Tag Archives: Scribbles

Claws For The Weekend: Waving and Shaking

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You guys know that I’m a fan of Kula Shaker, the band I first encountered by chance in the 90’s. I think I might have mentioned it once or twice.

Well, they’ve released a new single today called Waves, and, in their usual Eastern flavour, I’m gratified to learn that they’ve given my home city a couple of mentions. And as a ‘Manchester Boy’ I just know that it’s a message to me. Personally.

(I know, I’m starting to sound like Charles Manson.)

Enjoy your weekend guys wherever you are, even you ghosts of London town.

See you on the flip side.

One Evening/One Morning

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Light was falling fast. I was looking at the conifer framed against the sky at the edge of the garden, I was thinking of the black poplars that used to mark the perimeter of my primary school. I was thinking of lots of things.

Jen’s car pulled up, headlights signalling her arrival. I left the bench I was sat on to help with the shopping, greeting her with “You know, I don’t think I’ll ever get over it.”

“Over what?”

“The killing of John Lennon.”

Her eyes rolled. Him again.

“You’re always thinking of something,” she’d said to me once before. “I can see when you’re not there.”

I took the bags from the boot, trying my best to be present.

* * * *

There were more shadows in the morning. More distractions.

8.00am was the earliest I had ever been in Wetherspoons. I told Jen (by text) to relax – I was only on coffee. I was devastated to learn that I’d forgotten my glasses. I’d brought a book to pass an hour or so but would have no chance making out the words in the gloom without straining my eyes.

Instead I had to reconcile myself to passing the time by watching the old men who were wiling away the minutes until their beer was available at nine. They were all men and all ‘of an age’. One entered while I was watching, hunched over, going table to table with the aid of a stick to greet those who had already staked out their spot for the day. What do we call them? Friends? Drinking buddies? Cronies? How well did they really know each other? If one stopped coming in would he be remembered? Would the others know enough to check up on him?

The odd newspaper came out with a flourish. Cricket got a mention along with hose racing.

I tried to picture them at school, what they were like as kids. What hopes for the future they had. What dreams. Lines from a Cat Stevens song came to mind:

We’re getting older as time goes by / A little older with every day/ We were the children of yesterday.

Without looking up from their papers they threw down lines that were only occasionally picked up by another.

“Supposed to piss down this morning. Got in just in time I reckon.”

“Did you see that Putin? All his trouble with those Wagnerists . . . Wagners . . . whatever they’re called. Them anyway.”

“That submarine wasn’t safe.”

“Of course not – they died.”

“You wouldn’t have got me in it. They want to leave that wreck alone. Titanic, I mean. I’ve just read that the guy driving it was making a fortune out of it.”

“Driving the Titanic?”

“The fucking submarine!”

“No good to him now. They want to leave that wreck alone.”

Another man came in, a bit younger than them. The comparison hit me – a bit younger than them but about my age.

Maybe that’s how all of these guys started out: with a coffee and a book. Maybe Jen has saved me from all that. Maybe. You can’t read the future.

(What hopes for the future they had/What dreams)

The clock hit nine and the mood visibly lifted. The woman behind the bar brought trays of beer to the tables, the different glasses placed in an order to correspond with her route, obviously learned by rote.

The new arrival had taken a table near to me and now also got himself a beer from the bar. He then whipped out a laptop from his bag and started up some kind of zoom call. The face that appeared in the ether asked him how he was doing.

“Not been a good weekend for me, to be honest. My best friend has been put on life support.”

Jesus. It was time to tune out. I got up for a refill. One of the men nodded to me on the way to the coffee machine. A crony, maybe. Would he one day be able to check up on me?

That Damn Shalamar

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It was a simple cafe, one of those we call, in all innocence, a ‘greasy spoon’. You know the sort, all-day breakfasts, exercise thwarting ‘gut busters.’

In fact, when I was a postman, I used to deliver to one such cafe that was actually named Gut Busters. “They’ve got your name wrong again,” I said one morning, waving the letter before depositing it on their counter.

“Who are we now?” the proprietor asked.

“Ghostbusters! You could complain, but who you gonna call?”

Anyway, this was a similar cafe to that one, but located in the heart of Manchester rather than one of its northern suburbs. Being early morning, there were only three customers in the place, myself and two other guys who were sat at a table against the far wall. I don’t think they were homeless, but they looked like they’d seen better days. A bit dishevelled, maybe coming off a five day bender.

I was drinking coffee as they tucked into a fry-up each, and first became aware of them when one called to the waitress who was cleaning the counter.

“Hey love, who sings this song, d’ya know?”

She cocked an ear to the song coming from the radio. “Erm, . . . oh, I do know this one . . . who is it now?”

I couldn’t place the singer, but knew the song: A Night To Remember.

“Is it Diana Ross?” the man asked.

“Is it bleedin’ hell,” his mate replied for her. “It’s a man.”

“You can’t tell the difference with some of those funky singers. Is it Luther Vandross?” he persisted.

“Get ready,” the waitress sang along as she searched her memory, “tonight!”

Outside the window, in the dirty grey light, my fellow Mancunians were falling into their daily routines. I bet most of them could navigate their route blindfolded, scattering the pigeons and beggars as they go.

The waitress brought my plate over, now humming along to a new and easily identifiable song. Abba, that Swedish superpower of airplay.

As I picked up my knife and fork I caught the eye of the man who’d asked the question. “That song, it was Shalamar.”

“Shalamar!” they both exclaimed.

“And friends!” the one that had posed the question, added.

“Yes,” his accomplice agreed, “Shalamar and friends.”

“You’ll sleep tonight now,” I said. But then felt the need for confession. I held up my phone. “I cheated.”

“You didn’t know it either!” they grinned.

Brought briefly together by a thirty-odd year-old song, we then retreated back to our respective worlds, those two sketching vague plans for the day and I catching last night’s match report.

I was draining the last of my coffee by the time they’d finished and paid their bill. I nodded to them as they made their way to the door, and the guy leading the way shook his head reflectively. “That damn Shalamar,” he said, before joining the parade on the Manchester streets.