![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thedockchurch.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/TB.jpg\" "\\"Titanic")
<\/a><\/p>\nSee what I did there? \u00a0I started off an article about Titanic Belfast on a positive note. \u00a0It seems to be something that’s beyond most members of the press this week. \u00a0An “interesting” weekend in the media started with reports on Friday with the attention-grabbing headline “Titanic project faces EU grant shortfall”! \u00a0 (if you want to read the article it’s here<\/a> but, as you’ll see, I really don’t recommend it.) \u00a0I was umm-ing and ahh-ing about whether to comment on this blog, but at speaking engagements over the last few days, the first question most people have been asking is, “So,\u00a0this Titanic thing’s got a \u00a320 million shortfall, has it?”<\/p>\n So it’s time to get to work, people of The Dock! \u00a0This is the battle of the jungle drums. \u00a0The old drumbeat of our province has been: we’re stuck, no change, it won’t work, just give up. \u00a0Time to start beating out a new rhythm: hope is here, we can change, it is happening, it’s our time… \u00a0C’mon!<\/p>\n And it’s up to you and me. \u00a0The people building Titanic Belfast, transforming the slipways, preparing the exhibitions, restoring the Nomadic, planning, prepping and worrying about 1001 details – they’re doing a fantastic<\/em> job. \u00a0But they depend on the jungle drums of the rest of the city and the province to build the excitement and the momentum. \u00a0Are you telling all your friends and relatives that 2012 is the year they have<\/em> to visit Belfast, to see our little city shine brighter than it’s ever shone before? \u00a0Are you spreading the word, talking it up? \u00a0Have you checked out the Titanic Belfast website<\/a>, to luxuriate in some fantastic photography of the construction of the building – and to book your place on Day One of this new era?<\/p>\n Because today is when it all begins: \u00a0the tickets are now on sale. \u00a0I’ve just bought a couple for the opening day, and if you’re quick you can get some too. \u00a0(The first tour is already sold out as I write.) \u00a0Get some tickets for your family as Christmas presents – and hey, get some tickets for yourself as well. \u00a0Because this is good news<\/em>, and it’s happening.<\/p>\n So let’s finish off with some of the good news we’ve seen reported over the past week:<\/a>And the answer is, emphatically, no, <\/em>as this article<\/a> (which you really should <\/em>read) makes clear. \u00a0Funding which can be drawn down as necessary, rather than being banked in advance, is not a shortfall, surely. \u00a0But where’s the exciting headline in that? \u00a0So, yet again, a widely-reported cheap shot has given the TQ’s armchair critics another bit of unfounded ammo. \u00a0Still, it’ll be nice to see how the media redress the balance by printing the truth, nice and loud and clear, won’t it? \u00a0 …won’t it?<\/p>\n<\/a>So just as I was starting to mutter darkly about the press and their wicked ways, grumble grumble, I turned to (of all things) the Sunday Times, usually my bastion for reasonably sane perspectives on the world, only to find a grumpy, it’ll-never-work hatchet job on Titanic Belfast. \u00a0It’s our old friend the ‘Belfast But’ again. \u00a0Even before the place is open (and certainly, judging from the article, without having visited the site recently), it’s written off without being given a chance. \u00a0It makes me very ANGRY! and I’d love, love<\/em> to be able to show the writer of the article around the TQ and share why it makes me so excited. \u00a0There are good, solid reasons why most of his complaints and objections aren’t necessarily the case. \u00a0(Don’t worry, I’ll not go into them here – don’t get me started…)<\/p>\n<\/a>The problem with the Belfast But is that it can become a self-fulfiling prophecy. \u00a0Decide on failure and you’ll make it happen. \u00a0Decide that something beautiful, visionary, unprecedented is happening and can happen in Belfast, and…<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/p>\n
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