The hotel room overlooks the bay and salt marches of Grange-over-Sands. Back in the north, for Matt's wedding (he who leant me the entire series of the Sopranos to get me through last winter). We arrive at ten on Thursday night and the streets are empty. We peer into an Indian restaurant and know the only two people dining. (Fi and Doug). A shop on the main street sells everything from footballs, to rucksacks, to tie cleaner to headstones (see picture above). A man walks past in a t-shirt which has the body and legs of a frog below his neck. He is the frogman. His girlfriend walks beside him, looking immensely pleased with her frogman.
In the taxi to the wedding the driver points out an old man on one of those motorised old people mobiles, driving in the middle of the road.
"He's a menace that man. I always see him. He drives in the middle of the road. He thinks he's in a car." He's explaining this as we follow him, trying to find a point at which to overtake him.
Then, he adds: "He used to be the mayor of this town."
The wedding is fantastic, everything is right; the location, the speeches, the delicious food, the constant booze, the playing of 'where's me jumper'. Then there's the little touches; the lottery ticket bought for each invitee, the taxis that pick us up to take us to a classic country pub in Windermere the next day. Tremendous.
After the peace and quiet of Grange it feels a little depressing to come back to the non-stop traffic of London. However Monday night I'm standing at Highbury and Islington station and who should walk past me? Ian Brown of the Stone Roses. The trademark bowl, the rock star strut, he's very thin is Ian and he looks quite scallyish, but you only see these indie star types in London. Over the road there's a couple of Kaiser Chiefs in the pub.
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