I spent 24 hours of utter chaos in the city of Manchester as a homage to Michael Winterbottom’s iconic film, 24 Hour Party People.

He’s just set fire to my drink. I swear to god I saw him use a full on flamethrower to set fire to the top of it. The drinks in question are a rather undrinkable colour, something looking too green to be suitable for consumption and even less so with the current wildfire that’s taking place on the top of it. Make sure you blow out the fire before you put a straw in it, says the ratty looking barman. It’s not even that late on in the evening and it’s not even a suitable day for going out. A Monday. But any day can be a day to go out when you are seriously falling behind in everything you’re doing.

We’d been drinking pretty steadily from Friday,a civilised cocktail after one of the weirdest fucking films I’ve ever seen turned into a night of one too many and staggering home in the early hours of saturday. And the cycle repeats. Wake up. Shower. Food. Head Out. stagger back home in the early hours of Sunday. And again. “Why don’t we go to Manchester? Have a night out?,” what the fuck do you mean, “Well you know, You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours. Let’s go out.” Right but I have a lecture at 9am. “Train at 10:30 then.” Yeah okay then.

10am Monday we make our way to the corner shop, pick up a couple cans of Dragon Soop. Medicinal tasting and quite honestly vile. But it’s alcohol and caffeine that’ll keep us going for a while. The walk to the station is miles longer than recalled. A usual 20 minutes at a brisk pace seems near impossible but we must press on to make the train. It’s for the story after all. That’s it, the story. What’s the story again? Oh yeah, the film. 24 Hour Party People, Michael Winterbottom’s 2002 film featuring Steve Coogan as the great Saint Anthony Wilson. A film so great that you wouldn’t even know it was made a whole twenty years earlier. Maybe that is until you actually get back into Manchester.

As I recall, there’s a scene in which Tony or should I say Steve is talking about musical trends and is at this time standing atop some building in Manchester. Perhaps somewhere near Oxford Road because you can see the Principle Hotels clock tower or is it the Kimpton Tower now? Who knows, I certainly don’t. And pulling into the station it’s completely overshadowed, hidden somewhere amongst all the high rise buildings. I swear it wasn’t this cramped the last time I was here. Barely a month ago. 20 years later and the city is unrecognisable, its brutalist facelift lording over all.

All I can think about is food. I’m hungry, maybe even starving. When was the last time I actually ate something substantial? We go underground to this Indian place, you see my accomplice isn’t a picky eater as such just has a rather refined and small circle of foods that they can or can’t eat. I’m no use myself either, can’t eat meat or dairy anymore. Makes me ill. Not the best for this kind of outing. Anyway we eat so much food it comes in these little pots. I couldn’t tell you what I ate but it scratched the itch for the time.

Now what? A walk. Should we walk it off? We walk it off, all over I’m not sure how long we walk for and then we look in shops. Tons of them. Do we buy anything? No. We’re delirious. I try to take in as much as I can. I notice the people walking the streets, the people sat on the streets. I’m scared of tripping over. My feet hurt. How long have we walked for? I change my shoes and off we go again. To another bar. A gaming bar it would seem. They appear to be popping up all over the show, these places where you can drink and rent a console for a period of time. No point renting a console. It would be wasted on me I can barely see in front of me. I just had a drink. Or two or three or maybe even four. Down they go into the acidic tank in my centre. Full of glitter and vodka and fire and lime juice. Vile stuff if you ask me. But it’s all for the story. What story? Oh yeah the one where we get absolutely bladdered in Manchester and pretend we’re someone else. How did we end up in a nightclub?

Oh yeah, a trip to Wetherspoons, two more pitchers down. I’d hate to be me tomorrow. Only bald, fat, red middle-aged men look on in bemusement. What the fuck are they doing that drunk on Monday night? Their guess is as good as ours.

Somehow we blag our way into Factory. Fucking hell they must be struggling letting anyone in like that. Once home to the infamous Factory Records office, the club has now devolved into a place that puts on quids in nights and plays generic indie and the same shit wedding reception music that has become a genre of its own. Cheese. This truly is my personal hell. Why did we even come here? Somehow we force ourselves to stay. Stood in a sweaty club on Monday night. I’m not even drinking because I can’t bring myself to spend money in this shithole. I can’t let this destroy Wilson’s legacy, well the one in my head. I’m quite fickle, I’m told.

Anyway, Tony’s rolling in his grave, my feet are sticking to the floor, maybe I should leave. Yeah that seems like the right thing to do at this point. The music is shit anyway. So we leave.

Where can you go at 4am? A casino. Obviously. They’re pretty much the only places that are perpetually open. We don’t have any money. I’m also almost certain that I have an addictive personality and I really am not quite sure that I want to put that to the test. They provide us with orange juice in plastic cups. A refreshing breakfast drink but this is the least refreshed I’ve ever felt. I can feel my insides rotting away and my brain turning to sludge.

At 6am we are saved. My mouth is watering. I’m stood in the queue. Greggs. The food of legends, heroes and drunk northerners who can’t eat kebabs. I’ll have not one but two vegan sausage rolls and something to wash it down with. Wrong choice. The acidic slop is creeping its way back up my throat. Keep it down. We make it onto a train.

An hour later I’m sat on my awful red sofa, in my dirty student house. How did I make it back here? Wait, what was the point of the last 24 hours? Oh yeah, the story. 20 years after Michael Winterbottom’s film Manchester has turned to shit, a run of the mill night out or maybe I’m just a run of the mill person. I should’ve just gone to a gig. Why bother clubbing? Why bother with any of it? Why bother reading the ramblings of a drunk? Because at the end of the day you never know how much of it you can trust. A wise man once said, when forced to pick between truth and legend, print the legend.