Saturday. Get up late and faff around the house for a while before finally getting sorted and leave for Manchester to get some tix from Piccadilly Box Office and I can sneek in a bit of record buying. As I’m accompanied by my partner in crime we have to go via Selfridges so she can do a bit of detective work on some perfume she likes. While she does that I get some time to take a few photos of the Big Wheel in Exchange Square. Then it’s off to get the tickets for BSP and The Pipettes and have a brief wander round the European Christmas Market in St Anne’s Square (which gets crapper and crapper every year, first year it happened it was a bit of a novelty, but now it’s just the same old tat some german toy maker can’t get tourists to buy when they visit Bravaria and stalls that sell heated booze) . So after a quick stop off at the pasty place next to Jacobs on Cross St for an tasty veggie pasty it’s back the serious business of buying music.

Vinyl Exchange is too busy and full of rude smelly people so I can only manage 1/2 hour in there before I give in and leave, only purchasing 5 CDs (Including the delightful Let Go by Nada Surf for only a fiver and promo of The New Pornographers album Twin Cinema). It was sad to see that they still had loads of copies of Metric’s ‘Old World Underground, Where Are You Now’ for only 2 quid. They don’t seem to be able to shift them, which is a shame cos everyone deserves a little Metric in their lives.

Then it’s off over th’road to Piccadilly Records to look for the 7″ of the latest Pipettes release ‘Dirty Mind; no joy but I did find the CD single and succumbed to spending more than I should have for a copy of The Boards Of Canada album The Campfire Headphase. Mmmm, nice.

Decided to give the comic shops a miss and headed to Chav Street (sorry, Market Street) and HMV in the continuing quest for The Pipettes 7″. Notice that they’ve done something to the lights inside so now it’s like shopping while being irradiated by a nuclear blast… head down the back to the vinyl section, the 7″ section now consits of no more than 20 records hidden behind a pillar. Feel kind of guitly over not buying much vinyl over the last few years… quicky search through the entire collection of 7″s to discover no Pipettes. Head on out cursing my foolishness in not coming down on Monday when the record came out and decide to console myself by purchasing a copy of Mass Romantic for a penny shy of a tenner.

That done, we amble into the Arndale to see what the new extension and the giant Next look like. We both agree it’s a bit crap. I wonder where Virgin is now that it’s not on Market Street… hmm.. After that we’ve both run out of things to do so we look at the Big wheel a bit more then decide to go back to Wigan and Drink booze.

Now this is something special. I don’t do drinking in Wigan. It’s not my thing, not since I was in my late teens. The whole place just gets full of townie/chav wankers on a Friday and Saturday Night who just want to get in a fight with you. The only place I ever liked was the Tudor, the best pub in all of Wigan which used to have the best jukebox this side of anywhere, so that’s where we wandered down to.

First impressions on getting there were : WTF?!? it’s shut!! There’s a small group of peoples stood outside the door looking a bit perplexed, obviously somethings going onthen I remember Wigan have been playing Arsenal at home. So I walk up to the door and give the handle a good rattle and the little peep hole portcullis thing in the door shoots open and a pair of eye peer out: “We’re shut, It’s regulars only!” says a voice from inside. WTF x2!! A woman stuck outside next to me goes “But we’re Wiganers”, so the voice inside says “Could you step away from the doors so I can get a look at you”. So that’s what we do. After a moment the door is opens and the ‘Gatekeeper’ says “I don’t recognise any of you” (at this point I’m just thinking is this just so Return of the Jedi or what, standing outside Jabba palace). By now I just want a drink so I go “Are you gonna let us in?” while walking past him inside. At that point I think he realises we’re not savage Arsenal supporting barbarians wanting to trash the place and relents letting a hole load of us in. As I make my way to the bar I hear him say to his mate “I don’t recognise any of them”… I’m not supprised, the last time I set foot in here you where probably still in primary school!*

Anyways after that less than warm welcome I got the drinks in and found a nice quiet corner to sit in and get my bearings. All I can say is the place has changed very little, which is a good thing in my opinion. I kept getting flashbacks when certain songs came on the jukebox. It’s weird to think that I was probably sat in the same place listening to the same songs over 10 years ago,which freaked me out quite a bit, much to A’s amusement! So we settled down for a good evening of drinking and yakking interupted only by what I have to say is the finest veggie burger I’ve ever had. If you ever go in ther you have to try it.. delicious!

Some how I managed to spend nearly 50 quid in there, I would have spent more except we where forced to leave after a DJ set him self up in the booth in the corner a decided to start playing some highly inapropriate R&B type records (don’t know why he was there, most people seemed more than happy with the jukebox to be honest). We stuck out the bad music for an hour before enough was enough and we left. Walked briskly through the super thick fog that had enveloped the area whilst we drank, avoiding the War zone that is King St on a Saturday night and got a taxi home , in which A managed to loose her favourite hat (Even if she tells you otherwise it was her and not me who lost the hat). I think I will have to make the Tudor a regular stopping off point once again, it’s offically on “PJ’s list of Places to get pissed in” again!

Technorati Tags: British Sea Power, The Pipettes, Nada Surf, The New Pornographers, Wigan, The Tudor

*I’m such an old fart