I WILL wait until all the PR flim-flam has settled down before commenting on the programme of events for Liverpool’s Capital of Culture year. Don’t hold your breath, folks…
But for now I can’t really judge the substance of this continuously hyped event for all the distractions of publicly-financed logo-launchers popping their clogs and marketing people having involuntary leaks from their urinary tracts.
Meanwhile, how did my bonfire night go? Well, very nicely, thanks for asking…
I went to a Saturday “bommy” held at a skip depot in Birkenhead that’s managed by my mate the Barcardi Queen.
The whole atmosphere was really nice, with fire roaring away, constantly loaded up with more wood by a giant mechanical digger, plus plenty of fireworks and good beer-fodder, or “jackbit” as they call it in Wigan.
I contributed a slab of parkin to the feast.
There was a kind of disco in the lee of an upturned, super-sized skip.
In the immediate vicinity, those icons of industrial Birkenhead, the elevated link road and the giant gasometer, glowed in the honeyed light of the fire.
It was a perfect backdrop for a trendy urban ragamuffin like meself. I bopped away quite happily to Madonna tracks and to “Sweet Child of Mine” by Guns’n’Roses. Quality.
Quite a few of the old posse from Hell’s Waiting Room went along to the Barcardi Queen’s bash including Tallulah Swells, her husband Alberre, Delilah Durham and Billy Bustimes.
Bommy night proper took place on Sunday, of course, and I saw it all in spectacular style...
You see, I went for a run at dusk – always my favourite time of day with its soft, velvety light – from New Brighton to Wallasey Beach, along the old cliffs and dunes, taking in the Prom during the last stretch.
Well, by the time I reached my destination it had gone dark. Unusually for me, I decided to have a fag break before running home and I also took a walk to the water’s edge and looked out over Liverpool Bay. Marvellous.
When I started my run back home I saw to my right fireworks and bonfires in a spectacular linear display. All over Wallasey village and New Brighton people were letting off their whizzes and bangs.
Ahead of me the sky was equally spectacular. Rocket plumes transformed the dark sacred beauty of the night over Bootle docks and the Crosby shore.
Through this sublime scene, a passenger ship, lights blazing, made her way into the Mersey.
On such nights there is no better place to be than New Brighton.
I finished off Sunday evening in Hell’s Waiting Room, where a lively crew of musicians and various shiny happy people kept my spirits up.
I left there so cheered that I didn’t descend into the trough of despond, which is the place where my head usually resides as Sunday merges into another Monday of toil.
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Ricky from Baynards wrote...
Oooh, you're such an urban warrior Mr Regan, jiving your butt off in a gritty (literally) environment like that. Did you ever see 'The Warriors' - a late 70's schlock fest of ghetto gang members trying to find their way home to Coney Island through hostile New York. I could just imagine you being cast for the remake. Your noble profile silhouetted against a skip while the flames flicker all around you!
*** REGAN REPLIES: Would that life was so poetic, Ricky Lad.
Posted by: Ricky from Baynards | November 8, 2006 1:54 PM