Mr Brocklebank's World Wide Web Log

THE long-serving chairman of Merseytravel, Cllr Mark Dowd, has clung on to his job after Tories backed his Labour supporters.

AS PART of the smoke-free city exercise, Liverpool’s open-sided bus shelters are to be exempt from the ban, which applies to the enclosed versions.

MYSTERIOUSLY, the cobbles on Mann Island’s pedestrian entrance – expensively laid by Merseyside Development Corporation – have all disappeared in the demolition of warehouses to make way for the grotesque black pyramid flats.

HOW uplifting to see our campaign to be rid of rubbish and grot spots is boosting the Manchester economy.

SO FAREWELL then to the historic Manchester Dock.

WILL anyone use the Pier Head’s £17m swanky cut ’n’ cover canal?

CONGRATULATIONS to Merseytravel for bringing one of the four remaining submarines in the world to Birkenhead Woodside

WHEN an audience member called out at songbird Barbra Streisand’s Manchester concert, she wanted to know what accent he had.

Told the person was from Liverpool, she waxed lyrical over filming Yentl in Liverpool, aboard SS Manxman, and responded with a dodgy Scouse imitation.

THE twittering classes were out in force at the latest Summer Pops in the new Aintree equestrian centre.

CAN Liverpool John Lennon Airport really cope with European Capital of Culture status? Not only was security at the General Aviation compound found gaping open (literally) by one of our reporters recently, but while held up at the terminal waiting for a severely delayed flight, Mr Brocklebank found that three out of four public telephones were not working (signage for these telephones and the toilets was also very poor).

The delayed passengers were told food vouchers would be available at the passenger services desk – except there was not one in departures, as confused travellers eventually discovered.

OUR dear leader, Cllr Warren Bradley, got a little carried away at last week's council meeting talking about Liverpool's ambitions to become the country's top recycling authority.

“We want to be at the top of the pile,” beamed Cllr Bradley. Let us hope his Warreness doesn't expand his mission to the problem of dog-fouling.

Liverpool councillors, led by Cllr Bradley, publicly questioned the value of inward investment agency The Mersey Partnership and discussed whether it should be merged into Liverpool City Council.

If, alternatively, Liverpool opts out of TMP, it will need a new name such as The Out of Mersey Partnership. It says much about the new era of harmony with our neighbouring councils. Not so much kissing cousins, as hissing cousins?

ONE of Cllr Bradley’s council spin paramedics unleashed a press release saying that next month’s anniversary parade will be seen as a “fitting climax” to Liverpool’s 800th birthday celebrations. And here is Mr Brocklebank waiting vainly for the build-up . . .

A HERITAGE-MINDED teacher heading to an 800th birthday party at a Liverpool school decided, given that it was a fancy dress party, to go as a striking docker. He wore sandwich-board style posters covering his front and chest that declared an official strike.

As he walked through the streets to his school, numerous motorists honked in support.

Never say that history does not live on in 21st century Liverpool.

HOW gratifying to realise the world survives in St Helens. T’ Corporation put out a warning to automobile drivers of delays on the East Lancs Road because of a “collapsed manhole cover”. Their words, not Mr Brocklebank’s, bless ’em, who presumed that word was long dispatched to the history books.

WHEN Southport Pleasureland closed, snobby Sefton Council seemed pleased that a faded fairground, dodgems and fun houses no longer tainted the image of a classic seaside resort. So how delightful to see a travelling funfair occupying this site for the summer. After all, the po-faced Victorians enjoyed fun and frivolity without compromising the resort’s style.

IN the 1950s and 1960s, Liverpool City Council, or as it was then, Corporation, embedded tens of thousands of its residents from Everton Valley in Kirkby new town. So is it not about time that the main infrastructure, ie Goodison Park, followed there, helping to create a home from home?