Liverpool airport: Why? (CoD)

Well, you've got to call it something. I think it's Liverpool John Lennon rather than just John Lennon. As long as they don't pipe his solo records through the departure lounges.

Several times lately I've come very close to buying a Beatles CD, by the way. I think I will before I go on holiday.

But get one of the early, underrated ones. A Hard Days' Night and Beatles For Sale are good.

Bill

what was wrong with speke?

At this point in time, are there any 'underrated' Beatles albs?

What's wrong with Speke? It enables people to tell the awful joke which begins "How do you get a train to Speke?". I think the airport should be renamed Idlewild. Eversince Idlewild airport was renamed JFK (another much-vaunted individual whose dodginess came to light in subsequent years) the world has been crying out for an airport of this name...plus, it's a somewhat more contemporary RAWK appellation.

Yeah, and let's change Stansted to Feeder Airport while we're at it. Christ!

Best airports / rock crossover: "Luton Airport" by Cats UK.

Liverpool Walking Seeds International!

...trouble is, because of an advert about that time, lots of people think it's by Lorraine Chase. It nearly started a fight at a pub quiz once....

Well, it is by Lorraine Chase in that she does the singing and it was plainly created to be the record-of-the-advert-starring-L.Chase. But it's credited to Cats UK, yes.

Yeah, and let's change Stansted to Feeder Airport while we're at it. Christ!

Are Feeder from Essex then?

Gatwick = Anal Cunt already, no?

Luton Airport is very much substantially NOT rock'n'roll.

Back around the time of Give Up But Don't Give Away or whatever, Primal Scream were booked to appear on TOTP. They didn't turn up because they were in Ireland at the time, and their flight to the UK was booked through Luton Airport. They refused to get on the plane becuase "Luton Airport isnae rock'n'roll enough for us!"

I think Bobby G is the all time expert on what is and isn't rock'n'roll, so I'm with him.

i have never been to luton airport, but on hearing that gillespie doesn't like it, i think i may have a soft spot for that cute little airport...

Apparently Liverpool JL airport will now market itself with the strapline 'Above us only sky'.

Poor demented Scouse fools.

I wouldn't have thought it'd make their wretched records any better though, David. I'm sure there are horrendous pub bands all over the Dengie peninsula ...

*intense rant alert*

I had the same thought when I heard about this on the radio: it's so typical of the ennui of Liverpool, a city endlessly defining itself by its (admittedly comparatively recent past), a place as trapped by the heritage culture as the twee Tory Home Counties villages it likes to define itself by its social / political difference from. If I came from Liverpool, I'd be screaming for the city to move forward *in any way at all* in the way it promotes itself. Note also the tendency of certain music hacks to expect Liverpool bands to sound like the Beatles / 60s music in general and be rather patronisingly surprised when they don't.

OK, I've been ranting. But, really, I'm sure I'd hate the Beatles were I from Liverpool, as I hate anyone or anything that is used to enforce an outmoded, mythical idea of the place from which I come.

who else is famous, dead cultural canonised and liverpudlian? it's a mistake to view it in musical circles. air travel empasis the the Uk is pretty much gatwick/heathrow/luton, it's more a matter of advertising that tribute paying. and, you know, if they'r egoing to be paying tribute to anyone, lennon's probably better than the woremongers stuck on a plinth. excellent piece int he guardian a short while ago about scoucers and murdered toddlers, i think. but by extension of my point earlier id ont htink this is a souse matter, it's a crap ad excec matter. (i'm by no means anti advertisers. some of them are remarably creative.)

I have to agree with you Robin. I'm from Merseyside (just a ferry 'cross the Mersey away from the fair city of Liverpool itself) but I've worked in Liverpool for years and the ideologies and theories spouted by the bulk of the Scouse public amount to nothing more than hackneyed phrases, and serve to demean and perpetuate the stereotypes that they profess to dislike so much (think Harry Enfield's 'Scousers'). The music scene is much like this life view, harking back to halcyon days (when Liverpool could still be considered a thriving port and bustling city) and trying desperately to love the Lightening Seeds, Cast and Smaller.

Although this may seem a bit harsh, it's really quite charitable on my part.

As for the bloody airport, that is absolutely typical of the 'auld head' scousers who "fuckin' love the Beatles, like. Great tunes, not like this friggin' rubbish nowadays...la." Not that I hate the Beatles, just that I appreciate them for their music, not their geographical location.

Bloody scousers.

Hmmm: Scousers = the New Welsh, ie liberal media post-pc scapegoats? Cf: Charlotte Raven's mentalist attack on the city in the Guardian last week. Considering the city produced 1) the most adventurous pop group in history 2) the most successful British football team in history 3) a handful of the greatest dramatists and actors of the last 40 years 4) a 1980s council that actually stood up and said 'You know this Thatcher woman has some peculiar ideas' - I think that, you know, it has something to crow about. (Actually, hidden sub-text of scouse-bashing: Liverpool is the most Irish city in England, therefore ripe for lots of cultural stereotyping without the worry of ethnic slurring).

Derek Hatt*n = MI6 pro-Thatcherite plant

I find myself agreeing with Add.

The letter in the Guardian today suggesting that Liverpudlians tend to have what could be described as an "ethnic regionalist" idea of their city, rather than a "civic regionalist", has a point. Of course many Liverpudlians *don't*, but I suspect it's a higher proportion than in London, Manchester or Birmingham.

Stevie, I don't think it's anti-Irish. I think it's the tendencies Add points out, and I applaud anyone from Liverpool who avoids them.

Robin, can you explain ethnic and civic regionalism, please? Not being funny, I'm just not sure what you mean.

I used to visit Merseyside rather a lot and my experience of the town and its inhabitants was always at great variance to the things I'd see on the telly or hear on the radio about it / them.

And Stevie, I know the Hellfire Sermons were fabulous, but calling them the most adventurous pop group in history would be going a bit far, even by my standards.

Everything Stevie said.

It's the Celticness, the Irishness of Liverpool that makes it a unique English city in the ways outlined above by Mr T and also the reason why it is so easily reviled, caricatured and stereotyped by the rest of said nation.

I'm sorry guys but I have to disagree. I can't see that the caricatures and stereotypes heaped upon scousers has come purely from some pent-up frustration to hurl abuse at the 'Oirish', but feeling too politically correct to do so.

As with all regions, there are many people who are absolutely typical of the area, and others who don't buy into all the regioanl patriotism and do their own thing. Those typical of the area just perpetuate the stereotype and then moan about it in a stereotypical way....like...duh!!

i must side with robin and add over this. it has certainly never occurred to me that scouse stereotyping is repressed anti-irish feeling. WHAT THE FUCK? everybody loves ireland these days don't they? and what about irish population in glasgow, manchester.

i have been to liverpool a number of times, and i have noticed the sentiments pointed out by add, i was like "enough already" as soon as i got there each time. didn't get this in any other city i've been to

Tim H:

"civic nationalism / regionalism" - nationalism or regionalism based around living in a place and liking it. No "official culture" or prejudice against incomers involved.

"ethnic nationalism / regionalism" - nationalism or regionalism based around a set, static, unchangeable idea of what it is to be from Liverpool (or Cornwall, or east London, or Norfolk, or wherever) which could usually include only one racial group and often only one set of values and interests and aspirations. Put simply: Peter Hitchens's "The Abolition of Britain" = ethnic nationalist, Andrew Marr's "The Day Britain Died" = civic nationalist.

The above thread seems to have developed from a discussion about Liverpool's Airports name to a general one about Liverpool. Well, this is what I think.

The first point to make is that the reason that Liverpool Airport is being renamed Liverpool John Lennon Airport has very little to do with whatever the city of Liverpool or Scousers are like. The non- Liverpool-based company that owns the airport chose the name for marketing reasons. Most people in Liverpool, like this Merseysider, think the name change is a little tacky. A poll on the local newspaper's Web site showed a majority against the change. However, the company thinks that the name change will help attract airlines to use the airport and give a boost to tourism. If this helps the economy of the area and creates jobs then so be it.

The Beatles industry in Liverpool can be a little tiresome but tourist attractions world-wide tend to be tasteless. The tourist areas of London are tacky and hark back to a non-existant past just as much as Mathew Street in Liverpool does. The same goes for many other areas in the world.

The fact that the tourist attractions in Liverpool are Beatles-based tells you nothing about the present day culture of Liverpool. The Beatles are just the most obvious selling point for promoting the city to overseas visitors. Liverpool HAS moved on and did so many years ago. Even by the seventies Liverpool was well known for its post-punk music scene (Bunnymen, Teardrop Explodes, etc.). The last ten years Liverpool has been notable for having on of the world's most famous dance clubs and its bar scene, which is one of the best in the UK.

Judging from the description above of the difference between and "ethnic" and "civic" identity, Liverpool's identity is most certainly of the civic kind. People in Liverpool tend to be proud of the city's architecture, its nightlife, the writers and musicians that have come from the place. Judging the city by these sorts of criteria (the usual ones by which you judge a city) it comes out rather well and its citizens have as good reasons to be proud of their city as those of any city. The fact that Liverpool has a stronger local identity than a lot of other towns or cities is not something to be critised. In an increasingly homogenous world you can argue that some kind of variation between places is a good thing. And this local pride and identification towards their city that some Liverpudlians have does not necessarily equate to a hostility to outsiders. Historically the reason why Liverpool is distinctive is because it was formed by people from many places from around the British Isles and elsewhere not because it was a backwater, on the contary it was a result of Liverpool being on the biggest ports in the world for a long time.

There will be some backwards locals in Liverpool who don't like outsiders but you get them in places all over. In my experience it tends to be the smaller towns which tend to be most dangerous to people who aren't from the area, not relatively large cities like Liverpool. Anecdotal evidence from students at the city seems to indictate that the city is actually MORE welcoming to outsiders than even those cities of around the same size as Liverpool, e.g., Leeds, Newcastle and Manchester, all of which have worse town-gown relations than Liverpool. I have lived down south for many years now and have lost my accent to such a degree that Londoners and Liverpudlians both think I'm a Londoner. However, I have experienced no hostility in Liverpool to my now-southern accent and I visit frequently. This is a personal impression but it is backed up by what many non-Merseysiders who have lived in Liverpool as students or whatever have told me.

There is a problem with some (but not all) outsiders' perceptions of the area however. This is the interesting factor in all this. Why have some people, most of whom know little or nothing about the place, have a negative view of it. This is where perhaps the "ethnic" factor comes in. Charlotte Raven's article in the Guardian was critised for being "racist" by some of the newspaper's readers. The fact that you cannot talk about a Liverpool "race" does not really answer these critisms. The point was that the sorts of sentiments that Charlotte Raven was expressing were similar in nature to the type of stereotyping that racists use, but just happened directed that "every" native of a city rather than every member of a race. The fact that the the inhabitants of Liverpool actually are a little different racially to most of the rest of England due to its history as a port makes the prejudice that some people have about the city, even more worrying and probably does explain at least some of it. If you don't believe this read "The Football Factory" by John King when one of the rabidly anti-Scouse and racist football fans in the book explains his hatred for Liverpool in terms of it having too much Irish blood. Nasty stuff. Also, in my experience the sort of people who have a prejudice against Liverpool and Scousers tend to be the same people who are prejudiced against other groups, regional or racial.

My view of where this prejudice mainly comes from is more mundane. During the eighties, Liverpool experienced economic, political and social problems. Also, during this period it received and appallingly negative press in (mostly) the Tory press. The short period when the, admittedly, dodgy Hatton-led Militant Council ran the city coincided with a massive attack on the city from the right-wing press. Add to this the riots in Toxteth and the city had become saddled with a negative image. The fact that Liverpudlians are distinctive in their accent and demeanour just made it easier for people to latch their prejudices onto the area.

The press the area gets is now not so bad and the reality of the place is that it is picking up economically too.

Another point made in a previous posting is that in these post PC times scousers are the new Welsh. The point being made here is that, rightly, you cannot get easily get away with writing prejudiced articles about black people, gay people, or other "protected" minorities. However, there is a innate tendency for people to attack some form of vulnerable but distinctive group. Scousers for a while have been one of the alternative targets. Less seriously, ginger people have took some stick lately and more worryingly asylum seekers have been getting it in the neck from the likes of the Daily Mail.

As I wrote above, Liverpool is now bouncing back in economic terms, it's got one of the lowest crime rates of any big city and it is making use of its great cultural heritage. I always thought it strange that a city with so much going for it in terms of its architecture, culture, nightlife and the friendliness of the people was one of the places that took most flack from the media. But I think that as its economy improves and its people become more prosperous it won't be Scousers who are singled out for prejudiced attacks, it will be some other poor buggers who an a vulnerable state.