Should we celebrate our city’s birthday annually?

Aug 28 2007 by David Bartlett, Liverpool Daily Post

Would rejoicing in Liverpool’s heritage yearly devalue its impact? David Bartlett reports

BIRTHDAYS – love them or hate them there is no getting away from them. Every year we all have a birthday, and while some of us try to shy away from the celebrations, others relish the day.

So today Liverpool is 800, a milestone to be proud of and celebrate and thousands of people have taken part in street parties to mark the event.

But there are others who have met the date with a large shrug of the shoulders.

As is usual with landmark dates they often spark a degree of introspection, and the bigger the supposed milestone (21, 30, 50) the larger the celebration, and sometimes the disappointment.

So now that Liverpool has celebrated its 800th birthday there are people won- dering whether it should be a regular fea- ture of the calendar. The last time there was anything like these type of celebrat- ions was the 750th birthday, so why wait another 50 years to mark the occasion?

An annual birthday would promote civic pride, encourage the community spirit that has been rediscovered through the recent street parties, supporters of the idea argue.

Forget Capital of Culture, an annual celebration would allow Liverpool to showcase all that is great about the city. But it would take something away from the specialness of celebrations, say those against the idea. The more something is celebrated the less important it becomes.

Like New Year it just becomes an excuse to simply over-indulge and people forget what they are actually celebrating, say the opponents to an annual knees-up.

So on this special day the Daily Post asks two of our favourite columnists, Larry Neild and Mike Chapple; Should Liverpool celebrate its birthday every year?

davidbartlett@dailypost.co.uk

YES: The Case For - Some constructive uses of a birthday holiday

by Mike Chapple, talking through rose-tinted beer glasses

OF COURSE we should have a day off on our birthday – and, if not, we should just throw a sickie anyway.

Only joking. But instead of just using it as an excuse for a day of wassailing around our magnificent waterfront here are 10 ways we could put our extra day’s holiday to constructive use:

* The executives of the Liverpool Culture Company will be kept on board, only so that while we’re off work they will be confined to barracks and ordered to write out “Must try harder” 10,000 times, while listening to a 24-hour tape loop of Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s version of Ferry Cross the Mersey.

* Organise vocational courses in Scouse grammar.

* Barricade The Strand with concrete blocks and traffic cones so that we can revel in the nostalgia of what it was REALLY like in our 800th birthday year. Visiting woolyback motorists disappointed at the annual cancellation of the Mathew Street Festival will be encouraged to bring picnics so that they can marvel at the Three Graces as they while away their time in the 10-mile traffic jam.

* Organise an annual Scallies parade down Dale Street with Prada trackies and Adidas Retro trainers as de rigeur to show how we’re still this country’s fashion front-runners. Leading the parade will be a host of WAGs dressed in the latest cheerleader frocks and carrying voluminous Cricket carrier bags.

* Hire a Liverpool birthday events co-ordinator, whose prime requisites should be that they are a non-Scouser preferably with experience at “organising things” in somewhere exotic.

* Organise free trains from Central Station to Southport – Merseyrail’s dodgy wheels permitting – so that the Scouse-proud can stand on the Pier for a mass singalong of In My Liverpool Home.

* Hold classes in traditional skills that have made us the envy of the world. Lessons will be given in how to emit an ear piercing whistle to attract the attention of even the doziest black cab driver, demonstrations of how to hold a proper p--- up in a brewery and a Mind The Ale competition.

* Offer an annual amnesty to all celebrity ex-Scousers who talk like Jamie Carragher when being interviewed by the likes of Parkie on screen but adopt the rounded vowels of Lord Snooty when giving orders to the binmen outside their mansions in Amersham, Bucks.

* Hold an annual candle-lit vigil of silent prayers before the false idols of the Yellow Submarine and Superlambanana in the hope that within the next century Edge Lane will once again be open to free flowing traffic

* And finally, set up an annual meeting of the 900th birthday sub committee so that maybe, just maybe, we’ll have something in place for 2107.

NO: The Case Against - City needs to age gracefully like a grand old lady

by Larry Neild, Liverpool's Victor Meldrew

CELEBRATE Liverpool’s birthday every year? Are they serious? Today’s birthday bash is the first one for 50 years and let’s face it, its organisation has not exactly been plain sailing.

It seems to be a Liverpool thing that family get-togethers, weddings, christenings, first communions and birthdays, often end up in brawls and tears. There are always scores to settle and that is best done by drunken relatives rolling around the floor throwing punches.

The work and effort involved in organising a big birthday is just not worth the likely rewards.

Add to that the disruption to business life and we should stash away our party glad rags for at least a century. It would take a legion of town hall pen-pushers to make the arrangements, issue the street closure orders, invite tenders for balloons and things by advertising in the European Journal.

Companies not wishing to partake in the celebrations would be regarded as mean skinflints, behaving like modern day Shylocks.

It would cause disharmony in the business quarter as midday revellers headed for the Exchange Bar, blowing raspberries at their rivals glued to their desks.

The interference with business life is already exacerbated by the large number of bank holidays firms are forced to acknowledge.

Shutting shop for a day in Liverpool would offer places like Manchester an ace card.

There is a much stronger case for cancelling the Sabbath than adding more chaos to our working calendars.

In any case, the Liverpool that was created in 1207 is nothing like the city that it has become today.

Indeed, large chunks of what is now Liverpool were not even bolted on until the late 1800s.

Liverpool needs to be like a grand old lady, ageing gracefully and keeping her age tactfully to herself.

I don’t like birthdays anyway. Anything that marks the journey towards the grave seems to me to be the most illogical cause for celebration.

I can see, perhaps, raising a wee dram on the eve of your birthday to mark the fact that you have survived the past year in one piece.

But singing Happy Birthday to Me as you add another notch to the coffin lid is, well, too melancholic for words.

Instead why not just celebrate being alive and kicking randomly, not on any specific date dictated by the forces of the greetings card and gift industries?

Happy Birthday, Liverpool.

But there’s no need to make a song and dance out of it.