Friday, June 10

The Travelodge is fine, as Travelodges are, except for one detail. The room, 502 fact fans, has no air conditioning. This meant that I either slept with no covers and woke up shivering, or slept with covers on and woke up dripping with sweat. I woke up a lot one way or another.

After several days of maximum food I was happy to skip both breakfast and lunch. I wandered around the city centre which is packed with people attending Doc Fest. I spotted Michael Moore, or his twin, in the distance and nipped into the Millennium Gallery. I left by a different entrance and found myself in the Winter Garden.

Having crossed the road I am in the Graves Gallery where there is a large and interesting Brigit Riley exhibition. It includes lots of sketches, practice runs and notes. It takes me a couple of hours to walk through the entire gallery which is much more extensive than I had imagined and reminds me of the Lady Leverhulme gallery in Port Sunlight.

The gallery is above the main library and leaving by the stairs I spy this in the stairwell.

I will find a pub called The Bessener for something that is too late to count as lunch and too early to count as dinner. It will involve cumberland sausages and loaded fries. I will learn what the Bessener process is.

A man will arrive and remove most of his clothing. I will look out of the open door and notice that a sudden downpour has started. It will continue all afternoon. Trapped, I will be forced to drink alcohol for hours.