Posted by We were given VIP tickets to a Stanford party at The Living Room in Manchester. We had to wear shoes instead of trainers. Having to wear shoes instead of trainers tends to mean a venue is ‘not our sort of place’.
The evening revolved around showing the match on the big screen. There were to be free cocktails, canapés and ‘special guests’.
When we arrived, we were handed our free cocktail. It was orange coloured and had straws in it. ‘What is it?’ asked our companion. ‘It’s a cocktail’ replied the girl.
Now fully informed about our beverages, we made our way through to the main room. All the other VIPs were probably reclining in their chaise longues already.
There seemed to be a lot of standing up going on.
Standing up didn’t make us feel like a VIP. If we’d been watching the match at home we would have had the choice between standing up or sitting down and we would have opted for sitting down.
There were some tables down the sides of the room. One table only had two people sitting at it, so we asked if we could also sit there. The two people said yes, because you just have to in those situations.
Sitting down was better than standing up, although our companion was facing away from the screen. This is what the seating was like:
None of those people are us, although we do like his socks.
The cocktail was very sweet. Even a girl said it was sweet and girls will drink syrup given half a chance. We went to the bar to get a beer.
Here is the beer standing next to one of the cocktails:
The beer was called ‘Sol’ and it was one of those beers that has to have fruit stuffed into it so that you can’t taste how disgusting it is.
Later on we found a bar serving Foster’s. Foster’s was the best drink available. Here is a really blurry picture of a man enjoying his Foster’s:
During the innings break, we saw the first special guest. It was Lancashire’s new captain, Glen Chapple. Glen said England were ‘under a bit of pressure’.
The two people at our table were Paul and Dave. Dave had entered a competition to win the VIP tickets on Lancashire’s website. He won, “so I felt like I had to go”. He said he probably wouldn’t have watched the match otherwise. Paul and Dave were probably the most into the match out of everyone there.
The picture on the big screen had been expanded so that the score was constantly off the bottom. Fortunately, England played poorly enough that you didn’t need to see the score to know how badly they were doing.
After the match, there was a second special guest. We were possibly the only person in the room who was delighted that it was Oliver Newby.
Oliver Newby didn’t disappoint. Reviewing the match, he said that he was ‘partial to a bit of Chris Gayle spanking’. Nobody else seemed to know that Oliver Newby’s sense of humour revolves around making himself sound like a sexual deviant. Either that or they weren’t really listening.
During the Stanford Superstars’ innings there was jerk chicken and some pastie-type things. Both were very nice indeed.
You should sell those socks as King Cricket memorabilia.
Does everyone alway wear black in Manchester? Looks more like a wake than a celebration of Caribbean cricket.
So the jerk chicken and the pastie-type things had been kept well away from Oliver Newby then.
The man with the socks is wearing blue – he is spoiling the monochrome, cream and orange thing going on there. Did he miss the dress code mailing?
It is quite a monochrome town.
We were also wearing black, it must be said – although we injected a note of colour into the evening with some frightfully garish brown trousers.
Mmmm…jerk chicken.
Living Room, huh? Not sure I’d have gone, even if I’d won a ticket in a vodka drinking contest with the lovely lady in that Indiana Jones film.
Hmmm – I do hope not brown corduroy??!!
No, just plain brown.
Would corduroy have been unacceptable? Has it been outlawed in Greater Manchester? Why weren’t we notified about this?
You finally reveal your life and how you live it.
Free fancy cocktails. Free foreign beer with exotic fuit wedged in there. Free prime Australian beer. Men wearing leather jackets that cost more than my car. Posh plants. Fake yellow leather couches. Fancy socks.
You corporate bastard.
(And you know I have no car)
That beer wasn’t free. We move in circles where you have to pay £3.50 for a beer.
They are rubbish circles.
brown and black is wack.
Suave needs to give you some lessons.
‘Would corduroy have been unacceptable?’
I think you should take Suave up on his offer!
“Girls will drink syrup given half a chance” hahahhaha – erm oh *hides tropical fruitshoot*
I move in a similar circle, KC. Mine is called ‘London’.
To be honest, when we find ourself in one of those £3.50 circles, we usually move out of it sharpish.
doesn’t manchester have about ten major breweries, i know boddingtons has gone, but i’m pretty sure that the likes of jw lees, joseph holts, marble brewery, hydes, boggarts and even i believe scottish and newcastle brew there, plus others i can’t be bothered remembering…. how on earth did you stumble into an establishment where fosters was the best choice! shame on you! shame!
A little bit too much detail on the cricket there – the Glen Chappel quote ‘n’ all. Surplus to requirements IMHO.
Not losing your touch are you, KC?
I’ve been in The Living Room, Deansgate, and hated every minute of it. When Dwight Yorke walked in, and every scantily dressed woman in the place mauled at him, I knew there was something seriously wrong with it all,
Also, they sting you for a double spirit, unless you specifically ask for it. The young lady Suave was schmoozing with got pissed, and it cost me a fucking fortune. That was also the end of that short romance.
If you look closely, the lady on the left of the ‘blurry’ photo has just knocked down another England leg stump with her laser vision.
t, no matter how good the local brews may be, there’s a class of poncey bar that won’t touch them. Because some tasteless foreign rubbish with a lemon in it is what the ponces want to drink. At £3.50 a bottle.
Besides which, Scottish & Newcastle brews Fosters, in a great big brewery about 2 miles from town.
We didn’t arrange the event, you understand. We’d have arranged it elsewhere with no guests. That would have been great.
I actually know two of the reprobates in the first shot: the glasses wearers rear right of the image.