Liverpool Culture Blog | Culture, arts, music, theatre and media in Liverpool, Capital of Culture

There’s an interesting blog on the Daily Post’s website by Peter Elson concerning a book by Anna Minton that looks at the built environment in the UK, taking in a look at Liverpool One and its effects in Liverpool.

GROUND Control: Fear and Happiness in the Twenty First Century investigates ownership of various projects around the city, most notably the mass demolition of houses down Edge Lane and Liverpool One.

These projects are funded and owned by private money and the potential ramifications of leaving town planning to people for whom the bottom line is the, er, bottom line.

There are clear pros and cons to these huge investments of private cash into the city, but the clear danger is in building estates that pander to commercial needs, rather than the needs of society.

I’ve just returned from The Beatles Story’s White Feather: The Spirit of Lennon press launch at The Beatles Story Pier Head, where Julian Lennon gave the closest thing to an interview he’s provided in years.

Lennon and mother Cynthia were answering questions on the exhibition, created with mementoes and artefacts they’ve largely collected themselves over the years.

A such it’s an intriguing and invaluable insight into a man frequently described as ‘difficult’ and ‘infuriating’ - it’s hard not to come to the conclusion having read various accounts of John Lennon that these were not simply euphemism for ‘nasty piece of work’.

Of course, behind every nasty piece of work is often a rather vulnerable character, and the anecdotes and notes from the Lennons paint a portrait of John as man equally difficult and easy to love.

They go beyond what one might generally expect to see at an exhibition: beyond the Beatles memorabilia; beyond the obvious anecdotes; beyond myth and legend.

So, the BNP is sending an MEP to Brussels in the shape of leader Nick Griffin following last night’s election results.
It’s a small crumb of comfort that Liverpool returned a smaller percentage of votes for the hateful party than other boroughs, but only a small one.
It goes without saying that this is terrible news. The BNP are racists, whether they deny it or not, but it’s the awful stupidity I’ve witnessed from BNP supporters over the last few weeks that it is really galling.
I’m not sure whether they actually know it or not, but the popular recent claim by BNP apologists that Hitler was a socialist goes to show just how screwy they all are. Until you’ve been patronised by a thick racist you haven’t lived.
I guessed at the time this was some sledgehammer sleight of hand to deny the obvious links between Nazis and The British National Party, namely the bit about disliking people of different race, sexuality and religion.
Then again, I think the majority of them really are daft enough to peg Adolf as a New Labourite.

Despite the fact that seemingly no-one in Liverpool - including either club or either set of fans - want Liverpool and Everton FC, Councillor Warren Is-This-My-Best-Side? Bradley is still dead set on the two clubs joining forces, now using the 2018 World Cup bid to convince the two teams to form what’s likely to be an uncomfortable joint tenancy, assuming it happens.

The situation is not straightforward. Everton is keen to press ahead with a rather unloved proposal to build a new stadium in Kirkby, South Merseyside, on which the government will have the final say.

Meanwhile Liverpool – deeply in debt and owned by warring entrepreneurs George Gillet and Tom Hicks – favours building a new 60,000 stadium in Stanley Park, though a date for leaving Anfield seems no closer than it did five years ago.

Bluenose Bradley is keen on the groundshare idea, and the North West Development Agency is thought to pressuring both teams to accept the groundshare proposal, waving the carrot of a healthy injection of cash if the two clubs obey.

Muddying the waters is the fact that Liverpool, via Gillet and Hicks, owes a significant chunk of cash to RBS, which is itself essentially owned by the government.

I finally made it to some Sound City stuff, taking in Hallo I Love You, Little Boots, Charnock & Russell, Sidney Bailey and His No Good Punchin Clowns, The Two Man Gentleman Band, Clinic and a.p.a.t.t. at various venues, although I only managed to see one entire set out of that lot thanks to some duff planning, bad luck and general confusion.

In amongst the mayhem I spent most time in the View Two gallery, an oasis in the middle of Sodom and Gomorrah, watching a series of folky, jazzy, swingy, skiffle-y performances. The Punchin Clowns and Gentlemen Band were a particularly rare form of Vaudevillian fun.

Seeing Clinic again after so long was great, especially as it was apparently the first gig they played in Liverpool in donkey’s years. Listening to Clinic always makes me think of what it might be like to die from an overdose of mogadon - creepy and disturbing, but not entirely unpleasant.

I’ve been pondering a deluge of election material that has been jamming the letterbox over the last few days.

I’ve not much interest in it per se, as I only ever vote tactically or negatively anyway and I’m not likely to make my mind up on the basis of a flyer that looks at first glance like a pizza menu.

But the stakes are high in the forthcoming European elections, with the prospect that Liverpool could elect a BNP MEP.

And I’ve been struck by how combative the tone of the election materials has been.

This is particularly true of the Lib Dems, who have (presumably intentionally) released a pamphlet made to resemble a free sheet that slates Labour.

The Lib Dems’ material seems to me to be the worst, slamming Merseyside Labour MPs for the failure of the fuel poverty bill, for having their heads in the trough over expenses and ’stealing’ cash destined for Liverpool to ‘bail out bankers’.

My congratulations to a group of students on Facebook under the name of Save Our Subjects.

These people have pressured the University of Liverpool into reviewing its plans to close the departments of Politics & Communications, Philosophy and the division of statistics.

It’s heartening to see students achieving a deserved victor, that is as much a victory for common sense, something for which the University is not well known.

I fully expected the university to railroad its plans through, without much regard for the ramifications on students, lecturers and the profile of the university.

Hopefully this doesn’t entail an old tactic of union-busting governments and businesses where an apparent disaster is avoided, only for a watered-down version of the same plan to sneek in under the radar at a later date.

From my dealing with the university, it wouldn’t surprise me.

An email has reached me to tell me about barebones.tv – a live feed of a household of scousers going about their daily lives.

If you’re waiting for a catch, there ain’t one. It’s not a PR campaign, stunt set up by a local radio station or porn channel (more’s the pity). This is a shame, because the reality of watching people doing absolutely sod all for 24 hours a day is exactly as mind-numbingly tedious as you’d expect.

I was on the lig the other day at the Conservation Centre’s Sound & Vision exhibition of Francesco Mellina’s pictures of Liverpool during the birth of punk, new wave and new romanticism.

Francesco Mellina was Dead or Alive’s manager – a dubious honour, I’d've thought – and once asked a cricketer friend of mine to play bass for the band. Wisely, I think, he declined.

Mellina’s role in the scene at Eric’s and other bars with fantastically- ridiculous names between 1978–1982 was outlined by the always-entertaining Paul du Noyer.

The exhibition is a genuine visual record of the music scene at the time, with an impressively wide range of images – both in terms of their style and content.

The film grain that dates these kind of pictures lends a stylised filter to images like Mellina’s, as does the low-light high-contrast black and white tone.

Like the difference between vinyl and digital, they are technically inferior but have much more character.

One of Liverpool’s most enduring urban legends concerns Purple Aki, a man whose skin is so black that he apparently appears to be purple.

Purple Aki – aka Akinwale Arobieke – was convicted for the manslaughter of a boy 20 years ago but the conviction was quashed by the court of appeal. 

He has also received a Sexual Offences Prevention Order that prevents him from touching the biceps of boys, a bizarre predilection of his that has become famous throughout the North West.

As such, Purple Aki has attracted an almost mythical notoriety and has become a kind of Merseyside bogeyman, like the Candyman but less violent.

Two stories from Dale Street Blue caught my eye recently, the death of union legend Jack Jones at the grand old age of 96 and the resignation of Liverpool Labour’s ethics spokesperson Louise Baldock.

Jones was a giant of trade unionism and born in Liverpool long ago enough to be a walking talking record of most of the historic movement in the UK. Originally a docker, he rose through the ranks of the Transport and General Workers Union and became a spokesman for the TUC.

He fought in the Spanish Civil War – which is an experience so far from the vast majority of most people’s experience and imagination these days it almost sounds absurd.

He was principled and undoubtedly tough, giving both Labour and Conservative governments a hard time in the 70s. Agree with him or not, he represented an old-fashioned style of politics that doesn’t really exist any more.

It would be easy to draw parallels between the likes of Jones and Liverpool’s current politicians, seemingly locked in an endless bout of tit-for-tat power struggles and point-scoring, but I think that would miss the point.

I decry the behaviour of Liverpool’s politicians and wish they’d sort themselves out – the empire-building, personality cults and ego trips are all too obvious to everyone – but politics should always have an element of the knockabout and the passionate.

If every name called in the Jack Jones era of politics had resulted in a resignation, there wouldn’t be anyone left to run the tiniest and most obscure worker council, student body or pressure group, nevermind city, region or country.

Liverpool has been running a competition to find the best poems celebrating the city’s Capital of Culture year in 2008, with the winner set to be announced this week

Funded by DaDa Disability and Deaf Arts and supported by the Lord Mayor of Liverpool, Cllr Steve Rotheram, there are two categories: under- and over-18s.

I’ve been reading through the entreis and thought I’d flag them up, as they’re a good mix of the reverential, celebratory and amusing.

Liverpool – or rather the organisations responsible for branding the city – is/are getting it in the neck again, this time from the business community.

Liverpool is “‘not credible as a place to locate knowledge economy businesses”, according to LDP Business, paraphrasing a report by the outgoing chief executive of Liverpool Science Park, Dr Sarah Tasker.

Dr Tasker – who is apparently like a ‘dyed-in-the-wool native’, albeit one who lives in Cambridge – says that Liverpool is known primarily for culture, football and The Beatles.

Tasker makes the point that while Liverpool’s cultural branding successfully conveys all the fun stuff, it’s not attracting any wider interest. This is due to its failure to brand itself as a knowledge economy destination.

However, the Mersey Partnership says that Liverpool is doing better than the national average for employing those in the knowledge economy.

So, this is a problem of branding, again, if you listen to Dr Tasker. Following Liverpool’s various branding disaster of its logo and slogan, the people responsible for marketing the city must be close to jacking it in.

A post on FACT’s blog reminded me of some graffiti I’ve been walking past around Jamaica Street, in what is euphemistically known as the waterfront business area: DELTA FUCK OFF.

I’ve noticed the graffiti a few times over the years and often wondered what it means. Was it aimed at the taxi firm? Did it indicate a taxi war? Was it part of some other sectarian stuff scrawled on other walls in the same area? Was it a Bad Wold-style meme? Or was it just some baffling gibberish designed to be ambiguous?

A little detective work indicates that indeed it is aimed at Delta Taxis, and was a reference to Delta allegedly undercutting other firms. DELTA SCAB CABS seems to confirm this.

So, like all things the reality is rather more mundane than my imagination may have suggested. Although I’d be pleased if there was a follow-up spray job to indicate how the story transpired. Nothing major, maybe 500 or so words.

Still, the sight of it reminded me of other famous Liverpool graffiti I’ve noticed over the years.

A shameless bit of self-promotion from me with a bit of blurb about a new blog I ‘curate’. I say ‘curate’, but what I mean is that I filled in some forms on Blogger and wrote the initial entries.

It’s loosely based around Sefton Park Cricket club, where I play, and the characters therein but it will probably stray further afield from time to time.

The name, Quis est Porcus?, is a daft stab at the latin for ‘What is ham?’ – a notorious question that has reverberated around the club ever since the question was initially asked.

Quite a few of us are journalists at the club, so it seemed sensible to pool our efforts on a collaborative project.

I was hoping for something in the grand tradition of cricket writing: Jim Swanton, John Arlott, Mike Selvey, Simon Hughes, but I suspect the fogeyish whinging of Bob Willis and Ian Botham are probably closer to the truth.

Sefton Park is at its most impressive at spring, when it comes into bloom and its thriving wildlife is most evident.

While much of the park still resembles a bomb site, the area near the Field of Hope is thriving, with the daffs coating the ground and the abundance of birdlife heralding the end of winter.

A lot of people come to the site looking for information on Dave’s new Back to Earth Red Dwarf episodes, showing this Easter.

A number of trailer are currently playing on Dave, so I thought I’d round them up. Here’s hoping it’s not rubbish.

I’d suggest that Liverpool watchers should start turning their eyes toward the hallowed gates of Liverpool One over the next few weeks.

It’s the time of the year when commercial rents are due and bets are being taken on which high-street names are likely to go to the big white-washed window in the sky.

For some reason that escapes me, commercial landlords collect payments at quarterly intervals, meaning colossal outgoing for tenants every three months.

Pair that to poor trading conditions, and the fact that the post-Christmas lull is a traditionally-slow one, and you’re going to get casualties.

Two superb and, certainly in one case, distinctly bizarre updates from two of the Crucial Three – the trio of Julian Cope, Pete Wylie and Iain McCulloch that made up the core of the new wave of Liverpool talent that emerged from Liverpool in the early 80s.

It seems like Liverpool.com has gone the way of so much print media, following a statement on Twitter that the mag ‘as you know it is no more’ and a tip that most of its editorial staff have been made redundant.

This is a shame, most obviously for the journalists involved, as it was a good effort in a genre that’s frequently utterly useless, but the news is hardly that surprising.

Another cautionary tale about Twitter, and about April Fool’s Day – this one concerns Tommy Scott, the bloke was in Space, and an internet rumour that he had died.

Not exactly the height of sophistication, and not remotely funny, and that’s before you factor the new somehow filtering back to Scott’s mother

I noticed this news circulating around Twitter’s Liverpool fraternity last night and though it a bit odd.

An official press release from his record company Antipop had said: “We are sorry for the untimely death of one of our great sons” and detailed that he died of heart failure.

It didn’t surprise me an hour or so later to see that it was, in fact, a hoax.

I’m not going to get in the detail of the Hillsborough disaster, which is nearing its 25th anniversary in April.

I was 11 at the time and don’t remember a lot about it, aside from finding the names of the roads and ends associated with the tragedy disturbingly memorable. Liverpool Guild of Students, of which I was a member, had a memorial on the wall as a tribute to a student lost on that day.

I do not and cannot really relate to the way Hillsborough affected Liverpool, so I have no right to intrude on, or share in, that grief. That emotion is obvious every day when another stack of Sun newspapers goes unsold in Liverpool.

I was playing cricket last year when I expressed surprise that someone had brought along a copy of the Sun and subsequently spent some time explaining why to some local Liverpool lads. They were as shocked by the story as I was that they didn’t already know.

All of which brings me onto the role of the Sun and more specifically, Kelvin Mackenzie.

It’s no wonder the Tories have been keeping their mouths shut over the last couple of years, when the likes of Conservative Shadow Home Secretary Chris Grayling can propose Manchester United and England defender Gary Neville as a good role model for Liverpool youngsters.

It’s such a mind-bogglingly strange thing to say, even before you factor in the fact that Neville plays for the most hated football in the country, and the fact that there is probably no-one more hated by Reds and people in Liverpool generally. Here’s why:

“I can’t stand Liverpool, I can’t stand Liverpool people, I can’t stand anything to do with them.”

Grayling went on to admit that he shouldn’t have said Gary Neville, he meant to say Ryan Giggs instead. Liverpool fans are unimpressed.

There’s some fascinating stuff over at How Do regarding the conception of the new logo, which has been given a rather mixed reception.

Since my media nodes, and time, are naturally limited I failed to get any sort of inside scoop, but How Do reports a number of interesting factoids, including:

• Finch was originally to be awarded the pitch without it being put out to tender, resulting in some understandable consternation from other agencies in the region

• A second pitching stage saw three agencies bidding for the roll-out of the branding and launch, using the logo already designed by Finch

• An original strapline reading ‘Alive with Imagination’ was removed when it met with ‘a pretty poor reception from everyone unfortunate enough to have seen it’

• A number of companies competed for various components of the brief, which seems bafflingly complicated

• Phil Redmond has had nothing to do with the branding. He is apparently in a huff after disagreeing with the direction of the branding

“So, we need a logo that mixes the old with the new, the vibrant with the classical, old architecture versus the new architecture. The Beatles AND The Wombats, The Cavern AND Cream, Protestant AND Catholic, Liverpool AND Everton, Yosser Hughes AND Danielle Lloyd, Yin AND Yang, forward not backward, blue and, er, light blue.”

“And we need to have some horrible tower blocks in it for, y’know, business and shit.”

“How about a two-tone pictures of some cool Liverpool landmarks, plus those shit tower blocks?”

“Wouldn’t that look like the Thames TV logo?”

“Yes. But lets get some slebs in to tell us what they think of it. Say Abby from The Zutons, that bloke from Cream, some woman who owns a boutique and the director of the school for Tropical Medicine.”

“What have they got to do with it?”

“Absolutely nothing, but we’ll call them brand ambassadors and say they form a wide cross-section of Liverpool society.”

“Love it! OK, I’ll send this down to design. By the way, how much are we going to charge for this?”

“Oooh. 50 grand? Plus £20K for research. There’s a recession on after all…”

Almost as if to prove that Labour and the Lib Dems don’t have the monopoly on going for each others’ throats, the local party has found its members taking each other to court and being beastly to each other.

Basically Dick Calver, former chairman of Wirral West Conservative Association, is sued for libel by Bahram Noorani, a ‘Greasby-based Iranian Conservative’ for (allegedly) alleging that Noorani made a series of bizarre and threatening phonecalls to Calver and his family.

In turn Noorani accuses Calver of directing racial slurs at him. Eventually Noorani’s case is thrown out and the Judge labels Noorani ‘responsible’ for the calls, but not before a former Wirral councillor giving evidence on Noorani’s behalf is revealed to be due in court to plead guilty to ‘making indecent images’.

I managed to dig out another old Blackman & Robin, which first appeared in Black+White Magazine over five years ago.

This story is undoubtedly the three of us at out creative peak or our most outrageously self-indulgent, depending on your opinion and involves a slew of celebrity appearances and pop culture references.

The celebs mainly conistsed of people we had a fondness for, but in the case of O’Leary it was simply somone we thought was an idiot. I’ve had always loved Sir Bobby Robson, so he was the obvious choice for a hero. The sadly-departed John Peel and Tony Wilson had been in the news recently, as had Alexie Sayle, following some unfortunate comments about Liverpool.

Pop culture references include Alexei Sayle’s Stuff, Undercover Brother, Ghostbusters, The Five Doctors, Kill Bill, Terminator 2: Judgement Day, The Beatles, The Royle Family, Ali G and Transformers, though there are probably hal a dozen others if you look closely enough.

Eagle-eyed readers may notice Blackman and Robin and Unclee Bobby sharing a jacuzzi with Sting and Jimmy Nail, both of whom have breasts. I’m not sure why.

Ten years ago I accompanied friend and colleague Ross Charnock to an interview with Head Brothers Mick and John from Shack.

Ross was, and remains, very fond of Shack and the Heads’ various outfits and was writing for local magazine INK, which was a bit of a forerunner to Black+White.

I took along my trusty manual SLR as I was flirting with a career in rock photography that ultimately came to very little but was keen on Shack and The Strands too.

The interview began with Ross being invited to join the group as bassist, took in a ‘photoshoot’ at Crash Studios, detoured to several pubs around the city centre and finished in Ross’ flat with Mick and John playing an impromptu selection of Shack and Strands numbers. It was superb.

I’ve just been to see Hush – the latest film that’s got ‘The best British thriller in years’ written across it, written and directed by Mark Tonderai.

It’s actually really good, and without resorting to a list of adjectives like taut, efficient, claustrophobic and nerve-shattering it’s well-shot and pacy enough to keep adrenalin levels up, without descending into action-slasher farce.

The first 15 minutes are actually pretty bad, and calling the lead character Zakes is a bizarre choice that grates immediately, but stick with it. The film get better and better as it progresses.

I’m not a fan of Paddy’s Day as I happen to live in Liverpool, a place that tends to be made up two kinds of people: people who are, or are descended from the Irish; and people who pretend to be Irish.

I’ve no quarrel with the former, but there’s a kind of lunatic herd mentality about the latter when it comes to St Patrick’s Day in Liverpool. It’s a time when everyone wears a stupid hat, protests that they have a great uncle McMurphy and grimace through the once-a-year pints of Guinness.

This pretending-to-be-Irish nonsense has reached its apotheosis this year in the shape of Shane Richie’s Make Me Irish.

Any Reds disgruntled by my reporting of Comscore’s rather mishievous figures regarding LFC and EFC’s website visitors may be placated by this Youtube video of Sky’s Fanzone from Saturday 14 March, the date of Liverpool’s dismantling of Manchester United in a 4-1 win.

Football fans are unlikely to change their opinion of Liverpool fans – whatever they may be – based on this video, which is marginally more reatrained than Sky’s awful panel on Soccer Saturday hosted by Jeff Stelling.

Still, at least they managed to find a Liverpool fan who’s actually from Liverpool, eh?

Some amusing news from Comscore.com reveals what Blues knew all along: most Liverpool Football Club fans are not from Liverpool. According to Comscore: Out of all U.K. visitors to Evertonfc.com, 46.8 percent come from the North West, compared to just 16.8 percent of all U.K. visitors to Liverpoolfc.tv!

I’ve only just found about the University of Liverpool’s plans to close its politics, philosophy, statistics departments – apparently because it can’t be bothered with them any more. Several other departments also seem to be threatened.
While other universities are considering closing departments because of a de facto budget cut Liverpool is not and, reports The […]

As someone who works as an online editor, I’ve become a huge fan of embeddable Flash games, not because they’re any cop but because they’re such as a good, cheap, easy source of evergreen copy that’s inevitably popular.

In that spirit I though I’d round up all the games on the web that relate to Liverpool. Inevitably the ones I’ve been able to find tend to relate to Liverpool Football Club efforts, but there’s a nifty little racer in here too.

Although I don’t have a lot of time for footy sims, Champions League Liverpool Milan is actually pretty decent for a Flash game.

And, by a curious quirk of fate, the Streets of Liverpool against-the-clock racer may be geographically inaccurate, but it starts at finishes at the former offices or Ripple Effect – Number One Hnrey Street – which ahppens to be where I currently work.

Top marks to Liverpool.com in its diatribe about Liverpool Rocks Fashion and its pathetic use and defence of fur.

And full marks to the organiser, a Ms Donna McCourt, who apparently defended the appearance of fur garments by claiming it is a ‘woman’s right to choose’ to wear fur, thereby (perhaps unwittingly) conflating the issue with […]

Full credit to Bernard Hogan-Howe in his ‘not me, guv’ response to sleepy old fossil Alexander Chancellor’s article on the ‘Mersey Tunnel man arrested for laughing’ story that did the rounds last week.

Liverpool CC has received two stars out of four from the Audit Commission for 2008, along with the judgment that as a council it is ‘improving well’. While this rating still leaves LCC in the bottom 20 per cent of the UK’s councils, it’s a distinct improvement on the slamming it received last year.

There’s a bit of a puff piece on Korova in The Guardian today that hits the nail on the head about Korova in that it ignored the jingly-jangly stoned cosmic scouse thing that was all the rage in Liverpool a few years ago,

I’m inordinately amused by Liverpool’s new slogan – Liverpool: The UK’s third favourite city

This is a quick one about the first of a series of poems done by Ross Sutherland, one of The Mercy People, on Street Fighter characters