The Artist – Jonathan Greenbank

Only I could end a blog post with a photo of Elijah with an Everton player, as I did last time around, feeling positive about the start to the season, just a week before a tumultuous few days when his favourite player was sold, along with Beto in the photo, and fans’ protests prevented a rising star – local lad, Harrison Armstrong – which meant it was an anything but normal start to September.

Still, he turned ten and we had a ball, then looked around some secondary schools, scarily, so it wasn’t all bad.

It was also great to see an ex-pupil playing against Marine – more of them later – and to watch some decent non-footballing films, such as The Adam Project, a kind of Back-To-The-Future-meets-E.T.-meets-Donnie-Darko (and more of that later, too); Tony, the early life biopic of my culinary hero Anthony Bourdain, better than I expected; and the beautiful Oasis documentary Don’t Look Back In Anger directed by the very talented Will Lovelace & Dylan Southern whom I knew at university – the use of What The World Needs Now at the end was quite genius – as well as some series such as the ever brilliant, quietly charming Colin From Accounts; an excellent Celebrity Gogglebox, including our Prime Minister and Metro Mayor dissecting one of my favourite programmes, Only Connect, and two I’ve not yet finished but have been loving, VisionQuest and This City Is Ours, much of which was filmed locally and I’m proud to say also featured another ex-pupil.

Talking of alumni, I was extremely disappointed not to have my letter to Elijah published in the otherwise wonderful book curated by Stephen Graham, Letters To Our Sons. Reading it, I can see why, especially after listening to some of the most powerful examples being read on stage at the Liverpool Playhouse, an evening attended by Stephen himself and several close friends and members of his family. Some were harrowing, all were heartfelt, and I’ll just hope I make the edit for the sequel. Also, it was a lovely moment of serendipity to bump into Margo from Race Across The World on the way out of the theatre, whose own back story and reconnection with her brother-in-law were a real highlight of the last series.

Birthday weekend came, and we attended a very enjoyable charity game at Goodison Park, featuring James Nelson Joyce, my old mates Still Ryan and Dan from The Wombats – more of them to come shortly, too, oh what a tease I am this time – footballing royalty, Rivaldo, Clarence Seedorf and the even better Leighton Baines and Tim Cahill, and a halftime show by Tinie Tempah.

The next day was the big day, bringing with it a memorable steak at Macello Crosby and some amazingly coincidental Neapolitan gifts (my birthday is the anniversary of the start of the ‘Four Days of Naples’ revolution from 1943) including an incredible Pulcinella / Cornicello hybrid and a lovely Negroni from the great people of Il Capitano’s.

Going back to Goodison for a moment, this all came around the same time as the charges against Manchester City. They had been the opposition for our final match at the stadium, and Elijah even flirted with supporting them for a while I think. I went with it and managed to take him to a City game a couple of years ago, thoroughly enjoyed my second foray to the Etihad, my first having been an away defeat in 2005 ish, before the millions and the shams and the shells. Yes, we can talk about the positive impact on the city, as Mr Burnham did, but these revelations have somewhat changed my opinions on Pep and Mancini and all the other greats who have graced the sky blue over the years. So, I look forward to welcoming them to The Marine Travel Arena in the near future…

I mentioned The Wombats, and may or may not have divulged in the past that I used to do their artwork with my old mate Doug, well, I hadn’t realised that it was twenty years ago, so I was immensely proud and pleased to see them re-release many of the old songs, videos, vinyl and album that still stands in the Museum of Liverpool to this day. I’ve done a bit of handwriting for the new promotional stuff, and hope that a new generation discovers their music (and of course, artwork!)

Then, there was a life-changing jam-packed weekend which involved a six-hour nightmare train journey to Reading, for what we thought was a birthday meal but turned out to be a wonderful wedding – congratulations to the happy couple and their families – then one of the better Comic Cons, a bi-annual dad/daughter date which this time included a great conversation with one of my acting heroes, David Morrissey, when we discussed Blackpool, football rivalries, Macbeth, TipToe and a famous actress.

At last, half term. A chance to re-charge the batteries, celebrate another wedding and milestone birthday, and catch up on new releases such as the hilarious Last One Laughing – Reece Shearsmith was our favourite – plus catch up with a friend from primary school I’d not seen for over twenty years as we perused the shops of Cheshire Oaks with our teenage daughters, and it was there I also caught a glimpse of Sir Paul Smith signing copies of his new book. Then, there came Halloween, and I decided to revisit a classic cult film celebrating its twenty fifth anniversary, a movie many still feel unsure about due to its confusing messages and meanings, but I’ve always loved.

Donnie Darko.

One person at the party got who I was… if you haven’t seen it, watch it. If only to learn the huge importance of the phrase ‘Cellar Door’.

From out of the darkness, there came light, both physically (the impressive River of Light tour that Elijah and I did before the Newcastle cup tie) and then metaphorically with Everton winning three games in a week and all seeming well in the world. I even got to speak with another local hero, George Newell – Marine’s number nine – when he came into work for a careers event. What a polite man, listening to my stories of him and his dad scoring goals, wished him luck for the upcoming FA Cup tie against Bradford.

Circumstances got in the way of our being able to attend alongside the 1300 Mariners making the trip, but as I write this I’m listening to it, optimistic they can cause an upset.

Oh, they just went one nil down… the exact opposite of the title.

And now it’s two. Winter is coming.

Three…

Four.

“I Hope That When The World Comes To An End, I Can Breathe A Sigh Of Relief Because There Will Be So Much To Look Forward To.”

Hi, can I talk to you for a minute?

Summer continued with searing heat and long days spent anticipating an upcoming trip to Tuscany, as well as some lovely little gems of popular culture along the way. We wound down, watching the calming ‘Walking With…’ series, available on iPlayer, especially the Jim Moir episode as he marched towards Dungeonness Power Station; several cookery programmes and listening to myriad podcasts whilst pottering in the garden, and then The Strokes’ new album, Reality Awaits, not just a nice sound but also aptly named for this time of year (they’re like mind readers, them – their New Abormal album was also released at the start of the Pandemic!

One of their most famous tracks from yesteryear was Reptilian, and – as if by magic – a common theme of our trip to Italy was the presence of reptiles. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

The holiday was perfect: well, almost.

• (Benjamin) Well, I would say that I’m just drifting. Here in the pool.
• (Mr Braddock) Why?
• (Benjamin) Well, it’s very comfortable just to drift here.

I started with a poster for The Graduate because at some point over the ten days, I was floating on a lilo in the scorching sun and I realised I was re-living one of its most seminal scenes:

• Mrs Robinson: Isn’t there something you want to tell me?
• Benjamin: Tell you?
• Mrs Robinson: Yes.
• Benjamin: Well, I want you to know how much I appreciate this. Really.

And, as a caveat, I appreciate how lucky we’ve been when lots of people aren’t as fortunate. Many a summer has been spent enviously looking at others’ holiday photos and experiences. And I don’t think we’ll be going away again any time soon, so will admit that we made the most of our opportunity and the chance to spend quality time together and with extended family in a very idyllic location. And to relax, ponder life’s complexities and appreciate (very different) surroundings…

It all started with a missed alarm, meaning a rush to the airport and unnecessary stress from the start. Then, a minor car accident in a supermarket car park (when an Italian Karen insisted on calling the police) – when a 500-day streak on Duolingo couldn’t help fill out insurance documents – and more minor horror at the effects of Brexit on food and drink prices compared to back here; there were screams at sightings of snakes in the swimming pool, toads in the watering can, geckos drowned and much bigger lizards climbing the walls. At one point I was locked in a bathroom, with only the kids to rescue me (I rescued myself, eventually) There also involved a broken watch, bought especially for the holiday and twinned with a Guardian journalist as we prepared for take off whilst E was being sick, and a two hour wait on the tarmac to come home.

But there was also so much more to enjoy. Doing La Passegiata around the town, enjoying various gelato flavours such as caramelised onion and pineapple & basil; witnessing an actor performing solo The Divine Comedy nightly; markets, exotic food and drink, developing confidence speaking about calcio; meeting great waiting staff such as Daniele, a AS Roma Ultra and the Luciano Spalletti lookalike who claimed to have met Maradona when he was a baby and served us the most memorable steak, a Bistecca Alla Fiorentina, plus other unforgettable foodstuffs such as lardo and lampredotto and overall, love.

The warm weather and time by the pool afforded us much needed relaxation and I managed to read four books in ten days. These were carefully chosen: Saturday Night, Sunday Morning by Alan Sillitoe (a nod to Morrissey’s inspirations); In Pursuit of Italy, a history of the complicated formation of the modern day country that I’d started whilst poolside in Venice, three days earlier (which taught me that Mussolini was a huge fan of the town nearest where we were staying and changed its landscape forever); The Long Shoe by Bob Mortimer, hilarious and continuing the themes of his other novels (I’ve now lent them to someone on the up and up) and finally, perhaps most intriguingly, Finders, Keepers – a fascinating project by Nicholas Royle – in which he documents his efforts to trace owners of second hand books he buys, returning found objects, following maps, repeating journeys using tickets discarded forever.

This last book – and trips to Tuscan museums such as What Holds Us, Antony Gormley’s immersive exhibition at the Galleria Continua and even some of the macabre exhibits in the town’s Museo della Tortura e della Pena di Morte – inspired some creative work of my own, a Joseph Cornell-inspired assemblage celebrating the restaurant where my Maradona portrait had once stood. We went there to celebrate B’s thirteenth and were glad to say the service and pizza were better than ever, and so was the music, curated as it was by the excellent DJ and storyteller PJ Smith, who’d kindly invited me to a showing of of Algorithm Party at Crosby Plaza, with a Q&A afterwards, and whilst I’d met him a couple of times previously, I’d not heard / read his narratives and was blown away by their brutality, their viscosity and their relevance, often namechecking places important to me over the past twenty seven years.

I bought, and thoroughly enjoyed, his new book – Boomerang Process – and saw him twice the following weekend.

Check him out!

“Would you mind telling me then what those four years of college were for? What was the point of all that hard work?”

The following weekend, I somewhat serendipitously met the questioner of said Q&A at a wonderful wedding in the beautifully decadent Art Deco surroundings of the Prince of Wales Hotel, close to our own nuptials site, a brilliant occasion to celebrate the nuptials of two of my oldest friends and it was brilliant to reminisce not just my university and subsequent ‘creative’ years – as Samuel Beckett once said, “Perhaps my best years are gone. When there was a chance of happiness. But I wouldn’t want them back. Not with the fire in me now. No, I wouldn’t want them back” – but also a stolen couple of hours at our wedding venue, getting talking to a bartender who started working at the Vincent just after we were married there and remembering those halcyon days where we could drink and dance like there was no tomorrow.

There was, of course, a tomorrow – and a big event!

“It’s like I was playing some kind of game, but the rules don’t make any sense to me.”

You might be a bit like me and not know a lot about Joji but my (now teenage) daughter is a huge fan and so we decided to get tickets for his Solaris tour at the recently opened Co Op Live. What a place. You enter via the expanded Pep Guardiola stand at the Etihad and there’s a similarly impressive welcome from the staff in the venue, from the care shown giving out water to assisting and explaining other options, the service almost justified the prices (forget £9.20 for a pint, £4.50 for a packet of Squashies was the really upsetting aspect) but thankfully the performances of not just the main act but also his support (I’ve been singing Tommy Richman’s Million Dollar Baby for a few days now) and after a wonderful night, walking out into the Manchester rain – biblical, as other Mancs might attest – making it the perfect evening, arguably the first time I’ve gone to a gig not knowing both the music of the featured artist and the venue itself, and being more than pleasantly surprised. I actually thought it was Serge Gainsbourg, not him. on the t-shirt I bought her before the gig, which probably shows my age…

“You’ll never be young again.” / “I know.” 

We still need to mention, as Jose Gonzalez sang, the colours red and blue – namely, the new SpiderMan movie and the beautiful messed up superheroes that are Everton, and I’m please to say that both impressed in recent weeks. I met a friend from down south in town to show him the way to HD for the Lille friendly, even though I wasn’t attending the match due to the aforementioned wedding, and it was lovely but weird to have a couple of drinks and walk towards the stadium then not actually go in, seeing loads of familiar faces but head to Sandhills rather than the turnstiles, and I took solace in the fact that I’d be back a week later for a thoroughly enjoyable first game of the season. Meanwhile, E was keen to attend the new Marvel MCU movie and I found myself really engrossed in what I thought was a great re-introduction to the superhero phenomenon apparently continually gripping our youth.

Summer was fading, but we prevailed.

We returned to Southport – some lovely stuff on show at The Atkinson, especially by the sculptors / painters Brian and George Fell who have made things we’ve seen in Morecambe, Kirkby and Southport itself, and the other arty experiences had come at The Bluecoat with an interesting, interactive exhibition by Debjani Banerjee: Jalsaghar; Museum of Liverpool to check my Wombats piece was still alive, and the immense ‘pirate boat’ the Nao Santa Maria and the thought-provoking Think Of Us all around the Albert Dock, portraits of Year 6 students from across Merseyside about to start high school.

Let’s hold that thought, just for a little while longer…

We end with Everton, and a promising start to the season. Fresh new kits, two clean sheets, exciting performances and reminders of why we’re the People’s Club; we loved finding ourselves on the giant photo mural (made up we’re part of Seamus) and, at Preston away, it was hard staying silent, what with our divided loyalties (hence the half and half scarves, the only time such things are acceptable) but we managed it and have started the new season – and soon, term – with unusual optimism.

“I want it to be… different.”

Beto than usual, you might say!

Only yesterday, I was talking to someone (B’s brilliant tae kwon do teacher) about how the best series nowadays have short releases ending in cliffhangers and it resonated perfectly with this because a) I’ve been watching A LOT of TV recently and b) I’m a bit pressed for time so it made sense to split the summer entry into two.

Back to early June we go, and the excellent Karate Kid – The Musical which did a great job of retelling the classic story with extra dances and catchy songs and some beautiful choreography.

Another wonderful shared experience with B came the week after and the impressive Lionesses performance against Ukraine, at Hill Dickinson – I’ll never tire of that place – whetting the appetite for the upcoming World Cup.

I must admit I wasn’t overly excited for the tournament, maybe it was an inability to get away with collecting stickers this time, or the over commercialisation, OTT expansion and ludicrous kick off times. The highlight of the early rounds was getting a photo of Betsy onto Sky Sports News, and having a T-shirt from USA 94 that my Uncle Stan had kept for me to wear for the opening ceremony.

Soon I warmed to the competition, realising that this would be E’s version of Italia 90: I was exactly the same age then as he is now, what with the ultimate failure at the last hurdle and a disappointing final. Still, Messi, excitement at doing well in the predictor, some beautiful kits and some unexpected classic matches made it such a memorable few weeks.

Talking of Argentinian heroes, and t-shirts, I wore my new favourite to a day out at Blackpool Pleasure Beach during the really hot spell, when my inner Mr Briggs came out and I marvelled at the seagulls that frequent the fair, whilst two babies hatched around the corner and even now the watchful parents warn us passers by not to go near their fearless fledglings.

In between times, we lost David Hockney – he of the iconic photo montages, sausage dogs, smoking campaigning and quite beautiful portraits and landscapes and for me, wonderful early works dedicated to myriad objects of his affection. This one (above) was his own love letter to Cliff Richard from his student days.

To lighten the mood, there came the viewing: the funny Alice and Steve, yet another rewatching of The Goonies, reminders of the brilliant One Crazy Summer – a bizarre belter of a childhood comedy set in Nantucket – with the engrossing 5 Star Weekend, which we binged over five days.

Then, there was the finale of The Bear – the Caramel episode of series five was particularly memorable, and I don’t mind admitting that I shed a few tears during the last hour or so, not just because of how events unfolded but also because it dawned on me that this was actually the end of it.

To cheer us up, there came Andy Burnham, I’ll just share what I wrote about him a few years back and emphasise how pleased and proud I was to have met the prime minister on a couple of occasions and how he conducted himself during the difficult first couple of weeks, plus the changes he has already made. I felt extremely lucky to be able to watch the rolling news coverage of his first day in office, subsequent interviews and features, knowing that I’ve met him a couple of times (and that he will have read the article above, maybe even this blog post) and look forward to seeing him at HD when the season kicks off again.

Back to comfort viewing, and I made a list of everything I wanted to watch over the holiday. I’m already halfway through the list, which is good, and so far the highlights included the gripping thriller The Housemaid, the family friendly and very funny The Sheep Detectives, starring Nicholas Galatzine who was also He-Man in the cheesy but clever Masters of the Universe, which brought back great memories of the toys and stories of my childhood. Even Orko, my favourite toy and character back in the day, makes an appearance.

We had days out at New Brighton, beautiful Croxteth Country Park, and into town for the excellent show at Dorothy by Anthony Burrill, Joy! Pure Joy! visiting some old and new favourite haunts along the way, reminiscing the summer of 2000 – I’ve been listening to loads of music from the time and watching TOTP classics – as well as lots of Italy food programmes, the new series of another all time favourite of mine, Gomorrah – with its fantastic characters, clever storytelling and beautiful but gritty backdrops of 1970s Naples.

It’s been relaxing, listening to the great Smiths and Madchester podcast series on BBC Sounds, spending warm summer days indoors writing this frightening verse and watching cute creatures on Animal Park, old journeys by Rick Stein and following James Martin in Spain, discovering unwatched Tales of the Unexpected, always trying to guess the outcome, the clever and intriguing Ride or Die, revisiting old series of the funny Friday Night Dinner realising that I used to look and act like the Adam character but now am definitely more Martin (especially in this recent heatwave!)

But the real highlight of the holiday so far was the open Preston North End training session I got us tickets for on a whim and what a wonderful day it was. We’ve been to similar events at Everton before and great days were had, but this time felt even more special because it was more intimate and personal, not just because I got to take my dad as-well as son, having had my first taste of live football in the late eighties at Deepdale with great players like Brian Mooney, Tony Ellis and Ian Bogie, but also because the players seemed to genuinely appreciate the support and went around signing autographs for everyone there; not just the first team squad and manager but also Deepdale Duck and the famous Spud Bros who stayed behind for a penalty shootout with two of the star players.

Hopefully it will bring them luck for the season, especially as they’re playing Barcelona then at Goodison… sadly we won’t be able to attend either, but that’s a story for another day…