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| Popworld Broad Street V McGarvey cc |
So why call a blog about industrial and working class heritage Popfarious, I suppose the first answer could be nobody else had, and it was the nearest thing to a Googlewhack (a search consisting of exactly two words without quotation marks that returns exactly one hit), that I could come up with.
Pop, I was thinking about popular, or popping in to look at something and popping off to somewhere else, rather than the fizzy drink, and the light explosive sound, although if my blog has a light explosive quality I will not complain.
Farious? Words such as multifarious (many and varied) omnifarious (all sorts of varieties) came to mind, industrial heritage being everywhere taking on many forms, not nefarious (wicked evil), although I may drop in the word nefarious from time to time if I am really not happy about something.
I also wanted to write something that was easy to read, was a tad visual and less highbrow, although I may occasionally include a complex word or term, I'll put the meaning in brackets, mainly to remind me about the meaning of the word not to patronise the reader.
If you enter heritage into a Google image search you will find lots of pictures of monuments, ancient ruins. If you add the word "worker" you get lots of men in high vis vests and hard hats. Enter "industrial heritage" you get something a little bit more predictable. As for the phrase "working class heritage" the images are all over the place, and in some cases visually challenging. But for me this just exemplifies how definitions and interpretations of heritage vary, and there is not one clear paradigm (a typical example or pattern of something; a pattern or model), we all have our own monuments, and perceptions of what heritage is and that's ok, we don't always have to rely on the "suits" to define something for us.
I also wanted to create something that could be challenging, fun at times and identified the connections and interrelationships between industrial and working class heritage sites locally, nationally and internationally. Rather than observing and experiencing heritage in isolation I wanted to present a connected cross-cultural experience.
To end this post, which should have really been my first blog, I want to tell you about a serendipitous heritage encounter I had this week. I was at an event in Birmingham and I decided to get a bit of fresh air, and popped over to the Ikon Gallery for a coffee. Being a true Stokie I did a bit of plate turning and was relieved to find that the cake plate was Churchill, so no ranting required.
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| Chruchill Plate V McGarvey cc |
I then looked in front of me and there was a Staffordshire blue brick paving pathway.
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| Oozells Square Birmingham V McGarvey cc |
Then I looked to my left of me and there was the former Second Church of Christ Scientist, formerly a Presbyterian church on Broad Street, a Staffordshire blue brick grade II listed building, now "Popworld" (pictured above) - I rest my case.
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| Oozells Street Birmingham V McGarvey cc |