Despite hopes he will improve ratings, the new Wimbledon commentator is so unappealing even male sports fans recoil
recalls councillor Pat Karney about informal meetings with Barcelona’s leader, Pasqual Maragall, the charismatic socialist mayor who declared at the 1992 Olympics closing ceremony: “We have reinvented the city as a cultural phenomenon.”
He advised Manchester’s chief executive, Howard Bernstein, to unleash the creatives but deprive them of budget control. The runaway £240m cost of the giant new performance arts space Aviva Studios contradicts his advice, though it is an investment in Greater Manchester’s creative industries and tourism worth £7bn a year.