| Subject: The Once Great City |
Author:
Athers
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Date Posted: 11:39:20 05/06/02 Mon
I guess I'm posting slightly early, but cos of the time zone thing I'm either early or late and since I'm at home today...
The lyrics I got (thanks Laura) were incredibly romantic...shame I don't live in a romantic city. Half an hour down the road from me is Bath -- which would have suited romance. But no...I had to live in Bristol...
~*~
The Once Great City
Bristol is a shit heap.
Don't look at me like that -- I was born here. I can say that if I want to.
It wasn't always, of course. Cities don't get to be as big and as self-important as Bristol's become without having once upon a time been something more. And true enough, it was.
I was born here during Bristol's heyday.
It was one point on a golden triangle. The ships set sail from Bristol and headed down to Africa. There they took on a cargo and from there they headed across the Atlantic to the West Indies. They offloaded that cargo took on spices, tobacco and sugar and then sailed back to Bristol.
Bristol merchants were amongst the richest in the country. They financed the likes of Black Beard. They financed Cabot. They financed the city.
I cut my teeth on their ships...at least I did until my first death. That rather put a crimp in my plans -- but I still found my way back. To Bristol. I may have lived in other places around the world, but Bristol is still a home to me in a way nowhere else could ever be.
If I don't love Bristol, then I'll wait until the real feeling comes along.
That's why it hurts to see the place so down at heel as it is now.
The paintwork's peeling. The woodwork's rotting. The place is decaying. And it's not that the place no longer runs on the back of the slave trade. When that finished, other things took its place. There was the aircraft trade -- Bristol was home to the Concorde project. There is banking and insurance work -- almost every second office building in the centre of the city houses this insurance firm or that bank.
No -- it's dying on its feet because attitudes have backslid. The merchants who drove this city to greatness have degenerated into a bunch of fifth generation, moneyed idiots content to rest on the laurels of their ancestors. The Merchant Venturers venture no more.
The council would sooner waste money on schemes their voters don't want than they would on fixing things that have broken. Ten years ago, they first started talking about a 'public transport revolution' in this city -- ten years on and they're still talking about it.
All over the city are the marks of its once greatness. And marks of its slide into obscurity.
And that hurts.
I was going to base my new venture here -- after all, where better to start a new slave trade than in the home of the old one. But, looking around, I think I won't.
~*~
1) John Cabot sailed for 'Asia' from Bristol in 1497
http://www.win.tue.nl/cs/fm/engels/discovery/cabot.html
2) Concorde, the supersonic aeroplane was developed by British Aerospace at Filton jointly with Sud Avaiation (sp?) in Toulouse. Work began in 1956 and the first prototype was completed in 1967. British Airways and Air France both operate Concordes.
http://www.british-airways.com/concorde/index.html
3) Amongst the insurance and banking agencies with either head offices or with major offices here in Bristol are Lloyds Bank, Axa Sunlife and Clerical Medical.
4) The Avon Supertram is STILL in the planning stages -- it was first mooted in c.1985, we're now in 2002 and they've STILL not got anything more firm than a mooted idea...
5) I'm probably maligning the Bristol merchants of Black Beard's time when I say they funded him -- but they were certainly wealthy enough and he had ties to the city.
6) In case you haven't rumbled it, the 'I' doing the talking is Morgan Walker, the Immortal who Methos whacks in Indiscretions. According to the Watcher CD ROM, he originates from Bristol and suffered his first death crewing one of the many trading ships that put forth from Bristol.
7) Disclaimer: Morgan Walker and the lyics quoted below don't belong to me and have been borrowed without permission. No harm meant.
The lyrics were
"Until the Real Thing Comes Along"
Writers: Cahn/Chaplin/Freeman/Holiner
Don't you know I'd work for you, I'd slave for you
Be a beggar or a knave for you
If that isn't love it will have to do
Until the real thing comes along
Gladly move the earth for you
Prove my love dear, and its worth for you
If that isn't love it'll have to do
Until the real thing comes along
With all the words dear at my command
I just can't make you understand
I'll always love you baby - come what may
My heart is yours - what more can I say
I would cry for you, even sigh for you
Tear those stars down from the sky for you
If that isn't love it'll have to do
Until the real thing comes along
Walk on burning coals for you
I would drive the Chrysler, leave the Rolls for you
If that ain't love it will have to do
Until the real thing comes along
There's not a thing that you can't ask of me
Go on, demand any task of me
If you want the moon or a lavaliere
All you got to do is nibble on my ear
I would rob, steal, beg, borrow, and lie for you
Lay my little body down and die for you
If that ain't love it will have to do
Until the real thing comes along
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