A Different View
Liverpool – it’s about so much more than football and the Beatles!
A Different View with Dave O’Connell
Football fans need no introduction to the delights of Liverpool – after all, it’s home to two of the Premiership’s most famous clubs and their arch enemies are half an hour down the motorway in Manchester – but there’s so much more to this part of the north west of England.
If the city is synonymous with football, it’s just as indelibly linked to the Beatles – and there are bus, taxi or walking tours as well as at least three separate museum experiences all dedicated to the life and times of the Fab Four.
So that’s sports and music fans catered for, but suggesting that is the extent of Liverpool’s attractions does the city a serious disservice.
This was the European Capital of Culture in 2008 – an honour Galway is now seeking to grow its own reputation – and that year saw 15 million visitors fly in to share the experience.
The past decade has seen capital investments of over £5 billion pour into the city – but despite the massive regeneration, the planners also managed to retain the best of the old at its heart.
Those who remember Liverpool from the sixties and seventies will recall a drab city, so downtrodden that Margaret Thatcher gave serious consideration to allowing it to run into the ground.
But this renaissance has been nothing short of spectacular – the balance between residential and entertainment around the Albert Dock moves seamlessly through the new commercial heart of Liverpool One (one of the biggest shopping areas in the UK) and on into the old heart of Liverpool, with its nightlife around Mathew Street, home to the world famous Cavern Club.
Culture vultures have the Tate Liverpool on Albert Dock, the new £72m Liverpool Museum that focuses on the history of the city through sport, music, its port and how the Irish, like the Welsh, played their part in the development of this friendliest of places.
Those who know it just for its football are missing most of the point – and the regeneration of Liverpool has seen a plethora of attractions spring up all over the city.
There are a variety of ethnic restaurants, for example, that stretch from Cuban to Catalonian – indeed Lunya, the UK’s only Catalan deli and restaurant is owned by Peter Kinsella, a man whose enthusiasm and passion would probably convince vegetarians to eat succulent pork!
The Indigo Hotel houses a Marco Pierre White Steakhouse and Grill; the Hard Days Night Hotel has the emphasis on all things Beatles – but there are eateries to suit all budgets and tastes.
Suffice to say that you’d have no problem filling a week’s holiday with all there is to see in Liverpool – and most of it is accessible on foot.
But if you want to stretch your scope just a little, Cheshire – and the Roman city of Chester – are half an hour up the road. And if it’s history you’re after, Chester has it in spades, tracing 2,000 years from its foundation as a Roman fortress to its present role as a thriving centre of commerce and home to 120,000 citizens.
Much of the city centre was rebuilt in the 19th century and its tradition shop fronts are still prevalent today; that’s because the last half century has seen a huge emphasis and preservation and restoration to recreate an era that you simply won’t find anywhere else.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Connacht Tribune
If you don’t know who you are, the door staff have no chance
A Different View with Dave O’Connell
The only time in your life that you should ever utter the words: “Do you know who I am?” are if you’ve just had a bang on the head or you are unfortunately suffering from dementia.
Because, otherwise, the phrase ‘do you know who I am’ only serves to make things a whole lot worse.
Normally, the phrase is unleashed towards late night door staff on a wave of alcohol – and never once in the history of time has it produced the result the utterer had intended.
The doorman may well know who you are which is often the very reason you’re not getting into the place in the first instance – or if he doesn’t know who you are, he won’t be unduly influenced when he does, unless you’re a famous movie star or his long-lost cousin.
‘Do you know where I am?’ might often be closer to the phrase you’re looking for, because that would serve you well when you’re looking for a taxi.
‘Do you know who I am?’ is a threatening phrase that in truth wouldn’t frighten the cat. But if you’re anxious to dig the hole a few shovels deeper, you should follow up with ‘I’d like to speak to your manager.’
Managers can be elusive at the best of times, but they’re normally rarer than hen’s teeth when it comes to the small hours of the morning – and even if they’re there, they are most likely watching proceedings on CCTV…just so they know who you are, in case you yourself can’t remember.
‘I’d like to speak to your manager’ suggests that you and he or she are from the one social sphere which is several strata north of the one occupied by door staff.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
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Connacht Tribune
Eurovision is just a giant party that could never cause offence
A Different View with Dave O’Connell
As it turned out, we were much closer to a Eurovision win than we could ever have imagined – not Ireland, of course, because we’ve now mastered the art of just sending cannon fodder to be blown out in the semi-final.
No, this was just two of us – myself and our eldest – who were lucky enough to be at Anfield for the Reds’ recent win over Brentford, where positioned in the seat right in front of us were four happy lads from Finland.
One of them, we now know, was Käärijä, the singer of the catchiest song at Eurovision, Cha Cha Cha.
But just a week before 7,000 people sung his catchphrase at the Eurovision Arena, he and two his mates – accompanied by an older bloke who had to be either his dad or from the national broadcaster – sat anonymously in the same corner of the lower level of Anfield’s Main Stand.
He was utterly unknown to us as well of course, and the only thing that saw him stand out was his green nail varnish. Live and let live, of course, but it still ensures that you make an impression even if it looks like you were just very late for St Patrick’s Day.
Käärijä may well be Liverpool’s greatest Scandinavian fan, although the bar for that is set fairly high, given that they invade the city in greater numbers every two weeks than the Vikings did just once during the first millennium.
Equally, he may not be a football fan at all – although, as the rest of the week proved, he sure loves a crowd.
Positioned as we were in the corner of the Main Stand, the next section to us, around the corner in the Anfield Road Stand – currently adding a top layer – was occupied by the visiting Brentford supporters.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App
Download the Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App to access to Galway’s best-selling newspaper.
Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Or purchase the Digital Edition for PC, Mac or Laptop from Pagesuite HERE.
Get the Connacht Tribune Live app
The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Connacht Tribune
Tapping is contactless – but it’s soulless too
A Different View with Dave O’Connell
Contactless payments reached a record €17.9 billion in Ireland last year – up by 31 per cent on 2021, as people came out from under their Covid shell and appear to have left their cash behind them.
Figures from the Banking & Payments Federation found that – despite the cost-of-living increases – the Irish public made three million contactless payments a day, worth an average of €53 million in the final quarter of 2022.
Given that there are 3.8 million people in Ireland over the age of 18, that means that almost every single one of us tapped the card every day last year.
And again, on the presumption that there are a few who still prefer peeling a fifty off a wad of notes, the true figure may be even higher, as we eschew actual money every time we go into a restaurant, bar or shop.
Then comes the monthly morning of reckoning when you open your statement – electronic of course because, like paper money, banks don’t deal in paper statements anymore either – and your guilty secrets unfurl like a rap sheet before your very eyes.
Five taps of a Friday night in the local, followed by a five-ounce burger meal on the way home.
And just why did you need a family-pack of crisps when a small bag would have done? Was all that beer and wine really for a party, or a night in just for one?
Cash provided plenty of dark corners to ignore your profligacy, but there are no hiding places in the contactless world.
Worse still, until that morning of reckoning arrives, you’ve no clue how much you’ve spent, and handing over the card doesn’t hurt half as much as parting with hard cash.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App
Download the Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App to access to Galway’s best-selling newspaper.
Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Or purchase the Digital Edition for PC, Mac or Laptop from Pagesuite HERE.
Get the Connacht Tribune Live app
The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.