Cool – or cold?

Talking to a chum in London last night we got to talking about why the English are such a cold nation, how urban cool has turned to chill, why we are so afraid to show warmth to other human beings, even ones we know well.

But we're not a cold nation. Liverpool, where I live for much of the time, is a warmer city by far than the capital – which is one of the reasons I moved up here 18 years ago. Here strangers smile at you, throw out a few chirpy words, pay you an unnecessary compliment (if you're really lucky). Unlikely characters can commit acts of random kindness. Beyond city limits, humans warm up yet more. Courtesy and curiosity prompt conversation with strangers; cuddling a child is a naturally affectionate gesture, not evidence of deviant criminality.

Cram too many people into a space and they have to create the illusion of space by ignoring the crowd. Out walking in my local park, despite the greenery, I am still firmly in the city: I can spend an hour in uninterrupted solitude amongst a hundred other walkers. I'm more likely to have a friendly exchange with a passing spaniel than talk to a fellow city dweller.

Still, it's better than in London where I would avoid catching someone's eye in the street, let alone smiling at them, for fear of – what – ? And that was 20 years ago. My chum Tony was saying last night that these days everyone is so determined to look cool and hard that they'd rather be aggressive than risk looking vulnerable in any way. They'll shove you out of the way to get off the bus in a rush instead of asking you to let them out a few seconds earlier; walk in the road and challenge the traffic rather than having to step out of the way of another pedestrian.

Kids shooting each other dead may seem a bit of a leap from that, but it's not that big a leap. When a society is run on fear, the adolescents – who react the most strongly to every emotion and are least in control of their feelings – will show an extreme response to the fear we all deny.

There are remedies, but they are too simple, too fundamental, too gentle and too free for the policy makers and budget setters to value. More of that later.

Missing person

Yesterday was the third anniversary of my sister's death. Ginny was 56 – she'd have been 60 this July. I spent the morning with my brother in law sitting in the little garden we made for her on the hill overlooking the house on Exmoor, where her ashes are buried and her presence is strong. She had poured so much of herself into the land, creating a farm out of the steep moorland hills and building a herd of sought-after Angus cattle, as well as black sheep and gaggles of waterfowl. That was all after she was the first woman to be awarded the Queen's Polar Medal, and the first woman to be allowed into the hallowed portals of the Antarctic Club. She was no slouch, my sister. 800 people crammed into the Royal Geographical Society for her memorial event. Today the weather was meek. I don't remember the weather the day she died, except that the daffodils were out in the hospice garden. The day of her funeral it snowed. Yesterday morning, sitting up there for a couple of hours, it was all too easy for a moment to believe we'd go back down to the house and find her in the kitchen where she'd have a clutch of newly hatched goslings in a box on the Aga. Brutus was one of her hatchlings. A Hawaiian goose, he was an amazing little bird. He was fierce (although he couldn't peck much above your knee) and hated almost everyone, but because my voice is so like Ginny's, he used to follow me around the place, hooting softly like a clarinet; he got to recognise the sound of my car, and ran to the gate calling for me. Dear Brutus. It was enough to make you weep.

Time and tide

There aren't many businesses that make the 200 year mark; there are even fewer which are still under family control, let alone with the sixth generation having both hands on the wheel. Liverpool has one of these treasures – and a shipping line, to boot. Capsica launched our latest book (TIME AND TIDE) on 8 Feb looking at this intriguing asset – the Bibby Line Group. Remarkable company, fantastic project, terrific people.
For more on the book launch, the book and the business, go to http://icliverpool.icnetwork.co.uk/liverpooldailypost/ourview/columnists/peterelson/tm_headline=success-based-on-staying-local-and-ahead-of-the-times%26method=full%26objectid=18611357%26siteid=50061-name_page.html
(If this URL doesn't work, go to http://icliverpool.icnetwork.co.uk, click on Daily Post, find the columnists, look for Peter Elson's column of 12 Feb.)

Solid steel proof

Here's a close up of the star, so you can see the steel rivets. Hard to imagine this thing is made of thick steel plates – including the HUGE arching tail – but it is. See for yourself.

Star attraction

It's Liverpool's 800th anniversary this year – at least the octocentenary of Bad King John's concession to a few local burghers who had been whingeing about paying for King John's new castle so the Bad King could set sail for Ireland with all its Celtic gold, colleens and wolfhounds. But glossing over the expediency of giving the little fishing village a Royal Charter, it now means we, the current denizens of Liverpool, can kick up our heels in fine style. The picture above does not show Liverpool, but Verona. The fantastic thing lighting up the big piazza is not a flimsy special effect, but a solid steel structure created in 1984 by what the Italians call an archisculptor (great name) called Rinaldo Olivieri. It's huge, it's fantastic, it's staggeringly impressive, and if Liverpool's City Fathers chose to commission something of this scale and quality, it would be quite something. OK, City Dads, come on, beat this.
Toodle pip.

Hot and spicy

And while I'm at it, I'll explain Capsica. No-one can spell it, or say it, or knows what it means. Simple, really - it's the plural of capsicum, ie peppers. big sweet ones, like bell peppers, or fierce little biters like these peperoncini, or Scotch bonnets. Full of goodness, hot and spicy. Just like us. 'Us' being me and Fiona Shaw, the two directors of Capsica. Photo of us as the Kray twins to come later. Worth waiting for.
T'ra.

Kind hearts and coronets

This is the neighbour's gaff, just down the mountain from my des res. The most famous past resident was Vlad the Impaler, Voivode of Wallachia and template for Bram Stoker's romantic bloodsucker. The castle (genuine 14th century edifice) belonged to the Romanian royal family until the Communists kicked them out, but last year they got it back. The man who would have been king of Romania is, I gather, an architect in New York called Hugo (correct me if I'm wrong). So the neighbourhood's looking up – from a mere Count to an Almost King. And the other side of me, in the same county, Prince Charles now has a bijou pad – well, a rural building in a Carpathian village. So I'm hedged about with coronets.

Taking wing

Why Batland? Mostly because I'm a dreadful old bat, but also because I have a house in Transylvania, home to the most stylish bats in the business.

For the time being (and for the last 18 years) I live in Liverpool – the original, not one of the 15 or so around the world – and almost make a living as a publisher of gorgeous looking, life-enhancing non-fiction books under the imprints of Capsica and Garlic Press. Have a look at http://www.loveliverpoolbooks.com for some of them.

Garlic Press, incidentally, had nothing to do with the Transylvanian connection. I was taking drawing lessons, and we had to bring in a kitchen implement to sketch. I brought in a garlic press and it occurred to me that it would be a great name for a publishing house. At the time (1992) I was a business journalist and it hadn't occurred to me that it might be me doing the publishing. It's an odd world.

Gagging to know more about Transylvania, eh? It IS a real place and ISN'T full of vampires. Full of vampire-chasers, certainly - lots of foreign (ie not Transylvanian) nutters running around the mountains looking for Dracula. But although Vlad the Impaler's 14th century castle is in the valley below my house, and the village next to mine is named after a bat cave, and you can occasionally hear wolves howl from my back door, the place is idyllic ather than Gothic. Not dark and dangerous, but light and full of wildflower meadows. Much more of that later.

For now, the sun's out and it's Chinese New Year, and Liverpool has the oldest Chinese community in Europe, so I'm off out.

T'ra.