Week 15 - Greg + Mike
Mike and I agreed to meet for a drink at Wallop a local watering hole prior to dinner. It used to be called Wine & Wallop but has recently rebranded for reasons no one’s quite sure of. According to Google, wallop can mean beer, but they still sell wine so I’m not sure why they’ve dropped it from their name. Our friends Jordon and Ben happened to be enjoying a libation of their own so we joined them. They are Wallop regulars and enjoy the accolade of being name-checked by the bar staff, something I’m a envious jealous of. I used to watch Cheers as a child and always like the idea of somewhere where everybody knows your name, but have never been committed enough to put in the leg work. I’m also not great at talking to strangers so perhaps I’ll strike if off my bucket list.
We jumped in an Uber to San Juan, our final destination in Chorlton. I know it’s not fashionable to say so, but I love Uber. It’s cheap and very convenient. When I lived in London I would occasionally treat myself to a black cab and almost instantly regret it. There are definitely cheerful black cabbies but they don’t ever seem to be the ones I flag down. I once made a cab driver aware that he hadn’t started the meter and was scolded for not telling him sooner in the journey. You also come to realise that if you’re unhappy with the service you’ve received there’s almost nothing you can do about it. At least with Uber you can leave a rating and there is someone to contact if you have some less that glittering feedback. If you ever ask an Uber driver who previously drove a minicab which they prefer, they will almost always state their current situation. They don’t have to deal with fare dodgers, are compensated when someone throws up in the back of their car and can also rate obnoxious passengers.
We arrived at San Juan and were shown to our table. San Juan is something of a local landmark and has been serving tapas in Chorlton since 2010. Mike and his partner Alex were introduced to it by their friends Jade and John and it has become their favourite restaurant. Mike mentioned that they never used to take bookings and there would often be people queueing for a table down the street on a Friday evening. Against my better judgement, we ordered a three pint jug of sangria for the table and our conversation moved onto the subject of relationships. Mike is engaged to the equally lovely Alex and they live about a mile away from me in Withington. During one of my first encounters with Mike and Alex, they accused me of stealing their house as our houses are almost identical and were clearly constructed by the same builder. I often lament that new-build houses are devoid of character and “all the same”, so the irony isn’t lost that the Edwardians were doing exactly the same thing 100 or so years ago. I used to think that I didn’t ever want to get married but have somewhat softened on the idea in the last few years. My relationships to date haven’t exactly been conducive to marriage and normally last 9 months, almost exactly to the day. I guess forever is something of a tall order when you struggle to make it to your one year anniversary. I romanticise the idea of a an union of two independent people (me being one of them) who are equally happy hanging out with their friends as being together. Someone I could see a few times a week and go on holiday with but not spend every waking moment with. Perhaps this is unrealistic, or I would change my mind if I met “the one”. I also have a theory that it’s becoming increasingly difficult to find a partner as a 40-something gay man as so many gay couples are in open relationships. This means that rather than breaking up and becoming available on the the open market, they open their relationship and remain an item permanently.
Mike and I spoke a little about work; he is a GP, a role that’s fair to say has its challenges. He mentioned that his neighbour Len is an illustrator and that he envies his approach to work and I guess in a way to life as he never seems to get stressed. I like to think that I don’t let my work stress me out too much either, but I guess that’s a little easier when other people’s lives aren’t at stake. That said, the doctors I know generally aren’t caused much stress by the patients themselves but more the relentless bureaucracy they have to navigate to get their work done. While we were on the subject of GPs, I mentioned my GP from university, Dr Craig. He was by any reckoning very easy on the eye and it wasn’t uncommon to slightly exaggerate your symptoms in order to secure an appointment. No one is perfect and sadly neither was Dr Craig, who liked to party and wasn’t adverse to helping things along with some chemical inducement. This in and of itself wouldn’t have been quite so problematic if the source of the party favours hadn’t been prescriptions Dr Craig had been making out to himself. Needless to say that Dr Craig’s hens came home to roost and he was both struck off and incarcerated.
Our conversation led us to the subject of Russell Tovey, an actor who always looms large in the gay conscience and who I once met whilst on holiday with my sister and her wife in Key West. We had ventured out to enjoy a few libations in a local watering hole, as had the cast of Looking, an entertaining but short-lived San Francisco based TV series. They had been filming the show and were in Key West post-wrap to let their hair down. Sally, my sister’s wife spotted Russell Tovey across the bar and had to be physically prevented from launching herself at him. I got chatting to another member of the group who told me they’d been filming the show, which was yet to air. He was a nice chap, but I didn’t really pay him too much heed, transfixed as I was on Mr Tovey. It wasn’t until several weeks later that I discovered the man I’d been conversing with was none other than Murray Bartlett. I really should have paid him a little more attention, perhaps we could have had a 9 month relationship!
Our food arrived, as we chatted. I think we ordered the following:
Pan Ca’San Juan - Rustic toasted bread & Andalusian tomato sauce & olive oil
Queso Manchego con Membrillo - Manchego cheese, quince jelly, sultanas
Calamares Fritos - Fried squid, salad, sherry vinegar
Pulpo a la Gallega - Galician style octopus, paprika, bed of pureed potatoes
Croquettes San Juan - Béchamel croquettes with chicken & ham
As we ate, we discussed other dining experiences and I recalled being in a Sardinian restaurant in East London that I used to visit on a semi-regular basis, this time with my friend Emma as well as some other pals. I often lament the lack of good Italian restaurants in this country. You can usually get better food in a motorway service station in Italy than you would find in most Italian restaurants in the UK. This particular restaurant (which has now sadly closed) was an exception to the rule and the food there was always excellent. The owner was Italian and best described as sternly efficient. We had all received our mains and she was doing the rounds with the parmesan. Emma had ordered a seafood dish and was passed over as cheese was offered to each of the other diners in turn. Emma, unencumbered by the strictures of Italian food etiquette asked whether she might have some cheese too. The owner, equally unencumbered by the customer-is-always-right retail etiquette replied “No, enjoy your meal!”. I admire a country who value their food culture and baulk at the idea of chicken on a pizza, or parmesan grated onto a dish of spaghetti alle vongole. There is a sushi restaurant in Clerkenwell that seats about a dozen diners and which you have to book several weeks in advance. One of the conditions of entry is that you don’t wear and aftershave or perfume as it affects the flavour of the food and may put off other diners. At the other end of the scale is the “Italian” restaurant near where I live in Didsbury that offers you the option to add cream to your spaghetti carbonara. You can add what you like to a dish, but spaghetti carbonara with added cream ain’t spaghetti carbonara and the fact they offer this option only goes to highlight just how inauthentic they are.
Mike and I both share an interest in architecture and I’m particularly drawn to anything that was build in the mid-twentieth century. Twentieth century architecture can cause something of a Marmite reaction, with people either loving it or hating it. Given their recency, buildings constructed in the twentieth century are often torn down with little consideration of their historical significance. We have an obsession in this country with the Victorian, perhaps because that era represents when we were a truly modern nation at the cutting edge of scientific and technological development. Consequently. even mediocre Victorian architecture is idolised and conserved when no such consideration is given to more recent creations. Most new build homes in this country are a slightly depressing dumbed down pastiche of their more considered, better constructed Victorian forefathers and can’t be considered architecturally modern. There is no doubt that many peoples dislike of modern architecture stems from the poorly constructed mass housing developments that were hastily erected after the second world war. The ambition and scale of these projects was commendable but the results often didn’t live up to the utopian vision that was sold to the unsuspecting tenants they housed. Mike offered Hulme Crescents as a prime example of such a scheme. It was built in 1972 and demolished in 1993. It was poorly designed and even more poorly constructed and by all accounts a miserable place to live. It’s easy to tar all twentieth century architecture with the same brush and easy forget that there have always been terrible buildings, most of us just don’t remember bad ones as they were demolished long before we’d ever get to see them. This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t preserve the better examples. The Barbican might not be your cup of tea, but it is an exceptional piece of architecture and by all accounts a very pleasant place to live. If you haven’t been, I would also recommend going to view a production in its theatre which has an entry door for each row of seats, all of which close in unison at the start of each performance. The Twentieth Century Society also do a great job campaigning for the protection of twentieth century architecture if it’s something you’re interested in finding out more about.
One of Mike’s most endearing qualities is how open he is and you always feel like you’re getting the authentic version of him. I asked him whether he has a work persona and he said that he’s pretty much the same all the time, which didn’t surprise me at all. I like to think I’m also fairly consistent and not prone to putting on airs and graces depending on the audience. We spend most of our waking lives at work so it always seems odd to me that you would choose to be a different version of yourself in a work setting.
