Home Views & Blogs Columnists Larry Neild

Too many secrets

THE probe into the mess made of the Mathew Street festival continues – in secret. But we know one thing for certain: the board of the Liverpool Culture Company is in no way to blame. Read

Feet on our seats

A TELEVISION presen-ter from the main channel in Toronto called me the other day. She wanted to interview Kathleen Jennings. Ms Jennings has seemingly generated global interest because she was taken to court for putting her feet up on one of Merseyrail’s seats. Read

Capital of comedy

ON WEDNESDAY, a special meeting of the city council will discuss a Labour suggestion that a QC should be hired to conduct an inquiry into the Mathew Street fiasco. Top bods at the town hall are already doing a thorough internal inquiry. Read

Bottle banking

TEENAGE yob anti-social behaviour has been in the news a lot recently, fuelled by the tragic death in Warrington of father-of-three Garry Newlove. Much of the debate has centred on the availability of cheap booze. Read

Calm in a war zone

IT’S been a hard, long – and that’s very long – week, a bit like working as a war correspondent. What with the Battle for Kirkby and the Mathew Street Massacre. So I thought I would write this week about something pleasant, calming and joyful. Read

Who’s to blame?

IT’S rare these days to see anger and frustration in the faces of our decision makers. But the fury over the shambles of the Mathew Street Festival has in a way generated a new spirit of determination among the politicians. Read

City’s lost hotel

City’s lost hotel

IN THE days when you couldn’t give away buildings in Liverpool, businessman and restaurateur Jimmy Wong bought the Scandinavia Hotel, a magnificent building on the corner of Nelson Street and Duke Street. His dream was to turn it into a major attraction at the heart of Liverpool’s Chinatown, the oldest Chinese community in Europe. Read

Superman Bradley

LIKE his alter ego Superman, city council leader Warren Bradley has just seven days to save the world, well at least the world as Everton fans see it. Read

Cultural legacy

A WONDERING friend has just come back from an expedition to Patras. The Greek city, known as the gateway to the West, was European Capital of Culture in 2006. Read

Total commitment

SEEMS strange to me how Merseysiders have a knack of spending a King’s ransom on international headhunters to track down the best in the world for jobs we need doing. Then what happens? We take a peek over the garden wall and all the time, the person we were looking for lives just around the corner. Read

Protect our heritage

AT LEAST we can all sleep safely at night, comforted by the assurances that our World Heritage Site is in safe hands. Read

Yet more gridlock

LITTLE Englanders are one thing, but now we have Little Liverpudlians, courtesy of the ruling Liberal Democrats. Read

Beg, steal, borrow

A WEEK is a long time in politics, which makes a year an eternity. Just a week ago, I was talking about the big row over funding for Liverpool’s Capital of Culture programme, and look what happens. Labour man Joe Anderson quits the board, accused by his Liberal Democrat opponents of pulling a cheap stunt. Read

Even more money

THERE used to be an unwritten rule, a northern thing, that at times of joy, family members would put their hostilities on the back burner. Read

Get ready for 2008

THE task: To prepare Liverpool for its European Capital of Culture year and the opening of the Grosvenor Paradise Street project. Read

What price health?

ONCE upon a time in the early 1990s, somebody had a bright idea at the World Health Organisation. They launched an initiative called Health for All by the Year 2000. Liverpool, of course, signed up to this with gusto. Read

Preserving heritage

DURING an archeological dig in and around Mann Island, a number of fantastic dis- coveries were made. Read

Uninspired design

NOT content with chopping down every tree in sight at the Pier Head, they are now pressing ahead with plans to build the world’s biggest “lean-to” slap bang in front of the Three Graces. Read

Our tree-less city

THEY gathered, feeling proud and humble as they remembered the brave countrymen who sacrificed their lives so they could live in freedom. Read

Value for money

LIVERPOOL and its four Merseyside neighbours have finally put us mere mortals out of our miseries by fixing the level of council tax bills for the coming year. Read