News that Bradford’s National Media Museum, one of the remaining jewels in it’s tattered crown, is under the threat of closure should alarm anybody that lives here. The museum has suffered from a halving of visitor numbers over the last decade from a peak of one million and is now one of a group of three commonly controlled museums under the threat of closure. However, given that the others are the National Railway Museum in York and the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester, Bradford looks the poor relation in comparison as both rival cities have far more to attract the casual visitor.
Scouring through various articles I could find no mention of the cash hole that the managing group is seeking to save so it is hard to understand the scale of the problem, but if this were to close it would be a devastating blow to the city. To the right the Central Library is falling down and to the left the former Odeon cinema remains barren with an as yet undetermined future. When will the elected residents in City Hall wake up and realise that the city is on the precipice with no sign of a shovel on the Westfield retail site, the Odeon’s future in the balance and little other positive news around the city?
It may require both political and business leaders to do something within their remit to save this especially as it is claimed that it brings in some £30m of income to the city. One should, however, be wary of such figures especially given that part of the economic justification for the pond in front of City Hall, was that it would attract an extra 6,000 visitors a day to the city. Maybe they were double counting the asylum seekers? Simply put, there are very few reasons to visit Bradford city centre – I cannot remember the last time I shopped there – so to lose one of its few genuine attractions would be madness.
In this commercial world, perhaps a combination of sponsorship and a return to paid entry – albeit a nominal figure – would generate some shortfall funding based on a visitor count of half a million – why should it be free to enter? Well, New Labour reintroduced free admission to museums back in 2001 but then again they gave away everything else as well. In these austere times few should expect something for nothing unless, of course you are an MP. This just does not stack up and paying a few quid to visit this marvellous attraction should hardly deter people with a real interest, unless the majority of visitors are just keeping warm.
More worrying is that in recent decades the nation has become increasingly London centric and a strong point was made in one article in that we all pay taxes to contribute to national museums; clearly, London does not have a divine right to house all the nations visitor attractions. If Bradford closed though the collection would doubtless end up back in the capital which at least would please the local Arabs and Russians, even if they probably don’t pay their taxes. It is right that the arts should cut their cloth accordingly but the sums here will doubtless be modest in the bigger picture especially as the BBC has just blown £100m on its digital disaster. The outcome for Bradford could though be quite devastating.
Who Wants To Live Forever?
We Brits love a survey and we get bombarded with all sorts of useless information, little of which is designed to put a spring in your step as you wake to face another day. This week’s groundbreaking news was that if you lived in Liverpool and Manchester then your chances of living till 100 are rated pretty slim. Apparently, using a broadbrush approach, Northeners, led admirably by the Scousers and the Mancs, eat, drink, smoke and party far too much when compared with the Home Counties set. Strangely there was little mention of the Geordies meaning there will surely be a mass outbreak of partying on the Quay side in an attempt to get the deserved recognition.
Another survey some months ago suggested that the same Mancs and Scousers were amongst the most personally indebted via their credit cards, but why would you wish to live forever if you lived in Salford? Come to think of it, the only reason they live longer in the Home Counties is that terminal boredom creeps in around 40 and people are actually in a semi-catatonic state from thereon. Nobody actually knows if you are dead or not.
Perhaps its simply that up here you don’t need to earn a King’s ransom simply to pay the mortgage. We are constantly told about the great North-South divide but the reality is life can be pretty good in the North and not all of us need a crate of Carling a day to realise that. And many of us do have a wider appreciation of life…so don’t go shutting our museums!
Champagne Mouth, Lemonade Pocket
A few months ago I commented on my favourite loony rant mag, the Daily Mail, regarding a story by their award winning chief sports writer, Martin Samuels. The piece bore an uncanny resemblance to something I had written regarding the nonsense of the much promised Olympic legacy; quite clearly Samuels is a closet Idlelord reader. As is their correspondent, Claudia, who “penned” a piece on the delights of Aldi now to be found in the Home Counties too, much to her obvious surprise.
Claudia, a Waitrose customer of course, managed to subdue her innate snobbery and visit the local Aldi in Walton-on-Thames, presumably in a radioactive suit the way she described the customers and the building. She confessed that, although she lives alone, her weekly shop is around £90 which suggests Waitrose rely on stupid customers because for £90, you would need a skip as a shopping trolley in Aldi.
Fear not though because, after performing her sterling research, Claudia’s key conclusion re Aldi was that you can get pissed as a fart for next to nothing. The place was apparently full of gin soaked old dears, fresh from the golf course, raving about the own brand offering and rushing home to decant it into the empty Gordons bottle at home.Claudia, you are indeed, a true Scouser at heart.
The Curse of the Trundler
Without a doubt the thing most league cricketers fear above all else is the bowler known as the trundler. We fear this guy much more than the muscle bound psycho who has the ability to break your bones into small pieces with that red 5 1/2 ounce bullet. Most teams have a trundler, delivering a ball that seems to suspend itself in mid-flight as your mind scrambles around deciding whether to leave it, block it or try to smash it out of the ground.
Surely, any self-respecting batter should not succumb to the sort of bowling Sir Geoffrey Boycott would describe as “slower than me mum would bowl”. And yet we do, on a weekly basis and trudge back to the dressing rooms preying the old fart in question really is retiring at the end of the season…or much worse.
This year we have two to contend with at the Villas; there’s Baxy of Knaresborough, a mid-sixties dead ringer for Harold Shipman and just as deadly with the new ball as Harold was with the old dears. Spindly body, dark glasses and a grey, wispy beard old Harold is every umpires best mate and we all shudder when we see him hobbling across the ground, complete with enlarged doctor’s bag, arm wrapped around an umpire.
Then we have Scotty at Tong Park Esholt, a youngster by comparison but without one good leg to stand on let alone run in and bowl, yet still knocking us over for fun. So this year we have decided to retaliate with one of our own – the embryonic by comparison Shutty who, now in his early forties, has become an all-rounder. Working on the basis that the longer the ball is in flight the average batsman has more time to decide on a variety of crap shots, Shutty is now our secret weapon.
Any thoughts that he might hang the boots up are now a distant memory especially as Shutty, Scotty and dear old Harold have the ultimate to look up to now in 79 year old Cecil Wright, still racking up the wickets for Uppermill in the Oldham League. I would rather chew sawdust than test my batting against Cecil!
The Dancing Queen Is Back
There was a fascinating documentary this week, the subject of which was the woman I spent most of my adolescence dreaming about. From the minute she tottered onto the Eurovision stage in those ridiculous boots and belted out “Waterloo”, Agnetha Faltskop, the blonde one in Abba, had my undivided attention. The songs were great too and stand the test of time like few others; Abba were simply something else but like most good things it seemed over far too quickly.
Since then the world media has been obsessed by Agnetha as she sought to withdraw from the limelight and bring up her kids away from the glare of publicity. Now she is back with an album well into her sixties but the voice is still magic. If I had to nominate my Desert Island discs “The Winner Takes It All” is a shoo-in. Believe me Agnetha, I felt your pain; aged 17 I would have dropped my A levels in a flash to come get you through it all. Don’t worry if you cost me a few grades, unable to sleep for worrying about you, the place at oxford a distant dream. The memories still radiate of that jetty, the red jump suit, the pained, drawn look but the magnificent, dignified beauty! Nurse!!!
Crooked Planet?
As a subscriber, fortnightly I read and weep at Private Eye’s disclosures of crooked politicians and business people alike…keep up the good work, as is often the mantra. There is a long running saga unfolding which makes disturbing reading for any pensioners out there that worked for the former textile business Jeromes in nearby Shipley. This was a small listed company that manufactured cloth for mens and ladieswear, was a customer of mine for a while, and eventually went tits up as did most of the industry.
It was taken over by the Worthington Group and, to cut a long story short, it is alleged that the trustees of the Jerome pension funded subsequently parted with £2.9m to assist the purchase of Rangers FC in 2011. I cannot say anymore than this at the moment as I don’t have an army of laywers to protect me but how can it be that – allegedly – pensioners can be robbed of their hard earned to fund the purchase, clearly dubious, of a football club? Grab a copy and follow the story ahead of the scheduled trial in October. And each time Cameron says he is going to get tough on crime try not to laugh too hard.
The Medium Chill
Many of you know my chosen lifestyle these days and this week I read that it can be described as “a defence of leisure and pleasure and meaningful interactions with people as legitimate life aspirations”. People either dropping out completely from the rat race or taking a break now aspire to the “medium chill”…me…I know I am just tossing it off!
Siesta time!
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