This is the transcript of a letter written to Sir Terry Leahy on 31 October 2007. The letter was about China, my personal experiences of visiting China in 1985, and the ambivalent public sector attitudes I found towards China, when I arrived in Liverpool in 2003.
From September 2003, I had a modest role as a member of a sub-regional economic body and had arived in the city with knowledge of an interesting UK cultural exchange involving the University of Luton and the Beijing Olympic Organising Committee. This because a very good friend was involved in the programme. I also knew that Liverpool had the oldest Chinatown in Europe and an active and historic trade association. Yet despite these facts, there was no obvious realisation that it might be a useful ecomic strategy to develop more commercial relations, with a country that will surely be the next global superpower. I recall making this case, and being somewhat derided for doing so.
Returning to the narrative, it is not about Tesco, albeit I have written about them elsewhere on the blog. Sir Terry was kind enough to reply, but as a courtesy to him, I regard this as private correspondence.
I am pleased to say that local attitudes toward China have moved on dramatically since 2003, especially given Liverpool's imminent role in the Shanghai World Expo of 2010. Certainly in 2003, no such plan existed, and I doubt that Shanghai was confirmed or indeed "pitching" to be host city at that time. It is somewhat natural for Liverpool to play a role in he Expo as both cities are party to a cultural twinning arrangement, and the City is now doing so to the best of its abilities, so my correspondence reflects past rather than current activities. Correspondence begins: -
I was at your Icebreaker lecture this evening. I work in regeneration and in tone with your learning theme wanted to ask you, and Councillor Bradley about what lessons we might learn from Shanghai’s regeneration. But the question session ended and you left soon after. I had my chance but blew it!
I backpacked in China in the mid 1980’s. My method of unsupervised independent travel was probably illegal, as I never once submitted to the formal process of accommodation registration. But I was never hassled and the country was opening up. I was there five weeks, with my now wife. In Shanghai We found & stayed in a Buddhist Monastery as travelling guest. It was not in my first edition China Lonely Planet guide; we found it accidentally and simply asked if We could stay; perhaps as the first Western guests since the Cultural Revolution as after years of persecution Buddhism was officially tolerated. Prior to this I‘d been in the Seaman’s mission off Suzhou Creek. A place of rats, crying babies, spitting, and incredible smells. Opposite the Bund in those days, were tin sheds, water meadows, and buffalo’s. It’s a lot different today, and presents an interesting contrast to regeneration activity in Liverpool over the same period.
I have many great tales of China and its people, but recall too older people with beautiful manners and superb English diction doing mundane jobs. These turned out to be former academics still enduring post Red Guard/Cultural Revolution "re-education." They were quiet, reticent, and quite unlike the enthusiastic young Chinese learning English from the world service, who perpetually wanted to talk to me and touch me! I always gave time for talking, as I believe in the human spirit and cross-cultural friendship.
In 1998 I did an MBA where 80% of the class were Chinese, & became a business analyst for Open…. interactive TV (a company that invented an industry, and was perhaps the best-funded start up in UK commercial history) Later, I was a consultant in the sector until 03 when I moved to my current regeneration post in Liverpool having committed to move North (against the grain) from Hertfordshire. Very recently I submitted thoughts to Tesco about its "Small Steps" campaign related to my business analysis and regeneration experiences.
Now in a “Liverpool PLC” world, I seek something new, as I am frustrated by process, transparency, and opportunity issues. Given that I closed a consultancy geared to shareholder capital, for a less financially rewarding job related to social capital I might justifiably have regrets. But like you, I thought I’d found my Confucian opportunity. Whilst it was not quite Nirvana, I have mainly enjoyed it. I remain an “ideas” person, albeit frustrated by the difficulty of driving ideas in Liverpool.
I still retain an interest in China, and its global resurgence and in 2003/4, and being aware of Liverpool’s past relations with China, I saw some simple public sector opportunities, but they did not happen. Four years later it is interesting to compare these moments with the world’s more recent compulsion to befriend China. There was nothing quite as similar when Japan was so economically powerful, and I suggest this is because China will surely be the next global superpower. So for the first time in modern history English will not be the principal language of global power. The West is realising it needs China for many reasons.
But this denies some obvious political issues and China’s expansion plans. With the world’s largest bank, and a need for resources, it is shopping globally for strategic and corporate assets. It does so with a 5000 year old civilisation where “knowing your enemy” and patience are central to the culture. I am not suggesting China is aggressive, but history and philosophy of people like Sun Tzu, Confucius, etc give it a different perspective on events to Western "short termism"
But I digress; when I came here in 2003, I had knowledge of a Masters programme in a UK university for Chinese journalists affiliated to the Beijing Olympic Committee. No one in Liverpool thought it smart to host a visit for them; despite long standing business and cultural ties, the coincidence of massive cultural events for 2008 like the Olympics and Capital of Culture, and more simple links such as footballer Li Tie, then Chinese football captain who was playing for Everton (my team too).
Later as a representative on a significant local investment think tank I recall mirth when placing China as a top priority for a 2004 marketing campaign. No one else saw this as a serious proposition and preferred to work on Ireland.
In 2005 I assisted, in my time and without reward, a brilliant cultural idea whereby local dancer Jacquie Jones, who had been the youngest principal dancer with the Rambert Dance Company created a company called “Pool of Life’ to deliver a cross cultural programme with Shanghai artists of different disciplines. I helped write the business plan, and thus “The Elements” was created. It was performed at the Royal Court last year to great aplomb. But, the £30k she received was insufficient, and the parallel street based events planned for Chinese New year was lost through poor civic assistance. It was a bottom-up cultural event, that obliterated international barriers, but no one here saw the bigger opportunity. Yet Daman Albarn’s “Monkey goes West” which is an identical idea, but properly funded, premiered at the Manchester International Festival, and enjoyed free BBC advertising from an Alan Yentob documentary and support from the NWDA and Virgin Trains. Monkey ran for months. Elements had one night, as that was all that it could afford
In 2005 I helped host a British Council delegation of Chinese planners on a two-week tour of UK regeneration hotspots. The Liverpool leg seems to have been a success. We paid attention to cultural detail as much as the technical. Later, the Council invited me on a lecture tour of China with the likes of Norman Foster to discuss Liverpool regeneration. I think they liked my approach, and offered 50% funding for the trip. Unfortunately I could not find the rest.
This is past history, but this year I met the Liverpool Shanghai partnership, as I do other bodies in the University district, to discuss their programmes. It’s why I was invited to your Icebreaker talk earlier tonight. I have also met Tony Caldera, who’s story of cushion making in Shanghai was recently told on Channel 4
In conclusion, I was interested by last night’s event but wonder why the moments I relate to above were deemed unimportant at the time. I also wonder why there was little reference last night to cultural opportunities, beyond language. I know you can’t answer directly, but these are interesting points, and I suggest they will fall victim in the future to denial and revisionism.
Also, when I compare past opportunities to recent activities I cannot help think, in a paraphrase of Daman Albarn, “monkey see, monkey do”. Despite Liverpool’s Chinese legacy we are only just seeing, when we should have long begun doing. There are agencies here doing good work, but on the civic level, we are in a long queue of other places befriending China, who as a country are, far more interested in Africa than Liverpool.
I thank you for your time, and apologise that I continued for longer than anticipated. If you are wondering how I found your email, it is on the Tesco website. My remarks are personal and do not represent the company I work for. If you are interested in the broader ideas I referred to I am happy to furnish you. They relate to Liverpool and not Tesco or China. After all no one knows better than you, that every little help helps!
Sunday, 29 March 2009
Little Steps to Being Greener
Something I wrote to Tesco on 7 June 2008, having been invaded by marketing material, called "Little Steps to Being Greener " that was intended to encourage me to amend my consumption behaviour.
I was interested to receive your green leaflet above. It was some time ago now, and whilst I am aware of reported efforts by Tesco to improve its green image, its arrival irritated me enough to research on your green credentials and offer a critique. The treacly name of the leaflet bore little resemblance to how I perceived your company, so would its content change my mind?
I was immediately irritated by your mixing guilt with choice. For example your logistical processes and retail model have created an efficient and successful brand, defined by high service expectations, low(ish) prices and choice. But it also creates environmental disutility as “just in time” stock processes, vehicle dependence, waste, and strict supply chain controls to maximise profits are environmentally damaging and unsustainable. You then say in your leaflet by saying that “we”, rather than Tesco, should change habits. I agree “we” can all do more, but Tesco must do significantly more as the damage it causes is massively disproportionate to the collective “we”. Hence you need to radicalise your business model to a human scale, or consider other ways to share economic benefits. All the leaflet does is attempt to sell goodwill, by saying you shop here and we will sometimes use less electricity, or recycle more boxes
My research shows that you intend extending your consciousness strategy even deeper into the consumer psyche by actively promoting greener life styles. Fair enough, but I doubt that this will extend to recognising alternative means of shopping such as non car use, or shopping locally. I therefore suggest you amend your business model to address this before preaching to others.
I accept the need for sustainable living, but in analysing your activities in packaging, stock transportation, “out of townism”, parking, energy consumption, land use, and indeed mail shots (such as your leaflet), I see few green credentials. I know you are making efforts to address this, but so are most responsible businesses and individuals. It’s just that Tesco with its vast resources and power could do more, and take far more responsibility for being a major contributor to the problem. A problem that seems set to continues for as long as your stores consume so much land and expend so much energy in reaching, servicing and constructing them. These basics cannot be solved by creating research academies or building future stores with new technology, but only by a shifting your core strategy to embrace competition and retail diversity.
Strategies in the leaflet relate to labelling, recycling, energy efficiency, and green products. But these are marginal activities compared to social responsibility, and many people manage such choices already. Hence your strategy is also marginal, albeit margins are where Tesco excels with its marketing, pricing, and loyalty schemes. Hence a consumer message to “buy green” only changes marginal behaviour at the product consumption level where you are already compete strongly. It has little impact at the social responsibility level where consumers should consider other ways to shop. Hence you can promote a green strategy as a care strategy and without losing financially and might even increase volumes at the margins.
What you should be doing is getting shoppers to use town centres, neighbourhood shops, and local markets, as opposed to building more and larger out of town stores that encourage car use. But this will lose you customers to competing types of shopping, unless you can find an alternative ways to share the benefits, which I will argue later that you can. It was shopping and market activities that transformed places of defence into towns and then cities. Hence retail was a key element in defining community and place. This was and is sustainable. Out of townism, on the other hand, creates a geography and society of nowhere. This is not sustainable and the inventor of this trend, the USA, has long discovered this. It is disappointing that we didn’t learn from this. Out of townism creates an exurbia and a threat to town centres that your leaflet ignores. So when your leaflet eventually refers to “supporting our local communities” the regional procurement strategy you suggest is not sufficient.
Arguments about “being greener” are complex. They don’t just relate to consumption, expenditure, and recycling issues, but touch upon how places, and societies work. Your “cathedrals” of retail have reduced Sundays to another consumption day, contributed to changed social patterns, and destroyed many small businesses. I can’t see how your version of a green message relates to wider issues of corporate responsibility. I see the latter as profit and cost driven to maximise shareholder value. I am not against profit or efficiency, far from it, but it must be balanced by social capital.
Soft actions like charging for car parking, sourcing local products at sustainable prices, reducing imports, supporting neighbourhood shopping, and reducing your range of retail services, will make a big impact on consumer behaviour and is easier and more responsible than setting up academies and research programmes. However I see no indication of you doing this. Hard actions by government in areas of land and retail tax, and restrictions upon land banking, opening times, building regulations, mezzanine development, car park use, and Section 106 agreements, would be more direct, and create behavioural costs that you would either absorb from profits or pass to the consumer. I can see much of this happening as tax payers bemoan excess environmental taxes on consumption and waste disposal that ignore supply.
I work in regeneration so deal with the impacts of out of town retailing and other forces upon place. I see retail industrialisation as destroying a rich socio-retail sector, such as market halls and small business. Having revealed a professional bias, I still think my critique is constructive. So despite not liking Tesco’s impact on the broad urban environment, where I see out of townism and town centres as mutually exclusive, it does deserve praise for business inventiveness. I should add that the company I work for has your Chief Executive on its board, and that he is there for his inventiveness and commercial qualities as much as his local roots. That said he is talking here next week at an event related to Chinese trade that I shall be attending
I was also a business process analyst in the City, with an MBA and an interest in business strategy. From this perspective I can only admire how Tesco climbed above rivals in a competitive market, using customer focussed ideas. I remain committed to process related to “customer journey”, so see Tesco innovation in these areas as exceptional. Technical ideas such as heat cameras and store cards, to common sense like easy open plastic bag and promotions, help keep the queues moving, money coming in, and customers coming back. I admire this, but in a 1994 career, as a Valuation Officer in Southgate, I undertook a mini revaluation (regeneration before the term was used) to address a High St. that was 50% empty due to 13 superstores in a 4 mile radius. Thus, I have a wide mix of experience, analysis and opinions but none of these convince me you are green
So here’s a thought. Why doesn’t Tesco use its experience of supply chains, logistics, order fulfilment, merchant acquiring, customer and people management to add value in the high street and local sectors? Take a business management or support role in town centre or market halls. Such places create valuable social glue, but the bodies that own or manage them often lack the commercial skills and strategic sense to elevate them into something more. You could fund them or integrate trainee management processes, with potential tax benefits, and they might work well, especially in areas where you have no obvious business competition interest. In this sense you are truly giving. Certainly an idea like this would fit with the original US idea of a true “Business Improvement District”, and offer funding and capacity building, in a useful way.
These environments, especially traditional markets, are not dissimilar to a supermarket. The scale can be different, but by replacing aisles with streets, and shelves with stalls you have a similar model. The retail products are similar, and so too are supplemental services such as catering and car parking, but beyond that there is little comparison. High street and market layout can be poor, with limited product clustering, dysfunctional gateways, unsatisfactory merchant acquiring methods, and basics such as baskets, trolleys, loyalty, and product awareness non existent. You could work alone or with other supermarkets to present a free and worthwhile consultancy.
I have initiated an ideas paper, with a colleague to present to one or more administrative bodies. But it seems to me that Tesco could offset some of its business footprint, buy assisting in areas such as logistics, knowledge transfer, merchant acquiring, supply assistance, delivery support, public realm, and two-way management transfer programmes. More importantly it could offer process advice on integrating systems and payments, car parking strategy, etc that would make market places more efficient. Tesco could play an “adoptive” role to oversee key success strategies to drive smaller retail business forward in town centre, but especially market hall environments. This would remove criticism of it being competitively biased, and offer a pro active offsetting tax. I have no idea if this is likely to appeal, but would be interested in discussing it further.
In closing I remain unconvinced about Tesco’s green credentials and the leaflet. Grand design in areas such as green research is all very well, but there are others better placed and more independent to do this than Tesco. Small steps at home, and the understanding, appreciation and mentoring of other retail segments seem to me to make better sense
I was interested to receive your green leaflet above. It was some time ago now, and whilst I am aware of reported efforts by Tesco to improve its green image, its arrival irritated me enough to research on your green credentials and offer a critique. The treacly name of the leaflet bore little resemblance to how I perceived your company, so would its content change my mind?
I was immediately irritated by your mixing guilt with choice. For example your logistical processes and retail model have created an efficient and successful brand, defined by high service expectations, low(ish) prices and choice. But it also creates environmental disutility as “just in time” stock processes, vehicle dependence, waste, and strict supply chain controls to maximise profits are environmentally damaging and unsustainable. You then say in your leaflet by saying that “we”, rather than Tesco, should change habits. I agree “we” can all do more, but Tesco must do significantly more as the damage it causes is massively disproportionate to the collective “we”. Hence you need to radicalise your business model to a human scale, or consider other ways to share economic benefits. All the leaflet does is attempt to sell goodwill, by saying you shop here and we will sometimes use less electricity, or recycle more boxes
My research shows that you intend extending your consciousness strategy even deeper into the consumer psyche by actively promoting greener life styles. Fair enough, but I doubt that this will extend to recognising alternative means of shopping such as non car use, or shopping locally. I therefore suggest you amend your business model to address this before preaching to others.
I accept the need for sustainable living, but in analysing your activities in packaging, stock transportation, “out of townism”, parking, energy consumption, land use, and indeed mail shots (such as your leaflet), I see few green credentials. I know you are making efforts to address this, but so are most responsible businesses and individuals. It’s just that Tesco with its vast resources and power could do more, and take far more responsibility for being a major contributor to the problem. A problem that seems set to continues for as long as your stores consume so much land and expend so much energy in reaching, servicing and constructing them. These basics cannot be solved by creating research academies or building future stores with new technology, but only by a shifting your core strategy to embrace competition and retail diversity.
Strategies in the leaflet relate to labelling, recycling, energy efficiency, and green products. But these are marginal activities compared to social responsibility, and many people manage such choices already. Hence your strategy is also marginal, albeit margins are where Tesco excels with its marketing, pricing, and loyalty schemes. Hence a consumer message to “buy green” only changes marginal behaviour at the product consumption level where you are already compete strongly. It has little impact at the social responsibility level where consumers should consider other ways to shop. Hence you can promote a green strategy as a care strategy and without losing financially and might even increase volumes at the margins.
What you should be doing is getting shoppers to use town centres, neighbourhood shops, and local markets, as opposed to building more and larger out of town stores that encourage car use. But this will lose you customers to competing types of shopping, unless you can find an alternative ways to share the benefits, which I will argue later that you can. It was shopping and market activities that transformed places of defence into towns and then cities. Hence retail was a key element in defining community and place. This was and is sustainable. Out of townism, on the other hand, creates a geography and society of nowhere. This is not sustainable and the inventor of this trend, the USA, has long discovered this. It is disappointing that we didn’t learn from this. Out of townism creates an exurbia and a threat to town centres that your leaflet ignores. So when your leaflet eventually refers to “supporting our local communities” the regional procurement strategy you suggest is not sufficient.
Arguments about “being greener” are complex. They don’t just relate to consumption, expenditure, and recycling issues, but touch upon how places, and societies work. Your “cathedrals” of retail have reduced Sundays to another consumption day, contributed to changed social patterns, and destroyed many small businesses. I can’t see how your version of a green message relates to wider issues of corporate responsibility. I see the latter as profit and cost driven to maximise shareholder value. I am not against profit or efficiency, far from it, but it must be balanced by social capital.
Soft actions like charging for car parking, sourcing local products at sustainable prices, reducing imports, supporting neighbourhood shopping, and reducing your range of retail services, will make a big impact on consumer behaviour and is easier and more responsible than setting up academies and research programmes. However I see no indication of you doing this. Hard actions by government in areas of land and retail tax, and restrictions upon land banking, opening times, building regulations, mezzanine development, car park use, and Section 106 agreements, would be more direct, and create behavioural costs that you would either absorb from profits or pass to the consumer. I can see much of this happening as tax payers bemoan excess environmental taxes on consumption and waste disposal that ignore supply.
I work in regeneration so deal with the impacts of out of town retailing and other forces upon place. I see retail industrialisation as destroying a rich socio-retail sector, such as market halls and small business. Having revealed a professional bias, I still think my critique is constructive. So despite not liking Tesco’s impact on the broad urban environment, where I see out of townism and town centres as mutually exclusive, it does deserve praise for business inventiveness. I should add that the company I work for has your Chief Executive on its board, and that he is there for his inventiveness and commercial qualities as much as his local roots. That said he is talking here next week at an event related to Chinese trade that I shall be attending
I was also a business process analyst in the City, with an MBA and an interest in business strategy. From this perspective I can only admire how Tesco climbed above rivals in a competitive market, using customer focussed ideas. I remain committed to process related to “customer journey”, so see Tesco innovation in these areas as exceptional. Technical ideas such as heat cameras and store cards, to common sense like easy open plastic bag and promotions, help keep the queues moving, money coming in, and customers coming back. I admire this, but in a 1994 career, as a Valuation Officer in Southgate, I undertook a mini revaluation (regeneration before the term was used) to address a High St. that was 50% empty due to 13 superstores in a 4 mile radius. Thus, I have a wide mix of experience, analysis and opinions but none of these convince me you are green
So here’s a thought. Why doesn’t Tesco use its experience of supply chains, logistics, order fulfilment, merchant acquiring, customer and people management to add value in the high street and local sectors? Take a business management or support role in town centre or market halls. Such places create valuable social glue, but the bodies that own or manage them often lack the commercial skills and strategic sense to elevate them into something more. You could fund them or integrate trainee management processes, with potential tax benefits, and they might work well, especially in areas where you have no obvious business competition interest. In this sense you are truly giving. Certainly an idea like this would fit with the original US idea of a true “Business Improvement District”, and offer funding and capacity building, in a useful way.
These environments, especially traditional markets, are not dissimilar to a supermarket. The scale can be different, but by replacing aisles with streets, and shelves with stalls you have a similar model. The retail products are similar, and so too are supplemental services such as catering and car parking, but beyond that there is little comparison. High street and market layout can be poor, with limited product clustering, dysfunctional gateways, unsatisfactory merchant acquiring methods, and basics such as baskets, trolleys, loyalty, and product awareness non existent. You could work alone or with other supermarkets to present a free and worthwhile consultancy.
I have initiated an ideas paper, with a colleague to present to one or more administrative bodies. But it seems to me that Tesco could offset some of its business footprint, buy assisting in areas such as logistics, knowledge transfer, merchant acquiring, supply assistance, delivery support, public realm, and two-way management transfer programmes. More importantly it could offer process advice on integrating systems and payments, car parking strategy, etc that would make market places more efficient. Tesco could play an “adoptive” role to oversee key success strategies to drive smaller retail business forward in town centre, but especially market hall environments. This would remove criticism of it being competitively biased, and offer a pro active offsetting tax. I have no idea if this is likely to appeal, but would be interested in discussing it further.
In closing I remain unconvinced about Tesco’s green credentials and the leaflet. Grand design in areas such as green research is all very well, but there are others better placed and more independent to do this than Tesco. Small steps at home, and the understanding, appreciation and mentoring of other retail segments seem to me to make better sense
Waldermar Januszczak comes to Liverpool
Waldermar Januszczak, the art critic, whose writings and television work, I genuinely like, came to Liverpool to review the work of local artist Glenn Brown. Mr Brown recently won the Turner prize and there is an exhibition of his work at the Tate Liverpool. A reference to his article in the Times is set out at the foot of this entry.
Mr Januszczak identifies in a positive way some "problematic and apocalyptic" tensions in Mr Brown’s work, but these are insignificant when compared to his problematic and apocalyptic views on the city's regeneration. Ones I find offensive for the reason that they include factually inaccurate observations, as well as some bitter and crass views.
Opinion is subjective, and most grown up people accept this. At the same time there are philosophers and scientists who might suggest there is no such thing as truth.
But to have order in life, we must be able to rely on fact. So for a noted intellectual and cultural journalist to deny fact and/or rely on poor source material to create a scenario that is plainly not the case is something to be objective and critical about. Whilst I might share, and agree, with some of his opinions on the poor quality of some Liverpool architecture, it is wrong and inaccurate for him to say
"Knocking down a city to put on a Paul McCartney concert does not constitute a meaningful contribution to culture."
This simply never happened, and I can only assume he mistook some pithy account of the city's cultural planning, or was told it as a joke by a local wag. Who knows? I find issues with other points too, but recognise that these are opinions and not facts. He is entitled to voice them despite their crass nature and the damage done to many who have contributed many new pieces and many ideas to Liverpool’s culture and cultural year; including me.
I wonder if he would be so damming of the "piles of rubble surrounded by puddles," "grim entropy," and "ripped out" city, if he were writing of post war Warsaw. After all both places were significantly remodelled by the Third Reich, and suffered long after due to indifference, disinvestment, the rivalries of governance and clashing political systems. These places became victims of the cruel ranting of other tyrannical types, with deep anxieties and equally strange theorise. But Liverpool city centre is not like this and nor can it be as vast areas of it are an internationally important world heritage site.
It is a shame for him to be so easy to dam and yet not see the bigger picture. One assumes that he is so obsessed with the still life of small pictures that he cannot see the real life beyond their frames. He seems obsessed with the truth in art, and talks of this in his review, but not the truth of people.
It is perhaps the mess of Liverpool and Birkenhead too, that created people like Glenn Brown, and other greats of the Liverpool diaspora like William Roscoe, William Gladstone, John Lennon, Jude Kelly, Tony Hall, Willie Russell, Adrian Henri, James Stirling, George Stephenson, Alan Ginsberg, Karl Jung, and so many, many more who were either born here, or gravitated here and whose intellectual consciousness was clearly based around an affinity for this great and very loud and messy and beautiful of city, in place an on people .
So with all this simmering in my "Non-Scouse" brain, as I was not born here, but attracted here, I was inspired to post a comment on the Times webs site. I was allowed 300 miserly characters, so it's short and to the point.:
"Forget Gerry Brown; Waldermar has become Dan Brown & created a parallel narrative of innuendo & convenience. By flâneuring and intellectual derive; Waldermar neatly surmises that there is no such thing as truth. Thus by his own logic, his opinions are utterly irrelevant."
I hope he publishes a correction, if not an apology.
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/visual_arts/article5938387.ece?Submitted=true
Mr Januszczak identifies in a positive way some "problematic and apocalyptic" tensions in Mr Brown’s work, but these are insignificant when compared to his problematic and apocalyptic views on the city's regeneration. Ones I find offensive for the reason that they include factually inaccurate observations, as well as some bitter and crass views.
Opinion is subjective, and most grown up people accept this. At the same time there are philosophers and scientists who might suggest there is no such thing as truth.
But to have order in life, we must be able to rely on fact. So for a noted intellectual and cultural journalist to deny fact and/or rely on poor source material to create a scenario that is plainly not the case is something to be objective and critical about. Whilst I might share, and agree, with some of his opinions on the poor quality of some Liverpool architecture, it is wrong and inaccurate for him to say
"Knocking down a city to put on a Paul McCartney concert does not constitute a meaningful contribution to culture."
This simply never happened, and I can only assume he mistook some pithy account of the city's cultural planning, or was told it as a joke by a local wag. Who knows? I find issues with other points too, but recognise that these are opinions and not facts. He is entitled to voice them despite their crass nature and the damage done to many who have contributed many new pieces and many ideas to Liverpool’s culture and cultural year; including me.
I wonder if he would be so damming of the "piles of rubble surrounded by puddles," "grim entropy," and "ripped out" city, if he were writing of post war Warsaw. After all both places were significantly remodelled by the Third Reich, and suffered long after due to indifference, disinvestment, the rivalries of governance and clashing political systems. These places became victims of the cruel ranting of other tyrannical types, with deep anxieties and equally strange theorise. But Liverpool city centre is not like this and nor can it be as vast areas of it are an internationally important world heritage site.
It is a shame for him to be so easy to dam and yet not see the bigger picture. One assumes that he is so obsessed with the still life of small pictures that he cannot see the real life beyond their frames. He seems obsessed with the truth in art, and talks of this in his review, but not the truth of people.
It is perhaps the mess of Liverpool and Birkenhead too, that created people like Glenn Brown, and other greats of the Liverpool diaspora like William Roscoe, William Gladstone, John Lennon, Jude Kelly, Tony Hall, Willie Russell, Adrian Henri, James Stirling, George Stephenson, Alan Ginsberg, Karl Jung, and so many, many more who were either born here, or gravitated here and whose intellectual consciousness was clearly based around an affinity for this great and very loud and messy and beautiful of city, in place an on people .
So with all this simmering in my "Non-Scouse" brain, as I was not born here, but attracted here, I was inspired to post a comment on the Times webs site. I was allowed 300 miserly characters, so it's short and to the point.:
"Forget Gerry Brown; Waldermar has become Dan Brown & created a parallel narrative of innuendo & convenience. By flâneuring and intellectual derive; Waldermar neatly surmises that there is no such thing as truth. Thus by his own logic, his opinions are utterly irrelevant."
I hope he publishes a correction, if not an apology.
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/visual_arts/article5938387.ece?Submitted=true
Somethng Wrong - Thoughts on Liverpool Hope Street
Something wrong?
I was on Hope Street last night. Most of the cultural businesses were "dark" and it was possible to park on the street despite a well attended gig at the Phil. Something is wrong with that..........
But this does not excuse the obvious issues of a second rate developer being entrusted with a cities culture. Nor does it excuse the university that handed it to them on a plate and keeps Maghull afloat by paying it rent at a time when its other corporate interests have financial issues. Then there is Maghulls crass insensitivity to perhaps the only street on the planet with two cathedrals, two universities and a raft of cultural bodies along its length. Even London, Paris, Rome, Athens, anyplace can’t boast anything close to this. It has to be unique? CANT ANYONE BUT THE PUBLIC SEE VALUE IN THIS? Something is wrong with that...........
The cultural vitality of Hope Street easily matches that of our famous Liverpool Waterfront, and the potential exists to revitalise historic cultural buildings to accord with post Capital of Culture socio-economic-knowledge opportunities? But Maghulls plans to convert the world’s first art school, first children’s hospital, second homeopathic hospital, and a further building into flats is not the way to do this. Something is wrong with that...............
This tiny, modest, beautiful, and deeply loved street is so utterly unique, in global terms, that its heritage deserves something really special. Where architectural interventions occur they should be of the highest standard. Thus there could be an inclusive international architectural competition for the Josephine Butler House car park site that site more or less at the streets centre. On a street bookended by Lutyens and Gibberd at one end and Scott at the other, with a spectacular slope to the city centre, surely this site offers the most amazing potential. Such a competition would not only to present inspiring and contextual architecture to complement the city’s two cathedrals, but create a focus at the summit of a highly significant downtown/uptown route and keep the street “lit.” Three places to match “Three Graces”. But the rubble from the piecemeal destruction of JB House continues to grow as Maghull add to their reputation for excellence, by expand the existing surface car park and demolishing JB House, to create…………..… additional surfaced car parking. Something is wrong with that...........
It’s pathetic, and a tragedy of un-hope, and is it any wonder that a clueless, selfish, greedy, destructive firm like Maghull has financial issues. But let’s reappraise something Mr Vulliamy. Maghull are not a political football; nor are they victims. To paraphrase George Orwell and your own article , “they are a football boot stamping on a human place for ever.” We should remind ourselves what Mr Maserati driving Hanlon said about Mr Coppell (who I don’t know) in the Liverpool Daily Post of 15-4-2008. I quote: ” Mr Hanlon’s expletive-strewn reply called Mr Coppell a “f*****g ignorant pig” and told him that “we could always make room for you in the foundations within the new development,” What a charming man. In an era of respect campaigns, increasing awareness of human rights, and responsible “free speech,” this is the mind of a man entrusted with a street widely regarded as the intellectual and religious soul of Liverpool? Something is wrong with that
Over the last nine years, Liverpool has slowly clawed its way back from the brink. Against the odds it became a Capital of Culture and achieved global recognition of its waterfront by its designation as a World Heritage Site to include the Pierhead and its “Three Graces”. Meanwhile Hope Street has Maghull designating its future by what might be called its “Five Disgraces”
Something is wrong with that......................
First poster 23 March 2009 as a response to an Ed Vullimay Gaurdian article at
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/mar/22/architecture-heritage-liverpool-hope-street?commentpage=2&commentposted=1
I was on Hope Street last night. Most of the cultural businesses were "dark" and it was possible to park on the street despite a well attended gig at the Phil. Something is wrong with that..........
But this does not excuse the obvious issues of a second rate developer being entrusted with a cities culture. Nor does it excuse the university that handed it to them on a plate and keeps Maghull afloat by paying it rent at a time when its other corporate interests have financial issues. Then there is Maghulls crass insensitivity to perhaps the only street on the planet with two cathedrals, two universities and a raft of cultural bodies along its length. Even London, Paris, Rome, Athens, anyplace can’t boast anything close to this. It has to be unique? CANT ANYONE BUT THE PUBLIC SEE VALUE IN THIS? Something is wrong with that...........
The cultural vitality of Hope Street easily matches that of our famous Liverpool Waterfront, and the potential exists to revitalise historic cultural buildings to accord with post Capital of Culture socio-economic-knowledge opportunities? But Maghulls plans to convert the world’s first art school, first children’s hospital, second homeopathic hospital, and a further building into flats is not the way to do this. Something is wrong with that...............
This tiny, modest, beautiful, and deeply loved street is so utterly unique, in global terms, that its heritage deserves something really special. Where architectural interventions occur they should be of the highest standard. Thus there could be an inclusive international architectural competition for the Josephine Butler House car park site that site more or less at the streets centre. On a street bookended by Lutyens and Gibberd at one end and Scott at the other, with a spectacular slope to the city centre, surely this site offers the most amazing potential. Such a competition would not only to present inspiring and contextual architecture to complement the city’s two cathedrals, but create a focus at the summit of a highly significant downtown/uptown route and keep the street “lit.” Three places to match “Three Graces”. But the rubble from the piecemeal destruction of JB House continues to grow as Maghull add to their reputation for excellence, by expand the existing surface car park and demolishing JB House, to create…………..… additional surfaced car parking. Something is wrong with that...........
It’s pathetic, and a tragedy of un-hope, and is it any wonder that a clueless, selfish, greedy, destructive firm like Maghull has financial issues. But let’s reappraise something Mr Vulliamy. Maghull are not a political football; nor are they victims. To paraphrase George Orwell and your own article , “they are a football boot stamping on a human place for ever.” We should remind ourselves what Mr Maserati driving Hanlon said about Mr Coppell (who I don’t know) in the Liverpool Daily Post of 15-4-2008. I quote: ” Mr Hanlon’s expletive-strewn reply called Mr Coppell a “f*****g ignorant pig” and told him that “we could always make room for you in the foundations within the new development,” What a charming man. In an era of respect campaigns, increasing awareness of human rights, and responsible “free speech,” this is the mind of a man entrusted with a street widely regarded as the intellectual and religious soul of Liverpool? Something is wrong with that
Over the last nine years, Liverpool has slowly clawed its way back from the brink. Against the odds it became a Capital of Culture and achieved global recognition of its waterfront by its designation as a World Heritage Site to include the Pierhead and its “Three Graces”. Meanwhile Hope Street has Maghull designating its future by what might be called its “Five Disgraces”
Something is wrong with that......................
First poster 23 March 2009 as a response to an Ed Vullimay Gaurdian article at
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/mar/22/architecture-heritage-liverpool-hope-street?commentpage=2&commentposted=1
Saturday, 28 March 2009
Opinions on Public Art and City Structured planning
I don't know when public art became a function of the "structured" city. It presumably arose historically, as a by-product of worship processes and architectural adornment. Later it presumably evolved into statements about the civic elements of city governance such as monarchy and leaders. Its roots seem unlikely to involve the types of popularist or collaborative ideas that create public art today.
Nor do I know precisely how the “structured city” came about. I'd guess the earliest cities "self-organised" around quite simple things like geography and historic movement corridors, where natural or man made objects and “patterns” defined way in which the built structures grew. Then in certain enlightened periods (the Renaissance being one of them - but before that Arab and Greek cultures, the citizens of such places, almost certainly enlightened civic dignitaries, began thinking of new hierarchies that utilised old patterns of structure, with new ones. I am sure the key to this type of structure was trade, places of trade exchange, and the projection of civic power, civic altruism and religion.
In a way our oldest and best loved cities seem to have grown from historic and expert led thinking that is strangely mirrored by most of the UK's current regeneration thinking. The difference today is that citizens are part of a much broader social democracy, with access to knowledge, freedom of expression and a sense of self that was not perhaps so well informed in the past. Thus modern methods of regeneration and the management of cities by the civic can seem dogmatic, patronising, or selfish, with outcome that are somehow deemed negative. Especially in controlling process like the delivery of public art
Systems scientists understand the equilibrium in systems and states of rest and change. They also understand that the movement from one state to another requires some for of catalyst and results in some form of entropy. It seems to me that there are parallels in urbanist and physics based concepts.
The social dynamic of change is "intelligence" based, not thermodynamic, and is a meta-physical concept of managed change. In social change the outcomes present a wide range of potential outcomes, some of which might be negative. So in driving change there is no reason why the driver could not be a non-expert, like an artist or "craft" person as much as a technician, like a planner. With a potential randomness of outcomes that be as good as they are bad, there is no less or no more a chance of them getting it wrong.
But centuries of "legitimising" knowledge into hierarchical structures, like planning, means that a non technical city modeller could never happen as responsibilities like this are deemed the territory of experts. There is a subplot to this between “socio-creatives” like architects who seek an urban dynamic in change, but perhaps have anxieties about prescription, and the enthusiasm for planning by town planners who seek control and stability and don't have such anxieties. Perhaps in the sub-conscious that their role seems justified by thousands of years of historic city planning.
The big unasked questions in this debate, are who owns the city, and is the increasing privatisation of something deemed once deemed public, good. How too, did this privatisation come about.
Updated email critique of March 2009 to an academic paper on public art and city governance issues
Nor do I know precisely how the “structured city” came about. I'd guess the earliest cities "self-organised" around quite simple things like geography and historic movement corridors, where natural or man made objects and “patterns” defined way in which the built structures grew. Then in certain enlightened periods (the Renaissance being one of them - but before that Arab and Greek cultures, the citizens of such places, almost certainly enlightened civic dignitaries, began thinking of new hierarchies that utilised old patterns of structure, with new ones. I am sure the key to this type of structure was trade, places of trade exchange, and the projection of civic power, civic altruism and religion.
In a way our oldest and best loved cities seem to have grown from historic and expert led thinking that is strangely mirrored by most of the UK's current regeneration thinking. The difference today is that citizens are part of a much broader social democracy, with access to knowledge, freedom of expression and a sense of self that was not perhaps so well informed in the past. Thus modern methods of regeneration and the management of cities by the civic can seem dogmatic, patronising, or selfish, with outcome that are somehow deemed negative. Especially in controlling process like the delivery of public art
Systems scientists understand the equilibrium in systems and states of rest and change. They also understand that the movement from one state to another requires some for of catalyst and results in some form of entropy. It seems to me that there are parallels in urbanist and physics based concepts.
The social dynamic of change is "intelligence" based, not thermodynamic, and is a meta-physical concept of managed change. In social change the outcomes present a wide range of potential outcomes, some of which might be negative. So in driving change there is no reason why the driver could not be a non-expert, like an artist or "craft" person as much as a technician, like a planner. With a potential randomness of outcomes that be as good as they are bad, there is no less or no more a chance of them getting it wrong.
But centuries of "legitimising" knowledge into hierarchical structures, like planning, means that a non technical city modeller could never happen as responsibilities like this are deemed the territory of experts. There is a subplot to this between “socio-creatives” like architects who seek an urban dynamic in change, but perhaps have anxieties about prescription, and the enthusiasm for planning by town planners who seek control and stability and don't have such anxieties. Perhaps in the sub-conscious that their role seems justified by thousands of years of historic city planning.
The big unasked questions in this debate, are who owns the city, and is the increasing privatisation of something deemed once deemed public, good. How too, did this privatisation come about.
Updated email critique of March 2009 to an academic paper on public art and city governance issues
State of the Blog and Reflections of 2008
I have no idea where 2008 went. Capital of Culture came and passed in Liverpool with some clear economic and cultural benefits, but somehow nothing changed in the city’s broad psyche; at least outside of the political and elite classes. Some in the city banked money, some banked culture, and many banked a lot of honest fun and good memories, but I am less certain we banked any wisdom.
As a result, I think I banked the thought that the only way to change things in a meaningful way, for the self at least, is to do what you want to do rather than what you think you should do, and certainly not do what others decide you should do.
One thing I did do, was to transmute from a committed and dilettante to artist. I exhibited a piece in the Liverpool Independent Biennial with a very good friend Cecilia Matson. We gave it no real title, but it grew into being called one of "110%Scouse, and/or Scouse Stew. We made a Facebook page, where it is called Scouse Stew.
So having squashed the blog last year, mainly due to a mix of apathy and being otherwise engaged, I have decided to reopen it, and use it as a depository for ideas and writings I have contributed elsewhere; perhaps as part of a process of moving on to other things; perhaps due to circumstances that rest on my mind about change. These writings nearly all relate to urbanist matters.
So it is likely that my future blogs might appear disjointed, out of order, or clumsily lumped together. They will do to me, but for other readers, they may not.
In Complexity theory there is a concept called future backwards. Within this perception technique, you create a fantastic future; revisit some dark past issues and project between the two, by seeking turning points and levers of potential change that pass through the present and the self. So perhaps, in a subconscious way, the deconstructing of chronology by curating for the future from the past is a similar thought process.
As a result, I think I banked the thought that the only way to change things in a meaningful way, for the self at least, is to do what you want to do rather than what you think you should do, and certainly not do what others decide you should do.
One thing I did do, was to transmute from a committed and dilettante to artist. I exhibited a piece in the Liverpool Independent Biennial with a very good friend Cecilia Matson. We gave it no real title, but it grew into being called one of "110%Scouse, and/or Scouse Stew. We made a Facebook page, where it is called Scouse Stew.
So having squashed the blog last year, mainly due to a mix of apathy and being otherwise engaged, I have decided to reopen it, and use it as a depository for ideas and writings I have contributed elsewhere; perhaps as part of a process of moving on to other things; perhaps due to circumstances that rest on my mind about change. These writings nearly all relate to urbanist matters.
So it is likely that my future blogs might appear disjointed, out of order, or clumsily lumped together. They will do to me, but for other readers, they may not.
In Complexity theory there is a concept called future backwards. Within this perception technique, you create a fantastic future; revisit some dark past issues and project between the two, by seeking turning points and levers of potential change that pass through the present and the self. So perhaps, in a subconscious way, the deconstructing of chronology by curating for the future from the past is a similar thought process.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)