dual carriageway surrounded by garden ornaments but in some ways he reminds me of me.
Dad said once that El Cid used to be down Spring Bank West somewhere before making his way onto the Hessle Road. I know how he feels. Here is this monumental guy, towering over everything around him and he has only made it a couple of miles down the road. I haven’t looked at the map, but it is probably even arguable whether he is any further out of Hull than he was.
I wonder how badly he wants to escape. I wanted to escape from Hull very badly once. I wanted to play my way to London and from there around America, and here I am still in Victoria Ave playing for snacks money in the same old pubs over and over again. If I should ever make it to Birmingham I’ll be thinking I am going national.
People say to me “Why don’t you go on ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ or anything else with Simon Cowell in it”? They are joking of course. Simon Cowell would take one look at me and toss me even further than he threw Susan Boyle before he snatched her back. I wouldn’t be so lucky, or so unlucky, depending on your point of view.
I realised a long time back that I am minority listening which is OK because I am one of that minority as is Jade. So long as both of us can still stick me I’m going to carry on.
I think I’d stand more chance on ‘The Apprentice’. At least when Sir Alan sacked me I could punch him in the face. That would be PR worth having.
* * *
Poor Jade. She really is suffering. She hasn’t been off the couch in days, maybe weeks. I keep trying to lure her onto her feet because I’m sure it isn’t good for either her or the baby to be lying there all the time but she’s just not interested.
I’ve sold another two houses this week, and I’ve a gig in Grimsby on Saturday.
I can’t think of Grimsby now without conjuring up that scene from Daphne Glazer’s ‘by the tide of the humber’ where she gets into a Grimsby dock to prepare to swim across the Humber. Her man has committed suicide in Hull prison, her mum committed suicide in the Humber when she was a child because her dad was having an affair, and her boyfriend was her man’s prison warder without her knowing it. That counts as an uneventful life in Hull.
Anyway, there is this scene where she has to get undressed alongside a bunch of male long distance swimmers and then climb into the dock which is freezing cold, slimy, smelly, murky and with all sorts of disgusting things hazardous to safety and health floating above and below the surface. The water is so cold that it numbs her whole body except for her head which it gives a splitting headache. She finds it really hard to breathe. Then all these floating things come at her as she has to dip her head under the putrid, crumby water. Her biggest fear is of rats. I’m rather fond of rats, personally. Some of my best friends are rats, as they say. One definitely is.
Mind you, the whole of Grimsby is a bit like Daphne’s dock in my experience. I’ve never played the Matrix Club before but for some reason I often get a decent turnout in Grimsby so it is perhaps time I started to make an effort to like the place.
Daphne’s ‘Goodbye Hessle Road’ (I bet old El Cid prays hourly for the opportunity to say that) is definitely worth a gander too. It’s about a prison visitor (well Daphne is a prison visitor) whose best friend from childhood falls into drugs and prostitution before being murdered. It’s based around Victoria Ave somewhere where some days bodies litter the streets or at least skips do.
* * *
Not only is Harry failing to do his bit for Cathy but he keeps coming around to see how Jade is. I am beginning to feel stalked. Hasn’t he got a home to go to? He’s got a fucking enormous home to go to (just seen it) and failing that he’s got mine in Priory Drive. Does he have to live here too?
I’m getting a bit worried about him. He keeps putting his arm around me in a
Dad said once that El Cid used to be down Spring Bank West somewhere before making his way onto the Hessle Road. I know how he feels. Here is this monumental guy, towering over everything around him and he has only made it a couple of miles down the road. I haven’t looked at the map, but it is probably even arguable whether he is any further out of Hull than he was.
I wonder how badly he wants to escape. I wanted to escape from Hull very badly once. I wanted to play my way to London and from there around America, and here I am still in Victoria Ave playing for snacks money in the same old pubs over and over again. If I should ever make it to Birmingham I’ll be thinking I am going national.
People say to me “Why don’t you go on ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ or anything else with Simon Cowell in it”? They are joking of course. Simon Cowell would take one look at me and toss me even further than he threw Susan Boyle before he snatched her back. I wouldn’t be so lucky, or so unlucky, depending on your point of view.
I realised a long time back that I am minority listening which is OK because I am one of that minority as is Jade. So long as both of us can still stick me I’m going to carry on.
I think I’d stand more chance on ‘The Apprentice’. At least when Sir Alan sacked me I could punch him in the face. That would be PR worth having.
* * *
Poor Jade. She really is suffering. She hasn’t been off the couch in days, maybe weeks. I keep trying to lure her onto her feet because I’m sure it isn’t good for either her or the baby to be lying there all the time but she’s just not interested.
I’ve sold another two houses this week, and I’ve a gig in Grimsby on Saturday.
I can’t think of Grimsby now without conjuring up that scene from Daphne Glazer’s ‘by the tide of the humber’ where she gets into a Grimsby dock to prepare to swim across the Humber. Her man has committed suicide in Hull prison, her mum committed suicide in the Humber when she was a child because her dad was having an affair, and her boyfriend was her man’s prison warder without her knowing it. That counts as an uneventful life in Hull.
Anyway, there is this scene where she has to get undressed alongside a bunch of male long distance swimmers and then climb into the dock which is freezing cold, slimy, smelly, murky and with all sorts of disgusting things hazardous to safety and health floating above and below the surface. The water is so cold that it numbs her whole body except for her head which it gives a splitting headache. She finds it really hard to breathe. Then all these floating things come at her as she has to dip her head under the putrid, crumby water. Her biggest fear is of rats. I’m rather fond of rats, personally. Some of my best friends are rats, as they say. One definitely is.
Mind you, the whole of Grimsby is a bit like Daphne’s dock in my experience. I’ve never played the Matrix Club before but for some reason I often get a decent turnout in Grimsby so it is perhaps time I started to make an effort to like the place.
Daphne’s ‘Goodbye Hessle Road’ (I bet old El Cid prays hourly for the opportunity to say that) is definitely worth a gander too. It’s about a prison visitor (well Daphne is a prison visitor) whose best friend from childhood falls into drugs and prostitution before being murdered. It’s based around Victoria Ave somewhere where some days bodies litter the streets or at least skips do.
* * *
Not only is Harry failing to do his bit for Cathy but he keeps coming around to see how Jade is. I am beginning to feel stalked. Hasn’t he got a home to go to? He’s got a fucking enormous home to go to (just seen it) and failing that he’s got mine in Priory Drive. Does he have to live here too?
I’m getting a bit worried about him. He keeps putting his arm around me in a
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