A big banner poster at Victoria station stopped me in my tracks the other day. 'Chichester,' it proclaimed - 'The New Copenhagen'. It was illustrated with a photo of some kind of waterside development that looked nothing remotely like either Chichester or Copenhagen. What you have to do, it seems, to be 'the new Copenhagen' is to knock up a poncey low-rise residential development beside a bit of water. Make sure the buildings are gabled, slap some timber cladding on them, paint every other one blue, bish bosh job's a good 'un. I'm surprised they haven't been advertising Newhaven (which has just such a development) as the new Copenhagen, but perhaps there's a limit to the brazen nerve even of Southern Rail's advertising people.
It's hard to think, off hand (especially with this hangover), of a town much less like Copenhagen than Chichester, the home of Shipham's fish paste. But if anyone's got any ideas for equally unlikely X The New Y combinations, do feel free to post your suggestions. Meanwhile, I shall take my medication...
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Are you sure you didn't dream that poster, Nige? Copenhagen doesn't seem a strong enough point of reference so that one can immediately see what they mean when they say that Chichester is the new it. If you see what I mean.
ReplyDeleteI like it when sportsmen say that X is the new X. As in "People are saying that Andrew Flintoff is the new Ian Botham, but I'd say that Andrew Flintoff is the new Andrew Flintoff."
Sawit again this very morning Brit, with my own aghast eyes. It's over the entrance to the Underground, and it's huge...
ReplyDeleteActually there's some very odd advertising for Denmark at the moment too - a woman with half an orange over each ear - Bring Out Your Inner Dane? The world truly is mad,and getting madder...
ReplyDeleteI guess they can't say "The Venice of the North" as that accolade is already being fought over by places like Newcastle and, for all I know, Wigan. But why let a small detail spoil things. We could have Luton the Rome of the Midlands or Swindon the Los Angeles of the West Country.
ReplyDeleteMakes me think "bish bosh the job's a carrot that'll be £563,000 for a one-bedroom flat guv." Apparently the first part of this is in Danish "bish bosh jobbet er en gulerod" but I can't really imagine many folks in Chichester saying that. Sounds too much like "the job's a gooly" and will soon fall down. The nice thing about Copenhagen is that it isn't Chichester where, if you are even 50, you will probably be the youngest person on the street by 30 years. And now, back to the sunshine ...
Had a Danish customer once, name of Tage Botom he didn't get the joke, nice people, they don't go much on Germans or the Dutch, flooding their country with camper vans in summer, bringing everything they need, leaving their effluent, etc, etc, etc, all you really want of Chichester really, or Chychester as northerners say.
ReplyDeleteMark, this may or may not be true, some years ago the Newcastle overspill town of Killingworth (think Soweto in the 70s) built an "ornamental lake" at a council meeting to finalise the project one of the numpties suggested installing a gondola, another numptie suggested getting two and trying to breed them.
I can see the ad now: Killingworth ... Explore the timeless mystery of Northumbria's Lake Titicaca.
ReplyDeleteHuddersfield: the Vienna (1945) of West Yorkshire.
ReplyDeletePerhaps Chichester is the new Copenhagen because it's a *hamlet.*
ReplyDeleteMalty, I haven't gotten any hiking recs from you for the environs of Edinburgh (though we are happy to hop on trains and go elsewhere, as long as we can get back to the Apex Int'l at night). E-me, babee!
Susan, will do in next 2 days, apologies, junior back from krautland for short hol, alcoholic fug intervened.
ReplyDeleteVenice is the Kirkcudbright of the Adriatic.
ReplyDeleteI remember when I lived in Huddersfield that they put up some banners proclaiming it 'The Paris of the North'...
ReplyDeleteYES i saw the same poster at brighton station this morning and had to look twice, its like describing Worthing.. the new Istanbul
ReplyDeleteYeh theyre doing a few campaigns, Brighton is the new Barcelona on another poster. I'm moving back home to Chichester coincedentally from Brighton and have fallen back in love with the area but been to Copenhagen too and I can easily say they aren't the most likely comparisons in the world ... They both have Cs and Brighton and Barcelona both have Bs...
ReplyDeleteNorwich is the new New York
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ReplyDeletecamper vans