HARDLY a day passes without the political pygmies who control Liverpool doing something to mess up or detract from the 2008 Capital of Culture celebrations.
First, Robyn Archer resigned as artstic director of the city council-owned Liverpool Culture Company for 'personal reasons' (i.e. all the back-stabbing and amateurism).
Then slowly we began to realise that one project after another would not go ahead - or would not be completed on time.
Now Jason Harborow, chief executive of the culture company, is to be sent on the preposterous 'Leading Change and Organisational Renewal' course at the Harvard Business School in the USA.
Ain't it a bit late for that? Or perhaps we should postpone the culture year until Mr Harborow's has had all the traning he thinks he needs.
Taxpayers will, of course, foot the £7,500 bill for his four-day stay Stateside - and at a time when the inept Liverpool City Council is already having to borrow £20 million to ensure the 2008 festivities go off with at least a semblence of style.

Talking of which... a few nights ago, when Liverpool was going through one of its violently criminal spasms, I had a cultural night out in the city centre with some friends from New Brighton.
We all love Liverpool, of course, but we aren't fans of the pretentiousness that has enveloped the 2008 planning.
I've written a poem about my experience the other night. It might do the Culture Fat Cats some good to read it... here it is.

NIGHTMARE IN THE CITY OF CULTURE

As me and my pals are sitting and supping
In a first floor music bar close to the station
Outside, all sort of mayhem is erupting
In the proud cultural capital of our nation.

Our singer belts out ‘Sometimes when you touch’,
Pauses while a punter vomits…“the honesty’s too much”.
The mascara is smearing and starts to trickle
On vodka’d up ladies with emotions quite fickle.

Then down on the street come sounds of great anger,
While up a back alley Girl lets Boy bang her.
And there on the stage our singer keeps crooning
Though a lad’s at the window, pants down and mooning.

A night out in Liverpool, and a multiple stabbing
As folk were still busy, cabbing and kebabbing.
From lap-dance leering to blood on the street.
And over in Childwall a man’s as white as a sheet
He’s dead, in fact … been stabbed in the chest
It’s one of those incidents we’ve come to detest.

But in our bar the singer bashes out her best
Despite the distractions of fights and the rest.
Big Mandy’s not worried that the room isn’t full,
And she’s played rougher gigs on the ferries from Hull.

But bouncers are nervous, they’ve barred all the doors,
Scrapping like that – no, not on our dance floors.
Outside, it’s skull-cracking time under a chill night sky.
When things are so bad, well, someone might die.

It’s happened before when we’re all out for fun,
A flash of a blade, a man and his gun, it’s done!
The body’s prostrate as the music dies,
And in a pool of claret our victim lies.

Yet across the city it’s a different scene,
As men in bad suits plan the culture dream.
2008 is closing in, money must be spent,
On logos to launch and slogans to invent,
And also on policing, says Chief Bizzie Hogan-Howe,
For we need to crack down on gun crime now,
Not to mention the knifings and the glassings and all,
If the great ‘Capital of Culture’ can really stand tall,
And be world-ranking instead of ruined by w*****s,
And the arty-crafty cutbacks of philistine bankers.

So we’ll salute the artists who simply battle through,
Like Big Mandy – next gig, the Catholic club in Crewe.
She’s a commercial success … in her own eyes,
Doing very well, sponsored by Gregg’s pies.

And in Liverpool the night that some got a knifing,
Others found Mandy, well, quite to their liking.

So will she be booked for a 2008 appearance?
I doubt cultural commissars will give her clearance.
Their – OUR money – will be spent on Mongolian dancers,
Not working class, lycra-clad, overweight chancers.

* I read the above poem last night at singer /actor Karl Lornie's regular Tuesday open mike evening at Stanley's Cask, Rake Lane, New Brighton.
* Don't forget, my new club for poets, creative writers and singers, The Bards of New Brighton, is held every first Monday of the month from 8.45pm, at the Little Brighton Inn ('the Ginny'), Rowson Street,New Brighton, starting on Monday 5 March.
* This Friday (2 March), as usual, I will be reading my review of the week's dews, in poetic form, on BBC Radio Merseyside's Breakfast programme, from about quarter to seven.
* Thanks to those who sent me their poems, two of which I WILL be putting on this blog. However, I don't intend this blog to turn into a showcase for poetry. It just isn't that sort of feature.

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