Liverpool

Thursday

Richard Bratby

Britten’s Blackadder moment

‘What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?’ We’ve heard a lot, lately, of the knell that tolls through the opening bars of Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem, and at Liverpool’s Anglican cathedral it was played on actual church bells. The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra’s percussionist Graham Johns has had a set specially cast, and as he struck them video screens relayed the moment all the way down the cathedral’s length. The orchestra was a one-off, assembled half-and-half from the RLPO and the NDR Radiophilharmonie Hannover (the conductor Andrew Manze holds positions in both cities), and this was a major civic occasion, attended by gold chains of all sizes and preceded

Thursday

Deborah Ross

Golden oldie

Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool is plainly wonderful, and stars Annette Bening, who is plainly wonderful, as Gloria Grahame, a one-time Hollywood movie star who in later life hits on hard times — ‘a big name in black and white. Not doing too well in colour,’ comments her landlady at one point — and embarks on a romance with a young English actor who is 30 years her junior. It is based on a true memoir. It is a love story, told tenderly, bravely, smartly, movingly. And believably. Older women, it seems, can be interesting, complicated, vital, attractive and sexual. Who knew? (But don’t spread the word, or they’ll

Thursday

Peter Hitchens

Diary – 2 November 2017

Where better to be than in Liverpool on a crisp autumn evening, haranguing an open-air meeting of students? I hadn’t done a soapbox speech since my Trotskyist days 45 years ago, and had forgotten how exhilarating it is — the questions sharper, the audience more alert, the tempo brisker, and the missionary feeling of spreading the word. Also, the students didn’t cough all the time, which they tend to do in stuffy lecture rooms. But I had never meant to do this. Months before, Tom Willett, of Liverpool University’s politics society, had asked me to come and speak about my favourite subject, the fact that there is no ‘War on

Thursday

Jonathan Meades

The Bilbao effect

Twenty years ago I wrote of the otherwise slaveringly praised Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao: I’m in a minority of, apparently, one. It strikes me as a consummate gimmick… a fantastically elaborate and rather wearisome joke. Has mankind spent all these centuries perfecting Euclidean geometry and orthogonal engineering in order to have it overthrown by massively expensive crazy cottages clad in titanium? Apparently mankind has. So much for the building. What of the ‘Bilbao effect’, an epithet that I am accused of having coined (I can’t remember, but it’s inappropriate because there is, typically, no effect). Even before Frank Gehry’s earth-shattering masterpiece was finished, word was out and post-industrial cities on

Saturday

Martin Vander Weyer

Even in the cesspit of elite football, the Neymar deal has a pungent whiff to it

In a quiet season for business news, the giant cesspit that is the world of elite football can be relied upon to provide a money story with a pungent whiff to it. I refer to the transfer of the 25-year-old Brazilian known only as Neymar from Barcelona to Paris St Germain for a world-record fee close to £200 million. When Neymar was bought by Barcelona from Santos of Brazil in 2013, a £200 million break clause was inserted in his contract in the belief that no club in the world could possibly afford to buy him out. But PSG has done so even though Spanish football authorities refused to facilitate

Thursday

Andrew Marr

Diary – 13 July 2017

It has been an unqualified delight, even if it is mildly absurd: I have been chairing the judges for this year’s Forward Prizes for poetry, wallowing in some quite extraordinary writing. It has been like gorging on champagne truffles every day. We are nearly there. Winners are emerging. But the absurd aspect is that everybody being judged is already a fine poet, with much to say and fine technical skill; so, winnowing down to ‘winners’ relies on personal prejudice and chance mood on one particular day. That’s horribly unfair and I think all the judges feel it. So why have such a prize? Because the hullabaloo and coverage will draw

Wednesday

Tiffany Jenkins

Antony Gormley has no right to complain when the public interacts with his public art

Antony Gormley is not amused. The artist who has installed hundreds of life-sized, cast-iron sculptures of his naked body in cities all over the world is affronted with the way a mysterious member of the British public has responded to one of the artworks. The piece in question, which could be known as ‘Narcissism’ but is in fact called ‘Another Place’, consists of 100 figures, spread over 2 miles of coastline, on Crosby Beach, north of central Liverpool, looking out to sea. Someone has given it a make over: at least nine of the statues were recently adorned. One, standing upright at just over 6 feet tall, appears to be wearing

Thursday

Stephen Bayley

Building block | 8 June 2017

Liverpool is the New York of Europe. The business district looks like old Wall Street: a miniature Lower Manhattan on the Mersey. It’s a city of scale, drama, melodrama, tragedy and comedy. Not to mention rich and poor. And often all these effects are simultaneous. No other British city has a similarly contrary architectural character: superb, shabby, romantic, melancholy, proud and mean. You cannot be in Liverpool and not be affected by its buildings. I grew up there and long before I knew what ‘design’ meant, Liverpool had taught me to see — as well as to feel the deadly weight of history. It’s an architectural education. But Liverpool has

Thursday

The Spectator

Letters | 4 May 2017

Liverpudlian censorship Sir: I enjoyed Kelvin MacKenzie’s Diary (29 April). The obloquy thrown at him after his criticism of Everton footballer Ross Barkley would be laughable if it were not for the unpleasant undercurrent on Merseyside now. His remark was football banter, not a racist slur as the mayor of Liverpool, Joe Anderson, has alleged. What the mayor (or ‘Fat Joe’, as he is known) has failed to do is speak up for free speech. It is — and I deeply regret to say this about my home town — a scandal that newsagents in Liverpool are threatened by violent thugs if they stock the Sun. There was a ‘Ban

Saturday

Kelvin MacKenzie

Gary Lineker is the Virtue Signaller of the Year

When Trevor Phillips stood down as chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, he had served nine years. His period remains the longest of any UK equality commissioner. So when the confected outrage started over my Sun column about Everton footballer Ross Barkley I was not surprised to see a text pop up from Mr Phillips. I feared he would join the Liverpool bandwagon claiming I was a racist because I had compared the look in the eyes of Barkley with a gorilla. Actually I and every football fan I had ever met believed Barkley to be white. Unluckily for me, but luckily for my enemies in the north-west,

Saturday

Roger Alton

Why it’s wrong to let Liverpool FC ban the Sun

The comedian Jimmy Carr is not necessarily a guy you would trust on much, but he was spot on the other day when he said that the Hillsborough disaster was something you would never joke about. Of course not, but it seems you can’t have even a sliver of a divergent view. Now, thanks to the timorousness of one of the world’s major football clubs, and the pusillanimity of the Premier League, a bitter little drama is being played out that could have savage implications for freedom of the press. Early in February this year Liverpool FC announced that the Sun would be banned from all home facilities, Anfield and

Thursday

Roger Alton

Liverpool’s press mess

The comedian Jimmy Carr is not necessarily a guy you would trust on much, but he was spot on the other day when he said that the Hillsborough disaster was something you would never joke about. Of course not, but it seems you can’t have even a sliver of a divergent view. Now, thanks to the timorousness of one of the world’s major football clubs, and the pusillanimity of the Premier League, a bitter little drama is being played out that could have savage implications for freedom of the press. Early in February this year Liverpool FC announced that the Sun would be banned from all home facilities, Anfield and

Sunday

Charles Moore

Saying sorry to Liverpool is a politician’s rite of passage

As Paul Nuttall, the Ukip leader, has recently discovered, there usually comes a point in a British political career when you have to apologise to Liverpool. The origins of this custom are obscure, rather like the rule that the Cap of Maintenance must accompany the Sovereign to the State Opening of Parliament, but it must not be questioned. It is no good asking why Liverpool should receive more apologies than, for instance, Runcorn or Milton Keynes: you must just say sorry. Rather than having to stammer an inconvenient ‘mea culpa’ at a by- election it would be more sensible to get your apology in first. I suggest that all election

Thursday

Charles Moore

The Spectator’s Notes | 23 February 2017

Last month, at Policy Exchange, I met a charming, quiet American general called H.R. McMaster. In conversation, I was struck by his zeal for Nato and his concern wherever the alliance is now weakest, as in Turkey. In his speech to the thinktank, he said clearly that Russia and China are attempting to ‘collapse’ the post-1945 and post-Cold War ‘political, economic and security order’, with unconventional forces hiding behind conventional ones, subversion, disinformation, propaganda, economic actions and ‘proxies’ such as organised crime networks. The situation had echoes of 1914, and the risk of a great-power war was the highest for 70 years. He emphasised that, ‘despite public comments by our

Thursday

Neil Armstrong

Raising the roof

It is a ‘fantastic night out’, insists the theatre’s artistic director. Gemma Bodinetz is right, of course, but it is easy to see how those unfamiliar with Fiddler on the Roof might take some convincing. The first act ends with a pogrom, the second with the village’s Jews being expelled from the country. This doesn’t immediately suggest an evening of joyous, life-affirming entertainment. ‘It’s the story of people being forced to leave their homes by the powers that be, and that scenario, sadly, is still playing itself out all over the world today. But it’s also about family and joy and love and it has terrific songs,’ says Bodinetz. It

Thursday

Damian Thompson

Magnetic north | 10 November 2016

Years ago, when I met a famous concert pianist, I was surprised when he greeted me in a northern accent. A soft one, mind you, but completely intact. I’d assumed that, by the time a conductor or soloist reached a certain level of fame, the northern vowels would have been erased by Received Pronunciation or some painful mid-Atlantic hybrid. I was such a little snob in those days, affecting a languid drawl that had my old schoolfriends in Reading rolling their eyes. But my social climbing had at least given me a good ear for other people’s doctored accents. London was crawling with northern choirmasters and music critics whose self-taught

Thursday

Steerpike

Derek Hatton is left in the cold at Labour conference

In recent months, Derek Hatton has been taking to the airwaves to wax lyrical about Jeremy Corbyn. Although the former deputy leader of Liverpool Council’s request to rejoin the party 29 years after they expelled him was turned down, he remains a supporter of the Corbyn regime. So, with this year’s party conference in his home city of Liverpool, Hatton was keen to attend the event. What’s more, Mr S understands that the Liverpool Echo decided it would be a good idea to get Hatton to write a conference diary for the paper and so he applied for a press pass. Alas brains at Labour HQ have deemed Hatton to not be suitable press

Thursday

Anna Aslanyan

Digging deep into history

The year is 1963. A girl is walking around Stepney with a pack of index cards, visiting old residents in their dilapidated houses, drinking strong tea with tinned milk, listening to their stories of happy days past and looking at cracked walls and leaking roofs. As she promises them help on behalf of her employer, the Old People’s Welfare Association, redevelopment plans for the area are being drawn up with little regard for its inhabitants, many of whom don’t want to move. ‘There may be heartbreak in store for some,’ breezily remarks a magazine article. That girl was Gillian Tindall, and her interest in ‘the landscape of people’s lives’ has

Philip Hensher

A life of telling stories

Not all novelists lead a public life. Those who do, however, tend to make a bit of a performance out of it. Beryl Bainbridge’s life, even before she started publishing novels, was an act, and during her period of fame she was famous for presenting herself in a certain way. It was an effective strategy for dealing with life, and because of it Beryl was one of the most widely loved figures of London life. I didn’t know her at all well, but always found her a total delight when she surfaced at literary parties; she had a knack of making you feel that you were going to enjoy looking

Wednesday

Tom Goodenough

Corbyn ally wins Labour’s Liverpool mayoral nomination

Labour has opted for Steve Rotheram to be their candidate in Liverpool’s mayoral election. It’s a big boost for Jeremy Corbyn, as Rotheram has been fiercely loyal to the Labour leader since Corbyn made him his PPS – essentially his right-hand man in Westminster – last September. He’s stuck by Corbyn along the way, and Rotheram suggested after winning the vote amongst Labour members that it could well have helped him defeat current mayor Joe Anderson and Luciana Berger, amongst others, in today’s vote: ‘When we phoned people I think what potentially did have an impact was this underused and rare commodity in politics at the moment and that is