HERE are people on the Anthony Burgess and Literary Tour of Manchester on 11 October. They're in the Burgess Foundation archive room and one of the guests is holding up Burgess's own copy of Clockwork Orange, the cover of which Burgess defaced.
Will Carr, manager of the Foundation, is far right. He had some funny stories. Apparently Burgess was asked to write a Bond screenplay for The Spy Who Loved Me. None of his script was used apart from giving the villain an undersea base.
Carr said: "I think the main problem was Burgess replaced the traditional shoot-em-up scene at the climax of the movie with a food-eating contest between Bond and the evil Karl Stromberg."
He had a wicked sense of humour Mr Burgess and he still got his writer's fee.
Will Carr, manager of the Foundation, is far right. He had some funny stories. Apparently Burgess was asked to write a Bond screenplay for The Spy Who Loved Me. None of his script was used apart from giving the villain an undersea base.
Carr said: "I think the main problem was Burgess replaced the traditional shoot-em-up scene at the climax of the movie with a food-eating contest between Bond and the evil Karl Stromberg."
He had a wicked sense of humour Mr Burgess and he still got his writer's fee.
A GROUP of art and architecture lovers from a month ago.
A VIENNESE group I took out a couple of weeks ago. They were city officials looking at how Manchester had rejuvenated some of its inner areas. Of course, many of the schemes wound down after the 2007/8 doldrums when the money for example in Urban Splash's New Islington development simply ran out. “In our case,” said the boss of the Viennese group dolefully, "we have another problem. As a city we have too much money. It's been a problem for decades.” The others nodded sagely and I wondered what on earth he could mean.
VAST sixty plus group of British and French exchange kids in Albert Square. Somewhere in there is Tony Alston from Urmston Grammar who booked the tour. The people close to the Town Hall entrance are a wedding group and not my guests, in case people think I was taking the whole of Manchester out.
NOT sure which tour this was two or three weeks ago: maybe the Haunted Underworld or the Tour of Uninteresting Objects or the Best Cobblestones of Manchester - maybe not the last one.
THE INCREDIBLE INTERIORS tour reaches the four days re-opened Gaskell House. John Williams, not shown, did a splendid job here, including the mad story of how the dippy friend of Elizabeth Gaskell, Charlotte Bronte hid behind the Drawing Room curtain when guests came to visit. Here's an article I wrote about Gaskell House - it's a very lovely place.
INSIDE the Ukranian Catholic Church during the Cheetham Hill Faith Heritage Tour. I am not a man of religion but I find this a moving tour, one I do every September.
We also visited a Sikh temple, a mosque, a synagogue and a CofE church. There were fifty people from all communities on a coach and we were welcomed everywhere in an exchange of ideas and cultures that made everybody – it seemed to me – more comfortable in our bones about each other and about this tolerant country we live within.
There were humorous moments.
Danny who works at the synagogue in a non-religious capacity was asked by a lady with a cut-glass accent, “Do Jewish boys have to be circumscribed?” “Nobody asked me,” deadpanned Danny.
In the Sikh temple, a lad in a United top and turban was helping out. One of the tour group, an older person said, “You speak very good English." “I hope so,” he said, “I was born round the corner, I’m British.”
This was a generational thing - amusing for that. But one thing is sure. It’s only through exposure – in the best possible sense of the word – to each other that cultures can connect.
As stated we do the coach tour every year. We should do it every week. Every school should do it. If we lose the fear of 'the other', the fear they may steal our jobs, beliefs, culture, then we enrich ourselves, become broader minded: essentially we become more intelligent.
We also visited a Sikh temple, a mosque, a synagogue and a CofE church. There were fifty people from all communities on a coach and we were welcomed everywhere in an exchange of ideas and cultures that made everybody – it seemed to me – more comfortable in our bones about each other and about this tolerant country we live within.
There were humorous moments.
Danny who works at the synagogue in a non-religious capacity was asked by a lady with a cut-glass accent, “Do Jewish boys have to be circumscribed?” “Nobody asked me,” deadpanned Danny.
In the Sikh temple, a lad in a United top and turban was helping out. One of the tour group, an older person said, “You speak very good English." “I hope so,” he said, “I was born round the corner, I’m British.”
This was a generational thing - amusing for that. But one thing is sure. It’s only through exposure – in the best possible sense of the word – to each other that cultures can connect.
As stated we do the coach tour every year. We should do it every week. Every school should do it. If we lose the fear of 'the other', the fear they may steal our jobs, beliefs, culture, then we enrich ourselves, become broader minded: essentially we become more intelligent.
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