Mr Brocklebank: Missed opportunity

Apr 22 2008 by Mr Brocklebank, Liverpool Daily Post

WHAT a missed opportunity not to action the idea of putting the four Beatles on each side of Lime Street’s Concourse House empty tower block, which would have become Liverpool’s most photographed object.

Firstly, it displayed the ‘08 paraphernalia and now it sports a Nokia advert. Who in their right mind will take a picture of that back home?

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SO MANY disappointed people savaged the Blue Coat Arts Centre new visitors’ book after its £12m revamp, that it resembled more a book of condolences. Curiously, this has disappeared and been replaced by a prim comment form.

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PERHAPS bracing himself for the deeply bitter copyright battle with 3XN architects which he sacked from his monumental £68m cross-yer-’eart bra Museum of Liverpool, Dr David Fleming, National Museums Liverpool top banana, came over all fuzzy, feeling need of some TLC at the Walker’s Art in the Age of Steam exhibition opening.

“In the museum world, I’m well-known and people say I need no introduction, but it’s nice to hear one,” he pleaded. So let’s put aside the new Pier Head museum fiasco, Manchester Dock gates, losing Loyd Grossman, shipping out the Maritime Museum’s ship models and instead find a few kind words about Dr F. After all, he’s only human. Isn’t he?

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AT IT again: Masai Warriors in the London Marathon were warned against lifting jewellery they fancied off owners which prompted Jack Dee, chairman of humorous TV quiz Have I Got News For You, to explain they had to be told about what is acceptable British behaviour “except in Liverpool, of course”.

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IN SPITE of English Heritage’s tattered reputation in Liverpool, it saw fit to officially complain about adverse publicity in satirical magazine Private Eye after criticism about endorsing various controversial developments here.

Now Liverpool Council has also gone whining to Private Eye about the magazine’s robust reporting. Alternatively, why don’t these bodies just do it right, removing grounds for national press ridicule?

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CURSE of Brocklebank boomerangs back: after his success in having a giant beer hoarding removed from the Port of Liverpool Building, imagine Mr Brocklebank’s surprise on seeing an even bigger advert for flats flapping on the side of Grosvenor’s Liverpool One Park “Gone” West.

It makes the Adelphi Hotel’s meal-deal banners look like the height of good taste. Fact: this hoarding seriously contravenes planning restrictions protecting the Unesco World Heritage Site buffer zone.

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A MINUTE’S silence please for the late Gwyneth Dunwoody, Crewe’s battleaxe Labour MP and among our last free-thinking Parliamentarians, whose powers of scrutiny on behalf of voters was unsurpassed.