MR BROCKLEBANK was fretful that a Sunday Times report about council hospitality spending at the premier property convention, MIPIM, on the French Riviera, focused on high-spending Nottingham nabobs’ £20,000 to hire a five-cabin motor yacht.
Luckily, news about this East Midlands so-called city upstart was merely a taster to reveal that Liverpool City Council and Merseyside quango mugwumps spent £150,000 on the much larger, sassier yacht, Sunliner X, and for sending hard-working staff to Cannes.
The ST obtained these facts through Freedom of Information Act requests. What was not revealed via the act or anything else is what our council actually gains for its citizens by attending this junket, apart from networking with their buddies in de luxe surroundings.
***
TALKING of which, at Liverpool City Council’s executive meeting, Cllr Paula Keaveney revealed that Freedom of Information Act requests concerning the council were up 50%, compared to the national average of a 11% rise. Mr Brocklebank muses on whether more of our citizens are boldly casting the torch-light of truth into the city council, or is there a deeper problem of trust here?
***
HOW reassuring to see that the new canal link across the Pier Head is now filling not with excited visitors aboard a flotilla of narrowboats, but old crisp wrappers, bin-liners, and plastic bags, plus assorted detritus from the surrounding building works.
This is a welcome start to replace Liverpool’s peerless heritage collection of traffic cones and shopping trolleys, lost when the floating roadway was restored. But where are the cones and trolleys? Are they now in deep storage at NML’s secret Bootle warehouse site, alongside the Maritime Museum’s world-renowned ship model collection?
***
WATCHING enthusiastic Oriental tourists having their photographs taken alongside Mathew Street’s John Lennon statue, Mr Brocklebank ponders if this is not Liverpool’s most popular statue? – besides being one of its worst.
Sadly, no such international camera-touting crowds flock to the artistically superior Plateau statues of Disraeli or even Sudan hero Maj-Gen Earle.
Given the success of Lennon leanin’ on the Wall of Fame, why not replicate the remaining Fab Four around the quarter, with especial strengthening of Ringo’s neck to avoid the decapitation his topiary likeness suffered at Liverpool South Parkway.
***
NOT only is Ringo’s appearance in the Norwich Union – Aviva TV advert doubtless a nice little earner for this grumpy old pensioner, but will probably create far more positive publicity for himself than he drummed up in Liverpool while launching Capital of Culture.
