I have often wondered how the choice of the European City of Culture is made and by whom. Sometimes I really wonder about the choice.
Today Kosice in eastern Slovakia takes its turn centre stage for a year. It’s the second largest city in Slovakia and I haven’t visited it myself, but it seems to have quite a few things going for it.
But this year the title is shared between two cities and the other one is Marseille. Marseille is not a city I like, particularly its over-ornate basilica, Notre Dame de la Garde. There is a new Museum of the Mediterranean being built for this year of glory, but it won’t be finished till June at the earliest, half-way through its reign. Over the past year Marseille has become notorious for murders, usually one lot of drug-dealers taking out a rival bunch. No loss there! But is it really a good idea to have a lot of visitors coming to a place where drive-by shootings have become the norm? Some of the local people are hopeful that the culture accolade will improve the town’s image,
” De quoi, espèrent en choeur les Marseillais, corriger l’image de la ville, particulièrement mise à mal ces derniers mois après une série de règlements de comptes.”
Would it not have been better to postpone this City of Culture title for Marseille for a bit, until the new museum was fully open and the police and gendarmes have managed to clear up some of the drugs racket though that will take a while, since corruption has eaten its way into some of the forces of law and order? The North African ferries continue to unload their cargo of HGVs, many of them with hidden extras. So who on earth thought it would be a good idea to nominate Marseille in the first place and to carry on regardless in the second?
Boadicea's Chariot 
Being of a cynical bent I would have thought such ‘accolades’ were bought and paid for out of the back door!
I may, (or may not!) remember that some cretin made Liverpool the city of culture award (or some such nonsense) some years ago! One wonders uncharitably whether the whores were encouraged to sing opera extracts whilst they plied their wares.
I’d have thought any sane person would have given such places the miss for at least a decade after the award of such dubious ‘honour’!! Just the thought of going to such ratholes makes one feel the need to rush home, lock the gates and mumble imprecations about what begins at Calais!
I think it’s time to assiduously cultivate agoraphobia. Quite curdles one’s morning tea thinking about it!
I quite enjoyed Liverpool when I was there last year, the docklands area has been creatively refurbished and has some excellent visitor spots, including the Liverpool Maritime Museum (five or six floors of good exhibits and all FREE).
I missed the whores but must confess they were not the primary reason for my visit.
Sorry about that Sheona but I know next to nothing about Kosice.
Christina – LW is spot on about the Maritime Museum. Don’t believe all the southern negativity about my home city. By all accounts we did the biz and Liverpool is certainly roaring as a result according to all the rest of the pack who still live there. I have to go back later this year for the Great Wolves’ diamond anniversary thrash and I will let you know. Most of the whores still ply their trade in London and Leeds, so I’m informed.
OZ
Yes, quite… The awarding of the honour does seem a bit arbitrary at times. Still, Marseilles is always “interesting” and there is never any shortage of “action”.
I’ve never been to Liverpool but those I know who have gone there generally speak highly of it.
CO: I am inclined to agree with you regarding the cultivation of agoraphobia. I returned to the US yesterday afternoon and was, within 1 hour, thoroughly disgusted and prepared to return to the relative civilisation of Germany. Or South London.
OZ: please let me know how it went.
I shall Christopher, although it’s not until August but I will be taking my new rinky-dink Lumix digital SLR camera wot the NSW gave me for Christmas and which is the absolute mutt’s nuts. I’ve not been back to the ‘Pool for seven years and probably won’t even recognise the place according to my nieces.
OZ
OZ: I will look forward to it, then. Things have really changed a lot, haven’t they? London changed a lot since I last saw it when it was under the reign of King Ken the Newt. Trier is much changed as well, in some ways for the better and in some ways for the worse. Things seem to be that way now. Everything changes so fast that we have to always be on our feet, always be alert and flexible.
I get so tired of change, constant evolution of anything/anywhere becomes increasingly tedious. I do think immutables are a great necessity to humanity. Hence my turning left at Heathrow and scuttling as fast as possible for the border!
Once into Greater Upper Carmarthenshire one can positively rely on Nothing having changed for decades.
The only thing to have changed in the last 20 years was they moved the cattle market to the outskirts of town and redeveloped the old market into a bloody shopping precinct where they built a Debenhams so now they have stupid two legged cows in situ instead of four legged ones! I preferred the four legged, much sleeker and better dressed.
The thought of voluntarily going to Liverpool and London under my own steam, volition and expense is enough to give me a fit of the vapours!! I feel a ‘mine the drive’ episode coming on!
LW, I should have included a link for Kosice for anyone interested.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ko%C5%A1ice
As most people know, we have spent a few summers in Slovakia now and it’s a country I’ve grown fond of. So I’m pleased to see Kosice becoming the European City of Culture, hoping this will boost interest in and tourism to Slovakia in general. There is a lot of history to be discovered there which is generally unknown to most western Europeans and we have learned new facts every visit. Last summer we found a little country road leading to the river Morava, part of the border between Austria and Slovakia, which joins the Danube just outside Bratislava. A very small ferry takes vehicles across for a very small fee and then one is in Austria, with local supermarkets full of local wine or the motorway to Vienna, according to choice. And we’ve never been anywhere near a shooting in Slovakia!
Christopher Marseille is interesting in a way, but is definitely going through a bad patch just now.
Christina, we have seen change in Slovakia every time we have visited and while it is tedious to see Tesco and Benetton and such shops, it is also a pleasure to see the renovations made to old buildings since the fall of communism and the increasing prosperity obvious all over. New cars in car parks may not be beautiful to the eye, but presumably make their owners happy. And walking through old towns keeps one’s feet on the ground. All these impressive churches, castles, cathedrals, town halls have seen off Turkish invaders, Nazism and communism and have had people walk past them for centuries. Not all change is bad, and can blend in with the past glories too.
Isn’t Derry (it’s IRA name) the UK City of Culture this year? With trips to Belfast for the drive-by shootings, I suppose.
Liverpool was much-improved visually – when I went there quite often 15 years ago – apart from the suburbs plagued by burglaries and street crime.
Christopher
I don’t know Kosice, Marseille or even Liverpool. But if you think that South London is better than the US I really despair. I could weep for what the South London that I grew up in has become.
Boa: It depends on which part of South London you are talking about. Balham, Wandsworth and Clapham are becoming gentrified and full of young professionals. Peckham,, Croydon etc. on the other hand IS going to the dogs.
FEEG
I remember when they were ‘nice’ places to live – before they went ‘down-market’ ! Good to know that they are going ‘up’ again!
I went from Hove to Southwark last year by road, rather than train, and I was appalled at what I saw. My daughter, who still lives in England, wanted to go back to the area in Brixton that she was brought up in. The road and a few places around were as we remembered – but when I said that a bank, now converted to a ‘Muslim Cultural Centre’ looked like a run-down Asian Market she told me to be quiet since this was now ‘their area’…
Boadicea: I would not willingly go to South London for any reason. I was being facetious.
In general, though, my comment isn’t far from the truth. Even Minneapolis which is by the standards of a US city especially pleasant and peaceful is having more and more problems with crime and such. Much of St Paul has turned into a Somali ghetto. (Minneapolis and St Paul comprise the Twin Cities metro region, the largest in Minnesota) The US is not a pleasant country to live in and is only growing worse.
That is why you should always live in the rural areas in any country. The wogs don’t like the country, not enough people to kill, deal drugs to or exhibit bling. No rackety clubs, mosques or ethnic food and they don’t do mud!
You surely have noticed that all immigrants cling to their ghettos everywhere.
South London was a disaster by the mid 70s.
CO: I’ve long concluded that towns with roughly 40-70 thousand people are ideal. Enough to do but not too much to go terribly amiss. Much larger and things start to go wrong more easily, much smaller and one often begins wondering first why the people all look so much alike and then why they look disturbingly similar to sheep.
Christopher, nice to see you again. Cities that size are practically metropolitan here, attracting all the dross and its acssociated filth! I’ll go with CO – baaaaa!