The Pathway to Co-prosperity

The Malaysian Alumni Association of Liverpool blog "provides the platform for everybody to network, interact, communicate and discuss any issue of interest."

The latest post is a survey by an academic about the Malay experience in Liverpool, especially for seafarers, including the setting up a community association.

Yesterday's Knews

An email has reached Liverpool Blogs Towers:

"Hello,

I thought i would introduce you to our Liverpool based blog. It is called yesterday's knews - http://yesterdaysknews.blogspot.com/ it is a spoof newspaper taking a humerous view on the days news. I noticed your website and seeing as we are all living in the city thought you may be interested in adding us to your list??????

Keep up the good work

Greg Brennan

You're in there now!

Blogger Profile Search Searched

Finally had a chance to look through those blogspots. Of the now 126 listed blogs, here are the writers who are still active:

A Veggie Life with Jenny nine-toes in which Jenny Mac writes about life and shopping and vegitarianism.

Graham Holland's It's A Frog's Life is an adjunct to the podcast "featuring some of the best podsafe acoustic music from Liverpool and across the UK."

Cynthia of Waterloo Sunset describes herself as nocturnal and short.

Sefton Taxis is a pop culture blog.

Liverpool Wah Sing collects profiles of people connected with the Wah Sing Chinese Community Centre on Duke Street.

Anthony Jones offers commentary on design and pop culture.

Hello you!

Guild of Ghostwriters

Demian Stimpson "a 30-summat Englishman currently enjoying life in Wavertree, Liverpool" has been in contact asking for his blog 'Guild of Ghostwriters' to be mentioned which I'm happy to do. It's a collection of cartoons and writing about his work. The blog can be read here...

1 day, 8 photographers, 800 people

Pete Carr from Vanilla Days writes about participating in eighthundred, the photography project that took place on Liverpool's birthday last week:

"About 3 weeks ago Mark McNulty approached me with an idea for a shoot. 1 day, 8 photographers, 800 people. A crazy idea but a great one none the less. The idea wasn’t to photograph your friends or clients but Liverpool on its birthday. We got support from the Albert Dock who kindly said we could use the Grand Hall for the exhibition. The Culture Company also backed us. We got the funding for the prints and free wine for the launch. All that was left was to photograph 800 people in just one day. As you do. We all had assistants arranged who would be joining us on the day to keep us from going insane, focused and to take down details of the 100 people we all had to photographer. Unfortunately mine had to cancel so at 9am I was standing on Allerton Road looking for people to photograph."

Blogger Profile Search

Blogger have added a feature which allows you see profiles of people who share your interests, tastes and live in the same area. A quick search reveals 113 of us. When I have a moment, I'll check through and see if there is anyone still writing and not listed in the sidebar.

Our Open Space

Our Open Space is the blog of a new initiative from the Merseyside Fire & Rescue Service to (as their About page explains):

"explore the possibilities of incorporating Emerging Technologies into their work in Youth Engagement projects. The core aim is to use accessible, simple technologies to enhance the delivery of the Youth Engagement Programmes."

A range of ideas are being considered and put in to practice, such as SMS messaging, the “CameraAction” scheme in which potential fire hazards can be sent into the service using camera phones and the use of MySpace in youth projects. There is also a related flickr account with images of the fire service at work.

The blog itself is a mix of bulletins about the initiative and the fire service as well as news on the kinds of websites, such as Facebook or myspace that may be utilised in the future. With all of the negative stories that are being generated in the media lately about these sites, this is a useful reminder of their positive potential.

Mark McNulty's photography

Mark McNulty's been in touch:

"I've just started my own blog of Liverpool photography. I'm using to show some of my commercial work, personal projects and selections form my archive. Hope you will be able to list it!"

I can and here is it ...

http://markmcnulty.typepad.com

The Bold Street Project Blog

Hello faithful reader. Katie Lips, social media evangelist, has been in touch with news of an exciting project:

"The Bold Street Project an interactive piece showing in the Media Lounge at FACT, Liverpool from 30th June to 19th September 2007. We're creating an exhibition about this eclectic street, that is at least in part created by the Bold Street inhabitants, traders, shoppers and visitors. As such we're using Social Media tools and online communities to grow our audience and our contributing artists."

Sounds amazing, and here's the press release about the blog that's launched to promote the project:



Bold Street: The Street with its own Blog
We're putting Bold Street online, watch us develop this exhibition, and share your Bold Street Stories via the Bold Street Blog!

What's it about?

Bold Street Project is a collaboration between FACT, tenantspin, and artists Michelle Wren and Katie Lips. Liverpool photographer and artist, Wren has created a visual representation of Bold Street; a model using 3D photo-montage and mixed media. Community generated content developed by tenantspin and online content developed by new media artist Katie Lips will be integrated into the model, and used as a catalyst to extend the piece online. Peering into the shop fronts depicted in the model will reveal exclusive films made for the exhibition, including a new commission The Bolder They Walk by Alex Cox (repoman, FACT patron), Kim Ryan (gente hermosa) and Chris Bernard (Letter to Brezhnev).

Why Bold Street?

At a defining moment in the city s history, FACT explores Bold Street, the community on the organisation s doorstep, where heritage and community are closely intertwined and whose past is illustrative of Liverpool s fortunes. As the Grosvenor project takes hold of other parts of the city, how can Bold Street review and revitalise itself? Will its history, community and spirit keep it alive as an important cultural destination?

Getting involved

The project has a blog where we're discussing our work in progress and research, and there's also a video and audio podcast available where you can sneak a behind the scenes glimpse into the inner workings of this art exhibition. We're putting the street, its history and stories online, and we're also sharing our work in progress in the run up to the launch on 30th June. We're gathering archive footage, old photos, new photos and new art from anyone who wants to contribute. Find Bold Street online and share your stories.

Bold Street Online
Blog: http://www.boldstreet.org.uk/blog/
Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/theboldstreet/
Videos: http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=theboldstreetproject
Video Podcast: http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=256770316
Audio Podcast: http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=257226618

Facebook

Damn, is it nearly a month? I hadn't really meant for it to be quite so long between posts, obviously, but things happen and now I understand why some of the blogs to the left haven't been updated as often.

Anyway, with all that in mind and so that there's more of an interactive element to all of this, I've created a group at Facebook, so that Liverpool bloggers can network much more freely.

The page is here, and it'll be interesting over the coming weeks to see if anyone joins who isn't already listed on this blog.

Meanwhile, more frequent updates coming soon. I promise.

Raw Liver

Pete Carr of Vanilla Days fame has launched a new website (with a blog) "dedicated to exploring the 2008 Capital of Culture through different ways. Its about bringing people together and changing perceptions." In this post he outlines what it is or isn't:

"This site is;

* A central area to bring various groups together
* A place for people to discuss and launch crazy ideas upon the city
* Hopefully our way of contributing to the capital of culture"

Raw Liver can be seen here.

Happy Absentee

Apologies for my absense -- I hope this post at my own blog goes some way to explaining what I was up to. I was working at the Grand National selling racecards and as you can read I had a great time. I've just had a quick look to see if any fellow bloggers were also at the event and unsurprisingly I found a couple:

The Chinese Elvis: "It's amazing here, my first time. Beautiful weather, great atmosphere, I feel ok not drinking, in fact, been a bit of a revelation. Going to place three bets today on the main race today, £300's my budget, yeah right! I'll let you know what I do and if I win. We arrived in style in the Bentley, fantastic experiece strolling out of the car at the gate, I'll speak more about it at a later date as it's for a piece that I'm doing for work."

Quizerama: "Out on the track the spectacle thrills and baffles by turn. We stood down at the Chair fence watching the big screen. Naunton Brook was making the running, Simon was up there, Bewleys Berry was attacking his fences with great gusto, Liberthine was running a big one, but so too was the grey Kandjar D'Allier and he did not have a jockey on him, he and Robert Thornton had turned over at Canal Turn."

Lola's Cherry Cola Café: "Well, the big day of the Grand National arrived, and I blew the dust off my high vis jacket and went along to do some first aid. Over the course of the day I got hit on seven times, only one of these people was sober. I'm not sure whether that boosts my self esteem or not yet. The chat up lines weren't the most original this year, just the usual "oh I feel faint" or "I need some mouth to mouth". Lads, although Lola isn't really one for chat up lines, a good original one will have her chuckling for days."

Art In Liverpool on Radio Merseyside

Just quick reminder that Ian Jackson from Art In Liverpool will be interviewed on Radio Merseyside on Sunday by Claire Hamilton about, amongst other things, The Liverpool Turner 2007. As Ian says on the blog:

"It seems a lot of people are quite excited about this. I want more people to join the forum and nominate more local artists. We now have at least one prize to offer of an exhibition for the winning artist at Lark Lane Flowers Gallery. There may be more to come."

Claire Hamilton on Sunday is between 1pm and 3pm on Easter Sunday and more details on The Liverpool Turner 2007 can be found here.

GeekUp Liverpool

Saw this at Incoming and thought you might be interested:

When
Thursday, April 26, 2007
6:00 PM

Where
3345 Parr Street
33-45 Parr Street
Liverpool, Liverpool L1 4JN

Description
GeekUp is a growing community of web designers, web developers, and other web-minded folk from the North West who meetup to discuss the latest industry news, share ideas and spread a little knowledge.

Join us for the inaugural Liverpool GeekUp, this event is being organised by Graham Pengelly and Stuart Frisby.

Homepage
http://geekup.org/

These have been quite successful in other parts of the country -- wonder if it will take off in Liverpool.

Mersey Minis

Arabella McIntyre-Brown is a local book publisher who has been kind enough to get in touch to tell me about what she calls her 'small but select blog collection':

Life in Batland
Block and Tackle
New Writing Exercises
Publisher's Angst

One of her current projects is Mersey Minis:

"Mersey Minis is looking for the next generation of writing about Liverpool. And we want to hear from you. Whether you’re six or 64, whether you’ve lived here a week or a lifetime. Even if you’ve only ever visited Liverpool in your head.

Liverpool is perhaps the most written-about British city after London: four Mersey Minis will be published throughout 2007 – Liverpool’s 800th birthday year – compiling established writing about the city, old and new. They’ll be divided into four volumes, Landing, Living, Loving and Leaving, reflecting Liverpool’s story.

The fifth volume Longing, will be published on Liverpool’s 800 birthday in August. All of the writing will be new, and, because we want to make Mersey Minis relevant to readers and writers today and not just an historical Cook’s Tour, we would like you to write for us."

You can read more about Mersey Minis here.

The Off Side

This blog dedicated to Liverpool Football Club which began last October reads like an instant fanzine, constructive opinion on a near daily basis. Today they're commenting on the news that Liverpool may not be as charitable as they could be, noticing a flaw in the survey:

"I went and checked out the site that did the ’study’, www.intelligentgiving.com, and found it kind of funny that they would even bother with such a study that is so basic, it’s useless. In their own words: ‘It takes no account of community involvement schemes, gifts in kind, fundraising projects and disbursements from associated charitable trusts.’ Community involvement schemes? WTF?"

The Off Side is here.

New Additions

After a trawl through Bloglines, I've included a few more blogs to the list on the left and even added a new category for blogs about and for the city's universities. Hello there.

Something I am concerned about is the extent to which the list gives a false impression of blogging in Liverpool. Although it's fairly long, visiting the linked sites reveals that many of them aren't updated on a regular basis and in some cases haven't been touched since last year.

I know how difficult blogging can be -- you get busy, something happens, priorities change and presenting your life to the world somehow doesn't seem as important anymore. Or indeed your computer breaks down.

My original intention was to just include blogs if they've been updated in the past couple of months but I do think that what's there is interesting, especially in terms of recent social history.

What I was thinking about was perhaps finding a way of indicating which are active or not active -- with an asterisk maybe -- does that seem fair?

The Chamber

... is the official blog for Liverpool's Chamber of Commerce, blogging Liverpool business. Today, that means comment about the budget from educational and environmental perspectives:

"If the Government wants to meet the challenge of climate change it is important that this extra funding is not wasted, but is properly targeted and made easy for business to access so that SMEs (small-to-medium sized businesses) see a real positive change in the current support provided."

The Chamber can be read here.

Breakfast Liverpool

Breakfast Liverpool reviews the morning morsels of local cafes and restaurants. This weekend, it was the turn of Mia's Cafe in Waterloo:

"I had the big breakfast - 2 sausages, 2 slices of bacon, slice of ulster fry, slice of liver sausage, fried egg, beans, tomatoes and mushrooms - two rounds of toast and mug of tea or coffee - at the sale of the century price of £4 - fantastic value and a fantastic breakfast. Please note that a fried slice and hash browns are available as optional extras at 35p - I missed this - I feel a decent fried slice makes a Full English."

I am now extremely hungry. Must eat toast with jam to satiate.

Strange Games

Montague Blister offers a range of odd pastimes from throughout the world. Many seem to include some form of object hurling but my favourite might be Fruit & Vegetable Croquet:

"Each player obtains an old pair of ladies tights and places a heavy-ish vegetable or fruit down one of the legs. The tights are then tied about the waist of the player so that the dangling fruit hangs near ground level between his legs. An orange is substituted for the croquet ball. The aim of the game is for each player to swing the laden tights between his legs so that the fruit inside strikes the 'orange' ball and sends it in the direction required. All the normal rules of croquet apply - or you could change it into just a first past the line speed race."

You can read about more Strange Games here.

ScouseVeg

Jane and Niki O’Leary are the bloggers at ScouseVeg the website for "a social and campaigning group for vegetarians and vegans in and around Liverpool, Merseyside and the Wirral." But it does much more than simply provide news and recipes to that group, presenting wider commentary on a range of topics with a social conscience, for example the wearing of fur by celebrities.

The group has monthly meetings. As their about page explains: "We have a monthly meal at the Egg vegetarian cafe. Despite the name, the cafe has a good choice for vegans too! These meetings start at 8pm on the first Friday of each month, (eg. 6th August 2004, 3rd September 2004, 1st October 2004, 5th November 2004, etc.)"

Yesterday what sounds like a yummy recipe for St. Patrick's Soup was posted and the day before offered a round-up of veggie related questions from Ask Metafiler one of the other great information sources online.

ScouseVeg can be read here.

What is a blog?

I'd like to know what this potential community thinks about something. Someone emailed today with a suggestion for the blog list -- it's called Knotty Ash Blues and it's a selection articles from an Everton fanzine. I emailed back saying that I couldn't really include the page because it doesn't have all the things you'd expect from the blog, including a link to the wikipedia page and citing the opening copper bottom definition:

"A blog is a user-generated website where entries are made in journal style and displayed in a reverse chronological order."

Which is pretty broad but doesn't really match the content of that site which links to a range of static pages were the articles are -- it's an old style website of the kind that was produced before blogging services made it so much easier to post content.

But -- and this is a big but -- it did seem unusually harsh of me to dismiss it out of hand. This is after all someone writing about Liverpool -- it's simply the way that their content has been uploaded and can be read.

I feel like there needs to be some kind of basic guidelines as what should appear on 'Liverpool Blogs' but there are certainly grey areas. Under the wikipedia definition Liverpool City Council's news page counts as a blog -- but is it really?

I welcome your opinions on this.

So...Where Were We?

Thank you to everyone who's already emailed to let me know they're out there and the blogroll is getting longer by hour. I'll be highlighting you all in the coming days. New to the list is Liz Kirchner who writes:

"I've just moved to Liverpool from Washington DC, and am blogging at www.merseyandme.blogspot.com from charmingly sooty little Henry Street about...hmm...let's see... judging from the archives list, I seem to have been writing about churches, abandonded cemeteries, Whiz-Go car rentals, coffee houses, luxury flats, old women, city walks, pubs, bats, and cheese. I'm not sure that's fully representative of my range, though, really.

I mean, today, for example, I'm setting off to read up on, and stomp around in the spectacularly smashed and beautiful tobacco warehouses in Bootle, although the "Warning: Attack Dogs Patrol These Buildings" notices are a little off-putting, what with the foaming and the snarling and the spiky collars, so it's either snarling attack dogs or continue to collect research on "Liverpool Coffeehouses with Terrific Views" which might be called something like 'Brew with a View', or, here's one: 'Come for the Coffee, Stay for the...um....Corbels?'. Well, hmm. So, stop by. I'd love to be listed on your site."

And there you are! Welcome to Liverpool and Liverpool Blogs.

If anyone else would like to introduce themselves in the same way I'll be happy to post it up here.

Driving Passion

Steve Orme is a columnist for Trinity Mirror, writing the Driving Force column that appears in local papers. His blog, Driving Passion, is its online outpost, concerning itself with all things car related. Yesterday, he noticed a budget option for the Formula One fan:

"what better news could I bring you than how to own a Ferrari for less than forty quid. As if that’s not enough for another tenner you can also own your own Michael Schumacher! What a fantastic idea to keep the kids away from the fire."

Driving Passion can be read here.

The Artfinder Blog

Lydia Bates has been posting since October 2005 and says her blog offers "reflections on Life, Love, Liverpool and a bit of art thrown in for good measure." According to her official site she's a personal shopper for art and her writing is often prompted by the kind of work that appears in her gallery. Some works inspired by Children's tv series Captain Pugwash led Lydia to investigate the language of the show:

"Everyone knows the story about how Captain Pugwash was full of smutty innuendo that no-one noticed at the time, but that we can all look back on it and laugh now that we are more worldly wise and sophisticated, don’t they?"

But the cultural net is much wider than that, as this post about the architecture of Newcastle demonstrates:

"The Sage is an incredible building, it sits above the Tyne like a giant pupae. I don’t know what the accoustics of the hall are like, but even though the concourse was quite busy my friend and I were able to have a conversation without having to raise our voices at all - in fact I almost felt that I was talking too loudly."

You can read The Artfinder Blog here.

About

Liverpool blogs more and more and the purpose of this site is to provide a focus for the budding blogging community, highlighting our writing and demonstrating that actually, we're not alone. It was inspired by The Manchizzle which has drawn together bloggers in Manchester.

I've attempted to include as many local blogs as I can find, but if you're not listed or know of something that isn't here please email and let me know. The only qualification I suppose is that the writer should live within commuting distance of the city centre.

My own blog is called Feeling Listless. I've been writing since 2001. Back then I didn't know if anyone else was posting but over the years that has obviously changed and it seems time to reflect the fact that there are more of us.