IT’S vile the way cities arrange everything for the convenience of property developers – and let ordinary foot-slogging folk like me soak up all the strain, the filth and the noise of giant building projects.
Just recently I had to make an early morning trip to central Liverpool to review the newspapers for BBC Radio Merseyside.
Usually that trip entails just a short stroll from James Street station to the studios in Paradise Street.
But on the morning of Thu 25 May I found Paradise Street completely blocked off while construction on the useless huge shopping mall was cranked up a notch.
For me, in a rush to meet a broadcasting deadline, the enforced detour meant a painful hobble up Church Street and then snaking circuitously back through the lanes to BBC studios – a huge loop.
I say hobble because I’ve been half lame in my left foot and ankle for months now – and my doctor is baffled by the condition. He just shrugs while I continue to suffer.
Meanwhile, any extra walking, such as was forced on me by that gross shopping development recently, makes me terribly grumpy.
The developers are hurtling towards an ugly, consumerist face for Liverpool, which will do nothing to boost culture for European City of Culture status in 2008. Quite the reverse.
All these shopping malls will deaden social and cultural life in the city centre, not revive it.
Liverpool risks looking like any other British town – ugly, and full of the plastic frontages of chain stores.
That is the way things happen. But no-one tells you. Instead, an army of logo-launching PR twerps pump out the mantra that Liverpool is heading for a glamorous future. As if Shopping = Culture.
It beats me why the Paradise development is going ahead anyway. We have quite enough clothes shops already in town selling low-grade “designer” tat knocked up by Third World labour on near starvation wages.
Besides, why should this huge shopping complex succeed when nearby the Albert Dock is struggling, with boarded-up businesses a testament to the vanity of big, prestige projects.
Most preposterous and pretentious of all, to my mind, is the Met Quarter, between Victoria Street and Whitechapel.
It’s a naff mall that is trying way too hard to be cool. There is a repulsive poster for the Met Quarter which depicts a poseur in a cravat and a slogan that goes something like: “I want. I need. I have. The Met Quarter.”
The utterly false message is that no modern man can survive without adopting the personal vanity and shopping addictions of a teenage American girlie.
Well, I don’t give a stuff that Timberland, Armani, Hugo Boss, All Saints, Flannels and Coast are at the Met Quarter.
I don’t buy clothes with visible labels on anyway. That is a foolish thing to do, to use your body as a walking advert for international brands.
I buy my clobber from Birkenhead Market for a tenth of what these swanky city centre malls charge – and I’m noted for always looking sharp and HOT!
Anyway, as a result of my detour round the buildings works on Thursday morning, I arrived for the Radio Merseyside slot all out of puff and somewhat sweaty in the gusset.
I didn’t have enough time left to compose myself and consequently failed to pronounce the word “ostracisation” when discussing a report about poor Shahbaz on Big Brother.
Of course, the copious amounts of red wine and Southern Comfort I’d been drinking the night before might also have effected my ability to get the old gob working to maximum efficiency.
It was a birthday gathering of the New Brighton Massive from Hell’s Waiting Room, you see, on Wednesday night, for Eamonn Lairyshirt’s, er, 35th, I think.
Except for we didn’t step foot in the Waiting Room (for technical reasons). We went to the Shallow Cutting instead and stayed there until it was time to head off to the Lost Weekend late bar on the seafront.
Now I knew I had to get up at 6.30am for the radio appearance the next morning but manfully I stayed dancing (yes, all right, I know that is unwise when you have a gammy foot) and knocking back Southern Comforts until nearly 2am.
The Lost Weekend is like the bar at the end of the universe on Wednesdays. There are bizarre middle-aged couples in there, wearing country and western clobber, and some irascible old geezers (including Billy “Get Off My F******* Bus”) Bustimes.
But there are also plenty of young people, including young gays and lesbians who rock up there after the Wednesday gay night finishes at Polly Frolick’s pub.
It was a top night anyway, and I got up in time to do my BBC slot, thanks to my trusty clock-radio alarm and a phone call at 6.30am from the Bacardi Queen in Liscard.
I feel sorry for Merseyside Breakfast presenters Lee Bennion and Claire Hamilton though – having to face a grumpy beer monster like me so early in the morning.
* This blog received a marvellous compliment the other day from the postmistress at Alford near Chester, who reads it regularly.
She said it reminded her of the BBC sitcom Early Doors, set in a backstreet northern pub. I am a huge fan of Early Doors so I was well chuffed. Pip pip!
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Alberre wrote...
Very interesting Mr. Regan. You deserve a medal the size of a frying pan for your gallant effort in geting up this morning and telling all and sundry over the airwaves with your pearls of wisdom.
Does Eamonn Lairyshirt shop at Birko market? I myself am guilty of buying merchandise from the faceless shops you mention, and my new top (it will make an appearance in the Waiting Room this weekend) is just a billboard for some Italian geezer, but it is this rich taperestry of life which makes the world go round.
Is Mr. Craggs a **** or what? Please note this is not a swear word or a mis spelling just some goobledegook to keep the PC Brigade happy.
Cheers.
Alberre
Posted by: Alberre | May 25, 2006 7:38 PM