Blackpool Illuminations - 7th November 2009
I know, I know... Blackpool isn't in Germany. I know! OK? It happened during the year though...
A trip to Blackpool is always an experience, given that it involves a visit to see my Dad. Only kidding, Father ;-) I don’t have to eat for three days after a visit. I obviously look underfed… Mind you, I am anorexic; I look in the mirror and see a fat bastard staring back at me ;-) Hey, these are the jokes folks. I feel like Fozzie Bear…
Anyhoo, I was still feeling pretty rough with the dose of flu-like lurg that had prevented me from staying to the end of the Pavlov’s Dog gig but, at least, I was walking around, even if I did feel like I needed to sleep in an iron lung for a week, and had a bark like a St Bernard with terminal whooping cough. Still, being a Mensch, I was not about to miss this bloody gig. Firstly, it was a birthday present for someone very dear to me and, secondly, well, there is no secondly. Oh, yeah, I’d promised to be on my best behaviour too. Bear that in mind…
A trip to Blackpool is always an experience, given that it involves a visit to see my Dad. Only kidding, Father ;-) I don’t have to eat for three days after a visit. I obviously look underfed… Mind you, I am anorexic; I look in the mirror and see a fat bastard staring back at me ;-) Hey, these are the jokes folks. I feel like Fozzie Bear…
Anyhoo, I was still feeling pretty rough with the dose of flu-like lurg that had prevented me from staying to the end of the Pavlov’s Dog gig but, at least, I was walking around, even if I did feel like I needed to sleep in an iron lung for a week, and had a bark like a St Bernard with terminal whooping cough. Still, being a Mensch, I was not about to miss this bloody gig. Firstly, it was a birthday present for someone very dear to me and, secondly, well, there is no secondly. Oh, yeah, I’d promised to be on my best behaviour too. Bear that in mind…
So, after eating enough food to choke a herd of rhinoceros, we decided to go for a wander round Blackpool and see how the old place had changed. The thing about Blackpool is that it changes, yet it stays the same. It is still just as tacky as hell, as naff as it always was, and full of really stupid grockles who only come for one thing. These were always the things I hated when I lived here, and I still do. When you live somewhere like Blackpool, you never go where the tourists are, you take back streets, drink in places that are well off the prom, and avoid town like there’s just been a four minute warning. Today, we were going to venture into the shopping area. Brave stuff. I almost felt like I should have been dressed in a safari suit, wearing a pith helmet, and carrying an elephant gun. Actually, the elephant gun would have come in useful, in retrospect. Naturally, the weather in early November, in Blackpool can be a little unsettled. No change there; it was persistently precipitating, in a way that I’ve only ever experienced in Blackpool. I was less than impressed when I stepped on a broken paving stone and a jet of icy water shot up my trouser leg and proceeded to trickle down my leg and pool in my shoe. Thank God that my socks soaked all the water up. Nice. I squelched around for a while until we elected to go for a drink one of the nicer cafés in the town centre. Well, you have to try and avoid the riff-raff, don’t you? Can’t be seen associating with the masses, can I? We had tea and cake, and watched the world go by for a while, marvelling at the fact that Blackpool seemed even seedier than we remembered it and, believe me, that isn’t easy. I remember some very seedy bits of Blackpool, but that’s a story for another day!
Once more braving the elements, we made a dash for the car, had a quick high tea with Pater, before heading back into town and The Grand Theatre, the stunningly beautiful venue of tonight’s concert. One of the strange features that characterises Blackpool is that, whilst it is as tacky as drying paint, it has some beautiful buildings, remnants of a bygone age, echoes of a former time when Blackpool must have been a truly eye-watering spectacle of Victorian and Edwardian decadence and opulence. You only have to walk around the magnificent Art Deco Winter Gardens to appreciate what this town must once have been, before the oppressed masses transformed it into the den of iniquity it became. The Grand is another such building, along with the Royal Hall in Harrogate and the Buxton Opera House, it is one of the most stunning of Frank Matcham’s designs. This post-Baroque, neo-classical Victorian theatre dates from 1894 and, following a very sympathetic renovation, is now one of the most impressive buildings of its kind in the UK. Nevertheless, we weren’t there just to gush about architecture, we were there to boogie our sneakers away!
Click on the link to read the review of the Night at the Flamingo.
Click here for the next bit
Once more braving the elements, we made a dash for the car, had a quick high tea with Pater, before heading back into town and The Grand Theatre, the stunningly beautiful venue of tonight’s concert. One of the strange features that characterises Blackpool is that, whilst it is as tacky as drying paint, it has some beautiful buildings, remnants of a bygone age, echoes of a former time when Blackpool must have been a truly eye-watering spectacle of Victorian and Edwardian decadence and opulence. You only have to walk around the magnificent Art Deco Winter Gardens to appreciate what this town must once have been, before the oppressed masses transformed it into the den of iniquity it became. The Grand is another such building, along with the Royal Hall in Harrogate and the Buxton Opera House, it is one of the most stunning of Frank Matcham’s designs. This post-Baroque, neo-classical Victorian theatre dates from 1894 and, following a very sympathetic renovation, is now one of the most impressive buildings of its kind in the UK. Nevertheless, we weren’t there just to gush about architecture, we were there to boogie our sneakers away!
Click on the link to read the review of the Night at the Flamingo.
Click here for the next bit