THING OF THE WEEK

TILE TREASURES… Flooring fans won’t want to miss a chance to gaze upon the gorgeous St George’s Hall Minton mosaic floor when it is revealed for the first time in four years. Covered in 30,000 hand-crafted tiles, the Minton floor is a hidden treasure of Liverpool and has only been displayed 10 times over the past 16 years. Requiring three days for the wooden protective cover to be removed and then another two to clean the tiles, revealing the artwork is no simple task. To celebrate the occasion Liverpool City Council’s City Hall team has put together a programme of tile-focused events starting 1 August. The tiles will be covered back up after the 18th, so do not miss your chance to see them while you can.

Imagine this, with sand. Credit: Place North West

BEACH DAY… Deansgate will be transformed into a seaside destination complete with helter-skelter and sand sculptures as part of Manchester Day later this month. The theme of this year’s event, which takes place on 29 July, is ‘holidays’. Expect rain and dive-bombing seagulls for that authentic British beach day experience.

THE BLINK OF AN EYE… Oldham’s TJ Hughes is no more. Anyone who has visited the town centre in recent months will have seen work to demolish the building taking place as part of the area’s regeneration. For those who haven’t, here is a timelapse that condenses the razing of the store into a bitesize clip. If you’re interested in keeping tabs on the project going forward, you can tune into the live stream: Oldham’s answer to the 24-hour feed into the Big Brother house. 

Work on the park is underway. Credit: via Pendle Council

TEENAGE KICKS… Finally, something for the kids to do. Levels of youthful hijinks in Nelson are about to plummet as work to deliver a “teenage playground” nears completion. The new playground on Brunswick Street is being created through the Healthy Town strand of the government’s Town Deal project and will be aimed at providing both play and fitness equipment for teenagers. Sales of eggs and spray paint are expected to drop to all-time lows. 

If Liverpool was in France, it would have around 50km of both metro and tramways (taking the average metro+tram per capita of the top 10 French cities x Liverpools’s population). Here’s what that would look like (with Frenchified names to boot) pic.twitter.com/e0hMlHrJk1

— Todd Lithgow (@LithgowTodd) July 4, 2023

L’IVERPOOL… “If Liverpool was in France, it would have around 50km of both metro and tramways,” that’s according to Todd Lithgow, who this week tweeted his vision for how the city could look if Merseyrail was supercharged – Merci-rail if you will. To calculate how the system would operate, Lithgow based took the average metro plus tram per capita of the top 10 French cities and applied it to Liverpool. His map comes complete with Francified names. Does anyone fancy a trip to Entrepot de Tabac?