All aboard the Tranny Express!

What a super night out Pippa and I had on Saturday. It was Pippa’s first outing for over a month so I think she was kind of looking forward to it. I picked her up from home and was knocked out by her revived rock chick look, she looked great, and since she really IS a rock chick that style really suits her. I felt positively frumpy in my long skirt and cardy, but I was doing a bit of a hippie chick look so I guess we kind of looked ok together. We stayed at the Ibis for a change, having had quite enough of the 5am trams running past the International thank you very much. The Ibis looked like a proper hotel, was right next to the car park, has spacious clean and tidy rooms, all en suite and most of all double glazing, with windows that actually close. And no trams. So, upon arriving we tidied ourselves up, they even had a chair in the room, and decent lighting, wow, and hit the town. We started off at View, formerly Prague V, where the clientele looked unusually straight. I’d expected it to be full of trannies as it was supposed to be the second, monthly "Funky Diva" event complete with tranny DJ. We were later to find out that Funky Diva had been cancelled, not entirely sure why but the word on the street was that the club was playing silly buggers, or perhaps the resident DJ was being a bit territorial and possessive of his little DJ’s cubby hole. Can’t say I was too bothered, I find that sort of "music" totally boring anyway, it just repeats ad infinitum without ever actually going anywhere. So it seemed all the trannies who had come to Manchester that night for Funky Diva were boycotting View. We eventually found several of them at AXM, just down the road, including Cerys and Sammy, Andrea, Amy and many others. Annette was also out, I haven’t seen her for ages and she had different coloured hair with pink and white woolly extensions, so it took me a moment to recognise her. Lovely to see all the girls again.

Anyway after lots of chat and catching up with people most of the crowd filtered out towards Napoleon’s, with the odd groan I have to say. Napoleon’s is, well, Napoleon’s. I don’t like it upstairs for the same reason I don’t really like any night-club anywhere in the world; bloody loud music that gives me tinnitus after about 10 minutes. But the ground floor is ok, always plenty of characters, and downstairs is compact and bijou but a nice friendly atmosphere. They even play proper songs, (quietly, on little speakers), complete with words and tunes that you can sing along to, or hum if you don’t know the words. I think it’s a great place down there, full of trannies, any admirers who venture down there tend to be polite ones, as they know not to mess with the barmaid there. She appears to be a butch lesbian, looks a bit like Robbie Coltrane, but very friendly and helpful and protective of her customers. She once gave a very stern warning to a guy who was whining at me to give him a kiss, despite me politely telling him, no, I was spoken for etc… He turned very pale and left within 5 minutes, I thanked her, though I hadn’t felt at all threatened by this rather wimpish guy, and I’ve liked her ever since.

Why people groan at the mere mention of Nap’s I’m not sure, perhaps it just has a certain reputation and one feels obliged to groan, but I like it, mainly because you can chat without shouting, and it’s just another club in the Village to me, perhaps with a greater concentration of trannies. Unlike some ts’s I don’t have a problem mixing with tv’s, in fact I really don’t care whether these people are ts or tv or whatever. Going out in my home town has been great, not being part of any scene and just feeling like one of the girls is fantastic, but getting back to Trannyland is also great. It reminds me that I’m not the only one, not that I need reminding any more, but it just makes you feel part of something, something big, with momentum. All it takes is numbers, enough people on board to give the tranny movement weight so that nothing can stop us. And out in the Village on a Saturday night one realises that we are indeed many. Hundreds, thousands, millions of individuals in the world, with one purpose: to be ourselves.

Pippa didn’t want to go home when I suggested, she was enjoying herself too much, bless, so we stayed for another hour until my grumbling tummy got the better of me. Back to the hotel via McTucky’s for chicken and chips, yum.

Later that night (I’ve skipped a bit here ok…!) the hotel lost some of its charm. Whilst the uPVC double-glazed tilt-and-turn windows offered good sound-proofing from the rumble of the traffic outside, the door to our room seemed to allow in plenty of noise from other passing guests. It may have been worse because we were right next to the lift, so there was a lot of hotel traffic, but both of us were a bit peeved at the inconsiderateness of other guests. Why do people walking down a corridor need to talk so loudly to each other? It may seem like a public building to them but they are in effect walking past other people’s bedrooms, and it went on all night. I’m not being fussy, it really was pretty bad. We were both close to nodding off at about 3:30am when the fire alarm went off. Jesus Christ, do they really need to make them THAT loud?! Something with that volume could be used as a weapon of war to disable the opponents, leaving them writhing on the floor in agony, ears bleeding, waving white flags. It went on for about a minute presumably before someone in reception realised there wasn’t actually a fire. Long enough to leave us in a not so nodding off state, grrr…

Sleep was, intermittent, but maybe we’ll get used to it, and it’s certainly no worse than the International, though I’m sure the guests there are quieter and more respectful, maybe it’s a tranny thing. It’s a shame because the International has a certain character, they just need Kim and Aggie to really clean up the rooms, some proper windows, and some new bedding. I know they’re trying, they’ve refurbished the bar and fixed most of the windows so they at least close, but they still have work to do.

I’ve gone on longer than I had intended to in this blog, sorry dear reader, if you’re still with me, I guess it’s been a long time since we were out in the Village, but I’ve gotta say, it was good to be back.

xx