Robert Hampton

January was marked with a sentiment many Liverpudlians expressed in the final months of 2007, namely that while we wanted Capital of Culture year to go well, there was a nagging suspicion that it would go awry.For me, this question was resolved by the spectacular opening ceremony, spoiled only by Ringo Starr mouthing off on Jonathan Ross’s show.

Meanwhile, on the blog, I started a new regular feature, Hampo’s Book Club — if I interpret the word “regular” strictly, the next installment is due a week next Tuesday. I also took time to laugh at the nasty mobile phones sold by TJ Hughes, before getting incredibly maudlin and deciding to hide from Google, a daft decision which I swiftly reversed.

February brought us Liverpool: The Number Ones Album, a compilation of covers by — it has to be said — mostly second tier Liverpool artists. The good (Anthony Hannah’s cover of Relax) mingled with the bad (Connie Lush?) and the just plain entertaining (The Scaffold!).

I championed the humble semicolon, before spending an uncharacteristic three hours outdoors exploring the Wirral peninsula, and jolly nice it was too. Sun and Cloud returned for one of their occasional appearances.

In the news, the Children’s Commissioner said that maybe damaging children’s hearing wasn’t the best way to get rid of scallies hanging around outside corner shops, and a predictable knee-jerk reaction ensued. A brilliant photo appeared on Flickr of two smashed up Merseyrail trains.

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I know, I haven’t blogged for over a week. I’M BAD AT THE INTERNET. But now I’m back, ready to post items which may be of interest. Or not.

• One of the main roads into Liverpool City Centre has been closed after a sewer collapsed underneath it — normally this would be of no interest to me whatsover, but the same sewer passes directly under the railway line I use to travel to work on a daily basis. Despite the heroic efforts of United Utilities, St Michaels station floods every time there’s a light drizzle and yours truly has ended up on an Arriva bus in a traffic jam on two separate occasions.

• John Barrowman apologises for exposing himself on a Radio 1 show, following a complaint by a person who clearly doesn’t understand the concept of radio.

• Remember RISC OS, the computer operating system which was great when first released in 1988, but struggled to keep up with Windows and was eventually left in the dust? It’s now available to download for a fiver. Sadly in today’s market it’s still overpriced by about £4.50, but the nostalgic may relish the opportunity to have a legal copy to plug into an emulator.

• Steve Coogan says his Liverpool show got bad reviews, not because it was a half-arsed performance, but (of COURSE!) because the Scouse audience hated Mancunians. The reaction locally was… predictable (although to be fair, for once Paddy Shennan has a point).

• Many people have suspected as much for some time, but now it’s official: The Simpsons is over as an icon of subversive pop culture. How do I know? The Daily Mail has run an article praising the show.

• Staying on the same subject, the Mail on Sunday has decided to launch its own music label, or as Paul McInnes puts it on the Guardian music blog: “As if belonging to one industry with a death wish wasn’t enough, now the Mail wants to get into another!”

  The new label will be called Mail On Sunday Sounds (MOSS) and launched with a free giveaway of a CD by a Gospel choir. Contrary to rumours, they won’t have any recordings featuring Mick Jagger or Keith Richards, because MOSS gathers no Rolling Stones.

Surely the must-have date-related item for 2009:

I’d provide a link to buy one online — but I can’t find one! The only place I’ve seen them on sale is the Calendar Club stand in Clayton Square Shopping Centre.

So, the Liverpool Echo is moving its printing press to Oldham. The editor is begging outraged Scousers not to abandon the paper, and has hit out at “misinformed media pundits” for daring to criticise the paper and its parent company, Trinity Mirror.

Some clots in the media have tried to portray this as a move to Manchester. Let me give them a basic geography lesson. Oldham is five miles from Manchester.

That’s true. Specifically, it’s five miles to the North East of Manchester, making it even further away from Liverpool than Manchester is.

There are surely sound economic reasons for Trinity Mirror to have one big printing press instead of loads of smaller ones dotted around the North of England. But in one important respect, this leaves the Daily Post and Echo in a difficult position, given their history of vigorous campaigns against organisations which have proposed to move jobs out of the city.

The most recent example of this came last month when the Royal Mail proposed the closure of its Liverpool office, with mail sorting operations moving to Warrington. The Echo said this:-

Royal Mail’s disregard for the people and status of Liverpool, as part of a slapdash programme to bolster its own floundering financial fortunes, must not be tolerated.

Royal Mail jobs and services must remain where they belong … in the city.

How can the Echo make comments like those above in the future, when they have arguably done a similar thing within their own organisation?

In the end miserable old me didn’t go into town to see the La Machine finale. Normally I wouldn’t even bother mentioning this fact, but I had the above title ready for my blog, and I didn’t want to waste it.

OMFG IT’S A MASSIVE SPIDER!!!!1111

A very cool spectacle, complete with fantastic smoke and water effects (which I don’t have any pictures of because I was holding my mobile phone the wrong way round).

The only problem was the muppets at the front of the crowd, who saw the spider coming down Castle Street and started pushing back against those behind to get out of the way, which created crush and started a bit of a panic among the parents of the little kids present. Presumably they thought it was a real spider which would EAT THEM if they stayed put.

Next week is Liverpool on the Box week on BBC Four, a week-long season of programmes showcasing Liverpool’s contribution to British television.

The highlight of Liverpool on the Box week surely comes on Tuesday, with a programme called… er, Liverpool on the Box which promises some 1985-vintage footage of Russell Harty sitting in with Billy Butler on Hold Your Plums. Carla Lane is also featured, but don’t let that put you off.

There’s also some Z Cars; a 1959-made documentary (Morning on the Streets) about post-war Liverpool; a 2008-made documentary (Tales of Twelve Cities) by Alan Bleasdale; a repeat of Trouble at the Top about the problem-plagued attempts to open a Beatles themed hotel; and much more archive-raiding goodness.

All in all, this looks quite special and well worth sellotaping over the record-protect hole of an E240 for. And it all culminates — hurrah! — with Our Day Out next Friday!

A think-tank has published a slightly bizarre report claiming that Liverpool and other Northern cities will never “catch up” with London and the government should stop putting regeneration cash in.

Instead he said Liverpool residents should move south to London, claiming the decline of the docks had taken away the city’s reason to exist.

Yes, that’s a great idea, because the thing London needs more than anything else is more people.

In a way the report does make a valid point about the London-centric nature of the country. However the solution is surely to encourage people and businesses to move away from the stupidly overpopulated London area and into the North, rather than the other way round.

Economic and social arguments aside, let me put it like this: I’ll take Merseyrail, the Super Lamb Banana and the Beatles over the Tube, the Fourth Plinth and Chas’n'Dave any day.

The Echo have helpfully published the e-mail address of the report’s author. I’m sure he will receive lots of constructive criticism amidst the hate mail.

I’ve not been happy with Liverpool Museum (or World Museum Liverpool as they’re called now), ever since they got rid of the Land Transport Gallery and put most of the collection, including a Liverpool Overhead Railway carriage and original Mersey Railway steam loco, into storage.

However, I can forgive them all that, thanks to their latest exhibition, The Beat Goes On, which aims to showcase the history of the Liverpool music scene from the 1940s up to the present day — everything from Ken Dodd to Cream. No-one could ever accuse me of being on the cutting edge of music (I once tuned into BBC 6Music by mistake and had to lie down for several hours), but even I was favourably impressed by the sheer amount of Liverpool talent (and Atomic Kitten) on show.

Hurray for Liverpool Museum, and hurray for my sister who dragged me along with her on Sunday afternoon.

The leaf cutter ants in the Bug House are seriously cool, too. This is completely separate to the music exhibition – Leaf Cutter Ants is not the name of a new band. Although it could be.

The Tall Ships – and what a fabulous time it was!

Spent quite a bit of time queueing at both Albert and Wellington Docks, but well worth the wait. Shame I missed the Parade of Sail itself, but I was there in spirit, following the ships on the AIS Liverpool site.

It was really fantastic to see so many visitors from around the country and abroad, enjoying the best that Liverpool has to offer!

Kudos also to Merseyrail who handled the thousands of extra passengers (due to the Open Golf happening simultaneously) with skill.

Hurray for Liverpool!

Merseyside Police have plastered Liverpool Central station with posters. There are several different designs, but the common theme running through them is: “watch your wallet/car/other treasured personal possessions while you’re visiting Liverpool”.

That’s really going to help tear down stereotypes. Well done to all concerned!

It’s sometimes hard to explain to outsiders about the Liverpool psyche, but the first part of Alexei Sayle’s Liverpool did it quite well. Tossing aside whingeing Scouser stereotypes, it was an entertaining, occasionally unflattering but always thought-provoking look at a city that has faced some astonishing highs and lows over the last half-century or so.

Part 1 is available on the BBC iPlayer and is highly recommended. Parts 2 and 3 are broadcast on BBC2 this Friday and the next.

Only had time for a brief look round during my lunch hour, but… It really is great.

And look! We’re getting an Apple store! Truly, I can now believe that Liverpool is a major player.

More crap mobile phone pictures, “after the jump”, as they say.

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The residents of Liverpool have had to endure months of roadworks and disruption in the city centre, but our long nightmare is nearly at an end — Liverpool One Phase One opens tomorrow!

And judging by the BBC’s pictures at the page linked above, the wait will have been worth it!

Oh YES! I must have one of those!

More information here.