24 Hour Party Person

I crossed the Pier Head and looked up at the glowing white lights of the Ferry Terminal. Deep breaths. Calm. I'm going in.

It's safe to say I'm not a party person. I've had just one birthday party in my life, when I was five. The anxiety of it was so much - I was convinced nobody would turn up - my mum effectively put a stop to them for my own health. And today, as a fully grown adult, I prefer to loiter somewhere at the back, hidden away, generally with a drink or six. Or I just don't go.

"Don't go" was my first instinct when I got the following e-mail:

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

Merseyrail New Year Reception 2011

The Merseyrail management team and I would like to invite you to join us for our annual New Year Reception on Thursday 27th January 2011...

I mean, good God no. A party full of people I don't know? People I respect? Bart Schmeink? What am I going to do there? The Bf intervened at this point, however, and practically forced me to accept. "It'll be good for you," he said. And, after just the one panic attack, and doped up on my anti-depressants, I was walking through the door into the party and accepting a champagne cocktail and thinking, "how bad could it be?".

The invite had promised "entertainment". I wasn't sure what that would be. My only knowledge of corporate entertainment comes from Showgirls, where Nomi dances on top of a boat in a sparkly dress and then gets sexually harassed by a sleazy Asian businessman. Merseyrail have a different concept of the term; they had pupils from the Archbishop Beck Catholic High School playing the Theme from the Muppet Show on a trumpet. Hopefully none of them were molested by a skeezy man in a suit later in the evening.

I did a couple of rounds of Matou, clutching a Jack Daniels and Coke, before I found a suitably tucked away corner and installed myself there. I was almost instantly leapt upon by two men, who turned out to be Rudi and Matt; the publicity mavens of Merseyrail. That's the problem with sticking your face all over your blog - people tend to recognise you. They were really nice, however, welcoming me to the party, offering to get me a drink, and not mentioning the fact that I was turning bright crimson throughout.

After a little chat, I went on another wander, and I found a seat at the back of the restaurant. Great. I could relax a bit. Which is when another man turned up and said, "Excuse me. Are you the Merseytart?"

Suddenly I wished I'd chosen a less daft name.

This guy turned out to be Ian from Merseytravel, who again had read my blog. "When are you going to finish it?" he asked, leading me to bluster about "enjoying it too much", which is a polite way of saying, "no idea". Ian then called over his colleague, Emma, who's responsible for the Art on the Network programme. I was reminded of a quote I read the other day, about blogging being all power and no responsibility, when she said "I understand you're not keen on the Grant Searl artwork?"

I managed to hold my own, I think, and I said that I really didn't like its positioning on Platform 2 - it competes and fights with Dream Passage. I did also say that I loved the other artwork, and the whole Art on the Network programme in general. Ian also explained about the riddles, hidden inside each painting; when all five are complete, the answer to the riddle will become clear. He said the actual solution is inside a safe at Merseytravel HQ right now, and I made a mental note to break out my leather all in one catsuit and burglars tools when I got home.

As we were talking, the speeches began, but sadly I was too far away to hear any of them, so I went out on the balcony for a bit of air. When they built the new Ferry Terminal, I remember thinking it was the wrong way round; the balcony was at the back, not overlooking the river. When I was up there though, I suddenly understood it. Firstly, there was hardly any wind, despite it being a blustery January night - the main block of Matou shielded it perfectly. Secondly, the view was beautiful. The three buildings of the Pier Head, high above me, glowing in the light (well, two of them were; the Cunard Building's currently covered in sheeting). It was awe-inspiring.

The speeches had all finished by the time I got inside, and a comedian was up there, telling jokes I couldn't hear instead. At that point, someone else introduced themselves to me. "Hello, I'm Mark. I'm the man responsible for the square loop on the map."

I don't know what went through my head at that moment, but I'm sure the word bollocks was in there somewhere. I wanted to just crawl away and die.

Fortunately, Mark was a very nice bloke, and he explained the rationale behind the square: there's a surfeit of tourists getting on at Lime Street, thinking they can go round and round the loop, and ending up in Birkenhead. The square was his initial suggestion as a way of making it clearer, but as he said, he's an engineer and he planned it out on Excel; he assumed the design team would make it look great. Instead, they just shoved a square on the map. He wasn't happy with it. Phew. Plus he's the man responsible for the line diagrams that are all over the place, which I love.

We had a good old chat, actually, about different design standards for the network, and the influence of Harry Beck's Underground diagram. I recommended he get Mark Ovenden's Metro Maps of the World, and actually I'd recommend it to anyone - it's a great read, and not too geeky.

Rudi came over again, and said he liked the blog, then Matt asked me how I felt about being mentioned in Bart's speech?

"Eh?" I replied. Yup, apparently, HRH Bart Schmeink had actually told the room that I was there, but I hadn't heard it because I was at the back. Thank God, is all I can say, because I probably would have become the first person to cringe themself to death otherwise.

And then I was recognised again, by Steve, who manages the guards on the Wirral Line. I was actually starting to enjoy it, like the big old fame whore I am. It was nice to have other people making the effort to talk to me, because otherwise I'd just have hidden away and been silent all evening, and everyone was very complimentary about my blog. It was also nice that people seemed to read the blog for its entertainment value, not just in case I said something rude about Merseyrail. Steve and I had a chat, and he introduced me to Natalie, who's a newly appointed internet wiz; we talked about how she wants to really increase the web presence, and embrace social networks, and all sorts of exciting sounding things.

It was getting towards eight o'clock, and the party was thinning out, and I had to go home and get some dinner. There was lots of lovely looking finger food on display, but my tense stomach had twisted itself into a figure eight and there was no way I'd be able to swallow food. I just had one more thing to do: meet Bart Schmeink.

For the first time that evening, I went up to someone and introduced myself. And he recognised me! Really, by this point, I was starting to feel like Angelina Jolie, but without the breasts. Or Brad Pitt, unfortunately. What followed was a bit of a mutual appreciation society - we both said nice things about one another, we had a bit of a talk, he offered to buy me a drink - it was all very pleasant. And then he gave me his card, which was a silly move on his part. It's a bit like From Russia With Love, where Bond unknowingly invites Grant into his cabin on the Orient Express - he seems nice, but he's actually a raging nutcase underneath. (Please note: I'm the stalking nutcase in this scenario).

Well, nothing could match up to that, so I made a swift exit, behind two ladies. One of them turned to me and said, "I hope you're going to write nice things about us!" and I burbled some kind of reply through my blushes.

When I got outside, and I was halfway across the Pier Head, I just stopped and laughed. Really laughed. It was one of the strangest nights of my life but I'm glad it happened. I can't say I've overcome my party fears, but heck, I had a good time. That's something at least. Thanks to Merseyrail for the invite, and for being so nice. You didn't have to but you did, and you just went up about twenty notches in my estimation. (Yes, I'm that easily bought).

A Bridge Too Far

Having conquered Runcorn station, the next stage for the Bf and I was to cross the river to get two stations on the north bank: Sankey and Widnes. Sounds simple, doesn't it? After all, the massive Silver Jubilee Bridge dominates the scene for miles away, and looms over the station itself.

It turns out that nothing is that easy. The bridge might be easy to spot, but it's surrounded by a whole bunch of flyovers, disseminating vehicles to the different points of the town. Big, wide, traffic choked dual carriageway flyovers, with nothing resembling a footpath. We were instead corralled into underpasses and over footbridges and diverted into the "Old Town" of Runcorn, a somewhat depressing looking row of grey buildings and For Sale signs.

We did get to see the pub from Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps, the BBC3 shitcom that redefines "unfunny". It's bad enough that such a terrible show makes it to air, never mind that it's up to it's ninety eighth series or something, but what's worse is the wonderful, talented Sheridan Smith is trapped in it. It's like a never ending hostage situation she can't escape from: I feel like reporting them to Amnesty International.

Finally we spotted a solitary pedestrian sign with "Widnes" on it, and we were able to deduce our way to the bridge.

The Silver Jubilee Bridge was originally finished in 1961, but it almost immediately became over used, and so it was refurbished with more capacity. The new-look bridge opened in 1977, hence the name. It's still a major choke point for traffic wanting to cross the mighty Mersey river. Either side of the Runcorn Gap the river widens out considerably, meaning that the next crossings are the Mersey Tunnels at the top of the Wirral or a bridge in Warrington, both miles away from this point. (A plan has been formulated for a Second Mersey Crossing, but as with almost everything in Britain these days, it looks like it's about to get cut).

When the bridge was refurbished, the footpaths were turned into traffic lanes, so a new pedestrian bridge was constructed on the outside of the main structure. It also means that walkers and cyclists are carefully screened from the pounding traffic.

Did I mention I suffer from vertigo? As does the Bf? I probably should have thought this through more clearly.

It looked so simple on the map, just a little wander across. I hadn't taken into account the 24 metre drop either side of the footpath, or the fact that it was surprisingly narrow. I hadn't taken into account the bridge's ironwork looming over us, practically daring us to cower. I hadn't taken into account the fact that we are both cowards.

It was terrifying. We dropped into single file, because neither one of us wanted to walk that close to the edge. We could feel the wind whipping around us, and hear the rush of the river below.

"Do you want a photo of you on the bridge for the blog?" the Bf asked, and because I am committed to you, constant readers, I said yes. See below.

Fear. Pure, unadulterated fear. I was gripping that barrier so tight I could feel the flakes of paint being crushed to powder in my fist. And even then, I was thinking the barrier could break any moment and I could plummet into the swirling waters below.

Oh, there was a pretty view. Lovely. I was too scared to look at it for very long, of course.

We inched forward until, I kid you not, the whole bridge rattled as a truck thundered past. Both the Bf and I stopped and, though I'm not happy to admit this, we both squealed. The damn pedestrian bridge was wobbling! It was clearly about to break away from the main structure and send us crashing to our deaths!

I have to say, suicidal types went up in my estimation. Like all bridges, the Silver Jubilee gets its fair share of jumpers, and I have tremendous admiration for anyone who has the courage to walk halfway across and then climb the barriers. Even if I had a death wish, I couldn't do that. (I wouldn't jump off the Runcorn bridge anyway: the river's too shallow here. I'd be afraid of falling and not dying, just up splatting into a mud flat).

On the other side of the bridge is the magnificently titled Ethelfleda Railway Bridge, named after the 10th Century Queen of the Mercians. She reportedly founded a fort in Runcorn, underneath the piers of the now-railway bridge, and so she was commemorated in this way. At one point, you could walk across that bridge too, but it was eventually closed when the new road bridge came along. The walkway's still visible, but I'm sorry, it'd require an Act of Parliament to get me to walk across it.

I found I was walking with my hands outstretched, like a tightrope walker: at least a tightrope walker has a safety net. There was sweat pouring off me, and my heart appeared to pounding out the rhythm section for some kind of calypso in my chest.

The iron arch was sweeping down beside me now, and I could see Widnes getting closer and closer. I'd have run to safety if I trusted the bridge to hold my pounding. Then we were down on the land, and breathing became easier. I took one photo of Ethelfleda's castellated tower, because there was a Liver Bird on it, and then we practically collapsed by the side of the road like a couple of marathon runners.

Are we a couple of big nances? Absolutely, and I don't care who knows it. I'm glad I've crossed the bridge, I'm glad I can cross it off the list of things to do, but I'm just as equally glad I never have to do it again. The Mersey Tunnels are a far more civilised way to cross the river. I'll stick to my underground trains, thank you very much.

No Kisses Until Wigan

Before I went there, I thought that Warrington's main claim to fame was that it was the first place in Britain to get an Ikea. I'm not being nasty here. I'd call that a pretty good accolade. I love Ikea's ludicrously attitude to naming their furnishings, their Tärka wardrobes and their Lakshmi sofas and their Ülrika CD holders. If I had an Ikea within spitting distance you wouldn't be able to have a cup of tea in this house without drinking it from a Carøla mug with your bum on a Bennybjørnannafridagnetha pouffe.

Still, it's not exactly everything you want from a town. It's not a centre for cultural improvement. And besides, Ikea's on the outskirts, squatting next to the M62 in its primary coloured magnificence like a six year old went wild with his Lego. The actual town centre was an unknown quantity to me. I doubted it would have the same Swedish minimalist elegance.

My first stop was therefore Warrington Central station, on the Liverpool to Manchester route. Actually the train I was on was headed for Scarborough, and I only managed to catch it at the last minute, earning a surly look from the woman collecting the tickets as I hurled myself on board. She also gave my Cheshire Day Ranger ticket a longer than usual once-over, as though she was hoping for a reason to chuck me off at Edge Hill. As it was, we chugged our way through Merseyside and then out to Warrington.

I must apologise for the extreme smugtwattery of my face in that shot. I took three pictures, but one turned out to be blurred, and the second had the Warrington Central sign erupting from the top of my skull like an antenna, so I had to go with the maximum git photo seen here. It does at least show the 80s style ticket office that Central's got. There's a bricked up doorway beneath the railway bridges, and, on the platform itself, what looks suspiciously like an old ticket window, but it looks like at some point a person at Rail House decided to spend some money on the station and the new ticket office was built. Either that or they were losing too much revenue from people going straight up to the Liverpool platform without bothering to cross to the Manchester one and buying a ticket. When I got there, a load of college students were larking around outside, waiting for their bus; I did a quick circuit of the block before coming back to take my photo. I invariably look a complete tit trying to take a picture of myself with the station sign - I didn't fancy an audience of braying teenagers.

From there, I turned left and headed into the town itself, not really having much of an idea where I was going. I actually got a pleasant surprise. I'd had impression that Warrington was a New Town, and so I'd lumped it in with other soulless holes like Skelmersdale and Milton (spit) Keynes. I'd seen the red brick estates around the Ikea. I figured the town centre would be a load of brutalist 1970s concrete buildings, a behemoth of a shopping centre, and hundreds of roundabouts.

A quick wander round soon showed me that while Warrington may have been designated a New Town in 1968, this was actually done with the aim of expanding a town which was already there, and had been for centuries. Consequently, the town centre had a pleasing mix of old and new, with Victorian buildings adapted for new shops, like the one above. Yes, it is an unfortunate name, isn't it? I wonder if anyone's ever explained to them that their fluffy pink gift shop is named after a harrowing Meryl Streep film about the Holocaust. Maybe they do know, and just don't care. Perhaps they're just big Meryl fans. At least they didn't call it Death Becomes Her.

There is still a large shopping centre, called Golden Square, which has clearly had some money spent on it in recent years to make it a bit more 21st Century. There's light pouring in from above, and while it doesn't quite stop it feeling like a shopping precinct, it's still not bad to wander round. It certainly made a change from the bitterly cold January wind and rain outside, which was making my ears glow. I had a look round, staring in shop windows, and finally exited into the town's old Market Square, complete with a wrought iron canopy and surrounded by coffee shops and old-fashioned pubs. Warrington seems to have quite a few shopping centres, in addition to Golden Square; I saw signs for The Courtyard and the amusingly named Cockhedge Shopping Centre.

At any rate, I'd spent long enough eyeing up the displays in Waterstones, so I headed away from the pedestrianised zone for the town's other station, Warrington Bank Quay. The route was through the town's "Cultural Quarter", and was heralded by a very impressive looking stately home. Very nice, I thought; very impressive, right in the middle of town. I wondered if it had once been the home of some Duke of Warrington or something. When I looked closer, though, I realised that the imposing building behind the golden gates was actually the Town Hall.

Now I worked in Local Government for six years, and at no point did I ever work in a building that looked like that. When I worked in Chester, my office overlooked McDonald's loading bay, and about four o'clock I used to have to bellow down the phone to be heard over the McLorry backing into place to make a delivery; in Crewe, I was stuck in a 1970s tower block which had all the charm of chewing gum on your shoe. Not once did I get to work in a place that had its own driveway. I feel cheated.

I went further into the Cultural Quarter, the rather grand name for the Victorian streets that stretch between the Town Hall and the station. At its centre is Palmyra Square, a pleasing enough patch of green, which just reminds me of Largo's home (also called Palmyra) in Thunderball. I should probably get some kind of Bond aversion therapy, something to stop all these little triggers going off in my head and stopping me from perceiving the world through normal eyes.

It was just gone ten a.m, and the town museum was still closed, sadly, meaning I missed out on Warrington's recreation of a local street scene; but the library was open, so I went in to finger the spines (and, incidentally, dry off a bit from the rain). I had to push my way in past a gaggle of scallies, one of whom was boasting that he had managed to avoid his knife being discovered by the police through the method of wearing two pairs of trackie bottoms. I was horrified. He wasn't just admitting to owning two shell suits, he was also saying he wore them. Truly nightmarish.

I had another terrible moment as I passed Parr Hall, the town's chief performance venue. You know that repressed memory therapy, where people lie back on a couch and discover that they were beaten black and blue as a child but just blocked it out? I experienced something similar then. I had been to the town centre before, about six or seven years ago, to hear a band at the Parr Hall. The whole evening was so dreadful I'd actually erased it from my memory until now.

You see, I was there to see Steeleye Span, Britain's premier "folk/rock" band, and if you've never heard of them, lucky you (I urge you to check out that YouTube link so you can fully appreciate their awfulness). I must make clear, I wasn't seeing them voluntarily. They are The Bf's favourite band, ever; he has all their albums, on vinyl and CD, and countless videos and DVDs of them in action. He dragged me along to their performance through a canny mix of blackmail, guilt and promises that it wouldn't be that bad.

It was. Imagine your Auntie Gloria, pissed on the sherry at your cousin's wedding, turning to the karaoke machine and playing a load of 15th century folk songs while your Uncle Roger does Guitar Hero in the background. That is Steeleye Span. And the crowd were worse: middle aged buffoons who cheered at every swish of the lead singer's skirts as she danced another reel around the stage, while a man with a moustache fiddled behind her (with a violin, thankfully). They burst into Gaudete - a song which summons up the truly glorious sound of a monastery choir on a wet Thursday during the Black Death - and the man next to me closed his eyes, nodded his head and whispered, "Yes," in a reverential tone. I couldn't wait to be away from these repellent humanoids, and let me tell you, the Bf suffered afterwards for forcing me to sit through it. I took him home and made him watch Casino Royale - not the 2006 classic, but the insane 1967 version of the first Bond novel which should only be seen through a haze of marijuana and LSD. That showed him.

I let out a strained scream of terror at this reawakened nightmare, then turned and fled the scene, rushing towards the steaming towers of the quite spectacularly ugly Unilever factory. Warrington became a major centre for textiles and chemicals thanks to its 1-2 punch of the Mersey and the railways, and that legacy is still clear from the vast blue buildings of the works, looming over Warrington Bank Quay station.

Warrington Bank Quay itself has had some money chucked at it in recent years by Virgin, who manage the station. Their efforts have meant there's a coffee shop in the ticket hall and the girls behind the counter have bright red uniforms, like Happy Shopper versions of the stewardesses in that Virgin Airways commercial. The money hasn't, however, extended to paying for a station sign anywhere, so I had to stand in the middle of the road to get a pic with the station building itself behind me.

At that point, incidentally, I was listening to Britney Spears singing Outrageous. I had my iPod on shuffle! Don't judge me!

One sign that Virgin had invested in was this one:

God, I hate corporate tweeness. I hate any soulless institution that likes to go all giggly and funny and try and nudge you into smiling as it sticks its hand in your wallet. The worst offenders are Innocent smoothies - every inch of their packaging is trying to be cute; they're about two minutes away from putting a smiley face in the "o". I'd happily thrust whoever designed that packaging into a thresher. The same for this sign - it was created as a publicity stunt, with daft pictorial images of people kissing, just to hype the refurbishment of the station, and it certainly got it in the papers. But that was a year ago. What's so special about Warrington, anyway? Does this mean I can go for the full Frenchie at Wigan North Western, and perhaps a hand shandy in the layby outside Lime Street, because they've not got signs telling me I can't? Can we have a sensible "no waiting" sign installed now, please Mr Branson? Thank you.

So that was Warrington: a surprisingly nice town, even if they do frown on hot liplock action. It could be completely cowed, sitting, as it does, halfway between Liverpool and Manchester, but to me it felt like it was holding its own, a decent community and worth a visit on its own. Just don't mention the Span or I might have to scream.

Shame Threshold

Oh dear.  In a world gone mad, tomorrow I am going to have my picture taken for an article in the Liverpool Echo about this very blog* - yes this one, dear reader, the one you hold in your sweaty little hands (if you are using a laptop anyway).  

And I am absolutely bleeding petrified.  Have I mentioned my crippling shyness before, readers? Well, I am now.  I am such a social vacuum, I'm practically a black hole.  I run from people; I hide from social circumstances; I don't even like answering the phone.  So obviously I'm a complete natural for an appearance in a major metropolitan newspaper.  Right now - and even with a bottle of wine inside me - I cannot understand what's going on that has lead me to this.  If I didn't also have an enormous guilt threshold, I would run and run and run.  As it is, be warned; it looks like, sometime over Christmas, you may see my shamefaced grimace in your local paper**...

*assuming that there's not a horrible disaster in Liverpool that is far more important and bumps me.***

**assuming you are reading this in the Liverpool area.

***obviously I don't want there to be a hideous terrorist incident, even if it will mean I don't have to have my photo taken.****

****no really.