Manchester International Film Festival 2020: Part IV
Sunday March 15th
We woke up to a buzzy whining drone sound. Looking out our hotel room window, we could see people lining the street in front of the Manchester Cathedral¹. The Droning sound was bagpipes in a St. Patrick’s Day parade! By New York City standards, it was a modest parade, although the world was now operating in the Virus Twilight Zone.
Originally, Cindy and I had planned to take a train to Liverpool on this day, but we had changed our plans when we found out the film festival awards were tonight. Well, having seen how poorly attended the film festival was, we decided to stay in our room all day and night.
We weren’t relaxing though; News from America was sketchy, but Trump had announced that all flights from the UK would be prohibited after midnight on Monday, which was the next day!
Getting a call through to the airlines was impossible, and websites were overloaded. The news said that people were paying up to £14,000 to change their flights, and they showed people unsafely crowded into the New York airports waiting up to 7 hours for their luggage, and crammed together in customs. Cindy was still trying to get through to the airline. Then we saw Vice President Pence clarifying that US citizens would be allowed back in the US after Monday. So we decided it would be safer to continue with our trip to Liverpool as we had originally planned.
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Monday March 16th
The hour-long train ride to Liverpool was fairly vacant. When Cindy and I had boarded, we sanitized the table between us, and all around our immediate area. Then we relaxed and enjoyed the picture window view of the countryside.
Our cab ride through Liverpool gave us a view of winding streets with some modern features, but mostly of older buildings that made it easy to imagine the teenage Beatles walking about.
The Hard Day’s Night Hotel² is a beautiful balance of vintage luxury and “modern clean” with massive photos of the fab four everywhere. The young ladies at the check-in desk wore dresses with bold color-block patterns surely inspired by the artist Mondrian³. As we checked in, the sound of “I Want To Hold Your Hand”⁴ lifted our spirits. Cindy and I are forever Beatles fans, and this was wonderful.
It was a Monday and there were very few people staying in the hotel. We got our keys and found out that we had been upgraded to the John Lennon Suite! We had a strong suspicion that this had been arranged by our friend May Pang who Cindy had been talking to about our trip.
We got on the lift, which had a floor to ceiling curved glass side, which allowed a view of each floor of the surrounding spiral staircase. All of the walls were covered with very large black and white photos of John, Paul, George, and Ringo.
The hallway to our room was deep dark burgundy and ritzy-cool. That darkness was shattered when we opened the door to our room, which was as sunny and white as can be, and with a white Baby Grand piano to boot! There was a bottle of Champagne on ice, a plate of sweets, and a fab welcome note.
Rather than “Do Not Disturb”, the sign on the door tag said, “Let It Be”⁵, and the other side said, “I Need You”⁶.
We discovered a teddy bear on the bed with a book about Beatles fans and their favorite albums - all for Cindy to take home.
After we got settled in, we went down to the lobby to meet up with Marian Cotter who is a longtime friend of May Pang’s. May had arranged for Marian to take us to the Cavern Club⁷ and other Beatle tourist spots but things had changed. Marian explained that Liverpool was now taking the virus much more seriously and she was crazy busy dealing with cancellations where she worked. We assured her that we would be fine on our own.
We walked out of the hotel, and immediately around the corner was the Cavern Club! But first, we entered the Magical History Museum⁸, which is owned by Pete Best’s⁹ brother. I told them that I had met Pete a few years back and that he urged me to visit the museum. They said Pete wasn’t there at the moment, but his nephew welcomed us. I asked what the museum hours were, and he said, “You’re the only ones here so stay as long as you like.”
The first floor began with the Beatles very early history, stuff you rarely hear about, let alone see in person. Most of the artifacts belonged to Pete Best or the Beatles longtime friend and associate Neil Aspinall. We took our time examining things closely. We were alone there, even though every once in awhile, someone would pop in to see how we were doing.
Each floor featured a different era of the Beatles illustrious career. But after the full tour, and all of the 60’s dust had settled, Cindy & I agreed that the Pete Best floor was our fave. They asked me to sign their celebrity wall. It wasn’t easy finding space among all of the recognizable names, but I managed.
We bid farewell and walked across the street to the Cavern Club, which was a replica due to the original having been torn down long ago. Going down the stairwell, we heard a loud acoustic guitar and someone singing Beatles songs. This sparked our imagination until we entered the club and saw that the singer was much older that we anticipated. He was good though. Even though the club was sparsely attended, Cindy was feeling a bit claustrophobic about the lack of social distancing, so we took a few quick photos and left feeling glad we had finally seen it.
We returned to the hotel for dinner. The hotel restaurant was fairly crowded, so, at our request, the chef served us fish and chips with mashed peas in another area of the hotel that was void of other people. The non-stop Beatles music continued.
Going back up to the John Lennon Suite was special all over again. We love that room!
That night, Cindy ran across a dating show on television, called “Naked Attraction¹⁰.” It was most certainly different from any other dating show we had ever seen. A fully clothed woman had to choose her date from six buck-naked dudes who were standing side by side, each behind his own translucent screen. The screens would open up in sections. The first reveal was their genitals; The woman gave her detailed opinion. And then one of the dudes had to go home based on how little his penis had impressed the woman. Then butts were revealed, prompting another elimination. When it finally got down to choosing her date, the woman had to undress and the fully revealed final date hugged her. The next time they would see each other, they would be on a date and fully clothed.
I found the show after that to be far more interesting. It was one dude choosing his date from six naked women. As Cindy said, in the states this would be considered completely inappropriate. We agreed that it was interesting how Europe is more open about nudity.
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Tuesday March 17th
Happy St. Patrick’s Day! We took the train back to London and arrived to find out that Anna’s concerns about the Stones tour were valid. They had moved their tour up a year, to 2021. I told her that Alice Cooper had just announced a postponement of his tour until the fall of 2020.
Ronnie Wood’s¹¹ solo show, which we had planned to attend that night, was also cancelled.
Andy made an amazing fish pie for our last night there. We were surprised to see a bottle of Catsup on the table but we tried adding that and it was tasty-good. We hated to say goodbye to our friends. A lot had changed in the world during that week. We were all trying to adjust to the rapidly unfolding uncertainties. Despite the stress and anxiety, and thanks to Andy, Anna, and all of our friends along the way, Cindy and I had a great time!
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Wednesday March 18th
Homeward!
Our daytime flight on British Airways had lots of empty seats. Food and booze were complimentary. We filled out forms that required incoming international travelers to self-quarantine for two weeks. As soon as we stepped off of the plane, health officials questioned each passenger and took temperatures.
JFK Airport was a semi-ghost town and we breezed right through - customs and all.
On our way home, our driver, who was the owner of the limo service, said he had to lay off his drivers, some of whom we had gotten to know over the years, and he said the situation would likely bankrupt his business. He said New York City had been shut down.
We got home to a happy dog, and our daughter Chelsea, who we would not be able to hug until after our required 14 day quarantine.
We were back in our cozy familiar home but the world had changed.
Our hearts go out to all of the people who have been affected by this terrible virus. We can’t show enough gratitude and respect to all of the healthcare workers, leaders, and civil servants who are sacrificing their own safety in order to help others; They are true heroes.
We’ll get through this, and hopefully, people will have enlightened respect for life itself.
-DD & The Blonde
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