Culture Chat

meatloaf shirt drama

2008-07-03T10:05:08Z

What is it with music stars and their laundry?
First there was Mick Hucknall saying he wasn't going to go on stage until someone had found him an iron and ironing board.
And now Meatloaf has had a run in with a dry cleaners.
Now I don't know which one it was, but word from the Pops is that he sent 11 of his nice embroidered shirts off to be cleaned in the city - and they came back shrunk.
Poor Meat.
Maybe he should have got Mick to give him a hand.

people in liverpool

2008-07-03T08:14:36Z

The Liverpool Academy of Arts has not one but two new exhibitions which have opened this week.
Madalaina Murthwaite's "year in art" features in one room of the Seel Street gallery, showcasing her painted and charcoaled portraits.
And in the back room is the exhibition which accompanies a new photographic book by former model turned model Liverpool citizen Stephanie de Leng.

]]> I attended the book launch last night before high-tailing it to the Playhouse to see Once Upon a Time at the Adelphi (great set, great costumes, a fab turn from Helen Carter as blousy Babs, super big numbers with plenty of vim but a plot which teeters I'm afraid on naffness).
Anyway, back to the book launch.
The book features more than 60 portraits of Liverpudlians - both born and bred and "adopted" and from famous faces such as Willy Russell, the late Fritz Spiegl and the like, to Stephanie's roofer and a schoolgirl boxer.
Many of those featured in the photos were in attendance.
I spotted Eithne Browne (who then stalked me to the Playhouse where she insisted on sitting behind me - only kidding Eithne!), Sir Drummond Bone, Roger Phillips, Lipa's Mark Featherstone-Witty, historian Steve Binns, June Lornie, the Matta family - of Bold Street shop fame, milkman Tommy Callagher and even Eddie, Stephanie' roofer.
Steph, an American and now a self-confessed Scouseaphile, told us: "I came to this city and fell in love with it. It reminded me of New York.
"In five years I can't wait to go out there an see the galleries, and go to great shops and feel the positive energy of the city while the rest of the country is in recession!"

news from the pops

2008-07-02T12:48:11Z

I went to my second Summer Pops gig of 2008 last night, reviewing Mick Hucknall's tribute to Bobby Bland (see today's Echo).
It was a completely different atmosphere to Westlife - no surprise there.
In fact, much as I like the Echo Arena, Hucknall would have benefited from being in a more intimate setting, say, the Big Top?
But he looked dapper there on stage in a suit and a well-pressed shirt.
I hear that apparently he said he wasn't going on stage until someone had brought him an ironing board and iron.
Will Meatloaf have the same 'rider' tonight? I can't see it myself....

topiary ringo

2008-07-01T10:22:49Z

Remember the fate that befell Ringo at South Parkway train station?
Alas poor Ringo, he sat there at his drums for a while after losing his head to a dastardly pruner.
Apparently people took the opportunity to have their pictures taken with their heads popping over the top of Ringo's severed topiary body.

]]> As regular users of the station may have noticed, Ringo has now been removed completely from the display, making the remainder the Fab Three.
As a child and a young man Ringo was a martyr to his health, and if I remember correctly he had to miss the start of a tour of Australia as he was in hospital having his tonsils out.
Anyway, I asked Merseytravel today what was happening with Mr Starkey and apparently he WILL be rejoining the band - just as soon as he has grown a new head.
So don't hold your breath.

war and westlife

2008-06-30T10:17:20Z

My subject is war, and the pity of war.
So said First World War poet and former Birkenhead Institute student Wilfred Owen.
Well, this morning my subject is War Requiem and Westlife. In that order and in yet another rather eclectic weekend in Capital of Culture 2008.

]]> Saturday evening saw a packed Liverpool Cathedral giving Benjamin Britten's War Requiem - which uses the poetry of "doomed youth" Wilfred Owen in what is actually an anti-war message - a standing ovation.
It was all rather spectacular with the massed choirs from the Phil, both Liverpool cathedrals and Cologne Cathedral there in the nave alongside the RLPO and the superb Latvian soprano Marina Rebeka.
Behind them were the serried ranks of the young voices from all three cathedrals.
And to our left was a chamber orchestra plus Ian Bostridge and bass-baritone soloist Hanno Muller-Brachmann.
Going at full welly, the sound was quite remarkable, although the sheer size of the cathedral means occasionally the requiem being sung by the hundreds of voices was a little fuzzy.
No such problems for Bostridge whose diction was spot on.
Behind the singers and orchestra, a changing kaleidoscope of lights coloured the cathedral walls red, blue, orange, yellow and white as the early evening sunshine poured in through the stained glass windows.
Britten's work isn't to everyone's taste, but the sheer spectacle of Saturday must surely have won over most.
Then yesterday I had a complete change of pace with Westlife at the first night of the Summer Pops in the Echo Arena.
Apparently the Rooney family (sans Wayne and Coleen) were there, as was Irish pop Svengali Louis Walsh and Liverpool snooker ace John Parrott.
I am getting so old I have to stuff cotton wool down my ears now (recently I forgot at an event and they rang for two days afterwards!) and I'm glad I did because the screaming was intense, egged on by the group who claimed Liverpool was the loudest place they had ever played.
I always wonder with these things whether audiences in Manchester, and Nottingham and Newscastle are told the same thing.
Still, I'm an old cynic.
While I think about it, if anyone has any gossip about the Summer Pops, let me know and as long as it's not defamatory I'll pass it on!!!

pipilotti twist

2008-06-25T15:55:05Z

I spent lunchtime lying on the carpet at FACT with some of the nation's foremost arts critics.
And no, we weren't ill or paralytic - we were just looking at the new Pipilotti Rist exhibition which opens on Friday.
In the ground floor gallery is an installation which is created by layering the softest, softest floor coverings into contoured hills of carpet colour.
You have to take off your shoes to walk on it.
On the ceiling are screens with images of water, rustling leaves and so on - and the idea is you lie or sit on the Ordnance Survey-style carpet hills, chill out and let it all wash over you.
It's soporific and groovy at the same time and I recommend everyone goes and gives it a try.

half way through

2008-06-24T10:22:16Z

Can you believe we're half way through Capital of Culture already? Where has the year gone?
We at the Echo have launched a very quick, easy to fill out, survey on the internet to see what people think about the year so far and what they are looking forward to from July to December.
It's a way of people having their say, so I hope everyone takes a minute or two to fill it out.
Just log on to the Echo website and click on the 08 Have Your Say logo.
Easy!

city of media

2008-06-20T08:29:36Z

You can't move for Liverpool sons and daughters either making programmes about or returning to the city this year.
The last of Alexei Sayle's series on Liverpool will be screened on BBC2 tonight, with Les Dennis's paean waiting in the TV wings.
Yesterday teatime it was the turn of Peter Sissons who gave the latest in JMU's series of 2008 Roscoe Lectures - entitled City of Media.
Or rather, as Sissons decided, it was a look at how Liverpool was served by and portrayed in the media.

]]> There wasn't anything we hadn't heard before or didn't know but it was an engaging enough hour at St George's Hall - and at least the 66-year-old hasn't held a grudge after being turned down for a job by the Daily Post at the start of his career.
He told the audience in his estimation the city was very well served by the Echo and the Daily Post who both had a strong campaigning heritage, and he recalled as a child being sent out by his mum every night to buy a copy of the Echo which would then be pored over for half the evening as it was synonymous with the word newspaper and generated such Scouse gems as "you couldn't punch a hole in a wet Echo."
He was more scathing about how the city has been served over the years by Granada however, and of course there was much talk about the vilification from the national media.
The extremely well-spoken Oxford graduate amusingly told us he was first hired by ITN because it "needed a bit of Liverpool rough".
And he said: "In the last 44 years I hope I've been an influence in newsrooms in which I've sat and I hope I've never knowingly let Liverpool down."
The newscaster also had a thing or two to say about the laziness of the national press when it wrote things about the city, saying it was true Liverpool had not had a fair deal at their hands.
But, rather sensibly I thought, he concluded: "Perhaps we should be a little more stoical and a little less touchy. As John F Kennedy said - forgive your enemies. But remember their names."

less than super response to superlambananas

2008-06-18T14:30:21Z

What is WRONG with people?
Three days after the Go Superlambananas project went live around the city, one model has been stolen (you can just hear the sniggers and the tired old jokes from the rest of the country).
And I just heard today that another of the fibreglass statues has had a big boot-sized hole put in the side of it.
What makes the latter even more annoying is that it is one of the SLBs out in the community - on Townsend Lane according to my source.
It's all very well for people to moan about Capital of Culture having nothing to do with communities, but if loser vandals or light-fingered Scallies carry on like this then anything that IS out in the city suburbs will just end up being removed.
And it's such a shame because the majority of Liverpudlians and visitors who have seen the Superlambananas out in the streets love them and are treating them with respect.

dockers umbrella

2008-06-17T09:46:46Z

I spent yesterday morning sitting in a 110-year-old train carriage.
Well, I say train but actually it was the last surviving motor coach from the Liverpool Overhead Railway - third class. I know my place!

(Lizzy Rodgers from NML and yours truly in the "Ovee")

]]> The carriage will be one of the biggest exhibits in the new Museum of Liverpool currently being constructed on Mann Island.
It should look incredible when the exhibition is created around it. The carriage, which weighs about 20 tons apparently, will be at the original height of the "Ovee" 16ft above the ground.
Museums bosses plan to recreate the Pier Head station complete with wooden staircases up from 'street' level to the platform. Hopefully visitors will be able to actually step inside the carriage as well for a closer look.
It may have hard wooden seats (and we had to clamber in on a step ladder!) but it was so atmospheric sitting inside, and amazing the same carriage had been used for the entire life of the railway.
They don't make them like that anymore....

One of my favourite things was the route map with all the dock stations it stopped at painted on the wall.
The carriage, which is in storage on a short set of rails, rocked slightly when we moved and you could imagine it rumbling along its tracks as it skirted the River Mersey from Seaforth to Dingle.
NML is also looking for people who worked on the railway and may be able to share their memories with curators for the new exhibit.

i voted, did you?

2008-06-17T09:24:04Z

News comes today that Liverpool has been voted the most musical city in the UK.
So tell us something we don't know?!
Ten cities have been competing over six weeks for the title, organised by the Arts Council and voted for by the public - and yes, I was one of them.
Apparently Liverpool took a storming 49% of the total vote.
We were followed by Sheffield, birth place of Arctic Monkeys and Pulp, and then in third place by Manchester.
Leicester and Birmingham made up the top five.

]]> As the winning city, Liverpool will be represented by The Affection – an unsigned local band who will perform in front of 5,000 people at this September’s End of the Road Festival in Dorset.
Gordon Ross, Music Co-ordinator for Liverpool Culture Company is reporting as saying : “Liverpool's music scene is renowned the world over – this award is great news for the city and should serve to encourage those seeking to build on that legacy.
"The city today has a phenomenal pool of talent and its exciting that now, more than ever, it has the venues, the studios, the promoters and the festivals to nurture new ideas and faces to carry on the city's best musical traditions.”
So there you go.

fellas talk and tunnel walk

2008-06-15T13:40:57Z

Another busy weekend in the European Capital of Culture.
Last night I joined about 6-7,000 others at the ECHO Arena to see the "Three Fellas" - Ardal O'Hanlon, Dylan Moran and Tommy Tiernan.
And this morning I walked under the Mersey with 6-7,000 other people, and a marching band, in the Under and Over the Mersey event.

]]> The Arena last night was good fun. It was packed with Liverpudlians, Irish comedy fans and, slightly bizarrely, a very large contingent of Poles who cheered loudly whenever they got a name check and seemed to have a fine old time.
John Bishop was compering and held his own against the trio of Irishmen.
There was also a nifty little cartoon beamed up on the huge screen telling the tale of Liverpool's Irish history. At the after show drinks, the event's promoter Mick Perrin (a Scouser of course!) was talking about linking it to the Echo website so everyone can see it.
Watch this space.
And this morning, despite the grim wet weather, thousands of us piled into the Birkenhead Tunnel to walk underneath the Mersey.
It was 2.34 miles and it went by in a flash, thanks I suspect in part to the Liverpool Battalion band who played at the head of the walk all the way through to Wirral. Fantastic stamina!
I did the route in 40 minutes, but could have shaved a few more off if I'd been rude and overtaken the pipes and drums (I'm not used to walking that slowly to be honest).
It's only the fourth time in the Queensway's 74-year history that a walk has taken place. I know Phil Redmond (who I overtook!!) would like to see it become an annual event with people in fancy dress etc.
Whether logistically that could be achieved is difficult to say. Certainly tunnel bosses aren't making any promises. But it would be fantastic if they could - at the very least they're making noises about a repeat walk next year to mark the Queensway's 75th anniversary.

liver art

2008-06-11T08:59:43Z

The Royal Liver Building atrium has been turned into a temporary art gallery.
I popped along last night for the opening of the New Middle Kingdom exhibition of contemporary Chinese art.
There is some interesting work in there. My favourite bits of the exhibition were the photographs by Wange Ningde (especially one of a cycling man on a rise with clouds behind him) and by Beijing-based Liu Bolin who took striking images of himself "camouflaged" against backdrops such as the cenotaph and a red phone box by the Town Hall when he visited Liverpool earlier in the year.

]]> While the artwork is interesting, the bonus is that members of the public get to wander inside the Liver Building itself - at least into its atrium - where they can't normally go.
Unfortunately they still won't be able to do what we did last night (glass of bubbly in hand) - enjoy the views from the building's rooftop itself.
The current exhibition runs until July 4 and then the gallery structure will stay for the remainder of the summer to display other exhibitions including artwork done by Liverpool schoolchildren.

litter louts

2008-06-10T13:57:22Z

It's not the first time Rod Holmes of Liverpool 1 developers Grosvenor has sounded off about the litter epidemic in Liverpool.
And knowing how flagrantly people seem to treat their own city streets I'm sure it won't be the last.
But oh, how I agree with him and how I wish we had the guts to bring in some really punitive hit-them-where-it-hurts reprisals for the ignorant, useless losers who deliberately drop their rubbish all over the place.
I even found chewing gum on the base of our new Sheppard-Worlock statue in Hope Street the other day.

]]> In fact, Rod isn't the only one to bang on about this. I've written about it myself in this blog enough times in the run up to, and during this year as Capital of Culture.
What is it with the people of this city, who will defend Liverpool's reputation to the death but who treat its streets with such obvious disdain?
Bill Bryson famously wrote that when he visited, Liverpool was having a festival of litter.
It's a colourful image. Unfortunately, it's also a remarkably indulgent one. It gives the impression, meant on not, that the gum and fag ends and fast food cartons and the like is all rather jolly in an untidy way.
Well, it's not.
It's rude, it's uncouth, it's lacking in respect - it's frankly rubbish.
Unfortunately, nothing that is said seems to make the slightest bit of difference with the gormless a***holes who insist on littering our beautiful city.
So what should it be? A hefty fine? A trip to court? A bit of public humiliation?
Actually, the latter is at least as effective as the first two. Maybe a bit of the old naming and shaming, used judiciously, could work.
Something has to be tried.

archbishop of york

2008-06-10T10:02:04Z

I went to see the Archbishop of York give his Roscoe Lecture last night.
I say see, because I couldn't actually hear what he was saying much of the time.
I felt very sorry for the sound system technician (the same lad who who did a sterling job for our Sheppard-Worlock statue launch) as he fought a losing battle with errant speakers, the unhelpful acoustics in St George's Hall and an increasingly frustrated Archbishop.
In fact, fuelled I suspect by that frustration, the churchman got really quite bossy telling the sound guy "less bass. turn down the sound. don't touch it."
For once, people who had only been able to get a seat at the back benefited because apparently the sound was perfect there.
Anyway, I was reviewing in the evening so when it became clear things were running terribly late, I had to sneak out and missed most of what the Archbishop wanted to say.