Day 95. Lady Day (but not John Coltrane) (5/4/19)

Little Gil Scott Heron joke for you there in the title. Aiming for a niche market but I know you're all dead sophisticated.

It's Ladies day at Aintree. The day the right wing press choose, on an annual basis, to ridicule anybody from Liverpool or surrounding environs who they have decided is getting beyond themselves and has dressed up for the races in a manner that the hideous Tory rags dees not worthy of the occasion.

Because horse racing isn't for the oiks. We're lowering the tone by treating it as a good day out. As though we didn't see the footage of that huge kick off at Ascot.

I say 'we', I've personally no interest in it at all.

Which means I've mellowed over the years. I used to hate the National. Used to hate it with a vengeance, saw it as an obstruction to my day to day existence because it inconveniences me in a fairly minor way for three days each year. I'm seriously a miserable sod sometimes. Okay, lots of the time.

We live ten minutes walk from Aintree so, today, one of the biggest days in the local social calendar has seen me spend the entire day in the study, writing. And rewriting. The entirety of the first act rewritten in the space of two days. Happy with that.

And, every so often, I've looked out of the window. And felt relief that the fairly torrential rain that hit our end of town at 8:30am lifted fairly quickly. So all the racegoers had to contend with was a borderline hurricane.

Which is horrible. All anybody down there today wants is a nice day out. Which isn't a lot to ask for. If mother nature could give them a break for the three days that wouldn't be a lot to ask for would it?

Personally, I don't get it. I don't see the appeal. People have spent years trying to convince me that a day at the races is a really nice day out. But I don't get it.

I don't get the appeal of all day drinking. I don't get the appeal of watching horses run round, although horses are pretty sound in and of themselves. I definitely don't get the appeal of sticking your hand in your pocket and giving some cash to a bloke who'll keep it when the horse you've randomly chosen comes in last. I don't get studying form to increase your chances of winning. My chances of winning are sound, I don't put money on chance. One of the side effects of being a tight get.

It's the experience though, you need to experience it.

Why?

Why do I need to experience it? There's loads of experiences in the world, not every one is for everyone. A day at the races (great Marx Brothers film) is an experience that contains loads of stuff I have no interest in, why would combining them interest me? Particularly to the point of having to go out and buy a new suit for the benefit of experiencing experiences I have no desire to experience.

It's not like I'm telling everybody that they need to go and see the Jesus and Mary Chain live because they should experience it. "No, I know you think you don't like the songs, and you don't fancy a dark room with two hours of stuff you don't know, and you *think* you probably wouldn't like a two hour wall of the loudest feedback you've ever heard, but you really need to experience it before you make up your mind."

In the same manner, my mate Mike is insistent that I should see Les Miserables. J quite fancies it. Our Keith and Nikki both say it's great.

One drawback. I've listened to the soundtrack. And I don't actually like the songs. Not for me. For others, obviously. Millions of others. But not for me.

And Mike's used the argument "it's not about the songs, it's about the show" and I kind of get that. It's about the performance, it's about the theatricality, the staging.

But I still don't like the songs. Why go to see a musical where I don't like the songs? I'm faitrly sure the songs are sort of important to the experience. I don't get it.

I'm fairly convinced I'm going to end up seeing it.

I don't anticipate a change of opinion.

In the same way I don't anticipate you all suddenly showing up to watch the Mary Chain live.

But if you do... I'm yours for any 'experience' you insist I should undertake.

That's the bargain we might be making here. (Serious legal limitations on that one)

(Soundtrack: As though to prove a point, Laurie Anderson's 'O Superman' which most people hate and I think is a work of genius. All kinds to make a world and all that.)

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