Manchester Perry Boys and Nonsense

The towers of Salford and the keys to the sandy kingdom wherein dwell the psychedelic kangaroo and the tamarind seed. Is there anybody going to listen to my story all about the girl who came to stay...? You don't regret a single day, y'know?

I thought not...

Is Manchester Britain's Second City, or is it Just A Shithole?

All my life I, Ian Hough have championed the virtues of Manchester, my home town. People have been telling me that I should work in public relations for the place, such has been my enthusiasm for transmitting its might and elegance to "foreigners" who haven't yet worked out how cool it/we is/are. Out here we is stoned, man-dudes, k? The previous sentence was a cruel sarcasm, based on recent experiences I have had with some of the Mancunians (that's what they call people from Manchester). They have accused me of being "middle class"! Devastating! They have called me a "Bury lad"! Arrgghh!! And most of all they have drawn very definite lines in the sand as to what is "proper" or "real" Manchester, and what is Salford (a neighbouring city which was there for a very very long time before the Romans came and built Manchester), and what is "my" Bury, and other things besides.
In my first book, "Perry Boys", I push Manchester as the second city of Britain, and I took the mickey out of the cockneys in a playful chapter entitled "Cockney Kryptonite". But when I did the same to United fans from Manchester in a recent edition of United We Stand fanzine, it seems the Albert Tatlock spirit is alive and well in the city, and a sense of humour has somehow dissolved like the statues in the acid rain I know and love.
Britain's Second City? All my life I have pushed this idea of Manchester and wanted to make it true, but now I am rethinking everything; third city? Fourth City? You tell me, my penguins of the crystal desert. You tell me...

Perry Boys Make Some Noise

The teenage wasteland resonates like a demented tin-hatted sentinel at guard by a blazing ancient sofa, where eagle-eyed tramps contemplate vile deeds and the good people troop home from work while the morning's tinfoil starshine coming up over the horizon like a flaming lamp in the hand of Leviathon glitters with massive might fresh from the bowels of the periodic table. Aye, me hearties, when the Perry Boys start to emerge from the fire-escapes, humming their ska tunes and dancing to Bowie, the sun curdles rusty in the sad socket of the dusky sky, and the tiddlywinks are flipping across the clouds like stone discuses in unison with the flocking geese that point in formation to the south, and warmth, nourishment, blue seas, and security.
When did the illegitimate clown paint his face to resemble his father's keeper and stomp on the dogshit in the thoroughfare like he just didn't care anymore? Why do the women insist on gender-based biochemical symmetry when no such thing exists? People are obsessed with elegance where none lies, and when our gorgeous damsels finally accept that their lot is not to match us at our preposterous game but to complement it, they will discover happiness. There are many cracks between worlds, and few are so deep and mysterious as that between gender. One must trace the lineage all the way back to the volvox and beyond in order to discern when the fissure first exhibited its qualities. The drums, stars and guitars are thumping, twanging, lurching like dalek-dogs on heat at my garden gate, as I pull the blinds tight and scratch my head in solid gold wonderment. Clever are the modern day football hooligans, the casual gangs of Mancheser and Salford, the Scallies of Scotland Road, and the thick-hided denizens of the Millwall mythos. When did the pathologic slide begin? Was it when Adidas took their proboscis and stuck it deep into southeast Asia, or was it earlier in the chronology, was it when the Perry Boys scowled and stared at the scallywagglers of Liverpool? Did the Cardiff Soul Crew not make sense of the Butlins Barry Island massacres, and did the Leeds Service Crew ever run from the Perry Boys, or am I sorely, surely mistaken?
Why did they even call us Perry Boys? Why didn't they call us something more original, like the Gaggleflockers, or the Jibtastic Wretches?

Hard to say, my sons, but I am listening to some excellent music by a band called Dile right now, and they are doing the business, with their songs like "Perry Boys", "Garstang", and "take the Skinheads Bowling"....fucking awesome.