We are staying in the night club area of Liverpool, our hotel room is triple glazed to keep out the noise and the windows are bolted shut to stop us from opening them to capture the ambience of the area. We can’t hear a thing at night although you are frightened of breathing too heavily in case you use up all the oxygen in the sealed room. Picture of the hotel opposite.
Last night we sat in an Irish bar close by to watch the not very satisfactory England / Scotland game, it was a friendly pub the only snag was they did not do food of any description, not even crisps so at the end of the match we headed out into the mayhem of scantily clad women covered in fake tans with huge false eyelashes and a lot of drink inside them. I am told by my accomplice that there was some men as well but somehow my eyes were attracted the female flesh.
Walking through this mayhem, past a great many policemen we spotted a restaurant which was surprizingly empty, we soon discovered the reason, it run by Muslims and is probably the only alcohol free establishment in the area. Two very nice steaks were most welcome after all the Guinness we had consumed during the match and we then managed to get back to the hotel past a lot of rather merry revellers who were not socially distancing.
Today’s entertainment was provided by the Museum of Liverpool which was well laid out and informative although it does, as is the current fashion, put a great deal of emphasis on the slave trade. It was evil but it seems to have taken over the telling of our history before and since.
There was a good section on the attempts to build an enormous Catholic Cathedral by a megalomanic Archbishop Downey which would have been the 2nd largest church in the World.
It was designed by Lutyens and was to be paid for by local subscription despite the fact that most Liverpool Catholics were poor. It took over a year to construct the scale model of the church, the land was purchased and work started on the crypt. That was as far as they got when WW2 broke out after which sense prevailed and the more modest concrete cathedral was built.
Ironically, the design of Liverpool’s Catholic cathedral was by Lutyens, an Anglican, while the modern gothic of the city’s contemporary Anglican cathedral, was designed by Gilbert Scott, a Catholic.
There was a great deal on the history of the docks of course, the strikes and the subsequent closure after which Liverpool became very run down. A quote from the Daily Mail in 1982 opposite.
Forty years on Liverpool is a great place to be although walking back through the centre of the city we were confronted by a protest against vaccination with a few quite aggressive campaigners amongst them.
It took us four hours to go round the mueum but it was not until we came out and found it was gone lunchtime that we realised how long we had been in there (we still managed to have a nice lunch in case you are worried).
Tomorrow we are off Beatling, visiting the homes of Paul and John which we hope will remind us of our own childhoods, watch this space for news.