Next tour: Thursday 24 September 2020
Meet: Adelphi Hotel, Liverpool, 12 noon.
Booking: Please press here to book with eventbrite.

Liverpool can be a dramatic and violent place, for the sailor on leave was in danger of falling foul of “land-sharks, land-rats, and other vermin in the shape of landlords, bar-keepers, clothiers, crimps, and boarding-house loungers [who] devour him, limb by limb; while the land-rats and mice constantly nibble at his purse.”

Was that last week? Thank God no: 1849, as Herman Melville, author of Moby Dick, explained in his novel Redburn.

At least wonderful things happened with the Beatles, but not everyone was impressed. According to cultural doyen Fritz Spiegl: the Beatles were “the greatest confidence trick since the Virgin Birth”. If that wasn’t enough he really laid it on next.

“The swinging, pop-crazed 60s led directly to the present drug scourge, to narcotics-related crime and junkie-spread AIDS. Liverpool could have done without such heroes.”

Mmm.