Sat in The Adelphi this afternoon - that hotel of alleged faded glory, nevertheless a perfectly good venue for a fine wedding reception - we couldn't help looking across Ranelagh Street to the shell of Lewis's, another iconic Liverpool landmark currently being unsentimentally dumped by our city's present so-called regenerators.
As these opportunists shift the centre of Liverpool's shopping gravity riverwards towards the Duke of Westminster's Paradise Project, it seems that Lime Street (the so-called 'gateway to a world city') is being abandoned.
Comparing Lewis's and the Adelphi to their glass-steel designer mall replacements being shaped half a mile away to further line the Duke's pockets, I couldn't help thinking of the difference between old Wembley - tattered but homely, and showcase for so many sizzling sporting occasions, to new Wembley - shining today to receive its corporate clientele, host of a sterile forgettable event involving two multinationals almost completely adrift from their tradition and their roots.
john davies
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