Don’t tell tall tales

Jul 15 2008 by Mr Brocklebank, Liverpool Daily Post

Don’t tell tall tales

AFTER suddenly instructing the Royal Navy last week that its warships could not open to the public during the Tall Ships’ Races, due to health and safety issues on Seament Jetty, Liverpool docks owner Peel Ports relented and will allow public access to destroyer HMS Argyll.

When questioned, a Peel Ports’ Mersey Docks representative denied its plans had changed and that the three warships were always going to be off-limits in Huskisson Dock. How odd, then, that, at the Town Hall public quarterly Tall Ships briefings, there was nary a peep out of Peel’s representatives when it was regularly stated that the warships would be open to the public.

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WHEN new Liverpool John Moores University chancellor, astronomer and rock musician Brian May, mentioned en passant that his wife, the actress Anita Dobson, would be starring in Hello Dolly! at the Empire Theatre, he would doubtless have been heartwarmed to hear a party of JMU senior management, led by vice chancellor Dr Michael Brown, no less, attended a performance. Was this an official all-expenses trip for serious research into the American musical, or to show solidarity among the JMU academic family?

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WHEN Mr Brocklebank’s brough- am edges along Edge Lane, he feels a desperate deja vu from the 1960s as 900 perfectly sound Victorian houses face imminent demolition. Will their replacements last 140 years or more? Hardly likely. How come, with young people unable to afford starter homes and the Government pleading for an extra 3m houses, such stupidity is unleashed?

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THE chairman of Liverpool’s planning committee Cllr Dave Irving was troubled at last week’s committee meeting by a few contentious applications. “These takeaways are a hot potato,” uttered the chairman. Was that a pun, or should that be a pan? Presumably as in a Scouse pun, or pan of Scouse.

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LIVERPOOL’S much-photographed Wall of Fame is suffering from a slipped disc. One of the brass CDs from the Mathew Street attraction – each represents a number one hit – is missing. Should not the cultural paramedics race around (in record time, naturally) to the Cavern Quarter?

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MR BROCKLEBANK has the fondest memories of accompanying Prof Tony Bradshaw, the eminent botanist, around St James’ Gardens, beneath Liverpool Cathedral. As he lovingly sniffed the wild flowers in his fedora, Prof Bradshaw epitomised that celebrated, but deeply endangered species, the English eccentric.

Now Lord Mayor Rotheram has made him Liverpool’s first Citizen of Honour. Prof Bradshaw, a splendid example of humanity and learning, is not so robust as on that happy day in the gardens, and Mr Brocklebank’s thoughts are with him.