John Edward Cooper’s Notes

[i] We arrived at Hartshead Moor, 12:29, and departed from there, 12:57.

Receipt, printed “12:41:22”


Friday 12 June 2026 12:45:21
A stop on the way at “Welcome Break Hartshead Moor Westbound Services M62”

“There was some more rain en route, but by the time we reached our hotel, the Hilton, it was sunny, warm and quite windy.” We encountered some queues of traffic en route which slowed us down, but we actually had to stop only occasionally. After we entered the city, though, progress was hindered by traffic signals seemingly every 100 yards, and seemingly all with red lights.
 Janet’s journal continued: “We arrived around 2.45pm. We checked in.” We were issued with a “Welcome” letter—



—and a card wallet enclosing two credit-card sized key-cards.






Card wallet holding the two key-cards to our room, “715”

 Just beyond the reception desk was a wide alcove with three elevator doors. We pressed the control between two of the doors to call one of the three lifts. After one arrived, though, and I pressed “7”, nothing happened. I can’t remember: did we work out that we needed to hold a key-card to a sensor, then press “7”? Or did someone else enter the lift, who already knew its operation? We arrived at the 7th floor, anyway, and followed the sign that pointed to room numbers including ours. The operation, of applying the key-card to the sensor, unlocked the door (15:03); there were no difficulties then, or at any time. When the bathroom light wouldn’t work, we realised that the card had to be inserted into a slot near the door. Every time we would enter the room, the air-conditioning fan would start up, and I had to press the left button on the wall-mounted controller to turn it off.
 As Janet was unpacking clothes and hanging them, and getting out other items and putting them where they’d be needed, I set up the “new” Samsung computer, the USB hub, the mouse and the keyboard on a long worktop, which spanned the length of the room to the left of the window. In the middle, there was a huge TV set. Its position and excessive size made it unsuitable for use as a monitor, though, so I didn’t check whether it had a VGA port. It remained switched off during our whole stay. Although the worktop was that long, it was not very deep, and there was only one small, very shallow, empty drawer in its whole length. In fact, there was a shortage of drawer space in the room. On either side of the bed, there was just a small shelf, with no drawer under it. I say “empty” about the drawer in the worktop, for it’s where I’d have expected to find some sort of hotel brochure, describing hotel facilities, restaurant opening times, etc., if not on the worktop itself. But there was none.
 “We checked in, and I unpacked,” Janet wrote. “We were on the 7th floor and there was a huge picture window looking out over Albert Dock. Not a bad view.” To the right, could be seen the Wheel of Liverpool and the buildings enclosing Albert Dock.


Friday 12 June 2026 15:10:07
Views from the hotel room window: Wheel of Liverpool


Friday 12 June 2026 15:11:09
Views from the hotel room window: Wheel of Liverpool, and buildings around Albert Dock


Friday 12 June 2026 15:44:42
Views from the hotel room window: Wheel of Liverpool, and buildings around Albert Dock


Friday 12 June 2026 15:44:58
Views from the hotel room window: buildings around Albert Dock

And, to the left, Liverpool Cathedral was prominent.


Friday 12 June 2026 15:45:24
Views from the hotel room window: Liverpool Cathedral

 According to the “Welcome” letter:

Wi-Fi Please connect to Hilton Honors. Wi-Fi is £6.99 for 24 hours for none [sic] Hilton Honors members. Membership is free, simply scan the QR code to join.

Between taking the first two photos with the phone, and the second three photos with the camera (all shown, above), I tried to create a “Hilton Honors” account, using my phone: “Join Hilton Honors” (15:13). But I was informed that my e-mail address was already in use, i.e. I already had a “Hilton Honors” account. (If I’d looked at the confirmative e-mail and the host of other e-mails that I received when we booked on 15 May I’d have known this, for they quoted my “Hilton Honors” membership number; but I didn’t do this.) When I tried to log in, “Hilton Honors Login” (15:17), the password field was automatically completed by the browser; however, that was reportedly the wrong password. So I requested a password reset, and received an e-mail (15:25), “Your Temporary Hilton Honors Account Password”, with a link on which to click. This brought up “Hilton Honors Password Recovery” (15:27), in which I created a new password. There was another e-mail (15:31), “Your Hilton Honors account Password has been updated”. I can’t remember precisely what happened after that, step by step. I know that the changed password was still reported as wrong. The only evidence of continued frustration of my attempts to log in is evinced by the e-mails I was sent and the steps in the browser history that I took: e-mail, “Your verification code from Hilton” (15:32); browser, “Hilton Honors Login” (15:34); e-mail, “Your verification code from Hilton” (15:36); browser, “Hilton Honors Forgot Information” (15:36). I was getting very grumpy indeed. In the absence of a brochure describing hotel facilities etc., I looked at the “Hilton Liverpool City Centre” website (15:42–15:54), but that was less than sufficiently informative, seeming only interested in making “Offers” for this and that (15:42). I did find the “Pima Bar Menus” (15:43), but weren’t we supposed to be going to the “Exchange Restaurant”? I couldn’t find a menu for that.
 In the end, none of this mattered. All the foregoing was done using the phone; but when I started up the computer, I was able to log on to the “Hilton Honors” Wi-Fi for free and with no difficulty. And later, Janet was able to do the same, using her tablet, with no difficulty. This hotel was really pissing me off: constant bombardment with e-mails up on previous days up to now about “Hilton Honors”; no information, or misleading information (Wi-Fi login could seemingly be done by any hotel guest); etc., etc.
 “I unpacked,” Janet wrote, “then we headed off for the dock. I was desperate for a drink. There was nowhere suitable, and it was very windy (it scared me).” On our way out, Janet stopped at the reception desk, and asked them for a rubber mat for the shower. Our walk took us by the Daffodil bar and restaurant, but the “restaurant” part put me off going there for a drink only.


Friday 12 June 2026 16:04:38
Looking back at our hotel: Hilton Liverpool City Centre


Monday 1 September 2008 16:08:32
The Hilton Liverpool City Centre hotel was still under construction when we last visited Liverpool. 


Friday 12 June 2026 16:05:04
Sand sculpture


Friday 12 June 2026 16:06:24
Daffodil bar and restaurant, Canning Dock, Liverpool — formerly Mersey ferry MV Royal Daffodil


Tuesday 2 September 2008 11:33:15 
The MV Royal Daffodil was still in service when we last visited Liverpool.

We proceeded ahead along Salthouse Quay, between Canning Dock on the right and Salthouse Dock on the left,—


Friday 12 June 2026 16:09:16
Former motor tug Brocklebank — now a mobile museum

—and ahead into Hartley Quay.


Friday 12 June 2026 16:11:18
The Pump House pub and restaurant — originally a hydraulic pumping station

The Pump House, just to our right at the start of Hartley Quay, had loud music coming from it, so it too was deemed unsuitable for us to have a drink there. We did visit the Daffodil on our way back, but were told that the bar was being reserved in 10 minutes for some function. The server suggested The Pump House, but of course we’d already considered it, and found the music to be too loud.
 Janet’s account continued, “We crossed back over the road to the hotel and headed into a shopping area. We couldn’t find a pub so had a cold drink at a Costa.” We crossed back over the road shown in the photo “16:04:38”, and continued to the left of the hotel, east along Thomas Steers Way. To the left was The Bierkeller, but there was music coming from there. There were two or more nearby bars shown on the Maps app, but I can’t remember why we deemed them unsuitable. I thought we might get to one of the streets we’d gone along, on the way with Louie to the hotel, where I’d seen a number of “traditional”-looking pubs; but we didn’t. We proceeded northwards along the pedestrian shopping-street South John Street; and decided to go in the Costa Coffee establishment on the north-east corner of South John Street and Lord Street. There, I had a Fanta Orange and Janet a Sprite Zero.…
 Janet wrote, “We were back in our room at ca. 5.30pm, and went down to the restaurant at 5.45pm for dinner. [John] had Aperol Spritz ([which he first tried in Italy:] it’s not Italy, though. Boo hoo!); and 1½ pints Stella; a Korean chicken burger and fries; then a platter of cheese, biscuits, grapes, olives and pickle. I had 2 Sprite zero sugar; and a chicken Caesar salad without the dressing, which I enjoyed as usual — [it] filled me up.”
 We left Costa Coffee and returned to our hotel room (17:00–17:10). A rubber mat, with suckers on one side, folded double, had been left on the long worktop. I wrote a bit…, then shut down the computer (17:43), before we headed downstairs, intending to eat at the Exchange Restaurant. We were told, though, that that had been hired for a function, but that we were welcome to eat at the Pina Lounge. Sitting at a rectangular table on chairs in the former might have been more comfortable and convenient than on the round plush continuous seating around one of the round tables that was a feature of the latter; but this was acceptable. To drink Janet had a Sprite Zero, and followed that with another one. I started with an Aperol Spritz, then had a pint then a further half-pint of Stella Artois. She had a Caesar Salad, without dressing, and with added chicken. I had a “Korean Chicken Burger” (“crispy buttermilk marinated chicken breast, gochujang and honey glaze, coriander aioli, pickled pineapple and crunchy Asian slaw. Served on a toasted brioche bun with skin-on fries”), with added bacon.


Friday 12 June 2026 17:59:19
Dinner in the Pima Lounge, Hilton Liverpool City Centre


Friday 12 June 2026 18:25:26
Dinner in the Pima Lounge, Hilton Liverpool City Centre

I wasn’t full, so had the “British Cheeseboard” (“selection of British cheeses served with grapes, biscuits and plum and apple chutney”). There was something lacking in the variety of cheeses available, so the server added some olives. I wasn’t keen on the hard, hexagonal flat things (called “biscuits” in the menu). I left some of them, but I ate the cheeses, grapes and olives, and was full after doing so.


Friday 12 June 2026 19:17:11
Dinner in the Pima Lounge, Hilton Liverpool City Centre


Bill from the Pima Lounge, Hilton Liverpool City Centre, printed “17:56” (evidently, not the correct time). A pint of Stella Artois was omitted; but when we ate there again on Monday 15 June, I informed the server, and it was included in the bill then.
…
 Janet continued, in her journal, “We were back in our room at ca. 8pm. I had a shower, etc., then updated this [journal]. I was in bed, ca. 9.30pm, and [John] not much later. I was tired!”
 On leaving the Pima Lounge, we called a lift. I don’t remember using the middle one while we were there, only the outer ones. The one on the left had audio; the one on the right was silent. The female voice of the left lift had a kind of gruff timbre and a lisp, which reminded me of the voice from physicist Mary Malone’s computer system (called “the Cave”, investigating dark matter), in the fantasy drama TV series His Dark Materials. According to the Wikipedia account, in the Series 2 episode “Tower of the Angels”, “Mary uses the Cave to communicate with the Dust and it tells her they are angels.” The conversion went something like this:
 “Are you ‘dark matter’?”
 “YeFF!”
 “Are you the same as Lyra’s ‘Dust’?”
 “YeFF!”
 “What are you, exactly?”
 “AngelFF!”
 “What is your purpose?”
 “FFengeanFF!”
 So, in the lift: “Going uFF!… LeFFel FFeFFen!”
 We entered the room (19:55).… I finished writing yesterday’s diary entry (21:31); shut down the computer (21:35); and went into the bathroom. Took medications (21:38–21:40); cleaned teeth. The sink was in the form of a hemispherical bowl mounted on top of the worktop. Janet would later complain to me that it was too high for her, and that she’d knocked her elbows on it more than once. The toilet bowl was perhaps 3” higher than the one at home, too high for me to sit comfortably. I could rest my toes on the floor, but not my heels fully or firmly. “Too high to sit,” I say… I found also that the bed, when I retired to it, was much too high for me to sit with my bum completely on it; so actually getting into it (21:59) was a struggle.

[Saturday 13 June 2026]