City of Bolton?

[ratbert]

http://www.theboltonnews.co.uk/news/488 ... tatus_bid/

At least if this comes off we won't have to change the football club name... but is Bolton worthy of city status? I'd like to say yes but I'm not sure if the reality matches my own pride.

We deserved it more than bloody Wolverhampton though

[Hoboh]

No happy to be a town and half the other so called city's are only towns!

[William the White]

sunderland's a city...

[thebish]

Swansea is a city - a pretty, shitty city...

not as Dylan Thomas had it - an ugly, lovely town!

[Bruce Rioja]

Can anyone tell me one benefit of becoming a City?

[boltonboris]

Can anyone tell me one benefit of becoming a City?

Delusions of Grandeur

[William the White]

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'...

[Prufrock]

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'...

Best thing about our lovely town is the fantastic new fancy bridge, the 'Gateway to Bolton', that'll be the one way street going out of Bolton then?

[William the White]

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'...

Best thing about our lovely town is the fantastic new fancy bridge, the 'Gateway to Bolton', that'll be the one way street going out of Bolton then?

It says 'Welcome to Scuzz' on t'other end...

[thebish]

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'...

This is the "Grimsby Town" - Designer: Gresley, Built 09/03/1936, Builder: Darlington Works (LNER) number 61650




This is the "Huddersfield Town" Designer: Gresley, Built 06/04/1936, Builder: Darlington Works (LNER) number 61653

[Dujon]

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.

Down my way city designations seem to be random (No, I've done no research on that either). In Sydney, and I hope I'm not missing any, we have the City of Sydney itself plus the cities of Parramatta, Penrith and Liverpool. The last three are basically local government areas - although they are also suburbs. I live in The City of the Blue Mountains, which is outside the greater metropolitan area but abuts it. Down south and also abutting Sydney proper, is the City of Wollongong whilst north is the City of Newcastle although that does not directly connect with Sydney proper.

Does anyone care apart from the councillors? I doubt it. There is such a plethora of so-called cities in my neck of the woods that I think I'd rather have the title of Largest Town. Unfortunately I can't as the Blue Mountains isn't a town.

Good luck, whichever way the 'bid' (what an odd system - is it like bidding for the Olympic Games?) goes.

[William the White]

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'...

This is the "Grimsby Town" - Designer: Gresley, Built 09/03/1936, Builder: Darlington Works (LNER) number 61650




This is the "Huddersfield Town" Designer: Gresley, Built 06/04/1936, Builder: Darlington Works (LNER) number 61653

For pity's sake, bish, I'm trying to be serious about the City of Bolton and you offer? Two plastic models produced in hope of a big boy making a real engine...

[thebish]

For pity's sake, bish, I'm trying to be serious about the City of Bolton and you offer? Two plastic models produced in hope of a big boy making a real engine...

just pointing out that there were at least TWO very real and hard-working Class B17/4 Northern engines named "xxxx town" in the face of your rather bold statement that since the Rocket "not one engine has been named 'xxxx Town'" !!

they were not merely models!!

here's a real class b17/4 - two sisters of which were called "Grimsby Town" and "Huddersfield Town"

[Dujon]

Oh, come on, WtW, they are probably made of ecru and not plastic. Fair's fair.

[Dujon]

A 4-6-0, the bish. Lovely. I haven't seen one of those in many a year. I wouldn't mind the configuration as our home record this year. Ah well.

As an ex-train spotter I thank you for the image.

[William the White]

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...

[Lord Kangana]

Can anyone tell me one benefit of becoming a City?

From my own perspective, I'd say lets become a city first, then worry about what it'll bring us later. Rather be in the tent pissing out than outside the tent pissing in an all that.

[Bruce Rioja]

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'.

[Bruce Rioja]

Can anyone tell me one benefit of becoming a City?

From my own perspective, I'd say lets become a city first, then worry about what it'll bring us later. Rather be in the tent pissing out than outside the tent pissing in an all that.

Well I'm yet to see any transformation to Preston, LK.

[William the White]

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.