31 Enjoy a dirty weekend in Salford
The Pogues sang an ode to Salford in Dirty Ol d Town - of dreams by the canal and love among the gasworks and factories. Songs of romance involving post-industrial regeneration might be harder to write, but it is easier to enjoy a weekend of culture in the city now. In Salford Quays, you can admire the architecture of Imperial War Museum North before visiting the Lowry Art Centre - a permanent collection of LS Lowry’s works, which depict the grimy cityspaces of industrial Northern England. Smiths fans can take the short walk to Salford Lads’ Club, immortalised on the sleeve of The Queen is Dead, where a room is dedicated to the band. Visit Ordsall Hall, a stately home dating to the 15th century, and among the Tudor façades and formal gardens, industrial grit couldn’t seem further away.
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32 Have a Weekend Down Margate
In 1982 Chas & Dave sang ‘you can keep the Costa Brava, I’m telling ya mate I’d rather have a day down Margate’ - advice that’s matured like a fine wine, with the resort at its most sprightly in decades. Start in the rebooted Dreamland (pictured right); the original south coast theme park, its ‘Scenic Railway’ rollercoaster celebrates its centenary in 2020. Chas & Dave also advised ‘go on the pier and… have a beer’ - chances are it was the Harbour Arms micropub they were thinking of, where you can sit among seagulls and stacked kegs, looking out over a flotilla of bobbing boats. And though the ‘jellied eels’ of which the duo sang aren’t on the menu, Buoy and Oyster serves some of the best seafood in Thanet - oysters and cockles from Whitstable, crab from Broadstairs, and Kentish-beer-battered fish ’n’ chips.