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Leicester Part One - Getting There is Only Half the Fun.
Thursday 7 February
The mobile goes off as I'm leaving, and trying to convince myself that the front door is locked and everything is off that needs to be off. I've already ignored the phone once, and I don't think he'd try my mobile if he still has the number. It's a text rather than a call: B telling me that I need to be at the Clephan Building, 9.30, Saturday. That's good, I was right.
Yesterday I finally wrote the paper I'm delivering, and after a tedious meeting I printed it out, along with more chapters of the Companion to Science Fiction. What I don't do, as I grab a pint on the way home, is remember to print out the map and instructions. As my printer at home is still out of toner, that's any chance gone.
At least when I got home - driven out by football - I could look things up on the interwebs. But the DMU domain had vanished. It wasn't the hanging that I'm getting with a load of websites that won't let me through since I've had the new modem, it was "This site is not connected" message. I go back through old files, and I don't seem to have saved any of the PDFs with the information on. Okay, I could email the organisers and hope they text me - in the meantime I go down the pub when B was about to close up.
When I get home I google for some information, and B had promised to look online for me. The good old Yellow Pages allows me to plug in the location details and look at it on the map. Twenty minutes walk to the university from the hotel, eight minutes walk from the station to the hotel. I start digging for second hand bookshops: I found a newsagent and I've researched secondhand books. Black Cat has moved from the Silver Street Arcade (where it was next to Goldmarks) but I have a sudden flash of memory of Tin Drum Books (a load of early Sight and Sounds I was going to go back for) and Clarendon Books ... when was that? 98? 99? Maybe 00, before moving to HW. Tin Drum was just off a main road, a bit of a walk from the bus stop; I remember strolling back... Clarendon Park, didn't I go there with my mum in tow?
By the time my light went out it was 3am, and the alarm went off at 7.00, and 7.05 and 7.10... I'm all packed, it's just a case of getting the Indie for the philosophy supplement, and checking all is shut off. I have half an hour to get to the station and buy a ticket. At 9.45 the phone rang; answer it? No, I listened to the answerphone. Dammit, there was something else I should have done.
The door is locked and I check and double check as the phone goes off. It's B, telling me that I need to be at the Clephan Building, 9.30, Saturday. I walk to the station and glance at the screens: a couple of the earlier trains are delayed, a train to the coast is cancelled, but the train I want is cancelled. There are a lot of people on the platform, three times as many as usual, and it's clear that the previous train hasn't been through yet. The train I want comes up as delayed, then changes to one which will terminate at Faversham.
A train appears and we all get on - there have been points failure in Dover and this is the first train in over an hour. Mobiles have been pressed to the limit inthe phoning of family, schools and offices. We're onna train. This is clearly the train before the one I want, and I'm not sure if my ticket would be valid. We're told that this is the train for London, but we should listen for further announcements. It's just a minute or so late from my point of view, but I'm lucky. The person behind me receives half a dozen calls; he's on his way to the Royal Marsden and he has to talk about his symptoms.
At Faversham the train usually docks with the Ramsgate train. Clearly the train this train needs has long since gone. We're told to listen for further announcements. No more come. But we have to wait for the train that my train would have docked with. And, guess what - it's late. I text B to thank him and tell him the trains are in meltdown.
I've allowed myself just under an hour to get across London to St Pancras International, and it now feels like it's an epic walk to the departure point from the tube. We reach Bromley South at the point that we're meant to be in Victoria. This is not good. I need that connection.
The Tube takes forever, and St Pancras was a maze last time I was here for the scenery. But I clearly have found the right way now, and I realise I even have time to buy a milkshake, a Private Eye and risk some photographs. I'm sitting on the train a good fifteen minutes before depature. A miracle.
It makes sense to go to the Hotel, dump my bags and then go back in, maybe see where the conference is and test the walk. I turn left out of the station onto London Road. I'd forgotten it was uphill. I guess I'm at the brow. I half recognise the Marquis Wellington, which I think is where I drank when I visited A back in 1992. Or was that the Marquis Granby? The brow of the hill is reached, the street numbers are in the hundreds, and I clearly have a way to go.
I pass a park that I recognise - I've pissed against those trees... I remember having two pints of Bishop's Finger, although I suspect I had more... The rucksack, even though small, feels heavy. It's a hot sunny day, although it's still February. I reach the two hundreds and a roundabout, and an old car mechanics that looks like it was once a cinema, and still it's on. I pass the street where A lived. When I get to the hotel I'm sweaty, and just short of a sign that says the station is a mile and a half away. Aha. Not an eight minute walk, really.
It takes a while to confirm I can check in. It must be nearly three by now. Apparently the rooms are still being dealt with, but mine is ready. She rattles through the details that you never listen to. I get to my room - a Burroughsian 23 - and I unpack, wash, have a cup of hot chocolate and head out of there.
There's a bus stop across the road, and I see it is 31 or 31A I need. The buses advertise maximum single and return prices, and I ask for a return. They don't sell them, or he can't sell me one, so it's £1.85 into town. The maximum single. Down the hill and we pass Clarendon Park Road - shit - there's a secondhand bookshop down there - and we hit town.
I get off and get my bearings. There's a Primark, and that's a way into the Haymarket. I do a little proletarian shopping, and find a couple of charity shops. In the Shires I risk a security incident and take some photos. I feel I'm being looked at, by men in yellow waistcoats. I also buy a map, and I'm curious that I'm not more pissed off by a respectable middle-aged woman getting served first. The clerk is apologetic.
The mobile goes off as I'm leaving, and trying to convince myself that the front door is locked and everything is off that needs to be off. I've already ignored the phone once, and I don't think he'd try my mobile if he still has the number. It's a text rather than a call: B telling me that I need to be at the Clephan Building, 9.30, Saturday. That's good, I was right.
Yesterday I finally wrote the paper I'm delivering, and after a tedious meeting I printed it out, along with more chapters of the Companion to Science Fiction. What I don't do, as I grab a pint on the way home, is remember to print out the map and instructions. As my printer at home is still out of toner, that's any chance gone.
At least when I got home - driven out by football - I could look things up on the interwebs. But the DMU domain had vanished. It wasn't the hanging that I'm getting with a load of websites that won't let me through since I've had the new modem, it was "This site is not connected" message. I go back through old files, and I don't seem to have saved any of the PDFs with the information on. Okay, I could email the organisers and hope they text me - in the meantime I go down the pub when B was about to close up.
When I get home I google for some information, and B had promised to look online for me. The good old Yellow Pages allows me to plug in the location details and look at it on the map. Twenty minutes walk to the university from the hotel, eight minutes walk from the station to the hotel. I start digging for second hand bookshops: I found a newsagent and I've researched secondhand books. Black Cat has moved from the Silver Street Arcade (where it was next to Goldmarks) but I have a sudden flash of memory of Tin Drum Books (a load of early Sight and Sounds I was going to go back for) and Clarendon Books ... when was that? 98? 99? Maybe 00, before moving to HW. Tin Drum was just off a main road, a bit of a walk from the bus stop; I remember strolling back... Clarendon Park, didn't I go there with my mum in tow?
By the time my light went out it was 3am, and the alarm went off at 7.00, and 7.05 and 7.10... I'm all packed, it's just a case of getting the Indie for the philosophy supplement, and checking all is shut off. I have half an hour to get to the station and buy a ticket. At 9.45 the phone rang; answer it? No, I listened to the answerphone. Dammit, there was something else I should have done.
The door is locked and I check and double check as the phone goes off. It's B, telling me that I need to be at the Clephan Building, 9.30, Saturday. I walk to the station and glance at the screens: a couple of the earlier trains are delayed, a train to the coast is cancelled, but the train I want is cancelled. There are a lot of people on the platform, three times as many as usual, and it's clear that the previous train hasn't been through yet. The train I want comes up as delayed, then changes to one which will terminate at Faversham.
A train appears and we all get on - there have been points failure in Dover and this is the first train in over an hour. Mobiles have been pressed to the limit inthe phoning of family, schools and offices. We're onna train. This is clearly the train before the one I want, and I'm not sure if my ticket would be valid. We're told that this is the train for London, but we should listen for further announcements. It's just a minute or so late from my point of view, but I'm lucky. The person behind me receives half a dozen calls; he's on his way to the Royal Marsden and he has to talk about his symptoms.
At Faversham the train usually docks with the Ramsgate train. Clearly the train this train needs has long since gone. We're told to listen for further announcements. No more come. But we have to wait for the train that my train would have docked with. And, guess what - it's late. I text B to thank him and tell him the trains are in meltdown.
I've allowed myself just under an hour to get across London to St Pancras International, and it now feels like it's an epic walk to the departure point from the tube. We reach Bromley South at the point that we're meant to be in Victoria. This is not good. I need that connection.
The Tube takes forever, and St Pancras was a maze last time I was here for the scenery. But I clearly have found the right way now, and I realise I even have time to buy a milkshake, a Private Eye and risk some photographs. I'm sitting on the train a good fifteen minutes before depature. A miracle.It makes sense to go to the Hotel, dump my bags and then go back in, maybe see where the conference is and test the walk. I turn left out of the station onto London Road. I'd forgotten it was uphill. I guess I'm at the brow. I half recognise the Marquis Wellington, which I think is where I drank when I visited A back in 1992. Or was that the Marquis Granby? The brow of the hill is reached, the street numbers are in the hundreds, and I clearly have a way to go. I pass a park that I recognise - I've pissed against those trees... I remember having two pints of Bishop's Finger, although I suspect I had more... The rucksack, even though small, feels heavy. It's a hot sunny day, although it's still February. I reach the two hundreds and a roundabout, and an old car mechanics that looks like it was once a cinema, and still it's on. I pass the street where A lived. When I get to the hotel I'm sweaty, and just short of a sign that says the station is a mile and a half away. Aha. Not an eight minute walk, really.
It takes a while to confirm I can check in. It must be nearly three by now. Apparently the rooms are still being dealt with, but mine is ready. She rattles through the details that you never listen to. I get to my room - a Burroughsian 23 - and I unpack, wash, have a cup of hot chocolate and head out of there.
There's a bus stop across the road, and I see it is 31 or 31A I need. The buses advertise maximum single and return prices, and I ask for a return. They don't sell them, or he can't sell me one, so it's £1.85 into town. The maximum single. Down the hill and we pass Clarendon Park Road - shit - there's a secondhand bookshop down there - and we hit town.
I get off and get my bearings. There's a Primark, and that's a way into the Haymarket. I do a little proletarian shopping, and find a couple of charity shops. In the Shires I risk a security incident and take some photos. I feel I'm being looked at, by men in yellow waistcoats. I also buy a map, and I'm curious that I'm not more pissed off by a respectable middle-aged woman getting served first. The clerk is apologetic.
Now I've got a map, I stand a better chance of finding the Phoenix Arts Centre. I think I've been there before. I'm not sure. I think I saw two Hong Kong movies there with the Prefab Four. The building doesn't look familiar, but it is a decade on. I buy a ticket for No Country for Old Men, and then go in search of somewhere to buy a cob or something. I think of looking for Saturday's venue, but that can wait. I have an indifferent coffe in the cafe - it's no Carbunkle, there's not much buzz - and then it's time for the movie
To Be Continued...