Comments on: Livercool, pyjamas and babies called Tranquility – what is it about Liverpool?

By: Ronnie de Ramper

Ronnie de Ramper — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 22:43:37 +0000

Don’t hold me to “a couple of years back”. It could be longer. My daughter seemed pretty definite about Alex Curran, although I could be mixing up pjs and curlers. She also confirms it’s unknown to girls from elsewhere (Notts Uni ‘focus group’) who regard the idea as bonkers. My lad (18) has now weighed in to argue pretty firmly that the pj thing is all about girls nipping down the shops, and it took off from there.

ps Alex Curran is no spring chicken

By: Robin Brown

Robin Brown — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 21:52:34 +0000

I don’t see how that can be true. Girls were wearing pyjamas to go down the shops when I arrived in Liverpool back in the late 90s.

Alex Curran probably couldn’t even dress herself then. Assuming she can these days.

By: Ronnie de Ramper

Ronnie de Ramper — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 21:07:34 +0000

OK, further to my earlier post, I have now consulted the ‘non plus ultra’ authority on this matter. No, not Paul du Noyer – my daughter (19)!

She says it’s unique to Liverpool, and it’s entirely WAG-led. She claims the pyjamas business took off a couple of years back when Alex Curran was snapped in her pjs getting into a limo, and heading off somewhere. Not knowing the full story (whatever that was), local girls thought it was the latest fashion, and copied it. Ditto for fake tan & black eyeliner. Ditto for curlers. Kicked off by Alex Curran, taken up by Abby Clancy, and slammed into the net by Coleen McLoughlin. I know you won’t believe me, so scroll through this

http://bit.ly/3u5dYM

Is it all tongue-in-cheek, in-yer-face irony? My daughter says emphatically not. There are grades of self-awareness, from ‘utter scally’ (lecky orange tan, red lippy, bleached hair, and pjs/curlers during the day) through to ‘restrained wannabe WAG’. But on the whole, the girls think it’s where the scene is – hard for them to know otherwise because they never leave the city.

By: Ronnie de Ramper

Ronnie de Ramper — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 15:13:10 +0000

An awful lot of self-mythologising bollocks gets written about stuff like this, especially lazy twaddle which seeks to read the present backwards into the past. Get real. The girls aren’t making some ‘fuck-the-lot-of-youse’ neo-Barthian statement about pernicious performativity in late capitalism. They aren’t rooting their ‘cultural display’ in some radical alternative representation of style. They’re just slack & tasteless slappers, essentially harmless but without judgement or wit. Why else the ‘jouissance’ of walking round in curlers? Why else the tan, the bottle blonde, the ‘plaisir’ of six shots of vodka before they go out? The Liverpool ‘Judys’ haven’t changed in a century of sea songs and pop – chirpy, brassy & coarse; the screech of a parakeet and quickly run to seed.

By: Ian Jackson

Ian Jackson — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 22:01:34 +0000

As a proud scouser myself, I agree with the your sentiments but I think the pyjama thing maybe more widespread and is simply people who are too fucking lazy to get dressed in the morning – or even the afternoon!

By: Patrick

Patrick — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 15:55:57 +0000

St Helens has its fair share of pyjama-clad young mums, and I’m routinely told I should get back to where I come from (eight miles down the round, to be accurate), so insular is the worldview round there. So maybe it’s something that has either spread out from town or is endemic in that area of Lancashire as a whole?

In any case, Liverpool fascinates me. I’m inordinately proud of the place and yet can overwhelmingly despise elements of it at times. What outsiders like you and Sandy must make of it, I’ve no idea. But I’m happy to call it home.

By: Dave Lloyd

Dave Lloyd — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 09:56:10 +0000

Great post. But, really, great picture. Doesn’t the lovely Stuart Maconie call Liverpool the US’s easternmost state? That pic, to me, could easily have been taken in the West Village or something (and I don’t mean Crosby). Mind you, what do I know, I live in Birkenhead.

By: Sandy

Sandy — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 14:58:07 +0000

Super post. You’ve put your finger on a lot of what I used to think when we lived there. The split personality – fierce pride coupled with a kind of couldn’t care less attitude – used to puzzle me.

Coincidentally, we lived in the Dingle for a year too, having moved there from Kensington.