The reasons why this Spectator writer doesn't like Bristol suggest the reasons why right- (i.e. left-) thinking people should.
See also Adam Smith on market towns (clue: 'market town' is a misnomer, 'cartel town' would be more like it, as there's one garage, one bakery and everyone basically knows everyone - come on, Adam, you're saying that like it's a bad thing; of course, I'm paraphrasing).
For other examples besides Bristol of a radical milieu flourishing in a place with an ugly history, see also West Berlin, 1970s & 1980s - at least, as described in Frederick Taylor's 'Berlin Wall'; West Berlin as, simultaneously, an embattled, militarised 'listening station' surrounded by the Communist East and the place you head for if you're a young West German who, for ethical or personal reasons, doesn't fancy completing your otherwise-compulsory military service (if you're in West Berlin, you're exempt; a legislative holdover from the four-power division of the city in 1945). This book generally is full of insights into the complex four-partnered U.S., Soviet, East and West German dance during the three decades of the Wall's existence, as well as vignettes of ordinary life in the two Germanies and, especially, the two Berlins: recommended.
What got me thinking about Bristol in this way? Why, the Financial Times - the paper every good socialist ought to read ("because you've got to know how the enemy thinks, comrade; and the Guardian's gone badly downhill recently; besides, it's for liberals*") - specifically Tim Harford's recent opinion piece about 'harbingers of failure,' an actual marketing category as it turns out, the opposite of 'early adopters'. "[Harbingers] simply adored the Ford Edsel, the Betamax video format... these people thought nothing cried out 'sophisticated lady' more loudly than a packet of Bic disposable knickers."
What gives these harbingers their odd knack of choosing the 'wrong' thing? Are they of Walter Benjamin's party without knowing it? "He aimed to disclose history through its refuge and detritus, studying the overlooked, the worthless, the trashy... [in order to] adminster a kind of shock effect to awaken us from our illusions" - Stuart Jeffries' 'Grand Hotel Abyss: The Lives of the Frankfurt School'.
These fragments &c.
Oh, and the Aquarium's nice.
Plus I bought my favourite retro arcade game t-shirt in a Stokes Croft charity shop so there's that.
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[Talking of Stokes Croft, do read Tim Maughan's Infinite Detail - near-future dystopian SF about life in Bristol and New York just before and in the days and years after a massive DDOS attack takes out the entire internet: recommended (the novel, not the procedure). / Review in LARB].
*I'm a liberal myself, of course; I just know all the old show tunes.
See also Adam Smith on market towns (clue: 'market town' is a misnomer, 'cartel town' would be more like it, as there's one garage, one bakery and everyone basically knows everyone - come on, Adam, you're saying that like it's a bad thing; of course, I'm paraphrasing).
For other examples besides Bristol of a radical milieu flourishing in a place with an ugly history, see also West Berlin, 1970s & 1980s - at least, as described in Frederick Taylor's 'Berlin Wall'; West Berlin as, simultaneously, an embattled, militarised 'listening station' surrounded by the Communist East and the place you head for if you're a young West German who, for ethical or personal reasons, doesn't fancy completing your otherwise-compulsory military service (if you're in West Berlin, you're exempt; a legislative holdover from the four-power division of the city in 1945). This book generally is full of insights into the complex four-partnered U.S., Soviet, East and West German dance during the three decades of the Wall's existence, as well as vignettes of ordinary life in the two Germanies and, especially, the two Berlins: recommended.
What gives these harbingers their odd knack of choosing the 'wrong' thing? Are they of Walter Benjamin's party without knowing it? "He aimed to disclose history through its refuge and detritus, studying the overlooked, the worthless, the trashy... [in order to] adminster a kind of shock effect to awaken us from our illusions" - Stuart Jeffries' 'Grand Hotel Abyss: The Lives of the Frankfurt School'.
These fragments &c.
Oh, and the Aquarium's nice.
Plus I bought my favourite retro arcade game t-shirt in a Stokes Croft charity shop so there's that.
---
[Talking of Stokes Croft, do read Tim Maughan's Infinite Detail - near-future dystopian SF about life in Bristol and New York just before and in the days and years after a massive DDOS attack takes out the entire internet: recommended (the novel, not the procedure). / Review in LARB].
*I'm a liberal myself, of course; I just know all the old show tunes.
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