Liverpool Enjoys Sun And Fun
The sun shone warmly on Liverpool’s Lord Mayor’s Parade today (Saturday 5 June 2010), and afterwards people thronged happily in the city centre.
Bandspeople made their way along Church Street past a musician with more ancient instrumental traditions, and in the retail area of Liverpool One shoppers took time out to relax on a fake lawn, in the company of an enormous frog and fairy-tale toadstools. The city centre in the sun was fun, and Liverpool was today indeed a World In One City.
Wheelie Pretty
They say that going green keeps you healthy, so the owners of these bicycles in London must be doubly fit.
Not only are they getting exercise as they navigate the city using pedal power, but when they arrive they can enjoy these potted tubs of budding shrubs and flowers too.
Once the bulbs and cyclists are out, we know the Summer sunshine can’t be far behind.
Spring Comes To Sefton Park
Last night (20 March 2010) was the Vernal Equinox, which makes today the First Day of Spring.
Nowhere was this more apparent than in Liverpool’s Sefton Park, where the crocuses are out, last year’s cygnet was centre of attraction (with the turtle) near the bandstand, and, after a fallow year or two whilst the park was drastically revamped, the nesting swans have again taken residence on the island in the main lake.
The Stephenson Rocket Mural In Liverpool Edge Hill
Liverpool Edge Hill was the location, along with its Manchester, Liverpool Road counterpart, of the first public railway station, opening on 15 September 1830. For some years more recently this historic site was marked by a large mural or relief of the ‘Rocket’ steam engine invented by George Stephenson (1781-1848) – an interesting vision in the grim context of our own contemporary Edge Lane access route into the city.
World Environment Day (1994-2044?)
Fifteen years ago today, this time capsule was ‘planted’ in Ness Gardens on the Wirral; and now we see sitting by it a little person who will be 35 years old when the capsule is opened. What will her world be like? Will we have made it a good and safe place for her and her own children to live in? And are we moving in the right direction, now, to ensure this will happen? Do we now understand what ’sustainable’ living entails? Can we ensure that future generations – not the ones who felt obliged to ‘apologise’ in the time capsule letters – will manage to live sustainably and well?
Flaming June In Ardnamurchan
Ardnamurchan, the most westerly point of mainland Britain, is not the first place most of us would look to find the dramatic Shenandoah ‘Red Hot Poker’ or ‘Torch Lily’ in bloom; after all, the Kniphofia group of plants to which Torch Lilies belong originated in Africa. But the remote north-west UK location around Loch Sunart has been showing these spectacular flowers off in profusion during the amazingly hot (up to 24 degrees C) first weekend of June this year.
A Happy Hatching In The Hedge
In the garden in early May last year, a broken piece of ivy jutting out from the hedge caught our attention.
Then a thrush darted into the greenery, and we realised this was in all probability the site of a nest – as indeed it turned out to be, a neatly solid little structure with three beautiful blue eggs in it.
Waiting patiently, carefully positioning the camera well away and using a zoom lens, this is what we then saw emerging, almost at our back door….
Spring Comes To Sefton Park, Liverpool
The past few days have convinced us that Spring is finally on its way.
The daffodils in Sefton Park are a glory all of their own – the focus of hope in so many ways, at the equinox when people begin once more to populate our park’s wonderful space, strolling by in chatty groups, with prams, on bicylces, running to raise funds for charity or simply stopping to enjoy.
And then, as the daffodils begin to fade, we see the promise of the next great gift of nature, the delicate blossoms of almond and cherry to delight us yet a while….
Women In Wigan A Century Past; Water And Gendered Sustainability Now
The 8th of March is International Women’s Day, an occasion to look both back and forward. We have here some photos and text reminding us gently how grim life was for working class women and children in the mills (and often for their mining menfolk too) a mere century ago. Happily, Wigan Pier and the canals are now a tourist destination alongside a modern Investment Centre; but around 1910 a different story – not least about the uses of water – was being told. The challenge remains to secure the same progress as we’ve seen here, in ensuring healthy and constructive lives for women and their families everywhere across the globe.
Josephine Butler House: Liverpool’s Saga Of Civic Shame
Josephine Butler House in Liverpool’s Hope Street Quarter is named for the famous social reformer, and the site of the first UK Radium Institute. Latterly an elegant adjunct to Myrtle Street’s The Symphony apartments, it sits opposite the Philharmonic Hall. But the intended ambiance has been ruined by a dismal failure and omission on the part of Liverpool City Council, who have permitted Josephine Butler House to be grimly defaced with little prospect of anything better, or even just intact, taking its place.
The Daily Miracle
It happens every day, and each time it is the greatest and most wonderful gift: the miracle of the birth of a baby.
Nothing compares with the arrival of a new child, every one of them the most beautiful and precious blessing it’s possible to receive.
Here is the loveliness which the parents of this tiny, serene new miniature person will now awake to every morning.
Liverpool European Capital Of Culture Comes To An End
So it’s all over, for now. Liverpool has handed on the European Capital of Culture title to Linz and Vilnius, after a rollercoaster year on Merseyside. There have been highlights and muddle, fun, exasperation and exhaustion. The debates and analysis will start soon enough – and we need them, to learn what worked and what didn’t – but tonight the thing everyone, people in their thousands and from many communities, came into town for, was a party….
Shining Lights On The Shortest Day
We’re at the longest night and the shortest day – the Winter solstice. But that doesn’t stop the goodwill shining through, as citizens of Liverpool get together to raise money for worthy causes. Every year at this time the Santa Claus wagon trundles past, tannoy blaring out the carols and youngsters running from house to house as they collect for charity. And private festive collaborations are evident too, with neighbours sharing brilliant illuminated phantasies to cheer us all up.
Culture Secretary Andy Burnham MP Thanks Liverpool Volunteers For Capital Of Culture Efforts
Liverpool’s great St George’s Hall offered a splendid setting for the event at which Andy Burnham MP, Secretary of State for Media and Culture, offered thanks and encouragement to the people who had made such an effort to deliver the 2008 European Capital of Culture programme. Volunteers and officers alike congregated to hear the Culture Secretary say well done, and to muse on the challenges of 2009. This he opined, as do many of us, is only the beginning…
JoelBird (Joel Phelan) Private View, Calderstones Park, Liverpool
We were delighted this evening to attend the Private View of Joel Phelan’s JoelBird paintings (acrylic on canvas) in the Coach House of Calderstones Park, Liverpool. Joel, a locally-born artist, is also a talented musician (JubJub / Eto The Band). He has created wonderfully life-like yet ‘designed’ impressions of birds which we see in our local parks. It would be great if these works inspired other younger people in the city to observe more closely the natural world around them.
The Liverpool Biennial Spider Hovers Over Exchange Flags
This spider, set against the austere statue of Lord Nelson and a backdrop of Liverpool’s historic Town Hall, has so much more to offer than La Princesse, the monster mechanical arachnid costing millions which scoured our streets a short while ago.
La Princesse was piece of engineering; Ai Weiwei’s bejewelled spider is a work of art. It trusts us to see in it what we will – it’s magical, creative and beautiful all at once, leaving the imagination to work its fancies.
See The Dawn, Enjoy The Sunset: The No.10 Petition For Daylight Saving
This is the day and date when the clocks go ‘back’. We have an extra hour in bed on Sunday morning, and then… darkness an hour earlier until next Spring. And most of us will miss the dawning of the day as well, since the majority of people in the UK no longer keep agrarian hours. So let’s do something about using daylight in the best way, in the modern world: Sign the No 10 Petition for ‘better use of sun’.
Liverpool’s ‘Sage’ Of Sefton Park
Is it Merlin, or is it some other mystical creature, whose likeness arose silent and unannounced from the lone long-topped tree trunk in the heart of Sefton Park? One August morning, in the midst of the more expected park renovations of 2008, there ‘he’ was, the beautifully sculpted Sage of Sefton Park, the beginning, we can only hope, of a serendipitous array of creations in the park, for us to enjoy and create further in our imaginations as we wish.
Liverpool’s Hope Street HOTFOOT Tee-Shirts, 1996 -
Every year from 1996 HOPES has produced a limited edition T-shirt for everyone involved to wear for the Hope Street Festival; and only in that first year was there no special performance at the Philharmonic Hall. So 1997 marked the first of the subsequently annual HOPES HOTFOOT concerts which celebrate the exciting and diverse communities in Liverpool’s Hope Street Quarter. That’s a lot of people – orchestra musicians, singers, helpers and supporters – and, as we see below, a lot of editions of the T-shirts…
August Moon And Little Cat On Lykavitos (Lycabettus) Hill, Athens
Tonight is the full moon in Athens, Greece, when by tradition everyone attends free events till late on the archeological sites; and this year there’s also a partial lunar eclipse over the city. But for this feral kitten, silently padding the very highest point of Athens in search of scraps from restaurant diners atop Lycabettus Hill, it will be business as usual.
Move On If You’re Monied (Or Now Alone)
Summary: The status is still unclear of recent proposals by senior politicians that social housing (’council housing’ and the like in old parlance) be only for those in greatest financial need. But whether simply political musing, or seriously on the agenda, these propositions are, even just for starters, a very bad idea. And so, without very careful preparation, is the idea that if family changes mean your house becomes ‘underoccupied’, or you are job-seeking, you must move on.
Such proposals miss the point that people live in communities, not isolation; and communities require a degree of stability. These ideas can result only in one thing – more so-called ‘no hope’ estates, and fast.
Brokering For Adequacy In Austerity
Summary: There’s little most of us as individuals can add to general commentary about the current fierce financial cuts; but there is perhaps a real role for brokerage, undertaken by non-partisan cross-industry bodies, to find a way forward.
The first priority, beyond politics, must surely be to minimise harm as far as possible in the face of a grim determination to reduce public spending at any cost.
Full Story »Can Swans, Dogs, Families And Fishing Co-exist In Sefton Park?
This male swan is father to his six cygnets, now surviving without their mother. The female of the adult pair was lost when a dog attacked her, and the fear is now for the safety of the swan family in her absence.
This situation brings to our attention once again the perennial questions about who our city parks are ‘for’. Can dogs and people mix? And how reasonable is it to permit fishing in such an urban environment, given that it too destroys waterbirds and scares away young families?
Homes, Job Prospects And Horizons: How Far Is ‘Away’?
Summary: Iain Duncan Smith, the work and pensions secretary, proposes to help people move house to get work. This is not of itself a new idea; from Norman Tebbit’s ‘on your bike’ onwards it has been proposed in various ways by the main political parties that those without employment need encouragement to become domestically mobile. Inevitably the counter-argument has been that jobs are not necessarily to be found just around the corner, a mere bikeride – or, in Duncan Smith’s proposals, within fifteen miles – of where jobless people currently live. So can this idea work?
Longest Day, Lightest Night, Least Energy Lost
This is the longest day of the year, a day and night when darkness barely touches the River Mersey or the historic ports of Liverpool and the Wirral to each side of that river’s great estuary. But even on this solstice day it’s not all about heritage. The estuary’s traditional maritime installations are here matched by the forward-looking technology of wind turbines, a constant reminder that energy is not ours to squander. Longer evening light, with the clocks forward year-through as 10:10 proposes, would help reduce this waste consistently without effort.
Inaction On Regional Trains Speaks Louder than Words
Summary: The electrification of railway lines in the NW of England (and elsewhere) has been planned for some while. Money was allocated for this programme by the last government, recognising the need to modernise regional intercity connections for economic and environmental reasons.
But in the new coalition government’s austerity-focused scheme of things it seems this plan is under threat. Upgrading these lines is essential. It’s the regional economy, people’s livelihoods and issues of energy efficiency which are at stake. Vague words of hope for the future will not do.
Full Story »A Trial Of Two Localisms
Summary: Has nationally-prescribed double devolution somehow morphed into nationally-prescribed strategic localism? Is either of them meaningful without generous national resources and serious leadership? Can the previous double devolution consultation model really transmute into genuine local self-determination? And is this proposed shift in the end about strategy for the future, or about nostalgia for the past?
The ‘Big Society’ Idea
The ‘Big Society’ is one of the ideas put forward by new Prime Minister David Cameron to ‘heal’ what he cavalierly refers to as Broken Britain. Based, as this idea is, on the concept of ‘dysfunctional communities’, success as described in Conservative literature is unlikely – not least because the idea that entire communities of themselves can be dysfunctional demonstrates a very pessimistic view of our fellow citizens.
How bizarre, then, that this concept should have appeared unexplained as a large poster pasted onto a telephone box in City Road, London….
Full Story »What Did Labour Do For Women?
Yes, I do realise this is a rather outmoded way of putting things – the real question should be, ‘What did Labour do to make things fairer for everyone?’ – but the former question is asked more frequently than the latter.
But, however the enquiry is phrased, the answer is that Labour has done a great deal to change things equality-wise for the better, and sometimes it’s worth remembering where the equity stakes were pre-1997, not least so we can hold on to these improvements for the future.
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