City of Bolton?

[Hoboh]

Can anyone tell me one benefit of becoming a City?

Train engine? 'City of Bolton'? In 180 years (ish) since Stephenson's famous 'The Rocket' not one engine has been named 'xxxx Town'...

New entry on 'City Collectors' 48 hours city collection bike ride?

Newly designated cathedral allowed to bid in national save ecclesiastical buildings fund?

And in seriousness... Doesn't our town look absolutely shite at the moment?... The town centre offers fantastic options... Desperate estate agents... pound shops... charity shops... pubs with bouncers where the female clientele look tougher than the doormen... 'prize-winning' tattoo artists (prize being most cases of blood poisoning?)... fast food stalls to buy sausages (ban these forthwith!)... small shops, hanging on, sellings papers, 'health food', pies n pasties... total catastrophe of transforming market hall into empty spaces... this is shit, shit, shit...

And every single route into the town is truly vile... Chorley New Road offering the bourgeois exception... There is no imagination... No ambition... We and so many Lancashire towns are slowly sinking into nonentity...

So, Bruce... the question may not be whether we are a city... or just some anonymous 'place'...

Agree with all of that, William, though take a trip down the road to Bury if you'd like to see a town on the way up. Bolton town centre is currently a crying shame, an embarrassment. But I'm not sure you've answered my question re: benefit, unless your answer is to say 'none whatsoever'.

I've been told that about Bury, Bruce, and by more than one... Tell us what they've done... btw, also been told that about Wigan... My answer is that the quality of life in our town is what is important, the rest is a chimera. Just illusory... Does being a city make a difference... No... our future doesn't lie on that designation, but on the lives lived on the estates of Breightmet or Johnson Fold, or the terraces of Daubhill and Halliwell.

But also on pride... I think that's important too... When I'm abroad and people ask where I'm from my answer is Bolton... But, in truth, I look around our place, and I don't feel proud. And i feel those that don't feel second best and apologetic often fall back on defiant. I'd like that to change.

And some people applaud the way our councillors act like big time Charlie investors, remind me how many years have Labour held control of the TOWN? Has this cock up been coming for years?
Socialists cock everything up with their social engineering, be warned before you vote Happy Harriet has shed loads waiting in the wings and she is too powerful for the other weakling cabinet ministers to stop her.

[Zulus Thousand of em]

I always had in my mind that a city was a town with a cathedral. Does Bolton have one? Was I wrong? No, I've done no research.

I thought that too, Dujon. But I subsequently discovered that it's yet another "rule" that has lots of exceptions. Closest one to home being Blackburn - a town with a cathedral. There's lots more too.

[ratbert]

Think its something to do with a diocese being administered differently than a local government area.... bish?

[superjohnmcginlay]

Think its something to do with a diocese being administered differently than a local government area.... bish?

Is that why that Wells place is a city? Which is the size of a village. Nice place though.

[thebish]

I'll leave you two boys alone to play then...

just creep round the corner, you know...

Pretend i didn't see what you did together on the ecru 4-6-0...

(though it was you, william, who shoehorned train-talk into a thread about cities..... don't think we didn't notice..)

anyway - here's your bardic namesake... - the William Shakespeare - and Dujon in the foreground with his poloroid!

[thebish]

Think its something to do with a diocese being administered differently than a local government area.... bish?

there was once a link between being a city and having a cathedral - though I think it was a coincidental link when henry viii made a few dioceses and called them cities and then they were all places with cathedrals (one of them being Wells - to answer another point above)

but the link was broken a looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong time ago - and it is not just an honorary status and bears no extra right or privileges at all as far as i know - and has no link to the church or to church government - and nor should it.

as for how anglicans run dioceses and how cathedrals work - I have no idea whatsoever!

[Puskas]

I always had in my mind that a city was a town with a cathedral. Does Bolton have one? Was I wrong? No, I've done no research.

I thought that too, Dujon. But I subsequently discovered that it's yet another "rule" that has lots of exceptions. Closest one to home being Blackburn - a town with a cathedral. There's lots more too.

There's also at least one city without a cathedral (although I can't remember which...)

Being a city involves having some sort of royal charter bestowed - hence why the queen does it. On special occasions.

Whether there's any real benefit or not is another question entirely...

[thebish]

I always had in my mind that a city was a town with a cathedral. Does Bolton have one? Was I wrong? No, I've done no research.

I thought that too, Dujon. But I subsequently discovered that it's yet another "rule" that has lots of exceptions. Closest one to home being Blackburn - a town with a cathedral. There's lots more too.

There's also at least one city without a cathedral (although I can't remember which...)

Being a city involves having some sort of royal charter bestowed - hence why the queen does it. On special occasions.

Whether there's any real benefit or not is another question entirely...

Birmingham didn't have a cathedral when it was made a city - though the anglican church is now called a cathedral - it wasn't back then....

[Puskas]

I always had in my mind that a city was a town with a cathedral. Does Bolton have one? Was I wrong? No, I've done no research.

I thought that too, Dujon. But I subsequently discovered that it's yet another "rule" that has lots of exceptions. Closest one to home being Blackburn - a town with a cathedral. There's lots more too.

There's also at least one city without a cathedral (although I can't remember which...)

Being a city involves having some sort of royal charter bestowed - hence why the queen does it. On special occasions.

Whether there's any real benefit or not is another question entirely...

Birmingham didn't have a cathedral when it was made a city - though the anglican church is now called a cathedral - it wasn't back then....

And there's a list of 18 cities without cathedrals here: http://www.lovemytown.co.uk/Cathedrals/ ... Table3.asp

Hull was the one I was trying to think of. For some reason, I often blank out Hull....

[Lord Kangana]

Only Leeds and Hull having bigger populations than us. So the question is more why aren't we already a city?

[as]

Preston is a city, and it's nowhere near the size of Bolton. But aren't we too close to Salford & Manchester for them to grant us city status.....we're less than 12 miles from two others already. Or is there some kind of Greater Manchester hocus pocus going on behind the scenes, where those lovely politicians decide the boundaries of OUR town

I think classing Bolton as a city would just make people realise that it isn't some tiny town up North, it's also grim and they have a football team on a retail park miles away

[Gary the Enfield]

I understood our request of City status (which we have applied for on previous occasions) is instantly tainted by the fact we beheaded the Earl of Derby on Churchgate after the Massacre of Bolton and, as staunch Parliamentarians, would not be granted any boons by this or any subsequent sovereign.

[Lord Kangana]

Iits true, we did. But I'm not sure they're still holding a grudge against us.

[William the White]

[quote="Hobinho
And some people applaud the way our councillors act like big time Charlie investors, remind me how many years have Labour held control of the TOWN? Has this cock up been coming for years?
Socialists cock everything up with their social engineering, be warned before you vote Happy Harriet has shed loads waiting in the wings and she is too powerful for the other weakling cabinet ministers to stop her.[/quote]

Democracy's a fecker, ain't it? If only we had a government that could make the trains run on time, we'd have no need of voters. But you definitely have a thing about Harriet, the number of times you mention her. Admit it - she's your secret Nanny fantasy, isn't she?

[thebish]

i'll wager the trains run more on time now than they ever did....
I'll also wager that there never was a time when people didn't moan about the trains not running on time.... (since the invention of the train, that is.)

[thebish]

Harriet and Hobo
sitting in a tree
K-I-S-S-I-N-G

(sorry - should be in poetry thread)

[thebish]

can we get back to trains now?

[superjohnmcginlay]

And some people applaud the way our councillors act like big time Charlie investors, remind me how many years have Labour held control of the TOWN? Has this cock up been coming for years?
Socialists cock everything up with their social engineering, be warned before you vote Happy Harriet has shed loads waiting in the wings and she is too powerful for the other weakling cabinet ministers to stop her.

Democracy's a fecker, ain't it? If only we had a government that could make the trains run on time, we'd have no need of voters. But you definitely have a thing about Harriet, the number of times you mention her. Admit it - she's your secret Nanny fantasy, isn't she?

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/politics/ ... 0908051955

[InsaneApache]

Havn't been to the town centre for decades. Is it still as rough as it was in the 70s?

Not sure if there's more people living in Bolton than Bradford but you want to see what they've done to our town centre. They knocked down a good third of it, then ran out of money. So, before we had soviet style shopping centres, now we just have a great big bloody hole in the ground. I preferred the soviet style meself.

[superjohnmcginlay]

Havn't been to the town centre for decades. Is it still as rough as it was in the 70s?

Not sure if there's more people living in Bolton than Bradford but you want to see what they've done to our town centre. They knocked down a good third of it, then ran out of money. So, before we had soviet style shopping centres, now we just have a great big bloody hole in the ground. I preferred the soviet style meself.

Thats the usual description of Bradford.