Nick Ahad: Let's embrace all the good things that Bradford has to offer

And I'm fully aware that I'm about to sound like the butt of that little joke when I say that there are two things that bother me about Bradford: people who complain about it and the fact that it is such a dump.

I grew up in Keighley and went to school in Bradford, so the West Yorkshire city, which appears so often in newspapers as a cauldron of racial tension and poverty, is close to my heart.

Last week I visited twice and both times my heart soared and sank with equal measure.

On Thursday I parked up in Little Germany and walked to the National Media Museum.

The changing fortunes of Bradford were immediately obvious.

On the right was the towering, beautiful Bradford cathedral; in front was the gaping hole which was supposed to be the Westgate development.

It is the most depressing sight and crystallises the manifold problems of Bradford.

Inertia.

Feeling depressed, I arrived at the National Media Museum for a screening of The Habit of Art.

The Alan Bennett play is on stage in London and thanks to the revolutionary thinking of those at the National Theatre, was screened around the country live to cinemas, including the Pictureville.

"This is Bradford", I thought while sitting watching this magnificent achievement in theatre and technology, "not that gaping hole I walked past in the middle of the town".

I returned on Sunday evening to see a 3D screening of Alice in Wonderland.

I used to go to the Imax cinema as a child on school trips. I'll never forget the time I watched footage of a space station as an 11-year-old boy, a trip to the cinema that inspired a lifelong interest in astronomy.

Watching another marvel of technology in the Media Museum on Sunday, I realised that there are two sides to this varied and wonderful city.

The museum is a treasure that we should celebrate. Bradford was recently designated the first ever UNESCO city of film, partly because of what goes on inside its doors.

Outside, all that hard work has been let down, but we musn't allow everything good about the city to be swallowed by that big hole.

We must circumnavigate the ineptitude, inertia and incompetence, and celebrate the good things about the city, like the UNESCO status, like the Media Museum.

And maybe in a few years' time Bradford will no longer be a joke and we can invent our own saying: there are two things I love about Bradford – the opportunities in the arts and the people of the city who grasp them.