‘Is Bristol a good city?’

Does Bristol have an obsession with coffee? Does Bristol have an obsession with veganism? Does Bristol have an obsession with graffiti? Does Bristol have an obsession with colonialism? Does Bristol have an obsession with drum’n’bass? Does Bristol have an obsession with tote bags?

Is Bristol capable of obsession? Are we a particularly obsessive city? Do people move here to be obsessive or does obsession compel them here? Are we even obsessing about obsession?

‘Obsession’ is an easy label to peel off and an even easier one to make stick. It’s extreme enough to get noticed and also extreme enough to be passed off as a joke.

It’s a broad enough brush to be relatable to the entire human race and yet broad enough to get away with not going into too much detail.

It’s a fun word; capable of being controversial and lighthearted in the same breath. It’s easy. And it’s lazy.

I think we can reasonably say a collective and resounding ‘no’ to all of the above questions.

And once we’ve done that, maybe we can get into asking sensible questions about trends (perceived and actual), collective hysteria (perceived and actual), the things that bug us (and whether they reasonably should or not) and the human condition (perceived and actual).

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What a lot of people mean when they ask the question, ‘Does Bristol have an obsession with X, Y or Z?’ is ‘I don’t get why a lot of people like X, Y and Z’.

While that’s all very well for pub chat after all other conversation has run dry, it does not make for well considered and good journalism.

We’re better than that. At least I think we are. Are we?

Can we manage to de-sensationalise our journalism, and not just write things that we think might resonate with our readers’ most basic animal instincts? That leaning towards tribalism and echo chambers that we all like to think we parted ways with in the school playground but which still haunt us ten, 20, 50 years later?

If we consider ourselves a forward-thinking and progressive bunch (which, unreasonably and unfeasibly, we love to do about the general population of a city of over 450,000), we need to start acting like it.

Away with the unhelpful appeals to tribalism, or, as we tend to label it helpfully in Buzzfeed-era 2022: clickbait.

Away with shallow appraisals of our collective behaviour; better still, away with any reference to collective behaviour as an idea, unless soundly researched by an independent scientific body (see above reference to get an idea of just how many people we’re trying to clump together when we do that).

Away with ranting about things that don’t matter.

Does Bristol have an obsession with graffiti? – photo: Martin Booth

Does Bristol have any obsessions? No. Do Bristolians? Sure. We all obsess.

Again, we love to think that we are at heart reasonable, rational creatures, but that just isn’t true, is it? Just look at the rise of such phenomena as box-set streaming, the ‘always on’ strategy of the social media giants, and the increasing popularity of websites like Reddit and Quora – we are aided and abetted in our obsessions by more third parties than ever before.

It’s not too much of a stretch to suggest that to avoid obsession in any form is a task worthy of Hercules.

But Bristol? Bristol’s just a place, my dude. A place with 450,000 people all trying to live life the best way they know how.

And one of the things I love about the place is that there is so much diversity. Walk, drive, cycle or Voi through any configuration of ten consecutive streets, and you’ll end up in a vastly different place from the one you started in.

Sure, there may be an independent coffee shop on each of those streets. There may be graffiti on each of them. You may even spot more than one renamed ex-Colston affiliated establishment. But beneath those superficial connections of one place to another, the people who really make those streets what they are connect on far deeper levels.

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Humanity. A desire for hope. A need to be meaningfully understood by at least one other breathing person. The silent appeal to our fellow humans to be present when we need them and to leave us alone when we need space. The need for justice. The need for redemption. The need for love, normally in spite of who we know ourselves to be.

Not so much, I would argue, the need for good vegan takeaway, a decent offering of late night contemporary jazz or the need to be seen on the right side of the protest hoardings.

Is Bristol a good city? Some of us would love to be able to answer this question with blinding clarity, and yet we fundamentally cannot. It’s a city, not a person.

While we feel we can probably just about make that judgement about a person, I’d still recommend steering clear of that impulse.

Just sit back from your laptop, turn off your phone, and enjoy the sights, sounds, smells and various other sensations that come from living in a city so disparate and at the same time, quite magically, so connected.

Josh Bowker is a trainer and consultant in the coffee industry. He was the owner of Milk Teeth in St Paul’s and was also a founding member of the Longest Johns.

Main photo: Martin Booth

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