Crinklybee

Booncy Santa Clauses

A commenter yesterday (hello Abby!) posed a question about inflatables, which, strangely enough, had nothing to do with booncy hammers, but instead with the giant Santa Claus, who was always to be found, in the run up to Christmas, climbing up the outside walls of Manchester Town Hall.  Well, he is still there all right- only in a slightly different guise. 

The original inflateable Father Christmas was a surprisingly nimble looking individual who was to be found every December, laden with a sack of presents, shinning up the side of the Town Hall clock.  At least he looked nimble on December 1st- by Christmas Eve the rigours of the climb- and the effects of a chronic slow puncture- would have taken their toll, and the poor fellow would be looking quite emaciated.   He never finished his climb either- staying marooned two-thirds of the way up.  Eventually this increasingly pitiful figure admitted defeat in his annual vain quest to reach the top of Manchester's most prominent landmark, and was quietly retired.

But I liked this Santa- you couldn't see his face from Albert Square, just the back of his furtive, clambering figure- and you got the impression he was just getting on with his work and really didn't want to be bothered.  This unassuming attitude allowed him to remain- well, I won't say inconspicuous- he was after all a 30-foot high man in a bright red robe climbing up the side of the Town Hall clock in broad daylight carrying a sack- but he didn't exactly command your attention.   So you would see him one day, then forget all about him- and, the next day, when you looked up again on your way across the square, you would take a step back in renewed astonishment.  'Fuck me, Santa Claus!', you would exclaim. 'Isn't he looking thin?'

After the demise of the climbing Santa, there were a couple of years where the Town Hall walls stayed sadly bare at Christmas.  We were just getting used to this state of affairs when, a couple of years ago, a new figure appeared- and he is quite different.  First of all, the new man has made it all the way to the top.  It seems he has completed the ascent via the easier Southern face of the building mind you, perhaps by jumping off the top of a tram onto the roof of the library and making his way along the side of the Town Hall extension- and so he is to be found peering over the top of the clock tower onto Albert Square below.  And boy, is he keen to let us know!  Where our old Santa was shy and retiring- shifty, even- this brash newcomer has no qualms about advertising his presence to all and sundry.  All through December he retains a permanent, faintly scary grin, and he is forever waving enthusiastically to the crowds below. 'Hey, everyone- Santa Claus here!, he seems to be saying. 'Look- I'm up on the top of the Town Hall- not stuck two-thirds of the way up like some has-beens I could mention! Hey- look at me!  Me!  Me! Me!'

Frankly, I find the new Santa Claus to be something of a show-off, and I think maybe the people of Manchester- who have been known to avert their gaze from his uncalled-for month-long display of unashamed egotism- would join me in welcoming a return to the days of the charming but hapless figure, with the bulging sack and mysterious shrinking waistline, who we had grown to love.

I'm sure little Frankie agrees with us on this count also.  After all, the young fellow has met two Santa Clauses in his short life- the second of whom was someone's harmless old grandma dressed in a red robe and beard- and both have sent him into uncontrollable fits of tears.  If he gets a look at the terrifying figure beaming down from above Albert Square right now, he might not recover his composure until July, and he might develop a subconscious aversion to Town Halls, or to Manchester itself, that could last for ever.  Which will never do, the lad is a Mancunian after all, and we can't have him walking across the main square of his home city in the year 2027 and breaking unaccountably into a cold sweat.

So we're staying clear of the town centre until the scary Santa has gone- instead enjoying Christmas in Levenshulme, Merseyside and Blaydon-upon-Tyne.  I will probably not be coming to near any computers in this time, either- so wherever you are going to be spending your Christmas, I hope you all have a great one- Crinklybee will be back in action in the New Year.

Going Under the Hammer

I don't know whether you remember, but a few years ago, giant inflatables were all the rage.  The trend had started on the terraces at Manchester City, where the fans had taken to wielding plastic bananas, and it soon spread across the country.  On Newcastle's Gallowgate End a six-foot-high bottle of Broon Ale was de rigeur, and I remember the visiting Grimsby Town supporters being accompanied on their journey north by a giant haddock.

The fashion spread from football to the High Street, and that Christmas no stocking was complete without some unlikely blow-up item inside.  Passing Fenwicks windows during the festive run-up, I entered a particularly cacophonous zone of Northumberland Street, where the usual vendors' shouts- 'Chron-igallll!'  'Sports socks now- three pair a pound!', and, of course 'last few strawberries- poond a punnet yer last few strawberries!'  were joined by an unfamiliar lilting refrain.  Just as I was trying to work it out, I felt a slight blow- rather a boing, really- to the side of the head.  I looked round and identified my assailant, which was not difficult- it was the man in the plaid donkey jacket bouncing a lycra mallet twice his size off the skulls of unsuspecting Geordies.  'Get yer booncy hammers noo- three pund yer booncy hammers!', he urged, accompanying the first syllable of 'booncy' with a practiced, flailing strike into the crowd.  A woman, caught by a particularly vicious blow, reeled three feet backwards, steadied herself against a street lamp, and snapped up three for seven quid.

I thought that the booncy hammer man of Northumberland Street had prepared me for any madness the Christmas shopping frenzy could throw at me- and I was probably right.  However this Sunday in Manchester came pretty close.  Walking down Market Street my senses were assailed in quick succession by a gang of Peruvians covering Dire Straits on out-of-tune pan pipes, a five-foot six feller attached by string to a forty-strong cloud of helium-filled balloons which looked ready at any moment to lift him clean off the pavement and send him floating out towards the Irish Sea, and, finally, a lone Scotsman- or at least a lone figure sporting full Highland dress complete with kilt- beating seven colours of shite out of a set of bagpipes that had clearly done something to annoy him.  It was enough to put a person off their carefully-prepared Christmas shopping list, although the passing Mancunians- shuffling seventeen abreast down the thoroughfare laden down with an average of four supersize carrier bags each- seemed to be coping admirably with the distraction.

Myself, I felt in need of a break from the madding crowd, so wheeled Frankie off into a side street behind Spring Gardens Post Office, where a fashionably minamilist-looking emporium has suddenly sprung up.  Going by the arresting name of Fopp, it is a music and books kind of store, like HMV, except- you know- with none of your shite.  I should imagine that is in fact the Coporate slogan- 'Fopp- Like HMV, Except With None Of Your Shite' .  Anyway, it was populated yesterday by fey-looking people in stern media glasses, prowling the aisles fingering slim volumes of Russian literature, while wondering whether that giant screen-print of Che Guevara would go with their Aunty Valerie's wallpaper.  I immediately felt at home, and to prove I was not the kind of philistine who deserved to be bundled straight back out among the carrier-bag wielding masses, snapped up a remixed Wedding Present CD, the DVD of Billy Liar, and a collection of essays by George Orwell- all for the very bohemian price of fifteen quid.  I then remembered it was Christmas and bought- well, some stuff for other people of discernment who may be reading, so I can't tell you.  Suffice to say it was neither a bouncy hammer nor a punnet of last-minute strawberries. 

Since I can't tell you everything I bought in Fopp, I will reveal here excusively that I also went to the Manchester European Christmas Market and bought my seven-year-old cousin- who is unlikely to be reading this as seven-year-olds don't read the internet do they, what's that, oh really?- oh well- Jamie, if you're reading you're getting a jar of  pickles for Christmas, but don't telly anyone I told you, and don't go reading any of those naughty sites with the undressed ladies on, now there's a good lad. 

I hope he's grateful for his pickles and all- in my day it was a tangerine in your stocking, three pairs of sports socks, and a glancing blow to the side of the head with a mallet.   Kids these days, they don't know they're born, do they?

Crawl Babies... and tall stories

In a hectic weekend reminiscnent of the social whirl of my halcyon youth I attended not one, but two parties.  On Friday night it was our annual works 'do', which this year took the form of a piss-up in a room above a posh bar in Manchester's trendy Castlefield.  Sunday was a more civilised experience altogether- the inaugural Levenshulme baby group Christmas party, held in the less palatial, but altogether more cosy surroundings of the local Catholic Club.

Charlotte had gone down early to help with preparations, but me and Frankie arrived a fashionable half-an-hour late to find the event already in full flow.   Groups of mothers busied themselves around a table laden with home-made delicacies, while the menfolk- for whom the party was the first chance to get to know one another- huddled around the bar muttering conspirationally about at what point it would be acceptable to sneak into the snooker room next door and join the club regulars watching Arsenal against Chelsea on live Norwegian TV.   Their offspring were nowhere to be seen, until I glanced downwards and found the floor literally crawling with infants.  Narrowly avoiding committing the baby-party faux-pas of trampling a passing four-month old underfoot, I hastened to the bar, ordered the first of several pints of discounted, Social club-rate Guinness and prepared to enter the throng.

Within seconds we were surrounded by adoring females.  They had no idea who I was, of course- but were well acquainted with little Frank, who gurgled happily at their greetings and smiled his trademark four-tooth smile for a couple of photographs.    He kept smiling for about half-an-hour, at which point Santa Claus entered the room, and, for the second time in a week, sent him into uncontrollable tears.   The poor sensitive fellow seems to find something frightening about the sight of a big fat person decked out in a garish red coat and an unconvincing white beard, marching around chortling manically and waving a big sack.  I can't for the life of me imagine why, but I'm sure he'll get over it in time.

The rest of the party was spent dancing to Christmas carols with the babies and getting to know some of the grown-ups.  I got talking to one of the dads, a Pakistani man who told me that he worked in a bank in Manchester, but that back home, he was a professional squash player.  Squash is a very big deal indeed in Pakistan, so this is probably the equivalent of David Beckham leaving Real Madrid and going to work in a call centre in Karachi.  On the other hand, of course, the bloke could just have been having me on.  Either way, I will let him off as his wife brought to the party an excellent dish of chicken with fried rice, which I am prepared to bet was a great deal tastier than anything Posh Spice could manage.

In between listening to preposterous tales from Asian bank clerks, I discussed the travails of Manchester City with one of the mothers, a fervent Blue, and United's faltering season with one of the fellers, an equally avid Red.  Before long I noticed he had gone missing, along with half the other dads.  I looked in the snooker room and sure enough found them all huddled around the TV taking in Arsenal against Chelsea.  It was half-time, and Pires was being interviewed, in French with Norwegian subtitles.  The regulars looked on, nodding knowledgeably at intervals while sipping their Guinness.  We are a cosmopolitan lot here in Levenshulme.

As the second half got underway at Highbury, the party was drawing to a close.  I trundled Frankie under the train line and back home, where, knackered by his exertions on the dancefloor, he fell into a blissful sleep.   Me and his mam watched a rubbish costume drama about the French Revolution on BBC2 (apparently it was all about a necklace, and not, as we have assumed all this time, about some cakes) while polishing off some pork pies liberated from the spread, along with the last of the chicken fried rice, which the Pakistani Posh Spice had kindly sent us home with.  It was a restful end to a hectic, two-party weekend.  If we can just keep that scary bloke with the red coat and the beard out of Frankie's way, it may be just the start of a joyful Christmas.

Black Puddings and Brief Encounters; when Santa came to Bury

In what will be regarded by traditionalists as a controversial move, long-time Lapland resident Santa Claus has upped sticks from his traditional Nordic base and will from now on be operating from a state-of- the- art transportation hub situated just outside of Bury, Lancashire.  The location’s enviable motorway connections are said to have influenced the move, as well as the bearded benefactor’s well-documented love of the northern market town’s previous claim to fame, the black pudding.

Happily the sainted gift-bearing redcoat has not seen fit to dispense entirely with tradition,  as can be concluded by his decision to spend each weekend in the run-up to Christmas in residency on an old-fashioned steam train (not a reindeer-drawn flying carriage, but then we can’t have everything), travelling back and forth between Bury’s Bolton Street station and the nearby town of Ramsbottom.  This Saturday we packed young Frankie into the back of the motor and  went along for the ride.

The Santa Special is due out of  Bolton Street station at 12:30.  We leave the adjoining car-park at 12:25 and walk straight into what looks like the set for ‘Brief Encounter’.  The station, which has been loving renovated by an army of volunteers, features a 1950s-style ticket office, a vending machine attached to the wall offering 20 Players cigarettes for the appealing price of 1s9d, and, tucked away in the corner, a genuine, rusting,  vintage trolley, stacked with battered suitcases of the style favoured by wartime evacuees.   There are liveried attendants everywhere and not a branch of Starbucks in sight.

The period detail is quite perfectly realised, and we could stay all day taking in the atmosphere (I would have enjoyed chain-smoking cheap tabs, reassured by the contemporary medical profession’s assurances that they were good for my lungs, while reading in the papers about Newcaste United’s multiple FA Cup triumphs), but it is 12:32  (albeit 12:32 sometime in the 1950s) and we have a train to catch.  We haul a rather-sceptical looking Frankie from his pushchair  (which has been deemed too sleek and 21^st century to take aboard the Santa Special) and carry him down to the platform, where- this being the Golden Age of British Steampower- there is a smiling, liveried, patently underworked attendant on hand to guide us directly to our seat, nine carriages down from the steam-belching engine and at the end of a compartment filled to the brim with people from the daytrip that has been arranged by my works  social club.  We wave at some familiar faces, marvel at the sight of Brenda from Automotive Goods with a screaming toddler hanging from her trousers, and prepare to embark.

The train hisses into life, and rumbles out of Bury, passing the very 21^st century Pilsworth Industrial Estate on its way to some more picturesque Lancashire scenery.  There is much pre-adolescent screeching, but nine-month-old Frankie appears to be taking this short journey in his stride.   We are not surprised.  Not only is the young fellow a famously laid-back baby, but he is an intrepid veteran of train journeys from his native Manchester to both Liverpool and London.  But  then, just as we are starting to feel smug about our darling, placid railway child, the Santa Special enters a tunnel., and all hell breaks loose. 

Frankie has apparently mistaken the entry into the Rawtenstall tunnel for an unscheduled return to the womb and protests in the most strident terms his limited vocabulary will allow.  Hardened parents of nearby toddlers cover their ears, take liberal swigs from the complementary half-bottles of Harvey’s Bristol Cream, and pray for daylight.  It comes- but as we emerge from the tunnel a brass band arrives, belting out  ‘Oh Come All Ye Faithful’ with the trombone turned up to eleven and its horn close enough for me to grab a hold of and hurl into the passing countryside.  I am sorely tempted- and not only because it is making the baby cry- but content myself with leaving a miserly tip of 6 pence in the bucket proffered by the slip of a lass bringing up the band’s rear.

It is a hectic afternoon aboard the 12:35 to 1958- but it is about to get more hectic.  Just outside of Summerseat the falsetto volume reaches earbursting pitch, as the carriage doors part to reveal a 6’2’’ elf clad in a yellow and green all-in-one, who steps to one side to introduce a smaller , fatter, white-bearded figure, resplendent in a red cloak.  ‘Ho-ho-ho-ing’ loudly for the benefit of any passengers slow on the uptake who might have mistaken him for the ticket clerk or big Reg from accounts, the figure ambles rotundly down the carriage, leaving a trail of packages at each table.  Much oohing and aahing ensues, as the paper is torn at to reveal lavish gifts.  The nine year old girl in our group  gets a luminous radio-pen and bursts into a wide, toothy grin.  A nearby 5-year-old boy marvels at a toy truck which transforms itself into a robot.  Frankie is presented with a fluffy monkey more that half his size, and bursts inconsolably into tears.   Santa Claus makes his excuses and leaves the carriage.

The main business of the day having been completed, we start to trundle back towards Bury, and everybody- including young Frank, who has started to enjoy himself now the scary man in the red costume has buggered off- starts to calm down again.  The kids play with their new toys, while the  grown-ups take deep breaths, drain off the last of the Harvey’s, and launch into grown-up conversations about parking spaces and Christmas shopping.  And then, just as we are settling into our seats, we arrive back where we started and it is time to get off. 

We step outside, say our goodbyes to our fellow travellers, and emerge blinking back into the year 2004.  A brief stop in a 1970s- style town centre café later (not another themed exprerience; they just haven’t decorated in a long time) and we are on our way out of Bury- the land of black puddings, famous markets, and Santa Claus.  We may well be back next year- it’s a lovely day out for the kids (if, as we found,  a slightly scary one in parts for the very tiniest passengers) and not a bad one for the grown-ups either.  Now, if they can arrange for the trombones to be turned down a notch, and step up the provision of sherry to a full half-bottle per paying guest, the East Lancs Railway may well have a Christmas hit on their hands.