UK Tour 2002
Day 13
Friday 29th March 2002
We made our way to Liverpool again. In London I’ve seen a yellow tourist bus that is amphibious, it does some of it’s tour around the streets then plops in the Thames and chugs around for a while doing a river Cruise. A couple who worked for that company have started a similar enterprise in Liverpool which has affectionately been nicknamed “The Duck”. To take a ride on it is to become a tourist attraction yourself. People stop, wave, shout out, and look in your eyes and smile as you pass by in the Duck
.
Before getting the ride Colin and I had a cup of tea in a cafe. A young child started staring at me. I crossed my eyes and pulled a face. This was a mistake, as he then proceeded to pull faces back at me for the next twenty minutes. I laughed politely for the first 19 minutes. Then I got Colin to give him one of his psychotic looks. He went away crying. (Not really but ………)
We boarded the Duck and within seconds a young post modernist man wearing a footballer’s shirt shouted out, “and on your right are some tourists”. The journey began. Today’s fascinating facts gleaned from the tour are that firstly at one point there used to be an inlet of the river Liver (said like lye-ver) and the inlet led to a pool, hence the City’s name, Liverpool.
The Pyramid Grave
Secondly there’s a pyramid shaped grave in one of the grave yards. In this is the body of a man who’s seated at a table holding some playing cards. Apparently he was told by the Devil that the he would have his soul when the man was buried, and even though the man was an atheist he wasn’t taking any chances. So he technically has not been buried yet. Likely story!
The inside of Liverpool Cathedral
Thirdly the Anglican Cathedral is the 5th largest in the world. God will be impressed! Especially as most of Liverpool’s early wealth came from the Slave trade.
The John Lennon Memorial Garden
And lastly nearly everywhere you go there’s always something there to remind you that the Beatles came from Liverpool. Having visited the memorial gardens in Central Park in New York it was strange to see the one here as well. There’s Beatles everywhere ……..or do I just have Beatlemania!
Venice a la Liverpool
As our Duck dived in to the Dock’s water Liverpool on this warm hazy day took on a Venetian quality. I was reminded of a poem I’d written quite a few years back which had resulted from a dream I’d had in which I found myself to be in Liverpool with two women. In the dream I was struck by how Venetian Liverpool was. If I find the poem I’ll post a link here. But coincidence or otherwise it gave me a strange feeling of Deja Vu.
I spent the afternoon by myself, I wanted to try and paint again, which I did, plus I wanted to see the Cathedral close up.
McDonald’s with Beatles Photo Exhibition
Then I went to have a wholesome meal at McDonald’s which had an exhibition if, wait for it, Beatles photos taken by a fellow disciple of their Guru. It was strange to sit there and be reading proverbs. One of which was a Buddhist one saying “You never walk through the same door the same way”. Quite ironic considering all the McDonald’s doors I’ve ever seen seem to look and feel the same.
Before picking the others up I drove around the City a bit and found myself in some squalid areas, I suppose it wouldn’t be real without them. When I was a young boy I was brought up (thrown up?) in a rough area, and I remember there not being so much a perception of being in an oppressive environment but more a feeling of being disconnected from “them”, the posh lot out there. As I drove through and some boys eyed me I go the feeling they saw me in the same way.
This evening the girls went to a movie (Ali G) and Colin and I went to the cabaret night at the Caravan site social club. This was our last night here and it was packed out. We said our goodbyes, and prepared for our next destination, Pennan, which is a small village in Scotland. It’s ironic that a couple we spoke to in the club who were from Scotland had never heard of it, because Pennan was the village used in the film Local Hero, ( there’s more people around the world know of Pennan than Scots do).
