I was in Liverpool a week ago with some colleagues for an HEA conference on research methods in the social sciences. A handy place to pick up a free cloth bag with an ESRC logo on it, which may well be the only loot I ever get out of the ESRC.
After all these years of living in Britain, and before them visiting Britain, it was my first time in the city, despite having been a big Beatles fan throughout. From this end of the country it’s out-of-the-way enough that you have to be heading for it rather than passing through, and a pilgrimage to Penny Lane never seemed enough justification for a trip.
So I booked an extra night at the conference hotel and stayed on afterwards while my colleagues headed home, spending the Friday evening and Saturday wandering around the city centre and visiting museums. The buildings are surprisingly grand, on a scale you don’t see much in Britain outside London, and everyone sounds like the Fabs and Cilla. (Here endeth the Liverpool descriptions. For more, see half the books I read between ages 16 and 20.)
I didn’t make it to Penny Lane, which was too far to walk. But I bought myself an Apple mug and a “Hello Goodbye B/W I am the Walrus” fridge magnet, and I saw this...
31 May 2013