Geography For Wallies

Some bloggers try hard to amuse. Others just try. And into the latter category comes former high flyer of the so-called Taxpayers’ Alliance (representing less than one tenth of one per cent of all tax payers, and still no full accounts or list of donors) Mark Wallace. Wal has left the TPA – the inducement of making an honest living clearly strong in his case – and has set up his own blog.

Here, demonstrating that knack for humour which he is yet to find, Wal tries to equate the level of alcohol consumption in Salford with the upcoming move by some parts of the Beeb to the North West. See? Beeb coming, turning the natives to drink – ha ha ha!

Laugh? I thought I’d never start.

Of course, as any fule kno, the Beeb are moving to Salford Quays. But, so what? Isn’t it all the same area? Well, no it isn’t. The Quays, the area around the Ship Canal Basin, which has been “regenerated” out of all recognition in the last two and a half decades, is more a developers’ buzzphrase than anything else. This was the dock area, such land not generally being given over to residential use.

[Wallace has linked to the Wikipedia article on Salford Quays in his blogpost – maybe he will get round to reading it sometime soon]

Moreover, the Beeb are moving to Media City, an area further west, which is yet more distant from the established residential part of Salford. Think of London’s Docklands reinvented for the North West. I’m sure that Mark Wallace, master campaigner, would want to at least be accurate in his depictions, whatever his stance on the underlying issues.

Otherwise, how could anyone trust the TPA? What was that? Gullible hacks under pressure to come up with stories and editors wanting material to suit their agenda?

Hey, that’s enough to drive folks to drink.