Mark E. Smith - The Fall

Get out of my city you mediocre pseuds
And take those red-tie bastards
Who put up the Olympic flag with you
They walk around leering at young girls in packs
Worse than any yobs

(City Dweller)

A thick yellow cloud of hollow gaiety had settled over Manchester and Salford.

Bulbous, ugly, dripping with synthetic PR; a celebration clad in Nike in yellow and purple Nike! The full horror of The Commonwealth Games had, after a painfully extensive build-up, finally engulfed the populace, hapless and cynical alike.

It was finally upon us.

It was inescapable.

Large garish signs appeared overnight, screaming from the edges of the M60 motorway, taunting the grid-locked thousands, punching across the hype tempting tempting miserable commuters to taste the celebratory air!

Manchester had won.

Something.

An event.

A major event.

Must have been S Club would perform at the opening ceremony.

We all felt so proud.

And worse

Little yellow bears clad in purple sweatshirts could be purchased in the petrol stations and, to our horror, some would already dangle from rear-view mirrors.

Local news bulletins saw ruddy faced locals and many not so local leaping and hallooing in sub-Olympian glee in Castlefield, down to Salford Quays. And soon the yellow cloud would drift outwards, rolling through Prestwich, encircling Winter Hill.

Look at the alkies in Prestwich village in track suits, pretending to be sporty Mark would muse, a few days later, as we drove slowly and rather tentatively back into the city.

Decades of wearying political and fiscal hype had preceded the moment. The fervour of Olympic aspiration had receded to a Commonwealth Games reality.

Think Commonwealth, Mark had noted ironically, a month or so earlier as we planned our mini escape.

Yeah, I agreed. It would be a good time to get the fuck out of Manchester. Lets go for late July.

It had been a great time to get the fuck out of Manchester! A great idea, I thought Mark thought. And the idea had arrived, as Mark sipped lager and I cradled some head-crushingly bad wine in a pub in Sedgeley Park, Salford. Actually, for once, we were not fogged by the blue cigarette haze, or hammered by the prevailing banter we were actually sitting outside, talking about September 11 while watching aircraft lights spin around the city, dipping slowly down to Ringway on our left.

We had been talking, on and off tape, that night. As, indeed, we had, on so many occasions peppered across a span of 25 years. And many of them will bubble up in the forthcoming pages.

But, this time this time we would shunt it out of context. No Prestwich pub. No backstage area. No television studio. No place where one might traditionally enjoy the company of Mark E. Smith.

The Lake District.

I think I had said it. It was, to be honest, an easy option. A mere kick up the motorway for both of us. Mark, who seemed easily capable of securing a lift from his native Prestwich and myself, travelling separately, from unlovely Warrington a two-hour shunt in a Punto.

I had known, also, that Mark had spent time in this unlikely location. He knew the Lakes. He didnt show great fondness for them, not in the way he would speak about his curiously beloved Blackpool, but he knew them. Had played football there. Had spent time, he told me, in a hotel called Rothay Manor.

OK. So I cocked up!

Two weeks prior to our escape to Lakeland, I had spent yet another week in the locality, jogging daily through Troutbeck, lounging in a fellside cottage reading Mick Farrens Give The Anarchist A Cigarette. And then, while I was enjoying that particular slip back to Sixties counter-culture, a rumble in my mobile had indicated the arrival of Marks distinctive disembodied voice.