On a Sunday trip to Sale Water Park just past the Chester
Road Bridge I was waylaid by a young man with a bike who’d seen something
strange in Bridgewater Canal. Bottles, cans, plastic bags, footballs, fish,
ducks, swans, geese: these are the indigenous flora and fauna of Bridgewater
Canal. How had a cannabis plant ended up a hand span underwater? Obviously he
needed advice from a person with longer hair than his, as everyone knows that
knowledge of cannabis sativa increases in direct proportion to hair length. We
marvelled a moment at this biological conundrum, until I hit upon a possible
aquatic sativa hypothesis: someone had feared a police raid and hidden their
plant in the canal where they could return later and fish it out. On returning
a few hours later, the mysterious hash plant was gone. What really went on
there? Had the mysterious plant been rescued by a pot diver? Had stoner swans
nibbled it all up? Maybe a disgruntled lover had tried to drown it in a jealous
rage.
Disgruntled partner: “Yo love yo spliff more ‘un me!”
Gruntled partner: “Too right, innit bro!”
Disgruntled partner: “I’m drownin’ yo plant in the canal.”
Gruntled partner: “Ha ha ha! No one talks to me like that!
No one talks to anyone like that!”
The mystery of how a large
cannabis plant made a brief guest appearance in the canal will probably always
remain. In the end it’s just another silly story to tell someone in Brazil. It could have been
a male plant as the males just don't get you high!
Facebook has been so useful these past few days, reminding
me it’s my birthday soon. What would I do without these constant tedious
reminders? Maybe watch the world cup final? On Monday Simon the signer-onner
wished me happy birthday for next Sunday, and told me it was also the day of
the cup final. How fishy that I hadn’t even realised this! Sun Ra’s weird and
wonderful “Space is the Place” film is showing at Home and that’s more my cup
of Saturnic jazz. If England play Saturn in the final your waters will have
been proven half right. Whoever wins, it’s an exciting time for Mediterranean vegetables,
as courgettes and aubergines are on special offer at Aldi, or All Die as I call
it in a questionable attempt at “black humour.” I’ve never heard people talk of
“white humour.” Is this racist?
Through the window of a 15 bus I saw a cyclist with an
anti-fracking banner balanced precariously on the back of her bike so I knew
I’d got the right day for the protest against frackers Cuadrilla and their
appeal to extend an injunction against protesters at the Preston New Road
fracking site. It turned out that this was Amy S. Olive who I’d met once before
at an Acorn Tenants Union meeting. Minnie Mirshahi had told me about this demo,
but she didn’t make it herself even though she lives just round the corner at
Islington Mill. She must have been busy Minnying elsewhere. A huge amount of
statements in opposition to the appeal had been delivered earlier, so the
appeal was going to go on much longer than just that morning. When I arrived at
the county court I pushed the number of protesters into double figures. Most of
them were dressed in yellow, but I was dressed in red, just like those
confusing world cup matches. Fifteen people turned up to protest, and most of
us left just after midday for some lunch at the nearby People’s History Museum,
kindly bought for us all by a sweet old lady called Julie who was wearing a
pro-immigration Paddington bear T-shirt. We all got to know each other a bit
better over lunch, and somehow I ended up giving the last four remaining
protestors an acapella rendition of “It’s a Heatwave!” A girl called Samar
said, “I don’t think I would like this band.”
It was nice of the government to pay my travel expenses for
a day of protesting against their fracking foolishness, but I had to sacrifice
two and a half hours to job searching at Standguide on Piccadilly Plaza. This
is a company who are paid by the government to help people find work. This
amounts to providing a slower internet connection than the public libraries so
is a pointless waste of tax money. I amused another job searcher by telling him
I might well try to find work by writing an article about Standguide for a
newspaper, but I’ve been threatening to do this for well over a year without
actually bothering to do it.
Later in Vinyl Exchange Joel the bassist of the excellent Easter
sold me two CDs by American psychedelic primitives Carlton Melton and
Australia’s most sensitive and philosophical band, Cosmic Psychos. I crossed
the road to Piccadilly Records to flip through lots of vinyl I can’t afford to
buy and was greeted by the very familiar tones of “The Fifteenth” by Wire. I
punched the air and shouted “Yes!” like a football fan whose squid propelled
wheelbarrow has just scored a goal, and sang the whole song whilst Andy whooped
from the counter. It was the fish teeth! Fifteen people had been protesting
outside the county court, and the fifteenth is also my birthday. There was a
silent spell afterwards so whether they liked it or not I gave them an acapella
rendition of “The Other Window,” the next song from “154.” Great music followed
me about as I was slightly amazed that they were playing The Stranglers “Golden
Brown” in Nationwide Building Society so I got to do a bit more punk rock
karaoke. Outside on Market Street a very good rasta singer was singing reggae
karaoke, with a friend on bongos, so I stuck around to listen until he finished
his busk by singing Bob Marley’s “Redemption Songs” with an acoustic guitar
instead of a backing track. I went for an organic cider in an almost deserted
Peer Hat, where it seemed that someone had stolen poor Michelle Woods’ bag with
her house keys and other valuables. Aki the artist turned up for the life
drawing class in Aatma, and whilst he waited cut out some ugly Donald Trump
heads from old flyers for a play so I could use them to make a hideous sign to
hold on Friday’s anti-Trump demo. I met Julie again at the anti-Trump
mobilisation meeting but was slightly disappointed that none of the speakers
mentioned his despicable war on elephants, although Trump is guilty of so much
bullshit we’d have been there well into the next day if it all got spoken
about.
I couldn’t believe I
was actually at a musical concert for the first time since Friday. It had been
so long I’d almost forgotten what gigs were like: the roar of the greasepaint,
the smell of the crowd. This was actually a relatively small crowd who were not
at all smelly. The upstairs room in Marble is quite small and hot so we were
all glad about that. According to my friend Vicky Middles, Dinosaur Jr fans are
the smelliest. I think she may be wrong and Stranglers fans might be smellier. The
only person I know in Manchester who might possibly make it to more gigs than
me is Cath Aubergine and she was there, as was Laurence who occasionally puts on
nice quiet gigs where he gives everyone cakes he bakes. Downstairs at the bar I
got talking to a guy called Brian because he was wearing a Sonic Youth
“Confusion is Sex” T-shirt. It turned out he was just three years old when I
saw Sonic Youth for the first time, supported by Mudhoney at Kilburn National
on the “Daydream Nation” tour. I told him it was the most excited I’d ever been
at a gig, yes, even including Hotpants Romance gigs! I am so sorry. How can you ever forgive me? We
exchanged opinions on the relative merits of various Sonic Youth albums and it
turned out we both liked Lee’s songs the most. The extraordinary drummer Andrew
Cheetham of Easter was there too, along with Nick Ainsworth of Former Bullies
and Secret Admirer. The always amiable RL Perry had put the gig on and even
after a few drinks he was still Comfortable on a Tightrope. It was the second
time I’d seen Wurms and the first time I’d seen Vital Idles. Both bands sing
out of tune so I think you would have appreciated them. Vital Idles remind me a
little of early Wire, but much more ramshackle. The drummer of Vital Idles
seemed quite familiar but I couldn’t place him at first until I realised it was
Matt, who used to go out with our firm friend Kate Armitage. It was uncannily
funny that I was carrying my important papers and water in the Hotpants Romance
shoulder bag that Kate gave me when I went round to her posh flat for an
emergency shower, as for the rest of the anti-leather jacket heatwave I’d been
using a Talk Normal shoulder bag. It was nice to see Matt again even without
his beard, and it struck me as funny that the night his band were playing
Manchester Kate was playing a gig in London. Then again maybe I am just easily
amused.
I am now using the free newspaper with a picture of that relentless
incompetent bozo Boris Johnson wearing a silly helmet and waving a Union Jack
to mop up water that leaks from my fridge, drowning him in effigy.
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