Thursday, 17 March 2016
Smart cities have smart organised people at the centre
An article by Neil Jameson on the Common Purpose website about Smart Cities, prompted me to write a response.
In defining the concept of a smart city, Mr. Jameson asks us to not forget the people in them. Fair enough. People are always more important than places. It is people who make places, and not the reverse, despite the emotions of identity and belonging that permeate our social worth.
He talks about how such people should be well educated, secure, and fulfilled, as well as being engaged and involved in city governance. There is a middle class elitism to this, and an implication that access to such qualities is easy. He was not just talking voting, or being consulted, but he references how people should organise to ensure their interests are taken seriously. He suggests that organised people initiate, challenge, create and craft their own future, whereas disorganised people simply observe and comment. He describes governance initiation as liberating, adding that we cannot leave this to paid officials or politicians. All I can say to this, given experiences in the field, is that has no idea how difficult it is to influence civic change, how protective civic power is of their fiefdoms.
He observes that a smart city is one with a central place for the organised, or as the ancient Greeks would say 'the Polis'. This encourages people to organise, respect diversity and welcome challenge. He adds that a smart city is one where key institutions of Civil Society are healthy, and work together for the common good.
All this is entirely reasonable in the context of a liberalist philosophical inquiry.
But:
as the eminent British psychoanalyst Wilfred Bion said "man is a group animal at war with his groupishness"; thus identifying the need that man has to both belong, and be apart. This is perhaps one of the most profound single sentences ever written in the 20th Century, as it defines in just ten words, what it is like to be human. We have choices, but at the same time experience the tensions of choice, and the consequences of our choices. We self organise ourselves within this concept, and within our wider social groups. Its how we define choice, and is both positive and progressive and negative an regressive as it combines hopes and fears on how we might live.
Self-organisation, whether task defined or otherwise is no easy thing. It requires learning and un-learning. It is ever present in the now and is emergent. It lacks boundaries and is dynamic. It is a change concept and as such is fragile.
Civic Authority, on the other hand, is none of these things. It is based on control ideologies. It is dependent, fearful of change, resistant, and non-dynamic.
If a committee had been formed to organise civilisation, or to strategise natural selection, neither would have happened. These social and natural concepts emerged, before a time of writing, or social sciences, or indeed any human knowledge of what we call science. They self-organised, and evolved within unplanned, open ended, systems that were both incremental and revolutionary at the same time. There was no plan, no need to have “pre-learnt” and no goal objectives, albeit both seem to have attracted to natural efficiency.
Smart cities need an open mind to such radical ideas, and the Polis is one such metaphor for potential success. It does after all imply conditions of self-organisation. But it also implies cultural organisation, within which humans have a natural tendency to lead, pair bind, follow, and scapegoat.
At the same time we should recall that another derivative of the word Polis is the noun “police”, which is also used as a verb as in “to police”.This is how it is increasingly used to describe how a state imposes order on a society. The word Polis also gives rise to the word "policy", which in modern parlance references the strategic objectives of civic bodies in doing “what is best for us.” What eve "best" is and whatever "us" might be. And if we reference us, we must surely reference "them". So the concept of the Polis is not necessarily as simple as that outlined by the well meaning, Mr. Jameson.
Finding words that are antonyms to Polis is not easy. Polis is commonly used to define order, a municipality, or citizenship. The opposite implies a lack of order, non municipality, or non citizenship. Literal interpretations of this might include the words anarchy, ruralism, or outcast.
Which bring us back to Bion and the idea of being of the group and separate from it? This is indeed smart. We can be both. This is indeed the smartest of institutions.
Riding a Hog up his bum
Its been a while!
I recently came across something I had written in late 2014, but had not thought to post. This is a typical fault. I must have been fed-up at the time. My motivation was the accidental viewing of a YouTube video featuring a US Cop riding a motorbike around a traffic cone obstacle course in an empty US mall car lot. Two people were closely studying this. Whilst skillful it seemed utterly banal, and totally pointless in terms of any concept related to real world relationships. Hence my diatribe. I love America, I really do, but how can it be reduced to this?
Here is the web link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9MVY8swO5M
So beginneth the rant:
Yet another metaphor for the Prozac driven, consumer guilt nation that was America. An endless labyrinth comprising a plastic, agent-orange coned car park world, where an armed cop on a disarmed fatboy motorbike, chases the fossil fuel stench of his own exhaust in an endless, pointless, anal, show-off, go-pro, go nowhere, twitterati, imperialist micro drama, of no known point or purpose; all observed by a fast-food nation junkie in a corn starch celebrated kaftan, and a faceless, creditless video papper.
In real life the American maze is a high cholesterol, sugared supermarket aisled, homey homeless housing project. A zombiefied downtown outback, an exurban shopping mall, a sub-prime suburbia, with Zen-free healthcare, uzi defendable retirement villages, high school massacres, and helicopter gunship diplomacy. It’s too white, too sterile, too depressing for words.
From the once great county that gave us Washington, Lincoln, Gershwin, Dylan, Robeson, Salinger, Rothko, Feynman, Chomsky, Hendrix, Terkel, Hill, King, Sagan, Pirsig, Cobain, Steinbeck, & Muscle Shoals, we get this; a Disneyfied Marlborough man on a show pony motorbike, trying to ride a hog up his own bum.
Is it Zuckerberg, Jobs, or Gates, under that candied kevlar, bullet proof, napalm resistant, Darth Vadar, CIA issue helmet? Is it Bonzo goes to Bitburg, or Bush goes to Baghdad, or Lance riding to the drugstore? The bike and pageant are pure American. The message is boredom. The cones and clothes are made in China and the Great Wall is coming, so follow the Plastic brick road until you find your dream. Its shrink wrapped in every possible sense.
Apart from this, it’s a really, really, really nice video. But I can’t see the wrecking ball?? Yet. Its coming though, naked, raw, organic, and destructive.
Tuesday, 23 September 2014
Scotland and then
Well, further to my recent angst and fears, the vote has been and gone
I don't buy into the "Scotland has spoken " crap, as the Scots themselves were put into a very difficult situation. In some regards it was an impossible one, with no truly right or wrong answer. Everyone wants free will, but at what cost, and with what back stops?
The speaking will go on, and rightly so, but it must also be said, that people are uncomfortable with change. Psychological studies reveal that caution is the mother of risk, meaning most people prefer not to gamble at all, rather than risk just a little. In this respect, a "No" outcome was perhaps foreseeable. There was to much to loose, rather than a lot to gain. That said the antipathy of the UK Parliament and the UK press over the past two years of the debate, almost made the outcome inevitable as no one South of the North seemed to care very much.
Then two years of apathy was concentrated into two weeks of panic, once the polls began to think the unthinkable. Whether the promises of those last two weeks will last for two hundred years or two minutes is impossible to predict.
But my own anxieties were more about England's loss than Scotland's gain as I've no doubt that Scotland would have made a fair fist of independence in a political sense. They would have needed fists too, given the battles ahead, with the EU, NATO, and alike. The issue that most concerned me their ability to fiscally manage an independent economy given some abysmal history in this area. Afterall it was the mismanagement of the economy over the colonial ambitions of Darian Gap adventure that bankrupted Scotland and led to the Act of Union. Given these historic facts, I was surprised to see so few references to them in the various debates that led to the vote. There was some talk on the recent misadventures of the RBS, but not the broader arguments on whether Scotland's historic track record on managing its national economy was a rightful concern. Then again has Westminster done any better for Scotland?
But more selfishly, I was concerned that if Scotland jumped, it would pull down he rest of the UK with it. In a "Prisoners Dilemma" scenario, we would all lose.
Thank goodness we do not need to contemplate the answer any more. I am glad the vote was No, as I see Scotland as a neighbour and partner in what, despite its many ills, is a vibrant and meaningful union
I just hope now that the Union will be renewed, and made modern for an improved and better purpose.
I don't buy into the "Scotland has spoken " crap, as the Scots themselves were put into a very difficult situation. In some regards it was an impossible one, with no truly right or wrong answer. Everyone wants free will, but at what cost, and with what back stops?
The speaking will go on, and rightly so, but it must also be said, that people are uncomfortable with change. Psychological studies reveal that caution is the mother of risk, meaning most people prefer not to gamble at all, rather than risk just a little. In this respect, a "No" outcome was perhaps foreseeable. There was to much to loose, rather than a lot to gain. That said the antipathy of the UK Parliament and the UK press over the past two years of the debate, almost made the outcome inevitable as no one South of the North seemed to care very much.
Then two years of apathy was concentrated into two weeks of panic, once the polls began to think the unthinkable. Whether the promises of those last two weeks will last for two hundred years or two minutes is impossible to predict.
But my own anxieties were more about England's loss than Scotland's gain as I've no doubt that Scotland would have made a fair fist of independence in a political sense. They would have needed fists too, given the battles ahead, with the EU, NATO, and alike. The issue that most concerned me their ability to fiscally manage an independent economy given some abysmal history in this area. Afterall it was the mismanagement of the economy over the colonial ambitions of Darian Gap adventure that bankrupted Scotland and led to the Act of Union. Given these historic facts, I was surprised to see so few references to them in the various debates that led to the vote. There was some talk on the recent misadventures of the RBS, but not the broader arguments on whether Scotland's historic track record on managing its national economy was a rightful concern. Then again has Westminster done any better for Scotland?
But more selfishly, I was concerned that if Scotland jumped, it would pull down he rest of the UK with it. In a "Prisoners Dilemma" scenario, we would all lose.
Thank goodness we do not need to contemplate the answer any more. I am glad the vote was No, as I see Scotland as a neighbour and partner in what, despite its many ills, is a vibrant and meaningful union
I just hope now that the Union will be renewed, and made modern for an improved and better purpose.
Thursday, 18 September 2014
Scotland and Me
Tomorrow morning the sun will rise and I will awaken. The occurrence will be a familiar one and no different to most other awakenings; but with one exception. I will not be immediately be sure whether the country I wake up in; will be the same country I was born in.
The consequences are profound. Like others I have opinions on these circumstances, that arise from politics, economics, history, society, and culture. Opinions that are well founded, and which like other views I articulate, may also prove to be painfully prescient. But I won't dwell on what might be, as I haven’t the energy, and might sound bitter. Afterall when analysis is based on emotion, there is a tendency to sound bitter.
I make no great claims to be an expert on Scotland, but I read a lot of history, am reasonably well informed, and am often correct in foreseeing what might happen in unforeseen, but circumstantial and shadowy future. I find such prescience a bore, as in projecting personal views on what might be, or what might evolve, I am generally ignored or mocked. Then years later, when What I suggested might happen, did happen, people then say something like; “you said that years ago”. This flatters and annoys, but my annoyance in this case is not about the macro consequences of an unnecessary divorce, but the micro aspects of personal emotion, and here’s why……..
As a somewhat precocious youth I always thought that there would be at least two things I would never see in my lifetime.
The first was British soldiers fighting in military conflicts. Like most boys I was fascinated by war and read vast numbers of books on military conflicts. I had family members involved in conflicts, including an American cousin in Viet Nam. In the early 1980’s, prior to attending Polytechnic, I’d even visited the SAS barracks at Bradbury Lines as part of my duties as a young civil servant helping to coordinate (with others) SAS military exercises, but I truly thought that the actions of British soldiers in military conflict was confined to history. Then in April 1982, I walked into the Wandsworth Road student bar of South Bank Polytechnic, prior to hitch hiking home for Easter, so see dozens of people glued to the TV. This was atypical, but Argentina had invaded the Falklands and Britain was going to war. Since then Britain has been embroiled in more and more conflicts for more and more conflicting reasons. This is such a disappointment to me, as I am sure it is to others.
The second was a feeling that despite the mess of Britain, and the post imperial decline and de-industrialisation of this hugely influential nation, I never once thought I would see it separate. Not once did it cross my mind. Why should it? It was a far fetched and self-defeating idea. It did not make sense on any imaginable level. But as I go to bed there is a 50:50 chance this will happen.
I could give endless arguments on why this is a mad idea. I could offer thoughts about the Darian Gap, financial catastrophes, unionism, Jacobite romance, the Union of the crowns, the highland-lowland divide, Scottish Catholicism, Clan romanticism, post 18th century modernism, RBS and the banking crisis , and more beside, but there seems little point now, given that the polls are closed, the dye cast, and the caber tossed.
Independence is not a right. It has to be earned. And you cannot earn it my emotion any more than you can analyse an argument
This vote is the most monumental decision made in this land in my lifetime. Tomorrow beckons and whatever happened in today’s poll booths, the UK will never be the same again. Maybe a review of the UK is no bad thing; after all the Scots are not alone in feeling antipathy to London and Westminster. That said to split a nation on the a romantic notion that its a bigger idea, and to do so on the basis of a minority vote is a recipe for disaster. Five million get to vote. 50 million do not. Thus some 90 per cent of the nation are disenfranchised. Its utter foolishness.
I feel the need to return to this topic at a future date, but for now it’s too painful. I hope the vote is no. If it is No, then I hope that a better Scotland, and England, will emerge. If the vote is yes, I will truly feel the need to leave the mess that such a choice will create, for the one simple reason that the country I will be left with, will not be the nation I was born into.
The consequences are profound. Like others I have opinions on these circumstances, that arise from politics, economics, history, society, and culture. Opinions that are well founded, and which like other views I articulate, may also prove to be painfully prescient. But I won't dwell on what might be, as I haven’t the energy, and might sound bitter. Afterall when analysis is based on emotion, there is a tendency to sound bitter.
I make no great claims to be an expert on Scotland, but I read a lot of history, am reasonably well informed, and am often correct in foreseeing what might happen in unforeseen, but circumstantial and shadowy future. I find such prescience a bore, as in projecting personal views on what might be, or what might evolve, I am generally ignored or mocked. Then years later, when What I suggested might happen, did happen, people then say something like; “you said that years ago”. This flatters and annoys, but my annoyance in this case is not about the macro consequences of an unnecessary divorce, but the micro aspects of personal emotion, and here’s why……..
As a somewhat precocious youth I always thought that there would be at least two things I would never see in my lifetime.
The first was British soldiers fighting in military conflicts. Like most boys I was fascinated by war and read vast numbers of books on military conflicts. I had family members involved in conflicts, including an American cousin in Viet Nam. In the early 1980’s, prior to attending Polytechnic, I’d even visited the SAS barracks at Bradbury Lines as part of my duties as a young civil servant helping to coordinate (with others) SAS military exercises, but I truly thought that the actions of British soldiers in military conflict was confined to history. Then in April 1982, I walked into the Wandsworth Road student bar of South Bank Polytechnic, prior to hitch hiking home for Easter, so see dozens of people glued to the TV. This was atypical, but Argentina had invaded the Falklands and Britain was going to war. Since then Britain has been embroiled in more and more conflicts for more and more conflicting reasons. This is such a disappointment to me, as I am sure it is to others.
The second was a feeling that despite the mess of Britain, and the post imperial decline and de-industrialisation of this hugely influential nation, I never once thought I would see it separate. Not once did it cross my mind. Why should it? It was a far fetched and self-defeating idea. It did not make sense on any imaginable level. But as I go to bed there is a 50:50 chance this will happen.
I could give endless arguments on why this is a mad idea. I could offer thoughts about the Darian Gap, financial catastrophes, unionism, Jacobite romance, the Union of the crowns, the highland-lowland divide, Scottish Catholicism, Clan romanticism, post 18th century modernism, RBS and the banking crisis , and more beside, but there seems little point now, given that the polls are closed, the dye cast, and the caber tossed.
Independence is not a right. It has to be earned. And you cannot earn it my emotion any more than you can analyse an argument
This vote is the most monumental decision made in this land in my lifetime. Tomorrow beckons and whatever happened in today’s poll booths, the UK will never be the same again. Maybe a review of the UK is no bad thing; after all the Scots are not alone in feeling antipathy to London and Westminster. That said to split a nation on the a romantic notion that its a bigger idea, and to do so on the basis of a minority vote is a recipe for disaster. Five million get to vote. 50 million do not. Thus some 90 per cent of the nation are disenfranchised. Its utter foolishness.
I feel the need to return to this topic at a future date, but for now it’s too painful. I hope the vote is no. If it is No, then I hope that a better Scotland, and England, will emerge. If the vote is yes, I will truly feel the need to leave the mess that such a choice will create, for the one simple reason that the country I will be left with, will not be the nation I was born into.
Saturday, 19 July 2014
2B or not 2B - To blog or not to Blog
The self-realisation that blogging is a non-combative, self-centred, and long distance sport, that is also an entirely domestic pursuit, came to me some time ago.
But the realisation that it can also be trans-domestic, antipodal, extra-local, and far reaching, was less obvious until other (more enlightened) commentators began to comment on this. Diaries after all are personal, or used to be until the dawning of the social media circus, or the jingling of a publishers purse.
A friend of mine from Liverpool, Andrew, once said that there are many people in Liverpool who want to be heard, who should never be heard. He was talking of the mouth on the move, the bellower on the bus, and the talker on the train. And anyone who knows Liverpool will know what he means. Why use actions when you can use words. And why not turn words into public events? It seems to me that the same applies to bloggers. Its hosting as hustings.
Blogging is a liberation of sorts. A drama even, where the blog is the stage and the words actors in some emerging drama.
There is humour, pathos, and tragedy
There is biography and autobiography
There is fact and fiction
There is truth and deception
There is the past, the present, the future
And in every tense resides tensions
Having grounded the blog as a domestic beast, it can also be feral. Violence from a bedroom, so to speak, where bloggers can hide behind their net curtains drinking Earl Grey tea, yet spitting, snarling, and confronting, their digital neighbours "over the fence".
But to be fair, there are plenty of bloggers out there who are well informed, well versed, and socially conscious, who conduct symphonies of words from orchestrations of polymathic verse and virtuoso personal ability.
I like to think I am in the informed category. Not perhaps a virtuoso, but what I write about is based upon personal experience and personal thoughts. I don’t try to hide behind a pseudo-name, and I do not write fiction. My identity is open for others to see. It appears in this blog, and I only ever add comments in my name when I occasionally post feedback on other peoples web sites. There re trails to my tales, but this is not true for everyone, as several high-profile court cases on internet trolling have revealed
In addition I mainly protect the identity of people and some organisations who I write about. On some occasions public figures and organisations are fair game, but not in all cases, when discretion is needed. When and who to name is a matter of taste and decency, if not, it can be regressive, cruel, tactless, or unnecessary.
If I have something to say, I will say it. I might not be right, but I will write.
But the realisation that it can also be trans-domestic, antipodal, extra-local, and far reaching, was less obvious until other (more enlightened) commentators began to comment on this. Diaries after all are personal, or used to be until the dawning of the social media circus, or the jingling of a publishers purse.
A friend of mine from Liverpool, Andrew, once said that there are many people in Liverpool who want to be heard, who should never be heard. He was talking of the mouth on the move, the bellower on the bus, and the talker on the train. And anyone who knows Liverpool will know what he means. Why use actions when you can use words. And why not turn words into public events? It seems to me that the same applies to bloggers. Its hosting as hustings.
Blogging is a liberation of sorts. A drama even, where the blog is the stage and the words actors in some emerging drama.
There is humour, pathos, and tragedy
There is biography and autobiography
There is fact and fiction
There is truth and deception
There is the past, the present, the future
And in every tense resides tensions
Having grounded the blog as a domestic beast, it can also be feral. Violence from a bedroom, so to speak, where bloggers can hide behind their net curtains drinking Earl Grey tea, yet spitting, snarling, and confronting, their digital neighbours "over the fence".
But to be fair, there are plenty of bloggers out there who are well informed, well versed, and socially conscious, who conduct symphonies of words from orchestrations of polymathic verse and virtuoso personal ability.
I like to think I am in the informed category. Not perhaps a virtuoso, but what I write about is based upon personal experience and personal thoughts. I don’t try to hide behind a pseudo-name, and I do not write fiction. My identity is open for others to see. It appears in this blog, and I only ever add comments in my name when I occasionally post feedback on other peoples web sites. There re trails to my tales, but this is not true for everyone, as several high-profile court cases on internet trolling have revealed
In addition I mainly protect the identity of people and some organisations who I write about. On some occasions public figures and organisations are fair game, but not in all cases, when discretion is needed. When and who to name is a matter of taste and decency, if not, it can be regressive, cruel, tactless, or unnecessary.
If I have something to say, I will say it. I might not be right, but I will write.
Friday, 18 July 2014
Tour De Liverpool - Stage 2
My apologies in advance. This is going to be verbally ugly....
The tour de France has left Yorkshire and so too the French transliterations given to the many iconic Yorkshire places used in the race. One great example was "Le Cote de butttertubs".
This got me thinking. If the Tour had come to LivREpool (see I've started already) how might we have Franco-Scoused our own iconic places?
I came up with the following list. The transliterations I present are rough and ready and lacking true French polish. They have more in common with a bite than a French kiss.
If anyone has their own transliterations and ideas, be sure to keep them to yourselves. So here we go, in no special order:
1. Le Cote d’ope Street (Hope Street - with the obligatory dropped H)
2. Le Pierre Ead
3. Le Anglcancan Cathedral
4. Le Quatrieme Coup de Grace (The doomed 4th Grace that was never built)
5. Ooh la Lark Lane
6. Les rues de la Pays de Galles (Welsh Streets)
7. Evertonne (metricated of course)
8. Le Tunnel Merci (must I explain this one)
9. Jean Moron University (nothing at all to do with any similar sounding establishment in the city!)
10. Norris Vert
12. Allezton
And across the water where I live - Birkentete
I'm off to get me beret, Zut alors I can't find it. Oh Bolleaux
The tour de France has left Yorkshire and so too the French transliterations given to the many iconic Yorkshire places used in the race. One great example was "Le Cote de butttertubs".
This got me thinking. If the Tour had come to LivREpool (see I've started already) how might we have Franco-Scoused our own iconic places?
I came up with the following list. The transliterations I present are rough and ready and lacking true French polish. They have more in common with a bite than a French kiss.
If anyone has their own transliterations and ideas, be sure to keep them to yourselves. So here we go, in no special order:
1. Le Cote d’ope Street (Hope Street - with the obligatory dropped H)
2. Le Pierre Ead
3. Le Anglcancan Cathedral
4. Le Quatrieme Coup de Grace (The doomed 4th Grace that was never built)
5. Ooh la Lark Lane
6. Les rues de la Pays de Galles (Welsh Streets)
7. Evertonne (metricated of course)
8. Le Tunnel Merci (must I explain this one)
9. Jean Moron University (nothing at all to do with any similar sounding establishment in the city!)
10. Norris Vert
12. Allezton
And across the water where I live - Birkentete
I'm off to get me beret, Zut alors I can't find it. Oh Bolleaux
Saturday, 5 July 2014
Selfishness is so limiting - Tour De France in Liverpool in 2008? Surely not........
Today's Grand Depart of the 2014 Tour de France from Leeds has been an interesting personal experience, but before getting to grips with why, consider the following:
On Saturday 5 July 2014 the Tour de France is very much in the face of every single UK citizen who happened to pick up a paper, turn on the TV, or switch on a radio, or digital device. It has been inescapable. Evan Davies featured the race in his series "Mind the Gap" about the North-South divide. The Royal Family are in attendance. Both Radio 4 (Evan Davies again) and radio 5 were broadcasting live from the event, and so far we have not even covered the sports media. This is international global media gone mad. The story of the Yorkshire Tour, has completely and absolutely over shadowed the World Cup, the British Grand Prix, and Women's tennis Final at Wimbledon.
So what has this got to do with Liverpool ??????????
Well On 3 November 2003 I wrote a feasibility paper to try to persuade Liverpool’s new Culture Company to bring the 2008 Tour to Liverpool. I still have the paper and I publish an edited version of it below. Unfortunately the idea got nowhere.
In 2003 it was easy to foresee the potential economic benefits of this project and the competition to overcome to try to land it. And we had five years to make a plan. It was possible to count the cost and weigh the benefits, but it was totally impossible to gauge the craving that we Brits have since developed for participating in, creating, and attracting, global “super events”. This is a UK cultural phenomenon which seems to have no limits.
The UK sporting (and cultural) public is seemingly on a different level to the rest of the world, whether supporting events at home, or travelling the globe to support our footballers, rugby players, cricketers, superbike riders, athletes, and so on. Others travel for cultural experiences. Us Brits are adventurous, curious, and open minded. We also get our wallets out. This phenomenon helps drives our events media, and plays a big part global event sponsorship and marketing. It also helps project the UK as an increasingly important market place for big cultural and sporting events at a time when the rationale of global events is being tested all across the world. Issues raised include corruption, nepotism, opaqueness, financial mismanagement, sovereign resource deficiencies, limited local support, impoverished economies beyond such events, poor project skills, and general mediocrity.
Interestingly many international events depend upon UK expertise and provides valuable income to architects, project managers, financial firms, construction companies and transport experts. The events industry seems one we excel in at a range of different levels
Closer to home, the London delivered a fantastic 2012 Olympics and continues to create envy with modern events like Glastonbury, "T in the Park", the Edinburgh Festival, as well as traditional ones like Glyndebourne, Henley, Wimbledon, the grand National, Open Golf. All of these are modernising and changing as a recognition of these broader social trends. And if you don't believe me, try getting a ticket. To be fair Liverpool is already on this with its Grand national. The Biennale is also an important cultural event. In 2008 it was massive, but seems less big these days, no dout because of its dependency on funds. But Liverpool should make a greater play to add to the list, and seek to explore even more opportunities given the financial benefits described and the potential for cultural and social gains. But it wont get there with trade exhibitions, park level festivals, and borrowing French puppets for the day.
It is crass to measure culture in cash terms, but events like the Tour bring huge benefits and having followed today’s Tour media coverage on ITV, Sky Sports, Radio 4, and Radio, 5 the coverage has been massive. The benefits to Yorkshire as a “get up and go” place are there for all to see, and presumably it presents Yorkshire, in the worlds eyes, as a place to do business with. It is also dangerous to "risk all for other peoples events." But from time to time a Tour de France, or some other such "one-off" event will not hurt and may even give confidence to Liverpool to create its own ideas and thus exercise its own peoples creative talents.
At the same time I have seen nothing in today’s media about last night launch of the Liverpool Biennial or the ongoing International Festival of Business. I am on the board of the Liverpool Independents Biennial and somewhat obsessive about local economics. So I am not knocking these events, but the Tour is on a completely different scale. However, I do ask this; where is the front page coverage of our own local events?
I would still take Liverpool over Yorkshire any day, but it is a shame Liverpool did not have the foresight to go for the tour in 2008, when it had been legitimately chosen to be the European Capital of Culture. This was its greatest (and possibly only) chance to do this, and it seemed to present an opportunity to project the "new" Liverpool all around the world. It would also help those areas around the city centre that make up its natural and historic hinterland. Not just obvious places like Wirral, Sefton, and Knowsley, but nearby North Wales, the Liverpool Bay, and Lancashire. What a story we could have told, through place, people and pastimes.
I was privileged to be paid to help develop ideas like the Tour paper, and those who know me are aware of many, many, others. In fact I was invited to be a Liverpool representative on the NWDA/NWRA Outdoor Tourism Strategy Group, due to such thinking. That said, I was not alone in envisioning ideas. I met many local people with ideas just as good, if not better, than any I had. A good friend once said to me, and I quote "Liverpool shits ideas." But I would add that it also flushes them away. It also allows other places to take forward ideas that Liverpool rejected or could not see
A few years ago, Liverpool seemed obsessed by importing "The Bilbao Effect" and "Barcelona Effect." I never once bought into this. I call this type of strategy "Cultural Disneyfication." My own view, for what it's worth, is that we should be exporting the "Liverpool effect". These days I am trying to make a modest career from turning other similar ideas into wealth but its not easy without civic support, and some civic bodies are not prepared to believe,let alone help.
Two more things; last year on a small boat in Turkey I overheard a proud Yorkshireman tell a Swedish man how proud he was of the tour coming to his home county. I could barely keep my mouth shut. I did, but it bought tears of absolute frustration to my eyes. And as for the 2014 Tour, the Cambridge stage goes right past my mother-in-laws front door. Of all the roads in all the world....... In a past life, I lived in Hertfordshire and regularly cycled the same roads. So to me; the selfless-envisioner, I find this coincidence a bitter, bitter, irony.
Having said this; my main thought on this hot, sunny, tour less (from a Liverpool perspective), afternoon is this; If only, if only, if only, if only…..........................
Here is an edit of my 2003 paper. All local names and organisations are removed
Consideration of Liverpool as host city for the 2008 Tour de France
Colin Dyas - 3 November 2003
With 2008 being European Capital of Culture year might it be a good idea to consider the possibility of initiating the 2008 Tour De France from the city. The event is usually held in late June to mid July over a 22-day period of stage races.
It is not unprecedented for stages of the tour to be held in the UK. The most recent was in 1994 when two stages (Stage 4 Dover to Brighton, and Stage 5 Portsmouth to Portsmouth) were held. A previous stage was also held on the South Coast in the 1970’s. More recently in 1998, Ireland held several stages. Dublin hosted the opening prologue with two further stages (Stage 1; Dublin – Dublin, and Stage 2; Enniscothy – Cork) being held on open roads. The tour frequently visits countries outside France and does so with a view to broadening the appeal of the race.
The prologue is a short sprint against the clock held in an urban setting, while those stages shown as starting and ending in the same place generally involve the place as a focus to a days racing undertaken in the general surrounds.
By 2008 the tour will be overdue a UK return and what better reason could there be to initiate it in Europe’s Capital of Culture? But is there other UK competition, and what are the likely costs and benefits?
I understand from press reports that Scotland may lobby to hold stages in 2006, 2008, or 2010. Considering the race has never been there before it must have a chance. London is also offering a serious 2006 bid via transport for London. The hope is to host the opening Prologue and two further stages. While the year does not coincide with Capital of Culture, if they are successful there may be an issue with the tour visiting the UK twice over a two year time period.
The London bid estimates hosting costs for the opening stage of circa £1 million, but see in the event, a massive attraction to visitors and business. In 1994 it is estimated some three million people watched two days of racing, while London estimates two million extra people would visit the city around the proposed week of the tour.
The tour attracts massive global publicity, hence the arrangement fees, but unlike say the football World Cup or Olympic Games, the infrastructure costs are minimal as racing takes place on existing roads. There is a need to erect barriers, but tour contractors generally mange this directly. Some road calming features may also require a safety assessment, i.e. mini roundabouts, speed humps etc, but these do not necessarily require removal.
A Liverpool prologue could showcase a city centre that already has a history and experience of hosting similar though smaller scale events. The route could incorporate any number of landmark streets or buildings i.e. the new 4th Grace, the twin Cathedrals, the waterfront etc. The mobile motorcycle and high level helicopter coverage will offer a superb opportunity to show off the city landmarks, while the event would seem a perfect fit with Capital of Culture.
Attendances on each race day are likely to be massive and add a big boost to the local service sectors. The visualisation of Liverpool through global media coverage could also have massive future benefits in attracting visitors to the city, long after the tour has gone.
It might also be possible to share the race benefits locally by holding or taking a stage to Wirral, which for many years has been a centre of UK cycling. The organisers would like the fact that Chris Boardman and UK tour commentator Phil Ligget have links to the area. The race could also visit North Wales, East or North Lancashire.
If this idea is not already under consideration then it might at first be useful to initiate a simple feasibility assessment, and make an informal approach to the official tour organisers to discuss ideas and process. Subsequent analysis by S.W.O.T, risk assessments, cost benefits etc can then be considered.
The Tour de France is organized by Amaury Sport Organisation.
2 rue Rouget de lisle
92 130 Issy-les-Moulineaux
Tél. + (33) 01 41 33 15 00
On Saturday 5 July 2014 the Tour de France is very much in the face of every single UK citizen who happened to pick up a paper, turn on the TV, or switch on a radio, or digital device. It has been inescapable. Evan Davies featured the race in his series "Mind the Gap" about the North-South divide. The Royal Family are in attendance. Both Radio 4 (Evan Davies again) and radio 5 were broadcasting live from the event, and so far we have not even covered the sports media. This is international global media gone mad. The story of the Yorkshire Tour, has completely and absolutely over shadowed the World Cup, the British Grand Prix, and Women's tennis Final at Wimbledon.
So what has this got to do with Liverpool ??????????
Well On 3 November 2003 I wrote a feasibility paper to try to persuade Liverpool’s new Culture Company to bring the 2008 Tour to Liverpool. I still have the paper and I publish an edited version of it below. Unfortunately the idea got nowhere.
In 2003 it was easy to foresee the potential economic benefits of this project and the competition to overcome to try to land it. And we had five years to make a plan. It was possible to count the cost and weigh the benefits, but it was totally impossible to gauge the craving that we Brits have since developed for participating in, creating, and attracting, global “super events”. This is a UK cultural phenomenon which seems to have no limits.
The UK sporting (and cultural) public is seemingly on a different level to the rest of the world, whether supporting events at home, or travelling the globe to support our footballers, rugby players, cricketers, superbike riders, athletes, and so on. Others travel for cultural experiences. Us Brits are adventurous, curious, and open minded. We also get our wallets out. This phenomenon helps drives our events media, and plays a big part global event sponsorship and marketing. It also helps project the UK as an increasingly important market place for big cultural and sporting events at a time when the rationale of global events is being tested all across the world. Issues raised include corruption, nepotism, opaqueness, financial mismanagement, sovereign resource deficiencies, limited local support, impoverished economies beyond such events, poor project skills, and general mediocrity.
Interestingly many international events depend upon UK expertise and provides valuable income to architects, project managers, financial firms, construction companies and transport experts. The events industry seems one we excel in at a range of different levels
Closer to home, the London delivered a fantastic 2012 Olympics and continues to create envy with modern events like Glastonbury, "T in the Park", the Edinburgh Festival, as well as traditional ones like Glyndebourne, Henley, Wimbledon, the grand National, Open Golf. All of these are modernising and changing as a recognition of these broader social trends. And if you don't believe me, try getting a ticket. To be fair Liverpool is already on this with its Grand national. The Biennale is also an important cultural event. In 2008 it was massive, but seems less big these days, no dout because of its dependency on funds. But Liverpool should make a greater play to add to the list, and seek to explore even more opportunities given the financial benefits described and the potential for cultural and social gains. But it wont get there with trade exhibitions, park level festivals, and borrowing French puppets for the day.
It is crass to measure culture in cash terms, but events like the Tour bring huge benefits and having followed today’s Tour media coverage on ITV, Sky Sports, Radio 4, and Radio, 5 the coverage has been massive. The benefits to Yorkshire as a “get up and go” place are there for all to see, and presumably it presents Yorkshire, in the worlds eyes, as a place to do business with. It is also dangerous to "risk all for other peoples events." But from time to time a Tour de France, or some other such "one-off" event will not hurt and may even give confidence to Liverpool to create its own ideas and thus exercise its own peoples creative talents.
At the same time I have seen nothing in today’s media about last night launch of the Liverpool Biennial or the ongoing International Festival of Business. I am on the board of the Liverpool Independents Biennial and somewhat obsessive about local economics. So I am not knocking these events, but the Tour is on a completely different scale. However, I do ask this; where is the front page coverage of our own local events?
I would still take Liverpool over Yorkshire any day, but it is a shame Liverpool did not have the foresight to go for the tour in 2008, when it had been legitimately chosen to be the European Capital of Culture. This was its greatest (and possibly only) chance to do this, and it seemed to present an opportunity to project the "new" Liverpool all around the world. It would also help those areas around the city centre that make up its natural and historic hinterland. Not just obvious places like Wirral, Sefton, and Knowsley, but nearby North Wales, the Liverpool Bay, and Lancashire. What a story we could have told, through place, people and pastimes.
I was privileged to be paid to help develop ideas like the Tour paper, and those who know me are aware of many, many, others. In fact I was invited to be a Liverpool representative on the NWDA/NWRA Outdoor Tourism Strategy Group, due to such thinking. That said, I was not alone in envisioning ideas. I met many local people with ideas just as good, if not better, than any I had. A good friend once said to me, and I quote "Liverpool shits ideas." But I would add that it also flushes them away. It also allows other places to take forward ideas that Liverpool rejected or could not see
A few years ago, Liverpool seemed obsessed by importing "The Bilbao Effect" and "Barcelona Effect." I never once bought into this. I call this type of strategy "Cultural Disneyfication." My own view, for what it's worth, is that we should be exporting the "Liverpool effect". These days I am trying to make a modest career from turning other similar ideas into wealth but its not easy without civic support, and some civic bodies are not prepared to believe,let alone help.
Two more things; last year on a small boat in Turkey I overheard a proud Yorkshireman tell a Swedish man how proud he was of the tour coming to his home county. I could barely keep my mouth shut. I did, but it bought tears of absolute frustration to my eyes. And as for the 2014 Tour, the Cambridge stage goes right past my mother-in-laws front door. Of all the roads in all the world....... In a past life, I lived in Hertfordshire and regularly cycled the same roads. So to me; the selfless-envisioner, I find this coincidence a bitter, bitter, irony.
Having said this; my main thought on this hot, sunny, tour less (from a Liverpool perspective), afternoon is this; If only, if only, if only, if only…..........................
Here is an edit of my 2003 paper. All local names and organisations are removed
Consideration of Liverpool as host city for the 2008 Tour de France
Colin Dyas - 3 November 2003
With 2008 being European Capital of Culture year might it be a good idea to consider the possibility of initiating the 2008 Tour De France from the city. The event is usually held in late June to mid July over a 22-day period of stage races.
It is not unprecedented for stages of the tour to be held in the UK. The most recent was in 1994 when two stages (Stage 4 Dover to Brighton, and Stage 5 Portsmouth to Portsmouth) were held. A previous stage was also held on the South Coast in the 1970’s. More recently in 1998, Ireland held several stages. Dublin hosted the opening prologue with two further stages (Stage 1; Dublin – Dublin, and Stage 2; Enniscothy – Cork) being held on open roads. The tour frequently visits countries outside France and does so with a view to broadening the appeal of the race.
The prologue is a short sprint against the clock held in an urban setting, while those stages shown as starting and ending in the same place generally involve the place as a focus to a days racing undertaken in the general surrounds.
By 2008 the tour will be overdue a UK return and what better reason could there be to initiate it in Europe’s Capital of Culture? But is there other UK competition, and what are the likely costs and benefits?
I understand from press reports that Scotland may lobby to hold stages in 2006, 2008, or 2010. Considering the race has never been there before it must have a chance. London is also offering a serious 2006 bid via transport for London. The hope is to host the opening Prologue and two further stages. While the year does not coincide with Capital of Culture, if they are successful there may be an issue with the tour visiting the UK twice over a two year time period.
The London bid estimates hosting costs for the opening stage of circa £1 million, but see in the event, a massive attraction to visitors and business. In 1994 it is estimated some three million people watched two days of racing, while London estimates two million extra people would visit the city around the proposed week of the tour.
The tour attracts massive global publicity, hence the arrangement fees, but unlike say the football World Cup or Olympic Games, the infrastructure costs are minimal as racing takes place on existing roads. There is a need to erect barriers, but tour contractors generally mange this directly. Some road calming features may also require a safety assessment, i.e. mini roundabouts, speed humps etc, but these do not necessarily require removal.
A Liverpool prologue could showcase a city centre that already has a history and experience of hosting similar though smaller scale events. The route could incorporate any number of landmark streets or buildings i.e. the new 4th Grace, the twin Cathedrals, the waterfront etc. The mobile motorcycle and high level helicopter coverage will offer a superb opportunity to show off the city landmarks, while the event would seem a perfect fit with Capital of Culture.
Attendances on each race day are likely to be massive and add a big boost to the local service sectors. The visualisation of Liverpool through global media coverage could also have massive future benefits in attracting visitors to the city, long after the tour has gone.
It might also be possible to share the race benefits locally by holding or taking a stage to Wirral, which for many years has been a centre of UK cycling. The organisers would like the fact that Chris Boardman and UK tour commentator Phil Ligget have links to the area. The race could also visit North Wales, East or North Lancashire.
If this idea is not already under consideration then it might at first be useful to initiate a simple feasibility assessment, and make an informal approach to the official tour organisers to discuss ideas and process. Subsequent analysis by S.W.O.T, risk assessments, cost benefits etc can then be considered.
The Tour de France is organized by Amaury Sport Organisation.
2 rue Rouget de lisle
92 130 Issy-les-Moulineaux
Tél. + (33) 01 41 33 15 00
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