It is 23 November 2023, and I’m standing in the middle of a sports hall at The Florrie, a community centre in Toxteth, Liverpool. I’m wearing a fluorescent safety jacket, a Charles Fort T-shirt, a furry “roadkill hat”, complete with ears, and a pair of yellow and black combat trousers with an even brighter pair of yellow Y-fronts over the top, Superman-style. They have “K2 Plant Hire – No Bricks Kept in These Pants Overnight” printed on the seat. I have absolutely no idea what is going on. Around me a crowd of enthusiastic people swirls, most wearing similarly outlandish gear. Non-binary comedian, occultist and heavy metal historian Andrew O’Neil is setting up a “Skool of Ritual” behind me; I first met Andrew at legendary fortean Steve Moore’s funeral in 2014 (obit ). Meanwhile, doing an admirable job of bringing order to this ferment (well, maybe not order, but a more focused form of chaos; this is not an event at which order is encouraged), is Daisy Campbell, daughter). Liverpool rock legend Pete Wylie is here in an electric purple fur hat and rubber trousers, while, outside, cultural provocateur Bill Drummond, in paint splattered overalls, has a team hand-painting a soviet-era Russian ice cream van yellow with black stripes, and another group is reverently easing a pallet containing the beginnings of a brick pyramid out of a hire van.
