Revolting in Blackpool

The newest lodger, a professional vaper with a cover story of being a third year undergrad, is getting on my tits and I apologise in advance for a bit of domestic whinging. Whilst his irritations are manifold, I will confine my examples to ones based around food.

I am in the kitchen caramelising some onions. He comes down and stands about, getting in the way, wiping his eyes histrionically. He opens the cellar door to get some air in, whilst remaining within a couple of feet of the offending alliums.

I get some skate wings, sold off cheap by the man on the market at five o'clock. Fusspot comes down again, and says "Fuck, that smells really fishy! That's really fishy fish!"

I make a tarte au moutarde, which involves Gruyère. Despite the fact that by this point, three months in, I am wishing he could accidentally swallow a mixture of lorazepam and fentanyl, I am willing to offer him a slice. However, in his new-found role as Kitchen Policeman, he comes down announces "that smells like fetid socks." "Well, thank you very much Fusspot. I won't offer you any then."

Then there is the competitiveness. I have absolutely no interest in competing with anyone, for anything, ever. Well, perhaps, I do try to dress better than other men, but that's a low bar to hurdle in Lancaster.

I make a nut roast, to be reheated on Christmas Day for Kirsty, the girls, and me. It's a recipe from Kirsty's late Dad, which involves a middle layer of prunes soaked in Armagnac. "Oh," he says, "you should taste my nut roast. It's just fantastic. I've had lots of people say they love it." The tarte au moutarde caused him to say that he can make an excellent butter pie. "Yeah, you should make it then," I said.

But such fabulous dishes never materialse; instead, he lives on Cup-A-Soup and Iceland pizza. Recycling bins do not lie.

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I was revolting on Tuesday ("only yesterday, looby?") in Blackpool. As Bill Bryson once said about the place "They spent eleven million pounds on cleaning up Blackpool. Now the turds sparkle." The poverty, away from the town centre is still startling. Torn net curtains hang listlessly across filthy windows; endless closed cafes with broken plywood signs.

The Government is refusing to accept Lancashire County Council's decision to refuse two fracking applications in the county, and has "called the application in", which means it will be decided by a fervently pro-fracking minister. Yes, just the one minister from central government, not local, elected councillors.

It was humbling, after my gruelling forty-five-minute ordeal on a warm train, to meet someone who had set off from Oxford to get here for the beginning of the enquiry. Another lad had come even further, from Chelmsford, draped in an England flag across which he'd written "Essex supports Frack Free Lancashire."

I had to repair to a pub afterwards in order to check on the progress of the frostbite, so asked directions to Churchill's, my favourite pub in Blackpool, a somnolent place drugged with Cliff Richard, where tatty people of my age and older go for a good afternoon's swearing. I was hoping that I'd have some carbon-neutral company but anti-frackers are a fairly restrained fiftysomething crowd not given to afternoon drinking in public houses.

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The new regime with Trina continues smoothly. Met up with her for a drink in Ormskirk yesterday. One of the regulars is a bulbous disabled man who has become as one with his scooter, growing into and around it. He came over and started talking to us, amiably enough, but was reluctant to go until I started saying "OK, see you then. Bye." He repeatedly did a thumbs up at us, over what I'm not sure. As he moved away, I said, not quite sotto voce, "right, thanks, now fuck off." Unfortunately he heard it and I had to pretend not to have said anything as he looked back at us.

At a table opposite, a couple were not happy. "I'm not sure where this relationship is going," she said. "I bought you haggis, neeps and tatties, didn't I?" he rejoined. "Yes, but I wanted black pudding as well."

I go to make a phone call and stand at the top of the stairs. A thin, middleaged woman has got there first and is talking loudly on hers, so I have to pretend to have forgotten something and go back downstairs, but her voice carried well enough. "Have you seen her? Well, you make your own mind up, but I think she's a weirdo. Right weirdo. You decide when you see her but she's got this right pointy little head. Probably takes it up the arse."