A better class of queue

So, the Manchester weblogmeetingthing.  It went absolutely splendidly, thankyouforasking.  The afternoon Danish pastries struck a fine balance between traditional and avant-garde interpretations of Scandinavian cakemaking, while the evening meal was a triumph of that undervalued culinary tradition, Turko-Franco-Italian fusion; the shish kebab with puttanesca sauce and a side order of garlic mushrooms proving a particular hit with the assembled internet personalities.  As for the last orders pints of Boddingtons, they were- well, the very cream of Manchester, even if the city's iconic pint is brewed nowadays by itinerant Polish labourers on an industrial estate somewhere outside of Cardiff.  And the bloggers themselves?  Oh, in true northern tradition we all got along like houses on fire, or at least there were no brawls, if that's what you mean. Although if there had been any brawls in the offing, I am sure they would have been expertly dealt with by M19's very own Clare, whose marshalling of the event was exemplary throughout- right down to the timely postponement of the Sunday morning walk through the park due to a very Mancunian combination of drizzle and hangovers.  By the way, those of you reading via wireless connection from the boating shelter by Platt Fields Lake- you can go home now.  The walk has been cancelled, due to a very Mancunian combination of drizzle and hangovers.  We apologise for any inconvenience caused.

I would tell you the story of the inaugural Manchester weblogmeetingthing in more detail- but of course you have already seen some of the excellent reports posted in more timely fashion, for example  here, here here here and here- and also I am convinced that in any attempted full-scale account I will inevitably neglect to mention, among all the lovely people in attendance, someone I spent half an hour in the pub blathering to , and everyone will conclude that I've got more faces on me than the Town Hall Clock.  So instead I am going to tell you about what happened after last orders on Saturday night, when me and Abby kidnapped Chern Jie,  and, with the assistance of some random Geordies of our acquaintance, took him on an impromptu whistlestop tour of the city's night-club queues.    

The thing is, you see, that there's this really amazing indiepop disco on Saturday nights at the Star and Garter, a delapidated boozer hidden away behind Piccadilly station.  And David the indiepop Geordie was in town, and due to be there with his brother- so at last orders in Mother Macs me and my sister Abby took an arm each of young Chern Jie and bundled the poor fellow unceremoniously out of a side door and up some backstreets, presently finding ourselves outside of the venue.  It was just coming up to eleven-fifteen, and the night was still young.

It was at this point that I remembered the one thing I always forget about the Star and Garter on Saturday nights, until it is too late to do anything about it.  Because it is the only indiepop disco in Manchester where the term  'indiepop' is not taken to be synonymous with an unimaginative and never-changing rolling roster of hits by James, Smiths and New Order, it gets busy.  Very busy.  In fact if you arrive any time after half-past nine it's not unusual to stand freezing in line for anything up to two hours.  At quarter past eleven last Saturday night the queue to get into the single, sweaty room above the pub was stretching right round the block and half-way back to the train station.

Still, we didn't mind.  I never do mind standing in the queue for Smile (the night is called Smile) because it has to be one of the most friendly, stylish and knowledgeable night-club queues in the north of England, if not the world.  Everyone is cheerfully bedecked in colourful vintage garments bought, probably that very afternoon, from the Northern Quarter- and, even though the average age of the queue can't be more than twenty-five, an intimate knowledge of the history of all popular music featuring awkward jangly guitars, wobbly synthesisers and floppy fringes since 1984 is de rigeur.  In fact, if Al Queda ever wanted to destabilise Western democracy by destroying its collective memory of the career of Talulah Gosh, then it could do worse than launch a pre-emptive Saturday night strike on the queue for Smile.  As an added bonus they would probably take out platforms 13 and 14 of Piccaddilly train station, which would play havoc with the service to Macclesfield.   

Fortunately for all of us, the fundamentalists appear to be unconcerned for now with the decadent Western values displayed by Manchester twentysomethings with polka-dot shirts and photographic recollections of the interview Stephen Pastel gave to the NME in 1988, so we emerged from the queue with our lives intact.  However we were by this time in the grip of a menace in its way more terrifying than anything Mr Bin Laden, hidden away in his inaccessible bunker, has yet dreamt up.

David the indiepop Geordie had arrived with his brother at 12 midnight, taken one look at the queue and shouted, 'How! I'm not standing around in this shite!'.  We'd managed to detain him for a while with a thematic deconstruction of Amelia Fletcher's cruelly- disregarded 1995 electro-pop classic 'Can You Keep A Secret', but it was too no avail.  We were fighting a losing battle against the raging impatience that seven pints of strong European lager will inject into an indiepop Geordie- and at 12:30 the five of us- me, Abby, David, his indiepop brother Ian and the increasingly intrigued Chern Jie- found ourselves packed into a cross-town taxi headed for another queue- the one to get into South Bar on King Street, where, apparently, 'It's nee bother man- you can just walk straight on in!'.

Of course the queue for South turned out to be twice as long, and about four times as unpleasant.  After five minutes Abby got into an altercation with some pasty-faced office clerks from Bolton who were regaling the appreciative line of mean-faced would-be clubgoers in black shiny shoes with homophobic comments about Canal Street- while the only reason David had not got into a brawl with the leather-jacketed bouncers was because, in a remarkable oversight, their training had not extended to the deciphering of generalised insults shouted at them from forty yards away in a broad, and slightly slurred, County Durham accent.  Still, the atmosphere was becoming slightly tense:

'Howmanhawaywhodyerthinkyerareinthatdaftbloodyjacketman, yerbigbastard. Hadawayowerhere!' 

'What do you mean, precisely, when you say you have to 'watch your back' in Canal Street, young man?  I must say for an outwardly macho fellow you display an alarming insecurity about your own sexuality.  Are you sure you don't have any issues in that regard you would like to share with us?'

'Haway Chern Jie, man- you got another one of those tabs?  Yer me best mate, man.  Nah, honestly, haway.  Haway man, eh!'

It was all going to end in tears, like a bad wedding.  Fortunately for all of us, David's brother- the slightly-less-impatient indiepop Geordie- took matters in hand, and ushered his sibling off in the general direction of the taxi rank.  Now it was just the three of us again.

By 1:15 it was just me and Abby- swirling in the sweaty upstairs room of the Star and Garter.  Deciding that we weren't massively keen on gaining admission to South in the first place (largely because we would probably have got our heads kicked in by the time we reached the bar) we had embarked on a route-march back across the city, into the welcoming arms of the friendliest, smiliest night-club queue in Christendom.  A mere 45 minutes later we were at the bar, downing pints of Boddingtons and leaping up the stairs into the sweaty, cramped dancefloor at the first notes of, oh, something by Orange Juice, I think.  Or it may have been Orchestral Manoevres in the Dark.  My knowledge of early-80s pop is not really what is should be, in fact I am surprised they let me in the queue, never mind into the disco itself.  I must have been wearing the right type of trainers.

And young Chern Jie?  Well he had made his excuses and left by then:  no doubt concluding that a typical Manchester night out consisted of criss-crossing the city in black cabs, alternately falling into scholarly discussions on the career of the Field Mice with bespectacled arts graduates and fully-fledged brawls with large gentlemen in ill-fitting leather jackets, he had wisely opted for the last number 42 night bus home, rather than the second leg of the night-long quest to get into the sweaty room above the dilapidated boozer behind Piccaddilly station.

Or not so wisely, as it turned out- because we did get in there in the end.  Well Chern Jie if you are reading- well done for making it to the end of the story- sorry you never made the end of the night out itself!  Maybe next time- it really is worth the wait once you get in there.  After all, 350 shivering indiepopsters with vintage jackets from Cafe Pop and an encyclopaedic knowledge of the early career of the Sea Urchins can hardly be wrong, now can they?

Comments

[Chern Jie]

Yeah, it was great to meet you and too bad I didn't get myself into the nightclub.

And HEY!!! I made no excuse to leave, you "shooo-ed" me off! :p

I'll bring my friends there with me one day, and I shall do the honour of writing an entry for Smile.

See you and keep in touch, we still have lunch to meet up for.

[looby]

Oooh, as me mum would say - "what a palarver"!

:)

[looby]

Er, and the second bit of that comment there, which didn't come out probably because I put it inside "is less than" and "is greater than" was

"makes mental note to take scraf, gloves, thermal vest and copy of War and Peace is ever going out clubbing with Jonathan" :)

Ooh, I do like a laboured joke.

[Clare]

Haha, brilliant.

I finally posted a round-up of all the various accounts of the blogmeet here (http://www.claresudbery.purpleocity.net/2006/02/that-blogmeet-thingy.html). Enjoy.

[jonathan]

Hello everyone... Chern Jie I haven't forgotten about our businessman's lunch and have been considering which of my two ties will be most fitting for the occasion. The non-black one is currently looking favourite... Looby... if there is one thing we love in this comment box it's a laboured joke- in fact the only reason I have a blog at all is so I can leave laboured jokes in my own comment box, as you may have noticed. My mam says 'what a palarver as well' by the way- is that how you spell it, I've never seen it written down before...finally Clare, that's a very thorough round-up you have put together there, although of course we wouldn't have expected anything less from M19's finest...