The Stuff of Nightmares?

After a life-time working in the hard-bitten world of football journalism, it's perhaps understandable if my attitude to 'art' was coloured just a tad by the apres-match banter in the saloon bar of the Dog & Duck in Stockport. We weren't much for chewing over the merits of theatre, paintings, the cinema or sculpture in those days.

Nevertheless, there's always been a bit of Bill Blunt that's had a sneaky regard for culture. That's why I joined the throngs in Liverpool, last night, to watch the finale of La Machine's visit to the city.

Some have argued that around £1 million for a piece of street theatre was a waste of public money. I can't agree. There are worse abuses of public finance than this. The giant mechanical spider that made Liverpool its home for three days has drawn huge crowds, and sparked lively discussions amongst friends, neighbours and workmates for the whole of the period. Last night's musical and pyrotechnic ballet, as the creature moved through the streets to the mouth of the Birkenhead tunnel, was wondrous to behold.

My colleague on The Times, Donald Hulera, spent 24 hours in Liverpool covering the story, but skipped off before the grand finale, missing the best of the weather and the best of the show. Like so many cosmopolitan visitors to the north, he missed the point. Was it worth it? Donald couldn't decide.

The crowd that assembled to witness the spider's swansong was of all ages, and included youngsters who, after an evening watching La Princess parade through the streets, are likely to be much less traumatised next time they see a spider in the bath - after all, once you've seen the mother of all spiders, anything else pales into insignificance.



A good dousing of water is clearly the antidote to spiders - however big. There'll be quite a few less pigeons around Lime Street station for the next few weeks too, I'll bet. And that's got to be worth £1m of anyone's money.

Cheap Tricks

It’s a brave man that accuses Bill Blunt of stooping to cheap tricks to boost his ailing blog readership. Not for me the shoddy inducements to people to drop by to my blog, enticed by a gimmick or the strategic placement of a label or two.

I had enough of that during the infamous Stockport Circulation War of the 1960’s, which saw two fine newspapers go to the wall, and the reputation of the Stockport Leader left in tatters after it introduced its widely-copied Page 9 girl. I was working for the rival Herald at the time, and our editor (Wally Green) was firm in his belief that, while readers might flock to see such lurid spectacles at first, a reputation for truth, honesty and good writing was what would make them come back for more.

It was a long, hot summer in 1965, and many were those who tried to persuade Wally to relax his Presbyterian stance as the Herald’s circulation plummeted. But he dug his heels in, even as the Stockport Leader began to overtake us for the first time since the 1890’s. His one concession to the masses was the ill-fated introduction of Where’s Wally? - a competition which involved readers trying to spot him as he wandered, incognito, around town. Once spotted, the idea was they would challenge him and then claim the munificent sum of £5.

The game didn’t last longer than a couple of weeks, however, since the local constabulary sternly advised us to draw a halt to it. A spate of fights in pubs and clubs across the town had drawn their attention to the Herald’s competition, and the received wisdom after the dust had settled was that it was a mistake to expect punters to point at total strangers while uttering the words ‘You’re Wally – Give Me A Fiver!’


So, you’ll gather I am no fan of cheap attempts to garner readers. That’s why I don’t want my dwindling band of subscribers to read too much into my featuring Olga The Travelling Bra in this posting. I believe Olga represents a genuine cultural phenomenon – an item of lingerie that has already traversed thousands of miles in its quest to … err … traverse the globe and appear in blogs.

Here’s Olga when she visited Liverpool yesterday, in the company of 70’sTeen and Claire, two fine bloggers who had brought Olga for her day out, much to the bemusement of visitors to the Albert Dock.

I like to think it isn’t the first time Billy Fury twirled a bra strap around his index finger, but you never can tell with these pop icons, in my experience. I'd hesitate to make the same comment about Cliff Richard, for instance.

As for the Super Lamb Banana, this was already a potent symbol of Liverpool before the powers that be behind the European Capital of Culture decided to clone it and site small-scale copies across the city and the wider environs of Merseyside. I think you'll agree, Olga looks like she was made to fit the Ringo Starr version of the new icon.

A Grand Day Out

The dawning of a new year on Merseyside brings, for a seasoned hack like myself, a veritable plethora of cultural opportunities. For, it is finally here: Liverpool is European Capital of Culture.

I know there have been some people (mainly Mancunians, it has to be said) who have tried to make light of this accolade, even suggesting that, when the wheels are stolen from your car in Liverpool this year, you’ll return to find it resting on four stacks of books, rather than bricks. I’m not one of those who revel in such cheap stereotypes, and I think there is more than the whiff of envy in comments like that.

Given Liverpool’s new status, it was easy for me to make a personal resolution that 2008 should be my own year of cultural development. With Mrs Blunt off the scene, I can finally allow myself to sample some of the artistic pleasures of the world - free of that carping voice in my ear saying “I don’t know what the fuss is all about – it looks like a load of triangles and circles to me” (the best she could make, apparently, of Kandinsky).

With a multitude of arts activities lined up, where better place to start than the Turner Prize exhibition at the Tate Gallery, in the Albert Docks, at the invitation of an old drinking friend of mine? Now that I’m resident in the Wirral, Liverpool is but a short ferry ride away, as any Gerry Marsden fan will tell you, so it seemed an attractive proposition.

Alas, fate – and the fact that, during the day, the morning and evening ‘commuter’ ferry service is curtailed in favour of a tourist route that adds an extra half hour to the trip – conspired against me. Add to that the potent mix of a bitingly cold (‘nithering’ is the word I am looking for) wind, and building works that interfered with the otherwise short walk from ferry terminal to the Tate and, well … my readers will understand why I was seduced by the charms of a warm and cosy bar, for a reviving shot of Bells. Circumstances may even have dictated that I had another. It all meant that I missed the Turner prize exhibition, and the company of my erstwhile drinking chum.

Consolation was is store for me, however. Forsaking the bollock-withering ferry, I made my return via the ‘fast and frequent’ (and decidedly warmer) electric train that runs under (rather than over) the Mersey. Still craving art, I headed for Birkenhead’s Williamson Gallery, best described as a provincial museum and art gallery – little knowing what delights were in store for me.

The Williamson is a treat – its permanent collection is worth a trip in itself, although heavily weighted towards C19th art and with a rather unsettling room of drab, weighty furniture that includes a huge, dark fireplace that would be better broken up and burnt – but Bill Blunt was never a fan of big fireplaces. Notwithstanding that, I discovered an exhibition by students from the Upton Hall Girls School.

Now, I’ve never pretended to know much about art, but only a brave man would accuse me of being uncultured. And I think I can recognise vivid and exciting art when I see it. These 17-18 year olds had produced an exhibition that set my soul on fire, making me hungry for more. I am sure there are those who would describe their work as derivative, but I’m not sure there are many youngsters who can work free of the influence of giants such as Hockney. There’s hope yet when our teenagers can produce work of such outstanding quality, and (for what it’s worth) my guess is it will stand head and shoulders over anything given the Turner prize. Here’s a sample.

Happy New Year!