Liverpool

According to the late Bernard Manning, Liverpool is a city you go to to visit your hub-caps. This may be a jaundiced view generally held by the inhabitants of the rival city of Manchester, but in the area of petty crime, I think the words kettle, pot and black are appropriate.
My limited experience - occasioned by today's visit to the Klimt exhibition at the Tate Liverpool - seemed to be of an architecturally imposing northern city poulated by genuine, friendly people who were passionately proud of their history, their city and their future. (The future being the forthcoming away game at Aston Villa).

The Klimt exhibition was interesting in that it is always exciting to see in the flesh pictures that have become familiar through looking at books. They are almost always more impressive in real life, and make you realise why they have become so iconic. There was a little section where you were warned that you shouldn't look if you were easily offended. This contained his so-called pornographic drawings which were given coy titles such as "girl with left leg raised". No mention was made of what girl was doing with right hand.

Later on we went to the Museum of Slavery where a NBC Europe crew was interviewing the curator of the museum. It was a live feed to the USA, and so the broadcast was frequently punctuated by a summary of what delights were to come "after this break" as well as the weather. (Apparently it was scorching in South Carolina with sprinkles in the Mid-west). During the 40 minute broadcast of mainly hanging around and promising delights to come, the much-heralded interview got underway and was completed in three sections. The total time for it must have been four minutes of the most superficial crap imaginable, and they proudly finished with the promise that the USA would soon be informed as to what today's kids will be having in their school lunch-box - after the break...
The overriding impression I got of the whole thing was that the technicians spend all their time untangling wires, then tripping over them.
This was later emphasised outside at the edge of the dock by the sight of an American technician and two UK contractors trying to reel in a huge power cable, that had been strung along the edge of the quay, without it faling into the water. They managed to accomplish this with a lot of swearing, running around, leaning over the edge, pulling, pushing and more swearing until they finally had it all on the reel except the last 5 metres of cable at which point they relaxed. The american word "stop" apparently means "let go" and the remaining 5 metres with the business end attached went into the water.

The drive home was a nightmare as the M62 was closed, but I think we will return as there was a good vibe about the place that warrants further investigation.