IF YOU love a place or thing (your country, a city, a town, or even a football club) you need to need to see its faults as well as its virtues.
I think most people understand the sense of such an approach ... if they think about it at all.
There is little merit in being blindly, stupidly, enthusiastic about something if, by doing so, you blot out or even deny negative aspects of its existence.
That does no-one any favours...
The city of Liverpool is an interesting case in point. The place and its native inhabitants have had their unfair share of criticism over the years – but, even so, I wish some people wouldn’t be so very defensive, so very upset at even the merest hint of criticism.
I say that as someone who is not a Scouser (I’m a Wiganer) but who’s had a connection with and an affection for the city since being knee-high to a grasshopper.
I say what I say as someone who genuinely loves Liverpool but who’s not blind to the city’s shortcomings (such as crime, a very juvenile local poltical scene, an economically disastrous lack of substantial private industry, and pockets of city centre squalor persisting, very disappointingly, well into European Capital of Culture Year).
But never mind the shortcomings for a minute …
How could anyone of a romantic, poetic disposition NOT love Liverpool?
It is a boisterous, romantic, witty and drunkenly Celtic city.
And yet … and yet… there is also a tendency among certain elements of Liverpool society to exaggerate the ‘good’ things that have happened in recent years … and to suggest that glamorous lifestyles, fancy restaurants, beauty treatments, waterside loft apartments and luxury shopping etc. are the only things that matter to Scousers now.
Anyone who knows anything about Liverpool knows that isn’t the case – though such totems of rabid consumerism might do it for certain WAGS with more dosh than brain power.
Anyone who truly loves Liverpool will realise that to present the city as a consumerist paradise is not just misleading but utimately sad and deflating.
We should never try to see everthing through rose-tinted spectacles – especially not in observation of a rumbustious place like Liverpool.
We need to keep in mind the essential spirit of Liverpool, which has nearly always been radical, do-different, and counter-cultural.
I touched on this theme in my ‘Thought for The Day’ on BBC Radio Merseyside’s Breakfast show earlier this week (Tue 13 May).
I’ve been asked to replicate that ‘Thought’ here on my blog (well, I’ve been asked to do so by my girlfriend, anyway) so here goes…
Here’s what I said on the show on the morning of Tuesday, 13 May…
“Anyone returning to Liverpool after an absence of 20 years would be amazed at the transformation.
"They might also be surprised – and a little disppointed – that the city resembles one big, messy building site during its European Capital of Culture Year.
"Couldn’t the authorities have brought about all the changes a bit sooner?
"Shouldn’t that ugly office block by Lime Street station be demolished by now, not simply covered by a giant tea towel?
"To be fair, urban regeneration is a complex and difficult business, so we should be thankful for the great building work already done, or in process… Or should we?
"Whisper it softly in a city where the political culture frowns on little boys who point out the Emperor is Wearing No Clothes, but there are signs that some of the regeneration might be less than peachy perfect.
"For instance, many of those swanky new flats in glittering towers by the waterside remain unsold. Is that because they are too expensive? Or because people don’t particularly crave colour-supplement lifestyles 20 storeys above ground.
"Maybe people prefer to live in ordinary houses surrounded by ordinary shops – rather than sky-high lofts, looking down on designer boutiques and wine bars?
"The real architectural jewels of Liverpool were created for high-minded purposes. Our two beautiful cathedrals? Built to the glory of God.
"St George’s Hall? Designed as a classical concert venue and a majestic court of law.
"But now, a massive shopping quarter is being built called Liverpool One … just as a recession looms, and consumers are deserting shops in droves to buy instead via the internet.”
NB I’m doing the ‘Thought for the Day’ slots on BBC Radio Merseyside’s Breakfast show each morning this week, up to Friday 16 May.
If you want to check ‘em out live I hope you’re an early bird – because they go to air each day at 6.55am.
If you are not up at that time you can use the listen again feature on BBC Radio Merseyside’s website and click on the start-up audio link for Tony Snell in the morning.
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Smokehouse wrote...
You are right Liverpool has never had good press, much of it because there has not been much good to say. All the old cliches about Liverpool being the first out on strike, Militant, dodgy land deals and dodgy councillors in the past have the ring of truth about them. This has certainly not been helped by comics and plays about the region. Who can forget "Boys from the Black Stuff" and Harry Enfields' "Calm down, calm down". Even LFC's anthem " You will never walk alone" is often sang by opposition as " you'll never work again"
The best Liverpool can hope for is to be portrayed as the "black sheep of the family", the colourful character that is often spoke about with affection but you hope they don't turn up at your party. It has certainly not helped that with the year of culture almost half way through, Liverpool still resembles a gigantic building site with half of the streets blocked off and traffic in general chaos.
Indeed to love liverpool, there are an awfull lot of shortcomings you have to put up with and no amount of reminiscing about Gerry Marsden, "Our" Cilla and the jam butty mines of Knotty Ash are going to gloss them over. Wirral with its Death Star council may have an awful lot to answer for but compared to Liverpool it is a well oiled machine and a sea of tranquility that gets on with life instead of screaming "Gissa Job and Pity Me"!
PS I bet you are glad you live on this side of the water!!!
REGAN REPLIES: Controversial stuff, Smokehouse. Actually, I am thinking of moving to live in Liverpool!
Posted by: Smokehouse | May 15, 2008 1:13 AM