Dave Evans has sent over an image of Sir Paul McCartney at LIPA from last week.
Macca was speaking at a graduation ceremony for LIPA, er, graduates last week – with Will Yojng and Joe McGann also in attendance.
Presumably Paul got a better reception than Ringo the last time he was here.
If you follow the view of the blogosphere, the Mann Island developments buildings, together with the new Merseytravel ferry terminal building (that also doubles as the Beatles Story’s second outlet) and Liverpool Museum, amount to nothing less than the wholesale destruction of the Liverpool Maritime Mercantile City UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Indeed, that’s what architects seem to think too.
Such judgements are necessarily subjective, and though I’m reserving judgement for now on the new Liverpool Museum, I can’t possibly see how the Mann Island Developments buildings or new ferry terminal can be judged to be sympathetic to the surrounding area.
In some ways I quite like the Mann Island buildings, but they seem to me totally at odds with the surrounding areas, as if two damaged Borg cubes have suddenly crashed down to Earth on the site of the ill-fated Fourth Grace.
The buildings, along with the museum, almost completely obscure the view of the Three Graces from the viewpoint of the Albert Dock, and add an intrusive full stop to the waterfront’s narrative from Birkenhead.
Stevie G’s entirely proper acquittal last week for delivering up to three uppercuts to a DJ in what was termed ‘pre-emptive self-defence’ – a term that could have been coined by George Bush – was not due to a friendly local jury, according to the prosecutor in the case.
In an article in the Daily Post’s legal section, Ben Schofield writes that Exchange Chambers was surprised that Gerrard chose not to employ their services, but lavished a reported £250K on London QC John Kelsey-Fry rather than the eventual prosecutor David Turner.
Turner, a former cabaret director of the Cambridge footlights, is described in the article as ‘charismatic raconteur’ and thought the evidence that Gerrard acted in self-defence in the Southport punch-up ‘strong’.
Liverpool Crown Court has heard that Steven Gerrard ‘totally lost it’ with a DJ who supposedly refused to play a Phil Collins record for the Scouse boy wonder, with CCTV footage showing the scuffle from 2008.
Gerrard allegedly hit out at businessman Marcus McGee “with a succession of well-aimed uppercut punches delivered with the style and speed of a boxer” at the Lounge Inn, Southport.
Gerrard pleads self-defence, which the prosecution disputes. Gerrard’s codefendents all plead guilty.
Here’s how the prosecution see the incident, after Gerrard allegedly demands a card that controls the music system with the words “Here y’are lad. Give me that lad.” McGee objected to the expression ‘lad’, which given that he lives on Merseyside must pose a lot of problems.