Calm in a war zone

Aug 13 2007 by Larry Neild, Liverpool Daily Post

IT’S been a hard, long – and that’s very long – week, a bit like working as a war correspondent. What with the Battle for Kirkby and the Mathew Street Massacre. So I thought I would write this week about something pleasant, calming and joyful.

I mean, it has all been said about the festival and it’s been saved. Sort of. Maybe they should call it the Not-The-Mathew-Street-Festival, given that the music will beam out of bars and clubs in every part of the city centre, with the famous street playing a minor part in the festivities.

No other city in the world has ever staged a street festival so you have got to expect problems. Forget the Notting Hill Carnival and big streets gigs around the world. They don’t count.

I think we should go back to basics and work upwards by starting with a modest village fair. We can all throng in Dale Street and watch the town clerk and his men have fun competing in the sack race.

The aldermen and councillors can bid for glory in the egg-and-spoon race, and imagine what a hoot it will be watching the quango-people play musical chairs. Play our cards right and be patient, and by 2207 we can celebrate our 1,000th birthday by sipping home-made dandelion and burdock (watered down, mind – can’t be too careful). The Sally Army band may be able to play Abide With Me – in Mathew Street, of course.

Of course, the constabulary may have different ideas about letting us have some fun. By then, they may have relaxed the 7pm curfew imposed on all citizens over and above the age of one day old.

As if that hasn’t been bad enough, the Everton Army has been giving me earache just because I mentioned that their hopes of bagging a site in the city may face a hiccup or two. May I say to JoeB, yes, you are correct. I am little, though the marital state of my parents on the day of my birth has never presented a problem to me, so don’t fret.

I fear that in Liverpool the risk of getting something right will make us all ill, a sort of infectious communal merrimentitis, that will split our sides with laughter. The Royal won’t be able to cope with the outbreak.

Luckily, we are safe from an epidemic, thanks to the almost guaranteed ability of the city of Liverpool to make a pig’s ear of almost everything. Now, where was I? Oh, yes – something pleasant, calming and joyful. I was waiting for the sun to come up yesterday and it suddenly dawned on me. We are meant, as a city, to get things wrong, day-in, day out.

We love to get loads of publicity by going against the grain.

When you think about it, it is what makes us so pleasant, happy and joyful. Now I can’t wait for the Not the Mathew Street Festival, and those quiet, silent thoroughfares around the Cavern Court.