Monday, June 25, 2007

Liverpool v Manchester

The ongoing debate about Liverpool v Manchester takes an intellectual leap forward. Hat tip to my pal Boz for forwarding this link from the New Statesman, where Paul du Noyer makes a plea for Liverpool as the heart of Britain's cultural soul.

A flavour is here:

It is scruffy, careless, brazen and kind. This city has soul. It knows how to throw a party. For all that it's heavy, it is extravagantly welcoming to anyone without airs and graces. After all, it has been entertaining sailors for centuries. If you want a quiet life, then don't choose Liverpool. But if you're on board for the mind-scrambling adventures of an unknowable, violent, tragicomic, globalised 21st-century world, here is a city that knows no other state of being.

The full link is here.

This is a flavour of Dave Haslam's case for Manchester:

The similarities between Manchester and Liverpool are great, but they belie deep cultural differences. Both cities have a history of cultural endeavour, and both have been blessed with gifted local writers. Both suffered a postwar economic decline that appears to have been reversed recently. Both cities have underachieving football teams that play in blue, and red teams that are internationally known. But while Manchester United fans' favourite players include Eric Cantona and David Beckham (most definitely not local boys), in Liverpool the heroes are Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher; that they are proper Scousers is key to their status. Manchester is fluid, ever-evolving, whereas Liverpool is more like an enclave.

The full link is here.

As my pal Dougal Paver might say: cracking stuff.

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