Beer and Loafing in LS11

We Love Holbeck! Don't We Just.

I was going to play nice today. There really are a lot of positive things going on in South Leeds. Temple Works for instance. I'm definitely going to write lots about that soon. But then I saw the new We Love Holbeck website and I'm afraid I flew into full on fulmination again. I'm not a graphic designer and I'm certainly no web geek so I can't really comment on that side of things . . . though tan text on a brown background did strike me as a bit odd. And I really do feel warm and fuzzy about Holbeck Urban Village . . . I'd love to live there. I wish I could afford to. But I'm one of the indigenous people of Holbeck, which is how we were revealingly described at a showing of Ripples Out at The Round Foundry last month. As that film makes very clear me and my kind are not really expected to contribute significantly to the Urban Village economic and creative powerhouse. Best we can hope for is to exercise our "sophisticated concierge skills." I suppose it's nice to think they trust us down there to know how to open and shut a door.

So, We Love Holbeck. Made by those brainboxes down in the HUV, showing off their superiority over us poor benighted locals. I was prepared to bend my head low, doff my flat cap, and shed just the one awe engendered tear.

Well, I liked the photos . . . I'm surprised I'm not in one of them as I spend so much time at The Cross Keys and The Midnight Bell. Wonderwood looks spiffing and there's a nice pic of Out of the Woods. But why is all the text IN SCREAMING CAPITALS? Why is WE LOVE HOLBECK underlined every time . . . are they anxious we won't get the message? Why is the punctuation so patchy and the syntax so shoddy . . . would it hurt to craft a tight, punchy sentence once in a while? And, most importantly, where is the love? It sounds like it was written under duress by someone who would rather be back home in Surrey;

This piteous drivel is meant to impress us, is it? Frankly, I'm embarrassed to be associated with it. I don't think they should be allowed to traduce the good name of Holbeck. Holbeck deserves better. Holbeck could do better. I could go out into any street in South Leeds and randomly pick ten people who could eat alphabetti spaghetti and crap better copy than that! And I'm not joking.

The funniest bit of the whole thing has to be;

Set in an environment combining rich architectural heritage with award-winning contemporary installation art (see Wonderwood images below), and with a range of fabulous bars and restaurants to choose from, you won't want to go home at the end of the day.

The joke isn't the ludicrous sentence structure (HUV is set in an "environment" . . . well, who would have thought . . . an environment indeed.) Has anyone inspected the Round Foundry car park after 6 o clock? Obviously the people who work there do want to go home . . . out of Holbeck! The fabulous bars and restaurants are dead most evenings after 8.

Does anyone really believe this rubbish?

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