Ghosts, gangsters and giving Liscard a chance

Dear readers — welcome to another writer’s edition, where we give our scribblers a space to tell you what they’ve been up to and what they’re working on. We see this as an opportunity for readers to poke behind the scenes, as well as get to know us better. Since Abi wrote our last one in April, this time it’s Laurence’s turn. His previous edition featured forgotten Liverpool novelists and Hope Street’s interdimensional portals, and spurred a great conversation in the comments section. This time, it’s weird fiction, underground rap, and blue mussel colonies in the dock…

But first, your Post briefing.

Your Post briefing

Three former staff members at Countess of Chester Hospital have been arrested on suspicion of gross negligence manslaughter. The arrests follow an investigation launched into potential corporate manslaughter at the hospital back in 2023 — after the arrest of nurse Lucy Letby — and was widened in March this year. The staffers arrested this week worked on the senior leadership team at the hospital between 2015 and 2016. Cheshire Police noted that the arrests do “not impact on the convictions of Lucy Letby for multiple offences of murder and attempted murder", and that the corporate manslaughter element of the investigation focused on the senior leadership of the hospital and its decision-making at that time.

Several Merseyside MPs have voted against their party to try to block the government’s Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill. After last-minute concessions to rebels, the government won by 75 votes. Fearing a humiliating defeat, the government climbed down on matters surrounding new PIP eligibility rules, leaving its Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill stripped of its most severe features. Despite these concessions, 49 Labour MPs voted against, including West Derby’s Ian Byrne, Riverside’s Kim Johnson, Bootle’s Peter Dowd, St Helens South and Whiston’s Marie Rimmer, Wavertree’s Paula Barker, and Widnes and Halewood’s Dere Twigg. Walton’s MP Dan Carden, leader of the Blue Labour parliamentary group, did not vote. 

The famous iron men of Crosby Beach now officially “belong to Merseyside”, according to the artist who created them for Liverpool’s Biennial two decades ago. Antony Gormley’s 100 statues, titled Another Place, cover nearly two miles of the beach, and have become a major attraction to the Sefton Coast. In an interview with BBC Radio Merseyside this week, he said the statues "don't belong to me any more" and are "literally part of the landscape”. "I think that the work is about life and death, love and loss, and without people reacting to it, it's nothing,” he added. "I mean, that's what art is - it's made to be shared."

And a Cheshire Reform councillor has been charged with assault and criminal damage after an incident at a Pride event this weekend. Amanda Clare was arrested by police after they received reports of a disturbance at Winsford’s Pride event on Saturday afternoon. She has since been bailed pending her court appearance on 8th August. 

What I’m reading 

Between work and childcare commitments, I’ve found I need structure if I’m to read anything at all. So I’ve recently started Ray Bradbury’s night-time regimen — to wit, one short story, one essay, and one poem before bed. But with a slight twist: at least one chapter of a novel, too. The latter is my well-thumbed Imajica by Clive Barker, the 1,100-page magnum opus of the Liverpool-born multidisciplinary artist. (You can read my interview with Barker here.) I’ve not read it in many, many years, so the experience is halfway between vague familiarity and wonder at the man’s imagination. 

The short stories have mostly been from a collection of MR James’ ghostly tales. I’m not yet sure what to make of James — he represents a bit of a gap in my reading of weird fiction, and I don’t feel fully attuned to the vibes he’s throwing out there. 

I also recently finished a re-read of The Weirdstone of Brisingamen and a few other Alan Garner books for both children and adults. I’ve written before about the Wirral’s identity crisis, which may have just been a projection on my part: outrageously, I wrote that the peninsula’s historic county of Cheshire “never had much of an identity to begin with”. In Weirdstone Garner (born 1934) shows me up with his lively invocation of the distinct and still recognisable Cheshire dialect. I also read somewhere that Garner’s father was able to read the 14th century poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight — something impenetrable to modern speakers of standard English — without the need of footnotes or translation. Not only is there a Cheshire identity, it’s much older than Scouse. 

What I’m listening to

A recalcitrant luddite, I’ve never had a Spotify account — until now. Offered a three-month free trial, I took the opportunity to liven up my morning and evening walks with my German shepherd Dutch, who is capable of strolling happily along without my constant chides now he’s turned two. 

Initially, this was part of a project to listen to new (to me) music. And it started well: keen to update my knowledge of underground rap, I downloaded The Elephant Man’s Bones by Roc Marciano and the Alchemist, as well as Orpheus vs. the Sirens by the late great Ka. But pretty soon I found the accursed platform also held so many of my favourite Blue Note records, and before long I was lost in remastered albums by Kenny Dorham, Wayne Shorter and Eric Dolphy.

Long before the kerfuffle last weekend, I’d also been a big admirer of punk band Bob Vylan, and had more than half an idea to see them headline RADAR festival this weekend with a few mates. But with media fury at an all-time high, I’m worried that they’ll be deplatformed as soon as I buy tickets. 

What I’m watching

After stumbling across it on iPlayer, I’m all geared up to rewatch The Lakes by Jimmy McGovern, about John Simm’s unemployed Liverpudlian gambling addict who moves with his wife (Emma Cunniffe) to her home in Ullswater. Perhaps readers with keener memories could remind me, however, but didn’t this series go south (quality-wise, not geographically) in the second season? 

By the way, speaking of Liverpool screenwriters, here’s a cool thing from the BBC Archive. Great not just because it features Charles Shaar Murray, Ramsey Campbell, David Cronenberg and Alan Moore, but because of Moore's insight that, with the slightest alterations, the apparently kitchen-sink-realist “Yosser's Story” from Alan Bleasdale's Boys from the Blackstuff could almost be one of Campbell weird tales. Campbell’s response when I posted it on Facebook: “I felt that to some extent about I, Daniel Blake, in the sense that I've often written about characters beset by similar everyday nightmares.”

I also found a copy of a film called Liverpool by Argentine Lisandro Alonso. I haven’t watched it yet — my TV is usually monopolised by my toddler’s In the Night Garden fixation by day and GTA 5 by my gangster-wannabe wife by night. But Liverpool is apparently about a lonely, alcoholic sailor on board a ship sailing toward Ushuaia, the capital of Tierra del Fuego and the southernmost city in the world. Why, then, is it called “Liverpool”? I have no Earthly idea, and no amount of Googling seems to tell me. Answers on a Postcard, please. 

Top tens

On the subject of films, did anyone see the New York Times’ top 100 films of the 21st century list? I must confess — I love projects like this, even when the final results are pretty uninspiring. 

Do you have a top ten? Let us know in the comments! To get you going (and open myself up to criticism), here’s the ballot I submitted: 

What I’m thinking about 

Oh, journalism, usually. Specifically — without wanting to sound like a 2000s Fox News talking head, a COVID conspiracy theorist, or just a complete jobsworth — how the decay of legacy media’s narrative control has fertilised the earth for smaller independent outlets and outsiders. 

Take, for instance, this recent piece of investigative work by Craig Murray. For those who don’t know, Murray is the former ambassador to Uzbekistan who was instrumental in exposing human rights abuses by the Karimov administration, and once sang with Fela Kuti at the Shrine in Lagos – David Tennant even played him in a Radio 4 dramatisation. But the bulk of that particular article is basically Murray clicking through Companies House, peeling back layers of ownership until he reveals that a squadron of RAF planes are owned by hedge fund Polygon Global Partners LLP.

Almost by definition, local news seldom turns up revelations of such countrywide significance. But the mechanism can be remarkably similar. After the initial tip-off, so much of our Isla Gladstone exclusive last year likewise involved delving into Companies House, or reading through Freedom of Information requests. Other stories we’ve worked on have necessitated many prosaic hours scrolling through balance sheets or reading academic papers. After the last week, I now know far more than I ever thought I’d have to know about nitrogen isotopes in herbaria and thriving blue mussel colonies in the Albert Dock.

So much of this stuff is already in the public domain, the consequential as well as the apparently trivial – so much of which turns out to be highly significant. It just takes time and resources to sort through it. And you need to know how to ask the right questions. Some writers talk about the fear of the blank page – I think I’m developing a terror of the empty search bar. 

What I’ve been working on

Not all of this job is like that, of course. Our recent collaboration about Rob Gutmann’s pubs involved actually leaving the desk and finding out what’s what. Abi’s investigative talents, people skills, and contemporary knowledge of Liverpool's nightlife were important navigational instruments, and I’d like to think my less glamorous background research and ear for a pithy turn-of-phrase were valuable contributions too. But sometimes there’s no substitute for getting out in the city and letting the story find you. As the evening of research progressed, I found my scepticism about the subject counterbalanced by how much I enjoyed his pubs. Perhaps the worst thing for a journalist is when you become charmed by your topic, but I hope the fun Abi and I had trekking around the Georgian Quarter and Lark Lane comes across in the piece.

Not, of course, that reaching page 20 of a densely written academic paper into measles susceptibility doesn’t represent a perverse kind of satisfaction, but it’s not quite expensed pints in eccentrically decorated public houses…

As for the future, I recently suggested to a friend that we have some drinks in Liscard, only to be told it’s “a shithole”. That got me thinking about how this left-behind town is unfairly maligned, both by locals and those who control the Levelling Up purse strings. When I last checked, this unfashionable neighbour to the en vogue New Brighton had wine bars, micropubs, goth hang outs, record stores, a Nepalese restaurant, craft ale places, and a Polish bakery all within 10-minute walk of each other. Not bad for a place that’s repeatedly missed out on local and central government funding! This pitch has not yet been commissioned, so, Posties, be honest – would you be interested in a defence of Liscard’s honour? 

Answers in The Post

Sat outside Rob Gutmann’s Metrocola on Hardman Street with a pint of ale and a cheeky fag, watching cars and vans drive up and down and punters and pedestrians come and go, I recently found it impossible not to be in awe of how much I must be missing out on. Much like the fear of the empty search bar, there’s a frisson – almost an anxiety – at the feeling that vital information is rushing past you.

That’s why I’m becoming such a big evangelist for our new Answers in The Post initiative. Some of our most interesting and fun articles have been the result of you, the readers, reaching out and telling us what to investigate. I like to think of AiTP as the trigger on The Post’s pistol, a gun we’ve pretty much handed to you. It’s an odd experiment, but I think it’s working so far. Take, for instance, Abi’s deep dive into the proposed tidal barrage across the Mersey, or my peek behind the curtain at Shakespeare North. 

Abi and I want The Post to be in sync with Merseyside’s reading population, a kind of collaborative project between journalists and the public we’re meant to represent the interests of. If establishment journalism can be seen as a kingdom, we want to be part of the breakaway democratic republic — or pirate utopia of notepads and laptops. 

Got a burning question about Merseyside you want us to answer? Email editor@livpost.co.uk.