Fit for a hero

Aug 19 2008 Mr Brocklebank

WHEN His Grace, the Duke of Westminster, motors through Abercromby Square past Tom Murphy’s magnificent new Noel Chavasse sculpture to view his Liverpool One investment, will he reconsider Grosvenor’s arrogant dismissal of this work?

Apparently it was rejected as "too traditional" for the Liverpool One shopping precinct, which encompasses Chavasse Park.

Could it be because Murphy’s dynamic creation was not some modernistic and meaningless abstract junk, that this overrode the more crucial fact that the sculpture commemorates the heroic First World War Liverpool doctor and Britain’s only double- VC holder?

This realistic representation of Chavasse’s courage and death in action will undoubtedly touch countless people – but not in the Liverpool One park that bears his name.

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WHEN Mr Brocklebank learned of Liverpool City Council’s purchase of 10 suits of body armour, he was vexed to find they were not for the much-needed necessary protection of the "Dear Leader" and his executive cabinet in the hostile municipal environs.

However, on considering this health and safety oversight, these would be a worthless council tax- payers’ expense, as surely the cabinet need not front, but back armour protection?

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MR BROCKLEBANK salutes the success of the 1903-built Kalka- Shimla Railway Line in gaining World Heritage Site status. Himachal Pradesh tourism development boss Ram Subhag Singh says: "The newly-acquired heritage site status will attract tourists from abroad in large numbers. With proper exploitation, this place will become a major global tourist hub."

With dark forces in Liverpool lobbying to dump our hard-won WHS status and the city’s repeated aggravation of Unesco’s WHS guidelines through crass redevelopment, would it not be worthwhile for Liverpool’s great and good to visit this isolated Indian highland area to learn from its tourism experts on how best to work with this supreme accolade and not against it?

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WHILE Wirral bemoans Cheshire Constabulary plans to close local police stations, imagine Mr Brocklebank’s surprise when wanting to visit a Liverpool city centre so-called Cop Shop to find that Merseyside Police’s website still lists Church Street, which disappeared two years ago.

Time for Chief Constable Hogan- Howe to mount Dobbin and alert the Bold Street Runners. Surely even members of Liverpool’s light-fingered classes cannot hide an entire police station?

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LATEST rail departure: the mysterious saga of the blue loos of Hillside railway station took an unexpected Tardis-like turn when, after landscaping the site, which possibly ran into several pounds, the cubicles suddenly disappeared. As they appeared for the golf, this is clearly an Open and shut case. Curiouser and curiouser, as Alice in Litherland says.