As we hurtle speedily towards our death, it is common to list locations to visit before the final bucket is kicked by the croaking Grim Reaper while you shuffle off to the Notting Hill Record and Tape Exchange to offload your This Mortal Coil records.
And so a “bucket list” can be made and ticked off as and when you stand atop Sugar Loaf Mountain with a carrot up your bum, swim with the buffalo, make love at the Dolphins or goad the tiny, incontinent Penguins of Rapa Nui. But I’m not interested in that kind of thing.
My bucket list is a little more prosaic. I’ve never been to Manchester or Hull. I’m 50 and the opportunity to go has not yet presented itself. I want to walk by the canal tork loyk Jeyums Nusbitt, or visit the Salford Lads Club and pose for a photo with cut outs of Rourke, Marr and Joyce. In Hull I want to make a call from a cream coloured telephone box and gaze in awestruck wonder at the Humber Bridge, while pretending to be Paul Heaton.
So, to me, these places seem exotic and flecked in tingling, exquisite mystery.