Numanoids

Prelude
"Liverpool City Council. Sue speaking. How can I help you?"
Well, this is encouraging. I'm sat in my car at the entrance to Mount Pleasant car part and having given up on the instructions, I decide to try the 24 hour hotline, which is, indeed, active on a Sunday afternoon.
"Oh hi. I'm sorry to bother you but I've come down to Liverpool for the evening and I'm staying overnight. I want to park in Mount Pleasant car park but I can't work out how to pay to leave the car here overnight. It says tickets are only valid on the day of purchase."
"That's OK. It's fairly simple. You just need to buy two one day tickets and then find the parking attendant on the fifth floor who will mark one of them as valid for tomorrow. Then you need to come back at 7am to get a ticket for the day. Or you can do it by phone."
At that point, I decide that Mount Pleasant car park is not the car park for me.

Before the film
The problem, of course, is that I usually come in by train and then walk up to the Philharmonic to meet Bob. The car is an unknown quantity. So, I left it on Renshaw Street, checked into the Printworks, and then walked up the hill. Now things were back on track.

Bob was just by the bar when I walked in, Simon was in the back room. This was understandable as they'd never met before but the Gary Numan Film, 'Android In La La Land' was a perfect opportunity to introduce them. And I'm pleased to say that they hit it off straightaway. That said, they're both modest chaps, so every time there was a conversational opportunity where I thought one of them would tell the other about something they'd done, they kept quiet. And that was rather lovely, actually. 

We moved across the road from the Phil to another bar for a further drink and then headed to Fact, where the film was showing. Simon knows the directors - in fact he led the Q&A after the showing in Manchester on Friday - and we met one of them, Rob, in the bar before the film started. And then bought some more drinks (plus Revels, obvs) and headed in for the film.

The film
You wait years for a film about one of your musical heroes and then two come along at once... Nick Cave on Thursday, Gary Numan tonight. But where the Cave film was sombre and, in places, heartbreaking, the Numan film is a more rollicking affair, focussing largely if (initially) unintentionally on his family and their move from the UK to Los Angeles. 

It's laugh outloud funny in places, cute in others, filmed in a gorgeous, vibrant colours. Numan comes across as incredibly likeable and his family life is endearingly normal (to me, anyway!). By the end of the film, I was rooting for his new album to be successful (although, in real life, I knew it was going to be).

After the film
... we went for a bite to eat and a few more drinks. It was lovely to be with two of my friends and to see them getting on well, too. Here they are, then: Bob on the left and Simon on the right.