Road To Nowhere

Laurie Lee, the author of Cider with Rosie.

Not a woman, apparently.

There's many a tall tale to be told about Tony Wilson, aka the late, much-missed Mr Manchester. The man who gave us Factory Records. The Hacienda night club. The man partially, if not greatly, responsible for putting Manchester on the music map in the late 70s.

Certainly he's a Manchester legend and of course many legends get mythologised. But many of these Tony tall tales are true.

Here's one; passed on by a former colleague of Tony Wilson's at Granada TV who I would peg as a trusted source.

Tony always said everything was going great until Capitalism reared its ugly head. As soon as they started buying their buildings, because their advisers said "buy property", their financial troubles really began.

So it got to the point where the lawyers were called in. To see what could be salvaged.

The lawyers asked about contracts. Back catalogues; always a healthy income source.

"Oh no," says Tony. "We said they'd be no contracts."

"Hmmm," said the lawyers. And they frowned and they hmmmed. And then one of them said: "Ah, but perhaps a contract doesn't have to be written down. A contract could be verbal, or even understood by both parties... a contract of intent."

"Oh, but wait," said Tony. "I think there might be something - one..." And he opened up his vast case, and he rummaged about, and the lawyers paused and watched and finally, from out of his case Tony produced a tattered piece of paper.

And on it, scrawled in blood, were the words:

THERE WILL BE NO CONTRACTS

I was late up this morning, due to staying up to laugh head off at Virgin TV documentary on Satan till past 11pm last night. ("Does Saturn exist? There is a man in Paris who believes he is possessed by a demon with the head of a dog and the tail of a donkey. In Memphis there is a wood where locals have seen a man, half goat, with wooly legs and a dog was found decapitated in 1972. In Oakland there is a club where locals say the cellar is creepy. Can this be proof of Satan's existence") Honestly, they should bill these as comedies, they're hilarious.

Anyway, I missed my usual 7am bus by miles. But also catching the 7.30am bus was Mr Musicman, who I haven't seen in ages. His MP3 player must have once been owned by Lemmy - it is beyond loud. You can hear him coming from half a mile away.

This morning, as I edged closer down the other end of the bus stop, I was treated to singing along to The Eagles and a full on air guitar display.

It is great to get lost in music but there is a time and a place and a padded cell for that kind of thing.