Ticket to Ride

She got a ticket to ride and she went there! There being Liverpool.

I had a work meeting in Liverpool on a Monday so it just made sense - at least in the logic of blogdom - to get the train on Saturday morning and spend the weekend. Best know as the birthplace of the most influential and best selling musical act of all time (no points for guessing this one), Liverpool is a port city of about 500,000 in the northwest of England situated at the mouth of the River Mersey. (Yes, the one with the ferry 'cross it. Because it's not JUST about the Beatles. There was also Gerry & the Pacemakers of ferry fame. Also Elvis Costello, Echo & the Bunnymen, Frankie Goes to Hollywood and some others that people younger than me might care about). The Beatles may be inescapable in Liverpool, but there are actually non-Beatles things to do as well, so I booked a cheap hotel and set the alarm early Saturday morning to get to the train station.

I arrived just before lunch and dropped my bag at the cheap hotel, which can best be described as "basic" and reminiscent of my hostel-dwelling days. (Though not nearly as bad as some in my experience.) After a bit of lunch, and some local knowledge from a friendly waiter,  I headed towards the docks to start my Liverpool Beatles Magical Mystery Tour. (Note: not actually magical or mysterious, but we all know I still had to say it.)

Me and the Fab Four, at (supposedly) the UK's most-photographed statue. And given the queue of people waiting for photos, I can believe it. I was roped in to take a photo of a large group and they reciprocated by taking some of me, so here's one of those, showing off the fancy new tweed jacket that Karen made me buy. 

(Aside: What is it with people taking photos in portrait mode when the subject matter is clearly wider than it is tall? I know I've ranted about lots of other things , but this one is sooooo on The List.  When I was taking photos for that group - in landscape mode, because the statue, the group of people, and the horizon were all obviously proportioned that way - they stopped me and asked me to switch the phone around to portrait mode. What the hell? And what is it with people who have the orientation of their phone LOCKED to portrait mode? What is that? Kids these days! Pffft!)

After the statue it was a short walk through the refurbished Albert Docks area to the Beatles Story. Naturally I'd done some research about what to see before I got to Liverpool, especially on the various Beatles sites, which include two different museums. (Note: for "research" here read "hasty Googling on the train journey north".) Those two museums could not be more different, and the flashier of the two is the Beatles Story, a self-described "incredible immersive journey". Astute Go Stay Work Play Live Readers can probably hear my eyes rolling from here. Regardless, it had to be done.

The Beatles Story is a series of recreated locations from the history of the band, some more approximate than others, accompanied by a bit of  explanatory text and an audioguide. It was pretty good, though somewhat style-over-substance, with a few vexing top-notes.

The best section was the recreated Cavern Club, which was quite good. (But that grafitti does say "Jerry and the Pacemakers", which is an unforgivable spelling error. Seriously Beatles Story, sort yourself out!)

Other sections seemed a bit... mixed up. The early bits were basically in order - Lennon and McCartney meeting at a Quarrymen gig at the local Church fête, the addition of George Harrison, their time in Hamburg, booting Pete Best and bringing in Ringo, signing on with Brian Epstein, Ed Sullivan, Beatlemania, and so on. But after Sgt. Pepper, things got a bit confused. It seemed to skip to the break-up of the group jarringly quickly, then into sections about each individual band member, before then back-tracking to deal with the band's time in India and then abruptly dumping out into the inevitable gift shop. I'm glad I went, but it was a confusing ending and it all felt a bit too "theme park" for my tastes.

Because I'd had a very early start, I was ready for a nap after the Beatles Story. This is the beauty of traveling on your own - you can check out of the day's activities at any time with no negotiation and no guilt. (To be fair, this is also true when traveling with Karen. Our recent trip involved many instances of the tactical late-afternoon retreat to the hotel for a little quiet time.) I followed this up with a long walk to a restaurant for the famous local delicacy - scouse, but was thwarted in that quest because the place I went to was all out of scouse by the time I arrived (more on scouse in a later blog, if you're lucky). This meant a long walk back through the centre of town. Luckily, I found a friendly neighbourhood place for a very credible plate of pasta, so the evening had a very pleasant ending (due in no small measure to the large glass of red wine that I had along with my pasta).

Central Liverpool is quite small and very walkable. Many of the streets are closed to vehicle traffic, which meant that on a Saturday night there were lots of people out enjoying the city. I passed several credible buskers, and what seemed like an over-representation of Hen Parties (this was later confirmed by my local contact: Liverpool is apparently home of the Hen Night.) Still, it was fun to be out in the buzz, and one group did do a very enthusiastic, if tuneless, rendition of "Mamma Mia" as I was going by.

Because I was in the area, I took the time to check out Matthews Street, home to the Cavern Club - the famous underground music club where the Beatles performed almost 300 times. (And, I hasten to add where "Gerry and the Pacemakers" was correctly spelled on the back wall of the stage.)

Matthews Street now.  

The original Cavern Club - the one where the Beatles played - was closed in 1973 after a compulsory purchase by British Rail to do with the construction of the underground Merseyside railway. It reopened across the street, but then closed again. And while efforts were made to revive the club at its original location, that proved to be structurally impossible. Instead, they salvaged many of the original bricks and recreated it a few doors down. (5,000 of the bricks were also sold as souvenirs for £5 each, with the proceeds going to Strawberry Field Children's Home, which is no longer a Children's Home, but another Beatles attraction, of course.) 

It was fun to see Matthews Street on a Saturday night, with the hen parties and tourists and other assorted revellers. The street also has other venues and bars with live music playing. In fact, as I wandered towards my back-up dinner venue it seemed like every pub in central Liverpool was featuring live music. I guess the city's reputation as a musical hotbed doesn't begin and end with the Beatles. And I also guess that if you want a quiet drink in a pub you don't want to be in central Liverpool on a Saturday night.

Sunday morning I planned a big treat breakfast at another local spot which was perhaps a bit too hipster for its own good. I decided on the peanut butter and jam french toast, which promised "two pieces of sweet brioche bread griddled in a homemade egg and vanilla batter. Deep filled with peanut butter and jelly. Served with Canadian maple syrup". All those are good things, so anticipation was high (though tempered by the fact that when I ordered the waitress cheerily informed me the peanut butter and jelly french toast was Elvis's last meal. I said "I hope that's not indicative of how the rest of my day will go" but she didn't seem to find that funny, so she is dead to me.) In the end, the french toast was profoundly disappointing, consisting of two comically thick slices of brioche that were very dry and utterly lacking in the soaked cooked egg-custardy joy that is properly prepared french toast. And what purported to be genuine Canadian maple syrup lacked any maple flavour whatsoever. And the bacon was bland. Disappointing, Moose Coffee, that's all I'm saying.  

For the sake of completeness, I decided to visit the other Beatles museum on Sunday, which is a very different experience than Saturday's Beatles Story. The Beatles Story was flashy but superficial and sort of corporate. The Beatles Museum is more in the "small but plucky" category. Formed from the personal collection of Roag Best, it consists of three floors packed with posters, photographs, and artefacts. Roag Best is the brother of Pete Best (the original drummer for the band). His father was Neil Aspinall (the Beatles road manager for years and later head of Apple Corps) (not that one) and his mother was Mona Best (founder of the Casbah Coffee Club, where the Beatles practised and performed in the early days.) Hence, it's a much more personal, and almost ridiculously detailed.

 

These glass cases contain a seemingly endless amount of ephemera, some things more relevant than others.

 

For instance, one of George Harrison's guitars is right on point.

Paul's abandoned stamp collection, however, seems... largely peripheral to the overall Beatles story.

Nonetheless, I was pleased I took the time to visit and came away with a much greater depth of knowledge than I did at the Beatles Story.

At this point it was well past time for a pint, so I made my way to the famous Philharmonic Dining Rooms. Known locally as "The Phil" it's one of the most ornate and beautiful pubs in the country and is Grade 1 listed (other Grade 1 buildings include Buckingham Palace and the Tower of London). I was told to make sure to check out the toilets, but sadly the Ladies is of no interest whatsoever. Apparently the Gents is a sight to behold though, with urinals constructed of rose coloured marble. Indeed, photos online do indicate it would be a very fancy spot for a wee.

John Lennon was known to drink at the Phil, but I was drawn to a more recent Beatles connection related to an episode of James Corden's Carpool Karaoke. (For the uninitiated, this is an ongoing series on The Late Late Show in which the host James Corden drives around in a car with a celebrity, singing along to their own songs.) So as I enjoyed my pint and my cheese and onion crisps, I watched this, which I found really lovely.

It's long, but if you have the time settle in and watch it. Obviously this struck a chord with me because I was in a particularly Beatles-y head space at the time, but the ending especially is very fun, and it's gratifying to think that Paul McCartney might be as genuinely nice a guy as you hope he is.

It's hard to escape the Beatles in Liverpool, and there are lots of Beatles things I didn't see. Strawberry Fields is now an interpretive centre about John Lennon's Childhood, Penny Lane is a real street, you can visit the boyhood homes of both John Lennon and Paul McCartney, and Mona Best's Casbah Coffee Club is open to visitors as well. But there are also non-Beatles things to see and do and I've cleverly saved those up for a whole other blog. So... watch this space for cathedrals, Georgian splendour and, of course, scouse!