Coffee in Bold Street, Liverpool
I had a coffee in Starbucks in Bold Street as I walked around the city.
Starbucks in Bold Street, Liverpool
I have a feeling,that this building was a coffee shop in the 1960s, called something like La Bussola. There is nothing to indicate this and the helpful staff didn’t know anything.
However there is a plaque from a Merseyside Heritage Society saying that it was a very good restoration of the building.
Dedicated To All the Lonely People
Eleanor Rigby is one of the Beatle’s most famous songs and one of the few songs, with its own sculpture.
Eleanor Rigby, Stanley Street, Liverpool
The sculpture was created by Tommy Steele, who is better known as a rock-and-roll singer and musical performer. He gave the sculpture to the City of Liverpool in honour of the Beatles.
I sat for a few moments with Eleanor and thought of C, who never saw the modern Liverpool.
Around St. George’s Hall and Lime Street
After the lecture and a very good lunch, I walked back down the hill to the station, where I dumped my bag in the Left Luggage and then took these pictures of the area.
Archeecturally as in many other things, Liverpool is the second city in the UK and these pictures tell just a part of why.
A Sign on a Lift
I found this sign by the lifts in the Electrical Engineering building mildly funny.
A Sign on a Lift
I know what it means, but I suspect it does raise a chuckle with many.
Incidentally, these lifts were a butt of a lot of humour, when I was a student as they were always getting stuck. In one case they became a story about Liverpool University’s space program using a lift, launched from Cape Dingle.
UKAS Visit Day
Yesterday, as I walked up Brownlow Hill to the University. I saw this sign outside the Victoria Building.
UKAS Visit Day at Liverpool University
It was all so different, when I went in 1965. I was accepted by the university with no interview and the first time I went to the city was the day I arrived by train after a four and a half hour train journey from London and had to haul my heavy suitcase up the hill to get a bus to my digs.
Yesterday, as I did the same walk, I reflected on how far I’d come in those 46 years. The Catholic Cathedral was now of course finished and new buildings were lining Brownlow Hill.
And there was a welcoming notice on the doors of the Electrical Engineering building!
Welcome Sign
I liked that! C would have been proud.
Ken Dodd and Bessie Braddock
Lime Street station hosts one of the more unusual street sculptures in the UK on the station concourse. It commemorates two local heroes; Ken Dodd and Bessie Braddock.
Ken Dodd and Bessie Braddock
I have never seen Ken Dodd perform, although if I’d gone to university a year earlier, I would have seen his legendary performance at the Students Union in Panto Week, where he told jokes for several hours. Panto Week was a uniquely Liverpool University name for their Rag Week. It was so named because the students used to block book the last night of the pantomine in the Liverpool Empire. That tradition had died out before I went to the University, but it was still part of University life and raised money for charity. There is an account of Panto Week in 1936 here.
In State in First Class
There’s just me in First Class on this late Virgin train.
But do I care? Of course not, as I can really spread out.
Incidentally, Standard Class up to Liverpool and First Class back, cost just under £46 in total.
So I can’t complain.
Back To The Sixties
In 1965 when I went to Liverpool University, the Electrical Engineering and Electronics building was brand new.
It appears to have worn reasonably well and is just how I remember it all those years ago. So bits have been replaced and it’s been redecorated, but it is a real credit to its creators, which you can’t say for many of the buildings of the time.
It’s still contains all the original prints too. Some of which I seem to remember.
However the infamous legend by one painting has been removed. It had been beautifully typed and framed and said something like. “Unfortunately, we were unable to afford a painting by this artist. ut he was kind enough to sell us the rag on which he wiped his brushes!”
After the lecture, we retired to one of the staff’s room and I was pleased to see that he still had a genuine blackboard with real chalk on the wall.
How civilised!
The Lecture
I wouldn’t really think it would be a good idea to judge myself on how my lecture went this lunchtime.
I did however enjoy it and I was able to do it direct from this blog. I think that it would have been better with a more presentation oriented theme.
In some ways though it was strange to be lecturing in a theatre, were I’d perhaps listened to upwards of a couple of hundred lectures. And to the biggest audience, I ever have!
The Minotaur Lives
Imagine my surprise, when a parcel appeared on my doorstep carried by a man who looked like he was doing an impression of Pete Henry, except that he was a few years older than my last recollection.
In the parcel, was about a hundred copies of the infamous Metier Minotaur. This was the edition that had the tall Pete’s picture where he was trying to get into a compromising position with the diminutive Karen, in what looked like the dining room of my old house at Debach with the infamous wallpaper. It was also probably the laste edition as it had Metier’s obituary. On the last page it asked if the hamster really did it.
Pete told me that he had had a vision from God and this had sent him to a dark, satanic print works in Clerkenwell, where in exchange for a fistfull of used notes, he had received these magazines from an atttractive young lady.
So what am I to do with this manna from heaven?
My son died of pancreatic cancer, so these priceless works of great literature will be sold with all proceeds going towards research into the cancer at Liverpool University, where a world-class team has been assembled.
I am not restricting the sales, as the excellent printer, has informed me that if need be he can print enough copies to completely cover every window of the gherkin.
The Anonymous Widower 