Magical Mystery Tour Part 4 : Back in The USSR of Liverpoool by Alfred N.Muggins

    It seemed the traffic jam must be caused by this city’s eager attempt, like most cities, to widen pavements and pedestrianise, to tidy pavements to make them look nicer, while shoving the traffic onto ever smaller and narrower roads, which only ever went one way, and which took away motorists’ options to decide which way to go by the day. There were bollards here to each side, and changes were being made to the footpaths and the curbs. As they slowly progressed past the huge buildings he found one multistorey car park, seemingly behind locked gates and bollarded off? Strange! How could a driver go there or park there? He despaired. They could be trapped in this traffic jam forever, and might never be able to find Mrs Muggins after her Passport Appointment! To add to his stress he shortly found himself in the wrong lane to take advantage of one underground entrance to a Q car park. He had noticed too late!

    Starting to panic, he wondered if he would ever be able to stop the car (The Tank!) anywhere in Liverpoool, or would the city eventually spew them out, on the one way systems, in this slow traffic jam, which still did not give the driver enough time to think, as he missed the opportunities he might have because of insufficient warnings, leaving his wife Mrs Muggins to perhaps find her own way back home to South Yorkshire on an expensive train? (What on earth did taxis do here in this impossible car unfriendly city? But then they knew their city, while he did not.)

    He imagined his apologies to Mrs Muggins on the phone, as her mobile inevitably ran out of charge, as it invariably did. “We got to Liverpool alright, but couldn’t find a single place to park! The one way systems pushed me back out of the city, and I could not face that traffic jam again. We were in it for well over an hour! So I had no choice but to come home. Let me say, you’re better off on foot in Liverpool. We’ve been, but couldn’t even get out of the car. You will have to get the train back, or at least to Manchester and I’ll have to pick you up there!”

     (To be sure he did indeed balk at contemplating Manchester as a place to pick anyone up, for similar reasons as Liverpool! But he had lived there once, and survived (although that was well before he had a car to worry about!) (In fact the last time he had actually driven through the streets of Manchester, a few years before (on the way back from Blackpool and Southport!) he had got rather lost in that city’s convoluted one way traffic systems,( despite having lived there once) and that had been partly (possibly?) because he hadn’t really trusted Mrs Muggins’ satnav enough, and kept trying to go the way his head told him to go. He had suspected that Mrs Muggins had not put the correct destination into the satnav at the time, but on reflection it may well not have been that after all! Certainly he had vowed never to drive through Manchester ever again if he could possibly help it, and promised himself to go around the outside of the Greater City on the motorway systems in future!)

    He had already lost confidence in being able to find a parking spot in this suddenly alien and unfriendly city. It was alright driving ‘The Tank’, such a smooth running and invincible vehicle, but where do you park it in such an alien city? Alfred imagined writing such a tragic piece of literature! He had come to ‘Bethlehem’ (no – Liverpool!) to find a safe stable, but they found themselves cast out, and not able to find assistance – so they went home!

     But just then, as a view of the dockland area was opening up in the still snailpace traffic on the right there was a clear sign for a car park. He would not miss it this time, must not miss it. He followed round a couple of corners coming out of the main traffic in the right place and into what did look like an inevitable multistorey car park in the centre of Liverpool. There was the usual worry about whether you could reach the ticket machine from the car window. Inevitably he wasn’t quite close enough to reach, and he had to unbuckle his seatbelt and open the car door to reach it, but he got a ticket and the barrier went up. He grabbed one of the first available spots, of course. He wasn’t going to mess around driving for extra precious minutes looking for the perfect space, or wishing he had got the first space he’d seen, because he couldn’t find any more!

(N.B. : Back in The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics of Liverpoool) (It’s only a joke, even if it could be deemed to be in bad taste? Please do not arrest me for thought crimes or racism, or comical offences, in this place, the City of Comedy!)