A colleague of mine was chatting to Michael O'Leary the shy and retiring head of Ryanair yesterday.
While he was plugging his no frills, no bags please airline, he also had a thing or two to say about Capital of Culture.
Apparently Michael isn't expecting a rush of bums on seats next year for Capital of Culture.
He said: "Liverpool in the European Cup is fantastic and does much more to promote the city than anything cultural.
"I would be surprised if the Capital of Culture adds more than 50,000 passengers a year.
"But the football team does, or things like the Grand National, the big events are fantastic and help to promote Liverpool far more than the Capital of Culture."
Time will tell whether O'Leary is a know-it-all or not I suppose.
But we're quite good enough at talking down the year ourselves without some Irish bloke flying over to talk it down for us.
The fact is, all these events he talks about will become part of Capital of Culture year in 2008. Capital of Culture isn't a single event, it's a sum of all its parts.
Yes, I can't see the Spanish turning up here in droves in the way they do for the footie. But when they are here to visit Anfield, they won't (hopefully) be able to miss the fact we are celebrating a cultural year.
Actually, when you come to think of it, 50,000 doesn't sound like a bad number of extra visitors flying in to Liverpool simply BECAUSE it holds the Capital of Culture title as opposed for something specific.
And that's just on Ryanair. Get a similar number on Stelios's planes and that's 100,000.
Despite the European title, most of Liverpool's extra visitors next year are likely to be from closer to home.
So while Mr O'Leary dismisses the economic impact on Ryanair which accounts for 2.5m JLA passengers a year, the impact on Liverpool itself could actually be something to celebrate.
