Liverpool Capital of Culture: Size Doesn't Matter

AN APOLOGY FROM THE MANAGEMENT:

Friends have pointed out that there has been a sudden outcrop of gentlemen without trousers on this blog (see left and right). The explanation is that they are Artistic (respectively sculptors Jacob Epstein and Anthony Gormley) and it's just a co-incidence. At least I am not incurring legitimate feminist wrath by decking this blog out with girlie pictures! Have a nice day and, just to reassure you, George Steiner is coming next....

Where was I?

My book about my native city, So Spirited a Town: Visions and Versions of Liverpool is finally published next week after being delayed by production problems. It's a book about all the writers across the centuries who have written about Liverpool - currently European Capital of Culture for 2008 - wrapped round with some memories of my own 1960s childhood.

Here I am on Crosby beach examining one of the figures in the wonderful installation by Anthony Gormley called Another Place. It's the beach where I played as a boy and it's considerably cleaner than it was then. This picture was taken on Christmas morning where, instead of rubbish and oil slicks and sewage, bright cockle shells and razor shells glittered in the sun on clean sand. Amazing!