Today, I went to Manchester. It was obviously National Blind People Take Trains Day, since I saw one woman with a guide dog in the toilets at Carlisle station, and another on the train. As the train approached its destination, I found that Manchester is really weird. Half the buildings look absolutely hideous and the other half look truly funchie. Stranger still, the two types alternate almost perfectly.

In Carlisle, I had been feeling vastly uncomfortable in my all-black bikerchick clothing since there weren't even any standard greebos to be soon; the moment I reached Manchester, I felt vastly underdressed. Immediately I saw a couple in full PVC and while I was waiting (in the wrong place, of course) to meet Plushy (I'll stick with calling her "Plushy" since I always mentally think of her as "Mistress Of Plush" anyway, for no obvious reason: by the same token, my second favourite pub in Canterbury, The Hobgoblin, is The Hobbeth Of Gob in my head), a bloke in a red leather jacket came up to me and asked if I knew where the coach station was because he was trying to get to Nottingham to see Mortiis.

Plushy showed me where Affleck's, a shop of alternativity, was, and also a shop selling New Rocks, weapons and stuff. She'd never been to the latter before, because she was always too tired after visiting Affleck's, but I wanted to go, because I suspected a friend of mine who was at UKC briefly worked there. She did indeed, and it turns out she's going to be visiting York on the same day as I arrive there. So, yay, I won't spend my first evening alone or sitting in posh bars with trendies!

Plushy took my stuff to her house, since she didn't think there was a cloakroom at the place I was seeing Gary Numan. I went to Affleck's and found out what she meant when she said she was tired afterwards. Alternative shop? Alternative shopping centre more like! Fortunately (though this had more to do with fact that I couldn't carry much than a lack of funchie stuff), I only ended up buying twelve jelly bracelets.

I spent a lot of time getting lost in the rain, rescued only telephonically by Plushy who had an A to Z. Eventually I reached the Grand Central pub, where I sat, killing the strangely large amount of time left before the gig by playing the, "Who are all these people whose numbers I've got stored on my phone anyway?" game. Fortunately, for some reason, I went back at the main screen, which displays the time, and, eep? My watch said I had over an hour before doors opened, while my phone said I only had twenty minutes.

HARG! I'm lost in time! I thought, but I decided that my phone was right and my watch was playing up again, so I hurriedly made my way to the gig. I was most annoyed, because I reckoned, such is the devotion of Numanoids that there'd be a huge queue by the time I got there. Fortunately, it wasn't too bad, and I ended up in the sixth row with a good view. I met a bloke who'd just started university that day (bless!) and a couple who were about twice my age who told us about all the gigs they'd been to in the 80s.

For the support act, I'd been expecting someone goth or someone metal. Instead, we got Nylon Pylon, who were really weird. They would have been heavy ollllld-soulllll type of indie, except they had all this electro stuff going on too. Twas good, though.

Gary Numan himself . . . ahhhhh, for the first four songs there was this huge unshiftable idiotic smile on my face. I didn't think much rest of the performance though, compared to the one at Eurorock, though I suspect this has more to do with how I was feeling. I was hideously tired (being still jetlagged and full of the urge to go to bed at 8pm), my feet were killing me, I was dehydrated, I had cramps and my leggings were digging into my back and stomach. I headed further back towards the end, where I had a bit more space, and sat down for a song.

Then I went to Rock World, where I met Plushy again and various friends of hers who all have livejournals! Twas of the coolness: there were four rooms (I was desperately spoilt for choice) and although the goth room wasn't quite darkwave/industrial enough for my current tastes, the music was pretty good. And in spite of only really knowing one person there, who I lost for most of the evening, I also felt a lot more at ease there than I have done at any club (or pub for that matter). People were dancing enthusiastically (which only happens at the end of the night at The Beercart), and they were mostly either dancing on their own or dancing in a loose circle that automatically included newcomers (not possible in The Beercart due to its size). Strangely, everyone was a lot more dressed down there than the various Affleck's customers.

Afterwards, I stayed at Plushy's where I had all of four hours of sleep.