Capital of Culture download: Cooking up support

So, how did Liverpool win its place in the sun as Phil Redmond's Capital Of Culture? It turns out with a bit of sleight of hand:

In an interview with radio station City Talk, Sir Bob [Scott, who led Liverpool's bid] said: “When we offered them (the judges) a trip to Liverpool, we said ‘you can do all kinds of things. You can go to a play, movie, go on a pub crawl’”. Three of them said ‘we would like to go on a pub crawl’.

“We worked out who they were and we made bloody sure who the people in the pub were when they arrived.

“And that made quite an impact.”

Well, there's nothing too wrong with stage-managing events like this. I guess it's not like a trial.

And what became of it at last? I couldn't help noticing during one of the reports on the legacy of 2008 for Liverpool the council spokesperson started with "the Liverpool One development" - which is a big shopping centre which was already being built before the bid went in. A major boost to the cultural life of the city, if you count a branch of Debenhams as a citadel of culture.