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Up the Albion!
Dutch as well?
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Trafalgar day
- Thread starter skipper734
- Start date
Dutch as well?
daveinprague
New member
Which authority was that?
Barrel of Fun
Abort, retry, fail
Winterval: the unpalatable making of a modern myth http://gu.com/p/3387c
In 1997 Mike Chubb was working for Birmingham city council during the rejuvenation of the city centre. As the council's head of events he and his team were charged with creating a marketing strategy to cover:
"41 days and nights of activity that ranged from BBC Children in Need, to the Christmas Lights Switch On, to a Frankfurt Christmas Market, outdoor ice rink, Aston Hall by Candlelight, Diwali, shopping at Christmas, world class theatre and arts plus, of course, New Year's Eve with its massive 100,000 audience."
Chubb realised that with so many events competing for visitors, marketing them as individual occasions would be expensive, time-consuming and ineffective in acquiring sponsorship or funding. What the events needed, he decided, was a "generic banner under which they could all sit". His team settled on "Winterval" – a portmanteau of "winter" and "festival".
Little did he or anyone else on the events team realise that this name was to found one of the most persistent urban myths of modern times, and that 11 years later he would be writing an article explaining – again – what the event was and how it was never about renaming or banning Christmas.
How this happened makes for a fascinating story about the causes of bad journalism, the messages of irresponsible and paranoid church leaders, and badly informed, popularity-seeking politicians looking for a tabloid-friendly soundbite. The bad journalism started with the local newspaper that broke the "story" of Winterval on 8 November 1998 and travelled quickly through the national media. What is worrying is that the original story was so clearly completely untrue and contained clear statements from the council that demonstrated this.
In 1997 Mike Chubb was working for Birmingham city council during the rejuvenation of the city centre. As the council's head of events he and his team were charged with creating a marketing strategy to cover:
"41 days and nights of activity that ranged from BBC Children in Need, to the Christmas Lights Switch On, to a Frankfurt Christmas Market, outdoor ice rink, Aston Hall by Candlelight, Diwali, shopping at Christmas, world class theatre and arts plus, of course, New Year's Eve with its massive 100,000 audience."
Chubb realised that with so many events competing for visitors, marketing them as individual occasions would be expensive, time-consuming and ineffective in acquiring sponsorship or funding. What the events needed, he decided, was a "generic banner under which they could all sit". His team settled on "Winterval" – a portmanteau of "winter" and "festival".
Little did he or anyone else on the events team realise that this name was to found one of the most persistent urban myths of modern times, and that 11 years later he would be writing an article explaining – again – what the event was and how it was never about renaming or banning Christmas.
How this happened makes for a fascinating story about the causes of bad journalism, the messages of irresponsible and paranoid church leaders, and badly informed, popularity-seeking politicians looking for a tabloid-friendly soundbite. The bad journalism started with the local newspaper that broke the "story" of Winterval on 8 November 1998 and travelled quickly through the national media. What is worrying is that the original story was so clearly completely untrue and contained clear statements from the council that demonstrated this.
daveinprague
New member
Yep toasted with a large pussers this evening.
Been lucky this year. Ive been given it as birthday and xmas presents...
Diego Napier
Well-known member
- Mar 27, 2010
- 4,416
As you know that all those Chilean vines were introduced by the Spanish then that must be irony you're employing....
Cheshire Cat
The most curious thing..
Name one.
Norman Potting
Well-known member
Just looked on the Gloucestershire CC website, plenty of entries with Christmas in them, nothing comes up for Trafalgar Day though. Should I be outraged?
Gregory2Smith1
J'les aurai!
and Saturday it's Agincourt,another fine away win
Barrel of Fun
Abort, retry, fail
The average issue of the Daily Mail contains around 80,000 words - the equivalent of a paperback book – most of which are written on the day under tremendous pressure of deadlines.
Huge efforts are made to ensure our journalism meets the highest possible standards of accuracy but it is inevitable that mistakes do occur.
This new column provides an opportunity to correct those errors quickly and prominently.
********************************************************************************************
We stated in an article on 26 September that Christmas has been renamed in various places Winterval.
Winterval was the collective name for a season of public events, both religious and secular, which took place in Birmingham in 1997 and 1998.
We are happy to make clear that Winterval did not rename or replace Christmas.
Huge efforts are made to ensure our journalism meets the highest possible standards of accuracy but it is inevitable that mistakes do occur.
This new column provides an opportunity to correct those errors quickly and prominently.
********************************************************************************************
We stated in an article on 26 September that Christmas has been renamed in various places Winterval.
Winterval was the collective name for a season of public events, both religious and secular, which took place in Birmingham in 1997 and 1998.
We are happy to make clear that Winterval did not rename or replace Christmas.
GT49er
Well-known member
Found the website from 10 / 12 years ago have you? Never mind, I feel sure you'll manage to avoid seeing something that you don't want to see. Are you a politician?
The Large One
Who's Next?
Nothing comes up for 'Winterval' either, which, despite GT49er's protesting has nothing to do with being 'OTT PC'.
- Apr 5, 2014
- 23,628
I don't understand why people are so precious about the title of a festival that has it's origins in paganism and celebrates the birth of someone who, historians believe, was born in spring, and whom they don't believe in anyway.
Theatre of Trees
Well-known member
But if you want to reinforce your argument why not provide a number of links and back up your side of the story? Telling someone to go find it themselves without knowing the search reference you used kind of undermines what you say.
Deportivo Seagull
I should coco
And the fact that I only really drink Spanish reds
skipper734
Registered ruffian
- Thread starter
- #35
Dutch? Don't think they had a dog in this fight.There were a couple of converted East Indiamen, one on each side. ( Slightly Dutch.)
User removed 4
New member
Please tell me you're joking
Why ??
Norman Potting
Well-known member
I'll raise you http://www.gloucestershire.gov.uk/article/116555/A417-Missing-Link---Loop-puts-safety-first which seems to be a Gloucestershire CC official press release from March this year which uses the "B" word in the second paragraph.
Nibble
New member
- Jan 3, 2007
- 19,238
As usual you have been caught out talking ill informed gibberish. You've been proved wrong sausage, deal with it.
- Jul 7, 2003
- 47,222
I think where you're left looking a bit high and dry is where you suggested "councils" (plural) were engaging in such politically correct activities. I'm quite happy to accept the one council you happened to be working for did such a thing one year, but essentially you're pushing the tabloid-style myth that local authorities are staging seasonal, wintery, no-mention-of-Christmas festivals in their droves.
Which simply isn't true. As has already been proved, the classic one about Birmingham's "Winterval" programme has been shown to be a complete lie, and that's it. Suggesting that because one council in Gloucestershire did it, one year, means everyone's gone PC (god, I hate that expression) is like saying Serbia vs Albania is an accurate reflection of crowd behaviour across international football.