Bristol

  • “Much lover,” my luvver?

    Further evidence arrives today of the continuing decline of journalistic standards at Reach plc titles – already a bar so low it’s in danger of touching the ground.

    The proof: the author of this piece in today’s Bristol (Evening) Post/Live cannot even spell one of the title’s favourite clichés – much-loved – opting for a Bristolian sounding but meaningless much lover instead.

    Headline - Tributes after much lover Antiques Roadshow expert Henry Sandon dies

    What is even more surprising is that the author is an award-winner within the journalistic trade.

    If the qualityu control for press articles is as low as that down at Bristol’s Temple Way Ministry of Truth, your ‘umble scribe wonders just how much lower it must be where gongs for hacks are involved… :-D.

  • Steam returns to LWH

    Lawrence Hill station (LWH), the first/last stop into and out of Bristol Temple Meads on the Severn Beach line, has been serving the travelling public since 8 September 1863 when services began on the Bristol and South Wales Union Railway to New Passage Pier north of the city on the banks of the River estuary.

    For most of that time, services would have been hauled by steam locomotive, so there was more than a whiff of coal smoke, steam and nostalgia when your ‘umble scribe alighted from the bus to see a steam-hauled special complete with rolling stock in British Railways brown and cream livery pull up at platform 1.

    Earl of Mount Edgcumbe steam locomotive at LWH

    The train had been reversed up the line – note the rear red lamp on the front of the locomotive – so that the steam locomotive – the Earl of Mount Edgcumbe – could be turned around to haul the coaches back into Temple Meads one mile away.

    The locomotive starts to haul the carriages back towards Temple Meads.

    Eagle-eyed readers will note that the front of the locomotive in the second photo is showing a white light, not its previous red lamp.

  • Bristol City Council & the English Language

    Bristol City Council logo with sinking shipBristolian may exist as a dialect with its own idiosyncrasies, but within the city and county of Bristol itself, there’s one place where English is used in a peculiar way: the Counts Louse (as pronounced in the local vernacular; some call it City Hall – or a variant thereof – after its renaming by the then Mayor George Ferguson in 2012. Ed.). In his 1946 essay Politics and the English Language, George Orwell wrote the following:

    Political language – and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists – is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.

    Down at the Counts Louse, the English language has been used to conceal what is really going on behind its mock Georgian façade, particularly where funding cuts and redundancies are planned, usually couched in terms such as redeployment, restructuring and the like.

    Perhaps the most famous use of such obfuscatory language occurred in 2013 when it was discovered – as reported by The Bristolian – that £165,000 in cash was missing from the council’s loss-making markets department (a department that’s supposed to make money for the local authority. Ed.). This was duly recorded in an internal report as ‘material income misappropriation‘.

    We ordinary mortals have a much more succinct phrase than material income misappropriation. We call it theft.

    That infamous bit of council-speak has now been joined by another phrase by Councillor Craig Cheney, the elected member in charge of the city’s purse strings, which was duly reported by the Bristol Post in relation to the evacuation of Barton House in Barton Hill due to structural defects.

    Barton House in Bristol
    Barton House. Image courtesy of Google Street View.

    What Cllr. Cheney said to the local press while commenting on Barton House included the sentence below.

    There’s perhaps not as much concrete as there should be.

    Perhaps? Most definitely not as much concrete, plus ignorance and non-observance of the building plans, according to your colleague Councillor Kye Dudd.

    Give yourself a pat on the back, Cllr. Cheney; that one sentence alone deserves its own special place in the annals of British understatement. 😀

    In less light-hearted reporting on Barton House, it has now emerged that the government warned Bristol City Council in 2017 – six years ago – about the condition of Barton House and four other tower blocks built using the LPS building system and perhaps more scandalously that no structural survey of Barton House had been conducted since 1970, i.e. over half a century ago. Municipal neglect of the city’s infrastructure is endemic down the Counts Louse. 🙁
  • Padlocks and Pero

    One of the many bridges that crosses Bristol’s city docks is Pero’s Bridge which spans St Augustine’s Reach, formerly St Augustine’s Trench. It is a pedestrian bascule bridge, linking Queen Square on the eastern side and Millennium Square on the west.

    Pero's Bridge over Bristol city docks

    It was opened formally in 1999 by Paul Boateng MP, then a Home Office minister.

    The bridge is named after Pero, also known as Pero Jones, who lived from around 1753 to 1798, arriving in Bristol from Nevis in the Caribbean in 1783, as the slave of the merchant John Pinney (1740–1818) at 7 Great George Street.

    Hundreds of people now attach padlocks – so-called ‘lovelocks’ – to the bridge as a sign of affection to each other. This is a practice that began on the Pont des Arts bridge in Paris.

    Padlocks attached to the parapet railings of Pero's Bridge

    The city council does not technically allow padlocks on the bridge, but they are not routinely removed, and over the years hundreds – possibly thousands – have been attached to it, which could just affect the proper operation of the bridge.

    Your ‘umble scribe wonders if those who attach padlocks – a means of confinement and restraint -to the bridge have really thought through the implications of their action. It is, after all, named in memory of an enslaved person.

    Moreover, your correspondent is not the only person with misgivings.

    A petition has been launched by Helen Tierney calling on the Mayor of Bristol to order the removal of the padlocks and to ban any more being placed on there. The petition reads as follows:

    To Marvin Rees, Mayor of Bristol. In the heart of Bristol is a pedestrian bridge crossing the harbour. The City Council agreed the name Pero’s Bridge to honour a young enslaved African, Pero Jones, who in the 18th century was sold into slavery aged 12 & brought by his ‘owner’ to live in Bristol. Pero was never granted his freedom & died enslaved. A tiny plaque by the bridge tells this story.
    Pero’s Bridge is now defaced with thousands of padlocks, so called ‘lovelocks’ locked on to its structure. The keys most likely dropped into the water below. Only a few steps from the bridge is the place where, in 2020, the statue of slave trader Edward Colston was thrown into the harbour. I call upon the Mayor & City Councillors of Bristol to remove these hideous padlocks, not symbols of love at all but of oppression down the centuries, of enslaved people chained & padlocked with the keys thrown away, those people disrespected still today in the very place where they should be honoured.

    Beneath the petition, Ms Tierney has added: “Pero’s Bridge is named after an enslaved person, someone our city chose to honour by naming the bridge for him. To have it weighed down by the very symbols of oppression disrespects his memory“, to which your ‘umble scribe would add that those affixing padlocks to the bridge have clearly considered the implications of their action.

    Sign the petition here.

  • Dumb Britons bought property in Italy but voted for Brexit

    In what clearly counts as an instance of buyer’s remorse, today’s inews carries a piece about two Britons – one in his thirties and from Bristol, the other a pensioner from Winchester, who both voted for Brexit and now seem surprised they cannot get visas to live permanently in their respective properties, as per the screenshot below of the report’s headline and byline.

    Headline reads - ‘I made a huge mistake’: Brexit-
voting Briton can’t get visa to live in his £43,000 Italian home. Byline reads - A 35-year-old graphic designer from Bristol told i he wishes he could ‘turn back time and vote Remain’

    Both are now suffering remorse and a feeling of betrayal (remember all those smooth-talking right-wing politicians who lied to the public saying nothing would really changed in our relationship with the EU and its member states? Ed.).

    As defined by the dictionary, the phrase buyer’s remorse has two meanings:

    • a sense of regret or uneasiness after having purchased a house, car, or other major item; and
    • a sense of regret after having committed to an endorsement, policy, plan of action, etc.

    Either of both of those definitions may be applicable in these two instances.

    These stories have a moral, i.e. think before you vote (bearing in mind that all politicians lie. Ed.) and always remember the law of unexpected consequences.

  • Barton Hill’s monthly litter pick

    Barton Hill’s monthly community litter pick took place last Saturday.As usual, we assembled outside the Wellspring Settlement (formerly Barton Hill Settlement. Ed.) at 10 am on Saturday to decide where needed our attention most.

    We then tackled some of the Urban Park before proceeding to Cobden Street and its associated public open space and picnic table, a favourite spot with locals for drinking beer.

    This month saw the biggest turnout for several months – 5 in total; and whilst we were in the Urban Park organiser Shona took the email address of another prospective volunteer to add to the mailing list.

    At the end of one hour’s picking in pleasant, warm sunshine, we posed for the obligatory group photo before heading back to the Settlement for a well-deserved hot drink.

    Saturday's litter picking crew

    Here’s the swag we collected divided into recyclable materials (translucent bags) and general waste (green bags) awaiting collection by Bristol Waste.

    The haul of litter and recyclables

    Once again, many thanks to Shona for organising the event (as well as for the photos above. Ed.) and my fellow volunteers to turning out and working so willingly.

  • Happy retirement, Lesley!

    Regular readers will recall that the lovely community café at St Mark’s Baptist Church in Easton closed at the end of August (posts passim).

    Saturday last, 30th September, saw a retirement party for Lesley at the church. This was well attended by a broad range of people from Easton and beyond, all gathered to wish Lesley a happy retirement and partake of Lesley’s excellent cakes over which she’d laboured. These included not just church members, local traders, café users, foodbank volunteers and Abdul Malik from Easton Jamia Masjid, the mosque that faces the church across the street.

    Lesley with Abdul Malik from the church's close neighbour, from the mosque over the road.
    Lesley with Abdul Malik the church’s close neighbour, Easton Jamia Masjid.
    After a question and answer session with Lesley that covered the whole history of the café from its inception up to its closure in August, various people were invited out to the front, given a microphone and said a few words about the café, Lesley and so on. Abdul paid a great tribute (from what I could see wholly unscripted. Ed.) to Lesley and the collaboration between the chapel and mosque, particularly on large community events such as the Grand Iftar at the end of Ramadan.

    One of those invited to address the assembled throng was your ‘umble scribe, who was asked to read out his above-mentioned blog post, which was composed on the café’s final day and was received with general approbation.

    Lesley did drop some very serious hints that even though the café had now closed, that did not mean the end of catering activities for the community. Your correspondent will keep his ear to the ground and relay any information that comes to light.

    In the meantime, have a happy retirement, Lesley; and don’t be afraid to use your bus pass! 😉

  • City rejoins Gloucestershire – Bristol Live exclusive

    One time long ago there was a county called Gloucestershire. It was a large county that included the city of Bristol as one of its major centres of population. However, that all changed in 1373 when Bristol was granted county status in its own right by the king through the usual expedient of paying him a sufficiently large quantity of cash.

    However, that has now all changed and Bristol is once again in the embrace of Gloucestershire, even though the news has been suppressed and can only be found by a creful reading of the Bristol Live website, where it appears in a piece by Emma Flanagan inviting readers to vote for their favourite Chinese takeaways.

    Headline reads Where can you get the best Chinese takeaway in Bristol? Photo caption reads Tell us the best Chinese takeaway in Gloucestershire and we'll crown a winner

    The headline to the article asks Where can you get the best Chinese takeaway in Bristol?. There’s no mention there about the city being returned to its former historical county 650 years after making its escape from the clutches of the county that grew up based on the old Roman settlement of Glevum.

    The clue to Bristol returning to Gloucestershire is well concealed, hiding in the photo caption near the top of piece; it reads Tell us the best Chinese takeaway in Gloucestershire and we’ll crown a winner.

    Will this mean a change in the city’s extortionate rate of council tax? Better public services? Improved public transport? Not a word mentioned.

    No corresponding article asking readers to rate Chinese takeaways in Bristol has been found on Bristol Live’s sister title, Gloucestershire Live (so far. Ed.), so this dreadful piece of copy has not been shared with other Reach publications.

    Moving Bristol to Gloucestershire was not the only inaccuracy of the geographical kind appearing on the Bristol Live website today. By some strange alteration in geophysical forces, the city has been moved from nestling on the banks of the Bristol Avon to those of the mighty Severn/Hafren, as per the screenshot below.

    Headline reads https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/five-star-severn-bore-live-8790077

    Since this morning the text of the headline has now been changed to read Five-star Severn Bore live as ‘the greatest ride on earth’ rolls through West Country.

    If the Bristol Live website ever had a corrections and clarifications column, it would be several times larger than the paper’s website! 😀

  • Barton Hill litter pick

    On Saturday 9th just gone, one of the hottest days of the year so far, four of us met at Barton Hill’s Wellspring Centre at 10 a.m. to take part in the monthly community litter pick organised by Shona Jemphrey (to whom thanks are die for the photos. Ed.).

    We covered part of the Urban Park and some of the surrounding streets, plus an alleyway off Victoria Avenue, which some desperate folk had been using as an emergency urinal. The ‘swag‘ we collected is shown below. Barton Hill litter pick swag

    After an hour’s sweating and tidying, the team retired to the Centre for a well-deserved brew and some biscuits. As per usual, we got a few thanks and kind smiles from passers-by.

    The crew have a well-deserved brew
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