Category: Blackburn

Blackburn College is interested in taking part in a scheme to bring back extinct animals using the latest DNA technology.

Under a partnership between different learning facilities, Blackburn has been pencilled in for an attempt at bringing back the Dodo.  Some may say they look to have drawn the short straw here.  This unfortunate bird is certainly not glamorous, but more of a sign of pity.  It is a symbol of man’s ill treatment of our fellow earthly creatures and perhaps history’s most famous example of this.  The phrase:  ‘As dead as a Dodo’ is about a real creature, unlike the other about a doornail.

Dodos lived on the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius.  It was only discovered by Dutch sailors in 1598 and this association with our fellow human beings only lasted 64 years before this poor bird’s demise.  There were no natural predators on Mauritius, but that all changed with its discovery by explorers from Europe.  Not only was it human beings finding an ungainly and slow flightless bird, easily captured and eaten, but their fellow nautical travellers:  dogs, cats, pigs and especially rats, finished off the Dodo.

Sadly, all we have left of the Dodo are illustrations taken by naturalists and a few specimens in museums.  No complete bird was saved, although a head and other soft tissue remains are housed in Oxford University Natural History Museum.  These remains are the only specimens which have potential to release DNA.

Bringing this bird back from the dead is no mean feat.  Despite it looking like a cross between a turkey and a buzzard, it is actually a member of the pigeon family and its nearest living relative is the Nicobar Pigeon.  Although scientists believe a Dodo could be bred using either a chicken or a turkey.  If all else fails, maybe we could end up with a hybrid eating bird, with large eggs thrown in.

Another spin-off from Blackburn College working on the Dodo’s revival is recognition it would bring Blackburn.  A lot of people say our nightlife is dead and needs reviving.  The Dodo could  become a symbol of rejuvenation of our town.  Where there was extinction, there could be life.  Blackburn’s phoenix from the ashes could be a Dodo from a test tube.

Blackburn with Darwen Council could show recognition here with a new coat of arms for our borough, incorporating the Dodo.  Instead of a horn and bee, symbolising Blackburn’s first MP WH Hornby, we could use a Dodo and the Latin phrase ‘Sicut mortuus est dodo’.

Due to current overcrowding in British prisons, people on bail in Blackburn are to be given a choice of either being fitted with a normal leg tag monitor or receiving earlier release by taking part in an experiment which uses a robot dog to monitor their activities.

Some years ago, my girlfriend and I were sat in one of Blackburn’s town centre pubs having a beer.  Then a lad came in wearing shorts, despite it being the middle of winter.  Sylvia pointed out that along with a sheepish grin, he was wearing a tag on his leg.  With my usual naivety, I thought he was wearing his watch on his leg.  After all, this is Blackburn and some people like to do strange things in this town.

He walked around the bar making sure everyone could see what he was wearing.  This didn’t go down well with some customers, they questioned whether or not he should be served.  But having a bail hostel in our town centre, he wouldn’t be on his own.

Due to huge demands on Britain’s spiralling prison population, ways are being looked at to ease overcrowding and reduce this situation.  One of these ways is to reduce prisoner’s sentences or let them out earlier than their initial release date.  This is where today’s world of high technology comes in.  Tags are very handy and have proved useful in the past.  But they tend to draw attention to individuals wearing them, which sometimes isn’t such a good idea.

Many of us will have seen these nature programmes on TV which utilise ‘spy’ animals.  The animatronic creatures featured have proved very effective infiltrating habitats and filming animals they are modelled upon.  These TV programmes have not gone unnoticed by prison and probation services.

Due to adverse reaction from the public over wearing of tags, a suggestion has been put forward for something completely different and more pleasing to the eye for most people.  What could be better than man’s best friend?

Perhaps a surveillance dog could be the answer.  Those on bail would be fitted with a lead connected to an artificial spy dog and be able to frequent places away from their home.  This spy dog would also keep a record of their ‘master’s’ movements.  They could even take their animatronic companion into pubs which allow dogs.  After all, this kind of dog won’t be peeing on any carpet or crapping on the doormat.

We are a nation of dog lovers, certainly more than we are of surveillance tags.  But it could be considered most of us have our own form of tag anyway.  The word ‘cellular’ even sounds like it belongs in a prison.

Morri’s surprised many people in Blackburn when they pulled out of their move across the road to the old Thwaites’ Brewery site.  But maybe an alternative had already been found within their current premises.

Over a period of time a strange phenomenon has begun to take place in this superstore.  Tables started appearing in the walkways with assorted items on sale.  These started off with bakery products, including fruit pies, cakes and bread.  Then various other items started springing up in more places around the superstore walkways, the latest item to be on sale is garden and other furniture.

Going off on a tangent in relation to the instillation of furniture sales, what was very annoying was Morri’s removing their benches from where you entered the superstore from Railway Road.  They were a nice place to have a sit down after finishing your shopping, or before starting it.

With so many older and infirm people shopping in this superstore, it was nice to have somewhere where you could have a sit down to catch your breath and recuperate.  Sadly, they may have been seen as taking up too much room and another sales outlet could be installed there in the future.

This use of walkways as shopping aisles has raised murmurs about access for disabled users, especially those who use wheelchairs, along with people pushing prams and pushchairs.  Although there does seem to be enough room for users of various wheeled conveyances.  After all, plenty of similar sized shopping trolleys are pushed around the superstore every day.

Today’s retail industry is very cut-throat and competitive, particularly amongst the largest supermarket groups.  No doubt any opportunity to maximise profits through not spending money on building new premises can be seen by some as good business sense.  With the rise of online shopping and home delivery expected to keep on growing, some retail outlets are more likely to downsize than expand.

As one of Britain’s major supermarket groups, Morri’s is bound to tick all the boxes as regards health & safety and being disabled friendly.  But it’s addition of new sales outlets in its walkways may lead to the superstore starting to feel claustrophobic in certain places.

This cannot be conducive to improving their customers’ overall shopping experience. But then again it doesn’t take people long to get used to new shopping practices.  Shoplifters certainly do and will be all in favour of these new sales outlets in the walkways.

Blackburn town centre used to have a clock, built in 1848,  which was the pride and joy to many of our fellow townsfolk.

When it was demolished, due to town centre redevelopment, some people thought it was the end of the world.  Unfortunately these modernist styles used on its replacement didn’t go down very well with many folk.  It did look very tacky, not giving a good impression of our town.  It reflected the concrete jungle our town centre had become.

But laws of averages say you have to get it right eventually.  This has led to the current version of our clock tower, which dates from 2009, being given a grudging acceptance by most Blackburners.  This structure really serves two purposes, one is access to the Mall’s multi storey car park, the other is for its primary function.  The main problem of this purpose is doing what it was built for – telling the time!  But only one of its three clock faces ever has the correct time.  A similar situation plagued previous versions of our clock.

In May a note was made of each of the dial’s times in comparison to my mobile phone time.  At 11.35am on my phone it was this time on the dial looking down King William Street towards the Old Town Hall.  Sadly you can’t see what time it is from there due to a tall leafy tree in its way.  But the dial facing New Market Street was nearly an hour behind, stating a time of 10.40am.  The remaining dial, facing the Mall went back even further, giving a time of 9.25am.

If you came from the Azores, then walking down New Market Street towards the clock would make you feel at home, especially if you’d forgotten to put your watch forward by an hour.  Someone from Greenland coming from the Mall might feel the same way, with the remaining dial being two hours behind.

Unfortunately this means we have a very confusing situation – a clock which has three different times – and nobody can put their finger on it.  Civic Time website reported in 2010:  ‘The clock has three faces electronically locked so they always tell the correct time’.

Sadly, their statement has proved to be rather inaccurate.  What makes things worse is the length of time this has been going on for.  Even more surprising is how long this clock has been on the scene in Blackburn town centre by now.  Doesn’t time fly!

Last time Blackburn’s Easter Fair was held on Brown Street car park, suggestions were put forward over how to reduce costs of staging this event.

One of these suggestions was to build a hydro electric power plant, utilising Blackburn’s River Blakewater, which flows underneath the fairground site.  A turbine powered by flow from our subterranean river could produce not only enough electricity to run a fairground, but also make a contribution to Britain’s National Grid.  Profits from this could go on to help finance other worthy projects throughout our borough.

The fairground itself could then have other uses.  One idea is it being utilised as an exhibition centre and museum, displaying some of the ways Blackburn’s citizens used to be entertained before cinema, radio, TV and the internet were invented.  This could also lead to not only guided fairground tours, but also tours of the power station, underneath this complex.

A great deal of thought has gone into environmental impacts of this power station.  It would lead to special fish and amphibian channels having to be installed for eels, salmon, frogs and other marine creatures.  They would then have a safe passage allowing them to bypass its electricity turbine, which would produce green energy, in this case, hydro electric power.

Perhaps the most ingenious aspect of this project is a joint undertaking between both fairground and power station.  A big wheel would be constructed to blend in with the fairground, but would be actually producing auxiliary electricity separate from the power station, but also feeding into its National Grid supply.  This would be done by a hamster type wheel being installed on this site, where people can walk or run along its treadmill and produce electricity from their own steam.

A facility such as this could easily capture people’s imagination.  Local organisations could form their own teams and take part in walks along the big wheel, raising money for charity and local causes.  It could even be used as a form of voluntary punishment for minor criminal activity.  Electricity produced from walking the wheel would count as payment towards any fines incurred by convicted offenders.

One good thing about this fairground is it is only being temporary, like the one that sometimes parks up there each Easter.  As well as Brown St, the fairground has also parked up on Thwaites’ old brewery site.  Each visit to this site by the fairground is always a temporary one.  This may be the case with Blackburn’s proposed power generating project, but for just a bit longer.  Whereas a power station would be permanent.

Blackburn could be in line to cash in from these sand and dust storms which keep blowing over from the Sahara Desert.

A project is being considered to try and collect this sand and use it for various cottage industries.  We might even find ourselves in a ‘Coals to Newcastle’ scenario,  where we end up selling sand back to the Arabs.  From Blackburn’s Barbary Coast to theirs.

This phenomena of sand and dust blowing from North Africa seems to be becoming more of a regular thing, possibly due to effects of climate change.  It usually occurs when big dust storms in the Sahara Desert collide with southerly wind patterns.  Blackburn’s location in the middle of the island of Great Britain seems to indicate it may be in the driving seat of a vortex for receiving regular deposits of sand and dust from the world’s largest desert, it could eventually be classed as our own magic carpet.

One new cottage industry being talked about is the manufacture of hourglasses, using sand from the Sahara Desert.  This 8^th century device comes in all shapes and sizes and doesn’t necessarily have to be limited to an hour or any specific time.  They can be bought in various lengths of time measurement and are particularly useful for boiling eggs.

Blackburn also has a tradition for making glass appliances and is well known for this.  Many radio and TV valves were manufactured at the Mullards factory on Philips Road.  It may have been the town’s largest employer at one time.  Thousands of people worked there.

Before we get to finished products, this process has to start somewhere.  A new company has been formed to collect sand when it lands over Blackburn from the Sahara.  It is asking people to check smooth surfaces around their home next day whenever they hear news reports of another blast of sand being blown over here from the desert.

Cars are particularly prone to being covered in sand on occasions like these.  People are being asked to carefully brush sand off their cars into plastic receptacles, such as old margarine tubs or lunch boxes.  Anything which can be airtight sealed is very welcome.  Not only will this help local industry, but will also give your car a clean and help with our borough’s recycling plan.

The sands of time have been blowing through Blackburn for many a year, probably well before the hourglass was invented.  There have been good times and bad times.  But there is always an opportunity round the corner.

A long forgotten Blackburn tradition could be revived as a way of boosting tourism to the town.

It seems Blackburn was known for being one of a few British places where running of the bulls took place.  Many people will have heard of these kind of events taking place in Spain – Pamplona being its most famous festival – but bull running is far more widespread than just Spain.  It also takes place in Portugal, Mexico and France.

Surprisingly, there used to be similar events in Britain.  A long standing festival took place in Stamford, Lincolnshire for over 600 years up to 1837.  It started here when a bull escaped and the local landowner pursued it on horseback, along with his pack of dogs.  He killed it and really enjoyed himself, no doubt even more so after feasting on his dismembered quarry.  Stamford’s bull run was eventually suppressed due to a combination of rampant drunkenness on run days and campaigning by the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals – what would later become the RSPCA.

Many Blackburn folk will remember our town’s cattle market on Harrison Street.  Bulls were known to escape from here, but they didn’t usually get so far before a marksman’s bullet sent them to the abattoir and a meat hook in the butcher’s.  Our previous livestock market was based on Blakey Moor and its removal led to Blackburn College being built.

Before then, Blackburn’s cattle market was on Church Street.  It is from here tales of bulls escaping and terrorising local people originate.  Sometimes setting bulls on unruly mobs was used as a way of putting down riots, or when mass drunkenness led to disorder.  Perhaps this is what inspired bull runs in Blackburn.  It certainly inspired pub names on this thoroughfare.  No less than four pubs with Bull in their names used to be on this street.

Having a bull run in Blackburn would need a few problems solving.  Barbecuing bulls after killing them in the street may not be as acceptable today as it used to be in times gone by.  There are not only animal welfare issues to consider, but also health and safety aspects relating to humans too.  The spectacle of people tossed in the air by bulls then being gored by them, may face some opposition.

To get round this, one suggestion has been put forward with pantomime bulls replacing the real thing.  They would be assisted by a troupe of Morris Dancers as they pursued volunteer runners down a marked out street route in the town centre of Blackburn.  A modern day Tossers v Runners, like the dystopian science fiction films ‘Logan’s Run’ or ‘Rollerbull’.  This could certainly bring the crowds out to view or partake in such an enthralling spectacle.

The author of this load of bull had a great-grandfather who was a butcher in Blackburn.  He was crushed to death in a paddock while trying to move a bull.

Due to financial cutbacks in local government and relocation of staff, Blackburn with Darwen Council now finds itself with a 14 storey office block surplus to requirements.

It begs the question of what should be done with our town centre tower block.  This has led to various debates including demolition, turning it into residential accommodation, perhaps a hotel, or simply finding some other use for our former town hall.

Perhaps a most obvious use for this building would be to try and get an influx of office workers using it for what it was originally built for.  But Blackburn, like most other towns and cities everywhere, seems to be losing jobs in this field.  New Artificial Intelligence technology and a growing use of home working will certainly not help this situation.

One industry whose need for accommodation always seems to be boundless is an ever growing demand for more prisons.  A unique suggestion has been put forward regarding turning Blackburn’s tower block into a kind of civil prison rehabilitation centre.  This would entail civil prisoners, who are not actually criminals, being housed in this building and rehabilitated by being given white collar tasks to do in an office environment, which already exists with this building.

Instead of sewing mailbags, they could be given the task of filling them with junk mail.  They could also be given recycling duties, such as salvaging paper clips and plastic pockets for further office usage.  Many people who have worked in offices will know how much waste of stationary takes place.  It would be nice to also be able to provide not only this, but an office equipment recycling service, including staff who have had problems with their lives.

These inmates of our tower block would also be kitted out in a new style uniform, rather than standard prison apparel.  Theirs would be collars and ties, shirts, blouses and suits.  This is because governors of this institution do not expect anyone housed in Blackburn’s tower block to have any intention of trying to abscond from such a healthy and welcoming environment.  In fact the only time you would ever catch sight of these new inmates would be during fire and bomb drills.

Blackburn’s former town hall tower block has over the years become one of our most recognisable buildings.  Sadly it is now starting to be given derogatory names, such as the ‘Big Empty’ and ‘Mothballed Monolith’.  But compared to how it looked some years ago, before being reclad in today’s design, it still impresses many visitors to our town.  Wouldn’t it be great if Blackburn’s ‘Big Empty’ could become full again.

Blackburn people were recently invited to take part in a house renovation TV programme hosted by a Loose Woman called Stacey.

This programme’s production team contacted people in various locations around the UK.  But it seemed they were out of luck in Blackburn.  They were met with derision and negativity about today’s current crop of similar TV programmes.

Our town’s respondents also complained that there seemed to be nothing original being made these days.  There was a preponderance of cooking, cleaning and DIY programmes which had been going on since those early days of Fanny Craddock.  The message from Blackburn was: Let’s have something different!

One of the sarcastic comments from here asked when were they making the Ironing Show, or the Potato Peeling Programme?

This may have struck a chord with someone in the production company.  They might have thought it sounded like a pretty good idea.  Something brand new!

All sorts of ideas started being thrown around in a lively brainstorming session in a local pub near their TV studio.  Ironically, as regards potato peeling, this pub is fittingly named the King Edward and known for being a very down to earth grassroots kind of boozer.

There was a heated debate over what amounts of skill there were in using a potato peeler.   Some participants compared it to being like using a short snooker cue.  After all, everything was in the elbow and wrist action.  There is a lot more inclusivity in potato peeling these days though.  Left-handed and ambidextrous spud peelers are now far more widespread.

It is believed these left-handed peelers originated in a former Soviet factory.  A place known for making bad mistakes, but always having a knack of getting away with it.  They once manufactured sunglasses you couldn’t see through, only to win a contract supplying Soviet blind citizens.  It sounds like something similar happened with left-handed people being able to use their potato peelers, after this factory got their lathe settings mixed up again.

Now the question is, how do you put together a programme about potato peeling?  Producers state this show is not aimed at couch potatoes.  It could lead to lots of twists and turns.  Though critics say it is scraping the barrel, the only turns they can see happening are funny ones.

At least there seems to be a lot more scope with a programme about peeling potatoes than making one about ironing.  It wouldn’t be long before this one folded.

Blackburn Pride 2023 was bigger and better this time than when it made its debut last year.

Our town centre streets were awash with all the colours of the rainbow as this year’s Pride procession made its way from its starting point on Cathedral Square.

Councillor Jim Shorrock, Chair of Blackburn Pride Committee, looked a bit worried before this event was due to start.  His main concern was how the weather would fair.  It did feel like rain was in the air, but Jim had no need to worry.  It didn’t rain on his parade.

Due to possible inclement weather, Jim had also worried about this affecting the festival’s attendance.  Once again, he didn’t have to worry.  Last year’s turnout exceeded expectations, this year’s event was even larger.

My buddies were joined having their breakfast in the Postal Order.  We left earlier than on a usual Saturday to get a seat outside the Drummer’s Arms, where they opened earlier than usual at 11.00am.  This was a good vantage point to not only watch the Pride procession, but to also listen to music from a temporary stage erected nearby.

On Monday dinnertime I went for a pint in the Rock Box and there was the man himself, a relieved Councillor Jim, having a brew.  As expected, he was very pleased with how everything went with Saturday’s festival.  When asked what the most challenging aspect was of organising it, Jim replied pulling in advertising and sponsorship to pay for this year’s Pride.  But after two successful events, sponsors and advertisers were now approaching the Pride Committee about next year’s festival.

What was quite amusing was seeing some of the frozen faces and frowns from people who obviously didn’t approve or agree with what this festival was all about.  But that was lost on the vast majority of people who turned up that day.  Their numbers were made up of LGBTQ and straight people, of all ages including elderly and children.

Their main talking point though was how noticeable Blackburn with Darwen’s new Mayor was by his absence.  Some unfairly called him a bigot.  Others said he’d lost his bottle after seeing the abuse last year’s first citizen, Solly Khonat, received when he opened Blackburn’s inaugural Pride.  But most people who attended this year’s event didn’t give a damn where the Mayor was, or even whether our borough really needs one.  They said Blackburn needs it’s Pride more than it needs a Mayor.