As any man knows it is important to walk tall and wear a good hat.

Howe Gelb and Giant Sand wore good hat when they played last night in the small Victorian theatre tucked down one of the sides of St George’s Hall. It was the same room that Dickens read in more than a hundred years ago and the only shame was that it wasn’t as full last night as it would have been on one of those nights with Dickens in full flow.

I have written elsewhere on here about Giant Sand so I won’t repeat too much of the history. The last time I had seen Howe Gelb it was twenty five years ago and he was sat on one of the benches on Magdelen Bridge in Oxford arms outstretched over the back looking cool and relaxed in the morning air. If I get round to writing a proper book of short stories one of them will feature the moment I hesitated and didn’t go over and shake his hand and say hello.

The night before when they were playing in the old Co-op Hall on Cowley Road I had shouted out for them to play Mountain of Love. He had shaken his head sadly and said “But that is an old song” and then went on to play it anyway. Last night when I shouted out for the same song he just said “No’ and went ahead and played something even older.

There can’t be many bands thirty years into a career who can just play a gig consisting mostly of stuff from the album they released only a few weeks ago and have it sound as if they are playing a show of greatest hits. But Giant Sand did that last night. They played as if that new album Heartbreak Pass was the best thing they have ever done but then I know they are at least a dozen other albums lurking among the thirty or so that are out there that are just as good if not better.

So it was a good gig and Howe Gelb wore good hat. He took it off for some songs, hanging it on a spare mic-stand or the head of the bass guitar, but it always went back on.

I should have shaken his hand.

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Friday was the last day of half term so I stayed at home to spend some time watching the kids do revision for the exams that start next week.

In the afternoon we took the car to Manchester and spent a couple of hours walking round The Whitworth. I am not sure if I have been there before. If I have it was a long time ago.

It has just been revamped and is now in contention for a prize as museum of the year. It would well deserve to win.

It was a combination of the old building with modern open galleries inside and at the back a new extension with wide clean windows that looked out over the park.

One room was filled with 17th/18th Century watercolours and etchings. They were hung up to the ceilings. A criticism might have been made that there were no labels next to the pictures so you were never quite sure what you were looking at. But there were sheets of paper there to be picked up telling you what was what and part of the enjoyment was shifting the eye from picture to picture picking up the details rather than being distracted by the label.

As we walked round it was apparent that there was no fuss being made on photos being taken. This came into its own in a exhibition of work by Cornelia Parker.

There were bullets that had been pulled into a piece of wire a mile long that had then been coiled against canvas; small piles of incinerated cocaine courtesy of a local customs office and flatted plates, trumpets and trombones hung by wires from the ceiling.

But most impressive were two large internal rooms each given over to its own work of art.One room had been hung with the bright red paper templates left after a poppy had been punched out of it. They were hung from the walls and in inverted arches from the ceiling and lit for four bare lightbulbs.

Another room was filled with an exploding shed lit from the inside throwing slow black shadows on the wall.

After the art we went for expensive tapas at Iberica. We had a plate of very expensive ham that wasn’t quite big enough for the price and I then went for the three cheapest tapas on the menu:-

– Aubergine, honey & pinenuts – these could have done without the pinenuts and theere was something astringent about the honey. It was also a long slice of aubergine with the skin still. So all in all not as good as it could be.

– Confit of cod (brandada) with olives & white grapes – this was better. Salt cod mixed with potato and served cold as three spoonfuls set on the plate with white grapes and diced tomato.

– Butifarra with trinxat catalan – this was the best. A thick spiced sausage on a small spread of pureed potato with a green embellishment.

We also had croquettes, chorizo lollipops, cheese and omelette, padron peppers and patatas bravas.

I even managed to finish with a small glass of patxaran over ice.

There were three big ships on the Mersey today but the most that we saw was the back of a lot of peoples’ heads.

What was impressive was the massive crowd of people milling down through Hamilton Square and then catching a glimpse of the ships through the buildings rearing up almost as if they were buildings in their own right.

Down by the water the ships dominated the city shrinking the cathedrals and the shiny new buildings that have gone up too eagerly over the last few years. The only things not subdued by them were the squat tugs that busied themselves around the ships – like dogs shepherding large slow moving sheep.

And then the red arrows flew past quickly. Very quickly. Blink and you would have missed them. But they did leave behind some nice blue, red and white cloud.

Then we went home.

Before finishing I should mention that last nights asparagus were particularly good. I had probably over bought but when it is only around for a few weeks it seems silly not to indulge. They were boiled in a large pan of water their tops sticking out for five minutes. In the meantime I had hard boiled and peeled four perfectly light blue duck eggs. A large plate was warmed in the oven.

When the asparagus were done I lifted them out onto the warm plate and snipped at the elastic bands holding them together in bunches so they could spread out. The eggs were cut in half and placed at each end of the plate, butter melted and poured over and plenty of salt and pepper then went on top.

We ate them outside in the last of the afternoon’s sun chewing them down to the hard stem.