Go Billy Liddel Steaming Down The Middle.

I grew up with stories of footballing legends.

Roy of the Rovers was staple diet.

 You went with it, collecting football cards could swallow up all your earnings. Those hard earned pennies from minding the cars that parked down your road, every Saturday home game. It was a perk of living so close to Anfield.

The cars did not actually need minding, but it was a way of developing a interaction with people.

 It instilled inside you, from an early age, that if you put some time in, and you were polite,and you had a go, you could earn some money.

You would chase towards a car before your mate got there “Mind your car Sir” we always got a smile.

I remember one day a massive chrome encrusted Mercedes the likes of which you never saw on the terraced streets of Anfield parked down our street.

 I had to patiently wait till after the match had finished, but I got a shilling, the usual rate was a couple of pennies or maybe a tanner.

The takings always went up when we won the match.

 Saturday afternoons would be spent taking the results on Final Score which usually came up after the wrestling with Mick McManus and co, including  the strangely named Kendo Nagasaki. I always remember knowing Giant Haystacks, he was a bouncer on the Robin Hood camp disco in Prestatyn where you would be dragged for a holiday.

Although we didn't have a TV, until 1966 when a special effort was made because of  the World Cup.

 Those footie cards always seemed to have lots of swaps, you could just not get Roger Hunt.

I had loads of Tommy Smiths and Tommy Lawrence's but Roger Hunt was gold dust.

Last week I lingered in some family archives that I had been wanting to tidy up for over a decade and I come across a Liverpool Echo, and it was old.

7^th November 1957.

What was strange was that the front page was in colour, and emblazoned upon that front page was a hero of a generation before mine....Billy Liddel.

I thought Billy Liddle was a giant, as that's how he was always talked about.
The greatest goalscorer ever they said, and there it was in black and white and red all over, the statistics.
 It must have been my grandfathers, who I never knew. My Grandmother will have kept it. She would often sing out in chorus as if involuntarily Go Billy Liddel, steaming down the middle.
He was a hero. They immortalised him in pubs and factories all over the city. A working class hero was something to be.
Even Evertonian's respected him in the same way as we, with, the Dixie Dean.History is not only about posh art, its about the everyday.

 http://waynecolquhoun.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/red-or-dead-i-turn-into-anorak.html

This is the week that Liverpool go seven points clear and although Man City have a few games in hand the next match, the Chelsea match is pivotal we could win the league. Alex Ferguson said the first thing he wanted to do was knock Liverpool off their perch. He must be sick as a parrot this week when ex Everton manager, David Moyes is sacked...the chosen one, by him.
It took 15 years for Moyes to get Everton in the Champions League, but he  has finally done it.
By resigning as Everton manager.
Chelsea have a new cat now, that's what they called their goalie in the 60's.
The Cat. I had a couple of footie cards of Peter Bonetti, The Cat, and a few Peter Osgood's.
You had to eat so much plastic tasting chewing gum and all you get is  a load of Martin Chivers.
 They must have sent all the Roger Hunts to London and sent the London strikers up here.

The Kop hero now of course is Suarez, who hasn't always done the right thing but he may be winning round most of his critics.

http://waynecolquhoun.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/suarez-scum-ashamed-to-be-liverpudlian.html

I read the paper as if it was the Whizzer, or whatever comic it was that that Roy of the Rovers always dribbled past one, then another , then he would dummy the goalkeeper and yeeeess, he scores.

I read on, and was alarmingly reminded that the paper I was reading, dated 1957 was a year that Liverpool were in the second division.
Then the great Bill Shankly arrived.

I am to have it framed, its history.

Liverpool Town Hall As A Giant Advertising Placard For Mobile Phones-How Tacky Is That?

It is with deep regret that my city council is being run by people who neither wish to or do indeed respect Liverpool's World Heritage Site.
It is hard to imagine at a time when Liverpool is on the Unesco "In Danger" List that this placement of an advertising hoarding on our Town Hall could be done.
Some time ago the Mayor Anderson helped me remove an advertisement for a giant advert for A Burger In A Bun next to the Listed Lyceum at the bottom of Bold Street.

I have today written to him asking how this unfortunate occasion has been sanctioned.

I wrote this for LPT at the time

http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.co.uk/2011/08/lyceum-bold-street-whopper-job-well.html

Read the letter about illegal hoardings. click above 

http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.co.uk/2011/06/lyceum-bold-street-liverpool-how-can.html

Mr Anderson,

It is very disappointing to note that Liverpool's town hall has been turned into a giant advertising placard for mobile phones.

I know you think that Liverpool's World Heritage Site status is no more than a plaque on the wall in the Town Hall and that the city is now about making money out of heritage sites, but this is a step too far.

You will recall agreeing with me that a advert for Burger King was inappropriate for the adjacent building to the Lyceum. You claimed to have it removed.

So how can you find this acceptable.

I am not aware of any planning applications for this event of placing a huge tacky advertisement in a WHS, which is also in a conservation area and on a listed building.

Would you please advise me of any planning applications that have been considered by the planning committee.

Would you also advise me who sanctioned this idea.

Also would you advise me how much is being paid by the advertisers.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Wayne Colquhoun.

Dr Christopher Dresser-STUDIES IN DESIGN. Published by Cassell, Petter and Galpin.

I was very pleased this week to acquire this Folio entitled STUDIES IN DESIGN by Christopher Dresser which is printed to the highest standards.

Though the binding is in a distressed state the plates inside are mostly as they were when the left Cassell, Petter and Galpin print works.

Each plate is frameable. Though I will never break up a book.   

It has been reprinted but as an original of 1876 It appears to be quite rare.

Its all been said about how far ahead Dresser's designs were.

Though a lot of them are now more esoteric than commercial there is no doubting his place in the history of design, not just in this country but in the world.

If my memory serves me correctly and I am typing this as I think, he collected glass for Louis Comfort Tiffany on his travels round the globe. Where he collected designs, quite a lot of them in the Japanese taste  Not all designs are actually by him, but by his studio. This was a common practice in Victorian times, as an example in today's terms, we can say, Lord Foster cant do all the drawings for all his architectural projects.

Here in splendid colour we can see the vibrancy and attention to detail that was applied in a Victorian age of heavy brown furniture.  If I also remember rightly I was once told by a learned authority that his father was a tax inspector in Liverpool.

I thought you may like to share the beauty of some of the plates. 

And I thought I would like to share it.

Click on the link below to read the e-book on line.

https://archive.org/details/Studiesdesign00Dres

Arts and Crafts Candlestick In The Manner of WAS Benson-Piece of the Week

Copper and Brass Arts and Crafts Candlestick. 

In the manner of WAS Benson.

This is a fantastic piece of design.

Reflect back to a time before electricity when a candlestick could be knocked over, so this design is counter-balanced with the round ball weight that is part of the design.

It was also designed to be carried in the hand and placed down safely.

10cm high by 24cm long

It is in overall good condition for its age.

 It has a few knocks but I would want to see this as it has been used. It would benefit from a bit of a polish. 

This is possibly a design by........ 

Carl Deffner was born 13 Oct 1856 in Esslingen. On 11 June 1892 he married Charlotte (Lolo) Schoenleber. Records show only one son for Carl and his wife, Karl "Max" Deffner (1900-1985) who was an engineer.   Deffner died in 1948.

Antique Dealers Are Breaking Up Their Brown Furniture To Keep Warm.

Up and down the country, they are burning their stock to keep warm.

Faced with one of the worst winters on record they have no option.

With gas prices at an all time high and electricity now a luxury, they have to make ends meet.

In an age when most Victorian tables are now cheaper to burn than buying coal and with massive warehouses to heat. 

There is only one option reduce storage costs by burning wardrobes. 

They are only worth a tenner at auction anyhow.

What the bloody 'ell has happened to Mahogany, Rosewood and Walnut this is ridiculous.

Antique furniture is now that cheap that you cant fuel your fire for less.

Can you believe it, the furniture retail index has dropped again for the umpteenth year on the run. Its crazy. One dealer I know had his pension tied up in quality stuff and he told me its worth a fifth of what it was.

It cant get any cheaper And Joe Public educated by Bargain Hunt are more interested in cheap and cheerful than quality.

Where is all the money going to? 

 MDF and chipboard rubbish? 

What is wrong with the public? What is wrong with the public's sense of reality when they would rather add to Sweden's balance of trade, while antique dealers are smashing up their chest of drawers, just to stay warm through this storm spread winter.

What’s more the same people complain that the high street is dying on its feet.

Cant you give them a break, they are hard working people who deserve to have food and clothes for their families. Some of them are second and third generation antique dealers, some even more. There may not be a fourth. What’s more the same people complain that the high street is dying on its feet.

And the great British public wont even give them a meagre crust.

Buy antiques now before they are all burnt.....or painted with Farrow and Ball.

http://waynecolquhoun.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Henry%20Sandons%20letter%20to%20the%20Times

Its all the same shops these days, they say. They love it when they go to France and find all those Brocante shops full of things that the French wont buy.

They bring pieces home, and tell everyone as if its a trophy, “Its French”. Then they go and add to China's economy and accessories it in John Lewis with stuff made by people paid two pound a month. While the local antique shops are disappearing and will soon become as rear as a glass cased Dodo.

Antique dealers are green they stop things being destroyed, they recycle.

Nowadays if you recycle a bit of wet cardboard or a squashed milk carton there is definitely someone who will give out a grant for it.

If the person running the recycling firm is a black, one legged lesbian well there are hundreds of thousands available. So where is the help for antique recyclers?

Where is the aid to stop them going to the wall, going out of business and allowing their shops to be taken over by charity shops, that get tax relief.

The same charity shops are generally full of the lower middle class trying to get the stuff before the antique dealers get it. 

There was recently one tweed suited  twerp on the Antique Road show, proud as punch that he had bought a vase worth two grand in a charity shop for £37.50. Grinning like a Cheshire Cat. “No £36.50” he corrected the valuer.

He should have been made to pay the charity that he robbed, back, or the staff in the shop who valued it, without getting a second opinion, should be made to pay.

Whatever the case, the charity was done out of a couple of grand while Billy Brewster wallowed in glory as if he was clever.

If it had of been forty five quid he wouldn’t have chanced it.

Just think how much Oxfam lose a year by not getting the prices right.

So mahogany and walnut is out of style and decades of furniture dealing experience does not count for a jot these days.

Most warehouse-men have burnt their Millers Guide years ago, to keep warm, because they are not worth the paper they are written on any more. They are so out of date, that it is hilarious, especially when someone comes into the shop trying to sell something quoting their prices.

Though its no joke when a member of the public comes in the shop taking about the table they bought 15 years ago for three hundred quid and says “There’s one in the Millers Guide for £550” and you have to tell them its worth a hundred if they are lucky.

So does anyone care if your heritage is broken up and burnt because its cheaper being used for cooking on a barbecue than charcoal.

The exception of course has been Art Deco furniture. 

This is strange as most of it that was made in England is, lets say, not the best quality.

Yes there are Epstein and Hille, but most of the stuff that passes for Art Deco may in fact be post war.

The look is there though. The blonde veneers seem to brighten up a room where mahogany will dull it.

But I still love a good grain, and I hope an appreciation for quality timber will be revived and it will come back.

But for now, Art Deco furniture and post war design is where the money has gone. It looks so modern in an apartment.

And when all the brown furniture has been burnt so dealers can stay warm,some bright spark will realise that a good patina is back in style, and everyone will run around buying Georgian again and it will all start all start to go up in price....only this time there may be less of it around.

Who will be the brave one who will hold their nerve and stack a warehouse high with good stock, the stuff they used to want years ago? Will they be the clever ones?

Because the stuff is for nothing it cant go any cheaper, though someone did said to me last year......and it has.   

WMF Art Nouveau Card Tray-Piece of the Week.

This is a nice Art Nouveau design on a pewter tray 22.5 cm long. It was made in Germany probably 1899, though they did continue designs up to the start of the First World War where they would have been making rather different styles that were not designed as tableware or decorative objects. The original name of the company is.

Württembergische Metallwarenfabrik 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W%C3%BCrttembergische_Metallwarenfabrik

The Art Nouveau maidens hair merges with the entrallic floral decoration that is so typical of the period.

Though we in Britain helped to start the art nouveau style with our rediscovery of arts and crafts, the continental factories excelled at design. Though 20 years later the Bauhaus would industrialise design.

WMF will have been sold in the likes of Liberty in London.

  This is a nice way to own a piece of original Art Nouveau at a reasonable start price of maybe £250.

Liverpool Banksy To Be auctioned In London-Good Riddance

Well I have to say good riddance really. In my opinion this was never a Banksy. 
 This is a copy of a Banksy who in turn copied Brec Le Rat. http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/blek-le-rat-this-is-not-a-banksy-811130.html
The invention of it being by the Urban Vandal Banksy was made up by journalists at the Liverpool Echo and the Liverpool Daily Ghost (Thank god someone put that bit of chip paper out of our misery, at least it stops them spreading lies)
Now we can all marvel at the reproduction of a Georgian Building that was basically rebuilt and has almost none of its originality. Though most would not be able to tell.
The ECHO have reported that it has been saved. Well they would, wouldn't they.
They say it is now to be auctioned off for charity.:
Stuart Howard of Ascot Property Group said: “If Banksy's Liverpool Rat could feasibly have remained on the Whitehouse pub, or even returned to the building, then we would have been happy to give it pride of place. “We took the advice of experts and it lead to the conclusion that this was simply not an option. “The piece has now been preserved and we will ensure that a number of fantastic Liverpool causes benefit from its sale.”One of the beneficiaries includes Litherland’s Rowan Park, a school for children with severe learning difficulties
It must be in a thousand pieces though.


Apparantly I valued it somewhere along the line.
 Funny I don't remember saying that it was worth a million to Andrew Rosthorne, of the Lancashire Magazine. 
I may have said a million people valued it at a pound. But where did that come from.
Its about as made up, as the whole spoof of it being an original when it is a caricature anachronism of a a bit of spray can on a wall. 
Banksy was a copyist of Brec Le Rat http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blek_le_Rat in France anyway. 
http://www.thelancashiremagazine.co.uk/news/north-west/masked-men-will-auction-banksys-missing-liverpool-rat-at-a-futuristic-london-hotel/

He says:
After its disappearance, Wayne Colquhoun of the Liverpool Preservation Trust declared, ‘The Banksy is no more. It was worth a million pounds but they have destroyed it. The most important part of it, the head, was painted on to stucco. It can never be restored to its original condition. They would need rather a lot of Araldite to glue that back together.
‘Artwork by its very nature can never be replicated. You can never sum up the spirit of an original. Destroying an original Banksy to put in its place a copy is beyond a joke. It would be a repro. The boards below the head may have been saved but will be badly rotted as they were not marine ply and the glue of plywood disintegrates.’
Now the rat, or cat, is listed to be unveiled with seven other Banksy works in an auction for charity at a bizarre event to be staged on April 24 in the futuristic ME London hotel in The Strand.
The auction, in the £330.00 a night hotel designed by Foster and Parters, has been named Stealing Banksy? and opens after a press conference to be given by masked men and women described as ‘curators, restorers, and salvage teams’.

The Sincura Arts Club say, ‘Stealing Banksy? is the 2014 project exploring the social, legal and moral issues surrounding the sale of street art. Though we have been accused of many things during this project, we do not steal art nor do we condone any acts of wanted vandalism or theft. We do not own the pieces of art, nor encourage their removal and to date have made no financial gain from the sales of street art. If assigned to manage a piece of art we ensure the salvage, restoration and sale is carried out in a professional and sympathetic manner.
‘We perform extensive due diligence on each piece assigned to us to ensure there are no legal issues surround the ownership, removal or sale of the art. It should be noted that both Scotland Yard and the FBI have issued statements that there is no evidence of criminality involved in the removal or sales of our pieces.’
The Sincura Group claim to be ‘market leaders in VIP concierge, lifestyle, tickets and events’ and last summer said they had rescued Banksy’s famous No Ball Games graffito by cutting it away from the side of a shop in Turnpike Lane, Tottenham Green.
Tony Baxter, a director of Sincura, now says: ‘We are delighted to include the Liverpool Rat in our upcoming show as it represents one of Banksy’s most important pieces. We understand the lengths Ascot Property Group went to, to safely salvage the piece, which was no small feat given the level of damage. Without this work the piece would have been lost to the elements forever. By putting it on the market its sale will ensure both the piece’s longevity and benefit local charities.’

If the Liverpool Rat is sold by auction in London, funds have been promised to the Rowan Park school for children with severe learning difficulties at Litherland. The school’s business manager June King said, ‘We are thrilled that Ascot Property Group has thought of Rowan Park School when choosing a charity. We are in the process of building a community adventure play park for children with disabilities within the Sefton area. It is a massive undertaking and the first project of its kind in the area – with sandpits, water pumps, tunnels, zip-wires and all kind of other activities, all of which will be accessible to children with disabilities and their families.’

What I did say was.
http://waynecolquhoun.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/liverpool-banksy-destroyed-you-dirty-rat.html

Liverpool Banksy Destroyed-You Dirty Rat-Or Was It A Cat?

                      Now Here’s something to really get hacked off about.

 The Whitehouse Public House on the Corner of Duke Street Liverpool is in the Shadow of Gilbert Scott’s gigantic sandstone Cathedral and recently had become as Iconic a landmark after was claimed that the Graffiti artist Banksy hopped off a train and knocked a quick mural of a giant Rat in the dead of night on its facade. It was said this happened in 2004 and was then covered up in 2008 when Liverpool was European Capital of Culture.

The property had been left to decay and It was claimed it was to be preserved, after a repairs notice was served on the properties owners, but Liverpool is a city that is incapable of preserving anything of note these days be it old or new.

Then to make it worse they allow a modern landmark to be butchered in plain view with little or no consultation to the masses that pay their wages that feel this piece of modern art was done for them. 

Lets Butcher a Banksy, 
Now that’s real Culcha for yeh!

This was then written up by the pay per click website Liverpool Confidential
http://www.liverpoolconfidential.co.uk/Culture/Banksy-rat-liverpool-whitehouse-pub


All in all good riddance, its been a bit of controversial fun while its been there, but now if someone wants to pay money for a piece of garbage masquerading as art, well, there's no accounting for taste.
At least after we paid 300 grand through our taxes for its removal a charity may now benefit.

All this fuss over a spray daub by someone who copied Banksy who copied Brec Le Rat only in Liverpool!

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/blek-le-rat-this-is-not-a-banksy-811130.html