I was inspired to write this when I was in Morrisons in Chorlton a few weeks ago. There was a guy with his kids by the dairy section. He looked vaguely familiar. Had I played football against him? Was he a former colleague or (more likely, given my age) a former pupil? I definitely recognised him but just couldn't place him. Then I realised I was having a Mancunian Stella Street moment. This usually involves encountering a 'celebrity' going about their normal daily business, and Chorlton's Morrisons, which used to be Safeway, and which has always been the supermarket from hell, is a better than average place to spot them.
On this occasion it was this guy
2nd from right, bass player with Elbow. Other encounters over the years have included
Beverley Callard, her from Corrie and 2 pints of lager...,
Ian Brown, Stone Roses and a bit of a Mancy monkey,
Mike Pickering, M People, moving on up to the fruit and veg (sorry),
Ainsley Harriot, the only one I've ever seen being mobbed. It was quite disturbing, watching him being outed as the bloke off the telly by autograph hunting grannies while other shoppers just stopped and stared at him with a kind of malevolent curiosity (Morrisons in Chorlton is like that),
Finally, the most bizarre. Mick Hucknall, no 1 in the charts at the time, just beginning to ride his 80's megastardom wave, in the checkout queue with a tall stunning and bored looking blonde woman. He was obviously still getting used to the whole pop star thing, because he was holding a newly purchased set of Ikea bathroom scales and enthusiastically banging on about what a great shop it was. I wonder what number she was on the list of thousands of women that he's recently owned up to sleeping with 'back in the day', and whether he wooed them all with some form of retail related foreplay.
Remember. Morrisons in Chorlton. It's a rubbish place to shop, but if you've got an i-spy book of celebrity types, it's the place to be.
