Phil Redmond: The colour purple

Dec 7 2007 by Phil Redmond, Liverpool Daily Post

PURPLE. Is this the colour of the moment? Perhaps because it is one of the main colours in the 2008 dressing the city initiative, now starting to appear around Liverpool.

At the recent Radio City Local Heroes Awards, the stage was washed in purple, as was the opening of the Royal Variety Performance at the Empire. I’m sure it was part of the Turner Prize at the Tate. Perhaps it’s culture’s new black, or perhaps just my eyes.

Purple does, however, enliven the streets of the city on a regular basis, albeit not as often as some would like, in the form and shape of wheelie bins.

Perhaps regular exposure has imbued a sense of purpleness within us all which, perhaps, also links to the fact that the city is still estimated to house 30% of all UK Catholics, who associate the colour with penitence, mourning and suffering.

As it is not just the colour of wheelie bins, but the city council itself, there are some who may suggest an obvious political link. On the other hand, the dye used to originally create purple, Tyrian, was made from crushing the shells of the Mediterranean mollusc Murex and was worth more than its weight in gold, taking ten thousand Murex to provide enough dye for just one Roman toga!

Therefore, it soon became associated with wealth and power, so perhaps any council connotations end there.

Then again, councils are notorious for turning people purple; with rage, as Knowsley’s potential plan to spend around £32m on CCTV lamp-posts may be a case in point.

To be fair to Knowsley, described on the CTTV Core website (yes, there is such a thing) as a district of Liverpool (which in itself is an interesting point for both Evertonians and the Open Culture Scouse Map project) it has only been invited to bid for funding from the latest Government Big Brother scheme.

This particular erosion of privacy involves replacing around 14,000 lamp-posts in Knowsley with new ones that would, wait for it, incorporate not only CCTV but an audio system that would allow operators in a central control room to give people a public ticking-off for any anti-social behaviour.

At the risk of slipping into purple prose, spying lamp-posts begs the question: exactly where the anti-social behaviour is taking place? And, how many operators will be needed to monitor 14,000 lamp-posts, at what cost, and how else could that money be better spent? Answers on dental appointment cards, if you can find one.

And, like everything these days, the colour purple has its own website, www.purple.com.

It’s a great cultural site for 2008 as, like the Turner Prize, it is designed to provoke thought and comment. Because it’s just that. Purple.