Mr Brocklebank: Seeing double

Jan 8 2008 Mr Brocklebank

AS IF freshly minted for the first column of the new year, an amazing scheme is whispered in Mr Brocklebank’s exquisite shell-like.

Not content with Ringo Starr performing a-top St George’s Hall, apparently an idea has been mooted for BBC Radio Merseyside’s Roger Phillips to broadcast from the apex of the Wellington Monument, William Brown Street.

Will he appear alongside, or straddle the Iron Duke’s tricorn hat?

In fact, further information claims that a stunt double will appear as the Blessed Roger. What can this mean?

Does Mr Phillips’s award- winning status dictate that he is the only BBC wireless star to have a stunt-double?

With the BBC fending off accusations of fakery, would not a beaming and bearded double indulging in abseiling antics cause acute audience anxiety, when in reality our hero’s producer has him safely roped to his studio desk?

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A SPLENDIFEROUS supplement for Liverpool 08 appeared in The Times on Saturday, complete with deep thoughts from Sir Paul McCartney on the event: "It’s going to be interesting. I think that’s what the Capital of Culture does for cities – it reminds you that there was a history there."

That’s fractionally more interesting than Sir Paul’s comments when quizzed by Jools Holland on his New Year Hootenanny.

Have Liverpool’s greatest living ambassador’s thought processes and pontifications been impaired by his year of heart and marital trouble and strife, just when he’s needed to dazzle the nation with shafts of Scouse wit?

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IN SPITE of the toll of New Year revelry, Mr Brocklebank decided to check the Liverpool Culture Company’s website www.liverpool08.com on January 1.

His rheumy-eyed gaze was caught by the top left hand column’s clock counting down days remaining until Capital of Culture began. It read -1. Presumably it read -2 from the next day and so on. So, to purloin a nautical expression: it’s full astern for 2008!

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LIVERPOOL Lib-Dem executive Cllr Flo Clucas was officially cleared of accusations by Labour group leader Cllr Joe Anderson that she helped block plans to redevelop the former Irish Centre, in Mount Pleasant.

More important is why the council continues to let rot this Grade II-star listed property, built in 1815 as Wellington Assembly Rooms. As celebrated photographer Edward Chambré Hardman’s nearby studio-home, at 59 Rodney Street, is too small to display his archive, would not the Wellington, with its big top-lit public rooms, be ideal?

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GRAFFITI artist Banksy’s painting of a giant rat, on the old White House pub, at Duke Street and Berry Street corner, is being boarded up. Is this not cool enough for Capital of Culture?