The Off Topic Topic

[Razgovory]

I hope y'all going to go to the Hunting "World Fair" in Hungary. They spent criminally insane amounts of money on it with the excuse of it attracting one million visitors.

I mean, where else you could walk on the set of the Hannibal series' next season?

From here come true dreams.

[Sheilbh]

Amazing advert in the local paper from 1978


Edit: Apparently it was in the Dragonara Hotel in Middlesbrough's post-war ansser to Times Square:

[Josquius]

Local?

From all I hear Middlesbrough these days is a god-awful night out. Not even the best place in Teeside.

[Sheilbh]

Local?

A local Middlesbrough paper I think - the Teeside Gazette.

From all I hear Middlesbrough these days is a god-awful night out. Not even the best place in Teeside.

From the sounds of it, it was in 1978 too

[The Brain]

The difference between today and the 1970s is gastronomical.

[Richard Hakluyt]

For Middlesbrough in 1978 that advert is probably truthful enough 

[Syt]

What a lovely view of the waterfront.

[DGuller]

I wonder why the hotel was located where it was.  Does it happen often that a longshoreman takes a business trip to offload a couple of containers, and needs a place to stay overnight?

[Richard Hakluyt]

You say that, but a view over the busy river would be a redeeming feature imo.

[Oexmelin]

You can see on the picture that the view, from the other side, was on 19th c. row houses. Clearly one of these "modernizing" projects meant to bulldoze the older, poorer parts of the city.

[Sheilbh]

I wonder why the hotel was located where it was.  Does it happen often that a longshoreman takes a business trip to offload a couple of containers, and needs a place to stay overnight?

It's city centre - it's now or was recently the Thistle (seen below from the city centre):


It's just the UK was really into looking like an industrial dystopia before our shift into post-industrial dystopia

Although this sort of stuff is catnip to me - I love the Telly Savalas voice over of various UK cities' tourism adverts in the 1970s which seem particularly proud of their expansive roundabouts and abundance of new, modern, multi-story car parks

E.g. the photo of the celebrations on topping out the hotel:


Edit: Telly Savalas Looks at Birmingham. "This was the view that took my breath away" *lingering shot of an overpass*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxZ1xn2ml10

[Sheilbh]

You can see on the picture that the view, from the other side, was on 19th c. row houses. Clearly one of these "modernizing" projects meant to bulldoze the older, poorer parts of the city.

Apparently they had - at that point - the largest billboard in the UK which the hotel bought to cover up a row of derelict terraced housing directly opposite the hotel (now replaced with student accommodation).

But yeah this isn't some out of the way hotel - it's basically one block from the town hall/city centre.

[Josquius]

There is a nice optimism to the 60s and 70s, as much as a lot of what they built was horribly misthought and did as much harm as good.
Chalk another one up to thatcher-the end of getting shit done.


Middlesbrough is a hole. It's inhabitants aren't known as smoggies for nought.

[Sheilbh]

There is a nice optimism to the 60s and 70s, as much as a lot of what they built was horribly misthought and did as much harm as good.
Chalk another one up to thatcher-the end of getting shit done.

I think there is in the 60s but in the 70s it congeals - oil crisis, lots of strikes, IMF bailout, winter of discontent, 3 day week, Yorkshire Ripper, Leeds, J.G. Ballard (basically the David Peace's Red Riding quartet and the Damned United).

That's what leads to Thatcher because everything needs to break in one direction or other - and everyone thinks it will break in one direction or other. The thing I find really striking when you read about the 70s is the number of people on the left and right who genuinely thought we were on the brink of a socialist revolution - which is why we end up with counter-revolution instead.

Middlesbrough is a hole. It's inhabitants aren't known as smoggies for nought.

[Barrister]

Yeah I've never in my life heard of the 1970s being called an optimistic time - in particular in the UK.