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

Terry Pratchett’s NationTerry Pratchett’s Nation, which was shown at Fact earlier this month.
I am well aware of Sir Terry Pratchett’s Work. At any given moment my Dad is likely to recite lines of conversation from some of Discworld’s finest and not so fine characters chuckling to himself and leaving me with a brief insight into [...]

There’s nothing much to say about the big wheel in Liverpool One’s Chavasse Park, so I did a little video during a ride on it.

Some predictably stupid news finds its way to me from the University of Liverpool, my alma mater, concerning new VC Howard Newby

I don’t know why Liverpool seems so determined to abandon its citizens to the hazards of icy roads and footpaths.

Campaigning anti-consumerism evangelical preacher Reverend Billy exorcises a till in the Bold Street Tesco branch.

I’ve asked a group of people well placed in media, music, arts and other general culture vultures to venture their high- and lowlights of Liverpool in 2009.

No more fan mail, please. I’m spending all of my time dealing with your bloody fan mail.

Every bit of the 39 Steps works wonderfully – it’s an absolute pleasure. The little things – the Hithcock references, the snow falling fro the ceiling at the end, the staff dressed up in period garb. Make sure you catch it before the end of the year.

Dave Evans has sent over some images from today’s Santa Dash, which kicked off earlier today.

Up to 7,000 Santas took part in the 5km run, with hopes of reclaiming the world record for jogging Father Christmases.

Local celebs such as Craig Phillips from Big Brother and Michael Shields were joined by the ubiquitous Mike Storey. Joggers [...]

Pantomimes and me don’t mix. I’m fundamentally a rather grumpy personality. If there’s no ironic fall-back position I feel a bit lost.

I hate to say I told you so but, as I predicted, Destination Kirkby has been thoroughly kiboshed by the government.

It was, financially, a good deal for Everton and an affordable way out of a crumbling ground badly served by surrounding infrastructure.

But it was also a good few miles away from Goodison and came with a bundle of other leisure and retail strings attached.

Communities secretary, John Denham, was apparently worries about the negative impact on surrounding areas of a vast out-of-town development.

It’s almost enough to make one what Liverpool One’s management team made of it all.

There’s a tricky duality as a journalist to slating other journalists and newspapers.

As a human being I despise The Sun for its lies, prejudice, snideness, cynical politics, nepotism and the way it glories in being a kind of dunce’s comic.

UK old-skool hip-hop pioneer Derek B, who has died at the age of 44, had skills as an MC, DJ and producer.

Sadly he’ll always be known best for The Anfield Rap, which, incredibly, he co-wrote with Craig Johnstone. In amongst all the drivel listen for some famous hooks.

A little spot of audience interaction and some inspired ad-libbing add to the general sense of mayhem, which seems appropriate given Milligan’s impression of the second world war as ‘a strange kind of chaos’.

Here’s a couple of photos I took of a Volkswagen Tiguan in Liverpool, hopefully marrying something of the car with the character of the city.

You’ll know Bridget Riley’s work, even if you think you don’t. Light, colours, shapes, lines… all combining to give you a headache or make you fall over.

I do like the Conservation Centre’s unfussy curation, and its current exhibition of Post and Echo photographer Stephen Shakeshaft’s photography, called Liverpool People, is no different.

The excuses coming from the mouths of Reds will actually have some foundation after today’s Liverpool versus Sunderland match against, in which a balloon helped Darren Bent to score an unlikely, and freakish goal.

Poor Pepe Reina looked like he’d just had his Porsche Cayenne stolen as the ball deflected off a balloon on the pitch and hit the back of the net.

Two things made me think about Liverpool and its cultural place within the country today. The first was seeing several women walking their kids t o school or off down to the shops wearing their pyjamas. The second was reading about the Echo’s Baby of the Year competition and seeing some of the quite extraordinary names of some of the babbies.

It reminded me of a long-running puzzle I’ve had over Liverpool and its unique style and attitude. Defining this peculiar style, this parochial je ne sais qois, has long eluded strangers to the city like me.

Married to the Sea, Mugstar and Clinic at the Kazimier as part of Mass Freak-Out

Falling squarely into the ‘nice work if you can get it’ line of research, or the ‘headline-grabbing waste of everyone’s time’ line of research if you prefer is the news that Liverpool has the biggest breasts in the country.

I eventually managed to see The Thing at Picturehouse at FACT last week, despite a crowded social calendar last weekend that involved three consecutive boozy dos.

I was grateful for the opportunity, and it goes to show the value of having FACT in Liverpool. The last four times I’ve been to the flicks there I’ve seen Antichrist, Moon, District 9 and The Thing – and I doubt Liverpool One would have given me the opportunity.

In amongst all the brou-haha about the Sun switching its mealy-mouthed allegiances to the Tories is one interesting little detail that was spotted over on Currybet.

It suggests that Labour and The Sun are already at war using Adwords as a battleground. The Google platform allows advertisers to buy up search keywords that will ensure a link to the advertiser’s site is displayed alongside search results.

Labour and The Sun have clearly been busy buying up ‘Labour’-related keywords, with the result that the first Adword entry is for the Labour Party under the title ‘You can’t trust The Sun’.

Underneath are the words ‘Wrong on Hillsborough. Wrong on Labour”.

I really love the semi-regular night in Liverpool when the city’s artistic buildings throw open their doors into the night. There’s a real festival atmosphere in town on these night, a little like the frisson on excitement on Halloween and bonfire night.

I went to see Tim Smit last night at the Phil, part of a series of lectures arranged by the University of Liverpool as part of Liverpool’s Year of the Environment theme.

I’ve followed Smit ever since I read his book on Eden, an extraordinary, inspirational book about one man’s fight with nature, administrators, economics, common sense and received wisdom.

As David Bartlett notes, Gordon Brown’s visits to Liverpool as PM haven’t always been the happiest of occasions.

Addressing the TUC today and telling them that public services will have to put up with some hefty spending cuts is unlikely to go down well either.

But Brown should use the opportunity to highlight some clear blue water between Labour and the Conservatives going into the general election next year.

Look, I’m a big fan of food. I made an aioli dip all by myself to go with some fish I fried tonight, OK?

I love food, but I didn’t love the launch for Liverpool Food Festival today in Sefton Park.

I suppose in many ways it was a victim of its own success, but the congestion in the enclosure and queues evident throughout the day weren’t a lot of fun.

I spend a fair amount of time on Twitter, for reasons I’ve explained elsewhere. Simply put it’s an amazing tool for connecting with interesting people, and it’s invaluable from a professional point-of-view, a hotline straight through to valuable marketers, PRs and journalists.

So, once in a while, I turn up to Twitter meet-ups to put faces to names, names to handles and handles to faces. That’s a lot of information to juggle in your head while making small-talk with someone you’ve never met before, but I like a challenge.

Dave Evans has sent over some images of Michael Shields’ release, a story that look sure to dominate headlines for some time to come.

The local media has waged a vociferous campaign to have Shields freed, and local celebrities, clergy and footballers have also rallied to the cause.

Shields was freed following a Royal Pardon that was issued by Justice Secretary Jack Straw after receiving ‘fresh evidence which the Bulgarian court did not consider’ that indicated that Shields was ‘morally and technically innocent’ of the attack on a Bulgarian national.

In case it passed anyone by, Tesco withdrew its application to build a store on Hope Street, after a significant amount of protest emerged online, focussed around a Facebook group ,which ended up with over 4,500 members.

In a rare triumph of people power, Tesco’s indicated that it was prepared to acknowledge the level of public feeling and look elsewhere for a new site.

I think it’s fair to say that few people expected the supermarket megalith to heed any complaints, but heed them it did.
Someone who must be scratching his head over all of this is read more...

I’m feeling a little vindicated in my view that the new Merseytravel ferry terminal and Beatles Story outlet is badly situated and unsympathetic to its surroundings.

Others have been more forceful in their views, and now the building has won the Carbuncle Cup, an architecture magazine’s award for the worst new building. Incidentally, One Park West – a building I think may be worse – was also nominated.

The ferry building is described as ‘a shining example of bad architecture and bad planning’ on the Building Design website. As I’ve said before, what constitutes bad architecture is open to debate and not something I’m qualified to judge.

But it should have been clear all along that the siting of the building as it has appeared was problematic at best: in front of the three graces and slap bang in the middle of a UNESCO World Fricking Heritage site.

Any passing readers who happen to be artists (there are regular readers, right?) might be interested to know that the Liverpool branch of Top Man/Shop is offering the opportunity to decorate one of their walls.

You know, Tesco isn’t all bad. Well, OK it is – but a new Tesco store isn’t the end of the world.

However, a new Tesco store on Hope Street – slap bang in the middle of the ‘cultural quarter’, connecting two astonishing cathedrals, host to the iconic Philharmonic Hall, Everyman Theatre and Philharmonic pub and blessed with its own street festival – is a bloody awful prospect.

Announced at a time when the city council has somehow allowed a developer to destroy Josephine Butler House, the prospect of another sodding Tesco store blighting the otherwise-stunning thoroughfare is a depressing one.

On a particular online message board I frequent, author, journalist and pop-culture know-it-all Keith Topping holds forth on all matters pertaining to footy, cricket, music, Hammer horrors, TV and curries. Keith’s knowledge of music, film and TV is encyclopedic, but coupled to a obvious love, or sometimes loathing, of the subject matter.

The subject of essential playlists for punk and new wave bands recently cropped up, with some serious muso knowledge being thrown about. Keith knows his shit, so he allowed me to reproduce them here. I dare any Liverpool music types to attempt to better them.

Sadly, my brilliant idea to replicate the playlists on Spotify hit a hurdle with Wylie. The music jukebox has a few blank patches going back over the years, rather like…well you can probably see where I was going with that.

But, there’s Bunnymen and Teardrop Explodes playlists to listen to, and if you’re of a mind to you can fit them on a CD. Until Spotify catches up with Liverpool’s three wise men, here’s the playlists.

I wouldn’t normally do this sort of thing, but Uncle Ross Charnock has been in touch to let me know about a Friend or Foe gig at the Ship & Mitre, Dale Street this weekend (Friday 7 August).

Formed in 1980 by ex Teardrop Explodes keyboardist Paul Simpson, The Wild Swans cut a stylishly epic swath through Liverpool’s fertile post punk scene.

Along the way they spawned two revered splinter projects in Care and the Lotus Eaters, while all manner of other Merseyside luminaries ventured into their orbit (the Lightning Seed’s Ian Broudie, Pete DeFreitas of the Bunnymen and the Icicle Work’s Ian McNabb to name but three).

Blessed with Simpson’s Bowie-esque looks and voice, an alchemic guitar sound and a lyrical sensibility that seemed to predate Britpop’s romantic mythologizing of England by about 10 years, the Wild Swans inexplicable lack of success was a mystery that looked very unlikely to be solved.

Thankfully their recent decision to reform 21 years after their split has put forward a whole no case for them being one of Liverpool’s most underrated, seminal and downright brilliant bands.

Dave Evans has sent over an image of Sir Paul McCartney at LIPA from last week.

Macca was speaking at a graduation ceremony for LIPA, er, graduates last week – with Will Yojng and Joe McGann also in attendance.

Presumably Paul got a better reception than Ringo the last time he was here.

If you follow the view of the blogosphere, the Mann Island developments buildings, together with the new Merseytravel ferry terminal building (that also doubles as the Beatles Story’s second outlet) and Liverpool Museum, amount to nothing less than the wholesale destruction of the Liverpool Maritime Mercantile City UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Indeed, that’s what architects seem to think too.

Such judgements are necessarily subjective, and though I’m reserving judgement for now on the new Liverpool Museum, I can’t possibly see how the Mann Island Developments buildings or new ferry terminal can be judged to be sympathetic to the surrounding area.

In some ways I quite like the Mann Island buildings, but they seem to me totally at odds with the surrounding areas, as if two damaged Borg cubes have suddenly crashed down to Earth on the site of the ill-fated Fourth Grace.

The buildings, along with the museum, almost completely obscure the view of the Three Graces from the viewpoint of the Albert Dock, and add an intrusive full stop to the waterfront’s narrative from Birkenhead.

Stevie G’s entirely proper acquittal last week for delivering up to three uppercuts to a DJ in what was termed ‘pre-emptive self-defence’ – a term that could have been coined by George Bush – was not due to a friendly local jury, according to the prosecutor in the case.

In an article in the Daily Post’s legal section, Ben Schofield writes that Exchange Chambers was surprised that Gerrard chose not to employ their services, but lavished a reported £250K on London QC John Kelsey-Fry rather than the eventual prosecutor David Turner.

Turner, a former cabaret director of the Cambridge footlights, is described in the article as ‘charismatic raconteur’ and thought the evidence that Gerrard acted in self-defence in the Southport punch-up ’strong’.

Liverpool Crown Court has heard that Steven Gerrard ‘totally lost it’ with a DJ who supposedly refused to play a Phil Collins record for the Scouse boy wonder, with CCTV footage showing the scuffle from 2008.

Gerrard allegedly hit out at businessman Marcus McGee “with a succession of well-aimed uppercut punches delivered with the style and speed of a boxer” at the Lounge Inn, Southport.

Gerrard pleads self-defence, which the prosecution disputes. Gerrard’s codefendents all plead guilty.

Here’s how the prosecution see the incident, after Gerrard allegedly demands a card that controls the music system with the words “Here y’are lad. Give me that lad.” McGee objected to the expression ‘lad’, which given that he lives on Merseyside must pose a lot of problems.