You might think that LA or perhaps Delhi has the worst traffic in the world, but you’d be foolishly wrong, because the place with the worst traffic in the world is Halifax, Yorkshire. You might also think that perhaps the Sahara Desert is the hottest place on Earth but again you’d have made a child-like error; It’s actually Halifax, Yorkshire. And so sitting in a traffic jam for hours in Halifax, Yorkshire, is not a pleasant way to spend the afternoon, and yet it’s how I spent a great deal of today.
Apparently a series of events had led to the traffic problems, an almost Laurel And Hardy like collection of crashes and breakdowns. I therefore arrived at the Shibden Mill Inn, set in astonishing countryside three miles out of Halifax and at least half a mile away from the nearest traffic jam, in a bit of a flustered bother. Then I was told they hadn’t got a room for me because they couldn’t find my reservation on the computer, although they did have a note of me wanting to eat dinner. The manageress said the only option I had would be to go to a B+B, and I’m quite proud to say that I didn’t loose my temper despite having been sat in a hot car all afternoon and really wanting a lie down and a shower. I was about to leave, and to be fair the manageress was going out of her mind with apology, when I remembered that when I’d rung the hotel to reserve my room I’d been informal and said my name was Stanley, even though my credit card details would have said Stanley McHale and the dinner reservation they had was Stanley McHale but sure enough, my room was reserved as Mr Stanley. The fools. This misadministration had nearly made a mess of my night but thankfully I was in my room a few minutes later, almost too tired to contemplate going out for the evening. But I’m a trooper, and it doesn’t take much to get me excited about an evening of booze and music in a strange town.
Tonight was the first of three consecutive Morrissey gigs and then that’s it – I’m not going to any more because there’s a limit to even my nerdiness. It’s insane to even be going to more than one. And I really need to be standing on a stage myself instead of watching someone else and so next week will be work, work, work. This week will be self-indulgent.
The juvenile nature of following a teenage idol on tour is not lost on me, and the fact that today was my birthday, the big 2 – 9, did rather pull that into sharper focus. At least I’m not going around to multiple Morrissey gigs in my thirties – that would be dire.
I sat in the restaurant eating alone and ordered some champagne to mark my birthday. I couldn’t quite decide if it was pathetic or great to be drinking champagne alone on my birthday but I don’t really celebrate them anyway and found it just slightly amusing. Taxi into Halifax and an astonishingly good gig – probably the best I’ve ever seen him.
Because it’s a small town, the whole place had a kind of Morrissey fever and all the pubs I went to afterwards were open late, blasting out Moz and Smiths songs. Like a mini Moz festival. I made the acquaintance of a couple of two young ladies, and the evening would turn out to be an outstanding one. We trawled a few bars, and then back to the hotel. Happy birthday to me.
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