Category Archives: Events And Notable Dates
2012 London Olympics: An Opportunity For Liverpool?
Already, some people in Liverpool believe the 2012 Olympics will be ‘bad’ for Merseyside. Having already won the accolade of 2008 European Capital of Culture, – and bearing in mind also the City’s 800th Anniversary in 2007 – surely we in Liverpool are actually very well placed to benefit greatly from the 2012 Olympics, if we start to plan now? The glass is decidedly half full, not half empty. The next challenge for Liverpool is to recognise this and act on it.
The news on Merseyside today is that a survey shows more local business people think the 2012 Olympics will be bad for the Liverpool area than good for it.
They argue that benefit will probably be directly in relation to proximity to London; and indeed that finance for the Olympics will take any available monies, leaving not much for the rest of us.
This is a particularly puzzling view in Merseyside, where we are about to benefit from our 800th Anniversary in 2007, and then the 2008 European Capital of Culture – events brim-full of business opportunities and visitors, alongside the city’s current enthusiasm for regeneration.
Call me naive, but I see here a chance to build on whatever success we in Liverpool can make of our 2007 / 2008 events. The city’s leaders have consistently said they want the celebrations and developments kicked-started by the 2008 Culture Year (and the city’s 2007 800th Anniversary celebrations) to continue longer term, with a programme which has horizons well beyond those dates.
These forthcoming events are surely the way to make sure we’re on the ball for the Olympics, a position which is unique to Liverpool in the UK . By 2012 we will have put in place all the infrastructure and tourism facilities you could possibly wish for, and we will have learned a lot during our 2007/8 years in the limelight.
It’s up to all of us outside the capital to make sure that our Olympics ‘offer’ for 2012 is up to scratch. I don’t want to ask people now if they are worried about 2012. I’d prefer to ask how, already, they are engaging their imaginations to make 2012 a year when the whole country makes the most of chances to work together to show what we can do.
This is definitely one scenario where the glass is not half empty, but already half full – especially for Liverpool, 2008 European Capital of Culture. Let’s make sure the 2012 opportunity is relished, not rejected.
Why Do Farmers’ Markets Cheer Us Up So Much?
Farmers’ Markets have a special place in city life. They encourage us to feel part of a community, yet when we go to these markets we also feel that as individuals we are attending to our health and leisure needs. Farmers’ Markets may indeed sometimes in reality be big business, but they fill a gap in our fragmented urban lives.
Farmers’ Markets seem to be all the rage in Liverpool at the moment. They started in the ciy centre (by the Victoria Monument), and recently sprouted up in Lark Lane to the South of the city. Now, this Sunday, there is at last to be one in Hope Street, the cultural quarter. All the recent evidence suggests that, weather permitting, this too will be a big success.
So why is everyone in the city so enthusiastic about Farmers’ Markets? Several possible answers to this question come to mind:
Farmers’ Markets make us feel healthy. Whether the produce is actually fresher and more nutritious (or beneficial in other ways, if not edible) than produce we can buy in supermarkets, we willingly go along with the idea that it must be.
Farmers’ Markets make us feel part of a community; we throng around, perhaps sharing comments with perfect strangers about what’s on offer, and aware of the shared purpose in our being there. Yet we also feel like individuals – not for us the pre-packaged routinised stuff of the big stores. We are making a positive, personal choice to buy, or perhaps just to consider buying, produce which feels, against supermarket standards, just a bit exotic.
Farmers’ Markets take us back in time. We imagine, more or less accurately, that this until quite recently is how people have always conducted their financial transactions. There’s a rusticness about what we’re doing which harks back to a supposed golden age which is in contemporary times usually only seen on Christmas cards.
Farmers’ Markets are ecological. If we can, we walk to them (or at least park the car a distance away), clutching cane baskets and imagining, correctly or otherwise, that what we intend to buy is organic.
Farmers’ Markets let us feel authentic. We can actually talk, and maybe even negotiate our purchase, with the people who are seling their own goods – which we naturally suppose they have also themselves carefully crafted. The goods are authentic. The person-to-person transaction is authentic. We must be authentic.
And Farmers’ Markets are interesting. We are often not sure what we’ll find when we get there. Who will turn up this time? What will they have to sell? We attend trustingly, purses speculatively at the ready in our pockets; not for us on this occasion the usual boring shopping list!
It might be surmised from this list that I have a problem with Farmers’ Markets. Not so at all. They have a real part to play in the lives of many city people, just as they always have had in more rural contexts.
It’s the function these markets perform in our splintered urban communities which fascinates me. They may in fact sometimes be the visible parts of very large business operations, but they are perceived as ‘small’, micro-enterprises undertaken by real people. They make us feel special, they spark our imaginations and they activiate our interest in important aspects of health and community.
Don’t miss the next Liverpool Farmers’ Markets. Be sure to be in Lark Lane on Saturday, or in Hope Street on Sunday!
Dreaming Realist 