Memories of Yentl

Jul 17 2007 by Mr Brocklebank, Liverpool Daily Post

WHEN an audience member called out at songbird Barbra Streisand’s Manchester concert, she wanted to know what accent he had.

Told the person was from Liverpool, she waxed lyrical over filming Yentl in Liverpool, aboard SS Manxman, and responded with a dodgy Scouse imitation. A photographer tells Mr Brocklebank that there was an astonishing array of tabloid newspaper photographers attending the show.

When asked why, they replied: “We’re here in case Coleen (McLoughlin) and her mum come.” Memo to Babs: next time save yourself the decades of stress, strain and personal sacrifices of becoming the world’s best-selling chanteuse – and just find a very rich footballer instead.

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THE twittering classes were out in force at the latest Summer Pops in the new Aintree equestrian centre. Assorted bimbo banshees, trackie-bottomed boneheads and troglodytes were spoiling it for others by chirruping their way through concerts on mobile phones or wittering mindless nonsense to the adjacent intoxic- ated half-wit. At £40 a ticket, why spend an entire show ignoring the performers? Or have they not paid and so do not give a flying V? (That is a guitar by the way.)

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CAN Liverpool John Lennon Airport really cope with European Capital of Culture status? Not only was security at the General Aviat- ion compound found gaping open (literally) by one of our reporters recently, but while held up at the terminal waiting for a severely delayed flight, Mr Brocklebank found that three out of four public telephones were not working (signage for these telephones and the toilets was also very poor).

The delayed passengers were told food vouchers would be available at the passenger services desk – except there was not one in departures, as confused travellers eventually discovered.

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OUR dear leader Cllr Warren Bradley and Liverpool chief executive Colin Hilton returned from their civic visit to Liverpool’s twin city Shanghai, vowing that every Liverpool youngster will be taught (some) Mandarin Chinese. Should he not start by teaching local children to speak the Queen’s English first? Seriously, though, will Colin’s mum be tutored so she can address the last Emperor or whoever, in their native tongue, at her next Royal luncheon date?

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AS MR BROCKLEBANK attended the final rites of Herbert Rowse’s celebrated Voss Motors Building, on Mann Island, demolished to mark Liverpool’s 800th anniversary in our own deeply personal way, he realised how large the property’s vehicle exhibition spaces were.

Suddenly, he felt all fuzzy, having not communicated to Dr David Fleming, National Museums Liverpool mugwump, just how ideally suited these ready-made halls would have been to display publicly the hundreds of ship models condemned to indefinite storage. Oh no! Too late, too late!