No Pine Wine Racks for This Old City
Crap towns, great towns, cutting edge towns…Jesus, who comes up with this stuff? How can you pinpoint which bunch of houses huddling together in a valley for warmth is better than all the rest? The one who spends the biggest percentage of their budget on cultural pursuits? The one with best ratio of suburban detached houses to huge estates of council flats? Or the town with the bolshiest head of tourism and PR?
Most of this stuff comes from people who lived in a bad hovel somewhere and need to vent spleen, or from people who mistakenly think that they're part of a burgeoning scene because they know a friend of a friend of someone who just opened a gallery in some city centre back alley bolthole. As for myself I wouldn't dream of comparing Sheffield with its counterparts, but I do know how much the place has changed in the last ten years, and mostly for the better. I'll leave the details for the Rough Guide.
It must be noted that there are some increasingly voiced frustrations, however. The clubbing scene has been increasingly poor in the last couple of years, and one (Element) has even been thrown to the wolves over some terrifying gang war problems. There are notable exceptions, such as the Tuesday Club, a night put on by one of the Universities (I forget which). And the live music scene is reasonably healthy, even with the closure last year of the Barfly.
Shopping in Sheffield remains poor. Again, this kind of thing is best left to the guide books, but city centre shopping is dull and the Meadowhall shopping centre clearly traded its soul upon completion for a handful of magic beans. Only Devonshire Street has any genuine verve. And as if symbolising all that is conformist and homogenised about modern shopping, Starbucks has just opened in the city centre. It is the first one in Sheffield outside Meadowhall. When I first noticed it was there the rain was pouring down, and as my gaze was averted I stepped in a small puddle. A little mud splashed upon my shoes. No wonder so many people hate the chain.
Conversely, I am decidedly pleased that when Ikea attempted recently to build a branch of their garish store near Sheffield, they were sent away with a flea in their collective ear. The place sickens me, and I do not know why. Perhaps it because...it just ain't much good, really. Anyway, mention their name to me and I can't help but remember when someone told me that whenever he was dragged to the place by their other half he would sit in the car singing "fuck you I won't buy a pine wine rack!" to the tune of...well, I expect you can guess. Sums it up for me.
On an aesthetic level, many buildings in Sheffield have recently been torn down or are about to be; and when they come down, for one glorious moment we look around us and take in the large expanses of sky and distant hills…only for a larger and more leering building to rise from the rubble and ruin the view. It is happening between the gloriously refurbished Peace Gardens and the attractive Winter Gardens, it is happening on London Road with the old ugly TC Harrison building, and it will soon happen when the Yorkshire Gray pub in the city centre is torn down for a nice, profitable 'mixed development'. Many of these new buildings will be very useful, but it does sicken the heart when you realise what a terrible thing it is when every chink of sky, every view longer than a street is obliterated by another hyper-expensive block of new city centre apartments. Still, that's the price of profit. Er, I mean progress. Trebles all round!
I may be moving away in a few weeks…then I will see if I miss the place. At the moment, with the returning students giving the place some life after the miserable sodden summer, I suspect that I will.
Most of this stuff comes from people who lived in a bad hovel somewhere and need to vent spleen, or from people who mistakenly think that they're part of a burgeoning scene because they know a friend of a friend of someone who just opened a gallery in some city centre back alley bolthole. As for myself I wouldn't dream of comparing Sheffield with its counterparts, but I do know how much the place has changed in the last ten years, and mostly for the better. I'll leave the details for the Rough Guide.
It must be noted that there are some increasingly voiced frustrations, however. The clubbing scene has been increasingly poor in the last couple of years, and one (Element) has even been thrown to the wolves over some terrifying gang war problems. There are notable exceptions, such as the Tuesday Club, a night put on by one of the Universities (I forget which). And the live music scene is reasonably healthy, even with the closure last year of the Barfly.
Shopping in Sheffield remains poor. Again, this kind of thing is best left to the guide books, but city centre shopping is dull and the Meadowhall shopping centre clearly traded its soul upon completion for a handful of magic beans. Only Devonshire Street has any genuine verve. And as if symbolising all that is conformist and homogenised about modern shopping, Starbucks has just opened in the city centre. It is the first one in Sheffield outside Meadowhall. When I first noticed it was there the rain was pouring down, and as my gaze was averted I stepped in a small puddle. A little mud splashed upon my shoes. No wonder so many people hate the chain.
Conversely, I am decidedly pleased that when Ikea attempted recently to build a branch of their garish store near Sheffield, they were sent away with a flea in their collective ear. The place sickens me, and I do not know why. Perhaps it because...it just ain't much good, really. Anyway, mention their name to me and I can't help but remember when someone told me that whenever he was dragged to the place by their other half he would sit in the car singing "fuck you I won't buy a pine wine rack!" to the tune of...well, I expect you can guess. Sums it up for me.
On an aesthetic level, many buildings in Sheffield have recently been torn down or are about to be; and when they come down, for one glorious moment we look around us and take in the large expanses of sky and distant hills…only for a larger and more leering building to rise from the rubble and ruin the view. It is happening between the gloriously refurbished Peace Gardens and the attractive Winter Gardens, it is happening on London Road with the old ugly TC Harrison building, and it will soon happen when the Yorkshire Gray pub in the city centre is torn down for a nice, profitable 'mixed development'. Many of these new buildings will be very useful, but it does sicken the heart when you realise what a terrible thing it is when every chink of sky, every view longer than a street is obliterated by another hyper-expensive block of new city centre apartments. Still, that's the price of profit. Er, I mean progress. Trebles all round!
I may be moving away in a few weeks…then I will see if I miss the place. At the moment, with the returning students giving the place some life after the miserable sodden summer, I suspect that I will.
posted by Jamie at 3:03 PM
1 Comments:
And are Ikea physically capable of lashing together an advertising campaign that isn't so pleased with itself that it makes Kilroy Silk look humble?
Fff.
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