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This is unusual

Thursday 7th August 2008

Suddenly at a loose end for ten minutes

So I was up until nearly 7am finishing my Now Show songs, I had a couple of things to do which had to be done early this afternoon so I got myself up at about 1pm, the songs needed a final tinker, I've done that, and there's still an hour or so before I have to go to the show recording. Clara and the kids are off at some playgroup or other so I'm on my own in the flat with - specifically at least - nothing to do. I genuinely don't know how to react. I honestly can't remember the last time this was the case.

Of course there are things I COULD be doing; I've just realised that when Clara reads this there will be recriminations along the lines of "You could have cleaned the kitchen" but just at the moment I'm going to let the tedium sink in for a minute.

Hmmm.

Okay, that's enough of that.

As I mentioned, I was in Liverpool over the weekend. 

Going back to Liverpool has been a strange experience for the last few years; they're re-building so much of the city that there are whole expanses of it I don't recognise at all. And by and large this is a good thing. There is a completely different atmosphere in the city from what there was "in my day". I'm sure the whole Capital Of Culture thing is helping enormously but I've noticed the change occurring gradually over the last few years. There is an optimism which simply wasn't around back then.

I've never felt in any way guilty for having left Liverpool back when I was eighteen; I went away to university which is a good thing to do and a good time to do it. Moreover, since I've never played the Professional Scouser card in my work, I don't think anyone would accuse me of the sort of hypocrisy Liverpool's more obviously Scouse exiled sons get tarred with. But the truth is, back in the 1980s, Liverpool was a place you left. By whatever means necessary. The population was plummeting year on year.

Perhaps the most encouraging thing I heard while in Liverpool this time was non-Scouse accents. I don't have a problem with Scouse accents (I know some people do) it's just that it struck me that back in the day, you just didn't hear accents from elsewhere in the country as you walked around Liverpool, because why would you? Nobody moved TO Liverpool. This time I heard RP, Mockney, Brummie, Northern accents of all shades and varieties. Difficult to explain how incongruous and pleasing this was.


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