Blackpool in September
‘I’ll turn Hitler on while you take the photo,’ my boyfriend smilingly says to some strangers. They are delighted by his kind offer and pose in front of the Fuehrer, as his arms raise and an electronic voice shouts ‘nein, nein, nein.’
This is definitely the best fun it is possible to have in Blackpool.
We are at the Grundy Gallery, which is currently running the Crazyland Golf exhibition, a fully interactive crazy golf course designed by artists including The Chapman Brothers and David Shrigley. Saddam Hussein is also immortalized here, a statue in perpetual fall, arms held aloft in perpetual victory.
Outside and the drizzle of summer has disappeared and it is a bright blue mid September morning-not yet half eleven yet the pubs are busy and several men recumber outside topless and clutching their mid morning beers which is probably the second best fun it is possible to have in Blackpool.
Look behind you and you can see tattered filthy perennially closed curtains, empty industrial cooking fat containers and the general detritus of urban squalor. In front of you lie modern sculptures, bleached sands, glittering sea and the far away blue hazy promise of mountains.
People are desperately trying to squeeze this last little swansong of summer dry, licking ice creams with furious intent and spending spending spending on kids carousel rides and lager. Everyone is smoking with cheekbone chiseling intensity.
Two creosote tanned middle-aged women sing an old fashioned sounding song gently to each other at a bus stop, three female generations of a Glaswegian family tumble off a bus and into the Metropole loudly looking forward to ‘an enormous Baileys in the sun’.
We too enter The Metropole, a grand old hotel, all ambitious curly wurly Victorian plastered glory through the high grand foyer, all collect your own cutlery and meals for under £3.95 in the conservatory bar area. An elderly couple pristinely ironed, smile at each other over a coffee. A punk is talking about stabbing someone at the bar. Oh Blackpool, I do have a soft spot for you.
The Victorian penny arcade on the North Pier with black duct tape over half the coin slots is enough to make anyone’s heart sing as a tattered hundred-year-old ghost half heartedly flutters to life when I place my genuine Victorian penny in the slot of the Ghostly Tales machine. A few metres away in the modern arcade, urgent orange lights tell you to NUDGE!!! or KEEP!!! and shimmy upwards in ever increasingly bright orbits. I like my flaccid grey and silent ghost best.
My heart does not sing to wannabe upmarket tourist resorts, desperate to appeal to the Farrow and Balled and cutesy, chintzy and over-priced. Blackpool is the only place not to attempt to sell ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’ tea towels and overpriced oversweet over-embellished cupcakes. Blackpool has poppers, Willy lollypops and chips with gravy and cheese. For which Blackpool, I salute you. Blackpool has genuine Victoriana with duct tape or ‘Danger’ emblazoned across it, not a ‘Victorian Experience’ costing seven quid a head and all the chaos, malfunctioning, unmarital sex and working class people removed from the equation.
Blackpool with its hideous aura of post war surburban houses has two quid a pint lager overlooking the best view in the world and is not selling aspirations, anything polkadot or anything pastel. Blackpool is a place to have dirty cheap neon nylon fun and maybe be a bit sick into your full English breakfast.
There is no pretence or aspiration here. People from all over the country who are either ignored, hated or pitied come here and have a fucking brilliant time, like they did a hundred years ago.
And be a bit sick in their breakfast.
September 23rd, 2012 at 9:16 pm
gave me a giggle as usual look forward to your next one, keep up the good work
September 23rd, 2012 at 9:54 pm
Nothing like a northern clime to get those cheekbones chiseling intensely. Tasmania is just about as northern a clime as you can get. They call us “little britain” and there are more than a fair percentage of andy’s here. Our beaches are so unAustralian as to be questionable and when I moved from the blindingly white beaches of my native Western Australia to head over to cooler climes in Tassie the first and most dissapointing thing that I noticed was the lack of white beach and blue sea. “I have moved from the Med to the U.K.!”…my poor long suffering expat husband Steve was bewildered! Shot out of the U.K. on a jet never to return and firmly in antipodian heaven and then shunted to the closest thing that Australia has to the U.K.! We are a poor state and can’t afford our own Blackpool. We have to make do with being a penal colony for the U.K. that was stuffed to the back gills with the dreaded Irish. We have a tradition in Australia called “The Tall Poppy Syndrome”…we don’t like Aussies to get up themselves…we nip it in the bud and we can’t stand posers or wankers. Sounds like Blackpool might be right up my alley. Steve’s an old U.K. punk so he can sit at the bar and talk about prehistoric fights and I can wander about with a plate of chips (“no gravy please”) should we ever return to the U.K. Patriotism to the max in Blackpool! Thats the spirit…never surrender and never say die! That’s what has gotten little britain through all of her David and Goliath fights in the past, her sheer tenacity and refusal to give up…that’s what makes you great, and that’s what we Aussies uphold in our motherland…”never surrender…never say die!”…bring it on rest of the world…we will take you! Cheers for another wonderful post. I feel completely spoiled this week. I get 2 big posts and one begging letter that reminded me that I have some degree of responsibility with my voyeuristic blog reading habits…hope you win by the way. Cheers and thanks for all the fish
September 29th, 2012 at 11:10 pm
I would very much like to meet you one day, have a few pjnts and listen to some UK Subs. I have an ozzie passport but pasty white skin and am more fond of graveyards than sports.am on phone and stfuggling to type. Wine is involved.owe you proper erudite post as j like you!