ll ever be able to feel pity for a man who travels the world eating and cooking kick-ass food.

Don’t come for me, hunty

There’s only one Suarez in Liverpool.

Admittedly, when I signed up for a voguing workshop run by the House of Suarez, I wondered if we would learn how to stylishly bite, dive and offer racial offensives, but I was wrong. This one had nothing to do with the notorious Liverpool striker, but was run by Darren Suarez and I was more than happy to be one of his children for the afternoon.

Get over Madonna: Have you ever seen Paris is Burning? Jennie Livingston’s documentary tells all about the origins of voguing and is one of the most affecting films I’ve seen. It documents the build up and preparation for the balls, which would go on for twelve hours, where New york’s gay community would sacrifice hours on costume and routine to walk the catwalk and be judged for their efforts. Categories included costume, erotic and my favourite, ‘realness’, where men would pass for Upper West side businessmen or soliders. Waiting in the Costa coffee across the road from the Contact theatre, I tried to keep my mind of my nerves by thinking of alternative Mancunian categories: out of town carouser, or harrased M and S worker, perhaps?

It didn’t matter when we got in there. As Darren explained, the House of Suarez and the balls that he runs are there to innovate, not replicate, the New York scene. What Darren favours is New-Voguing, which is much more flowing and much less bitchy than the world depicted in Paris is Burning. Enough backstory: what were we going to do?

Darren slowly and effortlessly walked us through a short piece of choreography, which focused on arm movements, specifically framing the face. It was much more precise than I’d imagined and bloody difficult to pull off: whenever anyone says ‘ do some voguing’ to me (which is surpirsingly often – I must have that kind of face), I generally pout and flap and pop my hips. The first time I tried Darren’s routine, I looked like I was trying to untangle myself from a freshly washed polo-neck jumper.

It wasn’t pretty. After a few run-throughs at half speed and then full speed, I felt sufficiently confident to bring on my key players; the hips and the pout. I thought I looked damn good and as there were no mirrors in the room, you’ll have to take my word for it. We paused then, to learn some of the slang terminology which form the basis of any episode of Ru-Paul’s Drag Race. I loved this and will enjoy watching some of these key phrases whizz over the top of my year 10’s heads on Monday. Don’t come for me, hun-ty!

Darren must have worked some magic. My provisos, agreed with my co-Voguee, before we went in were: we won’t do anything on our own and we won’t do any group work. We even had a safety word! After breaking us in, however, I was more than happy to work with my group, wittily named by me: the House of Fraser. Haha.

We worked out a small bit of choreography and then we took to the stage. It was brilliant! Being an anti-social witch, my greatest fear in workshops is having to interact with unknowns, but everyone had caught the bug by this point and accepted the great workshop truth: I will never see you again, I don’t even know your name, but for now, let’s make the magic happen …

It was small beans, but I genuinely enjoyed unleashing my hidden diva at 3 in the afternoon in Manchester City Centre and though I’m unlikely to strut a catwalk anytime soon, I will definitely look out for any House of Suarez events. Sadly, for me, the upcoming ball has sold out, but I’m dead happy that Voguing has a steady, devoted and incredibly mixed audience. The workshop attendees were 95% women who, like me, probably had serious jobs, or studies, or families. But for today, at least, we were FIERCE.

Girl from space

About 5 years ago I went to see a comic who was warming up for an Edinburgh stint. It had all the hallmarks of an Edinburgh stint warm up show; a lot of the material was sketchy, and the comic was making little asides to himself and jotting notes in a pad about which jokes worked and which didn’t. The loudest laughs came from a section where the comic talked about the absurdities of women’s fashion, and it’s a section that I’ve seen him replay on TV comedy quiz shows on more than one occasion.

I don’t mind. It is a good bit. The comic talked about the current trend for big bags (popularised by Victoria Beckham amongst others) and tiny, high heeled boots. With big hair. It’s what is called in fashion mags a ‘ groomed’ look, and suggests wealth and glamour. The comedian used it for reductio ad absurdum; if we followed this trend doggedly, the world would be populated by women transformed into some sort of dinosaur throwback, tottering around on heels, bent double by the weight of their bags, half blinded by their own hair.

He told it a lot better than I did. As you can tell, because it’s an image that has stayed with me longer than the name of the comedian did. I’ve never been particularly interested in fashion, beyond aspiring to look like Bette Davis in the latter section of Now, Voyager and realistically being satisfied with my effort if I wear something other than jeans. But I recognised the style of dress that he talked about and I recognise the pain that it must, it will, cause if subscribed to everyday.

Manchester is a curious place for fashion. People work very hard to belong to a particular clique. At the moment, any Friday Night in the Northern Quarter, a war is being waged between the hipsters (attire: vintage, plaid shirts, cropped tops mix and match) and the glamour crowd (short structured dresses, fake tan, backcombed hair). I never witness these wars, because I’m usually tucked up at home writing another bloody blog, but I do witness the fallout on a Saturday morning. Today, as I stepped out for my acupuncture appointment (for regular readers the soundscape today was Clayderman revisiting Bryan Adam’s back catalogue and the beachtowel I was under was turquoise), I witnessed a child born of a fashion war.

She was dressed in black shiny lycra leggings with a short cream cropped top, with high heeled, peep toe boots. Her hair fell as straight as water from Niagra Falls and her make up made her face take on a strange sheen. Anyone educated in Britan during the eighties was probably made to watch the ‘Look and Read’ series. In which case, you may have seen ‘The Boy from Space ‘ (indeed how could you forget it, so brilliant and strange it was) – that is the only way I can describe the pallour she achieved. She had inked in a severe pair of eyebrows and a thick battalion of eyelashes to keep any enquirers at a safe distance. She was walking past a Greggs’ when i saw her.

Listen, I don’t really give a shit what anyone wears. In fact, being such a fashion scaredy cat, I admire anyone who makes considered effort to express themselves through clothes and then has the chutzpah to ‘style it out’. But at least enjoy it! I went to Goldsmiths College, where people regularly dressed as sculpures or magic eye posters, but they owned it; they wanted to talk about the way they looked and what it meant. More often than not, they dressed like that because it made them happy. On the other hand, this girl looked scared, defensive, hostile. She had made incredible effort to be noticed for her choices but her attitude was so withdrawn and blocked that I felt sorry for her. Also, she looked in pain; not in that carefree ‘ oh well my feet are going to kill me tomorrow but for tonight I’m going to knock em dead’ sort of way. This was midday on a Saturday on a day as cold as a well-digger’s ass, where everyone around her was dressed in normal waffley stuff, like fleeces and scarves. She was wincing, but covering her pain with defiance; don’t look at me, don’t talk to me, don’t anything. How had she arrived at that kind of fashion?

Fashion is inevitable, because society says that we have to wear clothes, and to choose clothes, we have to make choices, whether fashionable or not. Why make the choice to be in pain and then not even enjoy the effect you create, or have a damn good time looking the way you do? I know that I sound as if I am hobbling ever forward on my Zimmer Frame towards a sensible seniority, but I don’t remember fashion being like this when I was a lass. Even punk was aggressively, flamboyantly playful, not self-consciously agonising.

Please, young ladies and gentleman, wear weird stuff. We all did it, at least once. And it gives older people the opportunity to laugh with you (not at you; it reminds us, joyfully, of our own teenage wardrobe malfunctions). But please, embrace it; do it with a smile. Too soon you will feel the horrifying warmth of fleece and know that your time in lycra leggings was too brief and you will regret not spending it with a smile on your face.

Inside Out

I’m playing fast and loose with the Daily Prompt today: although I’m only on day 7 of my blog-quest, perhaps a near week of work has led to the well of inspiration running dry. But, just to be original I’m going to write about being on the inside, imagining the outside.

For a teacher, I’m an insubordinate old shrew. I spend most of my day telling students what to do and expecting them to follow my orders. A memorable dialogue from today went like this:

HIM: Miss, can I go to the toilet?

ME: No.

HIM: But I need to go!

ME: Well, DON’T need to go!

Do I think I am King Canute, ordering back the tide? No, I just know my students very well and the odds of this student felling nature call just as they are about to start an exam were highly unlikely. And I’m bossy.

So I’m all for subversion outside of the classroom: a stickler for rules if I’m setting them, but following them? Me, not so much. For instance, I find the suggestion of someone telling me to relax utterly ridiculous. How am I supposed to relax? The mere implication that you need to tell me to do so infers that I am not relaxed, and probably with good reason! Likewise, I find the process of meditating incredibly difficult: as soon as the voice intones that famous phrase ‘ connect with your breath, feel it’s natural rise and fall’, I find myself going through an artificial construct of breathing, forcing the air in and out of my lungs like a hand operated bellow, or, worse still, trying so hard to make my breathing natural that I ……eventually …stop ……breathing …altogether. By this point, any thoughts of connectnig with breath, a genuinely natural occurence when I’m not thinking about it, are out of the window, and I sit up, scratch my head and open a book instead.

So, relaxation on command is not for me. Particularly arduous are trips to the masseuse; as soon as I hear ambient music in a candle-lit chamber I know that it is an exercise in futility. I spend the next 30 minutes urging myself to enjoy this indulgence but inevitably spend it worrying if I left the hob on or if the masseuse actually fancies me, because that last stroke was a little too friendly. I often come out with more tension than I went in with, and have to feign gratitude at the end, barely making eye contact.

What a horrible person. But how can I relax when you tell me to?

Fortunately I have found the antidote, and that is to seek out he opposite of relaxation for any therapeutic treatments. I have had acupuncture on and off for years, with varying degrees of success. Needless to say, the mesmeric, ‘ you will relax you will relax you will relax’ style does nothing for me, but my current practicioners is a minor miracle. The sessions take place in an open fronted shop in Manchester’s Arndale Centre, which is a huge shopping mall, if you’ve never been there. The Acupuncturists is between the sliding doors onto the High Street and a Milk Shake Bar. Sessions take place in small cubicles with no noise insulation and everyone who works there is always shouting. Always. The noise of the traffic of gobby Mancunian shoppers (ususally kids screaming, laughter, someone having an argument on the phone) competes with the Techno music from next door and the shouting of the acupuncturists. Did I mention that? Because the cubicles aren’t insulated, you can hear the outline of everyone else’s ailments in consultation (one patient was requesting treatment to recover from a skipping injury, I kid you not). The final harmony line is the clinic’s own choice of music, pumped in through a stereo; they tend to favour Mandarin versions of popular tunes, such as ‘Baby’ by Justin Beiber or ‘Poker Face’ by Lady Gaga. To complete the full sensory experience, I lay under what may or may not be someone’s beach towel for half an hour with pins stuck in my head.

This, dear reader, produces the most relaxing half hour of my week – more often than not I fall into a blissful half sleep, and wake, dry mouthed and groggy only when my doctor is applying the cups. I walk out as if on air. I dance home. Then I lie down again and fall to slumber. The only time I relax is when the odds are against me; when fate and geography and other people and beachtowels conspire against what normal people would want in a fulfilling de-stress. But I think in order to relax, I need to feel close to life; in my cubicle I am protected yet so near to a lot of competing activity, and it’s here that I find the most satisfying repose.

But that’s just a theory. Like I said, I’m an insubordinate old shrew.

Driving Miss Lazy

Can you remember what your old classroom looked like? I have a friend who showed me a photo of hers recently; it was a portacabin with a broken window and a peeling woodchip wall. What was most remarkable about the picture is that 20 years later, 5 of the people in that photo were present in the room, well adjusted responsible adults who were still friends. It made my heart warm, I tell you. And it made me wish that I had a photograph, because I honestly can’t remember what mine was like. Classrooms have been landed in the same pile of instantly dismissable as doctor’s surgeries and banks. There were probably some posters or ‘display work’ on the walls, but ultimately who cares? If I can’t remember it, neither can they is my doctrine, which, as a teacher, gives me carte blanche to leave the walls pretty much as they are; a few bits of neat work (timewasting) and some inspirational posters. But my lassitude makes me a rarity in this profession: if they ever run out of ideas for makeover programmes (they are near the bottom of the barrel – an episode of Doggy Styling is on as I write) they should talk to some of the teachers I have worked with; their rooms could induce epilectic fits, so bedecked are they with advice on apostrophes and inspring quotations. But maybe I’m wrong. Maybe just because I pay not the blindest bit of notice to what is going on around me unless it is to poke fun of it, doesn’t mean my students are doing the same! In this spirit I have decided to actually read the motivational quotes emblazoned around my room and live by their creed, something which I am pretty sure my colleagues don’t manage.

A dispatch from the field: there is a vogue in teaching at the moment to encourage independence, to foster resilience, to applaud effort and challenge rather than natural skill and talent. I heartily approve of this: too often and too easily are the ‘bright ones’ and the A grades rewarded and not the students who work their arses off for a D grade. So a sea change in research has been embraced, at least superficially by teachers and our first port of call when embracing a new idea is the poster cupboard. Let’s whack some mottos up, create a banner in publisher: make them independent! But in my honest opinion, we teachers are the last out of the traps when it comes to practising what we preach. And I use myself as a prominent example of this.

I passed my driving test when I was 19. I passed it on my second attempt and only because the examiner, who was a little man in a pork pie hat, was on his last day of duty. He told me all this as I perched nervously on the edge of the seat, wondering why the handbrake looked so far away. I nodded manically, actually unable to hear at this point. He sat low in the seat: I closed my eyes and turned the ignition. 40 minutes later and I’d passed! Though whether either of us had opened our eyes for the entire journey is debatable: he seemed pretty tired and why not? Can you think of anyone more grateful for relaxation than a driving examiner on his last day of duty? Good for him, I say, but the nagging doubt that maybe I shouldn’t have passed my test all that time ago has hung over me ever since, like a Disney princess under some sort of spell.

I have driven twice since that day. My dad thought it would be a good idea for me to drive him back from the pub once (thus enabling him to get royally rat-arsed). Surprisingly the jump from a two door panda to a 5 series BMW was a step too far and I nearly wrapped it around the lamp-post outside our house. The second time has provided a rich and consistent seam of comedy gold for my older sister, because I took her round a corner in third gear. Haha! She trots this one out whenever she can, even when I just happen to mention anything even vaguely motor-related, like so:

ME: “There’s nothing on. Just Driving Miss Daisy and I don’t want to watch that”

HER: Driving? Bahahaha! Can you remember when you drove me round the corner? In THIRD GEAR? You’re an idiot.

ME: Yes. Yes I am.

This was over 15 years ago now. Her act is very, very tired. Truth be told, I’ve held on to these minor setbacks longer than most and,coupled with a prolonged 12 year stay in London, where you have to be mad or rich or both to own a car, I conveniently forgot to drive again. I like to get driven: I have an annoying habit of leaning in the same direction as the car as if I’m propelling it on, but otherwise I sit and am chauffeured. Which is fine when you live in London, but when you live in Manchester and work elsewhere, it’s a hassle. The trains are real adventures in “Goodnight Sweetheart” land, and not in a quaint way. They smell, they’re old, there’s flakes of pastry everywhere and I feel like a non-human when I have to rely on them. Please don’t misunderstand me if you are still reading at this point: public transport is essential and I would continue to use it even after learning to drive again. My bid to get behind the wheel has everything to do with control, my control over how I get around. Good Lord, maybe I’m finally become an adult?

So, I’m finally heeding the advice that Maya Angelou, Joyce Carol Oates et al have been shouting at me from my classroom walls (I’m sure that it’s exactly what they had in mind when writing about overcoming hardships, facing adversity, etc etc). I’m actually going to practice what I preach and relearn this driving malarkey. The best New Year Resolutions involve the acquisition of something rather than the denial; much better to vow to learn Mandarin than give up trifle for a year, methinks. And besides, how hard can it be? I will let you know, but you may wish to stay off the roads in the meantime.

Enjoy the Silence

Noises Off Experiment: Day 5

Hello! If you’ve just found me, you may need to read the last couple of posts to work out what I’m doing. If you like intrigue and are short of time, let’s just say I’m audio-fasting (thanks Rhi x)

Living in the Northern Quarter of Manchester, I have been blessed with an incredible view of the surrounding hills. The sky high rent affords me a sky high view of the brink of the shoulder of the Pennines, as it mooches off towards Scotland. The weather at the moment is hormonal, swinging from sunny spells to fierce rain and the sky is a real Rorschach most of the time. I like to think that the clouds are not the source of the problem, but its victim, pinioned to the sky, forced to obey whatever the weather throws at them (charming naivety or idiocy: you decide). Whatever, I’m a cloud champion and today they have been majestic. Great merchant ships of grey, looming into my window vision like the Deathstar, unencumbered by the literal sturm und drang which surrounds them. They were immense and well ….cloud, in myriad forms right the way to the horizon. I tried some mental word association to see what would happen. It went like this:

Kansas

Dorothy

Ruby Slippers

New Shoes

Aldo

I evidently need some mind opening alongside my audio fasting! Still, taking in the clouds made me think about the term luxury and how misleading my perception of it is. I think of luxury as a sky high apartment and a flatscreen, for example. But at least the apartment gives me the opportunity to take in this spectacular view. Granted, I could take in the clouds from somewhere less indulgent, but can I walk before I run? The view is the thing, not the rest of what living here affords.

In fact, I have re-evaluated what I consider pleasurable and luxurious this week and have realised pretty quickly that a night in front of the box hasn’t made the shortlist. Television hasn’t entered the mind-debate much for me this week, as it hasn’t been something that I have consciously missed and this is surprising. Once through the door, the TV would habitually be on, for company, for edification (no, that isn’t true), for entertainment, for whatever reason, but rarely was it genuinely watched. It was soundscape; all other reasons are pure subterfuge. If I do sit down to watch something, I’m shuffling within minutes, checking my phone or my laptop or a magazine. So my angst about losing the background sound was pre-emptive; there is no sense of deprivation, no withdrawal, just a happy change. I realise now that silence is not an absence, a challenge, a trial; its a bona fide luxury, a true one, along with a few others, such as a chair, a window and clouds …

Loving Kindness

Noises Off Experiment: Day 3

Ah.

Like Jon Snow, I’ve hit a bit of a wall (as has that probably now-overused metaphor). Audio fast day two did not end well, and in the most surprising way. I went to meditation class at the local Buddhist Centre, a wonderful and benevolent resource in the middle of Manchester, a class that I often attend and in the normal run of things, something that provides an oasis in the week. But my current detox seems to have turned everything on its head.

“Tonight we’re going to go through the Loving Kindness, or Metta Bhavana meditation” said Kevin (admittedly not a superficially Buddhist-y title, but I’m sure he has another one that he’s too modest to use during seminars). I’ve done this meditation before and it’s lovely; you focus on a different person for each of the five stages and wish them happiness and health. The challenge is that the penultimate stage you must send out good wishes to someone you find difficult. Well, it was a barfight in my mind! The silence and concentration around me magnified my thoughts, turning them into a polyphony of sounds stretching back to the start of the day to the chiropractors appointment that I had cancelled and forwards all the way to weighing up potential problems with my summer holiday. The more I turned attention to my breathing, the harder my mind distracted me, the mental equivalent of this:

I know a song that can get on your nerves

Get on your nerves,

I know a song that can get on your nerves

And this is how it goes:

I know a song etc etc till you fall down screaming.

Loving Kindness turned into Ire and Spite: I failed to think a singularly nice thought about anyone and although Kevin has said that this happens and it’s okay, just observe the thoughts and let them go, I couldn’t! Which was the aim of this week. Ay me.

Subsequently, my ears are now craving a ditty, a jingle, a tune to give me respite from my thoughts and allow me to vacate the old headspace. Meditation class last night showed me how frustrating and fraught living in my head is and how difficult simple can be.

4 to go ….

This Charming Manc

The last couple of months have been filled with the kind of dread and anxiety that I imagine baby cows experience on the veal truck to nowhere. Leaving London felt impossibly big and the time I had to complete all the ‘things I haven’t yet done’ seemed ridiculously small. Even the shit bits were romanticised; I gazed at the puke on the pavement like it was morning dew, the shouty smelly weirdo at the tube station became the last bastion of eccentric London. Sullen moody queue pushers were smiled on fondly. Could I really be leaving all this splendour behind?

To be honest, by the final week, living as if I were in a film was getting a little tiresome so I was ready to make the break. The only time I remember being genuinely upset was when it was time to say goodbye to the guy who works in our cornershop. Friends I know I will stay in touch with, maintaining relations witnewsagents will be more difficult, so the reality of not ever seeing him again was genuinely affecting for both of us.

The move was stressful and long and everything we hoped it would be, so enough of that. Permit me to be really smug instead.

Manchester. is. great. Possibly (and it’s early I know and I haven’t been to work yet) even better than London. There, I said it, Cockneys! Here are my reasons why, a wide ranging mix of cliche and genuinely excellent observation:

1. Less pigeons. This is a major factor for me as I hate those little turds.

2. Black pudding is practically a condiment. And it is really good black pudding! In fact, breakfasts are across the board fabulous; I recommend Teacup (which has a very hands on owner in Mr Scruff, purveyor of fine tea, fine music and a Manc legend) and the Koffeepot, which is like your favourite bits of every previous era rolled into one.

3. People are friendlier. Boring but true. The only snake in the grass that we’ve come across so far has been the estate agent! Football fans are not known for their top table manners, but at Old Trafford recently, people were kindly stepping aside to let people out of the rows in front and everyone was thanking everyone else profusely like it was Oscar night!

4. I can walk everywhere from my house. To the station, the theatre, the best bars and pubs. No more Transport for London Journey Planner! And I can get to proper real-life countryside (see pic below) in less than 45 minutes!

5. Traffic lights turn green quicker. I offer no empirical evidence for this, but I have waited on enough stubborn red men in my life to know a quick and fortuitous change when I see one.

6. Great Northern Institutions, like Wilkinson’s, where you can get everything for £5. Never knowingly undersold? Pah! Never knowingly disappointed, more like.

7. And finally; 2 x fish and chips with gravy = £10. This one alone is enough to guarantee a mass exodus to Lancashire. Please don’t come. We don’t want you.

Why stay south, I ask you, why stay south?